When Heather's turn comes, she takes to the stage with a touch of trepidation, her heart beating a bit fast and butterflies in her stomach. Waving to the crowd with her fellow Recruits arrayed around her was fine, but she wasn't actually super-used to being the individual focus of attention, and she was hit by a bout of stage fright.
Fortunately, she had prepared her speech well in advance, so she took a deep, slightly shuddery breath, and said, "Five years ago, my sister stood here to give a speech. I remember watching it. I was sitting right there," she said, pointing at one of the chairs (in the front, if there were rows). "She began her speech saying she wanted to thank everyone, everyone in the village, for everything they had done for her, for us, growing up."
"I can only echo her words. They say it takes a village to raise a child. This village raised two, when tragedy took our parents from us. Words cannot properly express my gratitude for everything everyone in this village has done for me. I would not have made it here without all of you, supporting me, encouraging me, teaching me. In a few minutes, I'll no longer be known as Heather Templeton, but as Heather of Greenbrook."
"But I think, realistically, I always have been."
"I don't think I could ever properly repay the kindness, support, and love I've been given by the people of this village, not with work and not with wealth. But I hope to do so with honor. I am not yet a Knight, but I hope to one day become one, and so I must act as one. A Knight never forsakes their sworn word. So I make this oath, not yet as a Knight but with all the sincerity of one, that I shall always honor the village that raised me with my words and my actions. I will not swear to bring Greenbrook the honor it deserves, for I do not know that such a lofty goal lies within my power to reach. But I shall ever strive to achieve it."
"If I tried to give individual thanks to everyone who helped me get to where I am now, we would be here all day. But I do have to give thanks in particular to my big sister, Laurel, the Storybook Hero of Greenbrook. She was my hero long before she earned either her Blessing or her title. It was her choice to walk this path before me that encouraged me to walk it myself, and I will keep following in her footsteps until the day I catch up."
"I'm coming Sis," she finished quietly, wiping a tear from her eye.
--
Heather stood marveling at the Crystal Pool for almost two full minutes, awestruck by its beauty, trying to observe all the little plays of light and color, and failing entirely. There was just too much going on. It was beautiful, and unlike anything she had ever seen.
Finally shaking herself free, she changed into her robe, placed her father's ring atop her mother's book and placed them gently into the liquid, and then stepped in herself.
The experience of receiving a Blessing is typically gentle, soothing. But most Recruits weren't hydrophobic.
She wasn't afraid as she stepped into the pool. In her head she expected it to be basically like a bath, which she didn't have any trouble with. But the steepness of the slope surprised her, and the tug of the crystalline fluid even moreso. She flashed back to her oldest living memory, sinking into the river, water filling her nose, her throat, her lungs. She panicked, flailing, but she had never been a strong swimmer, and the pull of the Pool was inexorable. She gasped and held her breath, plugging her nose with one hand, just before she slipped beneath the surface, continuing to kick and flail with her other hand.
In her panic, she didn't notice that she felt no need to breathe at all, that her lungs weren't burning. She felt her consciousness start to drift away, mistaking it for the effects of lack of oxygen as blackness started swirling in her vision, and though her efforts only redoubled, her kicks grew weaker and weaker. She could not believe that after everything, the entire year of training at Fort Naoth, she wasn't going to ever become a Knight, wasn't going to become her sister's Squire, wasn't even going to face a single demon on the field of battle. Her oath broken before she could make even her first attempt to fulfill it. She would bring no honor to her village, she would be forever known as the Recruit who somehow managed to drown in a freaking Crystal Pool.
This isn't how the story is supposed to go! was her last conscious thought, before the darkness claimed her.
--
Heather awoke with a gasp, bolting upright. She was...alive. She was fine.
...Of course she was fine. She cracked up, laughing at herself. Laurel had told her a little bit about what it had been like to receive her Blessing, in sisterly confidence. She had warned her explicitly that she would be submerged but it would be fine, that she could breathe the liquid of the pool as if it were air. Heather had a photographic memory, but that didn't mean every event in her life was always available at front of mind. In her panic, she hadn't recalled Laurel's warning at all.
