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hadriel2016-10-10 06:53 pm
infinite1up) wrote in hadriel2016-10-10 06:53 pm
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(no subject)
[Sato's clearly recording from somewhere high up, but exactly where isn't clear; the background is nothing but cavern ceiling.]
Hello, fellow residents of Hadriel. I'm Sato.
I'd hoped I'd have something more important to say the first time I posted anything publicly, but it turns out I just have a question for all of you.
You see, where I'm from, there's no such thing as magic. But I know that many of you are from places where it really does exist in one form or another. So to those of you out there, I'd really like to hear from you about how it works, who can learn it, and anything else you wouldn't mind sharing.
After all, with dragons flying around, this seems like as good a time as any to talk about the fantastical.
Hello, fellow residents of Hadriel. I'm Sato.
I'd hoped I'd have something more important to say the first time I posted anything publicly, but it turns out I just have a question for all of you.
You see, where I'm from, there's no such thing as magic. But I know that many of you are from places where it really does exist in one form or another. So to those of you out there, I'd really like to hear from you about how it works, who can learn it, and anything else you wouldn't mind sharing.
After all, with dragons flying around, this seems like as good a time as any to talk about the fantastical.
[video] -> [action]
[Sato waves and the connections cuts rather abruptly.]
Even taking the express route back down the spire he was at, he's a bit further away than Lea and later to arrive, but he's clearly still excited by the prospect as he strolls up.
There might be a few fresh bloodstains on his pants from the fact that he chose to jump off the spire instead of walking down like a normal person.
[action]
He lifts a hand in a casual wave.
"Yo~" he calls, and then slides his hands into his pockets as Sato approaches him. "So, in the market for a few magic lessons, are we?"
[action]
Unfortunately it also sounds like it could be actual work, but he'll just have to try and see.
"So, where do we start?" he asks, eager to get going.
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"Wouldn't be the first time I showed somebody the ropes," he says. "I'm guessing you don't have any experience with this sort of thing, huh?" So where to start with a total n00b... Lea rubs his chin in thought. It's been a while since he had to wear the mentor hat, he's a bit out of practice.
Blowing out a sigh, he looks at Sato a moment and then folds his arms.
"Okay, ah... so a common misconception about magic, in my humble opinion," he says, "is that it comes from the heart." He arches one eyebrow and looks unimpressed. "Well, I know for sure that's a load." He didn't even learn how to use magic until he'd lost his heart. He brings a hand up to his head and taps his temple with two fingers. "Magic is aaaall up here, my friend. Think you got the head to find it in yourself?"
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"Hmm. I'm no academic, but you could say I've got some experience with staying focused, if that helps," Sato replies easily. Although directly manipulating his 'black ghost' remotely is probably a whole different category of mental training, it still took a little practice to get working smoothly.
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"Focus is a good start," he says, wagging a finger at him. "Magic seems to be a little different for every person, really, so what works for me might not work for you, and vice-versa. A lot of it is just trial and error until you find a method that suits you."
He'd heard the phrase, to "give" someone magic before, but he wasn't sure how accurate that was. It wasn't like he could just hand a spell over, after all. So far as he could tell, the giving part was a matter of figuring out how to draw a person's innate magical abilities to the surface. Roxas had been a lousy mage, but it hadn't been hard to find the potential in him. Meanwhile, he'd had no trouble at all teaching spells to--
... wait. Who? He hadn't had any other students, besides Roxas. Not recently, anyway. He'd helped Demyx with things from time to time, but that isn't the name that had been on the tip of his tongue. Odd.
He scratches his head and then looks at Sato again.
"All right, let's start with Fire," he says, cracking his knuckles. "It's my specialty, for one thing, so if you're a natural and somehow set half the city ablaze, I can work damage control, but more than that it's arguably the easiest spell to learn." It tended to be the first spell people mastered, in any case.
Holding up one hand, he splays his fingers out and sort of cups his palm, like he's catching raindrops. A moment's concentration, and a small tongue of flame appears in the middle of his hand, flickering cheerfully.
