2023-06-12: Chatting for a Spell (About Spells)
- Log: Chatting for a Spell (About Spells)
- Cast: Hannah Curie, Seraph Lanval
- Where: Klein Central Ward
- Date: June 12, 2023
- Summary: Hannah and Lanval run into each other, and Hannah asks him how he perceives her magic. Lanval answers, and then offers some advice.
============================<* Klein Central Ward *>============================ The central ward of Klein City is dominated by the great, imposing castle of House Klein, black stones with great spires stretching up to the sky atop a high cliff overlooking the rest of the city, with a fine view of the sea far below. ...But while the fortress could be imposing, it is largely open to the public, the government offices of the city sprawling from within the castle itself into the sprawling buildings that have sprung up somewhat less securely. The bureaucratic machine that oversees most of the trade of Meria Boule with other nations requires a great deal of upkeep, and many industries have sprung up to provide for and cater to the officials and merchants involved in the process. Klein City occupies a notable place at the east coast of Meria Boule, and it is in many ways its gateway to the rest of Filgaia, particularly outside Aquvy. Accordingly it is fairly cosmopolitan, favoring bright fashions and a sophistication that can sometimes grate on those who prefer more straightforward talk and manner. The rocky terrain means people are often closer together than not, but it is not known for its great machinery or production as a rule, even if it is one of the more bustling cities of Meria Boule. BGM: Chrono Cross - Another Termina
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
It is a lovely day in Klein, especially around Klein Manor, and Hannah has retreated from her the stifling confines of her room to the manor's rooftop garden. (Her room is fine, it's spacious, far larger than what she's used to, but she just has some complicated feelings about it due to the circumstances surrounding it.)
The rooftop garden is, as expected, expansive and well-appointed, teeming with all sorts of life, from multitudes of a variety of flower beds of exotic specimens, to the buzzing of bees working their pollination magic, and even the occasional hummingbird or other nectarivores.
At least, when Klein Manor's resident red-tailed hawk doesn't cscare the latter off.
Hannah has taken over a table tucked away in the garden normally reserved for tea and intimate social gatherings. Currently, spread over it, is an array of papers, a couple of books, a journal, and some writing instruments. She is still without her cloak, dressed in her usual short-sleeved shirt, shorts, and hiking boots, with her bag and (wrapped) rifle on the ground beside her.
She appears deep into some kind of research or calculations, one predemoninantly taken up by a half-finished diagram of a crest graph. Every so often she pauses to look out over the cityscape before returning to her work.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
"Mmmm. Hey," comes the voice of what sounds like a middle-aged man, one that might be passingly familiar because of previous interactions but can only be confirmed as actually familiar if Hannah looks off to her left. Even if not, there's that aura of water in all of its forms wonderful and... less wonderful but valid, but also the magnification of little joys in life. A fine beverage, clean air to breathe, beautiful sights.
Mostly the fine beverages part, but shh.
"'m I botherin' ya?" Asks Seraph Lanval, he who looks all the part of a wastrel were it not for the above points and the really nice set of aquamarine robes he's got on. He's carrying a drinking gourd that, despite its humble size, is carried like there's a great weight within it. Or maybe it really is that heavy? Who knows. "Noticed the garden wash lookin' a li'l dry, sho 'm shtoppin' by~"
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Hannah is... deep into her work, whatever it is. And Zephyr isn't around, so when Lanval speaks, there is a certain panic and a knee-jerk reaction. "Wha--?!" Her hand is half-way through the act of drawing a crest graph from her belt pouch when she looks--and relaxes, just a little, sliding the crest graph back in. (There are, for the observant, a few tiny whisps of electrical sparks taht can just barely be seen in the moments before she puts it away.)
"Oh. It's you." It's hard to tell if there's actual disapproval in her voice, or if it's just her normal flat and terse manner of speech. She looks him over--she certainly notices all of the general vibes he seems to give off, but little of it seems to reach her, at the moment. She glances off to the horizon for a moment, seemingly looking at something in particular, and then back to Lanval. "Sorry. You startled me."
She shakes her head, sitting up from her work. "Not really... it's about time I took a break, anyway." She gives that gourd a scrutinizing look, and also seems to be scrutinizing his reason for being there. "I see. I'm sure the gardeners will appreciate it."
A tiny bit of pensiveness slips into her voice as she considers something, and then says, "... Actually, do you have a moment to talk?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
"It'sh me!" Lanval replies with a moment of shock at the momentary wisps of electrical power... before transitioning towards a lot more cheerily and jovially a mood than with Hannah's flatter voice tone. "Mmm. Did I? Shorry 'bout that," the Seraph with the appearance of a middle-aged man scratches at his chin a bit.
