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Here is a bar. At it is a girl, late teens - ? - dressed in wide bands of black silk tied ragged edge to ragged edge in a neat pattern. There's a small owl on her shoulder and a stack of napkins at her elbow and she's nursing a cup of something steaming and spicy.
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dark_light
"Well, you might not have a bird. Witches always do, mortals can get whatever. Kids' daemons can change shape, though, so everybody gets to at least try flying."
fortheliving
"I mean, my dog can't fly, but he still has fun." He considers. "I'm pretty sure he can't fly. But anyway, it's - there's still something to the sentiment. Letting yourself be that little bit more free. Even if I ended up with a cockroach or something, the principle's still there. Wait, cockroaches can fly. ...You get what I'm saying, though?"
dark_light
"Yeah, of course. Plus, there's the company. It's not like having a whole other person around, but witches separate so our daemons can go far away from us and there's definitely a difference not having Path in the room to talk to. I mean, he still runs me errands, but never having him there..."
fortheliving
"Can I See you? I just - want to check something. About the daemons thing."
dark_light
"Is there anything particularly sinister or asking-first-worthy about that I should know?"
fortheliving
"Um. Not really? I'll see some vague broad-strokes symbolism about what kind of person you are, like, fiery avenging angel or loving mother or whatever, but usually I would probably have gotten more about someone from talking to them for fifteen minutes, so it's not exactly invasive. It's just polite to ask in case you'd drive me mad with the sight of things Man was not meant to know."
dark_light
"I don't think I'm eldritchly unknowable or anything, although I have no idea what witchiness looks like to you. See at your own risk."
fortheliving
"I'll take it under advisement."
Harry takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.
He opens his eyes.
And then he opens his eyes again.
It's bright in here - he'd almost forgotten the Bar's warning - but past all of the intricacies and the flares of magical power, the Bar is what she is. She's not the grinding stability of the Table, she's not the grotesque mangling of a magical victim; she is powerful, and she is patient, and she is, and she always will be. And that is that.
He looks past her. Isabella is... she isn't bright, not compared to the Bar, but there's something about her that shines through the glare. She's the moon and stars in a sunlit sky, shining in defiance of the daylight. She's less than the Bar but somehow more, more than a wizard and more than a witch and more than any god or demon or dragon Harry's ever met. Beautiful, wise, destined and determined to be more than she should be allowed to be. A messiah in the making.
Harry almost falls to his knees, but he tears his eyes away to examine the connection between her and herself. It's true that Path contains - embodies - is her soul, but there's intricacies, there's a silk-lace web of connections stretched between them so fine that it's almost like he's within her anyway. Everything that he is, she contains, on some level, and on another level not at all, he's far more than that.
But the important thing: This isn't something about her. Her soul is not external because she is a person with an external soul. It happened to her. It's a way that someone could become.
Harry slumps, closing his eyes and closing his eyes. His barstool protests his lack of attention to balancing on top of it, and he slips off and bashes his skull on hardwood.
"Hell's- fucking bells! Sorry, not your fault- ow. I'm- sit. The chairs."
Harry takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.
He opens his eyes.
And then he opens his eyes again.
It's bright in here - he'd almost forgotten the Bar's warning - but past all of the intricacies and the flares of magical power, the Bar is what she is. She's not the grinding stability of the Table, she's not the grotesque mangling of a magical victim; she is powerful, and she is patient, and she is, and she always will be. And that is that.
He looks past her. Isabella is... she isn't bright, not compared to the Bar, but there's something about her that shines through the glare. She's the moon and stars in a sunlit sky, shining in defiance of the daylight. She's less than the Bar but somehow more, more than a wizard and more than a witch and more than any god or demon or dragon Harry's ever met. Beautiful, wise, destined and determined to be more than she should be allowed to be. A messiah in the making.
Harry almost falls to his knees, but he tears his eyes away to examine the connection between her and herself. It's true that Path contains - embodies - is her soul, but there's intricacies, there's a silk-lace web of connections stretched between them so fine that it's almost like he's within her anyway. Everything that he is, she contains, on some level, and on another level not at all, he's far more than that.
But the important thing: This isn't something about her. Her soul is not external because she is a person with an external soul. It happened to her. It's a way that someone could become.
Harry slumps, closing his eyes and closing his eyes. His barstool protests his lack of attention to balancing on top of it, and he slips off and bashes his skull on hardwood.
"Hell's- fucking bells! Sorry, not your fault- ow. I'm- sit. The chairs."
fortheliving
"Yeah. Just. Bright." He wrenches himself into a standing position, downs the rest of his coffee with one shaking hand, and sits back down.
"Magic bar, oh extremely shiny magic bar, can I get an Aspirin. Or at least more coffee."
"Magic bar, oh extremely shiny magic bar, can I get an Aspirin. Or at least more coffee."
fortheliving
He fumbles out his wallet and puts down a five. "Aspirin. Coffee. Please. Thank you."
He turns to Isabella. "Her. You too. Both. You're- weird shiny. Less power, more interesting. It was almost like soulgazing you or something. Except not really, it was more about what you are than who you are. That being 'kind of messianic'. So, congratulations on that, I guess."
He turns to Isabella. "Her. You too. Both. You're- weird shiny. Less power, more interesting. It was almost like soulgazing you or something. Except not really, it was more about what you are than who you are. That being 'kind of messianic'. So, congratulations on that, I guess."
fortheliving
"If you have anything to say about it. Which you probably do, considering. It's more, uh, give her a lever and she will move the world, give her a couple of trees and she'll make her own lever and do it herself."
Coffee. Coffee coffee coffee. Aspirin. Glorious chemicals.
Coffee. Coffee coffee coffee. Aspirin. Glorious chemicals.
fortheliving
"Most wouldn't, no."
He sips more slowly at his coffee. "So, I want to try giving myself a daemon, and if the hypothesis I got from the vision is right then it'll be very, very easy, so, before I do that, are there any very serious warnings you want to give?"
He sips more slowly at his coffee. "So, I want to try giving myself a daemon, and if the hypothesis I got from the vision is right then it'll be very, very easy, so, before I do that, are there any very serious warnings you want to give?"
dark_light
"Uh, if anybody touches them that's bad. Really bad. Extremely super bad. And by default they won't be able to get more than a few feet away from you and I can't guarantee you won't have something really inconvenient ranging from 'giant tortoise' to 'minnow'. Everybody knows not to bump into a daemon at home, but..."
fortheliving
"You said you sent Pathalan away on trips sometimes, though."
fortheliving
"...I meant about the distance, thing, but okay, that's also a bit strange. I was mostly just asking how you get past the default range limit."
dark_light
"Oh, that. Yeah, that's mostly a witch thing but for cultural reasons, not practical ones, you get mortals doing it if they want to be Special Forces or if they have a squid or something. You can't get too far away from your daemon. If you do it anyway, then you can, basically. It's like - a mile? If you get a mile away. It feels terrible. Sometimes takes witch kids a few tries."
fortheliving
"Probably not a problem. I can practically guarantee that I have felt worse."
dark_light
"I mean, thirteen-year-olds do routinely manage the trick, I'm not saying it's impossible, but you really don't have any context for what it's like. Also your daemon might be mad at you after and not talk to you for a while, they sometimes don't like being left."
fortheliving
"If it feels like having your soul physically ripped out of your body, I actually do have some context. Not my top ten sensations, but probably not my bottom five either. And if my daemon gets mad then he gets mad, I'm not expecting him to be in the greatest mood regardless."
dark_light
"You're more likely to have a female one. Not guaranteed, but it's usually opposite-sex."