Ever get the feeling, that the whole world is just beyond your grasp? That it's all there, ready to fit into place, ready to make sense....

But you're too tired to reach out and take it?

Yes.

Teddy-bear is distraught. He can't handle this... this curse. These visions. He can't handle knowing more about people than they know about themselves.

And it isn't his right to tell them, which makes it worse. He keeps everyone's secrets. Maybe oneday he'll find someone to keep his.

Because visions kept coming and he was swimming to get away from them and all around him he could see how things worked and it was freaky.

Though it did enable him to get very good grades on science tests.

But that made science (and most other subjects) boring, and just....

Why else do you think a ten year old boy skipped school on the sly to go swimming?

Well. He's almost eleven. His birthday's next month.

He can't stop seeing things, these days, since he started learning from a real mage.

He hasn't mentioned this to anyone, yet. He thinks it would worry the womenfolk, and he's the man of the household. He doesn't want to worry them.

Cassie should be a bit easier on Ted than most people. If she has secrets, it's because she hasn't thought to tell anyone, and any question he asks, he will get a perfectly honest answer.

Not to mention she's only three. She hasn't been around very long.

She's walking along the side of the river, for no particular reason. She rarely does anything for a reason.

She's wearing a shirt and a pair of insanely tight pants, but no shoes and no jewellery. Her hair is a stunning shade of cobalt blue.

(Ted's sister Jess would kill to be able to dye her hair something that obviously unnatural.)

Somehow, Cassie manages to pull of this incredibly strange colour and make it look natural for her. That is, of course, because it is.

"Hi!"

Ted surfaces, shaking water out of his eyes and shaggy hair out of his face - he really should get a haircut someday - and looks at her.

He kind of... shivers... because these days, he sees what a creature is, not just what type - she's magic and she's tech and she's....

Well. Really? Deep inside his Ted-ness of self? She's a girl. Ted doesn't like girls. Girls are...

icky.

Anyway.

"Hi. I'm Ted." It seems appropriate to introduce himself, even if she is a blue-haired girl his sister's age and he's a boy in swim trunks submurged up to his chin in a (freezing cold) river.

"I'm Cassie."

She contemplates the water.

"I don't like water. You look like you're sad. It's a nice day, isn't it?"

Yes. Cassie speaks in completely unrelated sentences. It's a habit.

It's also, frighteningly, how her mind actually works.

"Water disrupts magic. Washes it away. I need that, right now. I can come to the shore, if you want."

He's nothing if not honest. Never anything but honest.

"It was the full moon a few nights back."

...he's getting more serious every time he comes out to play.

I find that very sad.

"No, you can stay there. I just don't like going fizz."

Yes, she short circuits when immersed. It's vaguely amusing, but only to the nasty-minded.

"Why do you need water to wash away magic right now?"

"'Cause I got too much of it 'r something'. Iunno."

He really doesn't understand what the problem is. He halfway blames Dr. Barclay, because before his lessons he didn't have problems with seeing too well.

Well. Not as often, anyway.

And really? Now that he's not swimming, autumnal river water is cold. He wades, slowly, towards the bank, Sight guiding his feet.

I think, these days, that not Seeing would be something very like going blind for him.

She considers this.

"What kind of magic?"

She can't See, you know.

Actually, she's extremely naive about all aspects of the magical world. She knows most of them exist, having encountered most at one point or another, but she doesn't know anything about them, really.

... come to think of it, she's pretty naive in general.

He grins, sitting on a rock. "Imma mage."

Ah, there's the boy I know and love. Nothing squelches that spirit. Or nothing has succeeded, anyway.

((*shifty*))

"Cool. What can you do?"

She's a curious little girl, yes she is. (That was why she once went wading, actually. To see what would happen. She went fizz-spark and decided not to go swimming ever.)