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"I could see those who climb too far going blind." They watched the last of the sunset together. "You wanted to know how I can speak like the apes in any form, yes?" the cat asked, as the last lip of the sun disappeared behind the horizon.
"Yes," Diane told her. "I hadn't known anyone could do that."
"The spirit of an enormous falcon taught it to me."
"Falcon? That reminds me of something.." Diane thought a moment, then, "Tobias talked to a falcon spirit."
"Was it the Incarna, or a splinter spirit?" Vishnee asked.
"I don't think it could have been an Incarna. He would have been a lot crazier afterward." Diane paused a moment, thinking of Tobias. She wasn't sure he wasn't crazier than he seemed, actually. She changed the subject back to the gift. "Do you think you can teach it to me? Or do I need to find a falcon spirit?"
"I can teach you. It becomes reflex after a short time." Vishnee tilted her head. "Actually, Snip may be helping. Let me ask him." She paused, staring off into space. Diane watched the Bastet as she presumably spoke mentally with her familiar spirit. Sometimes Vishnee seemed so kitten-like, Diane thought, and others she was just incomprehensibly strange. And then at a few times she seemed like another typical argumentative member of pack Ronin. It was always so disconcerting, Diane thought, when they picked up yet a new stray of the supernatural world, another "but-I-thought-they-were-extinct" in her case, like Sho-an-che-a. Eventually Diane's train of thought was halted when Vishnee refocused her gold eyes and said, "Snip has an idea of sorts. A bit unorthodox, though."
"What's his idea?" Diane wondered for a moment whether Snip was actually male, and why Vishnee used the male pronoun for him. She would have thought it would be more natural to use the female pronoun, since Englings were splinters of Gaia. Snip couldn't actually be male, could it? It boggled her mind to imagine the crystal sphere actually having a sex.
"He says that if you open yourself up to him, he could enter your mind, and then share the information he receives from having his senses linked to mine," the cat told the wolf. Diane hesitated. Would Snip's thoughts disturb her mind incapacitatingly? She assumed not, but caution made her wary. Vishnee continued, "Otherwise it might take weeks to learn the nuances of activating the correct vocal reflexes. In return, I'd like to learn a gift from you, if you know any."
Diane decided it would not be that different from the usual way of a spirit teaching her a gift. She told the cat this, agreeing to let Snip into her mind. "While it's in there it can figure out what gift I know that you'd like to learn, too."
"Very well. Breathe deeply now, and clear your mind of everything save Gaia." Vishnee-Set's whiskers twitched.
Diane focused her mind and began a prayer to Gaia, along the lines of the one she imagined Vishnee had been saying earlier. The beauty of the sunset danced again behind her closed eyes. She felt a sudden sense of serenity wash over her, and a crystal sphere seemed to float in the imagined sunset. It seemed to be attempting to keep still in her mind so as not to disturb her thoughts too much.
Vishnee began to speak in English, and Diane felt the movements of her mouth and throat. The effect was so disconcerting that she did not quite understand the first few words. ".. ..how my tongue articulates without changing form," the cat was saying. She felt the cat's tongue superimposed over her own wolf tongue; the textures and musculature were similar, but different enough that she nearly gagged. She felt the spirit adjusting slightly, and the gag reflex subsided, though it was not entirely gone. The movements felt so awkward in a wolf's mouth, but Diane could sense that with enough practice she might someday sound almost as smooth as Vishnee did.
She tried to speak along with Vishnee's words. Vishnee said, "Perhaps some more words." Diane's voice made this sound more like "prrrpssmarrrr wrrrrdsss."
"The man striving for the sunset reminds me of the Bubasti. We grab what little light we can before it disappears forever. If that hastens a more rapid sunset, we can only mourn our own folly while hoarding the stolen light. Especially if we're blinded in the process." Diane slurred these words as she echoed Vishnee's crisp English.
