[Closed] Field Studies (Cerise)

[Umberto Bassington-Smythe]

Brunnhold -The Field of Practical Application

The 21st of Bethas, 2020, Early morning Through Early Afternoon

H

e spent the morning walking the grounds. Freezing morning mists clinging to him and hoarfrost crunching beneath his pointed boots. Pace by slow pace he described a circle one chain in diameter. At intervals, gloved hands growing damp, he drove in long marked poles, like something out of an arcane croquet set. Still frozen ground, such a treat in which to sink the markers. Resistance would have to be overcome with brute force, the requisite cursing, and the aid of a business-like wooden mallet.

The air was still, but all signs pointed to a falling glass and rising wind. Handy little diviners, barometers. Diviners. In all this work he felt like an augurer of old, marking the sacred space of his observations. There was little enough difference. A circular space for observation, and his own perch upon a high tripod set a precise distance from the center. Secular divinations. No gods would be invoked, no incense burned nor bay-leaves chewed. His only nod towards the entheogens of old was a strong pot of coffee, held in a vacuum flask to prevent it from going cold. The latter he had requisitioned from once of laboratories. They probably would not need it today. It had been gathering a noble dust at the back of a cabinet. And there was the note. A polite note too, explaining the situation. All very right and proper.

He had left the note. Had he? The mallet dropped to the frozen grass with a dull thud and he rose, patting his coat. A crinkle of paper. Fantastic. He’d done it again. A sigh escaped his lips and hung for a while in the freezing air. He reached in, and drew out the note.


You left the proper note you mindless idiot.

- U G B-S


Well, that either settled the matter of the vacuum flask, or it indicated he was even a greater woolen-headed fool that he had yet considered. It would have to remain a mystery. He had hours of preparation yet.

The observation tripod, an ancient thing, even it was a eight-hundred year old facsimile, was another concession to the old augury. It was one he had embraced for as long as he could remember, perhaps longer still. It had failed to sell at auction any number of times. Or so Uncle Gian had said. The truth was he’d never tried to sell the thing, one he saw how attached Umberto had been. An act, bluster and misdirection. Gian could hardly do otherwise. It was in his nature. Still, he had seen Umberto’s attachment and let him have the antique thing. It really was an excellent observation platform. High enough to give him a sweeping view of his field of inquiry, but neither unstable nor uncomfortable. True, the bronze would be a bit chilly today, but that was nothing a couple of cushions could not handle.

Those, and the coffee.

More markers, placed, checked for angles and tangents, for height and uniformity. Markers replaced, remeasured, and remeasured again.

It was a pity he could make use of the camera spectras. They would have been invaluable to serve as other eyes of observation. The monic fields of the machines would distort any observations. Purely mechanical cameras would have been far more useful. Still, the soulless minions of orthodoxy had decreed that magic should be required in the creations of images. Absurdities. Someone, somewhere, was probably hard at work on just such a machine. Do they require funding? Patronage? That was inevitable. And what funds did he have to support such an endeavour? Never mind finding the enterprising artisan who was working away at the problem.

The sun rising further now, and the hoarfrost had nearly vanished. Solar noon approaching and with it would come first the afternoon, and then would come his subject.

Miss Vauquelin, in all her sharp-edged precision, would arrive, and he was sure of this, punctual to the instant and probably slightly indignant. Well, she would have had neither breakfast nor lunch. Neither had he, unless the pot of coffee counted. He would not count it. He would hide the flask before Miss Vauquelin arrived. Solidarity in deprivations and all that.

The circle and the markers at last complete, all measured to the nth degree and checked against his notes, there was little enough to do but wait. He mounted to his tripod, poured one last cup of now lukewarm coffee, and settled in for what promised to be a long, and somewhat chilly, vigil.

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Lawn - Brunnhold University
Bethas 21, 2720 - Afternoon

Perhaps it was just her contrary nature, but despite the fact that Cerise rarely ate breakfast and sometimes even skipped lunch, being required to do so put her in a distinctly sour mood. She had agreed to it, of course; that felt like a lifetime ago already. It had only, somehow, been a week.

