2013.04.14 - Talk of Magic

It's early on Saturday morning. Jocelyn had intended on going into town, but what she needed was at places that weren't open yet. So, the young woman has decided that with her freedom from the medbay she would relax a little bit out on the back porch. It was one of her favorite places to just sit and relax while reading a book or doing homework. Today, the girl has no such book, and is instead looking out on the field, perhaps just daydreaming, or thinking a little bit about something. It had been an odd couple of days for her, and this weekend was shaping up to be something tricky for her as well. So, a little bit of relative normalcy was a nice idea.
Returning from a not-quite-as-restful-as-she'd-hoped day or two at home in the city, Amanda steps out of the mansion and onto the patio with a cup of tea in her hands. There's a pensive expression on her face; she's clearly preoccupied. However, as she notes the girl lingering around with an expression not so far off her own. A gentle smile touches her lips and she pushes whatever thoughts plague her away. 
"Hey," she greets, crossing to lean on a patio railing nearby, holding her tea. "Not interrupting, am I?" 
"Just me relaxing a little bit. Thinking about getting a little bit of practice in, or studying, or something of that nature, before the rest of the day starts," Jocelyn says, gesturing to the seat next to her. "Take a load off". She doesn't know about all of Amanda's ties to a certain fuzzy elf, or she might mention more of what she's thinking about. "You rested up too?" she asks. "Doug still hasn't gotten on me about my shoulder. I'm kind of hoping he forgot about it," the teen says to Amanda with a small grin, remembering how he was fanboying over the woman in the medbay.
And, for her part, Amanda simply will not involve any of the students in her 'family' problems. In answer to her question, she gives a non-committal shrug. "Rested as I'm goinna be," is her only comment. She gives the girl a soft chuckle, however, at the mention of Doug. "Good luck with that." She won't lay odds. Maybe the girl will get lucky and the man really will be too focused on the witch. Amanda won't be surprised either way. 
"Plans this weekend?" Jocelyn asks. She looks out over the lawn and squints her eyes just a little bit for a moment. She'd been trying to figure out that whole life energy thing since she saw Amanda use it. It's still something she hasn't pulled off properly, though the energy in some of the plants seems to pull towards them. It is still a work in progress.
"Hey, a girl can dream, right? He's latched onto the idea of getting me into some sort of old television show. He keeps popping up with random ones at odd times and having me watch them". The teen stops squinting. Amanda, if she's sensitive, might sense the plants the girl was squinting at 'relax' a little bit.
Amanda gives another non-committal shrug. "Oh, I've got some things I need to take care of," she admits, "but that's normal." Normal? Well, actually... yes. Kurt's usually in some bind or another. And, if he's not, something else always comes up. Such is the life of a witch... and X-man. 
She's sensitive enough to feel the ripple, though it's magic that keys to her faster than general 'life'. Especially in a garden setting like this one. One of these days she really is going to need to sit still long enough to reattune herself to the mansion and nearest municipality. But, it'll never be as good as New York. 
"Old TV shows? Oi." Some of her time in London still hangs with her. She laughs. "There's no shame in avoiding the boob tube. And you can tell him I said that." She offers a light wink. 
Which will make things interesting if they run across each other. Granted, Jocelyn will be in disguise, but who knows how that'll go? "Normal is a very subjective word around here," Jocelyn responds with a laugh. "I learned that my first two weeks here easily enough. I still can't believe I've only been here a couple months. Feels like a lifetime, you know?" the teenager says. The joys of youth. Even as a young X-Man, time passes a bit differently for kids. Months are long stretches of time still.
"Oh, I will, don't worry. I don't mind it if the show is interesting, but I'm not going to sit down and watch it for six hours on end or anything like that regardless," the teen comments. "I'll admit, I've also been trying to figure out how to manipulate life energy a little bit. I wish I had a better name for it, but whatever. Haven't hit upon anything yet of substance, but I'm starting to recognize it now at least". Which is a start.
"Also, I think you said something about storing magic in an artifact? That actually works?" the teen comments. "Back on the camping trip, before the angry fuzzy guy came and paid us a visit". If nothing else, Jocelyn is one of those who is eager to learn about other things out there. They might be useful one day!
