[video]

[candothat]

[There is a rather impressive—and impressively accurate—cross-section of the U.S.S. Enterprise, made wholly of Lego, directly in front of the device’s camera lens. This charming view is quickly replaced by Chekov as he picks the device up and sets it on a (remarkably tidy, for those few who have had the misfortune of experiencing Pavel in his natural habitat) desk, adjusting it for a moment before addressing the network.

He looks quite grim.]

One thing I will miss about that curse, I think, will be the horses.

The dirt, the guns and bullets—I am happy without those. Projectile weapons are clumsy and messy and not so kind as a simple phaser blast. But the horses! I was on a horse, once, in the City, and I did little more than fall off of it. Riding one without falling off was good. Better, maybe, than piloting a personal shuttlecraft, although I would not tell Sulu so.

I like machines, but I like animals better. Yes, ships have their personalities and attitudes and you need to learn what your ship is like before you can be very good at knowing what she needs, but they are not so affectionate as animals. I would be happy if I had a good horse—just like the one that I had when the curse was here—instead of a good ship. [After saying this out loud, he amends:] Only, of course, if I could take that horse to space in a ship. I miss space already and I have been gone from it for only 115 days. Being a cowboy—as much as I would like the horse, I would miss space too much.

[He’s not addressing the network anymore. In fact, he’s not addressing anyone. This doesn’t seem to bother him.] Maybe if I were to find a captain who would let me have a horse onboard… I think that that would be ideal, although there are rules regarding nonhuman lifeforms that would be hard to get around…

[And back to the network on a wholly different subject.]

I was thinking of things that science typically takes for granted today and wondering if they apply in the City. The law of conservation of mass… how would that work, here, in a place where new settings can appear overnight and new animals can show for a day and then be gone again? Settings, I understand; maybe the deities can alter what is already present to make their curse landscapes. Animals, though, cannot appear in a dimension and then—

[He pauses, train of thought apparently switching directions.]

There is the uncertainty principle. I usually think of it only as it relates to quantum physics… very small things. Not an entire horse, or entire people. Perhaps the City is a large experiment—Schrodinger’s paradox, that is what Mr. Laszlow mentioned not so long ago. It is not the same, of course, because all of this—all of what we are perceiving—is macroscopic, and it is very difficult to bring quantum theory to bear on such a scale.

Anyway, I do not feel like a collapsed wave function. That surely counts for something.

Also, I would like to have the horse that I had during the curse. I liked her, and I think that she liked me.


[ooc: Look, don't ask me. I was trying to do other stuff and he felt like posting about horses.]

Comments

[candothat]

Letters? Paper letters?

[How strange and quaint, although he clearly can't quite imagine on relying such an antiquated means of communication.]

That means you are practicing to be the best.

[hexuality]

Of course paper letters, what else? Well, I suppose parchment would be more accurate. We've got an owl post system since things like these devices don't really exist in the magical world. Technology doesn't work on Hogwarts grounds, you know.

[Apart from clocks and cameras, apparently.]

Yeah. Yeah, I am practicing to be the best.

[candothat]

Computers, small devices like this, audio devices--anything! I would die at this school of yours. [Laying the drama on thick, and then:] You use real owls?

So am I. I think we will both do well.

[hexuality]

Students who grew up in entirely non-magical households all their lives manage fine, mate. [She chuckles.] And yes, real owls. Haven't I introduced you to mine? I've got one here.

[candothat]

That is beyond comprehension, Ginny.

[What. REAL OWLS.]

No! You have? I have never met an owl!

[hexuality]

[YES. REAL OWLS.

She starts giggling.]

How have you never met an owl? They're everywhere! Hang on— [Switching to video now.] Hullo. Alright. Wait.

[She turns and whistles softly.]

Sir Weatherby? If you could come here a moment. [And with a rush of wings, there's a handsome tawny owl perched on Ginny's shoulder, peering curiously at the camera.] Here we are, then.

[candothat]

Not in space! Not in universities!

[Chekov is most obviously impressed.]

That is your owl? He is yours? [to the owl] A pleasure, Sir Weatherby!

[hexuality]

I adopted him when a friend went home.

[She smiles, reaching over to stroke over the feathers lightly.]

I don't suppose you'll say hello, will you? [This to the owl, who nips at her finger affectionately then hoots softly.] Nicely done. He's very polite, you know.

[candothat]

That was good of you. He is a remarkable bird... I did not realize their eyes were so large.

[They have owls in Russia, yeah, but Chekov never spent a lot of time outside.]

