Baby Steps

[Saccharin]

After several minutes passed, she glanced at him surreptitiously and was disappointed to see that he showed no signs of leaving. She was beginning to remember that he was just as (if not more) stubborn as she was. This did not bode well for her recently hatched plan.

She didn\'t really feel like smiling anymore and instead donned a frown that only deepened as even more time slipped by and still he stood there.

Why didn\'t he go away? When she reached out to thread herself into surface of his thoughts (because she wasn\'t willing to break her vow of silence just yet), she felt like a retarded squirrel trying to figure out how to access the meat of an acorn. There wasn\'t a seam to be found in her first cursory inspection of his mind. Still, she searched, hoping to find a crack, a crevice - anything she could worm her way past his extensive defenses. Nothing. His defenses were impenetrable.

Anna grunted and rubbed at her forehead with the heel of one hand. "How do you do that?" she asked, forgetting her vow in the face of her rising curiosity.

[pinkroses]

If William felt her mentally attempting to pry into his thoughts, he gave no sign of it to his fledgling. There was a peaceful look on his face as his grey eyes scanned around and it wasn’t until she spoke to him that he glanced her way. There was an innocent look on his face as he turned towards her, his hands folded behind his back.

“Do what?” he asked, giving her a smile. If she wanted to learn something, he would be happy to try to teach her - it had been so long since he had been able to really show off to someone other than Indiana (who was pretty hard to impress most of the time) - and if he was able to show her how to use her skills she had been neglecting, maybe she would grow to trust him a little more. He didn’t worry that she would be able to block him out - she was his, and he had centuries or practise on her. Blocking people out he could do well, and he knew how to find chinks in others’ armour, although that side of things wasn’t what he focused on most of the time.

And wanting to make her ask specifically for him to show her something? Well that just made everything a little sweeter.

[Saccharin]

Her eyes narrowed as she regarded him, waiting for some snide remark about how she didn\'t already know how to protect herself from another\'s prying fingers. As he\'d witnessed in the club when she\'d tried her best to keep him from her mind, the attempt had been sloppy - she\'d launched her mental self at him and shoved. If she\'d been able to keep her mind sealed away as he did, then she wouldn\'t have had to go on the offensive in the first place. She was unskilled, and well aware of the fact, but it didn\'t mean she wanted to hear William confirm the fact. When he didn\'t, her stance visibly relaxed (though she kept her arms crossed under her breasts).

"Keep me out. How do you do that?" she answered, trying to sound aloof and disinterested but failing miserably.

[pinkroses]

“Ah,” William said, giving Anna a warmer smile and he lifted a hand to gesture slightly as though drawing a line between them.

“That was one of the first things I learnt. I apologise, I do it instinctively with everyone,” William said, lying just a little. With Indie he never bothered with the wall, there was no need.

 “Imagine a wall, just a simple wall - or perhaps a box, whatever works for you. And with time and work, you can make it stronger, thicker, keep in more and keep out more. Perhaps layer it so keep some things safer,” William explained, folding his hands behind her back, tilting his head to one side slightly.

“Would you like to practise?” he offered, “I won’t force myself in too hard, I promise,” William added. Although at the moment if he decided to there wouldn’t be much she could do to stop him. William preferred to defend than attack mentally and it was what he was better at.

[Saccharin]

Anna nodded. Yes, she wanted to learn. After a moment\'s hesitation, she let her arms fall to the side and moved to sit at the base of the great oak tree, cross-legged.

She closed her eyes and imagined the roots beneath her surging upwards, breaking through the ground, then twining about and creating a dome-like structure that totally encompassed her. Gaps still remained, but those were quickly filled in by another plant-like material - a vine with long thorns sticking out at varying angles. It looked similar to a rose vine, but was lacking beautifully scented flowers.

"Okay. Try it," she said out loud, not wanting to switch to mental communication because she was exerting all her effort as it was just to maintain the protective shielding she\'d created.