Amanda cants her head some. "Very few people access life energy in its raw form. Life tends to like to keep it to itself." A beat. "As much as it also likes to share. I tend to think of it a lot like the Force." Another beat. Right. Kid with no pop-culture knowledge. She chuckles. "Check out the original trilogy of Star Wars, and you'll get that reference better. The prequels kind of screw it up." 
(Midichlorians? Really, Lucas? Really? I don't think so!)
"When I was first learning magic one of the first things I learned was meditation. The easiest place to pull life energy from is your own self. And the easiest way to learn to do that -- at least at first -- is through meditation." She considers that a moment. "Though, you were a competitive athlete at one point, right? I suspect it's not all that different than the focussed state you'd need to be at the top of your game. At least, that's the closest analogy I can think of for when I'm, you know, battling a Bumble or something." She winks again. She likes that nickname for the thing. It amuses her. 
"But, yes. Magic energy can be stored in an artefact, much as electricity can be stored in a battery or sunlight can be converted by a solar cell. It's not easy to so so, but it can be done." In fact, the absorber's unique vision will probably detect the coalesced, if low-level, magic caught in a new copper bracelet she wears on her right wrist. 
"I've heard of Star Wars at least, though I've only seen, umm, what was it, the first one? Where the kid is in some race with aliens and there's this really obnoxious...thing. Jar Jar". Jocelyn shakes her head. "Kind of turned me off to the rest of the series". Yes. Yes she was introduced to Star Wars via Episode One. There are some things in her life that still need correcting.
"I've done meditation. You don't learn martial arts without learning some basics of it at least. Thing is, when I close my eyes to meditate now, I still see energy around me". She gestures at the manor. "I can see people inside, or their thermal signatures, through that wall, or the electricity running through the various circuits. Makes it a little harder to meditate," she explains. She hadn't gotten that far with the practice of meditation, really, before her power manifested. "Still, that makes sense, trying to work within myself first. I've never tried messing with my own energy before," she admits as she thinks that over. It would be easier.
"Like your bracelet," Jocelyn says easily enough. She can't tell what it's for, but she can tell that it's there. "Seems like that'd be useful to have, for circumstances like out in the wilderness or when you don't have time to draw it from somewhere else," the teen comments. "Whenever I absorb magic, I get this very tingly sensation. It's kind of resistive to absorption, unlike a lot of other ones," the woman explains.
"Ye-ah," Amanda laughs dryly. "That's the sucky one of the bunch, the one that gives the wrong impression of the Force." Midichlorians again. Puh-leeze. "Look at #4 -- A New Hope. Avoid all things Jar-Jar related." 
Truthfully, though, Amanda would be very surprised if the girl could truly draw 'life energy' in its raw form. It doesn't really work quite that way, though it's easier to describe it as such, to be sure. Still, she empathizes with the girl's predicament, even if she's never truly experienced distractions on that level. 
She glances at the new crystal on her wrist. "Thanks," she says, giving a brief smile. "It was just a quickie I threw together." Which, given she was in the center of her power base at the time and used materials she'd already thoroughly prepared for just such an occasion, doesn't mean it's any less potent. "It does have its uses, yes." She doesn't bother at all to enlighten the girl as to its true purpose. There are some things that shouldn't be shared. "I'm not surprised, though," she says to the comment about the nature of magic. "Magic is highly specific and highly personal. A spell cast by one magic user isn't easily dispelled by another, so I don't see why absorbing it would be any different." 
"Ahh. So what you're telling me is that the person who showed it to me either is ignorant or needs to be slapped for attempting to wreck the series for me. Got it," Jocelyn comments with a smirk. Gotta love it when some people have no taste. Nothing she could do about that now though. It was in the past.
"There is usually a little resistance from most types, but it isn't noticable except for the tiniest bit. Magic though, yeah. It's the trickiest in that regard". Jocelyn again notes the bracelet and just nods. "Seems like it has a decent amount of juice in it," the woman observes. "Hope it helps you". Whatever the woman was planning on doing with it. She wasn't going to ask about what it's actual purpose was. "Interesting though, that it's so personal. Most energy types just kind of are. Even the ones who use more cosmic powers or individualized ones, the actual energy is usually pretty neutral once used".
