"See the rose for all of its thorns, Syr Kerrigan?"

Caelia stilled. Her eyes watched as Brambleshell went to tend to the garden, and when Matvi's voice interrupted the pause she turned to look to him.

An invitation, a promise of their time to be spent on a bench not of her own weaving. She smiled, "I would like that."

As he began to take his leave, putting steps between them until he was out of view, Caelia felt his absence. She would have preferred to have more time conversing with him than to be put to lesson with Brambleshell, but she knew there was more to discuss with the Master.

Clearing her throat as softly as she could, she began to drift towards the Tortugan. The sun had disappeared from behind a cloud, but with the winds soaring high above, moments later the wash of warmth and gold settled on the two. "I apologise, Master. I... admit that I struggle with weaving between what is reasonable and what is beneficial."
She hummed, choosing her next words with careful thought. How best could she describe it? The feeling of having power and capability at her fingertips, ready to tangle through weaving of the shroud?

"We are the roses, and we must too bear the thorns all the same. A price we must keep, lest we forget who we are in the face of being the adored bloom." A lesson Caelia did not want to admit aloud that she struggled to learn. She had been told she was important and strong after being unwanted because of a gift she inherited from her family's bloodline, that no one could fault her for weaving as much as she had lungs to breath. She had been fed from a hand that showed her the first warmth of love, taught her how to behave at a feast, and even that led her astray. Drunk before she knew her cup was not of innocence, but of gluttony plucked straight from the vine. "Are you... disappointed in me?"

Her voice was steady, braced to hear the honesty she knew the Master was well equipped with. Despite these struggles, Caelia had gotten where she was today through the sheer determination and drive to be better. Not the god she was led to believe, but the pupil meant to maintain control and balance.
 
Brambleshell listened to the young Knight give voice to her thoughts. Feeling there in the words that sounded from her lips.

Then came the worry that had trembled across each nervous smile.

1755023378556.webp"No more than the wind, stirring against feathers folded from flight," she teased. Shook her head. "No, Caelia, I am not disappointed that you would give shape to your gift," she turned her eye full upon the young woman.

"Our Monastery is a space to learn what lessons we can, before we take them out unto the world. Here, with so many prepared, might the prick of thorn be well tended. Where in the Wylds, might the shroud's life leave us helpless, or harm those about us. What seems a simple trick, what feels easy, might turn twisted. Wrong, for masterful as we might be, the shroud, is a thing ever just beyond the kiss of our skin, never truly there in our blood. Never truly there in the soil, or root." she shook her head.

Turned her eyes down to the little bugs that crawled about the plant roots. Clung to leaves, and buzzed about in flits of dark bodies and shining wings.

"It belongs to the stars, just as we all do,"
 
Relief came to her the moment she made herself lighter of the breath she held, convinced Brambleshell would surely be there to chastise her. Where there was no blemish on her skin other than the freckles kissing her face, shoulders, and arms, there were scars no one could see on her but Caelia felt internally. Wounds she would reopen, in the comfort of her own despair.

One day she would be brave and let the hurt heal.

"I apologise... I do not think I will ever feel at peace for weaving." A sad, but truthful thing to realise, but her small smile held the embers of warmth that could grow. "I also must learn patience with myself, for I was taught all the wrong lessons about the shroud before I came here to understand how a gift should be weaved."

Caelia fell to her knees, not afraid of the dirt that could soften and cling to her skirts. "Tell me, Master Brambleshell... do you find it difficult to connect with so many of us in the Order?" Caelia always found comfort on her own. Hidden in the library, transcribing texts or translations, she could always be so hidden. Even in the outdoors, she still insisted on being alone. She wanted to believe it was because of personal preference of peace and quiet, wanted it to be anything other than the deep truth she knew it to be.

She couldn't trust anyone. Not truly. There had been plenty of times she could have befriended Syr Iramene at the Knoll, but there was that anxiety whispering to her until she began to overthink it all. She was a sunflower, having turned to grow towards false suns, it was no wonder she faced towards the warmth Syr Iramene gave her.

Caelia only hoped she didn't disappoint him before a friendship could bloom.
 
1755282209530.webpThe old Tortugan listened to the young knight. So wrapped up in her agonies. Her pains. How such things rooted into a heart. How they twined, noxious against the soul.

