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Post by enchilada on Mar 11, 2019 11:37:11 GMT
Enchee nodded, she just nodded, she wanted so desperately to believe everything Thea said, and, in her little way, she did. She believed everything because she chose to, as real life could certainly be a little more than depressing. She clung onto the genasi, hands tight on her clothes, her back. The soothing motion was certainly helping, that was for sure. Soon all that was left of her sudden flashback was a quiet fit of hiccups.
“Would you do that? Would you help me? Are you... sure?”
She felt a little uncertain. The idea was certainly a pleasant one to her, but that would take up a lot of time. “I- I can read a little already, dad did it mostly. When he read to me, I’d read with him and... I just get so... tired.” The little goblin sighed. “Plus, there’s not much to read out on the streets. And definitely nothing to write, but, but I’m practicing sometimes!”
She debated for a moment whether or not it was a good idea to tell Thea about this - but she seemed like a trustworthy lady by now, and definitely very understanding.
“I’m trying to write down my dreams, because, well, um. I don’t just fortune tell using cards. I get these... visions...”
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Post by moralhazard on Mar 11, 2019 22:29:55 GMT
“It would be my pleasure,” Thea said, softly, meaning it. Enchee had stopped crying, which was a relief. Besides – maybe learning to read and write would be a good step on the road to a life off the streets for Enchee, preferably one not involving crime. Thea couldn’t imagine that Enchee wanted to live this way forever. She knew, in her heart, that the little goblin would face a lot of challenges, but… at least Thea could try to arm her with one tool against them.
“Then you’ll be much easier to teach than my other friend was,” Thea said, cheerfully, encouragingly. She didn’t push the point, but she hoped that Enchee would pick up that Thea was calling her a friend.
Thea sat back a little, looking at Enchee as she began to explain. “Visions?” Someone else might have doubted the little goblin. Maybe Thea should have. She hadn’t had the best start with Enchee, obviously, and she knew well that little kids sometimes wanted to be more important than they were. On the other hand, her best friend in Waterdeep was a half-Aarakocran, half-human who claimed to have been reincarnated through… three or four lives, and, somewhat to her surprise, Thea had believed her when Citrine confessed that.
… believing Enchee was considerably easier than that. Besides, dreams of the future – or the past – weren’t so uncommon. “Dreams of things that are going to happen?” Thea asked as gently as she could, doing her best to project a sense of openness and belief to Enchee, a sense that she wanted to hear more.
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Post by enchilada on Mar 12, 2019 14:52:54 GMT
“Thank you! Thank you...” She half sighed, loosening her grip on Thea but not exactly leaving her embrace - the hug just meant too much in her little brain. She was almost overwhelmed by how she felt, unsure how to process so many feelings at once. “I think you should tell Crucible first, he’s um. Kind of my dad.” She wasn’t sure if he felt that way, or if she was some kind of light entertainment for him, so it was almost embarrassing for her to admit. She hated misreading situations, especially since she had to learn the hard way how to read her dream sequences, so it only made sense that she should be good, like, really good, at anything else in its vein.
“Mhm. Sometimes I can’t tell what it means until after, and sometimes it’s wrong but clearer. Usually it’s vague or it misses the important parts out. Before today I knew I was gonna talk about my dreams, but I thought it would be to crucible, and there’s still time for that, I guess, but, but that’s not the point!” She pushed back to look at Thea’s face. I didn’t really have them before... before I had to leave home.” The friend - the mother - she knew about this kind of magic. She’d do it all the time. She went with her parents and the father to their... job.
She just wished they hadn’t lied about what they did. They stole. It was simple. She wasn’t stupid.
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Post by moralhazard on Mar 12, 2019 16:18:43 GMT
“I would be happy to tell Crucible first.” The news that Enchee had someone who was at least kind of her dad was honestly a huge relief to Thea; she thought Enchee was cleaner than she’d expect of someone who actually slept on the streets, and while Enchee didn’t look nearly as well-nourished as Thea would have personally preferred for a child, she also didn’t have the sickly thin figure of someone starving. All the same – when she had thought about it, Thea had thought perhaps Enchee slept in a temple, or got meals from someone. Having someone she was at least willing to use the word dad in relation to struck Thea as significantly better. "Maybe you could introduce us?" Thea grinned at Enchee. "Since I don't think I know anyone named Crucible."
Thea nodded a little, one arm still loosely, comfortably resting around Enchee. She let go with the other hand, reaching up to straighten Enchee’s hair a little, before settling her arms around the goblin once more. She would happily hold Enchee as long as Enchee wanted.
