abraxaslogs | [ CATCH-ALL ] look at me, look at me

[ tba. ]

Sabine's interest in the Singularity within the Horizon grows by the day. The feel of it both in the 'real' world outside the Horizon and everywhere, in every part and parcel of creation inside the Summoned-Granted Horizon, something that toys at the edges of her awareness at all times. Something vast and unknown, just out of reach. Decidedly nothing human or human-like (though that is nothing new or strange to her), she is the same in that--but live, awake, aware.

Tying their bond to the ebb and flow of Jack's ability, when he can manage to sleep, whether it's a few hours or most of the night, Sabine spends her nights inside the Horizon, at the Singularity, trying to reach out to it. A gentle, persistent entreaty of greeting, of request to be answered, to connect across the bounds even outside of the walls of this made place.

~*~

When Sabine is not at the crater, she can be found exploring the Summoned-Created Horizon locations, charmed beyond belief at all the things the people brought to this space have created for themselves. So much of it rings of memories, pulsing all around her. Though each might be dark or light as she passes them, wonder suffuses her at their creations.

Edited 2023-05-25 13:48 (UTC)

The second introduction Jack makes for Sabine goes (hopefully, probably) markedly better than the first one had. It's the one he'd actually been intending to do when he set out, when he started gently tugging her along through Castle Thorne's massive and winding hallways.

He brings her back to the room he's been sharing with Kyle.

There are four beds inside, but only two spaces seem occupied — it's not hard to discern which one belongs to Jack. His nightstand and even one half of his quilt on the bed proper are covered with books. Also, should Sabine happen to glance under it, she might spot a reflective pair of eyes peering out from beneath the bed back at her. That's not who he means to introduce her to, though.

He's aiming instead for the ninja very much not hiding underneath the bed.

The two of them slip in; he shuts the door behind them, and then awkwardly clears his throat.

Man, he's so bad at... people words, and pleasantries, and socializing like a human being.

"Hey, Kyle." Completele with a little wave, and then a gesture at the red-haired elephant in the room. "This is, um... this is Sabine."

There's a weight to the name, a poignant heaviness. It's probably obvious to her that Jack expects the name to be familiar and significant to Kyle. They've talked about her before — which is significant, considering he never, ever talks about her.

"Sabine, this is my teleporting ninja roommate friend, Kyle."

As weird as he is at introductions, it does feel good to have the two most important people to him in the entire faction in the same room together.

Even if Round One has left Sabine with more questions than can have answers yet, she follows Jack easily. Happily. There's nowhere else she would rather be. Not even for the answers about a lock-box angel; there's a lot she needs to be caught up on. There's still this little catch her chest does, regardless of breathing, when she looks over, and he's still there. Actually there. (She is.)

As Sabine looks over the room, the bed covered in books earns a fondly bright curve of a half-smile, even as the presence under the bed is as familiar as it is universally out of place. Shouldn't be here either; is—the same as both of them. As so many people on this planet are in that equation, she knows.

No time really to stick to that (yet) as Jack turns to introduce her to the other person in the room. The hesitation before her name lends to a searching, concerned glance back to Jack first, and she gives a soft squeeze of his fingers in her hand. She knows this is hard for him; how hard he had to tie those knots to keep something of her forever untouchably available at the edge of his thoughts and bury the rest of it so far down. All at the same time.

Sabine knows the density of that wall far, far too intimately.

But he manages and goes on past it, and she raises a hand giving a small wave of her own. A flutter of fingers that, unlike Jack's wave and Jack, despite five years without people, manages to look at ease with friendly. "Hi. "

At least until her brow crinkles, with a small snort of amusement. "Teleporting ninja, huh?"

Kahlil is on his own bed, neatly made despite him sitting on top of it and a large tome open in front of him - one of the library texts that namelessly references the gods, as though pouring over again might reveal something he didn't notice the first time.

It doesn't.

