Fourth Quest: Makeovers, Magic, and Meditation

[lightnovelexperiences]

1: Makeovers
Deedee has, after a rough month, healed enough to start treating people in the spa and in her space in the Vault, personally, again. She's a little worse for wear, of course - but she's turned half of her hair burning off into an excuse for a hairstyle where half her head is shaved, and the other is in a side ponytail; it's a good look on her, if a bit... butch for her tastes.

As promised, she's doing a sale on beauty treatments; haircuts, dye-jobs, mani-pedis, nail painting. While she's still healing with her hands, she's also giving people new looks with a smile.

2: Magic
During her time healing and enforced Vault time, Deedee has been studying magic diligently, not wanted to get caught flatfooted by Imperial witches - be they jannisaries or otherwise - ever again. She's be studying the theory, practicing the techniques Ziel taught and in classrooms, and she finally feels like she's going to make a breakthrough.

Which is when you may find her in a training hall across from a candle, sitting seiza, taking deep breaths, fingers in a mudra before her. She exhales -

- a gout of flame that lights the candle, without melting it.

She opens her eyes, and whoops triumph.

3: Meditation

There is a shrine in the courtyard of the spa, now.

It doesn't advertise it's religious affiliation. To those who don't know what it is, it just looks like a pleasant little open-air structure; in moments of weakness Deedee refers to it with a smile as "The Dread Gazebo." But it has windchimes, and streamers of red tipped with white triangular "tails," and a central altar made of little brass flutes that catch the wind to make music; and every so often, you can see Deedee in there, meditating in motion, by dancing or practicing her martial arts.

It is her way of thanking and honoring Sylphan for delivering on his half of a vow made in desperation and in earnest; to help them free Terra Branford, and live to see her live free.

All are welcome to pray to Sylphan, the trickster-fox, the laughing wind, friend of travellers and fools, foe of tyrants - if you have need of him.

Comments

Re: 3: Meditation

[lightnovelexperiences]

The monk’s response to that question is delighted laughter.

“For the god of weary far-travellers? Never,” she says. “He’s used to people shaking off dusty coats before making offerings. Sylphan doesn’t stand on that part of ceremony.”

She hums.

“If you do want to offer something, he favors things that can be carried by the winds, tokens of home, and offerings of food, particularly arancini or fried tofu.”

Re: 3: Meditation

[bearsperminute]

She nods, humming as she considers this bit of information. "Oh, I think I've got the perfect thing, then."

She heads back to her own... clothes hole? Locker?-- and returns with... a cloth band with a carefully-woven, intricate pattern. "... I made this before I left home. Kept it with me all the time, and hung it up in my room in the Division. It's been half a decade since I wove it. Never got to wear it on-stage. I was even wary of wearing it in public, since it's a traditional pattern from my home island.

"Looks like that's not gonna be possible any time soon, either, so." It's with a little bitterness that she hangs it up next to the other streamers. She'd hoped to show it off one day. Make it a fashion. Take the pressure off back home.

And now, all it reminds her of is the image of what almost happened at Vindess, but for her. "Sylphan can keep it."

Re: 3: Meditation

[lightnovelexperiences]

Privately she thinks it a shame that such a lovely thing be unworn, but Deedee’s not here to judge.

She steps away and, with a flourish of one arm, bids Kanna hang up her sash.

Re: 3: Meditation

[bearsperminute]

Kanna nods. Makes a loop, then a stagehand's knot. It's no longer than Deedee's own waist sash, and might have had, once upon a time, similar significance.

Now, it's just another remnant of an occupied people. Cotton, light, in the breeze.

What would it take, to bring anything like the people that made it back?

Kanna didn't know. Couldn't know. Even her grandfather had only half-remembered most of the important things, and her father had only remembered the martial arts.

She didn't like to dwell on the things that made her bitter, but bitter pills had been on the menu the past few months, hadn't they? First, having to leave at all, and then Vindess offering a fresh reminder of what even mild dissent got you, anymore.

She breathed, and watched the sash flutter in the wind.

Re: 3: Meditation

[lightnovelexperiences]

And then the breeze picks up, becoming a gust. Powerful, but not so much as to knock Kanna away or blow her down.

Just enough for the offered belt to slip up and away from it’s tether to the shrine, and to wrap itself around Kanna’s waist before the gust, and the belt, settle.

Deedee blinks, then puts her knuckle to her lips.

“I think he thinks you need it more than he does,” she says.

Re: 3: Meditation

[bearsperminute]

She blinks as it ends up around her waist-- and then, she can't help but laugh as she ties it around, securing better the towel she'd improvised to keep more sensitive sensibilities sensible. "So you're just gonna hand me the job, huh? My whole culture's a tall order, I hope you realize!?"

She grins. "Well, not the first bull I've taken by the horns, I suppose."

Re: 3: Meditation

[lightnovelexperiences]

"With any luck you won't have to go it alone," Deedee says. "The Empire is rarely as good at wiping away everything they claim to - I doubt you're the very last of your people."

She shrugs. "Good news is you don't have to finish the job. Bad news is you can't abandon it."

Re: 3: Meditation

[bearsperminute]

"I know I'm not. The blood's still there." She sighs. "But if blood made a people, Natruckt would have been united. It's the memory I'm worried about. Grandpa had half-remembered things he kept. Father had the martial art, and not much else. ... ... I'll need to go back to that island one of these days."