abraxaslogs | Reality doesn’t always give us the life that we desire

Istredd uses his own magic the majority of the time, he is fairly expert at Academic Magic by now, but he'll always lean more toward his Chaos. If it would help them feel more comfortable to have a Summoned use their native power, so be it. It probably would look more like Wild Magic than Academic on its own. He might even be interested in hearing more about Wild Magic when they're there.

He's already decided to go with Lucifer, otherwise he wouldn't be offering something like that. It was inevitable. He is not going to be alone in this room, he will definitely run away and end up curled up in the library.

The fact that at any given moment and situation the two of them could end up theorizing and coming up with ideas together is part of why this relationship works. And what drew them to each other in the first place. Having someone you can bounce ideas off at all times is worth holding onto. Istredd turns to face him the same way.

He rubs a hand across his jaw, having had to shave his beard a little closer down because of all the dirt and mud. He's more scruffy than bearded, although that will change within a day or two, it grows quickly. Istredd considers options. They can't get Thorne to help. They could ask them for money and not tell them why, but no, unlikely.

"I'll sell my books to Thevan, I have some from Nocwich he doesn't have access to, he'll give me a good price. I've memorized all of them and put them in my Horizon library anyway." So he technically doesn't need them in person, he can look through them any time. They are the only things that he's bought for himself since coming here, but it would add funds to what Lucifer plans on handing over. It is automatic for him to think this is a problem for both of them to solve, not one of them.

Lucifer had tacked a note to one of his messages in Natasha's workspace in Sam Wilson's domain that was simply 'Thorne's useless.' It'd been in response to a crude message about the gods, after Lucifer had given a fairly decent description about vessels, but it mattered for most things.

Thorne is useless.

He wishes he could be surprised by Istredd's offer to sell books, but they're far passed that now.

Even if Istredd's made up his mind, Lucifer has to hear it. In words, not their minds. Harder to take back. "You'll come with me when I go, then?" he asks, eyes determined to not only catch but hold Istredd's gaze.

There is a fear in Istredd leaving. The fear that any of them will be pulled out again. But if they've both recovered, and in a pair, and even under guard--little value as Lucifer holds towards the Thorne guards--it has to be fine. It has to be fine because Istredd cannot stay contained in a cage of his own making.

Istredd plans on going into Sam's domain at some point to take down all the notes himself. He wants as consistent a record of everything that was said and done that he can get. He's a historian, he understands all too well about how badly reported on situations can lead to false facts in the future. Some day when they're gone, sent back or dead, there will probably be legends about this group of Summoned. He wants records somewhere. It's in his nature although they would disappear with him, so it's an imperfect system.

Well he's been neatly trapped, hasn't he? Istredd walked himself into this one after saying he wasn't sure about going. He is afraid of leaving this room let alone the castle, but he is much more anxious about Lucifer being somewhere else. He is clingy enough to need to sleep under his bed. Plus what if he is taken next? No, they have to stick together.

Blue eyes slant to the side for a moment as he considers, but when he does look back he lets Lucifer hold his gaze, reluctantly resolved. "Yes, fine. I'm fairly sure it's for the best I go as your compassion translator to the grieving family." It's an excuse for why he has to go. To help Lucifer, obviously, not because he is days away from becoming a shut-in with no end in sight.

Kyle told me about the private books they had here on High Magic and the gods. He recommended I ask Ambrose to see them. Despite the fact you don't like Lyle, it may be worth seeing if the area with Wild Magic may know more than this place. Ambrose may not like Lucifer, but he has reasons to like Istredd.

He smirks at Istredd's reasoning; the sad truth is there is likely some accuracy to it, but his amusement twitches away slightly at mention of Ambrose. "Oh, and if you leave then it's not feeding him what he wants. Or perhaps prefers. Good little behaved Summoned staying in the castle proper."

He thinks that's reason enough to leave, personally.

He's going to keep right on talking about far more interesting things before Istredd can pry to heavily into that. He's mentioning Michael and knowledge about magic (which he never told Istredd about while he was in that pit, but that's besides the point), surely that's something. Everyone knows Lucifer and Ambrose had an incident, nbd. "I want to ask Michael if he can learn anything directly from Solvunn about High Magic. The god they invoked for their illusions, at least the one we found, was considered to be a 'newer' god to Solvunn's pantheon."

"Ambrose's wants do not motivate me either way." Istredd isn't rebellious, he doesn't care about 'sticking it' to their captors. It's too exhausting to care that much about people who have made his life harder. He can play very nice and he will, but he has no interest in giving Ambrose more power over him. The royalty even less so.

