2021-10-01: Piece by Piece
- Log: Piece by Piece
- Cast: Ida Everstead-Rey, Timotheus Lovelace
- Where: Sylvaland City - Kalkuricco Borough
- Date: October 01, 2021
- Summary: Timotheus Lovelace has something which he wishes to learn from Ida.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
By the metrics she'd set, Ida's first foray back to Meribus and Glenwood was a success. The Dust Dragoon had performed admirably, allowing her to traverse Mount Manfred with little difficulty--and to recover what she'd left behind in Castle Rabenstein. She'd even gone overseas, following rumors of massive Hellions in Rolance. No one stopped her. The rumors had died down. Lunar never knew how close it had come to the edge.
So why does she feel so horribly uneasy? The answer, she feels, is complicated.
Part of it is the fact that when she looks at her notes on Malevolence--notes she'd inscribed herself--she can see her conflict and desperation seeping through every page. Little diagrams hypothesizing about the Trial Knight's nature and control of Malevolence. A half-baked plan to construct Malevolence-sensors. Notes on pits she'd found while exploring Glenwood, so steeped in Malevolence they were at once entrancing and terrifying. She didn't dare explore them.
Ida made the call herself: she would only crack open her notes in a comfortable setting, and the little tea shop she's grown fond of fits the bill. Ida sits at a table in the back, a stack of scrolls and leather-bound notebooks set carefully in front of her. She sips her favorite blend of tea to steady herself. Looking at her, no one would suspect a thing--she's just a scholar, a member of ARMS, conducting research. Her button-down silk shirt is clean and pressed, as are her slacks, and her boots are freshly-shined. Absolutely nothing horrible to see here.
And yet.
...and yet...
It's like an old scar that never truly healed. Ida can see the raw emotion in her words--but there is a tiny voice inside her that tells her that surrendering her power wasn't the only option. Things were so much better. They feared you. You've lost something.
But isn't that to be expected, bound to this pale reflection of what was?
Ida glances at the pocketwatch next to her teacup and reminds herself she has an appointment with her alienist in two days. She needs to discuss the medication.
Rise. Fall. Rise again. It matters not.
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
"Ah. So here you are, girl."
Tap tap. Tap-tap-tap tap.
The man moves slowly as he approaches her table at the shop. At his age, well-gnarled by his years, he must rely on his cane to get about. The most notable thing about the man is, in fact, the eyepatch that covers about half his face: he only has his left eye remaining to him. But the tattoos he bears -- covering nearly all of his exposed flesh -- are certainly the second-most notable: this man is a Symbologist.
A master of the art, in fact.
His robes are worn. His beard, slightly unkempt. He's been traveling on the limited funds he still possesses: even a master sorceror cannot teleport hither and yon as they please.
BGM: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vB4E7Avgf9g
Timotheus Lovelace has invited himself to Ida's table.
"Finding you was not easy. I suppose you were standing on the soil of that other world? To think that the moon itself was inhabited. Were I a younger man... but there is no time for such things," the man finishes, narrowing his single dark eye.
"Tell me... have you much contact with 'that boy'? That boy, with those blue eyes. He has been most elusive of late. But no matter. With what tethers me to him, I need only follow. ...And you? Do you follow his beckonings, like a puppet?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
When, Ida thinks, did it get so cold in here? She pulls her trenchcoat off the back of her chair, and tucks her arms into the sleeves. It doesn't help. She looks down at her notes, eyes narrowing in suspicion--but they were purified along with her, and the rest of her Domain. There isn't the slightest whiff of Malevolence on them.
As he approaches, he can sense them like the threads of a spider's web. Thin steel chains linking this one to the others. The strongest, of course, feels like it's tied to the other girl, the courier. Another is linked to him. The taint is faint upon this one, but it's still there, and it flares darker as he approaches, fell power to fell power.
'Ah. So here you are, girl.'
