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10 mos ago
Current why does legend? because evil is a foot
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1 yr ago
alright kids make sure you keep your mercury pills on hand
2 yrs ago
are we sure that kneecaps are real or has big ortho gaslit us all into believing in them
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2 yrs ago
1.5 oz gin, 1.5 oz sweet vermouth, 2 to 4 dashes orange bitters
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2 yrs ago
dra til helvete

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Fionn MacKerracher


@Raineh Daze


Fionn shook his head, utterly unperturbed by either the pause or the look that Tyaethe gave him.

Staring out at the opposite wall in thought, he didn't even notice the look, in fact.

"No, that won't do. Grapes are too soft, and I don't want to have to try and divide them out by weight anyways."
Fionn MacKerracher


@Raineh Daze


Fionn glanced up at the tiny flame hovering by Tyaethe's finger before it disappeared from existence. That was a trick that would've come in extremely useful a few times when he was younger, shortly after leaving home; before he'd made it to the river and joined up with the traders that travelled it regularly, there were some cold nights out in the woods, and he'd managed to lose his fire starter fairly early on. It was an odd thought, that he might have had the capability to get a flame going without the tools all along, just lacking the knowlege to do it.

"Not that it's a bad idea for them. Reserves more limited than yours, they probably need those books in a way you don't." Which he would as well, if he intended to make any actual progress with incorporating magical effects to any of his work. At least in a way that wouldn't kill him the first time he tried. He absent-mindedly finished off the last of his cake, setting the plate off to the side and letting his head lean back against the wall. Figuring out how to incorporate the magic in his combat skills—however much or little he might actually have available to use—would likely prove a fairly intensive undertaking.

Rest of the summer, probably, given that he was approaching it from the position of a complete beginner; hopefully he wouldn't be too locked up in it once autumn came around, however. It might be difficult trying to fit it into his other plans.

"Do you think there'll be a good apple and pear harvest this year?"
Fionn MacKerracher


@Raineh Daze


"Not that dissimilar from what I already do, then. Exhaustion is the best I can expect if I overwork out on the training field, but I could always do something really bad and tear a muscle or tendon and put myself completely out of use." He wouldn't dismiss the warning entirely, but it wasn't entirely necessary either. Overworking anything was a fast way to get an injury, not just make yourself tired. "Even heard tell once of a man who strained so hard trying to lift something he burst a blood vessel in his head. Not that they realized at the time, of course, but apparently when they asked a healer to take a look and figure out what did him in, they caught on right quick soon as they described the symptoms. Punched a hole through his skull with an awl to make sure and it just gushed out like a spring."

Utterly unperturbed by the story he was telling, he took another bite of his cake. "Not that it's the same, but that sure sounds a lot like that overworking too hard and too long to the point of causing an untimely demise to me. Trying to push yourself too hard, or dive in unprepared, especially when you're working on something entirely new to you, is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. I'm not about to try and start blasting energy out of my sword or knocking people's blades out of their hands like I fling stones out in the yard. I want to keep myself fit, not give myself fits." Sure, he might push his limits out on the practice field fairly often, but he had the experience to know what his limits were, and how far he could push them before he injured himself. When it came to figuring out magic, he had absolutely no clue what his limits were, and until he could develop a feel for that, he wasn't about to go pushing as hard as possible.

"Start small, gradually work up to the maximum of what I've got the potential to handle, and always stay mindful. For that, as interesting as Sir Parvan's writings might be, I should probably find something that's actually meant for the beginners, wouldn't you agree?"
Fionn MacKerracher


@Raineh Daze


Parv.

The way she oh-so-casually abbreviated one of the founding knight's names, one of her old friends, gave him hope that he might manage to convince the others to drop the surplus of formality at some point—beyond just the extent to which they all let him get away with it. That small hope was enough to luckly distract him from commenting on how Tyaethe's adult-size body was still kid sized. Multiple inches shorter than Fanilly, if he had to guess, and Fanilly herself was already fairly short.

Calling attention to that couldn't be a good idea.

