A Bird in the Hand

[Zip]

67 Ashan 719

It wasn’t empty in the Veil today.

A woman stood with her back against one of the uncountable doors that dotted the endless expanse that served as a protective skin between the human mind and the relentless primal chaos of grand Emea. The woman’s posture was rigid; impatient. Impatient in a way that bled frustration into every bit of body language. Every ten, twenty, thirty trills she would look at one of the doors, as if expecting something or someone to emerge from it, before returning her sharp gaze to empty air. Every bit or three, she would roll her eyes and let out the kind of groan that, well, wasn’t a groan at all but more of a snarl.

She was waiting. Her guests were late and her time was valuable, and they still kept her waiting.

Disappointment was the name of the game, and punctuality was a thing in short supply. Being on time told you three things about yourself: it mattered, it mattered how you mattered, and it will continue to matter in future ventures. Lateness only meant two things: disrespect or an the lack of foresight to account for delays and plan appropriately.

In two words: fuck them.

In two more words and one: she was leaving.

And as she lifted her hand to part the air before her and return to her dreamscape, a frustratingly calm, familiar voice drifted through the air.

“Are you going somewhere, Miss Humming?”

“I am, Mister Kiwi.” Zipper said. She paused, looked over the shoulder to regard him and their taller compatriot, and returned to summoning the portal. “I’m making up for lost time.”

Mathias frowned, that stupid expression he made when he intentionally wanted her to know he was confused. She got it. He had the comprehension skills of a stillborn baby. “Lost time? You said to bring the Lord of Nothing to the Veil tonight.”

And the Lord of Nothing stood there, doing absolutely nothing other than glancing between the other two dreamers.

“Mister Kiwi, it isn’t dawn. It isn’t noon. It isn’t the next night. It’s arcs away and I’m ten older.”

“...rhetor-”

“No. Would you like to see my grandchild?” She rose her hand and discharged a ear-wrenching roar of Ether into the endless veil canopy. “He’s all grown and he flew the coop.”

“Rhetoric,” the little blonde idiot murmured to himself. The trial he managed to figure that out on his own was the trial she was going to find a genuine compliment to give him. Read: never. “I will strive to be more punctual in the future.” At least he wasn’t apologizing.

[Zip]

“How does one tell time here, anyway?” asked the Lord of Nothing, true to his name in mind as well.

“You don’t.” Zipper and Mathias replied in an almost harmonic unison. One annoyed and the other empty like a used banana peel.

“A break here could be a trial in the waking world.” Zipper continued, her annoyance unbated. “But we’re wasting time. Mister Kiwi, if you would…”

Grey-green eyes stared at her blankly for a full three trills - probably, who knew in emea anyway - before the useless little bird nodded and turned to address their freshly plucked walker. “This is the Veil.” He gestured with about as much aplomb as a corpse to the vast stretch of gaping wounds that snaked through the otherwise empty air. She knew the other two saw it differently; Mathias probably saw literal, plain old doors and the other etherist… well, who knew and who cared.

The too-tall Biqaj looked around in response to the gesture, eyes of amber and appearing a bit confused for the moment.

“Consider it a skin, stretched over the unconscious collective of the mortal mind,” Mathias continued, parroting back what she’d told him the first couple runarounds. So far so “I don’t have to repeat myself”. “Each of the portals you see here represent a dreamscape.” His pale, slender finger pointed to the closest through which he and the Lord of Nothing had arrived. “That is your portal. Your door.”

“For that dream? Or forever, my mind?” asked the Biqaj.

“Both,” shrugged Mathias. Zipper wanted to interject, but she amazingly closed her mouth. The semantics were pointless now. “As walkers, we are able to traverse through the veil and… trespass into other’s dreams.” He raised a brow - a ridiculous looking expression considering he had to crane his neck back to look the taller man in the eyes with how close they were standing to one another. “Yourself included.”

