open | if every constellation above us has a counterpart below.

[portalling]

WHO: Stephen Strange & you
WHAT: yet another new rifter arrival
WHEN: nowish and throughout his quarantine period
WHERE: Around the Gallows
NOTES: Catch-all spot for the month and to continue TDM arrival threads; feel free to tag in tho!

arrival (a variety of prompts).

It begins as an anxiety dream.

He’s experienced no end of nightmares about no end of trauma, but this time the stakes are banal: Doctor Strange is dressed sharply in a formal suit with a scarlet pocket square, giving a speech at a medical conference, standing at a podium staring at the hundreds of faces staring back at him, and finding that his iron-trap memory has suddenly failed and he’s forgotten his entire damned speech. It’s almost a relief when the enormous tentacled eyeball monster barges into the conference center, sending people screaming and scattering, and just as the Cloak of Levitation reappears around his shoulders, Strange finds himself —

somewhere else —

What ensues is a disorienting battle on the outskirts of Orlais, with a rifter appearing in anachronistic formalwear and a red cloak gone inanimate, with a conference lanyard hanging around his neck and a little adhesive nametag (‘DR. STEPHEN STRANGE, MD, PHD, NEW YORK METRO-GENERAL HOSPITAL’ now rendered in Thedan script). And in the fight, Strange realises that almost none of his magic behaves as he expects it to. It’s not the first time he’s found himself unexpectedly dumped in another universe, but this is the first time his own capabilities have failed him. Even after the battle ends, wraiths banished and his dream-monster killed, he keeps trying to light a spark of fire between his hands and finding it more difficult than it ought to be. On the carriage ride back to Kirkwall, with both him and the Riftwatch agents covered in horrid black ichor and gore from the eyeball monster’s innards, at least Strange has the decency to look a little sheepish while the other agents scrutinise him.

“Done this sort of reception a lot?” he asks, lightly, while he keeps unconsciously kneading at his left palm. His hand aches. This is normal. What isn’t normal is the green shard embedded in it like some kind of ethereal splinter, and it makes the usual pain in his scarred hands even worse.

Afterwards, during his quarantine, he can be found in the library at all hours, surrounded by stacks of books, devouring them even late into the night – he’s an avaricious student, and wants to learn everything about his new circumstances. He breaks the polite silence when a glob of hot wax from a candle lands on his wrist, and he curses with a sudden sharp “Oh, what the fuck.”

Strange goes for long walks around the Gallows. You might literally run into him where he’s crouched in a hallway in the lower levels, examining the cleansing runes embedded in the floor which prevent the growth of red lyrium, puzzling over the clearly-magical symbols, feeling that faint hum of magic in the back of his teeth. “Do you happen to know what these do?”

He also inevitably winds up poking his head into the infirmary, morbidly curious; one might walk in on him peering through the bottles of potions and jars of dried herbs, and surveying the surgical tools with a thoughtful little hm in the back of his throat.

wildcard.

feel free to toss me anything (late-night insomnia wandering the halls? new dorm roommates? mealtime in the dining hall?) and i’ll roll with it! or hmu @ quadrille to confab. i’ll match prose or brackets.

Comments

[portalling]

“Yes. It’s dramatically, emphatically forbidden back home as well. And— well, I think I have that one alongside Genitivi’s Travels of a Chantry Scholar, and…” Strange flicks through the spines of the books stacked next to him, checking the titles. They’re grouped by topic as if he’s rolled back time and researching for a thesis; he’s currently still working through general Theodosian history, but for the background books on magic, there’s a copy of On Lyrium: a Templar’s Memoir and a slip of paper with a near-unreadable scrawl. (He’d tried to write Fade and Spirits Mysterious, for future reference and checkout. At least he could decipher his own scribble, mostly.)

His fingers tap on the edge of the stack, restless. He can’t even say that this sort of thing wasn’t a red flag back home. There were rules, regulations. He’d always just barreled through and decided that they, conveniently, did not apply to him. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing he could get away with here.

“Mages here are like— walking bombs, right? Handle with care and hope they don’t go off, but they always might?”

[favoriteanalyst]

Mobius is keenly aware that how he answers a question like that is a delicate matter. Not one that Strange would likely have caught wind of just yet, but still, it's floating out there, that the mild-mannered librarian is/was/is/was a Templar. But he won't simply ignore the question or skirt around it. He just purses his lips while he tries to find the right words for it.

"That's a simplistic and reductive way to look at it," he starts. And then tips his head. "But not necessarily wrong, either. If a mage is trained to handle their abilities, then there really shouldn't be any problems. There's always the possibility, however, of demonic possession. It's something to be aware of, something they might have to contend with their whole lives, and mages who are weak of will or haven't been trained enough to learn how to ignore or defeat any such temptations carry that risk." All mages carry the risk, period, no matter how strong. Harrowings are...controversial to talk about, for reasons he is all too familiar with, but he doesn't disagree with the basic principle.

"Magic is a wonderful and grave responsibility. I really don't envy mages--well, most of the time." But then, he's fully capable of his own brand of powers that the general population does not. Semantics.

[portalling]

“And demons can possess anyone, right, but it’s easier for them to get their hooks into weak-willed mages. Do you know if rifter mages are as affected, even if our magic behaves differently? Is it all still mostly due to the Fade?”

