Quet swayed slowly in her hammock, suspended in the corner of the bunkhouse. The tiny crew, along with her four companions, occupied identical hammocks haphazardly hung from hooks installed in the ceiling. Yeah, sleep helped.
Or at least, sleep probably helped. Quet’s mind was still too busy for her to properly fall asleep, despite how tired she was. Fortunately, there weren’t any distractions like there had been the night prior, meaning that she was free to enter Low Battery Mode.
The impossibility of sleep was not a rare occurrence for her. It occurred pretty much every time the season finale of a show she liked aired, so the situation was far from unanticipated. As such, she had developed a substitute for sleep. Low Battery Mode entailed her lying still and intentionally losing herself in the thoughts that kept her up in order to drown out any unwanted stimulus. It was more boring, having to keep oneself occupied for eight hours instead of having a dream take over, but Quet would be rested in the morning, so it was better than nothing.
But her own thoughts could only drown out the outside world so well. Quet was pulled from her stupor by the sound of something sliding across the floor. She pulled up her heavy eyelids and leaned over the side of her hammock.
Normally almost invisible against the greenish-black of the chitin floor, Mark’s silhouette was illuminated by the light of Quet’s eyes just enough to be visible. He appeared to be pulling her belt of bags out from under the hammock where she had stashed it for the night.
Seeing the faintest hint of his shadow on the floor, Mark looked up and stiffened when he saw Quet’s luminous eyes shining down on him like really weak spotlights. Between the light and his expression, Quet’s first thought was that he looked like a deer in headlights. But that was cliché. He looked like… Yeah, Quet couldn’t think of anything better. Her thoughts were locked onto ‘deer in headlights’.
“…Mang?”
Hearing his nickname, Mark’s shocked expression immediately sank back into what Quet decided to dub Resting Bored Coworker Face.
Quet’s thoughts on Mark’s face came to an end when someone further away snorted and rolled over in their hammock. Quet quickly shifted into her human form to dim her eyes. If Omet saw that she was still awake at whatever hour this was, they would flip their lid. Or the mild disappointment that constituted flipping one’s lid by Omet’s standards.
Quet silently gestured at the belt in Mark’s hands. What was he doing with that?
Mark winced and pointed at the flap of fabric covering the doorway. He hesitantly raised the belt and got to his feet quietly.
Quet sighed and rolled out of the hammock. She followed Mark outside and, once the two were a good distance from the bunkhouse, shifted back into her true form. “What?”
Mark sighed and handed her the belt back. “Yeah, uh… Wanted to find stuff out about magic. Stupid, I know. I was kinda hoping I could just check that stuff out and put it back without waking you up. Guess you’re a light sleeper?”
Quet pulled the belt over her shoulder. The floor was surprisingly warm, which she only now noticed since she wasn’t wearing her shoes anymore. “You could say that.”
…So, he wanted to learn magic. That was interesting. None of Quet’s siblings had ever taken an interest in picking it up before. “…You know, if you wanted to find out about this stuff, you could’ve just asked me.”
“Really? You don’t seem the talkative type.”
“Oh, I’m not, I just like talking about magic to people. Or… the idea of talking about it, I guess. Nobody’s ever actually asked me about that stuff.” Quet’s last sentence ended in a half-stifled chortle.
She got an idea. “Well, there’s no time better than now. Meet me behind that building at the back in five.” She ducked around to the back of the bunkhouse. A moment later, she appeared again. “Minutes, that is.” She disappeared behind the wall, only to lean her head out once more. “Five minutes.” She left once more, her hands clasped and held up to her chest. “Yes, yes yes…”
-
Mark leaned against the rear wall of the building at the back, which he believed was the storehouse. There wasn’t really anything to make note of while he waited for Quet to finish… whatever she was doing, so he just felt the slight sway of the Potirangi swimming through the air. Despite the crew (as well as the internal clocks of the passengers) agreeing that it was time to sleep, there was no visible change in how dark it was. The world maintained the ‘mid-morning foggy highlands’ level of luminosity it had always had.
Mark heard a quiet grunt of exertion come from somewhere to the left of him, but before he could turn to see what it was, the wall he was leaning on stopped existing.
Mark fell into an armchair in the middle of an infinite expanse of black nothingness. However, when he looked down at his own body, he was just as well-lit as before. He looked around, saw nothing, and was about to get up when Quet blinked into existence to the left of him.
She had swapped out her casual wear for a dark green blazer that was too large for her frame and jeans, which would have made her appearance seem almost formal (almost) were it not for the sneakers with wheels embedded in the soles and the black T-shirt with miscellaneous phrases visible under the blazer. She also appeared to be carrying a mug which read ‘RADICAL SATURDAY’ in gray block text.
Quet rolled directly in front of Mark, grasped her mug with both hands, took a deep breath, and began. “Magic.”
