Missing the forest for the trees.
Friday, 31 August 2012 09:51![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
flint_garou31 August, 2012
The moon is in the waxing Full (Ahroun) Moon phase (95% full).
Flint has settled on the couch with his sketchbook in his lap, though 'settled' is perhaps an overstatement. The young galliard seems disheveled, in the same clothes that he's been in the whole period of confinement to the basement, jeans and a long-sleeved tee, sweatshirt rolled up behind him as sort of a pillow for on the couch. Right now, though, it's a pillow for several cockroaches. Flint hums, a little disjointed, several strands of melody that he switches between, but never without a part of his gaze on the stairs upward and the door.
Norman makes his way down the stairs looking his typical self. Typical self in that Flint has nothing on him when it comes to wearing the same outfit day upon day. He doesn't seem to have anything but the one pair of pants and the one long-sleeved tee. Yet, there is something subtly different about him, that the most casual of acquaintances probably wouldn't even pick up on. It's almost as if there's a little less of the deer about him, and a touch more of the wolf; or perhaps he simply looks a more like he's wearing his rank more comfortably than before. His "Hey," of greeting isn't much different than usual, though, accompanied by a slightly raised eyebrow that might mean 'how are you doing, really', or simply 'hi'.
Flint looks up, setting the pencil in the wire binding of his sketchbook, and the sketchbook in his backpack, which rests near the couch on the floor. Shoulders lift in a little bit of a shrug, along with a nod of greeting, as though he didn't quite expect to see the Get. "Hey," Flint offers, quietly. The tone's a little flat, though, and closer, it's evident that despite that there's no heat going in the basement, Flint's sweating.
"They said they'd had to shut you up down here." The Get's tension returns with that, his voice quietly angry. "Is that… are you… I'd be eating my way through the walls by now."
The teen nods. "I don't know, I. I…" Flint's only still sitting on the couch, it would seem, by force of will, and his entire body is tense. The number of times he's tried to leave since being confined to the basement isn't brought up, but it had been mentioned too, at almost every time the teen'd been brought a meal for the first days of it. "I'm just trying to. To, get. Through it, past it, not. Not think."
The Get glances around, and his own tension isn't reducing. "I… I'd better not spend too long here," he says. "Uh. But. I'll stay. As long as… I think it will be safe. Was there more, for that Rite?"
The mention of the rite, Flint seems to absolutely latch onto, though he shakes his head. "Not, that one. That one is. It's." The teen's clearly fighting even to focus this much, but he does so, leaning back to stare at the ceiling. "It's simple, that simplicity helps. You. You just—" Perhaps, not such a good topic after all. "It. Outside." The last word seems more towards begging, the outdoors that Flint hasn't seen in nearly a week, than a statement, nor does the teen's moment of lucidity last, though he firmly shuts his mouth rather than go on incoherently.
Norman chews on his lip, his sympathies visibly with the young Galliard. He looks up the stairs, thoughtfully, frowns even more than usual, and tears his eyes back again to Flint. "Then… do you know the spirit rhythms?"
Flint's nails dig through his shirt and into his forearms, but that does seem to help Flint stay grounded, though it's a long moment of silence as a shudder passes through him before he gets fully back to himself. Attention goes to Norman, and the boy shakes his head. "I. I don't… didn't, when. When Devon made cliath, you. Described that, in, with. When you were, telling him about, some of the rites? At. At—" That statement cuts off, focus remaining on now, and Flint does seem genuinely glad for the company.
The Get squats down on the floor, almost central in the more open part of the basement area, and pulls two pairs of drumsticks from his back pocket. One is of wood, delicately carved with elemental Glyphs, and he holds this pair out towards Flint. The other pair, which he keeps hold of, are off-white, patched with pale brownish tones and streaked with darker brown, that same brown highlighting extensive carving. This time the symbols are more varied and speak of pain and sacrifice, violence and duty. "You're packed?" he asks.
Flint sets the backpack aside from the couch, and gets up, though there's a jerking half-motion as the boy once more forcibly keeps himself from just going towards the door and pulls his attention to here and now. Across from Norman, after shooing a few cockroaches, Flint settles, kneeling and sitting on his heels. "Yes," he acknowledges. "Under. Under Merlin." The drumsticks offered are taken, carefully, Flint's attention on the Get, head tilted to one side as he looks at the carving on Norman's pair of drumsticks, brows raised very slightly.
Norman takes a few moments to register Flint's line of sight and questioning look. "For different spirits," he says, rather shortly. "Correspondences. These ones are from my arm." He lightly hefts the drumsticks he still holds, then settles each into the palm of one hand. "Merlin's rhythm is a little like Falcon, and a little like the air-spirits, and a tiny bit like Weasel," he continues, closing his eyes and feeling out the shape of a beat, slowly at first but gradually accelerating.
