m. f. luder (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
bigfootfetish) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
ximilia2023-04-01 09:36 pm
bigfootfetish) wrote in ximilia2023-04-01 09:36 pm
text. un: knicksfan1961
[ In 1999, usernames describing interests are king and web 2.0 has yet to be dreamt of. This looks like a place to keep a weblog, and Mulder's not opposed to the possibilities. ]
Since childhood, I've dreamt of space. Who among us didn't, raised as we were? We grew up in the shadow of JFK's promise to take America to the moon, watching Neil Armstrong's fateful steps on minuscule TV screens, sitting in sweltering living rooms and imagining we were the ones clambering out of Apollo 11. That it might have been faked by Stanley Kubrick is beyond the point; we were kids, and we believed.
I've taken a giant leap for a man, let alone mankind, waking up in what appears to be a space station and not a sound-stage built by the Walt Disney Company. I see no flaws as of yet, no flies in the ointment. And yet I confess that I'm suspicious.
My concerns are several, key among them the possibility that I'm actually dying in a cave somewhere under the surface of North Carolina. That this is a distraction from the real work I intend to do, lunatic hallucinations designed to keep me from escaping my fate - but if my mind doesn't deceive me, this could be the case I've waited for. There's no denying that the bargain I've (allegedly) made is a strange one, threatening the fabric of time and space. And yet it feels almost reasonable: if I can be stolen from a hospital bed to the furthest reaches of the universe, why can't I intercede in events that have already happened?
(Merely existing here, witnessing technology beyond any I've seen in my dealings with Cancer Man or his shadowy colleagues, already continues work I've chased for years. I want to know more.)
I'm keeping a careful eye out for anomalies in my perceptions, anything that might lend credence to my null-hypothesis (digestion by way of fungi). I'm also on the search for a functional television and VCR; among other things, I've arrived with a handful of videotapes, but I have no way of watching them.
Since childhood, I've dreamt of space. Who among us didn't, raised as we were? We grew up in the shadow of JFK's promise to take America to the moon, watching Neil Armstrong's fateful steps on minuscule TV screens, sitting in sweltering living rooms and imagining we were the ones clambering out of Apollo 11. That it might have been faked by Stanley Kubrick is beyond the point; we were kids, and we believed.
I've taken a giant leap for a man, let alone mankind, waking up in what appears to be a space station and not a sound-stage built by the Walt Disney Company. I see no flaws as of yet, no flies in the ointment. And yet I confess that I'm suspicious.
My concerns are several, key among them the possibility that I'm actually dying in a cave somewhere under the surface of North Carolina. That this is a distraction from the real work I intend to do, lunatic hallucinations designed to keep me from escaping my fate - but if my mind doesn't deceive me, this could be the case I've waited for. There's no denying that the bargain I've (allegedly) made is a strange one, threatening the fabric of time and space. And yet it feels almost reasonable: if I can be stolen from a hospital bed to the furthest reaches of the universe, why can't I intercede in events that have already happened?
(Merely existing here, witnessing technology beyond any I've seen in my dealings with Cancer Man or his shadowy colleagues, already continues work I've chased for years. I want to know more.)
I'm keeping a careful eye out for anomalies in my perceptions, anything that might lend credence to my null-hypothesis (digestion by way of fungi). I'm also on the search for a functional television and VCR; among other things, I've arrived with a handful of videotapes, but I have no way of watching them.
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[ Which would be his cue to tear open a portal of sparking amber approximately five strides to Mulder's left and step right through, dressed in his station casuals and a puffer jacket with his flying cloak disengaged and bringing up the rear. You know, just to make sure he's reading sorcerer enough, portal aside. ]
Agent Mulder.
[ If he sounds less than enthusiastic it's because he just aged 10+ years in 2 seconds at the hands of this very man. ]
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He turns to get a better look at the guy (and more importantly, the cape floating along behind him like a scarlet ghost). ]
See, if I thought tearing holes in the fabric of reality was on the table, I would've led with it. That always seemed a little more scifi to me.
