Open Post: This Is Where The Magic Happens

[rememberettersberg]

A new notice has appeared on the welcome table and at several well-traversed locations around the mansion and its grounds. It invites residents to stop by a certain summer house (which has recently sprung into existence on the shore of the lake) if they are interested in the discussion and/or instruction of magic.

Should anyone's curiosity take them in that direction, they'll find Nightingale there with a pot of tea always on the go and a rotating selection of snacks and nibbles. He's started to cultivate (heh) a small library of his own - important texts in the history of his magical tradition, textbooks for the study of a number of dead/archaic languages, and a growing pile of his own notes.

He'll be delighted to catalogue the differences (and similarities) in the way various worlds practice magic, conduct experiments to see if they can use each other's traditions, and (in the case of Laertes and anyone else that seems like they might be a fit candidate) begin some basic magical instruction.

Closed.

Comments

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji, curious on several levels, hovers quietly for a moment in the doorway of the summer house in question. He has not encountered Nightingale in some time; several things have changed since then. He recognized, he believes, some kind of kindred spirit in the man.

Once he has decided to make his presence known, he steps inside and makes a polite bow to announce himself.

[rememberettersberg]

Nightingale sits at a wide desk, tapping slowly but steadily at the keys of a typewriter. His jacket hangs over the back of his chair, his shirtsleeves are rolled up, and there is a pencil tucked behind one ear. Upon sighting Lan Wangji, he rises hastily and returns the bow, gesturing him further inside.

"Hello there! Come in, come in. Long time no see." He dusts off another chair and pulls it closer to one side of his desk, where a tea set sits with teapot steaming. He points at the pot and raises an eyebrow, the offer implicit.

[lightbearinglord]

The typewriter, in its immediate foreignness, is the first thing to draw Lan Wangji's attention, a quick and sharp glance. He is too polite to mention it, however, and takes the offered seat. He will also never refuse tea, and flicks his sleeves back neatly to pour one cup for each of them.

"I've intended to ask how you would prefer that I address you," he says as he watches the steam rising.

[rememberettersberg]

"Thank you." He settles back into his own seat and adds milk and sugar to his cup. "Oh, honestly, just Nightingale is absolutely fine. My work title is Detective Inspector, or just DI, but that has no import here, and my apprentices are traditionally supposed to call me Master, but that's not the done thing any more where I'm from." Especially when one is a well-to-do older white gentleman and one's apprentice is a Black twentysomething, he doesn't add. "What would you prefer I call you?"

[lightbearinglord]

Observant, Lan Wangji watches as Nightingale adds things to his tea. He frowns passingly but copies what he does. The tea does not smell the way he expected it to, but perhaps it would have been more surprising if it had.

In answer to both the explanation and the question, Lan Wangji hesitates. "Nightingale," he repeats, reluctant to use no title but equally reluctant to disregard Nightingale's preference. "Most address me as Hanguang-jun, if they are not close enough to use my name. Before I earned that title, I was typically introduced as the second young master Lan."

[rememberettersberg]

"Hanguang-jun," Nightingale repeats, raising his cup in a little salute. "If you don't mind me asking, what does it mean?"

Recalling the green tea Lan Wangji had served him when he first arrived, he pushes forward another empty cup. "If you find a good old British cuppa is not quite to your taste, it's perfectly acceptable to drink unadulterated."

[lightbearinglord]

Before answering, Lan Wangji takes one careful sip of his tea. His face betrays nothing, but he sets it down and, with some unexpressed gratitude, does indeed pour himself a fresh cup with no milk or sugar.

The matter of his title is more difficult. The meaning is, to him, evident. He repeats it but with a careful pause between each character, hoping whatever force the mansion employs will understand his intent: "Light-bearing lord."

[rememberettersberg]

"That's rather lovely," says Nightingale. "If honorifics are more comfortable for you, by all means add a DI onto the beginning of my name. It's of no consequence to me either way."

He smiles. "What brings you to my summer house today, Hanguang-jun?"

[lightbearinglord]

"Detective Inspector," Lan Wangji agrees with some relief. Nearly everyone here is younger than him or around his age, but he is fairly certain that Nightingale is his elder.

He sips the fresh cup of tea, also with relief. The flavor is not exactly to his taste, but it's much more palatable than it was with milk and sugar added. "I'm interested in your work. Whatever you would like to share."

[rememberettersberg]

"It's a rather extensive topic," Nightingale muses. "I supposed I'm interested in the various ways the practitioners here harness what I assume to be the same base energy for all of us." He sips at his tea with evident satisfaction. "I can only assume that magic is also what has brought us here, but I can feel no trace of its source. I'm not quite as anxious to leave as I once was, but I would like to know what's going on. I wondered if perhaps someone from a different tradition might have more luck."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji absorbs this, quiet as is his way for a thoughtful moment and allowing the tea to warm his hands. He is not bothering to use the handle of the cup.

