ioduanlogs | your thoughts are louder than your words [open]

Entry tags:

your thoughts are louder than your words [open]

Characters: Trahearne and you!
Date: Throughout April
Location: At the Dreaming Bridge
Situation: Here's some of what Trahearne is up to this month, including necromancer arts and crafts, a very large delivery, and magic practice on the roof. These are all open prompts!
Warnings/Rating: Nothing yet

A. Arts 1, Dreaming Bridge Cafeteria
This month finds Trahearne looking a little less withered than he has been after coming into the city. Now the leaves on his head are much more healthy, nearly back to their usual glossy sheen. He was sleeping through the night now, though it was with the aid of a herbal sleep remedy he had found at a local apothecary's shop. Perhaps that didn't solve the root of the problem, but he was at least getting more rest, and that was what mattered.

For the moment, though, Trahearne has taken up one of the smaller tables in the cafeteria. There's a hot cup of tea on the table amid the mess he's made - a mess including a couple of curamija leg bones, a chisel, pencils, green and black paint, and a variety of bone chips from the disaster that was a now mangled-looking bone, though thankfully one of the smaller ones. Trahearne has somehow managed to get smears of paint on his hands and face, and there's a definite air of frustration around him as he takes a long sip of his tea, giving the contents of the table a look of disgust. He usually wasn't quite so bad at this.

B. Sci-Tech 4, Quayside Wing
One day, Trahearne can be found awkwardly maneuvering a dolly down the hallway to his room, carting along a rather large and heavy cardboard box.

When he had gotten sucked into a conversation about hydroponic gardening, he knew it was mostly due to his appearance - and to be fair, he did know a little more about plants than your average person, though he hadn't grown anything himself in quite a long time. Trahearne had managed to interject with enough intelligent observations that she offered to let him try a set-up for growing plants indoors, and of course he had said he'd be happy to test it for her. He well understood the need for testing, and growing his own vegetables was quite appealing to him.

On the other hand, he had no idea the unit would be so large. Apparently, he'd been envisioning something quite different than what the scientist had in mind. Finding a place to fit it into the already-crowded room he shared might turn out to be a problem.

C. Magic Practice, Dreaming Bridge Roof (either wing's roof possible)
When you're living in both a dormitory and a crowded city, space does become an issue. It took a while for Trahearne to hit upon a solution to his problem, but then he found the stairs leading up to the roof, and that discovery made all the difference in giving him a secluded place to practice.

Trahearne can be found on the roof mostly at dusk or in the early evening, before the sun has fully set. Only the heaviest of the rain drives him back indoors; after all, what's a drizzle to someone that wears leaves for clothing? It might as well be like getting a shower. He has a collection of curamija bones that he obtained from a butcher that was willing to part with them, mostly leg bones mixed in with ribs, that Trahearne arranges in a circle each time he's about to begin.

And then... Trahearne stands in the middle of the circle and concentrates. Half the time, it doesn't look like he's doing much more than slowly waving around his arms. He's not trying to work proper spells so much as he's flexing the mental muscles necessary for it, and that doesn't always manifest as something visible. Show up at the right time, though, and you'll find the edges of the circle awash with a dark energy in shades of black and green, casting Trahearne in the sort of eerie light a Disney villain would be proud of. If his appearance looks a little shadowy on the edges, that could be a trick of the light. Maybe.

D. Wildcard
[Want to do something else with Trahearne? Hit me!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Well, Leo was pretty much trying to finalize all his moving in with Mr. Klaus, but he still came and went from the Dreaming Bridge with some regularity. His friends were there, and sometimes his pets liked it too.

But all reasons aside, Leo was carrying Chain, ever the cute troublemaker, who had apparently caught sight (or scent?? could bibirus smell?) of something she liked, wiggled out of his arms, and took off like only a feathered rabbit hybrid could.

That of course, only left Leo shouting 'CHAIN!!! NO!!!' really loud, and trying to gingerly make his way through to the stupid animal without running into anyone along the way. She of course, easily outstripped him until she found the prize she was looking for: the large, sitting plant man, whom she promptly started chewing on.

"Chain?? CHAIN!! Where are you?! Has anyone seen a bibiru around here?" Leo yelled into the air.

