Lux

  After the most uncomfortable conversation I'd had with Miril, I resumed practicing . Seriously where did she come from? Miril just appeared, said she didn’t hate me, called me adequate, gave me advice on how to use , and then vanished just as fast. I was very confused by what transpired with Miril. Did I really suspect Miril would be on her deathbed before telling me something like that? What would be able to possess the bezka of Miril? Nothing came to mind that would be able to overcome her sheer force of will, so that thought didn’t flush out that much more. I had no idea how to process the events that transpired as I kind of sat in the Kniclad Mountains, sitting there while wondering if maybe I somehow hallucinated the events.

  It seemed awfully vivid and realistic to have been a hallucination. Miril trying to be nice dissuaded that idea; I feel she was allergic to such a concept. I shook my head, as I didn’t have time to wonder about that. I needed to get working properly. What did Miril say? It worked better with fewer inputs and adjusting myself with ? How did that work in practice? I stood up, stretched, and ran back to the mountains while trying to visualize what Miril just told me. The only issue was how to adjust myself in the air with my because I had no idea what she exactly meant by that.

  I tried running the stretch with again, wondering what happened if I tried the side-to-side motions with my rather than angling my bound. A smart being would’ve tried going from the mountain side to the more open plain side for the first attempt, but that thought occurred to me far too late as I slammed myself into the mountain with several crunching sounds. I caught myself and leapt to the other side with my ribs roaring in pain. That was substantially more force than I expected; it also produced much more motion than I thought it would. I began healing my side while replaying what I had just tried in my mind. How did I give it less of an input? I barely tried to move sideways to produce that result.

  Miril said to adjust using in the air, so I replayed when she grabbed me and ran with again. Her motion was so smooth when I recalled it. The was possible, it clearly could be done somehow through some witchcraft that Miril possessed. Miril’s motion barely swayed as she used from what I recalled. Wait, her body barely deflected off the center line of her path now that I was thinking about it. That didn’t make sense. What purpose did that serve? It seemed to complicate things unnecessarily or add additional motions to what was proving to be a temperamental . Clearly the motion did something, it added some value overall to .

  My body was healed, so I could try again. I mentally played back how Miril looked as she used , trying to figure out the purpose of her subtle movements. It was more of her tilting her paws in the direction of the sway to keep her body relatively centered. There had to be some purpose for it, some reason she made those subtle adjustments. I attempted the stretch again, using what Miril told me, trying to subtly adjust what I was doing to gently move my body sideways. A gentle push with my was all which unfortunately resulted in flinging my body over a hundred feet passed where I intended to. How? How did I generate so much distance with such little ?

  I looked between where I landed and where I aimed, trying to figure out how so little resulted in so much. Less inputs and adjusting with rather than using a surface to readjust, right? SO WHY DID SHE TILT HER PAWS IN THE AIR?! Why was my sending me flying to the side? It was already an incredibly minor amount I was trying to input into the motion that was launching me to the side well beyond what I intended to. Did Miril lie to me just to make this more frustrating? Low inputs, bounding motion, and use my to adjust myself. SO, WHAT AM I DOING WRONG?! Would it have killed her to give me a better hint? Maybe she gave me a better piece of insight than I realized and it was my interpretation that was off.

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  Miril clearly demonstrated the before Ikol and I left for our , and then again when she wanted to talk to me. Both times felt identical with very little difference between the two that I could tell. When the running surface was flatter Miril hardly swayed at all. Hold on, that might be a clue actually. The soft sway and tilt of her paws only occurred when she needed to move in not a perfectly straight line. Wait, when she stopped she angled her body so her back paws would land first. WHY DID SHE TILT HER BODY AND PAWS?! Clearly, that was an important step. Why? What value did it add? Maybe I should try in the plains next to the Kniclad Mountains with the little paw tilts to see if I noticed anything.

  There had to be a reason Miril did that; I did not think she would make such a motion because it was some habit of hers. I used , first trying the angling my back paws better to see what the result was. Two things became immediately apparent from me tilting my back legs down more. First, I could feel the drag of the motion on my back legs as the kind of slowed down allowing me to somewhat stop this time without as hard of an impact as before. Second, I noticed I shifted downwards slightly when I tilted myself. Was that it? Why? Why did me tilting my body adjust myself in the air? Miril undeniably said that I should adjust myself with . I nearly swat myself when I realized the operative word. Adjust yourself

  With that idea in mind, I attempted once more. Using my rather than my muscle I tilted my body a bit, feeling the flow of my gently angle my body down. For the first time, I smoothly stopped . That was why Miril tilted her paws when she used ; it was how Miril controlled her motion in the air. I ran back towards my starting point with while testing to see if I tilted more into my front paws rather than my hindquarters. To my surprise, tilting forward didn’t make the stop harder, it simply brought me to the ground faster. So how did you suddenly stop with ? Or did I need to aim my stop in advance? That was something that I needed to figure out.

  There were also sections I distinctly needed to go up and down in elevation during the trial King Ilrymax gave me. I at least had a starting idea of how to decrease my elevation while using now. How subtle of a body adjustment did I need to do the side-to-side motion that Miril demonstrated? I began another , trying the tilting my paws with method, seeing the motion it produced was fairly smooth; not as smooth as Miril’s but smooth enough to work for now. It may not have been perfect, but it was formed well enough to function. I went back to the Kniclad Mountains to the stretch I had been practicing on. Might as well start attempting some of the different sections of the trial. There likely was another part that was deceptively difficult or needed some trick to overcome, and it would be better if I found it sooner rather than later.

  I took off with , adjusting myself with to make the different jumps I needed to. With the new insight I was able to tear through the first section with ease now. That was a mystery for a different day as I was now going through a wide bank to begin rounding the mountains. So far so good. This next part required longer bounds than the other sections, so maybe extend my body out more? I tried that, seeing it extended the bound like I was hoping. Adding in the extension and side tilts was mentally taxing, but I was correctly adjusting to the path and first attempted that section! Wow! This was going great! What was the next section again?

  Unfortunately, the answer quickly and rudely introduced itself to me. The jagged cliff sections that were highly uneven with countless mountain pieces jutting out so there was no straight line. Realizing I had no idea how to turn that sharply I instead moved to stop, catching myself on one of the cliffs. The landing was a bit harder than I would have liked, but it was nowhere near as hard of an impact as it would have been if I attempted to do a sharp turn. I knew how to adjust for the side-to-side path for the better motion, but sharp turns? I casually ran the section to see the next portion I needed to overcome. I imagined so, especially if Miril gave suggestions and hints for what would be suitable for mine. The rapid changes in direction for this section were not only inconsistent, but they also had a few sections where I needed to make a full turn to continue the motion.