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Post by Mahrak on Jun 21, 2020 21:20:31 GMT 1
"See, it's when you say things like that I think you've actually heard stories before." Mahrak was only half-joking. "You and your brother, you sound like elves out of legend or a tall tale, living in a world were magic can talk and hunt. Magic never did anything on its own where I'm from." The traced the distant pattern of the brightest stars with an outstretched hand, the motion mindless and familiar, even though the stars weren't. "Maybe we're somewhere in-between your world and mine? Since we've got a magical rock pulling elves out of thin air but no caves or trees have tried to eat us yet." Again, only half-joking.
"Ah." The sound escaped Mahrak like a gasp at Flint's next revelation. "So you and your brother were soul siblings as well?" Better explain that. "Soulmates are elves who share furs, either two Recognized elves who've made a good match and stayed together, or two or more elves who've chosen to share soul names as well as furs. Soul siblings are... well, they're people who've shared soul names but might not feel the need to share furs. Some do, but I'm guessing you and your brother didn't." He added on a playful wink at the end, hoping to lighten the mood.
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Post by Flint on Jun 21, 2020 22:12:55 GMT 1
“Heard not, but... lived. We watched the stories come real and learned.” Being cautious and together prevented many mistakes, every single one capable of taking a life. Looking up at the stars he tried to find known patterns, imagine them as if seen from some other star. “Maybe. I'd tell you, if anything starts to feel like the magic at home. Wouldn't want any of you to walk into that.” A serious matter for him, knowing that most of the others likely weren't prepared to encounter magic spoiled this way.
How a sharing of soul names made one a special kind of siblings escaped him, but maybe that was because they'd always been close, had no other relations to compare it to. Blinking a bit irritated at the wink he answered: “Well... of course we shared furs. It's cold without a sun. The times we could find some at least, little animals still having fur that is fur and being safe to hunt alone... but they help trap my warmth.” Gesturing to the little bit of melted snow around him. “There's fire in me, just not making light.”
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Post by Mahrak on Jun 21, 2020 22:40:10 GMT 1
"Let me know and I'll follow your lead." Mahrak couldn't quite take it seriously and it probably showed in his tone. Not that he thought Flint was lying, he just couldn't picture the ordinary woods and snow around them coming alive and eating them or talking.
Flint's comment about his brother and furs took Mahrak a bit aback. "You shared- Oh, oh." Of course. If the only people you'd known were your mother and brother, with no real hope of meeting anyone else, what point was there to learn about joining? "You don't know what sharing furs means, do you? I mean, the other kind of sharing furs, the one that has nothing to do with sleeping."
The body-warmth observation made sense to Mahrak. "Of course there's fire in you," he said, matter of fact. "You're a fireshaper and our ancestors were creatures of fire and change! It's great that some of us at least got to keep that. My watershaping doesn't do much for me when it comes to warmth, but it keeps me from drowning. Which, to be fair, has come in handy on a few occasions. Daring kits play on thin ice far too often." He'd been one of those kits, but he didn't feel like admitting that right away, rather painting himself as the daring hero.
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Post by Flint on Jun 22, 2020 10:20:41 GMT 1
It sure was hard to imagine a world like this when you'd never seen any magic gone wrong, Flint wishing very much that it'd never come to it. While Sapling and he had worked together to keep each other safe, both of them had been aware of every single risk they'd encountered in their life. Keeping someone safe who might not know would be very hard alone, a lot of these things nothing you could fight, only avoid.
“No...?” he replied hesitantly, Mahraks reaction having him doubt if he wanted to know what other kind of sharing was meant. Living with others was complicate enough without adding any more strange concepts. In a world at the brink of dying, reproduction wasn't very important, the things that'd make it to the end ones that could do so on their own strength.
Flint hadn't know that their ancestors were made of fire and change just as much, that news a comforting surprise. It meant his magic wasn't there because he'd gotten mixed in with some already. The idea of walking on ice, falling into water had him shudder. “I'd never step on ice.” A sensible fear, what with his natural warmth melting even thick one easier. “And there's things in the water – it moves too much not to change, so there's always some of it alive.” Nothing personal here against Mahrak and his watershaping, just a natural evasion of what could easily snuff out his fire as well as experience. Obviously he couldn't swim well either.
