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Edie has mixed feelings about the roses.
On the one hand, magic exists.
On the other hand, ow.
On the first hand, perfect healing.
On the second hand, ow.
On the first hand, flight.
On the second hand, holy fucking ow that one's definitely the worst, yep, ow ow ow.
whatamithinking
whatamithinking
Can she conjure things in specific places? She tries the marble again, focusing on her desk halfway across the room.
It feels like it has a longer distance to travel, but the marble is too round to get caught on anything along the way, so if she's patient enough to drag it all the way there: marble.
whatamithinking
Oh, good. Can she conjure objects inside things? She focuses on the interior of her pillow and focuses on the marble again.
That feels like she meets resistance when the marble finally reaches the exit point of the magic. Incredibly strong resistance. Maybe not utterly impassable, but beyond her current strength.
whatamithinking
Doesn't keep her from trying, but eventually she has to give up even with her stubbornness.
She practices with more complex objects until she can't focus well around the pain any more and then she pulls the flower out and screams into her pillow and then she lies there crying for a little while, because ow.
She practices with more complex objects until she can't focus well around the pain any more and then she pulls the flower out and screams into her pillow and then she lies there crying for a little while, because ow.
iamnotpolaris
Emily's concerned, but Edie...probably...won't do anything she'll regret in the long term, and unless it gets worse than this she probably won't be able to dissuade her.
Practicing healing isn't easy, since neither of them are inclined to self-injury in ways not involving flowers, but she can brush a hand over her sister's forehead if it looks like she'll be crying long enough for a dehydration headache.
And she puts on her own black flower (ow, but she can handle it better) and practices her own conjurations. She started sooner, focuses better around pain, and is more invested in the results--she can already do things significantly more complicated than a chess knight. She conjures a piece of sapphire in the shape of a rose, and concentrates on making it last.
Practicing healing isn't easy, since neither of them are inclined to self-injury in ways not involving flowers, but she can brush a hand over her sister's forehead if it looks like she'll be crying long enough for a dehydration headache.
And she puts on her own black flower (ow, but she can handle it better) and practices her own conjurations. She started sooner, focuses better around pain, and is more invested in the results--she can already do things significantly more complicated than a chess knight. She conjures a piece of sapphire in the shape of a rose, and concentrates on making it last.
The lifespan of the object is set when it emerges from the magic, and it's not immediately clear how to change that lifespan.
However, she might eventually notice that there's a moment just before the object leaves the magic and enters reality where its eventual lifespan is perceptible. And if she holds it there and fiddles with it, she can make it last longer (or shorter) once it's out. The rotation that lengthens the span makes the object more 'slippery', harder to hold onto and maneuver, and also puts it under increasing tension: if she loses her grip it'll unwind rapidly back down to a short-lifespan state. If she's particularly unlucky or managed to wind it particularly far, it might even spin all the way down to a lifespan of zero and disappear before she can grab it again.
However, she might eventually notice that there's a moment just before the object leaves the magic and enters reality where its eventual lifespan is perceptible. And if she holds it there and fiddles with it, she can make it last longer (or shorter) once it's out. The rotation that lengthens the span makes the object more 'slippery', harder to hold onto and maneuver, and also puts it under increasing tension: if she loses her grip it'll unwind rapidly back down to a short-lifespan state. If she's particularly unlucky or managed to wind it particularly far, it might even spin all the way down to a lifespan of zero and disappear before she can grab it again.
iamnotpolaris
Tricky. But she has time to practice, and frankly, this is easier than learning to draw. If she varies the characteristics of the object, will that affect how difficult it is to hold onto?
Yes. The metaphor breaks down a little here: the simpler an object, the less likely it is to 'catch' on the magic (or 'squeeze' with volume or 'drag' with mass or material complexity), the easier it is to hold onto when she's applying the final twist.
If she works at it, she can get a simple object to last for a whole hour, maybe even two. The secret of permanency is not yet obvious.
If she works at it, she can get a simple object to last for a whole hour, maybe even two. The secret of permanency is not yet obvious.
iamnotpolaris
Well, of course not. Cass and Anna have had the flowers for how long and Anna can't do it? It's not going to be that easy. That's fine. She's an artist. She knows that beautiful things take time.
Once she gets it up to an hour she works on getting progressively more complex objects to last that long.
