Untangling [Open]

[gifthasacold]

With Celena and Aibghalien's help, Thom looked better than he had since he'd arrived on the ship. The dark circles under his eyes weren't as pronounced, and his fever had cooled slightly.

But there was still a long way to go before he had his Gift under control again, and Roger's magic still raved at the back of his mind, pressing on his temper. He had taken to the less used parts of the ship, trying to keep himself away from any people who might try his patience.

Hydroponics remained his favorite spot for meditation, near Alastirra's garden. He and the draenei had formed a cautious friendship of sorts - the kind where they mostly left each other alone, with the occasional conversation about magical theories between their disciplines. More often than not, Thom spent his time in deep meditation, dropped into his center of magic and slowly pulling his and Roger's magic away from each other.

Sweat dripped down his forehead as he worked, and suddenly he jumped up from his customary seat on a stump and whirled around, throwing out his hand. A ball of orange flame leapt from his fingertips and scorched a blackened groove in the wood.

"Damn."

Comments

[fireforger]

Daja noted his expression, and remained alert. She was more able to defend herself against magic than Hiccup, but that was no excuse to not be on guard. "Where do you store the expelled magic?" she inquired, keeping her questions on a professional level.

[gifthasacold]

Academic was good. Academic was something to focus on to force himself to breathe steadily and slowly. "Celena suggested a crystal, of the sort on her world magic is usually stored. I've found the crystalline structure is perfectly designed to store vast amounts of Gift, and likely other magics as well."

He wiped his forehead with his sleeve of the sweat it had accumulated while he was meditating. "I am making good progress."

It was slower than an ant's crawl, but now he had the time to do it.

[fireforger]

Daja nodded. "Academic mages in my world will also use crystals to store magic. They are less effective for ambient mages, excluding stone mages."

She considered the issue. Their magics were different, and yet there were still similarities. Magic was still magic, whatever form it took. "I am glad to hear that. Particularly since manipulating your own magic in such a fashion would be incredibly difficult, if not impossible for many mages."

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Thom scoffed. "I'm not most mages," he said. "Nevertheless, it will still take a great deal of time before I return to normal."

It was a particularly rough way to learn to consider the side effects before weilding his power.

[fireforger]

"So you've said before," Daja said dryly. She didn't doubt his power, but she did doubt his good sense.

Pride had been the downfall of many a mage. And his arrogance had very nearly caused his.

"How much control do you have at present?" she asked. "Are you able to use your magic without the influence of the taint?"

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"I am able to wield the combined Gifts with some difficulty," Thom corrected. "It's not a question of separation at this stage, but merciless control. His Grace was a man of steel will and uncompromising power - his Gift is much the same."

Thom sat back down on the stump, putting his hands in his lap. He spoke casually of the phenomenon that now weakened his body and compromised his Gift, forgetting that he had yet to explain the full situation to anyone but Aibghalian and Celena.

[fireforger]

"His Grace?" Daja repeated, surprised. "The taint is someone else's magic?"

She knew that combining magics was possible, of course - she and her siblings were testament to that. And there were cases of mages borrowing - or stealing - another's magic to boost their power. But for one magic to literally poison another? She had never heard of the like.

"How exactly did this taint occur?" she said slowly.

[gifthasacold]

Thom fixed her with his violet gaze like he was weighing her, determining whether she was worth imparting this information on. She spoke like a mage that had been well-educated, although he had no idea what kind of level her power was on.

"I carry two Gifts. My own, and Duke Roger of Conte's, the would-be usurper of the crown and a sorcerer of equal power to myself."

It didn't entirely answer her question, but he didn't feel very forthcoming.

[fireforger]

Daja returned his gaze, not flinching from his judgement. Other mages had judged her before, for attaining her medallion at a young age. She did not let such judgement bother her. She knew her own worth and ability; she did not need outside validation.

"That does not explain why his magic had such a devastating effect - or how it came to taint your own," she said calmly. "I have experience with combined magics, remember? And while the mingling of my magic with my siblings did cause us to eventually have difficulties with control, it never made us ill or sickly. Neither has borrowing another person's magic ever had the same effect. There must be another factor at work here."

