Rocky Isle Guild Classes - Jygust 32nd, 1225 AD

[Ashari]

Jygust 32nd Morningtide 1st mark - Noontide (6 marks)

Classes:

Meditation - with Ashari in the Garden Room
Dance - with Charlesmange in the Main Hall
Literacy[Common] - with Ashari in the Library

Meditation

Positive Mantra Meditation. Ashari instructed her two students to get comfortable, once again, rolling out seating pads and joining them on the floor of the Garden Room. The morning air was sweet with blooming flowers. Ash had opened all the windows to let in a breeze and it tussled their hair playfully.

"Sometimes, when there are a lot of outside forces set on distracting you from your meditation counting isn't enough," she began. "And you will need something else to help center your mind on the deep breathing that makes it come easier. This can be done with a powerful positive mantra." There were, of course, thousands of variations of mantras that could be used. "The best way to do this, is to think of a sound that centers you.. we'll use Om today. It's a mystical sound, brought from Terra Incognita, and you will concentrate on the sound, say it in your mind and use it as a focus for your meditation."

She instructed them to concentrate on their breathing, following it's intake and exhale and close their eyes. They weren't to say the word outloud, and, in fact, if they didn't like Om they could easily change it to something they preferred. "You may stress on different parts of the word, say it faster or slower - dragging out it's sound, but if your mind wanders come back to it and it's clarity and say it again. Notice the reactions in your body, the small movements of your muscles and then: return to your mantra," she smiled and then began to concentrate on the meditation herself, finding great peace and harmony in the Om.

Dance
If there's one thing that could be said about Charlesmange it was that he demanded attention. He strutted into Thalas Manse with the authority of a cock in the hen house, and with the flair to match! Being the lead rooster, he wore a fancy doublet, vest and pants in a coppery red hue. His shoes were shined and had elegant buckles on them that matched cufflinks in his coat. A smart hat adorned his head and from it came a long ostrich feather that had been dyed to match the ensemble. "Hellooo ladies!" He announced upon his entrance while two young men of the Risque staff followed him at his heels.

He grasped Ashari's hands and gave her two quick kisses, one on either side of her face. "Are we ready to dance?" And with that, the lesson began.

Of course, they were likely to be all knees and elbows and left feet at first, but, Charlesmange hadn't anticipated this lesson to be SO difficult! He alternatively partnered up with Ashari (who had some experience with dancing), Aerin and Yelena while his two young assistants did the same. Their focus today was on traditional dances of the Empire, generally considered "festival" dances, but ones that were very popular as they involved the switching of partners in mid-dance and could be a lovely way to get to know other persons on the dance floor.

At the end of the class Charlesmange awarded the girls with a Risque token that gave them membership to the private club. "You girls now have access to the best place in the whole city!" He said this exuberantly, and then graced each of the young ladies with kisses on each of their cheeks. "See you there!" And then he and his dancing assistants departed.

Literacy [Common]

After the energy burn of the dancing class, it was better to relax in the library for a time, thus, Ash gave a simple lesson that focussed on consonant blends such as TH and CH and showed some words that used these, and then had her students recite the alphabet and did some spelling assignments that had them write CAT, DOG, BOX, and other simple three letter words five times each. Aside from this, she encouraged them to write simple poems which she would help them with if they needed any assistance with how to spell a word. She expected them each to come up with two haiku's to pass.

[Aerin Penna Seleratus]

Meditation

Aerin assembled in the Garden Room, taking a seat next to the rosebush which marked the grave of the dead cat. Of all of the spaces in the room, this was her favorite not only for the view but also for the bloody secret – it was a cat and not a person, but it was still a kill and the comfort of knowing that there was a body nearby that had been killed by her own hands in cold blood helped the redhead focus more than ever, knowing that she was due some preliminary intelligence on the organizational genocide to come for te evil Crane and his henchmen.

One attempt on Crane had been made before and failed while his counter-strike against Paige had been successful. Aerin pulled her legs into meditative posture while wondering about Trevyn – Ashari had mentioned that he had left, but was sparse with details. Had he worried that the risk was too great? Had he been approached by Crane and refused to cross sides? Perhaps only he and Ashari would know for sure, but Aerin still watched Yelena with a wary eye. It still seemed very peculiar to Aerin how the blond had circumvented Langredoc as if she saw no threat there at all and gave no aid that Aerin could see in felling him. Yet deep down, she knew that she only needed to wait.