The galliard nods again. Whatever reaction to the origin of the pair of drumsticks, is hard to tell amongst the general twitchiness of the cliath, and Flint's fingers pick up the rhythm easily, though the drumsticks aren't moved yet. Instead, Flint's steadying his breathing to the rhythm.
"Join in," Norman says, the abruptness perhaps due to his concentration on the beat. He notches down the speed again, to make that attempt more likely to succeed.
Flint chews on his lower lip, but halfway through, Flint switches his tapping along from being with his finger against the drumsticks, to being with the drumsticks themselves. He is, definitely, a galliard, and has a good sense of the beat, faltering for a moment before it matches entirely, and then Flint picks up the pace back to what it had been before Norman notched down the speed. The boy also hums, very barely, and the strains of melody seem to go with the rhythm easily, meshing.
Eyes still closed, the drumming and the humming fill the room in unison. It's a breath of free air, a swift flash of agile wings, indefatigable bravery. "That's your Totem's rhythm," the Godi says quietly, easing the words into the beat after a long minute. "That's Merlin. And…" and his own drumming morphs into something else, skittering and insistent and insidious. "…this is Cockroach."
Flint pauses for a moment, both humming and his own echo of the rhythm, but he picks up the rhythm for Cockroach easily, head bowed. The humming starts again, too, but different, this one recognisably a Glass Walker ballad of some sort, though changed and adapted as Flint goes to fit in. There's another pause, less intentional, as Flint hunches his shoulders and winces, but then he picks up the rhythm without missing a beat.
Norman keeps it up until Flint has got the feel of it, and finally stills his own drumsticks. Only for a moment, he takes up another rhythm again, an oddly comical one, yet with an underlying steadiness. "Duck," he says.
Flint tilts his head to the side, obeying quite literally for a moment, before the sense of the Get's word gets through, and this rhythm too, Flint picks up and joins in, first tapping his fingers and then the drumsticks, breathing adjusting to match the rhythm for the time being. This continues, and then, without letting the rhythm lapse, Flint asks, "What of, of the. The rest of, the tribes?" The teen's eagerness for learning that Norman has seen several times before is only impeded by circumstance right now, and comes through nonetheless, though with some effort.
"I don't know all of them," the Godi replies, but he spends time going through those he does, knowledge which lacks only Wendigo and Uktena. He talks of others, without yet showing them—there is only so much that can be memorised in one go after all—but he promises to teach them once the Galliard is beat-perfect on those he has been shown. Weasel, each of the Five Winds, Brook, Raven, Granite, Quartz, and Spider.
The Glass Walker keeps his focus on the rhythms, about half of them ending up for the moment and purposes of learning, associated with some bit of melody or another, about half of them not, and while Norman talks at the end, Flint's fingers tap out, steadily, the rhythm for Merlin once more, and there's a tense, strained smile. "Thanks," he notes, quietly. And the boy certainly seems more grounded, as well. "These. It. This… feels." He pauses, struggling for words to describe for a moment, or for words in general. "Connected. Connection, to. Everything."
"It talks to the spirits," the Godi says, nodding agreement. "It reaches to them. If you beat the rhythm of a spirit every day for three days, it will know you have honoured it, when you meet it."
Flint nods, turning the pair of wooden drumsticks over in his hands and for a moment, his expression gets that dull blank look again, detached. "That. Yeah," is what Flint says, though his nails dig into his hands, hard. "Connection is, is good. Being, here. Real things, not." Flint purposefully turns so that he can't see the door, up and out of the basement.
"Show me what you've learned," the Get demands with sudden authority.
Flint nods, and it takes a moment for hands to unclench, and he tugs his sleeves down further, too, as he re-situates the drumsticks in his hands. There's a breath in, and another nod, before Flint starts, several times through the rhythm for Merlin and then into the rhythm for Cockroach, and then Duck, and then through Thunder, before his concentration lapses. Shoulders tense and expression contorts, frustrated.
Norman doesn't seem so happy about the situation either, glancing at the walls now and then almost as if he were checking to make sure they hadn't closed in when he wasn't looking. He gives a soft growl and straightens. "Ever learned to fight in small spaces?"
Flint absently picks up a cockroach that had settled on his knee and sets it on the coffee table, though there's a surprising absence of the usual number of cans of cat food and things for the cockroaches, having been replaced by bread because even that's sharp, At the question, the galliard straightens as well, and shakes his head. "Not. This small. Alleys, a bit, streets. Learned to, fight without, shifting. But." There's another pause, and Flint's head tilts to the side, the faint question, brows furrowing, but unsaid as he gets to his feet and offers the drumsticks to Norman, carefully.
"Sometimes there's no room. To claw. To swing. To shift. There's things you can do." The Get sets the drumsticks to one side, along with a few other bits and pieces from his pockets, then shakes out his arms and legs to loosen up from the cramped position of drumming. "I can show you…"
The moon is in the waxing Full (Ahroun) Moon phase (95% full).
