flowerbox | dimensions meeting

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dimensions meeting

Tir Tairngire was a city that didn't exist. Well, it existed, but it existed in a space sort-of in-between dimensions. It was grounded in one, but used another as a veil so it remained hidden from the occupants of the first. It was a masterful piece of magical engineering, really--it had taken a decade to lay the foundation and a century for it to really settle, for them to really understand it.

Of course, that didn't mean hiccups didn't occasionally happen. Especially given Tir Tairngire was a city that didn't exist in a space straddling two dimensions.

Its residents called it the Tir. It had begun as a tiny settlement on a spit of nearly uninhabitable land, in the middle of the ocean, reachable only by ship or the inter-dimensional passages Shunters had managed to create. Now it was a city of almost a half-million people. The only city in the world where magical and non-magical folk lived openly, without hiding from one another. It had started as an experiment. Now it was evidence of an impossibility.

It spread out across the ocean, connected with branches of bridges and canals, supported by the underwater pillars and basements that housed the magical-science facilities and the kelp- and fish-farms. The bulk of the city was on the surface, sprawling in five precincts, four of which were named for each of the Cradles of Magic. Ireland. Africa. China. Australia. Each of them was characterised by a soaring turret that looked more like a centerpiece than a defensive object. The centers of those precincts contained most of the housing; the outside stretches contained the docks and harbours, the fisheries and surface-level farms.

The central spire contained the political centre and public services. The schools, the university, the entrance to the underwater facilities. Surrounding the spire, on that little spit of land from which the city had spread, was the Fiddler's Green, the Tir's only park. The residents were still cultivating it for produce. Flowers, they had managed. Some small trees. Bee-hives too. But the main attractions to north and south respectively were the statue of the city's founder and the etched memorial of names belonging to all those who had been killed as a result of Mevolent's war a century ago--mortal and magical both.

Corrival Deuce stood there and looked up at it, at the names in various languages and scripts recognising the dead. He reached up and touched a name of a friend not long dead, and Eachan Meritorious shimmered into existence beside him. Not the real Meritorious, of course. Real enough to look at him and smile, to even have a facsimile of recognition in his semi-transparent eyes, but he was less than an Echo. A manufactured ghost.

Meritorious hadn't died during the war, only after it. But Serpine had killed him. It counted.

"We could use you, my friend," Corrival said to him. "Not that Morwenna and Descry don't make good Elders, but there are tensions rising, and you've always been good at soothing ruffled feathers."

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Wherever Matthew was, it wasn't London. He'd known that instantly, like he'd know if he lost a limb. The city didn't look like London, didn't feel like London, didn't have the right taste to its magic. Except the magic here wasn't like that of any other city he had ever visited either. The difference was enough to throw him completely off-balance.

There was magic and power here, but they were cautious, wary. They didn't know how it would respond if they tried to harness it.

And he didn't know where the bloody hell he was. Dazed, he stumbled into a park. Not normally his go-to place - parks, especially large ones, lacked the sources of power that urban sorcerers drew on - but here they were grateful for the small lessening of the city's alien magic pressing in around him.

There was a memorial there - there was magic in that, too - but not magic he intended to disturb. At least, not until the image of a man came to life in front it it. "Fuck!" he cursed, startled. Immediately he cringed (bloody hell, he just swore in front of a memorial...) "Sorry, I...sorry."

The park was apparently popular, but large enough that it gave the air of desertion. For all that, Corrival had passed several people, and the awareness of someone else nearby didn't alarm him. Not until that someone else swore loudly and explosively, anyway.

Corrival jerked, instinctively turning, and then dropped his hand ruefully before he could summon a flame. Once a soldier, always a soldier.

"Not used to holograms, lad?" he asked with amusement, turning off the hologram and stuffing his hands into his pockets. He cut a bit of an odd figure: not short, but stocky, with a faded patchwork coat that had once been colourful. In spite of that, his grey-eyed gaze was sharp, even though his tone was conversational. "Although they're not holograms, technically. Nothing to do with light manipulation. You're new to the Tir."

He had to be. Probably mortal-born, only just figuring out he had magic, judging by the reaction.

"We...we did not expect..." they said, staring at the space where the hologram had been. In all truth, it wasn't necessarily that far out of what he'd seen magic too. Illusions - especially big ones like that - weren't easy, sure, but they weren't unheard of. But out here, in the open? That they weren't used to. Magic wasn't as hidden as it was in a lot of stories, but it wasn't done out in the open either.

...And why the hell were they going around calling illusions holograms? Couldn't people just call an illusion an illusion and be done with it?

"Sorry, the Tir? That's...is that this city?" he said. He didn't exactly want to stick a "Not From Around Here!" target on his back, but then, if he didn't at least ask he wouldn't get far.

