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beccaelizabethWoke up at something like 0530. Gave up and got up to close the window and the blinds. Summer is kind of tricky.
Got back to sleep eventually, woke up around 10. Not awesome.
Dreamed something epic with sorcerers and angels and sith. Yes I know that's mixing genres somewhat. Also the earlier part where it was kind of like the cartoons in the back of Fortean Times, with psychedlic suits, that was less epic. I liked the bit where I got my phone out to take a picture and it showed all the same people but in a different setting and time of day. That was cool. Freaked out everyone. And then I saw Martha from Doctor Who and tried to call her over to see it. I think a chase scene ensued?
Anyways, much later, I was running away from something and met a motley assortment of people, one at a time in varying circumstances. One of them offered us a lift to KFC and nearly did a U turn in front of a lorry, or possibly didn't, we had an argue. Another guy who looked like an ageing Keanu Reeves tried to flirt and I told him he wasn't so pretty any more, meaning to go on and say how he needed to retune his flirt so it was less 'look at me' and more 'wow, look at you', but someone else walked past and agreed with the flat statement a little too strongly and they started to bicker. Little stuff like that. Only when you added everyone together it was not little any more.
We each had a trick, a little magic, or some odd heritage. One person had a favour owed, an emerald ticket, admit one sorcerer to the next gathering. Since you couldn't even find the gatherings without a ticket, jackpot. They'd been given it because they weren't a sorcerer and couldn't pass for one. But we'd also met up with this one guy who was just a fountain of uncontained power, and clearly needed training. So off we went. The recognisable ones put on metal masks - only some of them remembered eyeholes etc - and posed as Constructs, so they got sent to the garden with the smokers and the servants and the non sentients. Don't know what they'd get up to there, but you can learn a lot from servants, or from being one. A couple of us and the powerful one went all the way to the top of the tower for the big meeting.
... it looked vaguely like a mall food court, or a hotel bar, with a couple of levels and booth seats around the edges. Classy!
So there's a ton of sorcerers there and I present our big hitter for full accreditation. There's a general sucking in of breath and going ooooh. Full accreditation will put him under the protection of the guild, sure, but so would several lesser levels. Full is difficult, dangerous, and an eventual licence to kill. So what kind of person swaggers in and goes after it?
One of the assembled tilts her head and breaths deep again, then narrows her eyes. ... the next bit was a cartoon speech bubble with hieroglyph type symbols in, which, given teh kind of accidents sorcerers can have, seemed perfectly plausible. Symbols were feather and halos. Our power source smelled like angels. He had the blood of angels. Possibly as much as half.
And every sharp tooth in the supernatural world would find that information very interesting.
Hence needing every bit of help he can get.
So with that bit of interesting, there's an actual queue of sorcerers looking to take him on as a student. They work out a kind of timeshare agreement, with staggered levels so they can each teach their best work. Good for him, frustrating for them. Not least because initially? He's terrible at it. Don't get me wrong, he could do a little in the first place, he'd got power for sure, but the way he applied it was like the most unpromising squib of a first year student, not what they were expecting from his blood at all. But here they were teaching him basics, and he was borking them all.
I watched while he worked the hoops. Hoops are about spacial relationships and how they're utterly malleable to a sorcerers will. He'd got them all stacked together so they looked like one circle, and he was supposed to pull them apart, but not the easy way where there were physical breaks. Just pull them, so each hand has a half circle in them, and the space between them is ... Between, and very malleable. The tutor had optimistically tried to skip a level and get straight to where you tell that Between to be in another city. Just a small portal, not a big deal. But the student's control was off for even the basic seperation. He kept ending up with weird shapes and patterns, some hoops not even broke, or all of them broke but in different places so he had weird curves to work with. And as for power... there was barely anything weird about the bits between them. It was tedious and wearying and I was all :-/ So I asked the tutor for four seconds and went and whispered in the student's ear.
