trans_9 | Untangling [Open]

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Untangling [Open]

With Celena and Aibghalien's help, Thom looked better than he had since he'd arrived on the ship. The dark circles under his eyes weren't as pronounced, and his fever had cooled slightly.

But there was still a long way to go before he had his Gift under control again, and Roger's magic still raved at the back of his mind, pressing on his temper. He had taken to the less used parts of the ship, trying to keep himself away from any people who might try his patience.

Hydroponics remained his favorite spot for meditation, near Alastirra's garden. He and the draenei had formed a cautious friendship of sorts - the kind where they mostly left each other alone, with the occasional conversation about magical theories between their disciplines. More often than not, Thom spent his time in deep meditation, dropped into his center of magic and slowly pulling his and Roger's magic away from each other.

Sweat dripped down his forehead as he worked, and suddenly he jumped up from his customary seat on a stump and whirled around, throwing out his hand. A ball of orange flame leapt from his fingertips and scorched a blackened groove in the wood.

"Damn."

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Thom stared at the stump, breathing hard and scowling, and the sound of footsteps brought his fevered violet gaze straight up to Lupin. "Yes?" he asked, plainly wondering why the other man was there at all.

"I do apologize," Lupin said politely as he put away his wand. "I heard a rather ominous sound and feared that either Alastirra or her garden were in some sort of trouble."

"I did turn away from the garden," Thom protested, and then scowled harder, unsure why he'd done so. "You know Alastirra? Who are you?"

He felt an irrational surge of jealousy and bit the inside of his cheek. That was nonsense. To think someone like Alastirra had no others aboard the ship she was familiar with was absurd.

"My name is Remus Lupin," he said, still mild and polite. "I had the fortune to meet her here some time ago, and she has agreed to watch over certain plants I purchased while on a mission. For all my efforts to learn Herbology, I really haven't the slightest knack for it after all these years."

"Master Lord Thom of Trebond," Thom said. He did not bow or offer his hand, just stated his title like it should have some kind of effect. Usually, the Trebond name did.

He still forgot where he was, sometimes. "A mission? What kind of a mission?"

Unaffected by title or demeanor, Lupin cast his mind back to XaXing, then shrugged. "To be honest I can't remember. I wasn't involved in anything that occurred there, but anyone who wanted was allowed to visit the planet and purchase some small amount of supplies for themselves if they so desired."

"Alastirra showed me how this... thing worked," Thom said, holding up the omnicomm. "I suppose it would have been announced there."

Which is why he had missed it.

"There was no need for you to be alarmed. I have everything under control."

The charred gouge in the stump might have begged to differ, though.

"I am sorry," Lupin said, once again. "I would rather apologize for worrying over nothing than failing to worry over something I ought to have, of course, especially when it comes to this garden."

He was, just a bit, stalling to see if whatever event had just occurred would repeat.

Thom made an agreeable noise and resumed his seat on the stump, settling his hands on his knees like he was going to begin meditating again.

"How did you even sense the discharge? It didn't make much noise that I recall." Of course he had been meditating at the time.

"I am rather studied in jinxes, counterjinxes, and curses," Lupin said, "and what noise there had been sounded like it fell into one of those categories."

As prickly as Thom seemed intend on being, Lupin remained quite unruffled. He'd dealt with much worse in his time, after all.

Jinxes and curses. "You are some kind of... magician?" Thom asked, eyeing him sharply. The man didn't seem like he would be more than a small-time sorcerer, or a conjurer of some kind. Nothing like a great mage of his caliber.

"I am a wizard, yes. On my Earth, witches and wizards are born, and then schooled for several years until they are capable and competent in the various fields of practical magic and learning necessary to a basic education." No other world represented on this ship had such a system, from all that he could tell, so he thought an explanation would be necessary.

"Similar to the Gift, then," Thom said, more interested now that he'd heard Lupin's description. "There are a few academies scattered around the Eastern Kingdoms for the basic education, but the City of the Gods is for more advanced study. That is where I attended."

Already he was sizing Remus up as a potential asset. Someone educated was always more valuable than someone who wasn't.

"Ah, your final education is centralized?" He could not imagine that working adequately for the schools of Europe; the three great academies simply differed too much in style and substance for their students to mingle effectively. "Our advanced studies occur in the final two years of schooling, after which the graduate then enters either employment or an apprenticeship, if the profession requires further specialized instruction. Of course, for the most part the professors of witchcraft and wizardry are amongst the finest in the world, so the students still gain quite enough learning."

