random pointless swirls

[sturdycoldsteel]

The shaper known as Steel is flying down the right side of a road, shoring up the edges of the bluestream that lets her lift herself off the ground as she goes. Sure, she'll be a bit clumsy and weak when she gets to Opri, but she's not planning on doing much more stream-shaping today, so might as well.

She glances at the bluestream (the magical vision blinds her physical vision for a short moment, but not long enough to crash into anything) and determines that this next crossroads is where she needs to turn. She tilts to the right...

...And lands on a patch of orange grass in a forest clearing. This is not the town of Opri. She opens her eyes and ears to the bluestream, trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

The bluestream here isn't a nice, orderly, useful pattern like on the roads, or the formless fog that it usually decays to after a while. Instead it's a riot of random patterns swirling around, wispy and confused and obviously not designed to do anything useful.

Steel, deaf and blind for a few seconds thanks to her peek at the bluestream, stands very still and is very confused.

Comments

[imeanforever]

"I'm a little worried I'll accidentally do fairylights instead."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I did light-bluestream the first time I tried fairylights. It's a little embarassing, but it didn't hurt me. Hmm. How about hovering with bluestream instead of wings? That way you'll know you got it right." She goes a little limp. "The spot you're standing on is good enough to hover in now."

[imeanforever]

Promise rolls up her wings behind her back and - demands that the universe let her hover anyway.

[sturdycoldsteel]

After about ten different mental configurations of demanding this from the universe, something clicks. She floats, and about 10% of anything she is feeling drains away.

Having discovered the right frame of mind, it should be fairly obvious how to do the other basic exercises described in the books on bluestream that Steel gave her.

[imeanforever]

"I do not like this side effect," Promise observes, settling back to the ground. "And will probably practice that aspect only sparingly. How do you flatten or configure the harmonics?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"It's a lot like casting things, will it to happen with the right mindframe, but you have to hold in mind the fact that you want to use your physical strength instead of your emotions."

[imeanforever]

"Maybe that should wait until I've had another meal."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Yeah, maybe. Let me deactivate the circle. Someone wandered by and complained about it while you were asleep." She stares at it. The complex patterns within patterns inside the circle shift in some largely incomprehensible way.

[imeanforever]

"What did they look like?" Promise asks, watching the process.

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Red, a foot and a half tall, soap bubbles for wings. Didn't get their name." The circle's innermost patterns have completely dissolved. The outer ones are mostly unchanged.

"Time to get you some food?"

[imeanforever]

"Yeah." She has food socked away in her tree. She goes into her tree, wobbly and a little oversensitive to the moss against her feet and the bark against her hands after five days of fuckall, but she gets herself a bowl of nuts in crystallized syrup and steadily eats them all.

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I think you said you were going to move to another continent after this. Can you make gates from anywhere in fairyland? I made it so I could be missing from home for months without anyone saying boo, so I might follow along, explore fairyland some more."

[imeanforever]

"Yes, I can make gates from anywhere. I'm going to need a raft, light enough to tow, so I can stop to sleep and bring enough food to cross the ocean. It's probably easier for me to re-contact you once I've found a new place to live than for you to try to come along."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"You may think that me waiting at home is less risky. But that's not entirely correct. The steadily increasing pace of natural disasters coupled with widespread social tension and anger at the government's refusal to change, all in a much more densely-populated place than fairyland is, makes Telra just as dangerous. That's part of why it was such a trick to get the books on stone circles at all - my home is... Not doing particularly well."

[imeanforever]

"It is more logistically complicated with two, but if you don't mind flying across an ocean and sleeping on a raft for a couple of weeks, I suppose we can try it."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I would like to join you. I'll need to get some food of my own from the other side of the gate, but I can make a raft, and propel it fairly quickly as well."

She pauses and looks like she's stopping herself from saying something. After a moment, "Is there a forest near the coast or should I make the raft now?"

[imeanforever]

"There should be enough wood to assemble a raft on the coast. I'm planning to go over the Sapphire and Emerald Seas, and then fly around the desert unless your magic allows outright water conjuration, and then start looking for a place to live."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"I can't conjure water. I can collect it from miles around, though - if there's any moisture at all in the desert I can probably gather enough to survive on, but not enough to wash with, for example."

[imeanforever]

"Probably better to go around rather than take scarce water from any desert-dwelling fairies."

[sturdycoldsteel]

"If you say so. I'll pack food and other survival gear and be back in an hour or so. If you have things you want to bring along but can't carry yourself, keep in mind that I'm good enough with bluestream that I can lift massive weight with relatively trivial effort."

And she leaves, and is back in an hour.

[imeanforever]

Promise is packed by then too. "Between carrying all my books and just leaving them in your world is the former really easier?"

[sturdycoldsteel]

"Leaving them in my world is easier, but carrying them through fairyland is safer. My homeland is not particularly stable right now, and I couldn't tell you for sure that nobody will be able to find and break into my home. You should close the gate before we leave, as well."

[imeanforever]

"I will." She does. She hands Steel all the books (tied into stacks and wrapped up in leaves) and most of the food (in flower-petal bags), and retains one bag of her own, and then sets off, following the river.

[sturdycoldsteel]

Steel makes a twig-thin wooden platform from some fallen branches and piles all their things on it. "I can make this platform count as one large contiguous object for levitation purposes. Easier than trying to juggle two dozen different things in my mind."

She flies after Promise, matching her pace.

[imeanforever]

It's a very long flight.