[Sunken Conundrum] Thirst For Knowledge [Flashback] (Bones)

[Kit Rowan]

509 AV, Season of Spring, Day 69 There was something about the Conundrum that brought Kit delight—it was freedom from gravity, from the earth. When she had been very young Kit had spent time here, making fish faces and pretending to be a Charoda with a few other girls before Morcer inevitably found them in the stacks. Now that she had a reason to be here, it was not so different. As she pushed through the membrane and felt new-made gills flare up beneath her shirt, she let herself float up from the ground, blowing air out from her mouth, and smiling as she watched it rise. It pulled around her, embraced her, swirled around her. The library was all like that—suspended by the water in the air, floating a few inches above where it should have been unless it was bolted down, made Kit feel like an adventurer, plundering the depths of a library sunk with Suva, long ago, a collectors of secrets meant to stay secret. Morcer drifted past Kit, raising an eyebrow and adjust her spectacles, and Kit felt her cheeks reddening. The head librarian continued swimming, a long, steady breaststroke, never looking again in Kit’s direction. But all the same, she didn’t doubt that the harpy had taken note of her. Noise carried too well in the Conundrum. So Kit stuck out her tongue at the librarian’s back before going about her business. She kicked through the water and into the stacks, swimming until she could touch the ceiling and drift over the shelves themselves. Kit floated past an old copy of ‘Magic and I,’ and ‘The Circumnavigation of Mizahar passed beneath her as she fingered through the shelves. The cookbooks, the novelty books, the histories—she passed them all, recognizing their places and knowing she wanted nothing to do with them. Kit bit down on her lip and peered over her shoulder—the library was very empty, she heard only the strange water—sounds of her own swimming. She took a deep breath through her gills and escaped in the older books. And these were esoteric things, most written in strange languages, glyphs and pictures and occasionally the common tongue. Kit sank to the top of one shelf and let her fingers slid over the spines of the books there, her shoulders hunched, stopped on ‘Properties of Res.’ The book was large, but seemed light in her hands. She crossed her legs and let herself float up, the book open in her lap. ‘The Res,’ it told her, ‘is not a property in itself. It is an in-between thing; when we release it, the form of the thing is not— Kit rolled her eyes and flipped to the middle of the book. ‘—for to manipulate the Res is to choose, to exert your Will upon it. The novice may be limited in what they may call but a truly experienced Reimancer may take aspects from any one choice and—‘ She made a frustrated sound and flipped through the book again. Where are the pictures?

[Ssafirsotibones]

For a moment upon arriving, Bones wondered why he almost never came here. It was just not a common spot for him... Though his race were notoriously good swimmers. Personally he had not practiced it much, and could do with a bit more training in swimming. Which was often why he came here. Even if he did not find anything good to read, he could still do a few laps inside to stretch out his body, and work on his form. It was good training for your body, and he did his best to keep himself good and strong. A weak dhani after all, was a dead dhani. As gills grew upon him, he moved and pushed off from the ground, starting his swim. His motion was oddly reminiscent of his undulations his tail made when he moved in snake form, each moving in a sweeping thrusting motion, in there turn. He was not all that fast, but tended to keep a steady pace while moving. Looking around, he settled upon the magic section. He browsed through a few different things, trying to find something he could read. He only read common after all, since there was no written form for snake language. He already had some skill in malediction, but he could always expand upon it. Though this section seemed to have more stories of magical history and tales, not actually describing the magic. He was about to go on, when he noticed a story book which caught his eye. Floating for a moment, he started to read an excerpt... ..... The man went after the seer, who had predicted his death. Following her back to her room, he stabbed her in the back, and laughed over her body as she bled out... "So I am going to die am I? Well if you were so able to see the future, how did you not see that I was going to kill you? Can't see your own death?" As he said this, he began to cough. As it picked up, he noticed that he was spitting out blood... Dropping to the floor, he thrashed for a few seconds... Before he stilled... dead... With a smile on her face, the seer slowly died, saying one last thing before she passed on... "I did see it... Which is why I poisoned the candle..." Looking at the book, he saw its title... "Magical Omens, and how not to react to them..." What an odd book.... He did not see anyone near to were he was, but it was difficult for him to use his senses while underwater. They seemed to be dulled in such times as this...

