Rockatronic [Serin/Ishi]

[Serin]

So. Note to self? Turned out Elibe had A LOT of mountains. She had realized that some time back, but at this point Serin was starting to realize just how big "a lot" actually was. She had been traveling for like, a week now, and there were still, surprise surprise, mountains fucking everywhere. Ok granted she was just walking, but it wasn't like she could fly or anything crazy like that, and no one around here knew anyone who rented out flying... creatures. Wyverns she had heard of, they were like dragons except not as awesome, but the guy started talking about flying horses and then weird lion-bird things and she just blanked out entirely.

Unfortunately her drive to see the world had turned out to be less absolute than her drive to get off her feet before she actually fell over and died, so the spirited geomancer was now cosily situated on the edge of the path, legs swinging off the edge of the rock over the mountain stream below, watching the water cascade off of the flat stream's bed into myriad tiny rivulets as the rocks at the edge of the falls split apart into a wide mouth of countless waterfalls, mixing together into a single greater one. Yes, there were still mountains all around her, but here, amidst some level of greenery and natural beauty, she was actually pretty satisfied for the time being. At least it was something different than the valley.

Currently, Serin was skipping random rocks across the water's surface, only maybe kinda sorta slightly cheating at times when she got too frustrated with a couple really bad throws. But the last two had gone surprisingly well so she was actually in a pretty good mood, albeit completely focused on the task at hand. The stream wasn't that wide, but she was trying to get the maximum number of bounces in one throw, and it was kinda hard to gauge exactly how hard to throw it and at what angle to both make it across the stream while also bouncing a bunch of times.

[Ishi]

Ishi had been standing in place for weeks now. All his faculties were purely devoted to analyzing the decomposition of an animal carcass. It was a deer, now a skeletal frame with a broken antler. Over the weeks scavengers came by to take their pick of the dead animal. Flies, ravens even a group of foxes stopped by. None of them seemed too put off by Ishi’s presence, he wasn’t even sure if they noted him as an animate being. One fox did give the base of his cloak a sniff or two. It didn’t matter that Ishi was observing this decomposition, Nature ran it’s course regardless.


Ishi was all but finished here. The animal was gone and Ishi had fulfilled his curiosity. Ishi turned to move, joints creaking after weeks of no use. He was to move back to the trail that led him here. He turned his head toward a sound in the distance. There was a river nearby, Ishi had already recognized the sounds of rushing water, but this one wasn’t simple nature. A set of splashes, then another set, and another. The amount of splashes would vary by set, but typically they came in sets of three or four. Ishi wanted to know the source of these noises.


He made his way toward the sounds. His eyes fell upon a girl, humanlike, only with ears of a fox and tails. She was throwing stones at the stream, but instead of plummeting to the bottom of the river, they skipped off the surface as if the water was rejecting them. Fascinating. Ishi approached the girl who had been throwing the rocks. He forced his mouth open for the first time in a month. Air flew through his unused vocal chords leading to a quiet, raspy, sound. “How?” Ishi lifted a gray withered finger and pointed at the stream inquisitively.

[Serin]

On a good day, Serin would have been paying enough attention to sense the minute tremors in the ground impending Ishi's arrival, never a foolproof ability but as her mastery of the earth grew it had become a somewhat useful tool. She would have casually and articulately responded with something witty, perhaps some vaguely wise sounding saying, from buddhism or taoism or whatever it was her parents practiced she'd stopped paying attention long ago. She could have set herself up as alert and canny, perhaps even the intelligent and wise shrine maiden she liked to portray herself as.

"BLUH" was what came out instead, her total concentration ruined as the kitsune almost simultaneously fell off the side of the path, caught herself, tried to jump up, nearly tripped over her own feet, and ended up facing vaguely in Ishi's direction with a singularly unimposing and vaguely flattened rock in hand, ready to be hurled with all the terrifying might of a teenage girl whose toned(?) and chiseled(?) arms contained approximately the muscle mass of the average wet noodle. Truly an intimidating sight, the feral fox ready to... strike... hm. She had kinda been expecting an army of bandits or wolves or something, not an unarmed guy in a cloak who apparently didn't have a face. Wait, was that supposed to be scary? Serin couldn't tell if she was supposed to be intimidating or if the dude just REALLY liked his privacy.

