The New Conjunction (a Witcher->Real World crossover)

[justmedk]

Ciri didn't sense anything more until the next morning when she woke up in her bed, and then blushed when she realized what had likely happned: Denisa had carried her to bed!
That was slightly embarassing....but nothing she could do about it now. She sat up in bed, and yelped as her still sore bottom protested the treatment, making her jump up and blush a little as she rubbed her bottom. She hoped that Denisa hadn't heard her, and she was certainly going to pretend everything was normal when she heard the woman call her for breakfast. Ciri had a change of clothes apparently from the last time she was here, so she put on a skirt and a loose-fitting blouse. No coarse denim on her butt today, thank you very much.

She came out for breakfast, smiling a bit shyly as she saw Denisa, but said nothing apart from "goodmorning", and then she hugged her. When she sat down, she noticed a cushion had moved from the couch to her chair, and her face became as red as her butt had been last night, but she took the win gratefully and carefully sat down, hissing still as sore butt made contact with hard chair.


To say that she was surprised at what breakfast was, would be an understatement, but she did not complain at all when breakfast apparently consisted of a brown bubbly drink and a bowl of chips. Quite the contrary. She had a BIG grin on her face as she dug in.

[guesswho]

Thinness of the walls let her hear that Ciri is up, and must have sit up abruptly, when she called her for breakfast. Denisa grins and prepares a pillow for her to sit on. In the light of the new day...she might have gone a bit easier on her yesterday, but she was royally pissed.



"Hey, good morning. I had...a shopping accident yesterday when you went to bed, so this is breakfast. Sorry." She says awkwardly. Despite her being forced to dish out some discipline yesterday, she's still far from considering herself an actual functioning adult, and luckily, doesn't have to go there for a few more years. How do the adults do it, how is it they have their shit together like almost all the time? Over the last couple years, she started suspecting they actually do not have their shit together any more than she does.



"Whaddaya wanna do today? Been thinking, maybe go to Moo Hill, shoot some videos, get to know the ducks? There should be new ducks there now. And in the evening, look at the stars? There's an observatory with this big telescope, you can look at stars a bit closer." There's also a swimming pool there, but Ciri's unlikely to want to get in a swimsuit today, so maybe next time...

[justmedk]

Ciri had sat down with an embarassed look on her face as she saw the pillow...but had accepted the pillow all the same. She grinned at Denisa's apology.

"Noo, this is great!", she said. "I doubt Dan would approve, but I'm not saying anything if you don't", she stuck her tongue out mischievously as she continued her sour-cream-and-onion-chips-breakfast. She listened to Denisa's suggestions, and nodded eagerly. She didn't know what "Moo Hill" was, or what was so interesting to video there. No, what sold her on the idea were the ducks! Like most kids, Ciri loved animals of nearly all sorts - except the ones she couldn't tell Denisa about; the ones she'd been trained to hunt.
Of course the idea of looking at the stars also sounded great! She wondered what they would look like. The fixed stars had always fascinated her, just as the wandering planets had, and getting a chance to see them up close - though of course she knew that it would only be through a very powerful looking glass; it was entirely too far to go there - was an amazing thought.
She finished her breakfast as soon as she could without choking on it, and eagerly got ready to go see the ducks!

"Do we have anything to feed them?", she asked. "I've found that the best way to attract animals is with food", Ciri grinned. "They're kinda dumb, but adorable too!", she finished as she put on her jacket and shoes

[guesswho]

She grins at Ciri's eagerness to go and see ducks, despite being in a zoo literally yesterday. She'll need to tell Dan to get some animals. Maybe Ciri will like taking care of them.



"Yeah, we do, we have corn and birdseed somewhere left over from winter." Ciri is oh so ready to go at the drop of the hat, but Denisa has some preparations to do.


"Chill, we're not going yet, I need to get my gear. We are going to see ducks, of course, but I'm also working on a school project." She says, as she disappears in her room and eventually comes out, carrying a drone, laptop and some other gear for recharging and recording. "Look at this motherfucker. He's not going to survive today." She shows her a small quadcopter with a weird box attached to it that obviously doesn't belong.



"If you behave, I'll let you crash him when we're done. Before that, though, you'll help me test something." She throws the drone in the air, where it goes alive, stabilizes just under the ceiling and turns its camera at Ciri, small rotors whirring. How many drones did they break while trying to get even here...


