The road home (Chase & Anna)

[Chase Firebrand]

"Come pewter?" Chase repeated, suddenly losing interest in the little boxes entirely. He was now focused on the little glowing screen on Anna's lap and the mixed-up alphabet attached to it. "What is that?" he asked, his voice lightly demanding. "It isn't a tellyvision? I thought movies were bigger than tellyvision." If that was true, then the idea of a tellyvision was ridiculous.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

Anna paused for a moment, trying to figure out where to start. "Okay, you know how books come in different sizes? Some are hardback, some paperback, but they're the same exact story inside? Well same with Movies. You can watch a movie in a theater on a huge screen, or at home on a telly, or on one of these." She indicated the laptop before clicking on her name that appeared below her parents' and typing in her password fast on the keyboard.

A chime sounded as it logged her in and a backdrop displaying scenes from Pride and Prejudice appeared along with the standard desktop icons. "Muggles use the computer for lots of things like work or playing games or writing to each other, but today we're just going to use it to watch a movie." Anna took special care not to mention any technical words that would distract from her explanations.

[Chase Firebrand]

"Wait, what kind of work? What... how do they write to each other? How does that thing work?" Chase wanted to watch a movie, but the come pewter was doing things now. He was trying to look at the Muggle picture on it, but there were other pictures in the way, tiny ones that seemed to have no relation either to the biggest picture or to each other. Not to mention the things that kept changing when Anna touched it. "How did you do that?"

[Annabelle Hennessy]

"Wait, one question at a time." Anna moved her finger over the touchpad, showing Chase what she was doing. "When I touch this, that arrow on the screen moves." She continued to talk her way through the steps as she opened Microsoft Word. Anna put her hands over the keys and typed a sentence. "This is what muggles use most of the time for work when they have to write things. It's much more efficient than a quill and parchment, and the reader doesn't have to try to understand the handwriting. There are a lot of other programs that people use for work. One type allows them to send letters by typing messages kind of like this and sending them to each other."

She paused, knowing she'd given out a lot of information and waited to see what questions he had. She had expected at least a little interest in the computer, so she hadn't been too surprised that they were sidetracked from the movies. They had several hours to kill, so they'd have plenty of time for a movie.

[Chase Firebrand]

Chase was riveted, though he was also more than a little confused. "I thought Muggles didn't use owls," he said. "How can they send them with that, there's not any parchment." It seemed like the more he learned, the more he had. "Is it like a transporter? Because I thought that was one of the ones Muggles made up." He'd read some science fiction, but he hadn't actually read any books on Muggle life. There was no way he'd have been able to explain those to his father to make them sound better.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

"Well, the transporter is made up, but the basic concept is the same. I can't show you now, but...." She trailed off as she dug through the bag. She found the cord that she was looking for and plugged it into the back, showing Chase. "You know about muggle electricity right? it runs through wires that are all connected to bring electricity to Muggle lamps and Televisions and stuff? Well this cord is for something called the internet. If you plug it in, you connect your computer through a bunch of wires to everyone else's computer. The messages travel through the wires and whoever you send it to gets it on their screen." She unplugged the cord and put it back into the bag.

[Chase Firebrand]

Chase had very little idea what Anna was talking about, though he didn't admit as much, since she implied that he should know. He reminded himself that it wasn't ekeltricity again though. The entire idea of things going through cords made no sense to him, so he just nodded as though he was following and looked back down at the slick little book-like boxes, ready to move on from confusing conversation. He offered a small stack to Anna. "Pick one," he said, though the look in his eyes might just have asked, please? They all said they had awards, but he didn't know if that meant anything or which awards were better. She knew movies, she could decide.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

Anna took the movies from Chase and looked through them all. After a moments decision, she held one up. "Lets watch Office Space." She wasn't sure if he'd understand all the muggle technology bits, but the humor would make up for it. She set her selection on the laptop and gathered the rest to put away. Opening the compartment of the bag, Anna noticed there were still 2 movies that she had missed. Curiosity being her weakness, she pulled them out to see which other ones her Dad had sent. The one on top was Pirates of the Caribbean, which she put aside to reveal, "OH! The Matrix! We have to watch this!"

