Archive | October 10, 2013

Getting Ahead of Myself: Magic notes for Steam!Reiassan

Magic in Steam!Reiassan

In the Steam Era of Reiassan, the sira-flinging of ancient days is long past.

Scientists – really, proto-scientists – study what they often call aether, the flow of power through the world. There is far less wild sira in the steam era; the aether itself is harder to come by in its non-mined form.

However, the students at the school will learn about the manipulation of the aether. They will study old magical artifacts – and that is one thing about Reiassan, it’s lousy with magical items. And the items often know they are Magical Items.

This balance between Old Magic and New Science will be both a character issue and a plot issue as the students work their way through school.

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Character Notes for Nano (for Shahin)

Shahin Laskaris, sh’Chloe
16 years old
Female

Appearance:
Shahin has dark brown hair that is not quite as jet-black as she would like. Her skin is never-sees-the-sun pale, and powdered even paler; her features, despite her white skin, are the Lebanese of her father’s ancestry, especially her nose.

She’s short and slender, 5’4″ tall and with a very slight build. She tends toward goth fashion, especially EGL (Elegant Gothic Lolita); the black clothing and dark lipstick and eye makeup accentuate her pale skin. Her wrists are always covered.

She’s often referred to as a troubled child, or sometimes as just a trouble child. She revels in her role as a freak in her current public school, and much of her day-to-day clothing is designed to accentuate that. She doesn’t have many friends back in her public school, and is used to being alone, but does prefer having a few people around now and then.

Character arc notes”
Book one is about Shahin learning She’s Not All that, and that there are bigger freaks in the world than her. It’s about her learning that friends are a thing, for good and bad.

Book two is about her learning exactly how much there are bigger freaks, and how much she is Not All That, which should be very uncomfortable for her. She likes her facade. She understand how it works.

Template in this and previous post via Cluudle

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Getting Ahead of Myself: Character notes for Steam!Reiassan – Tīrrēkkē

Note to self: Need a better way of showing long vowels, that can be done with high ascii.

Tīrrēkkē (TyrTire-reek-key)
Age: mid-teens
Female.

Appearance:
Tīrrēkkē has long black hair which she wears, generally, in a relatively simple double-plait. Her skin is a warm olive color, close to this http://humanae.tumblr.com/post/60074057787. Her eyes are so dark a brown as to appear black.

She has a short nose with a bit of an upturn, a very pointed chin, and a high forehead – in short, she looks ethnically like the epitome of the Calenyena. In keeping with that, she’s broad-shouldered, wide-hipped, but not all that tall – five foot 7, most of the length in her torso, not her legs.

History: Her father and mother are high-ranking engineers in His(check) Majesty’s Army; they met while planning out a new road system for Lanamer. She grew up affluent, and took the qualifying tests early for higher education. Her parents assume she, too, will be an engineer; at the moment, so does she.

Personality: Tīrrēkkē is scholarly, not so much shy as uncertain of herself in new social situations. In each new school, she found herself with a couple close friends, but she’s been moved up in level so many times, and many of her friends were scholarship sorts. That makes her a bit uncertain about many things about the world. She’s inquisitive, and likes to know how things work; her adventurousness has always been balanced by her desire to be a good student.

Character Arc notes: Tīrrēkkē needs to find herself. She needs to learn what she’s good at, and where she’s going with it. She also has a lot of understanding about people and the world to go through, and she needs to find an outlset for her uncertain and burgeoning idealism.

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Sport, a story of Tir na Cali

After Sport

Leopold’s new owner’s name was Caoilinn, as if her parents had tried to give her as Irish a name as possible, in hopes of doing something about that hair and those eyes. Caoilinn ni Caradian O Istvia, the Baroness of Lone Pine, “call me Kay when we’re alone.”

“And when we’re in public?” He hadn’t really expected her to take him in public. She didn’t have that “indulging in trivialities” sort of face, and he was, by his very nature, a triviality and a frippery.

“Is this a test?” She’d smiled at him, and he’d hoped she was amused. “In public, call me as you would any other Baroness. ‘Your Ladyship,’ or, if you’re feeling brave, ‘my lady.'”

“Brave, my lady?” Leopold knew better. His position was tenuous at best, and shaky under any circumstances. She’d read his pedigree; she knew what he was. She couldn’t be planning on keeping a sport around, not with her own tenuous position, even if Lone Pine was not a highly contested Barony. But he couldn’t stop himself from testing the waters.

“It usually suggests a level of intimacy.”

“I belong to you, Lady Caoilinn.” Leopold had bowed, because he wasn’t sure what else to do. “Whatever you wish of me is what I will give.”

She’d said nothing more at the time, and that was at the beginning of a three-hour drive. Now, while they were nearing the end (or so he hoped), she finally spoke. “Even with a Baroness that’s a sport?”

“My lady?” Leopold had, he was mortified to realize, drifted off. He didn’t know quite what she meant. “I know I’m a sport, mistress.”

“I wasn’t talking about you, Leopold. You’re willing to suggest – or to have – a level of intimacy with a sport of a Baroness?”

I’m a sport, too. But that didn’t seem to be the right answer. Leopold glanced over at her, at the angry line of her lips, and tried for honesty.

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The Cup Part IV


After The Cup and The Cup, Part II, and The Cup Part III, in that Order

The maps had been studied, and then studied some more. They had transcribed all of Pellinore’s notes onto places on the map; John-Wayne had had some surprising insights. She forgot, sometimes, that her Kept were usually very bright young men. It was the young, really, especially now that they were younger than her sons.

The bags had been packed, the wagon loaded with everything they might need (within reason. She was learning to pack within reason; that was an interesting lesson), and the crew had been informed where she was going (as much as she knew) and how long she expected to be gone. She’d kissed Gaheris and Howard and hugged everyone else, and now she stood on the front of the wagon, and pulled.

Her power had evolved over the years, from age and experience and near-constant use. Asking it simply, Where is the elder Grigori called The Archive was almost an insult to its nuance.

But that’s what she asked, because that was what she needed at the moment. The Hawthorn Cup itself could not be found with magic, or, at least, not without more information. Her first three tries had found them… well, hawthorn cups. Not quite the same thing at all.

Her power came back with an answer, of course. North. North and Up.

Up? North first, the northern pull was stronger. “We go that way.” She pointed the direction, and Pellinore guided the team of horses down the road.

“What if the Grigori doesn’t want to talk to us?” John-Wayne was far less into this quest than his father; no big surprise there.

“Then we ask very nicely.” Cynara smiled, and noticed that both of the men shuddered.

Well, she supposed, they had reason to know her.

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On This Date: Addergoole Drabbles of Aviv

October 10, 2004

“Do you ever get the sense that all this is futile?” Rod, Aviv’s house-mate, had the hunch-shouldered look that generally went along with depression or hangovers.

“School?” Aviv finished packing lunch.

“Everything.” It was accompanied by a dramatic hand-flail.

“No.” He couldn’t help smiling. “Maybe you should have gone into medicine, not Law.”

October 10, 2013

“You’re one of them, aren’t you?”

Aviv had his hand on someone’s artery, keeping them from bleeding out. He didn’t look up.

“I’m a doctor connected to the Red Cross, yes. Could you pass me that clamp?”

“You one of them.

Aviv had just enough to duck before the stick swung.

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