"We?" Corrival repeated, his eyes narrowed just a little. In his experience, anyone who referred to themselves in the plural were either insane or possessed. The layman familiar with horror stories might even assume Remnant, but Corrival knew better. In the first place, it would be a cold day in Hell before Anton Shudder let even one Remnant out of his Hotel. In the second, Remnants like to believe they were the people they possessed. They never used the plural.

That didn't mean there weren't other things that didn't. Corrival just hadn't known they existed on the Tir. That could be a problem. The old soldier made a mental note to let the governor know.

"Tir Tairngire," Corrival said, the Irish rolling off his tongue. He was speaking a little slower, not as if he thought the stranger wasn't understanding, but more in caution. "They call it the Tir for short."

There was no way the man could have gotten onto the city without knowing what it was. Each of the four entrances were guarded, both inside the city and out. No one entered the city without the authorities knowing, because there was no way for it to happen. It was built in a dimensional rift, for God's sake.

"What's your name, lad?" Corrival's voice wasn't precisely gentle, and it was curious, but mostly, it was amiable. No need to let on how odd this was, if the man didn't already know it.

Dammit. They didn't want to be noticed; not here, not in this strange place where he didn't have a hold of the magic yet. They were vulnerable here, and they didn't want to risk being endangered.

So he resorted to his usual tactic in cases like this; completely ignoring any and all questions about their use of plurals, and pretending that the questions where never asked. And in this case, that was easy, because he had plenty of questions to ask himself. "Um. Okay. Tir Tairngire. At the risk of sounding kinda crazy here. Um. Where exactly is Tir Tairngire?" The Irish he could manage well enough - the Blue Electric Angels knew all languages spoken on the wire - but the place was still one he'd never heard of before in his entire life.

"Uh, I'm Matthew," he added, with just a bit of waryness. Paranoia tended to make him inclined to not go about telling people who he is, when he finds himself in strange cities he's never heard of with magic he doesn't know. Except they were probably already looking suspicious enough without looking like a person trying to avoid identifying themselves as well.

The fact that the question went completely ignored wasn't lost on Corrival, but he let the stranger have his aversion. "Matthew," Corrival said with a nod, and extended his hand. "Corrival Deuce. The Tir's ... well, as I understand it, it's in the middle of the ocean, but it's also protected by a dimensional shunt to prevent people from detecting it from the outside. Don't take this the wrong way, but is that the name you were born with?"

If he was that new to magic, and somehow mentally incapable besides, then he might not know about name-magic. Corrival wanted to believe that no one in the Tir would take advantage of names in such a fashion, but he'd barely known about the place for a week, and even though everything he'd seen so far bore out that belief, he had too much experience otherwise to completely trust it.

Matthew wasn't one of his own, but Corrival had dedicated most of his life to defending the people who couldn't defend themselves. That meant making sure they had the tools to do it. In this case, Matthew knowing about the first and most obvious danger.

... Although come to think of it, Corrival asking for the name right before telling him that wasn't exactly the wisest thing to do. He'd lost some of his touch. He'd have never done that, back in the day.

"A dimensional what?" Matthew said, staring at the man with eyes that were too blue. "Which ocean? What the bloody hell is this place?"

They looked at the hand, but they didn't take it. He was always suspicious, but now it was starting to set in hard. "The name I was born with? What? Why do you want to know?"

"A dimensional shunt," Corrival repeated patiently. "I didn't know it was possible until about a week ago, but it is. Dimensional shunters are sorcerers who can cross dimensions. Apparently they can also bring parts of one dimension into another to use as a kind of cloak."

There was something strange about the man's eyes. Had they changed colour, or was it just the changing light? Corrival found he couldn't be sure.

"I think it's the Atlantic," he added absently, "but I don't recall asking. And because if it was the name you were born with, it means someone could potentially control you with it." He rubbed his short hair ruefully with the one Matthew had declined to take. "Losing my touch, to ask your name outright like that, with you being so obviously new and all. Sorry about that. But I'd think about introducing yourself to anyone else using something else. Names are power. The Tir's meant to be a place where things like that don't happen, but ..." He shrugged. "No need to be reckless."

Matthew's eyes didn't change, not really, but they were always that odd, unnatural albino-blue that just didn't look quite human.

And right now, they eyes were also looking incredibly incredulous."Sorcerers who can cross dimensions? What?!" It wasn't the word 'sorcerer' that had Matthew so disbelieving - after all, he was a sorcerer himself. It was the fact that the man was claiming there were sorcerers doing things that he was pretty damn sure sorcerers weren't supposed to be able to do.

Not to mention he was pretty sure that ordinary, everyday names didn't have that kind of power. Some names did, sure, but your normal, average given name? That wasn't dangerous.

"You're taking the mick, aren't you? What is this, some sort of game?"

