"-and as you speak, force the split through this portion of your throat here."
Despite her self inflicted blindness, the Arboreal Maiden was able to locate the vocal cords of the two she was teaching with pinpoint accuracy. Even in spite of the way their upper bodies moved as they heaved and gagged from the unfamiliar sensation, she could pinch the location between her fingers in a way that made it seem as if they were standing perfectly still.
"But it - bleh - it feels so yucky!" Diana and Donovan had been working on this for the better part of four days. Diana in particular was struggling with the gagging it provoked.
From the start, they had severely underestimated the level of difficulty involved with imbuing their voices with the universally translated qualities that split provided. Donovan thought he had a handle on how to move split around from his experiments post procedure, but what the Arboreal Maiden was making them do with it was far beyond what he thought he was capable of.
More than just shaping it, they had to move it about constantly at a consistent rate. Fortunately they didn't have to expel it from their body, only circulate it around the top of their throat as they speak, but granting it that flow had proven difficult. They had been practicing to improve their ability to manipulate split ever since the Maiden determined them ready, two whole days after the procedure.
They had spent five days in something of a crash-course on the basics, spending practically every waking moment learning in some way. Early mornings, just after waking up to eating breakfast, they were expected to strengthen their cores using the split the Great Csillacra left for them. Purification was not a burden with the stockpile that had been left, so it was fairly easy, but it was only the first part of their training. This did not diminish its importance though, the Arboreal Maiden describing their initial condition as little better than an impoverished child.
After that, they would be taught something akin to theory. She thought it would be of assistance to them as they lacked the experience and instinct necessary to figure the minutiae out on their own, but it was really more of a way to make their time spent resting productive. They could eat while she taught them, and their cores would usually become relaxed enough to be able to continue training. The Arboreal Maiden understood they could not afford to be injured at this vitally early stage in their development, so she tried her hardest not to overburden them to the point of damage.
She would still push them though.
"If you are gagging, then you are circulating too much. Try to make the flow thinner but keep it at the same rate, the speed it was going before you heaved was close to perfect Diana. If it helps, try to think of it as playing an instrument that combines elements of both the woodwinds and strings."
"Wha- hough sorry, what does that mean? I'm not exactly familiar with instruments, is that some sort of technique?" Donovan's type specialization was showing its face more and more often in these practice sessions, the Arboreal Maiden often making a reference to some part of their culture which he had no exposure to.
"Are you familiar with the instrument called the flute?" Seeing him nod his head, the Arboreal Maiden continued. "Instruments like that, those that you blow on or through to make a noise are called 'woodwinds' though another type, the 'brass' instruments, share the same characteristic of air moving through them. In this case, I would like the two of you to think of your windpipe, your trachea, as an instrument like that. It should go without saying then that a 'string' instrument would be something like a violin or a guitar, one that uses strings to make sound."
Donovan nodded his head, though he still had questions. "Okay, so am I forcing the split up through my throat? Or am I just speaking how I would normally?"
"I was going to get to that. Split should be flowing in something resembling a line across the top of your vocal cords. You might think of this as the string of a violin or a guitar. As we went over, split very rarely interacts with the material plane unless it is being forced into motion. Also keep in mind that the faster it is moved, the faster it is forced, the more potent this reaction will be. You are gagging because the string is too thick, making bubbles as you breathe.
I don't know if this will help visualize what is happening or not, but try to consider speeding up the flow as pulling the string taut. This will 'tune' the sound that comes out and make it into something that can be universally understood."
Diana tried again with this advice. "So the string will vibrate like the - hagh - like the sound waves coming out?"
"That was much better Diana, and yes. The string will create a small wave of split attached to the soundwave. I'm sure you remember one of the key aspects of split we discussed in our lecture?"
"Split is intricately linked to intent, I remember."
"Correct, but please try to say things using split from now on Donovan. I understand that learning different languages was not part of your curriculum, but I can guarantee that continued practice will only improve your skills."
"Sorry." He apologized while trying to keep up the string. "I'm trying, I - I swear." He caught himself before he could gag, maintaining a thin but quick flow was hard.
"I won't say don't worry about it, but trust that this will become second nature in time. Just as I have told you two before, you and you alone lack the instincts inherent with learning to converse in this manner. I'd say it will only take about a day before the two of you can maintain a conversation with it using a degree of conscious effort."
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"That fast?" Diana was skeptical of this affirmation. True, the example she had been given was helping, but the vibration of the string tickled her throat in a way that made her want to cough.
"The most difficult part is not maintaining that flow, but learning how to get it going in a way that does not cause you to cough or gag. I would consider 'tightening' the string if it makes you want to cough and 'loosening' it if you feel like gagging. So long as the sensation is bearable, people will understand what you are saying."
