Room 512, Tuesday Afternoon

[doesnotkneel]

There was a pile of cut grass right below Barry and Edward's window - a large pile. Edward knew this because he was currently sitting on the window sill again, peering down and testing the ledge just below the sill with his foot.

Just curiosity. He still wanted to know whether it'd be possible to scale the wall up and into his room, for utterly innocent purposes that had everything to do with him being bored. See, the thing about Skyrim was that they'd had a lot more pubs and a lot more general-- carousing, and being back here in this building with Barry and his machines...

It was taking him some readjusting.

Figuring out whether he could climb in and out of his own room the short way down was a pleasant distraction from that, if nothing else.

[[ post open, door open ]]

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[doesnotkneel]

Edward snorted. "He's a cat," he said lightly. "Not a situation those can't spin in their own favour, ignoring the rest of us."

He wasn't really a cat person, but he didn't hate them, either.

[not_every_mage]

"They're independent," Anders nodded. "It's one of the best things about them. They aren't always slobbering all over you trying to get you to like them like some dog."

He was a total cat person.

[doesnotkneel]

Edward shrugged. "Nothing wrong with dogs," he said lightly. "They're loyal, and all that. But I like birds more than the lot of them."

[not_every_mage]

"Birds?" Anders asked, squinting at him. "Why birds? Is it just that they taste better?"

[doesnotkneel]

"I grew up on a farm, enough dogs and cats to go around," Edward said. He smiled idly. "Thing is, cats act like they're all high and mighty and independent, but they're still living off our scraps and shelter, aye?"

He glanced towards the wall, where he could still see the shimmer of the cat's form running about nearby. "Birds are free. They'll take what we've got if we're stupid enough to leave it laying around, but they have the entire sky to themselves if they wish it."

[not_every_mage]

That ... was poetry, wasn't it? Anders looked out the window to see if anything was flying about, ignoring Lachlan's explorations for the moment.

"Put it that way and I almost want to be a bird," he noted. "Even with the eating worms."

[doesnotkneel]

Edward had some hidden depths squared away somewhere - though he'd be back to cursing and merriment within a moment.

He chuckled. "I don't know about the eating worms, mate," he said. "But when I was a child I'd ignore the ruckus the cats and dogs were makin' and watch these sly jackdaws outside, doing as they pleased. Good times."

[not_every_mage]

"I was always collecting cats," Anders told him. "Drove my mother mad. I'd keep the runts warm inside my shirts and feed them spoonfuls of milk. She drew the line when I brought a baby nug home."

[doesnotkneel]

Edward let out a laugh at the imagery of Anders looking like a giant ball of cats. "Must've been a picture. But what's a nug?" he said, grinning. "Another type of cat?"

[not_every_mage]

"Little pest of an animal," Anders explained, shaking his head and gesturing to indicate a size barely bigger than a cat. "About so big. Like a shaved cat with a long snout. They must not be common. I had to explain them to Nathan, too."

[doesnotkneel]

"Sounds like a small pig to me, or something of that ilk," Edward opined. "But your home seems both more and less like mine than anything I've seen in this time and place."

[not_every_mage]

"A bit smaller and with ears like a rabbit's, but that's the idea," Anders confirmed. "We even eat it, too, though I can't say it tastes as good as pork."

But then, the nice thing about nug was that it didn't really taste like much of anything. It was all down to the cook's talents.

"And your world sounds like mine, too -- though the magic made Skyrim even closer."

[doesnotkneel]

"Not much of that kickin' about where I'm from," Edward agreed. He sat down on his bed. "Seems strange, to know folk like you and Nathan to whom this magic bit comes so natural."

[not_every_mage]

"You don't have it at all?" Anders checked,trying to imagine it. "Not even potions or wise women or such?"

It would feel ... lonely.

[doesnotkneel]

"There's some superstition, aye, but I don't think I've ever seen a sick man come back from most of it," Edward said.

He tilted his head. He'd been shifting in and out of his senses since he finally figured out how to access them actively, but there was nothing about Anders that glowed and leaped out the way Isabelle's marks did. Just that odd, calming feel of... of blue, of shifts in the wind, vision and scent that his mind parsed as friend.

"How does it feel? The magic?"

[not_every_mage]

"Now there's an interesting question," Anders said, and bent to stroke Lachlan as though the kitten might help him answer. He figured Edward wasn't asking for whatever sarcastic thing he'd come up with off the top of his head.

"It's not like anything, really. It's like running down a hill. Like there's something bigger than you and all you can do is give yourself to it. I get tired, after, but I'm too excited to care." A pause. "Also, its a bit tingly."

[doesnotkneel]

Edward let out a rueful chuckle. "Tingly, eh?"

[not_every_mage]

"I always figured that went with the part where it's blue," Anders grinned crookedly. "Clean, refreshing and tingly. I should sell magic that way."

[doesnotkneel]

Edward rubbed his hands together. "You ever see things?" he said. "Strange things most around you can't, in ways they can't fathom. Like... living in a dream."

[not_every_mage]

"Not exactly like that," Anders frowned. He was curious about the path of questions, now. "Sometimes if there's spirit or demon energy, mages notice it more than other people. But nothing people couldn't see at all."

[doesnotkneel]

Edward sighed.

"I think this island is playing tricks on me, mate. And yet I don't," he muttered, rubbing the back of his neck.

[not_every_mage]

"Edward, what are you talking about?" Anders asked warily. "There aren't voices telling you to do anything, are there?"

[doesnotkneel]

"Oh, nothing quite so mundane," Edward said, and there was the regular hint of amusement back in his voice. "Ever since I was a child, sometimes dreams seemed like they lasted longer than sleep. I'd see things."

He looked down at Anders' fierce little cat. "But the longer I'm here, the more I see," he said, "and it's not just when I've just stumbled out of bed, either. I suppose I just wondered whether you knew anything like it."

He didn't find it exactly terrible that apparently whatever was going on with him was nothing like what Anders had, but still.

[not_every_mage]

"Mages can get trapped in dreams, but I don't think that's anything like what you're describing," Anders informed him. "It's more ... demon-y. They get dangerous. What kinds of things do you see?"

He was interested in these hidden abilities -- first as a friend, second as a mage, third as a healer. Not that Edward seemed like he needed anything healed just now.

[doesnotkneel]

"I suppose seeing's the wrong word for it," Edward said wryly. "Can't come up with one more fitting that's as short, though."

He sat back. "It's like... I can smell shapes and taste sounds," he said. "And there's a lot more visible like that, you know? That whole mess with the carnival - never went near it. Stumbled out of my bed that morning, took one look at it and every sense in me said wrong, same's it tells me now your cat is apathetic to me and your disposition towards me seems kind enough. And there's other things I'm not supposed to see that I do, or so I'm told."