Are you the calm of a fire or the raging of a river (Jeryl)

[Liitha]

Liitha sat looking at the horison, she had a shirt with short arms today, knowing that traces of her tatoo would be showing. Sliping her bandana off her head she used it to whipe sweat of her face as she sat waiting for Jeryl to turn up.

 

As the boy joined her she greeted him. "Today you will be making a choise that will shape you and have effect on the rest of your training here as well as in all time after. There is two ways to go."

 

She smiled as she saw the look on her mentees face, "Today you will be chosing your philosophy, the choise is between the Flame and the Void, and the Spring. I'll be telling you a litle of both and then leave you to ponder which you think will suit you bether."

 

"The Flame and the Void focus on pushing all disrupting thougths out of your mind to leave you in a void of emotionless when you figth or need to otherwise focus.

 

On the oposite you have the spring which will learn you to embrace your emotions, you will feed of your emotions while figthing."

[GiDo]

As Jeryl walked out of the barracks, which were going to be his home for a long time, he realized that the sun was up already. He had his trainee uniform on and it fit him perfectly, he only had to get used to a uniform. The last few weeks or was it months? He couldn't even remember how long he had been here already. He had worn the uniform and still he couldn't get used to it completely. "Its just one of those things I have to get used to I guess." He said in a thoughtful murmur.

 

With his sword on his back with the lion head pommel sticking over his right shoulder he thought, "Should I even have brought my sword today? I never actually asked Liitha if I should bring it to every lesson, I just always did. I'll have to ask her that today." It was a nice day with the sun just above the horizon and a clear blue sky, well clear overhead and some white clouds in the distant. "A nice day for training." He said as he walked over to Liitha. She sat at the tree the talked the first day he met her, as she did every day. "Good morning" He said as she greeted him.

 

"Today you will be choosing your philosophy, the choice is between the Flame and the Void, and the Spring. I'll be telling you a little of both and then leave you to ponder which you think will suit you better." He nodded and waited for her to continue.

 

"The Flame and the Void focus on pushing all disrupting thoughts out of your mind to leave you in a void of emotionless when you fight or need to otherwise focus. On the opposite you have the spring which will learn you to embrace your emotions, you will feed of your emotions while fighting." "Well I never actually been good with emotions so I guess I'll want to learn the "Flame and the Void" then, if that's ok with you? Maybe I can use it in other situations besides fighting as well. Situations which needs concentration I mean, I don't think embracing my emotions is good in those situations." He said thoughtfully.

[Liitha]

Liitha nodded, "Its the choise i made once too" she smiled. "The philosophy will help you to focus and become one with your sword when figthing."

 

"Now close your eyes and clear your mind. Picture the image of a flame and concentrate only on the image of the flame. Once you have done this begin feeding your emotions into the flame one by one. Once you have done this you achieve you will enter a new place where the outside world does not touch you."

 

She lay back onto the soft grass to study the skies while her trainee searched for the void.

[GiDo]

"Now close your eyes and clear your mind. Picture the image of a flame and concentrate only on the image of the flame. Once you have done this begin feeding your emotions into the flame one by one. Once you have done this you achieve you will enter a new place where the outside world does not touch you."

 

Jeryl nodded while Liitha lay back in the grass. As he crossed his legs in front of him and laid his hands on his knees. He closed his eyes and he was thinking on how he would ever accomplish this.

 

Picturing the image of a flame wasn't that hard. He had sat at the table in his parent's home looking at a flame more then often, seeing it flicker and dance around on top of the candle. Concentrating on that flame wasn't hard either neither was clearing his mind. But "feeding all your emotions to that flame" was something else.

 

After some futile tries he opened his eyes and said to Liitha, "Picturing the flame isn't that hard and neither is clearing my mind and focus on the flame. But how do I feed all my emotions into it? I did get all relaxed when I pictured the flame and cleared my mind but that's about it."

[Liitha]

"Picturing the flame isn't that hard and neither is clearing my mind and focus on the flame. But how do I feed all my emotions into it? I did get all relaxed when I pictured the flame and cleared my mind but that's about it."

 

Liitha shifted her eyes to her mentee, and smiled. "Not everything come easy and this is hard, but try to start with one emotion, a strong one and focus it on the flame. Then keep adding them slowly, one step at the time, you will get there."

[GiDo]

"Not everything comes easy and this is hard, but try to start with one emotion, a strong one and focus it on the flame. Then keep adding them slowly, one step at the time, you will get there."

 

Nodding his agreement, Jeryl closed his eyes again and started picturing a flame in his mind again. After hitting a fly that was bothering him he emptied his mind so only he and the flame were there. Thinking about how to "feed" his emotions into the flame he got distracted and needed to clear him mind all over again.

 

After some time he was alone with the flame again. Frustration was the first emotion to go into the flame. "I just few my frustration to the flame" he said to Liitha in an existed rush. "Sorry I'll continue."

 

Knowing now how to "feed" his emotions to the flame its was rather easy to do, so after some minutes he had his mind clear. The only thing that existed was he and the flame. "Ok my mind is clear and I fed all my emotions to the flame. What do I do now?" He asked with a real calm tone.

[Liitha]

"Ok my mind is clear and I fed all my emotions to the flame. What do I do now?"

 

His tone where calm signalising that he indeed where in the void. She moved her eyes to focus on him, "Get up" She rose and brushed a few strands of grass off her pants, "Now holding the voind withouth focusing on nothing but that is the easy part, learning to keep holding it while doing other stuff is the hard one." She sat out on a jog she remembered herself doing once, "follow me"

 

She ran a few laps around the pond, making sure he had it down before continuing with the exercise. "Now that you are able to do that i want you to do basic foot work while holding the void. Advance, retreat, side step. Then slowly as you master that try and add in some of the forms as well"

 

Liitha retreated, she watched from afar while picking up some stones, she waited till it seemed he had it under controll then let one fly softly through the air and land against his shoulder.

 

At first she waited between each but then she set a more steady pace, not hard, only enough to be a distraction. She remembered herself and her expectation of this which had made her end up with a wet swim tour instead.