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Post by Mahrak on Jun 22, 2020 21:59:24 GMT 1
Mahrak let out another long whistle, this one with a teasing edge to it. "Oh you are in for some fun discoveries," he said with a wide grin and a wink. "Don't stress over it, just know it's something fun elves can do that's far better than sleeping." He didn't feel like this was the moment to explain to a grown elf what joining was, no matter how tempting. He found Flint attractive and wouldn't have minded doing more hands-on teaching, but that wasn't an ice-wall you scaled in one night.
"Being careful around ice is wise." The rhyme was an old one, and one Mahrak had ignored more than once. "There is usually fish and seals in the water, sometimes whales if you're lucky. If this place is anything like my home, the water is no more dangerous than the land," which wasn't to say it was safe... "I think I heard someone say you could sense magic. If that's true, wouldn't you know if this place had all those magical dangers your home has? Does this place feel, eh, bad-magical?" He honestly wanted to know. It seemed like any old mountain and forest to him, but maybe he was missing something?
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Post by Flint on Jun 23, 2020 12:20:16 GMT 1
Fun had been a rare luxury in his life, making dyes and paints to leave a mark on the world all he allowed himself. There would be a time and place for it here, once he settled in more and he only smiled at Mahraks words, let the topic be for now. He'd come back to it in a quiet moment, with no others likely to walk in on them.
“Don't trust anything” he gave back a warning of his own, simpler to be wary of all when no rules could be applied. “Not living beings. The water... being things that it not once was, but only in places, not all of it. Not to be seen until it does something – like the waterhill.” This scene he'd shared, for lack of explanation. His world had much more of this. Regarding his magic feeling, Flint shook his head a bit. “It's not that simple. I can't use it, it just happens – a shiver, as if you're being watched, at the edge of my mind. Like the stars you only see by looking slightly away from them.”
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Post by Mahrak on Jun 23, 2020 21:55:00 GMT 1
"By not trusting anything, does that mean I shouldn't trust you either?" Marhak asked, playful but with an edge of seriousness. He couldn't picture living as Flint described, worried that the world itself would swallow you up and not spit you back out. Sure, ice could be treacherous if you walked out on it blind, but it was dangerous in a mindless way, the same way a storm or an avalanche was.
"That's a poetic way to put it." He was genuinely impressed; poems weren't something he had much talent for himself but he'd always enjoyed them. "By 'can't use it', do you mean you can't control it? Has something magical been able to sneak up on you without you noticing?" As always when he met a fellow magic user he couldn't help but overflow with questions. Comparing training and competing was half the fun of magic, in his option.
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Post by Flint on Jun 24, 2020 7:51:29 GMT 1
„If there's any reason for it, don't.“ he replied fully serious. “Doubt yourself too.” As much as he loved Sapling, if there would've been signs of him becoming infested with magic not his own, of him changing, Flint would leave him behind. Go a safety distance away, watch for a while without interacting, hope to be wrong. Though Flint couldn't imagine how life would go on without his brother, how long till he'd give up and join him as part of the landscape.
Poetic was another word he didn't knew, all the strange things in his world only calling for comparison when nothing else fit. Making up new terms to describe what it was. “No, nothing ever sneaked up on me – but I can't go looking for it. I'll know when magic happens and only then.” Shrugging a bit he added: “There was always something going on in my world, so it was more about differing between the ones that would be a danger, the clever magic, and the one that just was there.” It was nice doing this, like the discussions with Sapling, endless hours of comparing what they'd seen.
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Post by Mahrak on Jun 27, 2020 15:18:40 GMT 1
Now that was eerie. Mahrak let out a nervous laugh, unsure of how to take Flint's deadpan order to doubt even himself. How could anyone live like that and stay sane? "...I'll keep that in mind," he managed to say at last, much quieter than his previous brash and loud tone.
He didn't want to questions Flint's intentions - they'd just met, he couldn't really claim to know the elf one way or the other - so he didn't say anything more, only focused on the next topic of their talk. "Well, that's good then. I'm guessing you're not sensing much magic roaming around here, so if you do suddenly you'll know it's a bad sign, right?" Mahrak grabbed a fistful of snow and held it up, frowning at it in concentration. As the glow of magic surrounded his hand the snow began to shift ever so slightly, forming a ball. Shaping frozen water was always much harder than directing the flow of running water, but it was good exercise and now a good test. "Could you sense me doing that? I mean, I know you saw it, but did you feel it?"
