nexus_sages | In which Winter has a thematically appropriate query

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In which Winter has a thematically appropriate query

Not all Nexus days can be sunshine and beautiful frost patterns. Days like this are a grim, sombre grey. The mist is so thin in places that all it does is make the distance fade away sooner than normal, but it does apply a more reserved filter on a place often filled with joyous shenanigans. No, this is unmistakeably a day which makes the multiverse feel close, secretive.

It's in this clandestine scenery that Reynard strolls about. Far from hopping or skating through the landscape, he strolls about the place, setting ice on the path and covering it with a dusting of snow. In the residential and commercial districts, he's sent ice along as many pipes as he could find. As he goes he rumbles a low slow tune. Some might recognise the sea shanty when he reaches the familiar 'Ho... Ho... and up she rises...'. He's not a bad singer, all things considered.

He looks up from his work and fixes his eyes on the nearest stranger, singing fading into a deep hum and then silence before he speaks. "What is the coldest thing you've ever done? The most cold hearted act you've ever brought yourself to commit. Go ahead. I'm not one to judge."

Just as the quiet settles back into place, he pipes up again. "Actually, you can tell me the literal coldest thing you've ever done too, if you'd prefer. I can't resist a good ice story."

((Reynard is still handing out Winter Curses & Blessings and causing trouble if you would like to avail of any. Other than that: Caution to those who talk to spirits, they are proud and fickle people.))

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Touche, his short laugh and smile seemed to say as they arrived at their destination and gladly enters on the courtesy of the man. It hit him like a whirlwind, the feel of the place, it's aura. It was comfortable and warm. It has a lot of stories to tell, he could almost hear them. Laughter clung to the wood even though that laughter might have been long gone. He took a moment, his fingers examined the stone and his smile only grew.

Ah, he liked this space and when the man made his request Fabian was happy to oblige. He ordered a rum and a scotch for himself- managed to weave through the small crowd to find the quiet spot that was found.

"As you wished," he smiled and shrugged off the old coat. The way he dressed seemed to be a little more effeminate in manner with not a single spec of color to be found. An excessively large and thin black sweater fell down one shoulder as he sat himself down.

"A favorite spot of yours, I assume?"

It was, in part, a test. To see how this distant man with his nice, worn clothes, would react to being led somewhere strange, old, and unconcerned by bar fights.

"Yes. I've visited a lot of the bars around here, and this nice, quieter than some of the others." A pause. "Usually." Another. "Unless I'm feeling rowdy." And then Reynard will shoot Fabian a mischievous grin and pull his drink closer.

"So. You were going to tell me about love and the consequences of its persuasion."

He'd known the old dirty taverns of long ago. He knew sneaking in just for a space to get warm and trying tooth and nail to coerce someone to buy him a drink (worked sometimes, depending on how much effort he put into the look). Then he came to understand a far more aristocratic life. When everything fell apart, he settled somewhere between the two worlds. Fabian had always loved stories, travel, and culture. You couldn't understand culture by only visiting one part of it.

"Unless you're feeling rowdy," he brought the glass to his lips and leaned back. "You strike me as a man who doesn't mind a good fight every once in awhile."

The glass was placed back upon the table and he let out an amused laugh, "oh was I? I'm not entirely sure you're ready for it to be quite honest."

"I'm more inclined to singing than fighting, but..." He shrugs casually, accepting the description with his small amendment made.

Immediately, Reynard's brow comes together to give Fabian a look of bafflement. "No? I'm comfortable, with my rum, and now that we've established my strength through the occasional fight... How am I not ready for it?"

Fabian observed the man’s bafflement with an amused look and tipped his head a little as if he took the mildest pleasure out of it all. He wasn’t sure what it was that urged him to speak. Perhaps the atmosphere, perhaps the man, or perhaps being in this nexus… Fabian’s tale was nothing short of grim and yet with a moment of consideration he began.

“Oh, come now. Don’t give me that look,” came playfully. “If you’re so inclined, then i'll tell you a story that began over 300 years ago.”

He stopped there, curious over the reaction on that remark alone.

Ah, an old story it is, then. Undeterred, Reynard picks up his glass and takes a sip, settling in for a potentially long tale. Seeing the hesitation, he too pauses, and sets his glass back down. The corner of his mouth curls into a grin.

"Don't worry, I'm listening. I can imagine something happening so long ago."

Of course, so far there is nothing suggesting that whatever happened 300 years ago happened to Fabian. Perhaps to his relatives, or some geopolitical affair.