- - - - -
"Who would have thought finding a squire for that child would prove so problematic?"
The Scholar, Captain, and Marshall were all hunched over some rather thick registration records, scouring them for suitable candidates for the position of Donovan's squire. They were having trouble finding anyone who qualified under the guidelines the Arboreal Maiden had given them. Most of these requirements weren't too terribly restricting, at least not for the average student in the military academy. The problem lay in the pool of students at their disposal.
The military academy was rather unique in the way it determined the enrollment status of their students, that being that someone who paid all relevant fees and passed all the necessary tests could still end up not making it in by virtue of not being accepted into any of the 128 armies that formed the basis for competitions. That made roughly 1.28 million concurrent students total, and with anywhere from a fifth to a quarter of that number graduating or being kicked each year that meant that there were around 250 to 400 thousand new students accepted into the armies each year.
The number of applicants tended to range from 300 to 450 thousand, leaving about 50 thousand prospective students who simply weren't inducted into any of the armies in a given year. All of the skilled students, be it in command, split sorcery, or martial prowess, were already taken, and they couldn't exactly force them out of their prospective futures to be some nobody's squire.
Not only were they working with the bottom of the pot, most of these people had left already, meaning that the few people they had found that seemed reasonably suitable to take on the job of guiding an absolute novice weren't available. This was turning into a nightmare.
"The squire doesn't have to be enrolled in the academy does he? Could we just have one of the staff members instruct him?" The Scholar had long since given up on finding somebody for the job from this mountain of leather-bound paper, so he suggested an idea.
"Unfortunately, a squire will have to be by their knight's side at all times owing to their duties, enrollment is a prerequisite."
This rebuke from the Marshall crushed the Scholar's spirits further. He absolutely did not want to disappoint those people he had come to know as friends, but he was becoming increasingly convinced that there wasn't a thing he could do about it. Still, he got back to work. The sooner he was done with this task, the quicker he could get back to polishing his English.
The flipping of paper continued as it had for some time prior, in almost absolute silence. There was the occasional grunt or sniffle, but aside from that they were slowly and deliberately analyzing each candidate.
"This one seems . . . odd?" The Scholar stopped on a specific page, reading it over and over again in disbelief. "Why didn't anyone want to take this one in? I don't know much about combat but she hardly seems like a liability." He handed it over to the Marshall, some part of him thinking he might be delusional from all the pages he read.
As if to reaffirm his suspicions of it being an odd outlier, the Marshall did a double take.
"Highly skilled with swords, daggers, and lances. A fairly high level of split with a level of manipulation to match. Competent in a command role too? Are we certain this is accurate? This seems way too good to be true."
"May I?" The Captain signaled he wished to see as well. He too stared at it for a while before speaking, his hand all but glued to his chin in thought. "Where have I heard the name Strapper before? Surely they are a noble family. Could you go check real quick Scholar?"
"I'll go speak with Grandmother Ashes right now."
"Don't bother, they are a family of esteemed warriors and the sole royal line of the Nekh people. Their natural physical power as part of the Nekh aside, their lineage is extremely capable in regards to combat. They need to be to maintain their independence."
"Aha, so that's where I remember them from. Are they not the ones who hold the honor as the longest lived independent system?"
"Perhaps, though I hear that they are experiencing some troubles at the moment and the Nekh are panicking about it. I doubt that would influence anyone's willingness to pull somebody that skilled into their army. There has to be something more to this." Grand Elder Larson was furrowing his brow something furious. He doubted there would be anyone amongst his subordinates stupid or bold enough to influence someone's chances at getting into an army, but the fact that someone with the skills noted on paper didn't make it into any of them was enough to raise some serious suspicions.
"Fortunately, it would appear that nobody with the last name of Strapper has left yet." The Scholar was good with records and book-keeping. He was here for the sole reason that he could find such important information in a timely manner. "We should probably act fast, I can't imagine someone staying this long after the first tournament without being admitted to an army."
"I agree. Captain, I will entrust the job of sounding out a potential squirehood to you. I trust you know the proper channels for such an operation?"
"I remember my time working as an instructor quite well."
"Good. Make sure that you mention that tuition and all related fees are waived for squires, and that we will reimburse what was spent in the time since the first competition to a reasonable extent. Those families from smaller kingdoms struggle to give their children much money to spend, I can imagine that someone hailing from a single-system nation will have funding as a top-level concern."
He received a nod of recognition from the Captain.
"Scholar, as much as I would like to give you a break, we can't disregard the chance of refusal. I'll have to ask you to put together a secondary list of maybe ten candidates or so in case things do not turn out ideally."
"I can do that. Where are you headed?"
"I need to investigate. I shouldn't be long, but there might be the possibility that attitude was a factor."