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[ Dry as anything. Behind him the portal spins on, the view through it that of a standard station bedroom, and the cloak hovers just a little higher to peer over Stephen's shoulder with all the eyes it simply does not have. ]
To answer your question: I'm a Master of the Mystic Arts. Typically but not exclusively we utilise Eldritch magic. Usually no to the necromancy, historically yes to the divination - no entrails, bones, runes or dice required - I wouldn't call it charm creation but we do imbue objects with magic [ the cloak lifts one of its corners in a 'hello, yes, that would be me' style wave ], and actually yes on the spiritual healing, but not with any of the methods I imagine you could list for me. I don't practice according to any of the belief systems you just mentioned, though it's not unlikely there's some overlap, ancient as our practice is.
Does that about cover everything?
[ Please never speak to him about the entrails of farm animals ever again. ]
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If they'd offered a Masters in Mystic Arts back at school, I might have skipped the FBI Academy. [ Good news, that smart mouth never turns off. ]
You've opened up a whole new range of questions for me, Doc, but you look like you might have somewhere to be. [ Viz., that portal back to...is that his room? Mulder wants to walk through it so badly. ] What do you think? Stay for the great conversation or go back to whatever you were doing a minute ago?
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Damn if he doesn't love talking about magic to the appropriately enthusiastic. ]
Alright. Intro to Sorcery starts now, what do you want to know?
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[ Don't worry, there'll be more questions. He's going to need a private file for this. He'll need to tell Scully everything he learns, watch her scoff, and then make her look at that floating cape. This is real - this is true.
But for now, they can go for a walk in the fake sunlight and trade a few stories. ]
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It doesn't trouble Stephen to fall into step now he's committed his afternoon to letting one Fox Mulder in on the secrets of the multiverse. If only Wong could see him now... ]
Let's call it a two/three combo. Picked it up in my late thirties mostly by accident - I'd heard they had a miracle cure for nerve damage. What they actually had was magic, and now I help save the world every other week.
Remind me again of your investigative purview?
[ 'Again', he has asked 0 times. ]
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You'd qualify, by the sound of it. [ He's tempted to ask what kind of nerve damage?, but without Scully here, the finer details of the answer would go up in smoke. Mulder does, occasionally, know his limits. ] 'They' had miracle cures, 'they' had magic - who's 'they'?
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The Masters of the Mystic Arts. [ Flatly... but no, he'll elaborate. ] We're an organisation of sorcerers whose duty it is to defend the dimension against extra-dimensional threat, among other things.
How did you end up with the dubious honour of investigating the cases the Bureau deemed write-offs?
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People always talk about the X-files that way, like I got put on KP duty. What they don't see is that this is a step up for me.
[ In a manner of speaking, anyway. But that's an abstruse answer, and not the kind he wants in return, so: ]
I was a criminal profiler for Violent Crimes - pretty good at it, too. [ False modesty: he was among the best, and more's the pity for his own mental health. ] After a certain point, even a bureaucracy like the FBI will let you pursue the things you're interested in, if you've proven yourself. Maybe they'll stick you with a basement office and a stupid nickname in the process, but that's the price of freedom.
[ Still the truncated version, but it's close enough for government work (ha). Time for a too-broad question that will (hopefully) help narrow down what he wants to know from here. ] Tell me about your magic. How does it work?
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In the broadest possible terms, we harness dimensional energy to new purpose. The limits of those purposes are few and far between - you can use it to tie your shoelaces, save money on transport costs or, with enough practice, bypass paraplegia.
[ To name a few disparate examples and harken back to that miracle cure. He's about to ask after the mushroom Mulder's apparently languishing in the digestive processes of, but - ]
... You can have a follow up.
[ He can't fairly lead with that and then force a subject change. ]
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[ Just try and stop him. The explanation makes sense, in and of itself, but it's the big picture answer: valuable, going in his notes without a doubt, but impersonal. ]
Is it a silent process, or are there incantations? What goes into the actual act of doing magic?