Thea nodded. “I can only imagine. It must be very hard to interpret. Do you usually have dreams about the next day…? Or… further ahead?” She kept her tone serious but light, wanting Enchee to keep talking more than she cared about the answers to specific questions. Uncontrolled dreams of the future, dreams Enchee had never had before her parents’ tragic and terrible death. Thea had plenty of experience of her own with uncontrolled magic that came on suddenly following a traumatic event. Perhaps she was reading in too far? Thea didn’t know much about goblins, but it struck her as entirely possible that this was a goblin thing, rather than a – rather than a sorcerer thing.
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Post by enchilada on Mar 12, 2019 17:45:11 GMT
“Yeah! He’s really nice so I think he’d like to meet you too!” In her experience of people, which frankly was largely negative, quite narrow, and muddied with extreme distrust. This made Crucible extra special to her, as well as somewhat confusing, but nice people were just too easy to let your guard down around, and so far it actually hadn’t done her any harm. Enchee knew when people were liars, she could smell it in the air as much as hear it in the way they spoke. She largely just ignored people, however, finding it much simpler for an easy life to never engage with strangers. And pretty much everyone is a stranger - there was a point in time where everyone around her was a stranger.
Enchee didn’t flinch, which surprised her, when Thea got so close to her face with her hand. It felt far more scary to her that someone would touch near her face and head than her arm or something, that could turn into a grip, granted, but there was just something that would usually stall her. It didn’t affect her here.
“Sometimes I’ll have a dream and then realise what happened or what it meant, like, weeks after the dream. Sometimes it’s the next day. But they can just be... so vague it’s super hard to figure out where it’s supposed to go until it’s too late. And then, well, live and learn, I guess. It’s unpredictable. Which is kinda funny - I can’t predict what I’ll predict.” She smiled, but she didn’t laugh.
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Post by moralhazard on Mar 12, 2019 18:03:35 GMT
“That is funny,” Thea didn’t laugh either. “It also sounds very frustrating. Maybe you’ll learn in time,” Thea smiled. “I’m sure writing them down would be a good start! It sounds very sensible. Even people who don't have future dreams keep dream journals sometimes."
There was so much Thea felt she could say. She had struggled with control to – struggled to understand what was happening to her, struggled to keep from hurting anyone with it, struggled to forgive herself for the powers she had after the shipwreck, struggled to find her way through a new and very different life. She could share that with Enchee, but – Enchee was only a little girl, and Thea wasn’t sure she could find the line between being reassuring and weighing Enchee down with her own problems. It was harder with magic than even with talking about Dom, and certainly than with stories about Calim.
All the same, Thea couldn’t quite let it go. “Enchee, you know – dreaming of the future is usually magic,” Thea bit her lip, consciously let it go, and continued. “Are there other things you can do that are – that are magic? Like summoning a hand, or… maybe making illusions?” A yes didn’t mean that the foresight wasn’t a goblin thing, Thea reminded herself. But she felt, somehow, it was important to know more.
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Post by enchilada on Mar 13, 2019 12:21:52 GMT
“Maybe. I haven’t noticed anything telling me when or anything like that, though. Maybe it’s just hard to remember. I heard you never remember the start of your dreams. Maybe the timing is told at the start. That would be annoying but maybe that’s why. Maybe.” Enchee’s vocabulary wasn’t as wide as a lot of people’s. She was also more thinking aloud, and her thoughts tended to be uncertain, gently prodding at the answer until it spilled out. Usually in real life, but sometimes she figured out stuff by herself before it could happen. Usually that pertained to how to spell some difficult words, and she’d find out the consequences of kicking someone’s walls from the outside by the person who owned the house getting pretty annoyed. Often she’d be gone before they saw her, though. The shadows swallowed her easily.
“Magic! Magic yes!” She grew visibly excited, hand going into her pocket that wasn’t full of mouse. Out of it she pulled an orb of glass, clearly a much lower quality than anything Thea would have likely considered worth looking at. It fit well into Enchee’s palm, however, and when she gazed into it, she seemed to see something that Thea was unable to. Enchee saw lots of things that people couldn’t see, like her ruby. No one believed her that it was a ruby, they said it was black and dull and like coal, but Enchee saw the red and the shine, the exquisite shape, hand carved into the surface. No one believed her. And no one believed her when she said she saw the shadows in the glass, twisting, turning, forming and falling apart, gaseous and liquid, solid in her hands. Enchee didn’t need anyone to believe her because she saw it. And she willed the shadows to form, in her view, a box in the glass. And when she saw it she took a second to think, then pointed to the pile of boxes of cookies.
The box appeared unchanged, other than a pair of shiny googly eyes peering off into space from its flat surface. “It’s just a picture.” She put her finger straight through one of them. “But I can pick that up without touching it. And I can jump but slowly, sort of. That’s all I’ve figured out so far.”
