A willing student

[19:23] Celine once again brought Darrel to the Vale, but this time she didn't stop in the central areas, but moved to less traveled pathways in search of a truly secluded locale.

She didn't want distractions for this.

For the both of them.

"I'm sure you've already felt it before Darrel. I'm fairly confident even without Rain testing the blood for me that the Occult is part of you now." She would comment as she moves further and further into the darker parts of the Vale.

"Which should make this all the easier for you to learn." A quick addition to her words is tacked on as she finally comes to a stop within a secluded grove within the Vale.

Scarlet eyes shifted to look upwards towards the towering trees that surround them, the shade that they cast leaving large patches of shadows all around. Eventually, she would turn to look towards Darrel, and the flames that coiled around him, bright and hot as ever.

"Quench your flames love. Feeding them will only distract you."

The svelte figure of the woman turned towards him fully as she considers him. "You said before that they were trying to teach you the Occult while you were at the Tower right? What all have they told you about it?"

"What all have you figured out for yourself?"
(Celine)
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[19:37] The Vale still felt almost like an otherworldly place. One hidden away from the world. And they'd find a spot hidden deep within it. Quiet, calm. Forlorn.

As she spoke, he nodded along. "Bein' near Galynn... Wasn' comfortable." He commented simply. "An' like I said, I knew tha' much." Veles had outright told him, she planned to make him, like them.

A special name for what he was. A Cambion. And... He'd managed to manifest the vague feeling, but not the magic. But that took a more specific batch of emotions.

Shadows loomed over them in the already gloomy place as they settled down. And Darrel prepared to listen. "I ssee... An' I know." He murmurred, letting his mana fade once again. The flames fading just as much.

He took a step away, to give her space if she so needed it for a demonstration. "It's... Normally not meant fer people." He started off. "An' is fed wit'tha ssame general stuff I already feed m' flames. It's destruction. Meant fer tha self." And only the self.

Now however, on what he figured out... "I've been closesst, when feedin' it emotionss I don' have. Or burn away." He explainned, thinking back to when Celine had first told him about Agni in the tower. "Dissappointment. Frustration wit' others. How pathetic they can be." Unconciously, he clutched one of his hand into a fist. It wasn't something he was used to, so it wasn't normally fed into the fire.

"Tha' an'... It'ss better ta use tha magic to feed you. Instead o' feedin' tha magic."
(Darrel Hull)
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[19:59]
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[20:18] She nods towards him as she listens to what he had to say.

There was no demonstration forthcoming however. The Occult didn't work like that. Though, it was more like it couldn't be learned through a simple demonstration.

"Hm." She views him seriously before she just flatly states. "You need to stop feeding everything to your flames first and foremost. What I meant, when I said it is better to let the magic feed you when we spoke at the tower, was that it is a magic that is at it's strongest when you lose yourself in the darkest aspects of who you are."

"And then you use those dark aspects and make them just as much a part of you as anything else." She says, viewing him as she begins to move around the grove, letting her own Occult aura out to mingle with the already tainted air of the Vale. "You need to be yourself. You need to never compromise it. Self-preservation becomes the most important thing, as your world shifts from encompassing others to only yourself and your desires."

This land was the place that was most strongly connected to the Witch's craft. The place most attuned to the Occult within the land surrounding Osrona. To walk within it was the same as being surrounded by it's desecration.

If Darrel is going to truly manifest it, it would surely be here.

"It is something you must immerse yourself in. A lifestyle you must live. An idea that you must act out." She would say, going into far more detail than what she told him within the Tower in those brief moments that they had together as the Demon's slept or caroused in the case of the Spider demon and his Witch.

Forget interrupting that breeding session, she didn't even want the image in her head.
(Celine)
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[20:30]
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[20:30] Doing that... Was more instinct at this point. It was why they burnt as hard as they did. But he listenned as they spoke. Strangely at ease amongst the corruption of the area.

Lose himself. He closed his eyes, thinking. "Sso... Like I said, I'd gotten closest wit' things I didn' normally use in my flames. But I need ta instead keep tha things I hate." He slowly looked up to the air above them, and the trees.

"An' welcome it." Consume it whole. Feed himself, not the flames. It made a little more sense, it was the general idea he'd picked up on earlier. However, on mention of being himself.

"I always have been an' will be. No matter who getss hurt." He then said, looking back down at Celine. Back down at her. His... Girlfriend? Mentor? Most trusted? A mix of it all. Something worth respect.

After all, with how he treated... His friends? He still hadn't seen them since. Hadn't seen either of them. He wanted to give them a new chance. But they were too cowardly to show themselves. At least it felt that way in Darrel's eyes.

Too weak. He let the thought brew and expand. Tumbling over and over. "Ya know... It feelss tha' they have been hidin' from me ever ssince." He spoke aloud. Likely leaving Celine uncertain who he was talking about. "An' sso many... Have failed ta do anythin'." He continued.

"I've managed ta grow, even desspite not havin' magic fer mos' a year. An' they jus' rot in their city." Champloo was still weak. A fair few others he knew as well. Only one he'd seen as having grown substantially. And that was the one Celine had an eye for hurting. Demons respected few things, one of them was strength. And perhaps that was settling more into him now than ever. Become a full piece ofwho he was.
(Darrel Hull)
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[20:42]
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[20:52] She nodded towards him then, having listened to his words. Seems to her he already understood everything he needed to understand.

This wasn't something that he could learn academically as with most other magics. There needed to be commitment on his part, true commitment. In order to truly grasp the magic, it would have to be actualized through his own actions.

He couldn't bend anymore.

"Good. Then you're already part of the way there, as expected." She would say, and she opens her mouth to speak up again before falling silent as Darrel speaks up again.

It's far too vague a statement for her to know who exactly she was talking about, though she certainly had some guesses. However, she didn't ask him to clarify who it was he was talking about.

Because ultimately, for current purposes? It didn't matter even if he had been talking about Celine herself.

All that mattered is that; "Then you need to take that, and you need to act upon it. Make them do something. Condemn them openly, to their faces. Don't hold yourself back, there is no room for compromise."
(Celine)
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[20:54] Celine says, "How you act upon it depends on you."
[21:01] He had never been opposed to calling people out. But maybe... She was right. Those people needed to recognize how worthless they were. He took off the helmet, if only because it was more comfortable without.

He'd come back to the city... But he still felt like people were treating him like he was something foreign. Once again. Worse than ever. Before, he barely existed on many people's minds.

Now though? It was different. Because it certainly wasn't Darrel in the wrong. "Then maybe ssome o' them jus' need ta b-..." A hand rose up, about to conjure a fireball as ha caught himself. No. No flames. This was trainning for something else.

And it fell once again by his side. Make them unhappy. "Yer right. They'll never learn wit'out ssomethin' there ta show them." Show them cowardice's reward. Soon, it'd have been almost half a year.


(Darrel Hull)
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[21:23] The feeling of the Occult within the Vale pervaded all, and she nearly felt more comfortable here than in her own home. She was growing fond of this environment more and more.

As for Darrel though? What else was there to say? Whatever came next was for him to grasp with his own hands. She had no further say in whether or not he can.

"Go get them love." She says towards him, a satisfied smile curling her lips upwards.
(Celine)