Lord Master Thom of Trebond (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
gifthasacold) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
trans_92011-01-12 04:16 pm
gifthasacold) wrote in trans_92011-01-12 04:16 pm
Entry tags:
In Comforting Academia [OPEN]
Since the podpop, Thom had kept to himself. The crew quarters were crowded and noisy, so he spent as little time there as possible, stealing back to his quarters when the ship seemed to be sleeping. So far, no one had either noticed or asked about the Gift-sickness he still bore.
The signs were all still there, of course. Most of the frequented areas on the ship were brightly lit enough that the glow from his skin wasn't visible, but the fever was omnipresent, and in dimly lit corridors it was always a possibility that it might be noticed.
Thom resolved to figure out how to cure the taint in his Gift as quickly as possible, so he could put the problem behind him. To that end, he was holed up in the media library. At his left elbow sat a prodigious stack of tablets he had yet to peruse. At his right elbow were two more piles - one, neat and tidy, were the tablets whose contents looked interesting enough to read in full. The other was a haphazard pile of discarded material.
He skimmed through the current tablet with his face set in a mask of fierce concentration.
The signs were all still there, of course. Most of the frequented areas on the ship were brightly lit enough that the glow from his skin wasn't visible, but the fever was omnipresent, and in dimly lit corridors it was always a possibility that it might be noticed.
Thom resolved to figure out how to cure the taint in his Gift as quickly as possible, so he could put the problem behind him. To that end, he was holed up in the media library. At his left elbow sat a prodigious stack of tablets he had yet to peruse. At his right elbow were two more piles - one, neat and tidy, were the tablets whose contents looked interesting enough to read in full. The other was a haphazard pile of discarded material.
He skimmed through the current tablet with his face set in a mask of fierce concentration.
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He took a long, deep breath. Roger couldn't reach him here. He had searched the ship and found no sign of him in any of the inhabited areas. Which meant it was safe, safe to purge himself of this excess magic if he only could figure out how to do it without dying in the process. There were no Masters to bring him out of Sorcerer's Sleep. "To answer your impertinent question, it's not my intention to harm anyone, not that it's relevant at all or would actually stop me if someone became... too annoying."
Yeah, it's fairly obvious who that last bit is directed toward.
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But what? He could fly off the handle at someone eventually? How annoying was too annoying? How much of a loose cannon was this guy if he blew up over someone accidentally knocking over some books?
It was probably the bravest--and the stupidest--thing he had ever done, but either Thom's reaction would prove that the limit he had to be pushed to for someone's "annoyance" to get a violent response would hopefully not ever be reached--or he'd react and hopefully Stacy would make it quite clear that he was never to do it again.
And if he did react, Hiccup much preferred it was himself he reacted at rather than some other innocent person that walked in and knocked over some books without realize they'd triggered some kind of awful trap.
In the end, he really just blamed it on the whole Viking thing. Vikings did not tiptoe around danger, they threw axes at it. They did not walk away from a potential threat, they prodded it with an axe handle until it attacked--and then threw axes at it. While he had a much stronger sense of self-preservation than most Vikings--which was a necessity when he wasn't as strong as most Vikings--he was finding more and more that the inability to let things lie might possibly just be in the blood.
Hiccup was also very, very tired of listening to people talk down to him and not doing anything about it, and the memories he had of Fairplay still lay heavily on him. When he was stuck there, in that life, that was all he did, duck his head and let them get away with it, and he wasn't doing that anymore, whether he was terrified of someone or not.
"Okay, well, act or not, you're not youngest whatever to gain whatever here. You're not anything here, at least not anything more than anyone else, and you'll find out very quickly by talking to people the way you talked to me, that not all of them are as weak, or scared, or as patient as I am," he said, and it was in a slight rush of words, but his voice was mostly steady.
"That first time was accident, and your reaction to it was pretty much completely ridiculous." Hiccup tossed all the tablets on the chair next to Thom, so they were scattered again. "That time was on purpose."
And with that, he started to walk away. Whether or not he managed to walk out of the Media Library really depended on Thom.
But you know what? If he thought asking simple questions was impertinent, he might as well be a Viking about impertinence, and go all the way.
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Damned if he would ever let on to anyone else, thought.
Thom stood swiftly from the chair as soon as the tablets clattered into a mess again, his tainted Gift snapping in the air around him. The words were harsh in his throat as he barked them out, pointing straight at Hiccup, and then the Viking would feel the peculiar sensation of being lifted into the air by his ankles, borne up by an invisible pair of hands strong as iron.
The glitter of metal on one of the boy's legs was interesting, but not interesting enough to filter past the anger. "Did you stop to consider while you were spending your brainpower on that witty grandstanding argument that it is - incredibly - unwise to anger a mage?" Thom stepped closer, his amethyst eyes cool and detached as they watched Hiccup hover upside-down. "I am more than anyone else. Do not forget it."
He flicked his wrist, the fire of his Gift surrounding him in a nimbus, and send Hiccup flying rather comically across the media library, where he would hopefully land squarely in a bookshelf and have much more mess to clean up.
Of course, he didn't count on the tentacles that immediately sprouted from the wall and snatched him up like a naughty child. ||Lord Master Thom of Trebond, violence against crewmembers is prohibited. You have received one Violation. Further Violations will result in Punishment.||
"Let go of me you slimy, mucus-filled excuse for a vessel," Thom snapped, pulling against the tentacles. "He deserved that and more."
