Elswyth had listened to his instructions pretty well. In order to strengthen this bond, they had to meditate together. That is they had to share energies, to more align their natures together. There had been a whole convoluted explanation of how this went on in the book, but honestly Heron did not fully understand it.
He had gotten the gist of how to do it though, so he didn't bother to much on why it worked as that went a little above his head.
They had started it the day after he figured out the how, because it was best done in the morning as that was when the "energies were most stirred".
Elswyth and him sat on his bedroom floor across from each other. They had to clasp hands for this.
It…uh, it felt a bit weird to do this. He was used to holding Elswyth's hands but looking directly at her face while doing so was a bit unnerving. Also the fact that their fingers were actually entwined. It just felt somewhat off from what he was used to.
After the initial brief moment of awkwardness though, Heron pushed it out of his mind as something not worth dwelling on. He instead reminded Elswyth on how to proceed.
The first step was to match each other's breathing rhythm. To do this wasn't actually too hard, it was rather natural as they relaxed and just focused on each other.
She really did have pretty eyes. Heron had not meant to focus on that but he was looking straight into her eyes and well, it was something he had already known, but they were just a really pretty shade of brown.
He was not comfortable. This exercise was weirdly intimate. And so far they had just matched breathing. The next part was going to feel weird. In an entirely different way.
The next part was not really something Elswyth could help with controlling as it required some spell work. Kimp was serving as a bit of a conduit for it and had wrapped around both of their wrists.
The snake seemed really happy. And apparently Elswyth was not actually afraid of snakes like Heron had wondered, as she seemed perfectly okay with having a snake wrap around her hand.
Anyway, Heron did sort of understand why the familiar helped. As he understood it, this energy, was much the same thing that he shared with Kimp in order to contract him. Hence the familiar was already used to transferring it or something like that.
It felt weird purposefully using magic to syphon and take this energy. The energy was much like magic, sort of like a residual magic that clung to everyone. Which meant this would probably be easier for a sorcerer who had more control over their own natural "energies".
As it was, it took a lot of concentration to get it started, but he was incredibly thankful for his little snake who kept it going once he had. It really did feel weird. Kinda ticklish, but not anywhere on his body. It was just a weird experience.
And they did this for an hour.
Afterwards Heron felt weirdly tired. It seemed that Elswyth also felt a bit drained. It was a bit like the feeling of trying to cast spells before he had gotten a familiar.
Still, Elswyth dragged him outside afterwards for his body training. At first he did not want to do it, but quickly found out something.
Being out in the open air and moving around seemed to take away the tired drained feeling and revitalize him. He wondered why that was. Or was it just coincidental as his body naturally was just recovering.
Either way though, by the time they were finished with the body exercises, he already felt way better. In fact he felt strangely enough better than ever, though he was not sure why that would be. Perhaps it was just the feeling of contrast between the way he felt before and after getting his body moving.
He pondered this over lunch that day. Honestly, there was no proof it wasn't just in his head. But he felt healthier than he ever had before. He wondered whether this was just the daily training paying off, whether he was overthinking things, or if it was something else.
Also, Elswyth really seemed in a good mood all day. She was all smiles, and was even more gentle than normal. While Heron enjoyed her abnormally good mood he also could not help but wonder exactly what caused it.