Anya/Venisha "Job Shadowing"

Anya squeezes Venisha's hand and scoots a bit closer, leaning her head on Venisha's leg. "Anytime you need a friendly ear, let me know. Especially if you need to complain or just talk about your family. It's got to be hard being around the dead parents brigade and feeling conflicted about your living, kinda shitty parents. You're not gonna push any dead parents trauma buttons with me. And." Anya hesitates a moment before smiling brittlely at Venisha, "You're not the only one who got sent away for being too much trouble."

Latching onto the change of topic, suddenly super cheerful, she sits up and whirls around to face Venisha and says, "Prime is awesome. I hadn't gotten very far with it with Carole because she didn't use it, but it's like my understanding of it is growing in leaps and bounds since I've been around you guys. Maybe because you're all doing such different things, it helps me see a more complete picture of it? I don't even know. I'm going to have to ask Dr. S. how he works with it because he just seems to come from such a different direction." She forces herself out of stream of consciousness mode, shaking her head violently.

"Sorry. Let me try that again. Prime is..." Anya's struggling for words. "It's overwhelming and thrilling and like touching the heart of the universe. When I tune into a place with Prime on, it's like...every sense is flooded with sound and smell and sight that tells me about it and it all works together and it's glorious. And the more I experience, the more I can hear the heartbeat behind it all. It's all the same tune but played by different instruments at different times and with different people and at different points in the endless song." She laughs. "I have no idea if I'm making any sense but it's just so much! I wouldn't trade it for anything."

"I don't want to get into 'my sphere is better than your sphere' because it's all about the Mage, not the magick, but yeah." She smiles with a hard edge. "I could fuck shit up if I wanted to. Actually, put a pin in that, I have something that I really want to show you, but it can wait."

She reaches into her sports bra under her leotard and pulls out a pocketknife. "So you're very diplomatically asking why I carry this around all the time and have a tendency to hurt myself, which was very well done, I commend you, Alex could take lessons. It's three separate things."

"The first is that I can do magick by pushing myself to my limits. You're amazing at Do and yoga, you've got to get that. Push beyond what you can do before. Dance is the same, which is why I think it works for me. I don't always have time to dance myself into exhaustion or whatever. Cutting is faster. That's about the pain. It can focus or it can help me let go. I'm pretty sure I can use this with any sphere, but I use it mostly for Prime because there are better options for the other two. I try not to too much. Emergencies only."

"The second is that I use blood, sweat, and tears as tools. And, again, unless I'm already crying or I've been working for a while, blood is easier to get. That's why I just cut my thumb a little when I need to see with Prime. It's not about the pain at all, just the juice."

"The third is something I can do with Prime." Anya hesitates, eyeing Venisha and gnawing her lip a little. After a few seconds, she goes on in the same matter of fact tone, "So everyone can store a little quintessence, right? And when you run out then you have to go and meditate at the node and get it back from the source."

"Only there's quintessence everywhere. In everything. And if you know how to get it, you can use it. So, if I need quintessence for something, I can get some from me. I have to, again, push myself beyond what I think I can do. Or stab myself, again, that's faster and easier. It just has to hurt. No, not hurt, it has to do damage, cause it's a sacrifice. A trade with the universe for something I really want, and just pain isn't enough."

Lightly, "So, cause a sacrifice isn't a sacrifice if you can fix it right away, when I do that, the rules say no Magickal healing. Cause it'd be too easy. So, after the Marauder, when my leg wound wouldn't heal? That's why."

"What else do you want to know?"

Anya sits back, leaning on her elbows, curious how Venisha will respond.