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

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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!]

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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."

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your thoughts are louder than your words [open]

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