Arle and Amitie marvel over the brilliance of technology at Ringo's breakfast table. Requested by a tumblr anon!

Tech Wonders

Ringo put two slices of bread in the toaster, and breakfast with her two best friends immediately became livelier.

"Wh-what the-? What does that device do?" Arle shouted, clutching her bowl of rice with both hands.

Ringo's mouth fell open. Standing in her family's kitchen with her two magical friends, she thought the question sounded insane. No one should have ever asked her what a toaster does. Everyone knew that toaster heated up bread to make it toasted. It was a simple explanation, one that she should have been able to say, but her mouth refused to cooperate with her equally addled brain.

"Ooh, you put bread in there? Why don't you just do this?" Amitie snatched two pieces of bread from the bag on the kitchen counter. Twirling her finger, a fiery spark ignited, and she cast it upon the bread slices. They quickly turned a fine brown shade, toasted to near perfection.

"That's because...that's what a toaster is for. You just-" Ringo snatched a plate from the counter and held it out just as the toaster rang, spitting out the toast perfectly onto it. "-do it like that. Easy peasy right?"

"Whoa! That seems really convenient. No wonder your world lacks magic," Arle said, a hint of disappointment coating her words.

Rolling her eyes, Ringo said, "Well, duh. My world is more scientific than Primp or your world. By the way, what is your world called? I never had the chance to ask before."

"Oh, it's called-"

At that moment, Ringo's smartphone rang. The bubbly, electronic tune, reminiscent of an old video game, echoed in the kitchen and quickly died out. Pulling it out of her skirt pocket, she grinned when she noticed the sender was Maguro and asked Arle to wait for a moment.

"Maguro and his family are on a trip in Osaka right now and-"

"You can-you can keep in touch with him while he's so far away with that thing? I thought you told us you had to call each other! How are the words being sent on that tiny screen?" Arle cried, her eyes widening as she jerked forward. She grabbed Ringo's shoulders and shook her. "What kind of technology is that 'smartphone' of yours anyway? It sounds a lot like magic to me!"

Ringo rapidly tapped on the screen and fired off a text to him, hardly deterred by Arle's shock. "Uh, yeah. We're texting."

"Wha-? Tex...ting? Texting?" Amitie repeated, the word foreign on her tongue. She reached into a wooden cupboard and took out a few packages of grape jam.

"Yep. Texting. It's really standard in my world. It's pretty much another and very common way to communicate with people so long as you have their phone number." Ringo sidestepped the befuddled girls and made her way over to the dining table. Setting down her plate, she sat and crossed her ankles, her thumb rapidly hitting the keys as she texted Maguro again.

Arle and Amitie exchanged a glance. Everything Ringo said sounded like a strange kind of spell. In Arle's world, smartphones weren't invented. Not just that they weren't invented, regular phones didn't exist. In Amitie's world, only corded phones existed like the one Ms. Accord used to call her parents when she was sleeping in class again, ensuring she received a good scolding when she returned home.

Seeing Ringo cut her salted salmon into even pieces with one hand and text in the other blew their minds. It was like multitasking to the extreme. Having a full conversation with a person while popping salmon slices into her mouth without appearing rude was such a novelty to the magicians.

"B-but how does it work? Do the words just appear on his smartphone? Like I said, it sounds a lot like magic," Arle asked, crowding by Ringo.

Amitie bounced up to Ringo's other side, quickly dumping the packets of jelly onto her toast. "Yeah! How's it work?"

"It's simple. We both have smartphones, so we're both capable of texting. That way, we can talk to each other," she said, grinning. "There's also an algorithm for how texting works, but to summarize it in a way familiar to you both, think of it is an invisible, magical, electro pulse being carried to someone's phone that appears on their screen no matter how far away they are."

"Uh...yeah, I get it! I totally get it!" Amitie exclaimed, not understanding at all what Ringo meant and popped her toast in her mouth.

"What's this word mean?" Arle asked, pointing at an odd character.

Ringo furrowed her brow. She hadn't expected explaining what an emoticon was to two teenagers. "Um, that's a smiley face, and the the thing next to it is a star emoji."

"What's an emoji?" Amitie asked, beaming. "Oh! That's a really fun word to say! E~mo~ji! Emoji!"

Pursing her lips, Ringo listened to Arle and Amitie sound out "emoji" as if it were a frivolous spell and wondered what she had gotten herself into so early in the morning.