Danae says, "No, you really don't understand," and grips at her short, dark hair. The whites show all the way around her eyes, or Triss figures that's what the flash of searingly pale blue means. Not all the colors she's seeing make perfect sense, as her brain struggles to translate this new extra sense. "There's only eight of them."
Eight of who?
"Seven, I think," Ruth reaches out to touch her knee gently as she corrects that statement. This does nothing to disentangle Danae's hands from her hair, to staunch the weird strangled noise she's making. Argus bites down on a smile and leans back in his chair.
"No, now it's eight," he's looking right at Triss, and despite what he's doing with his mouth there's something odd in his eyes. It's not fear, she knows exactly what those stares look and feel like, but it's not...not fear. Eight of WHO? Triss kind of squirms at that, but luckily Hannibal, always interested and encouraging about the magic stuff, prompts her directly.
"It's all colors. I mean lights? Lights but they're colors but they're all in little pieces like dust?" she tears her eyes away from their now-glowing guests, from the shining books, and looks up at him with a small frown. What did he mean by 'no keeping anything from you now'? What was he keeping from her before? She's about to ask when she gets sidetracked by a weird glow in his pocket. It's reddish, kind of like Ruth, but not the exact same red. A grassy green something glimmers behind it. Triss' frown dips lower as she puzzles that out, before deciding: "You've got two magic things in your pocket?"
She didn't even know he had magic stuff, except for old books he'd warned her not to touch 'cuz some of the writing in them might be for real spells. All her anxiety and guilt gets set aside for a minute in place of an accusing pout - he said he wasn't like her, he couldn't use magic!
"Busted," Danae murmurs, while Argus puts his fist to his mouth and shakes silently.
"Maybe Lesson One should be 'you don't have to blurt everything you see," Ruth says, but she's smiling fondly at, like everyone, so Triss doesn't mind the assumption that they've got stuff to teach her so much.
"But all the colors are dif'rent!" she starts to reach for one of the books to demonstrate, before remembering that A) most of the others can't see what she's seeing and B) they're Very Old and Not For Touching, Patricia. She transfers her accusatory stare to Argus instead. "What d'they mean?"
He leans his cheek against his fist and raises his eyebrows, smiling bemusedly, "I have no idea," he says. "I don't perceive it as colors or lights. I hear them."
Oh. "Is that why you keep going like--"
The gesture's hard to explain, so she cocks her head to the side and furrows her eyebrows at him, a piece of mimicry that sets both Danae and Ruth off into badly smothered laughter. Argus twists in his chair to treat them both to a really not-amused face and a sigh. "Yeah, something like that."
Eight. Eight of them. That comes out to slightly better than a one-in-a-billion chance. To call it 'rare' undermines it as a concept. Hannibal feels Patricia's weight under his arm, real and warm and small, and listens to the warring concepts in his head and heart.
Rare and powerful. Precious. Impressive. His - technically. But Patricia is only any of the other things because she is her own person, her own self. The awe of recognizing the divine in someone else is in his gaze while he stares down at the top of her head. This is--
Dangerous. He needs to speak with the adults alone later. How many others will suspect what she is, when Argus wondered immediately? How many will learn, how far will the rumors spread? What measures are available for protecting them, or are the other seven lone hunters and predators, only heard of through tales others tell?
He won't ask while Patricia is here, though. That's one topic he'll keep her away from until he decides his approach.
Luckily, Patricia is her own distraction. Hannibal's smile spreads from his eyes, bends his mouth up when Triss catches sight of the magic in his pocket. "I do," he admits candidly. Not that there's much choice now. "I brought them out to help me find you. You may look at them later, if you'd like." He'd never told her he kept magical objects around the house. She knows about the books, but a vial of augmenting potion is different than a study of possible early mutants in the 16th century.
That will need to be a conversation later, that much is clear. "And I suppose now would be a good time to thank you for not blurting it out when you surely noticed earlier, Argus." Hannibal speaks across the table to him, above Triss's head. He looks as amused as he sounds. "In the future, perhaps you could take after him, Triss."
Argus had been keeping his head cocked, bird like, through a lot of this. Triss isn't wrong. It makes Hannibal very aware of the pantry door that leads out of his kitchen, the shallow room below it that stores the majority of his sensitive books and his collected potions and totems. He must be able to see it - or rather, see the shielding around it. Or perhaps he can see right through - Hannibal supposes he could ask Triss later. Except...their powers must work with very different ranges and degrees of accuracy.