(It did occur to her that there had been nothing in Laurel's description about...whatever that was. It had been so intense, so real. She kinda couldn't shake the feeling of melancholy it left in her heart.)
Boy was she glad you were alone when you received your blessing. That would have been so embarrassing if anyone had seen it.
"Indeed," came her sister's voice from behind her, as she picked herself up (marveling a bit as she did at the little illusory figures around her). "I vote we never speak of this again."
"Laurel!" Heather cried in delighted surprise, launching herself at her sister in an All-Out Hug that in another universe might have rightfully been described as Robinesque, but for the lack of a tail to wag. "What are you doi- woah!" Her hug caught nothing but air as she passed straight through her sister's image and almost fell flat on her face, only her physical training from a year at Fort Naoth allowing her to catch her balance.
"Laurel" turned to face her with one brow raised and a bemused grin on her face. "Obviously, I'm not here. I'm an illusion."
"Right. Obviously."
"So, come on!" Illaurel prompted. "Don't leave me hanging! What'd you get?"
"Oh. Um...well, illusions, evidently!"
"Yeah I can see that. Anything else?"
"...Okay wait does that mean you're self-aware?"
"No, it means you're subconsciously manipulating light and sound to create a realistic-to-your-expectations illusion of your sister, because you remember her telling you all about her new powers after she got her Blessing and deep down you wanted the same experience but she couldn't actually be here because she has Important Knight Duties to attend, but since your new powers are largely instinctual they responded to your desires with the closest approximation they could provide, i.e. me. So, let's hear it!" Because evidently illusions crafted from your own subconscious desires and expectations inherit your Insight and Expertise (Crystal Lore) skills, which...yeah that checks out.
"Right. Um...you know it's a little odd. I like...I have this sense that I can say something and...make it happen? But...not really that. Like...make something that could happen happen. Like it wouldn't work if it was something like, um..." she held out one open hand. "And then she was holding, a banana!" she intoned.
And poof a banana appeared in her hand.
"Seems to work fine to me."
"No, uh, wait. Wha- Oh! No, sorry, bad example. That's another illusion!"
"You sure?"
"It- Yes! I'm sure! Look it passes right through you!" she said, waving it through Laurel's body for emphasis.
"Uhh, I'm an illusion. It would pass right through me either way."
"No it, guhh-" she started looking around for something else to wave her not-actually-a-banana through.
"I dunno sis, seems to me like you have a perfectly respectable banana-conjuring power there. May the demons tremble at their inevitable and hilarious slapstick falls!"
"It's not a real banana, look it passes through my hand!"
"Hmm. How does it taste?"
"What?"
"If it looks like a banana and tastes like a banana, I'mma go out on a limb and call it a banana."
"But my hand goes through it how would I peel it?"
"You are literally subconsciously producing a near-perfect illusory interaction with your sister, good enough that you already forgot I was an illusion once. If it's an illusory banana I'm pretty sure you can make it look like you're peeling it."
"It...fine." Heather made the motions of peeling the fake intangible banana and though she couldn't actually feel it beneath her fingers to all visual appearances it peeled perfectly normally. With a sigh she took a bite out of it. The banana was still whole (albeit peeled) when she removed it from her mouth. "It doesn't taste like anything. I think I only get light and sound."
"Light, sound, and emotion. You're not actually as happy to see me as you feel like you are, because you know I'm not actually your sister and you still wish it was her here. In fact, you're mostly still kinda sad about the vision you saw, but you're covering it up with false happiness. But I will concede that you lack the power to conjure bananas. Alas, my dreams of hilarious demonic pratfalls will go unfulfilled."
"...I think I can actually make it more likely for demons to pratfall hilariously."
"So it works kinda like my Blessing. Probability manipulation. Only you have to say it?"
