Paige Winterbourne (grimoirepaiges) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2016-10-20 12:04:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !completed gdoc, !log, ~2016 october, ~25 points, ~~paige winterbourne (grimoirepaiges), ~~sydney sage (sage_lily) |
WHO: Sydney Sage and Paige Winterbourne
WHERE: Paige’s place
WHEN: Thursday afternoon
WHAT: Checking for magic
RATING: PG
STATUS: log; completed
It struck Sydney, as she walked down the street to Paige’s house, that the entire situation was ludicrous: she was going to visit a known magic user to determine whether she herself had any magic. Just a few months ago, she would’ve laughed at the very idea. She was an Alchemist, and she didn’t have magic! She hated magic. It was evil and unnatural, used only by evil and unnatural people, and she was definitely not evil and unnatural. But in the time since she’d been here, she’d been exposed to so much magic and so many people, and the people who wielded them weren’t all evil. And some of those non-evil people were telling her that she had magic herself. It might all be some sort of mistake, or even a plot, but Sydney didn’t want to hide her head in the sand about it anymore. She needed to know; she couldn’t properly freak out until she did. She scanned down the numbers until she found the house Paige was in, and she knocked quickly on the door, before her misgivings won over and sent her scurrying off. *** Paige had never had to check for magic before. Where she was from, witches knew they were witches. It was something passed from mother to daughter and as a race they prided themselves on strong family bonds. Girls didn’t go their whole lives without at least knowing what they were. Without training, maybe, that was the whole point of the Sabrina School. But not completely in the dark about themselves. She felt for Sydney. It was impossible to imagine what she was going through, finding out she was suddenly something she’d been taught to fear had to be overwhelming. It was impressive that she was handling it as well as she was, and Paige saw it as her responsibility to offer whatever help she could, even if it was only providing an answer. The least the poor girl deserved was an answer. So she chased the boys out of the house, for someone who feared magic a witch would probably be stressful enough without a sorcerer and a mage hanging around in the next room, and set out a few things in their practice space while she waited for the knock, flying to the door the moment it came for fear of the girl running off before they got anything done if she was too slow. Taking a moment to compose herself, complete with gentle and reassuring smile, Paige opened the door. “Sydney. Hi. Come in.” Seeing her in person, Paige realized they’d bumped into each other once before. Over coffee, she thought. *** Sydney found Paige somewhat familiar as well, though she couldn’t remember where she’d seen her. On the network, maybe? Or somewhere else; it might come to her. “Thanks for…” she waved her hand vaguely to indicate this whole uncomfortable process and stepped in when Paige stepped back to make room. She still wasn’t sure if she should bolt or not, but Paige’s reassuring smile put her...if not entirely at ease, then at least lessened some anxiety. She glanced around, half-expecting cauldrons and newt’s eyes and other preserved animal parts housed in shelves, but it was all very neat and normal looking. But that brought up the question of how they were going to go about this. “So...how do you want to do this?” she asked, clasping her hands tightly together. “Is there...some sort of machine? Do I drink a potion?” *** Through most of the house, there wasn’t a single magical tool. There were some teas, mostly Paige’s concoctions, and the ingredients for some poultices in the kitchen, but none of them were particularly overt in their magics. There was nothing anywhere that would make the house anything but completely welcoming to a human guest. “I don’t do potions,” she explained. “I’d thought we could try some primary level spells. The kind that children can cast.” Long before they even began to come into their full powers. “Let’s go upstairs to the workroom. We have some protection in place to keep too much from escaping.” And they’d doubled those spells after the whole truth fiasco. “And I’ve got all my tools up there, so I’ll be better equipped to answer all of your questions. I’m sure you’ve got a million.” Paige had her own questions about magic, and she’d been raised in it. *** The problem with being so ignorant about magic was that Sydney didn’t even know where to start asking questions. She knew about the kind of magic wielded by vampires, but human magic? She couldn’t even begin to fathom it. Besides, Paige’s version of magic probably wasn’t going to be the same as hers, since they were from different worlds. There was ample evidence that magic from different worlds didn’t work the same, even if they showed the same end result. The only questions Sydney could think of to ask at the moment had to do with the immediate situation. “So how does this work? What are the tests going to be like?” *** “My husband and I collect spells,” Paige explained as she led the way upstairs, everything along the way still tidy and incredibly normal, right down to the photos on the walls. “I’ve put together a few. Mostly primary spells from my world, like I said, just because I know them best. This whole thing is going to be really simple. I’m going to get you to cast them while I watch the shielding for any response.” She paused halfway down the second floor hallway to open another door, to a room just as tidy, but with a few candles and other tools of Paige’s magic, a bookshelf populated by as many old looking scrolls as actual books. “It’s not a perfect plan or anything.” It really hinged on Sydney being able to cast the different spells, and Paige being able read the magical shields. “But if you do have magic, there should be something.” *** Sydney supposed that was as good a test as any, if there wasn't any magic CAT scan to be taken. She still wasn't sure how magic from different worlds would work, but even if she did have magic, it wouldn't be any good if she couldn't use it here. She hoped that was the case. She followed Paige up to the spell room and was relieved to see there was no eye of newt there either. “Okay,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady. “Where do you want to start?” *** “Have a seat,” Paige offered, gesturing to the empty floor in the middle of the room. Before going herself, she closed the door and paced around the room, her hand toward the walls, murmuring a spell. Between the three magic users living in the house, there was plenty of protection in the room. She then brought over a couple of candles and a small notebook, setting them all down in front of Sydney before seating herself on the other side of them, another quick spell lighting the candles. That one was just showing off. She had a lighter on the table that would have worked just as well. “Let’s