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It's still summer in Scotland, as far as summer will extend so far north. Already the birds begin to roost in preparation for their long flight south to Africa and points beyond. Fishers in the villages dotting the North Sea or the wild Atlantic turn their thoughts towards the catches on the changing currents, and the barley ripened in the fields will be threshed, gathered into bales, and turned to a whisky mash sold for exorbitant prices after a proper period of distillation.
The men, Princes of Asgard both, still toil in the fields to bring them to order. Light slants honeyed and dusty through the copse of trees standing as an ancient outcropping of the great Caledonian forest where Merlin ran mad, though the great trees have been much trimmed, chopped, and harvested. Bees buzz around the hives, and all is lovely and ripe with the world.
Except for the green fire burning a /rock/. The stony thumb smolders merrily, and wild verdant light ripples and rolls across it. Glaring at the wracked object from within a circle of rocks marked by varied runes, Scarlett sits cross-legged in a classic lotus position.
"I never said you could do -that-," she tells the spell. It burns on anyways.
*
Where ever it had been that Amora the Enchantress had spent her past few nights, it had not been the castle. However, she did still make a showing of appearing at regular intervals, meals and every so often prodding the library or jaunting about the grounds. Today, she roamed the castle ground idly, collecting wild plants that caught her eye every so often. She looked the picture of a forest sprite or maiden from tales of old. Her feet bare as she walked along the grassy land in a cotton sundress that swirled around her calves in a matching hue of verdant shade.
At the sight of the mortal upon the ground not too far away, a grin slunk along Amora's lips as she practically prowled along on silent steps. When she was finally behind the woman, she spoke, breaking the silence.
"Fire is particularly stubborn to commands," She offered lightly, an amused brow hitched upwards as she looked down at Scarlett. She reached out an imperial finger, flicking it upwards and making the flames dance and arc upwards and back in a twisting spiral. Then she released it and looked back to the owner of the magical flame.
"It doesn't like being told what to do, you have to cajole it and tease it.." She quirked a smile, settling down beside the red head.
*
The others can teleport at their whim, or fly, by way of a rainbow bridge and hammer, to other dimensions. Not so the redhead confined to the castle's many chambers and the surrounding area. Even if she dared, the distance via Iceland to New York is approximately six hours of solid cruising. Not exactly the finest of options, she resides in another world of labour and study.
Whatever may be said about her eldritch workings, the fire is unnatural. For one, it isn't a colour any natural fire would be, shifting between peridot to a searing hue of sunlight pouring through the leaves. Cyan undertones are more common than gold. Her flames misbehave against gravity and physical laws, forming wavering curtains around the rock carved and shaped. Their temperature is far, far beyond what a standard candle would allow.
No, Scarlett has summoned something normally found at high latitudes in the upper atmosphere and her definition of fire is malicious, tricky plasma misbehaving against expectation. Throwing water on it wouldn't douse the stone.
"Indeed, but this lesson required me to conjure it and conjure it I have." She flicks her wrist lightly towards the stone heated to a point fractures show in the external surface, the first harbinger it might blow apart or blow inwards. "A werelight."
This is her idea of a will o' the wisp, a witchlight, a harmless ball of radiance. A miniature, naughty /star/ of sorts.
*
Amora cants her head to the side as she neatly arranges her gathered handfuls of herbs and plant matter on her lap and spreads it out in an idle manner, as if taking stock of what she had found. A side long glance follows Scarlett's comment about the lesson and she paused. "Then dismiss it. And summon it again. It won't do you much good if you did so accidentally this time and cannot summon the like again." She offered, and held up her own manicured hand.
A tiny will-o-wisp forms and bounces lightly on her palm, dancing with the breeze that plays across the field. Then she shuts her hand and snuffs it out. Again, she opens her hand, but this time a firemore kin to the one that Scarlett had summoned blazes to lifecontorting this way and that in restrained hunger. Amora tosses it up into the air and catches it like a ball once, twice, and a third time before she throws it outwards over the field. It singes the top of the grass and the burnt smell spreads on the breeze. Then, with a sharp movement she closes her hand and it disappears before it reaches a grove of old trees.
"It is an annoying statement, but practice does indeed make perfect.."