"Principles, basics, whichever you want to call it, I'll need to get them down if I'm going to make anything usable out of this." That was quite the if; given his current role, he didn't exactly have the time to dedicate to long study of the magical arts in the way that most who were dedicated to such practice would—nor did he have the surplus of energy to devote to brute-forcing his way into extraordinary effects that Tyaethe did. "But, first..."

He slid from his kneel back into a sitting position, leaning against the wall underneath Tyaethe's window seat, and reached back to grab his half-eaten cake.

"Sambocade."
Fionn MacKerracher


@Raineh Daze


Ridiculous that she wanted to be a knight rather than a mage? Their finding it ridiculous was, in and of itself, ridiculous. She had just been a child at that point; or, at least, wasn't yet aware of her unaging status. Beyond that, mage-knights were a thing. Those instructors had clearly overlooked important possibilities. By the goddesses, if someone like him could even manage to harness enough mana to make some small effect happen, there wasn't much stopping the truly gifted from making their mark in the ranks of a knightly order.

Thinking of harnessing the mana, he couldn't deny that by this point the feeling was making him start to itch. Or feel something close to an itch, anyways. "Green?"

Fionn's eyes shot open, darting over to his hand. Sure enough, there was a hazy nimbus of viridian light emanating from his skin, casting its silvery-green glow across their immediate vicinity. "Muise!" He'd actually done it. It was almost unbelievable; shocked as he was, the focus disappeared almost instantly afterwards, leaving his hand back in its normal, non-luminescent state.

"...I'm going to have to figure out a good way to use this."
Fionn MacKerracher


@Raineh Daze


"You just had your teeth in my wrist, and you're worried I'm going to be bothered by you touching me?" he jested, slipping off the window seat and kneeling forward just to make things a bit easier for the both of them. No doubt, it was still a comical sight—especially given the massive gulf in size between their hands, as she reached out to grab his—but at least she wasn't having to try and squeeze between the window and his own bulk.

He nodded along with the explanation, already closing his eyes as he tried to focus inward. He'd had to make such nigh-meditative efforts before with some of the exercises he'd been doing since he started his fighting career, working up the musculature just to be able to wear his hauberk without any extreme difficulty. The more he worked up the weight, the more times he had to let the rest of the world melt away while his thoughts went to nothing more than how to perform the exercise without hurting himself. Extreme cognizance of the muscle activation, his breathing, his heart rate.

How different could this ultimately be—

Ifreann, that's bright.

Even with his eyes closed, it was uncomfortable, especially as close to his face as it was; he couldn't help but turn away slightly. After that initial shock, though, the rest came into stark clarity. From his back and shoulders, through his chest and down his arm, everything felt like it was tingling. Buzzing, almost; like he'd somehow cut off circulation and feeling was just coming back, or like he'd just worked it all as hard as possible without hurting himself in the days before. Relaxed but tight, and with the amount of power she was pushing through to near-blind him through his own eyelids, he felt like he was on the urge of breaking out into a fit of twitching.

And in only a moment, the rush cut out; feeling returned to normal, the light was gone, and he was left blinking away tears from how bright it was. "Bandia," he breathed, flexing his fingers. It still felt like he might get shocked if he came too close to anything metal after that. "I knew you had a lot to call on, but that's almost ridiculous." Now, though, he had to figure out how to flex that same muscle. Like learning how to wiggle his ears or his nose, it seemed like, but he could feel something pulling along behind the current of energy Tyaethe had been pushing through his arm.

Feeling it at all was the first, and largest, step. Alright, Fionn, nothing to it but to do it. If you try too hard or think through it too much you'll just make yourself fail.

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes again. Focusing on the same sense of tingling, electric pull he could feel getting drawn along behind Tyaethe's own channeled mana. Nothing as explosive as when he was swinging a blade for a cut, or the slower, constant strain of dragging a sled full of stones across the yard. Different. An utterly dissimilar direction, entirely. Just have to—

It was like a small hum, deep in his chest, when he finally found it again. The sort of deep-seated, reverberating vibration he'd come to associate with the passage of a massive column of men and horses nearby, shaking the ground, and him with it. He exhaled, latching onto the pure tone he could feel, and started to mentally direct it down his arm with the same force of will and methodical mindset that he used to control his own breathing when exercising. The tingling spread again, gradually, lesser but still there, from his sternum, through his shoulder, and down to his hand.

