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asherhyder issued me a challenge, and I stayed up to finish it.
St. Jude City fic--technically, pre-St. Jude City fic. Rated maybe R for language and teenage boy stupidity.
“I have a theory, Ethan.”
Fifteen-year-old apprentice Alchemist Ethan Asheim pushed himself up on one elbow and looked at his best friend, sixteen-year-old apprentice Summoner Asher Kreim. They’d climbed out here onto the roof of Asher’s Master’s house to enjoy a few rare moments of sunshine at the tail end of the day before the clouds closed back in and it started raining again. Asher had been uncharacteristically silent the entire time. Apparently, he’d been thinking—an almost completely foreign practice to him as far as Ethan could tell.
“Well, that was random. What’s your theory about?”
“You.”
The silence stretched for almost a minute. “You planning on telling me what you’ve been theorizing about me while I wasn’t paying attention?”
“I’ve been theorizing that your ass needs to be loosened up by a good hard fucking. Principles and Paradigms, man, let me organize my thoughts in peace. I’ll tell you when I get them sorted out.”
Ethan flopped back down on the damp tiles of the rooftop, muttering that Asher shouldn’t have said anything if he wasn’t ready to discuss his mighty “theory” yet. The sun started setting, and Ethan closed his eyes, mentally reviewing the Alchemical symbols he was supposed to have memorized by tomorrow. Master Kara was like a mother to him, but she could be a slave driver sometimes. Ethan knew why she was doing it too, and it pissed him off.
“Ethan, because of your disability, you’re going to have to work twice as hard as everyone else to get the same results and the same respect.”
Dammit, being nearly magic-blind should not qualify as a “disability.” He could still use magic, and he could still feel magic, taste it, smell it in the air, hear it on the wind; he just couldn’t see the power flows. And you needed to see the flows in order to be able to draw from them from a distance.
“Unlike other Alchemists, you’re going to have to plan out every step in an experiment or preparation long before you start, so you can determine how much magic you’re going to need and build up the reserves for it. You’re going to have to learn how to be economical and patient, and you’re going to have to put up with idiots who think that anyone who doesn’t fling magic around recklessly is weaker than them.”
Ethan hissed internally at that, mental reviewing forgotten. Just because you could spray magic around like a drunk pissing off of a flagpole didn’t mean you were any good at what you did. Precision counted too. Precision meant you weren’t getting a particular magickal spell by attacking a block of wood with an axe. He’d “felt” the spells of older, theoretically far more skilled Numina and been stunned at how “rough” they felt, studded with bits of raw magic and unpolished edges. Ethan’s spells were, by necessity, painstakingly crafted, perfectly smooth, and carefully designed to amplify the magickal energy built within them. Master Kara’s were much the same—she’d had to refine her practices for her apprentice.
But most of all, Ethan was sick of being referred to as a charity case or “Kara’s poor little blind boy.” The insults made him burn up with rage, and had brought him very close to actually punching people he really could not afford to punch on several occasions.
Ethan could feel the muscles in his back tensing. He forced himself to relax, forced his mind away from the subject. It was a fact of his life; if he got mad at it he’d be angry and stressed all the time and eventually go crazy. People were morons, including those who were more than old enough to know better.
“Ethan, you okay? You look like you’re about to go kill someone.”
Crap. Asher had noticed him tensing up. Asher always had this near-preternatural sensitivity to Ethan’s body language for some reason. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just the usual reason for me being pissed.”
“Man, if you keep stressing over that, you’re going to give yourself an ulcer by your sixteenth birthday. People are ten miles past stupid about anybody different from them. Get over it,” Asher said, rolling up onto his elbow and reaching over to stroke Ethan’s long black hair. Asher loved playing with his hair for some odd reason, and Ethan didn’t mind it too much other than the ratings it got on his Weird-o-Meter so he let it be in private. Whenever Asher started hanging on him in public, though, Ethan would elbow him in the gut. He didn’t want people thinking he was Asher’s boyfriend or something sick like that. He was already skinny and girly-looking enough without people assuming that he spread for Asher like a little bitch seven nights a week and twice on Sundays.