"Land and shut down." Drone obediently lands in her outstretched hand and turns off. "You can train a dog, or a horse. I train machines. Have a snack or watch a cartoon or browse the web. I need to pack up." It takes her about half an hour more to get all of this packed up safely and then, finally, they can leave and have the long walk uphill to what a big green hill with a lake and an observatory on the very top. They can see quite far from there, and the small lake is, predictably, full of duck. It's a warm, sunny day, there's people around, mostly with their dogs or doing sports, having fun...

[justmedk]

Ciri felt it was taking forever for Denisa to get ready, but she waited patiently, also with the added incentive of crashing the "drone" eventually. She shirked back from it when it had come out and turned its eye towards her, not quite sure what to make of it.

"What can I help you with?" she asked incredulously. "I...I'm kinda stupid, and you're really smart", she pointed out. She didn't mean for it to sound as self-deprecating as it probably did, but she really didn't know much about mechanics and things like that.
Now, if the matter had been monsters and how to dispose of them, she'd have been a genius. But it wasn't.


She went to watch a cartoon, and giggled as the prey animal once again escaped the wolf, no matter the latter's inventive attempts to capture it. By the time the fourth such cartoon had finished, Ciri was both thoroughly entertained, but also very much ready to head out.
The long walk uphill didn't bother her at all, even though it would have likely bothered a normal child her age very much. She immediately looked out for the ducks, grabbing some birdseed and kneeling down some distance away from a male duck, its mate, and ducklings. And she held out her hand full of seed to get the creatures' attention, then carefully, without any sudden and dramatic movements, spread the seed in the male's general direction, to let him take it and communicate to the wife and kids that dinner was ready, courtesy of New Human

[guesswho]

Denisa does her best to cover up heavy breathing by the time they're reaching the top. To have Ciri's energy and just general...life. Luckily, she's quickly distracted by ducks, and Denisa can get some breathing in. No more smoking, she says to herself for millionth time. But it doesn't take that long for her breathing to normalize and she sits on the bench nearby, watching Ciri feed the ducks. She seems to be quite popular with the animals. Of course, anyone with food is popular with local ducks, it's not as though they need to do a day's work of obtaining food in their lifetimes. They might not be actively seeking out human contact, but they're certainly not afraid.


"I'll take you to the reservation next time. You'll love it there." She recalls how once, they met a young mountain goat there, who joined the group for about half an hour before wandering off, completely fearless of humans.



Some distance away, there's a bunch of youngsters, already out and about at this time, recording some silly dance for instagram or tiktok. Denisa has found the angle from which this activity is watched most important factor in how much fun watching it is, and she laughs, when at some point they screw up and have to start over. No malice there, it's just genuinely funny to watch from an unintended angle.



It takes her a little while to unpack all her stuff, the drone gets charged in the meantime. The small box that massively expands the capabilities of shitty, cheap drones comes at a massive cost to battery life, cutting fly time in half.

[justmedk]

"Reservation? What is that?", Ciri asked in response to Denisa's promise, before tossing a little bit more birdseed in the direction of the ducks, while staying slightly closer this time, allowing the birds to come closer to her. She sat down on the ground proper now, which did hurt on her sore bottom, but it was worth it to spend time with the ducks. And it also was less of a strain on her knees, she found.


It appeared that other ducks have found out that there's a cheap meal to be found in this general direction, because another family of ducks waddled over towards her, and Ciri grinned "Told your friends, eh?", she asked the first male, who only quacked in response. She looked down in the bag. She wasn't about to run out, but she also realized she had to ration it if she wanted to keep this up for much longer. So she took smaller amounts and spread it for the ducks to find, and she couldn't help but giggle as they waddled over to it at full speed.

She didn't even notice Denisa's preparations beginning, much less them completting, but when her attention was drawn to it, she looked over at the woman "What...what are you doing?", she asked.


It was fun and games with the drone, and, being on her best behavior, Ciri eventually did get to crash the drone once its usefulness to Denisa had run out. She felt a bit giddy as she did, deliberately and with permission destroying something, in a way she couldn't quite explain. But it was fun all the same!
Heading to the observatory in the evening once it was dark enough, Ciri was definitely exited to see the fixed stars. But when she entered, and saw the model of the solar system, she stared.

"What...what is that?", she asked, and it was clear it wasn't just childish curiosity, but genuine shock. She could read, after all, and therefore could read the small signs designating the planets, and the Sun, and the text accompanying them.

