[ Her brow is furrowed, and she closes her eyes, sighs heavily, but it's not a frustrated sigh. It's more like she's trying to draw up the conviction to believe she can make it work. She doesn't really feel much more confident, but she does feel slightly calmer as she breathes, focuses on that rhythm and nothing else.
She's never been someone who can easily clear her mind. There's probably a psychiatric textbook's worth of reasons why, but the point remains that she has never been prone to calm concentration. It hasn't gotten any easier in Abraxas, where she constantly senses magic on the fringes of her consciousness, but sitting here, she manages to make herself think of nothing before she imagines just Nadine's hands from before. The little ball of fire, how it flickered and moved. Nothing above her wrists. Just a tiny flame, that's all she has to do. Like a candle.
There's another breath and her face knits further. Without realizing she's even doing it, her hands raise slightly, palms faced outward like she is actually trying to push magic around instead of grabbing it. Nothing appears in front of them.
Instead, a few feet from her face, the air sparks like a firecracker, then individual flames lick into existence, twining themselves together until they form almost a little fountain of fire. It spits tiny flares and embers into the air, lighting her face up orange and red.
Her hands shake and she's perspiring. She lets out a strained whimper and the fire abruptly extinguishes when she drops backward to the bed, panting. It's a struggle to even open her eyes again. ]
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[ Her brow is furrowed, and she closes her eyes, sighs heavily, but it's not a frustrated sigh. It's more like she's trying to draw up the conviction to believe she can make it work. She doesn't really feel much more confident, but she does feel slightly calmer as she breathes, focuses on that rhythm and nothing else.
She's never been someone who can easily clear her mind. There's probably a psychiatric textbook's worth of reasons why, but the point remains that she has never been prone to calm concentration. It hasn't gotten any easier in Abraxas, where she constantly senses magic on the fringes of her consciousness, but sitting here, she manages to make herself think of nothing before she imagines just Nadine's hands from before. The little ball of fire, how it flickered and moved. Nothing above her wrists. Just a tiny flame, that's all she has to do. Like a candle.
There's another breath and her face knits further. Without realizing she's even doing it, her hands raise slightly, palms faced outward like she is actually trying to push magic around instead of grabbing it. Nothing appears in front of them.
Instead, a few feet from her face, the air sparks like a firecracker, then individual flames lick into existence, twining themselves together until they form almost a little fountain of fire. It spits tiny flares and embers into the air, lighting her face up orange and red.
Her hands shake and she's perspiring. She lets out a strained whimper and the fire abruptly extinguishes when she drops backward to the bed, panting. It's a struggle to even open her eyes again. ]