Istredd's eyes widen and he leans forward, completely enraptured for a moment. "You want to ask Michael about something? Yourself? Directly? Not through me or Wanda?" If so that has definitely changed big time and he wonders if this experience somehow bonded the brothers again. It would be amazing if so. A monumental shift if true.

Obviously this was all a terrible experience he would not want to duplicate but he's fine with good things coming from it, and if that includes Michael and Lucifer being willing to work together, that would be great.

"By all means, please ask Michael about High Magic." Technically Michael does know that if strange things happen in Solvunn he can tell Istredd, he's done it before. He told him about the fish sacrifice that led to the turtle almost dying. Istredd might have asked him himself, but this is far more interesting to him. "If he can get us an actual pantheon, we'd have something to work with."

Good lord Istredd is easy to distract. It's unfair of him to take advantage of Istredd's weakened state, physically and mentally, but he's never been a saint.

They haven't been talking. From Lucifer finding a tentative balance he feared breaking as he typically does, to complete and utterly avoiding any potential contact with his brother and Wanda this past month. Irrational, he knows, but he wasn't going to risk anyone getting between him and his goal.

He was unaware of Wanda's similar mindset and Michael's assistance in that venture.

"To understand that brand of magic it would be easier to learn it from him. We may not think the same way on most things, but this would translate best from him directly. If he's willing to play along."

He is easy to distract in terms of what he thinks is actually important. And Lucifer potentially getting along with his brother is more important than Ambrose. Not that he's expecting the two of them to be best friends, but tolerance and interaction could lead to something more positive. Maybe it's because he never had any family or because he thinks Lucifer's long-term mental health would be better. Istredd wants the best for him. Making a lasting peace would be good for everyone.

Istredd knew that Lucifer was avoiding him, although tolerating his messages, and that he worked with Kyle and Lenore. He assumed he and Wanda were in connection because they usually were, and she was in the group who came and got him. Her boyfriend was down there with them, so it wasn't a surprise.

"There's no harm in you asking. He's told me about things going on in Solvunn before." But Istredd is not offering to ask him, that defeats the purpose of Lucifer attempting the olive branch. "I think we all have an invested interest in learning more about High Magic now that we've seen what it can do."

Istredd very much wants to know the hows here, as a scholar and a mage. "To cut us off from our powers and the Singularity, and some of us from genetic advantages? That is the type of magic worth knowing about, if only to combat it being used against us again." Geralt's witcher abilities were also not working entirely.

He thinks if Michael doesn't want to help than Wanda easily will, but that's a different thing that needs to be considered.

"That symbol you told me about on the shrines, has anyone told you about that, yet?"

He'll get the information from Sam's domain eventually, but, well, they're talking now.

Maybe if he pumps Istredd's brain full of enough knowledge his brain will shut up about everything else and he'll sleep better, as though it wasn't Lucifer to be the one to wake up this time.

Wanda definitely would, and that was always an intention of Istredd to ask her about since they are on the same wavelength about magic. He has some questions for her about what happened on her end of this, having had some vague explanation from Kyle and now Lucifer about the Thorne end. Everyone has a piece of the puzzle.

"I know there are a lot of details in Sam's Horizon from all of you. I tried to get there once but I only made it outside. I talked to Natasha briefly." She tried her best to help him and he gave her what little information he could before he was tossed out of the Horizon again. He means to go back to get all of the information from it.

It is possible if he has positive information stuffed in his mind he might dream about that instead. Not the worst approach. Istredd isn't tired though, interesting discussions have a way of waking him up. And he missed this so much. Even if they never sat like this together, and he wishes they had, but it's fine. He continues to take kernels where he can get them.

"Tell me."

He leans and stretches back, unaware the affect that could provoke, stretching out his legs beneath his blankets and folding one atop the other near to Istredd but not touching, his arms crossing, picture-perfect comfortable on his own bed.

The smart thing to do would be to light the room and grab paper, but he's got to get better at this again, so he sinks into his pillows and closes his eyes and tries to comb out a section of the interference in his mind so that he can get back to sharing images, not just words.

"That symbol crept up in various places. Kyle I believe found it first, down near Solvunn, south of Nott in those woods. It was painted on trees in a substance that had been made with herbs, blood, and a ritually-treated black root from Solvunn."

Grain and lumber out of Solvunn had been found with that root, too. Brion Creed, Thorne's trade rep out of Solvunn, living in Old Nott, believed that there had been unexpected contamination from it. He had been trying to fix some of the shipments, unaware at the time about the disappearances, believing the problem to be from the blight.

