trans_9 | Roaming, restless [After Dungeon Keeper]

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Roaming, restless [After Dungeon Keeper]

Morgan was restless.

When restless, he tended to roam the ship, checking on things he knew of, or seeking out places he didn't out of curiosity. Today was a little of both. After the pitched battle in Hydroponics, he felt a particular obligation towards one plant in particular: the apple tree he'd helped Applejack grow from a seed. For all that he'd done his best to contain Hydroponic in the fight, he hadn't been able to do anything specific to protect that plant.

Done there, he headed back down in the City, off to one particular place that had caught his interest when he had heard about it: an 'air temple'. Not on the map, not listed in the directory, or he'd have wandered over just to take a look a long time ago. Now that he'd heard about it, well...

Time to investigate.

[OOC: Just say where you find him; it can be pretty much anywhere, since his trip covers a lot of ground across the ship.]

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Mindy was more than happy to have that overlooked, though if anyone would have noticed it was him: it was why Mindy was careful to keep that particular scar covered, otherwise people would have just asked annoying questions. Morgan had seen Mindy as herself AND Hit Girl, so he's know the difference if he gave a shit.

So she was pleased he didn't.

"Training," she said, turning in the water. "I got pretty into it in the last battle,so I'm giving the muscles a chance to heal up before I really start to use them. How did you do? Fight with anyone interesting?"

"Not so much, I'm afraid. Ended up getting hurt in the first wave so I had to put a little more effort into not getting killed than I like." He stopped at the edge of the pool, pausing for a brief remembrance of happier times spent swimming.

"Well did you get patched up? I ran into a little bit of trouble, and then I had to get my gang to get the fuck out of the way of those Dalek guys. But I got injured too. Luckily, it wasn't too bad, and I got my second wind later."

She grinned. "Come on in though. Water's pretty good!"

He thought about it for a moment, then... well, why not? Shrugging his coat off, he let it drop heavily to the ground. "I healed enough to get back in the game when I could, but there's only so much acceleration you can encourage your body to do before it can't take more, so what I left undone had to heal naturally. But I'm fine now, though."

He stripped off his shirt casually. If he'd been hurt he didn't show it; he didn't have a single damn scar to his name. "Actually, you want to do me a favor, now that I think about it? Check and make sure the tattoos look all right."

Kicking off his shoes and retracting his plantsuit down to just shorts, he slid lithely into the water at the edge of the pool, then turned. The aforementioned tattoos were, in fact, really just one large one -- seven dragons in a massive spread across his back. The artistry was, frankly, magnificent, save for the top third, where they seemed a little smudged and just off.

"Well yeah man, that's why I started with something like this. I didn't want to go barreling into a full on training session or anything like that, but I did want to make sure that I got some sorta exercise. The water is perfect and everything."

When she saw him take off his shirt and saw the tattoos, she sighed, giving him a look. "Dude, come on. You're totally doing this just so you can show off your tats. Why wouldn't they be all right?"

Actually, she had to kind of goggle at them here. They looked fucking AWESOME. Mindy had always had a quiet affection for tattoos, and saw them as a kind of endurance a person went through with pain. "Um, they're ok except for that smudgy top one."

"This time, this ONE time I was doing it to NOT swim in my shirt," he said, laughing. "Though it's true I have a certain reputation for taking off my shirt, though, but... I'm allowed to take a little pride, aren't I?" Just for the sake of argument, he tensed his muscles a bit, just long enough to prove that he could always find work as a muscle and anatomy figure for budding artists.

When she mentioned the top one though, he grumbled. "Damn. I was afraid of that. I can't see the damn thing to fix it properly, and all I can do is shift the flesh around to move the ink."

"Yeah, I guess," Mindy said, laughing. "Maybe one day, when I get older, I'll actually start to give a shit about my own body, who knows? By then it'll be too late though, since I'll already be covered with scars! But that's almost as good as having a tattoo."

ALMOST.

"Why is it like that anyway? Aren't tattoos supposed to be permanent?"

"The details are complicated, but that's what I could get it to without being able to see it after I lost a lot of the skin up there." He crossed his arms with a frown. "I assume you trust me a little, but, enough to let me look through your eyes?"

"That...just sounds weird, but I was just talking to a flying fucking pony who can change the weather. What the hell do I know about what's weird anymore?"

What? That was startling, and she hadn't expected it. "Uh, I guess? Why not?"

"It's ink," he said, reaching for his coat. "If it gets damaged, your body doesn't exactly regrow it!"

He pulled out a case which he flipped open to reveal an assortment of long, slender needles. This he set down on the edge of the pool, as he rotated his torso to reach out and touch her head. "Just relax and don't fight. If I can see what I'm doing, I can fix this."

