Ebony Whirlwind [Private, Training]

[Skay Ravendi]

TS: Ponutis, Spring, Era XIV

Do you still think that we're not brave if we don't bleed?
We've seen so much blood and violence already, how much do you need?
You howl and fight your war and talk of being free.

Some people are always reachin' for some things that they don't need.
I'll tell you now - with thoughts like that there'll never be enough.

A field. A field of blossoming flowers. It was spring in full force. The field was green, decorated with reds, yellows and blues all throughout it. It was full of blossoming wildflowers. Three oaks grew a good hundred meters from where the draconess stood. Next to the tree an ebony stallion was grazing, tied down to it on a long rope. However, it showed no signs of leaving the shadow which the three trees gave there.

But here. In this single spot. In this square meter stood the draconess. A light breeze caressed her spines, which grew like spines through the back of her neck and through the lenght of her tail. Her eyes weren't closed and she didn't stand calmly. Instead she stood slightly knee-bent, her wings were in an unusual position, both spread vertically upwards as much as possible, reaching out to the sky.

Her left hand seemed to reach down and back, yet it also held a weapon in it. A wooden katana, which Skay bought for practise. It didn't reach the ground as Skay held it in an angle which kept its end above the ground by a few inches. Her hand wasn't as steady as she wished it to be and as such it moved ever so slightly. The other hand went slightly forward, and even though Skay didn't hold anything in it, that hand also had something unusual about it.

Her staff - Aver Raa, went around her hand, beginning with a wooden dragon's jaw upon her palm and ending with the tail near her shoulder. The staff went around her hand like a snake, keeping itself tight and firm upon it. The staff was indestructible, it was the Staff of Arcana. That was Skay's first defence. But far from the last. What was even more important was the spell - her Masterpiece - that was all over her body.

Vines went all through her body, around her arms, over her chest, around her legs, even slightly through the neck and the tail. Most importantly they also went over the golden-black wings. These vines were connected to Skay's mind through Divination and responded to her movements, just like her muscles did. Whenever Skay took a step forward, the vines moved along with her muscles. These vines acted as extra muscles which did not tire and did not hurt. With these there was no fatigue, with these Skay had the ultimate speed and strength. The power of the spell allowed her to run without tiring, it allowed her the power of flight.

Wind. Perhaps Skay put too much thought into it. But there was something that made her feel attached to it. And so came her sayings such as "only the Winds know" or "where have the Winds taken you?". She grew attached to the wind which blew in the sky while she soared through it appearing in forms of various animals. She knew what it felt like to have wind rustling her feathers, be they black as those on a crow, white as those on a pegasus or red as those on a gryphon. She knew how powerful, unstopable and uncatchable the wind was. And she was going to become that. The ebony whirlwind.

The world was not the one that anyone else saw. This was her world, her domain. The staff which surrounded her left arm forced the world into transparent flames. The world of Arcana. With the power of the Staff Skay needed but a blink of an eye to create an Arcalysis and acquire Mana and but a few more seconds to Shape that Mana into any kind of a spell. She had that power. It was close to being ultimate. She was going to become that which could no longer be stopped. How much more did she need? What was this that she was trying to reach? Would there ever be enough? Eventually...

The preparations were complete. It was time to begin the dance. The dance of a whirwind. However. Right now it was going to be just a simple breeze. Her heart knew that this breeze would eventually grow into a whirwind, but for now it had to start with a breeze, a simple, weak trace of the future to come. Right now she had to learn to swing the sword without tripping, without cutting her own wings, her tail, without tripping, without getting blisters and without getting tired after the first few minutes. The battle began in the outskirts of Nexus Prime.

[Skay Ravendi]

They didn't know her power. No. They didn't know. They didn't know how fast it was growing. They couldn't handle it. They didn't know to what heights it was going to grow. She knew. She knew all. The world was swimming in Clara, aflame. It was aflame. Vis and Ara danced mixing in and seperating. It was all there. She could see the world clearly now. Her wings rose higher. Wings that had vines around their power spots, vines that gave her speed beyond normal, it gave her flight and much more. One. Two. Three. Launch.