Before she could continue, Mark raised a hand in the air. “Hey, uh, where are we? Where’d this chair come from? Where’d you get those clothes? And what’s in the mug?”
“I just answered all of those questions with a single word: Magic. Except the mug one, this is espresso.” She took a quick drink. “Oh, I need that right now. Now, as I was saying…” She realized something and hurried away, vanishing into thin air once she was about fifteen feet away from Mark. A moment later, she reappeared with her belt around her waist. She retook her original position, nodded nervously to herself, drummed her fingers against the side of her mug and prepared to try again.
“Okay… Magic. The power of the soul. The hack client for reality. Surprisingly similar to dice-making, except actually cool. But you know nothing of it, my dear sweet Mang. And yet you seek that knowledge. I commend that. I applaud your cries of ‘What’s the dealio with magic?’ I get it. You want the truth, and you want it now. Fortunately for you, the truth is what I am here to give. HIYAH!”
She whipped a stone out of her pocket and threw it to the ground. The stone burst in a brief flash of green light, and dozens of sheets of paper flew out of it as if they had been imprisoned within. The paper soared into the air and arranged themselves so that they spelled out: “QUETLACHTICICUE DISASSEMBLES MAGIC FOR YOUR EDIFICATION”.
Quet gestured up at the words hanging above her for a few seconds, then snapped. The paper split apart once more and flew behind Quet, forming a large rectangular sheet behind her which dangled motionlessly while Quet drew a glitter pen from another bag.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Quet turned to the sheet behind her. “Now, I would have liked to go more in depth about channelling mechanics and the history of thaumatological advancement. I do wish we had more time to go through all of this, but as we both know, time does not exist. At least for us. So we’re gonna have to get laconic.”
Mark nervously settled into his seat. “That might be a good thing, actually.”
“No backing out now. Hoo boy, prepare for the lecture of your life, buddo.” Quet drew a crude circle with a large ‘S’ in the center of it. “It all starts with the soul. Specifically human ones. That’s right, yours. Yes, you. You in the back.”
“I’m the only one here.”
“Correct! You catch on quick, that’s good.” Quet tapped the circle on the paper with the back of her pen. “See, human souls are uniquely enigmatic in the thaumatological world. Despite the fact that the whole lot of you are just a bunch of fragile things, not even immortal, you all seem to be beacons of magical energy. Think about it. When the first few caveman humans started dying, did their souls just poof out of existence like Primus or animal souls do? No. Instead, they created an entire dimension to chill in for the rest of eternity. And sure, the Down Below isn’t the most ontologically stable reality out there, inconsistent spacetime and all, but that’s still no mean feat, and it wasn’t even done on purpose. You, to the left. Can you name any other notable feats humans can do in the wacky world of souls?”
Mark looked to either side of him. There was still nobody around save for him and his slightly demented professor. “…Isn’t this supposed to be about magic?”
Quet took another drink from her mug. “Correct, but we get to the cool stuff when we get to the cool stuff. Understood?”
“I feel like if you wanted to make this brief, you could have planned it better.”
“What possibly could have led you to the conclusion that I am to be held accountable for the consequences of my poor life choices?” Quet held up her mug. “I might not have gotten any sleep tonight beforehand, but I am definitely not getting any now.”
“You should probably wrap this up soon, because drinking a full-size mug of espresso will probably make you burst a blood vessel.”
“Valid. But you do get the idea. Human souls, weirdly powerful. Probably because you’re the only naturally-created sentient organisms in the known universe. A bunch of you coming into close proximity for a while makes a fresh Domain, and even thinking about that group of humans directs enough of your yummy soul juice our way to keep us going.”
“If you use the phrase ‘yummy soul juice’ again, I’m jumping off this sky-ship.”
“If I have to say it again, I’ll jump off with you.” Quet wrote ‘MAGIC’ onto the paper, then underlined the word six times. Then one more time. “But hopefully, that there visual reminder will help us stop getting distracted from the topic at hand.
See, unlike humans, we Primoi are uniquely attuned to our own inferior souls in a specific manner, thus allowing them to do one physics-defying stunt. Hurat has fire powers, Omet can duplicate-slash-merge stuff, the works.”
“And what can you do?”
Quet made no sign of hearing Mark’s question. Instead, she drew a circle under her first one, then wrote a ‘P’ inside the new circle. “Let’s say that that’s a Primus soul. See, while our bodies are thaumaturgically constructed to manipulate that energy locked up inside us in a certain way, we can use another method of letting it out in more generalized ways. Magic is that method.”
Quet drew an M next to the P circle, then drew an arrow leading from the latter from the former. “But you can’t just think magic thoughts and make it happen. No, no, no, there’s no fun in that. You need…” She wrote her words down as she spoke. “A language of magic.”
