paradisalogs | [Closed] But what I do know

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[Closed] But what I do know

Who: Felix and Thamuris
What: Unwise decisions on magic
When: After Valentine's shenanigans
Where: Thamuris's rooms
Rating: PG

Thamuris did his best to try not to fidget as he sat in his rooms and waited for Felix. He was quietly grateful that his friend had let him pick where they tried this - aside from the library, this was where he felt the most comfortable. And the library was far too public for something like this. If the weather had been nicer, he might have picked somewhere outside - but it was still far too cold for his liking.

He glanced around the room, and resisted the urge to pace or straighten things. He didn't have much to straighten, anyway - he'd never really been one for lavish furnishings - never had time, and it wasn't much in Troian style. Some nice rugs, a few comfortable chairs, and not much else. He'd been less nervous about this last time, though he knew a good deal of that was being out of his mind on laudanum. This time... he had something to prove. That he still had the strength to do this - and the willpower to only do it once>. He'd been practicing other magic, other divinations - but most of those were less certain, and took longer to see if one's results were reliable. Pythian casting, less so. And he was infinitely grateful Felix agreed to help him. Now if only he'd show up.

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He hadn't been intentionally late to worry Thamuris. Or intentionally late at all, though his personal habits often dictated that on their own. The fact was he had significant cause to be worried about what he thought of a possibly suicidal venture. On one hand, the magical expenditure could easily cause the other wizard's health to regress, and on the other, he'd seen enough to know that doing divination in the castle was a risky venture at best. It still gnawed at him, as well, the idea that he could adversary affect fate in so doing.

But Thamuris had reached out. To him. And he had a suspicion, given the sound of need in his voice, like an addict hoping for one last fix, that he would try regardless.

He still didn't like it.

Somewhat resigned, he finally knocked on Thamuris' door.

Thamuris started, the noise at the door interrupting his mental train of nervousness. He rose from where he'd been seated, and did his best to try and look composed before he went to answer the door, though he wasn't certain how well he was succeeding at it. But he didn't want to wait, so he opened the door, and gave Felix what he hoped was a nice, calm, polite smile.

"Felix. Come in."

Felix was less outwardly cheerful than normal at the greeting, though he'd attempted to rein himself in from outwardly stormy. Thamuris didn't need the pressure of his famous moods to add to the strain of this endeavor.

He glanced around the room, giving it a cursory inspection. "I see you've settled in," he said, sweeping in at Thamuris' invitation.

It wasn't hard to tell that Felix wasn't entirely pleased with this whole situation. Thamuris knew he probably wouldn't be, he'd barely managed to talk Felix into doing this in the first place, but it wasn't helping him to feel any less nervous.

"Well. Yes, a bit, I suppose. It's nice having a room to myself again." The attempts at normal conversation felt strained even to him.

"I suppose we should get started, then." He'd set out cushions on the floor for them to sit on while they'd been waiting, and he headed towards one of them himself.

"Yes, of course, no need to dally, I suppose," he said, equally unwilling to stretch out the tension any longer than he had to. It only increased the chance he was going to say something uncharitable.

He followed after Thamuris and sat down on the opposite cushion.

Thamuris settled down on his cushion, and rested his arms, palms up on his knees. He did his best to settle his thoughts, calling on the meditative techniques he knew. In some ways it had been easier to do on laudanum - the drug had drowned out any other thoughts in a haze - but he knew it was both selfish and unwise to wish for that now.

"When you're ready, take my hands and ask your question."

There was only so ready you could be for something like this - like bracing oneself for something painful, like the stick of a needle. Though physical pain would be easier to accept than the uncomfortable idea of meddling with fate. The effects could be far more lasting.

Felix reached out, slowly, and placed his hands over Thamuris', his grip light but stiff with more than just tension.

He took a breath and said, "What will I be doing next week?"

It wasn't a terribly exciting question, and therefor far less dangerous, and limited to himself, any fallback was more likely to fall on him than a random resident. This exercise was about more than the question, after all.

Thamuris could feel the spell he'd mentally woven take hold as Felix asked his question, and his hands clamped down tightly on Felix's own instinctively - not tight enough to be painful, but it would be difficult to break free.

He felt his conciousness and his magic follow old, well-worn lines, as it expanded outwards from him, reaching for the huphantike, the stream of future-knowledge that he could sense. And then, abruptly as he had left his own awareness of his body, something pulled him away from the huphantike, jolted him back into the reality of his room, pain lancing from his temples.

It was a good thing he didn't wear his rings anymore, or it would have caused them both considerable discomfort. He didn't think about them much anymore, and it was Thamuris more than anyone that brought those memories up.

He waited, watching the other wizard carefully, wondering if this would be like Mildmay's experience with the ritual, though he sincerely hoped it wouldn't. Felix had a wizard's patience, and it wasn't hard to allow whatever it was to happen. He remembered that there should be some kind of trance, at least.

But it didn't seem to come. He sensing the sensing in Thamuris' body, but stoutly refused to let go in case that would cause more harm and good. He frowned.

"Thamuris?"

Thamuris blinked, feeling abruptly more grounded at the sound of his name, and then frowned.

"Something went wrong - though not badly wrong. I got cut off before I could reach the huphantike. I'm still... holding your question in the pattern of the spell, so I can try again."

It was hard to sound casual about this, to act like it was a mere set back, when in reality, whatever he'd hit had shaken him. He knew the myriad ways this spell could fail - and that was not one of them.

With Felix's question in mind, he dove into the trance again, throwing the full power of his will and his magic into reaching outward for the familiar stream of knowledge.

