Oh Oh It's Magic [Musebox]

[ringoutyourdead]

Adjusting to the magical department proves, for Sabriel, to be almost as difficult as adjusting to the giant ship in the sky with the handheld radio things. The new forms of magic she's been introduced to are not Charter or Free Magic, or anything even resembling them. She has no ability to tell if they're things that she can master or just forms of magic she is innately incapable of. And yet, she has to work with them.

She stands before some of the magical artifacts - at least those make conceptual sense to her, as they are objects that have, at some point, been charmed (usually) and strokes her chin. She doesn't speak to many when they pass, preferring instead to mull, but she does wave a hand slightly in greeting when Morgan enters.

Comments

[morganknight]

"It's only a problem if Stephen likes you. She's jealous. But she can be mollified with candy bars." It SHOULD be hard to tell if he's kidding... but no, he's totally serious. Black Sunshine is a mercurial car.

Less mercurially, the Infinity pulled to a stop outside the transit tubes.

[ringoutyourdead]

"Candy bars? As in...chocolate? How would one even feed that to an automobile?"

Morgan you gots some explainin' to do.

[morganknight]

"In the gas tank, the same as you'd put gas in, and if you want a better explanation than that, about all I can offer is that Black Sunshine isn't 'just' a car. She's very much an entity like you or I, with a mind and a spirit as well as a body, and something about that lets her get away with it."

sorry so slow, having trouble getting back into RP groove

[ringoutyourdead]

"Would she be reigned free magic, then? I have a...companion...of similar traits." She taps her fingers in thought against her chin.

[morganknight]

"In the most generic of terms," he said, casually sliding out over the shut door despite the fact that opening it would have been simpler, easier, and less effort overall, "she's a familiar. But that's a very broad term, that covers a lot of ground."

[ringoutyourdead]

"I'm afraid it's not a term I'm familiar with. Well..." She folds her hands over her lap. "I have seen it used in some of my studies in the Magic department, but didn't look much into it. Yet. I didn't look into it yet."

[morganknight]

"Basically," he said, opening her door and offering her a hand like a proper gentleman, "a companion spirit who aids in magical duties somehow. The primary thing a Familiar does is... okay, this gets into really complicated facets of magic on Earth, but they help protect you if your magic is too blatant or obvious. But they do other things, too."

[ringoutyourdead]

"I haven't often had to hide my magic in the past. It's looked down on, somewhat in Ancelstierre, and draws extra scrutiny, but through much of the Old Kingdom it's expected to see Charter marks." As she speaks of it, her own Charter mark on her forehead flashes. "I assume it's different for you? Even for all your wealth?"

[morganknight]

"Doubly so," he said, noticing the Charter mark almost too late. Distracted, he paused a moment to decide where to begin.

"To start with, Awakened magic is... entirely about belief. Making what you believe in happen, over what should have happened, what everyone else in the world -- consciously or unconsciously -- believes should have happened. And the harder you push against that consensus, the more it pushes back. Making a coin flip come up heads, that's trivial, that could have happened naturally. Making fire appear out of your hands... well, no one believes THAT is possible, so that's 'vulgar' magic, obvious magic, and aside from being harder to do, it also earns the ire of reality in general. More so if someone SAW you do it."

[ringoutyourdead]

"The ire of reality?" Sabriel taps her lower lip with one elegant fingertip. "And I suppose the severity would depend on who saw it, no? Someone else who engaged in vulgar magic would cause less chaos than being seen by someone who doesn't understand the mechanisms."

[morganknight]

"Reality has a flow and a balance. If you move against it, it WILL push back, and it's generally bigger and stronger," Morgan said wryly. "But it's true that someone who believes in magic -- or more specifically, believes in YOUR magic, doesn't really count as a witness. That's complicated too, though. I could heal someone with acupuncture the same way a priest could heal someone through prayer and divine intercession. From the most abstract and objective oversimplification, we are both using the Sphere of Life, but a true, faithful believer in the Almighty God will believe in the prayer and not the acupuncture."

