Chương 23: Chapter 21 ~ Plant Matters

04/11/1111 EotTS 10: 00 The professor of Ritual Magick was a young woman who could not have been older than thirty. She had a similar haircut to Gysel, except it was cut straight and likely by a professional, leaving the edges of the short bob and bangs even, and more complementary to her oblong face and dark brown eyes.

Between her pale, but not pallourus skin, which had the healthy pale of one who simply enjoys the indoors, and her dress with all of its little embroidered flowers, she looked like a porcelain doll that people purchase, set in a cabinet and never touch again. With a warm smile, she greeted everyone with a friendly 'good morning' and a wave. After fifty waves, the whole class was present. She stood from her desk.

"Hello and good morning, class! My name is Florna—you can just call me that—and I will be your Ritual Magick Professor. First things first, I will be calling this Magick, and not Alchemy; if you have a problem with that." She stopped and shrugged.

"I'm going to keep things very simple today. How many of you are experienced in Ritual Magick?" About ninety percent of the class raised their hands, but Gysel was not among them.

"Great! So that means you know we are going to be starting with sacred geometry and its uses in ritual magick. That way, we can get the few of you who likely have no relationships with deities, or very poor ones, on track as soon as possible." She walked to the chalkboard and began to draw. There were seven shapes in total: a circle, a triangle, a square, a pentagram, a shape with a triangle on top and a rhombus on the bottom, and a nine-pointed and thirteen-pointed star. Professor Florna tapped the circle.

"What does this do?"

"Isolates the practitioner from outside forces and keeps their energy inside the circle." Someone behind Gysel said.

"Good, now what about the triangle?"

"It represents the three lunar sisters," Wyohla said, "as well as the higher triad."

"Excellent answer, very specific, you must be experienced with them." Professor Florna moved along and tapped the square. Gysel raised her hand.

"Yes! I like some order in my class," said Professor Florna.

"The four primary elements, air, water, fire, and earth," Gysel said.

"And what else?"

"The lower quaternary?"

"Yes, good." Gysel let out a sigh as Professor Florna continued onto the next shape.

"Now the Fvatimæ." People seemed more reluctant to answer this; some even started speaking and then stopped themselves. Finally, Lyvahn answered.

"Each node represents one aspect of the Collective Unconscious and the Personal Unconscious, and is mostly used in pathworking in ritual magick." He sounded bored.

"Hmm…" Professor Florna did not seem particularly pleased with this answer. She sighed.

"That's right, please try to refrain from using psychoanalytical terms. All of the terms I will be using are in the textbooks and reading material, which I hope you have acquired. Study them and internalize them; this is foundational to theurgy. Now, next." Tapping the nine-pointed star, she looked around the class.

"The Nine Primordials," said another unrecognizable voice.

"And they are?"

"Life, death, the sun, the earth, the three moons, the whole, and the nothingness."

"And lastly, this one," Professor Florna tapped the thirteen-pointed star, then pointed to Wyohla.

"How about you tell us." Wyohla leaned back in her chair, her turtleneck lifted slightly, and fraying threads got pulled tight between her belt. She sat forward in a panic, likely not wanting to stretch the wool, and fixed the shirt.

"It represents the thirteen maidens, and how they connect with each other—each connecting line represents an aspect of their ego. It is primarily used for natal readings, and when the nodes are connected to form a tridecagon, it is used to work with Luhnylla."

"Fantastic, now that's all of them—or all of the ones you will be needing. Don't forget these, as you will need to know them for your practical assignments throughout the year. So, for your first exercise, I would like you to get yourself a divination deck, any kind will work, but I recommend against getting a Lunar Divination Deck as they are a lot to handle and will take a lot of getting used to. A standard one will be best.

I know this does not make much sense for a first exercise, but you will need it for class in the next quarter."

"I know that you seem to have a lot of work ahead of you, so if you want to get a head start on next quarter's exercise, I will tell it to you now. I would like you to research a deity with whom you want to build a relationship, and find a flower that is associated with them—something like Jasmine or Mugwort for The Lady Beneath the Moonlight Visage—and then grow some in your house. Just bring in the receipt or the bag for the seeds, or, even better, bring the plant in once it sprouts.

Just remember it is extremely important that you plant the seeds; if you just buy the plant already grown, it will do nothing for your relationship with that deity. If you already have one, you can bring it in for full marks as well." She sucked her teeth.

