[open/catch-all] live, i wanna live inspired

[faithlikeaseed]

Who: Myr + you! Yes, you. Over there. Stop hiding behind the furniture. (Starters for L + Connor in the comments.)
When: ~Septeril 2nd to Septeril 18th, author reserves the right to update date range at random to fit around the Dorchacht trip. Myr is in dignitary group number 2, so feel free to catch him any time up until the 14th!
Where: Around the City, mostly the Haven and the Coven.
What: ~*training montage*~
Warnings: None as yet; will update if any arise.

i. coven.
Though the invitation for Monsters to sit in on classes at the Coven was made plain from the start, Myr hadn't availed himself of it his first month in Aefenglom. Call it preoccupation with adapting to his new circumstances, call it having the run of a city for the first time in his entire life, call it having a regular job.

Call it anything but wounded, festering anger that he wasn't invited to those classes as a student, because Geardagas had seen fit to strip him of his magic on passage through the mirror.

He can't sulk forever; even early on, he'd acknowledged he would need to learn how magic works here, if no other reason than his own insatiable curiosity would drive him to it. But that acknowledgement hadn't amounted to action until he'd been given two very good bits of evidence, one (the SQUIP) right after another (Dorchacht), that the Witches here couldn't all be trusted to use their power for the common good any more than Tevinter's magisters could. And what does that fucking say for the Libertarians' arguments about mage rule...

In order to beat a Witch, he'd need to know as well as they did how magic worked. And--he couldn't keep weighing their ethics, their reasoning on Thedas' scale; couldn't keep up his reflexive judgment of everything said or done by a member of the Coven if he didn't know how they thought of themselves.

They're not the happiest reasons to finally come learn magic, but they're good enough to make him an occasional fixture in the back of the Coven's classrooms in early Septeril. Maybe he's reached over politely to attract your attention and ask, sotto voce, what an instructor's drawing on the board. Perhaps his newly grown antlers are in the way of you being able to see the board. Or maybe he recognizes your voice out in the hallway and gravitates over to ask, eagerly, what class you're bound for next--because sitting with someone he knows a little is absolutely better than being among total strangers.

ii. haven. i like sticks
An advantage of profoundly disordered sleep is that there's many quiet hours in the night for Myr to do those things he'd rather not people see him doing.

Like sneaking into a deserted park in the Haven after the bells toll three one morning, staff and dagger in-hand.

There's no one here in Aefenglom who knows who he was back home. There's no one to tell him he can't fight, that he's a liability, that he'll never sit his vigil--but all those things have come with him through the mirror, and they cling close as shame and keep him furtive about his combat drills and forms. Furtive, but not unfaithful, because with the trip to Dorchacht looming on the horizon, he needs to be in his best form.

Stripped to the waist and furred up his back in pale white fuzz, he stands out like a wraith among the darkened trees. Live opponents would be better than the invisible ones he constructs for himself from memory, but his staffwork's sharp enough anyhow to almost infer their presence from how the blade slices air.

iii. wildcard.
(( GO WILD. Myr works at one of the Daisy Chain locations as a gardener and might be found literally anywhere inside the Bright Wall if he's gotten lost exploring. Also prone to napping in some weird places when his awful sleep habits finally catch up with him. Hit me up (Plagueheart#0051 on Discord) if you'd like a starter! ))

Comments

[bloodwit]

Viren is, sort of, trying not to be a completely miserable shit about all of this. It's tough. Doubly so when Myr comments, drawing his thoughts from talk of evocation and the hardships of being a Witch,

"Y-e-ess.. What a terrible affliction, indeed, exploding from too much magic."

He hadn't, exactly, responded to the comment at hand. He realizes this. Myr might be able to hear the brief grinding of his teeth through that had accompanied that remark, loaded with sarcasm as it had been. He leans back in his seat, arms crossed as he carefully holds his quill aloft. With a glance, along with a statement's that's not completely serious, but the more he thinks on it, the more he subscribes to the theory,

"Perhaps it's less a lapse in judgement, more a divine punishment for... inefficiency."

He wanted to say 'stupidity,' he did, but managed to resist that pull.

[faithlikeaseed]

Honestly, finding things to pick at is Myr's way of not vanishing into misery over his own loss. Turn this into some kind of academic problem he can feel faintly superior about and then the lecture isn't an exercise in prodding at a gaping, oozing wound until the hurt grows large enough to consume everything else.

A little laugh meets Viren's supposition. "Could be--I like that one. We're meant to use magic in service to others, so why not have a consequence for hoarding it all to yourself."

Granted that's--Chantry theology; he hasn't worked out how they feel about it here, especially given magic's a gift everyone who wasn't a Monster had. "Or maybe it really is meant to drive mages and Monsters into Bonds and it's just prejudice they'd rather risk blowing up instead."

He'd say good riddance but given his own hesitation to Bond for entirely different reasons...he can't exactly tar the Coven with that brush, can he. A sigh follows. "No, that's not charitable, is it."

Dorchacht had plenty of prejudice and plenty of Bonded Witches.

[bloodwit]

Viren's a touch surprised at the directness of that admittance from the elf—like he amends, it just isn't charitable. But he doesn't think it wrong, nor is it an unwelcome comment, met with a little of puff of an exhale (almost a laugh, but that's obviously painfully difficult for him). He pushes past his inclination for more seditious talk at that response.