As her brain finally turned back on, she realized it probably didn't matter, he wasn't trying to kill her, and he was pointing at... something. Her gaze, followed by her head, traced the direction he was pointing in, and after a moment it finally clicked that he was pointing at the stream, not at say the end of worlds, and that he also wasn't attacking. Retracting her hand to stare at the stone for a second, she was struck with the unenviable realization that she wasn't entirely sure what he wanted (how did water work? what was water? how was she skipping stones?) but settled on the third one after a period of intense deliberation.

Managing to look somewhat ashamed of herself, the former shrine maiden returned to somewhat more normal of a position before speaking. "...How am I skipping stones?" Wasn't she going to look like a twit if he had been asking something else instead. Behind her, two tails peeked out like curious children, her concentration and self control alike shot to shit - more so than usual anyways - as she struggled to regain control of the situation, at least by the standards of 'can contribute like a normal person.' "It uh, it takes a bit of practice," she started up, gradually sounding a bit more natural and unfortunately also like herself, "but it's not too hard, you just have to hit the water at the right angle. Surface tension or - something." She offered him the stone as a peace gesture of sorts. "You wanna try?"

[Ishi]

Apparently, Ishi had startled the girl. This had not been his intention but he made no effort to ease her nerves. Simply watching her come to terms with his sudden presence was reason enough to keep his mouth shut. She came to ask what he was curious about. Was he asking about skipping stones? Indeed he was. Ishi slowly nodded his head allowing his vertebrae to shift and crack under the motion. She went on to mention angles and surface tension. She held the stone out in his direction.


Ishi eyed the stone as if he didn’t quite trust it, as if it possessed some strange properties. He managed to get over this hesitation, accepted the stone and prepared to toss it at the river. He lazily and slowly cast the stone forward. The stone sank into the water with an anticlimactic kerplunk, leaving Ishi entirely underwhelmed. He continued staring at the river with narrowed eyes. He may have been somewhat upset that the stone didn’t act the same way for him as it did for the girl. Ishi contemplated the possible differences between the two of them. He continued staring at the river for a moment to see if somehow the stone would rise back up to the surface. Ishi turned his hooded head back toward the girl. Had she deceived him? Most likely not, there was nothing to gain from such a petty lie. He must have done it wrong, the girl did say it required practice.


The stranger had the ability to make stones bounce on water, Ishi wanted to see it again. He wanted to analyze the technique she used. If he was going to mimic her form, he would have to pay close attention. Ishi tapped into his earthen magic to levitate a nearby stone. The Jiangshi maneuvered the stone through the air and allowed it to hover in front of the girl. “Show… me.” Ishi’s pale eyes were locked on the tailed woman. He was prepared to take every aspect of the process in.
He was determined to learn how to make a rock skip atop water.

[Serin]

Serin almost considered being offended at the stranger staring suspiciously at her pet rock, but decided that maybe he'd just never seen a stone before and didn't know what they were. Poor guy didn't even know what rock skipping was, he must have lived under a rock for the last - heh, rock, that was actually pretty funny. Momentarily distracted and amused (again) she was smiling slightly as he threw the rock... directly into the water. That wiped the smile from her face pretty fast; Serin wasn't sure WHY she had expected him to succeed immediately, but his failure felt as though it was her fault, and that just didn't sit well with her. She hadn't actively deceived him of course, but apparently he didn't just suck at rock skipping, he legitimately didn't understand the concept at all.

