Carve

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**pinkgothic**:

Two days later, the topic of Adhafera came up during lunch. Mateo made credibly assurances that the spell that had bound them together was wearing off; he expected he could take the cat back that evening. Any lingering effects ought to be so mild as that it would no longer disrupt his sleep.

The cat had been remarkably well-behaved for a cat, but perhaps that was true for all Martian Peterbalds, by necessity. They were odd in a number of ways, after all - the lack of fur, the way they had been trained to use human toilets instead of cat litter that would have been prohibitively difficult to manage on Mars, the way they weren't fussy eaters. Leila hadn't met the other cat for more than few seconds in the corridors, or even known its name, so it wasn't clear how much of her personality was due to the spell's effects or due to the breed's innate human-friendly traits, but either way, she had faded into the background, only occasionally demanding some food and attention.

A house guest more easy to manage than most humans.

Nonetheless, when Mateo arrived in the evening, it wasn't hard to give her back. Expectant feline eyes looked up at Mateo as he stood in the door, the cat stood with her tail high and spine straight in a pleased, proud happiness, then pressed herself against one of his legs. He crouched down. "Hey, Haffy, good to see you, too," he cooed, busying his hands with the critter, but letting his attention slip back up to Leila. "Thank you for taking care of her for me. I owe you one."

**Nymphetamine**:

A remarkably well behaved cat was a real treat. Leila had grown up with felines back on Earth, and had been somewhat accustomed to their needs and aloofness, but she was definitely surprised with Adhafera was such a polite little house guest. The occasional demands for head scritches were met with a charmed smile, and she often obliged quickly. She found she was gonna miss the little kitty when it was time for her to return to her master. When Mateo arrived that evening to collect Adhafera, Leila felt a reluctance that had nothing to do with concern for the cat's care, but that she had grown just the slightest bit attached to the feline. Still, offering a smile, she glanced down at the cat and then back to her associate. "She was a good guest. I wouldn't mind taking care of her again for you, if you should need it." The open ended offer was left dangling like a string, perhaps even sounding just a touch hopeful at such a prospect. But as to what Mateo owed her, she wasn't sure what sort of favour she could collect from him, save maybe watching him perform a spell or two, but that seemed rather forward to ask of him. "Did you uh... would you like to come in for some tea or something?" she asked, willing to share those rations of water.

**pinkgothic**:

Mateo's face scrunched up gently, a little hard to read - but it seemed unmistakable that there was a bit of embarrassment in it. "I think I've imposed on you enough," he said. "But I'm happy to take the 'or something', if you like. Or you can come see my place? We can have tea there?" He was still crouched down, gently petting a purring Haffy.

**Nymphetamine**:

She really hoped that she hadn't overstepped her boundaries with him, and immediately regretted putting him in the position to have to decline, or invite her. "Oh, I wouldn't want to.. erm... We don't //have// to..." But in reality, her curiosity was enough to want to see the inside of a sorcerer's quarters, if they were much larger than her own. Though, space was at something of a premium in the Martian colony, so perhaps it was just the same size as her own. "Ahh, sure... Sure.. I'm sure Haffy would be happy to be home, too." Painting a smile upon her face, she turned and looked at her small quarters and then waited for Mateo and the feline to be out of her doorway before closing it. "If you've something else you need to be doing, I of course wouldn't want to be um... you know... //imposing on you//."

**pinkgothic**:

"Not at all," Mateo assured. By now, he'd scooped Haffy back up into his arms and she hung over his shoulder, peering over his back with natural curiosity. If it weren't for her chest rising and falling, Haffy would have looked like a very strange sculpture he was carrying from place to place. As he started to lead them away from Leila's apartment, he asked: "What kind of tea do you drink?"

**Nymphetamine**:

The door shut automatically behind them with a soft click of the locks engaging. Falling into step beside him, she looked up at him and the cat for a moment, before she replied. "Black or herbal tea is fine by me. An Earl Grey, or just simple black tea..." Nothing exotic or anything of the sort, and herbal tea could include all sorts of varieties aside from roasted tea leaves. It would just be her luck that Mateo was a fan of green tea or something she hadn't named. "I'm not too picky," she added hastily a moment or two later, trying to be accommodating because she hated the idea of being a burden she foisted off on Mateo.

**pinkgothic**:

"I've got a few herbals," he said. "And I might still have a bag or two of Earl Grey. I don't drink Earl Grey, myself, but it's one of those teas that's good to have for guests, so I've been bunkering a small pack. Let's find out."

It didn't take them long to reach his room, given the Mars base was fairly small overall. The residential areas were scattered for the simple grim reason that if something impacted the surface of Mars, the scattering increased the chance that some people would survive. That they were underground helped even more, but there were limits to how much anyone wanted to drill into the rock given the terraforming efforts that would happen in future - not to mention that depth only helped so much, anyway.

Mateo's door opened to a room that was easily twice the size of hers - but nearly half of it was taken up by a desk with a monitor and sturdy desktop computer. It was an eerie sight, about as culturally out of place as someone back on Earth seeing a room with a supercomputer server rack instead of someone's PC - similar connotations and all.

A kind of short sofabed at one end of the room was presently in its couch configuration and he gestured to it. The right edge of it was clearly a Haffy scratching post, judging by the damage to it, but he didn't seem to mind. Haffy, though, leapt off his shoulder and across to it, immediately proving the association correct.

"Take a seat," he encouraged.

**Nymphetamine**:

She had never seen the insides of another researcher's quarters, so she was a little surprised at the sight, and immediately, instantly jealous of all the room. Not that she would speak to such feelings, but they were still there. Adhafera seemed to remember home, and was bounding off to sink her claws into the couch, a thing which Leila was glad hadn't been a problem in her own quarters.

