Nathan and Adri (and Rachel) - Meditation Lesson

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Monday afternoon. Adrienne visits the boathouse to learn about mental shields and is chastized by a small, frightening child.

Armed with a chocolate cupcake with pink icing, Adrienne pushed open
the door to the boathouse and slammed the door behind her so Nate
would know she was there. "Nate? Rachel?" she called out after a
moment. "I'm here for my lesson in mental shields! Are you here? Hey
Rachel, you want a cupcake?"

"You're loud," the small redhead sitting on her father's lap on the
couch informed her, not quite primly. Father and daughter were clearly
reading together, but Rachel closed the book - 'Where the Wild Things
Are', according to the title on the front - and slid down off Nathan's
lap, shuffling away amiably. "Going to feed Bella," she announced.

Taken aback, Adrienne stopped in her tracks. "I'm... what? Uh... I'm
sorry," she said to Nathan, the jibe from the three year-old clearly
stinging. "I... thought you said it was alright me coming over here.
I, um, I don't want to take you away from what you're doing. Tell
Rachel I'm sorry, and I'll just leave this, uh, over here for her."
She put the cupcake down carefully on a side table and turned to go.

"Adrienne, stop right here," Nathan said, quietly but firmly. The
corner of his mouth was twitching just a little, but the look in his
eyes as he gazed down at his daughter was stern. "Rachel. Apologize,
right now."

Rachel whirled around and stomped her foot. "No!"

"Right now. How would you feel I told you that your mind was loud?"

"I'm not!" Rachel said, looking indignant.

Nathan's eyebrow went up. "Yes, you are. Right now you're very, very
loud, and you've made Adrienne sad. She's here so that I can
help her-" He paused briefly, then went on. "And you're being mean."

Rachel suddenly sniffled, her gray eyes widening. She dropped her book
and ran over to Adrienne, latching onto her leg. "I'm sorry!" It came
out almost in a wail.

Oh shit. There was a small child on her leg. What was she supposed to
do now? Adrienne turned panicked eyes towards Nathan initially, but
after a second decided it would be bad to let Rachel see her fear
(forgetting momentarily that the girl was telepathic) and turned her
gaze to the girl. "Uh... that's okay. I didn't know you meant my mind.
I guess it is pretty loud. I can't really tell. I think your dad's
gonna help me make it quieter." She considered patting the kid's
shoulder or doing something to comfort her, but couldn't work up the
courage. "Um, I'm sorry I interrupted your reading."

Rachel looked up at her, still a bit teary but now smiling. "You're a
nice lady," she said. "Dad is smart. Don't worry."

"Rachel, why don't you thank Adrienne for the cupcake and go feed the
bird," Nathan said, barely managing to hold back the smile now. "And
think about what I said, about the things you don't tell
people, okay?"

"Okay. Thank you for the cupcake," Rachel said, her mood abruptly sunny.

"Umm, you're welcome," Adrienne replied nervously. "I don't know about
that 'nice lady' thing," she muttered, half to herself, "but thanks.
What's your book about?"

"GRRR!" Rachel yelled at the top of her voice, making an appalling
face - and then beaming at Adrienne as she went over to claim the
cupcake. "Wild things. Bye!"

Nathan shook his head as she headed upstairs. "Okay. She's in... a bit
of a mood today. Must be picking it up from me." His smile was wry as
he gestured at one of the chairs.

"Uh... okay then," Adrienne said with a raised eyebrow. She was very
emphatically singing 'The Lion Sleeps Tonight' in her head in hopes
that her current thoughts about Nathan's daughter being a crazy person
wouldn't be picked up by the telepath. Taking a seat, the
psychometrist folded gloved hands in her lap and glowered at the
memory crystal she could see across the room, remembering what had
happened the last time she'd come over to Nathan's. "So, how do we
make my head quieter so your kid doesn't get disturbed by me next
time?"

Nathan gestured at a jar of pennies on the table in front of him. "I
came prepared with props," he said dryly. As he spoke, the pennies
started to levitate out of the jar in a smooth snake of copper,
bending back on itself in elaborate spirals.

Eyes wide, Adrienne watched the pennies sailing out of the jar. "What
the hel-heck are those for? You're not going to throw them at me or
anything, are you? I thought we were studying mental shields
here, buddy."

"Trust me," Nathan said amiably. "I have to show you patterns, and I
thought you would probably appreciate this method a little more than
beaming them directly into your brain. Yes, no?" He may have been
teasing her, just a little.

"Definitely yes," the psychometrist retorted with a frown, still
watching the pennies like a hawk. "Patterns? Do patterns have a lot to
do with mental shielding? I'm struggling to find the correlation."

"Think of it this way," Nathan said, having an eerie sense of deja
vu-but-not-quite. Askani had given him much the same talk, once upon a
time. "You can built the most impressive wall imaginable, a real
wonder of engineering... but if you build it on quicksand, what good
is it? An untrained, undisciplined mind is uncertain ground. You need
to strengthen that before you can work on your defenses."

"I'm supposed to build a strong foundation out of... pennies?"
Adrienne asked skeptically, raising an eyebrow. Taking her eyes off
the pennies she smiled at Nathan. "Alright so now I'm sounding like an
undisciplined mind. Bring on the pennies. Where do I start, Yoda?"

"Pay attention to the pattern," Nathan said patiently. Not adding any
editorial comments about her concentration abilities. "See the
direction the pennies are rippling? Follow the crest of the ripple.
Trace it in your head."

With an emphatic nod, Adrienne followed the pennies with her eyes,
planting the pattern in her mind. "If you follow this up with 'you are
getting very sleepy' I may have to hit you," she muttered wryly. "So
the pattern is something I'm supposed to be able to recall in my head
to build up defenses?" Tracing the pattern was sort of boring. "How's
your head, by the way?" At least he was looking better than the last
time she'd met with him, in the infirmary.

"Getting there," Nathan murmured. "Won't be bench-pressing the plane
for a while yet. Pity, I do so love giving Scott a heart attack..."

Comments

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Kyle very much approves of Ray's book.

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

I must've been deprived as a child... I've never read it.

[x-wildchild.livejournal.com]

Where The Wild Things Are? I recommend it a lot (ICly and OOCly, in fact) - Kyle uses it as his journal title, but it's just one heck of a good kid's book, although I am not sure I can put into words exactly why. It speaks very well to kids, and especally rambunctious kids.