(open.) sing it low or sing it loud

[courtmagic]

Who: Merlin and others.
Where: Sometimes the Temple, sometimes the forest.
When: Early September.
Rating: Just PG for now.
What: The Circle's gained a new wizard. He explores, and tries to not get ill.

[this is not a dream. a dream doesn't feel like this - he's trekked across enough of them in the centuries to know. and still, he wonders, because of how different it all is. that woman, and her beautiful eyes - Astoria, she'd called herself. he'd been half numb, struck and dazed when the world beneath his feet did not give. magic at the far reaches of himself, a memory halted in the process of becoming an action.

the world behind his eyes has gone silent, and he marvels at it. the sheer expanse of the unknown. Merlin breathes air utterly new to him, and cannot decide if this is for good or ill. it is, and he must adapt. freedom at a price, or the illusion of such. there is much to contemplate, but as ever, the only road ahead is forward.

--

of course, he explores the Temple. it's where they're supposed to be, after all, a place with rooms and beds and one he finds unoccupied with a single to lay his head. but beyond that, he wanders, peeking in at various areas. the kitchen is where a hopeful might look to find someone else doing the work of cooking that he can charm the result out of - why bother if he could simply get it for free? other times he's in the halls, seemingly searching for something. not someone, of course. that would be asking for far too much. but when evening falls, he heads to the outskirts, to watch the sky, a figure in pure white robes. as long as he can, he observes the stars, eyes as intent as a navigator as he traces where they are now.

but the illness is all too apparent. the sickness that infested the land cannot be lifted by hands that haven't been fully summoned, the flowers that could trail behind him not so much as sprouting. only their scent that clings to his clothes, and so he moves outward. can't stay in one place too long, trying to minimize his exposure, and the forest beckons. easy to wander, easy to take a rest nestled up a tree, where the sound of soft snoring gives away his napping, dozing with a few of the nymphs climbing on him. other times, he finds himself at the bank of water, sitting down and humming quietly a song he remembers to amuse himself, considering the plight of what's occurred. but as it happens, sometimes he is trying to converse with the sprites, so worked up are they. it doesn't seem to be excellently going, if his small frown says anything, but they'll notice a newcomer before he does, allowing enough time for greeting.]

[[ooc: please feel free to drop me a note if you'd prefer an individual starter! these can be any time, except for stargazing. choose your own adventure, and hit me with something else if it strikes your fancy!]]

Comments

[invasif]

[ Being in the sunlight again is overwhelming. Too much light and color after so many thousands of days in the Void, where she had been curled up, restless and waiting. The magic all around her makes her hungry, agitated. The sickness beginning to take root in her body isn't helping. She thinks on the flamelord's dying days, sweating out his lifeblood as he suffocated. She feels heavy with grief, overwhelmed with choice.

She would inflict this on others, that was the Lady of Cinders' way. She would wrap up everyone in this temple in her grief and hate and strangle them with it, it would prickle pleasantly under her skin. Instead if festers inside of her with no outlet. Had she lost her powers to time, or to the witch who dared to call her here...

She is standing with her arms crossed, staring angrily into the water when she hears the humming. Her head turning with a dark, heavy gaze. It is an imperious look, imposing in her dark clothes and carefully coiffed hair. The heaviness of her gaze does not change, but the fury at least lowers to a subtle simmer. She approaches, head tilting. ]

Your mood seems pleasant.

[ She can be envious of that too. ]

[courtmagic]

[he isn't cowed by her look, when he meets it. blonde hair and dark clothing, and eyes that all wrapped into an impression of Morgan, though she looks far different beyond that. it was a time for revisiting ghosts, he supposes, with who he's run across and the time to contemplate the past.

it's a careless sort of happiness that clings to him, the unpleasantness of these circumstances sinking to the bottom to be dismissed in time. challenges to be overcome, things to discover. it wouldn't be half as fun if it was all easy.]

And yours as dark as clouds across the sun.

[tears were a sorry sight on any woman. but anger? now that's intriguing, if you aren't the source of it.]

[invasif]

[ She doesn't seem impressed with his poeticism, sullen mouth turning only further downward. ]

My confidence in this venture is little bolstered by this decay that emanates from us.

[ And this early, the worst of the symptoms to her person haven't even begun. She will not be pleased with it, to have been brought here only to be laid low by what looked like some witch's incompetence. As much as she herself was often called one, she did not trust other witches. Already it niggles at her that someone has power over her, and she'd hardly even begun to explore the temple. ]

[courtmagic]

Oh, challenges are always going to rise up when you're in the business of saving a world. Strange illness that seems more akin to a curse in my eyes? Not out of the realm of possibility.

[at least, that's the venture he assumes she's talking about. here in the forest, the plant life stayed strong, and the more he was around it, he thought, the better. it might do something to ward it off.]

[invasif]

That's very cavalier.

[ And her disapproval is obvious. ]

What do you expect, divine intervention?

[ Rich coming from a woman who has all but painted herself as some kind of saint risen from the ashes of the war and the flamelord's madness. ]

[courtmagic]

[he throws his head back to laugh, a pure and honest amusement from the question.]

