AN: Beta-read by
Carbohydratos,
Did I?,
Gaia,
Linedoffice,
Zephyrosis, and
Mizu.
Chapter 106: In Life's Name and For Life's Sake
Rafferty Park was a children's park nestled away on the edge of town facing Casa Elwick. It had a nice green lawn for children to run around in; a small, old-fashioned wood-and-metal play-structure in a big sandy pit; a wading fountain that was probably a horrific bacterial culture; and huge trees around the perimeter to shade the benches set up for parents watching over the first three things on the list.
The fountain and sand pit both offended the desire for cleanliness I'd picked up from handling food all day, so I'd chosen a spot on a bench near the lawn: not too far from the sidewalk, but not so close as to feel like I was sitting by the side of the road. The bench I'd chosen also had the benefit of putting me far away from the children currently climbing all over the playground. It wasn't that I disliked kids, but they were happy and loud and I was about to have a serious conversation.
I'd arrived ten minutes before noon, so I had a bit of time to relax and soak in the scenery, including the children taking advantage of the fading summer weather to use the park for its intended purpose. Rafferty Park was pretty nice; if I was a more outdoorsy person, I might come here again, but I preferred to relax somewhere I had control of the thermostat. Sure, magic would let me dance naked in a blizzard and only feel self-conscious, but I was a creature of habit. Besides, space heaters and air conditioners weren't part of the supernatural powers I was spending all decade pretending I didn't have.
Except for now, I guess.
———X==X==X———
I heard Megan crunching across the grass, but elected to continue watching the children until she drew close enough to greet me.
"Hello, Cassandra," she called.
"Hello, Megan," I replied, twisting around to smile at her. "Care to sit down?"
"Sure." She sat down to my right and placed her purse on her lap. "Babysitting?"
"No. Waiting for a friend, actually… and for you."
"Me? Why?"
"Well…"
I would say I made a show of my hesitation, but the hesitation was real, and only slightly exaggerated. This was sort of a big moment.
"I have some good news for you, I guess." My nerves had me looking out over the park rather than meeting her eyes. "That said… it's not something you should spread everywhere, okay? I'm not telling you you can't tell
anybody, but you do need to be careful. With me so far?"
Megan snorted. "Did you call me out here to tell me that magic is real?"
Oh, for god's sake, don't tell me I stressed over this for nothing.
I couldn't stop the exasperated huff. "You already know?"
"Wait, really?"
Or not.
"No way! Did you really… oh my god.
Oh my god."
"Megan—"
"No, hold on!" Megan was literally vibrating in place. "If you're joking, you have to say so now, okay?! Because if this is a practical joke and you keep going, I am
never going to forgive you for getting my hopes up—"
I interrupted her by summoning one of my
Star Wars-hologram-esque illusions in the shape of a small, cartoon-simplified butterfly and having it begin to circle her head. Having it come to a stop on her nose after its orbit might have been mean of me, since it meant Megan went completely cross-eyed.
"You okay there?" I asked when she
remained cross-eyed after I'd dismissed the illusion.
"You… that… za?" she asked, then began making a sound not unlike a mistuned dog whistle.
"Megan? Breathe. You need to breathe to ask questions, remember?"
"Questions? Questions! Yes. I have… oh my
god I have so many questions. How did you do that? Was that really magic? What
is magic? Why is it secret? Can you teach me? Do you need my soul to teach me because
it is for sale—"
"
Megan!" I snapped, causing her to nearly fall off the bench in fright. "Do. Not. Joke. About. That!
Ever! For fu-u-udge's sake, the first thing you should ask when told that souls are a real thing is not 'How much will you give me for it?'!"
"Souls are… no, magic is real, stupid question. Sorry. I won't joke about that ever again, I swear." Megan paused, then opened her purse and drew out a brown paper bag… which she then
screamed into at the top of her lungs.
It muffled the sound admirably.
"That's how I stay sane at home," she said by way of explanation as she returned the bag to her purse. "Uh… yeah. Sorry. Where were we?"
"Questions," I said, smiling to show I accepted the apology. "Actually,
answers, since you asked the important ones already. The first two are easy: 'With magic' and 'Yes'.