"All righty, that's everything I have for you. No, wait, actually, I have a printed list of the books you need; come get them from my desk before you go. Happy gardening." The hall quickly emptied, and she made sure to wave to everyone after they got the reading list.

04/11/1111 EotTS 16: 00 Gysel languidly looked over the spines of the books that covered the shelves of the library's boundless seventh-floor fiction section: there were a lot of novels and short-story collections, yet still a lot of nothing, but this one seemed interesting. Gysel removed a book with a spine reading 'The Vespertine Hours of a Lady', as it seemed interesting, perhaps something more literary following the nighttime spiritual practices of noblewomen.

She looked at the cover: it was not at all what was expected; the cover depicted a woman in the process of undressing, with her back to the view, revealing herself to a man seated on her bed—this was certainly about noblewomen, but nothing of this looked to be spiritual. Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

"Are you a fan of bodice busters, Gysel?" the voice had the unmistakable coo of Wyohla.

"I knew you had a dark side." Gysel glanced over her shoulder to Wyohla; her hair was tied up in a low bun, and she had glasses on: she fit in with the library.

Gysel took one more quick look at the book, and hurriedly reshelved it—Wyohla is correct, this reader has a dark side, but it will not be found in bodice busters, instead, in the opposite, in the tales of knight errantry and the stories of jousting and sword fights between handsome and noble men, specifically the ones which are at the very back of the bookstore, in the darkest side of the furthest shelf, which is where they belonged, because it is truly shameful for such an educated reader to stoop so low as to read such...

such... drivel!

"No, are you?"

"Can't say I am either; I don't need any more." Wyohla tugged on her black turtleneck.

"What are you doing up here?"

"Looking for worthwhile fiction."

"I didn't take you for someone who read fiction."

"I am," Gysel said. She stood up straight and turned to face Wyohla.

"But it has to be didactic. Not that." Wyohla laughed.

"Is that why you still put the apostrophe in tag'die and tag'by?"

"Yes." Father had said that made his daughter's writing inaccessible, he said: 'The language has been standardized, there is no longer a need to write using such archaic grammatical rules. If you ignore the standardized rules of language, you are judging people on the grounds of their education.' This seemed hypocritical, seeing as how he frequently judged people by their education.

Frankly, it looked more appealing aesthetically, and also made it clear that both die and by were modifying tags to display when it was, either this day, or the next.

"On the topic of today. Do you have what you need for the exercises?"

"No, why?"

"I know a spot in town," said Wyohla.

"For a divination deck or for plants?" Gysel asked.

"Both." Wyohla turned from Gysel and started towards the stairs.

"We can go get what you need today." She put a short pause in between the syllables of 'tag' and 'die.' Gysel followed.

"Are you—""Paying? Of course." Gysel smiled as the two made the trek back to the first floor.

"I need to get my bag and jacket," Wyohla said, as she took a left and headed towards the study tables. There was only one person at the table Gysel usually found the others at: it was Lyvahn; he was reading, and seemed perfectly content to be alone with his book.

"Where is Ardhy?" Gysel asked.

"Was he not with you two during lunch?"

"He had to go home," Wyohla said.

"Said he had something to take care of." Wyohla set her hands down on the table across from Lyvahn.

"Gysel and I are going into town to get her stuff for the exercises. Do you want to come?"

"I'm alright, I have everything already." Lyvahn did not look up from the book.

"Lyma and the others had Rit-Ma on the first, so they already have this stuff."

"Hmm… looks like it's just us, Gysel." Gysel nodded; if Ardhy were here, he probably would insist that someone accompanied the two, but he was not, and to tell Wyohla that Ardhy would say it was not safe for the two to go alone together was probably a far worse option than going with her.

"All right."

"Excellent!" Wyohla started off without a second to spare. She waved over her shoulder.

"See you later, Lyvahn."

"Uh-huh," Lyvahn said, without looking up from his book. With an unnoticed wave to Lyvahn, Gysel hurried after Wyohla. She was struggling to keep up as Wyohla made her way through the cloister, down and out of the entrance hall, and to the gates. Gysel doubled over when Wyohla finally stopped just past the gates; she had been five or more meters behind the whole walk and only falling further behind.

"You walk too fast," said Gysel. Each one of Wyohla's strides was equal to three of the one who followed her.

"One of the benefits of long legs." Wyohla set her bag on the ground and put on her jacket. It was a simple grey-blue tweed and stopped just above her waistline.

"There are boons to being dainty, Gysel."

"No," Gysel said with a headshake.

"You can reach the top shelves. I have to ask for help."