He could almost swear he felt the hairs standing up along his arm, following the energy, that alternating warmth and chill pulsing through his veins and muscles as he tried to make light the same as Tyaethe had. "I'm almost afraid to open my eyes and see if this is working," he said after a moment. "Tell me true, are my fingers glowing again?"
Fionn MacKerracher


@Raineh Daze


He wouldn't let himself grin too widely, but Fionn would take the win where he could find it. Truth be told, he also had more that he could turn the conversation to, but he was just as capable of being obstinately friendly as she was at remaining stubbornly alone. The fact that she was now offering to show him something new, without any need for him to ask after it, argue or wheedle for it, or the like, only sweetened the small victory.

"Gotta get started learning it like when I first learned to hold a sword, aye? Sure, let's see if I've got any talent to go with the potential!" Having something new to add to his bag of tricks once he developed some useful minor spells would, at the very least, help him break any possible stalemates he might run into with Renar or Gerard.

By the Goddesses, he could see the expressions on their faces now.

"Hope you can be patient with me, though; I'm more physically minded than anything else." A fact that was blatantly obvious given his build and role within the order.
Fionn MacKerracher


@Raineh Daze


"Knew I should have grabbed one of the custard tarts."

It had been a quick, spur-of-the-moment choice between a custard tart or the fruit tart; in the end, he decided to grab one that might be less commonly taken just in case Tyaethe was the type to prefer something different from the majority. In a way, she still was, but it seemed like everywhere he looked people were always wanting custard tarts. At least it meant more of the others for him!

Momentary muttering aside; "I'm really not forcing myself to do this," he said after another bite. "Getting asked for my blood so immediately was a bit of a shock, sure, but am I not allowed to take an interest in how my fellow knights are doing?"
Fionn MacKerracher


@Raineh Daze



Must be the possible elvish admixture in parts of Velt, he imagined. The idea that he might have some small amount of magical talent to harness was an interesting one, though, even if it wouldn't amount to too much more than parlor tricks; he'd have to look into it. Maybe it'd be enough to get him lateral movement from the knight career track to the paladin one if he had enough to work with.

But before that, there was cheesecake. Reduced down to only one plate and fork, he took a quick bite of the sambocade. Truth be told, elderflower wasn't something he normally went for, but even if he had any notable dislike of the flavour he doubt he'd have minded it much in the cake, even if it didn't have berries and honey atop. He might've grabbed the bread pudding as well, if it weren't for the fact that cold bread pudding was a travesty.

"Hardly implies that it still is one, though," he observed between bites. "Don't see any reason I should be one of the ones contributing to it if that's the case. Spontaneous bloodletting involved or no." Best not to dwell on that albeit-minimal loss overlong, though, lest he help ruin her talkative, seemingly-good mood entirely.

"Thinking of—now that we've established some of your favourite bloods, now you've got to tell me your favourite dessert. So that I know how best to bribe you in the future, of course."
Fionn MacKerracher


@Raineh Daze



"Same thing with other animals," he replied. Beef tasted like beef, mutton like mutton, pork like pork—but subtle differences were always there, depending on the specific breed, what it fed upon, the locality and how that affected what the animal in question fed upon. If he had to guess based on his general diet, he'd probably come across as fairly savoury. Luckily for the both of them he hadn't had any opportunity to hit the casks in the cellar yet today, otherwise this might be even more awkward than it already seemed.

At least the conversation made it a bit less awkward.

"You'll have to tell me if I've got any great magic in me, then," he joked. "Though I doubt I'm magical at all, certainly not nearly as much as—ach, bitseach!" It didn't really hurt all that much, but he'd never liked needles; having a pair jabbed into his wrist like that merited the muttered exclamation, mild or no.

At least she made it quick, even if the bit of dizziness was rapidly setting in. "Just some conversation, really," he said as he rubbed at his wrist. The puncture marks were definitely still noticeable, but Tyaethe didn't lie; it didn't keep bleeding after she was done. That was a definite highlight of the experience. "Can't imagine you get to have much normal talks with many of the other knights, after all—let alone how many are probably too timid, awestruck, or what-have-you to even try in the first place. Do you want one of these desserts now?"
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