[Thread] A little patch of spring

[takion]

Characters: Takion, Open
Where: Park
When: Middle of the day
Summary: Takion gets tired of the snow.
Warnings: Shouldn't be any.

Comments

[ned_piemaker]

The Piemaker would not have believed it if he had not seen it. Amidst all the snow was a circle of light and vivid spring colors. He felt drawn towards it, though he wasn't sure what could have caused it. Surely some kind of magic, and he would be better off if he didn't get mixed up with it, but he couldn't resist. When he was closer he saw that a man was sitting in the midst of the little anomaly, drinking tea.

"Hello?" he called, stepping closer, hands clasped behind his back, "Did you do this?"

[takion]

Takion glanced at the approaching young man, studying him long enough to recognize that he didn't know him. That didn't bother him, for there were many in Econtra he didn't know. With a welcoming smile, the author gestured for the young man to join him. "I did indeed. I'm afraid that I didn't particularly relish sitting out in the cold for teatime."

[ned_piemaker]

It was a sign of what the stay in Neocontra was doing to Ned that he barely hesitated before stepping into the circle of warmth and flower smells. He was getting more and more used to this idea of other people being able to do magic.

"Why not sit inside?"

He didn't ask it in a snotty way, but out of sheer curiosity, as a conversation-starter.

[takion]

"Because that would be logical," Takion pointed out with a chuckle. He stood and offered his hand to his guest. "Alternate L. Takion. I'm an author by trade. You may know some of my stories - Alice in Wonderland or Alice Through the Looking Glass perhaps?"

[ned_piemaker]

"Ned. I'm a piemaker."

For once, the Piemaker did not hesitate to accept a handshake. It had less to do with any sort of trust of this Taikon fellow and more to do with the simple fact that it had been cold enough when he set out that he was wearing thick woolen gloves over his hands. He shook and then sat cross-legged a polite distance away on the warm grass.

"I thought those were written by someone else...?" Ned asked, trying to remember back to his school days.

[takion]

"On other worlds perhaps," Takion stated amiably enough. "I've had others mention that those tales were written by some Lewis Carroll chap."

Plucking up his pen and writing journal, Takion scribbled a few lines to bring into existence a delicate china teacup and saucer. The cup he filled with tea and offered to Ned. "At home, I have the Alices to prove I wrote the stories."

[ned_piemaker]

"Yeah- him! I heard he was crazy and-" but Ned trailed off, thinking it wouldn't be best to mention the rumors he'd heard about pedophilia and acid consumption to a man who had written the same books that had caused the rumors, only on a different world. He wouldn't appreciate hearing rumors about the owner of the Pie Hole from another dimension after all.

The Piemaker would have been confused about what Taikon said next, if it hadn't been for the teacup. He wouldn't have been so quick to grasp it a week ago when he was still very new here, but the Piemaker was adapting. His PI mind was beginning to work once more.

"That's what you do, then? You write things and they become real?" He reached out a gloved fingertip to touch the saucer.

[takion]

Takion raised an eyebrow and looked politely interested at the description. He'd never asked much about the man who had supposedly written his stories on other worlds.

"That is a rather simplified way of lookging at what I do," Takion explained. "It's not everything I write - only what I pour emotion and creativity into."

[ned_piemaker]

The Piemaker wasn't sure he wanted to put the product of nothing more than emotion, creativity, and a little ink into his digestive system, but it would be rude not to at least taste it. He sipped the tea and found it quite pleasing - not at all an illusion or inky-flavored.

"Can everyone in your world do that?"

[takion]

Takion gave a shake of his head. "Goodness no. It's a rare talent that becomes even more rare as children rot out their imaginations on television and such."

[ned_piemaker]

This was intriguing.

"But it's a possibility for all people? Or for some of them, if they don't ... rot their brains?"

What a fascinating kind of society it must be, he imagined, where powers could be earned, taught, accepted as an achievement rather than kept a secret out of fear. He wondered what it would be like if his own little skill were possible for those who worked at it.

Then again, who would want it? No one, he concluded at once. Not if they thought it through. It was far too dangerous.

[takion]

Takion shrugged in answer. "That I do not know. Alice - the Alice Liddell on whom the books were based - watched for another with this sort of talent and only found one in more than a hundred years of watching. Of course, it's not the sort of thing one generally advertises that one can do. I make an exception in this place because I assume we were all brought here for what makes us unique."

[ned_piemaker]

And there went Ned's little fantasy of a perfect world, plummeting to the ground like the Hindenburg, in flames.

But with this disillusionment he felt he could understand Taikon a little more. Their situations were really exactly the same. He had a talent that he couldn't advertise for all the money in the world, that no one else had ever had or as far as he knew would ever have again.

But unlike Taikon, the Piemaker couldn't bring himself to make much of an exception for, as he so delicately put it, "this place". Secrecy had become too deeply ingrained in him.

"Oh. Of course, yeah. You wouldn't want to do something like this in a normal world, in case it made people scared of you or think you were a freak or anything." He closed his mouth. Why must he babble when he was nervous.

"How'd you find out you could do it?" he asked.

[takion]

Takion gave Ned a somewhat interested look. He knew stories well enough to know when one was about, but it seemed a bit indelicate to pry with one he'd only just met.

"Quite by accident," he admitted. "I always did love coming up with stories. I would pour myself entirely into my writing as a boy, completely unaware of what went on around me. You can imagine my surprise when I started finding things from my little tales right around me when I did finish a tale."

[ned_piemaker]

"Like what?" the Piemaker prompted at once, drawn in by the story of how he had discovered he could mold reality with his stories. The Piemaker wondered what the limitations on this power would be. Could he change the past? Re-write the rules of mortality and time to undo tragedies or avoid them beforehand? What a potential there was, in Taikon's ability! He was jealous.

"What did you find?"

He was naturally curious. Ned's own accidental discovery of his abilities had been, to put it very mildly, traumatic.

[takion]

"Small things," Takion explained. "Just little trinkets at first. The odd bit of jewelry. A platter from a strange cuisine I'd imagined. A treasure map. And then one day a little blue robin that sang a little rhyme. The cat made a fine dinner out of that bird one day. And that was when I realized just how serious a thing this talent could be."