All the shouting made Trahearne look up, putting his cup of tea down just in time to see the bibiru that was running right towards him. He kept watching bemusedly as she rushed over to his ankles, finding another leaf that she started nibbling on with eager little flaps of her wings.

Huffing a soft laugh, he quickly wiped his hands off with a napkin before reaching down to pick up the marauding little bibiru. "Hello again, Chain. I'm starting to think you have a problem." Trahearne gathered Chain up into his arms, where she could reach the tougher bark-like gauntlets he had grown, but not much in the way of anything delicate.

"Leo? I have her over here," he called out, shifting her around a bit so he could pet between her ears. It probably wasn't a good thing to encourage her behavior, but she was still awfully cute, even when she seemed hell-bent on chewing all his leaves off.

"Huh?" At first he was confused about being called by a somewhat familiar voice, and then he spotted Trahearne's aura. Oh no.

Sure enough, he pushed his way through and ended up panting in front of Trahearne who looked far too pleased while having a bibiru literally chewing on one of his arms. Leo had a look of abject horror on his face. "How does this keep happening?!"

Chain, of course. Didn't care. Trahearne's bark did make a good chew toy after all, and she also liked being pet. Leo on the other hand, was absolutely silently freaking out. Not only did he probably make the plant man hate him for trying to defend Devin and running away (and somehow ended up in the same group as the rest of them), but his pets kept!!! eating!!! him!!!

"Oh my god, I'm so sorry, I really am! She just jumped out of my arms and ran away and she's really fast when she gets going-I didn't mean for her to do this, I swear!" He uh. May have been fairly close to tears.

"Leo?" Trahearne momentarily looked a little startled, but he seemed to recover from it quickly. "Leo, it's quite alright. You know that she can't do permanent damage to me. It only takes me a couple of days to regrow damaged leaves."

Aside from that, his gauntlets were among the thickest of the grown armor he wore, and Chain wasn't going to chew her way through those nearly so easily. Trahearne didn't even offer the bibiru back to him yet, instead nodding over to the other chair at his table.

"Please, take a seat. The water in the kettle is still hot if you'd like some tea. They have a variety here that's - well, it's blue, but the taste isn't too far off from chamomile."

Leo still looked marginally uncomfortable and possibly worried that Trahearne hated him, but he did take the offer to sit. Chain continued to snort happily and gnaw on the tough branches on the sylvari's arm, despite not putting much of a dent in it. "I mean...I know it doesn't hurt but like...it's still rude to do. I'm really not trying to, I swear."

Chain just honestly liked to chew on everything. Leo shook his head at the offer of tea, trying to focus on anything other than the sinking feeling settling in his stomach. His eyes then, lighted on Trahearne's attempted art project. "What's this supposed to be?"

"If a bibiru is as close to a rabbit as it looks, I can't imagine it'd be easy to train them not to do it. As long as your pets can't tear off anything that would make the Sentry angry to see, there's no harm done."

Trahearne looked back to the mess on the table himself, frowning a little when he realized just how many bone chips he had managed to scatter everywhere. Next time he tried doing this, he'd have to take it outside. "I was attempting to inscribe magical symbols on these bones. It's easier to use them as a focus for magic that way, but well, when the carving didn't go right I thought painting the symbols on would do the trick. ... It hasn't. The paint doesn't stick to the surface correctly." He does, in fact, sound rather embarrassed to admit how badly it's been going.

"Have you tried some sort of sealant or varnish? I don't actually know what the art supplies are like in this city. Or maybe fire. Like burning stuff into it?" Leo said, poking one of the bones with his fingers. He was exceptionally glad that there was a different subject brought up that he didn't have to feel terrible out.

Chain herself had decided she'd used Trahearne's arm for a chew toy long enough, and settled down into a fat puffball on his lap. "I mean, I'm just a photographer, but I've hung around the art classroom enough to pick up a few things."

"Hmm... those are fine ideas. I could use something to make the surface rougher. I would have to start a fire outside to attempt to burn anything into these." That likely wasn't the best idea for Trahearne, though not because he was irresponsible. The issue was more that, while he certainly knew better than to start a fire near someone's house or store, he would never imagine that there could be laws against starting fires in empty lots or in the park. It was a good thing that burning designs into those bones sounded like a little too much trouble.