"Life is full of lessons, Caelia, and even the difficult ones, those ones that feel like the greatest burden, may have some wisdom for us to glean,"

Come the next question, and Master Brambleshell met the young woman at the eyes.

"At times," she said plainly and soft. "As old as I am, I am still just as mortal as any other, prone to err and mistake, even after all these years" something like a smile there in her eye. "I am aware that not all will hear what I have to pass on to them. Some might need to hear it more than the once. But so long as they keep trying, as I try to, then might be connection occurs. Growth, in the struggles and conflicts that may arise," she nod. Seemingly happy with what she had put to words.

Went back to the garden. Tending the soil with claws that grasped and pulled the little chutes of new weeds, come invade the tended soil.

She tut her tongue at the little thing, with its wiry roots, so desperate in how they sprawled to find something to feed them.

"I know, little one, I know," she whispered to it. "Yours is but to grow, and I fault you not for trying," she placed it in a burlap sack she kept at her belt. "But your roots are not kind to this soil, your growth not kind to these plants, and for that," pat the full sack with a tap tap. "I must be rid of you,"
 
Caelia kept quiet, listened to the Master ease her worries and anxieties.

It was a beastly thing to have, that presence that always resided in her. It told her the Master was not speaking to but a weed, but to her. She was the growth of roots, the unwanted visitor lay down ways to stay in place. That she were not right for the soil of the shroud, that she as a weaver was not—

"What do you make of the poisonous blooms? Why would you suppose I have been drawn to them?" She pulled herself out from thought, asked a question like this to the Master once, before delving right into the exploration and testing o such poisons. That she presented detailed research, had done small experiments where she used the Pursuits of Wyld, Death, and Life, to keep herself safe but made herself harmful by touch. It brought her a sense of power. Was it useful? Perhaps not, but Caelia had told Syr Iramene the truth.

She liked to feel like a god, even if one wrong move and it was at her own hand she could cause harm to herself.

"Why do I crave mistletoe or yew berries? That my hunger no longer can tolerate anything so mild as carrots and tea cakes?" That was not what a rose could do. Caelia wondered if she were the thorns to nightshade than that of a rose...
 
The Old Master listened to the young knight. Had heard of her curious experiments. Did not seem bothered by the undercurrent of cold and dark emotion that passed over them.

"Have you heard of the Queen's Grace butterfly, Syr Kerrigan," she asked. Moving down the way. She nod her beak toward one butterfly, fluttering with its great broad wings, lazy on the wind as it dipped and bobbed up and down. Grace, and disaster, all the same.

"It gains it's stunning blue color, because it eats of the Deathwhisper Bell's leaves as a fuzzy little caterpillar," she found such a caterpillar, inching across broad blade of such a flower. A heavy bell headed bloom, that drooped down, and almost seemed to rain a dark spore in perpetuity, like ash fall. "As the flower's name implies, it is deathly poisonous," the little crawler, with all of its spiny bristles shift and waved as it inches across the masters hand. "Were I a bird who came down to eat it," she mimed a bite. But on the caterpillar crawled. "I would be in trouble. Good as dead," she smiled. Looked to Caelia. "Come the metamorphosis, those bright blue wings, born from the toxins, well, the little Queen's Grace has very few birds, still brave enough to take a bite at it."
 
Caelia's chest seemed to deflate, the breath she had been holding in shallow clutches finally left. Of course she knew of the Queen's Grace butterfly, being one of her earlier studies when the idea of poisons crossed her mind. The Deathwhisper Bell was always a fascinating specimen to Caelia, who still was in the process of studying it's toxins, slowly inoculating herself.

She rose, made to follow the Master. Her hazel eyes found the flower easily, at least three feet around it was clear of any other growing life, for not many living things could stand to be near the Deathwhisper.

Caelia at least, was able to touch it now, yet she did not tempt chance by reaching out.

"As a poison, if one is to ingest it, it is easily identified by the fact the whites of the eyes turn this colour. It is quick acting, not many antidotes perfected to fully cure it..." The poisoner bit her lip. Caelia was conducting her own tests, her own way of making an antidote even if it bought time. "The curiosity of the blend of Wyld and Death never ceases to perplex me, but seeing it exist and propser is enough to tell me there is a way."

