Construction Post: TOMU 2-22
Jul. 19th, 2011 03:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandraerin3:00-3:30 - ~300 words
3:30-400 - ~850 words (+500)
3:00-3:30 - ~1150 words (+300)
3:30-4:00 - ~1750 words (+600)
6:00-6:30 - ~2450 words (+700)
[2.5 hours - Just about done.]
Twyla jumped so much at the sound of the door opening that I half expected her to bolt. Instead, she composed herself as quickly as she could and kept walking. I guess in that half second her mind had convinced her that it was not within the realm of reason that I might have coincidentally been coming out of my room mere moments after she'd stood in front of the door, not quite banging it down.
My impression of Twyla had always been that she was shy, but that level of awkwardness kind of broke my heart. It was like looking into a mirror... if I were a little bit more broadly set, blonde, and had a pair of horns jutting out of my forehead.
The horns weren't too obtrusive. Over the summer break they'd shrunk away in my mind to tiny little pointed knobs, but they were in fact crescents a couple inches long. Even at half that size, though, they would have been pretty obvious as they're horns and otherwise human-looking people don't tend to have any of those.
"Were you looking for me?" I asked, trying to sound as open and non-threatening and non-sarcastic as I could manage. It didn't help that "Looking for someone?" is one of those things that people almost never say in a fully sincere, non-ironic way. It's one of nature's great rhetorical questions, asked primarily by people who already know the answer. I think it's a natural developmental feature of language that it loses its sincerity over time, as euphemisms and sarcasm creeps in.
Of course, I did know the answer, but there were even fewer socially viable options for saying something like, "Hi, I totally just saw you knocking on my door and I was a little hesitant to answer but then I changed my mind."
"Uh, yeah," Twyla said. "You... I was... I mean, if you're busy, I could..."
"I'm not busy," I said. "And you came all the way up here... what's up?"
"Well, I was just wondering... you're a fire demon, right?" she said. "I mean, half?"
Demons are one of those subjects that everyone... every human, or in Twyla's case, every member of human society... knows of about, but that few people really know any actual information about. Depending on the teller and the angle, demons might be the horrible things skulking about in the darkness at the edges of civilization or the hidden enemies infiltrating society to strike from within. Either way, it
"Uh... yeah, on my father's side... but also no," I said. "Every demon is a fire demon, there aren't different kinds. The fire is because of..."
"The route ancient demonkind took when Lord Khersis cast them out of this plane and into hell," Twyla said, nodding. "He bound them to the lower plane so that even in death they could not escape it, and so they passed through the fire and did not die, but were changed."
I was kind of surprised that she knew that... I knew she was a Khersian, but Twyla had never shown any particular antipathy to me based on my heritage or for any other reason so I'd figured she hadn't paid much attention to the more demon-oriented parts of the Librum.
She'd never shown much of anything to me, though. She hadn't participated in the fuckery of her roommates and their friends during our freshman year, but she hadn't done much to rein them in. Not that I blamed her. I'd been in similar enough positions to know that II probably would have managed to do little more than keep my own head down.
"Uh, right," I said.
"I just... I wasn't sure if every demon had the fire stuff in them," she said. "But then I guess the answer is yes."
"Yes, I have fire in me," I said. I took a step forward out of my room and into the hall and lit a small flame on the tip of one of my fingers. Fire magic was technically forbidden in the dorms, but the curving hallways of Gilcrease Tower meant I didn't exactly feel exposed, and there were fewer things to set on fire in the hallway than in the crowded little room that Amaranth had extensively furnished.
"When you do that... is that like, a spell, or are you just doing it?"
"Well... yeah," I said. "I mean, I can just do it without much difficulty, but I can also use that ability in spells."
I demonstrated by snapping my fingers and making a little spiraling column of fire. Twyla stared at the flame and then the space it had occupied blankly. It wasn't the response I'd expected to that trick... or from Twyla. She'd never struck me as particularly interesting, but she'd never struck me as dull.
"You didn't cast anything," she said, and I realized she wasn't a spell-user... or rather, she probably had learned only the most ritualized of ritual magic in her divination classes. The mundane public tends to think of magic that doesn't come from an item as something you get by reciting formulas and wiggling your fingers... they don't realize a spell formula is just a shortcut to an end.
"Uh, no, not that you could see," I said. "But I've got that one down to the point that I don't need any kind of focusing incantation... or even much focusing... to do it. And part of why I'm able to do that is because of the fire in my nature. If I wasn't wizardly-inclined, I could pretty much just make fire, but I wouldn't be able to control it in as interesting ways."
"But you can control it?" she said. "I mean, you could? Or did you have to learn elementalism to do that?"
"Let's take a step back," I said. "What are you asking about, when you say 'control'... are we talking about making it get up and dance, or are we talking about keeping it from leaping up and killing everyone?"
That rocked her back on her feet, and I kicked myself on the inside. The idea that I or one of my more frightening and obvious and frighteningly obvious demonic powers might be inches away from killing everyone around me was not something I wanted to encourage.
"Of course, either way I did learn to keep it in check when I was growing up," I said.
"How?" she asked.
"Necessity," I said. "And my grandmother."
"What?"
"She had her own ways of, uh, teaching me self-control," I said.
"I... do you think you could put me in touch with her?"
"You're not having demon problems, are you?" I asked. I quickly rephrased it when I realized how that might sound. "Problems with a demon, I mean."
One side effect of the whole people-knowing-nothing-about-demons thing is that they end up being assigned every visual signifier for "evil" in the public consciousness, even those that actually just meant "different". Twyla looked perfectly human, except for her horns... and she was left-handed. Demons didn't have horns, and there was no proclivity for "sinister" handedness among them, but these things would have been enough to mark her as tainted in many people's eyes during less enlightened times.
For example, the times that we and all immediately foreseeable future generations would live in.
"No!" she said quickly. It was hard to say if it was "a little too" quickly or not. The idea of a demon skulking around someone on campus was unsettling, because the odds of it having nothing to do with me were so low that nobody would believe it had nothing to do with me.
"I'm not really close to my grandmother," I said. It was a colossal understatement, but there was no reason to get into that with a near-stranger. "And I'm not sure you'd... well, she's a pretty strict Universal. I'm not sure you'd see eye-to-eye on anything theological."
"Oh, I didn't want to discuss theology with her," Twyla said. "I just... how did she teach you to control your flame?"
"Well, that was theology," I said. "Sort of. Applied theology. She had three buckets set up by the bed. If I caught fire twice, she'd put it out with the first two buckets. The third one, she told me was full of holy water."
There had actually been more to it than that... she'd also given me an approximation of what I could expect, by sticking her own hand into hot oil. I didn't see any point in horrifying Twyla any further than necessary to dissuade her from wanting to contact my grandmother.
"Oh. Um... paladins can do that?"
"Well, they don't usually carry around holy water to bless things," I said.
"Oh. Well, anyway, I don't really think that would work," she said.
"Right? Because holy water doesn't stay holy in an open or unconsecrated vessel," I said. "But the threat seemed real, so... well..." I shrugged. "I wouldn't really recommend it, anyway."