Whatever he'd hit before was twice as powerful, though, and at the stab of pain, he actually rocked backwards slightly as he was thrown, forcefully, out of his trance. Distantly, he could feel a warm trickle on his upper lip which some small part of his mind registered as his nose bleeding.

This time was far more worrying, and he very nearly let go when Thamuris jerked. He settled for gripping hard instead and leaning in closer to get his attention.

"Thamuris? What happened?!"

Thamuris started slightly when Felix squeezed his hands, though he tried to hide it.

"I... something is blocking the huphantike from me. I can't reach it." He couldn't hide the shaky fear in his voice, that something could force him out like that. True, he didn't quite have the strength he'd had before falling ill, but he was a great deal stronger than he had been when he'd done this with Mildmay.

"Do you think it was the question?" he asked, none to thrilled with the idea of continuing this exercise but more concerned for Thamuris if they didn't. He had suspicions about what might be interfering but it was hard to be certain.

Thamuris shook his head, and let go of Felix's hand so he could reach up and wipe the trickle of blood from his nose away.

"You could have asked something you knew the answer to, and the huphantike would have answered."

He tried to pull together some sense of calm, but it was fairly well shattered at this point.

"I know all the ways the spell can fail - and I know that wasn't one of them."

Which was, perhaps, what had him rattled the most.

He couldn't exactly question Thamuris on that notion, given he was an expert on the topic and Felix was an uneducated commoner by comparison, at least where divination magic was concerned.

"Explain what happened then. Maybe we can figure out the reason," he said, though the real reason was more the hope of keeping Thamuris talking and out of the realm of outright panic.

He didn't hold out much hope, but there was some.

Thamuris tried to take a few deep breaths, to steady himself, though they came out more uneven than he hoped.

"One of the important steps of pythian casting - the step where it most frequently fails - is reaching out with the mind to make contact with the huphantike, to draw it into oneself. Not everyone can sense it, and of those that do, not all of them have the strength to reach it - or the strength for their bodies to contain it, even for a short while."

He took another breath, and continued. "I... could sense it. Very clearly. Enough that it shouldn't have been any trouble to reach it." Sustaining it had been his larger concern. "But something blocked it from me. Something painful."

Felix tucked his hands into his arms, unsure of how to deal with this situation. He wasn't very good at emotions, less so in Thamuris whose relationship with him had always been fairly academic. At least, until lately.

"It has to be the castle then. I do know, given some earlier exercises, that the castle will block any attempt at divination, but only in regards to itself, which is why I phrased the question as neutrally as I did. I think, given that, it's more likely that...this is your loss."

Thamuris knew of losses - he paid enough attention to what others wrote and said in the journals. True, he hadn't discovered his own, though it wasn't something that he'd put much thought into, but... He shook his head. This was who he was - what he was.

"No, it... it has to be something else. Something other than this." His voice was shaky, distant even to him - he felt like it was drowned out by the pounding of his heart trying to escape his chest.

Edited 2013-03-08 08:49 (UTC)

Tell Thamuris the truth was like kicking a starving puppy.

"It could be simply that it's blocking the spell for reasons I can't quite fathom. But it's just that...I've never seen loss that wasn't something important to you somehow..."

He couldn't stop his hands from shaking. Felix didn't understand, couldn't understand.

"No, this- this is what I am." Even the illness had not taken the huphantike from him, not truly. Too weak to let it course through him without burning himself up entirely, but it had been there. Now - it was like a wall block it off, closing him in himself, closing him in here.

He frowned at that and clamped his hand down on the one hand Thamuris hadn't yet pulled away.

"That's ridiculous. Thamuris, I've known you for long enough to say you are more than what you were trained to do." Something about that twisted in his insides, but he pushed it aside.

That grip was like a lifeline, almost, a tether to the here-and-now. With Felix holding it, he could feel the last of his self-imposed strength slipping away, and he collapsed in on himself, shoulders slumping. He was crying, too, though he had just enough self-control left that it was nearly silent.

"What... what am I now, then?"

His voice and his grip softened, though he didn't dare pull away. It felt like too much, but perhaps it was for the best it was him in this place, rather than another. Someone who could answer this question truthfully.

"A man with more insight and intellectual curiosity than most people I have ever met. A man with the makings of a true scholar. A man with more compassion than his peers - who stood up for my brother when he needed it. And a friend..."

The words tore a laugh out of Thamuris - surprised, wet, and a little broken, but a laugh nonetheless. He had not truly expected an answer to his question.

"And I'm - supposed to believe an inveterate flatterer like yourself?"

His voice was still cracking, but there was a faint trace of humor under it, and he felt... more present. Like something had snapped back into place when Felix had spoken.

He reached out and placed his other hand lightly upon Thamuris' shoulder, the gesture as stiffly awkward as the tiny smile on his lips, very different from his usual brand of blinding charm.

"I may be that, but when have you ever known me to actually lie?"

Thamuris could feel a little twist in his stomach at what Felix said - he meant well by it, now, but that wasn't always so. He didn't have the energy for an argument, though - didn't feel like he had the energy for much of anything. There was a cold, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach when he thought of the idea of never being able to touch the huphantike again - but he was no longer feeling the overwhelming fear.

He managed to give Felix a small, shaky smile, "Sorry for... all that."

It seemed Felix had things to teach Thamuris as far as dramatics were concerned, and under the circumstances, he couldn't fault the other man at all for being upset. His own loss was mild - something he'd long acknowledge and occasionally felt guilty for - though the castle did an admirable job of making up the difference.

He dropped his arm and after a moment of consideration, shifted to carefully sit next to Thamuris instead, not quite touching and staring more at his lap than anything.

"It's fine. I would have been more concerned if you hadn't reacted at all."

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[Closed] But what I do know

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