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xp_logsYet more teenage awkwardness from Forge, and some ruminations on the science of magic.
As tempting as it was to stay a bit longer in Manuel's room - and more specifically, his bed - Amanda slipped out once he'd fallen asleep and headed down towards her study in the library. She was on the 'energetic' part of her cycle, as was usual after a crash, and she had work that needed doing. Important work. Humming one of the Sex Pistols' classics, wearing one of Manuel's shirts over the top of her jeans (it came down to her knees and the neck showed the first three lines of the scarring), George the werelight bobbing around her head in time to the 'music', she barely noticed the newcomer until she was almost on top of him.
Forge backed out of the hall closet, brushing his hands against his jeans. Looking up and down the hall, he smirked and flexed his biceps slightly. Okay,so a box of 30-J transistors wasn't exactly heavy lifting, but he'd managed to fill the unused linen closet nearly completely with all his swag from his latest shopping trip.
Pushing the last box of solder into the closet, he walked backwards to shut the door, then let out a yelp when he was nearly trampled by another of the mansion's late-night strollers.
"Whoah, fuck!" Amanda backpedalled, shielding spell flickering up momentarially, blue energy crackling between them until she realised it wasn't another demon attack, or even Le Beau jumping out at her. "Sorry, mate, didn't see you there." The shield flickered out, the amulet around her neck starting to glow as she recharged. Considering the boy in front of her, she made the obvious conlusion. "Forge, right?"
Forge nodded, pushing up off the floor and checking to make sure he hadn't landed on his glasses. British, piercings, quite female. Had to be "Mandy".
Attempting to recover some degree of dignity, he brushed his shirt off again, reaching in to turn the closet light off and shut the door. When he looked over and saw her still standing there, he froze. "Um," he mumbled, "sorry?"
Not quite as brash as he'd sounded on the journals... "Actually, I should be sayin' that. For that stuff on yer journal - got a bit carried away. Didn't mean t' embarrass you." She gave him a brief, apologetic grin. "Amanda." The werelight 'peeked' out from behind her head, and bobbed over to investigate Forge almost curiously, and Amanda rolled her eyes. Asgard had definitely given that spell a mind of its own. Or possibly it was Miles' influence.
Forge looked at Amanda's hand, then gave her a quick one-pump handshake. "Forge." Idiot, she knows that. He shrugged. "No big thing. Your boyfriend's a dick," he blurted out.
"Yer'd be surprised how many people think that," she said, rolling her eyes a little. "Me included, sometimes. He's got... issues. He's workin' on it." The grin reappeared. "I tend t' give him a mental kick in the arse when he steps over the line. As she spoke, there werelight grew bolder, floating over to Forge and circling around his head. "Oi, you, stop that," she told it, and the light came back to her, where she extinguished it by closing her hand over it. "Sorry - spell's got a bloody life of its own."
"Spell?" Forge asked, trying to remember which one Amanda was again. Right. The witch. "Oh. Yeah, your 'thing'. Power. Thing." He paused, silent for a moment before curiosity got the better of him. "How's it work?"
Amanda had been waiting for that, from Forge's questions in the journals. Leaning back against the wall, hands stuffed into the front pocket of her jeans, she explained: "The simple version? Me mutation is t' absorb mystic energy. Sacred sites, ley lines, occult objects... that sort of thing. I use the power t' do magic - the spells give me a structure t' push the energy through." Amanda paused, waiting for the inevitable. Either the protest that magic wasn't real, or the joke about rabbits and hats. Or possibly Harry Bloody Potter.
"Oh, you're an engine," Forge announced, grinning brightly. "Take in one form of energy, process it out as another. Not too different from the telekinetics or the EM-projectors, then." That was a relief. He had been expecting some mumbo-jumbo preachy stuff or some of that new-age Wicca crap that about half the freshmen girls at his high school had suddenly found themselves devotees of.
"Could you do that again?" he asked, waving his hand around his head. "The light thing?"
