(8:15:59 PM) Earthflame: Another boring evening, another brilliant starry night... Away from the watching eyes of relatives, of Lana, from their dumb books and obsessions... The obstacle course, some relic of a much more fun seeming prior era of the family, just keeps calling her back, a place she can really test her abilities, a sense of affinity with *someone* in her family who felt the same way she did... No matter
(8:16:00 PM) Earthflame: how long ago they'd lived.
(8:21:01 PM) ***Charlotte feels the nervous ball of energy in her chest finally relax as she steps onto the course's grounds. In all her fourteen years--well, thirteen, but her birthday was only like two weeks away--she had yet to find a place that just...spoke to her on this level. The learning and the knowing...it was all well and good, but the *doing,* well, that's what she's good at, what she truly loves.
(8:24:30 PM) Earthflame: Light shines through holes in the ceiling, only highlighting its disrepair... More than usual, sometimes only faint starlight illuminating the space. Tonight, a bright full moon shines down on her, seeming like an omen of good fortune... Maybe she'll break her personal record tonight!
(8:30:29 PM) Charlotte: She sets her communicator down on the same old flat piece of debris she's always used, a hunk of the wall that used to separate spectators from participants. The small device is, as always ready to accept voice commands. Making sure that her headband is in place--she'd cut her hair fairly short last year, and it was growing out some, so she wore the band to keep it from getting into her eyes--she positions herself at her usual starting line.
(8:35:24 PM) Charlotte: >line.
(8:37:05 PM) Earthflame: As the starting counter begins to tick down, and she's ready for the first motion... There's an odd sensation next to her... Another runner? It can't be, the air is empty... Save for the twinkle of moonlight in a long, elegant arc, dust hanging it in the air, momentarily shaping arcs in the air, suggestions of a form, but without substance...
(8:40:38 PM) Charlotte: She regards the...shape? outline? just...dust?...carefully, and the old, familiar feeling comes back: the competition, the need to outperform, to win, to have victory solidly within her grasp...things she had long been denied with Lana being a few years older and stronger, though now that Charley is catching up she's winning once in a while...
(8:40:38 PM) Charlotte: As the counter ticks closer to the go-time, a grin settles on her lips, and she rises just that little bit higher on her toes, a coiled spring ready to explode the moment the sound goes...
(8:42:25 PM) Earthflame: And it goes... And she can see it, moving quickly, faster than she can run, a silver glimmer in the air ahead of her... Of course, Charley can do more than just run~ And the course is built for that set of talents, a set of physical and visual obstructions that alternate and intermix, teaching you to use it alongside, rather than as a replacement of, physical mobility.
(8:59:50 PM) Charlotte: She laughs, putting her all into it, running and leaping, climbing and sliding--and then she feels it, the right moment to *push,* to use her sight. And she does, eyes sharpening, outlining in a faint ring of blue as she picks a point in space and "sees" it up close and personal, letting her cross the "shortened" intervening distance.
(8:59:50 PM) Charlotte: To anyone else she suddenly moves too fast to see, all but teleporting ahead, eating up huge chunks of distance like they're nothing.
(9:01:19 PM) Earthflame: Streaking ahead of the chasing silver glimmer, although it rushes to catch up... Moving with supernatural agility to mount heights or distances what would be impossible without Charley's sight, one pulling ahead, then the other, in a tense and very evenly matched race...
(9:32:27 PM) ***Charlotte laughs joyfully. *This* is what it was all about, giving her all against someone and making it an actual competition. She still means to win, of course, but...even if she does lose, it'll be a race worth having run.
(9:33:15 PM) Charlotte: She climbs another wall and speeds across an obstacle meant to slow anyone down, a long pit of sand, and eclipses the silvery streak once more. All that's left is a final straightaway, and she puts every bit of being she has into her legs, running as she's never run before...
(9:34:05 PM) Earthflame: Heart pumping, blood racing, mana surging... A thrill unlike almost anything she can remember, a real test, a real challenge... And, prickling against the back of her neck, a real danger... Some sense of foreboding, as she feels it catching up on her, uncertain whether it will overtake her before she crosses that final line... Needing to draw out every inch of power remaining to her...