picknicking

[dark_light]

There's something unutterably pleasant about landing in a bit of woods in the middle of Nowhere, Manitoba, removing a sandwich and an apple from her backpack and having a picnic before she's ready to move on. She could eat in midair, but it makes it too likely that she'll drop something and find it unrecoverable.

Path's on her knee, and her cloudpine is propped up against the tree next to her.

Comments

[dark_light]

Isabella laughs. Round and round on the spit go the pigeons.

[prodigal_miser]

Pets to shivering daemon continue, until she calms down. She looks up at Adarin with sad, sad eyes. "... We still have to."

"Yes," he agrees.

The daemon makes a sad sound again. Adarin goes back to working on the rock situation, with the kagu still staying close by. Soon enough, he's figured out the specifics of what he wants to do, and casts the spell.

Compared to a witch's magic, it's really not very showy. He says words in a language Isabella wouldn't understand, and then the rocks reform themselves to a nice smooth, round shape, completely flat on two sides - any excess sort of crumbles off. They are the exact same size and shape, with a hole in both for the sake of easily carrying them.

Adarin presents them to Isabella. "Would these do?"

[dark_light]

"Oh, gorgeous," she says approvingly, "I can string them on some silk and have them on my person."

[prodigal_miser]

"Oh, good. It would have been awkward if you'd said that you'd hated them," he says with a bit of a smile.

[dark_light]

"A bit, yes."

[prodigal_miser]

"I actually can change the color of them, if you want me to, now that I think about it. It's pretty easy to do," he muses, looking at the rocks. He's only a little tempted to make them a fluorescent green, but he's supposed to be conserving power for the larger spells he'll do later.

[dark_light]

"Black goes with everything," says Isabella.

[prodigal_miser]

Obligingly, Adarin turns them black. It's easier than shaping them, and barely takes any planning at all. He says something else she wouldn't understand, and they are then black.

"Better?" he asks, holding up the now appropriately colored rocks.

[dark_light]

"Perfect."

[prodigal_miser]

"Oh? So you don't want them to help you with the alethiometer?" he teases. "They're perfect as they are?"

[dark_light]

[prodigal_miser]

Adarin laughs. "Right, right. That will get me booted out of the attic or stabbed. Or possibly both."

[dark_light]

"I won't stab you for not helping me," snorts Isabella. "Witches can no longer get away with murder."

[prodigal_miser]

"You could, before?" asks Adarin, somewhat surprised.

[dark_light]

"Of mortals? Yes. What could mortals do about it?" says Isabella. "That doesn't mean everyone took advantage, but if a witch killed a mortal who wasn't under another witch's protection even as recently as a hundred years ago, she could get away with it. These days mortals have enough technology and witches are integrated enough into the general population that it's not like that."

[prodigal_miser]

"That makes sense. Sad to say it's something of the same in my world, though few do," he replies. "And... What sort of technology do they have to defend themselves?"

[dark_light]

"Security cameras, for instance, so they know who to retaliate against with a wide variety of overwhelming ordnance. Witch magic isn't very good at interacting with manufactured things - we can, it's just harder. And anyone who expects to be a target makes friends with some clan and gets wards put on them too."

[prodigal_miser]

"I have absolutely no idea what... 'security cameras' are," he informs her. "But I can't say I'm sorry that casual murder is more difficult to do."

[dark_light]

"Do you want me to explain security cameras?"

[prodigal_miser]

"That would be fantastic, thank you."

[dark_light]

"A camera is a device that can record a flat still image of whatever you point it at. A video camera can record a whole sequence of events. And a security camera is a video camera that's set up in a store or on a street or something, to have recorded evidence if anything goes on where it's pointed."

[prodigal_miser]

"Oh, alright. That all makes sense," he says, agreeably. "But you said mortals don't have magic? So I'm a little confused."

He does not have matching technology in his world; Isabella might be realizing that.

[dark_light]

"It's not magic, it's - okay, what non-magical thing was most recently invented where you're from?"

[prodigal_miser]

"Hmm," he says, stopping to think. "The one I know best is two pieces of glass that go in a frame to change what a person sees and can be used to correct vision."

[dark_light]

"So you have spectacles. Okay. That's pretty cool, right? And it doesn't take any magic to make. It turns out there are a lot of non-magical things to invent and we have a few hundred years' head start on you guys."