“I see…” said the Lord of Nothing in a slow manner, though his gaze flicked over toward Zipper. He added, “I have heard you seek someone with motive? And do you feel as if you know mine sufficiently yet?”

“Nope.” Zipper said, tired of his evasion and the manner in which he conducted himself. He looked like a giant albino praying mantis, wings and all. “I find your claims dubious, and words are just words. I can say I am a giant hamster and I might even convince myself to believe. Which is why you’re going to let me into your soul.”

“It is uncomfortable,” Mathias oh-so-helpfully added.

“Oh, well,” mentioned the Biqaj, “Do be gentle, then.”

[Zip]

“He jests. He didn’t feel a thing.” She wasn’t so sure; she had never been on the receiving end of an attunement probe. “Are you comfortable with your-” she gestured to his wings and and then his halo. “-those things.”

“Fairly so,” he answered simply. He slightly raised a hand to tap against the light of his halo. “Though this is quite new.”

She reached out even while he talked, finding the special spot between souls where it all just clicked together. The experience of finding a foreign frequency defied an exact analogy. A final puzzle piece slotted in neatly to form the full picture? No, too clean, too imprecise. The puzzle only begun once the frequency was established. The wolf clamping its jaws around the hare’s throat? A tad more accurate but too visceral. There was a predatory element to it but it was detached; clinical in a sense yet not. Familiar yet distant.

She would never admit to herself that the closest analogy was akin to having sex with a stranger. In a dark room. With neither knowing each other’s names; strangers synched in rhythmic motions neither knew nor cared to stop. Pure sensation without the true intimacy that came with knowing someone like a lover.

The click went off and she was inside him.

And because she could, and because she found something that resonated inside him that too beat inside her soul of souls, she shut him down. Her grip on his frequency turned into the death strangle that smothered the song of his soul. The halo fizzled, dulled a bit, then fizzled again. The wings that stood proud and tall ‘molted’, flaking off piece by transparent piece.

“All-” Fuckin’ Gods, was that her voice? It came out as something far weaker, far more vulnerable than she ever wanted to listen. “-Part of the process.”

And the process was noise. The process was a symphony and a dirge and chant and hymn. It was the barely-audible moan of the old man she has passed on the way past the street for three years before he slunk off to die somewhere, and it was the vague, barely-remembered whisper of her mother. It was Finn and Neronin and Gangui and Torvyn and Noth and it was her soul she saw before she dipped into his; every commonality she shared rushing into her face just before she sunk into his notes.

Resonance.

She found herself before she found him.

Notes varied in intensity depending on what they represented and Ether, the fundamental power of the universe, shined brightest above all. The notes that characterized his spark were like abyssal stains that cast a vivid shadow upon his Note sea. The closest she could come to visualize it was like a school of dead, black fish so numerous it stacked the cadavers all the way to the sea floor…. And they were home to two. The Transmutation spark she recognized easily, but the other one…. Feral, ever-shifting, with flashes of color beneath the black.

She had spent an entire season hunting Padfoot’s mutants. The becoming spark was unmistakable.

The Transmutation spark was firmly planted yet it felt fresh; young. As if the roots had grown before the soil had hardened. The Becoming spark, on the other hand, barely had a foothold into his soul. In fact, the great roots of the Transmutation Spark was spreading towards it, the tips stabbing into the bark. Seeking to ensnare.

She relinquished her hold on the mutations for a brief trill and reached out to crush the baby spark in her hands, hearing its proverbial squeak… but the notes became deafening, the thousand songs became sour, and she let go…

Not there yet. Not ready yet.

That colorful streak across the note sea that seemed to cut it in twain? Dreamwalking. His immersion in the supernatural seemed to end there… but that hardly summed up the makeup of a man. She dug deep, seeking out notes of deception, regret, family, age, power, fear, intimacy.

Intimacy, intimacy, intimacy.

She stared a long time at intimacy and she decided that was enough for one trial.

More likely one arc.

