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

[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.

[pythbox]

It's like trying to haul a small boulder through quicksand, but eventually: chicken sandwich. Perfectly ordinary and tasty chicken sandwich.

[iamnotpolaris]

She is less hungry after she has eaten it! How does she feel after the half-hour she gave it elapses?

[pythbox]

No sudden ravenousness or anything.

[iamnotpolaris]

This is so great. Can she make ink directly on things? Will it go away if she does? She gets out a sheet of loose-leaf, makes a puddle of ink on it, and gives the ink fifteen seconds--long enough to stain, not long enough that it would all have soaked in.

[pythbox]

The puddliest part of the puddle vanishes, but a stain remains.

[iamnotpolaris]

So far the things that have continued to exist are things that have gotten mixed up with other things--saliva, paper and chyme. She dashes off to a bathroom, makes a simple glass cup to last half an hour, fills it halfway with water, makes more water at three minutes to fill it halfway, and conjures a stirrer for good measure to make sure it's properly integrated.

[pythbox]

The conjured water manages to vanish despite its integration with the non-conjured water.

[iamnotpolaris]

Dammit. Okay, fill it up to three-quarters, fill it the rest of the way with conjured water, mix it up and see what happens.

[pythbox]

A three-quarters-full glass is what happens, when enough time has elapsed.

[iamnotpolaris]

Okay this is enough frustration for the moment.

She pulls out her phone and e-mails Cass a summary of her impromptu experiments and a request for advice on permanency.

[the_greatest_show]

Permanency is a total bitch!

I'm not totally sure what the deal is with the temporary stuff sometimes not disappearing, but you know how you wind stuff up to make it last longer? To make it permanent you have to kind of... turn it inside out. I've told Anna how and she still can't do it yet, it's really tough.

[iamnotpolaris]

Tough like hard to figure out or tough like hard to keep a hold of?

[the_greatest_show]

Both.