3702/Batside Manners

Batside Manners
Date of Scene:	19 January 2016
Location:	The Citadel - Ward 17 <CW>
Synopsis:	Echo meets with Sanary to discuss magic tutoring.
Cast of Characters:	640, Sanary Rondel

---

Sanary Rondel has posed:
     Ward 17 has become something of a third home for Sanary. Not because she's been hospitalized all that often, but from working in and around there in the medical ward. Today's been something of an oddity, though, since she's actually bedridden this time around. Despite that, she's still looking significantly better today! Relatively. Her head is still wrapped up across her eye sockets, and she's still stuck in bed, but she's coherent and ready to... Sit up. It's important to get rest, after all, but that doesn't mean she can't at least work on her magical capacity in some way!

Echo (640) has posed:
     There is a sudden sound of dry flapping wings and a series of high-pitched chittering squeaks as a cloud of what looks like white bats suddenly fill the room. They cause a bit of a commotion in the room as they careen around and the buffeting of their wings upsets curtains and sheets of paper. They soon begin to congregate in front of Sanary's bed and finally look as if they're clodding together and forming what looks like a ball--soon becoming recognizable as a humanoid shape. After amassing and filling out into what looks like a stick-figure of bats they shift and materialize into something else...

     Echo reaches up and brushes her long black hair back, tucking it lightly back around her large white ears with a white-furred hand, blinking a little as she looks over at Sanary, her yellow eyes alighting on the officer cleric.

     "Oh hello there, Officer Rondel, sorry I took so long," when it has just been only a few moments, at that, this is quite ridiculous of a statement, to say the least. She's wearing what looks like a long black silk cocktail dress and a pair of shiny red stiletto heels, but otherwise she's equipped with a few pouches at a belt across her waist, as well as the aura about her just clouded with the feel of her being some sort of practitioner of the occult.

Sanary Rondel has posed:
     Sanary tenses up a bit at first upon hearing the sound of bats approaching, although she does calm down after a moment and not hearing anyone screaming from down the hall. The flapping sound is still a little unnerving, of course, but at least it's not a threat to her. As Echo takes shape, Sanary straightens up in the bed and makes sure to tie her hair back to look a little bit more presentable as well.

     Even when hospitalized, she's still trying to look the part of a proper Captain! "Hey, Echo. Nah, I wasn't waiting long. Got here without too much trouble, then?" She hadn't heard any screams, so that's always a good sign. As expected of someone that's stuck in medical, Sanary's dressed in a standard hospital gown with a blanket draped over her legs and some snack wrappers on the table next to her. Better than throwing them on the floor!

     "Thanks for coming. I'm... Gonna be honest. Laying around is boring as hell. I was hoping you could help me with pointers or training or... Anything while I'm stuck here."

Echo (640) has posed:
     "Physical obstacles rarely impede me," Echo walked around the officer's hospital bed after she had saluted and bowed, her stiletto heels click-clacking. "So, you made it clear over the radio you had a desire for magic, but you're already a cleric, yes?" she bent over and her nails plucked at some flowers that had been left out, briefly peeking over them to the girl in the bed, her yellow eyes settling on her for a moment.

     "The first thing you must decide is what magic you are interested in. I ran away from home when I was still but a girl and travelled with all manner of occultists, shamans, sorcerors, voodoo priests--I learned how to breath life into corpses and bring them back as slaves, or ensnare phantoms to my will, as well as a host of other things--I have watched the still beating hearts of people being removed, heads shrunk, all in the name of The Craft. The Great Illusionist Christoph Blitz instructed me on how to create things that weren't there, but had heft and lift just as any other physical object, for certain... favors, of course," she licked her red lips--and yes, she wore lipstick--as she stood up and stood at the foot of the girl's bed, crossing her arms.

     "I need to know what you're interested in, and how much dedication you can marshall."

Sanary Rondel has posed:
     Sanary's head turns slightly to follow Echo's voice, and she reaches up briefly to fiddle with the bandages idly. So itchy. "Mmhm. I can sorta use magic, but... Only healing unless I have the right tools." She goes quiet at Echo speaks of her past, what she's learned, what she's vaguely done in her pursuit of power.