On the bright side, he knew earth magic, and that meant she automatically liked him about four times more. "So you're an earth mage too, huh?" The kitsune perked up, almost brightening as her mood improved and her interest grew. "Alright, first lesson, rock choice." Accepting the rock he'd given her, she hefted it up as if to illustrate. It was a bit... lumpy, not what she would have used, but it made for as good an example as any. "You want something a bit flatter and smoother than this if possible." Taking a step forwards for a moving throw, she hurled it towards the stream, where it barely bounced once and slipped under the water on the second hit. "See? Not good at flying. Your best bet is something thin and flat, decent size, heavy enough to have some weight but light enough you can throw it without having to be He-Man."

Since he was apparently an earth magic guy and obviously didn't give a shit about restraint with it, the foxgirl moved her hand outward, rotating her fingers for a moment as a clump of misshapen rock flowed up towards her, re-solidifying as it shaped itself into something closer to what she had described. It was almost TOO flat, the curse of actually paying attention to the details when shaping the earth, but otherwise an acceptable example. "Now, the idea is that you get a bit of spin on it and hit the water with the flat side rather than the edge. Watch, the master at work." Her tone rose lightly into almost a giggle as she finished, flicking the rock forwards towards the stream where it bounced one, two, three, four, five, six times and crashed into the opposing riverbank with an audible crack. "...Shaping the stone feels like cheating, so I've been practicing with normal rocks, but feel free if it helps give you a feel for it."

[Ishi]

Earth mage. Was that what he was? He thought he was a Youkai, but maybe he was both. That was possible right? It had to be. This woman who was both Youkai and earth mage proved it was possible. The woman skipped the stone she was given, which fully astounded Ishi. Again, the stone bounced off the water, but only once before sinking to the bottom. The woman then explained the desired rocks to be used. Thin, flat with some amount of weight. He punctuated the statement with a reference to He-man.


He-man? As far as he knew, all men were he-men. Perhaps this wasn’t the case. Ishi would have to pursue this progressive line of thinking some other time. For now he was to learn how to skip stones off water. The other earth mage constructed the ideal stone from her magic. It was interesting to see it being performed by another. The magic wasn’t quite the same as his it seemed, it was more refined. Maybe just stronger. Either way, the time came for her to skip this ideal stone. With a giggle and a flick of the wrist, she skipped it. It bounced, not once, nor twice. It bounced six times to the other river bank. Ishi was astounded even more so than before. His jaw was held agape, air passed out of it, producing an ahhhh sound.


It was time for him to replicate the feat. Ishi drew up a stone, instead of reshaping it like the other mage, he broke pieces from the more rough edges to produce his own rock. He gripped the stone in his gray hand. Weight. Angle. Spin. Ishi kept these mechanisms in mind as he wound up. With all the might his frame could muster, he cast the stone toward the river. It still wasn’t as fast as the other rock skipper, but it was something.


The stone flew and when it contacted the water it recoiled up into the air. Then again. Then it sank. Ishi was pleased with the sight. He lazily raised his arms into the air, only a little above waist height. “Yay.” It was a word that almost never passed his lips. The sound felt unnatural coming from him. Maybe the spirited woman rubbed off on him a little. He levitated another stone, preparing it for use. His lips were parted in a smile beneath his hood. He wanted to do it again. He wanted to skip stones all week. But there was another thing he wanted to see.


Ishi gripped his next stone and raised another. He hovered the second one in front of the girl much like he had earlier. He pointed at the river. “Contest.” He wanted to see if he could compete with the self-proclaimed master after only one successful throw.

[Serin]

Serin couldn't help but puff up a bit in pride at Ishi's reaction to her throw, his obvious reaction only feeding into the ego-juggernaut. Still, she was surprised he didn't know what rock skipping was. But he seemed excited enough that it was like watching a little kid, and she couldn't begrudge him that. Cloakbro's excitement only crystallized after he managed to skip a rock a couple times, culminating in a 'yay' so enthusiastic that he almost sounded slightly happy. It was hard to tell. Dude talked like he was dying from cancer of the throat and was about half as talkative, communicating mostly in single words and leaving it to her to figure out what each one was meant to actually convey. In some ways it was kind of like a puzzle. In others it was like cultivating a headache. She wasn't sure which was more accurate so the foxgirl left it at that.

