Spectral Sight (5/11)

[00:24] While it was neither the busiest nor the most exciting of days, Armondt was pretty happy to see it through. For all their scrambling around, it was important to take a second, take stock, and just relax. ...or so was the policy the courier basically always lived his life under. At last do the two manage to make it to the beach just south of Ilberg, and at last does Armondt get to relax under the shade of a stately palm tree.

"Now a place like this ain't like home at all. But the warm sand's awful nice. Apparently coconuts're supposed to be up in these here trees." The drifter looks up towards one of the treetops, trying to scout it out for the aforementioned fruit. Armondt was pretty sure they were fruit. Or maybe vegetables? It was always a little difficult for him to tell the difference.

"I see some right up there. Li'l hard to point out in all that shade, but..." He points right up at the rotund, solid green... fruit? Maybe vegetables, but he thinks it's fruit, but it's entirely possible it is actually vegetables. "Ya see it? Ain't rightly sure how we're gonna get at it. Should I just, like, kick it, or..."
(Armondt)
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[00:30] Excitement was relative. It had been plenty exciting for Leni when she'd pantsed that poor Teraphim, and then some more when they'd actually had a message or two to deliver. There's new things to experience even among the simple, day-to-day droll.

The deserts surrounding Ilberg are as scorching as ever, but the shade of the trees and the breeze across the water make the beach actually pleasant. It's easier to look upward too once they're beneath one of the stretched out fronds of a palm.

Leni gets the bright idea to jump off of Armondt's shoulders and try to grab onto the palm. No dice. She bonks her head against the trunk instead.
(Leni)
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[00:30] Leni exclaims, "--Oof!"
[00:30] Leni exclaims, "...I almost had it!"
[00:33] "Er-- yeah! I know ya did!" Armondt cheered her on despite the pretty resounding failure. Leni might have had the right idea, but said idea sure was met with resistance from the entirely stationary palm tree. "Lemme just..." He sets Leni down gently onto the sand, before steeling himself. Cutting the tree down outright seemed a little excessive, so how about...

Punching it?

Armondt let his fist fly forward. It was a brawler's punch - not exactly well-practiced, and more liable to see use in a barfight than an actual altercation. However, it manages to hit the tree pretty squarely. He makes contact, and the coconuts atop the tree manage to jostle a little bit. That's as far as he gets them, though.

He reels in for another punch, but despite the coconuts' shaking about, the subsequent attempt didn't seem to accomplish very much. "...Huh. Len, maybe try talkin' to it? Or!" Of course! This was clearly a prompt for her to try and engage with her studies.

"Stop bein' Leni, and be the tree. Maybe if you're the tree, ya can feel like droppin' those coconuts...?"
(Armondt)
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[00:40] Yeah, she was nowhere near to getting that one, but boy did she give it plenty of gusto. After that knock to the skull and the devastation wreaked on her noggin, she's fine with sitting down on the sand. But just for a minute.

When her head stops spinning she watches the cowpoke wail on the tree. She even gives him applause as he does, hooting and hollering to cheer him on.

"Woo! You got it!- But hey! Don't hurt 'em!" she reminds him. Sure, the tree is tough, but maybe it still has feelings too. Then again the palms that line these beach shores surely have had worse abuse from the winds than from Armondt's fists.

"Oh...yeah! Lemme try!"

Leni reaches out, feeling through her mana and the life around her to reach out into the tree. Everything's fine, she almost has it, and then-

That old injury acts up again. Her heart seizes and she goes rigid. Oh god, is she going into cardiac arrest? Is this how she goes out? All because she wanted a coconut!?
(Leni)
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[00:45] This ought to be a fun watch. Seeing Leni play about with her nature affinity was always a wild trip. One could generally expect to see what happens, but that didn't make it any less exciting to witness. This, however. This wasn't quite as fun to witness. Armondt looks up for a moment, expecting vines to clasp the coconuts and gently pluck them from their places on the tree. What instead happens is that Leni just seems to... stop.

And it takes a second for him to look down and check her. A few seconds, at least. "...Len?" Armondt notes that the one state she was in wasn't constant effervescent movement. This wasn't right. "...Hey. Len. Ya alright?" He's almost insistently quick to loop an arm around her and shake her gently, trying to get her to snap out of it.

It's not quite the desperation that he expressed when she first found herself saddled with the injury, but he could very well and very easily lapse into that state again. "C'mon. Len. You're good, right...?" Quietly does that shroud of mana that oft surrounds Armondt in these times come to life. It flickers ambiently, that she could try and draw on it if necessary.

If she had enough in her to draw from it in the first place.
(Armondt)
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[00:52] For a moment her heart just stops. Or that's what it feels like to her. Like a great force gives it a squeeze that makes it go still. Her eyes go wide and she grabs at her chest.

The world gets blurry at the edges. The sun a little less bright. Leni's vision starts to hit a tunnel. For a moment she absolutely swears she can see little pinpoints of light all dancing around the tree, brighter than anything else.

That is, brighter than anything else until Armondt's mana flares to life. Though she's not wholly attuned to anything of cosmic nature, she reaches out for it to draw on it for an extra boost when her head grows fuzzy.

It still looks like she's dazed, rattled, but her hand lowers from over her heart.

"...Whoa! Uh. Yeah! I'm fine!"

The chirping is a little on the warbly side and her head wobbles, but she looks more or less alright.

"Haha, weird."
(Leni)
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