>>41232131 >With her acknowledgement of this problem, Patrick returned to his natural confident grin, securing his hat to his head and standing confidently.
I'm gonna see what breaks first - your spirit, or your pride!
>Slamming a fist into an open palm with a loud snap, he couldn't help but smirk at the statement. He'd been waiting to use that line for so damned long that it felt empowering to say it, just as it had been said to him once. Of course, he knew she wouldn't get any better in a day, but if he could become who he was through trial and error, it was possible she could too.
Let's head outside the village for a little bit, find some place where I won't burn down everything and you'll get a chance to go a little wild.
>>41233162 Did you get that line for a motion picture or something?
>That sounds like where he'd get it from. Not that she'd have any idea where he got the chance to watch one. Cinemas weren't exactly either common or cheap to enter yet. He probably broke into one or something... >Well it's not like she was going to say no to the offer to train.
Ok then, lets go then.
>He was an accomplished mage himself, maybe he could teach her something. Boy wouldn't that be embarrassing.
>>41233328 Got it from a friend a long while back.
>A simple explanation of a complicated matter, but he could always explain it later. For now, he had to show this promising young student how to unleash her full potential!
>It only took around 15 minutes or so to get there, and a lot of people were happier to see him leave the village rather than enter it. Finding a wide enough clearing for his flames to be safe was a tough one, and he could never be totally sure anyway, so in the end he settled for a something smaller than he wanted but by the river, just in case anything did happen.
Right. This ought to do just fine. A little bit of water to balance out the heat.
>It was the middle of Soleil so any kind of 'duel' practice was out of the question, his power was at its height and hers wouldn't be easy to maintain. All the more reason to practice! Turning to face Melody, he leant his back against one of the trees and turned up his hat so he had full view of her and the surroundings.
So, you idolise your sister quite a lot, right?
>A pretty direct question, but one he wanted to get out of the way, even if he already knew the answer.
>>41233730 >Looking around at the area herself, Melody thought it was a good a place as any to do... whatever they were about to do. Hopefully she won't be lit on fire during it... >Then he asked her a simple question. A dumb question. What kind of question was that???
Of course I do! Why wouldn't I?
>A general in the Royal guard, an accomplished mage, helped make Frost Fade more then a nearly forgotten settlement in the north. There was just so many things she had achieved and continued to strive for... >It made Melody feel small in comparison, like a candle next to a star. What had she achieved? So far it was only ways to disobey her sister's wishes. Not exactly something she could be proud of.
>>41236371 Because that is probably why you're stuck in that kind of mindset. Now, I've fought your sister twice, and even from those little experiences and the few times we've talked, I can tell you're not the kind of mage she is.
>Although he did mean that in the skill sense, he also meant it as a fundamental difference. Sure, Patrick wasn't incredibly studious in the ways of magic, nor was he at the forefront of any theoretical brilliance, but he did know how to fight as a mage and how to discipline oneself to cast one's own magic, not that of someone else.
So, I want you to throw everything you've got at me. Pile up whatever spell you want, your biggest, strongest attack. I'll just be leaning by this tree over here, so try not to miss!
>Assuming she actually did as he asked, it might give him some insight into how she viewed herself. Sure, he could have immediately started training her the old fashioned way, but for some reason he felt like sending scorching fireballs in her every direction would just end up discouraging her a bit.
Melody Neige!aLEJudith. 27 Jan 2016 12:40:54 PM No.41237409>>41237419>>41237487
>>41237355 >Mindset? "Not the kind of mage she is"? What is he going on about now? Ice and Snow were close enough weren't they? She pounded on this some before Patrick told her to throw everything she had at him.
...Well... Fine then, but you better explain what you mean afterwards!
>She didn't know how this was going to go down really. All she really knew was how to make snow balls after all... maybe a really big one will count? >So that's what she did, accumulating as much snow into a mass as she could, she holds it in the air for a moment letting it gain size and weight.
Here weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee go!!
>If she can't freeze him like her sister... then she'll just crush him under the weight!!
>>41237409 >Maybe she held it for too long, or maybe something else happened. Because the she mentally tried to -throw- the massive snow boulder at Patrick, it didn't go anywhere. It stayed right here it was... above Melody's head.
....eh?
>Looming over her suspended by naught but the gods will to give her time to realize what was about to happen, she stares up at the mass of snow as it suddenly comes down on her.
MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP-- BOOOOM!! >And the tiny mage was lost under a blanket of snow that she herself made.
>Patrick just couldn't stop himself, it comically poor from a fighting standpoint and best of all, it proved almost exactly what he was trying to say. Still, as amusing as watching someone dump several feet of snow on top of themselves, it was probably a good idea to rescue her before she got a cold or died of embarassment.