[hexuality]

Owls're incredibly clever. Loads more than most people realise, I think. He can make a delivery to a place even though he's not been there before, he can just find the person.

[candothat]

Just like that? [Gasp!] Sir Weatherby, are you a magical owl?

[hexuality]

[And the owl in question clicks his beak at the sound of his name.]

You know, I don't think it's about magic. I think people just don't expect them to know as much as they do and underestimate them. People only see what they want to see, after all. That's why Mug—er, non-magical people can ignore magic that happens right in their faces most times.

At least, that's what Dad says.

[candothat]

Ah. I did not mean to underestimate him or his kind, but I do wish that I could go to places I have never been without star charts or calculations. Perhaps an owl would be a navigator than I am?

That is probably true. I may be wouldn't ignore magic, but I would assume that it is a natural phenomenon that I am not yet familiar with.

[hexuality]

You do star charts? I haven't done those since Astronomy class.

[Ginny. Not the time.]

Yeah, that's it. This one time, Dad had to deal with a load o shrinking keys—non-magical people just kept thinking they lost them.

[candothat]

Yes! Not here, but at home, yes. Stellar cartography was one of my academic concentrations.

[Always the time!]

Shrinking keys? Your father must have an interesting job.


[ooc: Please forgive me my typos. ._.]

[hexuality]

D'you think the stars are different here? From what you know.

[Ginny, you are not Amory. You don't know what you're talking about.]

He works for the Department for the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts. Anything non-magical like, say, keys or toilets that've been tampered with magic and left for non-wizards or -witches to find? He's the one who sorts that out.

[candothat]

I have studied the sky--alone and with Amory--and it is wholly different. I am not even sure that the sky is real; the stars do not behave as they should.

[Chekov will talk to her about stars anyway?]

Muggle? Is this a stressful job? Even if I knew about magic, I think I would not like it.

[hexuality]

Muggles are non-magical people but I've got some friends who don't like it, so I try not to say it.

[But moving on because this is interesting.]

So you've met Amory. You don't think the sky's real? Did you know there's a barrier around the City? Fly too high or go out too far on the ocean and you hit a certain point where you can't go further.

[candothat]

If it only means non-magical, I am not offended.

Yes, and he is very clever. The sky--I am still not sure what to make of it. I know of the barrier, yes, and I wonder sometimes if the City is all that there is to this universe and if what we see outside of the barriers in an advanced hologram. Unlikely, since others have told me that monsters come from beyond the barrier, but possible.

Do you know why there is a barrier? We would be as trapped as we are now if it was to disappear, even if there is a whole planet out there.

[hexuality]

I'd imagine it's to keep the harpies out and the rest of us in. I don't know what else—

[She pauses, thoughtful.]

When the barrier was breaking down and the harpies were attacking... a bit after that, the City seemed to—I don't know—travel. We could step into other worlds, none of them our own, I don't think. Well, definitely not mine, at any rate. I'm sure someone here found a home there. But maybe that's what splits this place from everything else.

[She hums.]

It's magic, Pavel. Bigger, stranger magic than the kind I know and use. But it's definitely magic.

[candothat]

Travel? No one has told me about this!

[Notes! He must make notes!]

That is an interesting idea, that the barrier may be the limit of this universe. [With a bit less enthusiasm:] How do you know it is magic?

[He doesn't want it to be magic. If the City operates on actual magic, it's beyond his understanding; that won't do at all.]

[hexuality]

Maybe this is a smaller world than any of the others out there. Must be, right, so it can fit between them all?

[She considers his question.]

I mean, I don't know it's magic for certain. But that's always been the answer in my world and to me, knowing what I know? Things like the curses are a lot like spells—more powerful than the sort I've heard of, definitely more unrestrained, but... I don't know, magic makes sense to me. Maybe you'll think it's something else and someone else ill do the same.

[candothat]

No, no no no. Universes do not take up space, not in that way. Spatially--theoretically--all universes can exist simultaneously in the same space, but I will not bore you with that. But it would make sense, if the barriers contained this universe. I like that.

[He nods slowly.]

I understand, I think. Your frame of reference is different from mine, and we will find different answers to questions about the City. Perhaps physics and magic are the same force and it is simply thought of differently in your world and mine.

[hexuality]

Maybe. The two can exist together, though, at least in my world. How would the curses be explained, then, if not by magic?

[candothat]

The single universe that I am from is a strange place. This one is even stranger, and so it may require a stranger explanation. Maybe it is magic, but maybe it is something else.