• Closed • An asterismwarming reunion?

[Sintih]

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ll this talk was too much for Sintih. In an attempt to contain his sanity and what, little, he understood from the world, Sin's mind decided to simply let everything in, without questioning it, without trying to dissect it, analyze it, understand it. Just ears and mind, let the floodgates open and accept it all. He sat and listened to Doran explain how he'd read his mind, how he had missed Sin's mother so much after she'd died that he had simply watched Sin's memories like they were one of Tristan's theater plays. Doran trying to explain that he'd only ever done it once just passed over Sin's head. He had other things to focus on.

On some level, it made sense to Sintih. Doran being immortal, not an Immortal, but undying. A lot of things fell into place as Doran talked, things that seemed quite obvious now that he'd heard them from Doran directly. He nodded as Doran told him about Ziell. His earlier comment came to mind and his usually pale blue cheeks flushed as light burned behind his face crystals. It was surprising to hear exactly how right, and wrong, he'd been about Doran on so many subjects. The Eídisi looking Yludih shifted in his seat, simply staring at Doran for a moment after he had finished speaking. "I think I have questions..." He finally managed to say before shaking his head, trying to get out of his stupor. He pushed himself up a little and sat properly in his seat, looking over Doran for a moment.

"So... Exactly how old are you?" For a trill he managed to wait for an answer but then the dam seemed to burst and more questions followed the initial one. "Your father is an Immortal? Capital I Immortal? I mean Ziell, the Ziell..." Sin shifted in his seat as the flush to his cheeks made way for the enthusiasm of youth. "Did you know Andaris, the original one, I mean? I'd love to hear about them if you were around then. No wonder you know so much about so much... Do the memories... Do you just see them, like an observer, or do you experience them like I did? What about bad memories? Can you control what you see or just follow along with whoev-... Is it every time you touch someone or are you able to use it at will, or not use it at will." A moment of quiet in his mind and on his lips allowed his illusion to take a short breath before Sin continued on, new thoughts coming to mind.

"Did my mother know? Is that why you were so fond of her? Have you met other Immortals besides your father? Wait... Is your opinion on Immortals because you have a bad relationship with your father, who is one? That would make sense, actually..." Sin tapped his chin for a moment before continuing on. "What about other powers?" His mind was a total jumble right now. "I mean, looking at memories isn't the only thing you can, right? How did you even get that... that... power? Is it because of your father? Although he's just winter and peace, I don't see how reading memories fits with that did you get to choose them yourself? That would make sense, actually no, never mind, you'd have been a baby at... You were a baby once, right? You didn't just pop out like..." Sin's hand waved over Doran's image.

"Are you disappearing so often to hide that you are an immortal? Are people hunting you because of that? Is that why you left?" Sin didn't want to press that line of thought any further. "Would you want to be a mortalborn like... What was it? Kielik? I doubt you'd want a bunch of idiots praying in your name all the time..." Sin nodded, quite sure of himself at that last bit. "Wait... If you're... however old you are... Exactly how many children do you have running around?" It was only natural, right? It didn't occur to Sin that perhaps Doran had decided against such actions due to his nature. Or perhaps it did occur to him but he decided to ignore it, choosing this moment of revelation between the two of them to get as many answers as he possibly could. He had no idea how Doran would look upon this moment the next trial. "Are there places on Idalos you've never been to before? I mean, you've had enough time to travel around and see all the sights. Isn't that boring, though, when you've already done and seen everything? I feel like I'd get bored if I'd had such a long past..."

It was around this point that Sintih realized he'd gone on some sort of question-rant and he abruptly and audibly, although it was just an illusion, shut his mouth. "You can answer now." He said sheepishly, smiling slightly. So many questions, so many thoughts... Sin gripped the armrest of his chair with his fingers but he managed to contain himself through any answers Doran was willing to give. As he listened to Doran, his mind seemed to calm down a bit, favoring taking in new information over formulating new questions, generally tempering his enthusiasm. By the time Doran had finished answering, Sintih only had one pressing question left for his mentor. When the moment came to actually ask it, though, he hesitated. He had never truly understood what had existed between his mother and Doran and exactly what their relation had been. He didn't doubt for a second that his mother had been faithful to his father but he had no idea about Doran. "Did you... err... Did you want to say anything to my mother? I could relay the message for you..."

