Chapter 30 Preparation part 2, The tale of Penelo
Penelo walked away from Basch in a huff. Honestly, he really had to watch where he was walking. Especially since he was a wanted man. She didn't have the time to waste, she had to get to her lesson. A month had past since the destruction of the eighth fleet and her magick had become considerably better. After a few more lowtown streets she opened the door to the waterway where she and Fran practised magick, strangely enough neither she nor Fran had any idea this was also Vaan and Basch's training ground. The guys had very little idea of the two of them either.
As Penelo walked into the chamber the echo rushed up to greet her.
"You're late." Said her tutor calmly. Penelo pouted.
"Ran into some idiot who couldn't see where he was going." Fran smiled wryley.
"Very well." She said, striding to the side of the flowing water. "Shall we begin?" Her pupil nodded. "What are the advantages of using this water in a spell rather than water created by you?"
"It takes much less energy to move water already there than to create it." Penelo recited the textbook answer. Fran nodded approvingly.
"Why is this more efficient method not always practical?"
"Because there is not always water to hand." Fran paused for a few moments walking over to the other side of the chamber.
"Defend yourself." She barked, before Penelo could answer the vierra wheeled round and promtly muttered. "Lagua fracha." From thin air a torrent of water errupted from behind Fran and shot like a cannonball towards Penelo, the girl barely had time to enounciate.
"Lagua fracha!" From behind her a similar yet considerably smaller jet of water surged forward and collided with Fran's. It held for an instant, then broke as the tidal surge overpowered it. Penelo barely had time to scream before she was washed off her feet and into the waterway. Struggling to the surface she saw the face of her tutor supressing laughter, she scowled as she climbed dripping wet out of the river.
"You know I can't match you Fran." She protested but the vierra held up a hand to silence her.
"You didn't need to. Now you attack me." Penelo grudgingly walked to the opposite side of the room and focusing herself.
"Lagua fracha." She muttered and once again the torrent of water emerged and surged towards her opponent. Fran stood there calmly, letting the water approach. Then in one smooth motion she extended her arm, spoke an incantation and Penelo's attack veered off to the side. The great missile of water circled round Fran following her arm like a ribbon on the arm of a dancer. only when the arc was complete did Penelo see where this was going. The water was blasted back at her almost faster than she could see and she took another trip to the drink. After squeezing the last of the water out of her hair, Fran explained.
"Why counter with you're magick which you know is inferior to mine when you can simply use the spell I threw at you to attack me." Penelo choked out a few more mouthfulls of water.
"Then why don't most mages do it?" Fran shrugged.
"It is difficult I suppose, and it is not a human magick. It was invented by us vierra." Penelo looked crestfallen.
"Does that mean I can't learn it?" Fran shook her head.
"On the contrary, I can recall many human mages who mastered it. The trick is timing." She wordlessly lit a fireball in her fist and slowly pushed it away from her. "The further away a spell goes from you, the less you can control it. Each and every mage has a certain range, that depending on their power they have no control over the spell at all." Penelo watched as Fran's fireball quickly became more wild and uncontrolled. "It is at that stage of weakness when you must stretch out your own energy to the energy of the attack as you would to this river and cast your own response, using the energy of your opponent." Penelo looked clueless, Fran sighed. "This will take a lot of work."
Penelo emerged from the waterway, sodden and dripping. It had taken her hours to perfect the ability and possibly fifteen times in the river. Perhaps this magick lark was more than she could handle, it's not like she needed it anymore. The buisness with the empire was over, she would never be needing this skill of hers and in time Fran would leave Rabanastre with Balthier and she would never use it again.
"Penelo." Her head whipped around as the vierra called her back from the door. "You did well today, very few people could have mastered that as quick as you." The girl was speechless as Fran smiled and walked away into lowtown, maybe one day she'd learn to keep dry.
I know it's a short chapter but this little tales arc isn't a novel, just telling you what they've been up to this past month.