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edenfallingOne thing you probably have not noticed about Firsthome: it's not just a secondary world. It's also specifically a fantasy world, meaning magic exists. The thing is, most of the magic is very minor and/or is integrated smoothly into the everyday economy, so nobody really thinks about it because it's not unusual. So the issue hasn't come up much. In fact, I think the only actual instance of magic on-page so far is when Marcan repairs a torn leather rein in Learning to Listen (which is very much a blink-and-miss-it moment), though Ekanu has jokingly talked about 'pump-masters' magic' in the rough draft of "Harvest," and also mentioned her old friend Kadeotak's gift of 'calling the four directions.' There will be magic on-page in "Small Mysteries," "The Painted Sky," and near the end of "Harvest," but I haven't gotten there yet.
So the following ficlet is, I think, the first time the fantasy status of Firsthome has ever been blatant. Funny how that happens.
A few months after Pebble on a Mountain, Tallo Nashialle and Svedanya sin Alar discuss magic, secrets, and stupid parlor tricks. (675 words)
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Quid Pro Quo
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Svedanya wasn't clumsy. Sometimes when one of her innumerable relatives called her away to do something around the theater, Tallo would watch her as she darted around like... like something fast and sleek and graceful. Like a rat, really, but he knew better than to say that aloud. She wouldn't take it as a compliment. Her hands were graceful too, and far too deft for his peace of mind when she was in a pick-pocketing mood.
But for someone who had such a good sense of her body and the space around her, she was ridiculously prone to running into people. She never seemed to compensate for the little last-minute changes in direction people made in crowds.
And yet she was never surprised when somebody came up to talk to her, specifically, no matter how quiet the person had been while approaching.
After four moons, Tallo thought he'd figured out the connection.
"You can see the future," he said as they balanced on the rickety scaffold, repainting the sign over the main door of the Three-Spoked Wheel.
Svedanya shrugged. "Sometimes. A little. Not very far ahead. And 'see' is the wrong word. So is 'the future' -- there's never only one way for things to happen. I kind of feel the shape that's most likely to turn real. It's easiest when people are doing things on purpose. When they're not really paying attention, the shape is fuzzier."
"And if people change their minds, you don't always notice in time," Tallo concluded.
Svedanya shrugged again, scowling at her paintbrush. "Sometimes I guess wrong -- it's like trying to figure out a conversation through a closed door when nobody's bothering to use names or finish sentences. And sometimes I just get lazy," she admitted. "But good job figuring me out. My mother and a couple of my cousins know, but I never tell anyone. People get ideas, and I don't want to do stupid parlor tricks -- not for my family, not for money, and never ever for the Church or the Empire." She finished the D and shifted sideways, attacking the ornate W with bright yellow paint. "What about you?"
"Not everyone has magic," Tallo said. "Most people don't."
"Nice try. Stop evading."
Tallo dipped his brush into the deep blue paint and filled in another stroke of background. It felt odd to talk about this. He'd never put it in words, even to himself. It wasn't safe.
Svedanya was good with secrets, though.
"I don't know for sure," he said. "Definitely nothing small or useful. But I've been hit by lightning five times since I was born. That's weird. And it's never hurt me, which is weirder. Also, my uncle's house caught fire from a lightning strike after he got my father's will overturned. He still has burn scars."
Svedanya whistled through the gap in her teeth. "So, your old man was a free citizen! And he fell for the pretty maid, didn't he. Oldest story in the world. Too bad your uncle's a flea-bitten coal-hearted bastard. Let me guess -- the papers proving your old man freed you and claimed you as his heir went missing and suddenly nobody remembered them, right?"
Tallo blinked. That was not the part of the story he'd expected her to latch on to. Still... "Yeah, pretty much. That's when I got the cuff." He painted in the hole at the center of the O. "You don't care about the lightning? Or that I almost killed someone?"
"You don't hate me; you won't burn down the theater. And I bet if lightning doesn't hurt you, it probably won't hurt anyone next to you unless you want it to," Svedanya said, sounding blithely unconcerned. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone."
Tallo glanced sideways, and therefore caught the flash of her sharp smile vanishing off her face to leave a falsely innocent expression.
"I may, however, ask you to do stupid parlor tricks now and then," she said.
Tallo hit her with his dripping paintbrush.
They had to redo the entire sign the next afternoon.
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Inspired by the 7/26/10![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
15_minute_fic word #145: stormy
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And now to bed.
So the following ficlet is, I think, the first time the fantasy status of Firsthome has ever been blatant. Funny how that happens.