Perhaps Argus could hear it all the way from the foyer, echoing down the hallway. Hannibal's gaze on him is warm but tempered with curiosity.
"Yes!" her eager nod is the most enthusiasm she's shown for anything so far this awful evening. Morning? Since she woke up in a dream, anyway. Ruth smiles in her periphery. "I wanna. Want to see, I mean."
The colors are different than the lines Iron had shown her. Those were pretty enough, but confusing. They made her head hurt to try and figure out where they all went, and now she knows she can use them to move things. Did she pull them all towards her? It felt that way, only Danae stopped it before she could tell for sure. Triss likes the variety of this other metal a lot better. Even if she's not allowed to touch the magic, it's exciting to know it's there. That knowledge doesn't have to hurt anybody. It could even help them, if they were about to touch something they shouldn't.
Or not help them, if they were cruel and deserved to stick their hand in a wasp's nest.
"But how'm I supposed to know..." she trails back into gnawing at her lip, hand rising to jam a couple fingernails into the mix.
"I guess we'll have to do some cross comparison," Argus says, eyes and voice lighting up. "Take one object, you note what color you're seeing, and I'll tell you what kind of magic it sounds like to me. We'll see if there's a correlation."
That not only makes sense, it sounds really interesting. They'd both be learning something that way, even if it's mostly about how her magic works. Can Argus really tell the difference between one sound and another? That seems so much harder than picking out colors on a spectrum. She can't tell the difference between 'th' and 'd' some of the time. Or maybe it's like different instruments to him? No, that's not any better, Triss has a hard time figuring out all the strings in the music Hannibal likes. But she wants to ask him anyway, about how he hears it and what the sounds are like and if he knows anyone else who sees colors. If everybody's different, maybe they don't even see the same color for the same magic, and how confusing would that be?
Danae made it sound like she saw the lines just like Triss did. Maybe Iron's easier, after all.
"Of course," Argus is saying to Hannibal, who's thanked him for keeping the secret in front of everyone else until Triss spilled it. Whoops. "That's...good manners, with metas."
That's a word Triss has actually heard before. 'Metahuman.' It's like a nicer way of saying 'mutant', but means a little bit more, and nobody spits it out like a swear. Yet. Hannibal says any word can be made cruel if it's said the wrong way often enough, but she's not sure how long that's supposed to take.
"I'm sorry I was rude then," she decides. After daring a look at the others, Danae's wild stare and the deepening lines around Ruth's eyes, she adds, "A lot."
"Eh," Danae shrugs. Ruth's smile seems to mirror that sentiment.
"Neshama," she says again, "All things considered, it could have been much worse."
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nepharious) wrote2016-06-02 11:53 pm
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Eight of who?
"Seven, I think," Ruth reaches out to touch her knee gently as she corrects that statement. This does nothing to disentangle Danae's hands from her hair, to staunch the weird strangled noise she's making. Argus bites down on a smile and leans back in his chair.
"No, now it's eight," he's looking right at Triss, and despite what he's doing with his mouth there's something odd in his eyes. It's not fear, she knows exactly what those stares look and feel like, but it's not...not fear. Eight of WHO? Triss kind of squirms at that, but luckily Hannibal, always interested and encouraging about the magic stuff, prompts her directly.
"It's all colors. I mean lights? Lights but they're colors but they're all in little pieces like dust?" she tears her eyes away from their now-glowing guests, from the shining books, and looks up at him with a small frown. What did he mean by 'no keeping anything from you now'? What was he keeping from her before? She's about to ask when she gets sidetracked by a weird glow in his pocket. It's reddish, kind of like Ruth, but not the exact same red. A grassy green something glimmers behind it. Triss' frown dips lower as she puzzles that out, before deciding: "You've got two magic things in your pocket?"
She didn't even know he had magic stuff, except for old books he'd warned her not to touch 'cuz some of the writing in them might be for real spells. All her anxiety and guilt gets set aside for a minute in place of an accusing pout - he said he wasn't like her, he couldn't use magic!
"Busted," Danae murmurs, while Argus puts his fist to his mouth and shakes silently.
"Maybe Lesson One should be 'you don't have to blurt everything you see," Ruth says, but she's smiling fondly at, like everyone, so Triss doesn't mind the assumption that they've got stuff to teach her so much.
"But all the colors are dif'rent!" she starts to reach for one of the books to demonstrate, before remembering that A) most of the others can't see what she's seeing and B) they're Very Old and Not For Touching, Patricia. She transfers her accusatory stare to Argus instead. "What d'they mean?"