Then of course, things started getting weird, as they tended to out here in crazyland. Serin was picking up on THAT much pretty fast. First the tail guy, now rock guy, each of them wanted something and didn't know how to take no for an answer. While she was interested in how he summoned and shaped his own stones, somewhat differently than she had, it was the challenge that gave her paus- haha just kidding, she didn't know how to back down from a challenge even if she wanted to. "You're on!" In a rare moment of lucidity, though, she did feel a little... bad, given that it was obviously his first (well, second) time and it wouldn't exactly be fair given she was valley girl champion four years running (in a competition that didn't exist), but she couldn't NOT defend her champion belt. Which she wasn't wearing, because it didn't exist either. Fucking metaphors.

By way of compromise, Serin paused the proceedings for a moment to give Ishi a chance to back out if he thought better of it or at least see if he had anything to add. "So, any rules?"

[Ishi]

Rules? Ishi didn't feel the need to impose conditions on the impromptu contest. He just wanted to see what the two of them were capable of. Placing restrictions on the competition would limit the possible outcomes that he could potentially witness. Ishi made his intentions clear with a breath and a couple words. "No. Rules." Ishi crafted his own ideal stone much in the way he had before. This one was broken down from a larger stone, it shaped up to be flatter, but overall, heavier. Ishi believed he understood the mechanics of skipping rocks. He didn't intend to throw the stone this time. Instead he would use he magic to cast the stone forward. Ishi initiated a countdown to indicate the instant at which he would be throwing the rock.

"I start. Three. Two. One." Ishi began to spin his rock as it hovered in the air. He sent it toward the river with a pulse of his magic. It flew quickly, colliding with the water multiple times, each time it connected it rebounded. The stone traversed the river and even skipped off the ground on the other side of the river. The stone continued to travel until it collided with a boulder, against which, the thrown stone fractured. Ishi was proud of himself. He turned his hooded head, which concealed a small prideful smile, toward his competitor.

"Can. you. Beat?" It was time to really see what the master was capable of. If Ishi was capable of more profound speech he likely would've taunted the woman. He wanted to see what she could do when she was serious. If her example was any indication, this would be quite impressive to the Jiangshi.

[Serin]

"No rules, huh?"

Serin tried very hard to keep the shit-eating grin off her face. It didn't work very well. She might not be the sharpest tool in the shed sometimes, but she knew a thing or two about getting around rules if she put her mind to it - and not having any rules to ignore meant that her natural creativity could invoke itself in full swing... unfortunately for everyone involved. From that point on, it wasn't about winning and losing - ok yes it was entirely about winning, but it was also about winning in style to assuage her permanently overgrown ego. That was probably Kayamio's fault, but in fairness, Ishi shouldn't have provoked her. At-least that was her justification.

Unfortunately, Ishi had... NOT fucked up his throw. Serin found herself uncharacteristically stuck between being slightly impressed - this dude learned FAST - and slightly aggrieved that he had learned way faster than she had. His throw had been good, she thought she might be able to do better but despite her shit-talking Serin wasn't actually any kind of rock skipping goddess, just pretty good at it through experience. So while she could PROBABLY do better it wasn't a guarantee, and it wouldn't be by much. Having an exceptionally high opinion of one's abilities did not entirely preclude some degree of introspection after all. It didn't lend any sort of good judgement, though.