Invited inside and to take a seat, she claimed a spot on the sofa near the cat so she could pet her, obviously not discouraging her from her activities at the moment. The computer was a bit of a surprise, and she was intensely curious about that, but could not ask after it. She already felt a bit of weirdness for almost practically inviting herself over. "Do you ever miss the Terran sunrise?" she asked unexpectedly, having long ago grown accustomed to the subterranean nature of the Martian colony. "Sometimes, I remember the last few days on earth, I would soak in the sunrise, the sunset... They had warned us about the light levels on Mars when I was in the application process for the program... but... I don't know. I find myself missing those spectacles a lot..."

**pinkgothic**:

"Mmm," Mateo made a noncommital noise as he rummaged through a tiny cupboard. It could have been a yes or a no.

The overall room was still a tin can, just a more generous tin can than hers. Its tiny kitchen was a microwave oven, an A5-sized sink with an almost pencil-thin faucet, and a slim kettle, plus that tiny cupboard that seemed smaller than Mateo's hands. "Aha!" The sound existed separate of the conversation, and he combined a tea bag and a cup, resting it awkwardly in the tiny sink, followed by another tea bag and cup, then filled the kettle.

That seemed to finally free up enough cognitive capacity for him to respond to her in earnest: "I think there's a beauty to the dusty Martian twilight, too, honestly. I sometimes go for a walk to take it in, just bask in the eerie solitude out there. You might like it; if nothing else, it's an interesting contrast to the sardine can environment here on the base."

**Nymphetamine**:

The Martian twilight was not something that she had seen regularly. The idea of going out in an EVA suit sounded hazardous as all fuck. Though, it was a little impressive that this man was willing to brave the Martian surface, just to go for a stroll. "Oh, I don't know... That sounds... that sounds very daring," she said after a moment, forcing a laugh to cover her own nervousness at such a suggestion. "Do you have to ask for permission to do so?"

**pinkgothic**:

"First couple of times, yeah," he said. "Haven't for a while, though. They know it's me from my tracker, my reasons to leave have always been the same. Last time I tried to find security to ask them if I could leave base for a stroll, they told me to stop bothering them." Here he chuckled, his visual attention on the kettle as it began to burble and grumble.

"It's not that much more dangerous than working in the domes, if you think about it," he supposed. "The domes are thicker, but your suit is more elastic, and the auto-knitting built into it can fix smaller punctures. I suppose you're more likely to bleed to death from a micrometeorite puncture than to run out of air." He didn't seem to realise that this didn't sound soothing.

On the other hand, maybe sorcerers were used to the threat of bleeding to death, sometimes even when within reach of medical attention.

**Nymphetamine**:

She also laughed when he mentioned security wanting to be left alone. "I'm so glad they're hard at work," she said with some sarcasm, but it wasn't that disparaging. Just a joke between colleagues. As he explained that the difference wasn't all that different from working in the domes, which she did every day save for those sparse rest days, she shrugged. "You could be right, but I'd still be terrified all the same. Another soft peal of laughter at that, shaking her head and causing dark hair to sway from the tail she wore it in at the moment. "Still... I might like the Martian twilight..." It was clear that she was thinking about whether or not she'd get permission to do the same. It felt rude to invite herself onto any of Mateo's walks, so she didn't even mention the possibility. "What else do you do in your down time, Mateo?"

**pinkgothic**:

The kettle rattled, protested and whistled. Mateo scooped it up and poured the reluctantly quietening water into the cups. "You're welcome to join me on a walk, if you're ever in the mood to try it," he offered. "Or," he said, even as he took a glance of his wrist watch to time the tea with. "You can come here any time and I can try to paint you, if it doesn't offend you to be drawn //very badly// and //very abstractly//." He glanced across to her, pressing his lips together, half mischief, half apology in his eyes. That, then, was the answer to her question: He painted. An expensive hobby here on Mars given that paints were predominantly reserved for station upkeep, but certainly not cripplingly so.

**Nymphetamine**:

"Maybe. If you'll hold my hand." The cheeky comment was made as a joke. But joining him on a walk did sound rather appealing, and she was instantly curious of the Martian sunrise, twilight, sunset, etc. Considering that a Martian day was barely longer than a Terran day, it had been relatively easy to adapt to the additional nearly 40 minutes. "That would be nice, I think. If you don't feel like I'm crowding in on your time..." Clearly, she wasn't sure if they had crossed the delineation between 'colleague' or 'associate' and 'friend'. Leila didn't want to broach that subject, and she certainly didn't want him to feel coerced or forced into hanging out with her, even if it was repaying a debt for taking care of Haffy. "I mean... You know... I know how important it is to have time alone." But he mentioned painting, which was something of a little bit of a surprise to her. "How abstract are we talking?" she asked, partially amused, though in a way that was mocking.

**pinkgothic**:

"The 'I have five colours and three of them are shades of grey' kind of abstract," Mateo grinned. He brought the cups over to where she was sitting, along with a tiny, empty bowl, then kicked against the wall, making a small table pop down in her reach, not much larger than an A4 sheet of paper. He put the cups on it. "Two more minutes on the Earl Grey," he said. "I'll give you a heads-up." Two fingers pointed at the bowl. "Just drop the bag in there, I'll take care of it after."

Said, he sauntered to the desk, parked himself on the chair and rolled it over to the table to join her. "And what do you do with your spare time?" he asked.

**Nymphetamine**:

Five colours, three shades of grey. That made her laugh genuinely as she realized it would be //very// abstract. Chuckling when he returned to take a seat and sit before her, she grinned a little. He asked after her own hobbies and she shrugged. "I play cello. It's an electric, so I can just play in headphones. It was easier to bring than a normal cello, you know? Have you ever seen an electric cello? They're a little weird looking since they're all neck and no soundbox..."

**pinkgothic**:

He tilted his head, transparently trying to imagine it. "No, I don't think I have," he said. "That sounds marvelous, though. I think my sense of rhythm and melody was excised before I was even born, I couldn't. Just couldn't. Do you record some of your music?"