"What would you recommend?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "Meditation? Positive reinforcement? There isn't exactly a guidebook out there... though my grandmother can't be the only person who's ever raised up a half-demon after they turned, so maybe there is."
"Oh, I wasn't asking about a half-demon... um, specifically, I mean," Twyla said.
"Weren't you asking about me?" I asked.
"Yeah, just as an example," she said.
"What are we talking about, then?" I asked.
"No one... it's hypothetical," she said. "I just... it seemed... like an interesting topic?"
She stood there, practically radiating her desperation for me to believe... whatever it was she wanted me to believe. Possibly it was the sheer weight of her wanting me not to put two and two together that put me in mind of what I'd seen in the cafeteria the other day: Twyla's tray catching fire.
I'd missed the "before", only caught a glimpse of the "during" and "after"... if Twyla had been in the same sort of programs as I was, I could believe it to have been an incantation practiced at an unwise time, or a misfire of an improperly charged item. It could have been an extremely malicious and dangerous prank from someone playing off her "demonic" looks. It could have been any number of things... but here was Twyla on my doorstep, asking questions about how I controlled my fire.
The first thought that went through my head was an absurd one: maybe she's part-demon... separately from whatever had given her the horns. It was an absurd thought because it was impossible. Whatever branch of Khersianism Twyla practiced, they weren't as big on the showy icons as the Universal Temple, but she had to pray. Maybe there was some fraction of demon blood that was small enough that she wouldn't get more than an uncomfortable tingling feeling from that, but I doubted it was high enough that she'd be spontaneously manifesting fire.
But demons weren't the only creatures of elemental fire. There were whole classes of beings who came by a fire association naturally. One of my favorite professors, Elizabeth Bohd, had traces of both djinn and demon in her heritage...
And with that thought, I knew how to help Twyla. Even without knowing what was going on with her... which was none of my business if she didn't feel like volunteering it... I knew what she needed if she was having elemental problems.
"Hey, you know who knows a lot about controlling fire and other elements?" I said. "Professor Bohd. I had her for elemental evocation last year."
"Isn't evocation bringing stuff out?" Twyla asked.
"Yeah, but it takes a level of control to do that," I said. "And she doesn't just teach evocation. She could probably h... tell you everything there is to know about controlling an element."
I was trying to be circumspect and probably being about as subtle as Twyla was. Bohd had outed herself to the class last year but I didn't know how far the news had traveled or how long it had stuck, and I didn't think it was my place to tell strangers the minute bits of her racial background. And since Twyla hadn't disclosed that she had a problem, it would have seemed weird to offer her help. But she had expressed that this was a topic of interest, and so I'd pointed her towards a relevant authority.
It was no wonder I had a hard time sounding sincere. There I was honestly trying to be helpful, and I felt the need to cloud my words in a double layer of deceit. Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to socialize.
"Oh... thanks," she said. "Thank you. I'll... well, I guess I'll be going then."
"Bye," I said. I felt that was slightly inadequate, and wanted something to add... something that suggested her visit hadn't been an unwelcome intrusion and she was welcome to come back even when she didn't have any hypothetically interesting topics to talk around.
But if you've never in your life said something like "Hey, don't be a stranger." or "Come back and see us sometime." it's hard to do so on the spot.
So I just watched her go, and did my best to get through the remaining pages for spellbinding. Unbidden, a question kept coming forward from the back of my mind, rising up from the depths of my subconscious like some shapeshifting monster that can take the form of a child's riddle:
What makes fire and has horns?
I couldn't think of any answers. The most obvious creatures of elemental fire were... well, creatures of elemental fire. I told myself that it was none of my business, but while that was sufficient to keep me from prying it wasn't enough to stop my mind from wondering.
[2 hours. Going better!]
Twyla jumped so much at the sound of the door opening that I half expected her to bolt. Instead, she composed herself as quickly as she could and kept walking. I guess in that half second her mind had convinced her that it was not within the realm of reason that I might have coincidentally been coming out of my room mere moments after she'd stood in front of the door, not quite banging it down.
That kind of awkwardness kind of broke my heart.
"Were you looking for me?" I asked, trying to sound as open and non-threatening and non-sarcastic as I could manage. It didn't help that "Looking for someone?" is one of those things that people almost never say in a fully sincere, non-ironic way. It's one of nature's great rhetorical questions, asked primarily by people who already know the answer. I think it's a natural developmental feature of language that it loses its sincerity over time, as euphemisms and sarcasm creeps in.
Of course, I did know the answer, but there were even fewer socially viable options for saying something like, "Hi, I totally just saw you knocking on my door and I was a little hesitant to answer but then I changed my mind."
"Uh, yeah," Twyla said. "You... I was... I mean, if you're busy, I could..."
"I'm not busy," I said. "And you came all the way up here... what's up?"
"Well, I was just wondering... you're a fire demon, right?" she said. "I mean, half?"
Demons are one of those subjects that everyone... every human, or in Twyla's case, every member of human society... knows of about, but that few people really know any actual information about. Depending on the teller and the angle, demons might be the horrible things skulking about in the darkness at the edges of civilization or the hidden enemies infiltrating society to strike from within, []
"Uh... yeah, on my father's side... but also no," I said. "Every demon is a fire demon, there aren't different kinds. The fire is because of..."
"The route ancient demonkind took when Lord Khersis cast them out of this plane and into hell," Twyla said, nodding. "He bound them to the lower plane so that even in death they could not escape it, and so they passed through the fire and did not die, but were changed."
I was kind of surprised that she knew that... I knew she was a Khersian, but Twyla had never shown any particular antipathy to me based on my heritage or for any other reason so I'd figured she hadn't paid much attention to the more demon-oriented parts of the Librum.
She'd never shown much of anything to me, though. She hadn't participated in the fuckery of her roommates and their friends during our freshman year, but she hadn't done much to rein them in. Not that I blamed her. I'd been in similar enough positions to know that II probably would have managed to do little more than keep my own head down.
"Uh, right," I said.
"I just... I wasn't sure if every demon had the fire stuff in them," she said. "But then I guess the answer is yes."
"Yes, I have fire in me," I said. I took a step forward out of my room and into the hall and lit a small flame on the tip of one of my fingers. Fire magic was technically forbidden in the dorms, but the curving hallways of Gilcrease Tower meant I didn't exactly feel exposed, and there were fewer things to set on fire in the hallway than in the crowded little room that Amaranth had extensively furnished.
"When you do that... is that like, a spell, or are you just doing it?"
"Well... yeah," I said. "I mean, I can just do it without much difficulty, but I can also use that ability in spells."
I demonstrated by snapping my fingers and making a little spiraling column of fire. Twyla stared at the flame and then the space it had occupied blankly. It wasn't the response I'd expected to that trick... or from Twyla. She'd never struck me as particularly interesting, but she'd never struck me as dull.
"You didn't cast anything," she said, and I realized she wasn't a spell-user... or rather, she probably had learned only the most ritualized of ritual magic in her divination classes. The mundane public tends to think of magic that doesn't come from an item as something you get by reciting formulas and wiggling your fingers... they don't realize a spell formula is just a shortcut to an end.
