✿5 [Action]

[redstringed]

*It's night-time, and outside of Building 6 there is a young-looking gothic lolita vampire and a bed of roses.

Rachel, in an attempt to not get dirty while planting a garden, has been attempting to do the entire thing with spatial manipulation - you might see the dirt itself shift around the roses if you looked long enough. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be going well for her, and the rose "garden" is lopsided and mismatched, and the roses don't look healthy. They're wilting a bit.

And because of this, Rachel is looking all the more irritated and frustrated.

Clearly this is the best time to bother her.*

Comments

[redstringed]

"Magic" is quite the loose word, Mr. Watcher. Some would say it applies to anything humans have trouble understanding.

If it is something I have always been able to do innately, and yet the result is something few people can comprehend, would they not consider it magic?

[consultmybooks]

Again, I think we run into the problem of different definitions applying to the same thing.

In my world, for example, any ability exhibited beyond the human norm is generally classified as "magic." And that is how we understand it, at least until a better explanation presents itself.

Granted, you are, by your very nature, beyond the human norm.

[redstringed]

Yes, I am. Yet consider a simple cigarette lighter. You and I know that it is as simple a device as can be: The mechanism strikes a spark which ignites flammable gas - but to a more primitive human, it is a magic tube which produces fire.

I am merely... influencing matter at its base material state. Would you consider that magic?

[consultmybooks]

The cigarette lighter is lighting the fire. Not the human being. We invented a tool to do that which we couldn't do under our own power.

A witch or a sorcerer can, however, bypass the need for a cigarette lighter. If they were careless and lazy, of course.

[redstringed]

Semantics and nothing more. What one considers magic, another considers second nature. Or are scientists who can conceptualize theories that normal humans can scarcely comprehend on the same level as wizards?

Or perhaps they had pride in their abilities.

[consultmybooks]

To some? Yes. In that instance, it drifts to becoming a matter of opinion. I, for one, generally rank scientists rather higher than sorcerers. Most sorcerers, however, don't.

[redstringed]

They are free to believe whatever delusion they wish to believe, though it does not make it any less a delusion.

But this brings us back to your initial question. Do I see this as magic? No, I do not. But do you?

[consultmybooks]

I think of it as magical, or mystical.

But not quite "magic", as I understand it. Of course, we've just proven that how I understand it and how you understand it are two completely different paths, so that's probably a moot point.

[redstringed]

So it is.

You noticed it earlier, with the tea, did you not?

[consultmybooks]

Yes, I did. Didn't know what it was at the time.

[redstringed]

Of course not. Why do you believe I allowed you to see it?

[consultmybooks]

How very gracious of you.

Spatial manipulation. What does that entail?

[redstringed]

I do enjoy a good game now and then, you understand.

As I said, it is the influence of matter and space on its base material level.

[consultmybooks]

Sounds quite powerful.

[redstringed]

Oh, it is. *She gives a little twirl of her parasol, and - for just a moment - the edges seem to be... spiked? But then they return to normal a heartbeat later.* Naturally, spatial manipulation and spatial transfer are two sides of a single coin.

[consultmybooks]

[Did Giles really just see that? He's...not so sure. Probably, though]

Go on.

[redstringed]

No, I don't believe I will. *A smile.* I did say I enjoyed a game, did I not?

You are not unintelligent, for a human. I'm sure you could extrapolate the meaning from my words.

[consultmybooks]

Oh, I certainly can.

But you're the first person with this power that I've ever encountered. So I thought you'd be a good place to start.

[redstringed]

First, and almost certainly only. It starts and ends with me.

[consultmybooks]

Fascinating.

[...] Just how old are you, Rachel?

[redstringed]

Have you never learned not to ask that question of a lady? My, how rude. *Though she doesn't seem genuinely upset by it.*

By our standards, I am still quite physically young. *This is, of course, not counting the 100-year time loop that she experienced for 750+ repetitions.*

[consultmybooks]

You laughed at Dracula for being six hundred.

What are your "standards"?

[redstringed]

As I said, my father was well over a thousand years old when he died. Six hundred would hardly qualify as middle-aged.

[consultmybooks]

Well over a thousand?

Yes, I would call that old.

[redstringed]

You should, for it is.

I have not yet seen two hundred years pass. I will tell you that much.