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Entry tags:
open + closed;
WHO: Viktor + Abby + Bastien + Edgard + Ellis + Mobius + Richard + Stephen + Tony
WHAT: catch-all for November
WHEN: now, kind of, but also whenever
WHERE: around the Gallows, particularly the library and Research division workroom
NOTES: Open to all/any, wildcards and tweaks welcome. Will match tag format. Content warning for terminal illness in some threads; will avoid on request. Also!! Hit me up if you want to share a job.
WHAT: catch-all for November
WHEN: now, kind of, but also whenever
WHERE: around the Gallows, particularly the library and Research division workroom
NOTES: Open to all/any, wildcards and tweaks welcome. Will match tag format. Content warning for terminal illness in some threads; will avoid on request. Also!! Hit me up if you want to share a job.
Nighttime cracks an eye to gloaming dawn, to a fog moving at a steady crawl between the Gallows and Kirkwall proper, like it's a huge vessel passing by, like it's going somewhere. Fleeing the sun, maybe. A futile effort.
Viktor likewise cracks an eye, two eyes, squints through a fog receding. He raises his head, wipes his mouth, drags a little reading glass on a chain into the gutter and shuts the book around it. On Astrariums, the cover says. Has he ever put his head down 'just to rest' and not ended up warping at least one page with biological humidity?
Since no one's kicked him out of it—or at least had any success to date, should they have tried—this single side room on the lowest floor of the library has fully evolved into a combination office and living space. From it Viktor emerges with crazy hair and an armful of other books, squinting and snuffling and stiff, taps over to the return cart stationed nearby, and adds them to his prior deposits. He then leaves with the cart; his crutch, leaned out of the way, stays behind.
From there he moves slowly between aisles, stopping here and there to slide a book into place, or to leave it out conspicuously so someone who climbs ladders can put it back where it lives. Once in a while he'll pause with a hand on the shelf to yield to a coughing fit, or else to wait for some other silent thing to pass, before moving on.
No one asks him to do this, he just does it.
Other times, he may be found on any library floor, or back in his ('his') little side room, either busy at the table, or asleep on the settee. (Or asleep at the table. Again.) The door is often open, sometimes left unlatched and open a crack.
On rare occasions he may be found on the library's stone balcony, either sitting alone on a bench (also stone), or leaning on the balustrade (is anything not made of stone here) to look out over the sea, nursing some private melancholy.
Later, when the tower begins to sound like it's waking up, Viktor makes the climb to the seventh floor and assumes his spot in the Research workroom. Settles his bony backside on the stool. Spins a dry pen around his thumb while he thinks.
It looks like he's pondering some deep mystery; what he's thinking, really, is that it's annoying that no one exists here who can check his work on this page or the pages beneath it. (Annoying, upsetting, a constant low ache.) No one needs to check that half of his work. It's fine. He knows it's fine. Still—
Should any be present, he might ask of someone he knows has worked with local runes,
"Can I run something past you?"
Or, of a rifter, or else anyone he's hardly spoken to,
"How well versed are you in the native runic system?"
Or it's any other day and he's just toiling away in here like anyone else might be. Coworkers will have found he tends to respond at least lukewarmly to working chatter, and that if he doesn't want to be interrupted, they won't have to guess—they'll know.
The sound of coughing follows him everywhere: a herald of his arrival, a sign of his otherwise quiet presence, a dry barking down the hall.
reaches for
“How did you learn? Everything that you do.” Strange gestures, encompassing everything Viktor: the careful sets of tools, the deconstructed and reconstructed goggles, the young man’s meticulous attention-to-detail in his corner of the Research workspace.
no subject
Before he met an old man in a cave and his giant pink salamander. In that cave he learned about the scientific method and encountered some truly nightmarish imagery that he can never unsee. Don't worry about it.
"Much later, much like you, I was identified and given a hand up by someone very old and very wise."
He doesn't like that the conversation's eye has swivelled over to him, but bears it well.
no subject
Speaking from obvious personal experience. (Strange keeps trying not to project, but it’s hard not to: their respective disabilities. A certain prickly self-sufficiency. He sees a little of himself in this younger man, and perhaps it’s part of what drew him to Viktor to begin with.)