"An art... classroom? Do you mean that there was tutoring specifically for making artwork?" He already sounded intrigued by the idea. Now that Chain had gotten the chewing out of her system, Trahearne returned to slowly petting her, hoping to encourage her calmer mood.

"Yeah. Is that wierd or something? I was gonna go to college for that, but...stuff happened." Leo really didn't want to think about it. He'd refused to go at first and waste the money but Michella told him that she would never speak to him again if he didn't do what he really wanted to do.

Chain herself just puffed up into a ball, eyes closing as she got the best of pets. "I'm a photographer mostly, though. I only did a little painting now and then."

"It's simply not common in my world, particularly not for humans. Taking apprenticeships under skilled artists is the norm. The asura do have colleges, but theirs are focused around certain scientific specialties. Of course, only asura would have access to technology like your camera or the yimo in the first place. They do often sell their creations, but not many people can afford them. What the asura can create is truly one of a kind."

Trahearne gently moved the content bibiru into his arms, slowly rising from his seat to circle around the table and offer her back to Leo. "I suppose every world is different, but being able to attend a college at all is impressive."

Leo took her, gathering the errant bird-rabbit in his arms, while she whacked him with a wing for moving her. "No offense, but the asura kind of sound like elitist assholes. Then again, a lot of the rich humas are too, and often its only people who can afford to pay can go to college. I got lucky, I guess; I wanted the money to go to my sister, but she told me she'd never speak to me again if I didn't take the acceptance letter."

He also didn't know whether to tell Trahearne that having any sort of art degree was usually undervalued in society, but maybe that was too much of a cultural thing.

They do seem to catch each other in compromising positions often enough.

The Fool has more or less made his exit from the Dreaming Bridge, but returns every so often in order to people watch the other Dreamfolk or visit with friends who haven't yet ventured out into the city on their own. Oftentimes he sits by the window in the cafeteria gazing across at the water or out towards the rest of the city, but sometimes--like today--he likes to venture up onto the roof. He's guaranteed a bit of quiet and privacy there.

At least, he normally is.

He pauses near the door to witness the spectacle that Trahearne is making of himself, amber eyes widening in surprise, and perhaps even a touch of fear. The latter he manages to master; Trahearne is his friend.

"What are you doing?" he asks, unable to keep the alarm out of his voice.

As soon as he hears someone speaking to him, Trahearne stops channeling his magic, and the energy ringing the circle flickers and disappears. Trahearne's very form seems to snap back into focus at the same time, the shadowy-looking magic gathered around him simply there one moment and gone the next. The bones still remain, though, not at all changed by the energy that had been forming around and between them.

"I'm sorry, Fool. I didn't see you there." In contrast to his alarm, Trahearne doesn't seem bothered by the interruption at all. He's happy to see the Fool, in fact, and a touch of that is creeping into his tone. "I was just taking some time to practice my magic. If you have need of this space, I can pack up and move. I'm about due for a break as it is."

Trahearne's return to normal is as startling as the strange, ethereal glow that had surrounded him moments ago, but at least Trahearne as he normally is is a familiar sight. The Fool's surprise gives way to a bewildered, albeit still cautious smile. "You needn't leave on my account," he says, and takes a few more steps nearer to his friend on the rooftop.

Understandably, his eyes are drawn to those bones, considering them and their arrangement, before returning to Trahearne. "Is this magic from your world?" he asks, his uncertainty now giving way to genuine curiosity.

"It's one of many forms of magic. Necromancy, to be precise."

Despite the Fool's offer, Trahearne still steps to the edges of the circle to begin picking up the bones. It was more difficult to channel magic and carry a conversation at the same time, and likely a little rude to do so besides that.

"... You must have seen the minions I used the night I got into a scrape with Devin. I can summon a variety of such creatures, but there are other ways I can use my magic. Necromancy is something of an umbrella term that covers the use of a few specific types of magical energy."

"Yes, I do recall them," the Fool replies thoughtfully, though in truth what was most memorable about that night was the fight itself. It had not been a pleasant experience to witness two people that he cares for clashing together so violently; the appearance of the flesh golems had been unsettling, but not the source of his upset.

