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Tweak says, "Seems just like yesterday....."

Miguel (miguel_ohara) wrote in spinningcompass,
@ 2022-02-05 00:59:00

Entry tags:

miguel o'hara, ~arcturus black

Who: O'Hara and Black
What: Terrible Muggle Scientist kidnaps Innocent Young Wizard to steal his blood!!! or, y'know, not.
Where: Mall to start with
When: Feb 4th, afternoon
Status: Ongoing

Miguel was looking out of the observation window that dominated one wall of the mall nearest to the food court. The mall itself was about 10 storeys tall, and the window was about 15 meters wide and eight storeys tall. Walkways crossed the window, but never came into contact with it, always staying at least two meters away from the window. There were parts of the walkways that were wider than others, with various types of seats for various types of beings, presumably, in the wider parts, so that people could sit there and enjoy the views of the starscape beyond or sometimes the planet below them, depending on how the station was aligned at that time.

Miguel was not sitting in one of the various types of seat, however. He wasn't even on one of the walkways. He was upside down, hanging from a webline that was firmly anchored to the ceiling three storeys above him. The swirls of the gas giant below the station and the brief flickers of the station's shields as various little things like clumps of space dust or tiny meteors impacted with them were interesting, sure, but Miguel was more than content just watching the stars while he sorted through his new memories (Black's apartment/house on a hill combo was a highlight, and something vague about singing, which seemed horrific, and the discussion with his other self was interesting) and continued to check his phone for replies to his post on the network. Sarah's contact lenses were tiny works of genius, naturally, as they kept his eyes protected from bright lights, but didn't impede any of his enhanced vision. So while he knew the stars looked amazing with normal human eyesight to start with (he'd had normal eyesight for a brief while when he'd swapped powers with Sarah, and of course, Tommy took endless pictures), he was seeing them with his eyes, and he saw into the infrared spectrum. And that meant that the stars looked extra-amazing (and that Tommy was kind of jealous of him? Which was weird, if he let himself think about it).

He hadn't intended to go swinging round the Mall, so he wasn't wearing his mask as he clung to the webline with one hand and both his feet. Spidersuit, yes, under an actual hoodie and decent jeans, but that was because it kept him warmer in the snow. But he figured, enough people knew he was spidery by now, so why bother? He wasn't actively trying to have a secret identity any more, after all.

So he hung there, upside down on a line of spidersilk, with his crystal pendant hanging beside his ear, his phone either in his hand or his hoodie pocket, and the hood of his hoodie covering his hair while he watched the stars.

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arcturusfirst
2022-02-14 08:34 pm UTC (link)

Arcturus didn't think Miguel understood just how insulting it was to call someone a muggle when they weren't one, but he thought it prudent not to enlighten him. He'd apologised, he'd been forgiven, no need to mention it ever again.

He was right, of course, that there were good and bad people of all sorts. A year ago Arcturus might have disagreed, but after what he'd suffered at the hands of the Death Eaters, he'd no longer argue that pureblood wizards were different, that they all had a sense of honour. He wasn't a coward, and despite the horrified reaction of the modern people to the idea, he didn't think that anyone should make a great fuss over a professor at school doling out a stinging hex or two. That was ordinary. But using torture curses wasn't. Using curses that left scars wasn't. Doing that to someone his age was just as bad as any muggle violence. What Miguel failed to see was the scale of it. Even the Death Eaters didn't want to kill all muggles, the way muggles had tried to wipe out the magical population. There were simply more bad muggles, that was the truth.

It was a kind lie, though. Arcturus suspected that if he hadn't had direct evidence of a muggle wanting to harm him, Miguel would have said that nobody at all would attack him. If he'd had two examples, he'd have heard that there were only those two, and no more. He didn't blame him. That was what you did, you reassured children. Arcturus wasn't about to relax just yet, but there was no sense in arguing about it either.

Instead, he gave Miguel a small smile. 'I'll remember,' he said. 'It does help to know that if I have to, I can defend myself. I don't think it matters why someone is attacking me, if they are. I just have to stop them.' He spoke simply, kept his voice light, but there was steel behind the words. He'd learnt from his childish hesitations. Wizards no longer had his automatic trust, and dangerous muggles? Arcturus' notions of defending himself from them were likely far more swift and brutal than Miguel envisioned.

'You said something about the station. Do you think the station does things – do you believe it's sentient?' Arcturus thought this was an absurdity, but he was more interested in learning what Miguel believed than sharing his own views. 'Or do you mean to say, truly, that it is the wild magic on the station that causes things to happen? There is far more ambient background magic than there ought to be.'

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miguel_ohara
2022-02-14 10:28 pm UTC (link)

Miguel hoped that what he'd said had been helpful. That it might let Arcturus know that he didn't have to keep him and Sirius apart from the rest of the kids on the station, and that one day soon, he wouldn't feel the need to do sweeps of the stores to make sure he was safe.

Then he asked about the station. Miguel frowned in thought as he went through his memories and his own thoughts before replying. "There's something here that's sentient. I don't know if the station itself is what's sentient, or if it's something that was brought here from the island... Has anyone explained the history of this place to you yet? It's relevant."

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arcturusfirst
2022-02-15 09:24 pm UTC (link)

Arcturus blinked. Of all the answers he thought he'd get, the prospect of a history lesson hadn't been at all high on the list. 'I know that we're near another planet, very far from home,' he offered, 'and that this station was built long ago. At first I thought it was all muggle, but it can't be, there are signs of magic all over the place, and the background magic like I said.' He didn't know if Miguel was sensitive to it, the concentrations of magic that built up in areas where many magical people lived. It was usually more notable by its absence – and here it had been a comfort to the newly-arrived Arcturus, and stopped him trembling in terror at the thought of having nothing but muggle craftsmanship between him and the void.

'Whoever they were,' he continued, 'who lived here first, they're gone now, and left all this behind, and now there's only us and nobody knows why.' He couldn't help a plaintive note at the end of the little explanation.

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miguel_ohara
2022-02-15 11:09 pm UTC (link)

Miguel nodded as Arcturus summarized the station history. "Pretty much. I know a bit about the magic that's here, how there are ley lines and all sorts. There's also the history of the people. I've only ever lived here, but before everyone was brought to the station, they used to live on an island on some unknown planet, and there was the Girl, who's brought everyone to the island or station, and the Man, who... he, uh, he was responsible for the nastier things that happened." Miguel had paused as he was speaking, when a chill went down his spine and his arms felt like they were covered in goose-bumps. He'd last felt like that when he was... well, away, while his other self pretended to be him. He rubbed at his upper arms as he filed that away and continued with the history class.

"The Girl is nice enough, she likes everyone and if you ask her for things, sometimes she'll provide them. Not the way home, though. The Man, though..." He paused again, to try and remember some of the things he'd been told about, but all he could really remember was being away. Under water, stuck behind a mirror and muffled and... he blinked. "Sarah would know better. She was there, she grew up there. But everyone fought against him, they killed him and then they wound up here. So, I don't know if the people who arrived here brought something with them when they showed up with all their belongings, or if the station itself was already like this, or perhaps it's a mix of both."

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