[Kit Rowan]

She found one near the middle of the book, on an unmarked page. This was a special book, she knew; great care had been taken to recraft it, because it was beautiful, and in full color. It was spread across two pages, a faceless, genderless man-shape in the very center. The Res did not come from his hands; it was part of him spread outward from the hand until it covered the whole of the page. It turned to earth beneath him. Fire spread across the page, so real it seemed the pages might burn; made the earth beneath him molten and red, made the air crackle with light. Water and air spun around him, a webwork of elements across the whole, and where it touched it turned to ice. Kit turned the page. To manipulate the Res is more than to create, it is to forge a bond with the elements of the world. For when we hold Res in our grasp, it is kin to all elements, to wind, water, earth and fire all. In that moment between when the Res is conjured from our soulstuff it is simultaneously all and none of what we aim to manipulate. Through it we touch the world as it truly is, pull the air from a man's lungs, draw the earth out of our path. The difference between a doomed manipulator of the Res and a legendary one is in their methods. For the Res' true potential is not found in the creation of things, but in its manipulation of the world that already is. One with the whole world. Kit's turned the page back, let her fingers over where the hand became flowing Res, saw herself there where the figure stood. The corner of her mouth quirked upward. Her father had taught her that Res was not something apart; that it was a piece of her, even when she let it bleed outside. That was why she could control it, he said, shape it. And if this book was right, then in that moment while she held control, Kit was connected to everything that existed. She turned back and tried to read a little further onward, but her thoughts were elsewhere and the text was just too dense. Kit considering earmarking the book, but thought better of it, closing it and shutting her eyes, took a deep breath. Once, her father had used a pinch of res to draw fire away from a candle and it died. Could she do something like that with air? It was worth trying. The thought made her ears perk. She turned wary eyes over the stacks from above; one thing she knew for certain, people liked to look everywhere around them except up. Here she wouldn't be seen unless someone else decided to skirt the ceiling. She saw the shadow of something in the water down the rows of shelves, kicking through. Kit bit down on her lip, held the book tight to her side and pulled herself over to the row next to it. It was hard to swim while she was holding a book, and Kit hadn't gotten the trick of doing it without embarrassing herself, but she had her own mode of locomotion. She grabbed hold of the shelf with her free hand and used it to pull herself through the water until she got to the end of the shelf. Kit peeked over, sure that not enough of her was visible to be seen unless someone looked very close. And while that was true, her bangs and all of her hair that wasn't pulled back floated wild and free in the water, like a bit of rusty-red seaweed poking out of the bookshelf.

[Ssafirsotibones]

Reading on to the next page, he saw a new story... This one was about a seer which foresaw the death of a rich man. So to protect himself, he built a huge castle with stones walls, with himself deep down were no one could get to him. However due to a misplaced foundation stone, a hall collapsed, trapping him inside were no one could get to him, and he starved to death... The question is... if she had not made that prophecy... Would he have still died? Or would he have just died in a different way? Passing on with the book, he placed this one away, picking up one about the basics of shielding, a type of personal magic... He had never really tried it before, but the book said it was a very common form of magic, one which was not to difficult to learn... He knew a bit about magic, and going into the inherent magical ability of something.... Though he usually did it with dead things... This would not be to different though... He just had to get the magic to come out of himself... His djed.... He chose a point of the tips of two fingers, rubbing them together.... He slowly focused on them... Visualizing the res coming out... And to form a thread of it between the two.... He took his time, taking several minutes, trying to get the res to come out, as a single string of djed shield... But he was in no hurry... Though he did notice that someone was nearby.... They must also be looking through the magic section... So he quietly said something, checking if anyone answered. "Hello? Isss ssere sssomeone ssere? I sssee I am not the only one ssstudying magic.... And its many variationsss...."

