How Green Becomes Wood

"The classes were boring and frustrating but I wouldn't be able to function as I do without them. I worked with the same instructor the entire time, at least the whole time I remember." Daizi said, thinking back to those times, "Guide dogs are really uncommon in Egypt. You really don't encounter them much and there aren't many training facilities to managing to receive a guide dog isn't easy. And Saladin hates dogs. That isn't a particularly uncommon attitude in Egypt, either. Then by the time I was an adult, I had learned to navigate without one, so it didn't really seem... I've thought about it a few times, especially before we moved out to the suburbs, but it just never seemed like a necessity. We worked hard to train Enkidu to be a little bit more helpful than a standard dog, and part of that is for his own benefit so I'm able to care properly for him. And I love that dog so much, I already feel bad for how much he's had to adapt to."
 
"That makes sense," Xander agreed. Other than feeling bad about Enkidu adapting. That didn't really make sense to him, but it was a small thing, so he let it go and focused on what was before them. They were coming up on a section outlined in small, brightly colored cones, like small traffic cones, and he warned her about them, afraid they'd be small enough to miss. "The last person through was working on backing up their horse around a corner."
 
"I'm sure that's the problem when what you're riding has a mind of its own," Daizi mused before making herself laugh, "Although, Dark once had this car and it was awful and once we were at a stoplight on a hill. The car just stopped working when Dark tried to drive forward again and we started rolling back down. Thankfully, there was nobody behind us, but I remember holding onto his arm and yelling while he kept swearing trying to switch the car off and on again to try to restart the battery. That battery constantly died if we were at stoplights too long."
 
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"Dang, that's really rough," Xander winced and smirked. "Bit like a roller coaster you don't want to be on! Oh, here's a pole on the ground. Do you want to try to lift it to see how heavy it is?"

It was a wooden pole, but hollowed out in the middle so that while sturdy enough to take a beating, most people could lift and move one on their own despite its length and how heavy it looked.
 
"Once we had prevented a car accident, we laughed about it." She said with a grin, "I thought we'd stop breathing with how hard we laughed. We were... twenty-five and twenty-six, I think? I was still working on my PhD and he was working as a waiter while getting his teaching certification so neither of us had any money to speak of so there was no fixing the car. Cooger did what he could. Your father hated that car but was so upset when it was finally unsalvagable."

When Xander pointed out the pole, she did bend to lift it. She didn't really see the point, but she did remark it was pretty easy to carry.
 
"I guess that makes sense. I wouldn't want anything to happen to my old van," Xander admitted. He watched her lift the pole. "Congratulations. You have now altered the course of the future. A future horse, in any case."
 
"I hope your old van treats you better than that car treated us," Daizi chuckled, setting the pole back down, "but at least it gave us good stories to tell, which is what matters, in the end. How drastically have I altered the horse course? In your expertise?"
 
Xander glanced at the pole. "Hmm. In my most expert opinion, I'd say you've drastically altered it. Maybe for the better. Maybe for the worse. Who knows? The future is an interesting unknown, isn't it?"
 
"I believe there are many futures," Daizi replied, nudging the pole slightly, "and the things we do today affect which possible future we end up on. Like how lightning strikes form fractals. I can get glimpses, sometimes, of what is to come." Regardless of if that was true or not came mattered less than the fact she clearly truly believed it.
 
Xander looked at her curiously. "How can you believe that?" he asked, his tone blunt but curious, not accusatory at all. "You haven't seen any of the things that happened with us since Alec and me showed up. You didn't see us showing up, Ivy, Declan, any of that. Do you not see anything related to family stuff?"
 
"It's hard to explain," Daizi told him, not shocked by the doubt, "It's not like a movie, and it's not constant. When I'm using my cards or runes it's a little bit easier, but sometimes I get... a sense, of things. Sometimes it's just an overwhelming awareness things are about to change, sometimes it's a deep pull towards something with this brief moment of what things would be if I made that choice..." She shrugged, shaking her head, "Nothing foretold is definite. I wish it was, but because it isn't, I can't always tell if what I caught wind of is for definite. And I can almost never see what is in my future. I don't know why. Because of that, I can't get much of Dark's, not anymore. We're too entwined. Of course I couldn't predict Ivy, but I had a sense, that night, something had been altered."
 
"Huh," Xander said. He somewhat doubted the future-telling thing, but at the same time... "Let's go check out some of the other horses," he said at last. ""Some of them really like attention no matter how much they already get."

He led her out, and as they walked, he started asking other questions. Slowly. Thoughtfully. Casually. A couple of barn dogs came over to check them out, tails wagging as they greeted Daizi, happy to accept some pets, and then off to go back to work. Xander took them to a grassy paddock, staying outside the fence, and, as he said, a couple of horses instantly came over to check them out and get pets.
 
Daizi listened carefully to all of Xander's questions and answered them as best she could. As she answered him, she didn't come across as a school teacher really. It was clearly something she cared deeply about and spent a lot of time meditating on. She pet the dogs happily and explained how she didn't believe there were any definite right or wrong answers in magic or her beliefs, but that it was all a process of growth and opening yourself up to the unknown, "That's why they call it practicing witchcraft," she told him, gently touching one of the horses' noses when it approached her, "It's something you learn and develop and it helps you to learn and develop. And I think it grounds you to the natural world."
 
"Wicca was invented in the 1950s and there are actually two versions of it. Traditional Wicca has a closed structure where you can only learn all of the details to it by being inducted into a coven and working through the ranks, they worship a Mother and Father god. It's a proper, organized religion began essentially by one man. Then there's Eclectic Wicca, where people read the books Gardener, the man who invented Wicca, published publicly and build their practice off of that." Daizi explained, gently running her fingers along the horse's face, "Witchcraft is generally anyone who engages in magical or occult practice--although not everyone uses that term, some people identify as magicians, wizards, sorcerers or sorceresses... Some people don't label at all and just engage in the work. I use witch most of the time just because I think it's easier for people to grasp. I suspect people would be more put off than they already are if I introduced myself as a sorceress. There are some aspects in Wicca I appreciate, I really enjoy the concepts of a Divine Feminine and a Divine Masculine, and it's why I have Dark help me in some rituals, but overall I find my practice benefited by exploring the occult outside of dogma. I feel trapped in organized religion, I don't think it helps me find what it is I want to find. I also don't like how recent it is, I don't want to trust my spirituality to the ideas of one man."

She fell silent for a few moments, thinking deeply about something, before saying, "I suppose you could think of it as all Wiccans practice witchcraft but not all those who practice witchcraft are Wiccans."
 
"Was it actually invented by the dude, or did the dude just culminate prexisting knowledge into a bunch of texts to give laymen a chance to get their foot in the door?" Xander asked. "It makes sense to use something like an organized religion as a jumping off spot even if you don't stick around in that exact incarnation of it and go exploring into other things. 'Cause isn't the witchcraft you practice, in some ways, organized? At least, the basics of it? So, even though you branch out, can't there be an argument that you're in an organized religion even if it's loose?"
 
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