Fabian chuckled a little at the comment 'I can believe something happened 300 years ago' before continuing his story.

"Indeed, back to times of war, and noblemen. There was a Count, in Sweden I should say this takes place in Sweden." A pause, "Oh, how he was loved by many. The girls would fawn over him when he went off to ride in the mornings and oh how the people so desparately wanted to attend his concerts or dinners, he was the most exquisit violinist."

The witch paused for a moment only to take a small drink and haphazardly try to adjust his sweater which only went back down again anyway.

"This one day, one of his maids fell ill but all the doctors the Count knew were nowhere to be found. So he sent his men, find the best one in town he said, and they brought back a young doctor from a poorer part of town. See, this doctor had a way that no other seemed to have. Not a charm, no, a knowledge perhaps. A power?"

"Needless to say, the Count became very interested in this little town doctor that had such a way. See, he had a way too. Do you believe in magic, my new friend?"

"I do," he says simply, and then takes another sip of his rum. He won't interrupt with more of an answer than that. Only partly because he likes being mysterious. Also in part because he doesn't understand what Fabian's lovelife has to do with a doctor and a Count meeting three hundred years ago.

"Oh good," he responded. "So the Count, interested that he was not the only one capable of things a human should not be, he befriended the poor Doctor. And this Doctor, unknowing of his own power, fell in love with the Count.

"The Count promised him many things. Money, eternal youth, talent, power. All that they needed was blood. Lots of blood, but not any blood. Oh no, it needed to be young blood. And it needed to be taken. It'd very important, how to you take the blood and who you take it from."

His finger circled the rim of that glass and he paused, looking at his friend. "Love was the beginning of the end. Love took someone who helped people and turned them into a murderer."

Now, to be fair the Count was more than just psychic and well versed in the dark arts, but Fabian still did not know this. After all, if someone finds out you're good at manipulating than you are no longer good at it are you? He leaned his chin upon his other palm and remained silent a little longer.

"They used to call me his Red Hand, but no one would dare do anything about it. Not for a little while at least. Anyway, I think I'm finally older than how many bodies I piled up in number."

This is a strange twist on a familiar kind of tale, but Reynard listens, trying to follow the relevance until his growing suspicions are confirmed at the last moment. He watches the other man with his brow pulled together in a frown. "You? You're a three hundred year old, child killing healer?"

And not even a vampire. Truly unusual. He'd expected that he'd meet gods or spirits before he met a 300 year old man. Still going strong too, if his appearance is anything to go by.

"401, actually," he corrected but it didn't have as much pride behind it as someone might have thought it would. His eyes moved away from the man before him to some space on the walls and his fingers stopped ringing around the rim on the glass to pick it up instead.

"The Count was thought to be dead for many of those years." He started again. "When the county finally revolted against us and burned our dwelling to the ground I survived and came to see the realities of my atrocity. I'd shed so much blood I couldn't die, so it seemed."

He finished the drink and pulled back to lean into his chair- eyes finally met Reynard's again. "I had begun to age. After it all, and vowing to never return to blood magic or dark arts again. But then he returned, and here I am."

Reynard listens, his own eyes roaming from one meaningless point to the next while he does. Somewhere in the faint background of his thoughts is the discomfort of a man who's walked through the Medieval ages, through darker, more superstitious days. Back then he was keenly aware of the difference between false claims of devil power and the true powers of witchcraft.

But they are all mortal concerns. Mortal worries. Long hidden ones at that.

He focuses on enjoying his drink, leaning back into his seat, one hand on his glass, the other hooked onto his belt. "So. Did he... send you here? Did you run away here? Are you still in love with him?"

Darker indeed. All these claims of the end coming, of the world falling apart, of this issue and that was really quite laughable to someone who didn't just read about history in the pages of a book. Someone who truly experienced the horrors of mankind, someone who was one. The world now, compared to then, was a wonderful place.

Fabian let out a long groan when he was asked if he was still in love. He rolled his head and tipped it back to stare at the ceiling a small while. It was different here, he couldn't tell what, but his emotions were so fickle anyway that it could just be chalked up to that.

"I ran," he said quietly, finally. "I don't know. I thought, I think I thought if I became stronger again I could actually get rid of him, wash my hands clean, age and die like a normal human being. I suppose that was the hope, it always seems to fall out of my mind when I see him. So."