"As for what magic is… well, it's sort of a catch-all term for things that defy the laws of physics. What makes it 'magic' rather than 'physics science doesn't know' is that its rules are more… flexible. Physics has laws, but magic isn't consistent that way. Spell-casting magic in particular is rather personal; very few people can learn others' spells, and everyone else gets their own unique set, though sometimes two people will develop spells that are nearly the same. Yes?" I asked when Megan raised her hand.
"So they're like superpowers in comic books?" she asked. "Everyone gets their own, and there's no real how or why?"
"Not exactly, but that's a good place to start."
Megan nodded.
"So why is it secret?" I asked. "That's… complicated. To some degree, it's because magic
wants to be secret." Megan raised her hand again. "Yes?"
"Are you anthropomorphizing magic like when people say 'information wants to be free', or is it like 'the will of the Force' or however that works?"
"More the latter than the former. Now—yes?" She'd raised her hand again.
"What does it mean that magic 'wants' something? Is there, like, a god of magic or something?"
"Not exactly. It's more accurate to say that magic itself is intelligent, and it works in such a way that it gets what it wants." Megan raised her hand again. "You don't need to raise your hand to ask questions."
"Sorry," she said. "Habit. Um, if magic wants to be secret, why does anyone know about it at all?"
"Because something isn't a secret if
no one knows it. Then it's just unknown." I waited to see if she had another question before I went back to my original explanation. "Magic doesn't actively conceal itself—at least beyond the basic principle of disbelief—but there are reasons that the people who know about it don't spread the word more than it likes. The more people know about the existence of magic, the more likely it is that people who would abuse it gain access to it. Most people don't have any means to defend against harmful magic."
"But wouldn't the people who use magic for evil not care about how much harm more people knowing about magic would cause?"
"Those people would want to keep a monopoly on power—and avoid the attention of people who take offense to magical crime and what-not."
"Oh, right." Megan paused. "So you must trust me a bunch if you're willing to tell me all this. Or
are you trusting me? I'm really not sure what's going on here."
"I do and am, and I hope you won't prove me wrong."
"I won't!" she promised. "Uh, are there a lot of people who
could do magic if they knew about it, or does everyone who can already know?"
"The former—lots of 'normal' people can learn magic."
All of them, technically.
"Am I one of them?" Megan asked, and the desperation in her voice hurt to hear. "Or… or did you just want to let me know it was out there, so I'd be happy it was real at all?"
I put my hand on her arm. "Of course you are. You'd never forgive me for getting your hopes up, remember?"
"I… I am? I'm going to be able to do magic?
Real magic?" She stared at me for a good twenty seconds, then raised her hand.
"Yes?"
"
How?"
"Mind if I give you a bit of background first?" I asked.
"Of course not!"
"Great. There are many kinds of magic, but only a very few people—wizards—are born with the ability to cast spells. Wizards are slightly different than people who gain the ability later in life—gaining that ability is called Awakening, and people who have it are referred to as Awakened. It's not a good way to describe it, but I guess whoever named it was more interested in sounding cool and mystical than being accurate." I realized I was getting off topic and cleared my throat as a way to reset the train of thought. "Anyway, there are a lot of different ways to Awaken, but what they all have in common is that you need to have enough magic in you to get the process started."
Megan raised her hand again, though this time she didn't wait for me to acknowledge it. "What if I don't have enough?"
"Then you'd need to do some magical exercise until you did—but you do. I checked."
"Oh." She raised her hand again. "How are wizards different?"
"Wizards are born with special magical talents. They have the ability to learn other people's spells, while most Awakened rely only on their personal set."
"What determines whether someone is a wizard or not?"
"Bloodline, mostly."
"It's always bloodlines," she grumbled. "So everyone who uses magic without some bullcrap pedigree is 'Awoken'?"
"Awakened." I stopped and reconsidered my correction. "I'm not sure which is the more proper grammar, now that I think about it, but the term in use is 'Awakened'. Anyway, the only difference between wizards and non-wizards I'd qualify as 'important' is the ability to learn spells that I mentioned earlier."
"So how does the… 'waking' work?"
"Well, like I said, there are a lot of ways to Awaken, but we don't have to worry about them. One of the easiest—the one I've arranged for you—is to have a magical being help you through it. I can't do it myself, but that's why you aren't the only person I'm meeting."
