trans_9 | Untangling [Open]

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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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"Well, at least it was not in the middle of my berry canes. Our berry canes," the aforementioned Draenei amended quickly.

She eyed the scorch in the wood from where she knelt, digging. Today's plantings were pea shoots--Alastirra figured that the plants would mature enough to be worthwhile foodstuffs.

"Would you like me to check and see if you've done lasting harm to it?" Since the tree didn't seem to be on fire still, the shaman doubted it, but she did try to comfort Thom in small ways, when she could.

"I don't suppose there's a way to undo the damage," he said.

Thom liked that stump.

"I didn't expect it to expel so violently... I suppose when the energies aren't integrated into my own, my essence naturally rejects them."

"From me? No. Alas, I am not a druid--plants are not really my forte. I am sorry."

Which didn't mean someone else couldn't fix it, just...not Alastirra herself.

"Still working things out then, I take it? Well, I suppose that is why you are here. Though it is nice to see you," she said with a smile.

It was still strange to have someone express pleasure at his presence. "Yes... it will take a great deal of time to sort out entirely," he said. "Of course, it would take more time if I weren't considerably talented."

He sat back down on the stump, avoiding the smoking gouge. "I did attempt to avoid the garden."

"For which I, and others, are grateful. You do look much improved, truly. I was wondering if healing spells would do you any good--and offer to cast them upon you. But I figured that might be a bit much. Or stepping on your toes," she said ruefully, and chuckled.

"You are still working, I am sure. And you are welcome in my little corner here for as long as you like, as I have said many a time before. You have been well besides, then?"

"I'm afraid the healers have proved quite ineffective in the past. They can slow some of the deterioration of my body but since the sickness is not of the body, healing is of little use aside from that."

He didn't really believe her that there were people wishing him well. Celena and Aibghalien were colleagues doing him a favor, one he was sure he would have to return at some point in time.

"I find it relaxing. There are few good places aboard where I can work." Which was his way of saying he was comfortable here.

Alastirra wished him well. That was one person, at least, wasn't it?

"I am sure the deterioration does you no good. I am no great healer--my talents lie elsewhere, but if it is necessary, my magic is doing *no one* any good simply sitting unused. So if it makes you less distracted by pain, or Light knows how else it might affect you, by all means, allow me."

Her tone might be somewhere between joking and chiding, but no one could deny that she was quite serious.

"Well, good. I am glad you can work here. We may not speak of much besides what I consider work, but were something to happen to you, I would miss you. I was concerned when I did not see you. I am glad Aibghalien has been taking good care of you. Even if he has been scarce as well.

That reminded her, she never had given the elf his little present. Ah well. It also reminded her that she had to find something similar for Thom. Well, that was her secret, for now.

"If you like," Thom said stiffly. Whether he meant healing him or missing him should he happen to explode wasn't clear, but he looked away from the draenei like he was embarrassed. The last person who had told him she would honestly miss him should something happen to him was his twin.

People liked Alanna. Thom didn't inspire the same kind of friendship.

"I have a question for you, actually," he said. He'd been putting this off for far too long. Drawing the omnicomm from inside his sleeve, he held it out in front of him. "I don't understand this, but I've come to realize that it's the only way to spread news aboard this ship. Do you know how it works?"

"I do, as a matter of fact." She rose, dusting her hands off on the cloth covering her mail leggings, and trotted over casually, a hand out for his omnicomm. Even then, she brought hers out as well, and held them together for a comparison.

"Yours has a keyboard like mine, yes? But it is in your language?" She hoped. Alastirra still wasn't certain how the translators worked on Stacy. "Well, you type your words in, and it will come up here, and then when you hit this button it will post. It is like a message board of sorts but with no paper, really."

Good enough for a first, brief lesson. Alastirra hoped.

Thom looked down at the screen where she had indicated. Yes, he'd tried pressing the buttons before and had figured out how to take down memos and notes - his satchel of note-taking materials was a thing of the past - but he'd never gone to the screen Alastirra indicated.

Now that he was there, he tried typing a message - erasing it before he sent it, of course. "It's simpler than I expected," he said. "The whole ship reads this?"

"Yes. When you simply type and send, everyone can see it. You can lock it to people by doing this--there are ways to lock it to specific departments from what I have heard, and I know there are ways to lock it to specific people." Alastirra indicated the fields with a fingernail to direct Thom's attention to it.