[Llyr Llywelyn]

Motionless during the process, Zarik couldn’t feel as much as she seemed able to, or anything at all. He observed the boyish woman as her magic supposedly slithered inside of him. In a way, he felt a little thrilled by the mystery. His eyes confessed this, in violet and amber warmth, though a faint glow around the orbs faded as his halo fizzled and his wings molted.

The crystalline legs that hid under his trousers had also started to fade along with the tattoo on his back as its morphing designs slowed in pace and simplified in pattern. His mutations were reverting? He quietly sighed, in a sound not unlike contentment. He felt momentary relief, but it didn’t last long.

Slight discomfort arose while Miss Humming did whatever it was she was doing. The longer she remained searching his soul and doing… whatever it was, his eyes cooled into gray-blue colors, while hers flashed black; not quite. There were tiny, black hands beating against the inside of her eyes and bashing streaks of black against it. When she, at last, stepped back, Kiwi was the first to speak, eyes alight with an almost frustrated fascination.

“What did you learn, Miss Humming?”

“Not much,” Humming said, her eyes flashed to their normal green color and she looked tired, annoyed. What did she see? “Only that you are seasons away from your 20th nameday, you are a shapeshifter of small ability, and if there is any silver lining in this, you were not untruthful about the particular status as an etherist. You have a father; sisters, distant. Barely known to you. You have a piece of them with you.” She paused and did not say more; did she see Asher? “And you have a lot and a lot and-” He swore he saw a shudder reverberate through her body and he saw her visibly stop her hands rising to hug herself. “-a lot and a lot and an obnoxious amount of intercourse with male relations. Is the picture I’ve painted consistent with the mess of your soul?”

Kiwi’s intense stare switched from the little woman to settle onto Zarik, but whatever he seemed to think of Miss Humming’s analysis was hidden somewhere underneath the sheen of his grey-green eyes.

A silvery-blue blush rose to Zarik’s cheeks, even in the misted illusions of Emea that created his form. He folded his hands at his lower back, cleared his throat, and nodded. It was a mere momentary insecurity that caused him to speak, “N-not relations,” he emphasized the plural of it and added, “only… one. I’m not- that’s- yes, however, what you said is more than I expected you to learn.”

And thankfully less than he had hoped for.

[Llyr Llywelyn]

“A becomer.” Miss Humming said. “Is this even how you look? You’re very pretty. We’ve known some rather ugly individuals to the hottest face in town once they’ve acquired the balls to try.”

“Well… thank you for thinking that of me. But you’ve seen me as I am,” he reminded her. His gaze flicked over to Kiwi who offered him nothing but that endless stare, then returned to the woman. “I have not been a Becomer for long, and it certainly wasn’t for such a vain task as that” – only a terribly foolish task of a different sort of ostentatious arrogance.

“Then for what?” Miss Humming asked, her eyes narrowed.

“Were you not able to find out for yourself?” he asked in a calm tone of voice. He was sincerely curious, not familiar with whatever magic she had performed.

“Can you finish a library in five bits?” She snapped. “I borrowed a book. I could go back in to grab the rest if you so desire.”

The blond biqaj hummed quietly. He shrugged, then answered, “I do not believe it would bother me if you wished to, but if you must know the reasons for every choice in my life… I don’t understand why.”

“Nor do I understand why every simple question is rebuffed. Do you know how suspicious that looks,” she said, staring up at him. The halo was beginning to return, shimmering in and out of existence and in again. “A spark is an entrustment. It is power. If you do not use it to hide your ugliness or play at vanity, then you must fuckin’ use it for something else. Maybe you like being an animal and feeding on garbage? I will not judge.”

Zarik looked down at her as she stared up at him. He smiled slightly, then he said, “I accepted the spark of Becoming so that I might conceive heirs for my revealed husband in the manner and form he wished to. As you’ve found in your exploration, my body was of high value to him. This is all that the domain was for, and now it is an obsolete reason other than…” he hesitated, downcasted his gaze at his own body, and his blush returned to his cheeks – embarrassed.