"In my region, yes - there is the Royal Carthaki Academy, but that is across the sea in Carthak." Thom sniffed - clearly some region rivalry between the two schools. "As far as apprenticeship or employment, most mages are scholars, or in the service of the Crown, or healers. Not every student is admitted to the City of the Gods either, only those with the highest potential. And among those students, fewer still are granted the title of Master."

Thom was one of those few, exemplified by the robe he wore. Of course, it wouldn't look at all out of place to Remus.

Mostly scholars, government employees, or healers? That left only one very curious conclusion.

"You don't have a Statute of Secrecy? That is, you operate openly, amongst the Muggles?"

"Secrecy?" Thom asked with a small laugh. "Whatever for? Magic is a fact of life, and hiding it would only produce problems - without healers many more of our knights would fall on the battlefield, and children who aren't trained in their power become dangerous to everyone around them. How could you find those born with the Gift if it was supposed to be secret?"

"Well, we use magic," Lupin pointed out with a smile. "There are simply so many Muggles on Earth that it isn't possible for us to be open with them. If we were they would be asking for magic solutions to all their problems instead of solving them sensibly themselves. So wizards withdrew, and we are our own population, separate from the Muggles, though of course we do interact in some small ways from time to time."

Thom was almost completely baffled by that explanation. "Those of us with the Gift aren't near as numerous as those without," he said. "The royal lines are generally Gifted, but that's not so strange for them being selected by the gods. There's a disproportionate amount of Gifted among the nobility, perhaps because strongly Gifted lines tend to do great deeds for the Crown."

He was a scholar, that much was clear as his eyes took on a kind of faraway look and he began to recount yet more demographic information about the Gift. "Most of the children who develop it in a line not previously known for the Gift have little power - hedgewitches at best, trained by locals and without enough power to need a more formal education. Some come out with average or even extraordinary power but that's much rarer."

He paused, looking back at Lupin. "As for making our lives easier... mages monitor the water for sickness, the weather for storms, our borders for enemies, and our roads for criminals. Without us, we would be utterly lost."

"Things did not turn out so fortunate in Europe. The Church turned against us and Muggles were more and more frequently attacking us, burning witches at the stake, burning each other at the stake thinking they were wizards, attempting to force us to teach them... " He shook his head. It was difficult to imagine such trying times for wizard from the comfort of the present, when secrecy had made each side that much happier. "We had no protections under Muggle law, and the rulers would not grant us any, whether from fear of Church or Muggles I don't know. Whatever the case, we secluded ourselves from them, and we aren't worse off for it by any means."

"A pity," Thom said. Witch burnings? What kind of backward culture did this man come from? "No wonder you chose to withdraw. If the unGifted - Muggles, you called them? - chose to throw away such a valuable piece of their own potential future, they deserve to struggle without."

He took a seat on the stump. The more wizards, sorcerers and mages he met on this ship, the more he began to realize that he had a unique opportunity to expand his knowledge to a breadth impossible on his own world. "How is your magic practiced?"

"In modern times we're quite well-off, though there's lingering anti-Muggle bias."

In response to the question, he again drew his wand, holding it sidelong to offer the best view. "Most magic is performed with a wand. When a child is first ready for education, he purchases a wand with a magical core. Wand magic requires the proper spell and wand movement to activate. Lumos." The tip of the wand flared into a bright, warm light.

"Are the incantations required?" Thom asked curiously. He held out his hand, and light the color of old blood collected in his palm, throwing his face into a ghastly kind of shadow, completely different than the warm glow from the want.

He frowned at it and closed his hand. The light shut off.

"Not at all. Learning to perform magic nonverbally is simply more advanced, and so taught accordingly." He extinguished his wand without a word to make the point, not commenting on the light Thom has conjured. "There are some forms of magic that do not require use of the wand, such as Apparition or Potions, as well."

"Very few spells require any physical component outside the mage," Thom said. It was like comparing notes - fun, to an extent. "Certain precious gems help a mage focus his power, making spells much more powerful than they would be ordinarily. Those that use incantations, like a Wall of Power or something similar, require more focus and discipline than normal shaping of innate arcane energies."

A little bit opposite to what Lupin was describing. The tradeoff sounded relatively the same, though.

Untangling [Open]

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