middaeg | [Closed] Saber Studies

Who: Saber and Dr. Pellinore Warthrop
When: 3/18
Where: Dr. Warthrop's abode
What: Saber contributes to SCIENCE.
Warnings: Medical and/or scientific prodding.

The last couple of weeks have been a bit hectic for Saber, to say the least. Between the full moon and her work and her attempts to keep herself busy, she hasn't had a chance to follow-up on a promise she made to an acquaintance. She finally has some free time, though, and today she's going to make it happen. She doesn't know Doctor Warthrop incredibly well, besides their few interactions over the network and her attempts to help with him on the night of their arrival, but he seems to be earnestly doing his best to discover more about this place. She has a soft spot for that and so she pledged herself to help him (help her, as well) understand the changes they were all undergoing here.

She's bundled up in a long coat and tries to keep her hands in her pockets for most of the walk, but when she finally arrives at the right address, she double-checks her notes to make sure it's correct and then steps up to the door and raps sharply, three times. Very business-like, very matter-of-fact.

Then she waits for an answer.

She doesn't look like much in person - a young woman (or maybe man, she's a bit androgynous all covered up) waiting on the front stoop.

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She is left waiting - for minutes, perhaps, or at least until a series of subsequent knocking remind the occupant of the house that doors sometimes require answering by someone and that someone is, on rare occasion, evidently expected to be himself.

The man who eventually opens the door is not indistinguishable from the one who spent his first evening lying on the paving stones oft he Coven courtyard. If anything, he somehow looks more careworn here in the doorway wearing reasonably neat clothes than he has that evening, in threadbare linen and covered in another man's blood. There is a sort of keen mania there in the doctor's gaunt face, dark eyes fire-bright above the heavy circles under his eyes. Someone hasn't been sleeping well.

For a moment, he regards the figure on his step with a look utterly lacking in comprehension or recognition. When Warthrop finally speaks, it's to demand, "Yes? Out with it. What is that you want?"

Someone was evidently also too self involved in his own nervous breakdown for petty things such as committing the person who'd bothered to peep him off the ground in the midst of it to memory. Go figure.

Saber, fortunately, can be very patient. So she waits and then knocks again when it's appropriate. True, she doesn't enjoy being left waiting on the doorstep, but there you are. Sometimes its unavoidable. She looks up as the door finally opens and gives the doctor a long look. Yes, he looks much the same as he did when she saw him first. Although more ambulatory, which is a relief.

"Doctor? We have spoken briefly; I am Saber and I understand you wished to study the changes that overcome many of us here. I volunteered to allow you to examine me, if you recall."

Her tone is clipped and matter-of-fact. Maybe a touch irritated at having to remind him of his own request.

"Oh. I see. Then don't just stand there. Come inside at once."

He steps sideways to allow her to pass through into the little house's foyer. If it is neat - and it technically is -, then it may be chalked up to the fact that Warthrop hasn't been there long, and that both himself and his cohabitant seem to presently own very little that isn't more at home behind a closed door. He hastens her promptly from it and into the little parlor. The fire has been left unattended, allowed to go to embers.

"Take a seat. I'll be just a moment."

And then he is gone, disappearing elsewhere into the house for a span of maybe five minutes in which the house is very quiet until at last the thumping of his footsteps on the basement stairs again precedes Warthrop's return. This time he is in possession of a slim folio for note taking and a dark leather case, much battered and clearly a second hand acquisition.

Saber makes herself at home while he's gone. She removes her coat and hangs it up on the most available coat-hook (or over a chair, if there's nothing else). She has to do it carefully, however, because she has claws or talons on her fingers now and even thought they've been trimmed down, they still have a tendency to catch on fabric. She settles into a chair in front of the remains of the fire and folds her hands and waits.

When he returns, she nods at him.

"How shall we proceed?"

Warthrop assumes a spot on the little sofa, its slightly tatty mauve colored upholstery woven in intricate patterns of raised wreaths and little birds. Whomever left the piece of furniture behind evidently had considered it either just worn or gauche enough to warrant donation to poor Mirrorbound. He sets the folio across his knee, withdraws a pen from its spine and turns to a new page. A date is marked in the upper right-hand corner.

"First, describe your default state. I've been led to believe that what is typical for wherever you came from may not be what is typical from where I came from, and establishing a baseline concept of normalcy will be imperative. A description of you, your world, and a general overview of what is most immediately different between here and there should suffice to begin with. For example, is there 'magic'"--the airquotes are implied--"where you come from? Are there any, to your knowledge, 'monsters'? What is the state of medicinal practice in your native land; what is your typical diet if it is different from the one you are being made to subsist on here; so on and so forth.

"I have no need for your whole life story or every minute detail, but a list of discrepancies? Yes, I believe that to be very necessary to the work."

Saber sits up straight, hands still neatly folded. She watches Warthrop with a hint of interest, a little curious as to how he plans to go about doing this. Apparently via questions - at least at first.

She clears her throat.

"It is... somewhat complex. Magic exists where I come from and it permeates almost everything; I myself was a magical being of sorts, having become a Heroic Spirit. To explain what that is... would take time. Suffice to say that my person and body were more composed and maintained by a flow of magical energy rather than by the normal laws that govern mortal men."

She pauses, considering.

"As a Heroic Spirit, I possessed great reserves of strength, power, and speed, as well as powers many would consider magical. I did not, strictly, require food or sleep. There were creatures of a magical nature - monsters, you may call them, but nothing as there is here. Medicine, at least in the last era I remember, was advanced."

It's the sort of thing which by all rights should give anyone pause. Instead, Warthrop's hand moves with a fairly ceaseless rhythm across the page and he asks without looking up, "'Having become,' you said - meaning you weren't always one before?"

There are people who believe in possession, in the ritual conception of a spirit assuming a body, where he's from too. If these the the ramblings of a zealot masquerading as coherence, he will need to know it; and if it isn't--

Well. Then it is something different. And he will need to know that too.

"It is... somewhat complicated," Saber replies slowly, "But I was human before."

Or as close to human as she ever was, anyway.

"Heroic Spirits are people of great renown and legend who become Heroic Spirits through the power of their deeds and their great renown. They can then be summoned via a catlyst and magic to serve a Master in future eras."

Or in her case, cutting a deal with the World. Which is not something she wants to get into.

A note is taken, the point of the pen scratching across the page.

"And once summoned, would you describe your form as wholly 'magical,' or that you are inhabiting a sort of living shell - a host, as it were?"

"Wholly magical," Saber replies calmly, "Composed of mana. Sustained by it. There was no possession of any sort, although a catalyst is typically needed for the summons."

She pauses and adds, "Typically an artifact. As far as I know, none of it involves the use of human hosts or sacrifices."

His hum is mild, and if there is any note of skepticism it is quiet enough in comparison to the Doctor's typically full-throated dramatics as to be nigh on inaudible. And if his notes are rather more in the vein of 'The subject considers herself to be--', then that is no one's business but his own.

"You have no such artifact here, I take it." It is hardly a question. He skips right past is, assuming she will correct him if his conclusion is incorrect. "What other physical or... manifestation differences have you noticed between your time here in this place versus your state in your natural, hm-- your realm? Reality? The place you came from."

"No, unless you count the mirror. I am not versed in magecraft, however."

Saber is still prepared to be thorough and polite in her answers, egardless.

"I have lost strength, speed, and a certain amount of immunity from harm. I also now require normal food and am no longer sustained by mana. In addition, I have recently grown a... tail. Which is its own trial."

[Closed] Saber Studies

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