Serin bit her lip for but a moment, threading her thoughts through the myriad posibilities spreading out in front of her, and immediately found the dumbest possible option, upon which she performed a flying headbutt to its ovaries. Metaphorically speaking. In practice she actually just started walking forwards, at an angle, a makeshift staircase of stone extending before her as she stepped down almost onto the stream and waltzed across upon projections of stone that kept her feet dry and sunk back into the riverbank and then riverbed as she crossed to the middle of the stream, facing downriver at the waterfall some distance ahead. Ishi hadn't thought big enough. He did a nice job of skipping the rock across a finite distance - but what about nonlinear motion?

With one final cheeky grin, she dropped the rock onto the stream, the object stopping the instant it hit the water and floating unnaturally, Serin herself taking a step back as she finalized her plan. Then a step forward, her arm coming up - she found it much easier to shape with some semblance of motion - and then there was motion for a moment, very fast, too fast for vision, and in its wake the stream parted as though a canyon had opened in its wake, two torrents of water exploding upwards and outwards in the path of the meteoric missile as it sliced across the formly placid surface at most of the speed of sound, a sharp crack of sonic savagery overwhelming even the rushing sounds of disturbed water for a moment before sinking into it.

The rock itself was well out of sight, merrily transported away on a magical journey into the sprawling depths beyond. Serin brought her hand to her brow as if to sight it - a pointless gesture, she didn't have any sort of superhuman vision, but it was mire for Ishi's benefit - and then turned to the man(?) in question with a shit eating smile that threatened to consume her face entirely and leave her naught but a grinning skull. (Over)confidence sang in her tone as the foxy fox spoke up. "Pretty sure I win, huh?"

[Ishi]

Ishi’s cloaked smile was very hard to hide. He had done something great. Something that the woman clearly didn’t think he was capable of. The hood concealed crooked teeth and cheeks that almost refused to rise and form dimples. This was what he lived for, or died for, or re-lived for as a jiangshi. Serin’s ability was quite impressive. And that was before she moved into the center of the stream, turned back toward him, and gave a smirk.

Perhaps it was the smirk itself that blew Ishi away. No. That wasn’t it. It was the sonic boom from her magically propelled mass/ meteor/ stone moving far past escape velocity. Ishi’s hood was blown off by the pressure fluctuation. Revealing his gray face, gray eyes, and white hair. It was bright. Far too bright for the Jiangshi to keep track of the stone. He slowly reached back and pulled his hood back over his head. He released the stagnant air in his lings. He was dumbstruck. He stood still. Statuesque.

A few moments passed. Ishi still didn’t move. Not until Serin removed her hand from her brow. She was so happy with herself. It was clear as day. Ishi didn’t want to rain on her parade, but he wanted to be true and thorough.

Ishi slowly rose a hand toward his brow as well. Not in mockery of Serin, but in a legitimate attempt to see where the stone landed. After the dust, and mist had settled, Ishi lowered his hand. He turned toward the woman standing in the middle of the stream. She was pretty sure she had won. Ishi counted integers on his fingers. A labored inhale occurred. “Mine, ssskipped, more.” Ishi was just pointing out a fact. The contest was that of stone skipping, not distance throwing. Ishi didn’t care if he won or lost, he was just happy to see the possibilities of the world and it’s inhabitants.

Perhaps he would one day be able to replicate this woman’s power. He could lift stones as well. He could throw stones, skip stones off water. Could she show him how to tear the surface of rivers like that? Ishi had moved past the contest. He wanted to be able to tear pools of liquid asunder. He wanted to be like Serin, Just slower. “Can. I?... That?” Ishi made a slow motion with his hands as to simulate the parting of water.

[Serin]

Without any idea what the fuck a jiangshi was or even the fact that undead existed, Serin didn't have any particular red-flag reactions to Ishi's little episode of streaking, aside from suddenly feeling slightly bad that she had apparently been picking on an old guy(?). Not bad enough to forfeit the win, obviously, but enough that she wouldn't have rubbed it in as much as usual in a normal situation.

Unfortunately, he hadn't learned the futility of arguing with a teenage girl yet.