"Be an incredibly elaborate game if it was," said Corrival. "What would be the point?" He said it calmly and logically. Logic, he'd found many times over his years, was his friend. "Shunters are real, lad. They don't use their magic too often because the chances of finding a dimension which can support life are millions to one. Probably that's why you've never heard of it. Some folks nowadays take to it like it's a myth."

He stepped away from the memorial, but without taking his gaze off Matthew. "You want I should show you the sights? I've only been here a week. An old friend finally read me into the program. Then you can decide for yourself what's real and what's a game."

"Maybe the point is that someone somewhere is incredibly fucked up and gets their kicks out of convincing people they're in another dimension?" Matthew said, shrugging. Let's face it, there were a few people who he really wouldn't put it past to try and pull that kind of stunt. But the the number of people who actually had the power to do it...well, that was a considerably smaller list, and Matthew had to admit that, crazy as it was, the guy was probably telling the truth.

Probably.

If he wasn't, they would make him know how they didn't like being tricked like that.

At the offer for help, his eyes narrowed in suspicion. He had learned long ago to be careful with his trust, and they were wary of someone offering help so freely. (They were also wary of someone who asked for their name and then, in the next breath, claimed they could control him with it.)

"Why do you want to help? What do you get out of it?"

"Company," Corrival said simply. "Someone else nearly as new to the city as I am. A new friend." He smiled. "Take your pick. This place is intimidating as all hell. Wouldn't mind someone to be intimidated with me. What d'you say?"

He certainly wasn't about to force the lad into following--judging by his stance, his posture, he was flighty as a stray dog and Corrival didn't want to scare him more than he already had by accident. Idiot. He really was rusty.

"We aren't looking for friends," they said instantly. "And thanks, but no thanks. I'm not looking for a tour guide."

And with that Matthew started backing away, feeling rather more uneasy then he had before the conversation. The man had seemed much too insistent on trying to get Matthew to go with him for their liking. And what the hell was it with that 'people can control you with your name' crap? That wasn't how magic worked.

But this place was far enough out of their comfort zone that they couldn't quite be confident that it was impossible...fuck, was he going to have to come up with some stupid other name for himself now? He didn't change his bloody name to make himself sound more impressive when he became a sorcerer, why the hell should he have to do it now?

As he walked through the streets, trying to get a better feel of this place's magic, he noticed something...odd. Not quite off, but definitely something strange. (Well, apart from the bloody flying ships and the magical circles that people kept disappearing into. Those were definitely strange as hell.)

There were no beggars.

It...actually freaked him out a bit, really. Cities always had beggars. There were always people who fell through the cracks and had to make their way with the generosity of strangers. But if there were no beggars here...then were did they go?

And what the hell did this place do to make them go away?

Edited 2014-09-18 10:13 (UTC)

"Wait--" Corrival began, and then subsided with a sigh and a muttered, "Bloody hell." If the boy didn't want to come then there was no way Corrival would be able to convince him otherwise. Not without making him distrust people further. Corrival looked up at the memorial. "See?" he said to Meritorious's name. "I'm out of practice. You should be here. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to report a lost vagabond on the streets."

He set off toward the tower.

There were no beggars, no bus-stops, no cars save a handful on the inner road. There were sea-ferries and air-ferries, there were the sigil-circles with people gathering around. But the most prominent method of travel was by foot, bike or skateboard.

If he cared to look at the people around him more completely, the ones who weren't beggars, he would notice the casual use of magic. The water-bikes which surged past the shore had glowing dashes, ones lit by symbols. So were the cars. Children and teens using skateboards flung out their hands and surged forward without any apparent impetus. People ran faster than they should, or pulled rickshaws without breaking a sweat; some dropped out of windows three or more storeys up without any injury. Teenagers played tag walking on water.

No one seemed to notice, or care. People chattered, laughed, walked in silence; people commuted and played and communicated, like any normal city. For the most part, they didn't seem to notice anything wrong with their newest resident.

But, eventually, something had to filter in. That something, in this case, was a bored and off-duty Aboriginal woman who climbed up out of the cobblestone with a stretch and a yawn, facing the water. She was tall and lanky, wearing shades that wrapped around half her head and obscured her eyes entirely; she wore jeans, a tank-top, a jacket that had come from a police uniform.

At first Bonza Digger just wanted some sunlight and fresh air. She lounged against the one of the stone pillars holding the rail and watched the people pass by, and scratched her arms, and wished she hadn't offered to help the bloody squints with their research. She didn't always feel like that, but the side-effects of the serum they'd been investigating had been a little unexpected. The itch was at least better than alternatives.

Her gaze fell on the man wandering around the corner and looking dazed, confused, wary, suspicious. His clothes weren't badly-kept, but Digger knew the look of a vagabond. They got 'em often enough. She just didn't recall them getting any recently. Digger pushed off the pillar and wandered toward him.

"Oy, mate," she called, "gone walkabout for a reason, or need a hand finding a map?"

