'Ere the world ❆

[wolfofmidgard]

Who: Meja & you (open)
When: Day 115
What: Magic, plants, attempts at being scholarly.
Where: The community garden, or thereabouts.

Initially, she ventures out to the garden at night — magic can occupy her time when everyone is asleep. Meja brings her notebook with her, along with a blanket to ensure it stays dry and a sack full of stones. She's been writing down everything she can remember from her teachings with Fenrir, even basic rules and exercises. Magic is fickle, her teacher had informed her, and you must not give it a chance to bite.

That had mattered more when she'd been mortal, but still. It was a good thing to keep in mind, especially in terms of damaging her surroundings on accident.

She can be found at the garden in early and late morning, with her hood over her head and a collection of flat stones at her feet, a throwing dagger in hand. The Asgardian steel won't bend, won't break, and so whittling a single rune into each stone isn't difficult. Just time-consuming. A handful of stones are finished, sitting next to her notebook, but she hasn't started her experiments yet. A few more stones first. There's a light mist in the air that only goes a few feet away from the garden itself, something to give the plants a boost at the time of day that they drink the most. And every so often, her gloves glint and glow, the physical sign of the conditions she's maintaining.

Comments

[bluesrat]

"Well... mine and Balthazar's." He smiles and comes closer to offer a handshake. He looks like somebody who hasn't gotten quite enough to eat in a while, but he's not starving to death. "Markus Rathbone, or just Rat, if you like."

[wolfofmidgard]

Meja shakes his hand, still smiling. She has a firmer handshake than it seems like she'd have, but nothing unpleasant; from experience, she knows how to reign in her extra strength.

"Nice to meet you, Markus. It's a good system, given you don't have much to work with," she notes, though she raises a slight brow when he notes his nickname as Rat. But she's not one to talk about unusual nicknames. "Between that and my changing of the weather, the garden should be in good enough shape."

[bluesrat]

He's got big hands, and calloused from playing guitar, but he's no stronger than one might expect. "Making do is a skill everybody needs. The garden's been doing well, so thanks! Balthazar hangs out here a lot, too. I don't know exactly what he does to it... have you met him?"

[wolfofmidgard]

She nods. "I have. He was my, ah, 'welcoming committee'." Meja pauses, thinking back on if she's remembered that phrase correctly. "Do you enjoy gardening as well? I usually don't have the time. It's good to get back to it, in a way."

[bluesrat]

"I can picture that. He's a good friend to have." Rat pulls off his cap and scratches his head, looking out across the flourishing garden that's a mishmash of whatever edible seeds they could find. There are things growing there he never even knew were edible, before. "I think I do. It's new. I grew up in a factory town, we didn't do a lot of gardening."

[wolfofmidgard]

"I know what you mean. My town only had one tree, and it wasn't even a healthy tree." She studies the jēra a moment, to make certain she's carving correctly, before going on. If she messes up on the runes, who knows what the end result of her experiments will be. "It's a nice affirmation of life, working on a garden."

[bluesrat]

"That's... that's a perfect way of putting it." He looks happily surprised by the thought. "Maybe I should write a song about it. May I ask what it is you're working on, there?"

[wolfofmidgard]

"That sounds like an excellent use of time. What do you play?"

Meja's only great contribution to music is that she can carry a tune if it's required of her. Nothing too special, but she's grateful that she wasn't born tone-deaf. She smiles at his question.

"Magic, for the garden. It's been a long time since I studied properly, but I should be able to come up with something beneficial."

[bluesrat]

"Mostly guitar, but I can fake it on a few different things." He studies the runes with interest. Magic is something he never thought of as real until recently. "I'm sure that would help us all. Sorry, I... don't know much about magic."

[wolfofmidgard]

"Are there many musical instruments to be found around here?" Finished with the outline, she blows out the excess sand and bits of stone that her dagger had created via carving and then sets the stone with the others. "And that's all right. Many people here don't, or... use another kind of magic. Rune magic is ancient even where I'm from."

