damned_institute | Day 31: Sun Room (Fourth Shift)

"It's... only kind of a science," Skuld began, debating how to explain. "It's also part... I guess you could call it magic. Not everyone can do it, and what works for one person might not for another. The arrays are the same, but the way a person calls the power to them can't be explained too well." She wasn't even sure how humans learned it; for her it was kind of instinctive.

She was looking at the Bride thoughtfully, and a little puzzled. What did this have to do with anything? If she didn't believe... well, Skuld didn't like that, but she was supposed to help the woman out anyway. It didn't matter if she thought alchemy was fake; she'd see later it wasn't. If she wanted proof, though, that would have to wait.

Magic? The Bride wanted to scoff at that. She really, really wanted to, but If she scoffed at magic, was she scoffing at teleportation as well? If it hadn't happened to her, she would have, but... even those skilled in ninjitsu and those trained as high level assassins only made it look like one had vanished into thin air. And yet, it had happened to her the night before. If it hadn't been for her completing her sentence when she appeared in the basement, she would have assumed she'd been drugged, but... she did finish the sentence.

"Magic is a catch-all phrase for things people don't understand. Seeming to balance upon a thin branch, punch straight through several inches of hard oak, lower metabolism and breathing through intense meditation so as to appear, even to cursory checks, dead - none of that is magic and yet people believe it is," she said. How the hell does a person teleport?

"Obviously the arrays are a focal point, something I understand completely, but alchemy has to have a basic set of principles, structures, or it wouldn't work. Especially, if there are others besides you that can perform such actions." The Bride's words were carefully considered as she slid the various facts and pieces she knew around in her mind to try and form a complete picture. Preferably one that would explain teleportation to her.

"The way a person harnesses the power may be different, but the power has to be the same thing. For example, every single person capable of breaking a piece of wood with their body, be it from their forehead, to fist, to knee, may have different ways to align their energy, but the end result is still a perfect alignment of the body's energy projected in a straight, sharp path through the very object one wishes to break." She paused a moment. "Whatever is being harnessed is what I don't understand. The only thing that universal that could be 'harnessed' to exact such a change, especially as broad a change as alchemy is, would be divine energy."

Beatrix shook her head in disbelief, barely refraining from rolling her eyes. "If you believe in that sort of nonsense," she added on with a bit of a sigh. She'd been raised Christian, but after learning how to kill a man with her bare hands, she figured she was doomed to hell anyways and stopped giving two shits about God. And then the first time she killed and didn't feel anything afterwards... well, it simply didn't matter then; God probably didn't exist.

Skuld frowned. "That's science, where the same actions always produce the same result. It's different with magic--harder to prove, since there's kind of no equivalent of lab conditions. Alchemy is a hybrid, which makes for even more variables.

"Why?" she asked, a note of challenge in her voice. "What's it matter, as long as I can make that katana? It doesn't matter what you believe, it just matters that I can do it."

So this girl just wanted her to take it upon faith that magic really existed and she just never came across it before? Beatrix had been one of the world's deadliest and most infamous assassins. She'd traveled all over the world, trained with Pai Mei for years with his penchant for standing on the flat edge of her sword blade to annoy her, learned how to make a man's heart explode within his chest, killed so many different types of people with different types of training. And yet, she'd never come across anything that could have been constituted as magic until last night.

The Bride's eyes locked on Skuld's at the tone of the girl's voice. Her blue eyes were cold as she did not appreciate the way the girl was talking to her. "I am attempting to understand what it is you do and maybe be able to extrapolate what I am learning from you into something else," she said in a calm but cool tone. "Or would you prefer I use your services as if you were nothing more than a vending machine?"

Skuld glared. "That's not what I meant! You can't just trust that I'm not lying to get attention? Fine..." she ripped a piece of paper out of her journal and shoved it at the woman. "See how it's blank on both sides? Fold it so I can show you something." She couldn't demonstrate her alchemy now; it would be a total waste of power, and she had someone polite and respectful to make something for tonight. But her word projection was another story.

When Arlene did as asked, Skuld gestured; it helped to focus the power, and she needed fine control for this. Plus, it showed ~~the idiot~~ her little audience that she was doing something, since obviously she needed to see something to be sure of it. "There. Now open it." If that didn't convince her, she could do it again. Like, under Arlene's clothes.

