trade my soul for a wish

[from_scratch]

This is a successor to "call me maybe", which is getting crowded.

Cam is dipping a grilled cheese sandwich into a bowl of tomato soup when he feels the summons. He goes ahead and grabs it. Doesn't even drop the sandwich.


with Mark (kappa)

with Adanya (Aestrix)

with Sable (kappa)

with Ari (andaisq)

with Metella (kappa)

with Miles (kappa)

with Isabella (Eva)

with Steel (Rockeye)

with Daphne (Maggie)

with Edie (Maggie)

Comments

[from_scratch]

"Mm-hm."

Towards and down, down, down.

[sturdycoldsteel]

Italian practice! She speaks Italian (slowly and carefully, to pronounce everything right) when giving final directions.

"There is the Opri-Nel big road. I took a left two road past that house... Then I took the trail that passes the hill that looks like a lumpy pear... A-ha, I see the flat rock I made to test that spell." Point.

[from_scratch]

And Cam lands near the rock. When they have exited the ship, he considers it thoughtfully, then makes a tarp and a layer of sod that blends in with the landscape over it. "That should do for now unless it's obvious in bluestream or something."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"It's... Not obvious something's there. But it does look a bit odd, stream-wise. Maybe put a few bushes and flowers up and it'll fill in with insects and natural noise."

She notes the condition of her circle, how much it's decayed in the few hours since completing it. Then she starts packing up her gear and tent.

[from_scratch]

Flowers, copied from local incidents. Decorative shrub.

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Good enough. Let me destroy what's left of my thing enough that nobody can copy it."

She does that. "Time for a hike. Three miles until we're somewhere I can fly with the bluestream."

[from_scratch]

"Will it be conspicuous if I fly?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"No. You have wings. Fully functional wings are pretty uncommon compared to cosmetic butterfly wings or something, and yours are an unusual design, but they're a known thing. I'm only walking because I don't trust myself to not fall out of the sky yet."

[from_scratch]

"All right then. Lead on. Have an Italian children's book." He presents her with a book, and then he takes off and takes his computer off his belt loop to read while circling over her.

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Ah, I'm no good at reading while walking. Flying, sure, but not walking. Thanks for the thought."

She walks downhill.

Soon she's on a rough dirt road smaller than either party's wingspan. "Here we go. Any tips for a first-time flyer?"

[from_scratch]

"Move your wings together. You might want a running start. However good you are at reading while flying, don't do it on day one." He lands; his computer becomes surrounded by a nice-but-battered-looking leather case and goes back on his belt loop. "The important thing is to keep air under you with lots of surface area and glide as much as you can; flapping is tiring and also cuts your surface area for part of the time you're doing it, so only flap if you have to."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I can do a flying start, even better."

She hovers five feet up, leaning forward, wings out, and pushes forward at near-running speed. The wings tense as she drops the hover. She glides forward for a bit, then pitches to the right and suddenly stops herself.

"Okay. That was a glide, kind of. Do I need to be going faster?"

[from_scratch]

"I... can't easily tell by looking when you're using magic for it or not, which doesn't help me give you tips. I can take off from a still start, it's not necessary to be moving, a lot of people just find it helps."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I'm nervous, is all. It took a while to master flying by stream, and I took some spills. That old hesitation is coming back."

She shakes her head and tries again. This time it seems to work better. After a jump-start and a few hard flaps, she's ascending steadily. "This is very strange! How do I turn!"

[from_scratch]

"That's when you stop moving your wings together. Which way do you wanna go? That wing goes down, other one goes up -" He get a bit ahead of her. "Watch." And he smoothly swoops left.

[sturdycoldsteel]

"If I fall out of the sky, appear something squishy below me, please." And stop flapping, get used to gliding for a bit - woah the wind changes, well of course it does - and she dips one wing, raising the other, to slooowly bank left.

[from_scratch]

"All right." He flies nearby, not close enough for his wingbeats to foul hers.

[sturdycoldsteel]

She ascends some more, and practices sweeping left and right a little more sharply. "I was right. This is thrilling! With the stream you're just pulling yourself along, but this is like - playing soccer against the air or something."

[from_scratch]

"This metaphor is new to me."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I don't know. I'm not really thinking about words much right now. Hey, you can see the mainway from here. Opri's over there, shall we head in that direction?" Point.

[from_scratch]

"Sure."

[sturdycoldsteel]

Fly, fly, fly. She does a shallow dive, but holds off on any more daring tricks. "Say, what're you reading?"

[from_scratch]

"More advanced theoretical magic stuff."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Ah. I've probably read half of anything on construction or thermo-kinetics you find. Half of my job as civil service administrator is researching better spells and double-checking everyone's work. Is it giving you any ideas on how to make my employees' jobs redundant? Because that would be pretty great, given how many people are tied up in this. Maybe we can get the compulsory labor repealed if workforce needs drop far enough."

[from_scratch]

"I mean, maybe, what do your employees do with themselves?"