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Cam studies. He studies madly. The next week elapses with him having very little sense of individual days. He doesn't want anyone to know anything special is up, so he goes to a movie with Renée and to a friend's house after school to play Nintendo games and Charlie gets his weekly phone call and he shows up to his classes and gets his homework adequately done. But other than that he studies. He wants to be fluent in this thing inside three months if possible. It's easier than Spanish, he's motivated, he can use it in everyday conversations as he asks passing animals and convenient plants how smart they are (dogs: smarter than goats; squirrels: about goat level; his friend's hamster: dumb as a rock; shrubs: way dumber than trees; indoor potted rosemary: just a step above grass) and chats with Grace, he's basically dropping himself in an immersion course with some inconvenient English here and there so he can interact with humans. He thinks three months is ambitious but reasonable.
He's not actually doing that many spells. He does wheedle tofu into tastiness on a nightly basis, and when he feels a cold coming on he looks up a spell about that, but he wants to know what he's doing before he gets going on what he most wants to be doing, because he wants to be doing big things. He swore to oppose death. He meant that.
Today he is preparing to oppose death in his backyard. It's threatening rain and he doesn't want to be all the way down the street with Leafy if the clouds open up. The jerk tree doesn't talk to him if he doesn't talk to it and it's perfectly serviceable as something to sit under, anyway.
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lifes_sake
lifes_sake
"I'd imagine not. Where's your wizard? Do you want me to drop you in the mail or something?"
"Where he's gone, buddy, you're not gonna have much luck mailing me."
lifes_sake
"Did he die or something, or do you just mean he went to Antarctica and didn't bring you?"
The rock's not-voice lets out a not-sigh.
"He died."
"He died."
lifes_sake
"That's a pity," says Cam.
He doesn't expect wizards in general to be immortal. Most people don't share his opinion on the subject, and even a wizard who agreed with him might find it a difficult project, especially with the power cut with age.
He doesn't expect wizards in general to be immortal. Most people don't share his opinion on the subject, and even a wizard who agreed with him might find it a difficult project, especially with the power cut with age.
"Yep," says the rock.
lifes_sake
Cam does not have a clear assessment of the personality of this rock. He's not really sure if he wants to talk to it, which pretty much adds up to only responding if it says something that prompts a response.
The rock leaves him alone, for a little while.
lifes_sake
Cam goes on studying, peering up at the sky periodically. At one point he asks his manual if sarcasm counts as lying for wizard purposes. For that matter, song lyrics and relating acknowledged fictional stories, also important to know about, not that Cam's much of a singer or a storyteller.
All those things are usually fine, as long as the intent is not to deceive.
"Hey," says the rock. "Hey, wizard. What's your name?"
"Hey," says the rock. "Hey, wizard. What's your name?"
"Iggy," says the rock.
"Adorable," it agrees.
lifes_sake
Study, study, study. "Hey, manual, is it generally a bad idea to control the weather? Can I control the weather?"
The manual informs him that controlling the weather is usually a bad idea because it inevitably has effects beyond the immediate desired changes, and those effects are very difficult to predict or control without extensive meteorological knowledge.
"What do you want to control the weather for?" asks Iggy.
lifes_sake
"Weather can do a lot of damage," Cam says. "Hurricanes, droughts. If I could expect to reliably be everywhere it was doing damage I could get a lot done just by picking up rain in one place and putting it in another, but I can't, so given that I don't want weather systems to spiral out of control and be worse than they would've been, I guess I'll have to see about, I dunno, networking some wizards all over the world so we can keep patching the global weather system or something. Long term project." He writes this down.
"You sure do plan ahead," Iggy observes.
lifes_sake
"It's not so much a plan as it is an idea that I can't implement right now and don't want to forget about."
"If you say so," says Iggy.
lifes_sake
"Mmhm." Write write write. "Meteorology" is now on his list of mundane things to study under "nutrition".
"Should I be leaving you alone?" it asks.
lifes_sake
"I don't really care either way. I'm in a hurry to learn this stuff, but only a medium-term hurry, not like I have to be done with any specific thing in the next five minutes. Any wizarding tips, since you belonged to a wizard?"