He lifts his head as soon as the door opens and he hears two sets of feet instead of one. There's a flicker of surprise first when he sees a woman (another redhead), then confusion and recognition muddled together as his gaze flicks from her unfamiliar features to Jack's expression for some further confirmation.

"The ninja part isn't true. He just keeps telling everyone that."

Another flick of his gaze from one to the other as he unfolds from his place on the bed in one graceful movement and stands there with an air of uncertainty.

"Hello."

"He's definitely a ninja," it's not a correction so much as just a mild insistence — of the two of them, having several years of Teenage Mutant under his belt, he can confidently say he's more of the ninja expert. It is his firm opinion that anyone who can karate through a portal with a crazy blade completely qualifies as a ninja.

But that's not really the important part of what's happening right now.

He gestures at Sabine.

"They just pulled her through, I- I found her at the hospital." A beat, and then the completely unnecessary clarification, "Alive."

Sorry, he's just. Still completely fucking baffled, and amazed — Kahlil may be able to see the evidence of it on him. The tear tracks he'd hastily scrubbed away in the courtyard. The way his eyes are still a little red. The bits of grass clinging to his back from the tumble they took, which maybe... makes slightly less immediate sense, but is nonetheless there.

He literally just went out for a check-up, and now he's coming back with a whole entire girlfriend.

Kind of a significantly larger step up than that one time with the unexpected raccoon.

Edited 2023-05-15 04:36 (UTC)

Sabine looks between them and this tête-à-tête ninja vs. not reference that reads as something worn in by this point, and she has to wonder what the evidence and argument on the opposing sides might be. At least until that last word.

Alive; that offkey, one-second later addition of Jack's, only serves to remind Sabine that Jack is still missing when she 'died' for a given enough definition the world had made paperwork and phone calls to officialize it. She supposed this—even if it was wildly out of the correct turn of time—was a more straightforward way than the last to counter that.

"It's been a few days, actually, but everyone's been everywhere with what happened,
and I was trying to help out wherever anyone needed some hands."

She still doesn't entirely know what all of it was either, but she'd thrown in to help where she could, as she could until she could make a better heads or tails of whatever had happened to her between the last thing that made sense and waking up here. At least one small part of too many mysteries had solved itself.

There, he really settles on Jack's appearance as his own expression shifts to one of concern. He starts to take a step forward - and some kind of realization comes over him as he stops himself before he instinctively moves closer to Jack.

"You must have a lot to catch up on," he starts slowly, a knit at his brow. "And you probably want to relax -"

He turns, picking up the large book from his bed and closing it shut with a dull thud, tucking it under one arm.

"I should bring this back to the library." A nod to both of them, a small smile to Jack. He starts to step by them to get through the door, clasping his shoulder. "I'll come back later to get my things, that way you two can have some privacy."

"Um. Okay."

The abrupt departure leaves him blinking, vaguely confused — but honestly? He's too distracted to properly piece together the full context of what's unfolding here. In a few weeks he'll look back on this moment and understand, but for right now, wrapped up as he is in the shock, all he can think to do is wheel around to Sabine. Finally processing what she just said.

"Wait, you've been here for days?"

And just like that, the boy was lost in the sauce again. A total roommate fumble and failure on his part, an inconsiderate friend in this moment, but — could anyone really blame him? He's having his mind blown today.

"It was nice to meet you, Kyle—"

Sabine called before the door had closed on the man slipping out. Noting down another face and name she hadn't known, though she was sure to pick up more on him soon enough, but that was pushed to one said as Jack was turning back to her with that repeat of her words, and it was her turn to look a little chagrinned.

She should have figured out that double-beat tug earlier than the last hour.
She only had to look at Jack now to know what the only thing that sound could be was.

"—and, yeah, most of it helping to take care of the townspeople who were rescued."

"Don't forget to warn her about the raccoon under the bed-"

is shouted from down the hall.

It starts with a trip to Dragon's Keep in search of books on Old Gods and the Singularity—but also, and no less important, because she and Jack go through the piles of trashy fantasy and as close as you can get to scifi in their room just as fast now as they did when living together at home. She's tickled pink by the enthusiasm of the store's owner and leaves with more than she intended to get, which is normal.

