galvarelli/sarlastory/warmup-2022-06-11.txt

prompt: foreshadow an upcoming event.
upcoming event: the destruction of the Temple and the discussion of rushing water and solid rock:
Sarla is a practicant, Auroklos is

―So you know the legend of the Emperor and the Dwarf-burrows?, Sarla asked.

―The one where he drowns all of them? Marina asked.

―Yeah, and that he was able to redirect a river to flood the underground Dwarf cities to do it.
	And the point is, it's attested to in a few different texts.
	{WHATEVERNAME} mentions it here, Sarla said, indicating a book thicker than it was tall.
	There's a few Dwarf stories about it too.
	And {ANOTHERYAKSCHOLAR} thinks that it explains the soil characteristics in {NAME_OF_PLACE}.
	So it definitely seems like it happened.

Marina looked bored.
―Sure, let's say it happened.
	Why's that exciting?

―Well that's the question, right?
	What the Meadowlark can actually practically do.
	Like―

―Yeah, but we know the Meadowlark can change the landscape, Marina interrupted, twiddling with tassels on the cushions under her head.

―Not that fast, though.
	Like it's the mundane Meadowlark to shape the earth with grazing and fertilisation, but that's not what Yakob did.
	If he moved the river all at once, that's something else, evidence of greater powers.

Marina sighed.
―That doesn't mean we have to be all Preferentialist about it.
	He had enough engineers to do it manually.

―Yeah, I know, we still don't know.
	But it's still a data point!

Marina laughed.
―You're such a fucking nerd, Sarla.
She gave Sarla a smile, before continuing.
―By the way, I got you a treat.

Sarla raised an inquisitive eyebrow.
Marina held up a burlap bag.
―Greycaps, freshly grown.
	{OTHER_YAK} had them.
	And it's my day off tomorrow too.
	Want to try them?

Sarla thought about it a moment.
There was still so much to read through, and Marina was always particularly persuasive.

―I'm meeting Master Auroklos tomorrow morning, so half a cap?

Marina broke out into a big smile and bit through half a mushroom, handing the other half to Sarla.

―Ew, you could have just cut it in half.

―Yeah, but I didn't think you'd mind, Marina said, winking.

Which was uncomfortably true, Sarla thought, as she chewed her greycap dose.

---

Sarla woke up, light streaming into her room.
Marina was asleep in the bed next to her, drooling on the pillow.
Sarla looked at the face next to her, enjoying the moment, before realising how late it was.

She rolled out of the bed and hurriedly got ready.
Marina seemed to stir.
―Red notebook, she mumbled, keeping her eyes closed.

―What?

―Writing in the red notebook last night, Marina mumbled, even less coherently.

Sarla searched her room a moment before she found a book with a red cover.
It was unfortunately not a notebook, but instead a collection of pre-Imperial folk stories.
She flipped through her notes and saw that she had written all over an old children's story.

―Oh fuck, this is a library book.

Marina snored in response.

Sarla got changed and as she walked to Auroklos's office, she connected to the Meadowlark.
She felt the traces of vitality in the air and ground around her and nudged herself to be more alert, more awake.
It helped a bit, at least with cutting through the drowsiness, but she still felt lingering sluggishness and nausea.
Only so much that the Meadowlark could do.
It was hard to read her messy scrawl as she walked, but she'd been writing notes on a story about a yak that could vanish and reappear miles away, like a Dwarf-mage.
Her notes themselves were incomprehensible, a combination of inscrutable diagrams, graphs with unlabeled axes and, most embarrassingly, Marina's name written down many many times, with increasingly ornate flourishes each time.
Her stomach seemed to collapse in on itself as she regretted how unprepared she felt for the meeting.

Auroklos seemed annoyed the moment she reached his office doorway.
He had a stack of papers in front of him; he was displeased either at their content or her late arrival.
Or, she thought, even more likely both.
Practice planter boxes sat unused at the side of the room, taunting her with their lack of use today.
She stood a moment, with her stomach churning and her head starting to throb.
She instinctively touched the Meadowlark again, to try to fix both.
It helped a little, but Auroklos immediately gave her a look.

―Don't make a habit of that, he said, with a soft, icy voice.
	Discipline yourself, otherwise you will never grow.

―Yes, Master Auroklos, Sarla said, feeling her stomach drop with guilt and shame.

―What do you have for me today?

It took a moment for her to remember what she'd done since the last lesson, and some part of Sarla's brain seemed to work of its own volition.

―I worked on the exercises of Order, like we discussed.

