Quenten Delacreaux (theblindmage) wrote in emillion, @ 2013-08-01 11:25:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, !log, pyr min, quenten delacreaux |
Who: Quen & Pyr
What: Conversation and cookies
Where: Bahamut Hall
When: This afternoon
Rating: G
Status: Complete
After being grounded for an entire month in Taurus and Gemini, Quen had made it a point to venture out into the city on her own. In spite of having told Cid that she couldn't possibly memorize the entire city, that had been what she'd set out to do—or at least the parts of the city she frequented. She'd discovered that she already knew the Commoner's District quite well, and so it had just been a matter of making what she already knew more intentional. She'd already known instinctively when she reached the end of the street where her mother's shop was, for example, but now she knew it was 240 paces from the previous turn. She knew the Theater District and Bazaar District to a lesser degree, but certain landmarks helped to alert her to the location of certain buildings: the smell of baked goods at the Baker's Dozen, for example, or the sound of the bells at the cathedral before mass. Some of the larger intersections even had a device that beeped when it was safe to cross, and Quen planned her routes accordingly.
Running into people was still a problem. Hopefully Libra would help with that.
Today she had more of an incentive to avoid collisions than usual. She'd needed to do something that had nothing to do with magic, just to give her mind a break. She realized that she wasn't very learned in the domestic work that was still often expected of women. She'd never needed to cook, between Darius, her mother, and the dining hall at the tower. She had neither the patience nor the pain tolerance necessary for needlework, and she always lost count when she tried to knit or crochet. She did enjoy cleaning, and she was good at it, but her room was almost compulsively neat and organized already, and her chores done. That left one thing: baking, which she thought she could do. All it required was the ability to read and follow directions, she'd reasoned.
So after lessons instead of locking herself in the library behind a dusty pile of tomes and her memstones like she usually did, she'd gone to the kitchen and sweet-talked them into letting her use an oven and some supplies. Following one of the recipes from the Braille cookbook she'd gotten for Faram's Mass one year and never used, she managed to create a batch of cookies which, after helping the kitchen workers tidy up, she sampled. The cookie was quite dense, and had the relative shape and texture of a rock, but it wasn't terrible. It was very sweet, but Quen liked sweets, and she knew other people who did too. Pyr, for one, and also Conan and Lille. Storm and Juliette probably did, too, although they tended to be more reticent about their opinions. Even nobles had taste buds.
She would bring her cookies to the Fighters Guild and give them to her friends there, she decided, and set off. Luckily Bahamut Hall wasn't far from the tower, and she arrived without mishap. Once she stood in front of the great doors, however, she found herself uncertain as to how to proceed. Should she knock, or just go in? Did anyone even answer the door at a place like this? Would the squires necessarily be here?
Before she could decide, the door opened.
Councilor Cassul had been nice enough to agree to train Pyr after the disastrous battle at the docks, back when he'd first arrived in Emillion, and despite the Councilor's crazy schedule they'd been training regularly for almost a month. Pyr had no intention of becoming a Sentinel, but that class was one of the best to learn defense from, as they could take massive amounts of damage. His endurance would probably never be as good as the Councilor's, but he wanted to at least be able to hold his ground for a bit before going down. The great part about training with Councilor Cassul was that defensive skills were useful for every kind of fighter, and it didn't matter so much that he still hadn't decided which class he was going to aim for. There were still two years left until he could even take the test, but it wouldn't hurt to make up his mind on which test to take. He had been convinced he had all the time in the world to decide until he'd arrived in Emillion, where it seemed every other squire had already chosen a path.
Still, it was no use stressing over it; he could just keep training in basic skills for a while until he made up his mind. With that thought in mind, he made his way out of Bahamut Hall, which was where he always met the Councilor, as it was more convenient for her. He'd done pretty well in today's session, he decided; well enough, in fact, that he thought he deserved a treat. Peony's baking was some of the best he'd tried, but he'd already eaten all the cupcakes she'd brought him last time and he wasn't about to contact her over the network and ask for more. She'd been nice to both him and Sky so far, and she didn't fuss over them too much, which he was grateful for, but he just didn't feel comfortable making requests of her. Perhaps he would drop by Baker's Dozen, then; Rene sold the best sweets in all of Emillion and it had been almost a week since his last visit.
Pyr opened the door and came face to face with Quenten. He stopped in his tracks so as not to crash into her, because he knew she couldn't see him, though she had probably heard the door swing on its hinges. "Hey, Quen! What's up?" Pyr greeted her, placing a hand on her arm to help her locate him. "What are you doing here? Visiting a friend?" He knew she was friendly with plenty of FG members, so maybe she'd just come to hang out. He didn't know Bahamut Hall that well, but he could help her find her way wherever she was going.