She blinked. In the 45 odd bits he had known her, he had never seen her blink.

He had never seen her laugh too. And judging by Kiwi’s doe-eyed, startled step backwards, neither had the other man. It wasn’t the cruel, condescending laugh he had expected laugh he would have expected from her nor was it the tired chuckle that might have been his second guess, it was the a full-bellied roar as she threw back her head, closed her eyes, and clutched her belly.

Perhaps it was due to his humiliation for sharing such an intimate truth, or because in a way, Zarik recognized why she likely was laughing at him – that his own breathy laugh escaped to linger under her louder burst of amusement. His gaze returned to look at her - the irises of his eyes a blend of sea-foam green and daffodil yellow - and he laughed a bit more, then said, “It’s true, you know.”

“It is… sad,” Kiwi murmured, staring somewhere between Miss Humming and Zarik, though whether he felt that way or not was anyone’s guess.

[Llyr Llywelyn]

“You are-” Humming said, visible tears at the edge of her eyes. “-Quite the anomaly.” Zarik silently nodded in acceptance of her observation. Her laughs were thankfully dying, and she quickly, erriely composed herself, shifting from being hunched over back to her cold, stern visage without any real transition. “But we’ve wasted enough time.” She’d wasted, more like. “We are here to talk about our partnership: an information network called the Aviary governed, connected, and enabled by the realm of dreams. We like what we see of you. Do you like what you see, Mr. Kiwi?” She turned towards her quiet, far less disrespectful partner.

“Is this… a sexual question?” he blinked, “In reference to his-”

“It’s big by the way.” she said with a tight smile.

Kiwi blinked again. “What is-” Catching something in Miss Humming’s expression that seemed to answer his question. “Oh.” Zarik chuckled at Kiwi’s response. Kiwi paused, grey-green eyes staring into Zarik’s shimmering pale yellow eyes. “Regardless, I find Lord Zarik acceptable.”

“And you, Lord?” she asked, turning back to him. “Would you like to save Idalos from itself?”

First, he nodded, again, then swallowed, quieting himself in turn, but he felt a certain sense of cathartic relief. It took some restraint to not allow himself into a spiel of manic laughter to chase after the feeling. He eased, instead, in the company of his fellow dreamers. Nervous shame showed clearly on his features while he glanced between the other two, but it faded as Humming accepted him. And Kiwi accepted him in turn.

“Yes,” he said in a gradual lift of his clear voice with little hesitation. “I would like to help you, Miss Humming and Mister Kiwi. And I must say that I rather appreciate the both of you. You have, already, given me a greater perspective on reality and lifted me from… my own mind, and for that, I thank you.”

You’re welcome. Humming mouthed.

The blond paused for a few trills, then added, “Though I believe, perhaps, I should change my name.”

“As we said before: They will have your name; but your name will not be your name. ‘Zarik’ will become a liability if you continue to wear it where you shouldn’t. Zarik is an identity, a hometown, a family, a lover, a crusade, a set of motivations and purpose.” she said. “The new name you choose will have none of those shackles.”

Shackles.

Zarik – the biqaj with a name that had worn itself raw and no longer served him – nodded. Not to mention it would help in… gaining distance. He said, “Yes. Perhaps I will have many names then and never find myself bound to any.”

“Then what will be your first?” Kiwi questioned, bright eyes sharp as ever.

“Aviary, you say,” he mused. He stepped to the side and paced slightly down – up - along the Veil. “How about… Crow?” Zarik raised a hand, palm open and facing the other two, then he shook his head, “No, no… perhaps, blackbird? Or, no… There aren’t too many birds in Quacia, now is there?”

Kiwi opened his mouth to, presumably, give him a proper answer to the question, but Miss Humming beat him to it. “I assumed you ate all of them, along with the pigeon coop caretakers.”

“If you require time, take it,” Kiwi suggested, clearly ignoring Miss Humming’s full circle of Quacian-based, cannibal rhetoric.

