Lo, How a Rose E'er Blooming

[whatamithinking]

Edie has mixed feelings about the roses.

On the one hand, magic exists.

On the other hand, ow.

On the first hand, perfect healing.

On the second hand, ow.

On the first hand, flight.

On the second hand, holy fucking ow that one's definitely the worst, yep, ow ow ow.

Comments

[iamnotpolaris]

Well, that's vaguely unsatisfactory. Is there a limit to the number of nearby small light objects she can move short imprecise distances?

[pythbox]

The limit starts out at one. If she practices and tries hard, she can increase that limit, along with the limits on how big and heavy and far the objects can be. Her mental grip gets 'stronger' and her mental reach gets 'longer', slowly but steadily, as she works.

[iamnotpolaris]

Can she do a little of this while also getting her up-till-now neglected homework done, it's not as interesting as conjuring and Professor Roth is not particularly forgiving of late assignments.

[pythbox]

Absolutely.

[iamnotpolaris]

Oh, good.

...

The blue flower hurts a lot less than the black one, it feels kind of weird. Not being able to conjure things feels weird too, she spent long enough practicing that she keeps absentmindedly trying to draw a marble or a necklace or something through and minding the absence.

...

Fuck it. The ache didn't bother her that much, and it would probably be best to get used to it as soon as possible, considering how much worse taking it out and putting it back in is. She doesn't bother to take the blue flower out again (the nonblack flowers barely hurt while they're in, really) before sticking the flower of It Really Really Hurts back in her arm. Ow, but the resulting pain is frankly dramatically much less than the pain of putting it in, so there's that. Great. Let's conjure a bunch of pebbles and juggle them while finishing this worksheet.

[pythbox]

Conjuration and telekinesis work together very neatly indeed!

[iamnotpolaris]

If she works mostly on complexity and duration and drops all the non-conjured items she was futzing with, can she simply toss newly-formed items into the pile of floaty things?

[pythbox]

She can absolutely do that.

[iamnotpolaris]

Excellent. And maybe test/train her weight limits by generating gradually massier items.

[pythbox]

They are heavy and difficult to drag through the magic, but at least her mental grip doesn't seem to get 'tired' except as an extension of general mental fatigue. She can keep this up as long as her concentration lasts.

[iamnotpolaris]

Beautiful.

Her concentration is, sadly, diverted as she has to finish the rest of her schoolwork (she has never resented its intrusion more than she does now, this is fun) but she manages to force at least a few more grams out of her capacity before she looks at the time and makes herself go to bed.

[whatamithinking]

The next morning Edie notices the number of blossoms on her sister's forearms and raises an eyebrow.

[iamnotpolaris]

"The other ones don't really feel like much in comparison to the black one," she says a little defensively, "and it got so that not being able to conjure stuff was more annoying than the pain."

[whatamithinking]

"To return your own sentiments--don't hurt yourself. Well, I mean, besides--you know what I mean."

[iamnotpolaris]

"I do."

[whatamithinking]

Hug, and then they both need to get moving.

[iamnotpolaris]

Yeah. Ugh, class. Doesn't the world know she has important stuff to do?

When a classmate wants to borrow a pen, can she stick her hand in her bag and conjure a pen in it that will last longer than the class period?

[pythbox]

It takes half a minute to get it dragged/wiggled through the magic and spun up to a full hour's lifespan, but then yes, yes she can.

[iamnotpolaris]

Sweet. She hands it to him with a warning that she needs it back when class is over and spends another couple of minutes making a fancier pen to--

She makes a pen that'll last three minutes and scribbles on the margins of a piece of notebook paper with it, then tucks it out of sight. Does the paper stay writ on when it vanishes?

[pythbox]

Luckily for her classmate, yes, yes it does.

[iamnotpolaris]

Oh, good. Her backup plan was to make something up about accidentally giving him a prank pen with ink that vanished after an hour.

...

This means she's permanently made something. Ink is something. That is so cool. Between this and the fact that the roses heal all injuries maybe it would be a good idea to see if she can make food you can actually eat. Unless food is too complicated and/or massive, in which case she needs to push herself some more. She puts her hand back in her bag and tries to manifest a piece of chocolate.

[pythbox]

Chocolate is a bit stubborn - internal complexity produces a lot of drag - but it goes eventually.

[iamnotpolaris]

It only needs to last about fifteen minutes. She can eat a bar of chocolate in much less than that time, even with the need to conceal it so no one catches her snacking in class.

[pythbox]

Eating conjured chocolate: success!

[iamnotpolaris]

Not really a conclusive test, though. She wasn't especially hungry, and it wasn't a lot of chocolate.

During lunch break, she ducks away to a secluded corner and attempts to will a chicken sandwich into existence.