Megan followed my gaze across the park, but Zero didn't have magically good timing and hadn't arrived yet.
Her hand went up again. "Do I have to keep this secret from my friends?" she asked.
I gave her a more 'encouraging' smile than my normal cheeky grins. "That is, ultimately, your decision. There are good reasons to hide it, and good reasons not to hide it. People might be scared, or jealous, or think you're fooling them or yourself. People might not be able to keep the secret to themselves. That's part of the trust I'm placing in you, you see: I'm trusting that you have good judgment as to who to tell and who not to tell."
"Someone trusted you with the same thing."
"Yes."
"And you're telling me."
"Yes."
She gulped.
"I'm not worried," I told her. "It's a responsibility, but it's one I think you can handle."
Megan blushed and mumbled, "Well, that's what trust is…", which I had to admit was true.
"You asked about your friends," I noted, "but not your family."
"There's no way I'm telling my family about this! Can you imagine what my Dad would do if he knew I could do magic? 'Now honey, use your magic powers to make your father very, very rich.'
Fuck. That."
My snort drew a cry of indignation from her. "Sorry," I said. "I'm not laughing at you, that just sounds familiar."
"Does this happen a lot?"
"I don't know—I was thinking of something I read."
Megan raised her eyebrows. "Have you read
Worm?"
Huh. "…yes, actually."
"I was thinking about that when I said that. Ugh, everything about the Livsey's reminds me of my family. It's funny in a really awful way."
"That describes a lot of
Worm," I noted.
"Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Oh, who's your favorite character?"
If I'd been asked that
before Max had whisked me away to adventure and trauma, I'd have said 'Lisa' immediately. As it was, I had to think about it for a few seconds.
"Lisa," I decided. "Even if she is kind of a bitch."
"She's nice to her friends!"
"You mean Taylor? The battered, vulnerable girl she manipulated into serving as a catspaw against Coil and the other gangs?"
And me, in the continuity I tampered with.
Megan looked heartbroken. "Maybe she
set out to do that, but they were friends by the end, right?"
Who fucking knows what goes on in Lisa's head? I sure didn't.
"Maybe," I admitted. "She's
nasty if you piss her off, that's for sure."
"Oh, don't tell me you're a Victoria fan."
"Vicky's got good qualities! They're just often overlooked because she's mean to the villains we like."
"She broke that guy's spine," she pointed out.
I'd worked with Vicky for long enough that I honestly had no idea which spine-breaking incident she was referring to. "Well if she was the protagonist, we'd cheer for it," I argued. "Yeah, Vicky fucks up, but most of her 'faults' are exaggerated by the protagonist having—let's be real here—exactly the sort of public persona that Batman-style brutality is usually justified against."
"Victoria fan!"
"She gets a worse rap than she deserves," I said. "That said… yeah, I'm with you on Lisa. She's clearly the best."
"You're just sucking up to me now."
"I am not! I said Lisa first, remember? I'm just saying that it's one thing to like someone as a character and another to actually want to
know them."
"Lisa would be
my friend," Megan insisted.
"You're probably right, if only because you'd get to bond over how much your parents suck."
"Hah, yeah."
We both chose that moment to sigh.
"Wow, we got off topic," I said. "Sorry about that. Where were we?"
"Uh, you said there were also good reasons not to hide it?" she said. "Magic, I mean."
"Yes. By necessity, the decision to hide magic limits your ability to use it."
"So I can't help people."
I smiled. "It's generous that that's your first thought, but that also means that you can't enjoy it with others even when they don't need help."
"Yeah…" Megan sighed. "It wasn't
really my first thought. I just felt like I should want to use magic like that, rather than just for me, you know?"
"I know. But I'm not telling you all this because I expect you to go and use it for others. I'm sharing this with you because I want you to be happy."
"But what about all the responsibility you talked about?"
"You have a responsibility not to abuse your power," I told her, "but that doesn't mean you can't be selfish with it."
"It… doesn't?" she repeated. "Isn't abusing your power being selfish?"
"Not always. You can abuse your power to help others, or use it in ways that are both selfish and responsible."
Megan thought about that for a minute. "Abusing powers means harming other people," she said. "If I use magic to fly just because I want to fly, and I make sure not to get caught or cause problems… that might be selfish because it's just for me, but it's responsible because no one is hurt. But if I were to help my dad with his business, that
would be abusing my power if his success means other people fail."