**Nymphetamine**:

"What? Record... nooo... I'm just a hobbyist. I took lessons as a girl, and then continued to play. I improvise a lot, though, kinda just riffing as I go along, you know?" He didn't sound like he'd know since he claimed to have no rhythm or sense of melody, but that was alright. "Maybe we'll do a hobby exchange. You paint. I'll play. Sheet music was really easy to bring since you can put it all in a tablet now that can track your progress as you go through the music and automatically 'turn the page'..." Leila sounded rather enthused at this, her excitement beginning to show in the light of her eyes. "It's no sorcery, but it's its own kind of alchemy, you know? Music, that is... all mathematical but still artistic? A beautiful combination between the two..."

**pinkgothic**:

He tapped briefly at his wristwatch, then pointed a finger to her cup. "Tea time," he said, briefly interrupting their conversation, before nodding amicably. "I have a lot of respect for music. So much of humanity's cultural heritage crammed into a small data stream. It's always so evocative, like... the taste of hot chocolate brings back the memories from the last time you had some," he mused. He wasn't taking out his own tea bag, but from the colour of the water, it was a tisane and unable to oversaturate.

**Nymphetamine**:

She pressed the teabag against the top side of her cup to strain it as much as possible, using a spoon as to appear cultured or something, and then put the bag in the dish he had provided. Lifting it to her lips, she blew on it as if that would actually help, and then took a hesitant, testing sip. "You're not wrong. About it bringing back memories. I can listen to certain pieces of music and remember exactly what I was doing when I was first listening to that music... Even with some of the cello music, though that's a little bit of a different experience..." Leila smiled at that and took another drink from her teacup. "So you paint. You do your sorcery stuff and research. I don't think I asked exactly what Haffy's deal was? Like... how does that work?"

**pinkgothic**:

"I mean, Haffy is just a cat, her deal is eat, sleep, piss, purr," Mateo summarised, scratching lightly at the side of his nose. A slight curl in the corner of his mouth suggested he was deliberately playing with the question, not misunderstanding it. "She started out as a mental health initiative. The... story is a bit awkward." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Skipping to the end, she's family now and Sandrine can pry her out of my cold, dead hands. Not that anyone's trying. Since the bonding spell I think Adhafera feels about the same way. Well. Probably always has, the experience just reinforced it."

**Nymphetamine**:

Leila smiled a little and canted her head to the side as she listened to him, perhaps even understanding that he was just playing with her. But she understood the mental health thing, and what a joy pets could bring to someone's life. He didn't give her the details, and she was too polite to pry further. He could've volunteered that information, and chose not to. "Well, that's good that no one's trying to force you to give her up. She's a cutie." It was probably obvious that she hadn't minded at all taking care of the cat, and was maybe, perhaps, even just a little bit sad that Haffy was going back to Mateo. "Do you paint her?"

**pinkgothic**:

"Sometimes," he said. "Mostly I try to capture emotions, though, not visible reference subjects."

The cat, subject of their conversation, had since traipsed over to him and hopped onto his lap, briefly stealing a gently pet across her head, and was now standing on his right thigh, forepaws on the tiny table, looking at Leila and the cups of tea with standard cat curiosity, as though something interesting might happen with the setup.

**Nymphetamine**:

The cat's scrutiny was somewhat unnerving, but she had grown accustomed to the strange, oddly intelligent looks that Haffy had favoured her with over the past week or so that she had been caring for the animal. Smiling at her, she turned her attention back to Mateo as he explained. "Oh, I see... That makes a certain amount of sense, I guess... I mean, I can't even draw a line with a straight edge, so I'm definitely no good at painting or anything artistic like that..." Laughing, she didn't seem embarrassed by that, as she had been quite capable of making up for it by being a somewhat accomplished hobbyist cellist. She took another sip of her tea as she watched them both, her expression painted up in pleasantries and quiet resolve. "Sometimes I wish I could draw..."

**pinkgothic**:

"In most art, there aren't any straight lines in the first place, unless you're drawing architecture," he encouraged her gently. "If you focus on nature, on people or animals, the morphology's flexible enough to absorb some errors. Give it a try."

It was perhaps a decadent suggestion - 'giving it a try' required, if she was to do it on canvas or paper instead of purely digitally, actually getting her hands on the substance, which was hardly cheap in the Martian economy. It wasn't as expensive as actual paint, but it couldn't be called a cheap hobby, regardless.

Whether he noticed or had simply meant the encouragement as generic, he appended after a moment's pause: "If you like."

**Nymphetamine**:

His suggestions were well meant, she knew. And he was correct in assuming that to do so on page or canvas was an expenditure that would be too great for living on Mars. But digital was limitless and she already had the tablet and stylus for work. Downloading some art software would be easy. "That's really good advice... maybe I'll give it a shot. Doodle around a little bit." Glancing around, she looked to see if any of //his// art was hanging about on the walls of his quarters, just to get an idea of his greyscale paintings. Importing more paints would be an expense too great for her budget, but she had the desire to enable him, just a little bit. "Do you like working in the paint medium, or like... have you done digital before?"

**pinkgothic**:

"I do some digital work," he nodded over to his desktop. "But if you're sitting in front of the computer for several hours a day, it's nice to have other options."

There did not seem to be paintings hanging in the room... bar one - over his desk by the computer, something matched the colour scheme he had mentioned, looking like nothing so much as a visual manifestation of a thunderclap, thick anthracite, abstract geometries squeezing into a corner as though to crowd in and burst from the canvas and, from there, spill into the room as floodwater.

**Nymphetamine**:

"I wish I had full spectrum lighting in my quarters so I could grow a couple of house plants. There's something very soothing about having my hand in dirt, even if botany is my job, you know?" Leila said with a faint, wistful smile. "Nothing fancy. Maybe a resurrection plant so I wouldn't have to water it too much." Smile transmuted into a full grin at that. "But I haven't picked out a specific plant, maybe a selaginella lepidophylia... they look really cool when they finally get water after a long time."