"Perhaps not," he ventures. "But still a possibility, all the same."

Not that he's inclined to think well of... most people, honestly, but for the sake of it,

"Regardless of their reasoning, rather than seeing it as an exercise in forced intimacy," even if Viren thinks that to be what it is, "they would do much better for themselves to just consider it a practical necessity."

[faithlikeaseed]

If there's one thing that can break through Myr's well-honed sense of politeness, it's people treating other people like something less than for accidents of birth. Hadn't happened as much in the Circle as elsewhere, praise the Maker, but knowing outside it people would look down on him, mistreat him, even kill him for his ears... Left a sore spot.

It's really too bad that wasn't also something unique to Thedas.

"Might be that they would--all they're doing to play up the romance of it, sweet as it is," because he does have exactly the kind of heart all of that carrying on is meant to appeal to, "must leave those not looking for a love-match a little cold. The classes you've been in--have they said anything about how Bonded might keep things from each other?"

That, he thinks, would make it possible to forge one. Knowing he didn't have to give all of himself up to someone who'd only end up horrified--or disgusted--or pitying about what they'd found.

[bloodwit]

A little cold, Viren's mouth twists into a deeper frown. A little cold, indeed.

"There's the usual share of emotions." Viren brings a hand upward to stroke his beard. "And then, from what I've heard, that dream and memory sharing may occur through the more intense bonds -- though likely with some intent behind such."

His tone itself practically shrugs, all conveyed with some detachment. He casts Myr an appraising glance, one that only lasts briefly as he then fixes it ahead once more.

"Keeping things from one another is hardly what most would think of as romantic, after all." A raise of his eyebrows. "This a concern of yours?"

i'm so sorry it's been nearly a week on this; school kicked me down the stairs

[faithlikeaseed]

"That obvious, huh?"

Myr's chagrin is plain; he's used to wearing his heart on his sleeve in most things, but not everything. His instincts around what to conceal and not ask leading questions on...have not yet adapted to his new circumstances, where one could be open as ever one liked about one's affections but perhaps did not want one's past known in full...

"There are," he continues, delicately, "things I've seen I'd not want anyone Bonded to me to encounter unawares." ...And then because he's tread far too close to things he doesn't want to think about himself, he lapses silent a long moment.

"--Besides," he picks up once the moment's gone, as if it hadn't happened, "I can't help but think those who'd prefer a Bond be purely practical would feel more comfortable knowing it didn't mean giving up all of themselves. If the Coven's not teaching that alongside everything else they've done to encourage Bonds, they're failing folk."

Neatly extemporized, Myr. Top score.

kicks school down the stairs... :T it's ok, def been there

[bloodwit]

Viren doesn't need to be perceptive to sense that this is a topic the faun would rather avoid being pressed. Still, in response to that delicate answer,

"I imagine you wouldn't be alone in that feeling, yes."

But as Myr would seem content to move on, and Viren can't think of picking at that would be particularly productive in the midst of class, he gives the next statement some thought.

"If the bond is to be purely practical... Perhaps the person wouldn't mind having to give up 'all of themselves,' for the sake of it. I would hope they could bond with a like-minded individual, one willing to look past any," he pauses, reflecting on what any one person may have seen in their lives, whatever the implication may be, "unfortunate circumstances."

His claws tap against the surface of his desk, his shoulders lifting in a light gesture that could be a shrug. It was a bit of a hasty conclusion on his part, he concedes, that Myr didn't seem like the type, at least initially, that would struggle with bonds. Granted, they've only had one conversation.

"I suppose, regardless of the preference," coupled a grim smile—it's not as if he hasn't also done his research, attempting to navigate independence from bonds and yet remain clear-minded, "at the end of the day, those unbonded still risk ferality."

rip in pips, school

[faithlikeaseed]

A simple considering tilt of the head has become rather more of a gesture now that Myr's gotten (most of) his full growth of antlers in; there's a moment where he's got to compensate more than he'd thought for the weight of them lest he end up with an ear right on the desk.

An expression of chagrin flutters across his face; that was...the furthest thing from dignified. Not that he's ordinarily much concerned with dignity per se but he's gotten prickly over the last year (wonder why) about not being able to move through the world quite as adroitly as he used to.

(That he'd have no trouble with finding a Bond wouldn't have been a bad assumption for who Myr used to be, who he's still struggling with having been. The confident Hasmali knight-enchanter would've had three Bonds by now, he's sure. The wreckage that remained of that man...did not want to go through the process of being known and rejected once again. Not with that kind of intimacy.)

"That's so," he replies, thoughtfully, "though as you say--it's hardly like we can dither around hoping to find someone perfectly like-minded, with losing our minds hanging over our heads as the months go on." The only reason that's not sending him into a screaming panic is he's done it before and going feral by Aefenglom's standards...doesn't sound as bad. (It absolutely would be as bad.)

Around them, there's a collective sigh of relief and slamming-shut of books; the impromptu digression on magic-cycling ate up the entire remaining class period. Time to go! ...or lingering and talk Bonds and sedition, as the case might be.