Lucas looked at the scales.
"Can potential be assessed in absolute terms?" - She asked - "Like... If I asked only about the potential of someone whose fate I didn't influence..."
"You do, of course, realize that you influenced the fate of all the world in your fight against the Time Devourer?" - Said Selene - "But, regardless, it can't really show potential in absolute terms, no. What it can do is show potential as compared to the average..."
"Huh. Okay. Show me my potential compared to the average..." - Lucas said to the statues.
The scales began moving - and shaking. The left side Lucas somehow knew was measuring her own potential seemed to change weight wildly, and so did the right side - though quite a bit less.
"Oh, fuck, please tell me I didn't just destroy the universe..." - Said Lucas.
Venus smirked.
"Of course both sides are fluid... Lucas, exclude yourself from the average."
"Uhm... Make it the average without me..." - Said Lucas.
The "average" plate became more stable. The left one still changed at every moment, but the scale now shook much less due to only one changing weight instead of two.
"So... My potential changes all the time, that it?" - Lucas watched the scales. She noticed there didn't seem to be a pattern.
"Pretty much." - Said Selene - "Put another way, if you were one of the Numbers, you'd be X."
"Not to put too fine a point on it, but I thank all the gods that I'm not." - Said Lucas - "I'm VERY willing to help them, especially because their situation makes me sick to my stomach, but I'm thankful for not being in their position. One because I'd lose my freedom if my age was regressed that much, two because... Well, they're little girls fighting against Lovecraftian horrors."
Venus nodded.
"You do not offend us in the least by saying this, Lucas. You do not envy their situation and you are trying to help them cope with it. You risked life and limb doing so. It's more than we can say for many people."
"Neruite did the same for me once." - said Lucas, blushing - "That's why..."
"Yeah. Like you wouldn't fight to help them even if you had never needed or gotten my help." - Said Selene, smirking - "Lucas, I know you. Your Chaotic Neutral cred went down the drain the moment you decided to go get your bacon involved in a fight to save a little girl you don't even know."
"Really?" - Said Lucas, blushing - "I am still Chaotic, though, right?"
Selene calmly gestured to the scales, which kept on changing at every moment, with no pattern at all.
Lucas chuckled.
"Point. Say... On another note... Magic is real and so on... It can be taught, surely?"
Selene smirked.
"I was wondering when you'd ask that. It might take a while for you to truly learn. Like any skill. But I see no problem in teaching you."
Lucas chuckled.
"I always pictured myself as a Wizard, but I thought I'd be squishier if it ever came to pass."
"Well, for now, you'll not be a wizard anyways." - Said Venus - "You'll not be a mage tomorrow or anything, even with Selene teaching you. Whatever fighting you might do against the Enemy will very likely have to be with that sword of yours, at least for now. Anyways, let's go back..."
"Oh, no problem at all." - Said Lucas, smiling.
Selene nodded as the trio made its way back to her place.
"Okay. I think your main way to do it would be through words..."
"Like, power words or?" - Said Lucas.
"No... Magic is, in part, convincing reality to work as you think it should, as you put it. It is in how people relate to things, to reality. And you, Lucas, do so by words. By trickery, as well. Put another way, a more martial wizard might have a way of shaping reality that would be more or less like intimidating or ordering it into working in a given way. A mason would 'shape' it..."
"And a person like me would talk to it. That it?" - Asked Lucas.
"Pretty much." - Said Selene - "If you want, I'll do one thing for you. I'll make your 'omnipotence' a bit harder in some areas of your plots of land, and even harder in others... I'd make some of those parts into 'training grounds' for you... Of course, the air and other stuff will remain."
Lucas nodded.
"Sounds good. The areas I separate for scientists are far from my place, so you could do some areas near, but not IN, my place?"
"My thoughts exactly." - Said Selene - "I'll teach Cass as well if she wishes. Her way to relate to reality isn't too different from yours, though she may be gentler."
