#my capoeira mestre was telling us the other day

[cerealmonster15]

I think it’s the undiagnosed adhd talking but I really am a person who benefits from a lot of physical activities, I just wish I didn’t spend so much of my life hiding from it out of shame and fear lol

[the-melting-world]

Three of Cups | Waterfalls

art by @ hirodraga

~ In which a loyal storm witch remembers her past...

*All fics that follow this arc and be found here: Just Pray Masterlist

Music: "Waterfalls" by TLC

cw: mentions of drugs, drug use

~ 2k words

After a long day of chasing down boat hijackers from Macawi Port all the way up the Firentian coast, Mestra Adrenaline and her mercenary cohort settle for the night in a pleasure house off the island of Sirenia. Though this new companion wasn’t Nali’s usual type, they shared enough drinks to let their guards down around each other. Nali and her companion catch their breaths in the belly of a decorated atrium, where they can easily see the clear Sirenian night sky...

“What kind of a name is Adrenaline anyway?”

Nali turned her gaze away from the stars overhead and fixed them on the man lying beside her. He looked different without glasses and his long white hair undone across the pillows.

Nali blinked back tears against the smoke wafting from the narrow opium pipe pressed to her companion’s lips.

“That stuff is poison, you know,” Adrenaline said, knowing full and well that she had no right to advise anyone in that area.

The mercenary – Mantis – coughed against his arm. His grunt came out choppy.

“To be honest, I’m really not a smoker.”

Nali noticed the way that he turned the pipe over in his hands and studied it.

“But you had a friend that was?” She guessed. Judging by the way he creased his brows, she had guessed right.

“You never answered my question,” he snapped, flaring his nostrils to make room for more opaque swirls of poppy smoke. “Where’d you get your name?”

With a head light with fruity booze and a heart heavy with the presence of the star system above, Nali sighed, “The sun might come up before I finish explaining.”

Mantis set down the pipe and rolled onto his side to face Adrenaline better.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he whispered. “And no offense to you, but I’m not going to fall asleep with you hanging around.”

Given the sex they had not long ago was clumsy and far from sentimental, Nali wasn’t surprised that Mantis preferred to sleep alone. If anything, his distant nature made him more trustworthy to her. What would a guy like him care about all that she wanted to say?

Mantis didn’t seem like the type to want anything from anybody. If Nali told him everything on her heart, he wouldn’t care. But he would listen. And in the morning, he would disappear, her secrets most likely forgotten, but at least they would be safe.

Like the stars at their impossibly hot cores, Nali burned with the urge to reach with her light and connect with someone. If only for a brief moment in time.

The exiled warrior longed to tell her story.

“Adrenaline wasn’t the name I was born with.” Nali met Mantis’s dark, metallic gaze. “It was one I had to earn.”

.

.

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~ Avalon. An Island Kingdom ~

"The first dreamwalker is believed to derive his electric prowess not from thunderclouds but from our holy lunar surface." ~ excerpted from Lua Mãe: Histories in the Age of Decisiveness

Mestre Whisper looked over many shades of red hair to the central block where the clan Head and his closest council sat. Since a meeting was in session in the zenith of the tiered gem pyramid, all the mestres referred to each other by their historic titles.

Mestre Moonfire, the Malachite Son and Prince, Head of the Malachite Clan, and the only mestre with naturally black hair instead of red, was wrapping up on the plans to challenge Salvador, Head of the Bone Clan.

If anyone in the room had objections, they had chosen to not draw attention to themselves. Probably because Mestre Moonfire had made a compelling case against those who were soon to be their former allies. Selling obsidian glass to the Silver Clan was troubling, but it was one of the few sources of income that the Bone Clan could rely on. A Capoeira duel between clan heads with no intention of selecting champions to fight in their stead… it seemed harsher than necessary.

Mestre Whisper kept his mouth shut for now. He was no lightning paladin like the founders of the Fatal Fifty, who were seated closer to the central block. Instead, Mestre Whisper was up near the rafters with the rest of the Beloveds. They were called such because of their choice to become repeating mentors for the rising generations of the clan.

The input of Beloveds was valued for sure, but not when it came to military concerns.

“Moving on to the batizado this weekend…”

Mestre Whisper’s body language shifted. Now here was an area where his thoughts would be welcome. A hopeful part of him had faith that he could connect his concerns to the Bone Clan without raising too much alarm. The topics were linked afterall.

“We’re expecting at least a hundred more lightning paladins to add to the Fatal Fifty,” Mestre Moonfire announced, his eyes flicking up to where Mestre Whisper sat. “We have our Beloveds to thank for that.”

There was applause from the founders, as well as looks of gratitude that Mestre Whisper and his peers were compelled to nod to. He noticed that Mestra Crescent really took the praise to heart. Her cherry red bob swayed as she clutched the fabric at her chest and inclined her head to nearly every considerate glance that fell on her.

A tireless instructor, that one. Mestra Crescent didn’t flinch at having multiple students under her tutelage, ranging from aluno youngsters to seasoned adult mestres and contra-mestres. Mestre Whisper didn’t know how the woman did it. Though he was no stranger to raising children into full grown Capoeira masters, he could only handle one student at a time.

And thank Mother Moon that Mestre Whisper knew his limits because his current ward, Contra-mestre Rosario, was nothing short of a handful.

The Beloved decided this was a good time to put in a request to speak before the Council. It was granted by the Head.

“Mestre Whisper, the floor is yours.”

Despite the implications of his historic title, Mestre Whisper spoke at a normal volume. But his voice was soft and did not betray any of the worry and uncertainty that he felt.

