xp_logs | Wednesday afternoon, Jamie and Amanda

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Jamie seizes a moment of Amanda's free time for a long-overdue talk, which actually goes rather well. And then they adjourn for snacks.

The sun was shining, she'd finally made it out of the pyjamas and into proper clothes, and the link was a warm, fuzzy sensation in her mind, rather than the gaping void of the previous week. Amanda knew she had a silly grin on her face, but couldn't be bothered worrying about it. She felt light, as if an invisible burden had been lifted from her - for the first time in her life she could look forward to the future with something like hope, knowing that no matter what happened, Rack ws gone and she was finally free. So when there was a knock at the door, her tone was positively cheerful as she looked up from the spell book she was reading and called: "'S open!"

Jamie poked his head in the door. "Hey. Got salad for Frank, and those Pinky and the Brain tapes if you still want 'em, and, uh . . . you doing anything right now? Because I was wondering if that talk was still on the table."

"Yeah, c'mon in." Amanda lay the book aside and untangled herself from her customary Indian-style sitting position on the bed. She grinned. "Better get this talk out of the way before anythin' else happens, eh?"

"What, apart from everybody wanting to see you because you're back from England, or hanging around Manny all the time, or hopping off to LA, or being unconscious, or everybody wanting to see you again because you're not unconscious anymore?" Jamie smiled wryly. "Yeah, I figured I'd better jump on the first five minutes I saw."

"What can I say? Apparently I'm popular 'round this place. No accountin' for taste..." She took Frank's greenstuff from him, and waved him towards her desk chair, carefully not reacting to the mention of Manuel. "Pull up a pew."

Jamie flopped down on the chair. "Right. So. Magic." He stared at his hands for a moment, then looked back up at Amanda. "So . . . figure it'd be pretty dumb to try not believing in it now. I don't understand it, but hell, I don't understand my own power. And I read all that stuff you said in your journal, so I know . . . you don't exactly have a choice about it. I guess . . . that I want to know most is, all these demons, and love potions, and getting hooked on it, and . . . is there something that makes it worth it?"

Amanda put the lizard food down on the overflowing desk and sat back on her bed, her back against the wall and her legs pulled up so she could rest her chin on her knees and wrap her arms around her legs. "I don't understand it all either," she began thoughtfully. "Least, I thought I knew it all, an' then everythin' happened an' I went back home an' found out just how much I don't know about it. An' if yer'd asked me before that if there was anythin' that made it worth it, I would have given you some guff about how it gets me what I want. But it ain't about that, not any more." She sighed. "Sometimes I think if I'd been given a choice, I wouldn't have gone into it, but then Rom tells me sometimes the power chooses us." Her nose wrinkled at that. "Sounds like a bloody fortune cookie sometimes, does Rom. But I think that's why I'm back here, so I can learn t' do some good with it, since I can't exactly forget everythin' I know already." Another face, this one amused. "An' I bet you didn't expect me t' go on half as much as that."

"No, I--actually, it's kinda reassuring that you're thinking about it that much. Because, y'know, it kinda seemed like you weren't much, before. Or, it does looking back, anyway, because I wasn't really thinking about it like that at the time." Jamie paused for thought. "That . . . wasn't really what I wanted to know, though. Is it ever . . . just fun, I guess? Is there stuff you can do that you can just . . . do, when it isn't hurting anybody, and it isn't hurting you, and it isn't . . . I dunno, ripping giant holes in the karmic continuum and calling forth giant tentacle beasts from the Dungeon Dimensions, and it isn't even doing some good for people, it's just . . . fun? Just regular non-worldshaking stuff?"

Amanda blushed a little, embarassed at misunderstanding him. "Oh. I get you now..." She smiled. "Yeah, there's fun stuff. Like flyin' - I ain't got the power t' do that any more, but maybe eventually they'll let me have more so I can again. An' there's a whole bunch of silly little spells, light shows an' glamours an' such, that don't have any use, 'cept t' practice with. Thing is, I've got t' keep in mind the consequences of what I do, make sure there ain't any ill effects, otherwise that bloody threefold rule kicks in an' I get a karmic kick in the arse. But there's still room t' play - even Doc Strange lets me do that." She looked thoughtful for a moment, as if mentally calculating something. "'M still not back t' full strength, but I should be able to..." She incanted something under her breath, and her werelight appeared, a golfball-sized blob of greenish light bobbing happily in the space between them. "Jamie, meet George. That's the first spell I learned, calling Light. I was only five, so I gave it a name, an' it kinda stuck with me."

