trans_9 | Cascade [Open party time!]

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Cascade [Open party time!]

Billy had just launched another portal in that maze of mazes, exhaustion setting in. Surely this time he would land on another moving platform of death?

Nope, just the exterior of the finished bathhouses. All polished, systems running, and just about ready to open! Given how sore and exhausted he was, that sounded like an excellent idea at the moment.

With a quick message to the rest of the crew, he set out the 'Open' sign for the first time and took advantage of his owner status---the prime waterfall spot could be his!

((ooc: The bathhouses are now open! Feel free to mingle around, relax, and have a party. Or cause trouble, but that might invite more trouble. Just start a subthread with your character's location and have fun. For reference there are individual showers in front, followed by hot tubs centrally located, saunas further back, and private baths along the side. The showers, tubs, and saunas have smaller sex-segregated units along with a central group unit that's larger.))

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Katara had been really excited when she heard Billy was back, and more so with the news that the bathhouse was finished. With glee she had stripped down to her white underclothes and was already settling into the tub whens she noticed a bottle here. Quizzically, she opened it and took a sniff, wrinkling her nose.

Strong, she thought, and took a polite sip, coughing a little as she put it down, then closed her eyes. A moment later the water was bubbling even more furiously, and she added another jet of steam with a wave of her hand.

"Oh, hi!" She said, noticing Mei-Xing. "I'm sorry, was this bottle yours?"

Edited 2011-01-12 03:07 (UTC)

Mei-Xing opens her eyes and looks up as she feels a disturbance in the water. She raises both eyebrows when Katara helps herself to her booze, but can't help smiling a little at the cough. "Yup. You usually take a sip from things before asking?"

There's no malice in the question, she's just giving the girl a hard time.

Edited 2011-01-12 03:30 (UTC)

She reddened a little. "Er, no, usually I ask, that was a little rude. I just figured it being here might mean it was up for grabs. Now that I think about it though, that was really stupid. Whenever free food or drink is left around, it usually means trouble."

She exhaled, and the steam began to rise, making the water a bit more relaxing. "If I make the water a little more comfortable, can we call a truce?"

"Pff." She flicks her fingers at Katara, flecking her with water droplets. "Don't worry about it overmuch. I don't really care." She can always make more, after all. She just hadn't been planning on sharing with someone so young.

Mei-Xing holds up a finger and waggles it. "If you want to up the temperature, though, I'll happily pretend I hated your guts and this was the only way to cool me down."

"Oh, ok." She may as well admit why she did it. "I'm still actually trying to make some alcohol of my own. Not for ME, of course, but for other people on the ship. It isn't as if we have currency, so trading is really the only way to get something for another, like information. I'm still trying to perfect it, but the taste is always off. I'm trying to see if I can find a way to make it a little more mild."

Her eyes widened a moment before she realized that Mei-Xing was kidding. Phew. She thought she'd made an enemy by mistake. She playfully flicked the water back at Mei-Xing, except she purposely had the droplets turn to steam as soon as they came into contact.

"You're probably not giving it time to ferment or using a proper still. The stuff's gotta lie for over two or three weeks before you can really do much with it, and even then the flavor's gonna be really harsh unless you let it age for a good while." She cheats, she uses magic to make it ferment in a matter of hours or days. "'Sides, this isn't the stuff you want to base your theories off of, there's some extra additives in there that I don't put in most of my booze."

She blinks at the steam, then looks at Katara on the other level of reality. Her aura was... "Huh. What are you, some kind of water elemental?"

She listened intently, silently storing all of that information in her brain and reminding herself to start work on a still the moment she learned how in the media library. At the mention of the extra additives though, she looked at the bottle, and took another sip, coughing again.

"I thought so," she wheezed. "This is stronger than anything I've ever tasted. What's in it anyway?"

She shook her head. "A waterbender actually. In my world, we have benders from all different nations, and I'm from the Southern Water Tribe. So something like this is pretty simple for me."

Elemental. Weird way to put it. "Do you...know magic?"

"Oh, vodka. Different kind of vodka. Engine block cleaner. Seven secret herbs and spices." She laughs, surely Katara hadn't expected her to reveal all her secrets right off the bat?