“I wonder if it’s too soon to graduate the lightning paladins directly after a weekend-long batizado. It’s not as if the Fatal Fifty is lacking in numbers.”

Mestre Moonfire... why are you rushing to add to the ranks?

It was the real question that Mestre Whisper was trying to get at. Everyone in attendance knew that Fatal Fifty was short for the Fatal Fifty Thousand. Of course, there was once only fifty paladins. They were all sitting in this room. But what had started as Avalon’s elite militia had transformed into a full blown army. Had no one else noticed?

Mestre Whisper received strange looks from some of the paladins, but he kept his eyes locked on the Head of the clan. In an even tone, Mestre Moonfire asked, “Are you worried about your student, Arthur?”

Mestre Whisper blinked back his shock. The Head had broken one of his own rules. The upper chamber of the pyramid wasn’t meant for common names – only names that were bound for the history ledgers.

Mestre Whisper didn’t know how to feel about this.

“She is quite young,” Mestre Moonfire went on as if no boundaries were crossed, “A prodigy to be sure. You should be proud.”

“I am proud.” This time Arthur’s words did come out as a whisper.

“I can understand if you believe she isn’t ready,” Mestre Moonfire concluded.

Arthur took a moment to swallow and briefly break eye contact with the Head. After collecting himself, he looked back up and said, “I believe that none of the new paladins would be ready for a clash against the Bone Clan should one come to pass.”

All around the hall, jaws fell. Mestre Whisper felt the other Beloveds firing looks of warning in his direction. But the seasoned mentor didn’t move his body or his eyes from the central block. The mestres closest to the Head – Mestre Cloud, Mestra Assassina, and Mestre Magro – all slowly turned to face Mestre Moonfire. As if they expected a command from him to move against Arthur.

Without taking his dark eyes off of Mestre Whisper, Mestre Moonfire lifted a hand to keep his close council at bay.

“The only clashing that will take place will be between me and Mestre Papa.” Mestre Moonfire’s painted face twisted into a grin. “Do you predict that I will lose?”

Once again, Mestre Whisper spoke honestly. “I predict that should you win, the caimans will not back down and just hand over their obsidian trade to you.”

Such a scenario would give the Malachite Prince the perfect opportunity to order a force of fifty thousand lightning paladins against the Bone Clan.

The fifty founders in the room knew what militarization looked like and what it meant. To follow orders and suddenly shift your view of your friends as your new enemies. To move against them with a single word from the Head of the clan, for the good of the clan.

They knew, but the majority of the Fatal Fifty, they had no idea–

“We can talk more about this after the meeting,” Mestre Moonfire said, interrupting Arthur’s thoughts and effectively stopping him from pursuing this issue in the presence of the council body.

Mestre Whisper nodded respectfully and looked down at his stack of papers. He spent the rest of the meeting ignoring all of the looks coming from other Beloveds and lightning paladins.

When the session was over, Arthur waited for the whole chamber to empty out before meeting Mestre Moonfire down by the central block.

To his relief, Mestre Moonfire had dismissed his attendants. He beckoned Arthur to follow him to a lower level in the pyramid, where custom and tradition would not weigh on them so heavily.

“Mestre Julio,” Arthur began, using the Head’s less ornate title, “I meant no disrespect in there.”

Julio, the Malachite Son and Prince, took a pitcher of water from a panel of refreshments and poured some into one of the empty altar basins scattered throughout the hall. He used a towel hooked just below the basin to start cleaning the makeup off his face.

It was no secret that Encantados – shifters – aged slowly. Yet the clan Head baffled all who came face to face with him. Though he was older than Avalon’s history books, he looked not a day past eighteen.

Julio was a fair height with a strong, lean frame. Depending on how much exposed himself to the sun, his skin seesawed between olive toned and a high bronze. His eyes were as black and heavy as the curls that framed his face and clung close to his scalp everywhere else. Though he appeared young, his expression was that of a prince who knew the daunting role into which he had been born and one that he did not shy away from.

Mestre Julio used the wet towel to scrub away the broad band of glittering black that he painted from temple to temple. Beyond its ceremonial meaning, Mestre Whisper assumed that Julio relied on it to blur out some of that illusion of youth.

“Arthur, it’s fine,” Julio sighed as he held his head over the basin and squeezed the towel above his forehead. “You can’t be the only one with concerns. You must understand, however, that I have thought this through.”

Arthur’s short red dreadlocks swayed as he jerked his chin. “With no vote? When did we stop voting on these things?”

Julio gripped the edge of the basin with both hands and glared at his reflection. “And drag this out for weeks and weeks? Meanwhile, the Silver Clan continues to stockpile weapons made of materials that they purchased right out of our backdoor?”

The two mestres went on arguing civilly for several minutes before Mestra Brisa, or as she was more formally known, Mestra Assassina, entered the hall. The intimidating woman with deep, magenta waves that fell below her hips approached them and rested a protective hand on Julio’s shoulder.

“Masters,” she greeted, levelling her gaze with Arthur’s in what felt like another suggestion to back off.

By now, Mestre Whisper was tired of jumping hoops just to get his point across. He greeted Mestra Brisa by her historic title and wished Mestre Moonfire luck against his upcoming duel. Then he turned for the exit.

To Arthur’s surprise, Mestre Moonfire called out to him one last time, asking if he had a proper name chosen for Rosario’s graduation to the status of mestre.

“Yes.” Mestre Whisper paused for a moment to consider how he should word his answer. He took a deep breath.

“Rosario’s name… it will mean: It is not the storm that motivates her, but she who motivates the storm.”