best foot forward [OPEN]

[sighsheavily]

🧙 WHO: Cecelia & OPEN
⚔️️ WHAT: assorted happenings/questings
🕒 WHEN: early/mid-march
🗺️ WHERE: in & around Camelot!
⚠️ WARNINGS: none in prompts; if issues arise, the content will be tagged


o1. the cinderella situation - camelot, shopping areas
[Cecelia Ardenbury is not very great at the pauper life, and she knows it. she grew up wanting very little where material needs are concerned, and her understanding of "making do" is skewed by the world of fiction.

still..."make do" she must.]

Have you...any system in place of...lending your wares? [her smile is a touch pained as she speaks to one of the workers at a clothing boutique. her hand goes up almost in pefect timing with their eyebrows at the inquiry.] I know. Strange, yes? And you've got little cause to trust me. But is there any collateral I can offer in exchange? Surely others from other lands have found themselves in such a situation, and as it stands, I can't work in this...

[she sighs down at her gown, utterly ruined by the days of travel and strife she's found herself in upon arrival.]

...Unless you have some simple cleaning that needs done in exchange instead, I suppose...

[or someone with coin to spare feels moved to lend her a hand.]


o2. the sorcerer, re-apprenticed - outside camelot

None of this magic is really mine, is it?

[a small tongue of flame dances above hand, bouncing from fingertip to fingertip while she's seated on a stone along the side of the road leading back to the city. her journal is in her lap, and she scratches away notes while idly juggling the flame. a slender, goat-sized unicorn lay at her feet, seeming to doze while the half-elf woman murmurs to herself.

a chilly spring breeze snuffs the flame out, and Cecelia sighs.] Not mine in the slightest... [her spark,the flames she could conjure on her own from her own blood and heritage...

she shivers, hugging her arms to herself.] Nh. I'm...not used to feeling the elements like this, either... [she sighs.]

One hell of a square one...this is so vexing...!


o3. wabbit season - Camelot
[ye gods, the indignity... fetch questing?? what is she, level 2?

be strong, Cecelia. it's just a dumb animal. and at least it's not like she has to crawl through mud or brambles? this is actually quite gentle. yeah! this'll be fine! this...this is fine.]

Right, then...

[animal handling: one of her greatest failings in her ages of training. Cecelia frowns down at the array of fuzzy lumps currently populating this little cafe, then at the photograph provided by the app.]

Is it you, hm? I'd quite like this to be over quickly, so--

[she puts her phone away in some hidden pocket within her dress and tentatively reaches down to pick up one of the bunnies, looking like she's about to lift something potentially radioactive, letting it dangle at arm's length until, naturally, it begins to fidget. the second it does, she yelps in alarm, letting it drop and bound over to whomever else is on the case.

still in bunny-hold pose, her expression struggling to contain her disdain:] Gods...


o4. the randomizer - varied -- Camelot adjacent (this bitch can't afford a ride yet)
[wild card me, i fuckin DARE U.]

Comments

2

[fireandhoney]

I know exactly what you mean.

[It looks like he's not the only one who came out here to hone his new skills and get used to how magic works in this world. It's not like back home where he could just summon it without even thinking about it, using his own inner mana reserve. He also couldn't help but be drawn to the only other voice he heard out here, since he's a very nosy elf. At his side is a white spider as big as a terrier.]

Magic doesn't work the way it does in my world. It's like my lute got smashed and now I have to learn how to play the harp.

[sighsheavily]

[Cecelia's ear twitches at the sound of a reply -- the only outward sign of alarm she can warrant as she lifts her gaze from her writing to the stranger.

...and then to his hideous familiar. then, unfortunately, she cannot help showing some sign of disgust. g r o s s.

she clears her throat, making a point to look very pointedly anywhere but in that thing's vicinity, back up to its master.]

Are the instruments simply metaphor, or are you one of the students of a magic bard's college?

[fireandhoney]

[Finn regards the spider and motions for her to stand behind him, where she's out of sight. Or she can go wherever familiars go when they aren't needed.]

Metaphor. I never fully attended the Bard's College.

[sighsheavily]

Mm. [perhaps for the best; she's not in the mood to entertain the musical magics...a bit too quixotic for her tastes, more often than not.] Still...it may be apt enough a metaphor, all things considered. It's trading strings for strings, after all...

[fireandhoney]

I can play the lute, but I didn't take it with me.

[That said, there's nothing stopping him from just buying a new one. He's seen a music store during his walks through town.]

I used to be able to do all sorts of magicks too, and now I can only do Destruction. They call it Elemental here, but it's Destruction.

[sighsheavily]

How dramatic. Are you saying your experiments in conjuring elements have been rather...disastrous?

[fireandhoney]

Disastrous in the sense that prior to my arrival I could summon elemental storms and create lances made of ice, and now I'm back to learning to make fireballs, icicles and small surges of lightning. I feel like I'm fourteen years old again.

[sighsheavily]

And that's the destruction you mean? [she squints.] The destruction of your academic legacy?

[fireandhoney]

What?

[It takes him a second, but he realizes where the confusion might lay and a look of realization crosses his features.]

Oh, no, that's not what I'm saying. You see, in my world, magic is divided into different Schools, or categories, depending on the nature of that magic. The Schools are Illusion, Restoration, Alteration, Conjuration, and Destruction. Destruction magic is the ability to summon the elements, like fire, ice or lightning, and the name comes from the destructive nature of these elements. So I was saying that while the locals here call such magic Elemental, to me I think of such spells as belonging to the School of Destruction.

[sighsheavily]

[she frowns.]

Forgive me, but destruction as an umbrella term for such a broad spectrum of magics seems rather...slanderous? That is, it has an inherently negative connotation. [blink.] Unless you are of a mind that chaos is preferred to order, that is.

Or is it simply that the mastery of that particular magic foregoes any of the softer, calmer aspects an element also has?

[fireandhoney]

You know, I never thought much about it. I guess any attempts to get the School renamed to something less destructive-sounding have always been outvoted and the Archmages have seen no reason to change it now. I mean, a flame spell can certainly cause lots of damage, but it can also be used to light a campfire or perform tricks at parties.

[sighsheavily]

[sounds like propaganda to her ears, but Cecelia decides she's nitpicked enough -- too much, in fact, as her penchant for scrutiny seemed to have gotten away from her tight leash. time to reel it back in.

that in mind, her expression wanes to something more placid and her posture stiffer, an echo of many meetings with many strangers for many reasons in which many true thoughts are kept under lock and key.]

Time will tell if the elements here can only be mastered in those...destructive ways as the label would dictate. I can't say I'm even remotely close to the whole scope of it, though time in that godsforsaken archive some days' journey away provided a bit of context.

[fireandhoney]

I wish I could ask my familiar about the magic, but she doesn't really talk. Unless she can talk but just doesn't feel like it.

[He looks over his shoulder at the large spider who is still hanging around behind him.]

[sighsheavily]

...Mm. [maybe it's because she's a hideous, yucky spider with mandibles and not a tongue!! Cecelia could hardly say.]

Then you mean to take this place up on its various...questing items in exchange for the lessons and tomes it offers?

[fireandhoney]

I don't see why not. I did it all the time back in Tamriel.

[It really was the best way to make money if one wasn't born into wealth. That money looted from bandits and given as rewards quickly adds up.]

[sighsheavily]

[she turns over that name in her mind to try and connect it to something she knows, but it sounds more fictive than a place she's been to before, and lets it go. she'll ruminate on it later, by herself.

in the present, however:] Then adaptation will hardly be a challenge for you. A relief, I'm sure.