ceiling_cat | [003. video]

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[003. video]

Hey, Willow! Sorry for takin' so long, I think I've got something workin' most of the time. Bit busy last week.

[Between apple picking, scavenging and crisis management... what he wouldn't give for some nice convenient civilization.] Can send it by if ya wanna take a look.

Second order a business: anybody here keep chickens, and how much you want in trade for a layin' hen or two? I can try scavengin' up some stuff for ya, bang together furniture, your call. Any other kind of bird's fine too, just so long as the eggs're a decent size. Thanks.

[PRIVATE | LOCKED TO JOSHUA]

Look what I found. [He lifts up a dusty, slightly cobwebbed and partly empty bottle with an metal screw cap. The label's too mold-stained to read, but the color is a rich brown.] From the smell it's some kinda liquor. Think you'd be up for helpin' me figure out if it's any good?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Willow is definitely pleased and quite flattered by that]

My magic got much better after I learned from her.

Bet it did. [Smiling in response.] What kinda things did she teach ya?

Well, my usual spells got stronger and more focused, but I also learned how to fly and decode other people's powers.

Figure out what they can do, ya mean? That's useful.

Yeah. I've only used it once properly though.

Gettin' into people's heads like that is tricky. [Particularly for the living; he's starting to become convinced that this is a kid slated for immediate Ascension when she dies. If she doesn't end up halfway recruited as a mortal.

Other worlds, man... well, not knowing the situation, he shouldn't judge.]

Well they have to cast something at me before I can do it, I absorb their energy and can decode it then and find their weakness.

Oh yeah? Sounds like somethin' different from what I was thinkin' of. [Thoughtful head tilt.] And a bit more dangerous, if you've gotta stand there and take a blow first.

[Smiles, it was nice chatting like this. She had spoken to other magic users since coming here and yet, this guy seemed to understand her much more than the others. Almost like their different forms of magic were like them speaking different dialects of the same language. They only understood some of what was said. Hanekoma seemed to just absorb and understand and that was nice.]

Can't get something for nothin'.

Ha! [Her dialect was different, but he'd found the time for trips through more than one alternate reality in the last century; and once you've seen enough different ways to do things, it gets easier to parse the lingo.

And it's a lot closer than some mortal approaches to magic he's heard of.]

Ain't that the truth. Wouldn't do ya a lot of good to know their weakness if they blow a hole in ya first, though.

[Willow gives a very cheeky grin] They only have to cast at me, I can counter it all I like~

Well, that's not so bad! [He chuckles, shaking his head.] So, spells where you're from... they work on incantations and that kinda thing, or is it mostly willpower?

Both? I started with incantations and moved on from there.

Hmm. Ya know, it really does sound like your magic works the same way as the stuff I'm used to. [A sliver of a smile.] 'Course, it's mostly restricted to the dead in my world.

[ooh, interesting!]

Does it really? ...the dead?

Close enough! And yeah. The power's mostly accessible from what you were callin' the astral plane.

So you've travelled the planes, too?

Spend most of my time on what we call the UG. Astral plane, that is.

why do you call it that?

Underground, as opposed to the Realground -- that's the mortal plane.

[records all of this to memory]

Right. [hmm. that implies he is not mortal but let's keep that to oneself for now]

[With Beat here, he's really not expecting that to stay much of a secret. She asks, he'll answer. ...To a certain degree of accuracy. Besides, if the stories about memory editing are accurate, he doesn't have much to worry about. There's no functional UG here.]

There's higher planes too -- like the one where ya met your teacher, from the way it sounds -- but those're for higher beings. Pretty exclusive, in the sense where most people'd probably just dissolve if they tried visitin'.

Dissolve? [wide-eyed...I didn't dissolve when I went to one, but I'm not the one who became a higher being if what Angel said was true...]

Based on their strength of will. Your standard resident of the lower planes can't take that kinda stress. You might be an exception, or maybe they're a bit easier ta cope with where you're from; couldn't say.

I'm no exception, I'm just me. Must be easier where I'm from. [after all she's seen and done, she still has that self-doubt to her]

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