middaeg | (open) & i may not see the future,

Entry tags:

(open) & i may not see the future,

Who: Aymeric and Francel and Solas in closed prompts; whoever wants an elf goodboy who likes ethics discussions and long walks on the beach in the open prompt!
When: mid to late May.
Where: the Coven, the Haven.
What: magic, ruminating on politics, rich boys probably putting mattresses on the floor, etc.
Warnings: gore, actually, but it's fine, everything's fine,

♞ practical magic. (the coven, open.)

[ Every day, without fail, Aymeric can be found at the Coven, diligently working on his magic. He's progressing slowly, in part because he's chosen no straightforward discipline: often he has an object in front of him on which he'll cast a spell; then he'll wait a little and touch it lightly with his fingertips. Many times he'll only purse his lips or frown, but other times, he'll yank his hand back as if burned (and he might be).

He also practices shielding magic, as best he can — he may turn, sometimes, and ask the nearest obvious newcomer if they wouldn't mind throwing something at him, yes really, harmless or otherwise. He's wearing armor; it's fine. ]

♞ walls continued upright, bricks met neatly, floors were firm, and doors were sensibly shut. (moving in, for francel.)

[ The house, the witches assured them, is perfectly safe. Yes, it did once belong to a family who succumbed to the Cwyld, but that's no reason for alarm, of course, they said; get a tea table and some chairs; get a fire started in the hearth, and it'll feel just like home.

It feels nothing like home, though, even after he and Francel have dusted all the rooms and carried in a few pieces of inexpensive but solidly-built furniture. Aefenglom is much too warm, for one thing.

By the time night falls, and there's nothing else to bring in or to clean, Aymeric has shed his armor in the house somewhere, poured two glasses of water, and coaxed Francel out to the covered front steps with them as a remedy for the house's stale air.

No one, at this hour, will see Francel's emerging scales.

The twin moons are bright overhead. Aymeric settles on the top step, allowing Francel space, and stretches out his dusty legs, looking pensively up at the sky. He takes a long, cool sip before he speaks. ]

I've wondered, I must confess, how much they truly know of that lesser moon. Folly, I suppose.

♞ a strategy discussion. (tea, for francel & solas.)

[ It still hasn't occurred to Aymeric to use his watch more often — or almost ever — so he's delighted when he runs into Solas by pure chance a day after they've moved into the Haven. They can't offer much in the way of hospitality, but they do have tea, and a table, and chairs, just as the witches suggested, and Aymeric extends a prompt invitation.

The house is too large for two people, though not as luxurious as some of those nearer the center of the city. The yard is a tangled mess of weeds, and thick ivy has smothered all but the windows on one side of the house. Part of the quaint carved wood detail above the covered porch has a sizable splintered hole in it, as if it was struck by something heavy, and a massive scrape mars the faded paint on the front door. The towering pale wall that separates the inner city from the outer is starkly visible, here, through the other homes.

Aymeric slows as they approach the door. ]

Francel has been reclusive, of late. I've no doubt he'll be glad of your company, but if he appears reluctant, pray forgive him.

[ He pushes it open, stepping into a clean but empty narrow foyer split by a staircase, and raises his voice: ]

Francel?

(note/the wildcard option: prose is always okay. for any other ideas/whatever, feel free to pm me or hmu on plurk at elegiae ♡

unrelated note that a reference to the parliamentary records building is now undermael college because I didn't see a question on the faq until right now,,,)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[ Aymeric diverted, and there was a small sense of victory that bloomed in him.

He grinned, and beckoned Aymeric to follow him over to a small, hip-height table. He flopped unceremoniously to sit at one side, one knee drawn up, and set the delicate little glass apparatus. But after setting it down, he could easily separate it into different components; small cylinders, flasks. ]

This is all some basic tempered glassware. I could never afford a proper lab or anything, but with some super-basic materials, I can use these to like... say, take a sample of Cwyld infection and see if it's comprised of microscopic organisms. Make all kinds of tests of all kinds of things.

[ He might have flunked most of his classes, but they'd been extracting RNA in grade school, doing titrations. Some basics you never forgot. ]

But for our purposes today I'm just gonna show you some simple physical truths. Do groundwork, so that putting everything together becomes... logical progression and shit.