"Sometimes, when there are a lot of outside forces set on distracting you from your meditation counting isn't enough, and you will need something else to help center your mind on the deep breathing that makes it come easier. This can be done with a powerful positive mantra. The best way to do this, is to think of a sound that centers you.. we'll use Om today. It's a mystical sound, brought from Terra Incognita, and you will concentrate on the sound, say it in your mind and use it as a focus for your meditation."

“Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm… Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm… Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm… Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm… Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmm….” Aerin chanted, her eyes closed softly as she cleared her mind of all but a single rosebud, the petals closed during the intake of breath and opening during the breathe-out hum of the word. Ashari was right, it was a peace-bringing centering thing, this mantra, and Aerin could almost feel her skin tingling with each push out of the word.

Her mind tried to wander to the events of the previous day – to the attack on Langredoc and how drunk with power she had become, but the redhead fought herself for focus – the dull ache of the still-healing wound on her arm was a good reminder that had she had focus before, he would have been dead before the blade could have been thrown. At least, that is what she told herself.

She paid no attention to her body, contrary to Ashari’s instructions, not because she thought better of it but because a few burns into the meditation, she simply forgot that she even had a body.

There was just her mind and the rose and the Om. Nothing more.

Dance

Aerin was loose and very relaxed when Charlesmange entered with his staff, the redhead having meditated herself damn near into a stupor much like the one she often entered after fevered loveplay. The smile on her face as introductions were made was the same. Indeed, at first, Aerin was a bit clumsy, but once she realized that dancing was little more than a vertical manifestation of a horizontal desire – a.k.a. ‘standing sex with clothes on’, she found herself a very pliable student to be sure, the foreplay of meditation having primed her pumps (so to speak) for the mechanics of dance.

Thoughts of murder and revenge stayed to the wayside as she plunged into the impromptu staged festival with gusto, smiling and laughing when appropriate and generally relaxing and having a good time with the three instructors, her mentor, and her classmate. When the class was at an end, Aerin was almost at the verge of purposefully mis-stepping in order to prolong the class just a few flickers more.

The token was a welcome surprise.

Aerin accepted it with a gracious curtsey and the twin kisses, the token quickly growing warm in her palm as she harbored momentary fantasies of nights to come, one memory floating in among these thoughts – the night that she had been turned away from the Caesar’s party and met Ashari. Her Mistress was coming through on her word – not that Aerin had ever had doubts – and had just given the former farm girl one more rung on the ladder away from that world.

The token, Aerin knew, would also come in handy for other things as far as the plot against Crane went, but Aerin made no mention of this as she approached Ashari between classes, slipped the token into her own bodice, and repeated the bowing and kissing of the flamboyant instructor on Ashari (if allowed), genuinely thanking the woman flickers later for the opportunities and knowledge and hard work put into the classes.

Literacy [Common]

The meditation had relaxed her – the dancing had revitalized her – and her literacy lesson found her attentive and alert in even the most repetitive of tasks. Although she had spent most of her youth with her nose in a book, it amazed Aerin how little she did know about the written form of the language that she spoke, discovering that she had been mis-reading some of the words that contained the tricky TH and CH combination. “So it isn’t spelled b-i-t-s-h”, she mumbled as she jotted down notes on the subject.

The Eastern Empire’s poetry, haiku – a word that Aerin found intensely funny to say or even think - was a bit hard for her at first until she realized that tapping two fingers on her forearm in beat with the syllables helped keep the meter in check. Her eyes scanned the room in order to come up with a topic to write about, her eyes settling for a flicker on Yelena who had looked very beautiful during the dancing despite Aerin’s suspicions of the woman. Hastily, she scribbled her thoughts onto a blank sheaf in metered form.

Yelena is cute
Bet she is wild in the bed
Might have to fuck her

It was a cute poem and good for a warm-up, but hardly what Ashari would be looking for, Aerin thought, and so she crumpled up the page and took out a fresh sheet.

