The only thing keeping her from bursting into frustrated tears was her ability to keep herself mentally calm. She sat on the small chair in her room with her hands clenched on the sturdy table that was fastened to the floor. She tried to allow her thoughts to flow like the waves so that she might yet get her sea legs.
In truth, the seas weren't even particularly turbulent – Sjal was simply so out of her element that she suffered. She was disappointed, because she had planned to use her time on these sea lengths of her journey to learn some things about herself. She heard that one could learn magic if certain conditions were met and she heard a rumor that it could happen just by having some kind of mental awakening. It didn't look like she would succeed, but she still tried.
Sjal allowed her body to relax a little while she shifted her focus from the motions of the boat to her inner psyche. She knew that she wasn't anywhere near as focused as she ought to be to learn a magic so she tried to think about tangential topics. She considered magic disciplines themselves and how they might function. She knew from practical experience that they were more than simply 'magical energies' that granted power. She took the thought to its logical conclusion – that the connection to magic instead amplified existing power.
The seasick woman also tried to think about how the magic actually granted their boons. They required aaether to create, so did that mean that they transferred that aether into the muscles and senses? Or did they affect the soul somehow? She didn't know if there was a way for her to find out, but she had to guess that it was the former. It made sense for the aether to somehow coat her muscles… or something of that sort.
Sjal was scared for a moment when she heard the knock but she calmed when she heard Gerel's familiar voice. "Just a second," she called back as she shakily got to her feet and walked over to open the door.
"As much as I would like to train, I don't think that I'll be able to do very much. I've been meditating to take my mind off of the waves… do you want to join me? You might even be able to learn a magic, although I know that might be a little hard if you've never done it before."
She went back to her seat and tried to relax again. "You just, calm your mind and focus on magics. If you really want to do something else then give me some time to mentally prepare." She flashed a smile as her eyes closed.
She was fairly good at slipping into a meditative state at this point. It only took a minute or two for her to get back to thinking about magics. She tried to pry another magic from her subconscious, but it was clear that it was going to take more than a few minutes to achieve. She contemplated why it was so difficult to learn new magics in this manner. Her gut wanted her to learn more magics and it clearly had the knowledge in it – somewhere. So why was it that she had to fight tooth and nail? She concluded that it must contain the knowledge of magics but be unable to access them on its own.
Sjal said to Gereld who was sitting down now, "you should try it, it's actually quite relaxing," before letting out a peaceful hum that faded to silence over the few minutes as she attempted to push out the rocking of the boat once more.
The woman was not used to meditating with someone else in the room. Gerel's presence was distracting. Not because he was bothering her, but she felt like she needed to be aware of what he was doing. She didn't want to go into such a deep trance that she'd ignore him entirely if he spoke. She decided to keep her ear trained on him.
Her idea paid off when he said he gave up on meditating, but he didn't leave or suggest that they do something else. "So, what do you want to do now?" she asked, not knowing that he was hard at work trying to move the water droplet.
Her mind wandered back to magics as she awaited his response. Her thought process was that if she could understand exactly what magics were, then maybe one of the next magics would make itself known to her. She thought about how magics likely worked by injecting aether into muscles or the sensory organs. That would explain why more aether produced greater results. That got her thinking about other things she might be able to enhance. She could bolster strength, basically every sense, even her endurance. The only logical next step was to alter her speed. Was there a magic that made people faster? She would find out, one way or another.
He told her that he was going to chill so she said "Suit yourself," taking a peek to see what exactly Gerel was doing. He claimed to be practicing the water magic but she couldn't see anything happening. She did feel like something was happening. She didn't know why, but a small tingling feeling made her hairs stand on end. It was as if something was warning her that someone else was using magic, but she had no idea what was causing the effect.
The feeling made her uncomfortable, as if she was in danger. She didn't bring it up, instead forcing her eyes closed to try regaining focus. Failing that, she tried to see if there was anything she could do to make the uneasy feeling go away.
"It must be my instincts," she thought once she pushed away all other possibilities. "I knew the surgeries I went through made me good at detecting magical things but… this feeling gives me the impression that it's good at countering mages." She thought some more, finding all interest in meditation falling to the wayside as she contemplated teleportation magic for once since it could defend against other magic, if she remembered correctly. She wondered whether it was good against other magic by design, or if that was a convenient side effect. She imagined that it might have made sense for a magic to come into existence to thwart others… but that was under the assumption that magic was 'created' by someone.
It was a lot to think about. Far too much for even a master meditator so she opened her eyes to look at Gerel again. "Okay, I'll bite. What are you doing? I don't see a damn thing happening." He told her he was manipulating water droplets
Sjal stared hard at her table until she saw the droplet that was, in fact, moving. It was hard to tell but this droplet was different from the others. She wasn't that impressed. Moving a single water droplet seemed insignificant, much less than what she would expect even a low grade mage to accomplish. Then again, she knew nothing about that magic's capabilities so she didn't verbalize her thoughts.
"That's neat. I suppose eventually you'll be able to work with much larger bodies of water, or even help steer ships. I've little experience using my aether to affect other things but I imagine it's difficult." She paused, considering his follow up statements. "Feel free to stay, leave, whatever you want. Though, I'm probably going to try to go into a deep trance to learn magic. Please don't bother me because it can take many hours, and even then I might not succeed."
She calmed herself once more and after ten minutes or so would push out everything, even the nagging feeling about Gerel using magic and even that she was even on a boat. She pushed so deeply inside her mind that she imagined that she was floating in a black void. It was peaceful at force, but then she started thinking about umbral magics. Earlier she had come to the conclusion that magics probably injected aether into the body to bolster it, so she thought about how magics might do the opposite – they might weaken the body by sucking the aether out of it.
Sjal thought for hours. Hours and hours of pondering about magics filled with questions and possible answers. She felt like a scholar the way that she was examining the magic in her mind's eye. She thought about magics, mostly. They were so strange and bizarre that she had a hard time focusing on anything else as time passed by in a blur.
She didn't even realize that Gerel was awake when he looked at her. She was too busy thinking about whether there were any magics that might be able to mentally handicap people. They could dull senses and the body, but could it do the same for the brain? What about the soul? Following that train of thought, she wondered if was somehow possible to use magics without a spark's help altogether.
Hours more passed, likely far after Gerel would eventually decide to leave and go do something else. Sometime early in the next morning Sjal would have an epiphany. A magic would finally start to come to the forefront of her thoughts. A strange looking magic who's function she couldn't decipher. Once she pictured it in her mind, she imagined herself touching it and inspecting it closely from every angle.
Her eyes slowly opened. She'd learned the magic, but she still had to test it out. After she got something to eat, anyways. The last thing she wanted to do was experiment when her body was crying out for food. If by some chance Gerel was still there she'd ask if he wanted to join her for breakfast.
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