"I have investigated as best I can," he says. "My cultivation is high and when I played Inquiry, any extant spirits should have been compelled to answer. I received only a single laugh and then no more. My cultivation partner is exceptionally clever with talismans, and he has invented several new ones since arrival, but has had no better luck."

[rememberettersberg]

"Yes, you mentioned when you first met that you channel qi through music. Is that the standard way of things where you are from? Are your partner's talisman's a different expression of the same abilities?" Nightingale unearths a notepad and a pen in case notes are necessary.

"In my world, magic has always existed and people have always muddled their way into being able to use it, but a codified system for its use has only been around for several hundred years. I work within that system because that is what I know, but I could theoretically figure out entirely new ways to channel magical energy. Anyone could."

He suddenly finds himself missing Peter so much that his chest aches. His apprentice would have classified every tradition in the place by now, made up a few new spells, and possibly set the mansion on fire. That last thought shouldn't make him feel fond, but it truly does.

[lightbearinglord]

"Musical cultivation is my sect's specialty, but others can do it." In fact, Wei Ying cultivates with his dizi, but Lan Wangji is feeling characteristically protective of the details. Wei Ying himself would most likely not care. "It is all cultivation, but with differing methods."

He sips his tea again. The taste is easier to accept on a second try. "It is possible for anyone to become a cultivator, with training and diligence, but beginning in childhood confers a significant advantage."

[rememberettersberg]

"Just so in my world. My apprentice is beginning his journey in adulthood, but my training started at the age of eleven."

He thinks for a moment, tapping pen against paper. "You said you played Inquiry. I assume that there are unique melodies for different purposes? Are they standardised things that each cultivator may learn, or must each person begin anew?"

[lightbearinglord]

"The melodies are standardized, and many are part of a long tradition." Lan Wangji recalls the Cloud Recesses library, the pavilion on which he has spent many days of his life. "Inquiry facilitates communication with spirits. Rest suppresses and calms them."

[rememberettersberg]

Nightingale nods, jotting a few things down. "The specifics may be different, but I see many similarities between our practices. I suspect we would be able to learn each other's methods."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji appears faintly startled, but only for a moment, his features smoothing again afterward. It is difficult to imagine a man older than himself learning to cultivate for the first time, but then, many of his assumptions have been turned on their heads recently. "Do you meditate?"

[rememberettersberg]

"Meditate?" He laughs a little, shaking his head. "I can't say that I do." He looks as though he'd like to leave it at that, but admits, "my mind is not a quiet place."

[lightbearinglord]

Lan Wangji sobers, if that is even possible. "Meditation is essential for cultivation." He watches the glassily dark surface of his tea, and takes another experimental sip. "Meditation allows for the gathering of qi and the formation of a golden core."

[rememberettersberg]

"I can understand that." Different routes to the same state of mind, where the energy is there for the taking. "What is a golden core?"

[lightbearinglord]

In order to demonstrate, Lan Wangji sets his teacup down. He hovers a hand over his own abdomen, indicating roughly the location of his lower dantian. "A store of qi required to pass a certain level of cultivation. The body is used as a crucible to forge the core. High cultivation is impossible without one." His own burns, steady and bright, at all times, feeding his spiritual power.

[rememberettersberg]

"That's fascinating." He reaches for his cane, leant casually against the wall behind him, and holds it aloft for Lan Wangji's inspection. "I think this would be my equivalent. The metal core is forged by magic and imbued with the same. It allows me to channel much more energy than my own body could handle."

[lightbearinglord]

Although his posture is always straight, Lan Wangji manages to give the impression of straightening further to inspect the cane, intent and interested. He is quiet as he studies it, and then he asks, "What happens if it is destroyed?" Keeping the store of power outside of one's body strikes him as dangerous.

[rememberettersberg]

"Nothing terrible. The power within dissipates and the staff itself becomes mundane. It's more of a... a conduit, I suppose, between the practictioner and the great unknown, though it does store much magic within." If Lan Wangji touches the staff, he might find it to be humming with energy and the melange of sensations that signify Nightingale's magic - metronomic ticking, rough fabric, fresh mown grass, and behind all of that, the fierce heat and clanging percussion of the forge.

[lightbearinglord]

"Mn." Lan Wangji does, then, touch two careful fingertips to the cane. He shuts his eyes for the space of a moment and considers the feeling of that energy. "A golden core is not easily destroyed, but it is irreplaceable." Save for extreme extenuating circumstances, but that is not his story to tell.