[OPEN] Interview With A Mage

[sulahnan]

WHO: Athessa and you!
WHAT: Talking to Magefriends about Magic and Abominations
WHEN: August; Post-Abomination, Pre-Modplot
WHERE: Around the Gallows
NOTES: none yet

i. colin

It's one of the days that sees Athessa helping out in the apothecary, which means busy hands but a mind free to wander. She's separating the buds from dried, woody stems to place each into jars for their individual uses when she speaks:

"I've been thinking a lot about what happened..."

ii. kostos

This isn't a conversation that is going to happen organically. After reading through some esoteric writings on magic in the library, she gives up for a time and stalks off to find Kostos.

"Oi," she calls to him, jogging to catch up with him. "Got a minute?"

iii. isaac

[ Some late night crystal call when Athessa's eyes get tired of reading ]

Isaac, can I pick your brain a bit?

iv. derrica

[ They've had their fair share of difficult conversations of late, and this one bodes no different. The kicker, of course, is that it's far more personal to Derrica than it is to Athessa, so when the latter seeks out the former, she comes bearing gifts. Little spiced cookies and coffee over ice - does Derrica drink coffee? ]

It's not spice cake, but the flavor is pretty close.

v. wildcard/bring out your mage

[ either hmu on disco or plurk and i'll make a starter for you or wildcard me, whichever! ]

Comments

v. did someone say opinions

[coquettish_trees]

They've more than enough treatises on magic in the estate's main library—and Loki's secondary one—but by and large they're of the more esoteric variety. What reason for the brothers to keep anything but books on the finer points of what they had spent their lives in study of?

(She had thought, perhaps, at least Thor—being more hammer than stiletto—would have kept something she could step daintily to from the lessons she had periodically begged of her husband, but even the treatises on thaumaturgical tactics in warfare were written by mages for their peers.)

And so, the Gallows library.

...The Gallows library where The Lectures of First Enchanter Wenselus is missing. And The Four Schools: A Treatise, Beyond the Veil: Spirits and Demons, and even A Dissertation on the Fade as a Physical Manifestation. Inquiry reveals all of them to be with a certain someone... who is also not a mage.

And so, after a few more inquiries, the garden.

"A little light reading?" Alexandrie queries the book stack and its elf.

OPINIONS!!

[sulahnan]

Light reading, that's funny. Athessa looks up from where she'd leaned so far over the book in her hands that if she'd shut it, it'd catch her nose. Her hair is in the kind of messy updo that's clearly the product of trying to get her hair out of her face, then forgetting the style and trying to drag her fingers through it upon reading something particularly confusing.

"Wha?" Is her most eloquent greeting of Alexandrie, then she looks at the stack of books beside her sheepishly. "Oh. Just...trying to wrap my head around this whole...abomination thing."

[coquettish_trees]

Speaking of Athessa's head, that hair is going to be in a tidy side braid with flowers filched from the garden tucked at the start of it by the time this conversation is over. Alexandrie's not even going to ask if she can; after all, she's responding to a piteous cry for help from that 'updo'.

And she needs something to distract herself with, as the muscles in her neck and shoulders tense when Athessa says 'abomination'.

"What of it?" asked lightly as she moves to free the poor hair.

[sulahnan]

She leans her head whichever way is most helpful for Alexandrie's efforts, not even thinking twice about what she might be doing.

"There's gotta be a way to reverse it without the mage dying, right?" Right to the heart of the matter. "I mean there's all this stuff about demons and resisting them, training that can help and all that, but...I mean why does anybody have to die? We have ways of neutralizing magic, why isn't there a way to neutralize possession?"

[coquettish_trees]

"There is," she replies evenly as she settles herself on the bench behind Athessa, removing her gloves and tucking them away so as to better finger-comb through the other woman's curls. After Minrathous, when the worst of her panics had ceased, she had read. Asked. "Not all possessions are malevolent spirits; some have made agreements to work with the mage and might even be asked to leave their body peaceably. It is that demons do not, on the whole, wish to do so.

"Do you mean how they might be forced out?"

i

[keenly]

"About which thing that happened?" Colin asks, not looking up from his work.

[sulahnan]

"The abomination thing," she says, also not diverting her attention. Her handwriting has improved enough that she can label the jars and Colin will be able to read them, rather than relying on being able to identify everything by unique characteristics. "I wasn't in the hall when it happened."

