Snakey's Stakey

[Avis]

Eventually the Warlock emerged from her dark dwelling, shambling into the kitchen in sweat pants and a tank top. The skin under her eyes was a dark blue, and her lids were drooped half closed, occasionally fluttering in a spastic blink. Strands of dark hair spilled about her face and a hand drifted up to brush a stray lock of hair that had fallen across her eyes.

All in all, it was a pretty normal morning for her. Of course, it was only morning for her. Was afternoon for everyone else. Fucking night shift. It wouldn't be so bad if the rest of the world didn't keep such regular hours, but as it was there wasn't much she could do. Well, not without magic. She'd have to ask around, see if anyone knew any tricks. It would probably require Life. Stupid, stupid Life. It was so goddamn convenient, but she had other priorities for the next year or so. Gah, if only she had Time. Stupid, stupid Time...

The Avis-zombie blundered by Asp and started digging around in the fridge before straightening with bottled smoothy stuff and walking over to the cupboard to get a container.

"Morning, Asp," she drawled, pouring herself the first half of her breakfast.

[Avis]

"Who says I'm not awake," Avis said around the rim of her cup, tipping the pulped contents into her mouth as soon as the words had left it. "And you sure it was me?" she asked after swallowing. A slight wince followed the words when her saliva glands suddenly got the message that sugar was present, and it was time to wake up, but instead tried to strangle themselves.

Yee-up. Definitely didn't feel asleep anymore.

[Avis]

"Um." Avis' eyes skittered around the kitchen, then found their way back to Asp's face. Her mug came up and she took another slurp.

"Yeah. Pretty much. Unless I'm in, like, an empty room I can usually always find something. Are you...wanting to learn how?" Her black brows rose together in surprise. The day when Asp asked to learn something from her was the day she...well, had never expected to come. Ever. It hadn't even crossed her mind. Well, that wasn't entirely true. It had, somewhat. It wasn't that Avis didn't imagine Asp would never come to her for help; the Warlock suspected the other Talon would eventually need help refining her killing place, but that wasn't really teaching. That was more like, what? Therapy.

This was entirely different. This was Asp asking her to impart a skill that she didn't have. A skill she knew was valuable, and wanted.

A grin slowly broke across Avis' face but was quickly hidden by another sip from her mug before it could fully form.

[Avis]

"No. Not at all," Avis said, almost too quickly. "I'm just, I don't know, surprised you want to learn. A lot of Talons that I've met follow the whole 'your weapon is sacred' bullshit, and a few of them in Chicago even kinda made fun of me for just using whatever. Not all of them, of course, but uh, well, anyways," she shrugged and took a last sip before putting her cup down.

"That's not important, I guess. You're asking if I'll teach you and the answer is yes. Yes, I will be glad to teach you. Not that I've ever really taught anybody before, but I'm pretty sure I can help you pick it up. It's kind of-uh, a philosophy, really. It's a way of looking at stuff. At the world. So, uh, let's start with this. Tell me if everything you see right now that could be used as a weapon. Then, tell me if you've ever seen that Jet Li movie, Hero."

[Avis]

"There's other stuff that can be broken, like all the glass stuff in the fridge, but I guess I did say just stuff that you can see right now. So, uh, good job. Basically, the rule is: everything." Avis chewed on her lip for a moment, then jerked her head towards the dining room and walked over to take a seat at the table. She shifted around for a few seconds, tucking her legs up onto the chair in an approximation of the lotus position. Then, her right index finger traced an unseen pattern on the table before she looked up again.

"So, you're off to a good start. But, uh, the reason why I asked about that movie is 'cause it has this scene in it that talks about the philosophy behind it. Or touches on it, I guess," she explained, her finger tapping the table. "Anyways, in the scene, there's a king and a warrior-guy and they're studying the Chinese word for sword. Or that's what it was supposed to be, I don't know what it actually said. Anyways, while the king was looking at it he said that he saw it talking not about a sword but about what it meant to be a warrior. He said that a true warrior see's everything as a weapon, or a 'sword' if you wanna be specific, and that even a blade of grass could be a lethal weapon in a warrior's hands. He then went on to talk about the sword disappearing and the warrior discovering peace or whatever, but that's not important. The important part is the grass part. Even something that insignificant could take a life. It would be really, really hard, but I'm sure it could.

"So, uh, that's step one. Internalizing the fact that everything is a weapon, in your hands. The fork you eat with, the glass your water is in, the string in your shoes. Once you internalize that then you start seeing death everywhere. It's not just seeing something and saying, 'hey, that could hurt somebody,' it's seeing something and then seeing how you'd kill with it. How you'd drain life from the broken shell someone called a body." She paused, looking down at her hands.

"Well, actually, hold up. I guess what's really step one is internalizing the the ways in which a body can be broken. When you can do that, it's easy to see what objects can break it."