sporesprouter | 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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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?

Tress blinks a few times after Lan Wangji speaks, and stretches a little.

"Thank you," she says earnestly. "That was... helpful, actually."

Lan Wangji is, sincerely, warmed to have helped her. "You may do this by yourself," he says, "or you may seek me again to continue the practice. I meditate each morning shortly after I awaken."

She smiles and nods. "Thank you. I appreciate it. Really."

Open Post: Hard at Work

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