He leans his cheek against his fist and raises his eyebrows, smiling bemusedly, "I have no idea," he says. "I don't perceive it as colors or lights. I hear them."
Oh. "Is that why you keep going like--"
The gesture's hard to explain, so she cocks her head to the side and furrows her eyebrows at him, a piece of mimicry that sets both Danae and Ruth off into badly smothered laughter. Argus twists in his chair to treat them both to a really not-amused face and a sigh. "Yeah, something like that."
no subject
Rare and powerful. Precious. Impressive. His - technically. But Patricia is only any of the other things because she is her own person, her own self. The awe of recognizing the divine in someone else is in his gaze while he stares down at the top of her head. This is--
Dangerous. He needs to speak with the adults alone later. How many others will suspect what she is, when Argus wondered immediately? How many will learn, how far will the rumors spread? What measures are available for protecting them, or are the other seven lone hunters and predators, only heard of through tales others tell?
He won't ask while Patricia is here, though. That's one topic he'll keep her away from until he decides his approach.
Luckily, Patricia is her own distraction. Hannibal's smile spreads from his eyes, bends his mouth up when Triss catches sight of the magic in his pocket. "I do," he admits candidly. Not that there's much choice now. "I brought them out to help me find you. You may look at them later, if you'd like." He'd never told her he kept magical objects around the house. She knows about the books, but a vial of augmenting potion is different than a study of possible early mutants in the 16th century.
That will need to be a conversation later, that much is clear. "And I suppose now would be a good time to thank you for not blurting it out when you surely noticed earlier, Argus." Hannibal speaks across the table to him, above Triss's head. He looks as amused as he sounds. "In the future, perhaps you could take after him, Triss."
Argus had been keeping his head cocked, bird like, through a lot of this. Triss isn't wrong. It makes Hannibal very aware of the pantry door that leads out of his kitchen, the shallow room below it that stores the majority of his sensitive books and his collected potions and totems. He must be able to see it - or rather, see the shielding around it. Or perhaps he can see right through - Hannibal supposes he could ask Triss later. Except...their powers must work with very different ranges and degrees of accuracy.
Perhaps Argus could hear it all the way from the foyer, echoing down the hallway. Hannibal's gaze on him is warm but tempered with curiosity.
no subject
The colors are different than the lines Iron had shown her. Those were pretty enough, but confusing. They made her head hurt to try and figure out where they all went, and now she knows she can use them to move things. Did she pull them all towards her? It felt that way, only Danae stopped it before she could tell for sure. Triss likes the variety of this other metal a lot better. Even if she's not allowed to touch the magic, it's exciting to know it's there. That knowledge doesn't have to hurt anybody. It could even help them, if they were about to touch something they shouldn't.
Or not help them, if they were cruel and deserved to stick their hand in a wasp's nest.
"But how'm I supposed to know..." she trails back into gnawing at her lip, hand rising to jam a couple fingernails into the mix.
"I guess we'll have to do some cross comparison," Argus says, eyes and voice lighting up. "Take one object, you note what color you're seeing, and I'll tell you what kind of magic it sounds like to me. We'll see if there's a correlation."
That not only makes sense, it sounds really interesting. They'd both be learning something that way, even if it's mostly about how her magic works. Can Argus really tell the difference between one sound and another? That seems so much harder than picking out colors on a spectrum. She can't tell the difference between 'th' and 'd' some of the time. Or maybe it's like different instruments to him? No, that's not any better, Triss has a hard time figuring out all the strings in the music Hannibal likes. But she wants to ask him anyway, about how he hears it and what the sounds are like and if he knows anyone else who sees colors. If everybody's different, maybe they don't even see the same color for the same magic, and how confusing would that be?
Danae made it sound like she saw the lines just like Triss did. Maybe Iron's easier, after all.
"Of course," Argus is saying to Hannibal, who's thanked him for keeping the secret in front of everyone else until Triss spilled it. Whoops. "That's...good manners, with metas."
That's a word Triss has actually heard before. 'Metahuman.' It's like a nicer way of saying 'mutant', but means a little bit more, and nobody spits it out like a swear. Yet. Hannibal says any word can be made cruel if it's said the wrong way often enough, but she's not sure how long that's supposed to take.
"I'm sorry I was rude then," she decides. After daring a look at the others, Danae's wild stare and the deepening lines around Ruth's eyes, she adds, "A lot."
"Eh," Danae shrugs. Ruth's smile seems to mirror that sentiment.
"Neshama," she says again, "All things considered, it could have been much worse."