**pinkgothic**:

Mateo didn't look particularly as though he recognised the plant, but it was to be expected - they weren't in the green house and he wasn't a botanist, be it professionally or as a hobby. "Do they have any up here?" he asked instead, meaning Mars with 'up here'. Earth was still the reference point for most people.

**Nymphetamine**:

"They're a fern, and they're called a resurrection plant because they can go years sometimes without water in the desert. They'll look dead until they get that water, and then suddenly, all green and beautiful again. So you know they're hardy and can handle being without water for a while when we're rationing up here. So ideal for Mars. But there's no //real// value for them in our current conditions. They're not necessarily good at filtering soil or producing oxygen, and there's no nutritional value, so with space at a premium, we stick to what we need."

**pinkgothic**:

"Decorative," Mateo acknowledged by summarising, punctuating the word with a light nod. Both of his hands were on Adhafera now, gently pulling her back from the table and into his lap, stroking carefully across her bare skin. "Maybe something we can treat ourselves to once the terraforming is a little further along, or the base is larger," he mused.

**Nymphetamine**:

"Maybe! That would be nice. I miss the greenery in my quarters, you know?" Which was not a lie, but hardly surprising coming from someone who was a botanist in her day job. The lack of plants filling up every part of her apartment was something that she was lamenting in private, but at least she could share that with Mateo. "I think the resurrection plants would be ideal, since they can go so long without water. But I think it would be a lot of begging to even bring the seeds up here, and then for them to be just... decorative? I'm sure they account for every little bit of water used on the base." 'They' in this regard, were their superiors, the project managers and directors, and such.

**pinkgothic**:

"Maybe get a high-def poster print of something in the interim?" Mateo mused, while the cat in his lap purred and gently rolled her head against his hand. He finally freed a hand to reach for his cup. Not bothering to remove the tea bag, he sipped at it. For a moment, he closed his eyes, exhaling in fleeting but obvious pleasure. Then his attention was back on the conversation. "Oh," he said. "The phosphorus drain, did you--?"

The sentence didn't finish. Almost simultaneously, Adhafera leapt out of his lap and onto the ground, and the door opened, and a female voice Leila wasn't familiar with said "What if the atoms--?" only to pause partly through the doorway and stare toward Leila, looking a little startled.

Mateo turned in his seat.

The face of the stranger who had barged in brightened steadily, as though she'd stumbled across a surprise birthday party. "Is this a date?"

Mateo made a protesting noise before sputtering: "This is //not// a--"

"It's a date," the stranger said, eyes sparkling. "I-i-i am going to come back later."

"It's really not," Mateo insisted.

"Keep telling yourself that," the stranger chuckled, dropped her attention to Adhafera to wave at the cat's expectant face, and made to leave.

**Nymphetamine**:

Leila might have been about to say something else, when someone she didn't recognize burst into the room. Falling silent immediately, she held her cup in her hands as she looked at the young lady, and then back to Mateo. But calling this a date was a little too much for her, insofar as her embarrassment was concerned. Blushing a little at the thought, she glanced down while Mateo tried to clear the air with his sudden stranger guest. Waiting for her to //leave//, Leila remained silent until she was gone. Looking up at Mateo, cheeks a little pink. "Ahhh... For what it's worth... I thought this was just a friendly hang out?" she hazarded, trying to clear the air, but also somewhat tickled by the insinuation. Dual meanings! Clearing her throat, she asked, "A friend of yours?"

**pinkgothic**:

"It's not a date," Mateo said, a little harshly - and, noticing that, softened awkwardly, lips pressing together in a lipless frown to apologise as he tried to find some words. "Just... some of my friends keeping trying to hook me up with someone," he said, tone betraying a certain agitation. "And that was Nyarai." His heartbeat was visibly pulsing in his neck. The chocolate skin hid a blush. Adhafera wove in between Mateo's legs, attracting his attention, the motions transparently affected by anxiety.

**Nymphetamine**:

Nodding emphatically to his clarification, she added, "Good. Of course not." Leila was not interested in that part of Mateo's life, not the way his sorcery captured her attention, but he had also turned out to be an insightful, interesting fellow. Maybe she was a little interested in him like that? Shaking her head, she just laughed at his explanation. "God, I'm glad I don't have that many friends up here interested in **my** love life. That must be annoying and frustrating! Why are they trying so hard?"

**pinkgothic**:

A light shrug touched Mateo's shoulders. As the cat hopped back into his lap and he settled his hands on her again, he turned his head to look back at the door, almost as if expecting Nyarai to return - but she'd disappeared. A curiosity was touching on his otherwise crinkled posture, but whatever it was, he wasn't finding the words to comment on it just yet. Something Nyarai had said?

**Nymphetamine**:

Leila didn't get an answer to the question, just the ambivalent shrug that indicated very little. She didn't feel as though she had a good enough insight into Mateo or his life to make remarks on it, and lapsed into an awkward silence. Sipping at her tea, she looked away, eyes settling once more on the painting above his desk. After a few moments of quiet, she tried to breach a safer subject. "So uh... um... Did you always paint? Even as a kid and that all?"

**pinkgothic**:

He still seemed rather distracted as he answered: "The-- uh, sort of. Sketches, mostly. Young Mateo was too lazy to colour things in. In a sense that's not changed, adult Mateo is too lazy to outline anything or plan out a composition."

**Nymphetamine**:

He was distracted, and she was feeling awkward about the whole scene. Unsure of whether or not she should let sleeping dogs lie, push the issue, or maybe just excuse herself, she was quiet for a few moments more before she finally asked, "Should I go? You seem uh... a bit lost in your own thoughts, and I wouldn't want to bother you?"

**pinkgothic**:

"Sorry," he said. "I think she might have some new theories about one of the puzzles of sorcery we've been working on together." Click! It was //that// Nyarai, then - not that Leila could have parroted the name before today purely from memory, but it rang a bell: The puzzle that alchemy either shifted molecular weight or repurposed molecular component parts, but never both, not even in sequence.