So, tell me to the best of your ability: what is light?

[ Aymeric sat down next to him (with a little more decorum), concentrating on the glass components, brow furrowed. Of course he'd seen their like before — he'd spent more than enough time in the infirmary — but their purpose was nebulous to him. ]

Light is — a sort of element, containing aether.

[ He looked at Cain, perfectly earnest, detecting a trick question. Light was light. ]

But what makes an element? Why are these things distinct from others?

[ He grinned and shrugged, tapped the tabletop with his fingertips. ]

It's a fundamental truth about the world that even things that seem insubstantial do have substance. Light. Space. Time. We can interact with the substance of all those three things, and even manipulate them. Natural phenomenon manipulate them, too.

For our purposes, think of light... like a mist, or rain, so fine that you'll never be able to identify the single drops and stuff with your eye. A fire makes a mist of radiance; the sun is a gigantic star that creates a mist of light so large that we can have day.

[ He moved his hand over the table until it cast a distinct shadow over its top. ]

Hover your hand over the table, a couple inches high. Your shadow isn't a darkness that your body is making, it's an absence of light, the same way that a roof on four poles creates an absence of rain beneath it in a storm.

And the same way that rain carries the hints of where its been, in scent and taste, the patterns of the clouds, light can tell us similar things. Even from a pretty big distance, we can use mechanisms like... as simple as certain metals suspended in glass, to tell us whether a light in the distance is coming from an old star or a new one, or a wood fire or a coal one or a chemical one.

You followin' so far?

[ Aymeric obeyed — held his hand over the surface of the table, turned it on its side, frowning. A fire makes a mist of radiance was so poetic it was almost difficult to parse, difficult to move past; he could hear one of his old tutors saying it, weaving it between passages on divinity and faith.

That light came from stars was obvious, but the rest... ]

Then light is caused by... [ He crossed an arm over his chest, tilted his head, traced the curve of his bare ear absently, a habit long forgotten — and tried again. ]

If fire makes a mist of radiance, then this is fire, no? In some way.

[ He swept his hand through the fall of light from a window, across the edge of the table. ]

[ Cain grinned up at Aymeric. ]

No, this is light caused by a fire. Stars, serious as shit, are gigantic chemical fires in the universe, so big they have their own gravity, molten... forges, almost, of all the elements. When you see patches of night sky that look more blue, or more red, that's the... kinds of air, gasses, which will eventually come together to make more stars.

It's an important... um, difference. If you stand in the light a fire makes, fifteen feet from it, you're not in the fire. Just in its light. Fire is... a chemical reaction, right, that produces heat and light and consumes fuel. Light on its own can be hot enough to produce heat, but doesn't consume fuel.

But fire isn't the only thing that can make light. If we stay here long enough, I'll take you down to the docks, and show you how to make some of the plankton or bacteria closer up to the surface biolu... uh, glow. When you look up at the stars, right, the light that falls into your eye from those stars was first cast by their fires. It traveled billions of miles over hundreds of thousands of years just to be caught by you. And even your body right, just like plants need light to live, yours does too... just a lot less. When those... super fine particles of light fall on your skin, your body absorbs it, just a little, makes it a part of you. So much so that your body would actually glow in total dark. Not quite enough that our eyes can see, but enough that you can detect it with the right tools.

So: just like rain collects traces of the places the water in it has been, light collects similar information. And your body stores some of the light its been under. It's a part of you, forever. Every day you've ever seen the light, every star you've ever stood under, every fire you stood beside. A little tiny bit of all that light... is in you.

It's pretty much the coolest stuff in the universe. My, um... my people, almost everything we did have was all centered around light. Transportation, weapons, almost anything you could think of. I wish I could show you solar sails, I think you would love stuff like that.

Anyway, is this... making sense, so far? Am I going too fast?

[ He was silent for a long moment, gaze fixed on the surface of the table, toying with a lock of glossy black hair. ]

Light...is like silt, in a stream.

[ He dragged his fingertips with sudden intensity across the table. ]

And...it comes from a source. From a fire. And...if something should impede its progress, block it— [ he moved, quickly, a glass component to block his imaginary flow of sand— ] —then beyond that thing is an absence of light. And the light collects in that thing.