[keenly]

Now he stops working, a gleam of uncertainty coming to his eye. Is Athessa afraid of him now?

"What have you been thinking?"

[sulahnan]

She pauses, smelling the floral contents of the jar in her hand before plugging it with the cork.

"Mostly? Wondering why there isn't a way to...stop that from happening. Or reverse it, maybe."

iii

[wythersake]

How many did you pick it from?

[ hon hon. if he sounds obnoxiously well-rested, he is. this is his morning. ]

[sulahnan]

How many mages we got?

[ Him being well rested should play well off of her perpetual lack of sleep. ]

[wythersake]

Maker, there could be any number of disguised apostates. Someone should check the Commander.

[sulahnan]

[ She snorts. Can you even imagine. ]

I'm guessing you're Circle-trained, since you don't consider yourself apostate?

[tender]

[ Derrica accepts the coffee, though cookies are the real draw. The coffee is an indulgence, which makes Derrica wonder exactly what this is prefacing. ]

I can't believe you even found them, [ Derrica tells her. ] You should let me give you half of what they cost.

[sulahnan]

Sure, you can give me half of nothin', [ She laughs, setting down next to Derrica and of course sitting in a way the seat was not made for. #bisexualdisaster ] Colin made them.

[ She sips her own coffee, which was the real expense here. Not that she'd expect recompense for something she gives freely. ]

They're also a little bit of a bribe, because I was hoping I could ask you some stuff about magic.

[tender]

[ Ah.

There's a split second of hesitation, where Derrica clearly tries to parse what's motivating this. Between the mage in the Gallows and Marcus' post, she hasn't decided which avenue would be easier to tackle. But she sits up a little straighter, breaks off a bite of the cookie as she nods. ]

Yes. What kind of stuff are you curious about?

[sulahnan]

[ She tips her head side to side, knowing that everything is too broad, and abominations too sharply focused. ]

Well...there's a lot, but...I guess in general I just wanna know more so I can figure out a way to help, or something. Dalish Keepers don't go to Circles or anything, but I'm not a mage so I don't even know that much about how Keepers deal with spirits and demons, or if —

[ If they become abominations. Another sip of coffee, a bite of cookie, a shrug. ]

I dunno. But I refuse to be scared of my friends, and can't help being scared for them.

ii, obvs

[exequy]

Have they made up?? Possibly. But it doesn't matter much. Whether they have or not, he keeps walking, at most slowing his pace a little to accommodate her walking alongside him.

He has a wisp with him. Maybe that's convenient.

"One," he says. One minute. (Really he has several, as long as she's willing to walk up the stairs of the central tower with him.)

[sulahnan]

"Not literally a minute, fuck-ass," Even if they haven't made up, she's calling him a fuck-ass.

"I wanna know about spirit magic. Possession. That kind of shit."

[exequy]

"Have you checked," with dry and thin patience, "the library?"

[sulahnan]

She sighs. "Yes. And I can read maps, too, but asking a local for directions tends to be more helpful."

v. the other side of the tracks (closed to Barrow)

[sulahnan]

The book she brings with her to Barrow's room this time isn't one for reading to him, just one that she's been trying to muddle through without a lot of success. It's very esoteric.

Mainly her purpose for visiting, besides smoking in the wake of semi-disaster, is bringing Lord Fluffy Tumington back to give Barrow another dose of the healing power of kittens.

"Your medicine, good ser," she says, holding the kitten draped over her arm and the joint between two fingers. Take your pick, Barrow.

[thereneverwas]

Barrow opens his hands expectantly, reaching for the kitten as he is deposited in place. Then, as LFT purrs and begins to get situated, Barrow ensures his comfort by scratching his ears whenever he can reach them.

"Thank you, nurse," he says sleepily.

[sulahnan]

With LFT deposited, Athessa then deposits herself in what's become her chair, one leg slung over one arm rest and her back against the other.

"I hope Sister Sara approves of my efforts," she laughs. "At least as a break from her having to tend to my injuries."

[thereneverwas]

"If she does, it will be the first thing I've known her to approve of," Barrow says with a smirk, "but fortunately she hasn't killed either of us yet."