**Nymphetamine**:

The topic of sorcery arose, and suddenly Nyarai's name clicked into place for her. "What kind of puzzles arise in sorcery? It seems so interesting that I find myself trying not to bombard you with questions about it." Not a lie. She brightened visibly at the change of topic and looked at him with an almost fervant look in her eyes, glimmering there with the light of hope. Though what she hoped at was unsure, even to her. Did she want to //learn// sorcery?

**pinkgothic**:

"For all that we know how to spellcast, we don't really understand the mechanism very well yet. Think of early chemistry - people observed that certain things would interact and become something else and painstakingly note down all of the equivalences in tables, but it took until much later for chemistry to understand anything about valence shells.

"We're in the equivalent early days of sorcery - except Mesoamerica was at this point before us and likely beyond," Mateo explained. "But we have the tables from them, not the principles. We can guess some new spells from common structures and AI helps fill in some more obvious blanks, but it's all tables, and there are plenty of mysteries."

Said, he leant back in his chair, stretching an arm back to a shallow cupboard, opening it a little awkwardly while clearly trying to stay seated for Haffy. Soft grunts emphasised the strain, then he finally - miraculously without tipping back - resurfaced with a pen and narrow flask. He set them down on their tiny table.

"These tools are probably better than what the old Mesoamericans had, but it took a while to figure out," he said. "But for all we know the Tincture could be a local minimum of optimisation. Something else might work 'better', even though at the moment? We wouldn't even know which trait is worth improving upon."

The Tincture flask had a silvery sheen to it, almost pearlescent, like fine glitter.

**Nymphetamine**:

Leila listened quietly as he explained. Mateo really seemed to open up as he elaborated on the parallels between early chemistry and where they found themselves in the practice of sorcery. It was certainly a fascinating comparison and one that she found herself eager to learn more about. As she had said, it was really difficult not to just bombard him with questions, but he seemed to have opened himself up to the prospect just in what he'd already said. Showing her the tools of the trade, or at least some of them, she leaned forward to look, the pearlescent liquid in the vial shimmering in the false light of his apartment. It was rather pretty, though she didn't know jack about what it was actually to do, aside from what he said. "What's the Tincture made from?" the question parted her lips before she reaized she was asking it. A half apologetic look crossed her face as she gazed at him, a little sheepish for how she had steered the conversation to this point.

**pinkgothic**:

"Classified," Mateo shrugged one shoulder. The way he said it left open whether or not //he// knew what it was or not.

Rather than let her pry further, he unscrewed the top of the flask, turning it to her to reveal that it had a complex interior; some kind of mechanism attached to the mouth of the container. Before she could fully take it in, he popped the end off the pen, then slid it into the flask.

"We use Pens with catalyst ink storage," Mateo said, as though that explained anything to his guest. "The actual Tincture forms when I do this." Something clicked softly as he turned the Pen, almost as if to screw it in. Then, with a strange, halting hesitance bridging a moment's silence, he tilted the flask as though to spill its contents. A white nub at bottom of the vial tentatively poked out of the liquid, only barely visible - he hadn't used a lot of the liquid yet.

Very carefully, he clicked the Pen back out of its hold, setting the flask down. He stared at the Pen for a moment, frowning mildly. Then he set it down on the table, and, wordlessly, leant back to the cabinet again, fishing for something else.

**Nymphetamine**:

Watching with quiet fascination, Leila was quiet, not wanting to disturb him, or perhaps remind him that he was showing an outsider these things. The last thing she wanted was for him to realize what he was doing and worry about either getting caught or in trouble. Quite interested, she leaned forward, peering inside the vial before he began to fiddle with it, explaining patiently like she actually was his apprentice or such. "Why the delay? Or are you not allowed to tell me?"

**pinkgothic**:

"Sec," Mateo muttered, not turning back to her at first. Then, after some more seconds, he leant back toward the table, this time making a soft shooing sound for Haffy and nudging gently at her shoulder to get her off his lap. He was holding another pen-like object in one hand. "Tincture is a weird thing," he said. "Weird things happen if you just store it. So, you know, better not to."

He paused, pressing his lips together and looking at her for a moment, clearly working on something in his head. "How squeamish are you? Because I'm going to use this right here and now to avoid the storage problem, and if you don't want to see that, you should go out for a minute or two after I draw the runes."

He was still holding the other pen-like object in one hand, hovering the tip vaguely near the bare nook of his left elbow. No doubt it struck her as odd that it wasn't the Pen with the Tincture he was holding.

**Nymphetamine**:

He was giving her the option to stay, and that was something she was most definitely going to take. Looking up to his face away from the Pen and the Tincture, she gave him a little grin of encouragement. "Um. Not //that// squeamish," she said with some bravado in her voice. But she was far too interested to see what happened then to want to leave. "My stomach's strong." This was added as an afterthought as if she needed to make that known to him. The last thing she wanted was to just vomit all over his nice, neat apartment. "If you haven't been able to tell, I'm really curious about this..."

**pinkgothic**:

He was looking at her with a mild trace of scepticism, but it didn't take over. Instead, he nodded mildly, shaped his breath into something like 'okay,' then nestled the tip of the other pen-like object first into one point on the inside of his elbow, making a bit of a face after one second, then realigning it with another point, and finally a third. As he set it aside, she could see tiny red dots where he'd placed it.

Not bothering to comment further, he rested his left lower arm on the table and turned his palm up, then grasped the Pen with the Tincture in his right hand, and said: "I'm going to make a photon funnel, because that's two runes, which is about as many as I'm willing to do for demonstration purposes, and so happens to need the amount of Tincture I have."

His attention was firmly on his arm now, the tip of his tongue poking out past his lips for a moment of almost comic focus. The tip of the Pen set down on his skin, and he drew - and she could see that it was more of a light scratching than anything else, tiny, dust-like specks of skin flaking off in the process, less intense even than a light scratch from a cat but for the Tincture that came in its wake.

