Continued from here
21st Ymiden 705
Attempt number 1–
Went slightly better than last arc’s little disruption by a rude owl sent by the cosmos to disrupt what Fiona considered important work. It started off as all of Transmutation’s acts of creations started of: with an item submerged into the tiny ocean of ether under the watchful gaze of her hands. In this case, the item was a single glove, and the tiny ocean was, like running water, a bid to unmake it, to poke holes in its reality so that something else could fill the blanks in its makeup. Fiona had brought 2 pairs of gloves, bartering away quite a bit of her lunch to Julie for one mitten and the worn out glove of a black guard. The other pair, a set of brownish-red ones, she had found in little ways outside the orphanage wall. One sniff confirmed that the original color of the gloves was something else entirely.
She offered one of the bloodied gloves in tribute of her magic. Somewhere inside her, she hoped for this attempt to fail. She was kind of rooting for the mitten to be the one to inherit the steel.
The ether worked its magic, eroding away at the bloodied glove’s place in the material universe, reducing it to a mere shade of its former unglamorous self. There were significant milestones in a Transmutator’s magical career, and few were more enchanting than the crafting of the first item. Fiona would never know this until arcs later, but It was more than an experience, more than baby steps towards what would be increasingly greater feats of ether manipulation – it was an education in the mutability of reality.
There were laws in the universe – and the ability to override them, the ability to take one charter and inscribe it to another, the ability to decide how the jigsaw pieces of the world fit into the overall picture, were all within the purview of the Transmutator. Fiona only saw the small picture. She saw from the perspective of a child who had nothing given bread crumbs and a small toy. She saw the ability to craft a glove with the power of steel to defend herself. She saw the power to know what she touched and wipe away small obstacles, but all of these were, when it came down to it, mice in the great temple of this branch of Domain. She had barely begun to inscribe.
That belong to the Alteration phase.
Once the glove became almost opaque, Fiona began to put new pieces into the jigsaw puzzle. She took the power, the strength, the durability, the fire-forged composite of steel crested into the archives of her spark and wove it into the ether of re-creation that was her field. The terminology, as language often happens to be, was imprecise – she didn’t weave per say. Hell, she didn’t have words for what she was really doing even all those arcs after. Impart? No, this was not a cherished gift, nor was it a teacher’s hand-me-down of knowledge to a student. Blessed? Insulting. Poisoned religion had nothing to do with her craft. Transmit? She was not a disease. Divulge? No, no, no, no. Weave half-worked because it implied accuracy and focus, implied the patience to sit down on a chair and work. It was a precise word for the imprecise meaning.
How could you weave a concept, after all? All magic delved into the metaphysical, standing defiant against causality. Rupturers broke the span of nations in the blink of an eye. Necromancers extended life beyond the grave. Becomers defied the stability of a single, unchanging form and could consume a copious amount of fecal matter.
It took her awhile to –grant? Extend? Endow?- the glove with steel. She couldn’t wait to try it on, to wear it – soft on the inside, viciously hard on the outside. She was-
Focus. Fuckin’ focus.
She entered the final step: Reformation
Or she would have, anyway, if she had just fuckin’ focused.
One slip of concentration was all it took. One little bead of sweat that dripped into her eye causing her to bring her hand up to rub at it like the stupid child that she was, and the ether field shimmered, briefly zapped out of existence, and then returned as quickly as her hand did to the task at hand. She thought it was nothing. She thought that one little misstep cost nothing in the long run, but when the process was done and the glove came out of the ether field, there was not a hint of steel in it
Another broken glove with nothing to offer to the world.
Attempt 2–
Was worse in the sense that she didn’t screw up this time, and learned a greater truth about Transmutation for it. No little lapses in concentration, no misinformation or shoddy practices between each step. She knew –or at least thought she knew what she needed to do– to get what she needed. She used the other blood-caked glove this time and the process began anew. Deconstruction, alteration, and reformation in succession one after the other. Fiona threatened to yawn, Fiona threatened to rub her eyes, Fiona threatened all the things you would do when you were tired and just wanted to sleep, but she didn’t move her hands this time. She kept them where they were even as they began to shake from staying still for so long.
She didn’t fuck her this time.
The item fucked her.
What emerged from the crucible of her 2nd attempt had, on the surface everything she wanted. The strength of steel on the outside. The only tiny, ittsy, teeny, little problem?
It glimmered like pale moonlight.
Throughout the entire glove were cracks that invited in pale light into the world.
It was… distracting, to say the least. Defeated the purpose, to say a lot more. This couldn’t do. This couldn’t do at all.
Fiona sighed, it was time for-
Attempt 3–
She used the black glove this time. She prayed –non-religiously, of course– it wouldn’t take the mitten. Of course, she might be having bigger problems at this stage. This was her 3rd Transmutation within the same night, after all.
She felt the strain of the first one keenly, but it was nothing she couldn’t manage.
The 2nd one… it flipped something in her, she wouldn’t deny it. The spark inside her went from a low growl to a seething roar, and the sound of the harsh crackle around her returned.
The current one… let’s just say she had a pretty understated reaction to her hands vanishing. They came in and out like an indecisive shopper at a shop, one moment her hands were there, the next there were only stumps. The gray crackle intensified and, even in her peripheral vision, it was clear to her that her whole body was engulfed in something resembling grayish lightning.
Her witchbrand.
Not just that.
The strain on her spark, the fatigue in her arms that went beyond mundane tiredness, the ringing in her head that wasn’t just lack of sleep. She was in the early thralls of overstepping. So two choices then:
She could give up for the night… Or she could push on and risk i- of course she pushed on and risked it. Backstories aren’t built on quitters.
