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| - Mira What can be seen of this woman under the large, grubby cloak that she wears isn't a whole lot. One might be able to tell that she is small and wiry, almost painfully thin. The bottom of the cloak drags on the ground, and looks frayed, as if it has been trod upon often. The hood of the dirty, dusty cloak that she wears manages to throw a shadow over most of her face, leaving it mostly obscured. A clump or two of frazzled, dark hair finds its way out of the cloak's hood to stick out at odd and unnatural angles away from her face. Simon Before you is a young human male of average height and narrow build. His hair is a deep brown, parted and cut short. A strong jawline and deepset eyes of blue-grey give the man a stern look at a glance. For facial hair he wears a well groomed goatee and mustache, trimmed short and of the same deep color as the rest of his hair. All in all, the man's demeanor can be summed up in a word: aware. Simon is dressed in earth tones. Light tan, loose fitting trousers are tucked into soft leather boots that come up to just under his knees, and are tied tight with brown, leather chords. Tucked into the top of his pants is a simple shirt of a matching color. Over this is a loose wool tunic of dark brown, covering his arms completely and hanging down below his waste. It's comfortable clothing, suitable for most climates and cultures. Currently, Simon's attire is soiled. Blaster burns darken areas along his legs, with blackened holes exposing pale, scarred flesh beneath. Another sizeable burn-hole covers his left shoulder, with the material missing in a large, circular area. The skin beneath looks a little pale, but otherwise looks like healthy, new skin. Whatever the young man has been through, it looks as though his clothing has not faired as well as he has. ____________________________________________________ Simon watches as Markus gets up and heads to the cockpit, then turns his attention back to Mira. The momentary, wafer thin connection to the True Source had been subtle, yet clear and true. And of course, Mira denied it to herself, as any rational, civilized person would. "Have you ever tried to train anything else to move or dance? What made you think to 'train' these particular beans to jump?" "Like I said. They were under my bed. And I had heard of Tivian Jumping Beans. I said to myself, 'What if these are them?' And so I tested them. And they were shy. But I worked with them. And sure enough! They were Tivian!" Mira explains patiently, holding the beans in the palm of her hand. "You wanna see?" she offers, holding them out to Simon. "But be careful." Training Mira was going to be an interesting feat, Simon could tell. Perhaps it was for the best that both she and Markus would go through the first steps together. She had already found a fraction of her gift, yet it was Markus that seemed to have the first grasps on the thought behind the actions. They would be able to push and pull each other along. Perhaps even without him. Rubbing his chin, Simon turns his attention around the area for a different prop. His gaze finds a screw half twisted out of the bulkhead behind him, loose enough for his fingers to bring out. As his begins twisting the bolt loose, he speaks to Mira. "What if I told you that you could train other objects to do as you bid?" He brings the bolt out and holds it in his palm, in the same fashion that Mira was holding the two beans. Mira tilts her head to one side, giving Simon a disbelieving look. "How?" she asks, clearly not entirely convinced that this was possible. After all, her beans were _magic_. Those screws were not. Those screws did nothing but sit quietly, holding the ship together. Say... "Doesn't this ship need those?" Mira asks, looking rather concerned at the pair of holes left in the side of the ship. After what he had done to their shuttle while landing on Caspar, she was most wary of Simon touching anything shiplike. An incredulous look and open disbelief was what he expected to receive from Mira, and while he received much of what he expected, her latter question clearly catches him off guard. Frowning at the metal cylinder sitting in his palm, he says with a slight shrug, "I do not know what the ship needs. I am certain it can spare this one, though. It is large enough it should be able to grow a new one in short time." He clears his throat then, before licking his lips and continuing quickly before becoming too sidetracked, "What I meant, though, was that this metal ship acorn would follow your will just as those two beans have. I can show you, if you have doubts." He ends this last with a slight question to his voice. This strange claim by Simon is somehow less distracting to Mira than the fact that he holds two of the