Aureum spent more than a few days trying to scour the hills. Her results were worse than nothing. Certainly, for grasping snippets of sounds, wind was the ideal form, but an overview of the landscape miles around her?
Good luck.
Stone or wood would be a better bet. Actually, even water would work on a wet day. Most sorcerers wouldn't be sensitive enough to scout the landscape with it anyways, but having the element there in the first place would have been a great help.
After trying the same trick with the wind countless times with no better results, Aureum had to admit defeat.
She spent maybe an hour with an air of doom lurking next to Spesavia. Her teacher didn't acknowledge her.
Aureum didn't quite have the courage to directly ask Spesavia for help after she said, "Do it yourself."
And if she'd wanted Aureum to ask questions, Spesavia would have prodded.
Maybe that was only Aureum's perception of Spesavia. Even the greatest teachers can't help if they don't know what's wrong.
Aureum wandered away, having said nothing and thoroughly disheartened.
Just because she admitted defeat, that doesn't mean anything would change.
Let's see if I can try again.
The wind spun around her cloak as she gathered it around her. This time, with more force, she sent it out.
That trail of connection to her consciousness that allowed her to feel her mana scattered out. She lost control immediately, worse than all other attempts.
"ARGH! Come on! Gimme a break!"
She sank into the ground, unwilling to throw any more of a tantrum while Spesavia could still hear her. For a while, she didn't think about it, just focused on calming down.
I wish I had a stone pearl right about now. Or a water pearl. My mother's pearl is of wood.
While one part of her thoughts only wanted to rant, the other part of her was already over it.
Why?
She asked herself. It had an obvious answer. If she could sense the ground beneath her, it would be easier to make a layout.
Stating the obvious didn't help at all.
Stop thinking about it. Just focus on a way to make this work. I've got a strong sense of the movements of the wind…
That's how she could tell where people were. They made noise, or their breathing disturbed the air. She could feel it.
Feeling through the trees and mountains was different and difficult. It felt as if each time she tried to force the wind in a direction, she was blocked and disrupted by something she could hardly sense.
As she got farther and farther away from herself, she just didn't have the control to weave around things.
Or her mana scattered into the air without any direction, completely unfocused. Too much mana for her to competently control. As it just had.
I'm probably trying to force it too much.
She relaxed. Another bit of mana was tossed out. This time, much less.
Aureum hadn't tried only force. She'd tried a number of different things. Different amounts of mana, different poses, prayer…
It was an epiphany not in the amount of mana, but in letting go of control.
In all her time with the wind, in both past and present, she had sought control over it. It was her strand of wind she weaved throughout problems.
But she couldn't navigate a forest blind at an ever-increasing distance. It would take a god to control that well.
So, she used less mana, but she also let the wind pull her instead of her pushing it. An act of desperation that to her seemed insensible.
The difference was immediate.
It was fast.
Too fast.
But since she wasn't in total control, she didn't have to worry about the speed. She didn't have to power the wind around her. It was closer to her having hitched a ride onto what was already there.
She felt the mana curve around the tree—in her joy, she lost focus. Her habitual grip over her mana took control, and the wind broke and dissipated against the next obstacle.
Her brown eyes snapped open. She sat up slowly. She looked at her hands. They weren't quite trembling.
"I think I did it."
She clasped them and was still for a while. The work and hassle of frustration made her too tired for a cheer. It might have been a fluke. If not, there was still the task of perfecting it.
Her small figure in the field sank back down again.
With a lead, it took her only a few more days to do her original task. Which was already far more than she had estimated.
Yet, finally, she figured out how to look. What she found gave her only more headaches.
What could be said that was good was that the beasts with mana were easy to find. Their mana was a beacon for Aureum. If some beasts hid their mana from her, she didn't know it. However, the easiest to find beasts were, of course, the strongest.
A week to the day she started, and she crept her mana alongside the rough interior of a cave that carried the sound of droplets. As the wind rustled nearer to her purpose, heavy breaths vibrated what little strands of wind she held. The source of her breathing was the point of her search.
It growled.
A roar was sent to dissipate Aureum's mana on the spot.
She returned her focus to her body and opened her eyes in a cold sweat.
Later that day, she prodded at the cold, stale bread she had. It was from yesterday, and she'd pocketed it for later. Later had come, and she'd had no appetite.
Could anything. Ever. Be easy for once?!
She picked parts of the bread off and scattered them to the ground. This little act of wanton destruction gave nothing.
Aureum ate what was left of the stale bread in the end.
What else was there to do?
With even more time, she found more predators upon the mountain. Beasts that had been falcons and now were thrice the size of their former siblings. A beast of those giant brown bears, roaming a wide range. A few of the snake variety, that snuck across the ground in their weaving patterns of disguise. A beast of the solitary cougar, just as stealthy but with much more weight.
All sorts of shapes and sizes and varying levels of death. Most were out.
The falcons for being able to take away her aerial advantage. The snakes, because she didn't have enough knowledge of which were poisonous and which weren't, and she certainly wasn't trying it out. The brown bear for his terrifying force.
Of course, if she could just have picked a large rabbit, she would have gone for that instead. Any beasts not predators seemed by far the rarer exception.