A few months after Pebble on a Mountain, Tallo Nashialle and Svedanya sin Alar discuss magic, secrets, and stupid parlor tricks. (675 words)
---------------------------------------------
Quid Pro Quo
---------------------------------------------
Svedanya wasn't clumsy. Sometimes when one of her innumerable relatives called her away to do something around the theater, Tallo would watch her as she darted around like... like something fast and sleek and graceful. Like a rat, really, but he knew better than to say that aloud. She wouldn't take it as a compliment. Her hands were graceful too, and far too deft for his peace of mind when she was in a pick-pocketing mood.
But for someone who had such a good sense of her body and the space around her, she was ridiculously prone to running into people. She never seemed to compensate for the little last-minute changes in direction people made in crowds.
And yet she was never surprised when somebody came up to talk to her, specifically, no matter how quiet the person had been while approaching.
After four moons, Tallo thought he'd figured out the connection.
"You can see the future," he said as they balanced on the rickety scaffold, repainting the sign over the main door of the Three-Spoked Wheel.
Svedanya shrugged. "Sometimes. A little. Not very far ahead. And 'see' is the wrong word. So is 'the future' -- there's never only one way for things to happen. I kind of feel the shape that's most likely to turn real. It's easiest when people are doing things on purpose. When they're not really paying attention, the shape is fuzzier."
"And if people change their minds, you don't always notice in time," Tallo concluded.
Svedanya shrugged again, scowling at her paintbrush. "Sometimes I guess wrong -- it's like trying to figure out a conversation through a closed door when nobody's bothering to use names or finish sentences. And sometimes I just get lazy," she admitted. "But good job figuring me out. My mother and a couple of my cousins know, but I never tell anyone. People get ideas, and I don't want to do stupid parlor tricks -- not for my family, not for money, and never ever for the Church or the Empire." She finished the D and shifted sideways, attacking the ornate W with bright yellow paint. "What about you?"
"Not everyone has magic," Tallo said. "Most people don't."
"Nice try. Stop evading."
Tallo dipped his brush into the deep blue paint and filled in another stroke of background. It felt odd to talk about this. He'd never put it in words, even to himself. It wasn't safe.
Svedanya was good with secrets, though.
"I don't know for sure," he said. "Definitely nothing small or useful. But I've been hit by lightning five times since I was born. That's weird. And it's never hurt me, which is weirder. Also, my uncle's house caught fire from a lightning strike after he got my father's will overturned. He still has burn scars."
Svedanya whistled through the gap in her teeth. "So, your old man was a free citizen! And he fell for the pretty maid, didn't he. Oldest story in the world. Too bad your uncle's a flea-bitten coal-hearted bastard. Let me guess -- the papers proving your old man freed you and claimed you as his heir went missing and suddenly nobody remembered them, right?"
Tallo blinked. That was not the part of the story he'd expected her to latch on to. Still... "Yeah, pretty much. That's when I got the cuff." He painted in the hole at the center of the O. "You don't care about the lightning? Or that I almost killed someone?"
"You don't hate me; you won't burn down the theater. And I bet if lightning doesn't hurt you, it probably won't hurt anyone next to you unless you want it to," Svedanya said, sounding blithely unconcerned. "Don't worry. I won't tell anyone."
Tallo glanced sideways, and therefore caught the flash of her sharp smile vanishing off her face to leave a falsely innocent expression.
"I may, however, ask you to do stupid parlor tricks now and then," she said.
Tallo hit her with his dripping paintbrush.
They had to redo the entire sign the next afternoon.
---------------------------------------------
Inspired by the 7/26/10
15_minute_fic word #145: stormy---------------------------------------------
And now to bed.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-02 02:45 am (UTC)Anyway, yeah, magic is considered just another thing, like being good at playing the piano or something, unless it happens to be commercially useful or symbolically relevant to the local religion, in which case people are generally pushed into business or coopted into the clergy (if a clergy exists). Well. Magic can also be dangerous, but most societies consider dangerous magic akin to, say, carrying a sword around, and don't crack down unless you use it in a criminal fashion. At which point you generally get killed "resisting arrest," or killed as a matter of principle. Some societies try not to treat crimes-by-means-of-magic differently from other crimes, but there's a knee-jerk reaction they have to fight hard against.
The international code of war nominally forbids the use of magic in battle, but this is broken whenever people think they can get away with it. The saving grace is that magic of a battle-useful level tends to be rather uncontrollable -- there's a sort of inverse relationship between the power of a person's knack and the predictability of that knack. For example, Marcan the trader's knack is to seal repairs: once he stitches up a tear in a shirt, say, he can run his finger along the seam and make the fabric as good as new. The catch is that he has to physically stitch it up first, though he can be pretty sloppy about that. His knack is very reliable. Tallo's knack, on the other hand, is about as unreliable as it gets.
Mmm. I should write a story about magic and medicine, too, because that has important world-building implications. But again, that's for some other day.
(no subject)
Date: 2010-08-02 02:57 am (UTC)