Flowers in Your Hair

[color=#c10300]"Perfect. An hour will work just fine...I think I know what barn your talking about. No need for a map."[/color] Julian spoke with confidence. He shifted and pushed off the gate. He turned to face Asha and gave her a sweet smile. [color=#c10300]"Alright, an hour from now."[/color] And with that, he gave Asha a slight nod turned into a head bow, and took off. 

Julian drifted off the streets away from the creatures gated. As soon as he was out of sight, he kept walking taking a turn or two as he walked. Eventually, he would find a bag stashed in a little alleyway hidden from peering eyes. He took off his shirt quickly and began applying his crow wardrobe. Dark cloth shirt and pants covered with dark leather armor. A golden mask in the shape of a wolf drifted onto his face, and a black hooded cloak wrapped around his neck. 

The hour seemed to have passed quickly for him. He stood and walk through the shadows, watching people come and go off the street. He found the old barn quickly. He looped around several times, watching for patterns of those around him. Seeing who comes and who goes within the place. It was fairly quiet. It seemed abandoned and looks like it would work for what he was going to do to help Asha learn. Privacy was would help them in the matter at hand. Julian appeared in the rafters the top of the inside of the barn, hidden in the shadows. He waited, eyes watching for the presence of Asha to arrive. His voice would be slightly deeper. Muffled a bit from his mask. It was something, he knew he had to address when using this identity. If people knew Julian, they couldn't try to tie his voice to Teowolf. Perched with one hand, he twirled a short dagger around his fingers. Feeling the sensory of the thin sharp blade around his skin. Waiting. 

OK so to say that Asha was nervous would be an understatement, she'd already gone through some worst case scenarios over in her mind and did her best to dismiss them. She overall felt good about her instincts about Julian and his friend, even if they were strangers to her up until an hour ago. She made her way to the barn at the barn, going over and over in her head what she might learn. Her blood magic and necromancy could definitely use a LOT of work, then they'd already talked about blood magic so maybe that's what they'd work on, though it did make her a bit nervous, the last thing she'd want to do would be to pass out in front of a new person because of the sight of blood.

She hesitantly entered the barn, looked around, and then sat down on an old bail of hay. It was quiet, she assumed she'd gotten there first. She swung her legs a bit from being nervous and hummed a tune.

Julian watched Asha enter the barn quietly. He could tell she was nervous. Meeting someone who is supposed to teach her a new way of looking at magic. Or at least blood magic. Asha warned him about how the site of blood made her nauseous. The first time he worked with it, he had to get over the pain aspect. The blood never bothered him. But everyone was different in their way. A flicker deep within him growled. Whether it meant annoyance or gratitude for teaching ones desire to learn. He ignored the sudden flicker of emotion from his daemon. Through shadows, he teleported in front of Asha. Tendrils of darkness swirled around as it came out of the ground. Julian stepped through in all black. A mask of a wolf, golden outlines within the mask to highlight features. 

[color=#c10300]"Hello. Julian sends his regards. An emergency came up something about his father needed him sooner than later. Name is Teowolf. He tells me you would like a bit of help with a certain aspect of magic....I owed Julian and favor and I was in town...." [/color]His words were slightly deeper than his normal. Finding ways to alter his voice. He stood upright and focused. It was important to find ways to hide that he was indeed Julian. 

Asha did her best to hide her surprise at Teowolf's sudden appearance, she wanted to seem mature and grown up, not like some scared child. She composed herself, imagining her mother's voice in her head about not showing weakness and all that, and then smiled warmly up at Teowolf.

It's very kind of you, er, and him, to do this for me. I don't know how much he told you but I have my mother and my Auntie Lana who teach me, but I've been struggling so with blood magic I thought maybe an outsider's assistance might help more, since I'm not trying to impress you or worrying you'll yell at me. I know blood magic is difficult, and I'm still really young, but I'd like to at least have the principles down, right now I can't even attempt it without fainting at the sight of the blood. She said with a slight frown.