Zarik nodded. He had a few ideas in mind, but there didn’t appear to be any rush in the matter. The blond smiled at Kiwi, then turned the sincere expression to Humming, and he said again, “Thank you.”

[Mads]

“In the meantime,” Mathias continued, eyeing Fiona, “Do you have any further questions?” His gaze bounced between the other two. “Either of you for one another?” Thus far, Fiona had been successful in extracting information that Lord Zarik would have otherwise most likely refused to offer, which seemed to allow her peace enough to offer him a place “at the table” as it were. It was best not to waste the opportunity.

Quiet, Lord Zarik seemed to wait for Fiona to answer first – if she wished to.

“Nothing that can’t wait.” Fiona said.

“Perhaps...” started the biqaj, but whatever he was about to suggest trailed off and he cleared his throat instead of finishing the thought aloud.

“Then allow me.” The corner of Mathias’ mouth twitched as he considered a polite smile, but Fiona had never been one for his attempts at approachability. Instead, he continued to stare at Lord Zarik, voice calm and eyes bright. “Your husband is one of the revealed from your past?”

“Recent past,” clarified Zarik, then he nodded. “Yes, I would give you his name but… It is through him that I met the other revealed, a Protean as it is called and a Lich.”

Terms were something understood but not truly comprehended. The “protean” was the pinnacle of a becomer’s spark. A “lich” was the alleged true nature of necromancy. While powerful in their own rights, the magics themselves weren’t particularly compatible. An odd trio, even incomplete. For whatever reason, Lord Zarik was not forthcoming with his husband’s name nor his domain. Fiona, if she knew, was not volunteering the information. But such a thing was not quite the most pressing of matters. “How recent?”

“I left the household… what date is it again?” asked Zarik, glancing between the two, then he wagered a guess, “Five trials ago, about.”

[Mads]

Five. Trials.

Mathias gently ran the tips of his fingers over his own lips, considering. “And you are confident this husband of yours will not seek out?” A poor question, and one Lord Zarik had already answered prior. Mathias tried again. “He considers you... expendable?”

Zarik hesitated, visibly and audibly, and his gaze went to look at Fiona – as if that would provide him some sort of guidance in how to respond to the question. When he found nothing, however, he said, “Certainly, he will be able to find others who can replace me with ease. He already has. Once I was...” he paused, then concluded in the quietest of whispers, “seeded.”

Though he was certain Fiona wouldn’t necessarily approve, Mathias opted for a frown: brow knit, lips curved downward. “I am not well acquainted with becoming’s reproductive capabilities, but… do you mean to say, even now, you bear the revealed’s…” What was the word in Common?

“Parasites,” Fiona offered helpfully. She had been uncharacteristically quiet during the talk of ascended mages, but, while he'd spent the better half of the past year learning her own rough, aggressive, and surprisingly poetic language of Ith'esson, she seemed to enjoy - or at least make a point of - his shortcomings in either language. Though, rarely, were her corrections ever unwelcome.

“Parasites,” Mathias echoed, nodding that that, indeed, encapsulated what it was he’d intended.

“Yes,” answered Zarik. He paused, then added in a thoughtful way as if he were considering it, “Parasites…”

No longer addressing the tall, pale man, Mathias turned his focus to Fiona. “If the revealed comes for its progeny,” he murmured, “That could prove… complicated.”

“Very.” She was still silent. Almost stubbornly so - though he was too well aware of what Fiona looked like when she was being stubborn to mistake it. She didn’t seem all too worried about it, which either meant she had a plan, or she simply didn’t care - or dare she was thinking of something else. Either way, he supposed if Fiona wasn’t especially worried, the potential for a clash with a revealed was just something he’d need to prepare for - however one was expected to do that.

“If he does,” offered the lord. His eyes dulled into gray irises. “I will handle him. He won’t… I won’t allow him to interfere with anything involving our partnership. He will likely consider it all beneath him, regardless.”

