[Redacted because we’re still arguing over what public name to use, but ke is definitely not Snake for you speculators out there]: “Nice bone you have there.”
Me: “It’s not a bone, lunkhead.”
X: “Sure about that? Looks like a bone, weighs like a dry bone, sounds like a bone when tapped.”
Me: “Doesn’t stick to the tongue like a bone. Didn’t come from an animal like a bone. It’s wood, you instigator!”
X: “It’s a bone.”
Me: “Explain yourself.”
X: “It’s the dried bone of [the donor plant]. It held up the softer bits so the leaves could reach sunlight, like a bone. It held the weight of those softer bits, like a bone. It provided the structural shape to the plant that allowed it to grow in proper directions, like a bone. And it’s the only part of the branch still remaining after all the softer bits have decayed away, like a bone. The only thing this wood doesn’t have that a strict definition of bone does, is calcium. And I bet there are certain mineral rich lakes that you can emulate in solution to soak that wood in long enough for calcium deposits to be made within the wood, like say… a petrified forest? Well, a forced acceleration process like that won’t be pretty, but it’s a thin piece of wood, and you can always add other salts to the fluid to give it a distinctive hue.”
Me: ~looking at the wand~ “I never thought of it that way.”
X: “I know. You really should start defying common thought more often. It’s fun.”
Me: “So… why are you suddenly calling it a bone when I’ve had it for years?”
X: “To make you blink.”
Me: “Bullshit.”
X: “Heh. To make you think. You’re overlooking shit in plain sight again. And mistaking nostalgia for work. You have things to do, not things to weep about in impotent remorse.”
Me: ~cross face~
X: “Besides, things change in your hands. Or have you forgotten [certain key items]. Your attention has changed it from a fancified stick to a charmed bone. It’s bound to you and is now an active tool. So. Boneburner. Why would you have a bone for a wand, eh?”
Me: “Wrong question.”
X: “Oh?”
Me: “Which jurisdiction does this bone fall under? The cemetery? The Boneyard? Or some place other? It didn’t become a bone without help. And why [this plant’s] rod and not the alder rod? I thought alder was associated with the dead, graveyards, and nefarious shit.”
X: “I can answer the last one! Because the alder rod is still just an unworked stick in storage and [this plant’s] rod is regularly fed by you.”
Me: “There’s a lot you aren’t telling me.”
X: “Don’t act surprised.”
Me: “I’m not surprised. I’m pissed. Because there’s a lot going on under my nose and I’ve been willfully blind to it because it doesn’t match what I’ve read. I’ve been forgetting what Rummer John told me at the beginning. I won’t be found in any book.”
X: ~strokes wand~ “And not all fires throw light.”