One week, and everything had turned so sideways and strange. Not, overall, in a bad way—Em's key was unaccountably warm in her pocket whenever she put her hand inside, just to make sure it was still there.

But good or bad, it had certainly been a lot. Enough that she'd almost forgotten about her arrangement with certain eccentric academics. If she hadn't been taken aside by the professors whose classes she was, starting now, no longer going to be in, she would have forgotten entirely.

Cerise knew she wasn't the friendliest of young women under any circumstances; not eating didn't improve her nature at all. She had snarled and snapped at anyone who had so much as looked at her cross-eyed, and earned at least one more demerit for her trouble. Another to add to the pile, she supposed. By the time the appointment rolled around, her field hung around her heavy as a thundercloud, her mood announced to anyone within range. This had better have been worth it. It sounded like it would be; she had to believe it would be.

Gritting her teeth, she reminded herself again that she at least had gotten out of some of her most loathed lectures.

Sish was, for once, not resting on her shoulders as she cut across the Lawn a good fifteen or twenty minutes late. With no idea of what she was in for, she didn't think it the most wise of ideas to add the miraan to the number of variables. More for Sish's safety than anything else. This did nothing for her disposition, even if there was nothing she could do about it. She was cold, she was hungry, she was expecting to come back to another destroyed pillowcase, and to top it all off: the band she had used that morning to tie back her hair had snapped without warning.

Her approach revealed to her two things: one, that Mr. Bassington-Smythe had set up some sort of system of markers before she arrived, and two, that the man himself was perched on some sort of ancient-looking bronze something other other. If it was at all possible, he looked more like a bird now than he had in his office. She did not, just now, find it a particularly charming resemblence.

"What's with the markers?" Cerise called out as she got closer, squinting against the sun. Her caprise, when it came, was a bit strong and too brief really. She frowned; more accurately, the frown she already had deepened. "Good afternoon." Another pause. "Sir."

[Umberto Bassington-Smythe]

Brunnhold - The Field of Practical Application

The 21st of Bethas, 2020, Early Afternoon

Y

ou’re late. It was what he would have liked to have said, would have been well within his rights to say it. It would have been imprudent, disastrously so. His subject was naturally prickly enough. No need to make it worse. Brief consultations with her professors had filled out the necessary image. Intelligent, driven, snappish, and overly pragmatical. In short, difficult. He could handle difficult. He’d been called it often enough.

“Miss Vauquelin,” he said, tone neutral. It was not precisely a greeting, more an acknowledgment of the fact of her existence. For some time he sat in silent stillness, observing the girl, taking the measure of that tempestuous field. There was no mistaking it, none once even a passing caprise had occurred. That field shouted her name wherever she went, like a footman announcing a guest at a noble soiree. A footman with the voice of a foghorn. For his own part, he had always tried to keep his field in close, not precisely dampened, but neither searching. The kind of field that would hang about the punchbowl or lurk behind a potted plant. Long practice made it easier. It was required. His field, so he had been told, could induce headaches and confusion anyone not familiar with its flow.

There was no sense in being rude.

He drew his head up from its place upon his folded hands and looked first to the girl and then out into the field, into the sacred space he had inscribed. “The markers,” he cocked his head toward the nearest, “will give me the precise measure of your motion through space. From this spot I know the distance, the angle, and the position of every one of them. Since I cannot pluck my eyes from my head and send them fluttering about for observation, the markers will have to do.” He could use no probing magic today. It would cause unwanted interference patterns in the field-flow. It would distort the data. As much as could be managed, he would make himself a non-entity.

