a person who thinks all the time has nothing to think about except thoughts.

[portalling]

WHO: Ennaris Tavane & Stephen Strange, with Gwenaëlle Baudin
WHAT: Telepathy training
WHEN: Nowish
WHERE: The houseboat outside the Gallows
NOTES: None as of yet.

In terms of witnessing magical training, this isn’t the flashiest.

It isn’t cracking quarterstaffs in the training yard, it’s not flinging fireballs at each other, it’s something much quieter: Stephen Strange sitting cross-legged in the main parlour of his and Gwenaëlle’s shared home, hands loosely splayed against his knees and back straight in the recessed seating area. Relaxed, meditative. His eyes are closed and his mind a gentle hum along the mental link to Ennaris seated across from him, practicing her telepathy, while a cat behind them thrashes about in murderous circles fighting a ball of yarn, and somewhere in the further background, Gwenaëlle is puttering about.

He tunes it out for now, focusing instead on Ness’ mind.

It’s like any ordinary day featuring the couple comfortably working in their home, except that Ennaris has been invited into it for these sessions. The doctor is more guarded about the living space than Gwenaëlle is, but it fits the purposes for this lesson: it’s a more comfortable and private area for practicing mind-reading, perhaps too similar to blood magic for others’ comfort, and they can work on it discreetly.

Comments

[elegiaque]

It’s more difficult than Gwenaëlle had imagined, sitting quietly while they practise — in theory, something familiar. In practise, different enough to be distracting, and her own restlessness is there in the way she shifts as if she can’t quite get comfortable enough to settle, frowning down at her sewing as she loses the thread of what she’s doing. The difference, of course, becomes obvious to her: the companionship of separate occupations has always been important, ordinary, easy—

but it’s quiet, a conversation occurring that she has no ability to join, and any interruption a distraction that defeats the purpose of the practise. The moments where she would speak off the cuff must be swallowed purposefully, leaving her hyperconscious of her usual propensity to dip in and out of her own stream of consciousness, vigilant against making a mess of it before they’ve done anything.

It’s impossible to tell if they’ve done anything, and it’s not only Ennaris’s anxiety that Hardie’s keyed into. Gwenaëlle’s restlessness in the silence distracts him, tracking every movement as she readjusts her sewing or shifts her weight from one side of the armchair to the other and then back again, as deliberate as Small Yngvi.

After the third time she must unpick the same stitch, she sets her sewing aside and leans her head back against her chair.