She's done earlier than expected and wanders, window-shopping at leisure. She's no more a grand people person than Jack—something about neither being a person or deeply invested in them on a personal scale outside of Jack for decades—but it's nice to be able to move around wherever she wants to, with no restrictions, no tether.

To be able to see new things. It's not going to grow old anytime soon.
Which is when she spots the tea shop, and what goes better with books than tea?

If you're Jack, the answer is always coffee, but Sabine smiles as she heads toward it more directly.
She's gentle with the door as she opens it and peeks into the newest places she's investigating.

It's only Kell there this day. Mildred is out on lectures, but Kell did not feel like listening to the older mage drone for hours, fighting the urge to fall asleep. Someone should really bottle this man's voice as a sleep potion. It would have been super effective. Besides, he has his side project to work on.

There's only one customer, an older gentleman who brings his own reading material, never wants to talk to anyone and always orders the same thing. Kell doesn't need to ask at this point. So he's quite surprised when the doorbell rings.

"Hello," he greets the lady coming in. "Please find yourself any place you like. I'll be right there in a minute to take your order."

Kell is still not the greatest with faces, but she's definitely not an Abraxan native. She must be one of the new Summoned. He marks place in the book he was reading, folds his notes, and puts both away picking up the menu instead.

"Okay."

Sabine offers a quiet, friendly smile and looks around.

While, once upon a time, she would have sought out only a cozy corner or a nook, she gravitates to a nice seat with some generous sun coming in from nearby windows. She won't get over feeling the warmth of it on her skin again anytime soon. It's a nice enough place, as she looks it over once seated.

Pale skin - check. Freckles - check. Fiery red hair - check. Whoever went into the Cauldron right now could have easily mistake them for family. There's one glaring difference though. Kell's mismatched eyes. One blue, one flooded black. To most people, it's just an odd characteristic, but to those who can truly see it's a lot more. A mark, a window, door into the endless, swirling maelstrom of darkness inside him. Behind it, power moves in a timeless dance, ever creating, ever destroying. It beats like a second heart in his chest. Flows with his blood. It is his blood. Kell is human, but he's also a being of pure magic. He's not half that, half the other, he's both. His human and magic sides held together in a delicate balance. With magic always threatening to take over.

Kell is so used that in Thorne nobody notices, that he doesn't even try to hide his black eye anymore. So used it's treated more like a curiosity, that makes no attempts to conceal it nor the thing behind it.

He notes of the spot his new customer has chosen, and decides to leave the regular menu and bring the seasonal selection. Something tells him she'd appreciate the spring teas more.

"Here," he puts the folded pages on her table. Mildred had an artist friend to paint in watercolors all of their floral and fruity spring teas as pictures of white porcelain cups decorated with appropriate flowers, with blend names and descriptions calligraphed on the page next to the pictures.

"Are you in a mood for anything in particular?"

Kell will find that neither as he walks toward her nor once he's stopped in front other her, offering the menu and speaking, does Sabine's attention land more predominantly on one side of his face. Her expression doesn't shift or firm; in fact, her smile tucks just a little more, a rye kind of nervousness that paints itself with inviting delight and nothing that might be akin to surprise or fear.

It's not as though any part of him has changed since spotting him from across the store. The small skip of that distance is nothing in the way of cover. It's a clever artifice, an unknown but beating alchemy, timed and tempered even as it swings a shifting ballast. If she has some questions, she's neither so declasse nor anywhere near what anyone could relegate to being a child to blurt that out when one is meant to be saying hello.

She sleeps next to—loves, with all her soul—a very mortal impossibility that is.

The interesting new quandaries this place keeps putting in front of her.

"It's rather hard to say," Sabine admits, a polite distance right above conspiratorial. She picks up the menu, looking down at it and all the beautiful artistic renderings as she keeps talking, looking between him and it. "I've still very new, and I don't know much about what is and isn't particularly available—or good—about these parts. Do you have any recommendations? Favorites that are available currently?"

