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Liezel's spent the past half hour focused on the ritual she's enacting, singing a song under her breath, her vibrato turning the mournful notes into pregnant echoes of Potentia. Thirty minutes she's sung, and now, the ritual complete, she finally slumps backwards, relaxed and laughing under her breath. It's not obvious- not to anyone without the sight of Death to see it- but there's a space before her, delineated with a circle of string on the ground big enough to stand inside, just flush with ephemera- a little slice of the world that's just as much Twilight as it is the material world.
Decima, for her part, is scuttling back this way for the second time, having gone hunting something down in the Factotum archives that she'd been reminded of mid-archery practice. She must have hurried so quickly that, although she doesn't have her bow with her now, she's still prying off her braces to let the skin underneath breathe. But this time she stops, and her attention slides over towards Liezel's ritual, the Spirit Sight giving her that burst of sight into Twilight. Tempted by the prospect of Essence, a small, very small hummingbird spirit, materialized but that has been hiding in the breast pocket of her jacket, pokes its beak out in Liezel's direction. The both of them stare. Decima, and the bird spirit in her pocket.
Liezel sits up as she realizes she's being stared at. Her hand comes up in an automatic, slightly robotic greeting. "Hello, again. I-" A pause as she notes the spirit. "... do you have a hummingbird in your pocket? However did you convince it to stay there? Is it alright?"
The pocket of space seems stable. It's not, at least, showing any signs of going anyplace, anytime soon. At least not without Liezel's say-so.
"Convince him?" she repeats, looking down. "Half the time, he won't come out of there," she gripes insincerely at the little hummingbird. "He's a spirit Familiar. On loan from the Silver Ladder, to help me with my research. So he's happy to stay by me for now; our Bond protects him from Essence bleed. I keep trying to tell him that doesn't mean he needs to ride in my jacket pocket like an admiral on a carrier ship, but... he seems to enjoy it," she quips. The hummingbird beak pokes out another half inch, little beady eyes stare out from underneath the pocket flap. Almost looks like a hat.
"Oh."
That's all Liezel says on that, though she stares at the little bird for a while. Rude, perhaps. She doesn't seem to be aware. Then she turns her eyes back up to Decima. "Were you looking at my aril?" She gestures faintly towards the segment of Twilit reality. "Do you want a closer look? Or are you on your way to do research with your loanerfriend?"
The trickster hummingbird spirit finally relents and pokes his head fully out of the pocket, and his small body comes next, and he takes to the hair in that helicopter-like hover that is particular to the species, buzzing and flitting about Decima's head, closing distance to Liezel, getting a close look, several close looks, up at her before hovering back in the center space. "Beg pardon?" she returns, tilting her head to the side. The hummingbird seems to mirror this subtle affectation.
"Ah- aril. That's- what this is called." She takes a pencil from her hand and places it in the circle, exerts a little will and- pop. It's ephemera, and in Twilight, gone from mortal sight, visible to Twilit senses. "It's named after pomegranate arils. Persephone ate some, and trapped herself in the Underworld, you see. And arils are how we send things to the Underworld. For Perfecting." Liezel's expression waxes frustrated, but just briefly. Then she's looking back at Decima. "Plus it has the advantage that only things that can look at both the real world and Twilight can see it. It's like the space spell. Just... Twilit."
Decima bobs her head in a nod, and watches the pen slip from one side to the other. "Perfecting," she repeats, meandering closer in a casual, lazy half-circle, and the little hummingbird spirit just wobbles through the air, buzzing and flitting and flickering past her head. It does eventually start to enjoy the larger part of the rest of this section of the Consilium Hall. "So, wait, how does that work? You send something to the Underworld and then it comes back... Perfect?"
"Yes, but not once." Another flex of the will, and the pencil returns, to be pulled aside and put away. "It takes time. The smallest of objects, ones no larger than a fist? Those would take ten trips back and forth. Larger objects become multiplicatively more difficult to bring across, and thanks to the Persephonic Limit, it's not something that can be done all at once. And it's not every object. Just those with the potential. With Supernal symbols very closely parallel to their Fallen counterparts. Siderite, Kassiterum, Adamant, Orichalcum- those are the results. What we coax the mundane to become. Perfect."
Decima rocks back on her heels, drags her chin up and down through the air in slow, exaggerated, considerate bobs. "I hope you don't mind my curiosity," she tosses out, a disclaimer, apology, an easy way out of the conversation if Liezel wants one. "What, ah... what're you trying to perfect?"