[ He looked back at Cain, attentive and wondering. He'd needed to discard some of what Cain had said, set it aside to be reexamined later, and he was well aware that his counter-explanation was like a child's in comparison — but the idea had caught him. ]

[ He watched the movements of Aymeric's hand with a strange kind of pride, nodding. ]

You get it.

[ He grinned, arched his brows up at the elf, and sat a little straighter. ]

Okay. Do you have questions, before I keep going?

[ Aymeric had glanced away again, more fascinated by esoteric glass parts and a plain table than he'd ever been — but at the question he looked back. His pale eyes darted over Cain's face a moment too long, quietly reassessing. ]

No.

[ He looked down, idly rubbed his thumb over a faded scar on the heel of his palm. ]

You are— a skillful tutor. Go on.

Yeah?

[ The statement pleased and relieved him both, visibly, and he relaxed a little. Drew from his glassware a neat, flat-bottomed glass cylinder, and set it into the path tof the light. ]

I'm... glad. I didn't think I would be, to be honest. I always hated school and lessons. And I did best, when they were given as part of training for the fleet.

It always seemed... easier, when what I was expected to know had... a point. An application, you know?

[ He watched Cain's hands: how the one he'd said was damaged moved, whether it was smooth or hurried, whether it trembled. ]

I was the same. Inasmuch as my lessons allowed me to be a good squire, I was interested, but music? Calligraphy? Dancing? I wanted to dance in the practice yard, with swords.

[ All Cain's gestures were unhurried but a little expansive, animated. And his hand only seemed to tremble when his fingers curled; which they did, lightly gripping the lip of the little bit of glassware. But he corrected for it unconsciously, shifted his grip. And laughed, shaking his head. ]

I still want you to teach me a thing or two, about how to use a sword, you know.

And you weren't dancing the right dances! A good, fast dance is... like a good fight, when it gets close, and urgent, and all your nerves are singing, and you can feel when you've got it right.

[ He tapped the fingertips of his left hand atop the table, to recall their attention. ]

But light.

See how the curve of this glass makes the source of light appear a little different in direction than it's actually coming from? With tools as simple as glass, we can learn things about any light.

And here's where shit gets fucky. Time... is really similar. It's not... just a static thing. Forces can affect it, like gravity, like space. It has a physical component.

And space itself, is the same way.

And... all three of these things, light, time, space... they can be sucked out of a world. And, theoretically, into another one.

[ Light he understood, on some visceral level: how it could be ripped from a place. According to Cain's alchemy — if this could still be called alchemy — the light from a source would only need to be diverted, or blocked, or absorbed, like his stream-silt to the bottom of a deep pool, trapped.

Time and space were more difficult to grasp.

He looked at Cain, brow furrowed, trailing his fingers along the back of his neck. ]

Are you suggesting something like it has happened here? I can accept these things for truths, but where are you leading me?

I'm leading you to the definition of a singularity. A... point, where things are pulled from one world, and into another.

But this is probably gonna be something helped with a, um... a kinda visual demonstration. You know what a whirlpool is, right? A water vortex?

[ While talking he'd begun carefully dismantling more of his neatly-stacked glassware. Set a graduated separatory funnel gently into the cylinder. ]

I do.

[ Aymeric watched closely, tense, hands laced together against his lower lip.

He didn't know what a singularity was, and he'd never seen a whirlpool in his life, but he'd seen a vortex. A vortex took chaos in and spun it back out. It was not orderly; it did not take snow from one tree and replace it when it was finished. ]

I've seen such things when the wind is up in the mountains. Not water, but snow.

[ Cain didn't need to know this — and didn't need to hear him talk to soothe his own sudden unease. He folded his hands over one knee, outwardly calm while his fingers were white-knuckled. ]

[ Cain thought of the frequent dust storms on the surface, and... his lips thinned. He didn't miss the flit of Aymeric's hand, at the edge of his vision. He looked briefly toward the window. ]

How bad?

Hm?

[ He looked up, surprised, a little caught. ]

Oh — no, they're incidental. Outside the highest spires of the city, my homeland is oft plagued by storms, but the cold is by far the greater threat. I was only... [ He flashed a rueful, apologetic smile. ] Drawing conclusions ahead of you.

