Finders Keepers

[all_too_familiar]

Sometimes witches have powers before they turn. But this is rare, uncommon.

More often, a potential witch displays almost nothing out of the ordinary at all. Just, say, a little more skill with people, a little more natural charisma. An extra dose of something that could almost be called luck, if one were paying attention and on the lookout for witches.

There is one such maybe-potential, right over there. He's not from around here, but he is fluent in Italian and French and German and he professes that English is his first language and laughs when people call him a liar because of his perfect accent. He might not be the most powerful, but a polyglot witch could be useful for something. And who knows, maybe there's more to it.

Maybe someone would care to find out.

Comments

[poll_the_stars]

... Slightly tentative handshake.

[taste_tester]

"Oooooh. You've been working on this one, I can tell."

[poll_the_stars]

"A bit obsessively," she agrees. Her eyes are still newborn red. "It's really cool."

[all_too_familiar]

"I am heartbroken that you didn't humor my joke," complains Blair.

[taste_tester]

"Well, now I have an idea of where you got the gold."

[all_too_familiar]

Snort.

"Addy, meet my sister, Yvette. Yvette, meet Addy, the witch teacher."

[poll_the_stars]

"The latest thing I was working on was trying to transmute while moving the transmutation area," says Yvette, because Yvette is very business focused and a little uncomfortable. "Because the area I can transmute really doesn't want to get bigger. I've managed to claw half a cubic centimeter out of it so far but uh, it's sort of like banging my head against a brick wall."

[taste_tester]

"Can you do several cubic centimeters in very rapid sequence? One per hand in parallel?"

[poll_the_stars]

"Copying, yes definitely, transmuting, mostly no, depending on the materials I'm working with. Something simple to something else simple I can manage almost quickly. And no, the transmutation's not attached to my hands, I can transmute with my elbow or something just fine, it's a total area, not a per-hand thing."

[taste_tester]

"Hm. Can you transmute parts of yourself?"

[poll_the_stars]

"I can copy parts of myself, I've transmuted bits of my hair, nails, venom, and teeth, I haven't tried to transmute skin or anything yet though. But it all works from the same transmutation volume, I don't get a free transmute everything ability for my own body."

[taste_tester]

"You can reshape the volume as you like?"

[poll_the_stars]

Nod.

"I can get some distance if I make a very thin line with the max volume stretching out from me, but it definitely needs to start at some part of my body. ... Haven't tried my hair yet. I should probably try my hair."

[taste_tester]

"Turn an eyebrow hair into a regular hair," Addy suggests. "Can you join up objects by transmuting the surfaces between them?"

[poll_the_stars]

She attempts this thing, trying to use the hair itself as the anchor for the transmutation. ... This doesn't work. She has to start from skin to transmute it at all.

"Tried the hair, I could transmute it, but the hair itself doesn't work as an anchor. Just skin. Joining up objects depends on the type of surface between them - I haven't been able to transmute air into anything at all, but I've managed to get liquids, so if I submerge two objects in water I can join them up, or if I connect them with a suitably not-filled-with-air substance. I can make air, the problem's that air feels too mobile for me to grab. I've been working on it. I got some soap to mess with the surface tension of water to practice harder things and maybe see about working my way up to air."

[taste_tester]

"Hmmm - just skin? What about your eye or your nail?"

[poll_the_stars]

Hmmm! Science.

"Eye, yes. Nail, no."

[taste_tester]

"Underside of your nail, into what would be the pink if we were pink sorts of people?"

[poll_the_stars]

"No, but I can work from the part of the nail that's under the skin, which is interesting."

[taste_tester]

"That is interesting. Suggests the boundary's fuzzy, and fuzz means you can push it."

[poll_the_stars]

She smiles a bit, and nods.

"I also have been working on some more fine control in transmuting - at first it was just a bland direct dump of whatever copy I made, now I have a bit more ability to pick and choose what I do or don't make."

[taste_tester]

"Do tell."

[poll_the_stars]

"When I had just turned, the edge of whatever transmutation I made was one and the same as the edge of the transmutation area - to get fiddly little details I had to fiddle with the shape of the transmutation area itself. Now, I can just make them in whatever shape I want, as long as it's in the transmutation area. This actually makes it significantly easier to have distance, because before it would always have a little trail of whatever it is I was making leading back to my anchor. I could put it back, but now I don't need to waste my time changing it and putting it back at all. Though it's faster to let the transmutation area be my border if I can."

[taste_tester]

"Hmm."

Addy pokes Blair's nose. "Why do you think you have this and not something else?" she asks.

[all_too_familiar]

(Blair is mildly surprised that Addy remembers he exists. He thought they were both too far into the magic nerd zone.)