Beatrix opted to humor the girl when she wanted to show her something using the blank paper. She opened it as instructed to find the words TOLD YOU SO written upon the inside of the paper. Now the Bride was well aware of things like disappearing ink (that can be homemade) that activated with the application of heat, say from human body temperature, but she figured if she pointed that out to the girl she may very well lose her commission.

Instead, she simply raised an eyebrow, folded the paper back in half and set it down before her.

She then recalled that post on the bulletin board about the Valkyrie and the boy complaining about something not coming off in the shower. In the showers here, a person is buck-naked, so what wouldn't come off in the shower - perhaps some mysteriously appearing writing? And that made her think about the girl's name - Skuld. Interesting. She was glad she'd picked up that book of mythology from Bill's collection before her first visit to Japan.

"I never said I didn't believe you, Norn," the Bride finally said, not a single note of disrespect in her tone, though she didn't actually believe Skuld was one of the Norns from Norse mythology. She did believe that Skuld believed she was, and there was little use in arguing with someone like that. "I told you I was going against what my education tells me and trying to understand how it is you accomplish what it is you do."

"I'm not a person of faith, Skuld, so forgive me for being skeptical; it's my nature. Where I come from there is no magic, and yet last night I somehow managed to end up being teleported," the Bride stated. "And I'm trying to figure out how that occurred."

That mollified Skuld, at least a little. "You could have said so," she pointed out. Being recognized as a Norn surprised her, but she'd address that later. Maybe.

The lack of faith--annoyed her, especially since it sounded like the woman should know better. But words wouldn't convince her, even magically-written ones. Taking a breath to calm herself (even if it didn't really work), she said, "I'm not asking you to believe in me. But this isn't where you come from, and things might be different. Magic is hard to explain--spells work just because they work. I can tell you about elemental magic, since there's a little bit of crossover with science there, but not much."

She considered; if she could she compare it to anything, that might work. "Do you know how a TV works, besides that it has a power source? Most people don't, but they know it does work." It was... kind of the same thing. All she needed to know was how to avoid hurting herself with it, if she couldn't operate it. That was simple enough, right?

"I could argue against this not being where I come from given this prison is in the New England region of the United States of America, which is my country, but that is a moot point," Beatrix replied, raising a warning eyebrow. She wasn't going to take the wanna-be Valkyrie treating her as if this wasn't reality. She was lucky the Bride didn't hit children unless they were trying to kill her.

"I am familiar with cathode ray tubes and the basics if how a tv works, but as for specifics, no I don't," she answered, "but I do get what you mean by that. Yet, if a person wanted to know how a tv worked, they could research it, learn about it and maybe even build their own if they had access to the materials."

"Are you trying to tell me that if I wanted to, I could learn how to teleport someone?" She paused. "I don't want to - just to be clear."

At this rate, it was going to be very difficult for Skuld to make this woman a weapon that didn't break the first time it was swung. It wouldn't be intentional; goddesses just did better when they were doing something for someone they liked.

"It depends," she said. "In your world--or dimension, whatever you want to call it--you might need to have a talent for magic to do it at all; if you think there isn't any, then probably not everyone is capable of it. But if you do, or if anyone can learn it, then yeah."

Couldn't Arlene have asked someone else to explain magic? Yeesh... she wasn't even at the beginner stage of understanding, and she acted like she knew exactly what she was talking about!

"Huh." Beatrix rested her chin upon her hand and thought for a while. As much as she didn't want it to, that made sense. Going by what Skuld was saying, the ability to learn magic was just as rare as her own ability to fight. Granted she spent years training and learning how to become the lethal weapon she had. Was it the same for these supposed magic users?

She picked the piece of paper up again and ran a fingertip over the writing. "Do you think those gifted with magic have to train the ability extensively or do you think they can just get up and go with the fireballs and the like?" Her tone wasn't anywhere near as cool or rigid as before - there was a tone of honest inquiry within.

"Oh, and we're being watched. Green-haired man pretending to be asleep on the couch behind and to the left of you," the Bride told the girl quietly so it wouldn't carry to the man. "I think he's focused on me, but one can never be too cautious."

She refolded the piece of paper and slid it across the table to Skuld, adding just a little more effort to it than necessary, causing the paper to fall of the table and flutter to the ground at Skuld's feet. "Ooops," she said, getting a sheepish look upon her face, though a knowing smile sat in the corner of her lips. "Could you get that for me, please?"

