Raven Elk watches his friends flank the area to surveil the situation. He turns to Taylar:
"Looks like we have the center again. Kind of like old times, eh?"
Raven Elk, again, uses a reference to their younger days and the sports they played. It was a time he wasn't so in earnest about everything. The last couple of years, though --- working diligently with Ma at her labors had shown him the seriousness of study and being a constructive part of the community. And yet, since his discovery of Way lines and that he can actually manipulate them had brought on an unexpected sense of youthfulness, connection, even joy. It was the joy he didn't expect.
He was never a prankster or joker like his friends; but he loved their exuberance and joy, which is why he relished every moment he could hang out with them, even if he did screw up his face sometimes at their ofttimes ridiculous to ribald humor. Since finding his channel to Way, none of it bothered him as much, it even made him laugh inside. By the Great Father and Earth Mother, if he ever guffawed at their jokes out loud, he feared they'd think he had gone raving mad. And yet...
All the others mentioned how Way felt to them as they utilized it. It all seemed they had the same sensation no matter what they called upon Way to do or help. How could he explain that when he called on it for help or healing it felt like standing out on a cool day with the rising sun hitting you with its refulgency and its new morning warmth. Or when he called upon it for things of nature, he felt like he was being brushed with feathers or caressed by the flutter of butterfly wings. Oh, how his friends would laugh at that. They'd think he'd gone soft on them.
But, it was when he pulled on Way for battle that bothered --- and thrilled him, the most.
He could actually hear war drums, distant, but persistently beating and thrumming in the background of his senses. And the colors of war were not what he expected. He thought he would see red; but that came last after his foes, whether creature, monster or Folk, lay dead and bleeding on the ground. No, the Heart of War came to him in Greens, Purples, Blues and Blacks. It was a dark, swirling kaleidoscope around his vision that did not distract, but actually focused his attacks on his foe. What bothered him was how much he liked the sensation when he called upon Way for battle. He felt more alive then, then he did at any other time of his existence. For someone who considered himself stoic, studious, and centered, the sudden excitement of using Way for battle was, to Raven Elk, bordering on becoming a Battle-Rager, or Berserker.
And only the Great Father knew what he would experience if he used Way to summon a long dead Elder or some spirit totem.
But, these men were his friends, as dear as brothers even, he had to tell them. He would --- he knew he would; just, not yet.