"Oh, hi, Pyr!" Quen exclaimed, turning her head toward where she felt him standing. She'd recognized her friend's voice immediately, and she was grateful that the door had been answered by someone she knew. Granted, she knew a lot of the people in the guilds, and even more of them knew who she was, because of her brother's long association with the guild and the fact that it was fairly common knowledge that Darius had a blind little sister. Still, she was glad to come across a friendly presence in a somewhat unfamiliar place.
"I was hoping to run into my friends," she said, "but I'm not here to visit anyone in particular." She held up the box she'd brought, containing the cookies she'd made. "I baked," she told Pyr proudly, "and Peony didn't help me. I don't know if you know her. She's sort of my mentor, and her cookies are almost as good as Rene's. You know him, right? He's a baker." She shook her head as though to clear out all of the excess thoughts. "Anyway, mine aren't quite at their level, but I think they're pretty good for a first effort, and so I brought them here to share." She paused for a breath, and something occurred to her. "Were you leaving? I don't want to keep you if there's somewhere else you need to be."
The box, and the knowledge of what it contained, instantly caught Pyr's attention. A soft, sweet smell that he associated with freshly baked goods wafted from inside. "Awesome, Quen!" Just when he'd been craving sweets, she'd appeared, as if on cue. "Can I try some?" He'd never tried anything she'd baked before, but he figured if Peony had taught her to bake, she had to be pretty good.
If Quen was asking if Pyr knew Peony, then Peony hadn't told her about him. Well, Quen would find out eventually, so he might as well say. "I know her. We have the same surname, right? That's 'cause she's my sister. Well, half-sister. We have the same father." And Suoh Min had been thrilled to hear the twins had been spending time with Peony, even if the whole thing was still a work in progress. "Does she teach you magic, or just baking lessons? Her baking's pretty good. She could rival Rene." Pyr wasn't sure who would win in a bake-off between them, but he knew he'd want to be one of the judges. "But don't tell her I told you. Don't tell either of them."
"Nah, I'm done with training for today." There was no longer any need for Pyr to go to the sweets, as the sweets had come to Pyr. He had an idea. "Hey, why don't we go to the training grounds? There's usually a nice breeze blowing there, and maybe we'll meet someone you know. Let's find a place to sit down and I'll tell you who's around that I can see, and if you know them we can call them over!"
"I'd like that," Quen said, and let him lead her to the training grounds. "I'm taking my Black Mage test in just over a month now, and I feel like I spend all of my time cooped up these days, hunched over books or sitting in the casting room, trying to heat water without burning myself." She took one hand off the box and offered it to Pyr, palm up. "I haven't burned myself so far this week, but we've been working on Fire for a month now. I burned my hands so many times those first few weeks that I doubt I've got any fingerprints left." Indeed, the skin on her palm was still shiny and pink.
Replacing her hand on the box, she said, "Peony hasn't taught me to bake at all. I made these by following the recipe in a book. I figured it couldn't be that hard. You can try as many as you want, but don't expect them to be like Peony's." She shrugged. "But yeah, Peony is my magic teacher. I work with her every afternoon, but we don't really talk about our personal lives. She took me under her wing in May, and she kind of saved me, really. I don't know where I'd be right now if she hadn't. Certainly not five weeks out from my Black Mage test."
As they drew closer to the training grounds, Quen could hear the sounds of fighting. She strained her ears, hoping to recognize a voice, but the shouts were too indistinct. Instead, she decided she ought to continue her conversation with Pyr. "Why don't you want your sister to know you like her baking?"
Pyr had never considered the possibility that mages could hurt themselves with their magic; he'd just assumed that if they could call forth fire that fire would not burn their hands. But Quen's palms were pink and looked a bit raw.
He led Quen to a spot where they would not be in the way of other people's training and sat down. For Quen's benefit, he had named those fighters he recognised as they crossed the grounds, but there were a few he didn't know and he couldn't see any of the other squires around.
Pyr looked at a couple of senior guild members sparring some distance away from them. He couldn't imagine what it must be like to be only a little over a month from becoming a real fighter. "Only five weeks? Bet you're nervous. What kind of test do you have to pass to be a Black Mage? Do you have to fight someone?" He imagined a duel in a torchlit room, Quen versus a creepy smirking mage, both of them flinging fireballs and icicles at each other. The test probably wasn't as interesting as that, but the mental images were pretty cool and he found he didn't care if there was truth in them or not.
Once they were both sitting down, he opened the box and took out one of the cookies. "They look good!" He bit into it and chewed happily. Quen was right, they weren't as good as Peony's, but Pyr would have been surprised if they had been, as this was Quen's first try. The cookie was dense and while others may have found it much too sweet, Pyr could appreciate the raw sugary taste. "It's really good for a first try, Quen!" And, after finishing the first, he took another from the box.
