Meditation Powder

Concentration. Pure, unbridled, uninterrupted concentration. Mythra knew it well - had once upon a time been a sight more eruptive at being interrupted, during it.

(Poor Milton had seen and taken the brunt on many occasions, and actually stood stronger to it than his dear Master Addam ever had or did.)

Melia, meanwhile, had never been graced with the opportunity to mouth off at anyone, so her breaking of focus only ended with self-directed anger, irritation, frustration.

Still, Mythra knew the mark of it. She knew what it looked like, just subtly, to be in the process of reading - streaming - thoughts, only to have one unceremoniously broken, severed, along a packet line.

Either that, or Melia had been attemping to move something, summon something, cast something powerful against the nearest unassuming wall.

Now, there was moving, as in nudging and budging, and then there was moving, as in levitating, defying gravity, propagating oneself or one thing (or several?) through the air, without threat of those things falling on the ground and hurting their elbows, hind ends, or fragile points. This meant, in plainer terms, that Mythra rarely tried, nowadays, to lift teacups, lest Pyra lovingly scold her about the laziness and lack of care inherent in such a maneuver. Not to mention, y'know, scalding hot liquid splattering everywhere.

Mythra almost wanted to ask, as she gazed at Melia, whether the winged mage had ever shattered a mug, a tumbler, a vessel of some delicate kind, in the lap of some equally delicate royal, who'd then proceeded to steam their ears clear through about it.

That'd be foul play, though. As if she couldn't tell, immediately, that Melia would never, ever, ever make such a mistake. She had a literally awesome level of refinement about her. Coarse? You'd have to be in another century AND another zip code.

Just then, Melia paused to take a breath and open her eyes, slowly, carefully. Whatever she was concentrating on hadn't seen fit to so much as wobble, yet, so Mythra still didn't know what it was, or what it was supposed to be, or anything.

So, she awkwardly cleared her throat. Actually, she had to try it two or three times until some phlegm bothered to appear and clear.

Melia turned toward her. Blinked. Looked very bright, pale, and shaken.

"Sorry. I was just curious what you're, uh, doing. I mean, I know what you're doing, obviously. But what are you doing...it to?"

"Ah! I'm trying to straighten that painting over there." Melia pointed nervously toward the far wall.

Now, Mythra's central computer system told her that the painting was, indeed, crooked, by some slight percentage of an angle. Her normal "human" dude-it's-not-that-deep eyes said, eh, good enough.

"Makes sense," nodded Mythra. "I guess you got it handled?"

Rotating a few degrees herself, Melia motioned to the other frames displaying artwork of dragons, dinosaurs, birds, and every stage in between. "I've finished with these. But, they're much closer. I'm trying to test myself with something farther away."

Privately, Mythra wondered if this was just an idle hobby, a special responsibility, or purely a practice task, like Melia had seemed to indicate.

"Hope I'm not distracting you."

Melia's eyes closed once more, and some color came into her cheeks (finally!). She smiled, silently pleased. "Not to worry, Mythra. I have trained myself to master distractions, even when they are...quite tempting."