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Posted: Mon Sep 26, 2016 8:43 pm
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Kaleb glanced down at the slight weight on his feet, but didn't make any moves that might have disrupted the cat. He was a good cat perch.
"So they are real, living flowers?" He asked, still full of doubt. The teen's expression was almost a bit lost, as though he were not doubting Jeremiah's words, but the entire world around him. It still made no sense to him, cuscuta parasitized other plants, not animals. And how could he explain the fast growth by the bench that had retreated as the cat pawed at it?
"Is it... a part of him, or does it grow on him?" Kaleb finally asked, sounding a little bit more like the bright student that he was rather than a dumbstruck idiot.
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Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2016 8:26 am
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Kaleb sat down heavily on the bench next to the cat. It was almost a relief, some weighty stuff had been dropped on him just now, and sitting down was far better for thinking. Perhaps now he knew how Alice felt following the rabbit into Wonderland, except in his case it was a white cat.
Even though the kid was too polite to just pick up an animal on their first meeting, his lap was at least available for sitting on.
"I guess magic is the only thing that could make sense at this point... How do you even begin to learn about magic in the world?" Kaleb muttered, hesitantly reaching towards the cat and it's magical flowers. His touch was light and gentle, reassuring him that those delicate petals and vines did indeed exist, and weren't some sort of illusion. Even that could have been more easily explained, simply an altering of light striking the retina, fooling the brain into believing something was there when it was not. Like a mirage over hot pavement, or even the reflection of a mirror.
The gears inside his mind were ticking away, magic itself wasn't enough of an explanation. Kaleb wanted to know more. He wanted to know how the magic worked, what did it do at the cellular level, at the molecular level, to allow this amazing thing to exist. He wanted to know what this magic was.
"I don't suppose they teach course about this at the college?" Kaleb asked in a slightly strangled voice.
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Posted: Thu Sep 29, 2016 7:50 pm
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As the cat curled up in his lap, Kaleb seemed to acknowledge it only by patting the animal, as he would any cat, rather than touching the flowers. He had enough distractions, although the purring was nice.
"But if Hellbine is wandering around town, don't other people ask questions? Or does everyone in this town already know about it all and I don't because I've only been here a couple weeks-" He paused.
"Wait, there are books?" Kaleb asked, suddenly very focused, and looking quite intent on acquiring said books even if they were only vaguely related fairytales. It might have been determination, or simply grasping at whatever familiar safety line he could find. Books had always been his safety net.
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Posted: Fri Sep 30, 2016 10:27 am
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"But reality is more than just wants," Kaleb said, and there was a surprising amount of insistence hiding behind those words. Even as a young adult, barely out of high school, he knew about the tenuous relationship between perception and interpretation. Even this experience would be reflected upon later, the flowers that felt real and the word of the older man would be weighed against other possibilities while not caught up in the moment.
Jeremiah was a bit less intimidating while also seated, even though there was still some degree of having to look up at the older man. Kaleb looked back down at the cat anyway. Hellbine's fur was soft under his hand, and the animal's presence on his lap was reassuring. He had never had a pet growing up, but he could imagine why they were so well liked.
"Is there anywhere I can learn about it, the magic that does exist?" He finally asked. If the flower cat was not an isolated occurrence in this town, Kaleb wanted to at least recognize the next time this magic happened to cross his path.
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