*
The young woman holds her hand out, palm even to the center of her chest, and she splays her fingers in a mute cradle. Her coppery brows show the ephemeral punctuation marks of concentration in the fine vellum of her flesh, and she follows the iron-clad process of casters near and far.
Gather focus. Envision. Shape. Release. The energies woven through Scarlett's aura drink heavily of the ambient power around her, and feed into that disconsolate plasma fire. Flames leap once and then recoil, shuddering to a hole punched into their being. Wavelets and eager sprays arcing over the stone rise up into a lumpy spheroid starting to rotate on its own, a slow spin that grows more stable as she watches it.
Her energy levels remain stable while she makes the fey light obey her bidding, equally as fey. Denser, it glows all the brighter and leaves a trail of white powder from the suddenly cooling thumb of rock. Breathing out leaves a few iridescent sparks on the air from parting her lips.
Fingers close. The sphere falls in on itself, bursting out in a ring of plasma that dissipates without a source to fuel it. She opens her hand again, and after a deep, centering breath to cleanse herself of ideas, the energy forms a spray of sparks again. These, separate pieces of a constellation, glow a shade of eldritch emerald. They spin slowly, huddling close to her palm. "It's quite alive. I keep animating it thus."
*
A nod follows Scarlett's work and manipulation of magic and Amora makes a pointed effort to keep her hands to herself, her hand falling back to her lap from where it had risen as a smile graces her lips. "That's very well done. It can be draining though, if fire is not the element best suited for you. Loki, as you saw, is gifted most with ice. I personally, am quite skilled with magical flames. It ties in with passion and heat and friction and all such things. Hence why it is a particular strength of mine. Though I can summon all such things as I desire now. When I was young wind was particularly annoying. Especially the sprites that kept flipping the pages to the book I was working on."
A grin tumbled from her and she held out a hand a swirl of captured wind twirling into the shape of a tiny woman that spun and danced upon her toes, lighter than any dancer that ever lived. "Have you attempted anything else besides flames?"
*
The answer may not be one Amora much likes. A line of perspiration dapples her nape, in part cooled by the lowered temperature of the dying day that paints the western horizon into a sea of crushed bloody velvet strung by onyx islands, humps of a great serpent.
Their werelights at first appearance likely speak volumes to an acolyte's affinities elementally. What did the Enchantress first conjure, if not burning flame? Was hers a golden light or an enchanting beam? Suppose Magik tasted the darkness of limbo sucking out the goodness of her soul through the hole in her chest?
Meditative asana adopted for comfort and practicality, this unschooled daughter of Midgard, prodigal child of the Norns, proves herself somewhat confounding. Black desire hovers just behind her veins, demanding expression, checked by half a dozen mental stops and diversions. The plasma churns back on itself, bright spots of starlight radiant in the falling twilight, as friendly as a port and dangerous as a reef.
Scarlett blows out a breath and releases the underpinning of the spell. Tweak a thread, mentally, and unleash the results. Control is so very much part of her always that the magic lashes out in a surging burst against her disciplined mind, and half the stars turn almost immediately to a surge of electricity storming towards the earth and the other half to chips of ice launched straight for the sky.
Her expression looks mildly pained as she has to mentally seize on the energy and force it back rather than allowing a lightning sprite to zing between the cloudtops and the earth. The ice shards are another matter entirely; they crash back down in floating flakes. "Not particularly," she murmurs. Liar.
*
The wind sprite is dismissed with a twist of her hand and Amora watches the mortal focus her magic and concentrate. Her gaze is not focused on the magic itself, but rather the effort it draws from the student's person. As the fire arcs and turns to twisted ice shards and lightning, an amused smile pulls at rubied lips once more and she props her head up with the palm of her hand, drawing a knee up to better support her elbow.
"You'll find it will exhaust you the more you push yourself. Using magic is much the same as a muscle. Use it more, stretch yourself to your limits.. and then rest. Magical burn out is not enjoyable. Besides the fact it leaves most users vulnerable, it's the same feeling wise… half between the worse hang over you have a mind to imagine.. and half a physical illness that strikes you down and leaves you shaking and breathless." She murmured softly, reaching out her free hand to catch a falling flake of ice in hand.