[Kit Rowan]

Most men were taller than Kit, and she'd made peace with that, but now that she was up close she realized that this man dwarfed her. She was not small and not weak, but before him she felt like a mouse, and that irritated her. His eyes found her, and he called her out with his odd hiss of a voice. Kit hugged her book close to her chest and pushed out from behind the shelf. He didn't strike her as the sort of person who went to study magic—not when he could find a job looking intimidating outside any inn he wanted—but, she told herself, neither was she. He's older, she thought. I bet he's got a lot more practice. But that didn't relax her. Kit's father had warned about the way people thought of magic, their suspicions and assumptions, but his warning was that they were right to suspect. That the craft of wizards had scarred many souls and made them into something monstrous. But her father was dead, and she was a practitioner alone now. "Maybe," Kit said, and caught herself before she bit her lip. She eyed the book in the stranger's hand; shielding. That wasn't something she could do, but she had read a bit about it in her father's book . . . before she got bored. It was of the same sort she did; power, paid for with the coin of the soul. "I'm Kit."

[Ssafirsotibones]

He had thought he had sensed someone, and he was right. A young woman revealed herself, at his saying something... Though he had not really known were she was.... But sometimes a bluff was enough to do the trick... He nodded as she said her name... Another human perhaps? There were so many of them... It was uncommon to see anyone who was not one... Though he had run into a few fellow non-humans. He had chosen a book on shielding for rather mundane and logical reasoning. He did not really know how to use it, but it never hurt to have an extra bit of protection. And he did not really need magic for fighting, as many did, he was skilled enough with his body and a blade that it would just be extra. Also, shielding was one of the less dangerous branches of magic. Looking over that chapter, overgiving was almost unheard of. Instead, you simply lost the ability to expand your shield. Not so bad really. Especially as compared to other things. He looked down at the space between his fingers, were he was trying to slowly form a single thread of a shield... But so far he had no success... He needed to extract the magic from within his body... And put it into the shape of what he needed... He was patient though, and did not rush... As he would eventually be successful... "Kit... Nice to meet you.... Most people call me Bonesss... Ssso you use magic then? I am not all that ssskilled in many things, just a few sssmall tricksss... And what all can you do?" Bones gave his grimace like smile, as he thought of something he could do... Should he pretend to be a morpher, and show her some of it? That might be a bit comical... He was not sure if she knew what a dhani was after all... There were so few of them... For know it might be best to simply pretend to be human...

[Kit Rowan]

Kit tilted her head to the side. "Your accent is weird," she said. People passed through Alvadas all the time, people of all races and a great many places. People traveled from Sylira, from the rest of Kalea, from Cyphrus and even Ekytol, but if she was completely honest she had not met many people. Only heard them or passed by them, saw them in the street. But this man, this 'Bones,' didn't sound like anything she'd heard before, and he seemed like a regular vanilla human, like her, even if he was a big one. Those sorts of people were everywhere. "Tricth," she said, in poor imitation of his lisp. She pushed off the floor a bit and drifted up through the water. She wasn't graceful, but neither was she worried. Kit trusted this place completely. Scratching an itch behind her ear, Kit considered Bones. It didn't even sound like a real name; more like something he'd picked out for effect. He was menacing enough to start with, but the name just made him seem silly. "Like shielding?" The corner of her mouth tugged upward in a half-smile. "If that's it, you kind of suck. No offense." And were you seriously trying to do it in the library? "I'm nothing great," she said, shrugging. "My D—my Father taught me a little bit of this and that." Like who to trust. She needed to remember that. "Some of the elements," she said, shrugging. "Not much." "But you never actually told me what you do," she said, rather than asked. 'Wizard's paranoia is no disease, it's a precaution, and those who do not make use of it are fools.' She waded there, and clutched her book a little tighter, held it between them.

[Ssafirsotibones]

Why did people insist on mocking Bones? He was not sure, as he fought the urge to reach over with one of his strong hands, and crush the life out of her till she stopped squirming... But no... That was not something he should do.... He might get in trouble, and they might not let him back in the library to see all the books... These young ones, always thinking so highly of themselves. Maybe they would be more laid back and less rude after another century of living. Bones let out a deep breath, and continued to look her in the eyes. He listened to what she had to say, and then paused for a bit to think on it and to deliberate. Finally he answered in his slow sibilant speech, taking his time with it. He was not one to be in a rush. "I never sssaid I was good at it... To be honessst I have never tried ssshielding before, that wasss my first try. But everyone must ssstart sssome were. And if you must teach yourself, a book on it is not a bad place to ssstart." "And is ssere a rule againssst using magic in the library? I am not sssure if you can take booksss out, ssso I decided to try a bit of what the book sssaid to do... And practicing ssshielding is not exactly dangerous, not like other typesss of magic." "Asss I sssaid, most people call me Bonesss. For sssome reassson humansss find my full name difficult to sssay, ssso I usssually just go by that sssmaller bit. And what do I do? I am a combatant in the colissseum, and a good one at ssat. Though you never sssaid what you do..."