"Uh, no, not that you could see," I said. "But I've got that one down to the point that I don't need any kind of focusing incantation... or even much focusing... to do it. And part of why I'm able to do that is because of the fire in my nature. If I wasn't wizardly-inclined, I could pretty much just make fire, but I wouldn't be able to control it in as interesting ways."
"But you can control it?" she said. "I mean, you could? Or did you have to learn elementalism to do that?"
"Let's take a step back," I said. "What are you asking about, when you say 'control'... are we talking about making it get up and dance, or are we talking about keeping it from leaping up and killing everyone?"
That rocked her back on her feet, and I kicked myself on the inside. The idea that I or one of my more frightening and obvious and frighteningly obvious demonic powers might be inches away from killing everyone around me was not something I wanted to encourage.
"Of course, either way I did learn to keep it in check when I was growing up," I said.
"How?" she asked.
"Necessity," I said. "And my grandmother."
"What?"
"She had her own ways of, uh, teaching me self-control," I said.
"I... do you think you could put me in touch with her?"
"You're not having demon problems, are you?" I asked. I quickly rephrased it when I realized how that might sound. "Problems with a demon, I mean."
One side effect of the whole people-knowing-nothing-about-demons thing is that they end up being assigned every visual signifier for "evil" in the public consciousness, even those that actually just meant "different". Twyla looked perfectly human, except for her horns... and she was left-handed. Demons didn't have horns, and there was no proclivity for "sinister" handedness among them, but these things would have been enough to mark her as tainted in many people's eyes during less enlightened times.
For example, the times that we and all immediately foreseeable future generations would live in.
"No!" she said quickly. It was hard to say if it was "a little too" quickly or not. The idea of a demon skulking around someone on campus was unsettling, because the odds of it having nothing to do with me were so low that nobody would believe it had nothing to do with me.
"I'm not really close to my grandmother," I said. It was a colossal understatement, but there was no reason to get into that with a near-stranger. "And I'm not sure you'd... well, she's a pretty strict Universal. I'm not sure you'd see eye-to-eye on anything theological."
"Oh, I didn't want to discuss theology with her," Twyla said. "I just... how did she teach you to control your flame?"
"Well, that was theology," I said. "Sort of. Applied theology. She had three buckets set up by the bed. If I caught fire twice, she'd put it out with the first two buckets. The third one, she told me was full of holy water."
There had actually been more to it than that... she'd also given me an approximation of what I could expect, by sticking her own hand into hot oil. I didn't see any point in horrifying Twyla any further than necessary to dissuade her from wanting to contact my grandmother.
"Oh. Um... paladins can do that?"
"Well, they don't usually carry around holy water to bless things," I said.
"Oh. Well, anyway, I don't really think that would work," she said.
"Right? Because holy water doesn't stay holy in an open or unconsecrated vessel," I said. "But the threat seemed real, so... well..." I shrugged. "I wouldn't really recommend it, anyway."
"What would you recommend?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "Meditation? Positive reinforcement? There isn't exactly a guidebook out there... though my grandmother can't be the only person who's ever raised up a half-demon after they turned, so maybe there is."
"Oh, I wasn't asking about a half-demon... um, specifically, I mean," Twyla said.
"Weren't you asking about me?" I asked.
"Yeah, just as an example," she said.
"What are we talking about, then?" I asked.
"No one... it's hypothetical," she said. "I just... it seemed... like an interesting topic?"
She stood there, practically radiating her desperation for me to believe... whatever it was she wanted me to believe. Possibly it was the sheer weight of her wanting me not to put two and two together that put me in mind of what I'd seen in the cafeteria the other day: Twyla's tray catching fire.
I'd missed the "before", only caught a glimpse of the "during" and "after"... if Twyla had been in the same sort of programs as I was, I could believe it to have been an incantation practiced at an unwise time, or a misfire of an improperly charged item. It could have been an extremely malicious and dangerous prank from someone playing off her "demonic" looks. It could have been any number of things... but here was Twyla on my doorstep, asking questions about how I controlled my fire.
The first thought that went through my head was an absurd one: maybe she's part-demon... separately from whatever had given her the horns. It was an absurd thought because it was impossible. Whatever branch of Khersianism Twyla practiced, they weren't as big on the showy icons as the Universal Temple, but she had to pray.
[1.5 hours. Ugh... I lost a lot of this yesterday and trying to write something I've already written always feels like a slog. I'm going to skip ahead and try doing fresher things.]
Twyla jumped so much at the sound of the door opening that I half expected her to bolt. Instead, she composed herself as quickly as she could and kept walking. I guess in that half second her mind had convinced her that it was not within the realm of reason that I might have coincidentally been coming out of my room mere moments after she'd stood in front of the door, not quite banging it down.
That kind of awkwardness kind of broke my heart.
"Were you looking for me?" I asked, trying to sound as open and non-threatening and non-sarcastic as I could manage. It didn't help that "Looking for someone?" is one of those things that people almost never say in a fully sincere, non-ironic way. It's one of nature's great rhetorical questions, asked primarily by people who already know the answer. I think it's a natural developmental feature of language that it loses its sincerity over time, as euphemisms and sarcasm creeps in.
Of course, I did know the answer, but there were even fewer socially viable options for saying something like, "Hi, I totally just saw you knocking on my door and I was a little hesitant to answer but then I changed my mind."
"Uh, yeah," Twyla said. "You... I was... I mean, if you're busy, I could..."
"I'm not busy," I said. "And you came all the way up here... what's up?"
"Well, I was just wondering... you're a fire demon, right?" she said. "I mean, half?"
Demons are one of those subjects that everyone... every human, or in Twyla's case, every member of human society... knows of about, but that few people really know any actual information about. Depending on the teller and the angle, demons might be the horrible things skulking about in the darkness at the edges of civilization or the hidden enemies infiltrating society to strike from within, []
"Uh... yeah, on my father's side... but also no," I said. "Every demon is a fire demon, there aren't different kinds. The fire is because of..."
"The route ancient demonkind took when Lord Khersis cast them out of this plane and into hell," Twyla said, nodding. "He bound them to the lower plane so that even in death they could not escape it, and so they passed through the fire and did not die, but were changed."
I was kind of surprised that she knew that... I knew she was a Khersian, but Twyla had never shown any particular antipathy to me based on my heritage or for any other reason so I'd figured she hadn't paid much attention to the more demon-oriented parts of the Librum.
She'd never shown much of anything to me, though. She hadn't participated in the fuckery of her roommates and their friends during our freshman year, but she hadn't done much to rein them in. Not that I blamed her. I'd been in similar enough positions to know that II probably would have managed to do little more than keep my own head down.
"Uh, right," I said.
"I just... I wasn't sure if every demon had the fire stuff in them," she said. "But then I guess the answer is yes."
"Yes, I have fire in me," I said. I took a step forward out of my room and into the hall and lit a small flame on the tip of one of my fingers. Fire magic was technically forbidden in the dorms, but the curving hallways of Gilcrease Tower meant I didn't exactly feel exposed, and there were fewer things to set on fire in the hallway than in the crowded little room that Amaranth had extensively furnished.
"When you do that... is that like, a spell, or are you just doing it?"
"Well... yeah," I said. "I mean, I can just do it without much difficulty, but I can also use that ability in spells."