This is, probably, a really disconcerting train of thought for Strange to be meandering down. He keeps having to remind himself to not go all the way down that road, like pulling himself up short on a tighter leash. To stop tossing up red flags in front of the locals. His mouth thins, quirks at the side.

“Again, for the record, I really truly don’t intend to go risking your reality.” One universe locking him up and telling him he was the doom of them all was quite enough. “I’m just getting a sense of the danger. The warning labels.”

[favoriteanalyst]

"I don't see why not. I don't know for certain if it's the case, but look at it this way: even if your magic is technically different, it's still analogous to our magic. Magic taps into the Fade, and it's like a beacon for demons."

Actually, now that he's said that, someone like Strange or any of the other Rifters who use magic but haven't been through a Harrowing seems very...alarming. In theory, shouldn't magical Rifters be like a dinner bell? Hm.

"But you're right, demons can get to anyone. They don't even have to be alive. They can possess corpses, too. Andrastians burn their dead for a whole slew of reasons, but that's definitely got to be one of them. It's not a frequent occurrence, though, else you'd get whole battlefields rising from the dead." He sucks in a breath through his teeth. The more Strange insists that he doesn't plan on doing anything untoward, the more the [x]doubt starts to rise. "Just...be careful with what you do and how you go about doing it. It might behoove you to seek out one of our native mages as a teacher or a guide."

Marcus might be a good choice. But also, Mobius isn't going to namedrop that man if he can help it.

[portalling]

“Corpses? What, like zombies?”

Oh no. Best not mention that whole dreamwalking-into-his-own-corpse thing.

Instead, Strange nods in gratitude, relenting. “I’m certainly pestering as many of them’ll have me; it’s really fascinating stuff, actually, the places where our schools of magic seem to line up. But either way, thanks for letting me pick your brain. Mobius, right? You’re the librarian here?”

Their interactions, earlier, had been businesslike topics: a brief exchange of names and then book recommendations, Mobius pointing him in the right direction up and down the aisles, Strange too busy with his studies to stop for long. The conversation tonight is good, though; it has him realising how his eyes ache and his back is stiff from where he’s been sitting at the table for so long, so this change of pace is nice.

[favoriteanalyst]

"Walking, talking, attacking, mutilating corpses. If that's what you want to call a zombie." With a shrug. There might be nuances with definitions, but it's still the reanimated dead in any event. And bad news all around.

At the change of topic, Mobius gives a short chuckle, leaning back in his seat and stretching his legs out under the table, mindful not to knock Strange's legs in return. "I sort of picked it up. Started doing it, and no one told me to stop. What can I say, I've been a bookworm ever since I can remember. Seems the same goes for you," with a nod to the stacks. "I can keep them tucked away for when I imagine you'll come back first thing in the morning."

Hopefully after breakfast and not skipping meals. And that not so subtle nudge suggesting Strange leave it be before his eyes fall out of his head.

Maker, but he wants to keep picking this man's brain, learn about his world(s?) and the way magic seems to work in them. But that can wait until after an attempt at sleep, at least.

[portalling]

Not-so-subtle indeed. And while, once upon a time, he might have snapped at anyone simply trying to be helpful to him— Christine insisting that he was pushing it too far, that the physical therapy couldn’t be rushed, that he was a goddamned doctor and so why did he keep doing the exact opposite of what was good for him—

Tonight, well, the man’s just tired. He misses Wong. It’s surprisingly nice to have a friendly face reminding him that he’s only human and he does need some rest. He can’t just haul one of the books back to his room to keep reading in bed, either; he’s going to run out of candles. (He also misses his tablet.)

So Strange, grudgingly, rises to his feet and slides the stack across the table towards Mobius for safekeeping. “Alright. Deal.” A moment, then, “Are you usually here? I’ll probably be back whenever I’m asleep or not in—” a faint wince, the self-consciousness of someone plunged back into a pseudo-classroom environment when he hadn’t expected it, “rifter immersion classes. Or whatever they’re unofficially called.”

[favoriteanalyst]

Mobius' grin broadens as he looks up at the man. "I like what you called it, so I might start calling it that from now on. We'll have to talk more about your world. When you're not in immersion."

He slowly gets up himself, starting to put out the candles on the table (with a little lick and pinch of fingers). "Usually here. If I'm not, then I might be in the chapel or out in the yard training. If we're real unlucky, I might be trying to nap under the desk." He keeps a few spare blankets and at least one pillow stashed away. When the sound of people startling awake is too much, or if he wants to try and catch a few out of sight. Or if someone else is dozing off, like draping a blanket around Ellie's shoulders. "Worst comes to it," he digs out the crystal from around his neck, "give me a holler through here. I'll make sure no one pilfers your stash of knowledge in the meantime."

wrap!

[portalling]

“Better not. I’ll be back with a vengeance otherwise.” A mild joke, a flicker of a smile. Strange unconsciously pats his pockets, double-checking that he still has his crystal on him; he keeps it on the same side where he’d always stored the sling ring, once upon a time. Keep all your everyday magical items in the same spot.

Strange tidily shoves his chair back under the table, and then he’s off, reluctantly leaving the pile of books behind in the librarian’s safekeeping— but he’s at least one connection the richer. And as he sets off into the middle-of-the-night Gallows to wend his way back to the living quarters, he finds himself feeling a little more settled, a little more grounded.

He’s stranded here. Fine. Having to learn the ins and outs of a brand-new universe. Fine. But the people are helpful, and the libraries are deep — so perhaps it’s not the worst thing ever.