Edited 2023-05-21 23:25 (UTC)

Kell finds himself staring at the intricate maze of silver threads that snakes around her almost like a sentient creature. He noticed some time ago that he's able to tell if person he's talking to has inherent magic in them. Not the Singularity-given talent, one they brought with them. At first this was just a few pale lines. They got strong the more often he tried to use it. As he did, he started noticing differences. There were people who had magic, but it was still a little external. Like Istredd, or Doctor Strange. Then there were people for who their magic was truly coming from within. He sees Mat this way. He sees himself this way.
The woman sitting at the table belongs to the second category. Which wouldn't surprise him that much if she weren't blazing like a full moon. It's enough to get him so distracted that there as pause before he realizes a question has been asked, and formulates his answer.

"Oh. Yes. There are a couple actually. The white tea, sweet lilac and violet would be good if you'd like something sweet, but not overpowering." Kell points to Fiercely Floral Fiesta. The names are all like that. Mildred brings new ones whenever she comes back from her little cabal's meetings. Kell is pretty sure there's a lot wine involved in the process. "Black tea, jasmine and honey one, if you prefer stronger flavors." That's Sumptuous Seduction Soiree. He is so not using the names when Mildred is our of earshot. He does it only when she is around, because she explicitly demands it.

He studies her in stunned silence longer than the question's likely rote responses might need, and Sabine understands all too well. Though unsaid, she's not surprised that he seems to see more of her than almost everyone here. So far, it's only been the prickly, childish fallen angel (whom she had denied an answer to while also deigning not to deny there was one, that he was not wrong about the maddening impossibility of translating her fully in his current state) but was well aware she was so much more than she appeared.

Not human. Not mortal. And, nowhere near the small size, her appearance belied.

If there's a part of her quietly chiding that she will have to figure out when to tell Jack (again for her; the first time for him), she looks more amused than anything at the incident. It is, thus far, vastly different circumstances than any of her first three interactions with Lucifer.

"I think the second. I'd like something a little stronger rather than sweeter today. Bolstering." As to the rest, and this by, in particular, Sabine's smile shifted a little like a shared amusement, a not-quite secret. It's so rare that those she finds who can are human, or even part-human, and not of the million varieties of parasitically cruel appetite that flocked to The Rift's malevolent chaos energy. "I guess I'll just have to come again to try the other if this goes well."

"Bolstering?" Kell raises an eyebrow, then shares the conspiratorial smile of hers. "One moment. I'll bring you something else. You might find it more appealing."

He leaves the seasonal menu with her and disappears behind the counter for longer while to the accompaniment of much paper being shuffled. He comes back with single sheet. Nothing so ornate as the menu she has on the table. It's a simple list. No fancy names or pretty pictures. Each blend labelled with a number, list of ingredients and sometimes a description. He puts the list in front of her.

"Take a look at number 37. Maybe you'd like this one better."

Kell is not very good with people, but he is very good with tea. The list is his work in progress. Some of the items have notes or name ideas scribbled on the side in Mildred's scratchy handwriting. The one he pointed to is heavily annotated.

It's a blend of black tea, almonds, orange blossom has been crossed over and replaced with jasmine, some mysterious ingredient described only as 'spices from nocwich' with Mildred's comments 'damned hot' and 'are you mad?' written over it in bold letters. But it's the last comment that's most revealing on what the shop's proprietress thinks of Kell's idea. 'tastes like old magic'

This wasn't the weirdest comment she even made to him, but it sure was the weirdest she made while being completely serious.

Sabine almost gives a laugh, all alone and to herself, when the man suddenly turns away, taking his sudden inspiration and something of a sudden semi-promised better option surprise with him. It's a strange and interesting addition to the afternoon she had not expected, and it's in the middle of that thought she stops, breathing in.