He stood there for a brief second as he listened to her speak. Her explanation of why she couldn't do blood magic. The mind was what blocked her ability to use such magic. As Asha finished speaking, Julian took a few steps and circled around her. Examining her as if he was studying every part of her. [color=#c10300]"The mind can do many different things. It can guide you, and assist you. But it is like a double edge sword. It can also harm you. And this situation...it is harming your potential. If you allow it to control you then you will never be able to do half the things you could do with magic." [/color]

Julian stood circling around her. He stood in front of her. He thought he would show her while he explained it but he knew that might be a bad idea to start. She would prob faint and he would then have to wait for her to wake. Let alone, if they were caught and she was unconscious, he would be in trouble. [color=#c10300]"I want you to close your eyes. Abolish the thoughts and ideas about how blood affects you. I want you to retrain yourself. What brings you life? What brings you joy to wake up in the morning? What fuels you to do what you do? What is the essence of life?" [/color]

She felt a bit nervous the way that he walked around her, but then it was nothing compared to the way Morrigan paced back and forth when she wasn't grasping a lesson, the sour look of disapproval etched on her face, the sound of disappointment in her voice. No, this was nothing like that, so she felt mostly at ease despite not knowing this person beyond five minute ago.

Makes sense She chimed in as he stopped pacing and stood in front of her, she hung on his every word, soaked it all in, determined to, for once, make her mother proud. Even though her father had told her in the letter how the more fault Morrigan found in someone, that it actually meant she cared. Because if she didn't care she wouldn't give someone the time of day. Still, Asha wanted for just once to see some flicker of happiness or pride in Asha in her mother's eyes. She closed her eyes as asked. As he asks the questions, at first she thought she should maybe answer each one separately, but the more he asked the more she realised maybe each question had the same answer. 

So, life and blood are synonymous, we have life because we have blood? She didn't mean for it to sound like a question, but it did any way.

[color=#c10300]"Exactly. Without blood, there would be no life."[/color][color=#000000] [/color][color=#000000]He stepped forward Asha. He took out a small dagger and removed one of his gloves from his hands. He sliced the palm of his hand. [/color][color=#c10300]"Without life there can be no blood. Blood is like water. Just thicker. We need water to survive....I'm going to grasp your hands. Don't open your eyes. I just want you to feel them. Commit to thinking of blood is life and its the need to survive. Feel the blood and make the connection."[/color] Teowolf stepped closer and took her hands and put them over slowly onto his open palm as blood began to slowly rip open from his skin. 

Julian liked the way Asha was thinking. It helped bounce the ideas he had about blood magic and make it relatable for her to understand the concept. Proposing questions made it easy to keep Asha from being too distracted by her own fears. He had to keep pushing before she would psyche herself out and faint.  [color=#c10300]"Describe to me what your feeling? What do you sense? What thoughts are popping into your head?" [/color]

Asha hung on every word that Teowolf uttered, like it were the breath of life and she were hungry for oxygen. His words made sense to a point, blood was natural, blood was everything, everyone would be dead without it. Yet something about it made her faint at the sight of it, or perhaps it had been the stress of doing it in front of her mother, she couldn't even be entirely sure. It wasn't as if she'd been hurt before, she led a relatively sheltered, and short, life, so seeing blood just wasn't something she'd seen any of before the incident with her mother.

She kept her eyes closed, and jumped slightly as she felt something on her hands. Blood was life, life was blood. The feel of it was slightly warm, wet, yet something hung in the air she couldn't quite put her finger on.

I'm feeling nervous, but I don't feel myself losing control, I can feel it on my hands but it doesn't seem as scary as when I actually saw it. I smell a faint hint of iron on the air, I don't think that I like that smell.

[color=#c10300]"Good. Your beginning to believe in yourself. Trust those feelings...sadly blood is iron. Though with maybe some illusion spells you could trick your mind into thinking it smells something different."[/color] Julian took a cloth from his backside and began to wipe the blood off his hand. He then piled pressure on his wound to help slow the drip of blood that was forming. 

He paused briefly as he took his sharp dagger toward Asha's hand. He gripped the hand and allowed her to feel the dagger. [color=#c10300]"Alright, so this next part, I want you to still close your eyes. I'm going to do a small touch with the dagger on the palm of your hand. This will draw some blood. Might pinch a bit. Pain will go away as quickly as it was taken. What I want you to recognize or a better word....connect with the feeling of your own blood. Feel it, and use your magic to sense your blood within you. Feel the contents, Feel the life force and power it wields. It's a feeling that differs from people but it's there. We can sense our own blood. We use our blood to amplify our own abilities. Think of it as a source of an extra burst of energy given to you. In time, as you get comfortable with this feeling, we can practice opening your eyes a bit. But for now, I just want you to look deep within yourself and feel the blood..." [/color]Julian hoped he was reaching Asha. Helping to see a different side of blood magic. For him, it was the constant source of diving into the magic over and over again until his form was perfect. And I would assume that was what Asha's mom was hoping for. Everyone has different needs and ways of learning. You can't push someone to learn if they can't right in their right hand. When clearly there left-handed.

