30th Vhalar 706
The day Fiona got a firm grip on the Transmutation spark was the day the budding thief in her truly blossomed. A less charitable viewpoint of the magic might have said that was the entire point of it: Many of the major aspects of Transmutation was built around theft or the enablement of it.
A cornerstone ability revolving around breaking things and breaking into things. The in-built power to plagiarize aspects of the world, and incorporating it into their own items, and though Fiona would never know about it for a long, long time, the ability to both rob ether and steal the integrity of anything solid around her to fuel both offense and defense. Transmutation, at the core of its craft, traded power for the long-term assurance of durability – then took that power away in time.
In many ways – a con, except the line between grafter and mark weren’t quite so clear cut.
And even further along the timeline and steeped on power she could only imagine, the ability to rob anyone of the ability to shape it.
The power to take any life which dared to wield it.
Fiona was never a good thief, mind you, and she would never know whether she would ever become one; Corrosion made it so ridiculously easy to shred through pockets and wait for the nels to drop through the holes that she never needed really learned developed the proper foundation for pick pocketing. Instead of sliding in and out with a purse in hand, she waited like a jackal for her pickings to fall through the weakened cracks.
But that was not what she wanted to see herself doing for a long time. Hell, this wasn’t what she even wanted to do now.
No, she saw a bit more of the world now outside the orphanage. Her little trips through the Corrosion created hole in the world became longer, bolder, straying further and further from the slums to parts of town where the not-quite-wealthy-enough-to-be-rich-but-managing-fine made their roost. She saw the way they looked and pointed at her, at her hand-me-down rags, and she was startled by upset she was about how easily they dismissed her based on what she wore.
And that sick look in their too-pleased-with-themselves eyes – the kind that said no matter what she said or did, she was an aberration to them, an oddity to be gently prodded with a stick from a long, safe distance. She wasn't even a dog in their eyes, truth be told, wasn't even a pet.
At least the boys in the orphanage did their usual predatory shoving and picking at before they deemed you a complete wuss.
It was on that day that Fiona understood the importance of presentation: not necessarily out of vanity and that whole lot of bull about never feeling that little again, though there was no small amount of those too, but as a tool of useful hypocrisy to blind the shallow and the superficial. If she looked like them, dressed like them, appeared weak like them, wouldn’t she be them in all things except for where she counted?
Style equaled substance. Style correlated to substance. Style somehow informed substance – she really, really just hated everything about anyone who believed in that.
But perhaps…
Perhaps there was also some pride involved. The idea that Transmutation alone could bridge the social gap, even only if it was the semblance of it. It would put her, even if only on a personal level, above commerce. Above reliance. Above trade; completely and utterly self-reliant. Why use nels when you could copy what you need and replicate it when you see fit? Why spend good coin on a steel sword when you could dig deep into your spark and find the metal inside, willing and ready to be extracted from her the growing archives of her soul and incorporated into whatever you wanted wherever she wanted.
She was so naïve back then. So cynical, so ambitious, and yet somehow so inexplicably naïve. The worst possible outcome about growing too jaded before your time, the worst possible outcome about believing bad was hiding behind every corner was to reap nothing meaningful from all the hate and the scorn; a child’s black outlook on the world.
And today this child and her black outlook were taking a trip to the Citizen’s Free Market – the general bazaar.
…
For someone like Fiona, the general bazaar should have been the candy shop to end all candy shops: rows of tents and booths and that stretched on as far as her tiny form could see. Instead, she just found it… disorganized, disorientating, and badly mismanaged and, worst of all, unsymmetrical: the whole bazaar, though she struggled to see its end, seemed to be shaped vaguely like a pear, the most revolting of fruits. Anti-social little her actually asked around a little, a testament to how lost she was to the shifting sea of vendors, and got no answers that got her where she wanted.
She shifted through a table claiming to sell magic trinkets (she touched one and mentally rolled her eyes), a tent that sold only rather ill-looking pigeons, a guy with a crocodile daring anyone brave enough to put their head in to test out their reflexes. She had only walked by for a trill before a loud snap and a collective cry of absolute horror rose up from behind her. She didn’t want to look back. What was the point? She went past a dozens of lame vendors with lame trinkets calling out for lame customers. She was now beginning to wonder whether she had wasted her trial today.
Nothing to steal – not when it came to Qualities anyway.
Until she came upon the perfume table.
… It was a start. It wasn't much, but it was a start.
Little colored liquids in little bottles. She tried to approach the table and touch them, but the old lady manning it buzzed her off, clearly a ‘paying customers’ only kinda thing. So Fiona settled on watching from outside the lady’s considerable aggression range, taking in the scents only when someone came over to check it on.
Committing the sensation to memory.
There was one that smelled like jasmine after a rainy day – at least that was what she imagined jasmine would smell like, it could have been any other crappy flower for all she knew. There was one that had the undeniable tangy fragrance of lemon, and one that smelled like fresh wood – leading her to the sad realization that the hardwood what she was sleeping on was probably as far from it as she could imagine. There was one that smelled like salt and sand and one that-
The list went on for a while. It went on and on as she took in each scent like it was something precious that she wouldn’t never encounter again. Committing them all to memory, even the ones she didn’t like – she liked to keep her options open, after all.
Eventually, the woman had enough of her suspicious little scouting near her table, clearly suspecting that she was up to no good. She retrieved a broom from the store booth next to her and began stamping over to Fiona who, faced with said old woman with a broom that was taller than her, wisely ran.
The chase was brief but eventful. The old woman, surprisingly spry, took her pursuit down a sidepath away from the main area of booths. She vaulted somewhat clumsily over a low fence and ran until she was sure she wasn't followed.