It didn't act like acid. Instead, it seemed to seep into the skin as a pigment, leaving behind a slightly rusty look, somewhere between aged metal and a dry scab, except perfectly level with the skin. The shapes Mateo was drawing had an almost geometrical precision, looking nothing like hand-writing and everything like stencilled characters.

It was very clear where one rune stopped and the next started, but they were more rectangular than anything usually called 'rune', drawn orthogonal to the direction of his arm. One looked like an elongated 'T' with two trunks, like a simplified, stretched Pi symbol. The other was four circles in abutting pairs, combined with a line.

Then he set the Pen back down, grasped his left hand in his right, pressing his thumb quite firmly into his palm, and stared down at what he had drawn. The rust colour was gradually darkening further, and developing strange fringes that looked vaguely like frost.

**Nymphetamine**:

It wasn't everyday that someone like her got to see a sorcerer at work. And whether this was for demonstration only or not didn't seem to matter much to her. She was fascinated, leaning forward in her chair so that she was against the table for a closer look. Watching eagerly, she didn't exactly know what the Tincture was doing, the thin scratching seemingly not at all that painful. Maybe just a little annoying. The Tincture soaked into the skin like a sponge, left in its wake the rusted red markings in its wake. Leile's eyes blinked a few times as she tried to process that, but then he was going on to continue writing/carving these runes into his arm. The symbols meant nothing to her, and she had no idea what their roots might have been. THere wasn't a lot of blood, so she wasn't so sure what the warning had been for, but maybe just a teeny bit glad for it regardless. "That's... that sure is something... what language are the runes in? Do we even know?"

**pinkgothic**:

Instead of answering, he grimaced, gritting his teeth in a way that was obvious even just from the tension in his jaw. For an instant, he closed his eyes, then gave a shaky exhale, letting his expression change to one as if he'd bitten into a lemon. The frost-like edges of the runes had formed almost ridge-like protrusions now, faint but unmistakable, their texture seeming vaguely like fuzz. Mateo let go of his left hand, then took a deep breath and //plucked// at the rune closest to his elbow.

It popped out of his skin, taking a thin chunk of firm, cherry-red stone with it that might have once been muscle mass. Blood welled visibly into the indentation as he set the top of the 'T'-like shape down on his palm, its twin legs pointing upward. He repeated the same motion with the other rune, carving another wound into his arm with the motion, then slid the circles of one end down over the T's limbs, inching them down a little. For a confusing moment, the impression of the substance became simultaneously glass and stone, like iridescence, and Mateo pulled the length of second rune to the side so it curved, shaping it into a wider circle, then slipped the circles of the end over the limbs of the 'T' shape as he had done with the other, locking the geometry into place.

Lazy drops of blood began to trickle down his arm and onto the table, firmly ignored.

He pushed the circle all the way down the other rune, folded his left hand's thumb over it manually, with the aid of his right hand, as if to trap it in place, and then //flicked// at one of the two vertical limbs of the first rune, making it chime against the second.

It should not have chimed. At most it should have made a sickly wet sound, or a knocking like a stone on stone, or a tinker like glass on glass, or literally //any other// sound than something more befitting some kind of eerie, alien tuning fork.

The light in the room //puckered//.

It dimmed all around them, crowding into an incandescent glow near the fingers of Mateo's right hand. It was as though the light in the room was draining to the fingers and only from there leaping to their eyes. It made it hard to see what //exactly// he was doing, but there was enough reality left to see that the runes themselves had lost all cohesion, and that Mateo was dragging his luminescent fingertips down his left arm, guiding the oily substance to his wounds.

**Nymphetamine**:

Leila watched with fascination as Mateo worked, performing this strange sorcery that she should've known more about before taking a job on Mars, and did not. Enraptured by the display, she held her breath until she realized she was doing so and then softly, slowly exhaled so not to distract him. She did not want to disturb him, even by breathing. Saying nothing, the whole display felt so peculiar and different. She hadn't known what to expect from his display, but apparently, it was not this. As the light flickered and dimmed, she just squinted a little more, as if that would help. But still, arrested with awe, her mouth a little slack, she stared at the circle that he had created from the blood of his own body.

**pinkgothic**:

Mateo was silent but for his breathing, which had taken on a slightly laboured note, although with a strange undercurrent. The glowing fingers clasped themselves against his wounds, a papery and reverent exhale escaping him. Long seconds passed. Then he let go of his arm. The redirected light followed his right hand away from it, making it quite unclear to what extend the wounds were still there or not.

"It's not a language," he said, finally. "Any more than it is a language when we build NAND or XOR gates in computers, even though those have specific shapes and connections."

He carefully moved his hand closer to her, letting her inspect his fingers. It wasn't precisely the fingers that were luminescent - it really was as though the light in the room were being lensed by something to near the fingers, lighting them as though in strongest sunlight, subsurface scattering and all, but there was no //source// of light beside them, nothing glowing out at her like a small sun. It was evidently really just redirecting existing light, draining it from around him.

"The runes are components in machinery," he concluded his explanation.

**Nymphetamine**:

Looking at the extended hand, her brows rose in the dim light. Not a language, he said. She didn't reach out to touch the luminescence that seemed faint atop his fingertips. Still, she was very much interested in what he had done, and what was shimmering there on his hand. "That is... *Amazing.*" It took a few moments to come to that conclusion, but now that she had, she was greatly fascinatedby the whole prospect and process.

**pinkgothic**:

"I take it you've never watched a sorcerer spell-cast before?" he asked, conversationally. The scene was eerie - the casual, matter-of-fact conversation they were having, sitting in his kitchen, while Adhafera was presumably meandering around near their feet, all the while the 'photon funnel' continued to distort the visual appearance of reality. ...when would that stop, for that matter?

**Nymphetamine**:

"Never," she confessed in a quiet voice. "This would be the first time. It's... so interesting. 'Interesting' doesn't seem like a strong enough word to describe it, though." A thin smile surfaced on her lips at this, pressed thin in consideration. "It's just not every day you see a sorcerer at work... though, what *does* work look like for you? Are you just researching for other spells?" Surprisingly naive about the purpose of sorcery, she was immensely curious in the matter, regardless.