21st Ymiden 705
Attempt number 1–
Went slightly better than last arc’s little disruption by a rude owl sent by the cosmos to disrupt what Fiona considered important work. It started off as all of Transmutation’s acts of creations started of: with an item submerged into the tiny ocean of ether under the watchful gaze of her hands. In this case, the item was a single glove, and the tiny ocean was, like running water, a bid to unmake it, to poke holes in its reality so that something else could fill the blanks in its makeup. Fiona had brought 2 pairs of gloves, bartering away quite a bit of her lunch to Julie for one mitten and the worn out glove of a black guard. The other pair, a set of brownish-red ones, she had found in little ways outside the orphanage wall. One sniff confirmed that the original color of the gloves was something else entirely.
She offered one of the bloodied gloves in tribute of her magic. Somewhere inside her, she hoped for this attempt to fail. She was kind of rooting for the mitten to be the one to inherit the steel.
The ether worked its magic, eroding away at the bloodied glove’s place in the material universe, reducing it to a mere shade of its former unglamorous self. There were significant milestones in a Transmutator’s magical career, and few were more enchanting than the crafting of the first item. Fiona would never know this until arcs later, but It was more than an experience, more than baby steps towards what would be increasingly greater feats of ether manipulation – it was an education in the mutability of reality.
There were laws in the universe – and the ability to override them, the ability to take one charter and inscribe it to another, the ability to decide how the jigsaw pieces of the world fit into the overall picture, were all within the purview of the Transmutator. Fiona only saw the small picture. She saw from the perspective of a child who had nothing given bread crumbs and a small toy. She saw the ability to craft a glove with the power of steel to defend herself. She saw the power to know what she touched and wipe away small obstacles, but all of these were, when it came down to it, mice in the great temple of this branch of Domain. She had barely begun to inscribe.
That belong to the Alteration phase.
Once the glove became almost opaque, Fiona began to put new pieces into the jigsaw puzzle. She took the power, the strength, the durability, the fire-forged composite of steel crested into the archives of her spark and wove it into the ether of re-creation that was her field. The terminology, as language often happens to be, was imprecise – she didn’t weave per say. Hell, she didn’t have words for what she was really doing even all those arcs after. Impart? No, this was not a cherished gift, nor was it a teacher’s hand-me-down of knowledge to a student. Blessed? Insulting. Poisoned religion had nothing to do with her craft. Transmit? She was not a disease. Divulge? No, no, no, no. Weave half-worked because it implied accuracy and focus, implied the patience to sit down on a chair and work. It was a precise word for the imprecise meaning.
How could you weave a concept, after all? All magic delved into the metaphysical, standing defiant against causality. Rupturers broke the span of nations in the blink of an eye. Necromancers extended life beyond the grave. Becomers defied the stability of a single, unchanging form and could consume a copious amount of fecal matter.
It took her awhile to –grant? Extend? Endow?- the glove with steel. She couldn’t wait to try it on, to wear it – soft on the inside, viciously hard on the outside. She was-
Focus. Fuckin’ focus.
She entered the final step: Reformation
Or she would have, anyway, if she had just fuckin’ focused.
One slip of concentration was all it took. One little bead of sweat that dripped into her eye causing her to bring her hand up to rub at it like the stupid child that she was, and the ether field shimmered, briefly zapped out of existence, and then returned as quickly as her hand did to the task at hand. She thought it was nothing. She thought that one little misstep cost nothing in the long run, but when the process was done and the glove came out of the ether field, there was not a hint of steel in it
Another broken glove with nothing to offer to the world.
Attempt 2–
Was worse in the sense that she didn’t screw up this time, and learned a greater truth about Transmutation for it. No little lapses in concentration, no misinformation or shoddy practices between each step. She knew –or at least thought she knew what she needed to do– to get what she needed. She used the other blood-caked glove this time and the process began anew. Deconstruction, alteration, and reformation in succession one after the other. Fiona threatened to yawn, Fiona threatened to rub her eyes, Fiona threatened all the things you would do when you were tired and just wanted to sleep, but she didn’t move her hands this time. She kept them where they were even as they began to shake from staying still for so long.
She didn’t fuck her this time.
The item fucked her.
What emerged from the crucible of her 2nd attempt had, on the surface everything she wanted. The strength of steel on the outside. The only tiny, ittsy, teeny, little problem?
It glimmered like pale moonlight.
Throughout the entire glove were cracks that invited in pale light into the world.
It was… distracting, to say the least. Defeated the purpose, to say a lot more. This couldn’t do. This couldn’t do at all.
Fiona sighed, it was time for-
Attempt 3–
She used the black glove this time. She prayed –non-religiously, of course– it wouldn’t take the mitten. Of course, she might be having bigger problems at this stage. This was her 3rd Transmutation within the same night, after all.
She felt the strain of the first one keenly, but it was nothing she couldn’t manage.
The 2nd one… it flipped something in her, she wouldn’t deny it. The spark inside her went from a low growl to a seething roar, and the sound of the harsh crackle around her returned.
The current one… let’s just say she had a pretty understated reaction to her hands vanishing. They came in and out like an indecisive shopper at a shop, one moment her hands were there, the next there were only stumps. The gray crackle intensified and, even in her peripheral vision, it was clear to her that her whole body was engulfed in something resembling grayish lightning.
Her witchbrand.
Not just that.
The strain on her spark, the fatigue in her arms that went beyond mundane tiredness, the ringing in her head that wasn’t just lack of sleep. She was in the early thralls of overstepping. So two choices then:
She could give up for the night… Or she could push on and risk i- of course she pushed on and risked it. Backstories aren’t built on quitters.