Diane tried to reply in English words of her own. "Darknessss falssss an we arrr all bline," she said awkwardly.
"You're doing better," Vishnee said, "I can understand those words as being English."
They conversed a little longer, Vishnee explaining more uses of the gift, and discussing the Wyldlings of the caern, and why cat form was superior to human form for Vishnee in almost all ways. Diane's ability to speak English improved sufficiently that she asked Snip to stop helping her, so she could try it by herself. She was excited by the new ability, even though its uses that she imagined were somewhat frivolous. Talking to Rosie without having to change to human form, or adding human voices into stories told in Garou with more pronounced effect – even accents. She was particularly amused that she seemed to be picking up the ability to imitate Vishnee's British accent along with the gift – the vocal movements Snip had passed on had contained the accent whole in a way. Though her practice of the gift was still rough enough that she thought any English accent was still drowned out by her wolf accent at the moment.
The wolf waited, rather excitedly, to find out what gift Vishnee would wish to learn. She had no idea how she would teach a gift. None of her own gifts had such specific physical sensation to convey in the manner Snip had done. She was not sure she wanted it back in her head, either, though it had been a very polite guest indeed. Once a day to have a guest in her mind was probably enough.
(from here on, the story was written by Tab)
"Conjuring," the wolf said in English, though with a thick interference from her jaws and teeth. "The elemental gift? Creating water or fire?"
Sifting through the memories Snip flooded to her of this one's gifts, Vishnee could not find any other gift that bore such a resemblance. She had to remind herself that this Talesinger likely spoke a more varied vocabulary than she did, an aspect that was simple to forget when taken into account that they both spoke English and Garou. The irritating process of bridging the frames of reference together between their methods of speaking would have to begin posthaste. "Precisely. Something out of nothing," Vish confirmed.
The wolf stood up and paced back and forth as the feline's eyes followed her. Diane remarked in a thoughtful manner that seemed out of place for a Garou, "I'm not sure exactly how to teach you that. Let me think a bit."
Ask her if she would mind that cohabitation theory in reverse...
Good idea, the Bastet thought to her familiar. "Could Snip remain in you while you perform the gift and send me the sensations?" It seemed a likely agreement, as the lupus had already undergone the more disconcerting of the two processes.
"It could...but there arent really any sensations. It's more about getting elementals to think you're worth listening to. I know. Let's go down to the stream," suggested the Garou.
"After you," said the Bastet as she rose and loped after the trotting lupine, who turned and looked back at on occasion. Obviously, the Garou was not familiar with Bastet speed, but it mattered little. The pair reached the stream as the Bubasti took a sip of the water and watched the Galliard out of the corner of her eye.
"What I generally do is say a bit of a...well, it's not a prayer exactly. More like an oration but it's silent, just in my head. But I'll do it out loud for you so you get the idea, or I hope so anyway. At a point, I can feel that the elemental has noticed and is ready to materialize the element for me...and I just kind of think where I want it," the Child of Gaia explained.
"An invocation?" Vishnee queried in definition of what had been told to her.
"Yes, invocation. Exactly, thanks."
"Wait. Before you do that, I do have a little experience in this sort of thing," the cat said.
Diane sat on her haunches and regarded the feline as she commented, "That'll make it easier to learn, I bet."
It occurred to the Algerian that this one might have said that last statement dismissively, so Vishnee-Set turned and concentrated on the opposite bank of the stream. There were no words needed...feral creatures had invoked such powers long before words even existed. The light dimmed and faded away on the opposite bank, replaced by a patch of oozing blackness. Nodding to indicate her invocation, she plainly remarked, "Invocation."
The Metis squinted at the darkness in a perplexed expression and stated, "Hmm? I didn't hear your invocation...it just appeared."
The feline wondered if this one had ever just used her instincts for something...she was very analytical, much like her father had been. "Words are meaningless and forgettable. Spirits of nature respect emotion and instinct," the kyphur spoke, feeling the weight of having to talk so often already starting to creep up on her. She was a listener, not a talker.