     At least Sanary's not going to admit she doesn't know what the difference is between at least half of those types. Her head still following Echo's voice, she strokes her chin lightly while pulling her knees up to rest her head on. "I've got plenty of dedication. I mean... I've been studying at Alexander for most of last year, I've been doing lots of physical training... I got some Psycho Power from Vega a while ago, too. But..."

     A quiet sigh. "It's not enough. And... I don't know where to go next with magic. There's all these options, but.. I don't know where to start to do something other than healing or shoving it into another machine." She taps on the side of her head where her magitech eye would be. "Hell, I've been shoving energy into this just to see. And... Shoot lasers. But I want to be able to use magic without just relying on extra parts. Fighting, supporting... Maybe not the corpses, though."

Echo (640) has posed:
     "Alexander? Alexander Academy? Ohoho, those isolationists?" Echo seems to find this rather amusing, almost going as far as giving an 'ojyou laugh' at the thought of that. "They probably couldn't even teach you how to disperse or create heat, darling," she grinned, fangs showing over her lower lips. "Not sure what you hope to learn from a bunch of xenophobic humans, but I can show you how to 'support' or 'fight' if that's what you want," Echo seems to be having entirely too much fun with this.

     "Unless you want to be sitting there pulling rabbits out of hats, I think you want me, deary," she smiles a little, then leans against the foot of the girl's hospital bed, her red-nailed, white-furred hand grasping the rungs of it. "And if necromancy isn't your speed, well I'm sure I can show you how to cast illusions, if that's what you want."

Sanary Rondel has posed:
     "Iso...?" Context clues! "Hey, they're not that bad about it. Got a lot of non-natives studying there, even." Sanary doesn't dispute Echo's comments about the magic teaching, however, since... Well, it's not like she's really gotten anywhere with that compared to working with the Zaibatsu. Or in Medical, even. "Supporting other people I'm fighting with, fighting on my own... Anything's good. Uh."

     The comment about rabbits does get her thinking, and she strokes her chin again. "... Maybe not rabbits, but throwing something huge on top of whoever I'm fighting might not hurt." She raises an eyebrow at the mention of illusions, turning her head to face Echo again despite not being able to see her at all. "Would they be able to.. Uh. Touch anything, or is it just a visual and sound sort of thing?"

Echo (640) has posed:
     "Ah, ah--conjuration, that's a school I haven't used very much, however if you're wishing to create gales of ice or rain meteors upon your enemies, that is very much in my realm of expertise," Echo put a hand to her chin and stroked it, thinking. "I think I can teach you, you are my superior and I have no problems about taking time out of my ~busy schedule~ to assist you, even if you were not," she grins a little, bowing her head and those big batty ears.

     "My illusions have mass and behave like solid objects, they aren't just phantasms, though one can create those too, if you wish--like water that isn't really there, or someTHING," she grinned and looked down at the bed covers of Sanary's hospital bed, and there were suddenly tiny versions of what looked like Peridot scaling over the blankets and trying to climb up the girl's legs and knees, like something out of Gulliver's travels.

Sanary Rondel has posed:
     "... That definitely sounds like something that could be really useful." Although Sanary's eye isn't visible, it's clear from her voice that she's visualizing the ability to call upon the elements and.. Not so elements in her head already. "But... Do you think I'd actually have the potential for that? I mean..."

     Some of that self-doubt starts to come back into her voice. "Don't you usually have to start early to get strong enough to do that? I mean... If I can, I'd love to do that. But..." She rests her chin on her knees, mulling over the possibilities and reality for a while before finally speaking up again.

     "... How long did it take you? Uh. To learn conjuration and illusion... Ing?" There's another pause. Was that even the right word? Probably not. "Because... Yeah, both of those could be useful, too."

