ᖴᗩᗷIᗩᑎ ᗰᗩᒪᔕTᖇOᗰ (
fruktansvard) wrote in
nexus_sages2016-02-01 06:01 pm
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Here again, but this time he has a black cat following him and a suitcase. Fabian finds a table in the forum, sets down the suitcase and let's the cat hop up on the table with him. At first it looks like she is doing what any other cat would do when on a table and presented with random items: paw it off the table. Although it seems like she's actually just helping him arrange the items.
"Well, I didn't really have much to say the last time. I think it was a bit of a boring question, wasn't it?" He continues to unpack: small containers, sachets, an other such things all filled with various ingredients. A few teas, some potion vials?
"But now I have a little more drama in my life, so I have something more exciting to ask."
Jasmine - the cat - paws over the last item he unpacked and then went to sit at the edge of the table to look around at the people of the forum.
"So let's say that you are a magic user," Fabian begins. "And for the most part, your magic is used for the better. To help people, healing and things like this. However, you just might have knowledge of something a bit darker. Now, you don't particularly love advertising this fact nor do you enjoy using it."
He stops there, and looks up, an almost regretful look on his face. "Consequences, after all. But!"
Fabian returns to arranging some items, "someone has come back into your life, and they are not all that happy about it nor are they too favourable over the fact that you're still alive. It's only a matter of time, really, that they find you and knowing them they wont go after you per say, oh no. They'll go after the people you care about."
He sighed and stopped what he was doing. "And they're stronger than you, and smarter than you, unless you use black magic." A beat, "And before anyone says it, no there's no option of involving someone else. My world has plenty of magic, none of which is used in public eye. It's an elusive world the powers that be choose to ignore. So that option is out."
And besides, any authority wouldn't be able to handle Tobias anyway. This is one of the rare moments that Fabian has clarity of mind, being here helped, he needed to sort this out.
"Well, I didn't really have much to say the last time. I think it was a bit of a boring question, wasn't it?" He continues to unpack: small containers, sachets, an other such things all filled with various ingredients. A few teas, some potion vials?
"But now I have a little more drama in my life, so I have something more exciting to ask."
Jasmine - the cat - paws over the last item he unpacked and then went to sit at the edge of the table to look around at the people of the forum.
"So let's say that you are a magic user," Fabian begins. "And for the most part, your magic is used for the better. To help people, healing and things like this. However, you just might have knowledge of something a bit darker. Now, you don't particularly love advertising this fact nor do you enjoy using it."
He stops there, and looks up, an almost regretful look on his face. "Consequences, after all. But!"
Fabian returns to arranging some items, "someone has come back into your life, and they are not all that happy about it nor are they too favourable over the fact that you're still alive. It's only a matter of time, really, that they find you and knowing them they wont go after you per say, oh no. They'll go after the people you care about."
He sighed and stopped what he was doing. "And they're stronger than you, and smarter than you, unless you use black magic." A beat, "And before anyone says it, no there's no option of involving someone else. My world has plenty of magic, none of which is used in public eye. It's an elusive world the powers that be choose to ignore. So that option is out."
And besides, any authority wouldn't be able to handle Tobias anyway. This is one of the rare moments that Fabian has clarity of mind, being here helped, he needed to sort this out.
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Maybe it's the droop of her shoulders or the way she won't make eye contact, but she might just know what she's on about.
"Cute cat. She friendly?"
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What it really came to was who could he stomach the deaths of? People he didn't know or people he did know. Either way, people would die. Either by ceremony, or by consequence of doing nothing. Fabian sighed heavily and ran a slender hand through his hair.
"What if you can't live with either option?" He said with a frown, feeling like now would be a good time to dramatically groan and lay on the ground for the rest of what will likely be a very long life. He didn't, but he was tempted. Meanwhile Jasmine soaked up the afterward compliment with a haughty little 'why yes I am so cute, look how cute I am' tilt of her head.
"When she wants to be," Fabian said with a short laugh. "Her name is Jasmine, she's my familiar." A beat, and he extended a hand, "Fabian."
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After their handshake she offers her hand to Jasmine, low enough to not be threatening and palm up. "Hello, Jasmine." Kitty can sniff and wonder what all those weird and exotic scents are if she'd like. Verity smells like different kinds of magic, cooking, and chao. Good luck figuring that out.
"You're assuming there are only two options."
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Interesting name, but that's gone to the wayside when he sees those eyes. Yeah, he knows what that look means and it causes him to frown. It was always worse, somehow, when he knew people have been through something similar if not worse. Fabian often absorbed drama, felt like he could shoulder it (no matter how much he bitched about it and frankly sometimes he just liked having something to bitch about), but it was different when others went through pain. Why couldn't there be harmony. Why couldn't there be harmony?
Jasmine stared at Verity's hand and gave it a couple sniffs. After a bit of investigation, she decided Verity was alright enough and placed her paw in the hand as if shake hands as well.
"I don't see a third," he admitted.
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Verity will shake the cat's paw solemnly before offering her some scritches behind the ear. Cats, like gods, need to be handled with care.
"You could let them kill you. But we'll call that 'Plan No'. You could arrange a scenario where any action they take against you is met with at least equal losses on their side. Mutually assured destruction. You could disappear. It's a big multiverse, and that kind of heroic sacrifice is considered so romantic in some circles." She personally doesn't go for it, but to each their own.