"So you could lock a post to me, or to Aibghalien, or whomever you like, really. And then only the person you had locked it to should be able to read it. Most people do not try to interfere with others' posts, though sometimes, it is possible. Though I do not know how to do that," the Draenei admitted.

"You are looking better, Master Thom," Daja said, walking up to Thom, Trader staff in hand. She kept a reasonable and polite distance, however. Considering their last meeting, she wasn't expecting a warm reception.

She glanced at the blackened scorch mark, but declined to mention it.

The sound brought another wizard, of quite another sort, hustling over. Wand in hand, though not pointed at anything, as he knew quite well the sound might have been perfectly normal, all things considered.

"Of course I am," Thom said, turning away from the scorch on the stump. "Didn't I tell you that I only needed time?"

Time that he had been rapidly running out of before Aibghalien and Celena cornered him in the Tower of High Sorcery.

Thom stared at the stump, breathing hard and scowling, and the sound of footsteps brought his fevered violet gaze straight up to Lupin. "Yes?" he asked, plainly wondering why the other man was there at all.

"Fascinating," Thom said. He scrolled through some notices on the front page - flesh-eating monsters, assault, Council-

"Ah, the Council - I still cannot believe that they would be elected."

Alastirra chuckled. "Power or blood is how those of your world attain their leadership? You would be very surprised at my world as well, then. It is very, very common that the Exarchs and higher are elected to their posts. Velen leads us because he is a seer of great wisdom."

Though her familiarity with other ways spoke at least of mild knowledge of other cultures on her home world.

"Time and the assistance of the Magical Department," Daja said calmly, refusing to allow Thom to pretend that he was managing on his own. While she hadn't heard anything outright stating that Thom was getting assistance, she had been the one to inform the Magical Department of Thom's illness. And she had enough connections in the Magical Department to have a further inkling of what was going on than the general population.

Daja was not someone you were going to be able to fool, Thom.

[[ooc: Hope it's alright to have Daja just hearing little tidbits about Thom getting help? But if it's not, let me know and I'll edit]]

"I am receiving some assistance from colleagues." And that was all she was going to get out of him. "They and I have devised a method to bleed away some of the excess, so as to give me time to untangle things."

Which is what he had been doing. The downside to which being that Roger's magic was unusually violent and tended to expel in just that way.

"The King's blood is blessed by the Gods," Thom said. "And when the King no longer fulfills his station to the benefit of his people, the Gods dethrone him."

It hadn't happened in at least a few thousand years on his world. No, the Gods had set in motion certain chosen people to prevent a failing of the Conté blood.

"Ruling a country is no matter to be left to someone who may or may not have been spending his entire life learning how to do it. There's a reason why lands and titles and kingdoms are passed through blood."

Daja nodded. She did not feel the need to gloat - she was merely glad that he was at least getting the help he needed. The man may be unpleasant and far too prideful, but uncontrolled magic was dangerous.

Particularly since her own apprentice had been injured by Thom's magic. She did not wish to see that happen to anyone else.

"But I take it control is still an issue? Bleeding gives you time, but does not at core solve the problem." She considered that scorch mark again, frowning. Difficult to divine a solution - unlike normal untrained magic, training and discipline would not solve this. If anything it help more in common with the way her and her foster-siblings magic had gotten out of control due to the way Sandry had threaded them together.

"I do apologize," Lupin said politely as he put away his wand. "I heard a rather ominous sound and feared that either Alastirra or her garden were in some sort of trouble."

"Well, Velen does not rule a country, I would say. Just my people. We have had to run for a long time." But Thom didn't need to know the entire history of the Draenei.

"If that is what works for your people, then it is a good thing. I am not sure the council works here, yet, but I have not been awake so long. I am sure that if there is a clear way it does not work, there will be another discussion about how the ship should be run."

Even if it was boring and Alastirra would probably skip it.

Thom's temper flared at her mention of his control and he squeezed his jaw shut hard, forcing it back. Resolutely, he thought of the meditative state he had just left. "I am expelling bits of him one by one," Thom said. "Much longer and they would have begun to bleed into my essence, and that's still a daily contest."

She would never get him to admit that his control was failing. He had perfect control. He had yet to kill a single person, even that short Hiccup person who had vexed him so much.

"I did turn away from the garden," Thom protested, and then scowled harder, unsure why he'd done so. "You know Alastirra? Who are you?"

He felt an irrational surge of jealousy and bit the inside of his cheek. That was nonsense. To think someone like Alastirra had no others aboard the ship she was familiar with was absurd.

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