[guesswho]

After a number of successful tests, bunch of videos for her project and some for her instagram, she indeed lets Ciri crash the drone. That's part of documentation too, but Ciri doesn't need to know and she can just enjoy what she considers wanton destruction. It's fun to smash things.



But only after they get to see the model of solar system does Denisa realize just how limited Ciri's knowledge is. Dan's crazy sister probably believed in flat earth as well. It takes a lot of effort not to say some nasty remark about primitives not knowing obvious things, but she bites her tongue. It's not her fault and Dan's doing everything he can to get the girl up to speed in current knowledge. Still, the level of ignorance is almost painful to her. Denisa takes a deep breath, makes sure she doesn't sound condescending and walks over there.



"It's a model of our solar system. It's...more or less to scale. Not completely. You have sun in the center and all the planets rotating around it. Earth is us, the other planets don't support life, currently." She explains, in short, how solar system works, and about moons, other planets and all that. They'll need to teach the details in school, hopefully they'll get around to it and Ciri won't grow up to be some flat earther.


"Anyway, I'm sure they'll be going more in detail about this in school sometime soon." She can't recall the specific year, so hopefully it's not something she missed completely. "Let's go look at stars...oh, and...yes, I believe it should be possible soon, we will be able to see the space station from here, for a short while..." One of the places she hopes to take a look at up close someday, though hopefully, by then, it'll be just a museum...

[justmedk]

Ciri stood silent as the grave, her attention hanging on every one of Denisa's words, though she had trouble believing what she was hearing. The Earth DIDN'T revolve around the Sun?

"What of the fixed stars then?", she asked in genuine shock and surprise. "Are they like...just...out of our ...."solar system" entirely?", she gestured back to the model of the solar system and had a taste of the strange new phrase she'd learned today. And speaking of new words:

"What is a...."Space Station"?, she asked, once more tasting a strange word in her mouth, and when it was explained to her, Ciri's eyes widened. People lived in a building thousands upon thousands of kilometers above their heads, in "space", where nothing could live? She was learning much today - possibly slightly more than she could handle. But she followed Denisa obediently, sticking to her, not only because she was always more compliant for a couple of days after having had her butt roasted, but also because this place was one of wonders and strangeness and she didn't feel entirely comfortable.

When they got to the telescope, Ciri hesitated for a bit before she approached it. She had to look back at Denisa a couple of times to make sure it was safe and okay, and when she did, after the telescope had been adjusted, she saw the ISS....well, not clearly, but as clearly as she could given the insane distances. She recoiled with a frightened gasp. Of course she knew the principle behind what she was doing. She wasn't a savage, after all. The concept of binoculars was known to her. And she could make the leap that this was basically the same thing, only the binoculars were much, much more powerful.

But even so, the vast distance, and the concept that she was looking at what she essentially understood as "nothing", but also at a giant building in the middle of that "nothing" which was further away from them than any binoculars had any right to be able to work, was what freaked her out.

"And Dan said there was no magic here...", she mumbled to herself, before realizing what she'd done, and paled, though tried to keep it cool and pretend nothing was wrong. Instead she moved on, using how spooked she was from the slip, to her advantage:

"I...I didn't know such.....such a thing was possible...", she said meekly. "It.....it's unnatural"

[guesswho]

At first, Denisa is appalled at the ignorance and outdated information, but then she recalls her own journey of discoveries about world, how her mind was blown and the moment she sworn off the dolls and picked up a screwdriver. It is good to have one's mind blown, and as they proceed and Ciri becomes more and shocked about things, Denisa starts smiling.



"Unnatural, eh? Well, dying of being eaten by a tiger at the ripe old age of three is, I suppose, slightly more natural, but personally, not a fan. And we are young enough to maybe one day take a look out there, maybe even go to another planet. I'd say that beats anything 'natural' don't you think?" It is awe inspiring, even for Denisa, who has been here many times before. But for her, it's the kind of awe that comes when you already know something and have a pretty good idea just how amazing everything is. That is a kind of magic of its own, and for her, the best kind.



"It's not magic, it's science. Magic is boring. Magic is lazy. Things happen...by magic. I don't have to think or explain, it's just magic. But all this is made of understanding how things work and then making them work for us. It's so much better than magic." She explains, but it's clear she is just as fascinated as Ciri, although possibly at some other part of this whole thing.


"Hmm...I think I'll give you my favorite book. It is about magic and science, I think you might like it." She did find the book at the very young age, and it played a big part in her life.