more changeling IC fluff

[aumentou]

I sit on the sofa, eating my lunch and reading my book. It's a maths textbook aimed at "years eight and nine", which means children of twelve to fourteen years old. When I was fourteen that was the end of school, and you had to go and work for a living, but times change and it seems that these days staying in school until sixteen is what normal people do. Less than that is a failure, more than that is lauded.

I started reading it a month ago to help me understand the symbols in the chemistry book, but I've carried on beyond what I needed. I've been doing that a lot recently. It seems there is an awful lot that I don't know, and an awful lot that I didn't even know that I ought to know. Beyond the maths, there's the chemistry and biology I need for the hungry grass project. There's also the buddhism (which I still haven't quite finished), the two books of religious philosophy (recommended by the buddhism book), the "how the earth works" book with the pretty pictures (that I got in order to understand an analogy involving the layers of the planet), the physics book (recommended by the "how the earth works" book), and a "suggested reading" list of dozens more books on various subjects. I don't understand how anyone still fully human can live long enough to learn everything they need to know in order to live.

Then again, I suppose they don't. I don't need this to live. I need some of it to solve the grass problem, and the rest is just interesting. The ground I thought solid is dirt, on top of rock. The rock itself is a gigantic floating plate of rock, on top of lava, which is molten rock. That's on top of molten metal, which is incredibly hot because it's left over from being part of the sun (which exploded and left bits behind, including enough bits to form a new sun, and which is the same thing as a star, but those are a lot further away) and is also under a lot of pressure, being crushed by all the molten and dry rock on top of it. Being crushed makes things hotter? The physics book book tells me this is true, and it fits. I have a pan called a "pressure cooker" in my kitchen, that has a weight on it. It cooks faster than other pans, and I never understood why before. You can take the weight off and there's a jet of steam that you should avoid putting your hand in if you like your hand. Fascinating, that this idea isn't just pans, it's the world too. Fascinating, that the so-solid world is mostly liquid.

All this reading does feel a lot like a training regime at times. In fact, I've been lifting weights and jogging on the spot while reading, simply because I'm running out of time in the day to do them separately. I've taken books as they come, except for the bits related to addiction and chemical dependancy, but perhaps I should lay out a plan and learn properly, in an organised way? I suppose it has applications too, I could pass some exams and convince real people that I'm one of them, not a girl with only one asset.

It's all at odds though. At odds with things I know to be true, but also to be fae. Water, Steam, and Ice are the same thing - ice is just the solid version, steam the gas, and nearly anything can be in any of those states. So why can I sing and find all the nearby ice, but not the nearby water? For fae things, you deal with the idea of a thing. Ice elementals and water elementals are similar because we're elementals, but are not more similar than water elementals and fire elementals. Ice elementals don't find contracts of water easier to master than fire elementals do. "Ice" and "Water" as ideas, as fae things, are two completely different things. Ice and water in the real world are the same thing in two different states. Both these things are true, and both contradict. Is there a way to use this contradiction? Use contracts to do a thing that is easy with contracts, and then allow the state to change to do something that is easy only with real world rules?

Of course it isn't just pans. Someone worked out the idea years ago, and then someone else made the pan using the idea, while other people used the same idea to explain the planets structure and then tested it. Why didn't i see that straight away?

I wonder what the hedge is like if you enter it from the lava layer of the earth? Would it be there at all?

It's not a lava layer. It's a magma layer. Same thing, but called differently when it's down there.

I wonder if I'll ever meet a magma elemental, and if they will be picky about not being called a lava elemental?

If I were powerful enough, and had the right contracts, could I swim in magma?

If we found a deep enough mine, would it be away from the hedge? Or would it lead to a mine or cave system in the hedge? Or is the hedge layers on layers, so that here, and here but one mile down, lead to two completely different places?
I should try a tall building, and see what happens.

Perhaps the real world is an illusion too. A Mask that fools us and the Others, as well as the humans. Perhaps somewhere there are creatures, powerful and incomprehensible, watching us?

I need a break. I stand up, rub my eyes, move. I take five minutes to pummel my punch-bag. It's important to stay in shape. All the thinking and amazing ideas in the world won't help if tomorrow is the day the door gets kicked down by an enemy hunting party.

Then I go back to the book. This chapter is about "algebra". It's a strange word. I wonder where it comes from, and if you can make a contract with it? Certainly, lots of humans know it and respect its power. What would a contract with a word for some part of maths do?

Comments

[child-of-chance.livejournal.com]

I like that.

[mondayscalamity.livejournal.com]

I'm enjoying Changeling a lot and all the stories (in writing, reading or even just word of mouth) that come from the characters. I always like reading these and yours are always really interesting!