"Oh, neat." Jamie leaned forward to examine the light. "George, huh? Is George gonna do anything weird if I touch it?"

"Nah. Kind of tingles, like static electricity." Amanda's fingers wove invisible patterns in the air, and the light floated over to Jamie, hovering only an inch or two from his nose. "'S sort of handy when you need t' go t' the bathroom or somethin' in the dark, but not much else. When I was little, I was scared of the dark, an' George here used t' make it better." She realised what she'd confessed to, and blushed again. "You don't have to tell anyone that part - me rep's already fucked, but I'd like t' keep some dignity, such as it is."

"Heh. Don't worry about it." Jamie poked the light with one finger, and grinned as the hair on the back of his hand stood up. "Nifty. I had a Snoopy nightlight, myself. Not so much with the following around, though, so I had to sprint back and forth to the bathroom to avoid the evil monkeys. I'm still not sure why I was convinced there were evil monkeys lying in wait, but you believe some weird things when you're five."

"Evil monkeys, eh?" Amanda grinned. "Think I would have preferred those t' the monster under me bed - Rack used t' tell me he'd summoned somethin' to get me if I tried t' run away." Amanda shrugged. "Still, fucker's wormfood now, thanks t' Pete." She gestured again, and the light dodged away from Jamie's finger playfully. "Is it just you? No brothers or sisters?"

"Sounds like he deserved to be, assuming the worms don't get sick . . ." Jamie amused himself briefly playing tag with the light. "No brothers or sisters, no. Bunch of aunts and uncles, and a lot of cousins." He grinned. "Family reunions get pretty hectic."

Paige tells me 'bout her family sometimes, sounds the same." Amanda smiled a little wistfully. "Must be nice, havin' family 'round all the time. An' with yer power, you wouldn't need brothers, would you?"

"Eh, they're not around all the time--my parents were, yeah, especially after I manifested and got stuck on the farm almost all the time . . . everybody's kinda spread out, I've got some cousins in Hawaii, my grandma's in Vermont, there's a couple in Ohio, some in Michigan . . . and then there's my Uncle Harvey, who lives in a Winnebago. I think he's in Colorado right now. Or possibly Montana." Jamie shrugged. "My power . . . doesn't really work like that. Alone in six bodies is still alone."

"Still, you know where they are," Amanda pointed out. She beckoned George back over to her, and extinguished the light by closing her hand over it. "An' I gotta say, I don't really get how yer power works. Ain't seen anything like it before. So it's just you, sort of spread out into multiple bodies?"

"Except when it's not." Jamie snickered at her expression. "Seriously . . . yeah, most of the time when I'm running dupes around they're all one mind, and I'm just scarily good at multitasking. I can't really explain very well what it feels like, but . . ." He flashed a mischievous grin. "If you ever want to see Doc McCoy at a complete loss for words, ask him how I work. And I'm told I look really weird telepathically." He paused. "A few months ago--middle of December, actually, wow--I started being able to let the dupes run off their own brains, for a while anyway. Lets me run more of 'em, but it's hard to let go, and I kinda get a headache after a while. It's like not thinking of the white elephant." He cocked his head curiously. "What about you? I mean . . . how does magic work?"

"Ah, the thousand pound question," Amanda replied with a chuckle. "Right, well, it's easiest t' think of it as energy transfer, using yerself as the conduit.Ordinary magic users either use their own natural power, or the power in objects or places, an' use it t' make stuff happen. The words an' the smelly components an' all are a framework, tell the energy what t' do. It takes a lot of work an' training t' teach yer body how t' channel it properly, an' that's only if you have the talent in the first place. Now me, well, I'm different." She shrugged. "Me mutant power is t' do naturally what takes someone like Rom years t' learn - I absorb mystic energy without even tryin'. The magic's what I do t' get rid of it, which is why I can do a lot of stuff now that only high-level users can do. Which is sort of me problem - too much bloody power without the trainin' t' handle it."

"Kind of like Alex, only with different kinds of explosions." Jamie scratched his chin. "Where's the power come from, though? And why does it listen to you when you talk to it in weird extinct languages? Or is that one of the things Buffy got wrong?"