“I have taken the liberty of bringing a few targets,” he gestured with one spidery hand to a bundle of much taller markers with tops looking something like bowling pins that had developed a glandular condition. “Though they are not required for use.” Dueling targets. Practice equipment. It had been strange to purchase them, standing in a little shop in the stacks while an excited shop assistant prattled on about the latest in reusable targets, proper dueling shoes - did Sir have a good pair? Sir did not. - and various other absurd paraphernalia. Perhaps dressing up old barbarisms in funny clothes and loading it down with bundles of bespoke nonsense allowed people to forget what it was they were engaging in.

It would have been better were it bloodier. It would have a purpose beyond mindless sport. Sorcery was strange, dangerous, full of dark possibilities. What had been done to it these last centuries was unpardonable. It had tamed magic, condemned it to prison of orthodoxy, crippled it, made it seem genteel. Noble uses my ass.

The girl was still standing there, waiting. His lamentations would have to be indulged later. For now there was work to be done. “Is there anything you require before you begin? Exercises? Make yourself ready Miss Vauquelin, set up what targets you desire, and then, let us see what we both can learn.”

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Lawn - Brunnhold University
Bethas 21, 2720 - Afternoon

Miss Vauquelin, came the bird-man's voice. Even and neutral. Cerise had expected more of a reaction to her tardiness, honestly. She wasn't going to complain if he was going to ignore it. She just had expected something else. Her frown softened not a whit under his quiet observation. Cerise folded her arms in front of her chest, raised her dark eyebrows still visible through the chaos of her hair.

The markers. Cerise looked to them as he explained, nodding. That made a certain kind of sense. Enough sense for her to nod along, anyway. Certainly no stranger than other other explanation. The somewhat gruesome image made her turn her head back to Mr. Bassington-Smythe and grin.

"Fair enough," she agreed with a shrug. At least it wasn't raining. Small mercy, she supposed. The last thing her mood needed was for the sky to reflect it in totality. The last thing her mood needed, or her hair, or likely Mr. Bassington-Smythe, either.

Cerise had brought a few targets, herself. They jangled around in the bag at her side. Not formal targets, of course. Just an assortment of things that could be smashed apart in a rather pleasing way. A mug with a broken handle, a plate from the cafeteria, so on and so forth. An old ceramics project she'd not gotten around to getting rid of, from the year she had taken ceramics. To round out her schedule. A few other, similar odds and ends, too.Cerise left them in the bag for now; she would bring them out if required. No sense in doing so in advance.

"No, they aren't usually required," Cerise agreed, although she didn't know what would best suit the project. "But useful." She set her bag down on the grass with a clatter and a grunt. It was actually quite heavy. Running wasn't much of a builder of upper-body strength. She rolled her shoulders back with a satisfying, audible crack.

She took a couple of the targets to hand, feeling the weight of them while she tried to decide what to do, how to set things up. Did she have a plan? Of course not. How could she? She had read the materials she had been given, the data collected. She thought she understood enough of it, but it hadn't led her to any conclusions by way of what to do here and now. After a moment she shrugged. Instinct could guide her; it usually did.

"Any spell at all?" Cerise asked with a quirk of one heavy eyebrow. Excellent. She found she could rather use the opportunity to work off the energy. All this not-eating should have made her more exhausted; maybe being so thoroughly irritated balanced it out. Cerise set up the targets a fair distance away, but within the bounds delineated by the circle and the markers. As an afterthought, she trotted back over and picked up the cup, after all. She set it on the grass between the two targets, and then stepped away.

There was nothing physical about the Physical Conversation, but she stretched her shoulders by pressing her arms across her chest anyway, and her neck as well. None of the irritation of the day mattered; now was not the time. She took a deep breath. Focus, she instructed herself sternly. Will, and focus.

Of course, it was hard to focus when you hadn't eaten all day. Or rather, it was difficult to focus on much else. Her thoughts kept pinging off one another, and even as she began to cast she could feel it going wrong. Too mush-mouthed and distracted, which only made her more annoyed again. The spell fizzled out and failed before she'd even gotten it off the ground; the mona in her field felt distinctly, if gently, chiding. Cerise didn't look to the academic bird on his metal perch. That would not help in the least.

