August Event Log
Speed of Lightning, Roar of Thunder
The latest rage in Diatu: portable lightning generators! These little spheres, compact enough to be held in the hand, can launch a miniature bolt of electricity out with flair and pizzazz and surprisingly nonlethal effects. Getting zapped is like getting bit by a horsefly, not much worse.
Naturally, all sorts of sports and pastimes have grown up overnight. The new sports of Lightning Tag, Lightningball, and Zap Each Other With Lightning Till Someone Collapses Because We're Tough Guys Dammit routinely break out on campus, while people who think they're funny can't go ten seconds without bolting someone's posterior. So what's your role in this? Eager participant? Sportsman? Buttzapper? Or is your idea totally new and wild?
And Break the Laws That They Should Fear
A rash of thefts plagues Anastara and the Magicademy both. Nothing huge, nothing heavy -- little things, like food, jewelry, trinkets and knickknacks... because the perpetrators are rats. Large and obviously clever rats, who have somehow wormed their way through defensive enchantments and mundane security both with the fearsome tenacity of their species. Look around at just the right time, and you might spot a rat scrambling for the safety of the caverns, something clutched in its jaws. Maybe something of yours?
The Cry Goes Up Both Far and Near
Finals draw ever-closer, and right about now students start realizing that maybe they don't understand this or that; maybe they could do with some outside material; maybe a second viewpoint would come in handy. Thus this week brings the Diatu Book Exchange! Outside of the Great Hall, students of all sorts brings books they no longer need and exchange them for books they do. The Book Exchange goes past merely scholarly works, though; time has grown it to encompass books of all sorts, from genre fiction and unlikely stories about seemingly ordinary kids attending an engineering boarding school to comics to philosophical works and more. Come to trade, browse, or lust -- there's something here for everyone!
Research on the SUNDERDOG! (Sunderdog!) SUNDERDOG! (Sunderdog!)
The research team has learned one important thing: Conflict is the key. The Codification of Sundering is the door.
Somehow, of late, something has changed the nature of Sundering magic. They do not know why or how, but the very existence of the concept of Sundering magic now causes summoning anomalies that focus on other worlds, resulting in the transport of the Sundered here.
This is, well, bad. The Codifications should not be slipping, not unless something has the power to completely overwhelm the entirety of human thought and will...
To test theory more deeply, this month's Research has the Sundered locked in a room with another Sundered, a pair of chairs, and nothing else. The goal is to observe the warp and weft of magic around them with minimal interference from any other source save perhaps each other. So who did you get shut in with, and how long can you just sit and talk without going crazy? |
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diatu2019-08-07 02:47 pm
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"Why would your family like you dead? Though I've my own experience with that, my stepbrother was jealous of me--he felt I had more sway with the true Viceroy than I had--since Zenos had named me acting viceroy in his stead." She was certain it wasn't true--she'd been named such to crush Doma due to her anger at and hatred of her homeland. But Asahi had never been the most rational of individuals.
"That is kind of you, though! I usually do not wish to speak of them, but should I choose, well." She chuckled quietly, then. "I almost think I would rather hear you speak of your world."
cont'd spoilers
Her question, however, had been put off but would be impolite to completely ignore. His grimace said he was debating, and it also said It's complicated.
"As for why my kind--well. My family is powerful and has long been in a feud," not a lie, exactly, "with a rival family. It had come to a head, as it were, and they wanted violence, so Crowley and I were trying to prevent the whole thing from blowing up something spectacularly...and we stepped on a lot of toes. Ruffled a few feathers on both sides of the line. I believe they'd like to pretend it didn't happen right now, since it was probably all a bit embarrassing for them," and if he looked a little pleased with himself here, it's because he was. "But I'm not sure how long they'll continue to leave us alone."
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Oh, complications. The gods knew that such things were something that Yotsuyu could understand completely, and so the woman waited patiently. Either the explanation would come--or it would not, and she found that she was content with either. Their acquaintance--and she hoped, friendship--was new. Things need not be rushed.
"Crowley? A friend of yours?" She hoped. Yotsuyu knew that by no means she'd admit that of, say, Gosetsu--and yet the old samurai might have been the only one she'd had, at the end. It was why she paid tribute to him in the name of her familiar--and the rather large blue racer remained coiled around her waist, as was his usual wont. She pondered Mr. Fell's words, brows furrowed a bit.
"Well, there is the fact that they may be thrown off the trail for a time, considering you are here now, and not there." Not that Yotsuyu had any clue of the scope of this 'family feud'...