[ringoutyourdead]

"So it's less about reality and more about the acceptance of it as reality." Sabriel furrows her eyebrows together and continues tapping at her lip.

[morganknight]

"There's not much difference. Reality is nothing more than what we believe it to be. A thousand years ago, everyone knew the village healer-woman's charms could bring health and aid, and if you told them you could kill at a distance just by pointing a gadget at them and pulling a trigger, they'd laugh in your face. Since then, belief has changed, and so now the one is mundane and the other is laughable. Overall. Pockets of it can be different. Different paradigms can hold sway in different locations. But at heart, anything and everything is just what humanity, as a whole, believes."

[ringoutyourdead]

"This is sounding like material more fitted for philosophy than magical science. Not that I am adverse to the former." She lets hers hand fall to her lap again, just in time to hear a sound from within the City. "Is it just me, or does that sound like wind?"

Despite the fact that the air where they are is perfectly still.

[morganknight]

"There's a difference?" Morgan grinned, even as he looked up.

After a moment's consideration, he said, "I don't hear a thing. But to be honest, not noticing things is one of my specialties."

[ringoutyourdead]

She, however, brings her hand to her bells. She won't be caught dead unprepared - or she will be caught unprepared and be dead. "Come on. I'm investigating."

[morganknight]

What an odd thing to reach for. Not inherently, of course; nearly anything could be a focus, of course. He'd just thought of her magic as more hermetic in bent prior to this.

Which, come to think of it, was pretty stupid, since what the hell else would she have the bells for but magic? Shaking his head at himself, Morgan said, "So you hear something ominous and potentially dangerous and your first reaction is to head right for it?"

[ringoutyourdead]

"Naturally." If Sabriel came from a time period where 'duh' was in vogue, she'd have added that too.

[morganknight]

Morgan grinned broadly. "I like you more and more every moment I spend with you."

He rolled his shoulders, then his neck, then flexed his arms, all casual motions that nevertheless made sure everything was loose and ready to move. "Let's do it, then!"

[ringoutyourdead]

Sabriel returns the grin with a thin-lipped smirk, but there doesn't seem to be much exuberance in her, just grim determination.

"You wouldn't happen to have magic that could tell what we're up against from afar, would you?"

[morganknight]

"I'll try."

Morgan shut his eyes, lifted his hands, then began a slow series of movements that showed a heritage common with tai ch'i -- graceful and precise, though with only distant relation to an attack form. Hermetics or conventional terminology would call this 'scrying' or 'remote viewing', but to Morgan it was simply a matter of moving with the universe, focusing on one's unity with it... and through that unity, understanding the other parts of the cosmos in turn.

[ringoutyourdead]

Sabriel waits, hand moving from her bells to her sword. She wishes she had her ring - it's the only thing she knows that can successfully bind wild magic, and the whooshing sound reminded her of that.

Morgan's technique is so different than hers.

She doesn't speak until he opens his eyes.

[morganknight]

"It's... very difficult for me to tell," Morgan said, relaxing at last. "Which means it's probably some sort of spirit. It felt fairly nasty, though, so. Ordinarily I'm all in favor of peaceful conflict resolution..."

He rolled his shoulders, then his neck. "I'm prepared to accept it's not likely this time around, though."

[ringoutyourdead]

"Wonderful. Spirits." She checks to make sure Saraneth is there within its clasp, the binding bell. "I've dealt with one before, but I was better armed than this."

Clearly peaceful conflict resolution is not her first resort, unlike Morgan. She starts off as a loose run in the right direction.

[morganknight]

"When you say 'armed', what specifically are you talking about?" Morgan said, joining her in the run without any apparent expenditure of effort. "I could loan you a mundane weapon, but anything more esoteric is pretty unlikely." Like bells, for example.