"You can do better; I've seen you. Remember how it felt. Between serenity and rage," Mental image of Xavier and Magneto, "and boundless love. Come from there. An Angel, falling."
I backed up, he kept his eyes closed, raised the hoops, and pulled.
The hoops expanded in his hands then disappeared.
The tutor sighed, seeing another weird failure, but then the quality of the light changed and something went weird about the world. I smirked, or grinned, or something triumphant, and told him, "Look out the windows."
One side was London, the other ... probably somewhere in America.
He'd opened the portal just a teensy bigger than expected, and further.
Still, technically, a failure of control, but with all the power you could dream of.
But that meant the whole building was Between.
A great many spells weren't configured to work Between, and flickered or failed. Including the spells the Sith were hiding behind. So suddenly they were all obvious by their auras, and some by their physical appearance, with a lot of red eyes and horns and red and black skin and so forth. Body mods they'd done to prove their commitment. And they all had black robes, but so did I, black is cool and goes with everything. They were not so cool, verging on positively volcanic with rage. Nine of them stood there, and their leader just said, "Kill them!"
They all drew blades, and those of us on the angel's side realised quite how outnumbered we were.
But I drew sword and said right back, "Execute them!"
... because justice, not vengeance?
... it didn't feel right though, so when it came to it and we closed to fight, I just disarmed them.
I was wielding sharps so a lot of arms came with, but still, in theory, merciful. They'd have a chance to change their minds and repent and so forth.
I was a bit busy and not noticing how the fight was going, and then suddenly I was stabbed in the back, and not noticing much besides the pain. Which was notable, even if I was dreaming. I slumped over a counter and everything started going black.
But then there was a hand on my shoulder and a warmth spreading, and the pain went away. Light came back, more and more light. And when I could move again, I turned, and I saw wings.
I also saw one of the 'disarmed' sith lying there, having found a way to backstab me with their remaining limbs.
The student angel smiled at me, and said "Boundless compassion."
Then I saw movement behind him, and he stiffened, losing contact, slumping forwards. I grabbed up a spear and thrust between long feathers, hitting the guy who'd just stabbed him in the back. So that was all our opponents down for the count. But unfortunately the one of us who could heal now had a whole lot of cold iron in his back.
Yet after the initial shock he seemed mostly puzzled about it.
He still couldn't stand straight, but he started trying to reach around to the knife. His wings got in the way, of course. So he told us to pull it out.
I wasn't sure, but someone else did. And Lo, the wound did heal before our eyes.
He straightened up and stretched.
He looked at me and smiled, something a lot softer and nicer than my earlier grin.
"Not falling."
And then I watch him flap a little and rise.
One wing is a little slow or sore, a few specks of red on it. Where my spear went through, it must have nicked him.
He fixes the magical mess, the portal, being Between, and lands outside, maybe a balcony or maybe down in the garden. He's looking pensive now. His other friend points out he seems to be immortal, cold iron can't kill him. On his other side I mutter, "Plants, though..."
He nods.
After that he still needed to learn a whole lot of control. And there were a whole lot of sorcerers lined up to help him do so. Not least because without control he could pretty easily tear up rather more than one little portal. He'd been trying that with the least of his effort.
So, enemies. But also a whole lot of potential.
I'm a bit disappointed with dream me, because kill them all, even with a gloss of justice, is not my preferred gig. Character development though, you can't have them walk in perfect, they get to discover compassion is strongest. He meant that distinction you get in English where Love can mean romantic and passionate love, that kind that focuses on just one person, and fails to care about anyone else. Boundless love by that measure could be for one individual or family. Boundless compassion though, that's for everyone, enemies included. Love goes with falling, but compassion? Rises to the light.
... he could also have been being sarcastic about how it's 'clearly' more caring to lop bits of people. Got your compassion right here, in several pieces. Ew.
Pretty good dream setup though. Story mileage in a new half angel.