I demonstrated by snapping my fingers and making a little spiraling column of fire. Twyla stared at the flame and then the space it had occupied blankly. It wasn't the response I'd expected to that trick... or from Twyla. She'd never struck me as particularly interesting, but she'd never struck me as dull.
"You didn't cast anything," she said, and I realized she wasn't a spell-user... or rather, she probably had learned only the most ritualized of ritual magic in her divination classes. The mundane public tends to think of magic that doesn't come from an item as something you get by reciting formulas and wiggling your fingers... they don't realize a spell formula is just a shortcut to an end.
"Uh, no, not that you could see," I said. "But I've got that one down to the point that I don't need any kind of focusing incantation... or even much focusing... to do it. And part of why I'm able to do that is because of the fire in my nature. If I wasn't wizardly-inclined, I could pretty much just make fire, but I wouldn't be able to control it in as interesting ways."
"But you can control it?" she said. "I mean, you could? Or did you have to learn elementalism to do that?"
"Let's take a step back," I said. "What are you asking about, when you say 'control'... are we talking about making it get up and dance, or are we talking about keeping it from leaping up and killing everyone?"
That rocked her back on her feet, and I kicked myself on the inside. The idea that I or one of my more frightening and obvious and frighteningly obvious demonic powers might be inches away from killing everyone around me was not something I wanted to encourage.
"Of course, either way I did learn to keep it in check when I was growing up," I said.
"How?" she asked.
"Necessity," I said. "And my grandmother."
[]
"I don't think that would work," she said.
"Right? Because holy water doesn't stay holy in an open or unconsecrated vessel," I said. "But the threat seemed real, so... well..." I shrugged. "I wouldn't really recommend it, anyway."
"What would you recommend?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "Meditation? Positive reinforcement? There isn't exactly a guidebook out there... though my grandmother can't be the only person who's ever raised up a half-demon after they turned, so maybe there is."
"Oh, I wasn't asking about a half-demon... um, specifically, I mean," Twyla said.
"Weren't you asking about me?" I asked.
"Yeah, just as an example," she said.
"What are we talking about, then?" I asked.
"No one... it's hypothetical," she said. "I just... it seemed... like an interesting topic?"
[Hour in. Kind of rolling now.]
"I was just wondering... you're a fire demon, right?" she said. "I mean, half?"
"Uh... yeah, on my father's side... but also no," I said. "Every demon is a fire demon, there aren't different kinds. The fire is because of..."
"The route ancient demonkind took when Lord Khersis cast them out of this plane and into hell," Twyla said, nodding. "He bound them to the lower plane so that even in death they could not escape it, and so they passed through the fire and did not die, but were changed."
I was kind of surprised that she knew that... I knew she was a Khersian, but Twyla had never shown any particular antipathy to me based on my heritage or for any other reason so I'd figured she hadn't paid much attention to the more demon-oriented parts of the Librum.
She'd never shown much of anything to me, though. She hadn't participated in the fuckery of her roommates and their friends during our freshman year, but she hadn't done much to rein them in. Not that I blamed her. I'd been in similar enough positions to know that II probably would have managed to do little more than keep my own head down.
"Uh, right," I said.
"I just... I wasn't sure if every demon had the fire stuff in them," she said. "But then I guess the answer is yes."
"Yes, I have fire in me," I said. I took a step forward out of my room and into the hall and lit a small flame on the tip of one of my fingers. Fire magic was technically forbidden in the dorms, but the curving hallways of Gilcrease Tower meant I didn't exactly feel exposed, and there were fewer things to set on fire in the hallway than in the crowded little room that Amaranth had extensively furnished.
"When you do that... is that like, a spell, or are you just doing it?"
"Well... yeah," I said. "I mean, I can just do it without much difficulty, but I can also use that ability in spells."
I demonstrated by snapping my fingers and making a little spiraling column of fire. Twyla stared at the flame and then the space it had occupied blankly. It wasn't the response I'd expected to that trick... or from Twyla. She'd never struck me as particularly interesting, but she'd never struck me as dull.
"You didn't cast anything," she said, and I realized she wasn't a spell-user... or rather, she probably had learned only the most ritualized of ritual magic in her divination classes. The mundane public tends to think of magic that doesn't come from an item as something you get by reciting formulas and wiggling your fingers... they don't realize a spell formula is just a shortcut to an end.
"Uh, no, not that you could see," I said. "But I've got that one down to the point that I don't need any kind of focusing incantation... or even much focusing... to do it. And part of why I'm able to do that is because of the fire in my nature. If I wasn't wizardly-inclined, I could pretty much just make fire, but I wouldn't be able to control it in as interesting ways."
"But you can control it?" she said. "I mean, you could? Or did you have to learn elementalism to do that?"
"Let's take a step back," I said. "What are you asking about, when you say 'control'... are we talking about making it get up and dance, or are we talking about keeping it from leaping up and killing everyone?"
That rocked her back on her feet, and I kicked myself on the inside. The idea that I or one of my more frightening and obvious and frighteningly obvious demonic powers might be inches away from killing everyone around me was not something I wanted to encourage.
"Of course, either way I did learn to keep it in check when I was growing up," I said.
"How?" she asked.
"Necessity," I said. "And my grandmother."
[]
"I don't think that would work," she said.
"Right? Because holy water doesn't stay holy in an open or unconsecrated vessel," I said. "But the threat seemed real, so... well..." I shrugged. "I wouldn't really recommend it, anyway."
"What would you recommend?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "Meditation? Positive reinforcement? There isn't exactly a guidebook out there... though my grandmother can't be the only person who's ever raised up a half-demon after they turned, so maybe there is."
"Oh, I wasn't asking about a half-demon... um, specifically, I mean," Twyla said.
"Weren't you asking about me?" I asked.
"Yeah, just as an example," she said.
"What are we talking about, then?" I asked.
"No one... it's hypothetical," she said. "I just... it seemed... like an interesting topic?"
[Half hour in. Slow start, had to find an odd place to jump in to get the ball rolling.]
"When you do that... is that like, a spell, or are you just doing it?"
"Well... yeah," I said. "I mean, I can just do it without much difficulty, but I can also use that ability in spells."
I demonstrated by snapping my fingers and making a little spiraling column of fire. Twyla stared at the flame and then the space it had occupied blankly. It wasn't the response I'd expected to that trick... or from Twyla. She'd never struck me as particularly interesting, but she'd never struck me as dull.
"You didn't cast anything," she said, and I realized she wasn't a spell-user... or rather, she probably had learned only the most ritualized of ritual magic in her divination classes. The mundane public tends to think of magic that doesn't come from an item as something you get by reciting formulas and wiggling your fingers... they don't realize a spell formula is just a shortcut to an end.
"Uh, no, not that you could see," I said. "But I've got that one down to the point that I don't need any kind of focusing incantation... or even much focusing... to do it. And part of why I'm able to do that is because of the fire in my nature. If I wasn't wizardly-inclined, I could pretty much just make fire, but I wouldn't be able to control it in as interesting ways."
"But you can control it?" she said. "I mean, you could? Or did you have to learn elementalism to do that?"
"Let's take a step back," I said. "What are you asking about, when you say 'control'... are we talking about making it get up and dance, or are we talking about keeping it from leaping up and killing everyone?"
