for Essek (dunamagic)

[ausgebrannt]

[Caleb Widogast had given up on the idea of a soulmate. He hadn't wanted to, but his life had taken turns that something so precious as love with the person his soul was fated to complete, he couldn't possibly deserve it. And whatever poor soul had been matched to his, they didn't deserve the mess that he was. Wherever they were, he hoped that somehow they'd found another, even if he knew that wasn't how these things worked. But he did know the silence and that locked away space was empty. So empty.

It hadn't always been.

When he had been young, when he had been Bren, his soulmate had always been there, a familiar shadow he could meet in his mind, in dreams that weren't really dreams, visions that came when he was waking. There was comfort in his soulmate's presence, even if he was only a soft violet shape. He remembers that voice, soft and lilting. A constant presence in his life. They shared each other's distress, and times like that slipping into that shared space to offer what comfort he could, to take what comfort his shadowy soulmate offers, it's the safest he'd ever felt.

Then his entire life had shattered. He'd been drawn into the web of the vicious, plotting spider that was Trent Ikithon and fell apart in his final test of devotion. His psyche and his sanity had shattered. A decade passed before he surfaced once more, fleeing out into the night in desperation.

It's not long before he feels the ache of the lack of his soulmate, and he rties to find that mental space. It's hard, and he can't find his way in easily, and when he finally manages it, it's empty. Worse than empty. It's cold and vacant, like no one has set foot there for years. Ages. But why would they? He's been broken, gone. Hells, he's still broken.

So he concentrates on surviving, not sure if his soulmate is even still alive, and eventually is so swept up in the trouble that the Mighty Nein has stumbled across that he doesn't have much time to think about that ache. The friends he's made help, finding people who genuinely care for him, who he genuinely cares about. He starts living rather than simply surviving, broken though he may be. He starts to think he can make a difference perhaps, and is so caught up in everything that is going on that it nearly knocks him off his feet when all at once, that long-forgotten link lights up with the sudden burst of utter distress.

The fact that it happens as he's standing in the middle of the Bright Queen's palace, holding the Luxon Beacon aloft and offering it back to the Dynasty that it was stolen from. For a moment he forgets to breathe, reaches desperately for that mind space and is denied it once more. No. If the link is still there, then that means. Oh gods that means.

Caleb only hopes that the people around him think the near stupefied expression on his face has to do with the weight of what is going on around them, as the Mighty Nein are released from being held and are welcomed as heroes rather than prisoners.]

Comments

[ausgebrannt]

[So much of Caleb's magic is not exactly safe for enclosed spaces, really. And he has no idea if that will be enough to catch this man's attention. The Shadowhand of the Bright Queen is, after all, something of a mystery to him, one that has caught his fascination so entirely it's almost frightening.

He doesn't quite hold his breath, but it feels that way, and the moment before Essek answers drags on as Caleb waits. The moment passes, the answer is given and his heart kicks into beating at a quicker pace.]

Yes, of course. I am very free. Come in, please.

[As if Caleb is even capable of saying no, of turning him away.

Once inside, he'll manage to fend off the others with promises of showing them anything he learns later and leads the Drow to the study -- and part alchemy lab -- that lies just outside his chosen bedroom. The study should do for privacy enough.]

[dunamagic]

[Essek allows Caleb to handle his friends, merely following the man through the house as he observes some of the changes made to it. The study seems to be set up as a something if a makeshift alchemy lab and library. Eyeing the mostly empty shelves, he makes a casual comment about the sparseness of the them, though he doesn't linger there.]

This will do. [With a flick of his fingers, the door shuts behind them to keep the others away and to give them both the privacy of exchanging spells unhindered or interrupted.]

I can teach you a.. couple rudimentary spells, enough to whet your appetite.. give you a taste of what is possible should you wish to further pursue Dunamancy.

[Turning over his hand, his spellbook apparats into it as if made of the same stardust as his eyes - which are sharp and assessing on Caleb, curious.]

Tell me, are you interested in the manipulation of gravity, density or the sapping and scattering of one's potential.. or, perhaps, the bending of fate and destiny to your will? [This answer will be telling of many things.]

[ausgebrannt]

[Caleb gives a quick nod, glancing back once at the door as if wondering if his friends would be nosy enough to listen in. They might be. Veth and Jester, if he had to guess. But hopefully they are occupied elsewhere.