Once she gets it up to an hour she works on getting progressively more complex objects to last that long.
It's tricky, and it stays tricky, but the 'strength' and 'dexterity' of her mental grip are improving, and the 'size' of the aperture in the magic might be growing a bit too.
iamnotpolaris
Excellent.
And by this point it is time to get to bed. She evaluates her current pain level, determines that she can probably get to sleep like this, and doesn't bother taking out either of the flowers she's wearing for the night. In the morning she dresses in clothes calculated to hide the flowers, takes shameless advantage of the grace bonus her pink rose gives her in her art class, socializes with her sister and various acquaintances--
and shuts herself in their room again for more practice. This is the most interesting thing to happen to her for ages.
She doesn't really want to peel the black rose out of her system yet, and really, it's the one that seems to get the most good out of active practice. Twist twist twist how much more duration can she squeeze out of a glass marble before she goes back to scaling to greater complexity.
And by this point it is time to get to bed. She evaluates her current pain level, determines that she can probably get to sleep like this, and doesn't bother taking out either of the flowers she's wearing for the night. In the morning she dresses in clothes calculated to hide the flowers, takes shameless advantage of the grace bonus her pink rose gives her in her art class, socializes with her sister and various acquaintances--
and shuts herself in their room again for more practice. This is the most interesting thing to happen to her for ages.
She doesn't really want to peel the black rose out of her system yet, and really, it's the one that seems to get the most good out of active practice. Twist twist twist how much more duration can she squeeze out of a glass marble before she goes back to scaling to greater complexity.
iamnotpolaris
Two and a half hours, okay. In that case she will go back to scaling with that for a while, and then when she gets bored of twist twist twist slip, whoops she'll spend a while working on her maximum complexity.
It gets easier with practice, both in the sense that she learns how to use the magic and in the sense that the magic gets more convenient to use. And she can benefit from practice wiggling particular shapes through the magic; the path and the parts where it catches aren't exactly the same every time, but they're similar enough to be recognizable.
iamnotpolaris
Okay, then...
She composes exactly what she wants in her head. It's pretty complicated, but it comes in more than one part, each of which can be manifested separately. Focusing and taking her time, she creates the perfect outfit for hiding her roses, down to bracelets to cover the stems on her wrists and opaque rose-shaped hollow glass "gems" to cover the roses themselves.
She composes exactly what she wants in her head. It's pretty complicated, but it comes in more than one part, each of which can be manifested separately. Focusing and taking her time, she creates the perfect outfit for hiding her roses, down to bracelets to cover the stems on her wrists and opaque rose-shaped hollow glass "gems" to cover the roses themselves.
iamnotpolaris
Well, not all at once. She sketches out the parts she's not actively working on, so she doesn't forget, and works on one piece at a time. Once she's gotten the bracelet down she'll work on generating larger volumes of object.
Her volume capacity has been increasing bit by tiny bit, but when she actively works on it in particular, it starts going a little faster.
iamnotpolaris
This is less interesting than working on complexity's careful wiggles or duration's tricky twists. She switches to mass after less time than she spent on the more interesting two. And then, getting tired of aching quite as much as she is, she peels the black rose out of her, takes a Tylenol, and emails Cass to see if she knows anything about how the roses might interact with things like drug overdoses, addiction and withdrawal. On the grounds that it seems like something that someone with roses might experiment with, she is careful to clarify, not because she strikes her as someone who would have any experience with that kind of thing in a less floral context.
the-greatest-show
Cass responds:
Who, me? :D
Most of what I've tried is painkillers, and those work okay except on the black flower for some reason, I haven't gotten exciting enough about it to tell if the flowers do anything for addiction.
iamnotpolaris
"I'm fine. Apparently painkillers work on all but the black and white ones, which is unfortunate considering that they pretty definitively need it the most. How are you doing?"
whatamithinking
"...Also fine. I maintain that trying out the black and white rose was the right decision, but I'm not planning on doing that again until I've built up my pain tolerance." She pushes back her sleeve to reveal a blue blossom on her wrist. "In other news, telekinesis is excellent."
iamnotpolaris
"As long as you're okay. You know there's no hurry on any of this, right? It's not like we're actual magical girls with monsters of the week and an impending boss fight. Don't push yourself."