3:30-400 - ~850 words (+500)
3:00-3:30 - ~1150 words (+300)
3:30-4:00 - ~1750 words (+600)
6:00-6:30 - ~2450 words (+700)
[2.5 hours - Just about done.]
Twyla jumped so much at the sound of the door opening that I half expected her to bolt. Instead, she composed herself as quickly as she could and kept walking. I guess in that half second her mind had convinced her that it was not within the realm of reason that I might have coincidentally been coming out of my room mere moments after she'd stood in front of the door, not quite banging it down.
My impression of Twyla had always been that she was shy, but that level of awkwardness kind of broke my heart. It was like looking into a mirror... if I were a little bit more broadly set, blonde, and had a pair of horns jutting out of my forehead.
The horns weren't too obtrusive. Over the summer break they'd shrunk away in my mind to tiny little pointed knobs, but they were in fact crescents a couple inches long. Even at half that size, though, they would have been pretty obvious as they're horns and otherwise human-looking people don't tend to have any of those.
"Were you looking for me?" I asked, trying to sound as open and non-threatening and non-sarcastic as I could manage. It didn't help that "Looking for someone?" is one of those things that people almost never say in a fully sincere, non-ironic way. It's one of nature's great rhetorical questions, asked primarily by people who already know the answer. I think it's a natural developmental feature of language that it loses its sincerity over time, as euphemisms and sarcasm creeps in.
Of course, I did know the answer, but there were even fewer socially viable options for saying something like, "Hi, I totally just saw you knocking on my door and I was a little hesitant to answer but then I changed my mind."
"Uh, yeah," Twyla said. "You... I was... I mean, if you're busy, I could..."
"I'm not busy," I said. "And you came all the way up here... what's up?"
"Well, I was just wondering... you're a fire demon, right?" she said. "I mean, half?"
Demons are one of those subjects that everyone... every human, or in Twyla's case, every member of human society... knows of about, but that few people really know any actual information about. Depending on the teller and the angle, demons might be the horrible things skulking about in the darkness at the edges of civilization or the hidden enemies infiltrating society to strike from within. Either way, it
"Uh... yeah, on my father's side... but also no," I said. "Every demon is a fire demon, there aren't different kinds. The fire is because of..."
"The route ancient demonkind took when Lord Khersis cast them out of this plane and into hell," Twyla said, nodding. "He bound them to the lower plane so that even in death they could not escape it, and so they passed through the fire and did not die, but were changed."
I was kind of surprised that she knew that... I knew she was a Khersian, but Twyla had never shown any particular antipathy to me based on my heritage or for any other reason so I'd figured she hadn't paid much attention to the more demon-oriented parts of the Librum.
She'd never shown much of anything to me, though. She hadn't participated in the fuckery of her roommates and their friends during our freshman year, but she hadn't done much to rein them in. Not that I blamed her. I'd been in similar enough positions to know that II probably would have managed to do little more than keep my own head down.
"Uh, right," I said.
"I just... I wasn't sure if every demon had the fire stuff in them," she said. "But then I guess the answer is yes."
"Yes, I have fire in me," I said. I took a step forward out of my room and into the hall and lit a small flame on the tip of one of my fingers. Fire magic was technically forbidden in the dorms, but the curving hallways of Gilcrease Tower meant I didn't exactly feel exposed, and there were fewer things to set on fire in the hallway than in the crowded little room that Amaranth had extensively furnished.
"When you do that... is that like, a spell, or are you just doing it?"
"Well... yeah," I said. "I mean, I can just do it without much difficulty, but I can also use that ability in spells."
I demonstrated by snapping my fingers and making a little spiraling column of fire. Twyla stared at the flame and then the space it had occupied blankly. It wasn't the response I'd expected to that trick... or from Twyla. She'd never struck me as particularly interesting, but she'd never struck me as dull.
"You didn't cast anything," she said, and I realized she wasn't a spell-user... or rather, she probably had learned only the most ritualized of ritual magic in her divination classes. The mundane public tends to think of magic that doesn't come from an item as something you get by reciting formulas and wiggling your fingers... they don't realize a spell formula is just a shortcut to an end.
"Uh, no, not that you could see," I said. "But I've got that one down to the point that I don't need any kind of focusing incantation... or even much focusing... to do it. And part of why I'm able to do that is because of the fire in my nature. If I wasn't wizardly-inclined, I could pretty much just make fire, but I wouldn't be able to control it in as interesting ways."
"But you can control it?" she said. "I mean, you could? Or did you have to learn elementalism to do that?"
"Let's take a step back," I said. "What are you asking about, when you say 'control'... are we talking about making it get up and dance, or are we talking about keeping it from leaping up and killing everyone?"
That rocked her back on her feet, and I kicked myself on the inside. The idea that I or one of my more frightening and obvious and frighteningly obvious demonic powers might be inches away from killing everyone around me was not something I wanted to encourage.
"Of course, either way I did learn to keep it in check when I was growing up," I said.
"How?" she asked.
"Necessity," I said. "And my grandmother."
"What?"
"She had her own ways of, uh, teaching me self-control," I said.
"I... do you think you could put me in touch with her?"
"You're not having demon problems, are you?" I asked. I quickly rephrased it when I realized how that might sound. "Problems with a demon, I mean."
One side effect of the whole people-knowing-nothing-about-demons thing is that they end up being assigned every visual signifier for "evil" in the public consciousness, even those that actually just meant "different". Twyla looked perfectly human, except for her horns... and she was left-handed. Demons didn't have horns, and there was no proclivity for "sinister" handedness among them, but these things would have been enough to mark her as tainted in many people's eyes during less enlightened times.
For example, the times that we and all immediately foreseeable future generations would live in.
"No!" she said quickly. It was hard to say if it was "a little too" quickly or not. The idea of a demon skulking around someone on campus was unsettling, because the odds of it having nothing to do with me were so low that nobody would believe it had nothing to do with me.
"I'm not really close to my grandmother," I said. It was a colossal understatement, but there was no reason to get into that with a near-stranger. "And I'm not sure you'd... well, she's a pretty strict Universal. I'm not sure you'd see eye-to-eye on anything theological."
"Oh, I didn't want to discuss theology with her," Twyla said. "I just... how did she teach you to control your flame?"
"Well, that was theology," I said. "Sort of. Applied theology. She had three buckets set up by the bed. If I caught fire twice, she'd put it out with the first two buckets. The third one, she told me was full of holy water."
There had actually been more to it than that... she'd also given me an approximation of what I could expect, by sticking her own hand into hot oil. I didn't see any point in horrifying Twyla any further than necessary to dissuade her from wanting to contact my grandmother.
"Oh. Um... paladins can do that?"
"Well, they don't usually carry around holy water to bless things," I said.
"Oh. Well, anyway, I don't really think that would work," she said.
"Right? Because holy water doesn't stay holy in an open or unconsecrated vessel," I said. "But the threat seemed real, so... well..." I shrugged. "I wouldn't really recommend it, anyway."
"What would you recommend?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "Meditation? Positive reinforcement? There isn't exactly a guidebook out there... though my grandmother can't be the only person who's ever raised up a half-demon after they turned, so maybe there is."
