Snippet #1483652

Faera finished breakfast at a more sedate pace than Beelzes, who seemed to inhale more than eat her food. Talae eventually joined them, and she chatted amiably, splitting her attention between her sibling and her teacher, or at least she did until the table directly next to hers was knocked over, bumping hard enough into hers that her own plate was knocked off the end rather unceremoniously.

"Dead gods, contain yourselves, ya hormone-addled idiots!" Beelzes shouted after them as her own tray suffered the same fate, but Fae knew the lamia were probably long out of earshot by now and giggled, shaking her head. She slid from her seat, collecting her spilled fruits as best she could and with a melodramatic sigh, Beelzes did the same. The two of them threw everything out, and Fae brushed off her knees of residue from the ground.

"Practice?" she asked hopefully, and though she couldn't see it, the warlock grinned.

"Sure, little Shanir. Practice it is."

---

As it turned out, "practice" today meant finding a relatively unoccupied space of ground, not too close to any of the other practicing people (Kisikoni was a while to their right and she could hear Lily talking to Thanaros a bit further still).

"Okay, kiddo, we're going to work on your accuracy today." Faera grimaced. Accuracy had for obvious reasons never been her strong suit. "Now, I'm guessing those ears of yours do a pretty good job substituting for eyes, since you don't crash into something every ten feet. So, now you're going to use that to aim as well." Beelzes, who had for some reason stopped at the equipment tent on their way here, deposited something on the ground. It was a plain sack, heavily laden with small, round clay disks, a few of which she took out in preparation for what she thought to be a rather ingenious lesson plan.

"We're gonna start with these, because they'll hurt less if you miss," Fae could have sworn there was mischief in the deep human's tone, and she smiled nervously. "I'm gonna throw 'em at you, and you have to find them with your ears and destroy them with magic."

Before Faera could reply, the first of the clay disks was thrown in her direction, and she emitted a squeak and ducked, the projectile passing over her head to break apart on a tree some distance behind her. The color rose to the skin of Fae's face, and she was about ready to apologize, but Beelzes didn't give her a chance before throwing the next one. Truthfully, the warlock was amused, but laughing right now would probably make it worse.

The rain had abated somewhat, but it was still coming down, and so Fae decided to use it, taking a hit to the abdomen as she gathered a mass of rainwater together before separating it into spears and freezing them all in the air behind her. The third projectile flew forward, and Fae tried to hit it with an icicle, but missed by a good two feet, the shard embedding itself in the ground. "You just hit an ally," Beelzes informed her, throwing again. "Listen for it, little Shanir!"

Faera grit her teeth and tried to do as she was being asked, but there were so many noises in the area... wooden clacking where Kisikoni hit the training device, the sounds of people speaking, laughing, even just Legionnaries walking around was louder than the whistle of the clay disks through the air...wait. There it was. If she concentrated hard enough, she could just hear it. Brow furrowing in concentration, Fae shot again, this time missing by a mere six inches. "Closer... try again!"

Concentrate... there! Fae fired her icicle without hesitation, and was rewarded with the sound of breaking clay as the shard of frozen water hit its target. She felt a surge of elation, and thirty feet away, Beelzes grinned like a madwoman. "There it is! Now do it again!"

---

”You might as well...tell me what it is you see. There's a g-good chance that one, maybe both of us will die in tommorow's...battle...” Neira stared him down for a long moment, and considered indulging him, but… no. At this point, he’d practically be coerced, and for all her talk of not giving a damn about anyone or anything aside from herself, if there was one thing she valued, it was her freedom, and she had not the inclination to take it from anyone else either. With a sigh, then, she ceased the release of pheremones.

That alone would not be quite enough, though, and so she took a hint from the necklace and brushed his very mind, pushing back the effects of her presence with what was effectively the psionic equivalent of a cold shower. What I see is one of the blood who could easily be made the thrall of someone with much less love for independence than I. If it is this easy, then you are more connected to the hive-mind than you realize, and you risk becoming enslaved to it. He would be able to hear her in his head, but the contact was by nature something of an intimate one, and she broke it as soon as she was certain he was able to think straight.

“Be as angry at me as you wish, but know this: were I a Child, you would be dead. I can teach you how to do what I have done; to resist the call of the hive, to be stronger then your instincts.” It was not an easy thing, especially not for a species which thrived on such primal inclinations. In this, his civee blood would help, but not without proper instruction.

“Give it some thought.” Neira shrugged, as though she could care less. He honestly had very little choice; Nightmarian Children were rare, but not entirely unheard-of, and any such adversary would likely be able to do as she had done and know that he was susceptible to a mental assault of this or another kind.