[Doran]

“I thought that you would“, the Mortalborn replied dryly as Sintih admitted to having questions, leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest. He had to admit, there was something quite liberating about telling the truth after all those centuries. From then on forth there would be no more lies between Beira’s son and him. History would not repeat itself. Besides, he quite enjoyed the look of surprise and disbelief on Sintih’s face. He opened his mouth in order to answer the boy’s first question, but just as he was about to speak, he posed another one, and then another one.

Most of them were good questions, intelligent questions, but that didn’t change anything about the fact that the Mortalborn was quite irritated. All those incessant questions made his head hurt, and they made it hard for him to concentrate. He raised a hand, thus signaling the boy that he ought to stop. “Did nobody ever teach you that you should give people time to answer before you pose another question?” he asked – in a tone that lacked the harshness that the false Edisi had likely grown accustomed to, he was tired of it, in more than one way - and waited a moment to give Sintih the opportunity to react to what he had just said before he took a deep breath and began to speak.

“Immortal with a capital ‘I’”, he confirmed and added, “As far as I know there is only one Ziell. And no, I didn’t know the original Andaris. That was before my time, although I’m pretty sure that some of the older Mortalborn knew him – as well as the other Seven. As for how my gift works, unfortunately I’m merely an observer. I see what you see, but I cannot interact with the people in your memories, and I while I can target a specific person, I cannot control which memories of them I see. My gift is not without flaws”, he admitted with a hint of regret.

“I am able to use it at will though”, he added. “Mortalborn whose abilities are always active do not tend to live long. It drains them.” His voice was filled with bitterness as he said those words. His daughter had been one of them. She had only lived for a few short, precious arcs before her powers had consumed her – and neither Vri nor his own father, Ziell, had done anything to help her when he had begged them to.

He knew that they could have saved her.

He decided not to dwell on that subject though. There was no point in it. What had happened, had happened, and he could neither turn back time nor bring his daughter back from the dead. Thinking of her any longer would only break his heart and cause him pain.

“I can do more of course”, he continued and tried to focus on the living child in front of him rather than the little girl that had been lying in a cold, dark grave for centuries. “I can affect the temperature of things. If I wanted to, I could create fire in the middle of winter – or I could turn you into a block of ice so that you would freeze to death. We Mortalborn regularly gain new powers. We don’t choose them though. They come to us, often in times of great distress. And no, I didn’t just pop out.” The tone of his voice was a little sharper as he said that, and he could not help but shake his head. Did Sintih really think that he had already been born as a grown man?

“Your mother never knew”, he replied and sighed. “I was worried about her reaction. I was a fool. As for other Immortals, I’ve met at least a dozen of them, often more than once. My relationship with my father is only one of the reasons for my dislike of them. I do not believe in guilt by association. I merely found most of them volatile, indifferent and often unnecessarily cruel. Are you familiar with the battle of Treidhart and what Xiur did?” he asked, wondering if Sintih had at least heard about that, even if he wasn’t familiar with the part hat he, Doran, had played in it.

He paused again and tried to remember what else Sintih had asked. He had posed so many questions that he struggled to remember them all. He considered demanding that the false Eidisi repeat what he had said to him, but then he just took another deep breath instead and spoke, “That is exactly why I leave so often. Some people do not react favorably to the presence of a Mortalborn. They hate us and fear us, and sometimes they are jealous of us. As for being like Kielik, I have to admit, I could do without a bunch of idiots praying to me, but his power is quite impressive, and that is something to be envious of, isn’t it?”

“I only know of one child, and she’s dead”, he replied. This time he managed to hide his bitterness. In fact the tone of his voice was nearly emotionless. “There may be others, but their mothers never chose to inform me of their existence. I’ve seen most of Idalos at this point, apart from a few remote areas, but I don’t think I could ever grow tired of this world. Besides, living for centuries is preferable to the alternative – fading away and dying within the blink of an eye I don’t think I could bear that”, he admitted, wondering how Sintih coped. But then again, Sintih wasn’t like most mortals, and if his current, Eidisi form died, he would have eternity in Uleuda.

“Tell Beira”, he said and stopped again for a moment because there were so many things that he wanted her to know – and because he still wanted her back, almost desperately. “Tell Beira that I’m sorry. I wish I had told her. I wish I hadn’t been such a fool.”