"If ya shay sho. It'sh real pretty up here... 'd take the time ta enjoy it~" He says, as he goes to one of the planters, intones some sort of incantation as glyphs flare up around him, and promptly... disperses water in a gentle sprinkle all around them. To the untrained eye, it's just water.
To the trained eye, it's the cleanest, purest water, sorcerously conjured by his very power as a nature spirit aligned with water. There are some small rainbows briefly in the wake of this mystical watering going on.
"I know a thing or two 'bout watchin' over the work of thoshe who plant shtuff," he says, as Hannah then pivots to asking if he's got a moment to talk, at which point...
"Shure thing~" He whirls around, lifts a leg up, and promptly falls on his seat against the ground comfortably enough, with half-open eyes while he drinks from his gourd.
"...Ish it 'bout yer shpellcashtin'?"
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Hannah does enjoy the view. She's not sure she feels like admitting that to LAnval, but she does.
However, she does watch his working with great interest. She's got a trained eye, certainly enough to see Lanval for what he is, but more than that she is studied in magic. Certainly, she is only practiced in the casting of crest sourcery, but that doesn't keep her from taking an interest in other forms of magic. And a setaphim's magic is certainly novel enough for her that she's interested to see it in action.
She's impressed by the working. But again, isn't sure if she wants to tell Lanval that.
She's just having a hard time getting a read on Lanval, is all. Knowledgeable and skilled but somehow also a drunkard. But Eleanor seems to trust him, so...
All of that assessment goes through her head a couple times after Lanval agrees, and it takes her a moment to finally speak.
And then Lanval beats her to the punch. "Ah--" She takes a moment to get her bearings and then nods. "... Yes. I saw how you reacted to my spellcasting before." A moment. "... What did you sense?"
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval is just Lanval, sometimes, for good or groanworthy. Or both, at the same time.
He's a jovial soul, but there are a few lines he has consistently held strong and fast against no matter how silly and flippant his manner sometimes is. He has himself another sip of his gourd as Hannah asks what he senses, where he points out a finger from where he has one hand wrapped around the neck of that gourd.
"...Sho before I begiiiiin," Lanval says, "if Eleanor callsh ya a good friend, I trusht her on that." They both occupy very important places in the spiritual ecosystem of Filgaia, after all. "Sho, that shaid, now that we got that much clear..."
...
"That shtuff ain't natural." Lanval looks up, one eye open and the smile hardening a bit to something more neutral as he draws that finger back. "Let'sh take the ice. Looksh like it, bet it'd feel like it if a mortal touched it, but fer me - a Seraph, shomeone who got at leasht three feet in the world of the shpiritual," he only has two feet though, "there ish nothin' 'ice' 'bout it. Nothin' 'nice' 'bout it, neither. Feelsh... mmm. Wrong. Like maybe it might have a place shomewhere elshe... but not here."
Lanval shakes his head, and his beard flows with it. "And it ain't much like anything I dealt with," except for maybe, maybe the flames conjured by the Symbologist named Scythe, of the fallen army of Odessa but he can't draw that conclusion definitively. "I can shay it ain't Malevolence, though... if nobody talked with ya 'bout that, I could."
Fortunately, someone already has...
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Hannah hasn't had a lot of jovial moments, as of late. She could use some, but... that's a work in progress.
Lanval trusts Eleanor when she calls Hannah a friend. Hannah just nods, "Likewise." Really, it's that and the fact that he proved knowledgeable about some of those ancient books in the library--or the events they described, at least, that she's bothering pursuing this line of questioning.
Hannah takes Lanval's proclaimation that her magic isn't natural... surprisingly well, actually. She doesn't get upset, or surprised, or annoyed, or... hardly much of a reaction at all aside from a short, accepting nod as he explains.
(Part of her wants to protest that's not how that expression works, but she pushes it aside.)
But then he says it's not Malevolence, and that makes her frown a bit. She glances back to her pages and pages of workings laid out on the table and then back to Lanval.
"I was hoping it was Malevolence. That could have resolved things so much more quickly."
She gives a small shake of her head. "I know the basics." Then, a sigh. "There's something wrong with my magic. I first noticed it five years ago, but haven't found a solution. There's something... corrupting it, and if I'm not careful, my spells go wild and out of control. If it had been Malevolence, then... I know that it exists and that there are ways of cleansing it, now.""
