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winsol

Winsol is always celebrated on the darkest days of the year and there's no darker day than that of the Winter Solstice - this day is shorter than any other and the night is long and cold. Winsol is a celebration of Blood and magic and all of the powers of Witch. It seems strange to be in a place that doesn't celebrate it exactly as Jaenelle is used to.

Oh, there is a holiday. There's a holiday called Christmas and the decorations are oddly similar to Winsol ones. There's the exchanging of presents and the trimming of trees and drinking of good spirits and sharing of good food. It's not her Winsol, no, but Jaenelle is pleased enough to celebrate the holiday of this new place in her life. Just because something has a different name doesn't mean it's inherently different; she'd learned that for herself when dealing with Kaeleer.

So today, she's out in the gardens hoping to practice a little magic. She'd always tried to decorate the Winsol trees with magic back at the Keep and SaDiablo Hall and she's...for lack of a better term...terrible. Every time she thinks she's got the right balance, the right little delicate turn of magic, everything simply explodes.

Explosions are common in her life.

She's just about got a set of fairy lights twinkling on one of the hedges when a sound breaks her concentration and the whole thing poofs up in a flame and black smoke. "Stay back!" she shouts, casting a shield over it so the fire can smother out. She'll have to heal the hedges, too, but first she needs to do damage control.

"You'd think I would be better at this, after all these years, but I'm not."

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Erik chuckled slightly in spite of himself. "Practice makes perfect, they say," he said, "but it's not always that simple, is it?"

The girl turned, then, and if he hadn't just seen her using powers unlike anything Raven had ever displayed, Erik would have thought it was her standing there; Raven as he'd met her in her youth, not the angry woman who'd thrown things at him in the library. But Erik's composure wouldn't be ruffled by this apparition; he was used to them by now, even if this particular version had him momentarily startled.

"I didn't mean to break your concentration. What were you attempting?" he asked, gesturing to the smoking hedge.

"Fairy lights," Jaenelle explains. "Because I wanted to help decorate for Winsol, though I guess they call it Christmas here. It's not the same holiday we had but it has some of the same traditions - namely, a tree and lights."

Janelle frowns at the mess she's made. "I have trouble controlling it sometimes. I think I'm getting somewhere and then it's just a mess."

Erik could sympathize with that predicament all too well— but it was more common in younger mutants, those still new to their powers, and she'd made reference to having used her power for years. Maybe she just wasn't that strong— pushing your limits often resulted in disaster no matter what your power was.

"What do you do to focus?" he asked, taking a step closer. "Someone once told me I failed because I was trying too hard— maybe that's your problem too."

"I just think about the end result," Jaenelle says. She's never really thought about how to think about these things and she thinks it is a side effect of not growing up with a traditional education and a traditional set of jewels. She's special and she always has been and it has been her experience that those who are special, who are different are maligned by those who simply don't understand.

"Should I just be thinking about it step by step, you think? The framework, then the trimmings? Might that work better?"

"I don't think you should be thinking about that at all," Erik replied with a frank look at the ruined remains of her project. She kept looking at him as if expecting him to go on— but did he have anything worthwhile to offer her? It still wasn't so long ago that he'd needed instruction himself, and he still wasn't anywhere near the limits of his power— but it was either walk the girl through it or let her turn the entire garden into a firepit.

Alright then, he thought, with a decisive nod as much for himself as for the girl. "Look inside you, at wherever your power comes from," he said, businesslike. "Feel it filling you up, an extension of yourself. Then slowly let it out, a little at a time." She was still looking at him; he gestured toward her. "Go on, try it."

The way he describes it reminds Jaenelle of the way Uncle Saetan had described using his jewels and since he's the only one she knows that wears the black besides Daemon, he's a good comparison to make.

But that's neither here nor there.

She tries again, this time feeling herself go down to the level of the black and pulling that power up, wearing it the way she's meant to wear it, and lets it become an extension of herself. As she does, fairy lights show up on the hedges, little twinkling things with different colors and designs.

"I did it!" she says, clapping her hands quickly. "It worked, thank you!"

Erik smiled in spite of himself, but he had to caution her, "It might not work every time. Frankly, I'm shocked it worked as fast as it did." Either she was a quick study or it was beginner's luck— either way, he couldn't be sure her next attempt wouldn't explode even more flagrantly than her first.

"Try it again," he said, before he'd thought much about it. Stepping back, he motioned with one hand for her to precede him up the path toward an undamaged stretch of hedge. "You'll need to practice until you can do it without thinking about it. Until it's as easy as breathing, and as unconscious."

He felt like a fraud— like a mouthpiece for someone else's words. Next thing you know I'll be telling her about the point between rage and serenity, he thought in wry disgust. He was an idiot— the only consolation was that Charles had been avoiding him so assiduously that there was no chance he'd find out.

Jaenelle moves to the new stretch of hedge and takes in a deep breath, trying to remember how he instructed her to feel her power within herself and let it well up and extend naturally. It's a metaphor that she feels applies very well to her jewels and how she draws power from him.