Ida still hears that voice in her nightmares. She freezes in place, back straight, quicksilver pressing against her neck and hands as if it could burst through at any moment. When she looks at the sorcerer, everything about her is raw adrenaline, barely-restrained. "You," Ida says, and her voice is as icy as the mists he can feel curling about her. A city twisted upon itself. An ouroboros.
Cold. She feels so cold. Like she's standing beneath the rain.
"I know several men with blue eyes," she says. "You'll have to be more specific."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
When, Ida thinks, did it get so cold in here? She pulls her trenchcoat off the back of her chair, and tucks her arms into the sleeves. It doesn't help. She looks down at her notes, eyes narrowing in suspicion--but they were purified along with her, and the rest of her Domain. There isn't the slightest whiff of Malevolence on them.
As he approaches, he can sense them like the threads of a spider's web. Thin steel chains linking this one to the others. The strongest, of course, feels like it's tied to the other girl, the courier. Another is linked to him. The taint is faint upon this one, but it's still there, and it flares darker as he approaches, fell power to fell power.
'Ah. So here you are, girl.'
Ida still hears that voice in her nightmares. She freezes in place, back straight, quicksilver pressing against her neck and hands as if it could burst through at any moment. When she looks at the sorcerer, everything about her is raw adrenaline, barely-restrained. "You," Ida says, and her voice is as icy as the mists he can feel curling about her. A city twisted upon itself. An ouroboros.
Cold. She feels so cold. Like she's standing beneath the rain.
"I know several men with blue eyes," she says. "You'll have to be more specific."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
When, Ida thinks, did it get so cold in here? She pulls her trenchcoat off the back of her chair, and tucks her arms into the sleeves. It doesn't help. She looks down at her notes, eyes narrowing in suspicion--but they were purified along with her, and the rest of her Domain. There isn't the slightest whiff of Malevolence on them.
As he approaches, he can sense them like the threads of a spider's web. Thin steel chains linking this one to the others. The strongest, of course, feels like it's tied to the other girl, the courier. Another is linked to him. The taint is faint upon this one, but it's still there, and it flares darker as he approaches, fell power to fell power.
'Ah. So here you are, girl.'
Ida still hears that voice in her nightmares. She freezes in place, back straight, quicksilver pressing against her neck and hands as if it could burst through at any moment. When she looks at the sorcerer, everything about her is raw adrenaline, barely-restrained. "You," Ida says, and her voice is as icy as the mists he can feel curling about her. A city twisted upon itself. An ouroboros.
Cold. She feels so cold. Like she's standing beneath the rain.
"I know several men with blue eyes," she says. "You'll have to be more specific."
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
Whatever she feels... it isn't Malevolence.
What he feels is far more familiar since, an intimacy that he's only cultivated as he has leant into the madness that has bound him since the day that young man darkened his doorstep and made him such an offer.
Would he care to craft his life's greatest work?
Would he have interest in chaining a god?
Timotheus had hestitated -- how he now rued that hesitation, those lost days, hours, minutes -- but had agreed in the end. How could he not?
How could he not.
"You are... the heiress, correct? I care little for titles. What use is an 'inheritance'? Though you have inherited something else, have you not? I can feel it now..."
He snaps out a hand, reaching to take her own.
"The tether urges you on, yet you fight against it. How... limiting," the archmagus says, pursing his lips.
She asks him to be more specific.
"That boy has no name. He needs no name. Yet you know him. There are no mistaking those eyes... and I know your heart, girl. You have not forgotten him, have you? Even though he has only taken such interest in you. But perhaps you and I are not so dissimilar. We both hearken to his pull... but you draw away."
He looks her in the eye, as if he were attempting to peer into the heart of her.
"Are you afraid, girl?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida has to force herself to meet Timotheus' eyes, and when she does, she regrets it. She remembers the heartless, driven man she confronted near Claiborne, and yet somehow--somehow--he has gotten worse. Ida's jaw drops. Her mind reels, flashing back to the eternity she experienced between finding Gwen in a burning warehouse and waking up in an abandoned bookstore. There can be no mistake.
