songerein | Open | Do not fear difficulty.

Entry tags:

Open | Do not fear difficulty.

Who: Trahearne & you!
Which: Journal post/open log
Where: Tree of Stories
What: Now that the Story Eater is taken care of, it's time to look into the next order of business: staying in Songerein.
Warnings: N/A as of now

> JOURNAL: A Query

Sender: Trahearne
To: All
Subject: Regarding Mirrors.

I am presently researching stories involving mirrors. If there are any tales from your culture that prominently feature magical mirrors, I would be interested in hearing about them. Thank you.

> ACTION: The Tree of Stories

[ If you are looking for Trahearne, you will...not find him at the archives, strangely enough.

For these past few days, he has holed himself up in the Tree of Stories, leaving only to get food and to feed his pets. He is scouring every inch of the multiple floors and countless shelves for stories involving magical mirrors, taking into account what others have told him, and what he has discovered on his own. Before long he's surrounded by stacks and stacks of books; he quickly skims through them, then places them in one of many of the other stacks, catergorizing them in a way only he understands. He seems totally lost in his work, oblivious to others talking or making noise.

Towards the latter half of his time spent researching here, he's starting to look...well. Wilted. There really is no better way to put it. His leaves seem to lack their particular shine, and the ones on his head seem to droop lower than they normally do. How long has it been since he went outside...?

Feel free to help him research, or perhaps test out a promising story with him, or even just tell him to take a break. Good luck with that last one, though. ]

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[ Ooh, ooh! With every word that appears on the page, Trahearne is even more intrigued. He lets it sit in his mind, rolls it around. This sounds quite a lot like what he's after--even if the mechanics of the mirrors' magic is not known, it sounds like something dreamotion is capable of doing, so in his mind, it's worth pursuing. ]

I believe this aligns rather closely with what I'm researching. Thank you, Ferran - if you don't mind me asking a few more questions about your experience. Mirrorbound is a title unique enough that I may be able to do my own research stemming from that, but did this world have a name as well? Could you tell me a little bit more about the Coven?

Of course, ask away. Something happened with the mirrors later, too, but we can get back to that.

[Putting a pin in that topic.]

The world was called Geardagas, and the Coven belonged to the city called Aefenglom. Civilization was kind of struggling because of the magic plague, so the witches who made up the Coven were that much more important, because they could keep it out and sometimes cure it, among other things. It was such an influential organization they could convince the rest of the city to let us Mirrorbound take up a whole section of their housing.

Otherwise, it was kind of like a university for magic. You could go and take classes on most different kinds of magic if you were a witch, and they even had a few options for those of us who had to learn how to manage being nonhuman. Their library was incredible, but the building that held the mirrors was apparently the oldest thing there.

[That library was one of the few nice things about being there, honestly...]

[ Yes, put a pin in whatever happened to the mirrors...

Trahearne makes a quick note of these names in his own private notebook--something to search for in the Tree of Stories. How exciting! If someone experienced it, then it must exist as a story in some form somewhere in those shelves. He loves a good library, a "university of magic" tickles his curiosity. Skimming over the nonhuman part, though-- ]

Fascinating. Thank you so much. It's unfortunate that the mirrors' origins remain a mystery, but that they were able to reflect images of the worlds from which you hail. Being here now, would you consider that sort of reflection similar to how dreamotion works/how dreamotion reacts to our emotions and memories, or something else entirely? Were the mirrors ever used for other purposes, besides changing you?

[Ferran pauses before answering, turning the question over in his mind. Does he think it's like dreamotion...? He hadn't thought to connect those two aspects before, so he'll instead turn to the other question, which he does have a concrete answer for, as he considers.]

Well, sometimes our mirrors would draw us back to them like we were hypnotized, though it never happened to me personally. At that point, the mirror would either show the person things from back home as if they were going through the next part of their lives, or it would pull them back through to home, at which point the mirror would break.

Sometimes things from home would come through, too, though that was rare. [And thank god for that, since the one time he saw it happen it practically gave him a heart attack.] Much later, we could go through them by choice, even to other people's worlds.

[The aforementioned change, which has a story of its own.]

