Beet Red #18; Azul #19 [Starfall]

[thisbluespirit]

Name: Blink of an Eye
Story: Starfall
Colors: Beet red #18 (Easy does it); Azul #19 (Trust the strength of another)
Supplies and Styles: Pastels (for no_true_pair prompt "March 27th - Osmer and Pello out in the woods") + Canvas
Word Count: 1091
Rating: G
Warnings: None.
Notes: 1311 somewhere in High Eisterland; Osmer Nivyrn, Pello Ahblan. (Slightly random snippet as yet.)
Summary: Pello gets his first taste of the Paths.

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The light of the Paths closed behind Pello and Osmer, depositing them in a pine wood; Pello gasping at the abrupt shift. Bare trunks stretched skywards around him as far as he could see. Beside him, Osmer moved and slipped on the carpet of pine needles lining the steep hillside, but caught at the trunk of the nearest tree in time to save himself from a wild tumble to the bottom. From there, he grinned at Pello.

Pello put a hand to the tree behind him, having no mind to follow Osmer's example and fall. "Where are we?"

Osmer brushed his fringe back out of his face, not apparently much bothered by their unexpected detour. "Somewhere safer than the Paths. You were panicking."

"I wouldn't say that." Pello stiffened, even if it was not entirely untrue. The experience of being on the Boundary Paths was sufficiently alien that none of the preceding weeks of lectures had truly prepared him. He could hardly be blamed for being taken aback.

Osmer nodded. He pulled himself up, using the tree trunk. "Well." He gave the other a sidelong look, a gleam of humour in his eyes. "Whatever you want to call it, it was my fault. You knew so much about starstone, and you've been such a quick study on most other things that I forgot that doesn't equate to being ready for the Paths."

Pello craned his head as an unknown bird cawed overhead. His breathing was evening out and his pulse growing steadier. Even so, he found this place unnerving, too, even if not to same the extent as the unearthly Paths had been. He had grown up in Portcallan's lower city, and this eerily silent forest, bare even of much undergrowth, was completely unlike the busy orchards and woodland he was used to in the city's hinterland.

"It was a shock, I'll admit," said Pello.

The Paths were nothing—nowhere—and yet he and Osmer could walk into them, walk in that space, so they must nevertheless be somewhere or something, but his senses had been unwilling to acknowledge that uncanny reality. They were a cold blue-edged void of light and that was all. Thinking of them made him catch his breath. No wonder there were so few people who could navigate them safely.

A breeze with an unaccustomed bite whipped through him, and he shivered. "Where are we exactly, though?"

"A little way north of my old home," said Osmer. He moved lightly across to Pello, in a deft manner that seemed at odds with his overlong and gawky frame. "It's the same place I always use if I need to escape the Paths quickly. Near enough to the Boundary Circle not to cause me trouble trying to get back, but far enough away from Starfall, just in case."

Pello frowned. "Wouldn't nearer to the Manor be better?"

"Depends why I, or somebody with me, might be straying onto the Paths in a panic," said Osmer. "If there's trouble at Starfall, better to get right out of the way. If someone's trying to use me or take control of the Paths, I can't waste time thinking up a new destination on the spot. So, this is always my first port of call. We all have one—all the Pathwalkers, that is."

The same bird called again. Pello still couldn't hear much else aside from that and, more distantly, the sound of running water. "Yes, but what do we do now? We're not going to have to walk all the way back to Starfall, are we?"

"That would be fun, wouldn't it?" Osmer's face creased in amusement. "Don't worry. I can get us back all right. Just hang onto me, keep your eyes shut and think only of returning to Starfall. Focus on something you're familiar with there. Can you do that?"

Pello's gaze hardened. "Of course." He took a mental walk about the Manor before he settled fairly quickly on the museum attached to Starfall's library. It was full of cases of rare starstone. "I don't know if I can promise to stay calm. I'm not cut out for this."

"It's all right. You don't have to be. You're not a Pathwalker," said Osmer. "Hold onto me, and we'll be back in Starfall before you have time to count to three. And next time, you'll be fine. I just thought you were ready—my mistake, not yours. You're so far ahead of the rest – and you're so, well, solid about everything."

"I work hard, that's all."

Osmer held out his hand. He gave Pello a crooked smile of apology. "Anyway, I pushed to take you out early. Seems I still have plenty to learn! Come on."