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Post by moralhazard on Mar 13, 2019 17:53:00 GMT
“They say the more you write them down, the better you remember them,” Thaddeus had suggested it for her, Thea remembered. Maude had always just fussed over her when she woke from her nightmares. Thaddeus had been more practical, wanting solutions, particularly after Thea became his apprentice and sleepless nights presented an occasional problem in the workshop.
Thea had never tried keeping a dream journal. The last thing she wanted was to remember those nightmares.
Thea glanced down at the glass, studying it curiously. It wasn’t the sort of clear, flawless work she herself produced, but it had a certain charm. Maybe she only felt that way because Enchee seemed to be admiring it so desperately? If she’d made it, she would have melted it back down and started over again. Thea decided it wouldn’t be helpful to criticize the orb; in fact, she guessed Enchee would be offended if she offered to help her replace it.
Enchee pointed to the cookies. Thea glanced over, and giggled. “It’s called an illusion,” She bit her lip, looking at Enchee, then wiggled her own finger out at the boxes. Two big bushy eyebrows appeared over the googly eyes.
“Could you do those things when you lived at home?” Thea smiled at Enchee. It wasn’t a nice question, but at this point, she pretty much had to know. Maybe it was unfair; it was almost certain already that Enchee was a sorcerer. No wizard knew that little about her spells, and Thea hoped desperately that no patron would take advantage of a little goblin, nor leave them on the streets. Unless… she did live with this crucible person.
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Post by enchilada on Mar 13, 2019 23:41:47 GMT
“Huh.” She sort of, idly mimicked the shape of holding a pen, scribbling along at the air with invisible ink. She was almost tracing the reminder of Thea’s words into her mind. Almost.
When Thea added to her illusion, she gasped and clapped her hands, becoming super animated and lively. She hugged onto Thea again, bouncing a little on her knees. “That’s so cool!” She stared in awe, although she could do this stuff herself, seeing others’ magical ability was still super exciting for Enchee. She found such little acts almost... reassuring? Like she’d always been a little scared of her potential, of her magic, but seeing others with her ability made her feel more normal by far.
“Not really. Sometimes I’d... feel this presence in the dark but nothing else.” There was always a tug, a pull. Watching eyes that could do nothing at all but stare on. She wanted the candles left lit but the shadows just got harsher and sharper and keener to watch. Her hands were cold, her heart barely beat, she listened to sounds of the city night. She heard a quiet growl under the safety of her blankets. Something else made her not alone than mum and dad. “Nothing before.”
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Post by moralhazard on Mar 14, 2019 1:48:10 GMT
Thea giggled, hugging Enchee back. She had her own hang ups about magic. Honestly, she was probably the worst person to mentor a young sorcerer; Thea's relationship with her magic could best be described as an uneasy peace. Enchee should meet someone like Citrine too.
"I was a lot older than you, but younger than I am now, when I was caught in a big storm at sea!" Thea found herself rubbing Enchee's back again, this time a little for her own comfort. "I survived, but after I started to be able to use magic. Like you, Enchee, I think. It's called being a sorcerer," she cupped Enchee's cheek. "Have you heard that name before?"
"Sorcerers have a little magic in their blood," Thea explained. "Mine comes from the djinni that fathered me and the storm. Yours might come from your father too," a guess. Thea hesitated. Would it be wrong to link the magic to her loss for Enchee? If she hadn't already made the connection... Better not. "But we still have to practice a lot!" Thea giggled. "Like you have been, I bet."
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Post by enchilada on Mar 14, 2019 12:21:05 GMT
“That sounds really scary.” She gasped, tugging on her crimson hair, leaving the paler ends to hang loosely. She only grabbed with the one hand, and she let go pretty quickly, like it was an accident, or an absentminded action. Something she did frequently in moments of brief stress. Or prolonged stress. “How old were you? Were you big?”
“Saucer-er?” Enchee didn’t know that word yet. She knew maybe, wizard, archer, fighter... not much else. Wizards did fancy things and whizz sounds, archers had those arching bow things, and fighters did fighting. Did saucerers have- magic in their blood? Ah, yes, of course. Magic sauce.
“Yeah, I think it was my dad. He was always talking about these things, how it’s all passed down. I guess in the magic sauce.” She nodded with all the wisdom and worldliness of a seven year old previously homeless goblin girl who could barely spell her name. So absolutely tons of wisdom, a wise creature of conviction, if you chose to believe it.
