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 Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 12:02 am
Natalie was giggling. She'd been laughing every so often as she thought back over her more pleasant times on the compound. After all, there was no need to dwell on the bad at this point.
Time to move on.
She'd stayed in the garden since her 'revelation,' as her change in thoughts began to work its magic on her. She'd explored the whole place twice over, looking at all the flowers, taking in the sun. It was something she'd missed, this sort of carefree exploration.
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:10 am
"Good morning!"
Dacian smiled upon seeing another person enjoying the garden; that always made him feel pleased. The gardens were one of his favorite places, and it was lovely to see that his hard work on them was appreciated.
Hm...this girls looked somewhat familiar (maybe he had seen her?), but he didn't think he knew her.
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:18 am
Natalie's head shot up from where was inspecting some lillies, and she turned to look at her company.
"... Dacian!" she said, after a moment, and then hurried over. "How've you been since that night? ... Get those photos developed?"
It'd be interesting, seeing those.
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:21 am
((Aww crap. I forgot he knew her!
Eheh. I'll just pretend it was because she was so far away sweatdrop ))
Peering at the girl as she got closer, Dacian wondered for a moment if his eyesight was going bad. He hadn't recognized her when she was further away. But pushing that thought aside, he grinned at the girl.
"Natalie! I've been good."
Adding a mischievous wink, "And I got the film developed. I think I may keep some of it for blackmail purposes."
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:33 am
((You forgot Dacian in the flapper dress? I'm hurt. crying ))
"Oh." She looked scared for a moment, but then she cheered up perceptibly. "That'll be interesting to see. Of course, I can just say you got me and Hadrian drunk and made us dress up in bizarre costumes for our own sordid, sexual reasons." All of that was chirped happily.
Natalie turned and looked around a little. "I think I remember you saying something about taking care of the grounds here. Is the garden yours, too?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:40 am
"Yes - grew it all from the start. Let me tell you, ripping up all the lawn to make way for planting made this a pretty ugly sight for a while."
Because Dacian never did anything in small amounts - when he did something, he did it big and all at once. Hence why the gardens were so large...and why everything was around the same stages of growth.
Chuckling, he admitted she had him there.
"Ah, but it would still be so fun to see the looks on peoples faces, at the picture of you and Hadrian during the pillow fight..."
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:43 am
"Oh?" Giggling.
Natalie went over to a flower bed, looking down at the mulch and plants.
"... You need to get somebody to weed more often," she commented, then began tugging out the small clovers and whatever plant growth didn't belong. She wouldn't do the whole garden, obviously - maybe just this plant bed, and the one across the path.
But she liked having things to do with her hands. She was recovering, yes. Recovered fully? Not quite. So distractions were still worth it, in case Dacian, for some reason, brought up a touchier subject.
"So why are you out here? Taking a walk?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:49 am
"Hard to keep it all clear, just by myself."
Magic helped, of course. But it couldn't take care of all the weeds.
"I spend most of my time out here - I'm just walking right now, but most of the time I'm working on the garden or the maze. Though for the maze, I've just about given up normal gardening and have been using magic to keep it in line..."
People would be amazed at how much work it took to keep a hedge maze in line, especially one as big as that. Dacian certainly had been, after it began to grow...but ah well, most people wouldn't have made it so elaborate, either.
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:54 am
"I can see that. Hm... well, if I wasn't already going to work for Hadrian doing paperwork, I'd offer to help out here in the gardens. But I think I've already signed away my life, huh?" A few more weeds pulled out. She should probably check around the apartment building, too - there were flower beds there.
... ah, the maze. Well. "The maze is very impressive, you know. But I can see how it'd be hell to prune." All those twists and turns!
A few moments of quiet weeding passed, before a bit of curiosity struck her. "... hey, how does your magic work? I'm always interested in this sort of thing. You could say studying magic is my partially-forgotten hobby. Since I moved in, I haven't thought about it much, but..."
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 8:59 am
"Really?"
Well, that was a surprise! Dacian hadn't met too many magic-users in this world, but he'd gotten the impression that magic was a bit different here.
"Well, Ahneta and mines school of magic is channeling through words. Hadrian's is different - they channel energy through gestures."
Pretty basic explanation, but unless she wanted him to go into explaining the technicalities of how certain sounds were tied to certain things, enunciation and tone also important. Really, Hadrian had it pretty easy when all he had to do was move his hands.
Obviously, Dacian didn't know quite so much about that branch as his own.
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:04 am
"Hm. I wonder if that's sort of like the kind I dabbled in." Pondering. "Though what we were doing was gleened from really old books and involved a lot of drawing and candles. But it had a lot to do with what words were spoken. Actually, the drawing stuff may have been a formality..."
She wasn't quite sure. She just knew it probably looked cooler.
"But yeah. We weren't that good at it, though. Er. I could usually fix whatever my friends screwed up. They kept thinking it was a good idea to do spells without me. And then one of them would call me and tell me to hurry on over because Matt was sprouting weird purple hair and had a third eye growing on his chest.
"Or something like that." She laughed. "We had no idea what we were doing. The only advantage I had was that I actually studied what we were going to be doing and checked and double checked the words."
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:11 am
"Nah, we didn't do drawing or anything with candles. That actually sounds like some of the older types, though - the more ritualistic types. We actually do something like that to retrieve the Souls."
Because that older one was more powerful, and none of them were powerful enough on their own. So even if it was more time consuming and difficult it worked pretty well for them.
"With the older sorts, you have to have everything right. If you get one tiny, minsicule detail wrong, and it won't work."
"Third eye in his chest?" With a laugh, Dacian supposed that the teachers at the magic schools likely had also seen their fair share of weird things, but... "I don't think anything like that happened back home, though some weird things did.
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:15 am
"Oh, what else did those two guys do to themselves... I think Stephen got boobs, once, and the hormones of both genders. So he was horny and hormonal. I think Matt mentioned something about him eating pickles and ice cream while jerking off.
"I so hope he was joking."
Hmmm...
"There was the time that one of them got a gigantic spine growing out of their back. And I told them they weren't saying the right word, but did they listen? Nope. Of course not."
She threw her hands up, a few weeds scattering out of her grip.
"Probably wasn't a good idea to dabble in things we didn't understand, though, right?"
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:21 am
"Even with magic seeming a bit different here - no, that's not such a good idea."
But at least it made for entertaining stories; Dacian couldn't deny that he liked hearing these stories. And besides...
"It's not like anything horrible happened, at least; just things that would panic you at the time and make you laugh later."
Made him think of some of his student days, of pranks gone wrong...like the time he'd tried to make 'goo' explode from a toilet whenever someone sat down on it.
Unfortunatly, he'd been the one it exploded on. And right in front of a teacher, who thought he'd made it explode because he was playing around with magic.
At least she hadn't thought he'd done it deliberately...
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Posted: Tue Jul 25, 2006 9:47 am
"Yeah. Probably because we weren't doing much more than trying to summon fuzzy kittens from across the street. Nothing serious, like love spells or trying to hurt people."
Laughing, Natalie moved down the path a little, working a little further down the flower bed.
"So, what have you been up to?"
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