For a moment the Fool remains quiet as Trahearne collects up the bones, considering his words in silence. How best to broach this subject--

"We don't have vampires in my world. There are misunderstood magicks, and terrible crimes that are blamed upon the practitioners," he allows, thinking of the unjustly persecuted Witted ones, of Fitz, "--but, I suspect, nothing that might approach the creatures you have encountered."

There he pauses, frowning pensively. No, he must be more direct. The Fool takes a step towards Trahearne, catching his gaze. "Trahearne, Devin has been very generous to me. Very--kind." Strange, to describe him so to someone else, to voice the thoughts aloud, but they are truthful. A moment's hesitation before he adds, smiling a little, "As have you. I count you both among my friends here."

Trahearne pauses as the Fool speaks to him, cradling the long bones he'd gathered up in the crook of one arm. He's starting to frown, not entirely happy to have landed on this topic of conversation.

"So I keep being told - that he's kind, that he's a better person than he outwardly acts. I never imagined one of the undead would have quite so many friends flocking to him." There's a note of bitterness to his tone now, one that he didn't mean to let slip. This was the third time the topic has been broached to him, and he couldn't claim that any of the previous talks had gone very well.

"There are also no vampires on my world, but there are many more types of undead. Zhaitan, the first Elder Dragon to fall, used its magic to corrupt and raise an entire army of them. Had vampires counted among Zhaitan's Risen, I have no doubt that scores more people would have died. An undead creature that doesn't rot, able to move among the living with no one the wiser? That is like something out of a cruel nightmare. So, yes. I have seen how exquisitely horrible such creatures can be. Yet when I try to explain this, my concerns only fall on deaf ears."

"...I never imagined one of the undead would have quite so many friends flocking to him."

At these words, the Fool's expression grows a touch wry, and he lifts his chin. "Well, I am but one Fool, rather than a flock of them," he points out with the beginnings of a teasing smirk at the corners of his mouth, but his sincerity tempers his look and tone some. (His method of showing affection for friends is, perhaps, an acquired taste.) "Yet have I not sought you out as well? You have more friends than you realize."

The Fool listens to the rest of what Trahearne says without interruption, his browline furrowing with sympathy and understanding by equal turns. For a moment or two afterwards he is contemplatively silent, regarding his friend with an expression on his face that shields much, but not everything; he's been affected by what he's heard, clearly. Then, clasping his hands together before himself, the Fool takes a few more steps towards Trahearne, looking up to him.

"I would not ask you to set aside a lifetime of experience at the behest of a few Dreamfolk," he says quietly, then lets his hands spread to either side plaintively. "I ask only that you keep an open mind about this one man who, I believe, is more than the mask he wears. You needn't be his friend."

"You're one person, yes. Yet I had to swear to Valdis that I wouldn't attack him again, and Leo was quite unsettled when I spoke to him recently. I'm sure it's because I told him that I wasn't willing to take his word that Devin was quite so kind." He couldn't deny that it had stung. Trahearne had never been a particularly violent person, but what he had seen as trying to dispose of a threat had, to them, been an attack on their friend. Was it any wonder?

Then Trahearne dips his head in a slow nod, admitting in a softer tone, "I'm not... good with this. Any of this. Perhaps I've long taken for granted that my position on my world meant that most at least seriously considered my views. ... I can try to keep an open mind, but let me tell you this: undeath is a curse, and there's no cure for it. Before I arrived here, I was sure that returning life to the dead was even beyond the domain of the gods. If vampires work the same way, then you'd best hope that he has complete mastery over his curse. I fear what might happen if he doesn't."

"...I fear what might happen if he doesn't."

Trahearne's words give the Fool momentary pause in a way that an explanation along similar vein had not coming from Devin himself. The look that crosses his angular features cannot rightly be described as uncertain or doubtful, but he does, for a moment, look away from Trahearne and towards the sun dipping towards the horizon. Unexpectedly, his heart aches.

Devin has made no secret of his revulsion for his own kind--for himself--in his conversations with the Fool regarding the subject; it cuts something inside the Fool to the quick to realize just how much Trahearne's opinion must have been like looking into a mirror for him. A monster, rightly identified and condemned by one who hunts monsters, whose life has been upended by the horrors they could unleash. Was the Fool even more foolish for not considering that most painful of possibilities, that perhaps both Trahearne and Devin were right?

