Magic Box, Sunday, Oct. 19

[not_every_mage]

It was a crisp day, with a distinct nip of frost in the air that made Anders pull his coat closer around him on the way to work and riots of red and yellow leaves eddying about with every breeze. The harvest decor that had infected the shop since July finally fit the weather outside.

Which, naturally, meant the box Anders opened as soon as he got to the shop was full of winter-themed decorations -- tinsel icicles, paper snowflakes, and dozens of figurines of a fat white-haired man in a red suit.

It seemed early to take down the autumn decor, but Anders hated to leave the latest supplies in their box to rot. Which was how the skeletons ended up decked in tinsel, and a fleet of tiny Santa Clauses came to be posed among the pumpkins in the window display. It was cheerful, if a bit of an overload for a fairly small store.

[OOC: Open Magic Box, no OCD!]

Comments

[seveninchmotto]

Isabelle was in town to see if she could put some finishing touches on her presents for the birthday boy who was probably not expecting to get anything at all. But what brought her to Magic Box was... Well. She was just curious, and she seemed to finally have the time to drop by and see if it was exactly as hedge witch-y as she assumed it to be.

Of course, stepping in, she found herself tilting her head curiously at the decorations instead.

[not_every_mage]

"Too much?" Anders asked cheerfully, as he looked up from taping snowflakes to the cash register and saw the expression in Isabelle's face. "I thought the fellow in red skiing down that big pumpkin might be gilding the lily."

[seveninchmotto]

"It's a little too much," Isabelle confirmed with a slightly more critical look at the decorations. "It gets confusing."

[not_every_mage]

"We keep getting boxes of decorations," Anders explained as he took the snowflake back off the cash register. "I hate to waste them, so we've just been ... piling everything up. It worked better when it was all for the same season."

He smiled over to Isabelle. "Anyhow,is there something I could help you with?"

[seveninchmotto]

Isabelle shrugged as she moved further into the store. "I'm just curious," she said. "I've never been here before, and the name intrigued me. Magic Box. I had to see what that was about."

[not_every_mage]

"It's about a third decent mage goods, a third old books of mixed value, and a third complete nonsense," Anders informed her, shrugging slightly. "And you're welcome to poke around as long as you'd like."

[seveninchmotto]

"I was expecting three thirds of complete nonsense." And had no qualms with admitting that. Of course, she was yet to be convinced that wasn't the case. "Well, maybe with one fourth of old books of mix value."

[not_every_mage]

Anders laughed at the unexpected honesty.

"The herb selection is good," he explained. "And there are some knives and wands and things that feel to me like there's real power there. You just have to poke through a lot of junk crystals and candles to find them."

He eyed her with more interest. "Do you use magic, or are you just curious?"

[seveninchmotto]

"I definitely don't use magic ––" Well, not by her own definition, anyway. Others might have disagreed and counted her uses of angelic power as magic. "–– so I guess it's that other option. Just curious."

And, admittedly, her idle glance around was pretty curious.

"But I'm not sure how anyone would base a store around real magic, anyway."

[not_every_mage]

"No, although there are plenty of places based around selling to people who already use magic," Anders said thoughtfully. He noticed her attention seemed more than casual but wasn't sure what to make of that. "No way to buy or sell magic itself, though. Thank the Maker."

[seveninchmotto]

"Isn't there?" Isabelle questioned, wandering closer to a display case. "Doesn't selling magic services count?"

Because warlocks did that a lot where she was from.

[not_every_mage]

"I thought we weren't counting that," Anders said. "Though I suppose technically speaking a mage for hire isn't a store."

[seveninchmotto]

"I've never seen anyone have a storefront for that, no," she agreed. "I've seen plenty of hedge witches pretend to, however."

[not_every_mage]

"How does that work?" Anders wondered. "I can see how you'd fool the first person, but you would think word would get around if you weren't actually doing anyone any good."

[seveninchmotto]

Isabelle tilted her head at him.

"... You're not very aware of how this world works yet, are you?"

[not_every_mage]

"I thought I was doing fine," Anders said, wounded pride flashing in his eyes. "Why, what did I say wrong?"

[seveninchmotto]

"Most people don't know magic exists," Isabelle explained. "The real kind. That doesn't stop them from wanting to believe in it, though, and hedge witches exploit that. It's easy to sell healing to someone desperate to believe you have power."

[not_every_mage]

"And I suppose if people don't know what magic should be like, it's easy enough for the frauds to keep them coming back," Anders sighed after a moment's thought, darkness retreating from his eyes. "It's always hard for me to wrap my head around a world where people don't know magic is real."

[seveninchmotto]

"Best get used to it," Isabelle replied, although not unkindly. "That's the state of things where you are now. Where I'm from, too. As far as I can tell, the places where it's common knowledge are in the minority."

[not_every_mage]

"So I'm told," Anders sighed, rubbing his chin. "And of course, knowing isn't the same thing as tolerating, let alone liking. Half my world is terrified of anyone with magic."

[seveninchmotto]

"Sometimes that's with good reason," Isabelle said, because of course she would. It was part of her job to keep the supernatural out of the sight of ordinary humans, and a part of that had to do with not freaking them out. "Besides, people are scared of what they can't understand. Or control."

[not_every_mage]

"True, but is the solution to that really locking away everyone born with magic and telling their families they would turn into monsters otherwise?" Anders snapped back, like someone who had argued this point many times. "If anything, all the fear does is give mages less to lose if they go bad. Besides, swords in the wrong hands do plenty of damage too, and no one treats soldiers like criminals before they do anything wrong."

This was as personal for him as it was for Isabelle, albeit from a very different point of view.

[seveninchmotto]

Isabelle raised her eyebrows. Admittedly, it was in a rather judgey fashion. "Calm down, did I say I've been advocating locking away mages?"

That word continued to be weird to her.

"No, I did not."

[not_every_mage]

"You didn't," Anders admitted, consciously slowing his breathing. "I might have gotten a few steps ahead of you. It just -- tends to be where people go after they talk about fear of magic-users having a reason behind it."

[seveninchmotto]

"I'm just being a realist when I say that," Isabelle replied with a shrug. "Personally, I don't care how much magic or other powers people have as long as they don't use it wrong."

Or break Covenant law, or the like.

[not_every_mage]

"Then we agree that far," Anders told her. "I'd also add that treating people well helps to keep them from wanting to use their powers wrong. But I don't know how that works in worlds where magic is secret."

[seveninchmotto]

"There are always rules," Isabelle said, although perhaps her opinion was influenced by her position as part of a supernatural police force.

(Of course it was. She couldn't escape her upbringing even when she wanted to.)

"If there's a community, there are rules."

[not_every_mage]

"There are always rules for everything," Anders agreed, a touch wearily. "People seem to like making them, and probably it's for the good."

His objection wasn't to the regulation of magic per se, so much as it was to the specific system of the Circle. Or, for that matter, to the system in some other worlds (Nathan's) he'd heard about.

"The question's just how to make them so they're fair for everybody."

[seveninchmotto]

Isabelle swallowed some pointless arguments about how rules were never going to be fair for everybody, nor did they need to be. It did not feel like the most fruitful avenue to explore that this point in time.

"Anyway," she said, looking around, "you said you have actual decent magic goods here? What kind?"

[not_every_mage]

Anders' everybody did not in fact mean everybody, anyhow. It meant nice middle-class humans like me. Certain other types of oppression landed entirely in his blind spot.

Surprised but not objecting to the change in subject, he shrugged.

"I can show you," he offered. "What type interests you? The herbs and other potion supplies are on the shelves over there, or we have a few enchanted knives and such at the end of that isle. Jewelry's by there, too."