Once again, someone entering the gardener's dormitory in the early afternoon would have found a middle-aged witch staring into a pan filled with rain water. At least, this time, there would be no old grimoire opened near it. This time Shi was quite confident she had committed the Monite for aquamancy to her memory. She had repeated it often enough in her head. Now was the time for the real test.

The small witch took a deep breath and tried to clear her mind, to make herself receptive to any small change in her field. Then, she intoned the old-fashioned Hack's polite call to attention, and followed it by the invocation stances, adding like the last time the name and description of Noli. She let the image of her husband form in her mind, and stared into the water.

Like the last time, she was asking the mona to show her the whereabouts of her husband, or even, if the spell description she had found in the Hacks grimoire was correct, allow her some communication with him. Shi hoped that by having committed the spell to memory, her confidence would help the mona answer better than the flitting image she had obtained two days ago. If it was true that the more familiar the recipient, the better the result, it was no use to try more difficult scrying before succeeding this one. Besides, she was genuinely curious of the man's activities. Even if she had drifted he was still the father of Neti, and the Laughing Sky were still her fami.

(( Details added. Sorry for the imprecision. ))

(( Thanks for waiting. I think I'll be using dice for this. ))

There was a moment of stillness and it lasted long enough without any movement in the mona, not even in her field, that the witch could almost wonder if nothing was going to actually happen. Once her words had finished and the stillness became nearly unbearable, however, the air stirred and everything suddenly felt stretched, as if some great distance had been pulled between Shi and the pan of rainwater.

The surface of the water stirred, almost suddenly, the mona like a breath or a faint breeze filling the room for a moment. For a few heartbeats, Shi could see a familiar face begin to take shape, but it was faint, distant, and unclear.

She would have to concentrate harder. This was different magic than the norm.

As everything stood still, Shi began to feel anxious. Had she misremembered a stance? Was there a risk for her to suffer a backlash? She had to take a deep breath to maintain her concentration.

Nothing you can do now but accept the outcome.

And suddenly, the emotion was replace by awe as the mona sprang to action. This time, she felt the space around her warp as a connection was established. Such a power...
That was so exhilarating that she nearly missed the blurred face of Noli faint appearance in the water. It was the disappointment of seeing it disappear that brought her back in her place, reminded her she was loosing her concentration.

Noli and her might be just small grain of sands in the wide world, but they were linked, and she was not going to let that link break without a fight. A fight which, in the usual counterintuitive Hoxian way, involved not trying to fight, but breathing deeply, opening her senses, letting go of the frustration, and accepting everything that was happening.

By forgetting herself, if she succeeded, if it wasn't too late, Shi might open her mind for a better answer from the mona. At least, that was what she had been taught, and she saw no reason for aquamancy to work differently.

((Got this at work tomorrow. Ran out of steam.))

The surface of the water in the pan began to still, ripples lapping at the edges as the magical breeze faded and settled. Shi was filled with a very faint sensation of control, as if her open-minded concentration had actually been something pleasing to the mona. There was a wordless exchange, the distant connection becoming clearer. Soon, the lines of Noli's face came into focus.

The witch could finally notice her mona-given vision was not a direct view of the man. A brief flash of his face in the water, only to see him look away. He was walking, but seemed to slow, either because he was reaching a destination or he was somehow aware of being watched.

The mona shifted again, rippling over the pan, and Shi was overwhelmed with the distinct impression that she was being invited to focus further on her purpose ... a chill in the room instead of an actual whisper.