This way, Skuld could get a look at the man without being obvious.

Skuld took a second, but she'd seen this kind of thing on TV often enough. She leaned over and grabbed the paper, glancing at the man as she did; she wasn't quite as stealthy as she thought she was, but she tried. Yeah, he definitely was watching... but how come? And which of them had his attention?

Straightening up again, she hesitated for a second before continuing, "Every type needs training. If you don't have it, even if you can make stuff happen anyway, trial-and-error is inefficient at best--at worst, it's dangerous. If you can make stuff happen but don't know how, or why, then you could hurt somebody. Some manifestations are subtle enough so people just think they're really lucky, or really unlucky; others make it seem like there's a poltergeist around, because so much stuff happens around the untrained person.

"Besides that, even though some people can kind of figure out what they're doing on their own, being self-taught doesn't always work too well." Sure, she'd taught herself almost everything she knew about mechanics and obviously had a natural talent for it, but since it was a science it was also more straightforward than magic. "You need someone to teach you the stuff you wouldn't think of on your own, and to correct any mistakes you're making, since words on a page can be misinterpreted so easily. And it depends a little on the kind of magic, but it takes a long time to learn more than just the basics of almost anything."

Beatrix sighed internally at Skuld's lack of stealth, but she reminded herself that this was a girl that thought she was one of the Norns that supposedly could do magic and not someone skilled in subterfuge. Well, she'd done her best to warn the girl. If she was going to be making her a katana, it was only proper that the Bride inform her of the potential of someone watching her with ill-intentions. She honestly thought the man was watching her, as he'd been before Skuld had arrived, but anyone who was interested in either herself or Skuld would only have had to read the board to know that they would be meeting at the board. She'd just have to talk to the man later on and if he was stalking the girl, she'd put his face through a wall.

The Bride reached across the table and took the paper back, folding it into quarters and then slid it into her bra through the neck hole of her shirt as she listened to Skuld. Now the girl was talking about magic in a way that Beatrix could understand. It compared exactly to her own training, just with a mystical force instead of the power of one's own body. Interesting.

"Alright, I follow that. It makes a lot of sense," she said. "It's like people that watch martial arts movies and then think because they've seen it and swung around a stick, that they can pick up a real sword and suddenly be Bruce Lee." She'd almost said be me but managed to correct herself without letting it slip. "Instead, they are liable to cut their own foot off or severely injure someone else. Or at the very least, chip the blade."

"Only magic is done with books?"

"Yeah, mostly." Skuld wasn't sure where Arlene was going with this anymore, but at least she was really listening. "With martial arts, you can see what the person's doing, but with magic you need explanation. Some arrays and stuff will work no matter who draws them, but usually you have to feed power into them. And they can get really intricate, so you have to know what you're doing--if it's off at all, you'll be lucky if it doesn't work.

"The same goes for spells with verbal components, and with those you really need a teacher; a book can't tell you if you're saying something wrong. Since chants are used as another way to guide power, a misspoken word can turn the whole spell into a disaster, especially if the caster doesn't know how to correct for that. With some spells, you can't."

Since she was sure the woman was leading up to it, she added, "It's different for me, though. I'm closer to my power source than most magic users; I don't memorize anything, I just call the power to me and tell it what I want it to do. I've got more limits here than I'm supposed to, so arrays help, but there's no worries about things going out of control."

...even if that was because even normally, she barely had the power to magically cause damage when she was trying to. If she had anything to say about it, that was one thing nobody here was getting told about. As protector of the people here, she was supposed to be strong.

Beatrix had the mental image of a bunch of kids playing Dungeons & Dragons together and one of them reading a spell description from out of the book, pretending to cast the spell and then suddenly setting his parent's curtains on fire. It made her wonder if there was any ludicrous connection between magic spells and bat guano as so many geeks across the nation say that's what one uses to cast magic missile.

"I've heard many other talk about themselves being limited here," the Bride replied. "I suppose there is something positive of not being a person dependent upon magic to achieve goals. This place doesn't effect my combat capabilities."

And now another man had joined the green-haired one and he also was looking at the two females. At least this one seemed to be unacquainted with the surly man, but the Bride made note of him anyways. She returned as much of her attention as she could allot to Skuld.