"Very good." I patted her on the shoulder. "I don't need to worry about what you're going to get up to, do I?"
"No, I understand," she said. "It's not exactly 'In life's name and for life's sake', but it's more… free, maybe? Less 'responsibility' and more, uh, 'accountability'?"
"That's a good way to put it. There's no cost to magic any more than there's a cost to sunlight—"
"Skin cancer."
"—except for calories, I guess," I continued, ignoring her semantic objection.
"Calories? You cast from
calories? Is
that how you stay so thin?!"
"Well, not exactly? I—"
Without my input, my eyes snapped to where Zero was ambling across the lawn towards the bench, a sensation I recognized from last Jump; she'd used a weak 'taunt' spell on me to catch my attention. Any annoyance I might have felt at being metaphysically poked was swiftly forgotten once I got a look at her because Zero looked nothing like Zero. At the risk of being rude, she looked like a hag: skin wrinkled like a prune, nose and chin lumpy and misshapen, eyes milky with cataracts, teeth mostly rotten out, and her body swaddled in coarse black cloth. She'd mentioned she'd be 'dressing up' for the occasion, and my reply had been that she'd better wear enough to be decent. I hadn't expected
this.
It took effort to act like I'd
expected someone who looked like she ate children to show up—and speaking of 'looks like she ate children': "Good day, Cassandra," Zero rasped once she'd drawn close enough for her hushed words to reach us. "And this little morsel must be Megan. You look delicious."
Megan's response was a mumble that had the right number of syllables to be 'Oh my god what the hell?'.
I'm pretty sure the politeness perk was why I didn't snap at her to stop goofing around (a mistake, in hindsight, but a polite one). "What are you doing?"
"Meeting you, as you requested." Zero grinned with the few teeth she had left, then turned to Megan. "And you, Miss Elwick. You may call me 'Zero' as Cassandra does, wit that she is."
Megan absorbed that apparent non-introduction, then looked to me and whispered, "Is she… safe?"
"She'd better be," I growled.
"Oh ho ho," Zero cackled. "So cruel, Cassandra, to threaten an old woman so. Ah, but before we continue…" She leaned in and
sniffed, which only made Megan more concerned about being eaten. "Oh, yes, she's certainly ready."
"Ready for what?!" Megan squeaked.
"For Awakening," I answered, glaring at Zero as she sat down on Megan's right and sent the girl scooting as far down the bench as she could—which wasn't far even when I gave way because three was about as many as the bench could hold. "Like I said, the easiest is to have a being of sufficient magical power do it for you."
"Or
to you, as it were," Zero added ominously, lowering her hood to reveal her long, pointed ears. "Assuming you still wish it, of course."
I mouthed
Knock if off! over Megan's shoulder while she was thoroughly distracted by the ears. "Ears?" she asked.
"Yes, I have ears, child," Zero replied, ignoring my ire. "Do keep up."
"No, I mean, what… err… why are they like that?"
"A very polite way to ask 'what are you?', but I hear the question you meant nonetheless." Zero fixed Megan with a haughty smirk. "I am what many now call an Immortal, though I would rather we were still termed Faeries, myself."
"Oh god, you're one of the fair folk?" Megan whispered. "Oh fuck. I mean, it's… uh… scary to meet you?"
"You don't need to worry," I insisted, intensifying my glare at Zero. "She's not going to do anything to you."
"I'm not?" Zero asked. "Whatever did you summon me for then, Cassandra?"
This time I
did facepalm. "She's not going to do anything you don't agree to," I corrected myself. "She
is going to Awaken your magic, if you still want her to."
"What's it going to cost?" Megan asked.
Zero cackled again. "She's smarter than you thought," she told me. "Cassandra feared I might ambush you in your dreams to offer you magic for a favor untold." Megan paled further. "Oh, relax, child, t'was a joke. Naught but a test to see if you had the sense to refuse, had I done so at all."
"A test I failed," she muttered, which sent Zero into an incredibly unnerving giggling fit.
"It won't cost you anything," I said, actually answering the question. "We worked this out already—and for god's sake, Zero, stop scaring her."
Zero nodded. "Really, child, there's no need to fear. You didn't quake and quiver so in front of Lady Maeve."
