Aramis noticed Yumi’s shift before he truly saw it, the way her hands slowed, fingers curling into deliberate shapes, her movements turning almost ritualistic. She was settling into something careful, something measured, and he knew better than to break that rhythm. His own grip on the staff twitched once, a nervous impulse, before he forced it still and stepped back half a pace. If she was sharpening her focus, then he had to quiet his own.

The silence that followed wasn’t clean. The mist pressed in on all of them, curling low at his boots, sliding cool against his sleeves, tugging at the edges of his hood. It clung to his lashes when he blinked. It seemed to deaden the world, blurring the outlines of his companions until they were only shapes in grey. He glanced once at each of them, well, he would have if he could… Yumi still stood taut and still, but the others out of sight and out of his reach.

It was more than damp. The fog wasn’t natural. He could feel it in the way sound bent, in how it resisted his sight. His jaw clenched, breath hissing softly between his teeth. [i]This [b]damn[/b] mist.[/i]

The thought carried a weight he hadn’t expected. He couldn’t cut it down. He couldn’t burn it away. But if he wanted to be anything more than a boy with a stick in hand, if he wanted to matter here, then he had to do what he could. He had to know it.

Aramis grounded himself, planting the butt of his staff against the stone until it hummed faintly beneath his palm. His breath came in deliberate rhythm, in through the nose, slow out through the mouth. He closed his eyes halfway, letting the edges of the world blur until there was only the mist before him.

He would have killed for his notes here, but this wasn’t a study desk. It was his memory and his senses that would have to serve. The scholar’s instinct prickled at the edges of his mind, reaching for every scrap of academia he’d poured hours over, every trace of arcana, every ink-stain of Alchemy... His thoughts folded into that familiar cadence of analysis, isolate, compare, conclude, even as he let a faint trickle of his own magic seep outward, brushing against the fog like fingertips on glass.

The staff’s hum deepened, just enough that he felt it in his wrist, a low vibration that steadied him further. He focused, funnelling all of it, mind, study, magic, into one effort.

[colour=536dfe]“Come on,”[/colour] he whispered solely to himself, voice barely more than breath. [colour=536dfe]“Show me what you are.”[/colour]
[hr]
[hider=Ability and Action usage]New Ability: 
[b]Scholar’s Insight[/b] - Educated: Scholar [Arcana, alchemy, academia] F + Appraisal [isekai] F + Magic E - Grade E - Cooldown 1 post(s):
Allows the caster to draw upon their knowledge and magic to analyse and discern information about unfamiliar phenomena, materials, or effects.

Actions used: 
1. Took in surroundings 
2. Cast Scholar’s Insight[/hider]