If this place has gods, they wouldn't come for something like that, until it started threatening them themselves. No, it is merely a fact that humans in a group like this will inevitably start looking to each other. The natural instinct is to help.

[invasif]

[ His laughter annoys her, grates against her patience and quite frankly her auditory senses. When was the last time she let anyone laugh in front of her? Or the last time she had laughed that hadn't been hateful and full of teeth. She doesn't remember, nothing happy raises itself in her mind. She crosses her arms more tightly over her ribs, letting her gaze drift back out over the water. ]

Yes, as needs must.

[ She had been an orphan in a caravan once, with others who had no home, no standing, no family, or friends. She knows well enough, even if she is a cynic about human nature. ]

Though it would be my preference to help myself.

[ The be in control. ]

[courtmagic]

Are you ailing so?

[his gaze turns a little more studying, looking her over for symptoms of the illness that he'd seen.]

[invasif]

That doesn't matter.

[ She doesn't want his scrutiny, and she doesn't want to be cared for. ]

[courtmagic]

It matters.

[too bad, Ilde.]

If you cannot help yourself, will you do the stupidly prideful thing of suffering alone? You seem the type.

[invasif]

[ Her tone is icy, ]

That is very forward of you.

[courtmagic]

[he spreads his hands - there's nothing he can do about that.]

It's my business to perceive the truth, you could say. Don't take it too personally.

[invasif]

And a presumptuous business it is.

[ Her frigidness is immovable, if only she had her powers... gods, she could snatch the breath from your lungs like a sudden frost. She'd have this thing cowed before her in an instant, her rejection and censure a physical pang.

As for not taking it personally... well... clearly that's not how this is going to go. ]

[courtmagic]

Yet that is the stance of an advisor. To tell the difficult truth, no matter how ill it sounds in their lord's ears, before they fall too astray.

[she's got that sort of bearing that makes him think of nobility - of scorned queens with knives in their dresses.]

[invasif]

Whose advisor are you?

[ Regardless of the response, she is a better lord than they. ]

[courtmagic]

An advisor of kings and heroes alike.

[he has his favorites, and he would deny her.]

[invasif]

[ She assumes when he says kings that the gendering follows through into heroes. That he would not have advised a queen such as she. That he would have smiled that insolent smile at her in her court room and she would have risen up like a snake. That he would either have cleverly fled her, or he would have died before the night was through. She did not suffer insult. She hates this man :) ]

It is also an advisor's lot to sit aside indolently while lords and heroes make all the sacrifice.

[courtmagic]

Oh, don't group all advisors under my own habits.

[most worked very hard for their kingdoms! and he did as well - he just claimed he did not, compared to the breadth of what he might be able to do. but he also treasures being lazy, and can't see it as a terrible insult.]

Besides, if advisors rushed out to sacrifice themselves, who would be the one to help direct their lord through the battle? Who would be there to schedule out the world's rebuilding? We're more useful alive.

[invasif]

[ yes, she is taking the measure of his habits. how many words has she used for it now? indolent, presumptuous, cavalier. ]

There are always more advisors.

[ there was no replacement for Dreus, not even her. but she has her own legacy now, her own scar upon the thoughts of the world. ]

You think you are more useful, and that you hold the strings of the world together through the reins of kings.

[ she tilts her head, a frigid smile on her mouth; girlish in her spite. ]

But you shrink away from placing your own neck beneath the blade.

[ she has been the whisperer pulling the strings. she learned it from watching other whisperers wrangling the tangled web of power and money in the courts. and now she was queen, and she knew better than trust an advisor's motives. ]

[courtmagic]

Of course I'm useful. I wouldn't be kept around if I was not.

[of course he kept himself alive, because by now, he could not die. long life was given to him, and now it would be even longer.]

But I ask of you, how many years have you passed on the earth, watching it turn? How many times in those years have you placed your own lovely neck to the blade? Self-preservation is a common instinct in the living - only true fools rush toward skewering themselves for nothing, and I don't take you for a fool.

[that insufferable smile is still there, almost sweet were it not for the eyes looking at her as though they aimed to see directly through. standing up slowly,]

The world is far greater than one person can see trusting only their own sight - to stand at the center, one forsakes everything else beyond their gaze for their power. Thus they rely on other eyes to see and bring back the truth. And a true advisor knows that he is an accessory, and there are more of those.

[so he takes no insult in being told he is replaceable. but, he still has his confidence in the power he brings, in the knowledge, in how he sees through the world. that power did guide the shape of things, into the best, most beautiful outcome.]

Perhaps you could wound me better if your heart was not so blindingly obvious. Everything about you screams your truths and what you carry - that you see the world as your enemy. Doesn't that get exhausting?

[that declared, he turns away, starting to walk off in a new direction with staff in hand.]

[invasif]

[ She tilts her head at his tirade. Watching him turn to go in his own self-satisfaction. All she really has to say to any of it, ]

The blades are usually mine.

[ Later bruh, she hates u. ]