He doesn't have time to think about that, turning back to Essek as the Drow speaks. He straightens up now, eyes fixed on that newly appeared spellbook. He draws his own free from the book holster at his side, quite ready for whatever it is that the Shadowhand is willing to impart to him.

There's a spark in the Zemnian wizard's eyes.]

Yes.

[He answers with a flicker of a smile. All of those things.]

But perhaps most of all, the influence over fate itself.

[Of time and reality, really, of desperately trying to undo his past sins.]

[dunamagic]

[The soft enigmatic smile grows a little sharp at Caleb's response, at the way the human was so very interested in the bending of fate. That was a curious thing, why not go into divination if one wishes to have a hand on fate. To control it through dunamancy is to bend time and reality to your will, to make what happens something of your control, not just manipulation.

It was an aspect of Dunamancy that Essek was very interested in himself. Part of him hoping if he can learn to truly bend time to his will then he might.. regrasp the soulmate he lost so long ago.]

Hn, interesting.

[He opens his book and flicks through a few of the early pages, though he doesn't look at them, eyes more on Caleb.]

I assume you have the prepared materials for.. ah, two spells? That should give you a grasp of the basics.

[A taste that should bring the man back for more.]

[ausgebrannt]

I do, ja.

[He's prepared for that much without question, and if more were on offer, he would beg one of his friends to go procure more. But two is a very good start, and he will be grateful for that. He gestures to a table where they can sit side by side.

Caleb slips into one seat, setting his book open and fishing out the ink and quill that he'll need for this. He is every bit the attentive and eager pupil right now, watching Essek like the other man holds the key to secrets untold. And he does, doesn't he?]

Whenever you are ready, Shadowhand Thelyss.

[dunamagic]

Good.

[Keeping his book open to the first spell he has in him, Essek places his hand on the back of Caleb's chair as he sets down the book with the other. Not touching but he will later wonder why he allowed himself to get that close at all -- he was practically touch adverse, he would never nearly touch the man without a compelling reason.]

This one is not unlike what you experienced with the Beacon-- aptly called Fortune's Favor, you harness a mote of possibility, allowing you to attempt to bend fate towards your favor.

[His hand lingers on the page, as he leans in - again, unlike himself - fingers tracing a glyph as he speaks, showing the notations about the pearl component.

Later he would wonder if his uncharacteristic closeness was their souls desperately drawing together.]

[ausgebrannt]

[Caleb doesn't mind the proximity, which should be strange too, really. He's a skittish thing at the best of times -- though that has gotten better, marginally, as he's traveled with the Nein -- but something about Essek being close feels natural. Later he may think back on this and see the signs he's missed, that he should have seen coming.

But for now, he nods along with what Essek has to say.]

I see... [How very like the Beacon, yes. He leans over to glance at the page, to watch those precise, elegant fingers move along the page.

It's then that he makes his mistake. Or maybe fate itself intervenes. He reaches over to point at a spot in what Essek has written to inquire about it, and it's the slightest brush of their fingers, barely a touch at all.

But still a touch.

Caleb's breath catches, eyes going wide and the world falls away.]

[dunamagic]

[It was as if all the air left his lungs, as if punched from him as gravity fails him and he falls.

He falls and falls, long after his body has crumpled to the ground, as if the world is gone from under his feet and he plunges until he hits water. And the time slows, the weight of his body fully gone from him, his mind hazy as he feels the way his soul slowly crashes through forgotten locked and barred doors.

Then he's blinking up at a disused and cracked ceiling, cobwebs and dust hang on the proverbial air -- there is no air here, no real walls or ceiling, but he could never forget the way the stars they once imagined up there, the constellations they invented together when his flame was in pain.

Why was he here? He can feel the panic rising in him - the lighting in the room pulsed with his unease. His mind races to try and remember what happened - he had been showing Widogast a spell, they were too close, had brushed fingers--

Sitting up, he sees Caleb only an arm's length away from him, the man stirring. His mind couldn't comprehend what he was seeing or feeling, too drowned in disbelief.]

How..

[ausgebrannt]

[Caleb opens his eyes to a world that he thought he'd never see again, a secret place behind a door that had remained locked to him despite his desperate pleading at it to open. He looks up at the dusty ceiling, the faded stars in the sky. His voice catches in his throat, a sob of sound that he can't hold back. Relief, memory, pain. All of it is too much to contain and it rises in his eyes in the form of tears that are threatening to brim over.

