Tennis courts
"I certainly do not see any," Qrlil replied dryly. She hit the ball back across again.
"I am curious," she added as they played on. "Are all chimeras capable of magic, or is it something that only certain individuals can learn? And how exactly do you go about learning it, anyway?"
By the way, I wanted to check in with you first, but if you don't mind, I'm planning on having Qrlil win the match (as she has the lead and only needs to score once) - it's been going on for a while now and I'd like to move on.
[Dining]
Vincent nodded. "Uh huh. Moving away from that, do you think that, if your teacher died, you could feel your way at all? Learn magic on your own? Yes, I know it'd be much harder, but it's something that you should think about."
[Tennis courts]
"All chimeras can use it," said Xavier. "Some are better at it than others. It's kind of similar to how everyone can walk, but not everyone can run a marathon." He smacked the ball back.
"It's kind of hard to explain how we learn it, since you don't have a baseline for magic. But a chimera gets instructed on the proper ways to use the various... energies, I guess, that make up magic. What they are, how they affect each other, their effects, and so on. It's like learning the piano, in a way."
Go ahead.
[Dining]
"Touche, as the Eartborn say," Asayu said. "But you forget: I've decided to keep you around because you amuse me." She leaned back, considering Virgil.
[Dining]
What's the worst that can happen? Rachel though. "Strawberry Field Forever," she said, and began to sing — quite well for an untrained woman, good enough to avoid being a nuisance, at any rate.
Asayu watched Rachel singing, and, with a wicked grin, said, "well, dear Virgil, remember what I said about amusing me?"
[Dining]
Peter thought for a moment, but Christine was quick to butt into the conversation with her usual chipper attitude.
"Of course he could! Magic's in his blood!"
Peter, completely ignoring Christine, stated;
"Well, I could try."
[Dining]
Virgil smirked. He amused her, apparently. Frankly, he found it relieving for someone to have a reaction of him other than complete terror... without him having to converse with that bastard Noah. And her friend Rachel was signing now, it was quite charming, though Virgil didn't consider himself interested in her. Turning to Asayu, he asked;
"Yes, what of it?"
Tennis courts
"Interesting," Qrlil said. She didn't know much about learning to play a piano either, but she understood the analogy.
They batted the ball back for a few more moments. Then, she smacked it to the left of where Xavier was standing. The ball hit inside the lines, bounced, and landed outside of them. Qrlil let out a triumphant hissing sound.
She smiled human-style. "Er. Does that mean I win?"
I will be posting very infrequently over the next few days, as I have to really focus on real life issues now, but I'll still be here.
[Dining]
"You might want to try some solo experimentation," said Vincent. "Just in case. It doesn't need to be serious, but it can't hurt to try. Do you know the full extent your powers will reach? Are there any kinds of spectacular things you'll be able to do, like shapeshifting?"
[Tennis courts]
Xavier nodded. "Yeah, you win. You know, for someone who hadn't played before, you were pretty good. Especially since you don't play physical sports in the first place."
He picked up the ball and began tossing it into the air and catching it. "So do you want to keep going with another game, or try something else?"
[Dining]
"I could use shapeshifting," Peter answered, "But I doubt I would. I quite like my current shape. It would just feel... weird."
[Dining]
Virgil stood up and said to Sakuko;
"I'll go next."
Walking up to the karaoke machine, Virgil selected "The Times They Are A Changing" by Bob Dylan, and as he sang it, he had gotten fairly emotionally involved with the song.
[Dining]
Rachel was impressed, and not a bit surprised, by Virgil's skill. She'd had him measured up as the kind of guy who'd brag about his incredible, untrained natural talent and then fail utterly, but not, he was doing extremely well. Asayu, meanwhile, was mildly disappointed: she had been hoping for abject failure, but supposed that she shouldn't have been surprised: he had two hundred years to practice.
edited 13th Nov '11 4:20:10 PM by KillerClowns
"Time off from work." Yale replied, almost letting his tone drop a level in politeness. He pursed his lips together, and played with the straw, looking in the distance.
"We're in one of those bureaucracy jobs. All cubicles and getting coffee for people who get paid more to do less." Hoxle chimed in.
Read my stories![Dining]
"Kat says it's not too bad," said Vincent. "Once you get used to it, at least. And the human mind is amazingly adaptable. I mean, there's a guy who can see with his tongue. His tongue. He lost his sight, got electrodes linked to a camera placed on his tongue, and now he can see again. And I'm not just talking about some vague images he can tell apart based on the patterns: his vision center got rewired so that he's actually seeing."