"So I don;t have to worry about you accidentally blowing up the women's block?" She asked with a lighter, almost teasing tone. She just had to worry about someone deciding to teleport her again.

That... depended on if, when, and what explosives Skuld could get her hands on. None of which she was used to, since her bombs were something entirely different. "No," she laughed, hoping she didn't sound nervous. "I don't use that kind of destructive magic." What with how she didn't have the power for it. "Besides, strategically it isn't a good location; if I was planning on blasting open a wall, I would probably go through the M-C Block's bathroom. It's more central, and the enclosed space is better for directing a blast."

She figured she wasn't giving herself away as an explosives expert as much as an all-around genius. Besides, everything she had just said was common sense, right?

Beatrix raised an eyebrow. "Wouldn't it make more sense to blow up the double doors at the main entrance instead of a wall if escape was the reasoning behind it?"

She shook her head a little. "As long as you don't blow up my room or injure those I care for here, I don't care what you blow up."

"Maybe, but you never know. The doors are an obvious target," Skuld pointed out, perfectly reasonable. "They'll be better guarded than a wall off to the side, so this would give people more time to get out."

Except for the little matter of how an explosion that big would definitely attract unwanted attention.

"Anyway, don't worry; I know what I'm doing. If I construct a bomb, nothing gets blown up that I didn't want to." Usually. Anyway, her inventions didn't count; sometimes the self-destruct got triggered unintentionally, that was all.

The Bride held a hand up in an attempt to stave off Skuld's defensiveness. "Alright then," she said. "Explosives were never my thing anyways. Too messy." And lacked elegance.

She decided to steer the conversation away from blowing things up and back to magic. "So, is teleportation just like any other spell or is it in its own class? If it is possible to defend against it, I would like to know."

"In most magic systems, it can be guarded against via general anti-magic protections," Skuld replied thoughtfully. "More specifically, there are 'grounding' spells, most commonly placed on amulets, that can prevent teleportation. Unfortunately, I can't make any myself, and if anyone tells you there's a talisman against it, they're probably wrong."

She paused. "Well, depending on the caster more than the magic system. Iron protects against some kinds of fairy magic, for example." She supposed it was possible some unseelie fairies were involved...

Beatrix raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Faeries?" Okay, maybe it was time to stop talking about magic altogether.

Faeries, my ass.

Skuld wondered if there was much point in explaining this at all. "Yeah. There isn't just the little kind you've probably read about in stories--those are pixies, a subspecies. There are also fairies that look human, at least if they're disguised or you know what to look for. And then some who only look a little human--they'll have ears a lot more pointed than other fae, and their skin and hair colors are really unique. I don't know much about that kind... I think most of them are of the unseelie court, but it's been a while since I read anything and I've only met a couple of any of the Fair Folk."

Like Puck, for example, but while she was pretty sure Arlene would know who that was, she didn't think she should mention that he was an old acquittance of hers.

Geez, it's hard to know what to tell her... "what fools these mortals be" is right!

Beatrix couldn't help it - she blinked at Skuld. She had no idea whether to believe the girl or not, even after all this magic shit, and she wondered if the girl was trying to jerk her chain. Well, she'd see about that.

"Ah. I think there's one of those... what did you call them - unseelie? ones here. Silvery-whitish hair, big grey-blue eyes and slightly pointed ears." The Bride tilted her head in thought. "Never caught her name, but we had a bit of an... altercation my first night here."

She shrugged a little. Maybe by implicating to Skuld that the elfish woman she'd beaten up for information was one of these damn faeries, she'd get some minor entertainment out of it. It wasn't like she was making up the way the woman looked - she just hid the ears.

Skuld blinked and looked around, but Raine wasn't sitting in her line of sight. "I haven't seen one. What's her skin look like?"

That... might be bad. Unseelies couldn't be trusted; they would make promises and then break them on a whim, and their motivations were usually near-impossible to guess. Then again, a lot of that was court politics, and if that wasn't a concern... "And are there any others?"

"Kinda pale and she's delicately framed." The Bride cast a quick glance around as well. Nope, no geek's wet dream about. "I haven't seen any others with pointed ears or the like, but that one I described hangs out with this other woman with really long silver hair, red eyes and a detatched feel about her. She also talks odd. I didn't get her name either." She gave Skuld an apologetic smile. "I'm sorry."

Day 31: Sun Room (Fourth Shift)

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