blood sweat tear

[imeanforever]

He's moving her to a different court to see if it'll improve her attitude. She's allowed to fly. It's been a long, long time since she was allowed to -

She is only allowed to fly to her destination, not anywhere else. She notices that she is not where she should be, that she cannot progress to where she was told to go, and she careens out of control when her wings won't flap anymore, and she crashes.

---

with Miles (kappa)

with Minus (kappa)

Comments

[imeanforever]

"Things like... could you make a gate settle instantly. Could you affect harmonics."

[kingsidecastle]

"I don't know enough about either phenomenon to say."

[imeanforever]

"What would you need to know to perform the experiment or make a guess?"

[kingsidecastle]

"Well, if a gate is anything along the lines of a portal, and settling is a thing they naturally do, I can think of a few ways I might try to speed one up about it but I'd have to test them on an actual gate to find out whether they worked. Confirming my guesses about what they are and what you want me to do with them would help me be more precise. As for harmonics, I don't even know enough to know what questions I should be asking."

[imeanforever]

"Harmonics are an invisible feature of locations which affect how sorcery is done. I can map them by watching them affect something simple," Promise makes a fairylight, "and in Fairyland I can typically cast reasonably well without doing that, but here the harmonics are thoroughly bizarre for some reason and I have to map an entire space grid by grid to be sure I can get a more complicated spell to go right." Pause. "It would also be interesting, if potentially disastrously complicated, if you turned out to be able to affect fairy orders, but those are not sorcery."

[kingsidecastle]

"I'd be interested in experimenting, but we're getting a little off-track; I should cast Tea's sunlight ward before moving on to your interesting theoretical problems," says Castle. "Royal, a little help with the setup?"

Once again the pieces are reconfigured. Tea gets his glass knight and glass bishop, on his left and right respectively instead of in front and behind. The steel pieces stay put. The river stone and outer circle come back. Castle and Royal sit back down in their accustomed places.

Castle talks to the river stone again. This time, instead of leaning on the cloak metaphor, she emphasizes the 'champion' aspect of Tea's knight association - inherent strength, resilience, being armoured against harm. She talks about night and day, light and shadow. She talks about the relation of a book's cover to its pages.

Appropriately, Tea gets illusory plate mail rather than illusory wings. It shades him from the light of illusory noon, and though fire burns around him, it does not touch him.

And then Castle thanks the stone and all the images fade away.

"There, you're all set."

[eversomuchfun]

"Thanks," says Tea. "A vista of unimaginable convenience opens before me."

[imeanforever]

"There goes all I did to adjust my sleep schedule so he could show me around."

[eversomuchfun]

"Sorry. I can stay mostly nocturnal if you prefer."

[kingsidecastle]

"Anyway. Promise, while we're all here, would you like a pawn promotion in case you're interested in participating in future spells?"

[imeanforever]

"I prefer operating in daylight all else being equal," Promise tells Tea. "And sure, why not."

[kingsidecastle]

"All right. Tea, back to the spectator seats with you."

Castle and Royal clear away the protective items and Tea's glass pieces from the floor diagram.

[eversomuchfun]

Tea returns to the spectator seats.

[imeanforever]

Promise goes in the place where people being chessed go.

[kingsidecastle]

"Thoughts on your preferred piece now that you know more about how they work? Should I explain some of our metaphors in more detail to give you a sense of what they say about us?"

[imeanforever]

"Explaining the metaphors might help, but I think queen. ...You could make a case for knight. It is not necessary to bother making a case for queen."

[kingsidecastle]

"Noted," she says. "Well, for the record: I am very solidly rook-as-tower. I'm calm, reliable, strong-willed, and protective. Spell-wise, my metaphor integrates well with protective wards, and can make a solid foundation for building most anything else. I find it easier to construct spells that are supposed to take hold and then have permanent ongoing effects than spells that are supposed to change something from one state to another but not stick around to make sure it stays that way."

[summa_iniuria]

"I'm a queen/king split who works okay as a knight," says Royal. "Since a lot of what Castle does are wards, I spend a lot of time being queen-as-sword and king-as-crown, but those aren't my only metaphors. My queen side is active, powerful, kind of the superhero type; it relates to how I handle my role as the Slayer. My king side is more of a planner or administrator, strategist rather than tactician, the person who arranges for things to get done rather than going out and doing them. And there's also a balance of masculine and feminine going on there."

[kingsidecastle]

"I admit to being amused by Tea's bishop-as-book since he's named after a book character," says Castle. "Bishop-as-book can mean someone who likes books, or someone who's a more abstract intellectual type generally. Bishop-as-arrow can mean freedom of movement or restlessness, in a more narrowly focused way than the queen and without overt connotations of power. A generic knight makes me think of... I'm having trouble articulating it. Royal, what's your interpretation?"

[summa_iniuria]

"Knights are the weird piece," says Royal. "They're powerful in a way that's different from the power of any other piece on the board. A generic knight comes across as eccentric, a lateral thinker, someone who thinks and acts their own way and doesn't follow the crowd. And that armour - Castle was right about the 'champion' interpretation, I think. Some protective instincts in there. But mostly I'm reading the weirdness."

[eversomuchfun]

"I cheerfully admit to extensive weirdness," says Tea.

[imeanforever]

"...I may be slightly knightier than I was anticipating considering the crowd whence I came. Not sure. I still think queen."

[kingsidecastle]

"We'll see," says Castle.

She lays out the pawn-promotion square for Promise out of pale wooden pieces. Queen in front, knight behind, rook to the left, bishop to the right. The steel outer square remains in place. Castle and Royal sit back down.

Castle makes her speech to the pawn about possibilities and choices.

The queen reacts instantly, flaring with a brilliant light. The knight throws bright sparks that don't form a clear image. And against all predictions, the rook flares too, dimmer than the queen but with equal clarity.

Floating in front of Promise, the light from the queen forms a sleek fountain pen wearing a beautiful crown woven from branches and leaves.

And all around her, the light from the rook forms an enormous tree. Her tree, to be specific, not the one she started in but clearly one of the same kind. Its faint, translucent wood and bark manages to give a strong impression of unwavering solidity. Its image rises majestically through the ceiling, up and up to a towering height.

Castle doesn't let the surprise throw her off to any measurable degree. She thanks the pawn and lets the spell fade.

Then she says, "Well, that wasn't exactly in line with expectations."

[imeanforever]

"That was - not my exact tree but a tree that could be one of mine."

[kingsidecastle]

"Interesting," says Castle. "It definitely seemed very... you-focused. I'm not sure how easily I could incorporate your rook-as-tree aspect into a spell to protect anyone else, but I have high hopes for how well it would integrate into a spell to protect you. Is there anything in particular you'd especially like to be protected from?"