[Chase Firebrand]

Chase's eyes shone with a wash of scarlet at his sudden interest. It was all he could do not to snatch the box out of her hand to look at. Even the intricacies of the computer were forgotten for the moment. "That's Neo," he said, gesturing toward the front of the box. "Does that mean he's important?" He'd chosen that character because he looked the coolest, and his picture was the easiest to see in that little unmoving Muggle picture. Chase was already building up to ask Anna another wave of questions, if she didn't move fast enough.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

"Yeah, He's like the main person in the story." She excitedly opened the case and pushed the button to open the dvd drive on her computer. "Here, this has the basic plot on the back." Handing Chase the case so he could see it better, she popped the dvd in and finished putting the other movies away. The computer started making a quiet humming noise as it tried to load the movie. Anna zipped up the computer bag and set it on the floor before clicking 'ok' on a few pop-up screens.

[Chase Firebrand]

Chase had intended to read the box, but his attention was diverted by the computer again. He was more impressed than he'd admit at how easily Anna controlled that come pewter thing, though it likely showed on his face, considering he couldn't stop watching. Even so, he held his tongue this time. He realized that he probably wasn't going to understand the come pewter any time soon, if ever, and so he was more interested in seeing what a movie did.

[Annabelle Hennessy]

Anna finished with the setup and started the preview. Normally she would have skipped them, but she thought Chase might enjoy them. "These are previews for other movies first, they're just little bits for advertisements to get you to want to see the other movies." She explained while the green advisory screen was showing, then went quiet as the first preview started.

Anna cast an engorgio spell on the seat opposite them so it came out and was big enough to set the laptop on for easy viewing. She then whispered nox and the lamp went out, leaving only the light that filtered past the cloudy sky through the window. She settled back in her seat so she could easily switch between watching Chase's expression and the movie.

[Chase Firebrand]

Chase found the preview advertisements incredibly frustrating. They flashed too quickly for him to get much out of them, and just when he was well and truly hooked, they were over. He ended up glaring every time that green page came up, though just as quickly he'd be caught up in the next ad. By the time the movie finally started, he was annoyed and didn't even realize it wasn't another one of those horrible previews. Of course, his attention was fixed so fully on the movie that it would have been difficult to pinpoint the change.

For the most part, he just stared at the come pewter, absorbing whatever it showed him. He got excited whenever he saw something he recognized--another come pewter, for example--and would point it out to Anna as though she might have missed it. There were a lot of things he didn't at all understand, but he ignored those. If he stopped to ask, he knew he'd miss something.

By the time it was over, his mind was swimming, and there was no shaking off everything he'd seen. He blinked at the black screen with the names and words rolling up and up, but didn't see it. He was still caught up in questioning existence, and most bizarre of all, from a Muggle perspective.

((Anna, I think you just broke Chase. His dad is seriously going to hurt someone if he ever finds out about this.))

[Annabelle Hennessy]

“So did you like it?” Anna asked with a smile although she was sure she already knew the answer. He had been engrossed the whole time, and Anna spent a lot of the movie watching his reactions instead of the movie that she had seen dozens of times before. It was interesting to see him so open with his expressions of excitement at the movie, and laughter shown in her eyes when he pointed out muggle items. She clicked the button that closed the movie window playing credits. “It’s pretty deep, but the special effects are brilliant.”

[Chase Firebrand]

Chase didn't so much as feel himself blink until those rolling words went away. Then he was left looking at the picture on the come pewter and reality trickled back into his mind. He only just heard Anna well enough to make out her words through his thoughts. He turned to look at her, wondering if she'd slipped some kind of delayed-action potion into his morning pumpkin juice.

"That's got to be magic," he said, sure of it. "Some blood traitor--wizard," he corrected himself, "had to have done something with it. There's no way, just no way Muggles did that on their own." He had no clue what special effects were either, but he'd deal with one thing at a time.