It would be wise to give the notion more thought. But then, he is a Fool.

He's let the silence drag on for too long, and comes back to himself with a small smile. "I must place enough faith in him for the both of us, in that case." He looks up to Trahearne again and allows a shadow of his more selfish worry to become visible. "I fear you must think less of me, knowing that I consider him a friend."

That silence at least reassures Trahearne that his warning is being given some thought, and he appreciates that a great deal. The look on the Fool's face is enough to make him wish that he could offer some kind of reassurance... but he had been a bearer of bad news often enough during his life to know that there was never anything positive to say about the undead.

"I'm not interested in passing judgment. Nor do I want to tell anyone who they can associate with. As long as you'll take my words seriously, there's nothing more I can ask of you."

He doesn't comment on having faith in Devin. That kind of trust was something Trahearne suspected he simply wasn't capable of, not when he knew how terrible the worst-case scenario could be.

It seems that where Devin is concerned, this is the most that the Fool can reasonably ask of Trahearne, at least for now. He's reached a line that he knows better than to cross, or push against further than he already has. "I have heard you," he assures his friend sincerely, "and will not dismiss what you have told me."

A pause, before he smiles again tentatively and suggests, "Let us change the subject. Will you show me more of your magic?" A marginally safer topic, he suspects, and he has no desire to part ways with Trahearne on bad terms.

"You wish to see more?" That did perk Trahearne up a little, though he gives the Fool a considering look. "I'm afraid that most of what I can do is also somewhat disturbing to look at. But you have already seen the largest minion I can summon. There are others, and a variety of magical attacks I have at my disposal."

And what better objects to practice on than his own minions? They couldn't retaliate unless he told them to, making them the perfect training dummies in a pinch. Trahearne moved away from the Fool to set down his bundle of bones, keeping one of them in hand to use as a sort of makeshift wand.

At Trahearne's question, the Fool gives him an encouraging nod, only to let his smile grow a touch sly at the words of warning. He waves a hand dismissively. "My sensitivities are not so fragile," he assures him, lifting his chin, and then turns to watch his careful arrangement of the bones with clear curiosity. This would not be the first display of foreign magic he has seen since his arrival here--courtesy of the intrusive Dreaming--but it would be one of the first under such controlled circumstances.

In that case, Trahearne felt free to put on a show.

He gestures with the piece of bone, and two dark portals ringed with green-purple energy form about twenty feet away from each other. Out of one portal emerges a minion nearly as tall as a person, bent over and rooted in place, its physical structure based on the wurms from his home world. Two much smaller minions hopped out of the second portal, rat-like tails swinging lazily behind them.

"The small ones can self-detonate, but I'd rather not do that while there's a risk of injury to either of us. The flesh wurm is much easier to demonstrate." On cue, the larger minion rears back and spits a large glob of a sickly-looking substance at one of the smaller bone minions. The unlucky little thing doesn't even flinch, for it can't feel pain, but its muscle and bone is starting to sizzle thanks to the gunk covering it.

Trahearne glances back over to the Fool, "I ought to also show you my death shroud. You can think of it as a defensive form - it shrouds me from harm, but I can only use it for a short amount of time. It's powered by a sort of energy that's the easiest to take from other living creatures." And with that, shadows erupted around Trahearne's form, wispy on the edges like a dark mist with only his yellow eyes shining through the shroud with any clarity. Trahearne raised a hand, and began drawing tendrils of a green-tinted energy out of his minions. The three of them collapsed as the energy that had animated them was taken, rendering them into unmoving lumps of flesh that were already starting to quickly deteriorate into dust.

The entire scene from start to finish is one of the most peculiar displays of magic that the Fool has ever witnessed--and he's seen the figureheads of liveships quickened to life by the deaths of others on deck, and journeyed through Skill pillars with no knowledge of where he might land once he stumbled out the other side. The magicks of the Bingtown Traders and the Six Duchies were subtle, the effects felt or seen, but the magic itself largely invisible. To see portals opening before him in the air to admit the presence of two fleshy beasts, living enough to have their life's energy sapped by the power of Trahearne's shroud, but not alive enough to feel pain--

The sight of their collapse into dust still tugs something hard in his chest, and his breath catches. The Fool briefly covers his mouth with one hand, taking a few small, deer-like steps forward before he stops himself. At last he turns to look at Trahearne again, searching his face a moment before he looks back to the piles of dust where his minions once stood. "Where do they come from?" he asks at last.