The draconess launched as the wind, strong, fast and uncatchable. Her wings took her forward in such a speed that she barely had to move her legs. She had to learn to accept her body. She had to learn to move with her body. She had to know where her wings were, how they moved. She had to know how her tail followed. She had to know how long the sword was, how far it could reach. As her leap forward reached the ground her vine covered legs hit the ground and with a powerful spur the draconess jumped into the air. Her other hand grabbed onto the hilt of the sword as well. Her wings gave a powerful beat, touching the grass that was below them.

She went a few meters into the air. And she stroke with her sword at the sun as if she could cut it apart. A few moments later she was back on the ground, trying to move accordingly, but the sword caught her tail and the draconess stumbled. The move ended there. She still didn't know her body well enough. She had never used it this way. She had never really performed anything like this. Through the eras after she accepted this form, the draconess tried to act compossed, tried to avoid conflict, tried to remain calm as long as she was in this form.

Today she was casting off more and more of the shell. She was releasing her full potential, she was allowing her heart to rage free. Heart of Fire, that was what the Avatar had told her. Then so be it. She'd prove those words to the wind. Moment later Skay regained her composure, her tail rose a few inches from the ground and she gripped her sword tighter. Second try. Her wings rose again into a start position and with their powerful first beat Skay set into another run forward.

She ran holding the sword to her left with both hands, then with a wing beat and a jump Skay swung it through the air. As her feet touched the ground she continued on running, but this time it followed on her right. She didn't stop and didn't jump into the air like the last time, instead the draconess kept on running, her wings giving a beat once in a while. So that was how it felt to run in this form... she really... really hadn't done this before. She had run and faught in animal forms, she had run to an extent in this form too. But she had never actually run in full heart. And this time her feet, all her muscles were empowered by the Gants spell too.

She wouldn't give them a chance anymore. She wouldn't. No one would take her down anymore. She was stronger with every passing moment. Alright, so she could handle running without tripping. As she stopped, far in the field from the point she started, the draconess knew that she had much more to learn. So far she was in a way just playing. Getting the feel of this so called sword. Getting the feel of moving it. Of moving with it. She hadn't really tried hitting anything yet, just moving. Learning to move in her own form.

On her way back to the starting point, Skay took the same run, only this time she swung the sword much more often than before, which made her not only hit her wings twice but in the end lose the balance as well. Right. So she had the speed, but so far she could not control the speed, her body and her sword in harmony. She knew now, that she could not swing the sword as much as she wanted to even if her muscles allowed her to.

It was strange though. When she reached her starting point Skay realised again just how strange it was to move with this spell. Basically she did not tire, at least her muscles did not, movement required more or less no effort. The vines did all of it. But so far her body did not work in harmony. She learned how to move, she learned that. It took her a while too, getting acustomed to the dracon form which had wings, a tail and legs which weren't exactly like those of humans. It took her time, but Skay learned to move in this form. Now she needed to improve her movement, to learn to control this form in the absolute.

Her eyes travelled to Akiru who rather calmly muched the grass by the tree. "Get it done." Skay muttered to herself and started concentrating on the task at hand. She couldn't even swing the sword in one hand if it went a bit back without being completely sure if she wasn't going to hit the wings. And so she took it in both of her hands and began moving it in the form of an eight circles. Moving around in once sport, moving her arms, moving her body, leaning right more, then leaning left more, then just moving her hands more to one or the other side while the rest of the body remained still. She had to find out at what distance she had to hold her wings as not to hit them while moving the sword like that. After scrapping her wings a few times Skay got the rough position of her wings that were needed when performing this action. At least for this brightening she more or less knew how far or how high she had to keep her wings as not to accidentally hit them with the sword. And it was a blessing to practise with a wooden one rather than sharp metal one.