"Nuh-UH," the fox fired back with the outraged assurance of one who had been so sorely wronged that the world itself shuddered in the wake of the crime. Or at least a sore loser. "The rock was skidding across the water" - mostly - "For the trip, so it was more like infinite skips!" Okay, she didn't ACTUALLY know if it had been skipping across the water most/all of the time, but she had felt inconsistent resistance while guiding the rock and as far as she understood it, it had probably more or less skimmed the water with the exceptions of bumps and valleys in the water caused by natural waves before her little stunt had massively disturbed everything. "I mean, they weren't as big bounces as yours, but there were way more of them. I think."

Probably? She had, uh, gotten a little carried away with showing off and actually forgotten about that. Serin wasn't actually sure if what she had said was true. DAMMIT. She couldn't think of anything better to add to it, so rather than drag on the suffering for eternity she took Ishi's unintended olive branch like a drowning man in a barrel sea of dragon drool. He seemed interested in her little foothold thingy. She... didn't really have a name for whatever the steps-ish technique had been. "What, you mean, uh, reflexive shaping or...?" The fox youkai actually wasn't quite sure what he meant, she was more used to people using actual words.

[Ishi]

Ishi gave no physical ground as he listened to Serin’s explanation for why she had won the contest. Fair enough, she had thrown the rock in a line. What was a line aside from a series of points? Perhaps at each of these points there was an infinitesimal upward acceleration due to the skipping off the water. So yes, Serin had won. But Ishi would happily cede that point for more explanation of how she did what she did. For all he knew, the only reason he had powers was because he was a Jiangshi. He came to the conclusion that existing somewhere between life and death allowed him to manipulate the space around him. He was wrong. This girl was clearly alive and she was able to effect the earth better than he could. He wanted to know why, but how could he go about phrasing it?


Serin asked what he meant. He didn’t possess the words to explain. He slowly tried to reiterate with his hand motions, again, in futility. Ishi put his hands down in frustration. It was clear to him that he wouldn’t be able to sign his way to a solution here. He would have to speak with some semblance of eloquence. He had to be understood before she could do anything to help. Ishi waited in contemplative thought. What could he say? What words could he use? How could he say this? He inhaled with a strange determination.


“Your stone. Fast. Far. Water split. How?” Ishi tried to explain his question. This still wasn’t a fantastic explanation. It was times like this that he wished he could be clearer. It was annoying how his own incompetence kept him from attaining the knowledge which he seeked. Ishi looked at his reflection in the still turbulent river.


“Your skill. Can I ….?” Ishi lacked the words once again.

[Serin]

Serin's indefatigable exuberance faltered somewhat at Ishi's lack of interest in arguing the point - for a moment is was... frustratingly familiar to the near-obeisance that people in the valley often showed her as the harvest maiden, the sort of lessening of Self that religion brought to its believers. Too many times she had been in the beginnings of a debate (read: argument) with someone only for them to simply acquiesce out of respect, rather than because she was right, and it frustrated her more no less because the victory had been unearned.

But for better or for worse, Ishi actually just didn't seem to care at all, and quite frankly Serin honestly wasn't sure how to deal with that. It wasn't... bad, exactly, but it wasn't good, either. It just sorta - was.

So there was a momentary lag to the fox's response, despite her relative self control her face still shifting through possibilities for a moment, before she managed to pull the fragmented strands of her consciousness together into one undulating river of thought. He just wanted to know about the magic, apparently, and while she was by no means a teacher - or taught, for that matter, the importance of which escaped her - she was at least equipped to make a token explanation. Sort of. "It's the same principle as when you levitated and threw the rock. You just... control the matter," Serin stated vaguely, waving her hands as if to pantomime the throwing movement even if it didn't actually help anything. "The water splitting was just the aftereffect of my magic, not part of it."

