IC INBOX for The Last Voyages

[magician_king]

You know what to do.

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[utselet]

She nods and leans forward urgently, her heartbeat picking up a little as she scans the book. She needs this, maybe even more than she herself realizes. She needs to feel like she's accomplishing something here. And yet, there's a little current of fear there, too, a little voice asking her if she's really going to go through with this.

But she's never listened to that voice before, for better or worse, and she ignores it now. She holds up her hands in what she thinks feels like the right position, her fingers bent uncomfortably. "Yes?"

[magician_king]

"Here-" he says, reaching to find the incantation he has in mind, "-that position, then this one-"

From the week before,

"Then the first again, but with the thumb pointed outwards. Now in sequence-"

While he demonstrates, first, second, first with modification. It's a grueling slog through what will eventually be a series of six hand positions run forwards, then backwards, and when she gets that, there's a sing-song little tongue twister in Russian to be chanted in time.

But if she gets it- when she gets it, her teacup will develop a puff of sudden steam, as the water reheats to the perfect hot but not too hot temperature.

[utselet]

She looks increasingly incredulous as the spell becomes more complex, but she tries to follow the movements of his hands, warping her own into the positions she's learned. She mumbles the tongue twister under her breath until she's sure she has it down, and then she tries to run everything through together, and--

--nothing. Not the first time, nor the second. She lets out a despairing little sound, the flush of frustration rising in her cheeks. It's only with a great deal of self-control that she holds back from an outburst.

[magician_king]

"Again."

Says Quentin- calmer than Mayakovsky, but certainly a pupil of his old teacher, when it comes down to it.

"It takes some time to find purchase. Pick up the pace on you fifth and seventh syllable-"

Repeating the phrase for her, to show her what he means.

"Time each to begin and finish with the flex of your thumb. That's what you're synchronising, those words, with that tiny rotation-"

[utselet]

She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes, trying to settle herself. When she's calm, she tries it again, being careful with the timing, staring intently at her hands to be sure they're doing what they should be. And--

"Quentin," she whines when absolutely nothing happens yet again, her shoulders slumping. Her eyes sting with helpless exasperation, but she blinks it back, rubbing her temples. "I--" She cuts off, shaking her head, holding out her hands. "Again," she echoes unhappily. "I know."

It ends up taking six attempts, by which time she's so wound up that she actually shrieks when she sees the steam suddenly blossom from her cup, pressing her hands to her mouth.

[magician_king]

Quentin jumps a little too- more because Nina shrieks, honestly, but also in relief- it would have been horrible, if he'd made her go through all that just to find out she couldn't- and then he yells in joy on her behalf, pleased and proud, smile stretching impossibly wide.

"Now- you may actually feel a little faint in a minute-"

He'd basically blacked out on the examining room floor, after his first display of magical potential. Maybe it's easier when it isn't a dam bursting, like his was, but then again, likely no.

[utselet]

She does feel a little weak, though she's not totally sure if it's from effort or from shock. There's a stubborn streak of pride in her that won't let her just drop in front of him, so she sinks down carefully and steadily into her chair, staring at the steaming cup. She hesitates, then reaches out to touch it, giving another tiny jump when she feels the heat.

"What happens if I do that somewhere else?" she asks. "To a piece of paper, or-- I don't know. To light a cigarette?"

[magician_king]

"Sorry. Tea, coffee, cocoa- mulled wine, if you're feeling adventurous. For that one. Why don't I look up cigarette lighting for next week, though? If you are a regular smoker. If you're not- glowing ball of illumination?"

He proposes, with a little smile.

"Heat is tricky. With heat, you've got to be pretty specific."

[utselet]

Her excitement fades a little. She looks from him to the cup and back again, brow furrowing.

"That's it?" she asks, sounding rather less impressed. All that work for something she could have done in less time with a microwave?

[magician_king]

"Walk before you run."

He reminds her.

"If that's how hard that was, how many days do you think it took me to learn to control a firefly with my mind?"

[utselet]

"How many?" she asks, even though she knows it was largely rhetorical. Really, though -- she wants to know. The exhilaration is waning quickly, dismay and exhaustion bubbling up to fill the gap. How long and how hard is she going to have to slave over this, again?