Amanda nods. "There are as many schools of thought about how magic actually works as there are magic users," she smiles. "But tend to see it as an expression of an individual's inner nature, which is likely one of the reasons I'm best at defensive magic and magic with a more practical bent." She knows herself. "It's also likely why magic users inclined to more destructive uses of the art eventually tend to develop deformities or more demonic visages." That, and the pacts they make with the infernal, but Magic 101 doesn't need to cover that. 
"So it's a reflection of who you are," Jocelyn says. She's of course trying to put it into an energy viewpoint, and it's not working so well for her. She just sees the stuff flying out and doing something, whatever that something is. "So it not only reflects you, it changes you. If destructive magic use leads to that sort of thing, wouldn't healing magic or defensive magic have it's own modifications that it tends towards? Like scales or something for someone who does mostly defensive magic?" Jocelyn figures that maybe a logical approach is the way to go towards this. And she's perfectly happy not talking about infernal pacts, yeah. She doesn't need to relive Limbo anytime soon.
Amanda chuckles. "Believe it or not, scales are usually considered indicative of dark magic. Not always, mind, but often." A beat. "It probably has something to do with the tendency of dark sorcerers to want to mimic demons." Still, the kid has a point. "Every magic user I've ever met eventually goes... strange," she admits. "I don't doubt I will, one day, too." If she's not already. Her one saving grace, frankly, is her consummate practicality and the ability it gives her to deal with most of the weirdness. Consequently, she'll probably hold out a whole lot longer than most of her peers. "When you can effectively change reality with a snap of your fingers -- or transverse the barriers between different realities, it's hard, sometimes, to stay connected to what's actually real and what's not." 
"Huh," Jocelyn says. "I kind of hope I don't acquire scales or horns or something when I absorb magic, because I somehow suspect I'll end up having to do that a fair bit in my career". That's one way to put one's life as an X-er. A career. You know, like a baker or firefighter. More like the firefighter. "I suppose that much power can do that. I can see that". The girl trails off for a moment. She'd been briefly a lot more powerful than she normally is. She knew that temptation pretty well.
"But, yeah. Most magic users I've known are at least a little weird somehow or another. You're kind of the exception so far," Jocelyn admits with a small grin.
Again, that soft chuckle. "Yeah, I've heard that before," Amanda admits. "I come from a long line of magic users. So, I like to think that's inured me to the worst of the effects." A beat. "Or, at least, early-on-set megalomania." She flashes a grin with that. She's not really serious. Well. Mostly. 
"I don't really know how your powers work. The best advice I can really give you is don't absorb any more magic than you need to. Especially dark magic. I don't know if you can see the difference between the shades, but I can. Or rather, I can feel it. Like when the wind suddenly turns cold on a summer day or the like." 
"I might be able to sense that, one day. But right now, it all looks about the same to me," Jocelyn admits. "Usually, if I'm unsure, I try to see what the spell effect is. I can't tell when you're doing something what your intent is though. So, in the heat of things, sometimes I have to go on gut instinct. When I absorb it, I seem to neutralize the effects and just make it raw magical energy. Like when you threw those bolts at me, I couldn't tell their intent, but I didn't feel any darker or lighter, for lack of a better term, when I absorbed them".
The woman certainly didn't seem as crazy as the first magic user Jocelyn encountered, but Illyana was a different breed altogether. "Well, that would help, being exposed to it from a young age, if you come from a long line and all". Jocelyn kind of wishes she had that sort of experience, but alas, she does not.
It ain't all it's cracked up to be. Amanda's also had to watch her mother devolve into something of a nutcase, after all. Sefan's death particularly unhinged her... which is something Amanda can understand. It was devastating, to be sure. But, her practicality won out again. (And Kurt's very lucky it did.) 
"I'm really going to have to work up a Magic 101," the witch says lightly, now. Otherwise, she'll be repeating herself an awful lot. "For now, consider the source of the magic. If it's someone you can trust, you're probably safe. If it's a bad guy, grab some other energy, if you can. It's just safer." 
Glancing at her watch, Jocelyn nods. "That makes sense," the teenager agrees. Of course, that wasn't always an option, for whatever reason, but the idea was sound. "But I've got to get going, Amanda. Got some errands to run". She stands up. "Have a good weekend. I'll see you about, and thanks for the chat". And with that, the teen will make her way inside to get ready for an interesting weekend.
Category:Log