No; she had an idea of what she wanted to. She just needed to do it. Her stomach could wait, her feelings could wait. Cerise ran a hand through the dark chaos of her hair and growled, before she resettled her spine to try again. And then—ha! This time it worked; not well, but it worked. The cup she had set on the grass lifted, slower than she wanted, and not quite as high, but it lifted.

But that wasn't all she meant to do; of course not. Just reducing the gravity around a cup wasn't interesting in the least. Still, she held it suspended there for a moment. In case it helped the data, of course. And in the meantime, she would arrange the exact parameters of her further requests in her head.

Rolls

Gravity attempt #1:
Today at 5:34 PM
@Cap O' Rushes: 1d6 = (1) = 1

...Okay!! How bad is it:
Today at 5:35 PM
@Cap O' Rushes: 1d6 = (5) = 5

Gravity attempt #2:
Today at 5:45 PM
@Cap O' Rushes: 1d6 = (3) = 3

[Umberto Bassington-Smythe]

Brunnhold - The Field of Practical Application

The 21st of Bethas, 2020, Early Afternoon

F

or the first moments he dispensed with notes. Notes would come later. For now, only observation was called for. There was little enough to observe. At least to the eyes. Motion through space would come later, the effects of spells visible against the markers, affecting the targets. All that moved then, on that cold morning, was a teacup. A teacup and the field-flow of the duelist.

At first it faltered, Miss Vauquelin distracted, unfocused. From his perch he felt the mockery of her field, an arcane laugh like the tintinnabulation of little crystalline bells. Is she so divorced from her field? Does she see it as a cloak of foreign matter? Orthodoxy again. Could he break her of that illusion? At least, he always felt it to be an illusion. All things carried the mona within them, the fundamental particles. Where does the field come from, if not from the mona of one’s own person? The core of it is an extension of the self. If it drags others into its orbit, it makes them its own, the caster’s own. It arises from you Miss Vauquelin, just as sure as your arms or that absurdity of dark and twisting hair. Like strangling vines. Like snakes.

A change came over the field, a focusing, a sharpening. More like herself. Sharp-edged and purposeful. There was no great rush, no flooding of magic forward. There was, and this seems out of place, no aggression. Frustration, yes, but only to herself. The teacup remained unmolested.That was unexpected. Later, he would note that. Later he would commit the flow of magic to diagrams, her incantations to parse trees. It was not yet time for that.

At last the teacup rose above the lawn, drawn upward to some fixed point of attraction. A slow and careful rise. Was she testing the waters here, or was this part of some exercise? The spell was reasonably efficient in its execution. Efficient, but still too laborious. The spell should be natural, the cup rising with as much facility as if she had raised it in her own hand. Separation again. Deliberate, bespoke.

His own experiments, the methods of efficiency, of naturalness, were all grounded in his field. A network of connections and half-reified arcane properties and objects. Still, there was the need for active communication, the mumbled words of Monite, the need for the damn interpretation. That needed to be broken down, cast to pieces, or else realized in permanent form within the field itself. Perpetual casting. Casting as thoughtless and natural as breathing.

There would still be a place for active thought, but unburdened from tedious mechanics. With more freedom of thought, greater magics could be worked. That was the theory anyway. The parses worked out, in theory. The metagrammar was almost functional. And yet, there were still too many gaps. Too little data.

He should get out of his head. Now was not the time to dwell on theory. The magic of the moment was all that mattered. He would let it be so. Well, as best he could.

Still the cup hung in the air, keeping its position just so. A static datapoint. Miss Vauquelin had not continued. Her casting had ceased. Ah, now he could see it. She was waiting on him. Waiting on some word. “No need to pause. Cast as you please, and at what speed is comfortable. Carry on Miss. Carry on.”

