Transmutation 9 (Yet another actionspam)

[xerxesalchemist]

[Anyone in the library right now, feel free to take a look at that table in the back corner. There's a golden-haired teenager sitting there, surrounded by piles of paper with strange patterns and circles covering them. He's rather focused on his task, occasionally shuffling some papers around to compare two slightly different symbols he's drawn,

Comments

[silvestris_mage]

[Daine is holding onto books of her own, most of them about animals. She spots your strange symbols on the table and stops to look for a bit. She's nosy enough that she has to ask.]

What's this, then?

[xerxesalchemist]

[He glances up at her, for an instant, he looks startled. Then his expression goes back to blankness.]

Alchemy. Even if I can't do it right now, I can still practice drawing arrays.

[silvestris_mage]

[She leans in closer, never having heard of alchemy before. The symbols look strange to her.]

What's alchemy?

[xerxesalchemist]

It's a science. Comprehension, deconstruction, reconstruction.

You take matter apart and put it back together differently.

[silvestris_mage]

Sounds like magic from my world, at least a bit. Though much more math-related. Ours was...different.

[xerxesalchemist]

What was your world like?

[silvestris_mage]

It was...different. We didn't have the telephone, or any of the things in the kitchen here.

But we had magic, and horse sense, which most people here don't seem to have. Tortall was beautiful.

Is this world like yours?

[xerxesalchemist]

Sort of. This place is like the time that most of the other people from my world come from.

But I'm from a lot earlier, and it's different.

[silvestris_mage]

I wish there were more people from my world here. There was Numair, but...[Silence. She doesn't like talking about it much.]

Earlier?

[xerxesalchemist]

They're gone?

Yeah. They're all about 400 years later than me.

[silvestris_mage]

Yes. He's gone, just my most recent Da.

Is it hard, being from the past?

[xerxesalchemist]

'm sorry.

It's not hard. Just have to remember that they don't know the same people or countries that I do.

[silvestris_mage]

It's all right. I'll survive.

I don't know any of the countries that everyone talks about around here. It's strange.

[xerxesalchemist]

It's because of different worlds. What countries are where you're from?

[silvestris_mage]

Well, I lived in Tortall before I came here. But I was born in Galla, which is beside Tortall. And then there's Scanra, and the Copper Isles, and Carthak.

[xerxesalchemist]

What's it like where you're from?