[gifthasacold]

"It is not simply borrowing - the act of borrowing a Gift or magics is usually done in the middle of a great working, or in a time where your own power simply won't suffice. I carry the whole of his magic as well as mine, and the both of us were known throughout the Eastern Kingdoms for our power." Thom only recently, and only tied to Alanna, but people had begun to speak of Master Lord Thom of Trebond separate from his twin. "The excess is what causes my fever. I am literally burning up."

He offered his hands, eyebrows raised. Why he felt the need to prove himself to her, he didn't know. If she chose to take them, she would feel the fever in his blood. He was hotter than any human should be, not one still alive.

[fireforger]

"I have seen your fever before, Master Thom. I do not need further proof," Daja said politely. "But how did you end up with his entire magic? I cannot imagine that such a renowned mage would simply choose to give it up wholeheartedly like that."

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Thom cleared his throat, lifting his chin. "I don't believe he truly realized what had happened until he had been wholly raised to life again. While still in his suspended state between life and death, his Gift was easy to capture - not that it was intentional," Thom said quickly. "The capturing of his Gift, that is. I did mean to raise him from the grave."

There it was. Somehow he didn't think Daja would react with the same calm, academic air as the others.

[fireforger]

Daja stared, not quite able to believe what she had just heard. "Are you mad?!" she said. "Trader Koma and Bookkeeper Oti, why would you try to raise someone from the grave? Do you have no sense at all?"

Even their attempt to bring back Rosethorn had been near unheard, and she had only just slipped over into death moments before. And, Daja couldn't help but admit, it was foolish, even if they had succeeded. But bringing back someone who was already dead and buried?

[gifthasacold]

There was the question he was hoping she wouldn't ask - why. The others had not been too concerned with that, and it let him avoid the fact that... well, he wasn't really sure himself.

"I... because I could." He shrugged. It was the simplest answer. "I wanted to see if I could. Roger was... well, he was..." Thom shrugged again, turning his eyes to the garden like there were answers there. "Target of convenience, for effect, I suppose. He was killed rather publicly. Very embarrassing duel for the royal family, their royal cousin exposed as a traitor and their best knight exposed as a woman within the same day."

He was deflecting, he knew it.

[fireforger]

For a moment, Daja couldn't say anything. Also she could do was stare. How could such a great mage, with so much power, do something so...stupid?

"You are mad," she said finally. "How could you do something so risky and dangerous simply to see if you could? Did no one ever teach mages that there are limits to magic in your world?!"

[gifthasacold]

"I am not mad!" Thom shouted, and a sick aura of power flared out from his skin, the color of old blood. His nostrils flared and he clenched his fists, forcing the magic back. The anger was still there - weeks ago, he would not have been able to do this.

Months ago, it would not have been necessary at all.

"Roger - you don't understand," he said. "Roger was brilliant, powerful, talented... everything that I was. He was my equal, my only equal. And Deliah, that awful woman, she goaded me, she told me I couldn't, that it was impossible."

[fireforger]

"So you, as a mage of unparalleled power, one who should be experience enoug to know your own limitations, felt that you had to prove that to anyone who goaded you?" Daja said coolly. "You disregarded the rules of life and death, and attempted an incredibly foolish act of magic, purely to show off?"

[gifthasacold]

"No!" Thom said, his hand balling into fists at his side. "No, it wasn't-"

Thom sat down on the stump, glaring into space. He didn't really know himself why he had done it. The opportunity had been there, and the ability, and the support. Why wouldn't he?

"I had to hide from him for years," Thom said. "The most powerful sorcerer in the Eastern Kingdoms, Roger was, and he didn't much like competition. I never had the chance-"

He cut himself off and looked away, back to the garden. That was enough.

[fireforger]

"The chance to what?" Daja said calmly, delivering Thom with a level stare. She had seen mage die because they overstepped themselves, mages who thought that their power would protect them. Mages who thought that they had to compete with other mages constantly. The results were rarely pretty. "To prove that you were better? To prove that you were an equal? To who, and to what end? Pride is a currency with no value, Master Thom, and I have yet to see what else you would gain from such a foolish encounter."