She looks back at him. "I don't need to control firefly with my mind," she says plaintively.

[magician_king]

"Maybe it would be a good idea to set ourselves on a trajectory. You tell me one thing you'd like to accomplish first, and I can draw you up a path of the fundamentals you'll have to get through to get there. There will be more spells like this on the way- this is foundational stuff, that thing with your thumb, you're going to have to have that skill down to do bigger stuff. But this way, there won't be a sense that you're wasting your time."

It's the best way he can think of to approach this work, given the limitations of the barge and her sense of urgency.

[utselet]

Nina takes a deep breath and nods, calming herself. "That makes sense," she agrees, sounding a little apologetic. She really doesn't mean to be as difficult about it as she knows she is.

She thinks for a moment, reaching out to touch the teacup lightly, feeling its heat through the ceramic. "I just want to be able to protect myself here," she murmurs. "That's still all I really want. I just don't want to be so afraid anymore."

[magician_king]

He thinks this through, and decides the answer is probably;

"There'll be a lot of foundational work, but I think we should work you up to a fainting hex. It'll do literally almost no harm to anyone, unless they fall and hit their head funny, but it's quick and clean and it'll get you out of just about anything."

[utselet]

She mulls this over. It would work in a fight, in a pinch, but not all of the dangers she fears are quite like that. Not necessarily things that can be cured by knocking one person out one time -- neither in these close quarters, nor out in the world where any bid for freedom means being hunted.

"Could you make me disappear?" she asks suddenly, twisting around to look back up at him. "Or-- could I do that? Is that possible?"

[magician_king]

"I'm sorry, no- it's one of the kinds of magic that's very dangerous. The closest thing I can do is a camouflage charm-"

And how to demonstrate that? He glances around, then picks up a sugar cube from a bowl on the table, says a few words, and then spits into his palm- and turns a glittery white, very candy man can.

"It makes a lot more sense in the woods." He supplies. "But yeah- you can actually disappear just fine, you just can never reappear without looking subtly wrong, like a painting of a human."

[utselet]

She doesn't even really have time to be disappointed before he turns into some kind of sugar plum fairy before her eyes -- which makes it rather difficult to concentrate on what he says next, but she does get the gist. Not that, then.

"Maybe fainting to start with, then," she concedes. "Now change back -- you're freaking me out."

[magician_king]

He laughs, and slaps his palm on the table, neatly doing the charm, and blinking back up at her, his normal self.

"-and we could do smaller animals, too. A starling, maybe?"

[utselet]

"That might be nice," she admits, a small smile returning to her face. "But that's for fun, yes? This--"

She gestures to the cup, framing it with one of Popper's terrible positions. "This is for work."

[magician_king]

"Wouldn't it serve the same effect as turning invisible, in most cases?"

A threat would have to be pretty specific to be able to take her down if she were suddenly a starling.

[utselet]

She blinks owlishly. "Yes, I suppose. I hadn't thought of it that way."

She enjoys the Enclosure trips -- loves them, actually -- but she's started to keep them separate in her mind. With Quentin leading them as much as he does, they feel almost more like healing time than work; she usually comes out of them feeling happy and energized in a way she rarely does otherwise. Even with the teacup magic, the idea of doing it herself seems impossibly far away.

[magician_king]

"It'll be work. It won't come quickly. But I think if we can get you to a point where you can do both those things-"

Then she will have a solid skillset to use.

[utselet]

She nods and flashes him a taut but grateful smile. "Less danger."

She takes a breath and nods again, reaching for her teacup. "Maybe I could have turned into a starling during the flood and hidden away somewhere," she mutters ruefully.

[magician_king]

"You had a brutal time, huh?"

Quentin wonders, settling down with a small sigh, wincing on her behalf.

"What happened?"

[utselet]

"Well, when you take a bunch of people who are used to lying and force them to tell the truth to each other, it doesn't always go very well," she says dryly, sipping her tea.

It could have been worse, really, she knows. No one got violent with her, although there are definitely a few people who know she could take that a lot better than she lets on. She doesn't think anyone will really stop speaking to her, although there are a couple of dicey cases there. But mostly...

She sighs and shakes her head, absently brushing her hair back from her face. "It was tiring," she admits. "Very tiring."