driftfleet | (no subject)

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(no subject)

Who: Lup + anyone!
Broadcast: Yes
Action: Heron / Iskaulit
When: Nowish

Hey there, fleeter friends, let me pick your brain for a few minutes, get those creative juices flowing.

If you could have any kind of magical weapon, armor, or a fancy artifact- what would it be, and what could it do? The theoretical sky is the limit, here, this is just a fun thought experiment.

[Toooootally theoretical. She's not fishing for new stuff to work on, no sir.

Lup can be found easily enough in person as needed, either in her room or in the kitchen on the Heron, or messing around in the smithy onboard the Iskaulit. It's project time.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The component for this particular spell, in my world, is a chest worth about 5000 gold. Something that valuable has to be made by a master craftsman- in other words, real woodworking, not just a junk chest that I cobble together with magic.

[She huffs quietly under her breath, dipping her fingers back into the sink to finish her dishes.]

We're lucky he's here, or this job would be a lot harder than it is... probably wouldn't even bother. I doubt the customer could afford it.

... That is fair.

[Having oddly specific components just seemed to be par for the course. It just was harder, running into unfamiliar terminology at times.

Kova playfully swipes at Ditto, and the scampering game between them is initiated.]

What else is required?

[Ditto wastes no time giving chase; Lup steps from one foot to the other, stretching her legs apart as they run between.]

I need a little handheld replica of the chest. That I can use magic for, but it has to be identical, so the big chest has to be done first. Artificing itself requires like... magic dust? Dunno how else to describe it. I got loads of that a few planets back, though, so I'm good there.

There must be certain properties in ... this dust of yours.

[But she understands that much; anything having to do with magic required some process or added element to make it all go.

She's quiet for a moment, and then, carefully:]

... I would be curious to observe your work in... action, sometime. Not necessarily this project, since it may not come to pass.

Huh... [That makes her quirk a brow in surprise, though after a moment it occurs to her that she shouldn't be. Magic is one of the few things that Haggar actively seems to show an interest in.] Well, I can't say it's all that thrilling to watch, but once I'm done here I was gonna head back there. You can joint me if you want.

Then I will join you.

[She has no other plans and doesn't want to be alone, or she wouldn't have come to seek Lup here. She knows that sort of work can lend itself toward being tedious, but something about it danced between familiar and unfamiliar, something else to take her mind away from the subjects that plagued it most, lately.]

And perhaps... Kova will be too tired to mind another trip.

[It was a joke... but after being kept away from him for all that time on the Atroma, it was hard to leave him behind. At least during a drift.]

Sure, I don't mind. Though if it starts to get all wild-and-magicky, we should probably let those two hang out in the hall. Ditto'd just poof until I re-summon him, but I'm not sure how much of a beating Kova can take, and I'd rather not find out.

[She playfully flicks her fingers in the direction of the animals, spraying droplets of water at them to make them scatter.]

I agree. That is not a risk I wish to take.

[Even if the alien cat was probably sturdier than he looked, caution would prevail.]

I do have a secured area that they could wait in instead. Though it's been some time since I last checked there.

Aww, we don't have to ditch them. They can just wait in the hall, out of the blast zone.

[Something about the concept of locking them away in a "secured area" makes her uncomfortable, illogical as it might be.]

I mean, it probably won't even be that bad. I'm very good at what I do, after all.

... Very well. Then I cede to your judgement. I have no doubt you are good at what you do, after all.

[She had been slightly surprised, but she did trust Lup's judgement in such matters.

Although even considering it, she realizes, it wasn't much of a room. A quiet secured space, but that's all it really was. Good for brooding, not much else.]

Damn right.

[She hums agreeably, dropping the last dish into the rack to air dry, wiping her hands on a towel, and then turns to face Haggar properly.]

Okay! Good to go. Want to head over in the same shuttle, or should I meet you there?

If you are not opposed, I would... prefer to head over together.

[She'd already had one too-quiet shuttle ride and wasn't quite up for another so soon. Still, it wasn't easy for her to always be verbal with these sorts of things.]

Hey, relax. I'm not gonna ditch you, it's just an offer.

[She knows there isn't much to be done about Haggar's general hesitance, but that won't stop her from calling it out when it's unnecessary. They're long past that by now.

She whistles abruptly, and Ditto spins on his heels and swats at Kova, leading him back towards Haggar and stopping at her feet. When Lup snaps her fingers, the mongoose vanishes in a faint cloud of glittering light, leaving behind the subtle scent of incense and (probably) a bewildered cat.]

Grab your kitcat and let's get going. This sort of thing can take hours, and I'd like to be done before dinner.

... Of course.

[She trusts Lup to call her out, at least. They've come a long way, but it's all too easy to take something for granted. Someone.

Kova for the moment seems perplexed, looking between the two of them and about to meow to complain about the disappearance of his buddy, but Haggar gracefully stoops down, holding out a treat toward him. He sniffs at it, and takes it, before rubbing his head against her hand and then hopping up her arm to settle around her shoulders, large thing that he was.

They'd been practicing this. She's not nearly as startled as she was the first time he had gotten up there.]

[When she straightens up, she'll find Lup grinning, half-hidden behind a hand.]

Aww, look at you guys. You've come a long way since that first day, huh?

[Apparently it isn't just the people who've done that.]

... we have.

[And it was nice to be able to acknowledge that. To have their time spent getting used to each other again feel legitimate in that way.]

When we were separated by the Atroma, I admit I thought... some of our progress would have been lost. Or worse.

[She'd come out of all that with her son gone, after all.]

[Lup nods and starts towards the shuttle area, gesturing for her to follow.]

Eh, you're fine, looks like. Animals can be pretty forgiving- I didn't summon Ditto for like, forty years at one point. He got over it, and you can't tell by looking at him now.

Perhaps so. We have endured longer... separations, after all.

[Which had made the forced separation harder, with the awareness, in a way.]

You two do seem very at ease.

I mean, it probably helps that the nature of a familiar is tooootally different than a regular pet. It's not like he needs me to feed him or clean after him or keep him alive- he's just like, a spirit that's connected to me, kinda? So when he's not with me he's doing his own thing in another plane of existence. During those years he wasn't starving in a ditch somewhere, just chilling and waiting for the next time I called. It's easier to forgive when you haven't suffered.

Perhaps time passes different for him as well, then. It is good that you had an easier time reuniting.

[All the better for Lup to have that much, at least, with what she had been through otherwise.]

Yep. Not to say that it's an instant reconciliation- like with any partnership, it takes work. That's why I'm glad you and Kova are doing well.

[Their situation had seemed far more severe, after all, but they really have come a long way.]

I think he and I both know where most of the credit belongs for that.

[She'd had to be steered to the right direction, as much as she did make the choice to listen to them. To understand what they had been talking about.]

Well, hey. You know us, we're always glad to accept credit where credit is due. And sometimes where it isn't.

[It won't stop her from feeling weirdly proud of the awkward spacemom they've managed to assimilate into this broken family mess they've assembled here, and the progress she's made.]

I do have it on authority that it is... good for you to hear it more often than not.

[Awkward as she is, there's much already about this visit that's re-energized her a bit. Lup had been going out her way to visit and encourage her, during those miserable few months. Reminding her that she wasn't alone, just with her presence.]

No denying that.

[But enough preening. They reach the shuttle at last, and Lup wastes no time in getting things started up and headed towards the Iskaulit. Thankfully, it isn't far.]

Have you ever done any artificing before?