It's Gonna Be the Future Soon...

David slouched on the old swingset in Triengle Park, slowly rocking with the wind. Next to him, Addie was kicking her legs to propel herself higher into the air. He watched her for a moment contemplatively, but eventually his eyes wandered to the large, granite boulder sitting near the edge of the grass.

"So... I've been thinking lately..." he said.

"Always a dangerous sign." She was fairly certain that she could get this thing over ten feet high. Probably.

"Probably," David agreed with a shrug, "So... what do you want to do? Like after high school, I mean?"

She blew out a long breath. "Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck. I have no idea. Like, I thought I was gonna go and get a fine arts degree? With a side of welding, because that can go either arty or practical, and also it's fun and got blowtorches? Now, though, with all this supernatural shit... Yeah. No clue."

David nodded.

"I'm glad I'm not the only one at least. I mean, until all this stuff I'd never even really thought about it. There was nothing I actually wanted to do, so it didn't really matter what I ended up doing. But now..."

He shrugged.

"But I mean, at least you know what you want, right? Why would this supernatural stuff stop you?"

"I dunno, like, part of me thinks I was picking that as a default, you know? Like, art seems to be the only thing I don't suck at, might as well do that forever. But now... "

She sighed, and let her swinging slow down.

"I guess I'm worried about money and stuff? And like, being able to pay for hospital visits and whatever other shit that might come up from fighting monsters all the time. And then, like - being ABLE to go and fight monsters and not lose your job."

She scuffed the toe of her shoe in the dirt under the swing.

"And, you know, if you're doing the magic-y stuff, that's cool, but it doesn't exactly bring in a paycheck, you know? It kinda makes me feel like I need to pick something super practical, or something."

David stared at her for a moment, quizzically.

"You could always get out of here and go somewhere more sane. Portland or Frisco or someplace you can focus on art. You don't have to do the fighting thing forever."

Addie silently gave David the 'you're being an idiot about something' look and waited for him to catch up.

"Addie..." David said, struggling to find the words he wanted, "You can't plan your life around me."

She laughed softly. "Dude, did you miss the part where we met future you? I'm getting me a piece of that. And I'm making sure that that has, like, a place to live and food and isn't basically a hobo."

She started swinging again, slowly. "And not just you, either - Lil. Noah. Maddie. Celia seems like she's got other plans, I dunno. Lenore can live in the back yard, we'll build her a shack or something."

She shrugged, aiming for nonchalant. "Look, you guys can do all the awesome things, and that's great, but that's also not something I can do. Feeding people and patching folks up? That I can probably manage."

She shook her head. "And don't tell me I can just walk away from the monster crap, either. Knowledge is power, and even my level of it means I gotta do something. Even if that something is just making sure the rest of you can keep standing."

"That doesn't seem very fair to you," David said, reaching out to take hold of her hand, "You can't be responsible for everyone."

Her eyes crinkled up into a smile, and she squeezed his hand affectionately. "I know, dumbass. I just gotta take care of a few folks, and you'll get the rest. Works out pretty well, if you ask me."

"Addie, I'm not gonna let you just give up on your art. It's what you love. And you're amazing at it. Maybe... I mean, I guess Mr. Winters has a job and he still does the magic stuff. Maybe I can make that work too. I just don't know what I'd do."

"Yeah, your granddad seemed to do okay, what did he do?" Addie said, carefully avoiding her art as a topic.

David shook his head.

"I honestly don't know. I mean, I barely knew him. Dad never talked about him and he tried to keep him away from us as much as he could. Apparently he was a writer. At least for magical stuff. Maybe he turned rocks into gold or something for all I... wait."

David's eyes widened.

"I wonder if I can do that..."

"Dude, I have no idea, but if you can? I want a fucking emerald the SIZE OF MY FACE. THE WHOLE FACE."

David grinned.

"I that's a thing I can do I'll make you a whole swimming pool of them. You're worth it."

Addie nodded wisely. "True, true. Hey, do you think that's how Phallic von Euphemism get their money? Making gems and shit? Or do you think they're doing a Back to the Future thing where they bet on races they know will win, or buy stocks they know will explode?"

David shrugged.

"Maybe. I guess I never really thought of the financial implications of phenomenal cosmic power before. I bet Mr. Winters would say something about how 'Magic is not for financial gain' or 'With great power comes great responsibility' or something like that."

"Yeah, and Mr. Winters doesn't have a swimming pool full of face-emeralds, so you can guess how much I'm listening to THAT."

David laughed.

"So face emeralds aside, I still don't know about college. I mean, it's not like my grades are that great and I'm sure as hell not getting an athletic scholarship. And what would I even major in, anyway? It's not like you can get a B.A. in thaumaturgy."

Addie swung thoughtfully for a little bit. "Isn't it, like, similar in theory to chemistry, though? Maybe you could be a chemical engineer. Maybe the chemical stuff would transfer over, and you could transmute shit into graphene and nano tubes and shit. That'd be pretty neat."

David grimaced.

"God, no. I took intro to chemistry last year and it was a disaster. It's all just memorizing conversions and formulas and things. With magic it's more like... I don't know, like you feel your way through it. The ritual is just a conduit for the energy, but it's the essence that's important. It's more of an art than a science, I guess."

Addie pondered this. "Yeeeeah, I can see that, but that doesn't make it not useful. Like, with painting, I'm mostly going on 'okay what color do I think should go here', but like... there's still stuff to actually learn. Anatomy if I'm doing people, how light bounces, even how to mix what and when and how to get specific shades or effects. And at first a lot of it's like oh okay gotta go read that book to see what all the muscles in a human back there are, but eventually you go from remembering where they go to just kinda knowing, and then you can fuck 'em up all crazy and have it still look like a real back, but the back of something where it's legit crazy fucked up, and not like you just couldn't remember what goes where. Does that make any sense?"

"I guess so..." David admitted, although he still seemed less than enthusiastic about the idea, "I don't know.I guess I could always do something with computers. I'm not really much of a programmer, but maybe I could be. I mean programming computer worlds isn't too different from magically programming the real world in some ways. And at least that's something I have some interest in."