Old Guilts

[Casey]

Casey quietly watched the interaction between Juls and Nox, offering only a slight smile as he mentioned no fireballs. "Bye...nice to meet you," she said quietly as he left to work.

Casey was left with Juls, Cadence, and the other people watching and working in the area as he left. She wiped her eyes and could still feel the power within her. It gave her strength and heightened her senses. But deep inside, she still felt the guilt. She heard her mother's voice call her a witch and her father's telling she she was going to hell because of it. Casey knew that would go away in time. It would get smaller as she got used to having it until the guilt was gone. Right now though, it still sucked. She sat back down and felt Cadence sit next to her. Cadence wrapped her in a side hug and Casey rested her head on Cadence's shoulder. It wasn't the first time the pair had done been there when the other wasn't feeling the greatest.

Casey took a moment to calm down her internal conflict as she sat up and let out a breath. She looked at her hands, feeling stronger than ever with the power in her. She hadn't let go yet. In some ways she was afraid to - afraid that if she let go, it wouldn't come back. She could hide it. Her guilt told her to do so, but she didn't want to. She wanted this. This was special even if she didn't really know why.

Casey looked at Juls a little embarrassed. "This is going to sound really stupid," she said with a sheepish smile. "But I don't know what to do with it."

Casey saw the ball of light that Juls had made. She had even seen it come together, but she didn't know how to make it happen. It had looked like threads being woven together to make an effect. Deep down she felt something - a stirring. She had used this power before. She had used it to protect. That's why she had this power. It wasn't just power. It was responsibility. She had to use this power for the right reasons.

[Legione Sumus]

Juliana Nazarova (Moon Pyre)

Juls smiled as Casey admitted she didn't know what to do with it. Most of them didn't, most of them only used it to enhance their shows, except the guys, they all had bouncer duty for the most part and they could do lots of things that Juls never though of doing. "It'll get easier with time."

Juls explained about the different threads, fire, water, air, earth and what Nox called Spirit. Juls thought it was a good name as any so used his words. "Each one does things different." She wove some air and fire slowly, showing Casey how to pluck each thread from the flow and how to weave it into a ball of light.

"Sometimes it helps to make it REALLY big so that everythings exaggerated then pull it all together tightly so it makes the size ball you want." She grinned. "We can heal with it, protect others with it. Nox makes loud concussive explosions when someone trips a wire. Nox can do a lot of things he can't show us, and Ori is our most experienced but she doesn't share often. Though she's the one who started our happy little collective here at Kallisti."

[Casey]

Casey listened with rapt attention. Five threads - fire, water, air, earth, and spirit - all combined in different ways to make different effects. She could see the threads the Juls wove and she once again saw how air and fire came together to make light. Casey didn't start there though.  She started trying to separate the threads first.

As she looked in her power, she could find them, and began to touch each one separately. She didn't pull, merely probed, and found that two seemed familiar to her.  She grabbed one and channeled the thread. It was the one Juls had called air. She then went to the other, and found it was the one called spirit.

"Those two feel familiar," she said, looking at the threads themselves.  "I think I've used these two before."

She then went to the other three. Out of those three, some seemed the easiest to grab.  She pulled on it and found it was water. Then she tried another. The other two were harder to grab. Fire in particular was difficult for her. Casey knew how to practice.  She had spent a lifetime learning how to practice musical skills.  She could apply that here.  Fire and earth would need more practice than the others.  Thankfully she had an excuse to work on fire right now.

"Fire and earth seem hard to use," she gritted her teeth as she reached for fire while the spirit came easily. "I can't explain why...it's just different."

It took some moments for her to grab the fire thread and she began to weave it with the spirit as Juls had done. She followed Juls advice and made it big so she could see it, then pulled it together tight until she had a glowing orb in front of her.  Casey smiled at that.  It probably wasn't a big deal at all, but she knew the little victories were just as important and the small ones.

"I wish I could bottle this up and take it home.  Not the light in general.  This specific one," she said with a smirk. She turned to Cadence. "What can you do with it."

Cadence smiled. "Turns out I'm a gifted healer."

Casey nodded and turned to Juls. "What can you do?"

[Legione Sumus]

Juliana Nazarova (Moon Pyre)

She didn't particularly have a talent, but fire came easy to her unlike the others, it was usually much more difficult to touch and control, but it was with ease that she learned. "Like my persona here, Fire comes easily to me. Unlike others. From what we understand Water and Air are more a woman's touch and Earth and Fire are a man's thing. But there are always exceptions to the rule. Nox certainly loves fire, but, " Juls leaned in "Earth is far more his strong suit." Not that it was a secret. But Nox was mostly fire, but he could shake the earth with so little effort. At least that's what the guys said. "I'm sure you'll find your skill set. It might take a while, we don't know much more than parlor tricks here. Some of us can heal. Cadence and Liv being the two. Ilesha is like me and odd -- she can touch earth better than any of us."

[Casey]

Casey nodded in understanding. Some people were just better at certain things. She remembered asking Cadence for help with her class piano stuff because her fingers just didn't work that way. That was why she played strings. That and strings were more fun. "Seems like air and spirit are my go tos. They just seem more natural. The water, earth and fire. I guess I suck at fire." she laughed.

She sighed. She really was grateful, but it just felt weird being able to do these things. "So how do you figure things out. Just trial and error? Seems like a great way to blow yourself up, and that's a fate I'd like to avoid," she chuckled a bit. "Still, I think I'd like to learn how to do more things. I don't know if you have more you can teach, strategies, or some sort of instruction manual," she grinned, feeling a little bit lighter.

That was the best thing to do - dive in - this whole situation made her think of something else too. "Might not be able to help here, but do any of you guys have weird dreams too...like they're real...I know that probably sounds crazy...but...I have weird dreams too. Nothing usually happens in them - they just seem...real." She looked away, a little embarrassed. They probably thought she was crazy.

[Legione Sumus]

Juliana Nazarova (Moon Pyre)

Jules agreed. that was one way get yourself blown up. But she shrugged. "We kinda just learn from each other. We don't have anyone who has extensive knowledge like Nox. He can't teach us what he knows. And we all know we can't do what he did. He had a pocket healer as he learned with his sister, so whenever he blew himself up she was there to heal him. We just got our healers here. And we aren't prone to wanting to blow ourselves up. And I don't know about the dreams, but Nox has as friend. She has had dreams about him. She draws them. He's our resident know it all when it comes to this stuff. He's one of the people who hunt us down. Though you don't have to worry, he's on their hit list too even though he does still work with them. He knows alot more than any of us. I don't know if knows much about your dreams but he'd be the one to ask. And he might be able to get you intouch with his friend, though she knows even less about what she is. But then you won't feel alone maybe."

[Casey]

Casey nodded. It would be scary to just try stuff. She didn’t want to get blown up or even hurt anyone. Even if she knew that cadence would heal her should she do something, she wouldn’t put her friend through that just to experiment with her power. Seeing Casey hurt all the time wouldn’t be good for Cadence.

Seemed like Nox was a knowledgeable person, and Casey certainly wanted to ask. That here was someone else who had weird dreams just reinforced to Caey that these were more than dreams, but she barely knew the guy. She wasn’t sure he’d want to help her or even had reason to. They weren’t friends or anything. At least she didn’t think they were. They just met.

Casey shrugged. ”If he wants to help, I think I’d like that. It would be nice to have someone to talk to who knows what’s going on. I don’t want to be a bother though.