Veld: That was by way of being a "dun dun duuuun" sort of thing. I see it
backfired.
Queen of Zan: It's called narcolepsy. See above.
Foureyedsnail: Ur... so what was IN it? I always thought wands were sissy.
Adele Starminster: That would be too obvious, ne ce pas?
I lov Redheads w/ Fangs: Eh? What stuff do you think in class?
****************
All kids had monsters under the bed while they were growing up. The difference is, mine were real. I summoned them. I've always liked Dark creatures - they're really interesting. I mean, I know unicorns and things are all cute and pure, but that gets boring after a while. When they're UN pure, there are always all these knots to unravel if you want to understand them. That's interesting.
But I'm not like those stupid Dark wizards - I don't hate all pure things for their purity. I just don't spend much time on them. Besides, not all pure things are boring. Phoenixes, for instance, are VERY interesting. Beautiful, and interesting. For example, the golden patterns of flame on their feathers shift around, like real fire. I spent a while learning to do that - it wasn't very useful, but it sure was pretty.
But then, fire magic has always been something I liked. I once blew up the muggle school science lab. I was playing with a flame, moving it through the air, seeing how close you can get it to things without them exploding - well, I found out about nitro-glycerine too late. The explosion itself was awesome. It didn't hurt me, of course - the heat just bled into my magic. But it is the coolest feeling to spin through the flames, and lift up your hand to see fire glowing around it, dancing on your fingertips. Of course I then had to become invisible and get the hell out of there, because the teachers had arrived to put the fire out (spoilsports) and I REALLY didn't want them to see me walk out of a blazing inferno unharmed. It would have been fun to see the looks on their faces, though.
Ice magic is also fun, but it isn't so free. Crystals and shards don't flow, like fire does. Still, I prefer it for the purposes of impressing people - the Ice Queen has that down pat, alright. When cold crackles in your wake and grass dies in your footsteps, and people looking into your eyes feel a chill to their very bones... it isn't me, though. I'm a fire girl, always have been, always will be. I'm afraid it shone through in class. I had a very good Ice entrance, and I started that way in the classroom, too, but I soon got carried away with the wandless thing.
Ice and fire aren't the only types of magic, of course. Water magic is as free as fire magic, though not so beautiful, but it's rather hard to use on land, just as fire is hard to use underwater. Plant magic, that's a bit too peaceful for my liking. I'm a very active kind of person, and if a plant is to grow properly it needs time - if you make it grow fast with a spell it will die very soon, and if you use raw magic, like me, you have to give it such a large supply to feed on that it's really not worth it. I think those are the major magical elements. Oh, yes, there's also wind magic. I'm quite good with that, but it's difficult to control - so is fire, but with fire you don't need to control it. I generally use wind magic to supplement my ice magic - for ruffling hair and banging doors open dramatically and suchlike. I can also travel on it - I spent a while studying the spells that go into broomsticks, and they aren't that hard to adapt.
I suppose you think I've missed thought magic. I haven't - it just doesn't really fit into those categories. You see, magic began simply as a raw elemental force, and that was before humans could think - and after all, animals don't think, so we're really in the minority. Now, emotions, that's different. That's just chemicals, really - I could always play with them by instinct. It was great for calming my mother down when I did something weird. I mean, I can mess with people's thoughts, too - after all, I am the greatest dark mage in the world - but honestly it's easier to just stick to the emotions. They're good rewarders and punishers, and they often come out of nowhere, leave no trace and start up very slowly, so it isn't suspicious. When you insert a thought into someone's brain, it leaves a mark that other wizards can later follow up - I can to some extent disguise the thought among the real ones, but if it's too different from what the person could have thought anyway it's very easy to trace.
I'm also adept at all the minor elemental magicks - electricity, magnetism, blood, stone, there are dozens of them. And of course I can use a wand, too - good for intricate little details. After all, it was fairies who invented them, and fairies started out quite little. Most of their magic came from dancing - intricate little steps and cross steps in mid-air with all six dimensions playing a part. And they could draw magic from fireflies, too. When they grew bigger they could handle larger amounts of magic at a time, but these were more apt to get out of control and needed more and more concentration to maintain. So they began snapping twigs from rose-bushes and coating them in honey-dust, and thus were able to grow quite large without having to stop concentrating on breathing in order to concentrate on magic, and now there are over twenty five species of fairy, of varying sizes. They never grew larger than a very short human - it was humans who perfected the technique of wand-making.
Of course you can see size makes a lot of difference in magic. Fairies are small, have the best control but little power build-up - they use natures magic to supplement their own because they can't fit much into their tiny bodies. Giants, on the other hand, have no control over their magic whatsoever - luckily it is almost always completely used up in keeping their massive bodies from collapsing, as is most of their brain-power. Humans are the best size for magic-use, of course. We can store quite large amounts of magic within ourselves, and more in surrounding objects like knotted string and staves, and we can also develop sufficient control for detailed spells, although never as detailed as a fairy can manage. I suppose the price we pay is that not all humans can use it.
Where was I? Oh, yes, dark creatures. Yes, I had a lot of fun with them. I once found a Bogart, attached a vision spell to it and started teleporting it around the neighbourhood at random. It's amazing, the things our old neighbours were scared of. Yeah, I was going through a practical jokes phase then. I dressed an evil little blue Scottish pixie in a pink bonnet and put it outside the train station in a pram. You should have seen the muggle passersby go "ooh, howEEEEEK!!" Heheheh. Then a wizard looked in, got a shock and took it away. I hope they were pretty puzzled about that one at the Ministry!