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Post by Flint on Jun 27, 2020 18:11:44 GMT 1
Given the ghastly topic he didn't comment on it further, magic a more interesting one anyway. “Magic itself isn't a bad thing. It kept us alive, the lands...” There wouldn't have been much left harsh as the environment got, cold and dark, irregular and too little people left behind to help. Magic had become his planets lifeline and while there were many dangerous things, he accepted that. “I did. A moment ahead in fact – not that I know what you'll do, but a bit of warning time ahead if it turns out dangerous.” Just enough to start moving away of the danger, a headstart that could save his live. “Don't you feel it?” Flint asked back a bit puzzled, conjuring a flame on his outstretched hand. Sapling always had been capable of it and even Ivy seemed to know without looking. To only rely on his eyes to spot magic sounded like a difficult thing.
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Post by Mahrak on Jul 4, 2020 22:07:27 GMT 1
Good to know Flint didn't think magic itself was terrible. That would have been strange if it had been the case, since Mahrak had seen him do magic, but there were elves out there in the world (or at least back home) who did tell you to do as they said, not as they did.
"So, kind of like a shiver down your spine before you slip or someone throws a snowball at you?" He watched Flint light a flame in his palm, fascinated by the sudden appearance of fire and the faint magical glow around it, making it even brighter than a regular fire without being blinding. "I can feel that the fire is warm and I can tell that it's magical. Well, more than from seeing you make it, I mean. It has a faint shine about it that's more than regular fire. But I don't, eh, sense anything. I wouldn't even know what to try and feel."
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Post by Flint on Jul 5, 2020 16:17:06 GMT 1
No one ever had thrown a snowball at him, but he got the meaning and nodded. “The shine is only there as long as my magic fuels it – if I'm to set it onto a bit of wood, let it burn on it's own, it'll go away.” Just like Mahraks water was nothing else unless moved by him. Having no words to describe what happened on it's own he snuffed the flame out again, instead going for sending glimpses of scenes:
Mahrak, just a moment earlier shaping the snow, the knowledge that he was about to do something a split-second before it happened. Climbing the tower right before the Beacon took him and having the inkling that it'd start changing under him soon, trying to outpace it. A familiar scene, tending to a fire in the cold, dark night, a tickle along his back, a warm glow from the inside, that told him Sapling was growing something – turning spot-on towards his brother, smiling, identical to him except for the tattoo and shorter hair.
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Post by Mahrak on Jul 11, 2020 16:49:34 GMT 1
"I know what magic looks like, I just can't feel it," Mahrak said, a little gruffly. He might not have run into the horrors of magical mishaps that Flint had, but the signs of magic being done were something even the tiniest kitten knew how to spot. "If every drop of water I shaped kept glowing afterwards all of the Far White would have been shining like the sun even at night."
Flint's sending cut him short. The sensation meant to be shared was almost lost in the strange images of Flint's life; a mountain that wasn't a mountain, changing its own form. It did more to convince Mahrak of Flint's tales than his words had, left him stunned and wide-eyed. But he shook it off, not wanting to discourage any future sharing - just because Flint's home had been full of terrible danger didn't mean such danger lurked here. How else could his own people have gone generations without knowing of such terrors?
"Huh, that felt strange. A little like doing magic, but not completely. How long have you been able to sense magic like that?"
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Post by Flint on Jul 11, 2020 22:12:03 GMT 1
Flint had no idea what others did knew, had worked hard for every little bit of knowledge about his own magic through trial and error in a land that did punish missteps harshly. “But you're not making the water. Just move it.” Sure he was able to only influence existing fire all the same, but the one kindled in his palm had no outer source unless he gave it something else to feed upon.
“Always” he replied with a shrug. “Me and Sapling and Ivy and anyone she knew before too. Never would've grown up safe otherwise. We knew to avoid the bad magic before we understood why.” With the years it refined the feeling, though it was nothing he'd ever tried to conscious call up, trusting instinct to set it when needed.
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Post by Mahrak on Jul 15, 2020 18:44:05 GMT 1
"Of course I don't make the water," Mahrak said, unable to imagine that Flint wouldn't know how magic worked in general, as he seemed so knowledgeable on the subject. "I think only High Ones could manage that. But fire isn't water." The last he said as if it explained everything.
"That must have been useful, living where you did." Mahrak grasped for a way to lighten the mood, to avoid the topic if lost loved ones. "So, what do you do for fun?" Not a completely safe topic, seeing as any leisure activities probably involve Flint's brother, but it could hopefully continue on to shared interests and new experiences to share.
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