It's left her with a burning curiosity about how magic functions in other worlds. Among other things. Meja is a curious person to begin with.

She gestures to a few of the stones.

"I could give it a try now, if you'd like to see it in action, but I make no promises about the end result."

[bluesrat]

"Not that I've seen. The guitar came with me. And an old harmonica. I guess I got lucky, there." Of course, his guitar and everything in the case came with him largely because it's all he owns and it was strapped to his back when he was abducted here. Lucky is all a matter of perspective.

"There seem to be a lot of kinds of magic, when it didn't even exist, in my world. I mean, not as far as I know..."

[wolfofmidgard]

Meja had come through with no technology, and no idea, initially, that things had been confiscated from other people. She finds it strange that they'd let her bring Asgardian steel, but would deny someone else a radio. Ah, well. All part of the mystery of their situation.

"I grew up thinking that it didn't exist," she explains, picking up two of her stones. "I later discovered that much of that was because Midgard — Earth — had been all but abandoned by the gods, but there was still plenty of magic to be found. I hadn't looked hard enough. Which turned out to be a good thing. The Dökkálfr use magic, but they also prefer to slit the throats of humans who stumble across them."

[bluesrat]

There's definitely a hint of either carelessness or esoteric purpose in what people do and don't arrive with. Musical instruments on their own are fairly harmless, though, so it may just not have been worth prying out of his grasp.

"Well, could be I just haven't looked hard enough before." That's unlikely. He spends a lot of time looking and thinking, especially when he has nothing better to do. He crouches beside her, wincing when one knee creaks, and peers closer at the runes. "Michigan just isn't a place for magic, maybe. People there tend to be focused on the concrete."

[wolfofmidgard]

She has to think for a visible moment. America was seven hundred years ago, now washed away, and she'd never been there. But her mother had, as a French socialite before the Cold War, and she'd done her part to educate Meja about the world around her.

"Michigan is a... Native American word, isn't it? There could be some inherent magic in that," she notes, smiling. It's an idea. Probably not true, but she doesn't know enough to discount it, either. "I'm afraid I don't know much about America aside from the basics. By the time I was old enough to make note of it, it was... abandoned and hazardous to approach."

[bluesrat]

"...Yeah, yeah it is..." Michigan is a place full of Native American words, but it's also a place where they've pushed aside nature to build factories and industry, at least in the lower half of the state, where he's from. "I'm... not sure I should ask what happened there, in your world." He's privately distressed by the hints.

[wolfofmidgard]

Meja shakes her head slightly. "The Cold War. It was a long time ago, now. The Earth's recovered in the meantime."

It's probably the most simple way of glossing over Ragnarök, but the rebirth of the world — then thought of as the End of Times — is the opposite of a reassuring conversation. Especially with Meja's part in it.

[bluesrat]

"...Cold war?" His eyebrows rise, but he lifts a large hand and waves it around to forestall any explanation. "The second World War was bad enough. I don't think I want to know. I may not ever get back, anyway, and your world may not be the same as the future of mine."

[wolfofmidgard]

"It's best if you don't, perhaps," she agrees. "And I hope it won't come to that on your Earth. From what I can gather, mine is... was... somewhat unique."

[bluesrat]

He gives her a weak smile. "Everyone else's sounds unique, to me, so it's probably just a matter of perspective."

[wolfofmidgard]

"True," Meja has to admit, smiling wryly. "Everyone has their differences, back home. For better, or for worse."

[bluesrat]

"And the familiar is always boring as compared to the unknown. Everyone else I've talked to seems to come from some fantastical world." He's more entertained, than bothered about this. It just makes everyone more fascinating, as far as Rat is concerned.

[wolfofmidgard]

The Valkyrie chuckles. "Well, that means someone must find where you're from to be fantastical," she points out. "And believe me, as someone from a place that fits that description, it's not all that it's cracked up to be."