The Hunter

Training

Finn hefted her axe over her shoulder, glaring at the door to the library as she brought it back to it's place on her bedroom wall. The tea and crackers were sitting on the only table that was too small to hold books and within reach of Gloria. Once the axe was back in its place on the wall Finn considered the rest of her day. Until she had a chance to explain more of the house to Gloria she wouldn't be comfortable leaving the girl alone, but she definitely needed more food if she was going to have a housemate for any length of time. Not to mention she would have to find where the training room had gotten to. 

Finn sighed and stepped gently down her stairs, looking into the library to make sure that Gloria had found the tea and crackers. The lighting in the library had changed to match what was obviously Gloria's preference, a pad of lined paper and a few pencils had joined the small table with the crackers and tea and Gloria sat chewing absently on a cracker while she stared intently at the tome in front of her. Finn swung the door shut enough to give the girl privacy and then she moved towards the kitchen.

She left the lights off, there was sunlight coming in through the window above the sink, and stood in the centre of the room. Finn couldn't remember the last time the training room had been used, a side effect of trauma as she understood it, but she could feel it in the house somewhere. Asking seemed like the simplest way, but the last time she had said anything about this room to the house she had given explicit orders that it was to remain hidden no matter what she said.

"Screw hindsight." Finn muttered and then she closed her eyes and stretched out along the invisible lines of magic that were as familiar to her as sight. She felt along memories of rooms that the house hadn't needed in years, all set exactly the way their previous owner had left them. Three she pushed away from her, the pain that radiated from them an alluring reminder of her past. Not what she was looking for at the moment though.

She found the old furnace room, it's fires long cold. An old scrying room she hadn't seen before. A pantry - fully stocked - which she reconnected to the kitchen with a shifting of the magic that ran through the house like a central nervous system. As she shifted the connections she felt a shift further away from her and reached for it reflexively. When it pulled away from her she blinked her eyes open and stared unseeing at the new pantry door for a moment.

She sighed and opened the pantry door to see what all was inside. Everything had been preserved by someone in her ancestral line previously and nothing was dated, but the magic seal on everything meant it would at least be edible. One of the jars she lifted and squinted into a moment before she realized what she was seeing. That particular plant had gone extinct a few decades ago. She wondered how much trouble they'd get in for eating it now as she shut the door and sighed into her dim kitchen.

"I know what I said." Finn spoke quietly, knowing the house would hear her just fine but wanting to keep what she said between her and the house. "I was wrong. I need the training room for Gloria." The house waited and Finn tilted her head questioningly at the walls. "I know you like her, so what's the issue? What am I missing?" Finn closed her eyes and waited for something to draw her attention. The house wasn't alive, but it had some awareness and would often share that information with the people living in it if they knew how to look.

After a moment she noticed something in the way the unused lines had settled after she worked with the connection of the pantry to the kitchen. She followed them until she realized where they were trying to connect to. Gently she adjusted them away from Gloria and shook her head as she opened her eyes.

"If you want to connect to her let me train her first. As it is now she's as likely to light you on fire as ask you to light a candle for her to read by. I'll make a note to include you in her training." Finn spoke gently and turned her head as the hallway outside the kitchen shifted. She walked to the new door in the hallway and opened it, frowning at the layers of dust and grime that covered everything in the training room. RUnes that had been carefully maintained over the years were now filled in by cobwebs and mold, the tables had rotten through adn collapsed on themselves, and a thin layer of slime covered everything from the waist down.

Finn sighed. "I was very, very wrong when I said this room could rot for all I care. I will mind my words better." She put her hands on her hips and then shook her head at the mess. Finally after a moment of trying to think of another way she went back to the kitchen and got her cleaning supplies. Salt and baking soda for scrubbing. Vinegar. Rags. A broom and a mop. A bucket of hot water. She carried everything into the training room and then set to cleaning, starting in the far corner and taking her time. 

Runic magic had never been her strong suit, so she was careful to double check each rune for damage that she would need to actually repair before she moved on to the next one. A toothbrush helped to get the worst of the grime out of each rune.

Cleaning was a form of magic that Finn hadn't had time or energy for in a very long time. As she cleaned she let herself fall into a casting trance, the only thing important the place in front of her she was cleaning. The only sounds the rasping of her tools against the stone or wood. The smell of wet and rot slowly becoming less pungent as she worked.

Memories surfaced. Her aunts training a young elemental witch. Her uncles teaching a young alchemist. Her sister's first rune that she had worked on for two days and still exploded into a shimmery mess of smoke that took her and Finn three days to clean out.

Tears joined her cleaning water, and sobs joined the rasping, and still Finn cleaned. Catharsis the point of the spell she worked on herself.