Nico and Catseye - Doing Magic

[x-catseye.livejournal.com]

Backdated to Friday

Nico and her familiar head out to the woods to perform some transfiguration spells on woodland creatures.

Bouncing along next to Nico as the young women navigated their way through the woods on their way to what had become their magic-practicing-clearing, Catseye tried to decipher a book she was carrying, her attention split between the book and the path. "How come you do not use a magic wand to make magic the way witches in books do?" she asked Nico curiously.

Balancing the small cauldron in which she carried some books, Nico turned to look at Catseye, a confused expression on her face. "Well, some wizards use wands, and I guess I could use one as well, since they kind of make the whole channeling magic deal far easier, but it's not my thing." She already had a staff anyway, and that was way cooler than any tiny piece of wood. "It also sounds like cheating. For example, when I use my Staff of One? I don't need to focus at all, and I can do things that make Amanda cringe." Making her mentor tense and obviously considering blasting her through a wall wasn't precisely her idea of healthy, so she had avoided it.

"Channeling magic? I do not understand?" the catgirl answered, the confusion on her face mirroring Nico's. "Channeling means focus and you do not need to do that with your staff? Is that right?"

"Hm...channeling is like focusing; think of it as if magic was water, and the wand a hose, so..." Nico realized she was about to make even less sense. "Eh, doing magic without a wand could be seen as throwing the water with my bare hands, which is harder to do right? But some people are so good with magic they don't need the hose." Nico nodded, feeling she was making a point, somehow. "Some people have really big hands...in the metaphor." Yeah, it kind of made sense. "Yeah, the Staff of One makes channeling magic ridiculously easy, so I don't even get tired when I use it."

Catseye nodded at the explanation. "I understand. But your Staff of One is evil yes? So if you got a wand that was good would that make your magic be good too?"

Stopping in what seemed to be a considerable wide open space, Nico set the cauldron. "Well, yes, the Staff of One is pure evilness, but even when I don't use it, my magic is evil; actually, I can do good things happen with the Staff, because of how powerful it is." Stopping to take a breath, Nico thought about how true her words were; apparently you needed to be ridiculously evil and powerful to be able to do good things in her world. "You could say that my essence is evil, because of my all the crap my family has been pulling since way too long in the past."

"Well I do not think you are evil just because your family is evil," Catseye pointed out with a determined nod. "What magic are you going to do today?" As Nico's familiar, Catseye had made it her job to be as informed as possible about Nico's magic and the spells her friend attempted.

Nico shrugged. "Neither do I; actually, I think there is more than that but...well, I'm not sure." She was in a good mood, which meant she didn't feel like saying out loud that maybe it didn't matter her family was the way they were, since she was evil because the world sucked. "Well...have you read the Harry Potter novels? I was thinking on that potion that makes people look like other people? I think I can do something like that, with the books and the training I've received so far. Maybe focusing on changing a part of someone...I don't know." Along with the books she had taken, the cauldron had a number of spices and materials. "It should be fun?"

Catseye shook her head vigorously, nearly sending herself pitching into the cauldron. "No I have not read those novels! But if they are about magic and people turning into other people they sound like they are good! How can you change a part of something?" she asked curiously. "Which part would you change? What would you change it in to? Who are you going to change?"

Nico shrugged, a small smile on her face. "Well, in those books, magic is like, different; if you have a wand, go ahead, but the wizards there can't do magic without their wands, or at least, they suck at it." First she would need water; creating some rain via magic was the best idea, and she hoped her training could help her to control the spell, even a little if possible. "Eh..." Turning towards Catseye, Nico frowned a little. "That's a pretty damn good question. I was thinking something like changing the eyes, or probably an arm, or stuff like that but I didn't think through it, hmmm...what would you like to change in yourself, just for a little while?"

"Nothing!" Catseye retorted with a scoff, "I am perfect the way I am!" She looked in the cauldron, as if new eyes or arms were waiting at the bottom of it. "If it is just for a little while though I would like to see what it is like to fly with wings. Can you change me or should we start with a rabbit or bird to change into something first so you can practice?"

