Terra - Ottawantreal

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A huge North American city, built in a mishmash of styles from many eras of architecture. the spaceport is bustling and filled with cruise ships, racing yachts, and transport craft. It's full of shops, clubs, gardens, and tourist attractions.

The weather is currently cool but sunny.

Matt grinned. "Well not out of nothing." He waved a hand around. "There's water in the air" He held out his hand, droplets of water gathering in his cupped palm. "And inside all of us."

Shane chuckled softly, this was turning into a kind of science lesson with magic now.

The kids looked suitably impressed. Things they definitely hadn't expected to see today! One of them reached out to touch the water droplets.

The parents definitely seemed a little nervous though.

"Magic is unsafe, you shouldn't be using it around our children," one man told Matt.

"Chill, dude," Ellie retorted, "Magic is BADASS and SAFE. You can't hurt people with water droplets."

The guards quietly started heading over to keep an eye on the situation, just in case.

~~
Asher and Kay arrived from Vestia, and went in search of a museum of some sort, Asher leading the way.

"Magic itself is not inherently dangerous, it's like other tools. The person using it is the one that's either good or evil." Shane said from where he was leaning against a wall and watching.

"Oh it can be dangerous, in the wrong hands." Matt smiled at the kid and let the water absorb into his skin. "but this? This is natural for me." He looked at the parents. "it won't hurt them." He'd never hurt kids man, he loved kids. "It's just water."

---

Kay followed, holding his tablet in one arm and trying to remember where the museums and galleries were.

Ellie nodded. "Yeah, like they said. Magic isn't dangerous, unless you like, a bad person and you use it for bad things." She opened her hand to show the seeds she had started growing, which were starting to twine up her arm, wanting to show her solidarity with Matt.

The parents seemed pretty concerned still. The kids, not so much. They thought the magic was awesome!

At that point the minotaur guard spoke up. "Visitors! It is desireous that you cease and desist in the usage of magic!"

~~
"There's a modern art museum a few blocks from here I believe," Asher said. "That would make us seem wonderfully cultured, I'm sure."

Matt frowned, looking over at the minotaur. "sorry." Huh, was it illegal here or something? he looked to Shane, a little bewildered.

---

Kay smirked. [Only if we pretend to know what we're looking at.] He followed along. [I admit, I haven't really had much exposure to art, I was never very artistic and there were no galleries or museums anywhere near the places I lived. ] He shook his head. The Imperium had a strange attitude toward art. They loved portraits and statues depicting great heroes and victories, but they didn't really do art for art's sake.

Asher nodded. "There's vocabulary words, right? If we use them, we'll sound like we understand art. Design elements, complimentary colors, religious symbolism. I'm not entirely sure how to identify any of them except complimentary colors though, I'm not especially well versed in religion or design."
He smiled slightly, trying to discuss a subject they both knew nothing about was a better than stewing in their fears about Mars.

"We didn't think there were any rules against it." Shane said, looking to the minotauir then shrugging. "Sorry."

"It is not in the rules, there are no rules in the museum concerning magic," the minotaur said. For all that she was a smallish minotaur, meaning she was just a little under six feet tall, she was still about as loud as Tala. Not shouty, just... kinda loud. "Your activities are potentially damaging of the equipment in this room."

The other guard was a terran guy, who was a little taller than the minotaur, although definitely not as intimidating since he didn't have horns. "Yeah, uh, we really don't have a magic policy. Guess we'll need to discuss that with management now." He looked uncertain.

Ellie was distracted by the guards, and her plants were lazily climbing up her and trying to climb to anyone near her as they fed on her magic. Whoops.

Matt lowered his hands and shot the kids a sorry look. "Shows over kids, go play with the science yeah?" Okay, so Terrans weren't as okay with things as he'd assumed. Bummer.

---

[Speak loudly enough and people assume you know what you're talking about.] Kay smiled. [Or so I hear.]

The kids looked crestfallen. Science could be cool, as one sign on the wall proclaimed, but magic was a way more novel experience.

Ellie looked disappointed too, plants drooping a bit in response.

The Terran looked around at the people. "Maybe we should let them? It's not like they were hurting anyone, and the kids loved it."

The minotaur pawed her hoof. "You Terrans are so soft. Your children should do well to learn of sensibleness."

The Terran frowned at her, and looked like he was trying to decide what to do. The sad kids made this difficult, okay?

~~
Asher looked amused. "I'm not sure I want to test that hypothesis. I have the oddest feeling that I might just end up looking like an idiot."

"Don't worry kids!" Matt declared, he didn't like sad kids either. "Non magic water is still awesome! Seriously, it's like.. a solid, a liquid AND a gas! It shape shifts! that's pretty awesome right?" hey he knew a lot about water.

Shane tilted his head a little "Could we simply promise not to mess with the equipment? I kind of want to see him teach the science of water through the use of magic." Yep, totally educational.

