entrancelogs | [open] Is it better to believe?

Who: Leo Fitz and YOU
Where: Around the Kindergarten
When: 23rd-27th (event catch-all)
Rating: Will edit this if threads move beyond PG13
Summary: When the scientist wakes up wielding magic, the first thing he wants to do is run three thousand tests. Something might accidentally get set on fire. He'll probably need help dealing with it.
The Story:
[ There are a few things Fitz understands about this event. He knows he's supposed to be some sort of wizard -- the word "evoker" springs to mind, even though he's not sure how to place it or what to do with that knowledge. But he does know that it's fascinating. It's a different sort of magic than the kind he'd had when Wonderland had transformed into that magic school. Then, he'd been seamlessly integrated into a society that took magic entirely for granted. He'd been a scholar, but at things that didn't require a frame of reference. None of it translated into anything particularly useful when the event ended and they returned to themselves.

But this is a different sort of magic. He's retained his faculties, and they've been transported to a world where mistakes probably won't end in something catastrophic. He'll spend his days working through the mechanics of what he innately knows, but hasn't yet examined. The trouble is that initiating the spell is more challenging when he's trying to slow down the process gained by forced muscle memory. He knows how to create a fire shield, but in trying to determine where the flames are actually coming from, he might start a few fires.

And as such, the bulk of his days will be entrenched in a different kind of experimentation. Settling in what he thinks is an uninhabited patch of land, he tests every spell he can think to test. It ranges from ice storms to fireballs, with the occasional acid arrow or gust of wind soaring over everyone's heads. He might need some help mitigating the ensuing disasters that come from it.

What he isn't prepared for is how exhausting it all is. Spellcasting is stressful, and a different sort of strain than what he's normally dealing with. (Perhaps it's symptomatic of a low constitution.) Every evening, he's tired enough to have a hard time standing upright for long periods. His notebook is increasingly full of data, but the headaches and nosebleeds are a terrible price to pay.

He knows he should probably stop. But it's all so interesting... Just one more. Just until the event ends. It's important data to compile, even if he thinks he might pass out after the tenth spell in a day (or earlier -- there's something about a freezing sphere that sucks everything out of him). ]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

So it's targeted. Perhaps teleportation is an element?

[Superpowers, why do you never make sense?

He bends down next to it, opening one of its eyes.]

And you said you weren't certain about the duration, yeah? How odd...

Not a clue, so watch your fingers.

Unless it's something that simply doesn't affect humans -- but we'd have to find a couple more of the monsters in one place, but frankly I'm not sure we're prepared to handle that.

[Fitz might right out light everything on fire, and she's not sure what she might end up doing.]

I think -- there are things I could try if safety became an issue. There's a spell that creates a surrogate hand... It might take some focus to draw it out, though.

Spectral hand, yes.

[Theres a beat. Is that not how everyone else knows it?]

Unless... you mean something different.

[Nailed it.]

Arcane hand. [He stares at her from the corner of his eye.] A spectral hand would be ghastly and why do I even know there's a difference?

[He scrubs his face with his hands.]

Of course.

[She murmurs the answer, fully aware of that side-eyed glance she's getting.]

Well I'm sure it's a function of the event, nothing more.

[You should hear what her head it filled with.]

We aren't typically cognizant of extra information, though. It's bizarre, quite frankly.

[He doesn't comment on her knowledgebase; obviously, it'll be the same as his own. What's the point of questioning that?]

Well -- maybe think of it as a midway between life and the Hogwarts event. We knew the spells then, too.

We were also too absorbed with petty adolescence to get much out of what we were forced to know then. It's probably a preventive measure to keep us from learning too much about the tools that could help us in any tangible way.

It was a fact of how things had always been -- we didn't think to question it, petty adolescence or not.

[She teases him a little with that last bit.]

It was a place where it didn't occur to us to question the motives of Tony Stark.

[ he snorts derisively ]

[She doesn't bother to sigh quietly, letting it go without regard to how much air she is expelling. But she doesn't say anything more about it.]

Regardless, it was a time when we had inherent knowledge, even if we couldn't dive into the epistemology.

[She's dismissing him, just like that. It's probably because she knows he's right and doesn't like to have her statements questioned.]

You knew quite a lot of epistemology then. It's just that it was colored in the wrong direction. We were too busy trying to reverse-engineer the mechanics of gas ovens.

[Tony bleeding Stark isn't even here anymore.]

Not exactly difficult mechanics, that.

[It's not like he's dead. He's just waiting for them at home now, where they still have an Avengers fantasy.]

And yet at the time, it felt like discovering the wheel.

It was exciting.

[She wants that excitement again, and she knows he does, too. And the magic is safe to measure. It'll be gone as fast as it appeared.]

I don't understand why this event wouldn't do the same to us. I don't think I've ever been given powers without also having it feel normalized. Do you suppose the process has slipped?

Maybe.

[She frowns a bit, considering it.]

Then again, I suppose that whatever powers that be would avoid a discernable pattern if at all possible. That's what I'd do, anyway.

What you'd do?

[He snatches her waist then, bringing her closer.]

Are you planning to keep people elaborately tortured for prolonged periods of time?

[She squeaks in surprise when he brings her closer, lightning fast, but she's far from complaining about it -- quite the opposite.]

If I were an implacable creature with deity-like powers over a fishbowl of mere mortals? I would try to keep them guessing, yes.

What a ruthless, cold-hearted queen you'd be. I'd have to do my best to hold on to your favor.

[She kisses him then, brief but heartfelt. Her fingernails lightly scratch along his jaw, making a satisfying pass over his scruff.]

You'll always have it.

Always is a long time, your majesty. How can we be sure?

[He'll kiss her again, not satisfied with just the first.]

[She kisses him back, putting some more heat in it. Libido has been in somewhat short supply lately, and she's missed this as much as she has the brilliant engineer who always has a project in his hands and three more on the back burner in his brain.

She threads her fingers through the hair at the back of his head, and leans her forehead against his.]

Because I say so. Will that do?

[He presses his mouth back against hers, hands roaming down to her waist and stopping a respectable distance from her bum.]

That sounds perfect.

(no subject)

bravejemma - 2017-07-01 20:49 (UTC) - Expand