23 May 2004

In which Two accidents happen to produce something remarkable.

It was the late afternoon when our intrepid sorceresses left a nearby shadow walking through buildings in the usual way, Lisle shifting shadow, to get to the lounge in the Academy of Magic. Their interest in that particular room of this particular shadow still remains a mystery to everyone. But Lisle was distracted and when she opened the final door, she and Yosannah stepped out onto the front steps of the Academy, not into the Lounge at all.\Lisle, frustrated says, "Oh -man-, I took a wrong turn."\We note that Lisle also seems a little unsteady -- and certainly not from any foreign substances.

Lisle's companion works her jaw for a short moment and cursed under her breath, "Damn." Looking at the Princess, concern on her visage, she inquires "Lisle, you okay? We've gotta get our work done, but if something is troubling you, perhaps..." Yosannah's voice trails off, testing the lady's reaction to her hesitant suggestion.

Lisle sways, a hand out for something to steady her, Yosannah's forearm if the lady will allow. "I don't know. Augh. Oh no," her eyes are looking off to the horizon just as -- for those with the eyes to see -- might see the sigils of her hung spells flickering, translucent ghostly images near her shoulder. "They're going off." Might as well be fireworks.

Yosannah reaches her free hand to cover Lisle's and in an effort to assist with the woman's balance. She seems about to comment, a myriad of thoughts seem to get caught on her tongue, however, as her gaze shifts to the images that waver in her sightline. Her green eyes go wide and the same hand now goes to shield her eyes from the flashing brilliance.

"Oh," says Lisle, retaking her balance, too distracted to be grateful for Yosannah's assistance. "We might as well make it now, though people will see we are up to something." She lets out a sigh of release, the kind of sigh with closed eyes that implies the release of a burden. Or a spell. Seconds later comes the snapping and crackling of virgin flames just beyond the academy's stairs.

Two elderly ladies back away from the crackling lights.

Yosannah exhales, self conscious now it would seem, as the locals become distracted with the sudden burst of flames and activity. "We must be quick, Lisle. Though this shadow is a place of magic, they'll be on us quickly if they know what we're about." She lifts her chin in the direction of the crackling, hand lowering from her line of sight now, "And that doesn't help. Let's begin." She flicks a tarot in her once empty fingers.

Lisle says, "I will try something," her jaw tight with concentration. The flames flicker on the grass and pavement, as if they are about to sputter out, but some grow. A hand reaches out, and she winds up leaning against the side of the Academy's main building.

A few more people stop.

Yosannah nods, a single inclination of her chin, busy, it seems with her own efforts. The tarot is flicked forward, slicing through the air until it comes to an abrupt halt about five yards away and about several feet in the air. A curtain of rainbow sparkles shimmers down from the card, flickering into some ghostly, distant image of another place. The sorceress brow arches. As if not expecting this reaction from the item.

A sequence of unexpected events is always unpleasant, the morso when you think one thing is a problem, but you're counting on the other thing to be Fine. Lisle is ignorant of Yosannah's problems, but in the meantime the flames, and the front of the academy of magic, have grown somewhat translucent to those on the streets -- an affect of a spell surely. The flames seem a cold blue, the Academy's walks like glass. Far from making people disinterested, it causes a gasp from the growing crowd. Especially when a spinning circle of cobalt blue appears near where the blue flames lick the ground. From Yosannah and Lisle's point of view, however, it is a ring of flame. This at least seems to settle Lisle's mind. She says, definitively, "There."

The flickering image becomes more real before Yosannah. A distant shadow and a starlit sky. Warm summer waters and a shell covered beach. The trump image seems to expand, a window that begins to circle around the pair inside the rim of flames. Two rings of shimmer and flicker. The image moves, spinning about the women though they remain still amidst their magics. Yosannah's voice gasps and urges in half-doubt, ".... Lisle."

Isn't everything just fine? Oh wait. What's that? Lisle steps closer to Yosannah, asking, "Ah, is this a new technique?" But she's tired already. Boots clipping a little sharply on the pavement. A hand lifts, the third segment hovering above her hand, drifting toward the others, "Should I hold it back?" The audience of course now sees mostly shadows in front of the academy of magic.

Yosannah takes a single step back as she offers, "I don't... oh no." The trump image that spins about them begins to collapse inward, circumference shrinking. The auburn haired woman flits her gaze this way and that, a caged creature searching for a means of escape and finding none. Her arms go upward in an effort to shield her eyes and face.

It is too late for Lisle, too, for the third ring rises, attracted to the other, its image is freckled like a broken DVD. Meanwhile, Lisle reaches frantically for a trump in her back pocket and swears for the first time in public, "Oh fuck." It doesn't really work, that swearing, it has the comic dryness that the word would have coming from Princess Diana's mouth. But there is force behind it all the same. Perhaps fear.

Hotaru :leaves the Acadamy of Magic via the huge doors.

Hotaru has arrived.

The trump ring closes in about the pair and, for a moment there is silence and darkness followed by a thrusting.

"Whoosh."

The women are catapulted across shadow. The sensation slows for several seconds, like falling down the hole of Alice's White Rabbit. And then another quick thrust through nimbus clouds full of wetness, thunder and lighting. Passing through the clouds, gravity takes over and the woman fall of their own accord. Below, a beach and starlit waters.

Hotaru peeks out of the doorway of the Academy, a half-dozen other students crowding in behind her, just as the silence falls...

It isn't quite silence. There is a crowd in front of the academy and three concentric circles, flashes of heat, imbued upon this stairs to the academy. An image -- the kind of thing like waves of heat above black pavement, beings to dissipate. There is a crooked line of ashes at the foot of the stairs that still smolder.