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[ He stops in the stroll, turning to lift his hands - thick scars run in faint trails down the lines of his fingers, but it's more difficult to spot the tremors when his hands are clapping together then sliding apart for a mandala to bloom before his upright palm, patterns spinning and flickering idly as he holds it here for observation. ]
A lot of spells require precise gestural work, but I like to think of it more as a focusing agent: the gestures act as guide rails to keep you in the right lane as you piece together the spell, like the key for a code. Get to a certain point and you can skip the gestures, but their inclusion makes any casting easier, so the more complex the spell the more likely you are to see a sorcerer run through casting patterns.
This thing, for instance, I could pretty much do in my sleep.
[ He lets it flicker out completely - and then, without any of the (admittedly already very simple) gestural work from a moment before, the mandala sputters back into life again. ]
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The mandala glows like flames wrought into some kind of sacred architecture. What it means, he can't be sure, but it fits with the rest of Strange's description: a Sanskrit origin, as old as Hinduism and maybe older, a focus on organization of the mind and on willpower.
(He thinks of Scully's sister for a moment, the beliefs she'd held before her death. She'd have found much to appreciate in this particular form of magic, he suspects.) ]
What's it for? The mandala, that is - I'm guessing it's not just a trick you pull out at parties.
[ Though if it was, who could blame him? ]
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He starts retracing his steps: one, two, three steps back. Then out of nowhere there's a stone in his free hand, ] Catch.
[ A careful underarm toss sends the stone Mulder's way, an easy catch if his reflexes are quick. If not - well, he'll just have to pick it up, won't he? ]
Throw it at me.
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If he has an idea where the mandala comes into play - and he does, vaguely, suspect that it's going to block the stone - he can't know for sure. No reason to whip a fastball at the guy. ]
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It's ready by the time the stone arrives, and with one decisive downward swish two rock halves sail over Stephen's shoulder to thump in separate spots to the ground.
Stephen, lightly: ]
Most of the time it's a shield.
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It's impossible. It's miraculous. He can't help but grin like the guy hit a homer. ]
Useful and beautiful. You could take that on the road, if you weren't so busy saving the world.
[ Note to self: Convince Strange to do another demonstration in front of Scully. She's never going to believe this. ]
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Stephen's answering grin is just as inevitable. He may not always have the time to enjoy that same helpless thrill in the little things, but he hopes there'll never come a day where he doesn't find fresh magic in this. ]
You haven't seen anything yet.
[ Something about the glee-rich tone makes it a promise as much as it is a statement - or maybe it's the way he turns his hand to face flat toward Mulder again and drops the half-mandala to set it to spinning on the axis-point of his middle fingertip, three loops until he twists his hand and catches it with his palm and it swallows itself into non-existence.
He's not a travelling magician, world-saving priorities being what they are. But that doesn't mean he won't put on a show for the right audience.
It also doesn't mean he's not retracing his steps to catch up with Mulder and then overtake him, starting up their stroll again as if he isn't a sorcerer with a flying cloak trailing along behind him and the answer to this man's every question tucked away somewhere in mind. ]
So. How does a person get themselves caught up in a mushroom's digestive processes.
[ This may be a simplification of the facts, but one can be flippant and still want answers. He should know, he does it all the time. ]
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[ And yet, he has the feeling that he will, one way or another. They're colleagues of a sort, and for once, the thought of non-Scully colleagues isn't a burden. Set them down on an alien planet, and maybe Strange can show off just what else he's capable of.
In the meantime, Mulder's content to tell the man a story. It's nowhere near as flashy as a thoughtform with both offensive and defensive capabilities, but it's an interesting case. ]
Local law enforcement came across a pair of skeletons in a field - nothing left but bone. Anyone who saw them would have gone straight to the local cold case files, but testing showed they belonged to a couple who disappeared less than a week earlier. Now, I doubt I have to tell you that decomposition doesn't move that quickly, even under ideal circumstances. These looked like the lovers of Pompeii, not fresh bodies.
After we went down to the morgue to see the bones, Scully - that's my partner - stayed to do some tests, and I went out to the scene of the crime.
[ He pauses, though he keeps walking, because this is where things get complicated. ]
I know I walked around aboveground for a while, and I know that when I found the entrance to a cave, I went in. But after that point... [ A shrug. ] I can't promise I can pinpoint for you just where reality stopped and the hallucinations began.