trans_9 | Hard at Work

When she'd gotten the okay from Stacey, Katara had set to work on a place in the City where Haku would be away from other people: naturally, her first thought had been to the hotel where she and the Outsiders were located, but that was impossible. They wouldn't have been able to accommodate the room, and it simply wouldn't be away enough in case Haku needed quiet. Katara remembered another place though: it had been a forest where she'd seen San before, but not too close to where she'd seen the werewolves gathered: she knew they preferred their space, as Haku would prefer his own. What was more, it was deep enough to where it would actually compliment the place to have the river here: more things might even grow, if that were possible.

Though she could have asked Toph for help here, Katara decided this was something that needed to be tackled all on her own. She'd set to work digging, stripping down to her underclothes and tying her hair back so it wouldn't be in the way. When she was finished, she wanted Rhiow there to magically protect the place: she'd seen there were several different places set up in the City, including one with demonic energy, that would interfere with what she was trying to do.

She dug quietly, taking in the nature all around her. She could feel how different this place was from most places in the city, and that gave her hope. Haku was going to be all right, she was sure of it! She wiped her brow, resting a moment.

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Katara blushed and shook her head. "No, NO, nothing like that, he's ten! I mean, yes, he can make himself older, but it was absolutely nothing like that in the slightest, other than it just being plain weird and embarrassing!"

Sure, Negi was very attractive older, but she still thought of him as an adorable boy...who's ability to sneeze her clothing off by mistake was faintly disturbing.

She paused, forgetting temporarily about her humiliation earlier. "What are you doing Rhiow?"

Rhiow's whiskers twitched and she refrained from pointing out that age was an arbitrary number among the People. Ehhif had so many strange hangups about mating, sometimes it made her head spin.

"I'm examining the hyperstring structure of the area, now that it's been modified. Interesting... and much more ordered than anything I've seen out of the ship recently." She prodded the strings cautiously, watching how the weft snapped back into place as soon as it was nudged. "The boy knows what he's doing, at least."

Katara supposed she could go into detail on what happened, but that didn't matter: she could always talk to Arha about it later. As it was, she had a lot of things to talk to her teacher about anyway. She only hoped she wasn't so busy with her squadron that she felt overwhelmed.

"I knew he did, actually," Katara admitted. "I sparred with him a few days ago, and for someone who specializes in magic, he's got a very good head for fighting too. I hope I can train and talk with him more, to be honest."

She was quiet a moment. "Will this be enough, do you think?"

Rhiow jumped up onto the riverbank, looking out over it. Katara had done well, and worked hard. "Haku will wear it wider as he runs, I'm sure," she said. "It looks wonderful - thank you very much. I'm sure this will aid in his recovery enourmously... now we only have to make sure we purge all traces of the corruption from his system, or it will pollute the river."

Katara bowed politely. "I'm just glad that I didn't doo too badly a job. I'm sure that when Haku gets better, he'll be able to widen it as much as he wants. Um, I'm not sure how much you know about it, but I have a feeling that you and Damion are the ones helping Haku with that: how long do you think itw ill take for him to get rid of the corruption in him?"

"If all goes well, we will be able to get rid of it all at once," Rhiow said quietly, her eyes traveling down the riverbank. "If I've gotten everything right, if we don't need more power suddenly - if I had another wizard, I would feel better about this. I'm not used to working on my own at all."

Katara was very concerned about these "ifs," especially when someone she cared about was still affected. Ever since those painful pangs of loss that had happened two weeks ago (and she was still feeling those bits of sadness, though she wouldn't tell that to anyone) the welfare of her family and her friends meant a great deal to her.

"Aren't there any magical people on board that are on par with you, like Negi?" She asked. "How powerful of a wizard are you, Rhiow?"

"It's not just about power, Ha-t'hara," Rhiow said. "It's about precision. This is a very specific piece of spellwork I'm building. The power sink is the least of my worries now, to be honest - I have volunteers to help power the array. I would just really like it if there was someone here to check my work. Who understood how I worked, who could read over my spell and make sure all of the language is solid. I don't want to find out halfway through the spell that one of the patches isn't going through."

Rhiow sighed, putting her head down on her paws. "I don't like working blind. Development is more Urruah's department - I'm a coordinator and a repair tech, not a spell writer." She twitched her ears back and forth. "But we all become what we have to when the Queen calls."

Katara sighed. "I wish I could tell you something useful. Unfortunately, I haven't met many magic users, just Negi. As it is, magic is still a bit of a mystery to me: how its used, what words to say, what devices help to trigger it. I wouldn't mind learning more about it myself. I hope you can find someone on the ship who is able to read over what you've done."

Without thinking, Katara scratched behind Rhiow's ears. "In understand....well, at least what you're saying about only being a coordinator and repair tech as compared to a spell writer. But who knows? We may find someone in the pods who can do that."

Rhiow was certainly glad to accept scratching behind the ears, especially when she was feeling less than confident in herself. She was hesitant - she didn't want to do this without someone checking the language of her spell first. She was combining multiple disciplines and building a spell that she had never had to deal with before.

"It's just so different than my specialty," she said. "I've never had to deal with possession or entities riding inside people's heads. We have specialists for that kind of thing." She pinned her ears back further. "It's times like these that I wonder why the Powers chose to send me on errantry. Someone with a broader spectrum of experience... a younger wizard with more power... either of them could have done better."

Katara nodded. "I believe you'll do a good job, Rhiow. I know you would want someone to double check your work, but I think you know enough. I have faith in you. I know that I don't know much about magic, I told you that. But as far as I'm concerned, you sound like someone that is fixated in doing this as best as you can. In these circumstances, that's all we can ask for."

Katara gave Rhiow a short now. "You shouldn't doubt yourself. That will be the biggest mistake you can make, I know that from my own teaching. Just do your best: its all anyone can ask."

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Hard at Work

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