He grinned. "Crazy, huh?"
[Bar]
"Joy," said Kat flatly. "Bureaucracy. You guys are underappreciated, you know that? It's like being a plumber: the kind of job nobody wants, but you can't live without. Or any of those jobs on Dirty Jobs."
He took a sip of beer. "You know what you should do? Form a union. Use your combination of a good position and numbers and get a higher salary. But don't push it too far, or you'll bankrupt whoever you're working for."
He noted Yale's change of tone. Did they work for a secret organization? They could've told him, "I could tell you, but then I'd have to kill you.", and he'd ask no more questions.
But they didn't know that, did they?
Hoxle snorted into her drink, and buried her face in her hands with laughter.
"So many things wrong with that sentence..." Hoxle gasped, in between laughter.
"We're under contract. We can't really strike." Yale explained hurriedly. His eyes rolled up into his sockets, thinking. That's how it worked, right?
"By the way, what's Dirty Jobs?" Yale asked after a pause.
Meanwhile, Hoxle seemed to be mouthing a conversation to herself. "Hello? Vrell? Yeah, we're totes going to bankrupt you. We're going to stop all of your business! All one hundred thousand people per day!"
edited 13th Nov '11 6:15:21 PM by MrAHR
Read my stories![Tennis courts]
Xavier shrugged. "I'm not sure. We could just lay out on the beach and bask in the sun. It's nice out today."
[Bar]
"Oh, so they don't have that show in your world?" asked Kat. "Short version: Mike Rowe does shitty jobs.
"Longer version: the host, Mike Rowe, travels the country to examine, and sometimes try his hand at, jobs that are disgusting, dangerous, weird and so on. Fixing poo pumps, handling cow guts, castrating sheep by biting them, cleaning roadkill, working at dumps, you name it, he's probably done it. Some of these are practically needed but go unappreciated, like cleaning out fuel tanks." He paused to take a sip of beer.
"Bummer about the contract, though. But if you can't, oh well. Wish I could do something about it."
edited 13th Nov '11 6:38:03 PM by TeraChimera
"Our world?" Hoxle snapped. "We live on Earth, thank you very much."
While there were reasons neither of them knew the show, she didn't like the implication that she needed to know a tv show to live on Earth.
Yale was quick to make up for Hoxle's mood swing. "We don't watch a lot of tv where we live, we have horrible reception. The show sounds really interesting, though! Do you like the show a lot?"
edited 13th Nov '11 6:42:23 PM by MrAHR
Read my stories![Bar]
"Well, excuse me," snapped Kat right back to Hoxle. "I'm also from Earth, although probably a different one, and I had no way of knowing that you didn't have a TV. Given the large amount of people who do have TV's, that's a reasonable assumption to make."
Turning to Yale, he said, "Not a lot, but I do watch it every now and then. Although normally I re-watch my Twin Peaks DVD's. That was a good show, if crazy. A soap opera cosmic horror murder mystery."
Hoxle cleared her throat, frowned, and concentrated for a moment.
She then turned back to Kat. "Ett, herr belåtet råtta, ni förstår vad jag säger?"
Read my stories![Bar]
Kat blinked for a moment, then glared at her. "Vaguely; my Swedish or whatever that language is is a little rusty. I'll be able to get the gist of what you're saying, though, so if you're trying to insult me in a different language, don't bother with that one."
He switched his own language. "Bedas rancear geta soltrasme. Vieto manceal, tu akatta's senar."
Hoxle snorted. "What? You don't understand the language? Are you from a different planet?" Her tone was clearly mocking.
Huh. So she could speak Swedish? She was swedish? That made sense, actually...way more than German, anyhow.
Read my stories![Bar]
Kat rubbed his forehead. "I told you, I'm from Earth. Just a different one than you. You don't need to get all snooty with me. I haven't needed to speak anything other than English or Menyic for such a long time, I'm rusty in my other languages."
He slammed his drink down on the bar. "Why is it," he muttered, "that you humans can't accept when something's just as good as you? I forget a little of a language, and you immediately act all high and mighty. If you want to insult me, do it to my face and don't be a coward."

[Dining]
"Well, I never want to perform memory related magic again," explained Peter, "And there's also magic to reanimate dead bodies. Note I didn't say reviving the dead. It basically involves taking a corpse, and turning it into a flesh puppet..." Peter shuddered at the thought.