Echo (640) has posed:
     "Well you've proven yourself to be both magic-capable and strong enough to survive getting advancement in our fine organization already, I don't see why you shouldn't be able to, with a little time, and effort," Echo brushed her long dark hair back from her white-furred face, nodding. "I started learning at a young age, but not just magic period, I was taught how to use magic as an assassin when I was a little girl, the other schools I picked up later," she explained.

     "Years, really, like I said, it will take you and me a bit of time, but I think you should be able to do it, at least, if you have a proper tutor," she grinned, and the tiny Peridots that might not be there continued to try to scale up the blankets to crest the top of Sanary's knees, sounding as if they were muttering and hollering in a sub-chipmunk voice. One can make out a tiny "CLOD!" as one accidentally kicks another in the face while trying to climb.

Sanary Rondel has posed:
     Years of studying. No mattter how many times Sanary heard it and no matter how much it just made sense that learning something so useful would take that long, it still felt too long. But... Maybe that's what's been getting her into trouble in the first place. Being impatient, wanting result immediately, trying to get ahead of herself.

     "Hn... Well, I gotta start somewhere. And... It's not gonna take me years to see /any/ result, right?" Sanary chuckles weakly as she says that, although it comes out more like a probing question. Maybe it's the lack of results that's been bothering her more than anything else. She does get momentarily distracted by the odd voices, though, and she'd be squinting if she could move her eyelids at all. "... Is Peridot in here?"

Echo (640) has posed:
     "Probably not, no, if I'm tutoring you regularly," Echo nodded a little. "It's a career, honey, you do need to put some time and effort into it," the bat walked back around the bed again, heels clicking. As the Peridots got to the top of Sanary's knee, they jumped up and down as if they'd won a sort of contest, or were on top of the world. "Victorrry!" they seemed to be quite excited, which made quite the amusing coincidence that Sanary happened to be blind atm.

     "Hmm? oh, it might be the radio," Echo waved her red-nailed hands and the Peridots were all summarily bubbled and were drawn back into the bat sorceror's hand as she waved it, apparently disappearing, Sanary none the wiser. "When you recover, then?" she asked, leaning over the girl's bed.

Sanary Rondel has posed:
     The reassurance about actually being able to see progress sooner rather than later is easily one of the most relieving things Sanary's heard all day. "Good, good... Yeah, I'm prepared to work for it. Didn't get as good as I am with an axe just by wanting it." She chuckles lightly and flexes an arm for emphasis, wincing a bit upon realizing that it's her more injured arm.

     One thing at a time.

     "That's definitely..." The healer raises an eyebrow as she stops hearing that distorted tiny-version of the already tiny Gem, eventually breaking into a wide grin . "... Aaah, I get it. Sneaky~" She chuckles softly and tugs on the blanket a little more tightly. "Sounds like a plan. I don't know how long it'll take, but I shouldn't be here too much longer. Just need to.. Uh. Get my eye fixed after I get out, too."

     And then there's a pause. "... Could start earlier if you don't mind me being blind for a couple of days."

Echo (640) has posed:
     "Please dear, as if lack of eyesight ever stopped anyone," Echo snerked. "You're only speaking to a 5-foot bat lady here," she put a hand to her chest, gesturing a bit vaingloriously. "I'll be around if you need me, for right now you should probably get your rest--those of us that still breath need to worry about our wounds, and all that," Echo implied that she too needed to worry about such things, and was not actually undead. YET.

     "I'll be around if you need anything, officer Rondel," Echo bowed her head and walked out, heels clicking. No fancy explosion into bats this time.

Sanary Rondel has posed:
     "... Wait what." Was that what those noises were, then? "Thought that was just an entrance or something... Huh." Sanary shrugs lightly and chuckles again before resting back in the bed, nodding slowly after a moment. "Sounds good. Thanks for coming, Echo. I'll be looking forward to our lessons, then. You know where to find me."

     And she is! She needs to start again, after all. Back to basics. No more worrying about trying to force her magic to work one way when there's so many other possible ways of getting it to work. Worst case scenario, there'd always be other ways to figuring it out.

     ... Wait. Did she know where to find Echo, though?