As he munched on it, he debated how to explain the Peony situation to Quen. "She knows I like her baking. I've told her before that her baking is really good." He frowned; it was hard to explain. "I just don't want her to know how much I like it, I guess? Then she'd probably bake stuff for me more often and I know she's busy and I don't really want her fussing over me and Sky. I mean, I wouldn't turn her away if she brought me sweets more often. I just... I'm not sure what to make of her." He was rambling, he realised. "Guess I'm not making a lot of sense to you. But when I met Peony after coming to Emillion, that was the first time I can remember being in the same room with her. She left when Sky and I were very little. You probably know her better than I do, Quen." He shrugged and took another bite out of the cookie in his hand.
"I wish we got to fight someone!" Quen exclaimed. "That would be so much more exciting. No, it's just a two-part exam. The first part is a written exam about magic theory and elemental strengths and weaknesses and history of magic in Ivalice and that sort of thing. The second is a practical exam, where I think a bunch of mages are going to sit in a casting room and watch me throw spells at a practice dummy. And yeah, I am nervous, but I'm more nervous about what happens after I pass." She flopped on the ground next to the spot Pyr had chosen. "I've been at the tower since I was twelve. I'm eighteen now. Even six months ago I was pretty much hopeless. I still couldn't cast Fire without blowing up my fireplace and I had no idea what class I wanted to do. I just knew I didn't want to be a white mage. But ironically, white magic was the only type I could cast successfully without causing major property damage."
She took a cookie and bit into it. She thought they were pretty good for a first effort too; but like Pyr, she could tolerate levels of sweetness that others found off-putting. "I probably do know her better than you do," she admitted. "I've known her the entire time I've been at the tower, and she's always been very kind to me. All scholars take her classes, but she also took me around the city when I was afraid, and she took me out to tea with some of her friends after church.
"In Taurus we had an attack at the docks, and I thought I could sneak out and fight and sneak back in without anyone knowing, but my fire spell backfired and I got pretty badly burned. I almost died. My brother didn't talk to me for a month, and the tower grounded me. The only reason I didn't get punished worse was because Peony told the other senior mages that she wanted to take responsibility for my education. She told me in no uncertain terms that if I ever did anything like that again, she would throw me to the wolves." Quen grinned suddenly. "She's kind of scary, your sister. I did nothing for that entire first month except cool bowls of water. But now, Blizzard is my strongest spell. Even more than Cure, which I've known longer."
"A duel would be cooler," Pyr agreed. Thinking about it now, he wasn't even sure that fighting someone else was part of the test in the FG. Perhaps the fighters earned their class after beating the stuffing out of a practice dummy, though Pyr would be severely disappointed if that were the case. He made a mental note to ask one of the senior members of the guild. "I hope I get to duel when I take my test. It's the Fighters' Guild, right? I should get to fight." Better if it was an easy duel though. He didn't want to fail a dozen times.
"I still need to decide which class I want to be." Pyr didn't mean to sound whiny, but it had been nagging at him, and Quen was a friend. Hearing that she too had had doubts about which path to take made him feel that maybe it wasn't so bad not knowing yet. "Both Monk and Archer sound appealing, and I know if I pick a class I don't like I can always switch, but isn't it a pain?" Better to get it right the first time.
He took another of Quen's cookies - at this rate, between the two of them they would empty the box before long - and then he had an idea. "Hey, if you know Cure, will you teach me?"
"I can certainly try," Quen agreed. "Cure isn't a hard spell, and a lot of fighters know it. Just let me know when you want to try it." She was kind of glad to know that not all of the squires already knew exactly what they wanted. In the Mages Tower, more people were like Ridley, who came in with a specific goal, than like Quen, who had sort of floated along until she figured out what she'd wanted to do. From the friendships she had among the squires in the Fighters Guild, it seemed that Pyr was in the minority as well.
"One of my best friends, Merrion Priddy, switched from class to class a bunch of times," Quen told him. "Eventually he realized that his broad experience wasn't a series of failures; it made him the perfect Red Mage. Archers and monks fight in a very different style, and at your age, you have time to try both of them before you commit to one or the other. See if Drake will give you a few lessons in some Monk things, and then when you go out and do whatever it is squires do, try on his identity. Tell yourself you're a Monk, and when you spar or whatever, spar as a monk. Have Zacheus or someone show you how to be an archer, and do the same with that. Try out the archery targets, go out and tell yourself you're an Archer. See which one feels better." Quen shrugged. "That's how I figured it out eventually, too. I knew Quenten Delacreaux wasn't a white mage, no matter how hard people tried to fit me into that box. But once your sister took me on and gave me some success and I thought that maybe Quenten Delacreaux would be a black mage, it felt right."