**pinkgothic**:

"Yeah, most of the time," he nodded. "Like I told you the other day, it's a little bit like the protein folding problem. Artificial intelligence churns out some ideas based on all known spells, humans review it for feasibility by cross-checking against a bunch of... rules, I guess you could call them, heuristics for whether something is viable, and what it might do, and depending on the results, someone tries the combination eventually, or it's just added to a database with the note 'this one will probably kill you in creative ways, don't do this one'." He shrugged a shoulder, the motion almost invisible in the current lighting.

**Nymphetamine**:

Nodding to this, she could see how the application of AI checking the feasibility of some of these spells would be a valuable tool. "I guess dying in creative ways is frowned upon by your superiors," she said cheekily, making a joke out of it, despite realizing that it was very much a real danger when one was using their own blood to power these spells. She reached for her tea cup, mostly as a means to wet her throat, feeling parched, though she was sure that was just result of seeing the esoteric arcane.

**pinkgothic**:

It took a bit of fumbling to find the cup, more of a shadowy outline than a solid object in the altered illumination of the room. "Not that many sorcerers, statistically speaking," Mateo explained the policy, as though it needed explaining. "And usually 'die in creative ways' involves a lot of collateral. You might try it on Earth, where the environment can absorb more damage, if you think you can get away with it, but here on Mars, no one likes experiments marked as dangerous."

**Nymphetamine**:

"That's totally reasonable," she said, still speaking quietly out of respect for what she was seeing. "I'm sure no one wants to die in a creative way, collateral or not." It sounded rather dangerous over all. Giving her new insight on Mateo, really, since he had become one of these sorcerers, presumably recruited for reasons. Leila smiled though unseen, speaking in the darkness as she was. "Well... Thank you for the demonstration. I hope it didn't hurt too badly."

**pinkgothic**:

"It wasn't //pleasant//," Mateo quipped with some amusement. "But the drug cocktail helps. It's mostly nerve-blockers. I don't know how the old Mesoamericans did //any// spell-casting, though, without painkillers." Somewhere past the drained, washed-out light was a grimace. "Especially the higher-tier spells."

**Nymphetamine**:

He couldn't see that grin taking over her face at his kinda sarcastic remark. "I'm sorrrry! But I am really glad that you showed me, nonetheless. So thanks!" After thinking over it for a moment before saying, "There are certain types of plants that can help with pain... but probably nothing like what we have in the modern era, with synthetically crafted drugs."

**pinkgothic**:

"Anything strong enough to block out the pain of a piece of your flesh being carved out of your arm, though, that still leaves you lucid?" Mateo asked, half sceptical, half curious. It was good that his tone conveyed both states, given his face was still mostly vague outlines in the swirl of unnatural shadow.

**Nymphetamine**:

Her laughter answered him. "Nah, of course not... nothing would be like that... But who knows? They figured out sorcery, maybe they had concotions that we haven't discovered yet?" Leila did not sound convinced. "But I concede to your point on this one. At least so far as paleontology is concerned that is." While she might not have delved too far into mysterious ancient plants, she was willing to concede that maybe the Mesoamericans were just bloody insane to be carving up their flesh.

**pinkgothic**:

The trick with the light was still ongoing. Mateo sighed. "Well, I guess I'm not painting today." For a moment, it was ambiguous whether he was referring to his likely still damaged arm or the situation with the light. Then he chuckled: "This is going to take something like another hour to wear off."

Not that the nerve blockers were likely to have a better dispersion. Weren't they typically something that lasted a day or two with lingering after effects? But maybe whatever the sorcerers used metabolised more quickly. And maybe more intensely.

**Nymphetamine**:

Leila looked around the room for a moment, noting the dimmed lights that did not want to brighten. "What a strange side effect," she murmured, almost to herself, and certainly full of wonder. The botanist wasn't sure if the trade off price for the powers of sorcery were equitable to the literal carving into their arm, and spilt blood, were worth it, however. But still, there was a morbid fascination that would not go away no matter how logically she approached the situation. "I'm sorry your demo messed up the lights..." She felt a teensy bit guilty for that, for robbing him of his hobby today. "But thank you for showing me! It's... It's so weird and cool."

**pinkgothic**:

"If you're into self-mutilation," Mateo quipped, but his tone was good-natured, and nothing she could make out from his face suggested otherwise. That made it sound like the nerve-blockers were pretty good at their job, at least. "We've tried to use animal flesh, but that doesn't seem to work. Like many things in sorcery, we don't know why."

**Nymphetamine**:

She laughed a little at his quick wit and smiled, shaking her head. "I wouldn't say I'm *into* self-mutilation... I'm just definitely curious about how self-mutilation becomes the arcane. What quality is it about humanity that animals lack, that enables sorcery?" But that was probably a question that many before her and many after that would ask themselves the very same thing. "I know, I know, rhetorical question, but a fascinating one!"

**pinkgothic**:

"We don't know," Mateo repeated, but not sternly. "//My// theory is that the geometry of runes we know about - and the heuristics for finding new ones, to most part - are tied to human topology and chemistry. There's clearly some error-tolerance, but there's at least one tale of a sorcerer who couldn't spell-cast, which... did not end well for him. It's hard to get it confirmed, much less find enough data to speculate what caused it - could be as mundane as shaky handwriting. But my guess is something was off about his blood chemistry or skin composition, and would have needed other runes entirely."

**Nymphetamine**:

Leila was a botanist, not a biologist, so she had little to contribute to his theory. Instead, she just shrugged, still smiling as she watched him. Hands reached for her tea cup, or fumbled in the poor lighting for it, eventually reaching it and bringing its lukewarm contents to her lips. Once she had taken a sip, she set it on the edge of the table, her one hand cradling it so that she might easily find it. "To be the sorcerer that could answer that question!" Shaking her head ruefully, she sighed. "Well. Do you enjoy it at least?"