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Lawn - Brunnhold University
Bethas 21, 2720 - Afternoon

Cerise had grinned, sharp. Carry on, was it? Carry on she would; she knew what she wanted to do now, and she thought it would be satisfying indeed if it worked. The specificity of it was always a little difficult, when she'd tried before, but she thought... Well, there was only one way to find out.

Her concentration had split, a sliver of it holding the cup where it was. Now she brought it all back together again, trying to carefully pick her way around her request. Tried, at the last moment, to change something about the way she asked it—to improve the spell before she'd successfully cast it as it was. Maybe that was why nothing happened, or she had dropped some key part of it. Cerise growled, furious with herself, with the day, with everything.

There was, she thought grimly, something to take from it. She had been trying to set her anger and irritation aside, to come to this clean and uncomplicated. But that wasn't what she was, was it? To pretend otherwise was a denial just as dishonest and impure as anything else. Casting with a clear head, a clear intent—Cerise had never felt so clear as when she was angry.

So, then, she would be angry. There was plenty to be angry about. Wounds to press on, for blood to seep out of bright and red. Even petty irritation helped, braided in and sharpened with the rest of her. Cerise made a cage of it, an invisible web of force, of her will, to surrounded that little teacup. Fury held together by vicious glee. And then? Then was the best part.

Cerise shook it, hard.

The cup had been hovering on nothing, surrounded by nothing—to the naked eye. When Cerise got to the whole of her intention, it ricocheted off the box she had made to contain it. The handle broke first, snapping off. Then a chip in the rim; she shook it harder, and faster, and in the span of a few minutes the whole thing had shattered. Smashed to pieces in the cage she had made to rattle.

That had felt absolutely excellent. Cerise let it go, dissipating the box and letting gravity resume normal flow once again on all of the little pieces. They fell to the ground with a chorus of soft clinks. Cerise turned, eyebrows raised. A small thing, but it had felt so good to do.

"Another? Or more of the same?" Her eyes were ablaze; she could do more, could go on forever if he wanted her to. At least, so it felt right now, fresh from such a satisfying success. There were plenty of things she could be angry about, and more than enough teacups to smash. And other things, too.

Rolls

Spell Attempt #1:
Today at 2:47 PM
@Cap O' Rushes: 1d6 = (1) = 1

Oops:
Today at 2:47 PM
@Cap O' Rushes: 1d6 = (6) = 6

Attempt #2:
Today at 2:51 PM
@Cap O' Rushes: 1d6 = (5) = 5

[Umberto Bassington-Smythe]

Brunnhold - The Field of Practical Application

The 21st of Bethas, 2020, Early Afternoon

T

here was a waver in the duelist’s field, a pause, an uncertainty. Even at his current distance he could sense that. It was, like the rest of her, in no way subtle. Did that make her easier to counter? Could her opponents read her intent in that sharp and dancing field? Perhaps. The spell itself? That was less likely. Not in the heat of competition. There would be far too many other matters to consider.

The waver gave way to a rising heat. He did to feel it, not in the way of laying your hands into a fire, but knew it. It was the isolated concept of heat. Was that how she felt it? Was it his own interpretation of the matter?

Point of Study: Subjectivity in the Experience of Field states. A Relative theory of Monic Dynamics, Impartially Considered

Now was not the time for an entirely new line of academic study. Focus on the matter at hand. Focus on the nature of the spells. Another day.

Rising in the field, a potential spell. So, he though, regarding his subject, you cast in anger. It was expected, of course. Anger, at least anger in potentia seemed to be the duelists natural state. It hung easy about her shoulders like an old and treasured coat. Anger would serve well in a duel.

. . .therefore a wise duelist, beset with purpose and with opponent in mind, should approach all action in a state of composed equanimity. The Art demands no less. Neither joy nor sorrow, rage nor grief, should be held in the mind or projected into the field. Through these defects of the Art, folly arises.