The brightening continued for many more candlemarks, where Skay ran, jumped, ducked and all the while used the sword measuring where and how she had to keep her wings and sometimes the tail as not to hit them by an accident. When the sun began nearing the horizon the draconess was still standing in the field, this time panting, the spell had ended a few candlemarks ago and this time she had to rely on her own strength. Her sword was touching the ground, she had no more strength to hold it above it. Her wings and her legs hurt in various places where she managed to hit them or from when she tripped and fell.

She had learnt so little. So very little. She knew that this wasn't really learning to fight either. She was just learning to move without hurting herself. Only when she could move without hurting herself could she begin learning to attack or defend, in other words to use the sword for an actual purpose. Whereas at the moment if she was to use a sword to defend herself it was bound to only make things worse, where she would cut herself before the enemy could even approach her.

She glanced one more time at the setting sun and then with a sigh went toward Akiru. The brightening's practise was done. She had spent too much time and gained too many bruises. It was time to go home and get some sleep. It was good to ride back home on the back of her stallion. It was nice to feel the power in herself, but sometimes being able to depend on someone else was just as nice. She loved Akiru's strong legs, his large black neck. What did it feel like when he ran, ran like the wind? He was the fastest and the wildest horse that she had ever seen. Would she be able to run just as flaslessly as he..?

[Skay Ravendi]

The next morning Skay woke up with sore muscles. And she was glad. She knew that this was a good sign. That her effort last brightening had not gone to a complete waste. Due to the work in the Towers Skay didn't practise that brightening, but when came the next morning she was back in the fields outside the city walls. She had her wooden sword with her. She had to learn to move. She just had to. She needed to control her body. She needed to feel her body. She needed to know her body.

And the brightening went on. The gants spell was cast. The staff was on her left arm, the sword was in her right. A jump, a swing. A run, a swing. A turn, a swing. She swung the sword in random, she wasn't aiming at anything, she didn't even try to imagine anything. She wasn't playing that game. She wasn't fighting some imaginary monster. She was simply swinging her sword in random, each time moving along with it, spreading, closing, rising, lowering, drawing and flapping her wings at the same time. She had to learn to use those wings. She had to learn to move the wings and the sword at the same time.

The tail was much less of the problem, Skay rarely ever touched it. As for the staff, while it rarely ever managed to touch with the sword, it did managed to scrap the wings quite a lot. Simply because there was about half a meter extending above Skay's shoulder when she had her hand lowered down. While the staff went around her hand, starting from her palm, wrapping three times around her arm till the elbow, and then went almost straight from the elbow to the shoulder and above, it made a perfect shield. It was unbreakable and unscratchable after all. However the end which extended beyond her arm managed to get perfectly in the way of the wings.

By the middle of the brightening Skay had cast a lot of Healing spells just so that her wings would not look like a moth eaten cloth. The pain was something she could handle every time she scratched them, every time she ripped the membrane apart, but the fact that she wasn't getting better at this as fast as she wanted was irritating the girl. Tired from casting, tired from repeating the same thing over and over again and still doing it wrong every second or fourth time, the draconess sat down on the ground. She needed rest. She needed to concentrate more. She was unable to move the body the way she had to to be able to vield the sword and hold the staff at the same time.

Why was it so hard? How was she going to learn any kind of swordfighting if she couldn't even handle her own body without ripping and cutting it apart? Her wings flapped violently again and again, again, and again, and again, and again... gaining speed, gaining power, gaining flight the draconess was rising far into the sky. Higher and higher. Her tail followed like a string, her right hand held the sword tight allowing it to look down to the earth, her left hand... she held it close to her chest. Higher. Higher. Higher. Even higher. Not enough, this wasn't enough.

How high could one go? The clouds, she dove into them and she dove out of them. She went above the clouds. She was... above the clouds. And for a few moments the time seemed to have stopped... she could see everything to the south, to the north, to the west and to the east... she could see it all... and she didn't know. She didn't know anything. Her gaze was lost. She didn't know. It was too much. Too much of everything. Too much of her power.

