#(the latter of which would also cause perpetual burnout and exhaustion)

[dragongirlbunny]

all of these psa's and shit about self care and knowing your limits and all that ring real fuckin' hollow when working your required hours and not a second more is already pushing yourself past your limits

[vampiresuns]

Day 3: Magic

@arcana-echoes​​‘ masterlist for the dynamic trio, but two days later with iced coffee.

CW: allusions of drowning. No one drowns or is brought to harm, but Milenko’s magic has to do with water immersion, so I have to give a heads up.

Aelius Anatole | Extracts Of The Diaries of A. Anatole Radošević On His 17th Year

As it can be read in the fic linked, Anatole has both language and light magic. He is adept in both of them whether in his generic timeline, or his apprentice timeline.

His light magic includes light manipulation, creating sources of light, creating transitory objects out of light. He can also capture other sources of light and, with the aid of his language magic, transfuse them into another vessel.

One of his favourite things to do, and one of the first ways it manifested, is making water sparkle like it’s being hit with sun-rays. It’s a nice soothing trick he finds himself doing when idle.

He found out that he can circumvent his way around other kinds of magic by manipulating light sources and light itself. For example, all optical illusions are by default light tricks, since the way we see things is by light reflecting on them. That way, he doesn’t need to learn how to manipulate the object, when he can manipulate the light which allows you to see it.

That way, he minimised learning other magical specialities, usually just studying only its principles, and finds a way to work on the effect using light as the cause.

He acts both as a source/creator of light, and a conductor of light.

On the other hand, his language magic entails: enhanced language learning, glyph usage, and it gives him easier access to other forms of magic which depend on language from linguistic manipulation and creation, to incantations, spells, and the like.

It’s most defining characteristics are Anatole being a language sponge, and it’s intentionality.

As a result Anatole learns languages faster than the average person, with more ease, and usually to a bigger depth. He still has to learn them: he is not able to speak or understand every language just because it is spoken to him, and when he uses language magic, if he doesn’t know the language to any degree, it’s less effective. This is how he speaks 9 languages with fluidity and is seeking to learn more.

He is able to tell the intention in people’s words, so he can tell if you’re being honest or not, or if there’s something other to your words. For example, if someone lies to him, while he is not able to magically know what truth the lie is hiding or deflecting, he can tell it is a lie; he is usually smart enough to figure the rest on his own. Thus, lying, bluffing, schmoozes, and empty flattery has little effect on him, unless you’re truly, really skilled at them.

He discovered his language works not on volume, but on intention and action, so as long as he is able to find an equivalent for action symbols and enact them, he himself becomes the print of the magic, it’s caster and the vessel it is poured into. He is also able to write things down, and work around that with his magic, for example: glyphs or simply writing a spell down will make the spell work for him.

Downsides of this are: he is not immune to language burnout, or to overstimulation. His is a magic that works both with intuition and brain power, and if you mix it with his ADHD, there can be some days he is more sensitive to the receptive part of his magic, and get tired or overwhelmed easily. It is exhausting to walk through a city and constantly filter through everything everyone says that’s within hearing range.

Any sort of spell casting, creation, incantation, or anything of the like, requires something in exchange: usually magic seems like creating things out of thin air, but Anatole knows matter is never destroyed, simply transformed, and this is one of the most important principles which rules his magic. It is easier to create things with light than from words, because as long as he has access to the sun, light is more or less a constant source of matter to transmute into something else. His own energy will only be affected when he’s in absolute and total darkness. Doing anything with language magic that isn’t learning or filtering, will immediately use his energy. While his stamina is decent, running on the higher end, he is not inexhaustible.

He is, also, generally able to fend himself with potion making and that part of alchemy, this is mostly because alchemy relies on symbols which are language, and because making potions tend to come with “arbitrary”/set rules, and grammar tends to work in the same way. He is generally able to enhance whatever other type of magic with language, altering or augmenting the desired effect. For the longest time, he did not notice he did this, and he only noticed because when he magically dyed his hair, the blonde he got was more iridescent or incandescent than when applied by someone else.

His gate is a winter wonderland. It’s a perpetually snowy forest, with an ever shining winter sun. You access it through a river — the way to cross the river varies — and in the middle of it, there is a cottage which responds to spoken word. It has easy access to the Hierophant’s realm* if you go East, Strength’s if you go South, and the Realm of Swords if you go West. He doesn’t go much to the latter, the Ace of Swords usually meeting him on the river if he must.

*Anatole does not have Hierophant Patronage, but he has a strong connection to someone who stands for this card, so his relationship to the Hierophant is usually one which reminds him to go to his roots. It’s the affection one feels for the child of a very good friend.

Amparo Cassano | Greenhouses Filled With Ghosts

(art by virink, source)

With Patronage of Death and the Ace of Wands, Amparo has both animancy and elemental (sand/glass) magic.

Amparo’s magic works in the same way as the conductor of a séance does: she is a gate for energy, not someone who controls death, ghosts or those who have already passed. She is able to sense and summon spirits based on the energy imprint they leave in their wake.

She is also able to see them, though not all the time. She would be the quickest one to grasp Lucio’s ‘ghost’, and with less effort, because she intuitively knows what to look for.

If she honed her magic a little bit to the left, she would be able to control energetic fields altogether.

Her magic becomes stronger once Death stops being so overtaken by Valdemar. While most of what she does with it is out of training her ‘magic muscles’ and training herself to see what others can’t (plus her natural tendency to dig into affairs until she finds a cause for them), her magic is meant to be connected to her patron arcana, acquiring a qualitative jump after Death is able to move with more space.