ship's screws in his hand. Her head swivelling around to see if Markus is about, she furrows her brow, finally returning her gaze to his palm. "Ships, do not, grow screws," she says simply, shaking her head slowly back and forth. "Put them back." She then reaches into her pocket and fishes around, pulling out a handful of small rocks. Rocks she had found under the Conchobor, much like those she had chucked at the Hunter earlier. "Use these instead," she says, dumping the inanimate and not magical rocks on the floor. "Oh really?" Simon says, giving Mira a look as if she just declared that water was dry and leaves fell up toward the sky. "If these are not grown on the ship somehow, then how do the ridges match up so well?" So as to prove his point and to end the distraction, he turns to put the screws back in the bulkhead where he'd found them. Placing them against the holes and turning them the wrong way, he makes very little progress. "You see? It's like trying to put a fruit back on the branch," he says as his fingers continue to twist the metal cylinders the wrong way. He finally just sets the screws on the floor carefully, then reaches to pick up the rocks Mira had presented. "The rocks would make a better demonstration, anyway." Watching Simon fumble with the screws, Mira becomes more and more convinced that Simon should never, ever, be allowed anywhere near a ship. Sliding towards the parts on the floor, she scoops them up and begins to twist them into place (twisting them the proper way, of course. Even Mira could figure out how to do that). "They're made to fit," she explains, turning the screws until she can't make them turn any more. Voila. Mira's very own personal magic. She then moves back to the pile of rocks on the floor, watching them, making sure Simon does nothing to trick her. "What are you going to do to them?" she asks. Simon selects two rocks of a shape roughly similar to the beans in size and shape, then turns his attention to what Mira is doing. He smirks as she finishes tightening the last screw, then says, "Just because you can put it back, that does not mean it was not grown there." Of course, it could have been grown for that place. That was difficult to imagine, though, since it seemed to fit so perfectly. Shaking his head of the stray thoughts, he turns back to the rocks he'd selected, then begins speaking again. "With these, I'm going to demonstrate how they will follow my will, just as your beans did. You told the beans to jump, and they did something like this..." In the span of a hearbeat, Simon relaxes his body from head to toe and moderates his breathing into an easy, steady pace. A calmness washes over Simon's consciousness like warm spring waters, and with practiced ease, he stretches out toward the rocks consciously, just as Mira had began with the beans unconsciously. With invisible fingers, he pushes the first about in a small circle, then picks up and flips the other, making it look as though it did a small jump. It was a simple exercise, but as with the exercises that strengthened the body, it was not without beneficial effect. "Now," Simon says, then lets out a sigh. "I want you to try it again. With the beans or the rocks, if you'd like." Watching carefully, Mira's jaw drops as the rocks hop about on the durasteel floor of the ship. How could that work? There were no such things as Tivian jumping rocks. Or ANYTHING jumping rocks. But Simon thought that the White Ghost could grow new screws. He couldn't be all that special. "The rocks," Mira says, her brow furrowing in determination as she scootches across the floor to get closer to her targets. Peering at the same rocks that Simon had just been manipulating, she orders them to "Jump!" And they do nothing. "Come on, jump," she mutters to herself, eyes narrowing in frustration as they continue to sit quietly upon the ground. Heaving a sigh, she glances enviously to Simon, wondering just what threats he had given the rocks when she wasn't looking to make them hop around like they had. A moment passes.... Another... Nothing. "I can't do it. It's impossible," Mira declares, finally tearing her gaze away from the rocks to look at Simon. "They're ROCKS." Simon watches as Mira tries to talk the rocks into moving about, and shakes his head slightly. It wasn't that she was failing to move the rocks... being unable to accomplish something was a lesson in itself at times, if only to learn ones limits. It was odd, finding himself looking at a situation that was simply rich with opportunities for him to offer guidance. Perhaps he was a teacher, after all. "It is impossible for the rocks to jump, yes," Simon concedes, nodding slowly. "The rocks have neither a spirit of their own, nor muscles, nor a will. Rocks do not even contain the makings of man like that which