In the air lingers the scent of flowers. Not one specific one. Or a few. Or many. The electrically delicate tracery of something broader, grander, encompassing all that flowers are, could be, then aren't, always cycling. From inception to full bloom, spark-laden, life-laden, death-laden; like a moniker of the magic interwoven of him. How interesting.

He returns and proffers a paper that looks far more like a student's shared note sheet—especially with the different handwriting and little notes back and forth—than the immaculately artsy menu list still lying on the table before her. Sabine follows instruction dutifully, emerald gaze skimming down the list, across the name, the first notes—including a faint snort that makes her mouth curl—before getting to the end.

There's a moment's pause. Not rereading, just a pause. Before her gaze raises back to him, intrigue a quieter note across her features but no less interested than her animate amusement earlier. "Why not. That sounds like it could be interesting."

Edited 2023-05-27 19:11 (UTC)

Kell is not even remotely aware how much of his actions are motivated by his magic, like an entity within himself, like a different being he's in constant wordless conversation with. The very reason he found Holland's opinion on magic so shocking. He's too much in tune with his own for having ever considered trying to bend it to his will, to bring it to heel like a captured and trained animal. And for that he's been called weak by the only other Antari he's ever known.

So when it reaches out now, deeply fascinated by the other creature in the room, the force it feels under its woman-shaped exterior, Kell reads the fascination as his own. So deeply it is enmeshed with his thoughts and feelings that it's sometimes difficult to tell their sources apart. He smiles at her answer and bows. Maybe too theatrically for her being his only audience. The older gentleman having left while he was ruffling through his papers. Only later on Kell will realize that the man might have gotten a wrong impression he's intruding on something private, even if the teashop is a public place. To the untrained eye one magic meeting another might an awful lot resemble flirting. Not one primordial being recognizing its faraway counterpart.

Fully oblivious to this, Kell takes both menus with him, as he goes back behind the counter to prepare his newest creation. Over time, he had elevated this practice to almost a ritual. They have people who come to the Winking Cauldron less for the tea or the company and more for the spectacle. Kell finds the structure of his work soothing. It's the reason he stayed at this job for so long. It manages to do what he struggles to achieve through formal meditation, it calms his inner turmoil down, slows the barrage of his thoughts and lets his keep his focus unfaltering on a very well defined sequence of steps. The process has its variations depending on what he's exactly brewing, but there's as much comfort in the stability of the overall structure as it's novelty in the variation that keeps him from getting bored and ditching the thing.

The resulting concoction gives of an impression of lush a jasmine bush in the full bloom on a night under starry skies. There are earthy undertone that call images of a recent rain, with drops still glistening on the leaves. It's strong without being overpowering, refreshing for a drink with a subtle kick of spice. Hard to tell how much of the impression is the tea itself, and how much magic of the person preparing it that slipped in unnoticed.

Kell brings the steaming cup to Sabine's table, puts it in front of her with gracefully practiced move. He places a silver spoon above the cup.

"Enjoy," he wishes straightening up. "Please let me know if you'd like anything else. We have a selection of pastries to go with tea."

He retreats to his place behind the counter, takes out his notes and tries not to stare at her. It's rude, but he can't help a curious glance once in a while. They are the only people here.

There's a lightness and a frankness to him—them?; singular, plural, singular-plural—even beyond the p's and q's of professional politeness only very barely having toes pressed over it. Like they haven't quite broken the box this play began in, and yet somehow they've shifted the stage, turned it the barest, just unmissable, tilt—two sides of a mirror's consideration, a child's-like intrigue.

He flourishes a bow, more pronounced—and maybe the word isn't child-like, maybe it's playful?—and Sabine does laugh this time, lifting her hands from the table so they aren't in the way as he's picking up menus. He leaves behind the counter to turn to his craft, and Sabine rests against the back of the chair, considering the now-empty room. She could read her book, there in the sunshine through the window...