"I am she," Ida says. And then Timotheus' hand snaps out, moving with frightening speed. Ida has to resist the urge to pull it back, violently, though he'll find the skin rough, like the hide of a shark when touched the wrong way. A million pinpricks of Hyadean tissue stand ready.
She'd touched eternity, he'd said. And yet, her metal was impure, imperfect.
"He spoke of a glorious past," Ida says. "He said living in the present is a curse." Her face pulls tight as she forces herself to meet Timotheus' eyes, again. "Why shouldn't I be? He used someone to get to me, and I--"
It's not gone, Ida realizes, with growing horror. The mark is still there, like a brand etched upon her soul.
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
His hand is cold. Not the way that metal is cold, or that the way that the flesh of a corpse is cold. But perhaps... cold in the manner of the rainy night. His flesh is dry to the touch, but there is something that might bring to mind a city, eternally awash in rain. Of a deluge that does not sweep away but instead drowns, sinking everything down with it.
"...You, who have come so close to the face of eternity. It is a pity that we were at odds," he tells her, his grip on her like a vise in spite of the very real fact that Ida could easily break his wrist if she so chose. "In another time, I would have made a study of one such as you. But there is no time for that, now," is what he tells her. He doesn't smile -- no malevolent twinkle shines in his eyes. It's just cold dry fact and nothing more.
"My time is short," he tells her, releasing his grip at last.
"There are very few like you and I. In my present condition, seeking 'you' becomes ever more difficult. But he calls to us, and so we answer... is that right? You can feel the pulse of him now."
Right this moment, in fact.
"And no doubt the others he has tethered. So tell me... girl. What do you hear? Do you hear his song?" His grip on his cane tightens.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida remembers the white-hot fury she felt in the depths of the lab. She remembers fighting through the pain of the countless burns inflicted by Timotheus' sorcery. She remembers knocking Zed aside. She remembers the way his experiment--those people, those people he mutilated--looked at her, held her, before biting into her flesh.
It feels distant, now, despite it all. Ida's hand tightens around Timotheus', and instead of the lab, she feels the rain, the cold steel. "You haven't learned your lesson," Ida says, though her voice trembles. "And I thought I was nothing compared to--"
Blue eyes stare back at her as he peels her body apart, layer by layer, piece by piece.
Timotheus lets go, and Ida whips her hand back. "How unfortunate for you," she snaps, holding her hand by the wrist and shaking it--as though she'd burned it on the stove. "I remember what he did. What he said. The machine. He tore me apart. He joined me with his machines. He said I had a task--"
Song? Ida simply shakes her head.
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
"I have learned much," the magus promises her. "Much more than one such as you can imagine. For you hear the call but do not hearken to it."
His machines? Her task?
Timotheus arches a brow. "A task? But I did not feel the spell etched into you." He pauses, his lips curling downward in a frown. "Yet. Perhaps it is you who may become the vessel next? I wonder, what is it that he intends..."
She doesn't hear the song, she tells him.
His reaction is to shake his head, as if irritated. "...Because you are a fool, and you have stuffed your ears. His song is a wonderful composition. I learned much about the structure of reality in its verses... but alas, I am again forced to heed the flow of time. And it grows ever. So. Short." His cane taps the ground with each word, as if he were pounding the punctuation into the very stone.
Timotheus leans forward just that much, his cane grinding against the stone at his feet.
"Now. Tell me of the others you feel. Those you are connected to. I haven't much time, girl."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
A spell? A vessel? God, Ida thinks--what did that monster do? She remembers the flower market, the warehouse fire, and she still feels cold, as though she'd been soaked to the bone by a chill rain.
"He's using you," Ida whispers. "If there's anything good left in you, you will not--"
Tell me.
Ida's mouth falls open. Her hands drop to her sides. Her eyes go distant. She trembles, as though she were a marionette in the hands of an unpracticed puppeteer. The chains unfurl themselves, like strings.