[Sintih]

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oran seemed to take his question waterfall quite well, at least better than what he would have expected from the man. It seemed to Sin that this moment was as important to the Mortalborn as it was to the fake Eídisi. He wasn't sure how he felt about that. He leaned a little towards Doran, hands shifting from the arm rests to his knees to support him. Instead of an immediate waterfall of answers, Doran instead found a moment to... to what exactly? Sin wasn't quite sure what the tone of voice meant that Doran as using as he'd never heard it before, at least not that he could remember. Whether Doran was scolding him patiently for his questions or actually wondering if someone had thought him about questions and answers wasn't sure to Sin. He decided something in between both and gave a half serious, half lighthearted answer. "Actually, no. I was only ever taught to question everything and then some." It wasn't entirely clear who exactly had taught him this but then again, Sin hadn't had many prominent teachers in his life.

It became a wild ride of wonder, disappointment and several moments where Sin realized that Doran was just as normal a person as everybody else. The man who had wanted to be with his mother was an immortal son of an Immortal who had met various other Immortals multiple times over the course of his life and who was, apparently, able to watch his memories with a touch and turn things to ash or ice because he wanted them to. Also, at one point stern, scolding Doran had been a little baby. Sin couldn't imagine a baby Doran, the carefully trimmed beard kept popping up onto the image of baby Doran. It wasn't easy to accept some of the things Doran said but then again, it was. Doran had never lied to him about anything he'd taught him. He'd only kept his own secrets safe, just like Sin did, just like Beira had done.

His mouth dropped open a little as he heard Doran claiming to have been a fool in the past. He'd never thought he'd hear those words coming from Doran's mouth. Once he'd overcome the initial shock, Sin found himself smiling lightly, knowing his mentor wasn't beyond faults either. He wondered, for a moment, how it would have been if he'd grown up with Beira and Doran as parents. It lasted only for a moment but he felt bad afterwards. His father, Rudi, had done everything in his power to do right by his only child and Sin repaid that kindness by thinking of another man as his father. Luckily, his father couldn't read his memories. Besides, if Beira had been with Doran, they would have been without children. Even if Beira had arranged for a child, it wouldn't have been Doran's. Even the son of an Immortal wasn't compatible with a Yludih when it came to those things.

"I can't say I've heard anything about a battle on Treidhart. I was probably focused on other things at the time." He answered Doran's question, not really knowing when or where this battle had taken place. He would have liked to have seen it, or partaken in it, but then again, Doran had claimed that he wouldn't have come out of it alive. He pushed the thoughts aside, ignoring them in favor of the truth that Doran was sharing with him now. Sin was surprised to hear that Doran didn't mind having people worship him, like they did the Immortals and, apparently, some Mortalborns as well. "Envy might be too strong a word, I think, but who doesn't want other people to worship them?" Sin shrugged. He'd never thought Doran would be one of those people but then again he'd never thought Doran was a few hundred arcs old either.

His smile returned as Doran talked about a lifetime as the blink of an eye. He'd never thought about it like that. "It might be the blink of an eye to you but it's an entire life time for everybody else." His smile faded as Doran began answering his last question. Doran was hesitating, trying to formulate some sort of message to a woman he'd cared much for in her lifetime. Sin wondered how Doran thought of the time he'd spent with Beira if he considered an entire life span of most of the races to be 'the blink of an eye'. As far as Sin was aware, they'd only known each other for two or three dozen arcs, at most. Far removed from the eighty or ninety arcs he considered to be 'the blink of an eye'.

"You want me to tell her that you're a mortalborn then?" He couldn't do one without the other unless Doran's plan was to confuse Beira with such cryptic talk. Sin had to admit that he was curious how his mother would react to this information. He also had to admit that he didn't like seeing Doran thinking or talking about himself as a fool. Everyone made mistakes in their life and if you lived one for as long as Doran had there was absolutely no way around them. That the mortalborn thought he was somehow less because of them pained Sin to see. He'd learned so much from this man, even if he ignored all the information he'd gained this trial, that he couldn't stand seeing Doran think of himself as a fool. "It must be difficult, seeing other lives end every time you blink..." Sin couldn't image how he'd feel when Yana would leave him like that. The worst was that it was a guarantee. Either he would hurt her like that or should would do it to him. Sin shook his head, trying to push away the sorrow he imagined would come with that moment.