The kids weren't a hundred percent sold on non-magical water being awesome, but a few of them perked up at Matt's words. The rest of them looked at the guards hopefully. "Pleeeeease can he do magic?"

"Oh all right, he can do magic if he doesn't damage the exhibit at all," the Terran said.

The minotaur snorted at the Terran. "If you are consigned to the fires by our boss, it is your own doing," she said.

"The term is fired! I'd be fired! It has nothing to do with actual fire!" the Terran said hastily, before anyone could get the wrong idea.

"A shame. Some useless workers deserve the fires," the minotaur said. Her ears twitched though, suggesting she might be joking.

Matt tried not to laugh. "I dunno man, being on fire kinda sucks. As does getting fired." He looked back at the kids. "Okay what should we start with? "

"Thank you" Shane said to the guards as he looked back to Matt and the kids. He was smiling though, he had seen the twitching ears.

"What can you do?" a kid asked Matt. "We don't know what water magic can do, we've never seen it before."

"Can you make the water turn into shapes?" another kid asked.

The guards stood back a little to watch. Well, they also periodically glanced around at the rest of the exhibit to make sure nothing was happening. The Terran smiled at Shane, "You're welcome."

"you know, i've never tried." Matt admitted. He dunked his hand into one of the tanks, carefully extracting some water and holding it in his cupped hand. It didn't trickle through his fingers like it should, it sat quite against the laws of physics in his hand.
He put his other hand above this, concentrating on convincing the water to stretch upward toward it.
It moved sluggishly into a blunted peak, stretching up for a few seconds before collapsing back into a pool.

Matt sighed. It was too difficult to convince water to act this much against it's nature.

"Sorry kids, but I have an idea."

He opened his fingers and let the water flow out of his hand, moving quickly with both hands. Pulling the water out of the air and using some of his own he quickly convinced it to freeze at his touch. Soon he had a small, crude ice sculpture of a vague humanoid shape. He looked triumphant.
"Ice is more cooperative." He laughed.

"That's seriously awesome," Ellie said. "Man, I had no idea you had that much control over water!" It might not be the most detailed statue ever, but that was still a really neat trick.

The kids all seemed to agree that that was awesome. "How did you learn to do that? Can we learn too?" one asked.

"Maybe if you ate your vegetables," one dad told the kid, apparently deciding to use this as an opportunity to teach life lessons.

Matt shook his head. "I dunno, for me it's just part of my nature. All my dad's people have an elemental." He touched the statue and let it melt into a pool of water again. "but i'm sure you guys all have cool things you can do too. Maybe not magic, but cool things right?"

"I'm good at baseball," one kid said.

"That's not cool," another kid retorted. Some parents glared at him. Rude!

"I am good at baseball though," the kid persisted. "Really."

"So eating vegetables won't get us superpowers?" another kid said, disappointed.

"Matt doesn't even eat vegetables, he's allergic to them," Ellie said smugly. "So no vegetables are needed to be special!"

"I KNEW it," one littler kid glared at his parents indignantly. "You were lying! That's NOT how people get superpowers!"

The parents facepalmed.

"Baseball's cool" Matt stated, even though he had no idea what baseball even was. "and you guys are terran, which means you have to eat vegetables right? Or you get sick." He tried to think of what Olin had told Esk and Kay when they didn't want to eat something. Threats of all manner of diseases and ailments.
He absorbed the water off the floor so nobody would slip on it.
"you don't need super powers to be cool. Lots of people we hang out with don't have super powers." okay that was a lie, most of them totally did. Oops?

"Matt is not Terran though, these kids are. Veggies and fruits are necessary to grow up healthy and strong for Terrans." Shane said with a shrug. "Some Terrans have magic inherent to them, but most don't. Either way, you have to have fruits and veggies every day or you won't have the proper balance of vitamins and minerals in your body."

The kid who played baseball looked smug. "Told you baseball was cool," he told the other kid.

The other kid frowned. "No, only magic is cool. Anyone who says otherwise is just wrong."

The little kid who had decided his parents were lying about veggies frowned. Nope, he wasn't buying it.

"You can also eat vitamin pills if you hate veggies," Ellie said brightly. "The plants like that better."

The parents glared at her.

Shane laughed at that and shook his head "If you think only magic is cool, then you are missing out kid. There are magic-less miracles everyday." He said then looked around at everyone "Ellie can feel what plants feel, so she is against hurting plants, even for food." He explained then motioned to her hands "She has an innate ability to grow them like this."

Matt laughed. "Wanna see some magic you can learn?" He asked the kids. Yeah he had a whole load of skills that didn't involve actual magic. Though magic helped. He took a coin out of his pocket and showed them a few slight of hand tricks, not using his pocket space.
He was actually pretty good at this, he had nimble fingers and a lot of practice.