"You could tell the people who're in danger what's going on and let them decide the course of their own fate. That's what I'd do."
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"I usually disappear," he said quietly, but by the tone of his voice it sounds like he's saying 'but I've grown tired of running' without saying it. He'd thought about letting Tobias kill him, because that's partly romantic considering the history. Then he's also thought that maybe that loss would hurt people, but... he often also doubts that.
The last option makes him frown even deeper, though. "I.. could."
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Reading between the lines isn't a speciality of hers, but she's been working on getting better at it. It comes in handy in a place like this, and really, nobody loves a literalist.
"It loses some of the heroic romance, but what it lacks in storybook appeal it might make up for in the delights of informed consent and new allies?"
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"I don't care so much about the romanticism," he idly picked up a gem and held it tight in his hand, "as much as it's tempting every now and then, the end result is always disastrous and messy. It's not beautiful at all, but I suppose that in it's own way holds a certain kind of beauty. Informing the people I care for, though? In an ideal world, people would stay by your side and forgive your trespasses but that's just not reality."
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"In an ideal world, this wouldn't be happening at all," she reminds him quietly. "Maybe they won't all stay. Maybe none of them will. But if you really care about them, you have to respect them too." She looks down at the tea or alchemy or whatever equipment he's set up, wondering for a moment what it's for.
"And since you seem convinced you're going to lose them one way or another, isn't it better you part on honest terms?"
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He thinks quietly as he approaches and hovers closer. Taking some time to fully consider the question, he's quiet when he replies. "Can you... not be you? Or... make it too troublesome to come after you? Redirect his focus somewhere else?"
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"I'm a hedgewitch at best,"he had a feeling that this man would know that term, so he chose to use it. "I could, technically. Not without sacrifice, though."
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The man's words surprise him more. The term she chooses is a little unexpected. The first time he arrived in the Nexus, and in several instances since, people reacted badly to the idea of talking to someone who uses magic. Perhaps people are more welcoming in this man's world, but Viatorus has to take a second to take in the term, and then consider the answer.
"And... what is this other person?"
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"A sorcerer," he said, and then chose to expand. "There's three basic principles of magic in my world. Magic that is drawn from nature, magic that is drawn from elements and concepts, and magic that is drawn from the self. The two latter are less common, the last is especially uncommon."
It's not that accepted in his world. It's just that cloak and dagger kind of magic is very uncommon and witches, the more common magic users, are often overlooked as crooks, con artists, and kooks. Which is fine, really. It's not common to find a witch that has any inclination to do much harm. Those that did practice darker arts, well no one really found out about it anyway being that they practiced darker arts and all.
"Anyway, you might have made the connection that a sorcerer is, in my world, the definition of a magic user which draws from themselves. He has a particular set of skills that make things.. difficult."
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"You... can approach this in a few different ways, I suppose. If you could make yourself invaluable, perhaps. Necessary. If not to this person, then maybe to someone equally powerful, or respectable." Viatorus shifts his weight from one foot to the other. "I don't see why you shouldn't involve other people. Friends would almost certainly want to help you, and a hedgewitch's greatest power might be the friends they make while practicing their craft. Even if you can make yourself too troublesome to be harmed, it would be a solution."
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"Running away from your dear Count?"
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"Correct," Fabian stated and turned to pull one last thing out of his case. "I brought you something."
He put the container on the table and pushed it toward Reynard's direction. "Stew, as promised. Wont ever go bad and actually tastes good, miraculously enough. You'll encounter good fortune from that, whether it's truly money or something of a different meaning to fortune is not yet known."
A moment, and then: "I've become fond of a few people I surrounded myself with. Usually I just sort of piss off at some point, but."
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"Either way: Lucky me," he says with a wide grin that suggests he knows just how bad that joke is.
Setting it down again for the moment, his eyes fall upon the cat and he lifts an eyebrow. "I'd offer to stroke you, my dear, but I would frost over your coat."
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Glancing to the cat, he adds, "you have an exquisite companion. Is she averse to strange hands?"
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"It's," he began but couldn't help a small laugh when Jasmine - proud as could be - wandered on over toward the stranger, as if to say 'yes I am so fabulous, aren't I?'
"Don't inflate her ego too much. Her name is Jasmine, and she is used to many strange things." A beat, "In this contest it's craft based magic that causes harm or creates an unnatural change. And it often requires things of an unsavory nature. Like blood."
You could technically call any power that a wizard or a sorcerer had to be black, as it caused unnatural change, but plenty used it for good. Most did, really. And in his world, those types of magic users were few and far between anyway.
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"Oh, is that all?" To the cat, he presents an open hand, palm-up, for inspection before (presuming approval) scratching her ears. Tsking softly, he addresses her, a singsong note entering his voice. "Your companion's got a problem with squeamishness, hasn't he? Ye~es. I'm sure you've tried to teach him right, but there's only so much one can do, hmm? You both may call me Schön."
Lifting his gaze back to the boy (although the ear-scritches continue), he adds, "that's hardly a problem at all. Merely a matter of seeing the ingredients ethically sourced. As for unnatural change--you're mortal, what do you expect to do? Plant a seed, you've made an unnatural change. Weed a garden, unnatural change. Feed a starving child--unnatural change. Are these things wicked? Are these deeds black? Worry less about the tools than the intentions."