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After Bale posted:

My leg is BURNING.
It's not on fire anymore, but it's still BURNING.
How?
Why?
What DOES that?
Harvey is crouched beside me.
I wish he wasn't here (though thank god he was).
He's too young to deal with an adult in this much pain.
So I dig my fingernails into my kneecap and tell him:
"Good job,"
In a steady voice.
"Go find the rest of the class."
To get him out of the room.

Alchemical Process of Now posted:

NOW is the alchemical process of converting
utter mystery
into
complete certainty.
PROPHESY is the alchemical process
of throwing rocks into the dark
and guessing about what makes a noise.
I've always liked throwing rocks at things
and I don't mind a profession
that admits its professionals are charlatans.

Decorations posted:

Susan got me a necklace made out of shark teeth
that I hung off the back
to warn people not to touch my goddamn chair.
H0pp3r got me a seat cushion
with a merrabbit on it.
Harvey's apprentice got me
blue LEDs
and Harvey attached them to the wheels
so that my chair could look like something called TRON.
And Harvey made the chair itself, of course.

Fire Finds Me posted:

I do not find the fire.
The fire finds me.
It has been watching me and it knows my weakness.
It sets my fragility on fire.
It brands me with certainty that I am broken.
It starts with my legs.
It thinks that it is safe in its ambush. That I will not be able to fight through the bone-deep pain.
It does not know I have a student.

Hate Hospitals posted:

I hate hospitals.
Contempt borne of familiarity.
Mom is thirsty. I use a mote of Water to fill her glass without getting up.
We talk about stupid, little things
because for the first time in my life
I'm too scared to ask for the truth.

High School posted:

There are spiritual threats affecting a local high school.
Anger flares from unlikely sources. Fights in the playground draw blood.
Children come home with burns. All of my monitoring spells in the neighborhood are boiled away.
It's not a situation where an open sorcerer can sneak into the building after hours to run a diagnostic.
I'd be arrested and blamed for everything.
I forge a teaching license. I get a job there.
I knew that it would be difficult.
I didn't expect to be good at it.

How Scarf posted:

This is how I put on my scarf:
I hang it about my neck so that the right side hangs lower than the left.
I pull the breadth of it from my neck to over my head so that the edge touches my brow.
I toss the long right side over my left shoulder.
I adjust the hem until it hangs comfortably about my face.
I feel safe.

I am a Sorcerer posted:

I remember magic.
I remember guiding the impossible into the inevitable with a light hand.
I tame spirits with scripts.
I master matter, motive, and mysticism with math.
I see the spaces in my mind where spells belong.
I am an open sorcerer.
Oh I want my magic back.

I Cannot Fix my Leg with Magic posted:

I cannot fix my leg with magic.
Healing burns unbearably.
Prosthetics break.
Melt, in fact.
It's a cursed wound
baleful and fetid
but a wheelchair
doesn't need to touch the stump.
I can still use a wheelchair.

I Can't Do This posted:

I can't do this
again.
I can't do this again.
I can't
do this again.
I can't do
this again.
I can't do this again.
I
can't do this again.

I Want You Too Much posted:

I want you too much
it hurts
your slight, unintentional movements away cause me pain
I want to cling to you
you only want to touch for a moment
I accept a butterfly kiss
a splash of water on the face of someone dying of thirst
I smile, a fragile mask over what I really feel
so that my pain doesn't inconvenience you
I ask for your attention
and there is silence for a day
a blank silver void with cutting edges
I can't do this again.

Independence posted:

I remember going to the corner store by myself
for the first time after leaving the hospital
it was weirdly complicated
but damned if I didn't do it on my own.
When I got home my arms ached
with victory.

Love is Perishable posted:

Love is perishable.
Without the preservative maintenance of touch and words
it sours quickly.
Now, only the sour parts of love are left to me.

Permanent Break posted:

I remember having a broken leg in
high school and watching
other children play soccer.
That was pain, but it passed.
This doesn't pass.
Muscle cramps and
pressure sores.
Helpless, being wheeled
too fast down a slope
Sitting inside realizing
I haven't been outside in a week.

Pokemon posted:

We are in an empty classroom after the chaos of the school day is over. I lean on my desk watching as the boy hovers his hand over a plate of metal filings.
An inch under his palm, the bits of metal arrange themselves into neat lines.
"It looks like you have an affinity for Order," I say. "I should have guessed that from your desk. You might want to explore Earth based magic as well."
"So this is like Pokemon," he asserts.
I sigh. "This isn't like Pokemon."
"Is fire vulnerable to water?" he asks.
I hesitate and consider.
"This is somewhat like Pokemon," I allow.