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Post by moralhazard on Mar 15, 2019 4:50:15 GMT
“It was scary,” Thea smiled at Enchee. Shwasn’t sure – eight years later – that she was ready to talk cheerfully about the most traumatic event of her life to anyone. She doubted she ever would be. But she didn’t want to make Enchee feel bad for asking questions, and they were easy enough to answer while skimming over the worst of it. “I was fourteen, so – I thought I was pretty big at the time! Now I think I was small. But maybe to you that’s big?” Thea grinned at Enchee.
“Sorcerer,” Thea repeated the word, slowly and carefully. It struck her as important that Enchee knew what she – probably – was, even if she couldn’t quite have said why. She couldn’t help giggling at Enchee’s suggestion that her father had passed down sorcery in a magic sauce, not understanding Enchee’s misunderstanding, and supposing instead that it had been some kind of inside joke by her father.
“That would make sense,” Thea said, smiling. “Well – Enchee – what that would mean is that as you get older, you’ll probably learn how to do even more magic. Sometimes it will be easy, and sometimes it will be hard, but it will always be a part of you,” she stroked Enchee’s hair away from her face again. “It means that – if you want to – you can be strong enough to defend those who need it.” Thea promised, softly.
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Post by enchilada on Mar 16, 2019 8:43:02 GMT
“That’s....... TWICE my age.” She knew it was more, but it was the exact amount that was hard. She was very pleased with herself in finding the answer. “That’s very big.” She didn’t really pick up on how Thea felt, she was answering the questions so she couldn’t be that upset to do so. “How big are you now?” It was an innocent question, ages were very cool to Enchee, especially since a seven year old goblin and a seven year old human were pretty different - say, did Thea know that? She didn’t want to be treated like a baby... although...
“Saucer-er.” Enchee nodded back. She wasn’t sure how the magic sauce ended up in the blood, nor how the magic ended up becoming the magic sauce. Her best guess was that the magic sauce had at some point been made, then someone got a cut. Then that person had children so they got the sauce also, and it keeps multiplying in the blood. Or something.
“How would I do that? Isn’t everyone supposed to be safe here? With the guards?” She seemed a little on edge at the suggestion.
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Post by moralhazard on Mar 16, 2019 9:20:59 GMT
Thea giggled. "Twenty two. That's pretty big, huh?" She didn't mind the question at all; there were plenty of sensitive subjects they had discussed today, and age was perhaps the least emotional one. And she was big - relative to Enchee's age. Thea had lived many more years than Enchee; she hoped she'd used them well.
"Ah - " Thea nearly corrected Enchee again, then let it go. She was sure it was just a mispronunciation, and not reflective of any deeper misunderstanding on Enchee's part. Absolutely sure.
Thea answered immediately. "Of course! Here in Waterdeep, the guards keep us safe." She promised, gazing into Enchee's eyes. It was largely true; there were harsh penalties on drawing a weapon for a reason. There might be those out there with enough influence (read: money) to thwart the process, but she doubted Enchee would come across many of them - and not enough that Thea felt it was worth temporizing. Anyway, the last thing Enchee needed was to believe less in the law. In fact, Thea thought it would be all together best if Enchee thought of the guards as omniscient and ever-present. "They watch over us very carefully." She added.
"But," Thea said, slowly, "sometimes it's nice to be able to protect yourself too. It can make you feel big and strong inside. I know I seem very big to you," Thea grinned teasingly, "but compared to a lot of those here in Waterdeep, I'm really very small!" Perhaps surprisingly, Thea thought more of her weapons lessons than her magical training. Her magic lessons had been more about containing harm. While learning to use daggers, on the other hand, she'd felt - strong. Dom's lessons had been better than the keep weaponsmaster's; she could think back on that without feeling bad. At least she'd gotten something from him.
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Post by enchilada on Mar 16, 2019 10:04:38 GMT
“Yeah! That’s ages. How did you do that? Get so big?” Enchee was fascinated by the number, for some reason. It just seemed so cool, but she didn’t think she would get that big. That was just so big. Too big maybe.
“They must get really tired. It sounds like hard work! Waterdeep is soooo big.” So many things were big today. Enchee felt quite small in the street, surrounded by all these big buildings. Big people. Big everything. She could probably completely disappear if she wanted to. Not that she did, necessarily, but sometimes it felt like she was trying to keep her head above water to just not be forgotten and unseen, to fall into obscurity.
“Are you sure? Magic is... people don’t like it.”
Enchee had noticed that most people who had been mean to her had also viewed her magic, be it her prophecies or her actual magical spells. She’d kind of associated magic as a bard word by now, a bad thing. Magic was dangerous and not just because it could hurt people, but because it could hurt the user. It was a sign of weakness, or perhaps a sign of strength that scared people into trying to remove that which they did not have.
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