At first, Trahearne doesn't realize that anything might be wrong. When the Fool turns to him, he drops his death shroud entirely, the dark mist around him fading as he follows the Fool's gaze over to the piles of dust.

"Are you concerned about them?" he asked, some bemusement in his tone. "They're from a part of the Mists called the Underworld. It's the realm where the human god Grenth judges souls, but there's far less hospitable areas - like the Bone Pits, where it's said that magic animates the corpses of those who tried and failed to enter the Underworld while still alive."

It's a gruesome explanation, but there's little emotion in Trahearne's tone. To him, this was a well-tread fact of life, an aspect of his magic he's dealt with for years. It didn't even occur to him that such a thing could be alarming, not until he saw the Fool's reaction to his minions dying. "If it helps, most of the muscular and skeletal structure of the minions are clearly taken from animals. How those ended up in the Underworld, I cannot say, but my summons don't possess souls. They have no true consciousness to speak of."

Despite Trahearne's words of reassurance, the Fool's gaze continues to return to the space where the lesser of the two minions had been standing before, as though he can't quite shake the sight of it disintegrating before his eyes. (Perhaps his sensibilities were more sensitive than he wanted to admit.)

"You can venture to the land of the dead, in your world?" This, like many other things, seems a particularly startling mystery to him. His expression is peculiarly vague; a little melancholic, a little bittersweet. "From what little I have known of death in my world, I am not sure that there is truthfully anything that follows the end of life."

He sounds very much as though he speaks from personal experience.

Trahearne's expression now is a bit more sympathetic. That uncertainty was something he had been stopping to confront more and more often lately, even coming from a world like his, where many of those questions had been answered centuries ago. "It does tend to be complicated. ... My own people are so new to Tyria that we don't yet know what happens to us after we die, other than how the Dream keeps our memories. So far, it's one of our greatest mysteries."

He cast his gaze downward to the leg bone he had used as a wand, running his fingers over the cracks that had formed. Without the proper preparation, channeling that much magic through the bone hadn't treated it very kindly. "As for the Mists, it's easy to visit, but quite another matter to enter such a domain. Being able to find it, much less know how to enter, is so rare as to be the stuff of legends. Yet it's not at all impossible to find certain spirits, or speak to them from the material plane, if you know how to do it."

“What you describe,” the Fool begins, quirking a pensive smile, “sounds most foreign to me. What comes after death is, for nearly all of mankind, a mystery where I am from.”

(‘Nearly,’ he says, and with good reason. Besides himself, he knew of only one other in his world who had died, and then come back to life again.)

By now, the sun that had been resting near the horizon when the Fool first stumbled upon Trahearne practicing his magic has sunken out of sight, and the cooling air around them is enough to have the Fool pulling his cloak more securely around himself. “I should consider hailing a coach back home before the weather turns,” he says, looking to the clouds overhead that suggest encroaching rainfall. Then he turns his eyes to Trahearne again and smiles, lifting his chin. “You should visit, when you are able. Are you fond of tea or coffee? I’ve an apartment just above Klaus’s new cafe.”

"All these other worlds the Dreamfolk hail from are equally foreign from my point of view. One of my roommates comes from a world without magic or planar theory. I was downright shocked." He says it with some humor in his tone, though at the time it had legitimately disturbed him. A world without magic seemed like a dismal place.

While the threat of rain didn't bother him, Trahearne did have something of a built-in nightlight to remind him when he'd been working for too long. His bioluminescence was starting to show in response to the dimming sunlight, the purple glow only just visible. "It just so happens that I enjoy both, but I'd be happy to visit even if you weren't in such a convenient spot. Let's make plans for that soon."

Zelos doesn't spend as much time in his room at the Bridge as he did when he first arrived. Dormitory housing is still weird. It was weird in Sybak, and it's weird here. Good thing he doesn't strictly need to eat or sleep anymore, or he might actually be forced to make some tough choices.