Renaldo Bonaventura Udinese - Representations on the Art of Combat (2536)

Perhaps not. Udinese, such as he could find, has been a master of the Art. Certainly the man had a high opinion of himself. And, if the records bore it out, was said to have left a string of broken and even slain opponents in his wake. Perhaps it was just an accurate assessment.

He read the work over three nights, trying to grasp the spells and counterspells, the stances and motions. By the Hours, he had even practiced some of Udinese’s exercises! The Physical Conversation had never been his strong suit, and for his pains he had been gifted with scorch marks on the floor, nine broken statuettes he particularly loathed, and a periodic ringing in his ears and the sensation that his skin could burst into flames at the sight of the color puce. Still, research was its own reward. He had to tell himself that. His much-hated office curtains were puce.

Composed equanimity. Perhaps Udinese’s advice also applied to the observer. One breath, then another. Focus again. And so he focused upon the teacup. He focused upon the duelist's voice.

An incantation, conventional, flat. Rehearsed? Well worn? He drank in the sound of the words, their senses and connotations. Synonyms and clause structures formed at the back of his mind. They rose up like waves. They threatened to crash. He pushed them back. The tide would have to wait. The words are all that mattered.

The words and the teacup.

One hung in the air. The other shattered and fell like porcelain snow to the field below.

“Excellent Miss Vauquelin. Most enlightening.” There had been the wavering, and upon that small thing he would have to build. There were elements of the incantation that could be improved, of course. That was only a small part of the matter. The field itself would need to participate in the shaping of the incantation. The effort of efficiency would need to be made to arise as naturally as breath. “A different spell I think, if you would be so good. Something rather more complex? Perhaps a chain of incantations? It would be edifying to observe your spells in greater context.”

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Lawn - Brunnhold University
Bethas 21, 2720 - Afternoon

Enlightening, was it? Good, she supposed. That was the purpose of the exercise—the purpose of her skipping all of her meals, dragging herself out here. It damn well had better be enlightening. Breaking the teacup had felt good, she had to admit, but it hadn't made her anger dissipate any. If anything, she felt sharper now than she had before.

More complex though—she felt just a little irritated with the request, were she to be honest. Fuel to the fire, in the end, but really. She didn’t quite expect him to understand how much of the physical conversation required concentration and strength of will, even for something that seemed simple from the outside. But honestly. It was the very stuff that held all of Vita together—”complex”. She was slightly tempted to snap her teeth, looking like nothing so much as Sish in a mood. She restrained herself, barely.

"Something complex it is then." Cerise frowned as she thought, her face settling into the expression like a well-worn coat. Complex left her with a great deal of options; Cerise considered them carefully, ranked by how satisfying they would be if successful. The fact that she was working on inanimate targets and not another duelist gave her rather more free reign than she was used to with such exercises. It was a thrilling sort of feeling, to be given permission—no, to be asked to come up with new and creative ways to destroy things.

She would write any number of essays for that, although she certainly wouldn't be sharing this little fact out loud.

There was little consideration given to anything that did not, in fact, result in the destruction of her targets. She could do that of course; she had to do that, in fact. It was hardly the done thing to go about breaking other youthful duelists' arms, after all. Not on purpose, anyway. Why waste this golden opportunity by not breaking anything, though?

Cerise stood in the cold of the Lawn, wishing very dearly for warmer stockings against the Bethas chill. Well, she’d be warmer soon enough—she could feel it already, the rush of it moving through her blood. An idea came over her; she weighed her options for targets. Something familiar would be best. No need to make this harder on herself. Cerise wasn’t actually entirely certain this would work, but, well. It seemed fun. Stress-relieving, if she pulled it off. And educational, perhaps, which was more to the point.

Static was certainly not her field of focus, but it did overlap quite beautifully with what was, and so she was more familiar with it than she was with any other conversation outside of her focus. Cerise had in her bag a single lightbulb, wrapped in a handkerchief--just to keep it from smashing on the way over. It was an old model, a basic thing—more of a relic and a scientific curiosity than anything of true use. (She had, in fact, nicked it from a science lab. They wouldn't miss it. Probably.)