"And before you ask, yes, Eleanor is aware of this. She's offered to help me fix it."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
Lanval nods along at Hannah's understanding and wisdom about the affliction Malevolence brings and how there's ways out of it once one's ready and able to. (It almost always involves some warm-up violence, but that's not here, or there, or hopefully anywhere!)
"'d be shurprished if she didn't~" Lanval says in affirmation of Eleanor's desire to help. "Mmm." He scratches at his chin, parting those beard hairs like a waterfall disturbed by something poking at where it descends. "Shoooo, now that ya shaid all that..."
"Wild 'n outta control, ya shay. Ya shaid." Lanval says, and said, and is going to continue the struggle for the proper tense in grammar some other time. "Do ya... get an idea that there'sh shomethin' the shtuff wantsh ta do? Liiiiike... what'sh 'wild' and 'outta control' look like, when it... doesh."
Lanval's tone goes a bit more steady and quieter, trying to ground himself for the weight of how this must all feel to Hannah. As a Seraph of a number of centuries of life who has seen a lot of mortal stories come and go, it can sometimes be difficult to be on the level to how bad something is to a much shorter-lived individual.
But he's trying, the same way as it is his nature to amplify all the little small joys in life by his natural Seraphic Domain.
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Hannah would've been surprised, too, if Eleanor hadn't offered to help. "Yeah, she's always been like that," admits Hannah quietly. There's a long pause before she adds, "I should've asked..."
But she has to blink when Lanval asks if the magic wants anything, and it's clear both that she hasn't considered that question before, and that she is giving it some serious consideration now. "I'm... not sure. I don't think... well, I don't know that it's alive or conscious. It doesn't try to influence me, as far as I'm aware."
She does feel Zephyr in her head, but that's different. Probably.
"It just... It's like there's something that takes the idea of what I want to cast and just... twists it. Like..." She gives Lanval an appraising look. "You're water-aligned, correct?"
She reaches into her pouch and pulls out a crest graph. She holds it out, face up. "This should create a simple flame, like a torch." She concentrates and activates it... and an angry flame erupts over it. Where a regular torch flame flickers and dances, this one looks like it is constantly trying to erupt, barely contained with licks of flame lashing out in every direction. "... But when I cast it, this is what happens." She ends the spell and puts the crest graph away.
"... All my magic is like that. Flames are... angry, for lack of a better word. The ice spell you saw wants to consume people whole if I don't control it. Everything I have to cast, I have to fight against, reel it in to keep it from inflicting more harm than I intended."
She glances to her workings laid out on the table. "And that's even with designing my crest graphs to try and filter it out, as much as I possibly can."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
"Mmmm." Lanval listens along to Hannah's explanation that there doesn't seem to be a will exercised beyond when the sorcery itself is cast, nodding along and taking a sap of his drinking gourd. "That'd make shenshe ta me, ya don't come off ash... well, mean! Shtandoffish... a li'l, but not mean."
He listens to the explanation. The idea of what she wants to cast and then... twists.
"Yep! Water Seraph. Completely! Totally! Different. From Ice. Jusht ta get that outta the way~" He holds up a finger. This is a point of physical reality that he will one day have to contend with, even if at least two different sorcerous disciplines make the distinction.
"...Shorry, yeah, 'm interruptin'." He listens to the mention about the flame, like a torch... and then flinches noticeably when the angry flame erupts. Even with the quiet warning of the demonstration that's still startling.
Flames and ice, are two given examples.
The explanations given and the stipulations in trying to keep it from spilling completely out of control and doing more harm... Lanval nods again.
"Mmm. All right... 'm gonna shay, thish ish kinda outta my depth but... here on Filgaia, I know we got different... thingsh, livin' in the Ley. They're called Primarchs. Far ash I know, only four of 'em," all accounted for.
"One I came ta blowsh with outright wash one with," he snaps his fingers, "word kinda like 'fire' but ain't," Fray, he means Fray. "The Primarch of Fray! Setanta, 'm thinkin'. They ushed jusht fire. Now, if it were jusht one kinda element goin' outta control... 'd think that'd be a Primarch."
Lanval shakes his head again. "A Primarch. But if it'sh fire, 'n ice, 'n everything elshe ya got goin'... mmmmph. Thaaaaat'sh 'bout ash far ash I'd know on that one, though."
He rises up, and bows his head on that. "Dunno if I got an anshwer fer ya on that front, jusht yet..."