"George?" The name slipped out and Amanda blushed a little. "Um, yeah, sure." She snapped her fingers, and the werelight reappeared, looking, as much as it was possible for a small ball of greenish light, a little miffed at the sudden extinguishing of earlier. With a flick of her fingers she sent it back over to Forge. "First spell I learned. I was five an' scared of the dark, so I gave it a name," she said diffidently, hoping to shrug off the absurdity of calling a ball of fuzzy light 'George'.
Forge reached into his pocket, slipping his glasses on and peering intently at 'George'. He prodded the little ball of light with his finger, watching it bounce away and swing around almost playfully. "Amazing. Radiant, low luminosity. Of course it's something a child would make," he mumbled, remembering his earliest creations, usually motorized vehicles to carry his action figures around.
He slid his PDA out of its carrying case, clicking a quick digital photo of the werelight. If he had his multimeter handy, he could check it for electrical resistance, maybe get a clue as to what kind of power it was feeding off of. Nodding to himself again, he reholstered his PDA and folded his glasses up again. "Thanks."
"Not a problem." Amanda was amused, and a little intrigued. His aura was radiating 'curiosity' at a level it practically overwhelmed everything else. "You like findin' out how things work," she said, tilting her head slightly at him. "That's yer power, ain't it? T' find out how somethin' works an' make it better?"
"Yeah," Forge replied, "in a nutshell. Sort of like mechanical intuition, they say." He held up his artificial hand and flexed it. "When I first got it, this was just a hook and pincers. Didn't like it much, so I fixed it."
He frowned, tilting his palm to shake out a loose thread from the cuff of his shirt. In the dim light from Amanda's spell, the prosthesis looked positively skeletal - metal bones connected by plastic knuckles and wire sinews.
Metal wasn't Amanda's thing - it was the hardest thing to work, and even with the study with Nathan, she still was having trouble with it - but she caught the underlying tones. "'S a definite improvement," she said. "Metal, technology... I don't tend t' mesh with it very well. Blocks the magic. But there's some who can - I've got a mate, back at the coven in England, who's a technomage. Uses magic t' meld with electronics, or somethin' like that."
Forge wrinkled up his nose at that. "Don't think I'd like that," he decided. "Too much like cheating. I mean, that's the beauty of it. You've got laws and rules to follow - Ohm's law, leverage, current - the end result's all in how you go about it." He waggled his fingers, then closed his hand and looked over at Amanda. "I suppose your magic's the same way, kind of like a science of its own. Rules and patterns you've got to follow to get the desired result, right?"
She nodded. "Rules out the bloody arsehole," she said ruefully. "The spells 'emselves are the patterns, what shapes the magic. You can do it without the words an' the weird ingredients an' stuff, but it takes more effort, an' you don't always get the result you wanted unless yer really good or the spell's one yer've done a lot before. The rules... Mostly t' do with ethics. Magic's got a lot of room for bein' a bastard, so there's rules t' discourage that. Threefold rule's the big one - whatever you do, if you do it with bad intent, it comes back t' you threefold. Doesn't stop some, tho'." She rubbed a little self-consciously at the scarring the was visible. "If you backread on the journals enough, you'll see what I mean."
Rolling his eyes, Forge chuckled. "I think I got the gist of it from the journals. Frogs, love potions, demons? That sort of thing?" He cocked his head, noticing her scars for the first time, and a second later noticing that the neckline on that shirt was really low. As he blushed deeply and tried to find something, anything else to focus on. Not that the shirt was indecent, it was just large on her. Expensive-looking, too. Definitely a guy's shirt and oh my god...
Coughing suddenly into his hand, Forge began trying to find the closest way out of the hall that suddenly seemed far, far too cramped and crowded.
Amanda blinked. "What...? Oh." She grinned, this time completely unapologetically. "Hey, it distracted him from yer journal, didn't it?" She pushed herself back off the wall. "I'll leave you to it, Forge. Before you combust or somethin'. Nice talkin' t' you."
"Nice." Forge echoed, backing away down the hallway. Trying not to trip over his own feet, he just hoped Kyle was already asleep and not all inquisitive again. The LAST thing he wanted was to talk right now. Just a good night's sleep where there were no crazy sex witches in men's shirts. Was that too much to ask?