But it's raining out, and without any lightning thundering through massive storm clouds up in the sky, flying through rain is boring. So Zelos is currently on his way back to his room, hair and shoulders damp. He pushes open his door --

-- which opens a few centimetres and then thumps against something, and refuses to open any further.

Zelos hesitates, frowning at the wood like it could somehow tell him what's going on. "What the hell?" he asks out loud, and tries again, swinging the door banging back into whatever's blocking it. And again. And again. "Hey!" he calls through the crack. "Trahearne! Are you in there? What's going on with the door?"

At that point, Trahearne had managed to get the package inside their room, and was in the middle of cutting open the cardboard box with a blade small enough that he was almost wishing he had a sword. This 'cardboard' type of paper was something of a novelty to him, but having to struggle with it was making him doubt its inherent usefulness.

"Just a moment!" He hadn't even realized that his delivery was still blocking the door. Moving to the other side of the box, he grabbed hold of the edges and managed to drag it out of the way, little by little. Trahearne was too twiggy to make quick work of it, but he did at least succeed in making enough space for the door to open.

"My apologies, Zelos. You can come in now."

Zelos waited throughout the process, arms behind his head, listening to the sounds of the box, or -- whatever it was -- dragging along the floor. When Trahearne gave him the go-ahead, he pushed the door open and walked inside.

It was a large and heavy cardboard box, as it turned out. Half-open, with one flap up and bent, and the other raggedly cut. Zelos waved away Trahearne's apology and went to go peek inside, but the top hadn't been opened far enough to tell what it was. "It's no big deal," he said. "It's just, uh.... big. What is it?"

"It's for indoor gardening," Trahearne explained, giving the box a small frown. "It's a method that dissolves nutrients in water rather than using soil to grow plants in. I agreed to test this out for someone, but... this isn't quite what I imagined it would be."

Circling around the box, Trahearne stuck the blade into one of the top outer corners, having a little more success cutting it open along the corner. He then pulled the sides apart far enough to finally let them get a look at what was inside - it was an already-assembled metal shelving unit, each shelf customized for safely keeping the plants in water, with built-in growth lamps.

"... hmm. I think finding a place for this will be the hard part."

Oh. Indoor gardening. Zelos eyed the metal shelves dubiously. "What do you need shelves for?" he asked. "Can't you grow stuff? You know, with your..." He trailed off and gestured to all of his roommate. "... you? What do you need special water and lamps for?"

Never let it be said Zelos was tactful.

Trahearne paused, looking away from the box to give Zelos a mildly exasperated look, if one in good humor. He had heard similar things many times before, back when his people were new to their world. Coming here meant that he fielded those questions from the locals, too. He wouldn't have ended up with the gardening system if he hadn't been an obviously plant-like person in close proximity to a scientist that made plants her lifetime work.

"Resembling a plant doesn't mean that I can grow anything other than my own leaves," he explained patiently. "There are some sylvari that develop their magic to use it toward that purpose, but that was never an interest of mine. I might be better informed about gardening, but I still have to do it the old fashioned way."

"That's weird," Zelos pronounced as he fell back onto his bed. "You'd think a living tree would sprout flowers everywhere it walks."

Gardening, on the other hand... huh. Zelos eyed the metal shelving unit, now exposed by the ragged cardboard. It looked heavy, and sounded heavy when the door thumped against it, and since Zelos could theoretically scale his strength up and down now, he should really offer to help move it somewhere where it wasn't in the way.

Instead, he found himself wondering more about what being a living tree was like.

"If you cut off one of your leaves," Zelos asked, "would it grow into a whole new person?"

At this point, Trahearne was actually having a some difficulty keeping a straight face. These questions were starting to veer away from the typical ones he's heard many times and straight into overestimating what his people could do. Normally he just got asked things like if he had to eat sunlight or dirt.

"I could ask why fleshy people don't sprout bits of meat or hair everywhere they walk." Perhaps that was overly graphic, but Trahearne hoped it got the point across. While sylvari did owe a certain amount of magic to their existence, Zelos seemed to think that they were bursting at the seams with it. He actually stopped cutting away at the box, turning to face his roommate instead.

"I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. My people are incapable of reproduction at all. We're simply all born from the same tree, which means that I am technically the eldest brother of thousands of siblings."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

your thoughts are louder than your words [open]

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