sporesprouter | Open Post: Hard at Work

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Open Post: Hard at Work

Yes, Tress might have been up late charting stars, but that doesn't mean that she can't get up at dawn to start doing other work on the continued Operation Get Us Out of Here.

So it's barely light outside when she tucks herself into an out of the way workroom that she's decided to repurpose as a sprouter's workshop. She doesn't have much in the way of spores, just what she arrived with, but that was no reason not to use some. What was the point of hoarding a potential resource? Sitting on something that might be able to help? Not a great idea.

So she currently sits at a table with some supplies laid out carefully before her, carefully taking water from a bowl in front of her with an eyedropper to some pink-red spores and shaping the crystals that spring up from them with a small iron shield-shaped plate and a steel trowel. She's working slowly and incrementally, but several finished spheres sit on the table away from her active work.

On the floor to the side of the table are several full drinking water bottles that she found and commandeered, knowing they'd come in handy if she decides to move on to her next idea.

For now, though, pink crystal spheres.

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She's quiet for a moment. Mostly because deep down she knows he's right. When she speaks, though, it's quiet. "I think it might suffer more if I don't think I'm doing everything I can to get home."

"One bee makes no honey." Lan Wangji is used to shepherding several disciples; surely he can help one exhausted young woman. "Rest, young mistress."

Edited 2023-09-30 21:17 (UTC)

She pauses and thinks that over for a moment.

"One bee might make some honey..."

Unmoved, Lan Wangji gazes levelly at her. This is the you can't get away with this with me; I'm Hanguang-jun look and it works exceptionally well on Lan Jingyi. "Young mistress," he repeats, an entire essay's worth of firm concern behind the title.

Well yes, but Tress is totally the captain of a ship... who really isn't particularly fond of actually asserting her will on people in any significant way unless it is absolutely necessary.

... She folds almost immediately.

Her shoulders slump a bit. "I'm not sleeping well."

Lan Wangji hardly needed her to tell him that. It's wholly evident. "Do you meditate, or have some other practice to calm your spirit?"

Tress waves a hand at the work in front of her. "Just this. Or baking, I guess, but I don't know how much it counts."

Lan Wangji doesn't even bother to glance at the spore materials in answer to her gesture. "Your mind and body need to be still." He has already made up his mind that Tress needs some light guidance from him. "Let me show you."

Her body is one thing, but Tress is very dubious about ever getting her mind to be still. It's practically one of her defining qualities.

Still, though, he's trying to help and it would be very rude not to give him a chance.

"All right..."

"Come."

Presuming that Tress will follow, Lan Wangji sweeps out of her workshop. He is in search of a quiet parlor, free of clutter and with a calming atmosphere. He himself can meditate in any circumstances, but a fledgling trainee will require a suitable setting.

... Okay, she wasn't expecting now. It's possible nobody else will find this room while she's gone, but she can't guarantee it... She hesitates for just a moment before ripping a blank page from her notebook, writing on it, 'Please do not touch anything on this table. Thank you, I appreciate it!' and setting it face up in a prominent position before quickly standing and hastening to catch up with Lan Wangji.

When they reach their destination, so designated by Lan Wangji, he allows Tress to enter the room before him. It is largely empty, only a few sitting chairs in evidence, and the sun is just beginning to stream in through the windows as it creeps above the horizon.

"Sit," he instructs. To demonstrate, he assumes lotus pose on the floor, his robes floating down along with him. "As I do."

Tress blinks. This is the first time in her life she was made to realize that it was possible for legs to do that. She blinks again.

"I'll... try?" She does not by any stretch of the imagination do anything that might be even slightly reminiscent of floating as she sits and makes a valiant if failed effort to get her legs into the correct position.

Lan Wangji watches her, thoughtful. There are several corrections he could make, and he will, if they continue cultivating this practice. It will not help Tress at this time, however, to focus on her posture rather than her mind and her body as a whole.

"As I do," he corrects himself, "but find comfort. However that may look for you."

She nods and curls her legs up into a more comfortable position, shifting a bit to make sure she's as settled as she can be and then nods again. "I'm ready."

Lan Wangji nods, intended as encouragement. He has done the basics of this lesson many times with young disciples, who are often homesick and unhappy.

"Shut your eyes and clear your mind. That can be difficult: focus on my voice if you must." He closes his own eyes, his hands open and loose atop his knees. "Breathe in. Think only of that. Breathe out, slowly."

Well, she's got homesick and unhappy covered, at least.

She closes her eyes as asked and concentrates on Lan Wangji's voice, taking slow, deep breaths. It's the kind of rote task that she's almost used to from washing windows or even scrubbing spore scum from a deck. Unfortunately, though, she also nearly always used that time for thinking, so clearing her mind is not coming as easily as calming her breathing. Instead, her thoughts are wandering among the various attempts she's made over the last month to figure out what is going on in this place and how to get back. She does try to discard them and just concentrate on her breathing, but they do keep creeping in despite her best efforts.

Her breathing remains pretty great, though.

Without opening his eyes, Lan Wangji says, "Your mind is noisy." It's not a rebuke, or not intended as one; it's merely an observation, the prelude to an attempt at helping her.

"Each thought is draining you. Banish them. As you breathe, chart the filling of your lungs. Notice how it feels as they empty. Concentrate on the life force inside of yourself: that is your qi. Think of where it begins, at the core of yourself, and follow it. Reflect on how it connects you to all that is around you. This room; the rising sun outside; the grass and the water." There is a slight pause and then he adds, "To your spores. Everything. Continue to breathe."

Tress almost wants to say that she's trying to banish them, but instead she just steels herself to try harder. She listens carefully to Lan Wangji's words, shifting her focus, as best she can, where he points it. She finds herself imagining the qi connections he speaks of similarly to the thin tendrils that connect her to the midnight essence when she uses those spores, but instead in green. She grew up on the Verdant, after all. It would make more sense.

She's by no means immune at this point to the random thoughts trying to creep up on her, but she tries to just shunt the thoughts, for now, down the thin verdant tendrils in her imagination.

"That is better," Lan Wangji says as Tress' mind begins to calm, learning obedience to her will. He is not, of course, privy to the details of her thoughts, but he's able to note the relaxation of her aura. "Keep going. As your mind empties, you may begin to drift away from your body. Allow it, if so. Do not force it, if not. You seek peace, nothing more."

She continues to keep her focus on her breath and the thin green vines of connection she envisions. Drifting from her body, on the other hand, is a concept she really only associates with hitchhiking the senses of midnight essence, but she's fairly sure that's not what he's talking about, so she doesn't overthink it and just moves on from the idea, staying where she is but keeping her focus, by and large, where it should be.

"Good."

Lan Wangji allows that to be his last word for the time being. He slows his own breathing, in and then out, giving Tress something she may match if she requires the guidance. He will not slip into the depths of his usual meditative state, for the purposes of monitoring Tress, but he does still, and use the moment to tend to his own qi, his own golden core.

He can do this for a very long time if necessary.

Tress finds herself matching his breathing. She is actually finding the entire experience more calming than she was honestly expecting to. She's a little more centered, a little less off-kilter, and she really did need both.

However, this is also her first time doing this and she does not nearly have the endurance that Lan Wangji does. So after a while, her attention and rhythms do start to drift again.

Once Lan Wangji senses that Tress has well and truly lost her focus, he opens his eyes. He watches her for a moment, and determines that she is finished for now.

"Good," he says again. "You did well." The minutest tilt to his head asks the question, How are you feeling?