aterat | Winter log

Entry tags:

Winter log

Who: Everyone!
What: Open Log
When: December
Where: The Hunter's Lodge
Warnings: N/A
Notes: This is a mingle log, so people are free to set up their own TLs under it. So tag in and tag around!

Snow has fallen outside and while it's not heavy it's set just enough down to gently cover the wooden benches and ground outside. The chairs have been removed but the lanterns are still out and lit (as well as the little lights that have been replaced with more festive ones) if people want to walk around outside and have private chats among the snow, the trees and the lighting.

Potluck - Food is all around. Got a story about how the food you brought is part of a long standing family tradition? So much the better! But Ignis for his part has been researching and working on bringing the foods he's heard about. So here you'll find an appetizer platter along with a cream cheese tree, turkey, ham, his version of the Crown City roast, stuffing balls, roasted potatoes and roasted vegetables, and of course a few different desserts.

So you can find him making sure the table is decked out in christmas colours and full of food. But as he sets the last appetizer tree down on the table, he nods. "Quite glad to see that you could make it."

Trim a tree A small group of freshly cut green trees are sitting in a corner with room to go around the back. Simple lights are already in place, but there are ornaments with hooks sitting in silent invitation to decorate the tree and gather around as well as different coloured garland too.

But there's plenty of supplies and being able to decorate a tree with Nida last year was all sorts of fun as it will be again this year. So the advisor is definitely happy that nature can come inside at least temporarily.

Ignis stands back and takes a look at the trees with a satisfied sort of nod. "I suppose after the holiday, I will see about replanting it outside." Turning to his guest, there's an easy smile. "It won't do to simply throw it away do you think?"

Gift exchange - Gifts aren't required, but people are free to do so. This can be as private or as public as wished! The royal strategist is busy arranging gifts under the tree, trying to make some sense as to how they should be grouped, so he's on his knees trying to keep the order straight. As soon as someone approaches, he acknowledges their presence with a smile. "Would you mind handing me that blue wrapped gift sitting on the chair right next to you?"

Wild card- Dancing? Snowball fights outside? Feel free to make up a thing here!

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It was, in fact, later in the afternoon when Harry came upon the boy. The minor snowfall reminded Harry of home, and it was with a tug of homesickness in his heart that he went for a walk that afternoon in the first place. Things had been relatively quiet of late and that usually spelled trouble no matter which way you tried to look at something. He liked to think this place wouldn't try something during the holidays, but that usually wasn't the way of it.

His steps slowed as he approached the small regiment of snowmen, though, and he watched them suspiciously, eyes narrowed. His senses didn't suggest he should worry about anything supernatural attacking him, but it still wasn't something you'd see every day.

He cleared his throat before speaking. "Knock, knock? I come in peace."

Mono probably wouldn’t blame Harry for looking at the snowmen with such suspicion. They were fun to make, but he’d thought they were a bit creepy when he first saw them the prior winter. It was part of the reason why they made excellent guards for his little snow fortress that he was working on.

At the sounds of someone outside, he peered out of the entrance curiously. “Hi! You don’t gotta knock, there’s no door.” He commented to the mock-knocking with a little tilt of his head as he crawled the rest of the way out of the fort.

"Oh, hey, buddy." He'd had a suspicion of who he might find inside the fort, but it was nice to have it confirmed. "You sure you're okay letting the wizard into your snowman club?"

“I’m not a snowman, so I don’t think you gotta be one to join.” He responded with a little shrug, glancing at the snowmen army. “Maybe hats are a rule, though… They always got hats so I gave them some of mine, and I got one…” Gestured between his hat, and the snowmen wearing the remains of his hat collectionn. “But I’m new to snowmen stuff, anyway.”

Edited 2022-01-07 18:33 (UTC)

"Hey, I can get behind a few hats." He looked over to the snowmen the boy had dutifully created. "Do you think one of your sentries would mind sharing?"

Mono tilted his head thoughtfully at the snowmen. “I don’t think they would. Their heads are already cold since they’re made of snow. They just like to look nice, I think.” So they probably didn’t need them as much as regular people did, and if Harry wanted to wear a hat? The kid wasn’t going to say no, “So you can take whichever one you think would fit!” They were all oversized for him, but he had a small head already, he supposed.

"Don't mind if I do." He looked around at the collected sentries before settling on what could possibly be coined as the most awesome hat ever.

"Pardon me, partner, but I think I could use that." He'd addressed the snowman, who didn't protest, which he took as the invitation to take the hat from its head and plop it atop his own. Large head or not, "and it fits!"

While Mono may not be overly familiar, with the calf-lenth black leather duster and the boots he was wearing, Harry Dresden looked every bit the part of the cowboy he suddenly felt and he turned toward Mono with more speed than he'd needed to for thematic, coat billowing effect.

"Do I look awesome?"

He looked like an extra from Tombstone.