"You can just... get back onto the Paths from here?" Pello gestured at the forest, which must be a good few hundredlengths from the Boundary Circle.

"I'm a Pathwalker," Osmer said softly. "A very good one, or they'd let me be a scholar. Trust me."

Pello grimaced. "I'll have to. I don't want to be left here!"

"It's a very fine part of High Eisterland," said Osmer, with an injured note in his voice. "I'm very fond of it."

"It must be a hundred thousandlengths or more from the sea. I don't like it!"

"There is sea north of here as well, you know."

"Yes, but not near here." Pello gripped Osmer's arm and shut his eyes, as instructed. "Do it!"

Osmer gave a short laugh and then, after a few moments, he gently detached Pello's hand from his arm, and murmured, "Open your eyes."

Pello obeyed, and blinked as his eyes adjusted to the darkened room in which he found himself. Shelves filled with boxes and display cases line the walls. He was facing one that had an unusual large piece of silvery-blue keystone in it. He turned sharply. "You really just—did it. We can't have been on the Paths!"

"If we hadn't been, this would be impossible," said Osmer. "Come on. Let's get you some lunch to make up for the scare."

Pello laughed. "All right. Lead on."

The world was stranger and wider than he had realised, even after a few weeks at Starfall Manor. Pello trailed along after Osmer, trying to fold the experience away in his head before it faded into a dream—the Paths were so decidedly unreal compared to these comfortingly solid corridors smelling faintly of polish.

It was a lesson worth learning, more than anything they had taught him in the classes so far.

Comments

[persiflage_1]

Intriguing!

Beta note: "I don't know if I can promise not to stay calm."

Fairly sure that not is extraneous.

[thisbluespirit]

Thank you! (And fixed!<3)

[paradoxcase]

Interesting, I would have liked to have seen Pello's experience just before this, but I guess there might be more of that kind of thing later?

Also, most of your tags seem to have gone AWOL?

[thisbluespirit]

Interesting, I would have liked to have seen Pello's experience just before this, but I guess there might be more of that kind of thing later?

I wrote this for the prompt "In the woods" though, so... it was in the woods. XD I wrote more about the Paths earlier on, you see, sorry. I think mainly here where Osmer is trying to get back onto the Paths from what is theoretically a long way away (Portcallan), and I wrote about Leaira's experience on the Paths in this piece, but that is kind of the resolution of the initial loose arc I was doing, so whether or not it'd make sense alone I don't know.

And, lol, thanks re. the tags - I always make the post and then edit the tags in after, because it's easier, and I must have forgotten to do that last night. (LJ used to show a tag list on posting, but for whatever reason Dreamwidth only has the annoying autofill, but if you edit the tags after it has the list - with comms like this with lots of tags, I find it much easier to tag that way. It does apparently screw over anyone who's trying to track the tags, though, so my author name is there because Pers was trying to follow my rainbowfic posts and I was routinely confounding them until I realised, so I type that much in while posting.)

[paradoxcase]

Thanks, I finally got a chance to read those two, I don't think the missing context hurts them too much. That's pretty cool, and I remember you mentioning the Paths before in another comment, haha.

[sovay]

The Paths were nothing—nowhere—and yet he and Osmer could walk into them, walk in that space, so they must nevertheless be somewhere or something, but his senses had been unwilling to acknowledge that uncanny reality. They were a cold blue-edged void of light and that was all. Thinking of them made him catch his breath. No wonder there were so few people who could navigate them safely.

Hooray, back to the Paths. I have missed this particular manifestation of weirdness.

"It's a very fine part of High Eisterland," said Osmer, with an injured note in his voice. "I'm very fond of it."

I can sympathize with both sides of this exchange. I am probably bound to side eventually with the one who misses the sea.

[thisbluespirit]

Aw, thank you! <3

[theseatheseatheopensea]

The world was stranger and wider than he had realised, even after a few weeks at Starfall Manor. Pello trailed along after Osmer, trying to fold the experience away in his head before it faded into a dream—the Paths were so decidedly unreal compared to these comfortingly solid corridors smelling faintly of polish.

I love the contrast between dream and reality, and how matter-of-fact and almost easy it is to slip from one to the other and go to the Paths!