She flipped through her primary research notebook.
Auroklos seemed to losing interest, attention flipping to whatever was on his desk.
―I took notes on {YAK_SCHOLAR}'s theory of hierarchies of spontaneous order, and tried to come up with exercise variations for each one.

―And? Auroklos said, without raising his eyes.

―And, well...

Sarla's voice trailed off.

―I was also thinking about the Emperor.

Auroklos kept reading, without responding.

―You know, whether his abilities were from the Meadowlark or not.
	I know you said there wasn't evidence either way on the historical emperor, but if we assume it's real―

―If we assume that everything about Emperor Yakob is real, then we will find ourselves believing very foolish things.

―Yes, but still, I, um.

Sarla's mind was going a bit blank and she had to take a deep breath.
Thoughts from last night bubbled up to the surface.

―Um, I just had this thought on the types of spontaneous order, and whether the myths could be thought of through that lens.
	Especially the redirection of the river {RIVER_NAME} over the Dwarf-burrows.

Auroklos looked up at her.

―So, {YAK_SCHOLAR} talks about how spontaneous order can magnify actions.
	Small interactions with the Meadowlark pushing the world over the hill, so to speak.

―This is all quite well-studied already, Sarla.
	Many metaphors already.
	{NAME} says a tiny spark can grow to a large fire, under the right circumstances.
	And {YAK_SCHOLAR} talks about the small rock that creates a landslide as it falls.

―Yes, but what if there's a way to control that?
	Setting up the fuel in the right way, if you catch my meaning?

Auroklos gave her a dismissive look.

―Sarla, focus on what's relevant.
	Are your set of revised exercises on Order done?

Sarla shook her head, and found that her eyes were having trouble pointing anywhere but the ground.

―Sarla, your ambition is laudable.
	But remember, to be a Master Practicant means to fulfill the Emperor's mandate directly, and that mandate includes following the Hierarchy's path of growth and advancement.
	Before reaching for the Emperor's abilities, try reaching for those which might be attained.

―Yes, Master Auroklos.

―We'll need to cut this meeting short, Sarla.
	I'd hoped to spend some time growing trees from seed for wood, he said, gesturing to the planter boxes.
	{SOMEYAKSCHOLAR}'s Code says a Master Practicant should be able to go from seed to precise wooden tool without even dirt or water.

Sarla stifled an immediate urge to note that {SOMEYAKSCHOLAR} was, in his own way, a wooden tool.

―But I have far too much to do right now.
	We'll meet again tomorrow morning, two hours after dawn.
	Promptly, please.

Tomorrow was Sarla's only planned day off this week, but being a capable scholar meant making it her priority, so she nodded.
Auroklos turned back to his document, grunting in what Sarla assumed was a form of dismissal, so she hurriedly collected her stack of notebooks and left.

Relief that the ordeal was over diluted the critical thoughts about her own inadequacy.
Every time Auroklos brought up his own standards for what a Master Practicant should be, they seemed a more unnecessary target for her to try to reach.
No other Master Practicant today could match those standards, except the Heresiarch currently in prison.
And except for Auroklos, maybe, but she had no idea what he could actually do.

She sighed.
Marina enjoyed Ennearch Simeon's Office.
Simple work, and Communicators were so important for the Hierarchy.
But Sarla couldn't do that.
She didn't have Marina's ability to settle into something steady like that.
It felt too stagnant for Sarla.
A half thought emerged, and fought its way to the forefront of her attention, that Sarla might have to learn those skills if she continued to fuck up her own work.
No one else was about to help her reach Master Practicant.

Marina was still in Sarla's room when Sarla got back.
She'd apparently just prepared some lentils with corn cobs, and offered Sarla a bowl.

―You're amazing, Marina, thanks.

―Of course. Gonna study now?

―Yeah, he wants me to catch up on stuff and come back tomorrow.

―Bummer.
	Well, eat first Sar.
	You need it.

Sarla sat and chewed her food slowly.

―Why was I taking notes in that library book last night?

―It was a library book? Valuable?

―No idea, Sarla shrugged.

―Well you're still probably fucked.
	Hope you can find a replacement.
	I don't know what you were thinking about with your notes.
	I mean it was greycaps, so only the Lord of the Mountain knows if it was useful or nonsense.
	You were babbling about children's stories being the key to truth.

―Ugh, that's not helpful.

Marina nodded sadly.
―If it's any consolation it was very fun to listen to.
	And then you were doing math shit, and you know I hate that, so I tuned out.
	Anyway, want some privacy while you work?

―Yeah, sorry Marina, I'll have to concentrate for a bit today.

Marina headed out, and Sarla got back to work.