>Unable to stop chuckling the entire time, he melted the snow by radiating a low-intensity heat from his body, revealing the now-wet but drying Melody.
And that is exactly what I was talking about. Your sister's very good at handling shards of ice, large blocks of it or whatever she needs to pierce or force her way through things, and ice is particularly easy to shape.
This stuff, on the other hand...
>Patrick grabbed some of the last remaining snow and quickly made it into a ball, then changed it into a cube by packing it down before it melted away all-too quickly.
It's not particularly dense or tough, so throwing it around isn't going to go, um... well, normally it goes better than that, but hey, you did your best.
>>41237487 >Though her head was spinning from the impact, more damage was done to her pride then to her body. Well at least Patrick freeing her from all of that snow meant she could breath again. Taking a gasp of air as it melted away, her face was rosy red from the embarrassment of flailing so spectacularly. Melody just sits on the ground while listening to his explanation about how her magic was different from her sisters. >It was true, ice and snow are different even if their origin was the same. Which probably should have hit her long before Patick had to point it out. Kids throw them around too for fun and games after all, it's not suppose to hurt...
But then how do I use it effectively? Snow can't freeze like ice can, you can't build solid walls with it, it doesn't even have utility uses either!
>Maybe it was her latest failure colouring her thoughts, but it just felt so hopeless trying to improve when you couldn't do anything.
>>41237537 On the contrary, my dear Melody, snow has at least one thing that ice can't do. Let me show you an example.
>Opening the palm of his hand, Patrick gripped his wrist with his other. This was going to take some serious concentration, but he knew enough about magic to know it would work, assuming a blood vessel didn't burst in his head for trying. To Melody, it looked as though Patrick was trying to charge up something immensely powerful, yet nothing was happening. Not a flicker of fire, not even a single bit of heat.
>You could see the tension in his body, the blood vessels in his neck were becoming more strained and visible, as were those in his arms, his eyes were wide and his teeth gritted together, it looked like he was either putting an atrocious amount of effort into something or he was in an extreme amount of pain.
>Yet slowly, very very slowly, there was a little bit of cold air coming from that palm. A glimmer of light, a small reflection of the sunbeams through the trees, and with every passing second, an ice shard started to form.
Nnnnngh...! Agh...!
>Damn, this hurt, but where the hell else was he going to get a shard of ice in the middle of Soleil!? Finally, he released the stress from his body and let go of his wrist, breathing heavily as though to catch himself from an overt amount of exercise.
>In the palm of his hand was a single solid ice shard, only about the size of a pinky finger but more than enough to demonstrate what he needed to.
H-here we are... phew... anyway... y'see this?
>He lifted the tiny shard up toward Melody so that she could get a look. Through it, she could see Patrick's slightly distorted face as the tiny shard began to melt in the heat.
>>41238480 >She watched as Patrick strained to produce one small shard of ice and flinched herself at the pain he was experiencing. She tied it too, once, when she didn't really under stand that you can't just produce fire or lightening if you were a fledging ice mage. Not something she'd every try again until she trained for it properly
Yeah I see that but...
>She showed concern for him after having done that.
>>41238602 Uh, well, not really. Trying to turn hot into cold, well... it's not easy, but hey, I'll recover in a bit. I wouldn't have been able to do it if the feeling of being trapped in ice wasn't still with me.
>Taking a moment to breathe, he held the fledgling piece of ice in his palm until it melted into mere water from the heat of his body as it began to recover itself.
Anyway... try making a wall of snow real quick. Between me and you.
>>41238606 >Well... as long as he'd recover from that, otherwise she wouldn't be able to focus. A strange order to be sure, but he had to be going somewhere with it.
Alright.
>As such, she focus on creating a wall between them, nothing too large, tall enough for Patrick to not be able to see her over it and only wide enough for make Patrick have to step to the side to move around it. But there it was, a snow wall, though in the heat it was already slowly melting.
>It was simple, it was flimsy, and it'd melt with a small amount of heat, but it was proving the point that it needed to.
I can't see you, you can't see me. That's the key to all of this, as simple as it seems.
>With a quick cast of a small flame, being the only thing he could do with his very little returned strength, he hastened the melting process so that there was a large puddle on the ground, which is probably how Melody felt about all of her efforts thus far. Thankfully, her luck was about to change.
Do you know why any of that matters? Why it's important that you can see through ice but you can't see through snow?
>He figured he'd give her a chance to figure it out, rather than him tell her. After all, it'd be embarrassing for her if he had to tell her something she should already know.
>>41239986 >Why was it important? She should know the answer to this, but maybe it was so obvious that she was missing it trying to find something more complex. Well... she should say something at least right or wrong.