"You can still reach them," Wyohla said with a smirk, "you just need someone to lift you up."

"I do not want someone to lift me up."

"Then may the top shelf be out of reach evermore." Wyohla bent over to pick up her bag. Then she was off towards the main street, and Gysel was too. The wind flicked at Wyohla's ankle-length, dark blue skirt as she took long strides down the sidewalk. The strides were slower, which was just enough for Gysel to keep up.

"So." Wyohla looked down at Gysel.

"Do you have any idea what plants you are going to get?"

"No," Gysel said; no thought had been put into it at all: it had only been a few hours, and the original plan was to ask Lyma that night, but this came up first.

"Do you have suggestions?"

"I think you should get some Jasmine and some Mugwort."

"For…" Gysel paused—there has to be a way to say the name without repercussions, what was said at Wyohla's the other night, what did Florna say? oh well…

"Moonlady?"

"Yes, you can just say, 'the Lady of the Moonlight,' that is what the name means. I think mugwort is great to have in general. I grow it in an outside planter just beyond my window. It makes your dreams more vivid." That was new—mugwort for dreams; previously it had only been described as a pest in people's gardens and an herbal abortive.

"Why does that matter?"

"Just wait for the Spiritual Alchemy Professor to get going, and you will understand." Wyohla changed the topic, not allowing for any questions.

"You, as a woman, need a relationship with Luhnylla. So I think it is best to start with her."

"All right."

"Still haven't started on the book?" Gysel shook her head, beginning to get too tired from the walking to speak.

"You should, Luhnylla will know you have it."

"How."

"She just will. So read it."

"All right… How can you say the name?" Gysel asked.

"Luhnylla?"

"Yes."

"I'm grounded. Did you see how ridged the skirt of Florna's dress was?"

"Yes."

"It's like that, being inside that circle grounds you." Gysel paused, and scratched the back of her head; that made sense: circles isolated.

"All right." The two walked in silence the rest of the way. 04/11/1111 EotTS 17: 19 Wyohla came to a stop outside a two-story, grey-brick botany shop and started digging in her bag. This seemed like an odd choice of establishment for one to purchase flowers at; a florist, or maybe a larger garden store, had been expected, but not a botanist.

"Here." Wyohla held out a full silver coin for Gysel. Gysel plucked the coin from Wyohla's hand and went to the dark green door. Taking it by its brass handle, she opened it and waited for Wyohla.

"I'll wait out here."

"Why?" asked Gysel—this is not good, there is nothing worse than having to speak with the shopkeeper and ask him where the seeds for mugwort and jasmine are, and then probably ask him to get a couple of clay pots for down as well.

"It will be quicker." Gysel ran her lips together.

"Fine." Then she reluctantly went inside alone. The strong and cacophonous scent of the shop invaded Gysel's nose: it smelled the strongest of mint, but it had the undertones of anything and everything plant-like, with subtle hints of fire. All the walls were covered in cabinets and apothecary shelves, and the only light came from the sconces above the signs denoting which shelf had what.

Gysel hurried past the front-counter to the back wall; the shopkeeper (who was organizing the shelves behind the counter) did not seem to notice her. There was a series of wooden apothecary cabinets against the back wall, all stained walnut with brass handles and name plates. Gysel walked to the one with a brass label on the heading reading seeds, and began to look over each drawer for the seeds she needed. She found them with no difficulty, as both were easily reachable. Opening the drawer, she looked inside.

The seeds were in small paper pouches, that had been folded and tied shut with string. She removed one pouch of each. Giving the pouches a shake, she listened as the seeds rattled about inside. Perfect, now all she needed was two clay pots. The pots were just as easy to find as the seeds; they were lining a shelf of a cabinet—this is not so bad.

Gysel looked over the selection: there were normal clay pots, but they felt horrible to hold, so getting pots that had been glazed would be an easy fix; there was a selection of these in all sorts of color gradients, but the one going from black at the top to a blue near the bottom looked the best: they looked like Wyohla's outfit. With the quest now complete, Gysel went to the counter, plopped the pots and seeds down, and stood there. After about two minutes, the clerk finally turned around and looked at her.

"Are you ready?" he said, looking over the products.

"I have been ready." Gysel held up the coin. The shopkeeper took it, got the change, and handed it to Gysel, who placed it in her pocket. Placing one pot in the other and the seeds inside the top pot, Gysel turned from the counter and headed for the door. She caught a glimpse of Wyohla, who was talking to a man outside.