She is also meant to take over the other animancer of the Cassano family: Valerian Cassano, one of Anatole’s great grandfather, who is, coincidentally, also a man of theatre and Opera, just like Amparo is a ballerina, performer and Opera singer.

To her, ghosts, and the energy people leave — which is what she calls ghosts, traces of something else — are like greenhouses. The are transparent, yet you still have to walk into them, and they do not hold flora in their natural environment, but in a reproduction of it. Yet, much can be learnt by this reproduction.

Since her animancy works with energy, she is intuitively able to read on people’s, making her vibe checks impeccable, as she is able to tether to people: either to find them following their energy if she concentrates, or to call them to her. Sometimes, she does this unaware that she is doing it. One example is when she isn’t the apprentice, but Milenko or Anatole, when they would be able to feel a tug towards wherever Amparo is.

She is limited by distance, amicability of the spirit, and her own energy.

When it comes to her elemental magic she is able to manipulate rocks into sand, and sand into glass — as she is able to crystallise matter — as well as directly manipulating glass. One of it’s earliest manifestations is Amparo playing with sand in the beach as a kid, sticking her hand into it and finding seaglass, unaware that she was the one producing it.

She tends to keep crystals around her from which glass can be made of, specially a vial of sand or of silica powder.

Once she has glass, which already exists or that she herself formed, she is able to manipulate it into different shapes, the most usual being trinkets and weapons. She too fences, and she is able to procure herself a sword made out of glass, as she is able to do the same with knives, or sometimes simply produce crystal shards.

She is limited by the existence of matter she can take, as unlike Anatole, she is not able to create, or seemingly create, things out of the blue, she needs to have the components already at her reach.

Out of the three, she is the one who reads Tarot or Runes the best. This is because each card or symbol represents a specific kind of energy, and she is able to pick up on it. Her cards are the chattiest.

Her gate is a vast wheat field on a stormy day. Every time a lightening struck the earth, it doesn’t scorch the wheat, but manifests a spirit which might want to communicate with her. To travel to other realms all she needs to do is pull out the right wheat and a lightening will strike and form a gate of passage for her.

She always knows which the right one is.

Milenko Radošević | No One’s Cassandra

Milenko’s magic is the flimsiest of the three, not because it’s weaker, but because that is how it works.

We’re going to need a bit of history for this one: Milenko’s grandparent, Ilnya Radošević was clairvoyant — however, they weren’t a trained one, so while Ilnya had a notorious amount of potential (they could’ve become a full fledge oracle) to the point their clairvoyance strongly manifested on its own, the gift wasn’t fully passed onto the generations because no one knew what it was. Ilnya themselves didn’t think they were clairvoyant. It has harder to pinpoint things when you don’t have a name for them.

However, it poured through this side of the family. Ambrosije, Milenko’s uncle who’s an archaeologist and explorer somehow always knows where things are and can see things so clearly without actually seeing them. Milenko’s mother Violeta has gut churning feelings, and she can almost visualise things with astounding clarity when music plays.

Milenko? Didn’t inherit the gift of prophecy or clairvoyance on itself but Milenko is able to see things, visualise concepts and situations, being able to have “visions” through water.

He gets transfixed by water in general, specially when it moves. It still works on still water, but it manifests better on water which moves. It also works with water that glistens.

It doesn’t happen at will, only at random.

Because he’s Milenko and that means something eventually has to be ominous enough to the point of “hey, quick question, what the fuck?”  sometimes while completely transfixed by water, he walks into it and submerges himself completely.

If you didn’t know better, you’d think he’s drowning. He isn’t. He “walks” into water and comes back completely soaked, aware he was in the water but also he didn’t see the water, he SAW. What? It depends. It doesn’t always translates to a prediction, he’s no one’s unheard Cassandra. Sometimes he just visualises things either his patron Arcana wants to show him, or the world at large, or things and concepts that come from his own mind.

For example, he has water vases where he moves water from one to the other to help him think. He is a writer, and sometimes this is a way to get visualisation of his own ideas and his own subconscious. He is a poet born in water.

One of the few non fencers of the family, he developed an affinity for water and is a swimmer instead — it helps that this magic ability makes him able to hold his breath for beyond average periods of time. 

The first time he did the ‘walking in water’ thing he was 10, and his mothers almost had a heart attack. He came out completely unscattered, talking about what the colourful fishes had showed him. When taken to the doctor, he was cleared of any sort of damage and showed no signs of drowning or inhaling water. This is how they got derived to someone who was knowledgeable in magic, the ability finally getting a name. 

The big side effect is that sometimes it makes him draw out completely of the world around him, or it comes to him in weird/bad timing moments. While he was travelling around while he was privately tutored, he was very careful not to be near the railings of the ship on his own, lest he fell in the water. He would be fine, his ability comes with no physical harm to him, the problem would arise when he emerged, and the ship would be gone if no one noticed he had fell. Has also come to him while someone pours out beer because it’s any kind of running water — brings out a whole different meaning to cracking a cold one open with the boys.

Is this why bathrooms are such a good source of ideas? Maybe. He isn’t one to dismiss the grandiose of a good bathroom trip.

Because his ability seems to show up the most at random, so even if he was taught how to hone it or about it, it still isn’t something he can control at will, he is the one who has learnt the most about other types of magic which are not his one. If you took everyone’s specific magic specialisation, and you left them with the bare bones of magic, Amparo and Anatole would still be adequate to genuinely good magicians, but Milenko would be the best.

His gate is, unsurprisingly, a system of underwater caves. It is perfectly fine to breathe through that water for anyone who is there, but most people who ever go with him (when someone else has gone with him that is) prefer the drier parts of it, as not everyone finds it easy to decide they don’t need to breathe or that they won’t drown.