fandomtownies | Magic Box, Sunday, 01/11

Bob was wandering about the island - okay, he was snooping - and saw the shop was open. He'd walked through when it was closed before, but that wasn't as interesting as having someone there. And when he saw who it was, well - how could he avoid popping in?

Hi, Anders! Have a ghost walking through the door at you and peering over your shoulder.

"Hello there! Anything interesting?"

Anders started at the sudden voice, splashing some of the remaining glitter onto his work surface.

He made a surprised little squeak and then swallowed hard, trying to recover his dignity.

"Well," he said, "we're going to find out if glitter affects the potency of sage. So that's, er, something?"

"Mm. Well, I wouldn't burn it. No telling what chemicals are in that stuff. Why the festive personal decor, anyway?"

He'd be nice enough to ignore the squeak. Well, except for smirking a bit.

"It was in the shower head," Anders answered, scruffing a hand over his hair and watching it come away sparkling. "Either I can blame the island, or somebody got really bored. Anyhow, I couldn't get it all to wash off before I was due here."

He smiled ruefully. "And now I'm explaining this to somebody without a body."

"Oh, right; rub it in." Bob gave a long-suffering sigh. Then he rolled his eyes. "Just because I don't need showers doesn't mean I don't know what they're for." He poked his finger through some bits of glitter, but it didn't stick. "Can you make yourself intangible? Or..." he waved his hand, looking for the right word, "...slippery? Or disintegrate the stuff?"

"Nothing like that," Anders said, shaking his head. He'd meant the comment about Bob's lack of a body to sound a bit more sympathetic than it had come across, but it hardly seemed to bear explaining. "They teach us a little telekinesis, but it's more for things like moving boulders out of the way. Nothing as ... fidgety as this. Also I'm not very good at it to start with."

Eh, Bob was used to it. He mostly just liked to kvetch.

"No, you're better at elemental things, wasn't it?" Bob asked. He stopped poking at the glitter and went from annoying mode to teaching mode. "Fire and ice, lightning and stone. Any particular strengths?"

"Yes, healing," Anders said, standing straighter and trying to look like a halfway serious mage. "I'm good enough with lightning and fire in a fight, but spirit healing's the magic I actually have a gift for."

He glanced Bob over curiously. "Do you have a specialty? Or are you more of a jack of all trades?"

"Healing's a bit harder to attack people with as demonstration," Bob pointed out, though he smiled to hopefully take any sting out of it. "It's a good skill to have, but I hope we won't need it in class."

He shrugged at Anders' question. "These days, illusion is the extent of it, I'm afraid. Those who can't, teach," he quoted dryly. Does your magic use any complex formulae?" He reached out a finger and sketched the construction of a locator spell in the air.

"You didn't say you meant in relation to class," Anders returned, also smiling. "For class, I'd go with the lightning. I've got the best control with it."

He squinted at the formula, shrugged a bit when he realized it made no sense to him. "Nothing quite like that, no. We use runes but those aren't as intricate."

Bob nodded. "How does yours work, then? Concentration and will? Incantations?"

"Concentration and will, mainly," Anders said, brow furrowed because he so rarely thought about it -- it was like being asked how breathing worked. "There are incantations to help you focus, or for enchanting objects or whatever, but I wouldn't normally use them in a fight."

He leaned on his elbows thoughtfully. "We're born with it. I don't know if that's the same as you or different."

"A bit of both, really," Bob answered. "Just about anyone can do a bit given the right instruction, but some have a lot more potential than others. It tends to run in families."

He pointed at Anders' staff. "For someone like me, something like that would be a focus and reservoir. Not necessary, but it makes things a lot easier." He looked the question at Anders.

Anders nodded slightly, raising his hand before him to flicker blue spirit energy around the fingertips as a demonstration. "Exactly. I don't need it but it makes everything a little smoother."

Bob nodded and smiled. "It's good to know some things don't change."

He gestured and pulled out part of the illusion he'd used on Jono yesterday - his own primary staff from when he'd been alive. "This was mine." It was a fairly plain length of ash with a few twists to it, burnished to the colour of dark honey. With a further thought, he made visible the runes set in it, and they glowed in gold and green.

Okay, so he was showing off a bit. He'd been rather proud of the thing, and not many people understood the aesthetic value of a good staff these days. Harry's might be wonderfully subtle in twenty-first century Chicago, but...well.

"Oh, that's a nice one," Anders said appreciatively. His own staff -- which he held up so Bob could admire it properly -- was a length of oak stained almost black, forking a bit at the end above some wire wrapping. "This is Circle standard for apprentices. I was saving up for something nicer."

He'd seen staffs with a dragon head at the tip. He wanted one.

"It's certainly..." Plain? Dull? "sturdy." What? Even Bob had some tact. He hated to insult another man's staff. "Have you had a look around here?" Bob suggested. "I'm sure there's someone who does woodwork."

Anders smiled, barely. "It's all right. I know it's not a beauty like yours. But it does the job. Still, maybe I could get one crafted around here."

"If it's any consolation, I doubt mine looks like this any more, either," Bob said. He twirled it thoughtfully for a moment before dismissing it. "Probably long dust and kindling. And it's not the one I had when I was learning, either." He cocked his head at Anders. "You said you had four years' instruction? How much longer till you'd be considered fully trained?"

"That's up to the enchanters," Anders said lightly. "Most people are Harrowed -- tested and admitted to the Circle -- when they're around 20, but sometimes they call you a little younger, and there are a few poor bastards stuck in apprentice robes until they're closing in on 30."

