Re: log: adrian and ren - in the cottage
Adrian watched Ren lift the mug with wordless skill. His eyes lit for a brief moment, please, impressed, jealous - all his typical emotions when he saw such an effortless use of magic. "That," he said, pointing to the mug. "I could never do things like that. Not without effort. I do have a memory of making my toys float when I was very small, but I think...I was caught." He paused, and shook his head. "At school, I was taught to use a wand and cast spells. It's all very traditional there. In that school, using magic was always about knowing the correct word and directing your intention through the wand with a gesture. The word, for whatever reason, dictated the effect of the magic. Whether it's all a placebo effect to direct a powerful force, or whether the words themselves have power, I don't know, but it worked." He gestured minutely to the room around them with a flick of his fingers. The bags under his eyes seemed to deepen. "It works for Newt, clearly."
I still have the wand, but it isn't really necessary, and I don't think it will help. As I understand it, american witches and wizards are taught without one. I think that suits me better. I never could use one right. I don't think it will help. I know the spell," he said, and muttered the word under his breath. His mug shivered, very slightly, disturbing the surface of the tea with ripples. That was all, however. It did not move an inch.
He ran back through everything Ren had said. "Energy. No. I wish. When magic is being performed, I can tell. I can sense it. The Obscurus reacts to it a little. But I couldn't do what you just did. Or if I did, I'd need to use the obscurus to do it, I think. Not elegantly, like that. Sensing the fields around things, not like that. It's...something is flowing out from within. The Obscurus, in my case, or real magic, with the other students at my school. The trouble is that all that possibility doesn't exist for me. It's like..."
He glanced up at Ren, pausing again. Then his eyes began to milk and cloud, rheumy and filmy as the eyes of the blind. Wisps of black smoke began to leak out of him, falling from under the tips of his fingernails like dripping water, dense, heavy, wrapping around the mug in a thin circlet of black.
Behind him, the kitchen towels, the sponge in the rack, a plate in the sink, the window curtains, all began to gently lift away from the grip of gravity, sliding toward the ceiling through the air. The twining smoke around the mug suddenly tightened, and Adrian's expression, tight with concentration, flickered briefly. In an instant, the mug shot toward the other side of the room and exploded against the far wall, spraying tea and shards of stoneware.
Everything else dropped, the plate cracking as it hit the bottom of the sink, but Adrian's expression still didn't unknot - not until the smoke began to fade away, receding back inside him through his pores, through wisps into his nose and open mouth. He leaned back, and took a breath. "It's like putting a hole in a dam. On purpose," he said. The grey began to fade a little from his eyes. "It doesn't flow the direction you want. It sprays everywhere. Tries to force its way through. It wants to be out."