Daja fell silent for a moment, watching. When she next spoke, her voice was softer; laced with a underlying hint of sympathy. "You should not have to live up to the reputations of the dead, Master Thom. If you judge yourself by another mage's deeds, you will always be walking in his shadow rather than forging your own path."

[gifthasacold]

Thom didn't respond at first. She couldn't know what it had been like for him growing up with nobody around who could even touch him. He had been so beyond his peers, and once he had a decent amount of arcane knowledge he had begun to surpass his professors as well.

"You don't know what it's like to be the only one," he said finally, sourly. "You had Lady Sandraline. I had no-one. I thought I might have had Roger, once, before my sister found him treasonous and killed him."

It was a hard thing to admit, that raising Roger had been mostly because of his own desperate need, but Thom was beyond denial. It was time to come to terms, at least to himself.

[fireforger]

Daja was silent for a moment. She wasn't one to share her life story so easily. She preferred to keep a polite distance, until she knew someone better. And while she had gotten to know Thom better, he wasn't really someone she liked.

A yet on one level, Daja could relate.

"I didn't always have Sandry. I used to live with my family - Traders. But one day our ship sank, and I was the only survivor. Everyone I knew, my family...they were all gone. And in Trader lore, sole survivors of a disaster are considered the worst of bad luck. I was declared trangshi, an outcast. As long as I was trangshi, I could never live or communicate with other Traders, or they would risk catching my bad luck. I had to live alone amoung kaqs, who understood nothing about Trader ways or culture. So yes, I do know what it is like, Master Thom."

Gently, she stepped forward, to place one hand on his shoulder. "But that does not mean you need to be the only one forever. Sometimes you find people who are like where you least expect them - I found Sandry, and Tris and Briar. None of them were Traders, but they became my family. Perhaps here, on this ship that beings together the magics of countless worlds, you will find those who are your true peers."

[gifthasacold]

Thom shrugged her hand off as soon as she put it there - her words made sense, but he wasn't ready to listen to sympathy. He was too busy glaring at his lap and feeling like a proper idiot. How hadn't he realized what Roger meant to him? The only man who could hold a candle to his power - was it any wonder he would be desperate to have him back?

"And what of the time when we return?" he asked. "What then? Everyone in the palace knew what I did - it could hardly be hidden - and Roger... he manipulated me." Thom spat the words, teeth clenched. "After I brought him out of the space between life and death, and he wouldn't even look at me beyond a pat on the head and 'good job, my dear boy, now run along with your experiments.'"

[fireforger]

"We all must live with our mistakes, Master Thom," Daja said, solemn. She had made her own as well. She did think she would ever stop regretting them.

"And this Lord Roger...from what you have told me, he is a traitor. A manipulated. A man not to be trusted or befriended. Of what worth is the regard of such a man?" she sighed. How to convince someone that even with their mistakes, they must move on? "You hid your own magic from him. Perhaps there are others who have done the same. Perhaps there are still more who could learn, who could become your equal, with the proper teaching and guidance."

[gifthasacold]

"That was only after-" Thom paused. It was useless to argue that Roger was anything other than a manipulative snake, but...

"He was a genius. A clever, charismatic, lovable genius and the entire court doted on him until he was uncovered... and even after I pulled him from his grave, His Majesty chose to instate his lands, titles, everything. He was nobility of the highest sort and so infinitely clever-" Thom smiled just remembering. "My sister needed divine intervention to work out what was happening."

Compared to Thom, who had about as many friends as would fit in a teacup and couldn't seem to carry on a civil conversation for more than five minutes, he was a golden boy. The very thing that young, Gifted mages modeled themselves after.

[fireforger]

"He sounds like the kind of man that views everyone else as pawns, who twists others to do his own bidding" Daja said softly. "I am sorry, Master Thom."

Then she blinked. "Divine intervention?"