**pinkgothic**:

"Do I enjoy carving up my arm?" Mateo rephrased cheekily. Instead of answering the question, he touched on her previous comment. "'Being the sorcerer' - I notice the prospect of potentially bleeding to death if you mess up doesn't seem to bother you much. Why is that?"

**Nymphetamine**:

"If it's my time, it's my time," she said rather fatalistically. But she gave the question some serious thought, pursing her lips and furrowing her brow as her face scrunched up. "I don't know. It seems all so *controlled* and precise... Though, maybe that's just an outsider looking in with no experience whatsoever. Maybe I'm just naive? When was the last time someone bled out anyways?"

**pinkgothic**:

It was still hard to make out his face, but there was an unmistakable change in expression. The pause slightly overstayed its welcome, almost to the point of discomfort. Then he spoke: "Remember Nam-Trung?" About two months ago, they'd lost Nam-Trung. Leila hadn't been anywhere close to him and not in the loop of cause of death, and the rumour mill had sanitised it as 'a work accident'. It told her that the Martian rumour mill was far too polite.

**Nymphetamine**:

He couldn't see the fall of her blase expression, but it knit into concern. She nodded, then thought better of it and said, "Yeah, I had heard about that. Someone said he fell off from a loose railing or something?" It hadn't been in her department, and she knew no one in her personal circles who had known the man himself. Frowning then, he could hear the sigh. "I see your point. Definitely something to treat with more respect. Sorry. I didn't mean to be so flippant about it."

**pinkgothic**:

"No need to apologise, just don't romanticise it," Mateo chuckled softly. "Otherwise you'll just blunder into death if you ever try sorcery."

**Nymphetamine**:

"Fair enough, fair enough. Though, don't really know how I'll ever get to //try// sorcery." There was something a little wistful in her voice about that. Like maybe she was perhaps longing for the chance to try sorcery, even though it was so dangerous. She wasn't a thrill seeker or an adrenaline junky, but she definitely had romantic notions about sorcery in general that were quickly disspelling in this conversation with Mateo.

**pinkgothic**:

His shrug was visible even in the artificial twilight of the room. "Mars has the highest density of sorcerers anywhere, possibly with the exception of the ancient Mesoamericas. The laws that work for Earth might not apply to Mars forever."

He meant it as encouragement - maybe she'd be allowed to be a sorcerer eventually, if she truly wanted it. But as it was, it instead served as a reminder that it was highly illegal to do anything with sorcery unless you had been trained.

...and had a permit. If it were just a matter of training, maybe she could convince Mateo to train her, and be allowed sorcery on a technicality, but presumably someone had to vet her in some way before training was even formally allowed.

Maybe she could talk to Arthur Biker, feel out where the seams of the law happened to be. At the very least, it might prove a fun past-time, even if it was fruitless - just make the bureaucrat's head spin a little, just for fun.

Or maybe she could just ask Mateo directly. He'd been friendly so far. He didn't seem like the type that would report her for asking, making the worst outcome a 'no'.

**Nymphetamine**:

There were options for Leila. Depending on how bold she wanted to be, how much she might want to pursue sorcery. If she did at all. It didn't seem like something you would just casually try your hand at. Lips pressed into a thin line as she considered those possibilities. She had already asked him how he had gotten his training. Silent for far longer than was polite, she eventually spoke, a smile colouring her face. "I dunno... You ever thinking about taking an apprentice?" She was not sly enough to warrent the coy tone of her voice, but she was most definitely curious about this particular idea.

**pinkgothic**:

Mateo's glowing fingers smeared light across his forehead in a slow, somewhat pained gesture, made absurd for the surreal illumination. He was quiet, but from all she could tell not out of frustration or anger, but a kind of creeping resignation. She could hear him breathe, slow and deep, as though he were dragging the consideration of it through his entire body.

Finally: "The strictly correct answer to your question is 'no, I did not'." It did not sound like it was a rebuff.

**Nymphetamine**:

Clearing her throat, she smiled sweetly, unseen in the faded light. "What's the incorrect answer?" she asked, prompting for candidness. "I won't tell anyone. I think this conversation has overstepped the boundaries of strictly legal concerns...  but for what it's worth, I won't speak or breathe a word of this to anyone..."

**pinkgothic**:

"That question doesn't make any sense," Mateo sighed tiredly.

Apparently, that was the response she was getting - he wasn't saying anything else. Maybe it was a comment of semantics; she'd asked if he was ever thinking about taking on an apprentice, he hadn't previously considered it, and there was no additional information to be gained from its inverse. Whether he'd consider it //now// was a different question, and by appearances, he wasn't volunteering an answer to it unless she bothered to ask it.

Or maybe she just had to wait a little, given how he still seemed to be massaging his forehead.

**Nymphetamine**:

Leila just sat there for a moment, looking at his shadowed features. She was sure that her own expression was partially occluded by the dim light, so he couldn't see the note of disappointment that lit up there. "I'm sorry." The apology was a little hollow, meant to smooth over any transgressions she might have made, because she was overstepping her bounds. "I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable..." If that's what happened. Not entirely clear because she didn't know Mateo that well. (This was their longest conversation to date!)

**pinkgothic**:

"I think you should go home," Mateo said, finally. There was a kind of sadness to his voice, a hint of some distraught emotion at the very edges. He didn't sound angry at all, but clearly he needed some space for now. Maybe Leila'd blown it - but it seemed even more sure that she was going to nail the coffin shut if she said much more this evening.

**Nymphetamine**:

Nodding in the faint light, she rose from her seat. That directive to go was very easy to read, no confusion there. She considered apologizing again, but that would make it sound it artifical. "Good night, Mateo," she said softly as she moved slowly towards the door, navigating the somewhat dark room by memory alone. Pausing at the door, she hesitated, as if she would say more, but she finally just opened the doorway, light from the hallway spilling in and a bit too bright for the dark adjusted eyes. She departed without much other fanfare, her sigh heard; or perhaps that was the sound of the door sliding closed.