I always want to write these up so they're as good to read as dream, but that takes, like, novel length or something.
Got back to sleep eventually, woke up around 10. Not awesome.
Dreamed something epic with sorcerers and angels and sith. Yes I know that's mixing genres somewhat. Also the earlier part where it was kind of like the cartoons in the back of Fortean Times, with psychedlic suits, that was less epic. I liked the bit where I got my phone out to take a picture and it showed all the same people but in a different setting and time of day. That was cool. Freaked out everyone. And then I saw Martha from Doctor Who and tried to call her over to see it. I think a chase scene ensued?
Anyways, much later, I was running away from something and met a motley assortment of people, one at a time in varying circumstances. One of them offered us a lift to KFC and nearly did a U turn in front of a lorry, or possibly didn't, we had an argue. Another guy who looked like an ageing Keanu Reeves tried to flirt and I told him he wasn't so pretty any more, meaning to go on and say how he needed to retune his flirt so it was less 'look at me' and more 'wow, look at you', but someone else walked past and agreed with the flat statement a little too strongly and they started to bicker. Little stuff like that. Only when you added everyone together it was not little any more.
We each had a trick, a little magic, or some odd heritage. One person had a favour owed, an emerald ticket, admit one sorcerer to the next gathering. Since you couldn't even find the gatherings without a ticket, jackpot. They'd been given it because they weren't a sorcerer and couldn't pass for one. But we'd also met up with this one guy who was just a fountain of uncontained power, and clearly needed training. So off we went. The recognisable ones put on metal masks - only some of them remembered eyeholes etc - and posed as Constructs, so they got sent to the garden with the smokers and the servants and the non sentients. Don't know what they'd get up to there, but you can learn a lot from servants, or from being one. A couple of us and the powerful one went all the way to the top of the tower for the big meeting.
... it looked vaguely like a mall food court, or a hotel bar, with a couple of levels and booth seats around the edges. Classy!
So there's a ton of sorcerers there and I present our big hitter for full accreditation. There's a general sucking in of breath and going ooooh. Full accreditation will put him under the protection of the guild, sure, but so would several lesser levels. Full is difficult, dangerous, and an eventual licence to kill. So what kind of person swaggers in and goes after it?
One of the assembled tilts her head and breaths deep again, then narrows her eyes. ... the next bit was a cartoon speech bubble with hieroglyph type symbols in, which, given teh kind of accidents sorcerers can have, seemed perfectly plausible. Symbols were feather and halos. Our power source smelled like angels. He had the blood of angels. Possibly as much as half.
And every sharp tooth in the supernatural world would find that information very interesting.
Hence needing every bit of help he can get.
So with that bit of interesting, there's an actual queue of sorcerers looking to take him on as a student. They work out a kind of timeshare agreement, with staggered levels so they can each teach their best work. Good for him, frustrating for them. Not least because initially? He's terrible at it. Don't get me wrong, he could do a little in the first place, he'd got power for sure, but the way he applied it was like the most unpromising squib of a first year student, not what they were expecting from his blood at all. But here they were teaching him basics, and he was borking them all.
I watched while he worked the hoops. Hoops are about spacial relationships and how they're utterly malleable to a sorcerers will. He'd got them all stacked together so they looked like one circle, and he was supposed to pull them apart, but not the easy way where there were physical breaks. Just pull them, so each hand has a half circle in them, and the space between them is ... Between, and very malleable. The tutor had optimistically tried to skip a level and get straight to where you tell that Between to be in another city. Just a small portal, not a big deal. But the student's control was off for even the basic seperation. He kept ending up with weird shapes and patterns, some hoops not even broke, or all of them broke but in different places so he had weird curves to work with. And as for power... there was barely anything weird about the bits between them. It was tedious and wearying and I was all :-/ So I asked the tutor for four seconds and went and whispered in the student's ear.