start by familiarizing you with the spell on the first page here.” Written in Paige’s own handwriting, she didn’t have any of her grimoires here. “Where I’m from spells have roots in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, a handful of other languages. This one has Latin roots. I always found those easier when I was first learning.” The cadence didn’t matter quite as much. “It’s a very basic wind spell. Read it a few times, until you find the rhythm, and try to put out the candles.” *** Sydney sat cross-legged, back straight, as Paige handed her the spell. The words were familiar to her; she'd studied Latin. And the words themselves weren't entirely blasphemous; there was no appeal to a dark deity or anything that would push Sydney’s comfort level even further than where she was at the moment. She read the passage a few times to memorize the words, just to make sure she kept the flow, then slowly said the incantation. Something tugged in her, something deep and empowering, and...and nothing happened. Sydney stared at the candles, which were still glowing brightly. Although she hoped she wouldn't turn out to have powers, she actually felt a little disappointed that nothing had happened. *** All of Paige’s spells were more or less the same thing. No dark anything, just requests to nature or ancient goddesses who patroned witches if the spell was powerful enough. Paige had never really liked that there wasn’t an easy, rational explanation to why the spells worked, but magic didn’t really have logic. She was quiet and still while Sydney worked with the spell, using her own senses to feel for any result bouncing off the shield. It was a problem that she didn’t know what she was looking for, or even if it was something she could do. She wasn’t going to reveal that uncertainty, though. And she thought there was something. It was subtle, but it might be there. “Sometimes it takes a few tries.” She’d spent months casting with no results before. Especially with magic that wasn’t her own. She had a lot of trouble with Lucas’ spells, and probably wouldn’t ever get some of them to work for her. “If it’s going to work, you’ll feel it. For me, it’s always like a...click. But there’ll be a sense that it’s doing something.” *** If it hadn't been that...something, Sydney would've just told Paige to forget it, because she clearly didn't have magic. But there had been, and it was unlike anything she'd ever felt before. It was enough for her to believe that there was something there, and she owed it to herself - and anyone whom may be caught in her general vicinity of her possible powers went haywire - to find the truth. She nodded and took a few steadying breath, then tried again. Again, nothing. But then she felt it: a ruffling of wind emanating from her that blew out and snuffed out the candles. *** Part of Paige was excited for her. A witch coming into her powers was an amazing thing. There was so much that she had to learn, that they could learn together. A much more rational part of herself realized that working magic might not be the answer Sydney had been looking for. She chose to rein herself in, though she was unable to contain her smile. It was a good thing the spell had cast, because Paige would have had no idea whether it was working or not based on what she’d felt herself. “Well. That answers that, I guess. There’s no way that would have worked without magic.” A very small part of her was proud that it was her own spell that had worked for Sydney, not one of the ones from other worlds that she’d collected. *** Sydney took in a deep, shaky breath only once her body made her aware that she hadn't breathed since enacting the spell. She stared at her hands as if she'd never seen them before, even though she hasn't even used them in the spell. “Oh my god,” she said, her voice thin. “Oh my god, they were right.” *** “It would seem so.” Who ‘they’ were, Paige had no idea, couldn’t begin to guess, but obviously they were people who knew Sydney, maybe from home, from a future she hadn’t lived yet. Obviously they were people who knew what they were talking about. “Are you alright?” It wasn’t the question Paige wanted to ask. She wanted to be excited, and to jump into trying all kinds of new spells, to push the limits of her abilities. It wasn’t the time for that, though. No matter how exciting it was. *** Sydney wasn’t all right, not at all. She was numb. All her life, she’d been taught to fear and be suspicious of people with magic. And now...and now she was one of them. “Oh my god,” she said again. She was still staring at her hands. “How could this have happened?” So that would be a resounding no to Paige’s question. *** “I don’t know how things are where you’re from,” Paige said carefully, kindly. “But in my experience, people are born with magic. I’ve never heard of someone just...getting magic later in life.” But she also found it hard to believe that anyone with magical blood would just let a girl grow up fearing what she was, so maybe things were different there. Different was the only thing that made sense. *** “Me neither,” Sydney said thinly. Then again, she hadn’t heard of Alchemists getting magic at all, so this was entirely beyond her ken. She stood up, surprised that her legs could support her. She wasn’t actually sure they would. “I….” She looked around, as if expecting a gust of wind to come out of nowhere. “I have to go.” She couldn’t be here, around all this magic, and know that she had it in her as well. *** Paige might want to stop her, talk to her, try to calm her down, she knew better. Sometimes it was better to let someone walk away. She nodded instead, easing herself to her feet as well, wishing she was a little more graceful about it. She certainly spent enough time sitting on the floor to work on spells, that she probably should be. “Don’t be afraid to reach out when you’re ready. I’d like to help you learn to use it.” But she understood that it might take some time before Sydney was ready to learn. Hopefully not too long, Paige didn’t like the idea of a completely untrained witch wandering around, even if it didn’t seem like she’d done anything unintentionally as of yet. *** “Yes, right,” Sydney said vaguely, though her mind was far from reaching out. Maybe at one point she’d be ready for it, but at the moment she was still reeling. Somehow, she found her way back to the foyer where her coat was hanging. Mechanically, she put it on. “Thanks,” she said, managing to remember her manners in the midst of her personal crisis. “That’s...at least I know.” *** “Of course. I’m happy to help.” She wanted to help a lot more. Sydney needed help. If anyone could benefit from the help and support of other witches, it was her, and Paige wanted nothing more than to provide that. Selfishly, it was a good distraction for her, endlessly waiting for tests and test results. But Sydney was more important at the moment. She broke the magical protections and showed the girl out, making sure she said once more that she was available whenever the younger witch needed anything. |