She let out a gentle chuckle. "I suppose... perhaps craving such things means I am suspended between the Wyld and Death. I am awaiting my metamorphosis." There, her lungs no longer held onto weighted breath. Her anxieties and tensions were forgotten, dismissed without another thought.
 
A sagely nod from the Master of Wyld.

"Oft, young Knight, what calls to us, guides us to what we are meant to do," she let the little crawl inch right off her claw, and onto a nearby leaf. "Only you can know why you truly crave such deathly delights, but it is in that why, that you may find a purpose worthy of pursuit,"

Antidotes. Poisons. Each had so many applications in the world beyond their Monastery."How often, does aid and destruction coincide?" she asked, eyes finding another weed there upon the soil. Plucked it from the earth. "Might a poison secret, unlock the cure to some plague, so many ages from now," she smiled, and looked ot Caelia. "What do you hope to become, Syr Kerrigan?"
 
Caelia did little to hide her sheepish expression. She wore it to be seen for her mind was not yet ready with an answer to the question posed to her. "I hope to become..."

There were inner truths and desires in her. Should she set aside her shame and guilt for voicing what she wanted? Should she keep it covered, as if it were a secret that was not ready to be spoken into this world? What ears may hear her? What fates would change and bend to what she spoke in this moment?

Her lips quivered in hesitations, but her eyes blazed with determination. A battle was in motion, and there was no true way of knowing what side she raised the banner for.

"I want to become the Knight that helped the world. These hands and this mind, I want to make a difference that saves lives... but I think I am still learning how to navigate these waters." Her smile was small, but it held quiet pride. Her answer was true, a safe explanation of how she felt. "Perhaps I should start small."
Caelia laughed.

She turned to wander a few steps, her eyes flicking to the summer blooms basking in the sun. "I should stop hiding from the world if I wish to help it in some way. The Order is like family, and if I can help them first, then I am on the right path." Peering over her shoulder, she smiled at the Master. "I will try to keep from flaunting my wyld-weaving before others, especially Syr Iramene." A light jest, accompanied by her facial features painted in feigned innocence.
 
A knock of warm laughter from the old Master's throat as she nod to the young knight's eager response.

For all the darkness that swirled about her, she opened herself up with such honesty.

"Many disregard the small," the old Tortugan agreed. No judgement in how she spoke it. Simply tending the plants as she moved from gaillardias to bright borages. Plucked a slug from one leaf, and ate it like a snack.

Blinked when she remembered herself. Shrugged. "A bit of protein," she muttered, in that way of those too old to worry too much on what the younger might think.

They would learn, in time.

Come the voicing of a commitment, and Brambleshell looked to her young student. Knight Sworn, but learning, all the same. Nod, with kindly smile upon her face. "All fine and good things, Syr Kerrigan. To remember, and to strive for," she laughed at the look on her face. "Not too much, anyhow," a wink from the old turtle.
 
Caelia joined in the Master's laughter with her own amused chuckles.

"Yes, not too much. I do indeed have more than my weaving to flaunt." She smiled, settling back down to her knees and began slowly picking out weeds that peeked shyly out from the soil beneath the foxglove. "I may not be able to speak several languages, but I can read them as good as someone fluent. Perks of working as a scribe." Caelia mused. That in itself was something she would not boast to many, but to the Master, perhaps she would see the triumph in something so mundane and rare.

And yet she would not bring up Syr Iramene again before the Master, even if it lingered there on her tongue to ask Brambleshell questions... Despite her desire to get out there and mingle with other knights more frequently, Caelia knew any fancying should not be made so obvious. At least, for the poisoner, she did not want the Master to think she had been trying to impress the Syr — in which she was in denial about — with weaving. It just happened, for the Syr had a way of bringing that side out of her.

Clearing her throat, the only tell she had him on her mind came in the form of a blush.

"All this warming weather is coaxing out all sorts of weeds!" She exclaimed, leaning forward to reach et another hidden weedling that was tucked behind the leafy bush. "I know what I will be doing on my daily garden walks now." Came her laughter, pulling the stubborn thing from where it cemented itself right down to the roots. She almost toppled backwards from the sheer force used to pull it up. Soil flecked across her front, and Syr Kerrigan held up the impressive weed with a wave that sent loosened earth to fall from the long lived roots.
 
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