Edited 2019-06-30 16:03 (UTC)

[ He rolled his eyes, smiling, leaned back a little to reach for a pitcher of water tucked to one side of a nearby low bookcase. ]

Where I'm from, the winds would get really bad. Make cyclones in the sand, sometimes bad enough to be colony killers. But a few systems away, there was a planet with a colony-killer storm. The eye of its cyclone was like... ten times the size of this city, easy. Winds hard enough to just rip flesh from bone, crush metal beams thicker than you are like paper.

But even thing of things like that as like.... nothing compared to a singularity. Like comparing a tiny twig to a massive tree. Whirlpools, cyclones, all of that, they're just water and wind, things we can sense a little better.

A singularity's a little like... what happens when similar kinds of force move not water, not air, but space and time... with one big difference I'll explain in a second. They can happen in nature, but pretty rarely, but can also be caused.

[ He took the largest glass flask, wide-mouthed and the one into which most of the rest of his small equipment rest, and poured a measure of water into it. He turned his sleeve, caught it in his free hand while he set the water down, and used his teeth to nip a small wooden button off his sleeve. He took it from his mouth between his fingers and dropped it into the water. It floated, a little. ]

Alright. You with me so far?

[ Aymeric's brows drew together as he listened, chin propped on his knuckles. He was paying close attention, but an imaginative part of his mind ran away with the idea of a storm that could crush a city: storms in the highlands were dangerous, but they were nothing like that. Four stone walls and a fire reduced them to an inconvenience.

He lifted his head, shifting to rouse himself when he realize he was comparing the two.

His eyes tracked the button as it righted itself in the water. Something about it bothered him — about the place on Cain's sleeve that would no longer close right, dangling frayed thread. ]

I am, I think. Your comparisons are useful.

Good.

[ Cain watched Aymeric, chin on his knuckles, eyes alert, mouth set, and paused for just a second.

And then he pressed the small container of water toward the elf, dropped a fine, thin glass dropper into it. ]

Stir it. Circular motions, until you start to see a whirlpool form.

[ It was an indulgent means of demonstration, Aymeric felt, the way a child might learn — but perhaps that was where Cain rated his limited knowledge. He didn't hesitate; leaned forward a little and stirred the water like he did tea, faster and faster, until the little button spun in helpless circles in the center of a tiny vortex.

That was them, he supposed: wooden buttons, at the mercy of some unimaginable force. He glanced up at Cain inquisitively. ]

[ Cain's mouth tilted into a smile as he watched Aymeric, but then he shook his head, and pointed at the button. ]

This is normal. This is a regular whirlpool, a cyclone, a storm. The twig. Everything's still where it was, just a little rattled.

Now imagine all that force, that spinning pressure, not on the scale of little planets and little weather, but... cosmic. Not shifting currents of water and air, but space and time, light and darkness. Forces so big that their center needles down into... reality, and punches through.

The vacuum created by the center of that vortex pulls things in. Same concept as water circling a drain. It pulls down everything with it.

So. You, me, everyone here, we were buttons in our world. Something, someone, put a pin in the place where our realities joined this world. Sucked us here, and at the same time, enough other time to create what's probably an intentional paradox.

So... bear with me, if I had a computer I could make this a fucking lot cooler.

[ He took the glass container of water and scooted it toward him. Tossed it into the graduated piece that tightened into a narrow, dripping end so fast the water didn't have enough time to leak, and then set that to rest atop the now-emptied little glass cup. Used the thin dropper to stir it all over again, creating a whirlpool which now drained through the opening. ]

Right? This, what's happening here, was what happened in the seconds we were snapped from our world. We were pulled to a different place, though a hole someone made. But that means... since it keeps happening... that there is a moment of opportunity, for us. Where we can sense, see, and measure what's happening when someone is pulled through. A moment where the two worlds, by the force of all the things draining from one world into another, have a bridge.

It's a natural phenomenon that's being fuckin'... magically harnessed. The same way I can make a fire, some other mage or power or something knows how to manipulate bigger, more cosmic powers. Stuff like gravity, and space, and time, to make the kind of puncture that can... y'know, make this all happen.