She listens to that bit of information, making a note to research in the media center for any bits of knowledge on the subject. "I'm guessing it's about the same thing." Her aura certainly didn't look like she had been straining.

"Do I... know magic?" She blinks at Katara, then holds out a hand. Above it, the steam pulls and spirals, thickening into a miniature hurricane displayed right above her palm. There's a few flashes of lightning, and a light crackle for thunder. "Just a little."

"Vodka," Katara muttered, making sure when she had the chance to test out the different kinds of drinks. "And I'm guessing the rest is stuff you don't want to tell me huh? But that's ok. I'm guessing alcohol is a lot like cooking: its all different and according to the person making it."

She thought a minute. "I don't know much about elemental magic, but I have heard the phrase used before, probably by Negi or Matt."

She grinned. "That was pretty amazing. What type of magic is that?"

"Pretty much." Mei-Xing chirps. "Ask Kang if you want a full sampling, I think you're old enough for him to serve to. Anyway, yeah. Even the containers and materials you use in your still will alter the flavor of it. Of course, most of that won't matter if you don't let it properly ferment."

She shrugs. "It's probably pretty widespread. Elemental magic's just that. Magic based around the five basic elements."

Mei-Xing closes her hand, dissipating the hurricane into steam. "That was just power." Actually subtle illusion spells wrapped around some manipulation spells, but it wasn't even difficult enough to put a name to. "I'm one of the harder working magic users around here."

"Thanks for that," Katara said. "I don't know what people consider the proper drinking age on the ship, but I'm not the type to go overboard: drinking should only be for special occasions or with friends, from what I've seen. I think this is perfect since I recognize some of the people who helped Billy with this. I'm really glad he got it done since, well, some hard times he had."

But wait, five? That was new. "Where I'm from, there's just the four! Hmm. Must be another world difference thing."

She nodded. "I'm still sort of wrapping my head around the idea of magic. I've seen it performed by Negi, and a little by Matt, but other than that I only know what I've read. What can you do with this harder magic?"

"Or if you want to pick up guys." She takes a sip. "Or girls. Either one. Especially if you cook up something good and can claim you made it." ...It hasn't worked yet, but she can dream!

She shrugs. "Possibly. You've got fire, earth, water, air, and the spirits of man." As she counts them off, she holds up a finger. "These five elements, mixing them together, is how you get most of your magic done. With it... Well." She shrugs. "I can bring someone ultimate pleasure, or I can make them wish they were dead. I can heal people and kill people and everything in between. I can even make'em see things that aren't there." It didn't get too deep into the details, but that should be good enough.

Katara was glad it was already hot, so her looking red wasn't going to look out of place here. Not that she was saying anything dirty, it was just that the idea of trying to pick someone up under those circumstances was just asking for trouble. She could remember getting a little tipsy at times (and ONLY that), so full on effects would likely be asking for trouble.

"I'll take your word for it," she said.

And yes, that was definitely enough, although the first thing she said about the elements confused her. "Ok, I can understand earth, fore air and water, those are all elements in nature. How exactly is spirit an element though? I mean, I've always thought of spirit as something intangible, that's all around us. I don't think I've heard of the kind of magic you do."

Mei-Xing's grin just widens. When someone can see every emotion you experience, it's hard to hide embarrassment.

She shakes her head at Katara's confusion and waves her hand a little. "You're half right, it is an intangible element. Usually. But you can still manipulate it with magic." It'd be awfully hard to pull of some spells without it. "I'm a hermetic mage, a chaos mage. There's a bunch of different traditions, so the kind of magic I do doesn't matter as much as how I use it."

She is so, so glad she doesn't know Mei-Xing has this ability.

That information did blow her mind a little. "I've heard of mages, Negi is one, but I don't think he's told me about what a chaos mage is and what they can do. Is that a mage that can pretty much have access to all of the elements at his or her disposal? And how could you use spirit anyway?"

Katara is still curious about the people around her: some things never change.

"Nononono." She shakes her head, leaning forward. "The fact that I'm a chaos mage is simply the tradition I follow. You can't really call it a tradition, but..." Mei-Xing reaches out, squeezing Katara's arm. "You feel like someone who dabbles in martial arts. It's closer to the style you follow. You still do the same things, you just have different ways of carrying it about."