"Where the symbol was painted, Kyle found desiccated trees and animals. There were other reports of the symbol. Wanda had found it at a corrupted Solvunn shrine awhile back. When I showed the symbol to Lenore, she thought it similar to a minor arcana from home, Ace of Coins. When she went digging in the libraries, she found the Abraxan form of the minor arcana."

This image he manages to conjure up between their mind after a few tries. "Brion said that he'd seen Josselyn with the Page of Pentacles in her notebook. He found it odd, but thought she was just doing some form of research."

There's more that he could go into with Josselyn and what Brion had said, but that's... for another time.

"Luna didn't believe anyone from Solvunn would dare to alter an arcana, but here we are. We had pondered trying to get the symbol to you guys as though maybe there'd be a way to use it in favor, but, well. Frankly, I thought Urianger would be the best at putting the correct symbol together if it got distorted. And he was insane when I talked to him. So."

Oh well.

Istredd is only human and he knows that Lucifer is unaware of his appeal but he is tired and not in the best of his control so the way he looks at him is with blatant longing. It brings to the surface the awareness of where he is and what he wants, what he would do if he only could. Close the space, lie next to him, know what it felt like to touch his cheek, even innocently, and maybe not so innocently, and ---

Istredd snaps out of it when Lucifer shares an image and he probably feels a few moments of flustered embarrassment but then it's pushed past and he is focused entirely on what he's saying. Yep. Nothing else. This is more important than pointless fantasies. He stays where he is, playing with a little of Lucifer's blanket so his hands have something to do as he listens.

"It was inverted, which means that the effect was the opposite of whatever the original arcana was." See, he knows that right off the top of his head. Magical logic. "Arguably the fix might have been to use the original with a sacrifice to the same god, a better one, to counter that arcana." The better sacrifice would probably be the question mark, but it could have worked.

"It was inevitable that someone in Solvunn thought they could have a greater connection to the gods than what was done already. Everyone underestimating them is why we ended up here." Istredd sighs and then his eyes fix on Lucifer again, intent. "Interesting how we were in contact and you didn't think to ask me when you knew I was sane."

The tone doesn't say that he means it is interesting. The tone says that he is annoyed.

"Oh," Lucifer purrs, blinking open his eyes and looking at Istredd with lazy calculation, "what you had was not sanity."

He smirks, brief. All strange shadows from the glow log.

"Same reason I didn't tell you about the trick to potentially break your illusion. You. Were not. In your right mind."

Istredd flushes against his own will at that purr and narrows his eyes right back at him, pressing his lips tightly together. He can never tell how aware Lucifer is, how he wonders sometimes if it's a game to him. Well two can play a game.

"Liar," he replies calmly. "You didn't tell me because you couldn't handle the way you were feeling. Because you were afraid that I would die, so you were talking to everyone else."

He bristles only slightly at the indication, but he takes it and feeds into it, his smirk returning. "Yes, that's it. I talked to every single person down there but you unless I had to."

While that second part is true, he's not about to let Istredd feel that sting.

He leans forward, arms slung in his lap, brows raised, and clicks his tongue. "Don't be jealous, Istredd. I only talked to four people other than you, and only briefly to get something I wanted."

He holds up a hand and wiggles his fingers, legitimately counting each one off. "Kell after Rhy told me he was gone." Okay that one wasn't selfish. Shut up. "Castiel, as I said I 'heard' from him--I appealed to his self-serving nature and made him help watch the kids. Urianger because arguably he's better at arcana than you." Sorry pal. "And Caitlyn."

He pauses there, letting his complete annoyance at the sheer mention of Caitlyn echo between them. He sets his chin on that hand, elbow to a leg, and grumbles, "It was so nice to know that both of you so-called sane people were equally self-sacrificing to the detrimental points of your own health."

"If it was up to you, you wouldn't have talked to me at all." Oh don't worry, the sting is already there, Istredd knows him well. He says this very blandly, without any emotional tone either way, stated like a flat fact.

"Urianger is better at arcana than me, but he wasn't himself." Istredd will maintain that he was himself, as much as someone could be. If that information was helpful, it should have been passed on to someone who could have done something. He just stares at him but furrows his eyebrows when he mentions Caitlyn. She didn't tell him, clearly. He sits cross-legged, his usual poise, hands in his lap.

"Why did you message Caitlyn?" His partner in sanity, yes, he can only assume she was confused to be dealing with Lucifer in the midst of that. He'll have to apologize to her later.

He would not have, no. Talked to Istredd at all. But he always answered him, until that last time, and there is a twinge of regret there that he didn't.

He chuckles. "If you're so smart," he says, watching Istredd all the while, head tilting against the hand on his chin, "why do you think?"