She had replicated all of the parts of a lightbulb before—the glass, the filament, so on. So replicating the thing itself shouldn't be, theoretically, too terribly different. Cerise concentrated, scraping back through her memory of static classes. The second bulb was distinctly different in shape, as if the glassblower that had made it was still in training. The third was even worse. The less said of that the better.

It was a good thing they didn't need to be around very long.

Floating the bulbs was easy enough, and done more for safety than anything else. She knew what she planned to do, and that she ought to give it some room to do it. She held them and stepped back. Then a little further. Safety first, and all that. So distanced, it was time to light them up. The bulbs sparked to life, cheery and bright. Then brighter, and brighter—she was very deliberately overloading the charge in the filament. A little more, a little further, and—

It would have been more spectacular if they had all exploded simultaneously, which is what she wanted, but close enough. There was a brilliantly loud pop as each one shattered into tiny pieces, some of them coming just short of where she was standing. She was rather glad she'd taken the extra steps back.

Complex. Cerise dragged a hand across her forehead, feeling warm in spite of the chill of the air. If that didn't qualify, she didn't know what would.

[Umberto Bassington-Smythe]

Brunnhold - The Field of Practical Application

The 21st of Bethas, 2020, Early Afternoon

S

ubtle magics resist easy study. They resisted it all the more when the subject was something of a cypher. Miss Knives was not quite a cypher, but near enough. A better understanding of her field, how it wrapped itself around her and through her, how the murmurs, hisses, and sudden ejectives of Monite would shape and pull at that field, at the person at its center. And so he watched, waiting for more data, for more field-flow, for more words.

The lightbulb was unexpected.

On his tripod now, he leaned forward, head thrust forward like a heron that had just espied a promising frog in the murky water. The purpose of the bulb, like the shape of the illusory frog, remained just out of reach, tantalizing, intriguing, and like to vanish if he moved too suddenly. His own field thrummed with irritation at having no part in this magic. Not now, not here in this place. Later, it would be the hour for his own magics. For now, the magic of the place belonged to the angry young lady and her curious talisman.

A shift in Cerise’ field, a swirling of intent, of potential action. Then, clipped and raw as gnawed bone, the words followed on. The incantation was inelegant, even awkward in construction. Like the words of someone not quite at home with a foreign language. A different kind of magic then. Something altogether new. Pitch and tone wobbled, sibilants turned nearly to mush, but the formation was clear enough, the intent within the field flow strong enough, to more than make up for any imperfections of the incantation. Redundancies were such useful things.

A nothing took shape in the cold afternoon air. Thin and fragile and translucent, as though somehow the lingering mist had been pulled and shaped. Like clay. No. Like glass. In the workshops of Florne, he had watched the glassmakers at their art. Some making strange and unsettling objects like the beings dreaded up by fishermen’s nets from the abysses of the sea, some making small delicate glass flowers, others making near-microscopic repairs to bottles and glassware. Any number of times he had watched them, though he had no more idea how to blow glass than how to fly. Nothing like any of their art was present in Cerise’ magic, yet still it worked. Well, for a given value of work.

The final bulbs, strange, lumpish, misshapen things; parodies of the real thing. Parodies that nevertheless could still shed light on the cold damp Lawn.

This was magic he did not know, magic it seemed Cerise was devising even as he chanted her words and extended her field. He nearly broke his silent vigil to applaud. This was magic as it should be, the magic of the moment and of need; shaped and formed not by ancient magisters - horrible old men with no teeth and the flexibility of concrete - but by a sorcerer who took delight in the magic.

Delight, terror, eerie foreboding, joy, so much of that was lost in the dry books of magic that passed for grimoires. A handful of times he had seen a proper grimoire, the poetically mad writings of a sorcerer at the height of their powers, and been in awe of what was written. The words were wild and strange, the magic beautiful and terrible. The lightbulb trick was neither beautiful nor terrible, yet it had within it the makings of both.

