Steel Trim
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Engineering, Magic, and Kitsune: Ch. 4
🕑 Added 2024-11-19 17:16:24 +0000 UTCUnder Yuki's golden gaze, even as outwardly harmless and mischievous as it felt at that moment, John was like a rat caught in a trap. The towering kitsune stood there and awaited his response, smiling serenely and wrapped in a dimming halo of warm sunlight that hugged her form like silk as it soaked into her like rain upon dry earth.
She knew his secret, but wild animal panic did not take him, no matter how hard it tried. Why? He felt it rising, but it tapered off whenever it seemed like it was about to boil over into fight or flight. His gauntleted hand twitched as he considered opening with a quick blast of heat before she could do whatever she was planning, but John quickly discarded that. No, if she knew and planned on attacking him for that, there was no reason to do this grand show where he could see it. After all, if she intended to power up and kill him with some sort of solar-powered magic, she could have easily done that when he wasn't paying attention inside and hit him from behind when he went to check on her. What was her game?
The last visible vestiges of ephemeral radiance clinging to her faded into naught but a general impression of warmness, and her gaze went from mischievous to mildly concerned as she stared down his frozen form, but John remained steeled, taking a few deep breaths to center himself once more.
This could be a form of cold reading, the kitsune using suspicions and circumstantial evidence to trick him into confessing. But what if it wasn’t? She knew much more about the world than him, and despite his general caution, something he did or didn't do might have been a dead giveaway. In that case, lying might lead to her deeming him a threat to be dealt with. Assuming she was in a position of power, as he suspected, that might lead to the equivalent of a kill team showing up down the line, even if she didn't possess the power to melt him on the spot. Still, not lying might lead to the same, and he had seen a few of the richer-looking village folk throw fireballs before; given historical precedent, it felt almost guaranteed nobility had access to more potent magic than the common folk, the same way they had better food, equipment, and education.
His hesitation probably told her all she needed to know, regardless.
John sighed and wrote, "I did not mean to offend, but most of the local population have been rather unwelcoming." His writing was more wobbly than he'd like, leaving him desperately hoping that his message came across rather than being mangled into something else entirely.
A very characteristically vulpine grin crossed the kitsune's face, and she wrote in response, "No apology needed; you still opened your home to a stranger in a time of need, and I am in your debt. Would you like to sit down?" Once he finished reading, she gestured with one of her tails to his slightly shoddy attempt at a picnic table, sitting off the side of the paths between buildings.
He reflexively went to write that he was fine where he was, only to realize just how badly his hand was shaking. How pathetic. It probably wouldn't hurt, in any case. Sure, he might be a bit closer to Yuki than he was at the moment, but, again, if he were to think about things logically, the kitsune had many better ways to ambush him than by putting on a light show and asking to talk.
John nodded, and Yuki spun and gracefully walked to the picnic table and sat on the far side, the wooden seat slightly creaking under her weight. Whether her choice of seating was a mercy so he didn't have to step past the fox or that she didn't want to turn her back on him was beyond John.
Hesitantly, he followed, eyes locked onto her as he sat on the opposite side. Silence reigned between the pair, and he struggled to put to words his churning thoughts. Still, with her cheek resting upon a hand and her writing implements splayed in front of her, she felt less like a towering, imposing presence and more like sitting across from a new coworker at lunch in an on-site cafeteria. How the hell did she do that?
She broke the ice first, writing, "I'm sorry for how you must have been treated. You've come to the land in a time of strife, and they probably mistook you for the invaders from down south." Her smile turned apologetic, if perhaps a bit strained.
"Do I look like them?" he quickly responded, pushing any apprehension aside in his quest for more information. If humans were an invading army, that'd explain things neatly. At least it gave him an angle to work with.
"No. The invaders look rather different, but your manner of Presence would be unfamiliar to the locals. They don't know what the feeling of an invader's is actually like, as the war is still distant," Yuki's quickly written response cut that line of thought short, "I liken it to how a trader from another land may misspeak certain words and not hear how they differ from a native's, for they know not what to listen for. It's not your fault, but I could tell you weren't from here even when you were scurrying below the edge of your wall."
If this was English, he had zero doubt that "Presence" would be spelled with a capital P. He had only seen it in passing before, but he assumed it was a saying, more like how someone might be described as having a commanding presence back home. But the way she was describing it… Yuki was saying he had an aura. All this time, the natives had an innate magical sense that prickled every time they looked at him. He should have guessed. Seeing someone from a magicless world must have been like seeing a walking emptiness, a metaphysical wrongness, a corpse-like shell.