"You can do better; I've seen you. Remember how it felt. Between serenity and rage," Mental image of Xavier and Magneto, "and boundless love. Come from there. An Angel, falling."
I backed up, he kept his eyes closed, raised the hoops, and pulled.
The hoops expanded in his hands then disappeared.
The tutor sighed, seeing another weird failure, but then the quality of the light changed and something went weird about the world. I smirked, or grinned, or something triumphant, and told him, "Look out the windows."
One side was London, the other ... probably somewhere in America.
He'd opened the portal just a teensy bigger than expected, and further.
Still, technically, a failure of control, but with all the power you could dream of.
But that meant the whole building was Between.
A great many spells weren't configured to work Between, and flickered or failed. Including the spells the Sith were hiding behind. So suddenly they were all obvious by their auras, and some by their physical appearance, with a lot of red eyes and horns and red and black skin and so forth. Body mods they'd done to prove their commitment. And they all had black robes, but so did I, black is cool and goes with everything. They were not so cool, verging on positively volcanic with rage. Nine of them stood there, and their leader just said, "Kill them!"
They all drew blades, and those of us on the angel's side realised quite how outnumbered we were.
But I drew sword and said right back, "Execute them!"
... because justice, not vengeance?
... it didn't feel right though, so when it came to it and we closed to fight, I just disarmed them.
I was wielding sharps so a lot of arms came with, but still, in theory, merciful. They'd have a chance to change their minds and repent and so forth.
I was a bit busy and not noticing how the fight was going, and then suddenly I was stabbed in the back, and not noticing much besides the pain. Which was notable, even if I was dreaming. I slumped over a counter and everything started going black.
But then there was a hand on my shoulder and a warmth spreading, and the pain went away. Light came back, more and more light. And when I could move again, I turned, and I saw wings.
I also saw one of the 'disarmed' sith lying there, having found a way to backstab me with their remaining limbs.
The student angel smiled at me, and said "Boundless compassion."
Then I saw movement behind him, and he stiffened, losing contact, slumping forwards. I grabbed up a spear and thrust between long feathers, hitting the guy who'd just stabbed him in the back. So that was all our opponents down for the count. But unfortunately the one of us who could heal now had a whole lot of cold iron in his back.
Yet after the initial shock he seemed mostly puzzled about it.
He still couldn't stand straight, but he started trying to reach around to the knife. His wings got in the way, of course. So he told us to pull it out.
I wasn't sure, but someone else did. And Lo, the wound did heal before our eyes.
He straightened up and stretched.
He looked at me and smiled, something a lot softer and nicer than my earlier grin.
"Not falling."
And then I watch him flap a little and rise.
One wing is a little slow or sore, a few specks of red on it. Where my spear went through, it must have nicked him.
He fixes the magical mess, the portal, being Between, and lands outside, maybe a balcony or maybe down in the garden. He's looking pensive now. His other friend points out he seems to be immortal, cold iron can't kill him. On his other side I mutter, "Plants, though..."
He nods.
After that he still needed to learn a whole lot of control. And there were a whole lot of sorcerers lined up to help him do so. Not least because without control he could pretty easily tear up rather more than one little portal. He'd been trying that with the least of his effort.
So, enemies. But also a whole lot of potential.
I'm a bit disappointed with dream me, because kill them all, even with a gloss of justice, is not my preferred gig. Character development though, you can't have them walk in perfect, they get to discover compassion is strongest. He meant that distinction you get in English where Love can mean romantic and passionate love, that kind that focuses on just one person, and fails to care about anyone else. Boundless love by that measure could be for one individual or family. Boundless compassion though, that's for everyone, enemies included. Love goes with falling, but compassion? Rises to the light.
... he could also have been being sarcastic about how it's 'clearly' more caring to lop bits of people. Got your compassion right here, in several pieces. Ew.
Pretty good dream setup though. Story mileage in a new half angel.
I always want to write these up so they're as good to read as dream, but that takes, like, novel length or something.