Flint has settled on the couch with his sketchbook in his lap, though 'settled' is perhaps an overstatement. The young galliard seems disheveled, in the same clothes that he's been in the whole period of confinement to the basement, jeans and a long-sleeved tee, sweatshirt rolled up behind him as sort of a pillow for on the couch. Right now, though, it's a pillow for several cockroaches. Flint hums, a little disjointed, several strands of melody that he switches between, but never without a part of his gaze on the stairs upward and the door.
Norman makes his way down the stairs looking his typical self. Typical self in that Flint has nothing on him when it comes to wearing the same outfit day upon day. He doesn't seem to have anything but the one pair of pants and the one long-sleeved tee. Yet, there is something subtly different about him, that the most casual of acquaintances probably wouldn't even pick up on. It's almost as if there's a little less of the deer about him, and a touch more of the wolf; or perhaps he simply looks a more like he's wearing his rank more comfortably than before. His "Hey," of greeting isn't much different than usual, though, accompanied by a slightly raised eyebrow that might mean 'how are you doing, really', or simply 'hi'.
Flint looks up, setting the pencil in the wire binding of his sketchbook, and the sketchbook in his backpack, which rests near the couch on the floor. Shoulders lift in a little bit of a shrug, along with a nod of greeting, as though he didn't quite expect to see the Get. "Hey," Flint offers, quietly. The tone's a little flat, though, and closer, it's evident that despite that there's no heat going in the basement, Flint's sweating.
"They said they'd had to shut you up down here." The Get's tension returns with that, his voice quietly angry. "Is that… are you… I'd be eating my way through the walls by now."
The teen nods. "I don't know, I. I…" Flint's only still sitting on the couch, it would seem, by force of will, and his entire body is tense. The number of times he's tried to leave since being confined to the basement isn't brought up, but it had been mentioned too, at almost every time the teen'd been brought a meal for the first days of it. "I'm just trying to. To, get. Through it, past it, not. Not think."
The Get glances around, and his own tension isn't reducing. "I… I'd better not spend too long here," he says. "Uh. But. I'll stay. As long as… I think it will be safe. Was there more, for that Rite?"
The mention of the rite, Flint seems to absolutely latch onto, though he shakes his head. "Not, that one. That one is. It's." The teen's clearly fighting even to focus this much, but he does so, leaning back to stare at the ceiling. "It's simple, that simplicity helps. You. You just—" Perhaps, not such a good topic after all. "It. Outside." The last word seems more towards begging, the outdoors that Flint hasn't seen in nearly a week, than a statement, nor does the teen's moment of lucidity last, though he firmly shuts his mouth rather than go on incoherently.
Norman chews on his lip, his sympathies visibly with the young Galliard. He looks up the stairs, thoughtfully, frowns even more than usual, and tears his eyes back again to Flint. "Then… do you know the spirit rhythms?"
Flint's nails dig through his shirt and into his forearms, but that does seem to help Flint stay grounded, though it's a long moment of silence as a shudder passes through him before he gets fully back to himself. Attention goes to Norman, and the boy shakes his head. "I. I don't… didn't, when. When Devon made cliath, you. Described that, in, with. When you were, telling him about, some of the rites? At. At—" That statement cuts off, focus remaining on now, and Flint does seem genuinely glad for the company.
The Get squats down on the floor, almost central in the more open part of the basement area, and pulls two pairs of drumsticks from his back pocket. One is of wood, delicately carved with elemental Glyphs, and he holds this pair out towards Flint. The other pair, which he keeps hold of, are off-white, patched with pale brownish tones and streaked with darker brown, that same brown highlighting extensive carving. This time the symbols are more varied and speak of pain and sacrifice, violence and duty. "You're packed?" he asks.
Flint sets the backpack aside from the couch, and gets up, though there's a jerking half-motion as the boy once more forcibly keeps himself from just going towards the door and pulls his attention to here and now. Across from Norman, after shooing a few cockroaches, Flint settles, kneeling and sitting on his heels. "Yes," he acknowledges. "Under. Under Merlin." The drumsticks offered are taken, carefully, Flint's attention on the Get, head tilted to one side as he looks at the carving on Norman's pair of drumsticks, brows raised very slightly.
Norman takes a few moments to register Flint's line of sight and questioning look. "For different spirits," he says, rather shortly. "Correspondences. These ones are from my arm." He lightly hefts the drumsticks he still holds, then settles each into the palm of one hand. "Merlin's rhythm is a little like Falcon, and a little like the air-spirits, and a tiny bit like Weasel," he continues, closing his eyes and feeling out the shape of a beat, slowly at first but gradually accelerating.