She brushed her hands off and sighed, folding them in her lap. "I want to be a geomancer someday. I've been talking to this one geomancer who wants to help me once I get my class and she wants me to do some training with the Fighters Guild, to improve my spacial awareness. I think that means she wants me to work with a monk."
Pyr grinned. "Thanks!" She was right; most fighters knew Cure, which was why he felt he should get around to learning it. That'd help regardless of what class he picked. And Quen was a friend. "I'd rather learn from you than from other fighters. And it's better to spend my training hours with them learning fighter's techniques." It was natural to go to a mage if he wanted to learned magic, even if Quen's speciality lay more in the way of shooting fireballs. Which would be pretty cool, too.
He listened to the story about Quen's friend with a furrowed brow. He had never before considered that having a ragtag skillset made up of abilities from different classes could be a strength instead of a flaw. "I had some lessons with Drake, and Cressida taught me the basics of shooting a bow. I'm practicing on my own while I figure it out. I smacked my arm with the bowstring a few times during archery practice and got a huge black bruise! On the inside of my arm, almost three inches long! It hurt, but it was pretty cool!" (To be fair, it had been smaller than three inches, and it had long since faded to a less alarming shade of light green, but it sounded more dramatic that way.) "But I hadn't really thought about it that way," he confessed. Was Pyr Min a Monk, or an Archer? The only certainty was that Pyr Min was the sort of person who got a headache from thinking about himself in third person. Still, Quen's advice was good. He just had to not think so hard about which path to take, and go whichever way felt most comfortable. "Thanks, Quen. When I figure it out, I'll let you know."
Listening to Quen talk, Pyr thought for the first time how hard it must be to fight when you couldn't see your opponent. "You're pretty amazing, Quen," he said. It occurred to him that maybe he should try fighting blindfolded sometime. Maybe he'd learn some useful stuff, or maybe he'd just look stupid, standing in the middle of the training grounds and waving a blunted practice knife around. It'd be an experiment. "You're going to work with a monk? Is it Drake? Or the nun? She has a pet ferret that will bite your hand off if you get too close, so you should be careful." Pyr had escaped this fate so far, but he wasn't going to relax just yet. He could feel Thistle's eyes following him whenever he crossed Felicity in the Halls. "Just listen for the angry growling."
"Will it really bite off my hand?" Quen asked, horrified. She could only imagine what Darius would say if she went to him after having her hand bit off. And how would she read? "I hope it isn't her, then," she confessed. "She's probably a really nice person, but I don't know if I'd get along with the type of person who would keep a pet who eats people." She wasn't entirely sure about Cid, to be perfectly honest; and not only had she known him forever, she was fairly certain that none of his flan had ever actually eaten anyone. "I don't think it's Drake, though," she added after a moment. "Domina seems to be the kind of person who would prefer I be taught by a woman." Quen didn't know any other monks, though, besides Drake and the nun. Maybe it would be someone completely different.
"Anyway," Quen said, reaching over to clumsily pat Pyr's knee, "I'll be happy to teach you Cure whenever you want to learn it. I might need you to wait until toward the end of Virgo, though, if that's okay. Between now and my test I should probably focus on black magic. I feel like if I don't figure out how to heat water with Fire before Peony gets back from vacation, I'll never be ready on time for my test. And," she added with a smile, "I will be happy to help you figure out what you want to do, if there's anyway I can. In the meantime, we can always talk about bruises and injuries on the network." Quen had to admit: whenever she got an injury in a particularly interesting way, she always wore it like a badge of pride. Apparently Pyr was the same.
"I don't know any other monks," Pyr confessed. "I haven't been here very long, though. Maybe it's someone I haven't met yet." He resolved to ask Juliette about other monks in the FG. She would know the answer, if she could be convinced he was only asking a simple question and not inviting an argument.
"No problem, I can wait. I'll cross my fingers so you pass, Quen." She should focus on her test first, and when she passed, Pyr would experience her success vicariously. And maybe she would make cookies again. He found these cookies weren't exactly conventional, as they contained way too much sugar, but he liked them all the same. "Deal! We'll compare war wounds," Pyr laughed. Saving the battle at the docks on his first day, though, he hadn't had any serious injuries yet. But it seemed the attacks were a constant in Emillion, so anything could happen.
As they spoke, it began to get dark and the fighters that had been training on the grounds cleaned up and began to leave. It was pointless to train with such poor visibility. "I don't think anyone else is coming, Quen. It's already getting dark." In the end, they hadn't met any of Quen's other friends, but Pyr had enjoyed hanging out with her nevertheless. He stood up, brushing the crumbs from his trousers with his hand. "We should go. Come on, I'll walk with you." Of course Quen could probably get back to the Tower by herself, but it didn't feel right to leave her to walk alone after dark. He walked her to the nearest crystal, and then made his way back to Lindwyrm Hall, the last of the cookies clutched in his hand.