"Oh, I wasn't asking about a half-demon... um, specifically, I mean," Twyla said.
"Weren't you asking about me?" I asked.
"Yeah, just as an example," she said.
"What are we talking about, then?" I asked.
"No one... it's hypothetical," she said. "I just... it seemed... like an interesting topic?"
She stood there, practically radiating her desperation for me to believe... whatever it was she wanted me to believe. Possibly it was the sheer weight of her wanting me not to put two and two together that put me in mind of what I'd seen in the cafeteria the other day: Twyla's tray catching fire.
I'd missed the "before", only caught a glimpse of the "during" and "after"... if Twyla had been in the same sort of programs as I was, I could believe it to have been an incantation practiced at an unwise time, or a misfire of an improperly charged item. It could have been an extremely malicious and dangerous prank from someone playing off her "demonic" looks. It could have been any number of things... but here was Twyla on my doorstep, asking questions about how I controlled my fire.
The first thought that went through my head was an absurd one: maybe she's part-demon... separately from whatever had given her the horns. It was an absurd thought because it was impossible. Whatever branch of Khersianism Twyla practiced, they weren't as big on the showy icons as the Universal Temple, but she had to pray. Maybe there was some fraction of demon blood that was small enough that she wouldn't get more than an uncomfortable tingling feeling from that, but I doubted it was high enough that she'd be spontaneously manifesting fire.
But demons weren't the only creatures of elemental fire. There were whole classes of beings who came by a fire association naturally. One of my favorite professors, Elizabeth Bohd, had traces of both djinn and demon in her heritage...
And with that thought, I knew how to help Twyla. Even without knowing what was going on with her... which was none of my business if she didn't feel like volunteering it... I knew what she needed if she was having elemental problems.
"Hey, you know who knows a lot about controlling fire and other elements?" I said. "Professor Bohd. I had her for elemental evocation last year."
"Isn't evocation bringing stuff out?" Twyla asked.
"Yeah, but it takes a level of control to do that," I said. "And she doesn't just teach evocation. She could probably h... tell you everything there is to know about controlling an element."
I was trying to be circumspect and probably being about as subtle as Twyla was. Bohd had outed herself to the class last year but I didn't know how far the news had traveled or how long it had stuck, and I didn't think it was my place to tell strangers the minute bits of her racial background. And since Twyla hadn't disclosed that she had a problem, it would have seemed weird to offer her help. But she had expressed that this was a topic of interest, and so I'd pointed her towards a relevant authority.
It was no wonder I had a hard time sounding sincere. There I was honestly trying to be helpful, and I felt the need to cloud my words in a double layer of deceit. Oh what tangled webs we weave when first we practice to socialize.
"Oh... thanks," she said. "Thank you. I'll... well, I guess I'll be going then."
"Bye," I said. I felt that was slightly inadequate, and wanted something to add... something that suggested her visit hadn't been an unwelcome intrusion and she was welcome to come back even when she didn't have any hypothetically interesting topics to talk around.
But if you've never in your life said something like "Hey, don't be a stranger." or "Come back and see us sometime." it's hard to do so on the spot.
So I just watched her go, and did my best to get through the remaining pages for spellbinding. Unbidden, a question kept coming forward from the back of my mind, rising up from the depths of my subconscious like some shapeshifting monster that can take the form of a child's riddle:
What makes fire and has horns?
I couldn't think of any answers. The most obvious creatures of elemental fire were... well, creatures of elemental fire. I told myself that it was none of my business, but while that was sufficient to keep me from prying it wasn't enough to stop my mind from wondering.
[2 hours. Going better!]
Twyla jumped so much at the sound of the door opening that I half expected her to bolt. Instead, she composed herself as quickly as she could and kept walking. I guess in that half second her mind had convinced her that it was not within the realm of reason that I might have coincidentally been coming out of my room mere moments after she'd stood in front of the door, not quite banging it down.
That kind of awkwardness kind of broke my heart.
"Were you looking for me?" I asked, trying to sound as open and non-threatening and non-sarcastic as I could manage. It didn't help that "Looking for someone?" is one of those things that people almost never say in a fully sincere, non-ironic way. It's one of nature's great rhetorical questions, asked primarily by people who already know the answer. I think it's a natural developmental feature of language that it loses its sincerity over time, as euphemisms and sarcasm creeps in.
Of course, I did know the answer, but there were even fewer socially viable options for saying something like, "Hi, I totally just saw you knocking on my door and I was a little hesitant to answer but then I changed my mind."
"Uh, yeah," Twyla said. "You... I was... I mean, if you're busy, I could..."
"I'm not busy," I said. "And you came all the way up here... what's up?"
"Well, I was just wondering... you're a fire demon, right?" she said. "I mean, half?"
Demons are one of those subjects that everyone... every human, or in Twyla's case, every member of human society... knows of about, but that few people really know any actual information about. Depending on the teller and the angle, demons might be the horrible things skulking about in the darkness at the edges of civilization or the hidden enemies infiltrating society to strike from within, []
"Uh... yeah, on my father's side... but also no," I said. "Every demon is a fire demon, there aren't different kinds. The fire is because of..."
"The route ancient demonkind took when Lord Khersis cast them out of this plane and into hell," Twyla said, nodding. "He bound them to the lower plane so that even in death they could not escape it, and so they passed through the fire and did not die, but were changed."
I was kind of surprised that she knew that... I knew she was a Khersian, but Twyla had never shown any particular antipathy to me based on my heritage or for any other reason so I'd figured she hadn't paid much attention to the more demon-oriented parts of the Librum.
She'd never shown much of anything to me, though. She hadn't participated in the fuckery of her roommates and their friends during our freshman year, but she hadn't done much to rein them in. Not that I blamed her. I'd been in similar enough positions to know that II probably would have managed to do little more than keep my own head down.
"Uh, right," I said.
"I just... I wasn't sure if every demon had the fire stuff in them," she said. "But then I guess the answer is yes."
"Yes, I have fire in me," I said. I took a step forward out of my room and into the hall and lit a small flame on the tip of one of my fingers. Fire magic was technically forbidden in the dorms, but the curving hallways of Gilcrease Tower meant I didn't exactly feel exposed, and there were fewer things to set on fire in the hallway than in the crowded little room that Amaranth had extensively furnished.
"When you do that... is that like, a spell, or are you just doing it?"
"Well... yeah," I said. "I mean, I can just do it without much difficulty, but I can also use that ability in spells."
I demonstrated by snapping my fingers and making a little spiraling column of fire. Twyla stared at the flame and then the space it had occupied blankly. It wasn't the response I'd expected to that trick... or from Twyla. She'd never struck me as particularly interesting, but she'd never struck me as dull.
"You didn't cast anything," she said, and I realized she wasn't a spell-user... or rather, she probably had learned only the most ritualized of ritual magic in her divination classes. The mundane public tends to think of magic that doesn't come from an item as something you get by reciting formulas and wiggling your fingers... they don't realize a spell formula is just a shortcut to an end.
"Uh, no, not that you could see," I said. "But I've got that one down to the point that I don't need any kind of focusing incantation... or even much focusing... to do it. And part of why I'm able to do that is because of the fire in my nature. If I wasn't wizardly-inclined, I could pretty much just make fire, but I wouldn't be able to control it in as interesting ways."