The groan and the answer prompts Reynard to grin, head turning from his glass to Fabian. "That, I believe, is what these are for." Lifting his glass slightly in demonstration, he interrupts himself to catch the attention of the bartender and motions for another set of drinks to be sent their way. "Will you be making this a long holiday or a short one?"

"Touche," he verbalized and gave a momentary glance to the bartender.

There was something deep that dark arts did to a soul. It aided in all surface matters, wealth, fame, beauty, but like all magic it took as much as it gave and it took far worse things. He'd heard stories of those who used too much and went insane. Not unbelievable. The damage it does to the soul. Well, anyway. Tobias wasn't here and that was enough reprieve for now.

"So, I told you mine. You didn't seem all too surprised about such matters, witchcraft and the like."

There is only the smallest hint of a pause at the question and then Reynard's grinning again. "We're in a multiversal Nexus. Witchcraft is the most believable thing I've heard of here."

A small chuckle escapes him at his own joking and he waits for the server to exchange old glasses for new before he speaks again. He picks up his drink, asking before he sips, "What would you like to know?"

"Good point," he remarked with a smile and took the new drink with gratitude. This could get dangerous, you know (not really, but Fabian is a little ridiculous when he's inebriated more than he usually is. He's an ~artist~ after all). He's not some impenetrable force who's unaffected by inebriating products. Witch or not.

"Well I opt to learn more about someone by letting them choose what they want to say. So indulge me, Mr. North. Tell me a favorite story of yours."

That may be something Fabian should keep an eye on. Reynard won't. He has no need to stop drinking these days except to put his time to better use.

Taking his drink, he hums and sips away at it while he thinks. With a long, well lived life, there are plenty of stories to choose from. Which to choose is a more difficult choice. How much to say. His own past loves aren't a topic he's keen to share. The cruelties he has inflicted upon others, and that he has endured, are stories to be earned. Yet it should be a sharing of some sort.

"The first time I met a witch, a proper witch, not a priest or priestess, I stumbled across her by accident. I was running away from a beast that hunts spirits, and rather exhausted by the chase across a mountain range. When I'd begun to reach the end of my tether, I ended up scrambling for the door of a house in the middle of a forest."

Here he stops, smiling into his drink as he gently tilts the liquid one way and another. "She was something else... Sharp as a fresh blade, pretty, and confident... As soon as she opened the door she looked between us and told me off for my rudeness, and then the beast out for chasing me. Oh, true, it was only a temporary relief, but she did drive the creature away. And, after some convincing, allowed me to come in to rest."

Only time would tell whether Fabian was responsible enough to keep an eye on how much he was drinking but bets were, he wasn't. Not that he'd never been in a situation uncertain and intoxicated. Truly, often his usual state of existing. Nonetheless, he was content enough now to nurse his drink and listen to the man as he spoke about a time of the past.

He was running from a beast that hunts spirits. Aha, that lodged away in his mind and rolled about while he continued to listen. Fabian wasn't unacquainted with spirits. His familiar was one, an old one at that, he'd tried to get her story every once in awhile but she was a black cat. What else can be said, really? She'll do what she wants and say what she wants when she wants if she wants.

He chuckled, "do you still keep in touch with her? She sounds lovely."

Reynard simply shakes his head. "We spent a lovely few months together. I visited her again once or twice, but..." He shrugs. "Life moves on. We learned a lot from each other, but she made it clear that ours was not a friendship to cling to. We both knew that really."

A grin pulls at his lips and he pauses, glass at his lips. "I could say that some things are better for not lasting, but I'm sure you know a little about that." Then he takes a sip.

It was nice to hear that someone else had similar views on the coming and going of lovers or friends. Sometimes things need to pass and that was alright. Not everything needs to last forever. Not everything should- an ironic statement, all things considered. He knew that now, though.

"Mm, I do. Temporary is sometimes more beautiful than lasting."

"Temporary is an inevitability. For most things. For most people." Eventually he himself might move on. Might die. The strange thought gets a moment and then he takes a hearty swig of his drink. Dying is something best left to other people.

Fabian will take this moment of silence and hearty drink that follows as an opportune moment to learn more.

"So," he let's it pause a little as he takes his own glass. "you're a spirit?"

"And you're a mage. Not an uncommon pair to meet, but usually not over drinks."

He shrugs, "more of a kitchen witch, really. In my world there's three types of Magic users. Depends on where you draw the energy from. My familiar is a spirit, she found me in worse state."

A chuckle, "I can assume of what you're a spirit, but perhaps it's better to hear it?" Something cold, winter, or snow, or something like that he thinks.

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