"Yeah? I should catch up an' have a chat with him about it - he might have some ideas of controllin' how much I absorb..." Amanda grinned suddenly. "'Specially now we ain't carryin' enough angst between us t' make our own black hole. An' yeah, Buffy got it right with the weird languages - I know... six, an' none of 'em are used any more, 'cept the Latin, an' that's for church types an' academics. I think it's somethin' t' do with the fact magic's so old - practically pre-dates language, or so Strange tells me. As for where the power comes from... well, that's hard t' explain without sounding like one of Jono's hippy mushroom eatin' types."

"Makes sense, I guess. It's old, it's cranky, it wants to hear what it remembers. And hey, give it a shot, I'm probably less down on hippy mushroom-eating people than Jono is."

Amanda giggled. "I'm gunna have t' remember that one for Strange - old an' cranky, that's brilliant." Unfolding herself and tucking one leg under the other, she pondered. "I dunno how much you know 'bout the pre-Christian religions, pagans an' all that, but it all boils down t' nature-worship, in a way. There's energy... in everythin'. The earth, the trees, rivers, the ocean... everythin'. 'S more concentrated in some places - you ever hear of ley lines?"

"Sounds like the Force. I think I'd be terrified if you pulled out a lightsaber, though." He thought for a minute. "I think I've heard of ley lines, sort of. Kind of like an irrigation system for magic, I thought."

"Don't tempt me - that'd be wicked fun." She nodded. "Yeah, that's it. Ley lines are where the energy flow runs, an' then you get places like Stonehenge where lots of lines meet. Sacred places - I get a hell of a buzz out of those. This place in Mexico was one of those. Lots of magic users there, too."

"I do a pretty good Yoda impression. Dunno whether that's a temptation or not, though. So . . . going with the river metaphor, you get them all flowing into a pond, and when you fall into the pond, you kind of . . . drown?" He paused. "That sucks, actually. So Doc Strange is your swim instructor, kinda?"

"Better you 'n Rom in theYoda outfit," Amanda snickered. "An' yeah, that's a really good way of thinkin' of it. Most times I can sort of tread water, not let it overwhelm me overmuch, but sometimes it's more than I can handle. That demon dimension 'Yana got taken to, that was like one of those beaches in Hawaii, you know, the ones with the twenty foot tall surf waves? Nearly blew the top of me head off."

"I have trouble imagining anyone related to Mr. Wisdom as two feet tall and green." Jamie grinned briefly, then sobered. "I still . . . kinda feel like crap for being sacked out when that happened. I mean, yeah, probably nothing I could've done, but . . . who knows, you know? Maybe five or six extra bodies . . . or hell, however many I could've thrown in there . . . could've made a difference."

Amanda leaned forward, her face serious. "Jamers, the only thing you could've done was get yer dupes killed. An' I don't know if that's ever happened before an' how you'd deal with it, but you were well out of it. I'm just fuckin' lucky I didn't haul anyone in that couldn't handle 'emselves - as it was Remy an' Shiro were lucky t' get out. Demons are nasty fuckers."

"Happened once." Jamie shrugged. "We were doing disaster relief during the hurricane, and this kid ran out and would've gotten caught under a collapsing wall, only I saw him leave and went after him. Wasn't fun. I'm better with my powers now, though." He smiled slightly. "And this is 'Yana. If tossing dupes away like Kleenex would've given her a better chance of not getting stuck in demon central, I would've found a way to deal with the aftermath. Probably better I didn't get the chance to find out, though, I guess."

"I dunno. Maybe if you had been there..." Amanda shrugged unhappily. "I tried me best, an' it weren't good enough. If I'd had me head on straight, if I'd studied harder, knew more stuff, maybe I could've stopped her from bein' stuck in that place."

"'If milks no cows,'" Jamie quoted dryly. "Saying of my grandpa's. Not like we can turn back the clock--and you've got your head on straight now, and I'm not dealing with the screaming heebie-jeebies every night again, and 'Yana is back, even if she's . . . different. Maybe 'if' only would've made it worse."

"Maybe." Amanda was to say something more, but decided against it. She had nothing to go on but her suspicions with Illyana, and not even those were entirely reliable, given she'd been coming down off a serious magic high the last time she'd spoken to the girl. Then her stomach growled loudly and she made a face. "'M starvin'. You up for a kitchen raid?"

"There would have to be something pretty seriously wrong with me if I weren't. Also, I know where most of the good snacks are hiding, so excellent timing on your part." He smiled. "I'm glad we talked, you know? Think I understand things better now."

She nodded, smiling in return. "Same here."