What she doesn't understand, exactly, is how someone who isn't Blood can understand Blood so well. He doesn't wear a jewel (that she can see) but he doesn't feel like a landen either. It's strange. She trusts him, though, and Jaenelle knows she should be wary and yet, isn't. She feels safe with him.

She draws the power up again and while it isn't perfect, there's tweaks here and there that she needs to perfect, the overall effect is beautiful twinkling lights and not a charred mess.

"Oh, it's not as good as last time but I think I know how to repeat it, at least. That's progress?"

Erik nodded. "Progress, yes." She was clearly proud of herself, and for a moment he forgot she wasn't Raven. "Keep practicing, and you'll see even more of it."

He eyed her speculatively, and found when their eyes met that her gaze reflected a similar curiosity. "What is it?" he asked. He found he couldn't help himself. "Your power, that lets you do this." He nodded to the lights, now twinkling gently as they floated amidst the branches of the hedge.

"I'm Blood," she says simply. It's a common enough thing where she's from but she guesses nobody around here is really aware of it. It seems that she's the only one in the entire Nexus who wears a jewel.

Jaenelle pulls out the black jewel she wears on a long chain around her neck and shows it to him. Normally, someone might be frightened when seeing a black but she guesses nobody in the Nexus has any context for it. Not from what she's seen anyway.

"See? What's within me is focused in this."

Erik had never seen a stone like the one in her necklace before, pure black but clear as any precious gem. It glimmered as if lit from within; by her magic, he guessed. He wanted to inspect it, but knew somehow that touching it would be a faux pas.

"Blood," he repeated. "It's a common thing, where you come from?" At her nod, his brows drew together, disbelief and the start of indignation stirring in his chest. "Then— haven't you had training?" She wasn't young enough to be brand new to her abilities— why had no one shown her what to do with her power? He nodded at the jewel she still cupped in her hand. "Where did that come from?"

"I got it when I was small. A friend gave it to me when I first offered to the darkness," Jaenelle explains. "Normally, a witch wouldn't have such a powerful jewel at first. You have to get used to it. I'm special, I guess, because I got this one first. It makes it hard to learn things because sometimes I have too much power. Does that make any sense?"

Jaenelle has never explained what it means to be what she is to someone who has never heard of the Blood or her kind of magic. It's sort of fun, in a way, because it's like meeting the Kindred or traveling somewhere new. It's different and exciting and far away from the tedium of daily life.

A startled sound of amusement hummed in Erik's throat. Hard to learn things, indeed. "It sounds familiar," he said, a smile coloring the words. "But I think your power requires more precision than mine." More often than not, he didn't think about how his power worked— his sense of metal was instinctive, his manipulation of it based on the big picture of the result he desired, not the individual brush strokes. But he remembered the feeling of power without control, potential energy swelling inside him without the ability to give it form.

It may have manifested differently than hers, but abilities were abilities regardless of the name they were given. She'd called herself a witch with no shame in her voice, called herself Blood with the confidence of someone owning a birthright. "We call ourselves mutants in my world," he said thoughtfully. "Our mutations give us our powers, each one unique. We teach ourselves, more often than not." Impossible not to think of the mansion, of Charles. Having guidance— guidance that didn't spring from torture and fear— it had changed everything for him, and for the children, too.

"I'm Erik," he said abruptly, something in his mind snapping neatly shut, a decision made he'd barely realized he was considering. "Next time you feel like practicing, come and find me. I'm not the best teacher, but I'm better than nothing."

"I'm Jaenelle," she offers, laugh silvery and soft. "And you're the only teacher I have so it doesn't matter if you're the best, or not. I will accept anything you want to teach me."

The idea of having someone to guide her again, even if it wasn't the High Lord or Lucivar, was more than Jaenelle was able to resist. "You already saved the hedges from my attempt at magic, so, you've done more than most have in just a short little while."

Anything you want to teach. A heady promise, that— for a moment Erik faltered, struck with doubt and a terrible dread. If Raven was to be believed, all he'd ever brought his disciples was pain and death; what business did he have pretending he could bring this little witch anything but more of the same?

But he couldn't deny it: he was bored. His conviction in his calling had never faded, but here he lacked any practical way to use it. The mutant cause was locked firmly away from him (which, if Carter was to be believed, was for everyone's benefit, including his own) and he was wasting away, all his power reduced to the quotidian utility of opening doors and picking up silverware— but he was meant for more. He knew about power, knew how it felt to wrestle with control, and if he had anything to offer anyone in this pretty minefield of a hotel, maybe it was this.

"Room 23," Erik said, "or leave me a message at the front desk. I check them every day." He looked at the hedge with its cloud of shimmering lights, then back at Jaenelle, his expression reflecting none of his inner turmoil or the unfamiliar swell of hope buried beneath his whirling thoughts. "Keep practicing," he said, nodding at the hedge once more before turning and heading back the way he'd come.

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