[Doran]

“Of course“, Doran remarked as Sintih claimed that he had been focused on other things when the battle on Treidhart had taken place. It didn’t particularly surprise him that the boy had completely missed one of the most important events in the past couple of arcs, but he didn’t chide him, and he didn’t argue with him, at least not now. Instead he spoke, “Treidhart is a prime example of the Immortals’ cruelty. The Immortal of Hope and his allies gathered countless mortals, most of which lacked any kind of combat experience, and sent them across the ocean in order to fight their enemies, ready to sacrifice them for their goals. Xiur lied to them and claimed that there was hope for them. He thought himself invincible and invulnerable. I decided to prove that this is not the case and reveal the truth.”

That was all that he said on that matter. He wasn’t trying to justify his actions – he didn’t want to or need to justify himself, to anybody – and neither did he want Sintih to approve of what he had done, even though he had begun to care about Beira’s son. He merely wanted him to understand what had happened and what the reason for his attack on the Immortal of Hope had been – if the boy managed to figure out that that was what had happened. A part of him feared that he would have to spell everything out for him.

“I want you to tell her everything”, he replied. “I don’t want to keep secrets from her any longer.” He had always thought that there was nothing that he could have done differently, but that wasn’t true. He could have been honest with Beira. Not telling her had been a mistake, one of the biggest mistakes that he had made in his entire life. If he had been honest with her from the beginning, his life would be very different now – even though he would have lost her all the same in the end. He had dedicated centuries to the study of chemistry and alchemy, but he had never found a way to share his immortality.

He didn’t say anything as Sintih remarked that it must be difficult, but just nodded curtly. It was difficult, more than a mortal like Sintih could probably imagine, but Doran saw no point in talking about it. There had been a time when he had resented his Immortal blood that set him apart from those around him – when he had wished to be like them, but that had been a long time ago. He had come to appreciate what he was and treasure the powers he had been given. If he had been born a mortal man, he would have died centuries before, he would never have met Beira, and everything that he had worked for would have been lost, and that would have been impossible to bear.

For a moment he just sat there, looking at the Yludih opposite of him, and then he spoke, “I hope that she’ll understand why I did it and that she’ll eventually be able to forgive me.” He hesitated for a moment, and then he continued, “I won’t be able to persuade you to leave the country, will I, even if it may be safer for you? I think I understand why you need to stay now. I’ll be there if you need me, and I won’t disappear without a warning again.” Those words were exceptionally kind for a man whose emotions usually varied between cold and indifference, but then it was an exceptional situation that the Mortalborn had never thought would come to pass. It was possible, even likely, that he would revert to his normal behavior the next trial, but for now he showed some sort of understanding for Sintih’s situation, even if he didn’t approve.

He had also realized that it might have been wrong to keep things from him and disappearing without a trace again and again. Maybe Sintih would have been safer if he had known the truth, about the world and about him, from the beginning.

[Sintih]

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in wasn't quite sure how he was supposed to respond to Doran's remark. After the time they had spent together, he could tell Doran wanted to say more, wanted to fall back on his teaching habits and tell Sin just how wrong he was for not having heard about Treidhart, but he didn't. Instead, he tried to explain what had happened from his point of view. Sin wasn't naive enough to think Doran was telling him things the way he'd seen them. If he asked any of these countless mortals that had been there, under Xiur, Sin was sure he'd get a tale about great victory and hope and light paving the way through darkness, things like that, like the old stories. Doran, on the other hand, seemed against the idea and went so far as to say that the Immortal of Hope had lied to all of them just to get them to do what he needed.

Sin didn't know much, or anything, about Xiur, apart from the fact that he was the Immortal of Hope and possibly light or something similar. Light and Hope usually went hand in hand, didn't they? When Doran finished recounting his view on the events, Sin wanted to question him more, ask him about the way he'd tried to prove an Immortal was wrong. Weren't they Immortal? Wasn't that the whole point? Then again, Doran was Mortalborn, apparently with the potential to rival Immortals in the long run. But Sin had spent enough time around soldiers to know that when they didn't want to talk about a certain fight or war that one shouldn't push further. At least not without a good amount of alcohol in them and even then it came at the risk of angering them while being drunk. So he left his questions aside.

When he confirmed with Doran exactly what he wanted Beira to know, he couldn't help a small smile. He had never understood exactly what had been going on between his mother and his teacher, or perhaps he had but didn't want to accept it, but he understood the need to tell someone you loved everything about yourself, just open up and share. He'd gone through the same experience with Yana. Things had been rocky between for a while after that trial but everything was stronger between them now. They shared more, lived more and loved more. At least Sin did.