"So tell me, what sort of magic do you want to learn, ultimately? Besides the simple elements… they all build upwards to other concepts and ideas. There are curses, hexes, blessings, energy protections, transfigurationI turned one man into the prettiest tree you have seen oncetransportation.. and so on. There's as many fields of study out there as there are stars in the skies of all the realms."
*
The elements converge back again on a single point, more or less. Scarlett pulls them inwards and then clasps her hands together, a physical effort to banish the spheroid she flattened out of existence. On the event horizon, leaked power dissipates in another ghostly ring of power blown away.
"I practice with caution." This, then, is not showing off. Merging sources through varied states of being is, apparently, the lesson of the day. Her fingers line her palms, and the mortal neophyte draws what she can from the observation of that energy dissipating away. It can do no harm this way where separated and shared among the greater skein of earth's vitality, and she forms but a backwater upon the greater river shuddering through the backbone of Alba and Britannia. "Never to the point of failure. When I cannot concentrate, I stop."
As the Enchantress shares her wisdom and hard-won knowledge, the student fulfills her sacred role by listening. She nods slightly, then tips her head. "Fluency. One cannot truly know the proper application of language upon mastering the tongue sufficiently to speak the nuances, and I would avoid disasters by courting poetry when I am barely sufficient to recite the alphabet."
*
Another amused sound, an airy exhale of breath escapes the Asgardian woman and she lifts her gaze upwards as she shifts and settles her hands behind her back. "When I was learning, I wanted to be the best. That was all. I had no such qualms as you, which was reckless and foolhardy, true.. But I wanted to be the best at the woman's art. It was why I sought out Karnilla in the first place, the Queen of Nornheim was and still is the best teacher for most would be practitioners.. Even if now I would argue that she is not particularly talented at teaching." She winked, an easy smile on her lips this time.
"Have a goal, a dream. It does not hurt to work toward something you desire. It focuses, and can guide your hands when you consider what you wish to do. But that's jut my advice. You need not take it if you think it ill-given. I promise it shall not hurt my feelings. You are not, foremost, my student but Loki's."
*
"I would understand. Let me master that and from there, I shall imagine all ends that may be available to me. It could be that the very nature of what I am defies my wishes," she muses. Scarlett raises her hands and uses that moment to show some hint of inner strength, the muscles of her stomach hardened and flexing under the long, light tunic she wears. A rise from the lotus position to standing without putting her hands to the ground speaks to that, and the trace of her fingers caress the inner curves of her waist, nimbly drawn around to sweep against her lower back. A caress, a painful one. "It could well be I have no capacity as I imagine, deceived in these early achievements that can never be built upon, never deeply surpassed. Suppose it must be the way. What am I do to, save reach for the stars and trust I may land among the darkness of space or the radiant light? There has always been a choice there."
A goal, a dream, and the wavelengths she broadcasts her ambitions are very small or very wide, and who is the one to be wisest to aims? "Am I say to be your equal? Superior to all on Midgard? A sorceress supreme in my own right, superb in my arts such they all consult me for those things beyond? I shall have to live a very, very long life for that. Bypass death."
*
Amora crosses her legs as she stretches them out before her and a huff of laughter escapes her, she rolls her eyes skyward and back, shaking her head slowly and causing blonde curls to bounce. "Hardly, though if you had the desire and the drive there are many such ways that might be accomplished. I have … interacted.. with the current sorcerer supreme. Is he strong in magical skill? Certainly, but he has focused so deeply on his studies of the magical arts he has missed out on all other forms of life. In his mortal pursuit, he has shortened other avenues. If you wish to be a hedge witch with only some meager skills, but experience the rest that life has to offer? There is no harm in it. I dedicated a large portion of my life to such, but I have had a much longer span to give."
A hum of a breath escapes her then, and she leaned back, closing her eyes as she stretched. "It all depends on what /you/ wish from /your/ life, little witch. What path you desire to tread upon. No one can make such a choice for you. Not me, nor any other god or goddess. The Norns weave the threads, but each fiber as its own personality, it's own twist." Her eyes open up and settle upon Scarlett again.
"But you do not need me to tell you thus. You know it well already."