She pulled a single stone out, tapped it and let it go. Instead of falling, the pebble hung motionlessly in midair, as if frozen. A slight aura of what looked like greenish mist hung around it.
Looking at the floating rock, the rapidly-growing mania taking over Quet faded, and she stared at it for a moment with genuine pride. She put her mug down and pushed the stone in Mark’s direction, letting it float towards him like a balloon. “Here, c’mere, have a look. Touch it if you want.” She knelt down in front of Mark and positioned the stone that was in clear view of both of them.
Mark raised his hand to touch the floating stone, and he felt his hand lighten as it approached. It was seemingly the anti-gravity stone that Quet had used on the rolling monster the other day. As if in response to his nearby hand, a band of geometric shapes, right angles and straight lines began to glow a dull green.
Quet pointed at the symbols. “See that? That’s my own personal language. We’ve all got one, unique to our own soul. Even you. Each and every one has its own script, grammar, tenses and everything; though there are enough similarities for a trained eye to understand someone else’s language. But if you learn how yours works and you write it out right, well…”
She grabbed the stone and squeezed. Instantly, gravity turned off. Mark felt like if he pushed off of the chair, he would simply float into the sky. The misty halo around the stone expanded to envelop Quet’s hand and continued to grow. Quet nodded upwards, and her hair drifted up as if it was underwater. She let go of the stone after a moment, and everything’s weight returned. The aura quickly faded into nothing, and the stone dulled.
Mark made a weak attempt to hide his excitement. “So, how do I learn mine?”
“Right, yeah.” Quet stood up, stashed the stone and cleared her throat. “If there’s a method of figuring yours out besides simple trial and error, I don’t know it. I took an Honors degree’s worth of linguistics courses, and it took me six years to develop an adequate framework to do anything with. Granted, I was almost entirely self-taught aside from the basics that I just sorta picked up, but I assume you don’t have time for that?”
Mark deflated. “Oh. Well, uh… Thanks for giving me the rundown. I was sorta hoping I could learn it and be… No, no. I gotta figure out a filter.” He stood up. “It’s been fun, but we need to sleep.” He looked at the mug on the ground. “Both of us.”
“Hey, whoa, whoa!” Quet began rummaging through her bags, drumming her fingers on the outside of the pouches while she searched for something. “W-we haven’t discussed the various methods of writing out your language! I use the Mapuche method, with my glyphs, but Horan, he, uh- he writes in the air, right? Then he’s probably using Assyrian!” She pulled out a notebook covered in stickers, which should have been too wide to comfortably fit in its bag. “And I-I can’t really help you figure your language out, but we can still understand the basics!”
Mark slowly walked towards the part of the void Quet had came and gone from, while keeping an eye on her the whole time. Quet followed him, flipping through her notebook. “Here! I keep a book with my more basic symbols on hand, so I can make more glyphs on short notice! It’s even got the odd matrix, l-like a sentence of magic!”
Mark held his arms up. He was starting to get worried. “Yeah, that’s… interesting, but I really think we should call it a night. Hey, maybe we can do this again when we have the time? When you’re a little less… hopped up?”
Quet sat down on the floor and snapped. The black void surrounding them vanished, the armchair disappeared and the sheet of paper floated to the ground. Quet buried her head in her lap, a single finger tapping rhythmically against her head. “Okay… Sorry, I guess I was a bit much there. Sorry, it’s just- I wanted you to be as into this magic stuff as me. Most Primoi I know don’t really care about it, since they’ve already got their powers. Occasionally, one might dabble to boost what they can already do, but… I know you just wanted to… Never mind. You can go, I’m done.”
Mark looked at her for a moment. “Hey, uh… I learned a lot, and I could see you were enjoying yourself. Maybe, when it’s a better time, we could see if I can actually pick it up a little?”
Quet looked up at Mark. Despite having no visible pupils, he could simply tell that she wasn’t looking him in the eye. “I know you don’t mean it. I’m not the best at that kind of stuff, but I can tell when you aren’t honest. I get it, okay? I was too much, magic isn’t for you, and all that. I’ve heard it a dozen times. I get it. Sorry for disappointing you.”
She got to her feet. “Maybe I can get some sleep before Omet wakes up.” She began walking back to the bunkhouse.
Mark noticed that Quet had left a few stones on the ground, which she had presumably used to create the black void that enveloped the two of them during her lecture. Her coffee and pen were also visible under the large sheet of paper, which covered the floor like a carpet. Mark opted to keep the pen and stones in one of his pockets, dump the coffee out and leave the mug on top of a folded-up sheet.
Once the lesson had been largely cleaned up after, he followed Quet to the bunkhouse. Hopefully, he would one day have the time on his hands to finish the lesson, because while he wouldn’t admit it after that end, he’d enjoyed himself.