I guess I'm not sure about it being like dreamotion. I haven't really tried to do anything like connect with home or bring parts of it here. [Other than, uh, some weapons.] I've kind of been avoiding thinking of home, actually. But I guess anything is possible in a dream, right?

[ Interesting, interesting... A small part of Trahearne wonders if they're like mirrors at all. In fact-- ]

I'm starting to get the sense that these mirrors - at least, the one connected to you personally - acted more like a portal, as opposed to what one may expect a mirror to traditionally do. Would you consider the events and objects shown to you to be reflections, or more akin to looking out a window?

[ Do mirrors that not reflect count as mirrors at all? Anyway-- ]

Anything is possible, yes. [ If he doesn't want to think about home, then he won't push it. ] Then let me reword the question - did the mirrors ever respond in a particular way to one's emotional state or memories? Or was the influence largely one-sided, mirror->person?

I'd agree with that. Our own mirror did reflect things like a normal one, but I don't remember anyone saying they saw a reflection that was based on a past memory or anything. The thing from home that was given to me wasn't actually something I was that familiar with at the time, but I can say now it was at least accurate to the real thing, so I don't know if it was based off my memories or not.

[He still wonders how it was possible, but then he could say the same about his own presence there. So many questions and so few answers, even if he'd been willing to stay long enough to find out.]

Plus, the person I knew who had those visions through hers felt like she actually went through what she saw. [He doesn't even need to categorize it as a guess. His link to her made him fully aware of what she was feeling.] But we actually did do something that affected them, just once. I guess it was both concerning our emotions and memories.

To make a long story short, we eventually found the source of that magic plague. A dragon who was a guardian of that world gave us their life energy for the magic to destroy it, and we had to sacrifice something important to us, as well. After it was gone was when all our mirrors changed so that everyone could see and use them. There were some that were marked with what we sacrificed, too.

[ Hmm... Very interesting. He was ready to write them off as portals taking the form of mirrors, but that doesn't seem to be exactly the case. Trahearne's response doesn't come right away; he spends a moment or two tapping his pen to his cheek, thinking about dragon energy and such. His specialty, but also something he does not particularly like thinking about. ]

It's a pity you never learned the origins or mechanisms of these mirrors. There seem to be intricacies to their uses and purposes that seem disjointed at first, but I am certain are connected by a common thread once properly analyzed. I may have to look into them - though they sound complicated, their stories, should they exist at the Tree of Stories, may help me in my research. Purely out of curiosity - what happened with the mirrors later?

[ He may have missed that part in all his musing. ]

The magic of that world was unique, to put it lightly.

[He hated it! He studied a few things for the sake of helping his chances of survival, but he ultimately was never drawn to learn about much there unless it directly affected him or someone he cared about.]

Just that: the mirrors revealing themselves, so to speak, and letting us choose to use any of them. If anything happened to them later, I wouldn't know. I kind of left as soon as I could.

[... He kind of frowns to himself at one of the ideas Trahearne has put down, though.]

Do you really think information about it might be in the tree?

Ah, yes. I see. [ Reading back over the conversation, he kind of gets it better now. ] But what you don't know is what you don't know, and that you left was your own choice. I won't press you.

[ Because he's kind of banking on the Tree of Stories at this point... ]

There might be - the tree is vast, and its collection is extensive. It holds a number of stories from my own world of varying degrees of reliability, so I would think it safe to believe that there might be at least something on Geardagas that could prove useful. I won't know until I look.

I see. I hadn't really thought of it as a source of information, I guess.

[Stories, sure—fiction, mythology... but he supposes history is kind of a story of its own, and he doesn't disbelieve Trahearne. It's probably just by chance that he hasn't come across anything he recognized as "real;" the Tree is kind of huge.]

I'll fully admit I didn't like the place, but I don't mind talking about what I do know if it might help. I hope you find what you're looking for, either way.

[ And even if it isn't "real," Trahearne thinks any nugget of supplementary information valuable. It's what he's done for years--it's kind of a perfected art for him at this point. ]

Thank you, Ferran. It's much appreciated. I'll be sure to reach out should I need to know anything else.

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Open | Do not fear difficulty.

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