Ethan sighed softly and opened his eyes. “I know. It’s hard, though. You done thinking about your stupid theory yet, or are you going to keep me in suspense?”
Asher made a quietly distracted murmur as his fingertips accidentally grazed one of Ethan’s cheekbones, and then seemed to come out of the mild zone-out he’d wandered into. Weirdo. “Oh. Theory. Yeah. Theory. So then…I had this theory about you. You know how the Second Sight runs up, down, and sideways on your mom’s side of the family? I always thought it was fucked up that you’re almost magic-blind when like half of your maternal relatives and one of your siblings have at least a touch of Second Sight.”
“God hates me, you see, and he enjoys doing these things to me to see me writhe in impotent rage.”
“Quiet. Asher talk time now, not Ethan talk time. My theory is this: what if you’re supposed to be that way for a reason? Y’know, like someday your problem’s going to come in handy. Oracle families tend to wind up a bit higher on the Fate Scale than us puny mortals, so theoretically this is part of your destiny, or some bullshit like that. Whatcha think?”
“I think you’re a dumbass, and I like my ‘God hates me’ theory. Can you name one situation in which being down a magickal sense would be useful? I didn’t think so.”
“Pessimistic grump. Were you born forty or something?”
“Fuck you, asshole.”
“Aww, Ethan, you say the sweetest things to me. That’s the nicest proposition I’ve had all day.”
“Die. Die and come back as a eunuch.”
“But then you’ll be denied my sweet manloving, and what will you do with yourself?”
“This conversation has officially degenerated to the point where it needs to be euthanized. It’s starting to rain again, so I’m declaring this discussion over and going back in. Coming, oh Master of Theories?”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t get your little Alchemist panties in a bunch.”
asherhyder issued me a challenge, and I stayed up to finish it.St. Jude City fic--technically, pre-St. Jude City fic. Rated maybe R for language and teenage boy stupidity.
“I have a theory, Ethan.”
Fifteen-year-old apprentice Alchemist Ethan Asheim pushed himself up on one elbow and looked at his best friend, sixteen-year-old apprentice Summoner Asher Kreim. They’d climbed out here onto the roof of Asher’s Master’s house to enjoy a few rare moments of sunshine at the tail end of the day before the clouds closed back in and it started raining again. Asher had been uncharacteristically silent the entire time. Apparently, he’d been thinking—an almost completely foreign practice to him as far as Ethan could tell.
“Well, that was random. What’s your theory about?”
“You.”
The silence stretched for almost a minute. “You planning on telling me what you’ve been theorizing about me while I wasn’t paying attention?”
“I’ve been theorizing that your ass needs to be loosened up by a good hard fucking. Principles and Paradigms, man, let me organize my thoughts in peace. I’ll tell you when I get them sorted out.”
Ethan flopped back down on the damp tiles of the rooftop, muttering that Asher shouldn’t have said anything if he wasn’t ready to discuss his mighty “theory” yet. The sun started setting, and Ethan closed his eyes, mentally reviewing the Alchemical symbols he was supposed to have memorized by tomorrow. Master Kara was like a mother to him, but she could be a slave driver sometimes. Ethan knew why she was doing it too, and it pissed him off.
“Ethan, because of your disability, you’re going to have to work twice as hard as everyone else to get the same results and the same respect.”
Dammit, being nearly magic-blind should not qualify as a “disability.” He could still use magic, and he could still feel magic, taste it, smell it in the air, hear it on the wind; he just couldn’t see the power flows. And you needed to see the flows in order to be able to draw from them from a distance.