Mono squinted for a moment, trying to decide what he thought of the ensemble once Harry had taken the hat and put it on his head. The kid was taking the question far too seriously. “You look…“ He tapped a finger on his chin. Harry did look a little like the guys from those 50s westerns on tv. Sometimes they popped up, even if most of the stuff now was weird signal stuff and Veronica’s show. “Kinda more like a cowboy, like sometimes showed on TVS in my world between the weird stuff. So I guess like a cowboy with magic, or something.”

It was an odd mental image, really, but… “It fits good and looks right?” Does that mean ‘awesome,’ though? Hard to say, but the kid didn’t disapprove, so that was a win.

After the fiasco that was his teenage years, he did the rest of his growing up on a ranch in Hog Hollow, Missouri. Being a 'cowboy' really wasn't an insult, but he laughed.

"Harry Dresden, fastest spells in the west." He even had a revolver, not that Mono needed to know that. "So, what's the plan for your fort, partner?" He drew out the word, embracing the whole cowboy image. Mono has inadvertently created a monster.

At least Harry wasn’t a particularly scary monster for this particular situation.

Mono seemed a bit suspicious of that claim, though, tilting his head slightly. “How do you know they’re the fastest spells?” He was pretty sure a lot of people here had magic, so how did one know if they were the fastest with spells or not?

Looking at his fort in the making, Mono shrugged slightly. “It’s for fun, I guess? I saw kids making them last year and now that I got stuff to make being in the snow easier, I thought I’d try it.” And, admittedly, he kind of liked this winter activity. “I figure it’s kinda a good way to watch people when they go to the lodge or leave, see what kinda interesting stuff goes on.” The kid liked to watch people, and the fort gave a nice cover for if things got a little too crazy with the festivities.

"Do you have any spells you're slinging? If not, that makes mine the fastest be default." He winked at the kid before making his way over to the fort in question.

"So it's a hideout to people watch from, huh? You do that a lot?" In retrospect, it was exactly how they'd met in the first place, Harry had simply caught him at the game.

“Nah, I don’t got any spells… So I guess that’s true!” Though he paused again as he moved over to make more space for his tall friend. “Except I think there are people with magic in the lodge, but I dunno how fast they are.”

The question gets a little shrug of his shoulder’s, a few people had asked him about the habit and the reactions were a bit varied. “Yeah, I guess so. I never made one like this, though. Usually, I just use stuff that’s around to hide and watch.” Like under tables or behind things, or using the environment in general if he was actively following someone. Mono was pretty good at it, though… So far, only Harry and Nida had caught on to him. “I like to make sure people are what they seem like they are.”

Because you could never be quite sure. One minute someone seemed normal enough and the next they were something else entirely.

He took the boy's moving as a full invitation but had to take off his cool (or cold) new hat in order to duck inside. It was cramped and he was a big guy. Well, at the very least he was a tall guy, which was what was causing the most trouble around here.

"Okay, well, real talk, I'm not that great at evocation, so their spells are probably faster." And if the boy was curious, he'd elaborate, but he was just as satisfied continuing their conversation as it was.

"That's probably smart. I could learn a thing or two about hiding and watching before running in."

Mono watched Harry try to fit himself in the space with one of his soundless little laughs. It was a kind of funny looking. Which… Was admittedly something of an accomplishment. The kid wasn’t particularly comfortable around excessively large/tall people for very specific reasons, but Harry had proved himself to not be a bad guy.

So the effect was just rather comical.

And, of course, the kid was going to want him to elaborate. He wasn’t sure what that meant aside from the fact that the people inside might be faster. “So what’s that mean, and what kinda stuff are you good at??” He began absentmindedly pilling a little more snow up to roll into a ball to play with.

Mono nodded rather seriously though at Harry’s agreement, “Yeah, it’s important to be careful and make sure of stuff before you run in. It gets dangerous really fast if you don’t.” He still had ended up in a few sticky situations, so caution and sneaking was a learned skill through experience.

That's right, kid, laugh it up. See if the Jolly Green Giant cares. He wouldn't, strictly speaking, but he didn't need to know that.

"What's what mean? Evocation? Uh...it's 'big boom' magic. Remember when you were climbing that pipe and I knocked you down with wind? I, uh," he cleared his throat, "I didn't mean to hit you that hard. See? Not great at it, but to Evoke is to form an idea in your mind, gather up the will, and throw it. Instant, and you usually have to have line-of-sight on the target. I have...a lot of power, and I'm not great and focusing it. That's why I make myself tools, like my blasting rod. It helps me focus power I evoke into something tangible, but some Evocators don't need outside tools."

It wasn't something he was proud of, but it was still the case. "What I'm good at is Thaumaturgy. 'As Above, So Below.'" Basically, you set up a little...miniature, sort of, a little object, or a doll, or whatever you want really, to represent a real-world thing, you perform the spell on the little thing, focus your will into it, then release that will and it does the spell on the real-world thing."