*
A hedge witch with meagre skills. That statement alone garners volumes: a lift of her eyes, burning brands of St. Elmo's fire in her lovely face, a tightening of her lips. "Sacrifices will come," she says neutrally, the softness in her voice forever respectful, nearly demure. "I accept to learn I will fail to master other things. How I choose to advance will govern what and how I learn. Is it worth spending every free hour mastering the simple lessons and reinforcing my discipline, to the extent of all else? Truly I do not know."
Her shoulders lift lightly, and then she shrugs to dispel the weight and certain that she might understand beyond the fundamentals. "So many lessons, and I am new to this. I will choose my own fate." And in so many words, she throws the entire system askew, swaying and acknowledging her place within the universe, rebel to the end. "For now, I will try not to eat my own spells to identify them. It seems an exceptionally odd idea."
*
Another chortle of a laugh escapes Amora and she sits up, dusting off her hands with a clap as she rises. "Very well said indeed. You are a crafty girl yet, and you have the motivation that might yet shake the grounds of any realm you desire. Who knows?" She murmured with a playful wink and tap of her nose. She tilted her head to the side, golden curls spilling over her shoulders.
"So, now that we've covered magic, let us get to the truly delicious gossip that I have been simply dying, to tell you." She flashed a grin, and smoothed her hand over her skirts as she rose to stand with a stretch of her arms over her head.
"I found out why our hero Hercules has travelled to Midgard. Turns out he is an exile, unlike me however, his father kicked him out for bedding a cup bearer and a nymph of some sort. I don't think Odin would exile Thor or Loki for who they bedded.. but to hear Hercules tell it, his father considered those lovers to be his alone." She shrugged, "Olympians are strange creatures, are they not?"
*
The redhead's legs fold again into a lotus position. Oh, she could simply sit like that but what would be the fun? Sinking forward, her torso parallels the ground scored by the runic rocks. Balanced on her forearms, Scarlett stares at the sun-warmed earth as darkness creeps onwards and rushes to claim Ackergill Tower along with the rest of the lands, the isles, and the very depths of Strathclyde to the blackened abyss of the sea. She kicks her foot back, breaking the clasp of her trim ankles. Then the young woman merely arches her back, extending her legs in a feline curve, hinged at the knee to suspend her feet above her crown. It's a punishing position to hold for a few seconds, let alone the minute or two she sets out for.
Some kind of lesson, another form of practice.
"Another exile? 'Tis a commonplace thing to send children away from their homes here. Where does Olympus stand among the realms, if I may ask?" Questions asked in a light tone, thinner than usual. It should be no surprise; she's supporting her full weight between her palms, so close to flipping over. "No, you believe the All-Father would be patient did the Prince of Asgard bed a mortal? If that be so, then it would mark him a wiser and a leader capable of better foresight than Jove, though Jupiter — or Zeus or whatever he deigns to be today, it's all Zeus Pater, the god the father — has rarely been recognized for that. But then his performance against the Titans may be deemed superior than some of the threats legend attributes to surging against Odin."
*
A sigh pulled from her lips and she shrugged, and paced a few steps out of the bending and twisting mortal on the ground. She watched, vague interest sparking on her features as she watched the redhead flex. "When you are long lived, immortal nearly, or are.. it makes a punishment to exile one from the realm which is gifted eternally in some form. Such long lives make it harder and even more abhorrent to kill another over such things. Especially as, well, our sort are easily offended and tend to take insult much quicker than mortals. It bears another level.. And when you live so long, exile is more of a childish 'time out' as mortals call it. Eventually, all things will be forgiven in one way or another. Either through blood and death, or redemption or even forgetfulness." She shrugged, a roll of her shoulders.
"The All-father Odin does not care if Thor or Loki bed mortals.. Taking them to wife.. well, that's the current issue with the Crown Prince. There cannot be a mortal Queen in Asgard, after all. Yes, there are ways to get around such, but can you imagine the political fall out? The other realms would see it as a weakness.." She tsked and shook her head.
"As far as I'm aware the Olympians are very much bound to Midgard in a way that Asgard is not.. They are true immortals—were as Asgardians are simply long lived and hard to kill." She smiled thinly, arching a brow. "We can be killed."