cafeteria | lunch time | tuesday | 29 september

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

After his success with toast last week, Jonas had spent his free time trying his toaster out with a few other things. He'd found that bread worked well but crackers did not. That had been a gigantic mess and Jonas had felt sheepish enough to not touch the toaster for a few days.

But, he'd gotten over that and tried bread again, this time adding peanut butter once the bread had been toaster and packing it for a lunch. So, that's where he was now, prodding experimentally at the sandwich and wondering if he should eat the apple first. The apple was green, something he hadn't seen before but he'd been assured it was ripe.

Food examination and consumption was a lengthy process for Jonas but he enjoyed it. Food was a small but integral part of his memory that he was building.

[cafeteria's open, yep]

Comments

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

"Sapphire?" he asked, vaguely knowing the word but never associating with things like food and digestion before. Those things just didn't fit together in his scattershot selection of memories.

[glacial_queen]

In his defense, they normally didn't go together. At least not in this world.

Karla tugged on the chain to her pendant, pulling it out from under her shirt. Dangling from the end of the chain was a teardrop-shaped Sapphire roughly half the size of her thumb "In my world, people do Craft--magic--and the strength of their Craft is related to the Jewel they wear. There are thirteen Jewel ranks. The darker--that is, more powerful--the Jewel, the more of an affect it'll have on the wearer, especially when that person is young. Speeding up the metabolism is just one of the effects."

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

"Oh." Jonas didn't want to admit that a lot of that went right over his head but he was getting better at understanding some of the more unusual aspects of island life. Magic was one of them even if the actual acts frightened him somewhat.

"You can do magic?" he asked, peering carefully at the pendent, letting the colors and shape burn into his memory so he'd recall it later.

[glacial_queen]

Karla nodded. "I'm one of the Magic Reserve Leaders," she said with an odd lend of pride and shyness. "Back home, all of the Blood can do at least basic Craft. There are different levels of power, of course, and abilities that can only be accessed by members of a specific caste, but overall, even those people who don't wear Jewels can do the basic stuff."

Well, Jewelless Blood of course. Landens were a different story.

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

"I know what very little of what you just said means," he said apologetically, looking down. "I'm sorry. Things like magic and...different cultures are incredibly new to me. Keeping them all separate while still understanding them is hard."

Very, very hard. His brain hurt just trying sometimes.

"The Magic Reserve is a club?" he asked, having heard that name on the radio a few times.

[glacial_queen]

"No, no, I understand," Karla assured him. "Lots of people get lost when I try to explain stuff, because my world is very different from this one. So, you're pretty much in the same boat as everyone else when it comes to me." She gave Jonas her best unsure-but-game smile.

"So, the Reserves are a bit like a club. Sometimes the island gets invaded by nasties and all three Reserves were formed to be better prepared to defend the island. There's Magic, Fighting, and Support. Support is for people who want to help but don't have magic or real fighting skills. I'm in all three, though I'm not much of a fighter yet."

She thought for a moment, trying to figure out how to best explain her own culture. "Did you want me to go back and explain what I meant with all that babble about Crafts and castes before?" She gave him and understanding smile. "It's okay for the answer to be no. There's a lot to take in from this world without bringing another into the mix."

[see-beyond.livejournal.com]

Jonas was pretty sure Ender had mentioned invasions and the like but the thought of something like that still had him paling ever so slightly before he was able to banish that worry away. He knew he was safe, he felt safe but he'd been so insulated for so long that being so open was frightening at times.

"No, I'd like to learn," Jonas told her, nodding eagerly. "I can't promise to understand because there's a lot I don't understand but learning, hearing it from people helps me build what I don't know."

[glacial_queen]

"All right," Karla said with a gentle smile. "But feel free to stop me at any time. It can be a lot for your brain to digest." She paused to eat a few bites of salad, thinking about how best to begin.

"Okay, so first, there is basic Craft. It covers a lot of things, like calling in and vanishing items--" her laptop appeared on the table next to her tray and then disappeared a moment later, "--floating objects--" she called over a handful of napkins to their table, "--and passing through objects." She brought her arm underneath the table, then stuck in through the middle, waving at Jonas. Rather than pulling it back down, she just straightened up, bringing her arm back through the table itself. "Also, there's shielding. There are regular shields that protect from magical and physical attacks--" a column of sparkling sapphire light sprang up around her, then dropped back down, "--aural shields, which block all sound--" the column was back again, and while Karla was screaming shrilly inside, there was nothing to hear, "--and sight shields," she said after the aural shield was dropped. There was no tell-tale blue shimmer when she raised the sight-shield. Instead, Karla simply vanished.

"Still here," she said, bringing up a cup to drink from. Her throat hurt after all that screaming. The shield dropped and Karla was visible again. "There's also airwalking, but I'm pretty sure you can guess what that means. You following so far?"