He chuckled, nodding. "No kidding. See, you actually get the greatest wizard secret already. We're not any smarter, faster, or more powerful than most other people. We're just really good at preparing Keep mum about that, thought. Trade secret."

He certainly was enjoying the sight. Sorry Harry.

But Mono listened more closely to the explanation. “Evocation…” He tried the word before he nodded. ‘big boom’ was very accurate based on his experience with the drain pipe and Harry’s magic. Which admittedly kind of made him feel better about that, hearing that it had just been because Harry wasn’t as good at controlling it as others were. “I kinda understand that. I sometimes broke stuff in my world too. I dunno if it was the same thing, though.”

As the explanation continued, Mono’s face scrunched a bit to concentrate. Harry was using a lot of words he hadn’t heard before. “Thawmaturkey?” Close enough. “I don’t think I heard of that before, either. It sounds really complicated in different ways than the other one though, so I guess that makes sense. If some people are bad at Evocation, then they’d be better at… The other one. Or the other way around.”

He did sit up a little straighter to hear that he actually got an important secret already, just by knowing you had to be careful, planning ahead and being sneaky sometimes. “Yeah? Well, I kinda don’t know who I’d tell anyway, so I won’t tell.” Probably. Not on purpose, anyway.

He laughed slightly, shaking his head. "It was mostly a joke, anyway, but yeah...wizards can do just about any kind of magic: healing, mind magic, you name it, but we have different strengths and weaknesses."

But honestly, he was more interested in what Mono had just divulged. "How exactly do you break stuff?"

Mono thought that was pretty interesting, honestly. It was actually nice to learn things from people who were alright with having him around… Plus having the ability to talk at all helped.

The question gets a little rise of his shoulders. “I dunno exactly. I think it’s just ‘cause I’m bad at controlling what I do. Sometimes when I leave a television, the screen breaks behind me.” Which was pretty damn inconvenient if you needed to get back in quickly if you landed somewhere you didn’t want to be. Instead, he’d have to start running and hope he ran into another quickly enough.

Harry nodded at that, still not completely following but at least catching on to the fact that the kid had some kind of teleportation power. It was possible it didn't even have to be a television, and may just utilize the reflective quality of the glass.

"Can we talk about that for a minute? We don't have to talk shop if you'd rather not."

The kid glanced up at Harry curiously. The guy had expressed an interest in it before, and seemed… Like he genuinely wanted to help. “I guess so?” If the guy decided his abilities might be a bad thing after all, Mono figured it would be easy enough to tell… “What do wanna know about it? I might not be able to answer everything, since I still kinda don’t get it fully myself.”

"Okay, so, tell me about when you go inside the television. How do you do it?" It would tell Harry, first and foremost, whether Mono's ability was magical or inate. It was a necessary step to move forward.

That was a good question, and Mono fell silent for a good minute or two.

Tapping his chin with a very serious look on his face as he tried to figure out how to explain it, or if he was sure enough that he knew how to do so. “I kinda just press on the screen? It goes all weird and staticky and then I kind of get sucked in?” He responded with a little tilt of his head. It was hard to say if that was what Harry meant. “It’s kinda like it reacts to me? Like…” He wished he could show the guy. Showing was way easier than talking about it. “I dunno how to explain it good.”

He shook his head a little as he tried to describe how it worked. “I can't control it really good either. I thought for a while I was getting better at getting to a place by messing with the signal, but I was just getting tricked to go somewhere someone wanted me to. Most of the time, I just kinda end up at whatever other television is closest to where I go in.”

Harry was quiet for a moment while he mulled it over. "So...you don't think about it at all?" That didn't really add up to it being an ability of Mono's then, at least not that he's aware of.

"Have you tried it with anything like televisions here? Maybe it's something about your world, not you specifically."

Mono blinked. “I mean, I kinda got a lot going on? Usually I do it when I gotta get away from someone or when I can’t find a way to go somewhere else. So I guess I think about how I gotta go somewhere else?”

It was definitely a ‘Mono’ ability, since Six couldn't do it at all. Not unless Mono had a hold of her when he was using his ability. If Harry asked, he could at least say that. The Man in the Hat could do what he could too, of course… But Mono doesn’t know why that is yet. Unless Harry got into very specific points, Mono might be a little lost on how to answer the guy. It’s not like he ever knew anyone in his world he could ask how he did what he could do. He just figured things out as he went.

“Um… I dunno. I haven’t found anything that’s like a television aside from the little screens on the phone thing. They’re too little for me to fit through, and I’m kinda afraid of getting stuck.” He responded, lifting his shoulders uncertainly. Maybe there was something enough like a television, but he hadn’t come across it yet.

Edited 2022-02-27 00:51 (UTC)

It sounded something like teleportation, but Harry wasn't sure how that was possible. Maybe he was opening a door through the Nevernever, or a place similar, a corridor only he could pass through.

"I mean something other than technology...like a mirror, or a reflective window."

Snow Fort

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