Nico grinned, feeling a little envious at her friend for being happy just the way she was. "Yeah, practice would be the best course of action." The place they had picked had some logs, which Nico piled together quickly, muttering something about not being able to use the electric stove she had on her room, and making a fire; the clearing was big enough they could do their cooking in the middle without causing a fire. Extending her hand over the now empty cauldron, eyes darkening. "Niar.", came as a whisper. A small black cloud seemed to appear under her hand, small thunder and lightning making some noise, and then water started to fell from it. A lot of water. Once the cauldron was more or less full -it wasn't too big, so it was easy to carry and fill anyway- she turned to her books, and then to her friend. "Familiar dearest? Could you please find some small animals? I guess they would probably need to be alive for this to work though."

Catseye nodded emphatically and shifted to BigCat form, springing off into the woods. She returned several minutes later with a rabbit dangling from her mouth by the ears and a squirrel held firmly in her prehensile tail. She stopped in front of the cauldron, spitting out the rabbit from her mouth and clamping a front paw down on its tail before it could hop away. Then she shifted back into girlform, still holding both animals, though she picked the rabbit on the ground up by the ears with a hand. "You are not going to hurt them are you?" she asked Nico curiously. The catgirl had no qualms about eating animals for food, but she wasn't hungry right now, so it seemed wrong to kill them.

Nico blinked. Did changing into something else hurt? "Eh, no? As far as I've managed to understand about this, one changing would feel weird, but nothing like pain, I'm sure of that. After all, this potions are white magic-based, so they are meant to enhance and protect, not damage the target." She would be extra careful with what she was preparing anyway. Looking at the water getting hotter, Nico opened a thick book, sitting next to the cauldron.
"And now, for the ingredients..."

While Nico mixed the ingredients and concocted the potion, Catseye let the animals she'd caught go, because she didn't want them being agitated to death while waiting for the mixture to brew, and amused herself by shifting into BigCat and catching more animals, bringing those back, letting them go, waiting a little bit for the potion, and repeating the process several times. Finally, she returned with another rabbit and another squirrel and shifted back into girlform, trotting over to the cauldron with the animals in her hands and peering inside. "It looks ickybad," she commented, wrinkling her nose. "I have never seen a colour like that before. Is it finally ready?" Since she had no idea how the potion was supposed to work, she held the animals out over the cauldron. "Should I throw the animals in?"

Nico frowned. "Yeah, it's not supposed to be the kind of thing we can define, and no, please don't throw them in!" That would be Very Bad, since she had no idea if the animals would merge, or just die, or mutate into a giant squirrel-rabbit hybrid hungry of mutant flesh, or any flesh. "But it's ready. Now we..." Nico placed some of the potion on a small crystal vial, and then pulled some hair from the squirrel's tail, giving it an apologetic look. "Don't tell Doreen alright?" And then she placed the fur in the vial, which seemed to bubble and change in tones, until taking the same color the squirrel fur had. "Now me make the rabbit drink this, and it should become a squirrel for some minutes."

Intrigued, Catseye shifted the squirrel to her tail and wrestled with the rabbit in both hands to get it to open its mouth, ignoring the bites she was receiving on her hands as she did so. She held its mouth open long enough for Nico to pour some of the potion in, then held its mouth closed and rubbed its throat so it would be forced to swallow. Her eyes went wide when the rabbit began to turn a reddish-brown colour, its body shrinking and its tail elongating as she watched. Its squirming increased and shock of watching it change had Catseye letting it go, where it shot off into the trees. "Wow! Wowwow! You did it Nico! You changed it into a squirrel!" She transferred the original squirrel back into her hands and held it out to her friend. "Can we make the squirrel be a catgirl if we put some hairs from my tail in the potion?" she asked curiously, since they didn't have the rabbit to take hairs from anymore.

"Huh, I actually did", mused the goth as she watched the rodent escape. The potion itself wasn't too strong, which meant the rabbit would stay as a squirrel for some minutes before changing back. Or so she hoped; if a giant squirrel or something like that attacked the school in the coming days, she would take all the blame, unless Doreen had been messing with Mother Nature, which was unlikely. Also, the fact she had managed to get something magical done properly encouraged her greatly. "Well..." Nico scratched the back of her head, trying to get her ideas straight. "The potion works on a magical basis, since it's pretty hard for science to actually come with an explanation of how a rabbit's genes turned into a squirrel's for some minutes and then changed back; the potion kind of ignores this kind of stuff, but I don't know if it's strong enough to change a rabbit into a person with mutant abilities." Nico didn't know if Catseye was more cat than person, or if the fact she wasn't entirely one of them was an issue. "As I see it, the rabbit might turn into a purple cat, a purple cougar, a person that looks just like you but without any of your cat-like, err, features or a perfect copy, but I really really really can't tell for sure."