"Hm? Oh. I'm- not. I don't have anything to perfect." There's a strain of embarrassment coloring the relatively level tone. "I don't make much on my songs. What I make goes to food and living expenses. Someday I'll have a complete set of ritual tools- perfected metal implements of all varieties. I'll start with Siderite- Perfected steel- once I've the money to buy the implements. The rest I can acquire over time. After that? I have arms to Perfect. But I want to share this." She gestures to the aril. "Most use a shortcute. A Matter spell of third circle. It's effective- but must be maintained. It can't just- Be Perfected, it has to Be Made To Remain Perfected. It can't outlive its maker, not without risking corruption over time. But my work? My work is going to Last."
The hummingbird spirit flies very close to Liezel, gets right up in her face, eyes her closely with one of its beady little eyes, wingtips just barely avoiding brushing against the Talon's cheek. "He likes you," Decima guesses, though it could just as easily be a staredown. Hard to tell, he's such a little fellow, and he moves so damn quickly. "If you could show me how you do it, if you could 'coax something into being Perfect' for me, then I will help you get the Tools you need to do it as much as you want," she supposes with a shrug. "Not bad, right?"
"Then the music need not suffer," she adds in a small chirp, a smile blooming across her features.
"He's nice. I like him, too." She doesn't reach for him, just watches, blinking reflexively at that fluttering contact. "I could do that. It would need to be something specific. Iron or steel; mercury, technically, but that's more for amalgams; gold; silver; copper; tin; lead. Glass, wood, and gems can all be perfected as well, but metals are the most useful. What path do you walk again?"
"Acanthus," she hums back, voice like a windchime, and the little spirit flitters over to Decima's head and perches on top of it like he owns the joint; she shoos him away, and he resettles on the outcropping of her shoulder. "Shouldn't be a problem. We'll get you set up," she buzzes. "How lucky!" That part delights her even more, and even the little hummingbird spirit seems to fluff its feathers, puffing a bit larger beyond its mass. "I actually know a place we can check first.," she realizes with a small grin.
"Acanthus casting favors the use of glass, silver, crystal or plastic. Plastic is manmade, and- to my knowledge- can't be perfected..." She trails off in a manner that suggests she may not be above trying to perfect it anyway. "... but the other three can. Adamant and Perfected gems, though, don't offer the same affinity to the Acanthus magical methods that Lunargent does. You'd want silver tools to perfect. I'd recommend a set of a cup, a wand, a knife, a mirror, and a coin etched with the Atlantean star, as a basic ritual set, if you're not already in possession. The knife and wand will take longer, though. The cup can be small- symbolic, like a shot glass- but the wand and knife need be larger to be useful, and would take a minimum of... I'd say three days, to Perfect."
"A place we can go?" Liezel blinks guilelessly at Decima.
Decima digs a coin out of her pocket. "I have this," she holds it up in the light; it's an old, silver SEPTA token. Of course, people didn't use silver coins to pay for railway travel; it was a commemorative coin, and it shined, polished like glass. "It might do for one of them. And what about yourself?"
"Oh. I'm a thaumaturge. We favor gold and steel, petrified wood, or any Perfected material which... is honestly quite convenient. It's why I want a full set of various materials. Each lends itself to a sympathetic yantra to a particular effect. Some even bless the wearer just by being carried. It's all quite fascinating if you ask me!" That's one of the few times Liezel's shown a little excitement. She's pretty subdued when she's not raving about one of her obsessions.
"Steel, wood, any Perfected material, a bit easier to come by. Gold.. less so. Let's get a shopping list together," she chirps, and the hummingbird steps back and forth from one foot to the other on her shoulder, like it's vibrating off of Liezel's excitement.
"Spreadsheet would be easier. Built in check list. I have one, actually." Liezel pulls out a truly cheap little smartphone, and pulls up a Sheets document with exactly that- cross-referenced materials, items, and costs where they intersect, making it easy to see what she needs, how much (or little) each costs, and just as she said, a built-in check list. "And your coin would need etched. Coins have to be marked with the Atlantean star before they gain yantric sympathies."
"Nice!" Decima enthuses, and she eyeballs the list while the hummingbird spirit tries to edge in on the same, wings flicking against her hair and her cheek. "Phbt, stop, you're gonna get your feathers in my mouth," she complains at it, but it ignores her, and they both pore over the list.
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