He laughed bitterly, joylessly at the absurdity.
On top of everything, they were being invaded by an army of what must have been other oddities, as far as they were concerned. He never stood a chance. Not for the first time, he cursed whatever cruel god, monster, or fundamental force dumped him here.
"Would you be willing to extend our deal? We have much to offer one another." Yuki wrote, breaking him out of his thoughts before he could spiral.
"What is your offer?" John quickly replied, embarrassment creeping in at his momentary loss of control over his emotions.
Yuki glanced towards his gauntleted hand before writing, "I've always been keen to learn about foreign magical traditions. You teach me about the basics of yours, and I help you learn how to speak this tongue and aid in disguising your Presence as that of a native. I think that is a fair trade."
Hope swelled in his chest at the thought of walking down the street, and he almost reflexively agreed, but he froze as he was about to put quill to paper. For some reason, it felt like he was walking into a trap. After all, she had complete control over the entire conversation thus far and could have easily steered everything for her sole benefit, trading a pittance for a mountain.
Still, the idea of being able to walk down a lively street… Moreover, Yuki hadn't mentioned anything pointing to her knowing that John was otherworldly yet, just here against his will.
"Before I agree, how did you know I am here against my will?" he asked, turning the paper around to face her.
A curious eyebrow was raised. "Are you saying you came here without knowing the language, with no allies or teachers, and then fled inland when persecuted rather than climbing back on the boat? Don't worry. I won't pry if you don't wish to say."
She had a point, and he felt foolish. Still, at least she didn't seem to know he was from another world. As to her deal, he still had some reservations.
"Both parties will be able to propose term changes if they thought the terms were something else due to misunderstandings or if they feel severely robbed due to future information coming to light. On top of that, I would like to know the context behind who you are and how you got here," John wrote, and Yuki nodded after taking a moment to think, drumming her fingers on the table as she did—although he was pretty sure her hesitation was an act to dissuade him from asking for more.
"Agreed," she wrote after a moment more of 'deliberation,' "Although, if I were to start my retelling from the start of my life when the people of these lands could hardly smelt bronze, I'd long run out of paper before I run out of story. To be succinct, this land has a great segregation between the mortal world, like that of the locals you have seen, the grand cities, and the military, and the spiritual, like me, the creatures of the woods, and various other things. Of course, there are rules for interacting with the mortals born from the days when they knew less and were fewer in number to protect both them and many spiritual beings that can't help but fall into specific roles."
The kitsune chose this moment to lock eyes with him, earnest steel entering her gaze.
"I hated it. Despite being in a favourable position by being a kitsune of power at the time, I wished to integrate both societies in a way that benefitted them both. I thus sought to claim a throne that has sat vacant for three millennia, one that would confer upon me the authority to make all the changes I desired. While gathering support and completing the trials that would allow me to claim it, my plans were uncovered. My punishment was swift and brutal, and I was chained until recently when my prison was attacked by invaders who thought it a fortress. I've been weakened by my escape, admittedly, but it's much easier to recover from losing power than it is to gather it in the first place, and I plan on resuming my quest once more."
That was one hell of a bombshell to drop on someone. His expression twisted into a grimace. How the hell was he supposed to react to that? "Hey, thanks for helping me; I tried to overthrow the order of spiritual society who knows how many years ago, and I'd do it again." The mention of her being from the pre-iron age was incredibly worrying, too, as depending on how quickly society advanced here, she could be thousands of years old. With so many years of interacting with people under her belt, she could doubtlessly play him like a fiddle; even if she had never explicitly trained her ability to convince others, Yuki was far more experienced than even the most prolific politicians or lawyers by sheer weight of time.
Was she immortal, or were kitsune just extremely long-lived?
Still, it provided some answers. John would probably guess that Yuki had taken off down south, too, if he was in her pursuer's shoes and had seen the invaders "free" her. Her mention of gathering supporters, too… her allies must have lived here at some point.
Did animals and people avoid the place because it used to be occupied by status quo bucking rabble-rousers that they could still feel the "Presence" of? He would have expected whatever forces came down on her to come down on them, too, and this place was far too intact when he found it for that. On top of all that, what was this about a throne and trials? Was it a literal throne that only let the worthy sit upon it, or a less physical one, like a set of laws that allowed one to claim a position of power?