But there was a part of her mind toying with the finite reexamination of the room around her; tracing the echo of that new feeling, flavor. Places took on the echoes of their people as much as people took on the echoes of where they were for extended periods. The teashop might not be anything like the gas station, but people like him—like the people she watched over back home before the coma—left a wake where they walked and even more where they chose to stay, put their time, and especially their effort.

Maybe Sabine's even a little too far into it because she blinks back to when he's suddenly walking back again. There's a soft thank you for the deposited cup and spoon, fancier than she's ever really had, definitely compared to a tea bag in a coffee cup warmed up in a microwave in the house (the dream one, or the apartment). She means to start, but the prickle at the edge of her awareness stays there. Present. Persistent. Returns. Again.

The longing curiosity kept to a leash's length, but only that.

After a sip of tea, she said, "You could come join me if you'd like."

"If you have anything like a cookie here, I might even tell you my name first."

The amount of time Kell spends lost in thought with a deep frown on his face, not because he's particularly annoyed by anything, just concentrating on a problem, itself lends to his reputation as an incurable grump. A reputation he's completely fine with. It means people are less likely to interrupt him whenever he's on lectures or in the library. It even adds to his mysterious aura whenever he is in the teashop. The same mysterious aura that draws some of their most loyal customers.

He's doesn't even know how much his demeanour changes when he is interested in someone for a change. Rhy always said he has different faces for different people, and it couldn't have been more true that it's now. If only indicated by the ease with which he smiles, as compared to practically any other situation whenever he's in a room with a complete stranger.

"Sure we do," he replies with a smile.

Kell ducks in the back for brief moment, coming with a wicker basket lined and covered with a cloth, and a small plate. He picks up a pair of thongs from behind the counter and brings it all with him to set on the table.

"We get all our pastry from the bakery down the street, but not the cookies. Cookies are our own."

He explains while he sets a plate for her, uncovers the basket and places two cookies on it. Well, to be honest those are not his, but Mildred's. She would never have let him near an oven.

Once he's done he moves to the opposite side of the table and pulls out a chair for himself.

"So, about names. I'm Kell."

He brought his own cup with him too. It's not one of Mildred's fancy ones, all in delicate, white porcelain. No, his is sturdy ceramic, dark brown with one red stripe around its edge, tall and narrow. One of his first purchases from Nocwich. The spell weaved around it keeps the beverage inside just the right temperature. He could have used an Abraxan one. The spells for that purpose are common and childishly easy to learn. Even people with little talent know them. But this is his cup, so it is his magic.

( ooc: you can totally ignore it if it's too forever ago, too. )

The acceptance comes as quickly as was expected, and Sabine's smile stays, scrunching her nose a bit as she leans back and sips at more tea. It does have an interesting flavor the longer it settles, and she focuses on it. It's been such a very, very long time since she felt light, truly light, without the nagging weight, the always knowledge, that dream-joy was only that at its root: a dream, sometimes shared, but a dream nonetheless. Better than nothing but built on moonlight and spider-silk, and less than one breath could banish the house of the cards.

(And would, and did, eventually.)

But now it's not. Now she's here, and Jack is here, and K'Ron gone.
And there's this. It's new and surprising, in a good way, too.

"Thank you."

She took one of the cookies, but instead of tasting it, she pointed at him with it mischievously. "You aren't so good at barter tactics and rules, are you? I got my cookie, and I didn't even have to give up what I offered as payment for it first." She pulled the cookie back and went to take a bite but paused just before she actually would have put it in her mouth:

"I'm Sabine."

Kell bites his lower lip as he bows his head acknowledging his defeat, fingers fiddling with his cup, but a smile stays in place. Any other day he'd be bummed for getting bested. Here and now, in this company. He's already got what he wanted. Everything else is just pretext.

"I guess I've never been particularly good with rules."

It's an off-hand comment. The words are not really important. They are having a conversation as people. This what anyone coming in would notice. What they would not, is how at ease and focused Kell is on this small section of space that contains the table and her. Though, it does not really contain anything. The magic in him vibrating with joy for finally being able to put name to the sun.