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"Oog."
Worth it? That was still up for debate. Still, he managed to stagger to his feet, and--no, he was not cleaning up the bookshelf. It wasn't his mess. It was Thom's.
"I didn't deserve anything. You're the one that started being nasty, and you're the one that lifted a hand against someone else for a stupid reason. You're not--not entitled to the right to hurt anyone you want whenever you're annoyed. And every time you try, Stacy will stop you, and if you try fourteen more times--well, just look up 'Punishment' in the Media Library and you'll see what happens."
He rubbed the back of his head, grimacing.
"Consider this a lesson in restraint."
If you don't exercise some, Stacy'll use some on you, Thom.
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But Thom was beyond the point of actually listening to what the boy was saying anymore. Now he had to bend the entirety of his attention to his magic, which bled outside his skin more brightly by the passing second - and Hiccup was not helping by still speaking.
"Be quiet," Thom said. He still hung loosely in the bonds of the tentacles, and none of the words had penetrated, just the grating buzz of his voice, breaking all his concentration as he tried to haul the unruly, excessive mass of his power back under control.
It was like wrestling his twin and her Shang lover at the same time, and Thom had never cared for wrestling. It made his head ache.
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While he really, really wanted to walk out before Thom was let go, he also got the impression that maybe he should possibly stay until the guy stopped...glowing. Just to make sure he didn't keel over or something.
Even if he did throw him into a bookcase. And might try again.
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He was aware, foremost, that he was wheezing - and should probably get that looked at as soon as possible, if he dared to let a healer near him with the sickness in his Gift. He was loosely aware of the tentacles retracting and pitching him to his knees on the floor, where he stayed because he did not have the attention to spare for standing up at the moment.
Mostly he was aware of the awful tug-of-war going on internally. That spell was not one he should have used, not while his magic was in a state of flux, not when it drained just enough of his own power for Roger's power to come roaring out of him like a wild beast-
No. He was a Master, and he was the master of this magic, and he would make it bend to his will. Sweat poured down his forehead and slowly, ever so slowly, the amethyst-and-blood fires of the combined Gifts sank back into his skin, leaving Thom gasping and sweaty on the floor.
It was only then that he realized Hiccup was still there, and glared.
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Stupid question from someone stupid enough to still be standing there, and strange coming from someone he'd just slammed into a bookcase, but there it was. He wanted to know if he should put a call into Medbay.
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"I will..." Thom sat up, began the long struggle to his feet. "I will... be fine... with time... and quiet," he said. It was going to be an even longer struggle to recover any dignity he might have left. His chest heaved as he finally staggered to his feet, swaying. "If... if I had not... contained... I could have... killed you... easily."
The way he said it this time was different than the vitriolic threats thrown at Hiccup before now. This was more like a warning.
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"I didn't really mean to make you angry enough to actually hurt yourself. Or me, but really--"
You know, he'd feel worse if he made someone magically explode than if they killed him. Because hey, if they killed him, he wouldn't feel anything after that, right?
"But there are people on board that--that if you talk to them the way you did to me? They could probably do worse than the tentacles."
Not even magic people--in general, he wasn't quite sure how magic worked against, say, bullets.
"Also, I'm tired of being talked to that way. By anyone."
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The constant, taxing weight of the excess Gift pushed at his patience until it rode the knife's edge, at the breaking point. He acted out of anger and used his Gift. That triggered Roger's Gift attempting to devour him. The thing itself was malevolent, like the man it had once been attached to.
"It is why I seek... solitude." Thom turned his back on Hiccup and moved slowly back to the table he had claimed, to the scattered tablets, which he methodically began to sort without another word to the boy. It was more important than ever now that he find some kind of lead, that would lead to a cure.
That kind of lapse in control could not happen again.
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Also just a suggestion.
You could tell he was choosing his words carefully, trying not to make him angry again. In fact, even despite the fact that Thom threw him into a bookcase, and apparently very nearly killed him, they almost sounded kind.
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It didn't matter how nice Hiccup was being. There was too much anger there, at too many sources, and it was all directed outward - except for the poisonous bit that was directed at Thom himself, for making such a stupid mistake in the first place.
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Instead, he walked over wordlessly, picked up the tablets, and started sorting them again. He'd had that mostly finished before he'd tossed them at Thom.
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"...Thom," he finally said. "Technically Lord Master Thom, of Trebond. But only the Master part of it is relevant now." How tired he sounded, even to himself.
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Sort sort sort, almost done.
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He did, however, say, "Thank you."
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There, they were all sorted. He carefully stacked them up.
There was a last glance Thom's way, and then he started to walk away, but not before shooting over his shoulder, "Oh, and if you ever want to be around someone else sometime, without getting mad, I am occasionally capable of not talking for periods of time. But it'd have to wait until after I make sure I'm not concussed."
Why he was offering after being slammed into a bookcase, he didn't know. He was probably crazy for that. But sometimes people were a lot like dragons. Sometimes they were a lot like injured dragons, and a gentle hand and some quiet company could calm them down. Sometimes you just had to not take the lashing out at you personally. Sometimes they needed people to occasionally not take it personally and look past all the roaring.
What kind of person would he be if he treated dragons with that kind of patience but didn't treat people the same?
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Thom didn't respond to Hiccup's parting words, acting like he hadn't even heard them. It was impossible to consider that boy staying silent for more than forty seconds at a time.
He tossed the tablet in the discard pile and grabbed another.