Brave words. “I see.” But bravery was often what fools branded their own stupidity. Lord Zarik seemed capable, certainly, but a revealed was something else entirely. Volunteering to manage the situation entirely on his own didn’t speak well to his ability to cooperate with them - and Fiona was his only comparison.

[Mads]

“You should kill it.” She said. There was no malice or condescension to her tone. “I’ve seen what ingested spark-blood have done to others.” Mathias raised a brow at that. It was rare for her to share personal details. “The baby would be the product of a mage and an abomination. It is a rare thing to document but that shared blood has and will flow through it for seasons. It may emerge a bloated, blind, ugly, skinless tumour with some semblance of the parasite it should have been.” Fiona looked straight at Lord Zarik. “I would enjoy documenting the phenomena, but you most certainly will not - if you survive the birth.”

“An abomination?” asked the lord. He clarified and his words started to quicken in the rhythm of his voice, “We conceived before he underwent revelation. It was his last act as a mortal. However, what you say… It is true his soul is cluttered with sparks, and still he tries to add more, the most recent only demanding all of him. I… You have seen this before? Such offspring? I know nothing of such… births. I hadn’t even thought of that, why wouldn’t he think of that? Mention it? You must be exaggerating, Miss Humming.”

“I’ve seen monsters emerge from an ingestion of mage blood. That thing in your body is much more than that.” Fiona shrugged. “But it’s your chance to take. I will jot your service towards our venture down as a short-term contract should you do so.”

Mage birth was not a common thing. The mage itself was rare, and those that managed stable couplings rarer still - some might say impossible. The spark warped their bodies and their minds into something inhuman, something that transcended the the expansion of blood lineage.

The irises of the biqaj’s eyes had become vivid in crimson hue. He looked at Mathias briefly, as if only in thought, then returned his attention to Fiona. “I have no qualms against a short-term contract. What you say though… I… I will research it and… it would be a simple thing. I merely would have to…” He hesitated, then said in a quiet voice, “Not transform. Or destroy the totem.” A far less complicated procedure than any natural pregnancy. The lord’s voice rose again, and he added, “To me, however, it seems wiser to not rush such a decision. If you will grant me the time to consider approaches to my personal… troubles. I doubt you both are free of your own troubles and lives that may stalk after you?”

“A founded doubt,” Mathias replied. “These are concerns not commands, lord.” With a nod towards Fiona, he continued. “Both Miss Humming and I have… addressed our own... trappings.”

“Sure.” Fiona said, tone indicating an end to their exchange. “Our trappings. We will meet you in your dream sometime in the next ten-trials. We hope we will not need to call you Lord Zarik again by then.”

“You won’t,” he answered swiftly.

“Then we convene anon,” Mathias replied with a nod. “I suggest you return to your own dreamscape for now.” He gestured vaguely toward Lord Zarik’s door, grey-green eyes piercing but tone soft and calm as ever. “The Veil is vast, and not all dreamers are welcoming of visitors.”

[Alistair]

Zipper

Knowledges
Attunement: Frequency: Zarik
Attunement: Jamming
Attunement: Note: Deception
Attunement: Note: Power
Attunement: Note: Transmutation
Attunement: Note: Regret
Attunement: Soothe: Reverting the most extreme mutations

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Renown: N/A

Points 15 - These points may be used for Attunement

Llyr

Knowledges
Meditation: The Potential of Complications
Meditation: Someone else is in your Soul.
Research: Topic: The Offspring of Mages
Socialization: Making… colleagues.
Rhetoric: The truth given freely.
Discipline: Letting an attuner explore your soul.
Intelligence: Contact: Miss Humming, Emea dreamwalker.

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Renown: N/A

Points 15

Mads

Knowledges
linguistics: Ith’esson:
a rough language
an aggresive language
a poetic language

intelligence-
contact: Llyr Llewellyn
contact: Fiona O'Conner

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Renown: N/A

Points 15

Comments: O mai.

All I can say is: it would be very complicated, yes.

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