[pinkroses]

Will stayed standing as his fledgling sat and he strolled back and forth before her as she tried to focus. He let himself gently touch her mind, keeping a mental eye on what she was doing without forcing himself in. He wasn’t surprised that she was using a natural image to keep people out.

As she said she was ready Will paused for a few seconds before pressing into her mind, sending out mental fingers to test her wall, attempting to find a gap he could get through. It was good for a first attempt, but the vines were still just vines for now.

He wove through, pushing vines here and there, slipping them out of the way just a little, ignoring the thorns which didn’t prick his mental fingers. He could have been more violent in his attack, burnt through, ripped it apart, but he slipped through with minimum disruption to her wall.

Good first try, the tree is strong, but the vines are easier to break through. It probably would have been effective against someone younger than you though, he sent mentally through the gap he‘d created.

[Saccharin]

But not good enough, she communicated, not an ounce of frustration in her mental voice. He\'d set her to a challenge, but instead of becoming annoyed that her first attempt had been a failure, she was only all the more determined to do a better job of it until she had it right. She was a good student and under the hand of a teacher, she would flourish.

She made several more attempts, using different materials to create a wide variety of structures until she struggled to form even an image of a wall in her mind. She\'d exhausted herself, but she smiled up at William after she opened her eyes.

"I almost kept you out that time," she said triumphantly, though tiredly. In reality, it had only meant that it had taken William a few more seconds than her very first attempt to locate the weakness in her mental defenses, but it had been real progress and she was right to be proud of it.

"I\'ll do better next time," she said, leaning against the oak tree and drawing her knees up to wrap her arms about the tops of them.

[pinkroses]

William gave his fledgling a warm smile as she settled back against the tree. He could feel how mentally exhausted she was and, as pissed as he was with her for some of what she’d done and how little she had progressed on her own, he was proud of her too. She did care, and was eager to learn given the right encouragement.

Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad having her around after all.

The blonde crouched down before her, reaching out to rest his hands on her arms as they draped around her knees.

“You’re doing well. With practise you’ll improve in leaps and bounds. I can help you more if you wish? We could make this a regular thing,” William suggested with a tone of voice that implied he didn’t care either way, although just saying the words suggested otherwise. But she had also given the impression that there would be a next time and so William wasn’t expecting to be rejected this time, unless she hadn’t really realised what she had said.

[Saccharin]

She blinked and glanced down at his hands but did not push him away. Earlier, she might\'ve, but that was before he\'d reminded her of at least one reason she\'d been drawn to him in the first place. He was a good teacher, and for one as insatiably curious as she, having someone willing to teach her was invaluable. She\'d denied him that to begin with because all she wanted to do was to boil away the hatred she\'d been accumulating for nearly two centuries. She\'d deserved at least that much.

Now, though, as she searched his light colored eyes with her own dark ones, she couldn\'t muster any of the anger that\'d come so easily to her when they\'d first reunited. He\'d left her, yes, but he was there and offering to be her sire again.

"Okay," she agreed, nodding. She would allow him to be that to her and learn all she could from him.

She deserved that too.

"I come here every night, usually a few hours after sunset," she said, thinking he could come there too.

[pinkroses]

She seemed to be softening, the anger she’d been directing his way when they had first seen each other again disappearing and Will wasn’t sure how he felt about that. It would be nice to spend more time with her - and without the motive of simply annoying her. As fun as it had been, she was his blood.  He’d wanted revenge, but if she came around and stopped being such a bitch… well, he didn’t want to hurt her if she didn’t deserve it. And killing the human she liked would probably get him in trouble anyway. Maybe Indie had been right to question his plans.

“Well then, I shall see you here again,” Will said, rising to his feet and releasing his grasp on her. “I may give you a couple of days peace to recover from your efforts though,” he added giving her a wink as he slipped his hands into his pockets.

“Have a good night Ahinawake,” the blonde said, pronouncing her name perfectly as always, nodding to her before turning to stroll away into the darkness unless she tried to stop him for any reason.