make ships fly about. So... it is impossible for the rocks to jump and move about, just as it is impossible for those beans to jump and move about. So how do you think it was done?" The ascertation that it is impossible for the beans to jump and move about seems to irk Mira, and she shakes her head. "The beans are _jumping beans_," she explains tersely, reaching over to pull the pair of beans towards her. Redirecting her gaze to them, she presses her lips together, concentrating, and mutters the words, "Jump." "Jump, jump, jump." And, finally, they do. "See, _jumping_ beans," she says triumphantly. It then, of course, occurs to her that Simon had done the same thing with the rocks just a few minutes before. "Oh. I don't know" Mira replies, conceding defeat, her shoulders slumping sullenly. "How?" she asks, turning her eyes to Simon, full of questions. As Simon looks back into Mira's eyes, the sensation of an overwhelming number of possible directions fills Simon's mind once more, and he smiles in spite of himself. In truth, the possibilities were not that numbered, considering the student. Were it Markus Lisardis, or even Ethan Katana, Simon could speak at length about the _Selas_ philosophy regarding the True Source, and the nature of the mystical origin of all that is spiritual. This was Mira, though, and lengthy dissertations would only bore her and drive her away. "What you believe can have a strong influence on what is," Simon says, in slow, simple tones. He takes extra care to try and anunciate the syllables, to combat his slurring accent. "You believe that the beans are jumping beans, and you make them jump through with the True Source, just as I made the rocks move with the True Source. In time, you will be able to feel the True Source naturally, and you will be able to use your will to do other things." "So, what you're saying...is that you think those rocks are jumping rocks?" Mira asks, in the same slow tone that Simon is using. Which was, of course, not really what Simon was saying at all. But a little credit had to be given. She was at least trying to listen. It was true, that even when she had been trying to make the rocks move, that she didn't really think that they would. Then, she has an idea. "So...if I tell the True Source to make the rocks jump....they will?" she chirps slowly, tilting her head more and more to one side as she speaks until it practically rests on her own shoulder. Simon starts to open his mouth to discount the first part of what Mira had to say, but the latter part struck too close to what actually happened for him to ignore. "It is something like talking to the True Source," Simon says, donning a broad grin. He was obviously quite pleased with Mira's statement. "The True Source works with you and through you when you are connected to it, as you are and I am and Markus is. It can guide your hands and eyes, in a way telling you what to do, just as you tell it to guide the bean or the rock." Simon then pauses, considering what he just said as he studies Mira's face. Giving her too much to remember at once would not be constructive, just as not giving her enough would be unproductive. He was going to have to find the balance. Drawing a deep breath, he cocks his head slightly and asks, "What is it that you feel when you are telling the beans to jump?" There is a lengthy pause as Mira ponders this last question. What did she feel when telling the beans to jump? "I feel...light?" she replies questioningly. "Is that it? The True Source? It feels like a feather." She scowls. A feather. Birds. Yuck. Maybe this True Source business wasn't so neat. "I'm tired," she says suddenly, scrambling to her feet. She would need to think about this, think of a better way to describe it. One that didn't make her want to go do something bad. "I'm going to bed." She was tired, now that she had said the words. Not so much tired as thoroughly exhausted. Now that she had let her guard down, it was starting to sweep over her. "Good night, Simon," she says through a yawn before she turns to wander off towards her garbage pile, which is what her bags of personal belongings had become. Pursing his lips and frowning, Simon watches as his student detaches herself from the lesson and makes her way toward a resting spot. Was it a mistake trying to train her this way? Would she remember what little she'd gleaned from this lesson? How would he be able to find the answers to the questions she and Markus were sure to bring up? It was all too disturbing, all too dangerous. "Take care that you rest well, Mira," Simon says as the young woman begins to move off. "Mastery of the body leads to mastery of the mind. Tomorrow, with Markus, we will take the first steps... and test your limits. Sleep well."
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