WHO: Benedict, some other people, you?? WHAT: just a catch-all WHEN: tra-la, it's may, the lusty month of may WHERE: around and about NOTES: If you'd like something bespoke I'm happy to include it!
Though he catches a whiff of what Isaac is smoking, Benedict is polite enough (and almost certainly too nervous) to remark on it, his own tobacco-and-elfroot blend thick in his nose and keeping him calm: it does well to block out the worst of the mildew, the damp stone, the all too familiar miasma of dried sweat and blood and piss from prisoners over the years-- including, of course, himself.
He takes great care not to even look in the direction of the cell where he'd spent the better part of a year, wondering if this place would be the last thing he ever smelled.
Instead he looks at the spiders, wrinkling his nose in a look of anxious distaste and giving a preemptive shudder. Everyone here has seen the big ones in the caves, but somehow the little ones are still worse.
He nods stiffly, cutting his gaze to Isaac. His turn?
"Let's aim to put only," A finger peels away in number. "One of them to sleep."
Isaac steps back - breathing room, but not so far he can't spy. Leaned against the clammy wall, hands folded before him, he looks rather more at home in the belly of this place.
With the slightest bit of hesitance approaching the jar-- what if they get out, what if they touch him-- Benedict extends a hand, takes a breath, concentrates.
The spell works, if nothing else, but it sends every single spider dropping lazily to the bottom of the jar. He sighs through his nose.
"Not bad," It’s not entirely sarcastic - "I’d an apprentice once knock himself out."
Benedict's well ahead of one pasty apostate. They've a moment or two before the creatures inch back to action, and they may resume the time-consuming process of trying again. So,
"How did that feel, when you reached for the spell? What were you thinking of?"
A wry smirk back at Isaac-- it's true, at least he didn't knock himself out-- and Benedict steps back, folding his arms as he waits for the spiders to come to.
"Uh," he considers, clearly searching for the right word to not sound like an incompetent fool and largely failing, "...making them fall asleep?"
"And how do you think of sleep?" Fingers dip in motion, still folded. "What senses, memories, does the spell evoke?"
Half rhetorical, he's still talking:
"Certain teachers and tomes will associate gesture, phrase, with effect. A reliable pattern to reach for, before one may produce a reliable result." As Benedict likely knows for practice. "You're an adult. It's innate to you by now, but revisiting those metaphors, unpacking them - there's no shame in a shortcut to get the job done."
It's almost offensive that, this entire time, such a way of treating magic has existed and he just never thought of it. Benedict's mind lends itself well to artistic interpretation, and the metaphor clicks with an ease that leaves him embarrassed by its obviousness. Threads, of course.
He thinks on it a moment, to determine if he has his own version of sleep; finally, with a thoughtful tip of his head, he replies, "clouds. Like fog."
"Good," His own eyes shut to fix the image: Vapour suspended, too light to fall. Uncertainty; an existence between points. Apt. "Feel for the shape, the path it would travel."
A beat, and then Benedict follows Isaac's example, closing his eyes for a moment. When he opens them again, he fixes his gaze on the jar of once-more active spiders, drawing his hand out in a tentative gesture, the points of his fingers following one in particular.
He takes his time, and the spider sinks to the floor of the jar, unmoving. So do several of the others, but only in its immediate vicinity. Benedict purses his lips in quiet frustration, but can't help acknowledging the improvement with a nod.
"It takes time," More than a day. If there was any fortune of the Circles, it was in the absence of distractions. "When you can manage this consistently, we’ll move to the reverse."
Widen it again, spider by spider. Painstaking —
Time passes. Magic passes. Several of the spiders do, legs crunching into black curls. One might imagine Isaac himself asleep, if not for the occasional correction of a wrist, the redirection of focus: A joke here, an anecdote there; breathing room. Eventually, a hand finds his elbow, and doesn’t twist but plants. Steady.
"That’s enough for today."
Scrutiny for Benedict’s expression, his mood. (His particular history with this floor of the Gallows.)
He's been holding it together admirably, for someone standing only a stone's throw from where he spent the worst half-year of his life. It isn't until Isaac dismisses the lesson that all the air seems to sigh out of Benedict-- who, to his credit, has been working hard-- and he nods, appreciative of the grounding hand on his arm.
"This is good," he says, a bit wan and a bit surprised: "you're a good teacher."
Edited (fully just forgot to select an icon) 2024-06-22 02:56 (UTC)
There's an urgency, a flash of the boy who spent so much time down here, in his desperation to please-- to be found sincere in his willingness to change-- but the moment passes as quickly as it arrived as he stills himself. It's a bad look, groveling, even if this place brings it out in him.
"...yes," he agrees, more quietly, "I'll. Do that."
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no subject
He takes great care not to even look in the direction of the cell where he'd spent the better part of a year, wondering if this place would be the last thing he ever smelled.
Instead he looks at the spiders, wrinkling his nose in a look of anxious distaste and giving a preemptive shudder. Everyone here has seen the big ones in the caves, but somehow the little ones are still worse.
He nods stiffly, cutting his gaze to Isaac. His turn?
no subject
Isaac steps back - breathing room, but not so far he can't spy. Leaned against the clammy wall, hands folded before him, he looks rather more at home in the belly of this place.
(A big one, a cave.)
no subject
The spell works, if nothing else, but it sends every single spider dropping lazily to the bottom of the jar. He sighs through his nose.
no subject
Benedict's well ahead of one pasty apostate. They've a moment or two before the creatures inch back to action, and they may resume the time-consuming process of trying again. So,
"How did that feel, when you reached for the spell? What were you thinking of?"
no subject
"Uh," he considers, clearly searching for the right word to not sound like an incompetent fool and largely failing, "...making them fall asleep?"
no subject
Half rhetorical, he's still talking:
"Certain teachers and tomes will associate gesture, phrase, with effect. A reliable pattern to reach for, before one may produce a reliable result." As Benedict likely knows for practice. "You're an adult. It's innate to you by now, but revisiting those metaphors, unpacking them - there's no shame in a shortcut to get the job done."
"I often think of threads."
no subject
He thinks on it a moment, to determine if he has his own version of sleep; finally, with a thoughtful tip of his head, he replies, "clouds. Like fog."
no subject
Well-worn grooves, Strange had called them.
"Can you narrow it?"
no subject
He takes his time, and the spider sinks to the floor of the jar, unmoving. So do several of the others, but only in its immediate vicinity. Benedict purses his lips in quiet frustration, but can't help acknowledging the improvement with a nod.
no subject
Widen it again, spider by spider. Painstaking —
Time passes. Magic passes. Several of the spiders do, legs crunching into black curls. One might imagine Isaac himself asleep, if not for the occasional correction of a wrist, the redirection of focus: A joke here, an anecdote there; breathing room. Eventually, a hand finds his elbow, and doesn’t twist but plants. Steady.
"That’s enough for today."
Scrutiny for Benedict’s expression, his mood. (His particular history with this floor of the Gallows.)
no subject
"This is good," he says, a bit wan and a bit surprised: "you're a good teacher."
no subject
That isn’t what Benedict meant, of course. Some creatures ever scuttle from the light.
"You’ll want to eat," Guiding him up toward the stairs. "It takes something out of you."
(If a meal promises anything, really, it’s air and people. Likely a more pressing need.)
no subject
There's an urgency, a flash of the boy who spent so much time down here, in his desperation to please-- to be found sincere in his willingness to change-- but the moment passes as quickly as it arrived as he stills himself. It's a bad look, groveling, even if this place brings it out in him.
"...yes," he agrees, more quietly, "I'll. Do that."