And her wings stopped beating, and she began to fall, she fell as a leaf, her wings spread to the sides and slowly closing, yet not behind her back, instead in front of her. And she fell. She began to fall, faster and faster. She fell eventually with her head to the ground, he feet and her tail pointing to the sun. As she looked at the fast approaching ground... she couldn't stop thinking. Even if there wasn't a single thought which made sense in words, her mind was screaming. It was trying to tell her something, trying to break free, trying to break out. As she fell, Skay could not understand it.

Power. Great power. Gants was around each muscle, it was connected to her mind. Every movement she willed it completed. It felt as if she was going to explode. Send a powerful wave across the sky. And at that moment the draconess spun in the air, her wings taking a powerful beat. "MUCH MORE!" was something that exploded in her mind. It was as if someone had thought of it in her mind. Someone, not herself, someone had screamed those two words inside her mind.

She landed on her feet, her wings spread wide, close to the ground. She was almost kneeling, her hands almost spread, one holding the sword extended, the other protected with the staff which went over her back, slightly below the wings. She'd learn. She'd learn to move in this form, with the sword and with the staff. She'd find her body, she would find a way to feel it, to know where and how she could move each part of it. The study didn't end here. But with every passing candlemark Skay was getting used to the Whirlwind, she was beginning to merge with it.

[Skay Ravendi]

The month. It was neither long nor short. There was a lot that had to be done, both in the Rainbow Towers as well as in the horse farm. Atop of those businesses the draconess practised spell casting every brightening, taking the form of one or the other flight gifted animal and departing into the skies, usually enough into the mountains as well. And atop of that the girl also began practising a new skill. The reason? It wasn't exactly clear yet. But she wanted to. Looking at the sharp katana which stood in her room fascinated her. It was that style that was poured into the sword, its sharpness and lethal power, as well as its capabilities in a skilled swordsman's hands. So far she wasn't capable of holding it. So far.

Every second or third brightening the scaly one practised till the last drop of sweat fell to the ground or ran down her scales. It was tiring, her muscles even as they were aided by Gants ached and strengthened. She was getting stronger, more flexible, more concentrated and more aware of her own body. It didn't matter that so far she had learnt practically no sword fighting. That would come later and she was determined enough to reach that goal. As at the month's end Skay barely ever scratched herself with either the sword or the staff she began to feel ready.

Now she could move the sword and the staff when jumping, when ducking, when running, when flying, she could move them without scrapping her wings, without getting caught on the tail. Her body began to move in motion. Her body began to move as her own. She felt her wings, her tail, and she knew how far the sword and the staff reached, how far they extended, when she could swing them, when she could block with them, when she could move them in any direction, she knew now when she had to raise her wings, when she could flap them, when she had to move the tail up-wards and when she had to lower it as low as possible. Now she knew it, she felt it. All that became a mechanism which worked in union. Perhaps one which wasn't oiled and quite rusted, but at least the gears were connected right and moved correctly, instead of one against another.

A whole month. It took her a whole month just to understand and get to feel her body. At times like these she envied... or perhaps pitied the human body. They didn't have wings, they didn't have a tail. They had no idea how much trouble these things could cause. You could not swing the sword back as much as you wanted without cutting the wings apart. This body was much more complicated. And while it did bring these troubles that humans never ever thought about, it also gave advantages. Powerful advantages.

Her wings flapped and aided by Gants the draconess rose into the air by a few meters. She only had to keep on flapping them and she could fly as far as her heart willed... or as long as her Vis could last. Not this time though, the draconess landed back on the ground, her feet bending slightly and then unbending. Her wings were raised high, almost making a roof above her head, whereas her arms were extended to the sides. The sword held tight in her right hand, pointing down, the staff covering her left arm, and due to its shape pointing up-wards, going right next to where the wings grew out of.

Yes. She could move without hurting herself now. And while she could not perform anything spectacular, the draconess at least knew when she had to move the wings or the tail out of harms way. Just like a human knew that by swinging a sword low he'd hit the leg and thus he'd either move the leg out of harms way or not swing the sword like that, now the draconess knew the same for her wings and her tail as well. A rusty and unoiled mechanism, but at least it was set up correctly. It was time to try actual sword training.