If we have some mages set up to monitor the mirror-room, if we can identify and extend the split-seconds where that bridge of draining is happening... we can probably identify what power is doing it. We can maybe even use those bridges to identify and travel back to other worlds, though that one's a huge long shot.

The only other way to recreate those bridges is to resolve the paradox, the split in time. All the cosmic forces which first made the pull down, once they're here, are tied up in this world, doing other things, being a part of a different loop. Kinda like the water in the bottom container we can't touch to make a whirlpool with.... and even if we could, we can't make the water flow up.

[ He looked to Aymeric to see if that... had caught hold at all. ]

[ It was difficult, and he would have admitted it. It felt something like the lesson where his tutor first taught him where the dead went, and why, and how they arrived there — a concept so abstract that it felt outside of reality, untouchable; a thing to be taken on faith.

At some point he'd tilted his head again, childishly toying with the tip of his ear while he frowned at the button in the water. He stopped the second he realized Cain was looking at him, lifted his head. ]

Then whether we can or cannot harness the mirrors to travel back, monitoring their use is vital. That must be done as swiftly as possible, I should think.

[ He paused, drawing his thumb across his lower lip unconsciously. ]

When you say cosmic forces can be caught up in another loop, how can that be? I...believe you, but I want to understand.

Um... okay, so...

What's important to understand is that... space, time, just like light, they aren't... static things. They can be concentrated in areas, have a... natural movement. Like currents in an ocean, or... a river, or something.

If a whole bunch of new water floods a river, it behaves... differently, wildly, is more destructive, right?

It's kinda the same concept. By coming here, with our own different... time, timelines, we've.... interrupted something. We're like all the new water in a river, making a flood. Whoever pulled us here, they're trying to use the dreams as... walls, dams and stuff, to change the original course of the river, to make something new. Right now, though, we haven't done enough to help them with that goal.

The flooded river is still on the same course, and on that course, you, me, everyone, we all die.

That's our fate, right now. In a little bit of time, we're gonna die here, for nothing.

So, our time is... stuck in that loop. Wrapped up in the river. We need to change its course or leave, else we're all... doomed, basically.

Edited 2019-06-30 20:11 (UTC)

[ Aymeric went pensive and silent, gaze fixed on the water. Change its course or leave, where leaving would mean abandoning the land and all its people to their deaths, if Cain was right, and Aymeric trusted that he was.

He answered slowly— ]

I would like to bend all my efforts to the former possibility and have faith that it will be done — but I have sworn an oath to my city above all others, and...the state of affairs there is fragile. I fear what may have become of it already. If I can leave, I must.

[ He looked at Cain, then, silent and appraising for a moment. ]

My homeland has children, you know. And honey, and spices, and works of art.

Edited 2019-06-30 20:26 (UTC)

And it'd have you, when you go. I love all those things, but you know if I went, it'd be for you.

[ He looked back to the window, again. The shadow of a bird flit past it, a speckled gull. ]

And I'd be a liability, to you. Let's say we get there, you use connections to... what, find me a place to fight? A place to be a strategist?

I'll be hated by people who worked to get hard where they are, and maybe I'll make some kinda difference, but I'll always be the upstart. The outsider. I'm a prickly fuck, and it'll get worse when I know I'm alone. I'll offend the wrong people. You'll come talk to me, eventually, because you must, and so much balances on your knight's reputation. I won't want to tarnish it... but I will. It's who I am, and I'll only change so much for you.

And you'd only change so much for me. Just a little, and mostly where nobody else could see.

[ He smiled and set an elbow on a knee, set his chin in his hand. ]

The other path? You do nothing and let me find my own way. And then what?

You consort with a common woodworker on weekends? Tch, I'm no fuckin' idiot. You're going back to work, and maybe we'll see each other plenty at first, but I'll get less novel, your work will be intense. I can see a time where we haven't seen each other for a seaon, then two, then a year.

It's... sweet. Seriously. I don't think you'd offer somethin' like that to... most people. But I'm not gonna chase after you like a puppy just to flirt when we're alone and tell myself that's enough. And I'm not gonna run from death to let a whole city of other people die. Not if I can stop it.

Not if I have even the smallest fuckin' chance.

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i'm sorry in advance

hahahah oh no!

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