As tempting as it was to stay a bit longer in Manuel's room - and more specifically, his bed - Amanda slipped out once he'd fallen asleep and headed down towards her study in the library. She was on the 'energetic' part of her cycle, as was usual after a crash, and she had work that needed doing. Important work. Humming one of the Sex Pistols' classics, wearing one of Manuel's shirts over the top of her jeans (it came down to her knees and the neck showed the first three lines of the scarring), George the werelight bobbing around her head in time to the 'music', she barely noticed the newcomer until she was almost on top of him.
Forge backed out of the hall closet, brushing his hands against his jeans. Looking up and down the hall, he smirked and flexed his biceps slightly. Okay,so a box of 30-J transistors wasn't exactly heavy lifting, but he'd managed to fill the unused linen closet nearly completely with all his swag from his latest shopping trip.
Pushing the last box of solder into the closet, he walked backwards to shut the door, then let out a yelp when he was nearly trampled by another of the mansion's late-night strollers.
"Whoah, fuck!" Amanda backpedalled, shielding spell flickering up momentarially, blue energy crackling between them until she realised it wasn't another demon attack, or even Le Beau jumping out at her. "Sorry, mate, didn't see you there." The shield flickered out, the amulet around her neck starting to glow as she recharged. Considering the boy in front of her, she made the obvious conlusion. "Forge, right?"
Forge nodded, pushing up off the floor and checking to make sure he hadn't landed on his glasses. British, piercings, quite female. Had to be "Mandy".
Attempting to recover some degree of dignity, he brushed his shirt off again, reaching in to turn the closet light off and shut the door. When he looked over and saw her still standing there, he froze. "Um," he mumbled, "sorry?"
Not quite as brash as he'd sounded on the journals... "Actually, I should be sayin' that. For that stuff on yer journal - got a bit carried away. Didn't mean t' embarrass you." She gave him a brief, apologetic grin. "Amanda." The werelight 'peeked' out from behind her head, and bobbed over to investigate Forge almost curiously, and Amanda rolled her eyes. Asgard had definitely given that spell a mind of its own. Or possibly it was Miles' influence.
Forge looked at Amanda's hand, then gave her a quick one-pump handshake. "Forge." Idiot, she knows that. He shrugged. "No big thing. Your boyfriend's a dick," he blurted out.
"Yer'd be surprised how many people think that," she said, rolling her eyes a little. "Me included, sometimes. He's got... issues. He's workin' on it." The grin reappeared. "I tend t' give him a mental kick in the arse when he steps over the line. As she spoke, there werelight grew bolder, floating over to Forge and circling around his head. "Oi, you, stop that," she told it, and the light came back to her, where she extinguished it by closing her hand over it. "Sorry - spell's got a bloody life of its own."
"Spell?" Forge asked, trying to remember which one Amanda was again. Right. The witch. "Oh. Yeah, your 'thing'. Power. Thing." He paused, silent for a moment before curiosity got the better of him. "How's it work?"
Amanda had been waiting for that, from Forge's questions in the journals. Leaning back against the wall, hands stuffed into the front pocket of her jeans, she explained: "The simple version? Me mutation is t' absorb mystic energy. Sacred sites, ley lines, occult objects... that sort of thing. I use the power t' do magic - the spells give me a structure t' push the energy through." Amanda paused, waiting for the inevitable. Either the protest that magic wasn't real, or the joke about rabbits and hats. Or possibly Harry Bloody Potter.
"Oh, you're an engine," Forge announced, grinning brightly. "Take in one form of energy, process it out as another. Not too different from the telekinetics or the EM-projectors, then." That was a relief. He had been expecting some mumbo-jumbo preachy stuff or some of that new-age Wicca crap that about half the freshmen girls at his high school had suddenly found themselves devotees of.
"Could you do that again?" he asked, waving his hand around his head. "The light thing?"
"George?" The name slipped out and Amanda blushed a little. "Um, yeah, sure." She snapped her fingers, and the werelight reappeared, looking, as much as it was possible for a small ball of greenish light, a little miffed at the sudden extinguishing of earlier. With a flick of her fingers she sent it back over to Forge. "First spell I learned. I was five an' scared of the dark, so I gave it a name," she said diffidently, hoping to shrug off the absurdity of calling a ball of fuzzy light 'George'.