"What?" Megan asked. "I've never met—"
"She spoke to your party at the storytelling festival two moons ago," Zero interrupted. "I believe she was wearing…
very little."
Megan squeaked, "
That was Maeve?"
"Oh, yes! She and Cassandra go back quite a ways." Zero continued to ignore my not-particularly-subtle signs to reign it in. "Cassandra called on her to repay a favor owed once, more than thirty years agone, and… well, I will say only that there was much less city when she was done than had been there—"
"Sorry, Megan, would you excuse us?" I didn't wait for a response before rising to my feet, grabbing Zero by an ear—the extra length made for a fantastic hand-hold—and dragging her away.
"Hey, easy on the ear!" she yelped, dropping the old-woman voice. "Gently—! Ah, bitch, that hurts!"
I ignored her protests until we were a good twenty feet away from the bench, then released her—more roughly than necessary—and cast a privacy charm with a flick of my always-on-hand wand. "What the fuck, Zero?" I growled, leaning into her personal space. "I'm trying to make dreams come true, here, and you're turning it into a nightmare!"
"It was just a little fun—"
"Did she look like she was having fun?!" I snapped, waving at Megan, who was watching us with wide, fearful eyes.
Zero opened her mouth to claim exactly that, then thought better of it. "Sorry," she said. "I thought it would be funny."
"Pranks are—"
"Supposed to be funny to both sides, yes, I remember." She huffed and crossed her arms. "Really, I don't see why it's such a big deal. You were playing along—"
"Because I didn't want to make a scene!"
"You're making a scene
now."
"Yeah, because you went so far past 'too far' that you can't even see the line anymore! Improvisation is fine, but for fuck's sake, consider your audience!"
Zero perked up. "Oh, speaking of improvisation: I was going to offer Megan some help, actually. Immortals are supposed to 'empower and guide' people—"
"Is that why you were scaring her? You wanted to make her feel threatened so she'd welcome any help you had to offer?"
"No!" she cried, throwing up her hands to ward off the accusation. "No, that wasn't the plan! I thought spooking her a bit would be funny—and okay, maybe I went a bit too far, but they were two completely different,
separate plans, honest! I'm not… fucking hell, Cass, come on! You trust me more than that, right?"
"I did
before you pulled this crap—"
"I wasn't
that scary—"
"She doesn't have any expectation of safety!" I snapped. "This whole thing is new to her. She doesn't know the rules and
you do, and that means that she could give you an excuse to kill her—or worse—without realizing it!
You brought up Faeries."
"Oh, yeah, I did." Zero actually looked properly ashamed now. "Shit. Okay, fine, I fucked up. Sorry."
"You'll apologize to her, too, then?"
"'Course."
"Good. Now, what was that about help?"
She grinned. "Well, you know the trope of wizards having an animal familiar? Like a talking cat? I thought—"
"That is a
terrible idea. I know 'empowering and guiding mortals' is sort of your mandate as an Immortal, but I am
seriously uncomfortable with the idea of you sleeping in the same room as a young girl."
"I didn't mean
me! Jenn was bored—"
"I didn't know you hung out with Jenn."
"Oh, come on!" Zero whined. "First off, I know I can be an ass, but I'm not
that bad an influence on people! Secondly, Jenn is older than you, anyway, so
she should be worried about
you! And third—"
"I'm not judging!" I interrupted. "I'm just saying, I hang out with both of you, but I've never hung out with both of you
together."
"Ahh." Her injection trailed off into a hearty laugh. "Sure, we don't have a whole lot of shit in common, but that doesn't mean we're not friends. She's friends with everyone, you know? Anyway, we decided to be Immortals together this Jump—aaand now you're regretting getting me involved when you could have gone to Jenn instead."
"It would have avoided some issues, yes," I agreed.
"Asshole. Right, well, Jenn's current 'project pupil' has more or less graduated and she's got fuck all to do until she finds another, so I figured she could tag in as
Megan's mentor—or her familiar, like I said."
"You were just going to spring this on us without consulting me?"
"It was a last minute thing!"
"You have a cell phone. You know,
somehow."
"Heh. Yeah." Zero twiddled her forefingers. "Oops?"
I pinched my nose and let out a long, frustrated sigh.
