[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

[coquettish_trees]

There is something comforting about it: the weight of a body leaning against her leg, of a head on her knee, hair to smooth with fingers that only barely touch it. It is not the right body, the right head, the right hair, but it is the right holding and that is some small relief for bones that beg for it.

"I thank you. Although I would be a poor companion, I think," she replies ruefully. "I do not know for how long."

[sulahnan]

This comfort she's found isn't one she's hasty to twist away from to study Alexandrie's face, so the only movement is the tug of confusion on her face.

"Whaddya mean?"

[coquettish_trees]

It doesn't belong to anyone else, the silent thing. The way the space between them pushes and pulls, both movements aching, as exquisitely unforgiving as ocean tides. They are too far, they are too close, and the dance of it is only theirs. It is the stuff of nights, too fragile for the day, and she cannot say it into the sun, and the breeze, and the bees that float lazily from flower to flower. She cannot say it at all; there is not a single part of her from breath to lips that will allow it.

I loved him, she will say. I love him, she will not. Not even to someone who had watched her break under holding it.

Something else, then. Anything else.

"I am lonely," she decides on, a truth with a second safer reason to provide, "and it makes me insufferable."

[sulahnan]

Athessa lets out a soft, breathy laugh. Her first thoughts were oh no, and I was insufferable before I even knew I was lonely.

"Then you'd be in good company," she assures. "And if nothing else, there are kittens that sleep in my room."

[coquettish_trees]

Alexandrie's answering laugh is similar, mostly air.

"I am not sure if that is enticement to or ward against me," she replies. "I have never kept a pet, although I recall trying to entice the stable cat into being my friend when I was very young." She hums, half sigh. "They are too earnest for me, I think, especially when they are young. They give a sort of love it is difficult for me to receive. Ask for a sort that is difficult for me to give."

Less so, now, but to feel as she does and have something soft and warm and innocent curl itself on her as if it needs her, loves her, when her guard is already rendered less by the haze the smoke brings? She might weep, and she is so tired of weeping.

"I am sorry you are lonely."

[sulahnan]

It's the only love I'm suited for sings loud in her head and she has to move to press her cheek (the unscarred one) to Lexie's knee instead of her chin, lest her throat works against her when she swallows that thought down.

"I'm sorry, too." That Lexie is lonely, that she pulled such feelings from her on the road from Churneau, and that she herself feels such when all that was asked of her was friendship. Why can't that be enough? That should be more than enough.

"I won't push you," she says, taking a decisive breath as if to push everything bubbling to the surface back down. She rights herself, pulling away from the comfort of physical contact and returning her attention to the stack of books. "But the offer is open, any time. Which one of these were you looking for? I'm not likely to get through them all."

[coquettish_trees]

Her original quest had been entirely forgotten, and so for a moment she only furrows her brow slightly as she clicks back into place.

"The Lectures of First Enchanter Wenselus, I think, if that is not what you are currently reading." A pause, and then, "I will remember. Your offer."

After all, there may well soon be a time when she cannot be anything but broken, and the gentle haze of the drug and something that loves her with the uncomplicated love of soft fur and curious whiskers... it will be needed then.

[sulahnan]

It isn't the one she's been slogging through, so Athessa navigates through the stack to fetch good ol' Wenselus and hand his leathery binding up to Alexandrie.

"Lemme know if you find out anything interesting from it," A request made of equal measures doubt and hope. "I'll do the same."

Double the books in half the time.

[coquettish_trees]

"I shall; although I think perhaps our interests may differ slightly," she says, taking the offered book and setting it in her lap. "What is it you are looking for in these?"

[sulahnan]

"Knowledge, understanding, I dunno. It'd be nice to find out that there's been a way to stop abominations without killing anyone, but I reckon if there was, it'd be known." Unless the Chantry is suppressing that information to perpetuate cruelty of consequence.

[coquettish_trees]

"Then I shall take note of it, if I come to any such subject." She nods, stands, and holds the volume to her chest; a more delicate way to carry such things, if far less convenient than tucking it under her arm.

"Bonne chance, cherie," then, the tilted head and small smile that accompanies the words making it unclear whether the wish is for the research or for the matter of her heart.