It had taken Matthew an embarrassingly long time to notice the magic. Long enough that they were glad that no one they knew was here to witness their ineptitude. But to be fair, whatever magic people were doing here, it wasn't like any magic that he knew. It didn't even feel like magic. Where was the taste of the city streets, the electric burn of the mains, the heart-beat of the city? Where was everything that made magic what it is?

Unless it wasn't actually magic at all. Maybe it was just...really advanced technology. Or something.

He might have continued on pondering this, if not for the woman. Who, for some reason, wanted to talk to him. It was a bit weird, really, since usually Matthew wasn't the kind of person that invited friendly conversation from random passers-by.

"Um. No? Do I need a reason?" he said, blinking at her. "But we would like a map," they added.

"Need one? Bugger that. People usually got one, though." Now that Digger was closer she could see more in the man's clothes, and his frazzled expression. Usually the only people who wore that expression were newcomers, but Digger didn't recall anyone of his description being pointed out. Maybe he just wasn't a flight-risk.

Digger shrugged and turned, and waved him to follow her toward one of the circles woven of sigils, on a stone-built dock not far away. "Missed orientation? Lazy ass." The insult was said amicably. "She'll be right. I'm a paragon of virtue and law, and all that shit. C'mere."

Matthew wanted to snap something about how having a 'reason' was rather difficult when you'd never even planned to come here in the first place, but he didn't want to advertise just how out of his depths he was here. Although possibly it was already late for that, considering her sarcastic comment about orientations.

Well, they thought it was sarcastic. Hell, what if this place was crazy enough to actually hold orientations on this crap?

"Why?" he said instead, looking at those circles suspiciously. Walking into strange magic circles was a bad idea at the best of times, and even more so when they were of a magic that was so far outside their range of understanding that it might as well be magic from Mars. "I am not standing in one of those."

Definitely an idiot who missed orientation. He wasn't the only one, because the city didn't chase up on its newcomers unless they showed themselves to be particularly resistant, stupid or damaging, but they usually found out quite smart that it was a stupid thing to do.

Digger rolled her eyes and stepped into the (for now) empty circle, and stamped her foot. "It's not going to bite you, but if you need the boot up your sorry ass, I might." She prodded the flat dash and a holographic map of the city rose up, generated by the sigils carved into the podium. One particular location flashed and zoomed in, and a circle flash. Digger pointed. "That's where we are right now. Where're you aiming to go?"

They watched as the map appeared, and he had to admit...the city was beautiful. This city, and the strange magic it had. It made part of him wish that he was younger, back when he'd been travelling the world to learn about the magic of other cities. Back when he wasn't the Midnight Mayor, back when he hadn't died, back when he hadn't learned to be wary of everything. If he'd come here then...

But he hadn't. Plus it was rather hard to not worry that his city might be going up in flames in his absence. Sure, it often when up in flames when he was there anyway, but at least he was there to watch over it. Or there to do the burning. One or the other.

"London. We want to go to London. Also, you realise that threatening to kick me in the arse is not doing anything to make me want to go in that thing, right?"

Edited 2014-11-05 10:33 (UTC)

"Then you need to pick up a sense of humour from the dollar store." Something was off. Something was very, very off. True, some of those who came to the city wanted to leave because it was so strange, so alien, because even knowing beforehand what they were getting into they didn't actually know what they were getting into.

This man was different. He said London as though it was a viable place to travel, not just home, somewhere safe from the oddity of the Tir. Digger squinted at him through the sunglasses obscuring her eyes from his gaze. "Who's your caseworker, mate?"

He should at least know that. Everyone new had one, and knew to remember the name or keep their card on their person.

"I left my sense of humour in London." Ha ha, a joke. Even if while the words were all right, the tone wasn't. He didn't know what, but even he wasn't thick enough to miss the fact that she thought something was wrong.

And they didn't like the fact that she had avoided telling him how to get to London.

As for the rest of what she said, well, that was just bloody weird. Okay, so maybe Matthew tended to look like a mess a lot of the time, and probably wouldn't look that out of place in amongst a group of people who desperately needed a casework. But still, who the hell goes around assuming that random people on the street have caseworkers?

"Um, we don't have one?"

"Then how'd you get here?" Digger asked bluntly, and now she was regarding him with suspicion, though it was hard to tell with the wide and size of her sunglasses. "There's four entrances into this city and people can't just stumble onto 'em. They can't just stumble out, either, so if you wanna go visit your people in London, or whatever, you need to go through your caseworker and get cleared for a visa."

If he was as green as he seemed, he was too new to be accepted for a visa, either, which made all of this extremely strange. He was asking questions he should have known the answers to, as if he hadn't been through the system at all.

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dimensions meeting

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/finally tags this back after way too long

/but i think i win for lateness

/NO I WIN

... yeah you win

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