He'd always hoped he wouldn't be among them; it seemed humiliating, to have everyone know the enchanters couldn't make up their minds about you.

"The funny thing is, 12's actually a few years older than normal. Sometimes they even bring in a six-year-old." And that -- taking the bedwetters, the little ones who cried for their Mamas -- always struck Anders as the cruelest thing Templars did beyond the Rite of Tranquility. "I should mention, going to the Circle isn't exactly optional."

Bob frowned. "Is the Circle a sort of school, like in Barry Plodder?"

Anders made a face. "Only if in Barry Plodder they don't let you leave after you graduate and remind you every five minutes that you're cursed and dangerous," he said. "It's the only decent training there is, but mainly it's a prison."

Edited 2015-01-13 13:59 (UTC)

"A prison? For six-year-olds?" That was Bob's indignant face. "Why bother training you at all if they're just going to do that?"

"Damned if I know," Anders said, then sighed and gave a more reasonable answer. "No, actually it's because we have our uses. They need to teach us to heal their wounds and fight their enemies and kill the odd darkspawn. Besides, an untrained mage doesn't know how how to control his strength or have any protection against demons. But some days it does feel rather pointless, despite all that."

"You're tools, not people." Bob crossed his arms and glowered disapprovingly. He could rather relate, actually.

"I won't ask what gives them the right," he said sourly; people like that rarely needed excuses. "What makes them so scared of you?"

"They think our religion gives them the right," Anders said even though he hadn't been asked, rolling his eyes. "Which I think is some creative reading, but of course my opinion doesn't matter. They're scared because we can do things they can't." A pause. "And also because sometimes mages get possessed by demons and kill dozens, but honestly I think it's mainly the first one. There aren't that many abominations."

At least not outside Kirkwall.

Edited 2015-01-13 20:50 (UTC)

"Possessed?" Bob blinked at that. "What's an abomination?"

"I had to explain the same thing to Karla last week," Anders mused. "It's a mage who's been possessed by a demon. Happens if someone is weak or power-hungry. They ... kill things, mostly. Not very nice."

Bob made a noise that was both disgusted and thoughtful. "Who's in control, the mage or the demon?"

"They tell us the demon is," Anders said. "I hope it's true. I don't want to think about mages being so angry they'd do -- that."

"It sounds like they've got every reason to be," Bob pointed out. "Not that it condones killing innocents, if that's what they do. How many mages got that angry before they started locking you all up?"

"I don't know," Anders said. "It's literally ancient history. The Circle's been around about 900 years. But if I had to guess, I think it might have been less about abominations and more about the fear of mages ruling."

"We were in charge in" -- Anders realized Bob wouldn't know what Tevinter was, but couldn't draw an analogue from this world to mind -- "the empire that ruled before modern nations formed, and we're told it was dreadful. Slaves, blood magic, demons eating babies out of their cradles for all I know. So when the new rulers saw a chance to bind us permanently, they took it." He smiled, bitterly. "Even put it in our church teachings that mages went to our version of Heaven and made the Maker turn away from us, so we get blamed for that, too."

Bob snorted. "And naturally all the slaves and blood magic and nasty demons completely disappeared as soon as the empire did? And none of the mages who've got themselves possessed since then were at all inspired by their poor treatment, I'm sure."

"Oh, of course," Anders confirmed readily. "To be fair, they did end slavery."

As long as you didn't happen to be an elf who fell into the wrong hands,anyhow, but Anders was not the world's most aware individual on such matters.

"Just not so much the rest of it. And that's what I always think, too. People wouldn't be so desperate they'd start summoning demons if you let them live their lives."

"I believe we're both preaching to the converted," Bob answered wryly. "In my experience, if someone's doing something so massively stupid as wiping out their own mind, it generally means they're desperate."

"Probably, but I'm always happy to do that kind of preaching," Anders acknowledged with an actual smile. "You mentioned your world has a governing body for mages too. What do they do to keep people from going bad?"

He was actually curious; he could imagine a world without the Circle, but even an idealist had to acknowledge some mages needed something to keep them in line.

"They make sure everybody knows the law, and the consequences of breaking it. Which can be dire, depending on the offence and one's reasons for it." Bob sighed.

"If anyone's caught breaking the law, there's a trial and sentencing. I spoke a few years ago at the trial of a friend. He'd used black magic to kill somebody. Accidentally and in self-defence. He's currently on a sort of probation - if he's caught using black magic again, he'll be executed. Until then, the Wardens - our police - keep an eye on him."

"So like anyone else who breaks the law, except a separate system," Anders nodded. "That actually makes sense. What we do -- the longer I stay here the more barbaric it seems."

"This is where as a responsible adult I'm supposed to say, 'I'm sure they have their reasons', but your world's system mostly seems idiotic and counterproductive to me." Bob shrugged. He was a dreadful responsible adult. "I can't pretend our system is always the best or always works, but I suppose at least they're trying."

Anders made a face. "Thank you. If you'd been that kind of responsible adult I would have stopped trusting you."

"You trust me?" Bob was slightly taken aback. "You barely know me."

Anders smiled briefly. "To give me good information as a teacher, anyhow. I'm not saying I'm going to put my life in your hands at the moment. But if you supported the Circle I wouldn't even trust you that far."

"Oh, good," Bob answered, relieved. "It's never good to be too trusting. Or, well, hardly ever. I'll try to steer you right, though."

Magic Box, Sunday, 01/11

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