Aureum was not lucky enough to have a completely harmless target to choose from. At least they weren't all as intimidating choices as they first appeared.
The falcons never worked together, despite the numbers. The brown bear was slow.
The snakes were small and fast, which just made them more terrifying.
For once, there was a lucky moment. The cougar seemed to have something wrong with it. It moved little, which could have been his kind's habits, for all she knew. The ragged breathing she heard from it didn't seem healthy.
It also never sensed her and struck out.
Her target was decided.
After that, things came along quickly. The territory of the cougar was limited. But even it had to drink water. So it would wander down to the nearest creek.
This is where Aureum would strike. She went to see it when the cougar was absent. There were many trees overhead.
With her spear, there was little for her in her options. She wished she had some more needles on hand, but they probably would have been worthless against the hide anyways.
The plan was to wait in the tree and leap down when the cougar was off-guard, lapping up some water.
At this point, Aureum was impatient with her progress and wanted to get it over with. Even if she couldn't do anything to mortally wound it, she felt confident in being able to fly away.
"Spesavia," Aureum said. "I'm gonna go find that cougar like I said earlier."
Mostly confident, anyway.
The cloak Mendax had reclaimed for her came in handy, as always. It was a sunny day she chose.
The old woman barely looked up. Her position and activities had changed from day to day. Sometimes she was reading a book, other times she was testing a concoction with her tools scattered in the grass. Those tools would disappear into her rings and bangles when she didn't need them.
Today, Spesavia had nothing. She'd sat like a statue, staring off into the distance.
Aureum had assumed this had a purpose, like anything else Spesavia seemed to do, so she had been a bit trepid about trying to talk to her.
She needn't have worried.
"Finally," Spesavia said. "Go off then."
So Aureum did.
After climbing into the tree, there was a long wait. Mostly, it was perfect for her to worry about what she could have missed.
Did she get the cougar's routine wrong? Was the time she observed it not enough? Even if she got it right, would she have to wait because he changed it on a whim?
Fortunately, she only waited for a few hours, at most.
The cougar came, and she got the first clear look of the beast she'd planned to kill.
It was old.
Its sandy coat was more gray than sand, and the fur was ragged and patched. She could see the years in the curve of its back, and the ribs showed that those years had not been kind.
Does it even have a pearl?
Maybe it was the wrong cougar.
Hesitantly, she sent out a bit of mana.
It was the one she was waiting for. She withdrew.
Perhaps that explained why it was still alive at all. His condition looked bad.
The cougar eased itself carefully down, as Aureum had seen Spesavia do before. Whatever mana it contained, the body was aching.
That should have made it easier. Aureum readjusted her spear. If she just didn't think about it, and just acted, it might be easy.
But she was completely out of her element. She couldn't act without thinking it through. As soon as she landed on the thought of killing it, she halted.
It hasn't done anything yet.
Animal or human, Aureum felt that she was completely fine with killing something, insofar as she had never done it before. Still, a few bared fangs near her throat wasn't going to get any empathy. The two wolves' death had brought only relief.
Despite what it once might have been, this animal looked dilapidated and harmless. It might even be a mercy to end it now.
Aureum watched it lap up water.
He may have had ragged breaths, but he was not crying out in pain. Calling it a mercy kill would be, at best, her own excuse for validation.
Do I need validation? It spent its whole life killing just to eat, and killing it now would just be more of the same.
Life wasn't fair. Why should it be fair for this cougar?
As logical as it was, Aureum didn't move.
More than logic or morality, she wasn't used to the act of killing, which was many shades removed from the thought of it, though one leads to another.
"What are you waiting for?" A voice next to her ear breathed.
Aureum turned, and there, without any sound or notice, stood Spesavia on the same branch Aureum crouched on. The old woman's face was maybe five inches from Aureum's ear.
I'm a wind sorcerer. How come I didn't even feel her breath?
"I don't know how…"
It was a weak excuse that fell from her mouth.
"Try," Spesavia breathed.
Aureum had no excuse.
The cougar had paused, no longer lapping from the creek. Now he just looked out across the water. Ears twitching.
Aureum adjusted her spear. Spesavia stepped back, almost as if the branch was as solid as the ground. Aureum swallowed, focused, and leapt.
She did not have any training in attacking from a leap, so her form was wild. She gathered the wind to the tip.
Sometimes things are simple.
The cougar's head turned, but it was too late. The spear drove into where Aureum had planned it. Her attempt was for the heart, but even her lack of an education in this topic meant she went into his lung.
It twisted underneath her, with a roar that came out as a wet rattling sound of death. In panic, Aureum was quick. She pulled out her spear and struck the throat. It hit.
The beast twisted underneath her. Aureum pushed away before any claws or fangs could scratch her.
The cougar tried to stand up, but couldn't. It fell, and when it fell, it was just a few short gasps from going still, her spear still in its throat.
There was nothing glorious about this.
It was all Aureum could think. Perhaps a different beast, that felt like a real challenge, would bring her joy, but this? This was just.
Sad was inadequate. Brutal too one-note.
"Well done," Spesavia said. "It's dead. Do you know how to skin anything?"
"No," Aureum said.
It was all she could manage.
"Time you learned then. The pearls of most beasts are near their stomachs…"
The lessons that Aureum had to learn were not yet done.