open

[inkindled]

WHO: Matthias, Nikos, Salvio (tbd if Doki, Val, and Darras will get open stuff. how did I get all of these characters) + YOU
WHAT: just open stuff, man
WHEN: NOW
WHERE: various
NOTES: tiny bit of self-harm but it's so small and it gets fixed so fast

Comments

cw: self-harm all the way down

[justashotaway]

[ She doesn't mean to find Matthias in the courtyard, but she does. It's a matter of happenstance, coming back from an afternoon of watching people at the market and occasionally intervening in alleyways. Sometimes, she does this: without the City Guard, without Riftwatch, waiting for cutpurses to try their luck and keeping them from success.

Because he seems intent on his roses, she doesn't join him, just watches his back from a distance and admires the slight movements he makes. Silently, she moves a little closer, angling herself so she can see something of what he's doing. He touches a thorn, lets it go, admires the blood that results. And then he does it again. That magic happens in between feels immaterial to her.

She keeps watching from the shadows, wondering what it feels like for him, to break open his skin over and over in the same place. Eventually, when she realizes she'll have to ask to know for sure, she comes a little closer. ]

People dislike it when you make yourself bleed.

[inkindled]

[Laura is quiet when she approaches, besides quiet, naturally--and Matthias is focused--so when she speaks, he jumps, startled. The thorn sticks hard in his thumb and he hisses, shakes it out, even as he looks wildly around at Laura.]

What? No, I'm not-- I mean, I am, yeah, but it's only 'cause I'm practicing. Healing.

[And it's normal. He shoves the rose stem away from him, wipes his bleeding thumb on his shirt.]

S' all right.

[justashotaway]

Oh.

[She kneels down beside him, reaching for his hand so she can look at the little smear of blood on the pad of his thumb. Sometimes small injuries are more painful than larger ones--it looked like it hurt when it jabbed into him this latest time.

There's little she can do for him, so she lets go of his hand and looks up at him with sharp, expectant eyes.]

Will you show me?

[inkindled]

[He gives her his hand willingly, but when she lets go and looks at him, he feels--well, a twinge, maybe, the origin and feeling of which he can't place.]

If you want, yeah.

[He picks up the rose stem again--hesitates, but then there's nothing wrong, this is practice--only it feels different to do it in front of someone--but then he pushes the thorn into his thumb, and the blood beads up again, the cut renewed. Quickly, he drops the stem and cups his other hand around his thumb, concentrating. There's the glow, and then he holds his hand out to her to examine. Where the cut had been, there is now a smooth place, free of flaws.]

[justashotaway]

[ Laura watches, silent. This is the closest she's ever been, she thinks, to magic. Reis kept her far from him when he could; Matthias' fire requires space. But this is something so small that it exists between Matthias' hands.

When he shows her his hand, she observes it without reaching out herself.

She feels...strange. Like something is living inside her, chewing on something inside her ribcage. She doesn't know what the name of this feeling is--she's not sure she's felt it before. ]

What else can you heal?

[ Whatever this sensation is, she doesn't think she likes it. ]

[inkindled]

[Matthias curls his other fingers around his thumb, folds it away.]

Small things, mostly. For now. I've done bigger when I needed to--the war, and all--but I didn't like to, 'cause I was worried that I would cock it up. Make it worse, somehow. Others are better at it. And I want to get better. At all of it--not only healing, but all of it.