Istredd rolls his eyes and leans forward, shaking his head. "Right, obviously the answer was to message a random woman you don't know and be a prick to her, instead of communicate with your partner. You know, I think you would have messaged every person in there instead of me, given the chance."

He wouldn't say he's jealous, more irritated in a general sort of way. He'll have to check in with Caitlyn and see how rude he was about it. It doesn't occur to him that it's strange he used the word partner.

"I messaged her," he draws out, dropping his hand again, "to try and get someone else to keep you from killing yourself by dumping every single scrap of yourself into everyone else."

Istredd may call him a liar, again, but it is the truth.

And that didn't go well because Caitlyn is just like him. That makes sense now. Istredd sighs, rubbing at his eyes. "There are people who might be dead right now if I wasn't doing that. Caitlyn and I were in an impossible position. Maybe someone else would have just let the chips fall where they may, but ... I can't do that."

As Lucifer said already, he wouldn't be him if he was sorry about his stupid selfless choices. "We became friends down there, we had to." Castiel, Steve, Louis, Caitlyn. His relationship with Geralt and Ciri remains complicated. "You know, after I healed the second time, I went crazy for about a day." He stopped messaging Lucifer. "And it was a relief." Which seems about as insane as how he felt, but it was a break.

"Only to wake up and find out while I was out, they released the shrine monster."

Shrine monster. Right. Istredd had said something about that.

"Well. You considered releasing it. They took the choice from you. You didn't have to make that last resort call." He sighs. "You can't control everything, Istredd." Take it from a guy that very much wishes he himself could. "Even if you were sane, you couldn't be everywhere. They could've done it either way, with you unawares, and you'd still feel just as shitty."

"No, I know I considered it, which I told your brother when he apologized. We had agreed it was a last resort, and it sounds like they believed it was at the time." And they may have been right! Istredd told Castiel that he didn't blame him for his impulsive decision while in the middle of the madness. Louis and Inej were also just doing their best at that point. It just meant that Istredd felt it underlined how little he could look away.

The fact that it was Castiel's choice to release the shrine monster may be new information.

"I could argue it was the right choice, it is what led to the escape." So maybe he should have gone crazy sooner. "I don't know, the point is, we were all doing our best. I'm not a hunter or a warrior, I couldn't fight the monsters or get us rats, my helpful abilities were limited." Lucifer knows that Istredd has a thing about feeling useless.

There is a long, suffering sigh through Lucifer's thoughts.

"Are you telling me my brother released this creature," he asks dully. It is, in fact, new information. And honestly....... really not that surprising.

Whatever. It is unfortunately not a point that he can poke and prod at now.

He flops backwards abruptly, grabs one of his pillows, and promptly chucks it at Istredd's idiotic face.

"He had help. None of them were doing well at the time." It almost sounds a little defensive, but he feels it's warranted. Lucifer already hates Castiel and he doesn't want something he said to be added to that pile. He is not looking forward to attempting to balance this angel complication.

The pillow actually manages to full out hit his face because he didn't see it coming. Or expect that would happen. So he startles and looks at him. "Are you twelve?" Istredd looks stern for all of two seconds before he laughs and hits Lucifer back with it. But he doesn't throw it, he keeps a hand on it, it is his pillow now. His weapon.

Lucifer doesn't need it, and anyway he has another one even if he did. He makes a second wallop, but this time it's with his mind. A full heartbeat of a moment where there's no static at all from Lucifer's mind and it's of course when he's gone on the attack.

He takes Istredd's surprised humor, ignores his comment, and fills in it with righteous indignation--he's still an angel, he's allowed on occasion.

Lucifer's thoughts reverberate with his spoken words, "You're not nobody."

The lack of static is appreciated but then he gets an emotional wallop from him, an intense feeling that takes him by surprise. Indignation at him, about him. He's felt it for Lucifer too, usually about how his family treated him. The words mean a lot to him. It lands hard. His self-worth during this experience took a serious hit. He did what he could to make himself useful but it was always in the back of his head. He always gets set off by what he perceives from other people as underestimating him, and it's because he does it to himself.

And that is why it matters. He's told himself before when it comes to Ciri, she's important. Geralt and Yennefer are important. Lucifer sees more to him. Just as he sees him, he is seen. It makes him stupid. It makes him emotional. Istredd leans a little closer, his hands tentatively reaching out to cup Lucifer's face, so gentle.

"What am I then?" If he is bold, it could be because he is so tired of holding back. He looks into Lucifer's eyes, more visible now with how close they are. Istredd is searching for something, that much is clear. Hoping.

Edited 2023-04-06 13:16 (UTC)

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