Perhaps he had thought too soon. A little terror, a little beauty now flowed through those bright orbs as they hung in the air. When, at last, their brightness consumed them and the glass shattered, it seems something had been lost. The world was diminished for the passing of those glowing sparks.

For a time he did not move, only sat hunched and cold upon his tripod, waiting for the phantom lights in his eyes to fade. He could not sit still forever. He was not a statue.

“Miss Vauquelin,” he said at last, dropping to the ground. “That was a most impressive and imaginative display. I was not sure, when you produced the bulb, what was afoot. I am glad to have seen it. A curious display. A magic of your own devising?” He gave her what he hoped was a genuine smile. He had never been sure if it looked well upon his face. “That is precisely the thing I need. Marvelous.” Out came his notebook and at last he scribbled down some notes, some transcriptions. “Your intent is clear, your understanding of the effect is well formed. I will have to cross-check your incantations against some of the models I have been working with, but I believe we, and I do mean we, can work out an incantation pattern to make such magics less a strain upon you, to free your mind to allow for more manipulations. You could make them dance perhaps, or flash in such a way as to drive your opponents to distraction or even seizure. Is that allowed in the degraded form of modern dueling? I confess my knowledge is limited to more historical forms. Forms where death and maiming were positively commonplace.” He gave her another, perhaps more worrying smile. “When, indeed, they were expected.”

[Cerise Vauquelin]

The Lawn - Brunnhold University
Bethas 21, 2720 - Afternoon

Not that she had expected anything so garish as applause, but Cerise hadn't thought her little display would be greeted with utter silence. A frown creased her face; she felt a bit faint. If her nose didn't start bleeding, she would be very surprised. It was surprisingly exhausting, doing all of that at once without having practiced most of the parts before.

Spectacular though, even if she was the only one who thought so. The popping of the glass had been particularly satisfying. She felt much of her annoyance melt away with it. Cerise turned. Mr. Bassington-Smythe looked like a statue of a bird, hunched up on his tripod. Cerise raised her eyebrows and waited, hands set on her hips. Did that count as "something complex" or not?

Miss Vauquelin, began the bird-man, coming to land on the ground once more. Impressive and imaginative? Cerise broke out into a pleased grin, looking rather like the cat who ate the canary. Mr. Bassington-Smythe had what she could only describe as a rather awful smile; Cerise assumed it was sincere, because otherwise she might have been obliged to hit him. And then she'd have to go back to Pre-Modern Galdori History.

"It is," she acknowledged. "I've never cast it before, actually—not really particularly useful in a—clocking hell!" Cerise's explanation was interrupted by feeling the slow drip down her face. It didn't help that the air was cold, and she'd felt poorly before they'd even gotten started. Normally she could cast much more than this and be right as rain. She sniffed, loudly and grotesquely. When that failed, she wiped the back of her hand across her face.

Less of a strain was certainly appealing. She wiped her hand off on her uniform skirt.

Still, Cerise snorted. "Have you really never been to a tournament?" she asked, forgetting even the scrap of manners she managed to hold onto when talking to faculty. "Don't you work here? Sir." She shook her head, sending her hair into chaos.

"I think parents would object if their children were maiming each other for sport," she pointed out dryly, crossing the lawn to stand a little closer. Someone else could clean up the glass. She considered the idea though; she never rejected a suggestion entirely out of hand. Usually. Depending on the source.

"Distraction is allowed—I think seizure violates the rules of play." It seemed... dirty, too. Unfair, somehow. Cerise paused, losing herself in thinking about the applications. If she could, perhaps, multiply the bulbs while in mid-air...? She didn't think props were allowed, though. Perhaps she could form one during a duel...? That sounded a bit fanciful, but if she could pull it off...

"...No permanent injury," she mumbled at last, remembering the general thrust of the question. "Varsity matches are kept on a lower damage tier. Won't be able to do anything that could really injure until I go professional after graduation."