Swordsman killed my friend
Needs to have his balls cut off
Wonder how they’d taste

Aerin gave a small private giggle and crumpled that sheet as well, remembering the rush she had gotten from the accidental cannibalism at the Red Banner. Memories make for good practice though… she thought as she composed and destroyed another.

Cooked Adheil in rocks
Ate a bit by accident
Mmmm, death is tasty

Her stomach gurgled as she laid out yet another bare page – all this thought of food was making her hungry. She looked around again and noted the empty space left by Paige and Trevyn, which made her think of Aeris.

Aeris was a student
Too short lived the Swanmaiden
Guess her goose was cooked

“Netherbats!” Aerin swore under her breath, crumpling that page into a ball and piling it with the others. She needed to get her mind out of her stomach and back to the task at hand - perhaps with a little more light-hearted humor.

Aerin is a mage
Ashari is her teacher
Cicero flings poop

The young mage smiled, setting the poem aside for submission. Hopefully Ashari was not looking to crank out epic bards from their dwindling numbers. Recalling the feelings and lessons from earlier, Aerin closed her eyes and let out a few Oms, relaxing her mind.

Magic is my rose
Calmness is in my garden
My thorns bear poison

A personal masterpiece – she liked it so much that she copied it onto another sheaf for framing and hanging on her bedroom wall. With a smile, she gathered up her discards and placed them in the wastebasket before turning in her assignments and excusing herself back to the Garden Room for more meditation.

She knew that Ashari had things to do before returning to plot and Aerin wanted to be at her peak when the time came, be it through meditating the whole time or by meditating for a bit and then running out to play with an oddly-pierced blacksmith for a burn or two before returning.

[Yelena Kintessia]

Meditation

Yelena was joyed to hear that meditation would be the first activity for the day's classes. She needed to focus and clear her mind. Not just for the events that happened the day before, but also for when she helped Ashari later in the day. As she sat in the garden room amongst the flowers, seeing the sun's rays and being touched by the breeze she could already feel a calming effect.

"Sometimes, when there are a lot of outside forces set on distracting you from your meditation counting isn't enough," she began. "And you will need something else to help center your mind on the deep breathing that makes it come easier. This can be done with a powerful positive mantra." There were, of course, thousands of variations of mantras that could be used. "The best way to do this, is to think of a sound that centers you.. we'll use Om today. It's a mystical sound, brought from Terra Incognita, and you will concentrate on the sound, say it in your mind and use it as a focus for your meditation."

The blond closed her eyes and slowly took a deep breath. “Ohhhhhhmmmmmm... Ohhhhhhmmmmmm... Ohhhhhhmmmmmm...” repeating the sound at a consistent speed. Not too fast and not too slow. She cleared her mind of the past, present and future by focusing on a bright light in her mind. Soon she was silent, deep in her own meditation.

Dance

When Charlesmanse entered with his assistance, the atmosphere around the room changed instantly. For the duration of it was his time, and he was going to teach dance! Yelena happily welcomed the vibrant energy. Dancing was not as easy as she first thought however as she tripped on her own feet and stepped on the men's toes but a quick sincere “sorry” and her determination let her learn the steps as well as she could until her mistakes were not every flicker or burn.

It was also entertaining to watch Ashari and Aerin have their turns at dance. Both were beautiful at the steps and the switches and Yelena could not help but smile. As class ended Yelena bid Charlesmanse farewell and looked at the token she had received for a moment. I guess I should visit one day.

Literacy

Yelena made her notes as detailed as possible so she could go back and read them if she needed a refresher on the subject. She completed her assignment fairly quickly before she got to her haikus. With the help of Ashari to spell out some of the words, she quickly came up with her first one.

Serenity is
like laying under a tree
with the breeze blowing

A smile formed on her face after completing and a burn after she started work on her second. No ideas came to mind immediately, but after looking over to Aerin, Yelena decided to write one about her.

Redheaded Aerin
Pretty and mysterious
I like her that way

She turned the two poems to Ashari and cleaned up a bit before returning to her room wondering if she should go out or stay until the meeting.