"I see," John simply wrote after chewing on that massive mess. "You asked earlier about how long I had lived here. Was that to see how long ago your supporters had left?"
The kitsune huffed before adding, "Yes. Given this place wasn't too overgrown to recover, you must have chanced upon it a mere handful of years after they left, perhaps a decade at most." The look on her face was like she just bit into something bitter. One suspicion was confirmed, and the mystery of who owned the fort was definitively solved. Of course, this assumed she wasn't lying, but part of him doubted she was. Even if he could not prove her assertions, there was an ocean of lies more beneficial than pretending to be a leader of an age-old rebellion hated by other maybe-immortals.
Her expression mellowed back into a gentle smile a moment later, and she added, "The core techniques for gathering power in this land are mostly centred around breathing and your heartbeat, in case you were wondering." And that neatly explained what he saw earlier. Still, he was missing so, so much, and communicating by writing like this was oh so slow, and self-taught as he was, he feared that he might have misinterpreted parts. "I do have a question of my own, as well. A question for a question, yes?"
After a moment, he slowly nodded, gesturing for her to continue, "When you used your techniques, I didn't feel your Presence respond at all. How do you do that?"
He should have expected that she knew about it after the whole reveal of 'Presence,' he supposed, and the basics of how it worked were well within their deal's scope.
"It's mostly an adapted version of what people here discovered," he admitted, "The only thing vaguely special about it is how I control it." He pulled out a pencil from his pocket and sketched. It was rough but more than serviceable, and despite all his practice, a hard tip was still far easier to control than a swooping brush for detail work like this.
John needed no reference. He had spent too many days staring at other drawings of the strange Klein bottle-esque shape containing yet more strange structures.
"I found this shape described in a book as a way to use one's internal magic to start a fire or heat something up. Take internal magic, shape it into this shape, use the first half to filter out everything but flame-aspected "flowing magic," move the constructs to your hands, aim at something, and release the seal at the end to release until it runs out of power and disperses." Next, he drew the internals of the heat focus pattern echo iteration 08. In some ways, it was more straightforward, as there was no need for the bulky purifying apparatus due to his glove doing that work. In others, it was more complex, as he couldn't rely on an innate ability to adjust as needed like a native probably could, so everything had to be calculated ahead of time.
Thank fuck for calculus, and thank fuck for the fact that his former math teachers would never hear him say that.
"I changed the design some, but it can do more now rather than needing a whole different shape to work on something in the distance or at higher power," John explained, still slightly annoyed by all the points in the original design that broke down if you put too much more than a few matches' worth of power into them. "The allowance for error is tighter, but I only have to carve it out of lightly magical crystal once so that's not a concern. I filled the empty gaps with a mixture that is more or less neutral to magic for strength so it doesn't break, and also added some spikes off it where I want magic to be able to enter. Then, I cast the whole thing in a treated sap that inhibits magic that I found in another book and carved it into a sphere. The result is a small sphere I can use to do magic by putting the appropriate types of varying amounts in the input slots I left." He was still proud of himself for figuring out finger-based inputs, even if it doubtlessly lacked the dexterity of someone able to do all this internally with their mind. A lot of work went into making a large marble shoot heat.
He followed with a quick sketch of his glove's internals. From the thin metal wires connecting his fingers to the switches in his gloves to the safety switch, to the gold power flow channels, to each of the crystal batteries aligned to one of the fundamental elements, to the ambient magic condenser, and finally, to the nightmarishly complicated intake filter made out of various plants aligned to each of the same eight elements, it was all there.
John turned it around for Yuki to read, letting the kitsune scan the suddenly rather long document. Her brow furrowed, and a slight frown wormed onto her face as she read it over a few times, eyes occasionally darting to his sketches. Her frown only deepened, and he couldn't help but start to get nervous. Were his sketches too messy?
"I think the concept you are describing might not be clear to me," she admitted after a minute of thought and rereading.
Ah! Yeah, his lack of knowledge of the local language's more specialized terms must have been holding him back. That made sense. Perhaps a demonstration would make it more clear? "Watch," he simply replied. John aimed at a nearby plant sprouting from gaps in the cobble path, disabled the safety, set his fingers just right, and fired. As expected, heat, invisible aside from some mild haze, flew from his finger and scythed through the unsuspecting weed, alongside any others he lazily waved over. Easy. John twisted the focus to unlock it and palmed it, making a show of dry-firing the glove afterward to make it clear that nothing happened without one. After, he drew another focus from his pocket and locked it in. Taking aim once more, John fired the jet of cold out at his next unsuspecting victim. Setting the cone a bit wider, he flash-froze a few dandelions and left them as brittle husks broken in two where the beam met them, with spots of ice forming on them from the moist air.