"But you can control it?" she said. "I mean, you could? Or did you have to learn elementalism to do that?"
"Let's take a step back," I said. "What are you asking about, when you say 'control'... are we talking about making it get up and dance, or are we talking about keeping it from leaping up and killing everyone?"
That rocked her back on her feet, and I kicked myself on the inside. The idea that I or one of my more frightening and obvious and frighteningly obvious demonic powers might be inches away from killing everyone around me was not something I wanted to encourage.
"Of course, either way I did learn to keep it in check when I was growing up," I said.
"How?" she asked.
"Necessity," I said. "And my grandmother."
"What?"
"She had her own ways of, uh, teaching me self-control," I said.
"I... do you think you could put me in touch with her?"
"You're not having demon problems, are you?" I asked. I quickly rephrased it when I realized how that might sound. "Problems with a demon, I mean."
One side effect of the whole people-knowing-nothing-about-demons thing is that they end up being assigned every visual signifier for "evil" in the public consciousness, even those that actually just meant "different". Twyla looked perfectly human, except for her horns... and she was left-handed. Demons didn't have horns, and there was no proclivity for "sinister" handedness among them, but these things would have been enough to mark her as tainted in many people's eyes during less enlightened times.
For example, the times that we and all immediately foreseeable future generations would live in.
"No!" she said quickly. It was hard to say if it was "a little too" quickly or not. The idea of a demon skulking around someone on campus was unsettling, because the odds of it having nothing to do with me were so low that nobody would believe it had nothing to do with me.
"I'm not really close to my grandmother," I said. It was a colossal understatement, but there was no reason to get into that with a near-stranger. "And I'm not sure you'd... well, she's a pretty strict Universal. I'm not sure you'd see eye-to-eye on anything theological."
"Oh, I didn't want to discuss theology with her," Twyla said. "I just... how did she teach you to control your flame?"
"Well, that was theology," I said. "Sort of. Applied theology. She had three buckets set up by the bed. If I caught fire twice, she'd put it out with the first two buckets. The third one, she told me was full of holy water."
There had actually been more to it than that... she'd also given me an approximation of what I could expect, by sticking her own hand into hot oil. I didn't see any point in horrifying Twyla any further than necessary to dissuade her from wanting to contact my grandmother.
"Oh. Um... paladins can do that?"
"Well, they don't usually carry around holy water to bless things," I said.
"Oh. Well, anyway, I don't really think that would work," she said.
"Right? Because holy water doesn't stay holy in an open or unconsecrated vessel," I said. "But the threat seemed real, so... well..." I shrugged. "I wouldn't really recommend it, anyway."
"What would you recommend?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "Meditation? Positive reinforcement? There isn't exactly a guidebook out there... though my grandmother can't be the only person who's ever raised up a half-demon after they turned, so maybe there is."
"Oh, I wasn't asking about a half-demon... um, specifically, I mean," Twyla said.
"Weren't you asking about me?" I asked.
"Yeah, just as an example," she said.
"What are we talking about, then?" I asked.
"No one... it's hypothetical," she said. "I just... it seemed... like an interesting topic?"
She stood there, practically radiating her desperation for me to believe... whatever it was she wanted me to believe. Possibly it was the sheer weight of her wanting me not to put two and two together that put me in mind of what I'd seen in the cafeteria the other day: Twyla's tray catching fire.
I'd missed the "before", only caught a glimpse of the "during" and "after"... if Twyla had been in the same sort of programs as I was, I could believe it to have been an incantation practiced at an unwise time, or a misfire of an improperly charged item. It could have been an extremely malicious and dangerous prank from someone playing off her "demonic" looks. It could have been any number of things... but here was Twyla on my doorstep, asking questions about how I controlled my fire.
The first thought that went through my head was an absurd one: maybe she's part-demon... separately from whatever had given her the horns. It was an absurd thought because it was impossible. Whatever branch of Khersianism Twyla practiced, they weren't as big on the showy icons as the Universal Temple, but she had to pray.
[1.5 hours. Ugh... I lost a lot of this yesterday and trying to write something I've already written always feels like a slog. I'm going to skip ahead and try doing fresher things.]
Twyla jumped so much at the sound of the door opening that I half expected her to bolt. Instead, she composed herself as quickly as she could and kept walking. I guess in that half second her mind had convinced her that it was not within the realm of reason that I might have coincidentally been coming out of my room mere moments after she'd stood in front of the door, not quite banging it down.
That kind of awkwardness kind of broke my heart.
"Were you looking for me?" I asked, trying to sound as open and non-threatening and non-sarcastic as I could manage. It didn't help that "Looking for someone?" is one of those things that people almost never say in a fully sincere, non-ironic way. It's one of nature's great rhetorical questions, asked primarily by people who already know the answer. I think it's a natural developmental feature of language that it loses its sincerity over time, as euphemisms and sarcasm creeps in.
Of course, I did know the answer, but there were even fewer socially viable options for saying something like, "Hi, I totally just saw you knocking on my door and I was a little hesitant to answer but then I changed my mind."
"Uh, yeah," Twyla said. "You... I was... I mean, if you're busy, I could..."
"I'm not busy," I said. "And you came all the way up here... what's up?"
"Well, I was just wondering... you're a fire demon, right?" she said. "I mean, half?"
Demons are one of those subjects that everyone... every human, or in Twyla's case, every member of human society... knows of about, but that few people really know any actual information about. Depending on the teller and the angle, demons might be the horrible things skulking about in the darkness at the edges of civilization or the hidden enemies infiltrating society to strike from within, []
"Uh... yeah, on my father's side... but also no," I said. "Every demon is a fire demon, there aren't different kinds. The fire is because of..."
"The route ancient demonkind took when Lord Khersis cast them out of this plane and into hell," Twyla said, nodding. "He bound them to the lower plane so that even in death they could not escape it, and so they passed through the fire and did not die, but were changed."
I was kind of surprised that she knew that... I knew she was a Khersian, but Twyla had never shown any particular antipathy to me based on my heritage or for any other reason so I'd figured she hadn't paid much attention to the more demon-oriented parts of the Librum.
She'd never shown much of anything to me, though. She hadn't participated in the fuckery of her roommates and their friends during our freshman year, but she hadn't done much to rein them in. Not that I blamed her. I'd been in similar enough positions to know that II probably would have managed to do little more than keep my own head down.
"Uh, right," I said.
"I just... I wasn't sure if every demon had the fire stuff in them," she said. "But then I guess the answer is yes."
"Yes, I have fire in me," I said. I took a step forward out of my room and into the hall and lit a small flame on the tip of one of my fingers. Fire magic was technically forbidden in the dorms, but the curving hallways of Gilcrease Tower meant I didn't exactly feel exposed, and there were fewer things to set on fire in the hallway than in the crowded little room that Amaranth had extensively furnished.
"When you do that... is that like, a spell, or are you just doing it?"
"Well... yeah," I said. "I mean, I can just do it without much difficulty, but I can also use that ability in spells."