"Oh yeah," Mindy said, shaking her head. "I don't know why, but I was expecting you to tell me they were mystical tattoos or something."

Wait wait, what was he doing? Was he going to look through her eyes somehow to repair the damn tattoo? Could he DO that?

Only one way to find out, and honestly? Mindy was curious to find out.

"They were inspired by a magical tattoo, but these don't have any power besides looking good."

The sensation was not so much him entering her mind, but rather the feeling that there was no longer some artificial, meaningless distinction between her mind and his. Morgan kept his thoughts quite to himself, however, leaving her privacy undamaged and focusing instead on her senses. Yes, he was pretty much looking through her eyes, as his body reached out to pull some needles out of the case.

This is trippy, and at the very least, something that Mindy should have objected to. Then again, Ruffnut had been in her mind before, so at the very least it didn't freak her out, knowing he was in her head. It did slightly bother her to think he might see her lingering thoughts on Ruffnut though. They weren't perverse, but they were still private.

How are you able to do this?

That's why he'd asked first. And also why he was completely minding his own business in there. Morgan couldn't really have pried even if he wanted to; as he began quite carefully placing the acupuncture needles -- in front, which meant she couldn't see -- his mind had a simple, pure, singleminded focus with a level of raw will and determination adequate to rewrite reality itself to his desires, in the most literal sense.

Do you want the simple answer or the complicated one?

Before her eyes, the skin on his back began to adjust minutely, bringing the tattoo into far sharper definition.

Well she was glad that he had asked, and knowing that he wasn't about to start prying into her thoughts put her at ease. She hadn't really thought he would anyway, but it was still something to be legitimately worried about.

The simple one. Gotta wrap my mind around it.

Magic.

That was the simple and matter-of-fact answer. The tattoo snapped sharply back into place, now perfectly matching the rest of the ink on his back; a moment later, he left her alone in her mind.

Well shit. That was brief.

And she was back again, shaking her head. "Hey man, you totally have to give me a list of the shit you;re able to do. Every day you surprise me with something."

"Not possible," he said, as he carefully withdrew the needles from his skin. He turned to face Mindy as he pulled a cloth out of his little case to wipe them down. "Willworking is associative, not linear. I can do anything I believe I can do, within the general definitions of what I know how to do."

He tossed the needles back into the case, snapped it shut, then finally sank deeper into the water. "For example, I can create, change, or manipulate forces on a small scale."

OK, this was still something that was beyond her scope of understanding. As far as she knew, if you worked for something and trained, you got better. What he was talking about just didn't make sense to her, and anyway, how did you JUST know he to do things like that?

"But how can what you talk about even exist? If it did, wouldn't everyone be able to willwork?"

He leaned against the pool wall, stretching his arms out along the side. "Yes, actually, provided you're not in some way, shape, or form either partially Awakened or unable to. Any human being can do it. They just have to learn to believe in what they can do more strongly than the entire rest of the universe and everything and everyone in it believes they can't."

OK, what?

"What do you men partially Awakened, and how would you know if you're one of those people that aren't able to do it anyway? I can sort of understand the whole believing in it or whatever, but how does somebody know if they're even capable without killing themselves? And if you can do THAT, why not make it so you're not on the ship anymore?"

"Generally, if you're already a supernatural creature, you're partially Awakened," he said. "Werewolves, for example. They have their own abilities due to their connection with the spirit world, but true magick-with-a-K is impossible for them. Vampires, on the other hand, have been altered so much in their transformation that magic is simply impossible for them, too.

"As for leaving the ship... Well, for one, the Bleed is so foreign to me I have no idea how to manipulate it. For another, where would I go?"

"So that would, say, leave me out, but would include a flying pegasus, for example. Something like that?"

Yes, Mindy was still thinking about Rainbow Dash, the weird but still pretty cool pony.

That was a good point. "Just a question. I mean, where COULD we go, if the Ohm is still destroying shit? But I'm hearing what you say then. An ordinary person with no abilities and no alterations can actually use their strength of will? How did you know you could even do it?"

"As near as I can tell, you're a human girl. It's theoretically possible. As far as I know only humans can do it..." He shrugged. "But then again, Earth WAS mostly humans, so it's not like I have the broad experience to say."

Heh. The subject of his own Awakening... that was always awkward. "It's the same for every Mage, at the very base. At some point, you realize -- you understand, on a fundamental, primal level -- that the world just doesn't work the way you've been told it does. Once you have that Awakening, things are never exactly the same again."

"You can say that again," Mindy said, although she knew by now that being a regular human girl didn't mean she was without her own strengths. She'd proved that more than enough times in her own world that you just needed gadgets and a brain.

"So you basically come to realize the world isn't set in the way most people think it is," Mindy said. "I'm still wrapping my head around that, but obviously I believe it. How does someone who never had to learn it before, like, start?"

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