"Okay," I said. "First off: aren't familiars usually, like,
uplifted animals?"
"Or spirits bound in animal forms, which is at least pretty close to the actual situation. Come on, where's the harm?"
"I'm not sure. It seems a little suspect to hang out with a teenager in the guise of a cute, harmless little animal, don't you think?"
"Oh, the Pettigrew issue. It's different if she knows the cat can talk, right?"
"I don't know, is it?"
Zero rolled her eyes. "It's
Jenn, Cass. I know you probably don't trust me around her now, but you trust
her, right?"
I hesitated.
"As long as we're clear on the fact that she's not
just a magic cat, I guess I can't really point to any specific problem," I admitted.
"Great! Now let's get back before your friend gets any paler, yeah?"
"…yeah."
I dismissed the charm and led us back to the bench, where Zero wasted no time in making her apology.
"I've very sorry, Miss Elwick," she said without preamble. "I played a prank on you which Cassandra has clearly explained was unacceptable." Megan squeaked in surprise as Zero returned to her 'normal' appearance—though still with this Jump's ears—and bowed low enough for me to use her back as a writing desk. "I hope you will forgive me."
It took a few moments for Megan to recover her wits.
"Was that all a disguise, or an illusion, or—" She stopped, took a deep breath, and asked, "Uh, how much of what you said there was actually true?"
"I did not
say anything untrue, but I implied many, many such things," Zero said, still staring at the ground. "You have absolutely nothing to fear from me, Miss Elwick. Perhaps I can put some of the fears I have given you to rest?"
"Are you really a Faerie?" Megan asked immediately.
"We were once
called Faeries, but we are not 'Fae', per se. We can lie, for example; the fact that I
didn't is only because I had more fun that way."
"Oh." Megan paused and thought for a moment. "What about Maeve?"
"Immortals take many names," Zero said without missing a beat. "We often style ourselves after mythological characters we want to be identified with. You wouldn't believe the pissing contests you get when there are two 'Zeus's in the same room."
For not being 'Fae', she sure is having fun speaking only the literal truth.
"Is that why Cassandra calls you Zero?"
"It's a name with very few claimants."
"I see," Megan said. "Then… what was that you said about Cassandra calling in a favor from Maeve?"
"The statement was literally true, but the actual story is, shall we say… different."
"Oh. That's… good?"
Zero nodded, then—when Megan remained silent—straightened from her bow. "If you don't have any other questions, we can move on to what you're really here for," she said. "Are you ready?"
"I, uh, think so?"
"Great!" She sat herself back down on Megan's right; I had already taken my seat on her left.
Zero cleared her throat, then—in a tone far more dramatic than her usual, though nowhere near as threatening as her 'raspy crone voice'—asked, "Tell me, Megan Elwick: what is it you most desire from magic?"
Megan tensed.
"Oh, surely there must be
something," Zero said after half a minute of silence. "You've been wishing for magic for a long time, haven't you?"
"Yes, but I don't know what I
want," Megan said. "I want wonder, and escape, and power, and… and
magic, but I don't know which I want most, or if it's even one of those at all. What if I'm wrong?"
"It doesn't matter; I was just being dramatic. Magic will work it out."
"Because it's, uh, 'personal'?"
"Yeah, 'zactly. Well, you
did answer the question, so let's see what you get. Ready?"
Megan looked to me for reassurance before nodding. "I'm ready."
"All right, here we go." Zero raised both her hands, then clapped them together once and announced, "Aaaand we're done!"
"Wait, that's it?" Megan asked. "It's already over? You don't need to do a ritual, or…"
"Nope! It really is that easy." Zero snapped a spellbook into existence—literally, through snapping her fingers—and handed it to Megan. "Here. This is your spellbook: it will track all the spells you earn, though the explanations may leave something to be desired."
"
One Hundred and One Practical Skills (That Totally Aren't Magic Spells)," Megan read. "Does everyone have one of these? Everyone who uses magic, I mean."
"Most people who can cast spells have one, but you don't
need it. It's an aid, not a requirement."
"More precisely, it's a guide," I added. "You can cast without a spellbook, but you're fumbling around in the dark."
"Button-mashing with no idea of the combos?" Megan asked.
"Not a bad metaphor."
"Fighting games fan?" Zero asked her.