"Sssssort of, maybe? Only not really. It's not...changing odds, I don't think. It's changing real things, just kinda in a way that alters the odds? Like, if a demon is charging at me and I narrate them tripping and falling flat on their face, it's not that it makes them more likely to trip and fall in some arbitrary way, it's more like...can anybody actually prove that tree root wasn't slightly raised before I spoke. Or...something like that, maybe? Um..." She looked at one of the nearby ley crystals. "That crystal is loose," she narrated, before going over and pulling it effortlessly free.
Although...a thought occurred, and she pulled on the crystal next to it. It, too, yielded to her grasp. It...maybe took a little more effort, possibly? She couldn't really tell. "I...think that worked?"
Laurel just shrugged, taking her word for it. "You 'narrate' them, huh? So...your power is super-storytelling?"
"...Oh man I think it actually is! THAT IS SO COOL!"
"That is...literally the most 'you' power I have ever heard of."
"I know, right? Oh man this is going to be great! I'll be the Narrator, and you can be the Protagonist! ...Kinda hard to show off though. Except maybe the illusions, I guess? Although...hmm. If the power is in my voice..." another instinct was kinda rising to the surface. She looked at a patch of ground near the pool and said, "Boom!" There was a thunderclap of sound like an explosion, which probably could have been heard even back at the stage, as a clod of dirt exploded from the ground.
"Oo-ooh~. Now we're talking!"
"Yeah we are! Ooh, wait, I can do light too right, because illusions? Do we have lasers!? Zap!"
...! ...?
"No lasers. Just bananas."
"Maybe an illusion of a laser?"
"Oh right uhh...Zap!" Twin beams of intensely bright pink light shot from her eyes and where they struck the ground there was another explosive sound and flying clod of dirt. "HA! We have fake lasers! All of the special effects with none of the burnination! Let's be honest the special effects are really what you want from lasers in the first place, I'm sure there have never been any demons that are explicitly vulnerable to light-elemental attacks in the history of the world!"
From the empty air, a female voice with a slightly posh accent narrated, "There actually were!"
"...Okay, primary goal for the whole power-practicing bit is to stop subconsciously creating illusions before they do something embarrassing."
"Seems smart."
"Okay. I have to get back out there." She went over to where she had left her clothes, started untying the robe's sash, and said, "Uhh...go away! I have to change!"
"I'm not actually- you know what, nevermind." The illusion of Laurel obligingly vanished.
--
When Heather came back into view of the crowd, a flashy display of colorful fireworks exploded noisily around her! A few doves flew about her head! The sound of trumpets played a fanfare from thin air!
"I got illusions!" she said cheerily as she took the stage again. She noticed idly...the butterflies were gone. She wasn't feeling any stage fright at all, anymore. Super-storyteller powers gooo! "And, um, other stuff! But it's kinda hard to show off though! But, uhh, um, oh! Hey, take it from me! Lily's speech is going to be great!" she narrated, giving the foreign recruit an encouraging thumbs-up.
"WOOO!!!" Illusiory Laurel cheered from where she was now sitting in an illusory seat in the front row. "BEST BLESSING EVER!!" Heather had only herself to blame. It was exactly what she did five years ago after Laurel showed off her powers.
"Haha, illusions! Super-fun!" she said as she made the illusory Laurel go away again and went back to her place among the new Pages. Training week could not possibly come fast enough.
Mechanics
Using Inspire Competence from Second Person Narration to...well technically Team Check Lily's Expertise (Oratory) not that we're actually making rolls for speeches but whatever she can do her speeching better! Forgoing the option to use Persuasion since her Expertise (Oratory) is only two points lower and the DC would increase by 10, but fortunately I wrote that as "may".
Routine Expertise (Oratory) (DC equals Lily's rank, +5 for Teamwork, -2 for Impaired) Super story-telling powers goooo!
Routine Deception (only because she has Skill Mastery) to not come off as embarrassed as she actually is (-2 for Impaired, -5 circumstance penalty)