☥ log; closed; ongoing

[quiesquietis.livejournal.com]

When; Monday afternoon.
Rating; PG, for formal social nicety.
Characters; primrosella, schisming, quiesquietis.
Summary;
Log;

It's slightly after classes conclude for the day that Philomena and Dr. Argento make their way to the Library and their appointment with Princess--or Miss, as Philomena briefed Dr. Argento ahead of time--Rosella. Philomena, of course, isn't nervous at all, or desperately longing for another cigarette as she enters the Library slightly ahead of Dr. Argento. Charlotte would have those kinds of problems, but there's always something a little different about her when she goes by the name that more and more feels more real, even while fewer and fewer people call her by it. Maybe it's just a quietness of the soul as well as the voice, but at least it keeps her somewhat serene, drifting like a pale fragment of ash until they come to where Rosella is among the stacks.

"Oh, hello. Miss Rosella, may I present you to Dr. Argento, the linguistic expert I mentioned before?" Philomena accompanies this little initial introduction with a deeply polite but not overly formal curtsy, one obviously mastered over time, and does nothing so gauche as check to make sure Dr. Argento is following her lead.

(But she very much hopes he is.)

Comments

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

Rosella tilts her head, looking at the image as she absorbs their words. "Sharing...qualities? Shapeshifters?" she repeats slowly, chewing absently on her lip as a vaguely worried expression flickers across her face. It wouldn't be the first time she'd run across magic like that, of course, and she's certainly been turned into a bird enough times on curse days to know it exists, but being affected by a curse and working a spell herself--no, those are two very different things. And the latter has far more dangerous implications, because as far as she knows, in all the time she's spent in the City, a curse has never worked improperly by mistake.

"I see. Then you think it's a picture of what the spell is meant to do?" she asks gingerly, as the literary reference goes over her head but the elaborated meaning sinks in. "Then the rest of the spell must be missing from beneath it. But why would anyone only rip out the picture and not take the spell itself?"

[quiesquietis.livejournal.com]

On a quiet and understated level, Philomena continues to be grateful for the space both of her companions give as a matter of course--she likes her space, that unpierced protective caul, and it gives her room to think on the questions at hand.

"Oh, I can think of a few reasons, first of which being that they didn't want the spell to be identifiable. Or perhaps the picture was torn out deliberately to leave as a clue to guide people to the spell, although that's a bit convoluted. Or it was an accident. However did you acquire the symbol in the first place?" She laces her fingers together primly on the table, keeping her back straight and her inquisitive gaze on Rosella.

[schisming.livejournal.com]

Elliot laces his fingers together and hunches his shoulders, a frown creasing the corners of his mouth. "The first is irresponsible, at best, at worst dangerous or actively malicious."

He'll shut up in a second so Rosella can answer the question put to her, but! Magic! Going around all willy-nilly without identification! What kind of cretin, etc etc--excuse him, he'll explain. "If done deliberately and not, as you say, by simple wear and tear on the pages. I personally wouldn't feel pressed to try working a rote - spell, if you prefer - sans surety of result, but then I have the questionable benefit of having singed off my own eyebrows more than once."

Yes. "Curiosity killed the caster, as they say." ...no one says that. "But supplemental imagery alone shouldn't emit active resonance. Ceci n'est pas une pipe, oui?"

Did you know this is why Elliot isn't allowed to interact with human beings, Rosella? Because he talks exactly like this all the time. "Ah--René Magritte, Belgian artist. Renowned for, among other things, a painting of a pipe bearing the initially perplexing declaration 'this is not a pipe.' But he's right, you see--the image of the thing is not the thing, ergo: the image of the spell ought not to be magic on its own. Without language it's only a picture."

[primrosella.livejournal.com]

"Well, I found it in a book, actually," Rosella first admits to Philomena, gesturing vaguely to the shelves around them as if to elaborate. "I was looking for a book about runes, I think, since I was trying to search out one in particular for a friend of mine, and somewhere in the stack of them, I came across this. It didn't seem to belong to the book I found it in, though--it seemed as though it were being used as a bookmark, rather."

And fortunately, explaining that buys her the time to try to figure out what in the world Elliot has been talking about in the first place, because it's bad enough when cultural references in general go flying over her head, and doubly so when they're delivered with the rapidity of an offended chipmunk's chattering. "Oh, and I--er, I'd hate to try a spell if I didn't know what it was, either, of course. Or if I didn't know exactly how to work it, I suppose. Which is rather why I asked in the first place. So, er...you think it seems magical because of the book it came from, then? And I ought to be looking for one about shapeshifters?"

[quiesquietis.livejournal.com]

In the realm of humor that preoccupies the little intricate and slightly askew clockwork mechanisms of Philomena's thoughts, she reflects that the differing paradigms between them might make an excellent set up for a joke: a wizard, a fairy, and a princess walk into a library, and they start confusing one another...

"I think what Dr. Argento is getting at more generally is--well, if I understand correctly, the symbol itself may be an important part of the spell. Like a picture in a cookbook showing the proper way to mix ingredients, so to speak, or what your project should look like when it's done. So perhaps the book was torn to undo the working of this spell in particular, and I'm...not quite sure you'd want to be searching for a book that specific." She sucks her lower lip gingerly into her mouth, looking down at the amalgam of man and tiger with her head slightly tilted. "I hardly know any grimoires about one type of spell, it's not very efficient. These tend to be like medieval manuscripts, although that's speculation on my part--if this came from a printing press then it's a different matter. But not many mages enjoy the printing press in their private spellwork, which a few notable exceptions. That's a very long way of saying I'm not sure, isn't it?"