Forge reached into his pocket, slipping his glasses on and peering intently at 'George'. He prodded the little ball of light with his finger, watching it bounce away and swing around almost playfully. "Amazing. Radiant, low luminosity. Of course it's something a child would make," he mumbled, remembering his earliest creations, usually motorized vehicles to carry his action figures around.
He slid his PDA out of its carrying case, clicking a quick digital photo of the werelight. If he had his multimeter handy, he could check it for electrical resistance, maybe get a clue as to what kind of power it was feeding off of. Nodding to himself again, he reholstered his PDA and folded his glasses up again. "Thanks."
"Not a problem." Amanda was amused, and a little intrigued. His aura was radiating 'curiosity' at a level it practically overwhelmed everything else. "You like findin' out how things work," she said, tilting her head slightly at him. "That's yer power, ain't it? T' find out how somethin' works an' make it better?"
"Yeah," Forge replied, "in a nutshell. Sort of like mechanical intuition, they say." He held up his artificial hand and flexed it. "When I first got it, this was just a hook and pincers. Didn't like it much, so I fixed it."
He frowned, tilting his palm to shake out a loose thread from the cuff of his shirt. In the dim light from Amanda's spell, the prosthesis looked positively skeletal - metal bones connected by plastic knuckles and wire sinews.
Metal wasn't Amanda's thing - it was the hardest thing to work, and even with the study with Nathan, she still was having trouble with it - but she caught the underlying tones. "'S a definite improvement," she said. "Metal, technology... I don't tend t' mesh with it very well. Blocks the magic. But there's some who can - I've got a mate, back at the coven in England, who's a technomage. Uses magic t' meld with electronics, or somethin' like that."
Forge wrinkled up his nose at that. "Don't think I'd like that," he decided. "Too much like cheating. I mean, that's the beauty of it. You've got laws and rules to follow - Ohm's law, leverage, current - the end result's all in how you go about it." He waggled his fingers, then closed his hand and looked over at Amanda. "I suppose your magic's the same way, kind of like a science of its own. Rules and patterns you've got to follow to get the desired result, right?"
She nodded. "Rules out the bloody arsehole," she said ruefully. "The spells 'emselves are the patterns, what shapes the magic. You can do it without the words an' the weird ingredients an' stuff, but it takes more effort, an' you don't always get the result you wanted unless yer really good or the spell's one yer've done a lot before. The rules... Mostly t' do with ethics. Magic's got a lot of room for bein' a bastard, so there's rules t' discourage that. Threefold rule's the big one - whatever you do, if you do it with bad intent, it comes back t' you threefold. Doesn't stop some, tho'." She rubbed a little self-consciously at the scarring the was visible. "If you backread on the journals enough, you'll see what I mean."
Rolling his eyes, Forge chuckled. "I think I got the gist of it from the journals. Frogs, love potions, demons? That sort of thing?" He cocked his head, noticing her scars for the first time, and a second later noticing that the neckline on that shirt was really low. As he blushed deeply and tried to find something, anything else to focus on. Not that the shirt was indecent, it was just large on her. Expensive-looking, too. Definitely a guy's shirt and oh my god...
Coughing suddenly into his hand, Forge began trying to find the closest way out of the hall that suddenly seemed far, far too cramped and crowded.
Amanda blinked. "What...? Oh." She grinned, this time completely unapologetically. "Hey, it distracted him from yer journal, didn't it?" She pushed herself back off the wall. "I'll leave you to it, Forge. Before you combust or somethin'. Nice talkin' t' you."
"Nice." Forge echoed, backing away down the hallway. Trying not to trip over his own feet, he just hoped Kyle was already asleep and not all inquisitive again. The LAST thing he wanted was to talk right now. Just a good night's sleep where there were no crazy sex witches in men's shirts. Was that too much to ask?
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*snickers*
Date: 2004-10-31 02:52 am (UTC)