our real estate is a great investment

[cross_and_bow]

"Welcome to Sunshine," says Juliet. "And to my front porch and whatever you do don't hit the light, it'll set Sherlock on fire."

Comments

[eversomuchfun]

He laughs.

[she_sells_seashells]

Before even finding them a beach, Shell Bell gives Juliet a rundown on how to control the wand:

"You're in control of a bunch of things. Shape, location, temperature, how fast it consumes available fuel - it doesn't need fuel at all, you could have a floating fireball in a sealed chamber and it wouldn't take your oxygen if you didn't want it to let alone die for lack of stuff to oxidize, but it'll take anything you do want to feed it. If you lose attention on any of those things, the fire will be out of control on all counts and go on according to the laws of physics. You can get it back as long as it's contiguous. But you can't control more than one piece of fire at a time, so until you really have the hang of it and never lose your fire before you're ready, don't let it spread too far where it'll burn out intermediate patches."

[cross_and_bow]

"If it doesn't need fuel, can it burn in places where you wouldn't expect it to be able to?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"Yeah. I used to practice cooking minnows from the inside - I couldn't do anything out where the bigger fish swim, but you can put fire inside of a demon if you want, it'd look funny on an autopsy but it'll add to your aura of mysterious power."

[eversomuchfun]

Sherlock giggles.

[cross_and_bow]

"Kickass," says Juliet. "I always wanted an aura of mysterious power. What else do I have to know?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"You probably want to learn the usual temperatures of fires that burn on various substances. You don't have to know it in degrees or anything, which is good because this comes from a world that doesn't use degrees I recognize and I sure don't know if they match yours, but if you've been near something burning it'll be easier to refer to it."

[cross_and_bow]

"I've been around wood fires, but not, like, thermite," says Juliet.

[eversomuchfun]

"If you want to have a thorough knowledge of the behaviour of all kinds of accelerants and explosives, talk to Tony," suggests Sherlock. "When he is less busy."

[she_sells_seashells]

"It won't be necessary to start with anyway, holding the temperature constant at wood-fire levels will be good for initial practice," Shell Bell says.

[cross_and_bow]

"Okay," says Juliet. "Should we just start now, then? Find a beach in this time zone for me to throw fire at?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"I think so," says Shell Bell, and she teleports all three of them to the largest unobserved beach on the west coast of the United States.

[eversomuchfun]

Sherlock claps his hands.

[cross_and_bow]

Juliet accepts the wand from Shell Bell, and... composes... a fire in her head. She would like it to be over there - yea big - woodfire hot - not consuming fuel.

It takes her a minute, but eventually she holds all these parameters in her head in the right sort of stack, and it appears, and she grins.

[eversomuchfun]

"Ooh. Pretty."

[cross_and_bow]

This distracts Juliet enough that she loses something - temperature, she thinks, or the no-fuel thing, since she can see size and shape. The fire falls away from her and - since it has nothing to catch on - dies.

"I need to be able to do this when distracted," she says before Sherlock can ask her if he ought to shut up, and she brings it back into existence again and stares at it intently.

[eversomuchfun]

"How distracted?" he inquires brightly.

[cross_and_bow]

"...Well, eventually, in-melee-with-enough-demons-that-busting-out-the-fire-wand-is-a-better-idea-than-hand-to-hand distracted," she says. The fire doesn't die when he talks this time. She starts coaxing it taller until she's got a ten-foot column of the stuff.

[eversomuchfun]

"In that case, I foresee you setting things on fire while making out with me."

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell laughs and laughs. "But then it'll be hard to look what she's doing. Try the back of her neck or something."

[cross_and_bow]

"I'm not sure I want you making quite as many suggestions as you're making," Juliet says mildly to Shell Bell, swaying her column of fire back and forth with unnecessary motions of the wand to remind her what she's doing.

[she_sells_seashells]

"Regardless, I suggest not getting into the habit of moving the wand if you ever want to be able to use it without letting everybody know that you're using it," Shell Bell says, unapologetic.

[eversomuchfun]

Sherlock just snorts.

[cross_and_bow]

Juliet flips the wand around in her hand so she's still clutching the handle, but the wand is pointed backwards along her arm, and she stares down the column of fire. She splits it, not all the way down - she wants it contiguous - but she forms it into the bright warm equivalent of swaying blades of grass, adding one at a time until she's managing ten at once and loses all of them.

[she_sells_seashells]

"You're doing really good. If you want tendrils like that, try to find a way to think of the shape in a higher-level abstract pattern," says Shell Bell, "move a few of them in parallel if you can, or lean them all counterclockwise at once, or whatever."