The galliard nods again. Whatever reaction to the origin of the pair of drumsticks, is hard to tell amongst the general twitchiness of the cliath, and Flint's fingers pick up the rhythm easily, though the drumsticks aren't moved yet. Instead, Flint's steadying his breathing to the rhythm.
"Join in," Norman says, the abruptness perhaps due to his concentration on the beat. He notches down the speed again, to make that attempt more likely to succeed.
Flint chews on his lower lip, but halfway through, Flint switches his tapping along from being with his finger against the drumsticks, to being with the drumsticks themselves. He is, definitely, a galliard, and has a good sense of the beat, faltering for a moment before it matches entirely, and then Flint picks up the pace back to what it had been before Norman notched down the speed. The boy also hums, very barely, and the strains of melody seem to go with the rhythm easily, meshing.
Eyes still closed, the drumming and the humming fill the room in unison. It's a breath of free air, a swift flash of agile wings, indefatigable bravery. "That's your Totem's rhythm," the Godi says quietly, easing the words into the beat after a long minute. "That's Merlin. And…" and his own drumming morphs into something else, skittering and insistent and insidious. "…this is Cockroach."
Flint pauses for a moment, both humming and his own echo of the rhythm, but he picks up the rhythm for Cockroach easily, head bowed. The humming starts again, too, but different, this one recognisably a Glass Walker ballad of some sort, though changed and adapted as Flint goes to fit in. There's another pause, less intentional, as Flint hunches his shoulders and winces, but then he picks up the rhythm without missing a beat.
Norman keeps it up until Flint has got the feel of it, and finally stills his own drumsticks. Only for a moment, he takes up another rhythm again, an oddly comical one, yet with an underlying steadiness. "Duck," he says.
Flint tilts his head to the side, obeying quite literally for a moment, before the sense of the Get's word gets through, and this rhythm too, Flint picks up and joins in, first tapping his fingers and then the drumsticks, breathing adjusting to match the rhythm for the time being. This continues, and then, without letting the rhythm lapse, Flint asks, "What of, of the. The rest of, the tribes?" The teen's eagerness for learning that Norman has seen several times before is only impeded by circumstance right now, and comes through nonetheless, though with some effort.
"I don't know all of them," the Godi replies, but he spends time going through those he does, knowledge which lacks only Wendigo and Uktena. He talks of others, without yet showing them—there is only so much that can be memorised in one go after all—but he promises to teach them once the Galliard is beat-perfect on those he has been shown. Weasel, each of the Five Winds, Brook, Raven, Granite, Quartz, and Spider.
The Glass Walker keeps his focus on the rhythms, about half of them ending up for the moment and purposes of learning, associated with some bit of melody or another, about half of them not, and while Norman talks at the end, Flint's fingers tap out, steadily, the rhythm for Merlin once more, and there's a tense, strained smile. "Thanks," he notes, quietly. And the boy certainly seems more grounded, as well. "These. It. This… feels." He pauses, struggling for words to describe for a moment, or for words in general. "Connected. Connection, to. Everything."
"It talks to the spirits," the Godi says, nodding agreement. "It reaches to them. If you beat the rhythm of a spirit every day for three days, it will know you have honoured it, when you meet it."
Flint nods, turning the pair of wooden drumsticks over in his hands and for a moment, his expression gets that dull blank look again, detached. "That. Yeah," is what Flint says, though his nails dig into his hands, hard. "Connection is, is good. Being, here. Real things, not." Flint purposefully turns so that he can't see the door, up and out of the basement.
"Show me what you've learned," the Get demands with sudden authority.
Flint nods, and it takes a moment for hands to unclench, and he tugs his sleeves down further, too, as he re-situates the drumsticks in his hands. There's a breath in, and another nod, before Flint starts, several times through the rhythm for Merlin and then into the rhythm for Cockroach, and then Duck, and then through Thunder, before his concentration lapses. Shoulders tense and expression contorts, frustrated.
Norman doesn't seem so happy about the situation either, glancing at the walls now and then almost as if he were checking to make sure they hadn't closed in when he wasn't looking. He gives a soft growl and straightens. "Ever learned to fight in small spaces?"
Flint absently picks up a cockroach that had settled on his knee and sets it on the coffee table, though there's a surprising absence of the usual number of cans of cat food and things for the cockroaches, having been replaced by bread because even that's sharp, At the question, the galliard straightens as well, and shakes his head. "Not. This small. Alleys, a bit, streets. Learned to, fight without, shifting. But." There's another pause, and Flint's head tilts to the side, the faint question, brows furrowing, but unsaid as he gets to his feet and offers the drumsticks to Norman, carefully.
"Sometimes there's no room. To claw. To swing. To shift. There's things you can do." The Get sets the drumsticks to one side, along with a few other bits and pieces from his pockets, then shakes out his arms and legs to loosen up from the cramped position of drumming. "I can show you…"