Safeholme Dormitories
-During the Events of Skye-
Willow sat in the well maintained grass outside of the modest four story dormitory with her wireless headphones in. It was a warm summer Saturday, and she found herself with little to do. It wasn’t until tomorrow that she needed to go help at Ms. Smith’s ranch, and Drysi had gone on a trip to Scotland with Mr. Flynn so she could see the Druid home base. What’s more, the dorms as a whole were a ghost town this time of year. As such her normally packed schedule left her feeling a little bored in her down time. It was an odd bit of melancholy for her actually. She wasn’t jealous of Drysi per se, but in the last month Drysi had got herself a girlfriend, become a full fledged druid, and now got to go to a castle and meet some fancy pants chiefs. While Willow was party to one of those gains, she couldn’t help but feel as though her own advancements had stalled. Not that she would trade back from working with Jane, simply that she needed to figure out how to mix up her abilities to stay fresh. If she couldn’t have an expansive repertoire of magic, then she would need to compete by the merits of her own ingenuity.
So today, Willow was going to go for a run. Flopping onto her back, she lifted her legs and did a smooth kip-up. After stretching, she checked the knots on her shoes, took a runner’s stance, and took off; directly towards the dormitory wall. Burning Iron, Willow found a point up on a fourth story window and pulled as she jumped up to start a wall run. Physics decided it wanted to file a complaint. Thanks to Iron, Willow was pulling herself at a low angle in front of her directly from her center of gravity. Her feet were pushing off from the wall with the intent of running, but found they were more inclined to push away from the wall. All the while, gravity insisted that it would not be denied. This amounted to Willow doing an unintentional backflip, getting momentary vertigo, dropping her Iron burn, and tumbling to the ground. Hopping back up, the Brit tried one more time; approximately ten more times. All to the same result.
Flat on her back Willow clicked her tongue as she thought the process through. She’d never be able to subtract gravity out of the situation, so instead she would need to simulate the process. The way Willow figured it, if she used multiple points of contact with Iron, she could force the physics to function as though gravity were pulling her toward the building. Backing up, Willow found an array of pulling points. Running at the building once more, she leapt and started to pull. Blue lines fanned out around her and this time when she pushed off to run she was pulled back to the wall before feet made her spin. She started to make progress, but it was awkward and slow. Her pulls were too strong, which made it feel like she was shuffling along the wall rather than running with her usual strides. It also felt, oddly, as though she were running downhill since the strongest force on her was downward. Reducing the force on her pull to see about speeding up she ended up letting go too much, and once again left too much distance and began to flip. Increasing the pull, she pulled too hard and lurched forward on the wall, tripped, and ground up the wall a bit before coming to a stop. Huffing with indignation, Willow did a push-up and rolled over. She had come to a stop, her pulls equaling out, and now found herself lying on the vertical surface.
Willow pouted as she thought through the matter. On one hand, she was annoyed that it wasn’t coming to her immediately. The back of her mind wondering if it was too complex for her, after all with how many things she needed to pay attention to it would be unreasonable to try in any sort of high stress situation. Burning Pewter might help her, she considered, but just like with her training with Jane she wanted to be able to do it on her own first; Pewter was fun, but she could see it becoming a crutch. Sitting up on the wall she took a moment to survey her Iron lines. She had created a bunch of them in response to making too few the first time, but she could probably eliminate at least two-thirds of them. If there were fewer to focus on she would have an easier time. Pushing away from the wall Willow stood, now perpendicular, and took a few moments to take some deep breaths. A person wasn’t meant to stand like this, and her body kept trying to correct itself and tell her she should be falling. Taking a moment to simply stand, she let her body acclimate to the conflicting forces. Once she felt stable she began to release some of her lines that had been pulling her downward, and immediately began to relax her pulls upward as she felt herself being yanked.
Drawing the maneuver in her mind, Willow determined that three lines would probably be ideal. One high up to act as her main climbing line that would keep her momentum going up, and two lines to her left and right to pull her back against the wall; closer than the main line but not spread far to either side. Once she had picked a route between windows she lowered herself once more to the ground. Lines secured, Willow backed up, ran, and leapt again. This was her smoothest run yet and saw her make it up to the second story, but as this was where her guide lines were she needed to release them and grab new ones further up. She released, and immediately began to flip again. She’d accidentally released all of her lines in the moment, and quickly lashed herself to the wall with some panicked Iron pulls. Slamming her fist against the wall in annoyance, Willow dropped to the ground and tried again. Only three more agains this time before she allowed herself to lie against the wall between the first and second floor and catch her breath.
With an idle Iron burn, Willow pulled her shoulder bag and water bottle up to where she sat from its own spot under a tree. Rummaging inside she pulled out another vial of metal; this one containing just more Iron. Downing it with a practiced motion she had got to the point where the fish oil didn’t phase her anymore, but she still drained half of her water if just for the sake of hydration. With Iron topped off she used some of her Steel reserve to push the bag and bottle back to where they had been. Thinking through her next motions, the teen performed a peculiar looking roll akin to her earlier kip up and stood back up.
“At least I don’t need to worry about annoying people inside,” Willow mused as she performed a playful little hop. Upon landing the hop, Willow froze and stared at her feet. Reaching up to rub her face she growled into her hands. “Ugh I dumb! I’ve been going about this all wrong!”
Burning a bit of Pewter, Willow stopped her Iron as she pushed off from the wall. Landing in the grass she turned and stared at the wall. She shouldn’t look at this like running. Her powers didn’t give her control over gravity. They didn’t even let her fly. Rather, they simply made her fall weird. She shouldn’t be trying to run up the wall, she should be falling up the wall!
“It’s like rappelling!” Willow practically cheered. Finding her anchor point at the top of the building, she once more ran at the wall. She jumped and began her wall run, and then burned Iron as her momentum stalled. The Iron began to pull her down toward the surface of the brick wall, and then Willow leapt. Once, twice, three times, smack; her hands grabbed the ledge of the roof and pulled herself up. Sitting on the lip, Willow grinned as she looked out over the surrounding area.
“Okay, so it’s like rappelling meets the triple jump. I wonder if I can practice on some of the high rises in the city after dark?”