cry_me_a | a wizard unearthed

Alli did not take her older sister's departure well. Jess bolted right for the door as soon as she turned eighteen, and Alli misses her and wants her to come back. She wrote, for a while, then even that petered out. It doesn't feel like home without her sister, in Alli's opinion. She's bitter and sulky at her mother for weeks (okay, months) and her mother just wrings her hands helplessly and gives her space. Jess was always the one who knew how to calm her down.

But now Alli is older. It's been a whole three years since Jess left and Alli is fine. Really. She's just going through boxes of Jess' old stuff again to see if she can use any of it. There's got to be a jacket that will fit her in here somewhere, it's starting to get cold out.

She's going through a box that's part clothes, part books and part mostly-unrecognizable hair care products when one of the book titles catches her eye. So You Want To Be a Wizard? That sounds awfully fantastic for Jess' usual style, and it doesn't even have a half naked couple on the cover. Curious what convinced her sister to branch out, Alli opens up the book.

Two hours later, she's still there reading it, and she's torn between skepticism and cackling with glee. She hears her mother calling her down for dinner, so she quickly reads the section at the beginning marked Wizard's Oath, tucks the book into her nightstand and goes downstairs to grab food.

What's she got to lose?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

intricate_engineer

It's always quiet in this section of the library. Glen enjoys picking out huge stacks of books and settling down with her back to a shelf. No one ever finds her here.

She wouldn't normally pick up a book called "So You Want to Be a Wizard?", but it's a fantasy book sitting in the astronomy section, she can't help but be curious.

Glen has never believed in magic, but she's always wanted to. She reads the oath quietly and then takes the book home.

From:

cry_me_a

Alli is very disappointed when she does not wake up the following morning and immediately prove able to fly. Lame. But she thought she felt something, when she read the oath. A stillness, or maybe a breeze? Whatever. It was a thing.

She usually hates books, it's true, but this one she studies. Her motives are possibly less than pure- she can think of at least three teachers whose classes would be infinitely improved by the presence of spontaneous gum on their chair- but it does get her making progress. It's not long before she's learned enough of the language of the book- the Speech, it calls itself- to read the more advanced chapters.

By this point, it's just cool. She keeps reading. She somewhat experimentally befriends the stray cat her mother feeds, and it talks back. She whoops with excitement and races back inside to read more of the book. She's going to be a wizard!

She still hasn't gotten the gum spell to work, to her dismay, but she will. She will. It's almost making her pay attention to things in class, her focus on this gum spell. Soon.

From:

intricate_engineer

The entire world is alive, cars, stones, trees. Glen starts talking to everything, which does not improve her social life at all. She doesn't care. Why talk to a classmate when she can talk to a computer?

She practices the speech constantly, filling up notebook after notebook with it's elegant shapes and sketches of ideas that now, might actually be possible.

From:

cry_me_a

Alli focuses more on the teachers in class than the other students (or, for that matter, the subject material) but she does, eventually, notice that what Glen is writing in her notebook a couple rows up in History is not in English. And now she recognizes it.

The next day, she moves up a row or two to sit beside Glen. "Nice notebook," she tells her with an innocent* smile.

*sort of

From:

intricate_engineer

"Thanks?" Glen says, pulling her notebook in closer.

From:

cry_me_a

<Practicing a lot?> Alli asks her cheerfully in the Speech.

From:

intricate_engineer

Glen jerks in surprise, sending one of her pencils skittering across the floor.<You're a wizard?>

Edited Date: 2015-06-12 04:38 am (UTC)

From:

cry_me_a

<Working on it! 'Sides, I could say the same to you. When'd you find your book?>

From:

intricate_engineer

<The astronomy section of the library. What about you?>

From:

cry_me_a

<Total accident, was looking for a coat in- some boxes, and found the book instead. So, have you gotten anything to work? I can talk and all, but I haven't actually done anything interesting yet.>

She's pretty sure she remembers the book mentioning that the Speech is universally understood? She'll be careful how she phrases things, if she can. At least until some non-wizard nearby makes it obvious one way or another.

From:

intricate_engineer

<I made my computer a little smarter, but I haven't done anything big.>

From:

cry_me_a

The teacher is starting to look displeased with the chattering. <We should probably shut it before the teacher-> she considered going with Lady Stinkeye, but given the book's emphasis on the effects of naming things in the Speech, she'd really rather that title stayed metaphorical- <-murders us both. Want to chat at lunch? I could use a study buddy for this stuff.>

From:

intricate_engineer

<Me too, where do you normally sit?>

Edited Date: 2015-06-19 01:25 am (UTC)

From:

cry_me_a

<Enh, I move around some, but usually in the back corner, near where they stuck those watercolor art projects. That work?>

From:

intricate_engineer

<Yep> Glen grins and starts pretending to pay attention.

Edited Date: 2015-06-19 01:44 am (UTC)

From:

cry_me_a

Alli's focusing on her gum spell. It's close enough to paying attention that the teacher doesn't notice, at least.

At lunch she's where she said she would be, sprawled across two chairs and munching on a piece of pizza. Today's lunch also offered salad, but its availability does not seem to have bothered Alli in the slightest. A couple of her friends stop by her table and say hi, but she waves them off. Her excuse that 'I have a project with Glen' gets her some weird looks- since when does she voluntarily do homework?- but they obligingly sit at the neighboring table instead. Alli makes a mental note to come up with some more plausible excuse to work on spells with Glen. This one'll only last a few days at best.

From:

intricate_engineer

Glen plops down next to Alli, and begins unloading her lunchbox onto the table.
She takes out a container of pancakes and begins slathering them with grape jelly.

From:

cry_me_a

Alli looks at Glen skeptically. "I get the appeal of pancakes, don't get me wrong, but apparently I need to remind you that there is pizza. And pizza is the shit?"