Okay, so I still like practical jokes.
Queen of Zan: It's called narcolepsy. See above.
Foureyedsnail: Ur... so what was IN it? I always thought wands were sissy.
Adele Starminster: That would be too obvious, ne ce pas?
I lov Redheads w/ Fangs: Eh? What stuff do you think in class?
****************
All kids had monsters under the bed while they were growing up. The difference is, mine were real. I summoned them. I've always liked Dark creatures - they're really interesting. I mean, I know unicorns and things are all cute and pure, but that gets boring after a while. When they're UN pure, there are always all these knots to unravel if you want to understand them. That's interesting.
But I'm not like those stupid Dark wizards - I don't hate all pure things for their purity. I just don't spend much time on them. Besides, not all pure things are boring. Phoenixes, for instance, are VERY interesting. Beautiful, and interesting. For example, the golden patterns of flame on their feathers shift around, like real fire. I spent a while learning to do that - it wasn't very useful, but it sure was pretty.
But then, fire magic has always been something I liked. I once blew up the muggle school science lab. I was playing with a flame, moving it through the air, seeing how close you can get it to things without them exploding - well, I found out about nitro-glycerine too late. The explosion itself was awesome. It didn't hurt me, of course - the heat just bled into my magic. But it is the coolest feeling to spin through the flames, and lift up your hand to see fire glowing around it, dancing on your fingertips. Of course I then had to become invisible and get the hell out of there, because the teachers had arrived to put the fire out (spoilsports) and I REALLY didn't want them to see me walk out of a blazing inferno unharmed. It would have been fun to see the looks on their faces, though.
Ice magic is also fun, but it isn't so free. Crystals and shards don't flow, like fire does. Still, I prefer it for the purposes of impressing people - the Ice Queen has that down pat, alright. When cold crackles in your wake and grass dies in your footsteps, and people looking into your eyes feel a chill to their very bones... it isn't me, though. I'm a fire girl, always have been, always will be. I'm afraid it shone through in class. I had a very good Ice entrance, and I started that way in the classroom, too, but I soon got carried away with the wandless thing.
Ice and fire aren't the only types of magic, of course. Water magic is as free as fire magic, though not so beautiful, but it's rather hard to use on land, just as fire is hard to use underwater. Plant magic, that's a bit too peaceful for my liking. I'm a very active kind of person, and if a plant is to grow properly it needs time - if you make it grow fast with a spell it will die very soon, and if you use raw magic, like me, you have to give it such a large supply to feed on that it's really not worth it. I think those are the major magical elements. Oh, yes, there's also wind magic. I'm quite good with that, but it's difficult to control - so is fire, but with fire you don't need to control it. I generally use wind magic to supplement my ice magic - for ruffling hair and banging doors open dramatically and suchlike. I can also travel on it - I spent a while studying the spells that go into broomsticks, and they aren't that hard to adapt.
I suppose you think I've missed thought magic. I haven't - it just doesn't really fit into those categories. You see, magic began simply as a raw elemental force, and that was before humans could think - and after all, animals don't think, so we're really in the minority. Now, emotions, that's different. That's just chemicals, really - I could always play with them by instinct. It was great for calming my mother down when I did something weird. I mean, I can mess with people's thoughts, too - after all, I am the greatest dark mage in the world - but honestly it's easier to just stick to the emotions. They're good rewarders and punishers, and they often come out of nowhere, leave no trace and start up very slowly, so it isn't suspicious. When you insert a thought into someone's brain, it leaves a mark that other wizards can later follow up - I can to some extent disguise the thought among the real ones, but if it's too different from what the person could have thought anyway it's very easy to trace.
I'm also adept at all the minor elemental magicks - electricity, magnetism, blood, stone, there are dozens of them. And of course I can use a wand, too - good for intricate little details. After all, it was fairies who invented them, and fairies started out quite little. Most of their magic came from dancing - intricate little steps and cross steps in mid-air with all six dimensions playing a part. And they could draw magic from fireflies, too. When they grew bigger they could handle larger amounts of magic at a time, but these were more apt to get out of control and needed more and more concentration to maintain. So they began snapping twigs from rose-bushes and coating them in honey-dust, and thus were able to grow quite large without having to stop concentrating on breathing in order to concentrate on magic, and now there are over twenty five species of fairy, of varying sizes. They never grew larger than a very short human - it was humans who perfected the technique of wand-making.
Of course you can see size makes a lot of difference in magic. Fairies are small, have the best control but little power build-up - they use natures magic to supplement their own because they can't fit much into their tiny bodies. Giants, on the other hand, have no control over their magic whatsoever - luckily it is almost always completely used up in keeping their massive bodies from collapsing, as is most of their brain-power. Humans are the best size for magic-use, of course. We can store quite large amounts of magic within ourselves, and more in surrounding objects like knotted string and staves, and we can also develop sufficient control for detailed spells, although never as detailed as a fairy can manage. I suppose the price we pay is that not all humans can use it.
Where was I? Oh, yes, dark creatures. Yes, I had a lot of fun with them. I once found a Bogart, attached a vision spell to it and started teleporting it around the neighbourhood at random. It's amazing, the things our old neighbours were scared of. Yeah, I was going through a practical jokes phase then. I dressed an evil little blue Scottish pixie in a pink bonnet and put it outside the train station in a pram. You should have seen the muggle passersby go "ooh, howEEEEEK!!" Heheheh. Then a wizard looked in, got a shock and took it away. I hope they were pretty puzzled about that one at the Ministry!
Okay, so I still like practical jokes.