I demonstrated by snapping my fingers and making a little spiraling column of fire. Twyla stared at the flame and then the space it had occupied blankly. It wasn't the response I'd expected to that trick... or from Twyla. She'd never struck me as particularly interesting, but she'd never struck me as dull.
"You didn't cast anything," she said, and I realized she wasn't a spell-user... or rather, she probably had learned only the most ritualized of ritual magic in her divination classes. The mundane public tends to think of magic that doesn't come from an item as something you get by reciting formulas and wiggling your fingers... they don't realize a spell formula is just a shortcut to an end.
"Uh, no, not that you could see," I said. "But I've got that one down to the point that I don't need any kind of focusing incantation... or even much focusing... to do it. And part of why I'm able to do that is because of the fire in my nature. If I wasn't wizardly-inclined, I could pretty much just make fire, but I wouldn't be able to control it in as interesting ways."
"But you can control it?" she said. "I mean, you could? Or did you have to learn elementalism to do that?"
"Let's take a step back," I said. "What are you asking about, when you say 'control'... are we talking about making it get up and dance, or are we talking about keeping it from leaping up and killing everyone?"
That rocked her back on her feet, and I kicked myself on the inside. The idea that I or one of my more frightening and obvious and frighteningly obvious demonic powers might be inches away from killing everyone around me was not something I wanted to encourage.
"Of course, either way I did learn to keep it in check when I was growing up," I said.
"How?" she asked.
"Necessity," I said. "And my grandmother."
[]
"I don't think that would work," she said.
"Right? Because holy water doesn't stay holy in an open or unconsecrated vessel," I said. "But the threat seemed real, so... well..." I shrugged. "I wouldn't really recommend it, anyway."
"What would you recommend?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "Meditation? Positive reinforcement? There isn't exactly a guidebook out there... though my grandmother can't be the only person who's ever raised up a half-demon after they turned, so maybe there is."
"Oh, I wasn't asking about a half-demon... um, specifically, I mean," Twyla said.
"Weren't you asking about me?" I asked.
"Yeah, just as an example," she said.
"What are we talking about, then?" I asked.
"No one... it's hypothetical," she said. "I just... it seemed... like an interesting topic?"
[Hour in. Kind of rolling now.]
"I was just wondering... you're a fire demon, right?" she said. "I mean, half?"
"Uh... yeah, on my father's side... but also no," I said. "Every demon is a fire demon, there aren't different kinds. The fire is because of..."
"The route ancient demonkind took when Lord Khersis cast them out of this plane and into hell," Twyla said, nodding. "He bound them to the lower plane so that even in death they could not escape it, and so they passed through the fire and did not die, but were changed."
I was kind of surprised that she knew that... I knew she was a Khersian, but Twyla had never shown any particular antipathy to me based on my heritage or for any other reason so I'd figured she hadn't paid much attention to the more demon-oriented parts of the Librum.
She'd never shown much of anything to me, though. She hadn't participated in the fuckery of her roommates and their friends during our freshman year, but she hadn't done much to rein them in. Not that I blamed her. I'd been in similar enough positions to know that II probably would have managed to do little more than keep my own head down.
"Uh, right," I said.
"I just... I wasn't sure if every demon had the fire stuff in them," she said. "But then I guess the answer is yes."
"Yes, I have fire in me," I said. I took a step forward out of my room and into the hall and lit a small flame on the tip of one of my fingers. Fire magic was technically forbidden in the dorms, but the curving hallways of Gilcrease Tower meant I didn't exactly feel exposed, and there were fewer things to set on fire in the hallway than in the crowded little room that Amaranth had extensively furnished.
"When you do that... is that like, a spell, or are you just doing it?"
"Well... yeah," I said. "I mean, I can just do it without much difficulty, but I can also use that ability in spells."
I demonstrated by snapping my fingers and making a little spiraling column of fire. Twyla stared at the flame and then the space it had occupied blankly. It wasn't the response I'd expected to that trick... or from Twyla. She'd never struck me as particularly interesting, but she'd never struck me as dull.
"You didn't cast anything," she said, and I realized she wasn't a spell-user... or rather, she probably had learned only the most ritualized of ritual magic in her divination classes. The mundane public tends to think of magic that doesn't come from an item as something you get by reciting formulas and wiggling your fingers... they don't realize a spell formula is just a shortcut to an end.
"Uh, no, not that you could see," I said. "But I've got that one down to the point that I don't need any kind of focusing incantation... or even much focusing... to do it. And part of why I'm able to do that is because of the fire in my nature. If I wasn't wizardly-inclined, I could pretty much just make fire, but I wouldn't be able to control it in as interesting ways."
"But you can control it?" she said. "I mean, you could? Or did you have to learn elementalism to do that?"
"Let's take a step back," I said. "What are you asking about, when you say 'control'... are we talking about making it get up and dance, or are we talking about keeping it from leaping up and killing everyone?"
That rocked her back on her feet, and I kicked myself on the inside. The idea that I or one of my more frightening and obvious and frighteningly obvious demonic powers might be inches away from killing everyone around me was not something I wanted to encourage.
"Of course, either way I did learn to keep it in check when I was growing up," I said.
"How?" she asked.
"Necessity," I said. "And my grandmother."
[]
"I don't think that would work," she said.
"Right? Because holy water doesn't stay holy in an open or unconsecrated vessel," I said. "But the threat seemed real, so... well..." I shrugged. "I wouldn't really recommend it, anyway."
"What would you recommend?" she asked.
"I don't know," I said. "Meditation? Positive reinforcement? There isn't exactly a guidebook out there... though my grandmother can't be the only person who's ever raised up a half-demon after they turned, so maybe there is."
"Oh, I wasn't asking about a half-demon... um, specifically, I mean," Twyla said.
"Weren't you asking about me?" I asked.
"Yeah, just as an example," she said.
"What are we talking about, then?" I asked.
"No one... it's hypothetical," she said. "I just... it seemed... like an interesting topic?"
[Half hour in. Slow start, had to find an odd place to jump in to get the ball rolling.]
"When you do that... is that like, a spell, or are you just doing it?"
"Well... yeah," I said. "I mean, I can just do it without much difficulty, but I can also use that ability in spells."
I demonstrated by snapping my fingers and making a little spiraling column of fire. Twyla stared at the flame and then the space it had occupied blankly. It wasn't the response I'd expected to that trick... or from Twyla. She'd never struck me as particularly interesting, but she'd never struck me as dull.
"You didn't cast anything," she said, and I realized she wasn't a spell-user... or rather, she probably had learned only the most ritualized of ritual magic in her divination classes. The mundane public tends to think of magic that doesn't come from an item as something you get by reciting formulas and wiggling your fingers... they don't realize a spell formula is just a shortcut to an end.
"Uh, no, not that you could see," I said. "But I've got that one down to the point that I don't need any kind of focusing incantation... or even much focusing... to do it. And part of why I'm able to do that is because of the fire in my nature. If I wasn't wizardly-inclined, I could pretty much just make fire, but I wouldn't be able to control it in as interesting ways."
"But you can control it?" she said. "I mean, you could? Or did you have to learn elementalism to do that?"
"Let's take a step back," I said. "What are you asking about, when you say 'control'... are we talking about making it get up and dance, or are we talking about keeping it from leaping up and killing everyone?"