“Unlike other Alchemists, you’re going to have to plan out every step in an experiment or preparation long before you start, so you can determine how much magic you’re going to need and build up the reserves for it. You’re going to have to learn how to be economical and patient, and you’re going to have to put up with idiots who think that anyone who doesn’t fling magic around recklessly is weaker than them.”
Ethan hissed internally at that, mental reviewing forgotten. Just because you could spray magic around like a drunk pissing off of a flagpole didn’t mean you were any good at what you did. Precision counted too. Precision meant you weren’t getting a particular magickal spell by attacking a block of wood with an axe. He’d “felt” the spells of older, theoretically far more skilled Numina and been stunned at how “rough” they felt, studded with bits of raw magic and unpolished edges. Ethan’s spells were, by necessity, painstakingly crafted, perfectly smooth, and carefully designed to amplify the magickal energy built within them. Master Kara’s were much the same—she’d had to refine her practices for her apprentice.
But most of all, Ethan was sick of being referred to as a charity case or “Kara’s poor little blind boy.” The insults made him burn up with rage, and had brought him very close to actually punching people he really could not afford to punch on several occasions.
Ethan could feel the muscles in his back tensing. He forced himself to relax, forced his mind away from the subject. It was a fact of his life; if he got mad at it he’d be angry and stressed all the time and eventually go crazy. People were morons, including those who were more than old enough to know better.
“Ethan, you okay? You look like you’re about to go kill someone.”
Crap. Asher had noticed him tensing up. Asher always had this near-preternatural sensitivity to Ethan’s body language for some reason. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just the usual reason for me being pissed.”
“Man, if you keep stressing over that, you’re going to give yourself an ulcer by your sixteenth birthday. People are ten miles past stupid about anybody different from them. Get over it,” Asher said, rolling up onto his elbow and reaching over to stroke Ethan’s long black hair. Asher loved playing with his hair for some odd reason, and Ethan didn’t mind it too much other than the ratings it got on his Weird-o-Meter so he let it be in private. Whenever Asher started hanging on him in public, though, Ethan would elbow him in the gut. He didn’t want people thinking he was Asher’s boyfriend or something sick like that. He was already skinny and girly-looking enough without people assuming that he spread for Asher like a little bitch seven nights a week and twice on Sundays.
Ethan sighed softly and opened his eyes. “I know. It’s hard, though. You done thinking about your stupid theory yet, or are you going to keep me in suspense?”
Asher made a quietly distracted murmur as his fingertips accidentally grazed one of Ethan’s cheekbones, and then seemed to come out of the mild zone-out he’d wandered into. Weirdo. “Oh. Theory. Yeah. Theory. So then…I had this theory about you. You know how the Second Sight runs up, down, and sideways on your mom’s side of the family? I always thought it was fucked up that you’re almost magic-blind when like half of your maternal relatives and one of your siblings have at least a touch of Second Sight.”
“God hates me, you see, and he enjoys doing these things to me to see me writhe in impotent rage.”
“Quiet. Asher talk time now, not Ethan talk time. My theory is this: what if you’re supposed to be that way for a reason? Y’know, like someday your problem’s going to come in handy. Oracle families tend to wind up a bit higher on the Fate Scale than us puny mortals, so theoretically this is part of your destiny, or some bullshit like that. Whatcha think?”
“I think you’re a dumbass, and I like my ‘God hates me’ theory. Can you name one situation in which being down a magickal sense would be useful? I didn’t think so.”
“Pessimistic grump. Were you born forty or something?”
“Fuck you, asshole.”
“Aww, Ethan, you say the sweetest things to me. That’s the nicest proposition I’ve had all day.”
“Die. Die and come back as a eunuch.”
“But then you’ll be denied my sweet manloving, and what will you do with yourself?”
“This conversation has officially degenerated to the point where it needs to be euthanized. It’s starting to rain again, so I’m declaring this discussion over and going back in. Coming, oh Master of Theories?”
“Yeah, yeah, don’t get your little Alchemist panties in a bunch.”