[Kit Rowan]

"It's magic," Kit said, like a fact. The sky is wide, the sea is blue, the sun is bright. "Magic is never safe." Her words had a rote sound to them, like a comfortable old road. She stole a glance left, right, behind. She lifted her feet a little further into the water and made herself that much smaller. He was so relaxed about it; she caught herself leaning toward him and forced herself back; it was wrong, it was bad, it was dangerous. It was possible that he was already mad; and that she was speaking with an incredibly dangerous wizard. She tilted her head to the side, ran her eyes up and down. "You aren't human?" She asked, dubious. Kit was no scholar of races, but Alvadas was a centerpiece for trade. Isur with their god-given arms descended from Sultros to sell their arms to anyone who could pay their prices, some few Benshira rode the waves and walked their streets, sold grapes and wine; she had seen some few Symmenstra in the city, and one Ephytarian. But Bones didn't look like any of them. He looked like a big man. Kit scratched behind her head and shrugged. "You blend well." The conversation shifted, and she relaxed. "I'm training," she said, solemn, "so I can be an acrobat."

[Ssafirsotibones]

Bones was a bit confused by what she said. Shielding was not that obvious, and was actually pretty safe, as compared to other things. Like that cowards branch of magical fighting, reimancy... But he was sure he had read some were.... Bones flipped around in the book for a bit, trying to find the passage he recalled, finally finding it. "Ssshielding is not ssat bad, not asss compared to osser magicsss... Look at ssis!" In terms of shielding, because this form of magic is so passive rather than active or aggressive, it is very difficult to overgive when using this discipline. The shielder simply runs out of the ability to finish the weave of a shield as they run out of djed to use to power up their shields. And unless djed strikes and is absorbed in their shield, which then becomes ‘free djed’ to weave into additional space, they simply can’t continue shielding or spread their shields out over greater areas. "Ssso you sssee, it isss very sssafe to ussse. Almossst no chance of overgiving. I did read on it a bit before choosssing it.... It isss not like I am doing ssat magic thossse 'fire ssrowersss' use! Making and ssrowing around bitsss of djed and elementsss... Ssat isss the real dangerous ssstuff! Ssat alwaysss leadsss to madnessss... I ssstay clear of ssose magic usssersss.... Would never do it myssself..." Ironically, the person Bones was speaking to was in fact one of those "fire throwers", though she used air not fire. But still she was a user of a much more dangerous branch of magic, and she was lecturing Bones on the dangers of the safer shielding magic! Quite funny! If Bones had known... Well he probably would have drawn his blade and slowly backed away.... But he might also have thought it was funny. Luckily for her Bones had not picked up on that usage of "the elements" in her description of her magic, or he might have figured it out. As for the being seen in public, Bones simply pointed her to another passage of the book. Shields are completely invisible and unseen. They may shimmer briefly and become visible momentarily as they absorb impacts from other djed, people, weapons, and indeed any substance or thing they are tasked to keep out. A shielder well versed in shielding can see a shield that has been produced by a shielder that is of his level or below. "Ssso you sssee, no one elssse can sssee my magic.... Only another ssshielder can sssee it. And I doubt ssey would have any issssuesss... Ssso it isss not really an issssue to ussse it out in public! Ssough I had to try it out... Normally I would not do it ssso out in the open... " Then she asked a rather simple question... If he was human... Well no he was not, but he was never really sure how to respond to that... Usually less information was better. Even though he was rather nice and open for a dhani, others still seemed to not like his race just for what they were... All because a dhani occasionally would eat one of them... Well dhani had to eat to! And he himself rarely ate humans, usually settling on other meats. "No, I am not human... Yesss my race doesss tend to blend well... And training to be an acrobat? Ssat isss an interesssting career choice... I have alwaysss ssought ssat would be helpful to know, ssough I have very little practice in it... Alwaysss good to be light on your feet, and quick in movement... Perhapsss you could teach me a bit in acrobaticsss... When we are not underwater..."