Apparently SHE was suffering from a communication problem, too. Heh. Serin leaned back on her heels, bringing her right hand up to her chin thoughtfully as she tried to translate teenagerese to normal human people talk. It came out a bit more technical than she tended to speak. "It's... primarily just a question of scale. More magic, used consecutively to accelerate the projectile exponentially." The real problem was that she hadn't exactly 'learned' magic - she just... had it. She knew that if she envisioned reforming the ground underneath her, drawing a stream of particles upward, forging them into what her subconscious recognized as a 'rock,' it worked - but she didn't know the magical theory well enough to explain it in terms like a scholar at one of the Plaeiades might.

"...But if you mean could I always do this, no," she hazarded to try to answer what he wanted to know, rather than what he was asking. At-least that was her best guess, the guy seemed to be real interested in larger scale earth magic and dissatisfied with what he could do. Maybe. Probably? "Magic's the same as anything else, you practice it, and you get better at it over time." Oh gods above was she actually non-ironically suggesting hard work and perseverance? HER? Serin couldn't help but think that her parents would probably have a heart attack from sheer joy at hearing her say that. Of course there was her thing... "Or you're just naturally good at it, heh heh."

No one would ever make the mistake of thinking she was humble, at least.

[Ishi]

Ishi understood. It was all the same as before, just amplified to a new level. So all he had to do was practice and he would be able to replicate the impressive feat. There was a problem, however. Apparently, it required training and dedication to become as skilled as Serin. He didn't have time for that. Well, as an undead Jiangshi who didn't entirely grasp the concept of passing time, he probably did have the time. He just lacked the willpower. Ishi resolved himself to his fate. He would never become skilled. An exasperated inhale and sigh of air entered and left his lungs. But perhaps there was another way. 

Ishi chuckled a little to himself, but not in mockery of Serin's self proclaimed natural skill, although it may have come off as such. He was happy to hear that there was an alternative to training and practice and dedication. Just be naturally skilled. It was as easy as that. No problem. Ishi immediately discovered a problem. How does one do that? How could he become naturally skilled like her? Ishi stood in contemplation for some time before he came up with a solution. Just be naturally skilled. Ishi was convinced his was correct, circular logic and all.

Ishi nodded in his mental triumph over the problem he had faced. He had determined that he was naturally skilled and could do anything that entailed, including firing rocks through the atmosphere. He was so convinced of himself that he didn't even have to try. Ishi simply placed his fists on his hips, puffed out his chest and stuck his nose up in the air. "I am.. natural... ssskill." And there you had it, Ishi was, in his mind, the most gifted rock thrower this side of the river. He was capable of everything that rock skipping had to offer and more.

[Serin]

"You're somethin' alright," Serin fired back with an air of amusement and a hint of pepper that belied little of her meaning but some of its possibility. She wasn't going to just call him a dickweed but captain weirdo over here seemed to have some interesting ideas on his level of skill that she felt were slightly unfounded, and well, she also just wasn't ok with anyone being better than her. Not that... weird... pale guy... had evinced anything to that end - what the fuck WAS his name anyways? Had he given it to her and she just forgot? Nonsense, she never forgot anything. Ok... sometimes, maybe, but that was more of a... you know, misfiling, she just put the memory in the wrong place sometimes. That place being the garbage can. But she definitely DIDN'T forget, that was for lesser peons.

"So what IS your deal anyways?" As much to distract herself from the terrible matter of her not actually being perfect as because she was actually curious, Serin piped up without warning as she moseyed back off the water, not particularly fond of the idea of getting sprayed by anything. She might not be a cat but she was about as fond of unexpected baths. "I mean, you got a name, or should I just call you old guy? How long've you been rockin' earth magic," heh that was actually pretty witty, she wished she had thought to do that intentionally instead of just unconscious wording, "and are you from around here or what?" Only people she'd seen much of recently were that weird sword kid and this weird old guy. Good thing she wasn't weird or anything.

...She had kinda expected more youkai though. Or dragons. Or monsters. Or at least... not-humans. Serin wasn't disappointed, exactly, but so far she had only run into humans, which was why her tails tended to stay hidden.