She settles back. "There's really only three different ways to use magic. You have the hermetic mages, we follow our traditions and use logic and formulae to cast magic. You have the shamans, who gain power from the spirits of nature, and use those spirits and expressions to do what we can. And then you have the dragons and... If you're close enough to see a wizworm doing their thing, you're too close."

Katara had heard of Mei-Xing before, and would hear more about her when Billy told them about the swimming trunk situation, but right now she was speechless at the made for the moment. She had not known anyone to be able to tell what she was able to tell what she could do without asking questions. She was sure she had never seen Katara in action yet she knew she was able to tell how she bended to begin with.

"I've never seen anyone use magic like that. You use logic and formulas. I know there's chanting, sometimes wands and things, but involving logic, that must take years of study. How do you do it and still look so young?"

Yes, Katara is actually awed at this point. With all the training she did, there was no way she could under appreciate what it took to be that good at what you did.

Well, she didn't know how Katara manipulated the elements. But she knew a martial artist's body when she saw one. After all, she was one, and had fought (and killed) more than a few. But if Katara wants to be amazed, she won't argue.

"Ha. I don't need wands. Chanting's out too, unless I'm in trouble." She waves her hands dismissively. "It's hard work, and I'm probably older than a few folks on this ship. I'm 28, after all." It's still not that old. "And I'm pretty sure I won't age for a few decades. It's kind of complicated, but no one of my race has died of old age yet."

That was probably her entire secret right there. Being the member of an immortal race.

If she thought about it later, she might figure out that observing her body was how Mei-Xing figured out she was a martial artist: for the moment she thought it was through magic, which was astounding to her.

Katara did look confused about the age though. She looked really young, yet she seemed to have a mastery about her. Perhaps it was like the people on her world: after all, she was only fourteen when she became a waterbending master. But at the mention of race, now she was starting to wonder some more.

"If you don't mind me asking, what race are you?"

She could have done it through magic, but that would have been a little bit more noticeable.

"I'm an elf." She twists and moves her hair to the side a bit, showing the ears. "We naturally look good. And we age a hell of a lot slower than anyone else, except maybe the dwarves." No dwarf has died of old age yet, either. "Anyway, I'll probably look like this for another fifty years. I don't plan on kicking back on my heels, either."

"An elf?" Well, she'd heard of elves, actually though not a lot by what she'd been reading. "I don't know much about elves, although I've heard that they tend to have pretty long live spans. So you're a hermetic mage that hardly ages AND gets to have all these magical abilities? I have to admit, that' a pretty good deal."

From that perspective, anyway. But there was a question she had, still.

"Does that get lonely?"

"Not really. I mean, a good ten percent of the population can cast magic. And we don't really know how long I'll live, so..." She shrugs. Really, she's never had to think about it before. It's not exactly whelming for her.

At Katara's second question, she just gives her an odd look. "I'm not even middle aged yet, by human standards. Why the hell would I be lonely?"

Katara could definitely not be the sort of person who wouldn't stop thinking about it, but then they were both raised in different circumstances. Then again, no point in bringing that up: Mei-Xing seemed pretty fine with what she was able to do.

But to the last query, Katara was curious. "But won't you live longer than most of the people on this ship? I mean, I know that you don't have to think about it now, and I know that I'm more bound to think about it since our tribe makes a very big thing about family and friends. Have you ever thought about it though?"

"Not really." She leans back in the tub, playing with her bottle. "I mean, the way I figure it? I'm going to be dead somewhere in the next twenty years, anyway. If the war lasts that long." She looks up at the ceiling. "We're in a war, kid. It's useless to consider natural life spans. Most of the people we know on the ship will probably be killed by the Ohm."

Katara didn't like think of the odds that way, and would voice it. "I don't have any intention of dying by the hands of the Ohm, if I can help it," she said boldly. "It's not going to be an easy battle, and if I go down, I'd rather it be fighting. But so long as people need to be healed and protected, I refuse to let myself die easily, in any way."

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Cascade [Open party time!]

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