The day Fiona got a firm grip on the Transmutation spark was the day the budding thief in her truly blossomed. A less charitable viewpoint of the magic might have said that was the entire point of it: Many of the major aspects of Transmutation was built around theft or the enablement of it.
A cornerstone ability revolving around breaking things and breaking into things. The in-built power to plagiarize aspects of the world, and incorporating it into their own items, and though Fiona would never know about it for a long, long time, the ability to both rob ether and steal the integrity of anything solid around her to fuel both offense and defense. Transmutation, at the core of its craft, traded power for the long-term assurance of durability – then took that power away in time.
In many ways – a con, except the line between grafter and mark weren’t quite so clear cut.
And even further along the timeline and steeped on power she could only imagine, the ability to rob anyone of the ability to shape it.
The power to take any life which dared to wield it.
Fiona was never a good thief, mind you, and she would never know whether she would ever become one; Corrosion made it so ridiculously easy to shred through pockets and wait for the nels to drop through the holes that she never needed really learned developed the proper foundation for pick pocketing. Instead of sliding in and out with a purse in hand, she waited like a jackal for her pickings to fall through the weakened cracks.
But that was not what she wanted to see herself doing for a long time. Hell, this wasn’t what she even wanted to do now.
No, she saw a bit more of the world now outside the orphanage. Her little trips through the Corrosion created hole in the world became longer, bolder, straying further and further from the slums to parts of town where the not-quite-wealthy-enough-to-be-rich-but-managing-fine made their roost. She saw the way they looked and pointed at her, at her hand-me-down rags, and she was startled by upset she was about how easily they dismissed her based on what she wore.
And that sick look in their too-pleased-with-themselves eyes – the kind that said no matter what she said or did, she was an aberration to them, an oddity to be gently prodded with a stick from a long, safe distance. She wasn't even a dog in their eyes, truth be told, wasn't even a pet.
At least the boys in the orphanage did their usual predatory shoving and picking at before they deemed you a complete wuss.
It was on that day that Fiona understood the importance of presentation: not necessarily out of vanity and that whole lot of bull about never feeling that little again, though there was no small amount of those too, but as a tool of useful hypocrisy to blind the shallow and the superficial. If she looked like them, dressed like them, appeared weak like them, wouldn’t she be them in all things except for where she counted?
Style equaled substance. Style correlated to substance. Style somehow informed substance – she really, really just hated everything about anyone who believed in that.
But perhaps…
Perhaps there was also some pride involved. The idea that Transmutation alone could bridge the social gap, even only if it was the semblance of it. It would put her, even if only on a personal level, above commerce. Above reliance. Above trade; completely and utterly self-reliant. Why use nels when you could copy what you need and replicate it when you see fit? Why spend good coin on a steel sword when you could dig deep into your spark and find the metal inside, willing and ready to be extracted from her the growing archives of her soul and incorporated into whatever you wanted wherever she wanted.
She was so naïve back then. So cynical, so ambitious, and yet somehow so inexplicably naïve. The worst possible outcome about growing too jaded before your time, the worst possible outcome about believing bad was hiding behind every corner was to reap nothing meaningful from all the hate and the scorn; a child’s black outlook on the world.
And today this child and her black outlook were taking a trip to the Citizen’s Free Market – the general bazaar.
…
For someone like Fiona, the general bazaar should have been the candy shop to end all candy shops: rows of tents and booths and that stretched on as far as her tiny form could see. Instead, she just found it… disorganized, disorientating, and badly mismanaged and, worst of all, unsymmetrical: the whole bazaar, though she struggled to see its end, seemed to be shaped vaguely like a pear, the most revolting of fruits. Anti-social little her actually asked around a little, a testament to how lost she was to the shifting sea of vendors, and got no answers that got her where she wanted.
She shifted through a table claiming to sell magic trinkets (she touched one and mentally rolled her eyes), a tent that sold only rather ill-looking pigeons, a guy with a crocodile daring anyone brave enough to put their head in to test out their reflexes. She had only walked by for a trill before a loud snap and a collective cry of absolute horror rose up from behind her. She didn’t want to look back. What was the point? She went past a dozens of lame vendors with lame trinkets calling out for lame customers. She was now beginning to wonder whether she had wasted her trial today.
Nothing to steal – not when it came to Qualities anyway.
Until she came upon the perfume table.
… It was a start. It wasn't much, but it was a start.
Little colored liquids in little bottles. She tried to approach the table and touch them, but the old lady manning it buzzed her off, clearly a ‘paying customers’ only kinda thing. So Fiona settled on watching from outside the lady’s considerable aggression range, taking in the scents only when someone came over to check it on.
Committing the sensation to memory.
There was one that smelled like jasmine after a rainy day – at least that was what she imagined jasmine would smell like, it could have been any other crappy flower for all she knew. There was one that had the undeniable tangy fragrance of lemon, and one that smelled like fresh wood – leading her to the sad realization that the hardwood what she was sleeping on was probably as far from it as she could imagine. There was one that smelled like salt and sand and one that-
The list went on for a while. It went on and on as she took in each scent like it was something precious that she wouldn’t never encounter again. Committing them all to memory, even the ones she didn’t like – she liked to keep her options open, after all.
Eventually, the woman had enough of her suspicious little scouting near her table, clearly suspecting that she was up to no good. She retrieved a broom from the store booth next to her and began stamping over to Fiona who, faced with said old woman with a broom that was taller than her, wisely ran.
The chase was brief but eventful. The old woman, surprisingly spry, took her pursuit down a sidepath away from the main area of booths. She vaulted somewhat clumsily over a low fence and ran until she was sure she wasn't followed.