John turned to Yuki, but the towering kitsune's eyes were entirely locked onto the charred and frozen stems; the kitsune's ears were perked up high and pointed forward as if they might reveal some form of clue. "Ahem," he cleared his throat, and she whipped to look at him. He gestured with an open hand, and Yuki almost hesitantly complied as he put Heat E08 in her cupped palms.
The way she accepted the item felt almost reverent, her hands cradling the large marble-sized sphere as he gingerly dropped it onto her dark, padded palms. He wasn't terribly worried she'd break it. Even if she somehow did, despite it being solid all the way through and coated in surprisingly durable treated sap, John had seven prior versions in storage to fall back on, even if they were not quite as refined.
Yuki silently rolled it from hand to hand, deep in thought. She held it up to the light, looking at the carefully carved and fused shape within through the translucent, verging-on-transparent coating.
The fox returned to his drawing again, which he helpfully slid over for her to read more clearly. Suddenly, her eyes took on an excited glint, and she hurriedly examined the sphere from every angle before looking back to the sketch. A grin split her face, and she excitedly babbled a few quick sentences and let out a quick bark of laughter, which he couldn't help but notice held a slight squeak to it.
Yuki looked at him, her wide smile slowly fading as she looked at his uncomprehending stare, which he imagined was something like a fast food worker without caffeine at the end of the graveyard shift. Her smile turned slightly sheepish, and she wrote, "Apologies. This is incredible. Is this how you use magic back where you come from? Functional physical techniques have been regarded as impossible for countless years! Even a simple one is a treasure worthy of praise that many would kill to possess."
He had nearly gotten his head taken off by a fireball the size of his torso thrown at the speed of a motorcycle weaving through traffic a few months back. He certainly believed that someone would kill for less, even if he didn't understand why it was so important. "No. I was not trained in magic back home; my training was more on the mechanical side of things, like the valves you've seen. Magic acts a bit like lightning and a bit like a gas, so I've been able to implement certain things with the overlap in knowledge." Despite everything else in the conversation, it still felt like a mistake to not at least act like a denizen of this world, and revealing that there was no magic back home would be a dead giveaway. Besides, he was sure she still had plenty of secrets, too.
She stilled, eyes locking onto his as she wrote, "All this magic is new ideas?"
"Mostly old ideas, different forms. I took some from home and adapted them. The water gauze has an equivalent in hydrogel dressing back home, but it is made of strange alcohols or natural polymers there, not anything I can make here," he explained, falling back on English words whenever he failed to come up with an appropriate word, "Using what you call a physical technique, I can bind water to be mostly solid, then it's simple to infuse it with medicine."
She eyed the focus up one last time in naked greed before handing it back to him, humming. "It's still quite the development. The fact you could make something like this without support is remarkable. Once you can walk in cities, I would advise you to keep it quiet, though, unless it's far enough in the future that I can provide you with protection openly. Would it interfere with the function if you were to paint the outside of the physical technique so you can't see the technique inside?"
That was her concern? Again, this was a lot to drop on a man all at once. Still, the fact that she saw his return to society as inevitable sent a thrilling spark through him, and he couldn't help but smile as he wrote, "That's not a problem. I can give them a coloured coating and write something on each." Now, that actually gave him an idea. He could coat each in something else, so they felt different to the touch. It'd certainly make retrieving them quickly simpler.
She nodded, writing a message before turning to regard him once more. "Thank you. That will keep us both safe. You have my word that I will not tell a soul without your permission." A moment later, she paused, deep in thought. She spoke something, and he stared at her uncomprehendingly. Yuki repeated it again, and this time, she tapped the paper where she wrote: "Thank you." John perked up and sounded it out to himself several times.
"Thank you," he tried to repeat, but she shook her head.
"Not quite," she wrote, "Hold the first sound a fraction longer, and if we were in a formal setting, it would be 'My thanks,' as I would outrank you." After she made sure he read it, she said "Thank you" again, slowing down and enunciating each syllable clearly.
It only took him three more tries to get it right.