"I think Fire is easy because, in a way, fire is alive, you know?" he says, turning his wrist so the little flame rolls up onto his knuckles. He can be burned by flame he didn't conjure up himself--or even his own flames, if he's not careful--but little ones like this he can easily control and keep from injuring himself. "Fire wants to exist. Even without magic, you can make fire just by rubbing sticks together, and the magic is equally as simple, at least on paper."
He extinguishes the flame and gives Sato a serious look.
"So what I want you to do is just think of a flame," he says. "Just concentrate and think about a little ball of flame. Think about how it feels, how it makes you feel, and just try and really focus on that."
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Still, he's not the sort of person who rejects new ideas out of hand, or even feel silly about it. Quite the opposite, in fact. Matching Lea's hand positioning, he squints, brows slightly furrowed in concentration.
The thing that he's gotten quite good at focussing on, though, is creating his own 'black ghost', and his hand fills with the invisible particles that the 'ghosts' are built from, running through his fingers and falling away to the ground in a continuous stream. He supposes it's natural that would come to mind if he's thinking about the idea of being 'alive', though.
"How it makes you feel?" he asks again, looking for clarification. As much as he fakes it, he's never felt very strongly about very much in life. It might be a lost cause if he's expected to come up with some kind of real response, he thinks, stopping the flow of IBM particulate and contemplating fire more specifically.
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"Mm, like..." He makes a vague sort of gesture with both hands, like he could pull an explanation from the air. "At least in my experience, a lot of magic is rooted in will," he explains. "Magic ain't the kind of thing you can force with force, as it were--you gotta want it, and when you want something, you tend to focus on why you want it, know what I mean? So maybe 'feel' isn't the right word." There was an irony, considering when he'd first learned magic he had been unable to feel anything at all. "More like what fire means to you. The way you perceive something tends to affect how you wield it, you know?" he says then, grinning a little as he rolls another small tongue of flame across his knuckles. "Fire is my favorite," he says, "so I find it's the easiest thing for me to work with, because I just enjoy it. Ice, though... man, I suck at ice. I like cold weather just fine, but I don't like working with it, so I'm just not good at it, 'cuz it's not as enjoyable to me."
He hopes he's at least making some semblance of sense. It had been a while since he's had to give Magic 101 lessons.
no subject
It's not exactly a surprise when his invisible 'ghost' materializes behind him, but he didn't do it intentionally either. It's not clear, even to him, if he did it subconsciously or if it has that much free will of its own -- as someone who's been using it for years now, so much of the thing works is a mystery, even to himself. It puts its clawed hand on his shoulder as if offering support.
If he thinks back far enough, he can recall some memorable scenes of fire, way back in his Vietnam war days, the parts where he'd seen the regular troops were razing everything with flamethrowers and napalm. It was interesting in its own way, he supposes, and tries to concentrate on that.
There's still nothing happening, but he's feeling more positive about the experience, at least.
"How long have you been using magic, anyway?" he asks curiously, glancing up from staring at his own (still empty) hand briefly.
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He just watches him for a moment, knowing it's probably going to take a while for him to actually get anywhere. Even learning magic from your own home world could be a challenge, but this was trying to teach magic in a strange place to a man from a world where magic wasn't even really a thing...
"Mm?" He glances up when Sato inquires, and thinks for a moment. "I guess it's been about twelve or thirteen years now," he says, tapping his chin in thought. Light, had it really been that long? Had he wasted that much of his life on the Organization? That's a little depressing. "I, ah..." He clears his throat. "I left home when I was about sixteen, learned on the job, I guess you could say. Thankfully, I uh... was able to resign. That job wasn't very... legal." A cough and he rubs the back of his neck. "But I took some pretty useful experience away from it, at least."
As much as he finds himself resenting Xemnas and Xehanort for... well, everything, he can't deny that the Organization gave him some very marketable skills.
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"And how old are you now? You never can tell around here," he adds by way of explanation.
Unfortunately he doesn't seem to be making any headway with this whole magic business still, but he keeps trying.