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Hannah looks a bit taken aback as Lanval labels her 'standoffish.' "I... I'm not..." She looks down at her lap, looking... some mixture of hurt but also sad, but in that way where it seems she realizes Lanval is right. In a small voice, she says, "... I didn't used to be..." She looks away. "I'm just trying not to hurt anybody..."
"I know," that water is different from ice. She's a mage, she's aware of the distinction. "Just wanted to check, just in case..." in case something happened with her demonstration, that is.
She ends the demonstration quickly, noticing Lanval's reaction. "Sorry."
"Fray," she supplies when Lanval is looking for the word that is like fire but not quite.
She kind of knows them by heart, for pretty obvious reasons.
She considers that. "If I had offended a Primarch... You would think that would cut off my access... If they were ill, then everyone would be afflicted..." Probably a dead end, but that is an avenue to consider.
She nods, "It's all of my magic. No matter what the resulting element. I..." She tenses a bit. "I don't use healing magic anymore. Not on anybody save myself. Just... in case."
Hannah nods as Lanval says he doesn't have any other ideas yet. "Thank you, anyway. For taking the time to talk with me... I appreciate it." She's still not entirely sure what to make of the seemingly perpeptually-drunk Seraph, but... her appraisal of him might have risen a few points, at least. "I'm... I'm hoping that with Eleanor helping me, that we can figure this out."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
"That sho, huh." Lanval perks up on the mention about using healing magic only upon oneself, looking up with one eye half-open while once again scratching at his chin with his free hand. "Mmm."
He doesn't voice his thoughts on what that sounds like aloud, but he's not recoiling in horror over what that might mean to him. He has, over the course of the conversation, taken note of how sullen she's gotten at some of his observations and thoughts.
"Well, 'm willin' ta help ya too~" Lanval says, closing his eyes and putting forth a dopey little smile. "In the meantime, what I'm gonna shay iiiiiiiiish~" He leans back, back further, back some more...
And falls onto his seat.
"Don't forget ta shmile 'n enjoy the little shtuff in life, too, and... it ain't ever gonna erashe the tough shtuff." He raises a hand and waves it around a little. "Fer one... shoundin' like ya managed ta reunite with a real good friend... and it'sh shure lookin' like people're willin' ta call ya a friend."
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Hannah might be a bit sullen, but she's also just... tired from fighting with her magic all the time.
She looks a bit speechless when Lanval says he's willing to help her, and it takes her a moment to work up a reply. "Oh... Well, thank you, truly. Um... Sorry if... my magic is offputting to you. I don't... I don't want it to be that way..."
She does look concerned when Lanval falls onto his seat again, though... it might just be concern for him instead of concern about him. Maybe. It's hard to say. But Lanval offers some further advice, and Hannah just nods, taking it in.
"I'll try," she says quietly, but she means it. She does have Zephyr, at least, and of course... "Yeah... we met at Sielje. She showed me around when I first got there and... she helped me get my footing academically, even when I tried to refuse..." She looks off at the horizon, a melancholic smile on her face.
"An' she took me back, just like that," she whispers. "I'm not sure I deserve it, but... I'm glad she did."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Lanval has posed.
"'n hold onto that feelin'," Lanval speaks above that whisper when Hannah admits she's glad for Eleanor taking her back after all's said and done. The drinking gourd now sits on his lap, held in both his hands with one on top and the other about the side.
"Mmm. Well, 'till then... jusht keep doin' yer besht with it. 'll make shure ta shtay waaaaaay clear of it." He wouldn't even want Ragnell or Liath to suffer that. Or Harmaus, or... anyone, for that matter, whatever the hey is going on with Hannah's sorcery - and only her sorcery as far as anyone can tell.
"Shooo... 'll keep in touch!" Lanval puts on a genuine smile. "...I mean I could keep doin' that right now, ground here'sh kinda comfy..."
<Pose Tracker> Hannah Curie has posed.
Lanval advises to keep a hold of that feeling, and Hannah nods. "I will. I'm real glad to see Miss Marivel again, too..." Then some trepedation crosses her face. "There's... some more people I need to reach out to again. I ain't been home in five years but... I'm... I'm not ready for that yet."
"I will. And I'll try not to cast it around you unless absolutely necessary." Which shouldn't be a problem unless they go on more digs together.
Lanval offers to keep in touch, and... Hannah nods. "I'd like that," she admits. Lanval comments on the ground being comfty, and--is that a tiny smile from Hannah as she quickly turns back to her calculations?
Nahhh, couldn't be. "If you'd like. I wouldn't mind the company. Zephyr will be out hunting for a while yet."