The strongest, the nidus, leads back to Gwen. Three more link to others Ida knows. One is the young sorceress who took Timotheus' eye; in Ida's mind-space, she looks at her with pity. The second is hazier, a silhouette carrying with it the essence of star-stuff and a cold sterility. The third is somewhat firmer: a pair of golden eyes, looking at Ida with scorn, or disgust.
Albus.
The name comes to Timotheus' mind, seemingly unbidden. Of course, he knows better.
Ida snaps out of it with a sharp gasp. It takes her a moment to realize what just happened. "Bastard," she hisses. "What--"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
A spell? A vessel? God, Ida thinks--what did that monster do? She remembers the flower market, the warehouse fire, and she still feels cold, as though she'd been soaked to the bone by a chill rain.
"He's using you," Ida whispers. "If there's anything good left in you, you will not--"
Tell me.
Ida's mouth falls open. Her hands drop to her sides. Her eyes go distant. She trembles, as though she were a marionette in the hands of an unpracticed puppeteer. The chains unfurl themselves, like strings.
The strongest, the nidus, leads back to Gwen. Three more link to others Ida knows. One is the young sorceress who took Timotheus' eye; in Ida's mind-space, she looks at her with pity. The second is hazier, a silhouette carrying with it the essence of star-stuff and a cold sterility. The third is somewhat firmer: a pair of silver eyes, looking at Ida with scorn, or disgust.
Albus.
The name comes to Timotheus' mind, seemingly unbidden. Of course, he knows better.
Ida snaps out of it with a sharp gasp. It takes her a moment to realize what just happened. "Bastard," she hisses. "What--"
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
Gwen had already tried to sway him thus. But, as he had realized then...
He has come too far to simply turn back. Or rather, turning back is no longer an option for him. "There is no time for any of that," he tells her simply. "Not anymore." There is no bitterness or regret: Timotheus Lovelace is not a good man. But neither is he simply some caricature of foulness. He simply considered the matter of his redemption and concluded it could not be done.
The only thing left is to continue, seeking against all hope that it has not been in vain.
Ida is a strong martial artist. She is an experienced Drifter, and no doubt knows of things that would give the magus pause. But Timotheus has spent his life in pursuit of control and power... and has moreover leaned into the madness. He reaches along the tether that joins the two of them, the locus by which he had found her and,
finds the wagon-wheel tracks that lead outward from her and into the world.
"The discarded vessel... and a figure which I cannot read," Timotheus murmurs, frowning. But there is one more.
"...Ah. The boy. That is twice I have felt him. No, more than twice," muses the magus, releasing his grip on the 'tether'. "I wonder... perhaps that may mean he has chosen him. Will he be the next vessel? Or is my working already there concealed?"
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
Ida flexes the fingers of her hand. She could forge a blade from it, and ram it through Timotheus' chest. She could cut his throat. It would be quick, and bloody. It would be the least he deserves.
But it's never that simple. Timotheus is a magus of terrible power, and he's embraced the cold dreadful might of the blue-eyed man's influence. The boy, Ida thinks. Who is it? Who has she damned? Dizziness settles over her, and she leans against the table, breathing heavily. Looking past Timotheus, she sees the other patrons looking at her from across their teacups. Several young woman are glancing at them, talking animatedly--wondering if they should intervene?
"Take your working to hell with you," Ida chokes out.
<Pose Tracker> Timotheus Lovelace has posed.
Would he be able to deflect such a thing? Would he even be able to get out a spell? She could end this and be done with him right now--
But any secrets he kept would die with him. And there are other, more immediate consequences for acting in a place like this, as evidenced by audience they are slowly gathering. Any moment now and surely, someone will...
"You have been most helpful," Timotheus tells her, a smile crinkling his mouth. "You are still a fool. But it is no matter. Perhaps you will soon understand as I have."
He draws away then, regarding her just the once with that dark eye of his as he begins to turn.
"Do not be afraid, girl. Eternity lies within your grasp as well."
And he begins to head away, his cane tapping out a staccato on the paving.
Tap-tap. Tap tap.