It felt strange keeping her eyes closed, but she did as instructed. As he said she was doing good, she perked up at the idea of using illusion magic to change what the blood smelled like. Illusion magic was one foci that she excelled in. She hadn't even considered that it could have applications in attempting blood magic.

I'm great with illusion magic. That definitely sounds like something I could do. Maybe I could make it smell like fresh-baked cookies like Uncle Cullen makes. She trailed off as Teowolf continued to speak to her about what he was doing, about what he was going to do. She was incredibly nervous, but she just kept thinking about how happy her mother would be if she succeeded in casting a blood magic spell.

She nodded and swallowed, trying to calm her nerves. She felt the pinch he talked about, felt the strange sensation as her blood pooled a bit in her hand. It felt a bit like the time she tried to use one of Cullen's knives in the kitchen and cut herself. Strange, she hadn't remembered that memory until just then. She'd only been three but now she could remember how scared she'd been. Asha was alone in the kitchen, where she wasn't allowed to be alone. She didn't know who to go to, who to get help from that wouldn't be angry with her. She cried and cried until Cullen came in and found her.

I have a memory from when I was three. I snuck into the kitchen and tried to use one of Cullen's knives to cut something. And my hand slipped, and I cut myself badly. I hadn't remembered that memory until just now. Was that the source of her issues with seeing blood she wondered?

[color=#c10300]"It could be your memory and the past that is causing an obstacle for you to further push your magic. Maybe this lesson was for you to come to terms with what was causing you such heartache in attempting blood magic. Find the deeper meaning. From the looks of it, you found a vivid memory. A clutch that is weighing you down.....now take that clutch and lift it off your shoulders. Embrace the feeling. The past is past. Don't let it haunt you or bring you down. Push forward. Go deeper. Feel the connection of your blood with your life force. Draw on it. I want you to think of a way to use that feeling and tap it into whatever you want....you say Illusion magic your good at? Then use that extra force of energy drawn from the blood magic and amplify your own illusion magic around you. Take me somewhere out of this barn. Show me..." [/color]

Teowolf walked slowly around here as he monologued. Pausing when necessary. He mimicked what Magnus would do when he trained him. His voice carried Asha around herself. Speaking from all around her. Letting his words sink in, he stepped a few feet away from her and waited to see what she could do. 

Asha hung on every word that Teowolf uttered, not a single word was missed. She clung to it, like her life depended on it. It didn't, of course, but she wanted to impress her mother, make her actually happy with her for once. Her relationship with her father had always been so easy, but with her mother, it was the complete opposite. It was difficult, like trying to push a boulder uphill all by herself.

She focused on her illusion magic and her blood magic, pushing feelings of doubt and fear aside. Her fear was silly. It was just an old memory her brain wouldn't let go of. A silly mistake she'd made in her past. Literally a simple knife slip. Every time her brain wanted to push against her, she pushed back. 

She slowly imagined a happy place. The surrounding area shifted. From being the inside of a barn to becoming a training yard with dummies. Her dad was there, training with his sword, and little three-year-old Asha was there too, with her own little wooden training sword.

Like this?

Teowolf nodded to Asha. He looked around as the world around them transformed into a training yard with dummies. To the eye, it was as if they were in a new location. [color=#c10300]"Good. The extra push from the blood magic can always add to one magic or amplify another field of magic. Enough push, you may get someone to actually believe in this illusion. Your learning....unfortunately, this is where we must part ways. I have an errand to attend to...." [/color]

Teowolf started to walk toward the barn's door or what was now a large training dummy instead. He turned his head back to Asha. [color=#c10300]"You have the ability now to begin training on your own. Practice what we did here. Don't let the clutches of your past bind you. Prove your mother wrong. You are far more capable than you think you are....until we meet again..." [/color]His words echoed crisp and clean. Without hesitation, he began to walk through the dummy and out of the barn.