Quiet Boy posted:

The boy is quiet and solitary.
Read: The boy is a target for all of the simmering anger threatening to over-boil the hallways of the school.
He has one friend. A bright and lively clown of a child.
Thank God. You need a friend. To survive these years.
I give the students USB sticks to store their homework on.
I pay for them out of pocket. The school has no money for anything.
I plant a sleeper program on the sticks I give to vulnerable students.
A Dark/Death algorithm that conceals them from those who would cause them harm.
The boy finds the program and asks me about it.

Select Prophecy posted:

SELECT Omens FROM dbo.Prophecy
returns 1,045,655 rows
That's my entire collection.

SELECT Omens FROM dbo.Prophecy
WHERE Certainty = 100%
returns 0 rows
Figures.

SELECT Omens FROM dbo.Prophecy
JOIN dbo.Apoclyp on Apoclyp.Id = Prophecy.Id
returns 28 rows
Okay. But which one?

SELECT Omens FROM dbo.Prophecy
JOIN dbo.Apoclyp on Apoclyp.Id = Prophecy.Id
WHERE Apoclyp.Type = "Singularity"
AND Prophecy.Certainty > 90%
returns 1 row
Gotcha.

Swimming is Flying posted:

I am swimming.
In water, I am free.
Nothing
aches.
My legs can carry me.
I can not only walk,
but fly.
I have always loved normal water.
My father called me little fish.
My forum handle is Pisces.
MY NAME.
When I became a sorcerer,
I discovered the Web.
A new world below the world.
I discovered I could swim
in other people's dreams.
I have never felt less like a cripple and more like a bird.

Telling the Future posted:

Tarot cards. Tea leaves.
Crystal balls and tortoise neck bones.
Celtic runes and dove entrails.
Humans are terrible
at predicting the future.
So is magic.
Prophecy is a chump's game because of
free will,
infinite possibility,
and innumerable variables.
No one really knows why.
It's just hard.

The Steps of Breaking posted:

I am running to school.
My foot hits ice flush with the concrete.
The world lurches. I land on my leg.
My bag, all my textbooks, land on top of me.
Pain.
There are five steps to breaking a bone:
1. The crack of pain.
2. Speckles of light before my eyes.
3. I want to vomit.
4. My leg is wrong.
5. I realize there will be another six months of wearing a cast.
Six months of sitting in the bleachers, watching the other children run.
I have broken so many bones.
I am so tired.

Too Tired to Yell posted:

I'm wheeling myself slowly down a ramp.
I get to the bottom.
Someone behind me hisses: "Finally."
A woman with a stroller scowls at me as she speeds past.
'Excuse me for fucking existing!'
Is something I don't have the energy to yell after her.

True Meaning posted:

@Pisces: I'm angry.
I am frustrated enough that you can hear it in my voice.

@Brody: I'm angry.
I would be throwing things if I let myself do that.

@Pisces: It's fine.
It's not fine, but I don't have the energy to fight about it, so whatever.

@Brody: It's fine.
It's not fine and I want to talk about it, but I don't want to start the conversation so ask me two more times.

@Pisces: I love you.
I'm afraid to be alone.

@Brody: I love you.
Maybe I won't fuck it up this time.

Vengeance posted:

Some say the world will end in fire.
(mine almost did)
But vengeance tastes best when well aged and chilled.
And not being able to walk is a hard lesson in patience.
I don't blame the fire.
I blame the fire-starters.
I watched for the shadows they cast in the flickering light.
I sketched their silhouettes with an ice pick.
Their shadows were long and cast from tall perches.
They watched the world from a pedestal of old power.
Old wealth. Old magic.
The sort of people who would strip mine Fiddler's Green.
The sort of people who use Firewalls to harvest Fear from a high school.
Consistent and cruel as death and taxes.
The world was their oyster.
I know how to crack oysters.
Some say the world will end in fire.
That's not my preference. But I do like ice.

What Scarf posted:

Here are the colors of blue found in fabric:
aqua, aqualon, baby, cerulean, cobalt, copenhagen
indigo, light, navy, peacock, prussian, robin's egg
royal, sky, turquoise, ultramarine.
I like them all.

Why Scarf posted:

My scarf has no religious significance.
I am not Muslim. My grandfather is Jewish,
and what he believes is beautiful, but
mine is a choice of fashion, not faith.
I wear my scarf for the pleasure of privacy.
I tug it forward and I am alone in a cave of fabric.
I wear my scarf because it makes me feel beautiful.
I think my eyes are my best feature
and I like flirting with glances from behind the hem.
I wear it because of its magical resonance.
Flexible blue fabric is like water
and water is mine.

You Owe Me Nothing posted:

you owe me nothing
I can't show pain because
to be in pain is to be an inconvenience to you
and if i am inconvenient
you will leave
don't worry about me
i won't even let you think to worry about me
i'm strong
everyone else is in more pain than I am
everything else is more urgent
than me
don't worry about me
i can be alone
i'm strong