The Galliard blinked a few times and muttered, "I'm not sure how to teach it to you without using words."
"I'm sure the words will suffice," Vish commented. It was a moot point to explain instinct to someone. It defied words, and was something both higher and lower than ape thought...it was more sure than reason and logic...more concrete than any vocabulary. It was a topic that might need broaching another time though.
"Use the words to get the idea of how I focus... you won't actually need words, as such, to do it in practice. I don't. At least not out loud," the Gibbous Moon said.
Vishnee-Set nods slowly, wondering if the lupus realized she had already tried to convey the same sentiment to her and simply spoke, "Precisely."
Looking into the water and speaking softly in Garou to the stream, she could feel Diane create a link between herself and the elementals playing in the stream. A face seemed to be looking back at her out of the water after a few moments, both by the wolf's sight and by Snip's. Vishnee-Set perked her ears and watched intently as Diane spoke softly in Garou to the elemental, "This is Vishnee-Set. I am teaching her to evoke the elements." She glanced from Vish to the spirit, aware that she had noticed the spirit. "Please look on her favorably."
Suddenly, watery arms reached out from the stream and hugged the cat in greeting, pulling her completely underwater. The rush of near-freezing water was unpleasant, but it would have been disrespectful to climb back out of the invitation. Pursing her lips and looking about beneath the surface, the murky stream was teeming with life and rippling with the animation of the elemental. She could see Diane's expression of surprise above, and it occurred to her that it might be best to show signs of life. She poked her head back up out of the water, aware suddenly that her fur must appear to be in horrible condition. It was, however, worth suspending her ego for in the hopes of appeasing the local powers here. She could hear Snip laughing in her mind and resisted the urge to scowl as she looked up at the lupine in bewilderment.
"Err...I hope that means it likes you. I had no idea it would do that," the Garou said with an expression of startled curiosity.
It occurred to Vish that the water elemental could have done something much worse than just get her wet. Drowning, freezing, throwing her against the rocks with currents...besides, the embrace was meant to be a friendly gesture. She took a deep breath and ducked under the water and watched the elemental swish around before rising in the water again to watch it move above the surface. Leaning forward and sniffing it, the elemental seemed to have... no scent at all, basically. It swirled around Vishnee-Set playfully, and she watched with a wide-eyed expression vaguely reminiscent of a kitten with a ball of yarn. It was a fascination, this being of pure water. She swished her tail through the water just fast enough to keep the elemental chasing it close behind.
"Heh. You'll be better at it than I am in no time," Diane commented. "Just tell it where you'd like some water to appear, see if it'll do it for you."
Vish had almost forgotten that she was supposed to be learning the invocation, intrigued as she was by the elemental. Turning to look back and forth, she concentrated on a space of air right above the stream two feet away. Her instincts attuned herself to the wilderness, as she always had been, and formed the request without words or rhetoric, only the layer of beast-thought she had. A rush of water cascaded into the rushing stream a moment later, and the elemental surrounded and splashed her once before vanishing...as if on cue. Turning and concentrating on another spot above the stream, the feline focused her instinct on repeating the process without the presence of her erstwhile elemental playmate. A moment later, she was rewarded with more water pouring into the stream. A final time, she turned and focused on an area right above the soil on the ground, adjusting her mindset to that of an earth elemental, causing a mound of soil to form in a pile. Satisfied, the kyphur creeped out of the water and shook her fur. After water had sprayed in all direction, she sat and looked down at the sorry state her fur was in, further accented by the onset of shivering from the cold air meeting her soaked skin...it was hard to look regal and dignified when you are freezing.
"Let's go back to the cave and get you warmed up a bit," the wolf said as she stood and turned toward the cave.
"Thank you for the tutelage, Talesinger," stated the feline as she followed close behind, trying to hide her eagerness for a fire's warmth.
"Thank you as well."