This post's authors have general content warnings that might apply to the current post.
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
Ari is... so, so lost. He didn't know this amount of lost was physically possible. One minute he's in a briar maze deep in Winter picking frostberries for a pie, then he takes four left turns and he exits the briar and he's in a temperate forest. Not even any snow on the ground. He turns around and there's no thicket to be seen.
He puts the frostberry pouch in his backpack and mutters the incantation to open a Way back to the mortal realm; he might land somewhere dangerous, but better endangered in the mortal realm than completely lost in the Nevernever. And... nothing. Literally nothing happens, no backlash or fizzling or anything that would indicate that he fucked up a spell, but the kind of nothing that happens when you don't have a spell to cast.
In something of a panic, he tests that he still has magic by punching a nearby tree, which splinters and crashes to the ground. "So that's still working, I guess," he mutters. "Punching systems: still online."
So, recap: magic works, he just got snatched out of deep Winter territory and put into something that kind of looks like the Wyld, and the Ways are on the fritz. Either something big is screwing with him or he's very much not in Kansas anymore. Either way, he'd better figure out what the hell is going on.
+ Show First Post
bitterchill
bitterchill
"Magic doesn't involve much math except when it really, really does. Long-term structural thaumaturgy is one of those times."
bitterchill
"Somewhere between the ages of 29 and 50, depending on how long I was in the Nevernever; I didn't really have a calendar, and the Nevernever has a pretty weird sense of how the length of days should work. Years 4 through 8 were mostly devoted to education in faerie culture; then, two days after my eighth birthday I accidentally turned myself weightless and jumped into the sky, at which point the focus turned to magic. And it turned hard. For the next nine years I learned about magic practically from dusk 'til dawn, which I was very pleased about. Then the death of Belinda, then enslavement for anywhere from ten to thirty years, at which point I had less free time, but my various masters generally wanted me to do magic for them, which meant a hell of a lot of magic practice and often the learning of new and exciting kinds of magic. Then I escaped and landed a job as a monster hunter, which was less varied but still a decent amount of practice. And now I'm here!"
imeanforever
"That's a more precise idea than I have of my own age, since the forest I started in and where both my masters also lived didn't have a night cycle - not even sometimes, like here. I might be younger than you or twice your age, I have no idea."
bitterchill
"No great loss. People think they're cute, but they're mostly just tiny and big-headed and- hang on, I never made you a bird! That's vital, I need to make you a bird, it'll take half a minute." He plunges into another page of his sketchpad, writing out formulae with practiced ease. "I know how to do birds, I did stage magic with bird conjuration once. Made about fifty bucks, too."
bitterchill
"Vanilla humans in Never don't believe magic exists, so they pay people to pretend to be magic and entertain their kids. Usually the ones past the preliminary squishiness. A properly magic person can do some very interesting things without people realizing he's not just using trick gear and sleight of hand."
He draws out the conjuring circle in the snow, draws a line from it to himself, draws his own circle. He chants something about "stuff of life, take this form" et cetera. In the circle, there appears: a bird!
It is a white dove, or something like. It's somewhat lacking in detail (notably, there's hardly any texture to its feathers, and its talons look much too smooth), but it is recognizably birdish.
He draws out the conjuring circle in the snow, draws a line from it to himself, draws his own circle. He chants something about "stuff of life, take this form" et cetera. In the circle, there appears: a bird!
It is a white dove, or something like. It's somewhat lacking in detail (notably, there's hardly any texture to its feathers, and its talons look much too smooth), but it is recognizably birdish.
bitterchill
It coos, somewhat congestedly.
Ari giggles. "It's possible I got the noise a bit wrong. Sounds are hard."
Ari giggles. "It's possible I got the noise a bit wrong. Sounds are hard."
bitterchill
"Oh, a lot like that really, but less, uh, strangled. You can touch it if you like, I'm pretty sure you're not blocked by circles but if you are I can break it for you. It'll feel pretty much like it should, which is soft. Won't move very much, which is a pity, but that would have been a more complicated spell."
imeanforever
"I'm not blocked by circles. Are the mortal-faeries from Never blocked by circles?" She reaches for the bird. She pets it. She giggles.
bitterchill
"Empowered circles, yeah. They put up a wall that can only be passed by something with free will. 'Course, with enough power they can just batter them down completely, but that's pretty difficult even with just a circle I drew in the snow. Could melt it, I guess. Wouldn't have to touch it for that."
The dove sits unbirdishly in Promise's hands. It doesn't preen or nuzzle her or try to escape the big animal like it would. But it is capable of cooing, and it does so at a constant rate of one per five seconds.
The dove sits unbirdishly in Promise's hands. It doesn't preen or nuzzle her or try to escape the big animal like it would. But it is capable of cooing, and it does so at a constant rate of one per five seconds.
imeanforever
Promise holds and pets the dove. She has no frame of reference to find its level of birdhood inadequate. "Explain the free will thing?"
bitterchill
"Oh man. I'm really bad at this one. Uh, so, humans and some things like humans have a thing called a soul. It's not very common for things in my universe. It's kind of like a little packet of energy that gives us the ability to make conscious decisions without being guided by our "essential nature" - like how faeries can't lie, and trolls want to eat children, and they never decided to be that way or grew into feeling it, it's just how they are and that can never, ever change. Like, you could ask a sidhe "why don't you lie?" and he'd say "because I am a faerie and that is how I am" like you're an idiot for asking, because faeries are generally assholes. Or I could say to a troll, "if you ate cows instead of human children, then I wouldn't have to kill you," and she'd say "good point, but I eat children and I don't eat cows, so I don't see how it's relevant," and then she'd probably try to eat me, because the "children" thing is more of a guideline than anything else. And then I'd kill her."
bitterchill
"Well, you didn't run up against the circle, so I'm pretty sure now. Before that, it was just sort of a feeling I got. You get a sense for that kind of thing running around the Nevernever, it's kind of- blindingly obvious, after dealing with faeries for however long, that people with souls are different. Like, a souled woman who eats the same breakfast every morning and watches the same TV show every afternoon and swears to change the same thing about herself every New Years has more... fluidity, personality, to her, than the most unpredictable sylph. In a way. I wouldn't be as sure if the only fairies I had met were like Tacky Creep, but you personally kind of have a neon sign over your head saying "HELLO HOW ARE YOU I HAVE A SOUL"."
imeanforever
Promise giggles. "I think I'm unusual, though. For a fairy at all, not specifically for a leaflet or anything."
bitterchill
"...Now I want to perform vaguely sinister experiments on our neighbors. Look what you've wrought."
imeanforever
"I don't see anything that sinister about seeing if they can walk past lines on the ground."
bitterchill
"Nah, I just like saying "vaguely sinister experiments." Picked it up from Sally; she said it about pretty much everything my mom did, I said that it wasn't all that sinister and started saying it about everything to make fun. Then it stuck."