For a long moment he doesn't move, simply staring up at the disused sky, trying and failing to contain his tears and failing. But he's here. He made it here, past that broken door. And he isn't alone.

He sits up then all at once, and his gaze swings immediately, expecting to see his shadow, and finding himself looking into those impossibly deep amethyst eyes of Essek Thelyss.]

It's you. [Breathless but certain, realization that sweeps through him like a tsunami off the ocean, dragging him under and turning him about until gravity means nothing.] You're here.

[dunamagic]

[At first, Essek feels like he's having some kind of flashback nightmare, that his mind is so lonely he's superimposing the first person he's had any interested in other than his soulmate. As if his mind refuses to believe in something like this happening to him, that everything he's suffered cannot have been for nothing. Because then why--

But Caleb is crying - those deep oceans spilling over - and he feels it as if he's feeling his own. His hand coming up to brush his own cheek as he hears Caleb's words, the certainty behind them..

Essek's hand comes away wet, his own tears falling either because of or in tandem with Caleb's. His hand tremors as he stares at Caleb before hiding his eyes behind tightly closes lids, shaking his head.]

How.. how are you here? My soulmate.. my flame is dead-- [His voice catches and his breathing picks up as tears will not dam behind his lids. It's agony, he's in agony and the light of the room pulses with his distress. What should have been a happy reunion is only met with his fear of this being fake, a lie..

Of being abandoned again.]

[ausgebrannt]

[The pain in Essek reverberates through Caleb, an echo that grows louder rather than quieter, building and building until it threatens to steal the last shred of air from Caleb's lungs. Seeing this other man -- his soulmate, still here, still alive -- suffering so shakes him.

He reaches out, hesitating but pushing through, fingers touching gently along his shoulder, soft and careful, like one might touch the wind of a butterfly, something fragile and precious that he isn't certain he has any right to really touch.

The words land like arrows.]

Not dead... just lost. For a very long time. [A pang of his own panic at the memory of that lost time.] I am so sorry, when I finally found myself again, I have been trying to find my way back, but the door was barred. I couldn't reach you. I thought you were gone.

[And he'd thought that was what he deserved.]

[dunamagic]

[Lost, not gone. Just lost. There were no phantom pains, they were real pains his soul mate was actually suffering but for whatever reason wasn't able to come to their space, this space that is cold and unwelcoming in its disuse. The touch grounds him as he tires to fight through this moment in time, to be present with his soulmate, yet it all feels like a nightmare, like a fever that is fogging his mind and making him feel crazy.

Still, his eyes open again to look at his flame, to look upon this handsome man and he wants to ask why but he felt the pang of panic that wasn't his, even in his own panic he can feel his soul mates. It seems that to ask "why" right now would only further ruin this moment even if he wants to know -- wants to demand to know.]

You never came here.. I was told by clerics that the distress I was feeling were Phantom pains, that you were dead, that-- [That he was clinging to a ghost and hurting himself.]

I.. [He reaches out a careful hand to touch the side of Caleb's face, so gentle and hesitant, like he was an illusion that would shatter, like he expected Caleb to vanish.]

[ausgebrannt]

[The other man's distress is not lost on Caleb. How could it be? His soulmate, his beautiful, beloved shadow made flesh right in front of him. Alive and well and so, so much more than he deserved. The words strike like knives. 'You never came here.' Oh it ached, made his throat close tight as tears threatened his eyes.

It was the touch of those hand that set them to falling from his eyes. Even if he knew he couldn't possibly deserve it, that he had no right to the comfort of it, he turned towards that touch, leaned into it.]

I am so sorry. I cannot ask you to forgive me, but I... [There is no stopping the tears now as they track their way down his cheeks.] ...I am happy to know your face.

[dunamagic]

[Essek's thumb brushes at one of the tears, his own tears dripping like starlight down his cheeks. Caleb was beautiful, his tears like rivers from beautiful oceans, yet Essek wanted nothing more than to stop those tears, so see a smile on that face like he deserves.]

There... there is nothing to forgive-- from the sounds of it, you did not intentionally abandon me, yes? [Again, his thumb wipes ever so carefully over the man's cheek, chasing tears.]

Else you would not be so shocked that I barred our room for my own.. sanity.

[No, if anyone abandoned the other, it was him who abandoned Caleb, he was the one at fault, he should have had more faith.] I believe it is I who should ask for forgiveness.