It is difficult to navigate these waters, though. Strange is somehow both nosy and yet also allergic to that conversation sliding, becoming too personal for either of them. So he makes a sudden sharp pivot to safer territory, the professional and business-like and Research-related: “I’ve decided I’m going to start pitching in on Project Felandaris, by the by. If you ever want another set of hands on your own work with it.”
no subject
Plus, visually. The facial hair is a very particular shape. A cultural hallmark, maybe. He noticed it once and now he notices it every time.
His eyes tick up from looking at it, in fact, along with an overall brightening for the offer.
"Oh? Excellent news. Of course, your assistance would be most welcome." Off an idea, he sits up. "Have you been introduced to our department's technology? The ARRIVED system? The thaumoscopes?"
no subject
You know how it goes.
“But I do want to know more, because if it’s what it sounds like, I had a fairly similar alerting system back home: it could tell when we had visitors from another plane. I’m impressed that there’s something like it here. Want to show me the ropes?” Is that even a saying where Viktor comes from? Amending, “I mean, give me the tour.”
no subject
They do have it, the ropes thing, but that detail is left in the dust as Viktor swivels from his task and stands. In the same movement, his crutch is taken up and flicked under his arm with seamless motor memory. He's a good four inches shorter than the doctor, even a little more so thanks to his sloping posture, and takes looking up to speak to him in stride.
"Thaumoscope first—there's one right over here." Springing a thought off the familiarity of a given name, "Now I'm wondering if your system lent anything to the creation of the one we have here. That's one thing I've come to appreciate about being here... this collection of minds, and the rich pool of knowledge it affords. That we have several highly innovative engineers among our ranks is quite the fortunate accident."
no subject
A joke, mild, as he’s led over to inspect one of those thaumoscopes: the delicate copper antennae, the gears and dials. It’s much prettier than the scientific hardware back home, and so more than anything, it reminds him of the various artifacts in the Sanctum’s storage. Touch the wrong thing there and it might blow up in your face.
And Strange has latched onto the etymology. Thaumaturgy and wonderworking, he thinks, and says aloud: “Thaum. Like the Greek thaûma, meaning ‘miracle’ or ‘marvel’.” Then, redirecting the full wattage of his curiosity onto Viktor, the arch of one eyebrow: “Does this thing measure magic?”
no subject
It doesn't ruin his day; he's very pleased to have the opportunity to show a new thing to someone interested, as well as the dip into etymology (that means the interest is genuine!), and though his mien is somewhat restrained, he practically radiates this pleasure as he brings the thaumoscope closer to the doctor for a better look.
"That is precisely what it does. With reasonable accuracy, too." When he looks up from the device's little assortment of ingeniously devised meters, there's a certain gleam in his amber eye. "Would you like to see?"
no subject
He isn’t always this polite — usually quite the contrary — but there is a very particular button labelled FUN MAGICAL ARTIFACTS in Stephen Strange’s brain, and Viktor’s just hammered it. Strange is intrigued, curious, and therefore playing along to find out more: leaning closer, peering at the device, but mindful to not just reach out and seize it out of the other man’s hands.
(It had taken years, but he has finally learned to not touch the macguffins before he fully understands how they work.)
no subject
"Keep an eye on this one especially," he says, indicating which with the angle of his thumb. "The way it jumps." The meters' sedate clicks of registration pick up as he brings it in closer; he finishes nearly touching it, then resets his position.
"And now..."
This time, his fingers spread and stiffen, not quite a claw, like he's imagining he must keep a hold on some large invisible sphere. A cord in his wrist stands out. Flexion at the inside of his elbow. Effort shows on his face, the set of his mouth, his nostrils. Just as his hand begins a faint trembling under the strain of it, that quiet green crease suddenly snaps into sizzling acid glow. At once, the thaumoscope crackles its excitement—it grows to an excited fizz of tiny sounds, the meters pipping madly as his palm comes near.
wrap or yrs to close?
“So I’m assuming the arrival system is like a larger extension of this, maybe?” Radar, he wants to say radar but he really needs to stop with terminology which probably doesn’t carry over, “It pings on magic with varying sensitivity, and presumably the opening rifts are an even larger outburst of magical energy—”
And they discuss, and that’s how they while away the rest of the afternoon: Viktor showing him around, explaining the intricacies of the thaumoscope and how to use it, eventually taking a tour through the ARRIVED system. They don’t come across anything earthshatteringly new, but they get to play around with the toys in the Research division — which is a good enough way to kill a day, and mucking around with the artifacts feels enough like Christmas that the newer rifter is, frankly, delighted.