For a moment after expressing his wishes, Doran and Sin sat in silence, both with their minds somewhere else. It was far from awkward as they'd spent countless breaks, if not trials, in a similar silence when they had been working together. Doran was the first to break it, an unusual but not rare occurrence between them. Sin sat and listened, speechless. Despite having just shared secrets with each other that they only shared with a few select people in their lives, Sin didn't think he'd seen Doran as vulnerable as he did right in this moment. Up until now it had always been a matter of teaching Sin about Doran's secrets, more or less, but this, this was something more. Sin quickly wiped away an illusionary tear as he sat opposite of a man he'd hated, grown to respect and need far more than any other person in his life at the time.

"You've known my mother longer than I. You know fully well she'll understand and forgive you." He said, smiling softly. If anything Beira's reply would be a laundry list of scientific questions in regards to Doran's ancestry. "I also know that you're looking out for me. It's never been easy to do that. I haven't always understood why you did the things you did but I know you're looking out for me. But running away isn't the solution here." There were many reasons to leave Rynmere but Sin had an equal value of things that kept him here. Now that Doran was back and supported his decision, at least a little bit, his reasons for staying had just overtaken his reasons to leave. "If ever I feel truly in danger because of this mage business, I'll be on the first ship,bird or portal to Etzos."

Again, a silence between the two of them. Doran still carried that look, that feeling of vulnerability. Sin felt bad for him, as if it was somehow his fault. Doran, like every other non-Yludih, had no clue as to how things worked in Uleuda. All Doran knew was that he was forever removed from the life of a woman he had loved. Sin knew just how much that thought hurt him and he'd known Yana for barely a few arcs. In how much more agony was Doran, who had shared multiple arcs with his mother? "You know, with what she has become, mother will probably outlive you." Would it be of help to Doran? Knowing that someone he loved wasn't dead or still just a blink in his lifetime but a permanent, yet invisible, part of his life? As he spoke, Sin promised himself that, if his mother accepted Doran's apology, that he'd keep them connected to the best of his abilities.

[Zip]

Overview

Yes, Doran, yeeeees. Preach the anti-xiur gospel to all in the flock who will listen. Anyway, this was a nice little thread. Lots of bonding, lots of father/son teacher/student things, lots of sharing by the usually secretive and grumpy Doran. Take your rewards, bois.

@Sin

Points

XP: 15/15

Loot/Injuries/Overstepping

Nope

Knowledge

Knowledge:
Alchemy: Not a Sparked Discipline
Deception: Just make it look like you have business to get in
Deception: Don't say the truth out loud
Detection: Use your shared history to come to a conclusion
Persuasion: Sometimes fails in the face of determination or stupidity
Politics: The weight of a name
Rupturing: Doesn't actually need a door to leave a room
Socialization: Carefully selected words meant to hurt
Tactics: Useless when you have useless men to work with?
Tactics: Sometimes you just have to make a stand

Beira (NPC): Loved Doran?
Doran: Hasn't changed in arcs
Doran: Still your teacher
Doran: Intends to keep his promise to your mother
Doran: Abandoned you more than once
Doran: left to protect me
Doran: loved your mother
Doran: doesn't know everything
Doran: kept you around as a souvenir
Doran: fought at the battle of Oscillus
Doran: Can read your memories with a touch
Doran: Can change temperature at will
Doran: Mortalborn
Doran: Son of Ziell
Doran: several centuries old
Doran: A lifetime is the blink of an eye for him
Doran: Has no love for Immortals
Sintih: Angry at Doran
Sintih: Needs more from Doran than knowledge
Sintih: Yludih messenger service
The battle of Oscillus

@Doran

Points

XP: 15/15

Loot/Injuries/Overstepping

nope

Knowledge

Skill Knowledges:
Alchemy: Doesn't require a spark
Deception: Sometimes you have to deceive people in order to protect them
Discipline: Trying not to lash out
Discipline: Sometimes it's impossible to contain your emotions
Etiquette: Giving people time to answer before asking another question
Intimidation: Explaining what exactly happens to mages in Rynmere
Intimidation: Preventing somebody from leaving the room
Intimidation: Cold anger
Psychology: The heavy weight of regret
Psychology: The truth can set you free
Storytelling: Telling the story of my life
MB Ability: Window to the Past: I cannot always control what I see

Sintih: Has decided to stay in Rynmere
Sintih: Mad at me because I left without a word
Sintih: Needs more from me than knowledge
Sintih: I care about him
Sintih: Yludih messenger service
Sintih: I told him who I really am and what I did
Beira: I love her

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