Megan shrugged. "I mean, I play
Super Smash Fighters sometimes… badly."
"That's not a 'real' fighting game!" Zero raised an eyebrow at Megan's bemused look. "Come on, spit it out."
"Sorry, I just, uh, wasn't expecting someone who looked like an elf to have opinions on fighting games."
"
Smash isn't a fighting game—!"
I cleared my throat loudly, then gave Megan a little nudge with my elbow and nodded at the spellbook. "Take a look."
"Oh, right." She opened the book and began to read. "I've got a… uh… 'Refractive Illusion for Personal Obscurity." Megan flipped the page, then started and flipped back. "I have an invisibility spell?!"
"Nice," Zero said.
"I have an
invisibility spell," Megan repeated. She flipped forward a few pages, then glanced at Zero. "That's it?"
"You'll gain more spells as you practice," I told her. "And they'll generally be things that are applicable to your life."
Like an invisibility spell, you poor girl.
"Or at least how you use magic," Zero added.
"Right," Megan said. "I have an invisibility spell. I have an invisibility spell! And I'm going to get more!"
Zero clapped her on the shoulder. "That's the spirit!" she said. "Now, there
is one final thing. Miss Elwick… are you looking for a familiar?"
"You mean, like, a wizard's familiar?" Megan asked. "I'm not actually a wizard, though."
"Well, she's not exactly that sort of familiar, either."
"Uh, well…"
"Great! Hold on…"
Zero whistled, and a small black cat hopped onto her lap from out of thin air. "Hello, Miss Megan Elwick!" the cat said—and even if Zero hadn't asked me ahead of time, I'd have known it was Jenn from her voice. "You may call me June."
Megan stared.
"The cat talks," she said. "Are you people out of surprises yet?"
"Not even close," I replied, not that anyone was paying attention to me.
"No arguments?" Zero asked. "Great. Ta-ta!" She handed the cat to Megan, then stood up and walked away, fading into nothingness in a few steps.
Megan held the cat awkwardly beneath its forelimbs while letting its hindquarters dangle, which is more or less exactly the way you weren't supposed to hold a cat. "Uh, I don't suppose you're a magic,
non-shedding cat, by chance?" she asked. "My parents
hate animals. They say they're too messy and cause health problems and all these other things, so I'm not really sure this is going to work. I know I should have said something earlier but she didn't really
ask before handing you to me—"
"Relax, relax," June said. "I'm a smart cat. I can turn invisible too, remember?"
"When… oh, you were invisible before!"
"Yeah! You can put me down now."
"Oh! Sorry!"
Megan put June down on the seat Zero had vacated only for the cat to walk right back onto her lap and make herself comfortable. Megan's hand began to scratch around June's ears absently as the cat continued, "You don't need to worry about me making a mess! No shed fur or hairballs to give me away. You don't even need to feed me; as long as I have a space that's all mine, I can take care of myself. Put a door on a cardboard box and I'll be fine."
"What, like a demesne?"
"Not exactly, but that's close enough."
Ah, I thought,
that's her plan. If June had a space that was 'all hers', she could get into the Warehouse from there even if the door was cardboard.
"Megan?" June asked. "What's wrong? I don't shed, you shouldn't be having an allergic reaction—"
"Nothing's wrong. I'm not allergic, I just…" Megan coughed and blinked wet eyes. "I always wanted a pet."
"I'm not a pet!" June chided her, turning her head away in a regal snub. "I'm a familiar—a proud magical being who deigns to spend her time educating and advising her lucky charge. We will be student and teacher, Miss Elwick, not 'owner' and 'pet'. I'm hundreds of years old, you know!"
"Of course! I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult you, Miss June! I'll be sure to treat you with respect!" Megan hesitated, then asked, "Does that mean I shouldn't pet you?"
"Don't be ridiculous—I
am still a cat." June bumped her head into Megan's arm until the girl began to pet her again. "I think we'll be friends, and I'll even come when you call, within reason, but you do not 'own' me."
"I would never try to own something smart enough to talk!"
"Good. We do have a union, you know."
"Really?"
June sighed and covered her face with a paw. "No, Megan, not really."
———X==X==X———
) that anime is in fact REAL and the characters are AT THE CON BLENDING IN AMONGST COSPLAYERS.