She didn't mention the rabbit could simply explode or something. Oh. "We could even end up hurting the rabbit; in this Harry Potter novel, the potion went wrong when someone accidentally used cat fur instead of human hair, but I don't know if the potion I made can go over the animal-only transformation...Oh, I know; why don't you turn into a cat and I use that fur?" Then the risks were lower, she guessed.

"I think that will be fun to try!" Catseye answered, absorbing all the information Nico was giving her about how the potion worked and what it might do. "If the rabbit is being hurt by the potion I can just eat it so it will not hurt anymore," she pointed out to Nico with a shrug. She put the rabbit back in her tail and shifted to BigCat, standing still so Nico could take a few hairs from her back, then shifted back. "Owowow. I almost wish the rabbit does get hurt doing the change so I can eat it; I am veryveryhungry from changing so much," the catgirl complained, though she didn't really mean it about wishing the rabbit got hurt. "But I think eating a rabbit that has drank a potion might be a Bad Idea," she amended upon further thought, remembering what Nico had said about the uncertainty of the potion's ability to transform things.

Ohmygod, she wants me to turn the rabbit into yet another giant cat. Well, she hoped this didn't end with her trying to fend off a massive feline with bunny instincts to save her life. Nico repeated the same process of filling the vial, and when she put the hair, it turned into the exact same shade of purple; funny how that worked. "Alright, here we go", announced as she put the content of the vial on the rabbit's mouth with the girl's help. "Now leave it on the ground...woah!" The rabbit indeed shifted to a big, purple cougar, and Nico quickly placed herself behind her friend. "I hope it just runs away?"

Catseye eyed the second cat with a predator's gaze, standing protectively in front of Nico. "It worked..." she murmured, shocked. "You made a BigCat! Nico you are the bestest magician in the world!" The cat began to amble out of the clearing and Catseye turned to look at her friend, keeping the cat in her peripheral vision. "I think I should follow it in BigCat form to make sure it does not do anything dangerous," she announced. "Do you want to come with me? You can ride on my back? And then we can make sure it is not in any pain and we can see how long the potion lasts before it changes back into a rabbit?"

"Well, yeah, I did..." The realization of her success got her into she same kind of shock Catseye had experienced. "Eh, I'm pretty sure there are better ones around", said with a smile as she blushed. Making magic without getting someone hurt...well, it was refreshing. "Yes, it sounds like a good plan; once it changes back we can examine it to know if it's alright; I hope it's alright. And then we can, eh, get something to eat?" Somehow eating the poor bunny didn't seem like the right thing to do for Nico, but she would oblige if Catseye wanted to.

Catseye's eyes lit up. "Burgers?! I bet you could make burgers out of magic if you wanted to yes?" As far as she was concerned, Nico was the best magician in the world- except maybe for Amanda. "But I think regular burgers would be very delicious too yesyesyes!" As Nico's familiar, Catseye wanted to make sure that her friend didn't do any dangerous magic that would harm anyone, and she didn't think making burgers would hurt anybody, but she also had a lot to learn about magic if she was going to be a proper familiar and the catgirl thought maybe she'd learned enough for today.

The good thing about potion-making was that it didn't take much magic itself to do, but Nico had the feeling she had pushed her luck enough for the day. "Regular burgers for now; I still need to perfect the magic burgers spell", joked as she looked back at the cauldron; once they were done chasing the rabbit-cougar they would need to clean up. "Alright, let's catch out bunny and get back some we can pick up our things and get going; I'm sure we can force someone do make burgers for us."

"We do not have to force," Catseye giggled, "I can drive us to the Burger Shack! The burgers there are almost like magic."

She needed to get a driver's license sooner or later. "Awesome, then let's get done with this and have a taste of that almost magical hambuergers."