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"Crowley is my dear friend," and it still felt good to say so to someone else, after denying it far too long. A smile took form of its own accord and if he had mentioned his demon in an unconscious hope of talking more about him, well... Aziraphale was often guilty of such selfish little indulgences. "We were supposed to be hereditary enemies, you know," he admitted, tickled to pieces over recounting their history, "but we got on like like a house on fire instead and we've been friends since forever." Even if the Angel was often lousy best friend, but that didn't need mentioning to someone he's just met. "We dine together, go for long drives in his car [1], stay in for drinks in my bookshop--"
His smile faded to distress behind his eyes. Got on like a house on fire... Her words were not as comforting as she might have intended them to be. Sure, they might be thrown off Aziraphale's scent for a while, but there was still someone presumably left in London, alone, with an empty bookshop and a Bentley that couldn't out-speed the forces of Heaven and Hell forever.
"I'm not there. But he is. I've left him all alone."
[1] They'd be longer drives if Crowley would learn to SLOW DOWN.
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"Perhaps something might be done about that, then. Though what, precisely, I am uncertain of. Still...if anything should come to you, I should definitely be more than happy to give it my full attention." Not to mention pulling what strings she could to call in favors to get ahead...
"That does sound like quite the friendship, though! I think I am a bit jealous!" Because she'd never had a companion like that on Hydaelyn, and no one here was quite the complete confidante that Crowley sounded like he was to Fell.
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His mind was ticking away at that now. Perhaps something might be done about that, indeed. But what? It wasn't like he could just call Crowley and ask him to come over. Or send him a post. Ask him to stop by for a luncheon and then just ask him to stay around. Crowley had always just managed to show up when needed, even if not when expected--except that once with the bookshop, but he couldn't be blamed for not being there for that; that was entirely Aziraphale's foolish mistake with the open transportation circle...
Oh. But if anything might work--
No. It was dangerous. And if he made a mistake, he might summon Hell upon this world. And if he succeeded, he would effectively have outed Crowley as a demon to a score of beings with magical powers--far stronger in their magic than Aziraphale and Crowley would be.
But. Maybe a teeny spell, if he were really careful? No one had to know. Surely there were wards he could put up, though holy water might be too risky to bring along.
"I appreciate that, dear girl. I will have to consider my options in this. I really do appreciate the offer, but I do not want to enter into anything lightly." Or to brainstorm ideas in the room where their whole purpose is being observed.
Despite himself, Aziraphale felt proud that the friendship was at all worthy of jealousy; certainly no one in Heaven or Hell would appreciate the two feeling belonging in each other's company. Besides, someone should be jealous that he has Crowley. After all, Crowley was truly a good person and a great lot of people had missed out on calling him a friend. Yes, Aziraphale was extremely lucky to have this friendship and he hoped, now that Armageddon was a thing of the immediate past, that he would have many eons to properly appreciate it himself.
"I have faith you'll find someone like that," he said, patting her hand. "You're young, and such a friendship takes time...and Crowley and I have had, if nothing else, a great deal of time. And it's a challenge, learning to allow yourself to BE yourself with someone, and to allow them the room to be that in return. It's all time and acceptance, because it means seeing all the ugly bits of a person along with the good ones, and loving them wholly."
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At Fell's kind words, Yotsuyu shrugged. "Perhaps. Perhaps I already have, and it simply hasn't occurred to me, because I've little experience with that sort of thing, in truth!" A sad fact, perhaps, but a fact nonetheless. Though if anyone came close to that, it was likely Eleven, but she wasn't certain. There were familial overtones, there--and while Yotsuyu's blood family had been utterly terrible, Eleven was far from that. A simply wonderful young man, in her book.
"I cannot even say I know how to love, properly. My family, if you could call it that, certainly was rubbish at teaching that, and they showed me none at all. It was simply what could I do for them? How could I advance their fortunes? Selfishness at its finest." Though she'd been learning here. At least how to not be terribly selfish, to others or in her own right.
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To have little experience with familial and platonic love was a sad truth to a being of love, but he had little experience with a true friendship before Crowley either. Among the angels, he had had his purpose, and when Aziraphale overstepped that role, he had been summarily put in his place. Without Her love instilled in his creation, he wondered sometimes would he even have recognized love when it was extended to him in the form of an enemy?
"I don't think that any of us know how to properly love, even those of us who were made for that. We're just at various stages of the endless lesson. Everyone's just confused and scared and hiding behind our armors. Love is terrifying. It really is. You feel so very fragile and exposed and silly. It's all a bit much. But it's rather like riding a bicycle. Or a horse. ...Or anything, really," he added, as an afterthought, realizing she might not actually have either bicycles or horses in her world. "It's big and scary and you fall off a bit. Rather a lot, actually. Make a mess of your trousers." Err... He started to turn a bit pink. "Metaphorically." He cleared his throat and continued. "In ANY case, it is learned. And rather worth the effort of learning."