trans_9 | Untangling [Open]

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."

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"I confess I have little idea of things of a mundane nature," Thom said. "I was much more interested in sharpening my power."

He was impressed with how much Alastirra accomplished here, on this strange ship in the middle of nothingness.

"At Feif Trebond we had an excellent gardener - the cook left something to be desired, but not because of lack of ability." Thom stared into the garden, remembering despite himself. "My twin and I sent ghost lions to follow him when he vexed us. He wasn't very fond of magic."

"What were the sort of things you had in your garden there, then? Do you remember? I had to learn to cook, in my travels on Azeroth alone, there was no guarantee that an outpost you were passing through would have a provider of victuals, but I could usually manage to hunt something edible, as it were."

Alastirra chuckled quietly at that. "I am not certain my cooking would be up to what you were used to at your home, but it is better than the slop. I eat it when I must, but...I definitely do not prefer it!"

She had to clap a hand over her mouth and giggle at the thought of ghost lions chasing a cook. "I have never done that with my spirit wolves--only sent them after those who deserved it. Though I suppose if he vexed you, he did!"

"The cook made excellent tarts," Thom said. "Alanna and I ate them. Cook threatened to tell Father." He coughed, embarrassed. "It was a long time ago. You can summon spirit wolves?"

He changed the subject quickly. Talking about his childhood escapades... it seemed pointless and silly.

She chuckled to herself again, eyes widening. Some good-natured ribbing couldn't hurt, could it? "Oh my, you were a normal human boy, with a normal human sister. Who would have thought?"

Alastirra went on to nod, and actually invoke the gestures that called the beasts to her. The large, blue-and-white translucent wolves practically leapt into existence, and circled around her once before sitting beside her and panting.

"You have to forgive them, it has been a while since I last called them. This is Akil, and this is Kurii," she said, gesturing first to the wolf on her left, then to the one on her right.

"This is my friend Thom," she said to the wolves, before gesturing to the mage. "If you want you can let them sniff you. They are very real, for all that they are supposed to be spirits."

While some people might have hesitated when confronted with wolves of such a prodigious size - and apparent insubstantiality - Thom did not hesitate to extend his hands, letting the wolves sniff him. Their breath puffed over his hands and he raised his eyebrows. "They look like they would be merely spirits, but they are quite solid aren't they?"

He reached out to the wolves - slowly, since he did like his hands attached to his wrists - attempting to rest his hands on their shoulders.

"At times, yes. I think it has something to do with the summoning. I empower them through magic and they feed off that and become solid. The spell does not last long, though, I am afraid. A few minutes at best."

Eventually, Thom would feel the wolves going less substantial beneath his hands--but not before Kurii licked him once.

"Well, at least they seem to like you. Mostly, I ask them to defend me from danger. They are very stalwart companions."

"The lions were merely illusion," Thom said, watching in fascination as his hands slowly began to go through the wolves' skins. They had felt perfectly solid a moment earlier. "And any fool versed in the Gift would have known it was so, since lions are hardly amethyst in color."

Wolves were hardly blue, but Alastirra's wolves were real enough. "Where do you summon them from?"

"They are spirits. They stay with me, unseen, so I can call them when I need them." Though there was a span of time in which the spell could not be cast. Not in rapid succession, for example.

"Which means they are still here, but disembodied. No throats with which to howl. Probably a good thing. Because Kurii probably would howl, then, and no one would ever get much sleep. I do not go about trying to anger people!" Alastirra chuckled to herself at that.

Thom fell silent for a moment at her last sentence. Comparatively, he was less than pleasant to be around. It made him wonder why Alastirra bothered with him at all.

"The Immortals on my world were all imprisoned in the Divine Realms hundreds of years ago," he said, picking up on their last thread of conversation. "We have no spirits or other such things, not anymore."

Alastirra frowned a little. She was better than some at picking up human facial expressions, and she was only getting better with practice.

"What did I say?" she asked, rolling right over his comment about spirits. Not that it wouldn't have been very disturbing to her to be in a world with no spirits at all, but that was neither here, nor there.

"Nothing," Thom said quickly, and tried for his old charming smile, the one that had gotten his former friends at Court to leave him be during the first stages of his fever. "Merely wondering what such a world would be like - demons, spirits, elementals... never a dull moment, I would suppose."

Alastirra narrowed her eyes. "Thom. I am female. I do know that when we say 'Nothing', that it usually means a very great something. And now, you are trying to pull this on me. You may pull the other leg. I am not buying it."

She gave a little smirk that broaded into a smile. "But as for my world? True. The moments there were never very dull."

Thom speared her with a calculating gaze - not only was she good-natured, but she was adept at picking up the nature of others. "It's not worth discussing," he said. "Just... thinking."

Alanna would tell him he was being pig-headed and stubborn, but his own insecurities were his business.

Alastirra narrowed her eyes again as her look turned skeptical. Well. Males were silly at the best of times. For now, she wouldn't push.

"As you like, then. I am very glad you are doing better, though. I think I would miss you, if something were to happen to you."

Even if he sometimes reminded her of a Hellfire spineleaf.

Untangling [Open]

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