Sabine

It knows nothing can contain her. Not the space, not the name. But it is useful label. It likes labels. They makes otherwise amorphous pools of feeling more concrete.

"Nice to meet you Sabine."

Kell's tea is a rose one, its scent rising from the cup, feeling so very right, he couldn't have possibly picked any other one for this moment. Seamlessly integrating into swirling magic around him that weaves its strands into images before dissolving them back to the free current again. The warm stone, red glow of a river and blooming of flowers.

He's young and sweet—that much is true—but there's something about him. The makeup of him, his magic, doesn't seem to be that. Too. The longer she can study him (listening to him cobble together an answer while finally trying that cookie that is no longer a pointer), the more she's certain of it. Unlike Jack, Kel is very meant—a universal manifest-made.

This place was such a mystery and a wonder,
and it drew so much to itself.

"It's nice to meet you, too." Sabine took a sip of her tea. "As we've covered names, and that I'm shiny cellophane, brand new basically, how long have you been here?"

Eager and excited are rarely the words to describe him, but Kell doesn't notice the change in his own behavior, and there's no one in here to point it out to him. He shrugs, counting months in his head, finding to his own surprise that more time has passed than he's been aware of and yet it feels like too little when he thinks about everything that happened. How all of it managed to squeeze into mere thirteen months. A year has passed and yet he feels as if he grew older by at least three.

"About a year. Doesn't sound long now that I say it, but a lot happens here. There's not a boring day. Even if sometimes I'd wish for one."

He's not the first to mention having been here a long time, nor the first to seem surprised they'd lost track of the time. Sabine isn't sure she can do the second—not after losing the last six years of her life to an extended nap—but would gladly take whatever this place wants to dish out toward her if it means she gets to be at Jack's side again.

"What kinds of things fall under 'a lot?'"

Especially for someone like him. She's still working out the shape of those edges, the flow of the magic, red and black. The river, the scent of the flowers that seems to linger beyond and before, and much more than just from the tea he's drinking. It's an interesting little facet.

"Assassinations attempts, kidnappings, weird visions sent by the Singularity."

Kell shakes his head.

"Sorry, I'm coming at this wrong." He pauses, thinking where to start. "There's a general assumption that we - and in we I mean all the Summoned - are going to fix this world. That's at least the reason for the ritual. Why and how? My guess is as good as any. We have a unique connection to Singularity, so that's no an unreasonable conclusion. For that, I think, and for the fact that we're a bit of a wild card. Nominally, residing on territory of whatever faction has dragged us here, but we're not part of them. Not subjects, citizens nor whatever they have in Solvunn."

Thorne's crown provides for them, so they naturally expect something in return, but neither Thornean royals nor Free Cities government can say Summoned are their subjects.

"So we get a lot of interest, both good and bad, from all directions."

He shoots her a worried look suddenly aware of the possibility she might be more interested in simple answer and a detailed analysis of political situation of the Summoned. He's been thinking about this a lot.

"Sorry, it's not a more concise answer. I hope I didn't bore you with all the details."

"It's an honest one; that's always better."
Sabine's answer is forthright but calm.

It's not often she can't tell if a baseline human is lying. They aren't as complicated as they think they are, especially to those whose perceptions are made in such a completely different way. Sabine turns over the words.

"It's best to know what I might be facing and what Jack did before I arrived." It's best to know what he needs watching over, how he's been handling it, and what might be needed of her. Especially with his not remembering what she can do, what she is, and whether she wants to keep that going until the proper memory or rewrite all of it here, again.

He'd taken it as well as she'd ever hoped, but he was in the middle of thinking she wasn't quite dead, and the world was ending in only a handful of days. Not at the best time for either of them and still, it'd changed absolutely nothing.

When the world changed, you wanted it to stay changed.

Yet he was earlier, in a place and memories she didn't know until coming here.

"Do you think they're right? That those pulled here might be able to fix this world?" The words are utterly serious. The mathematic tone of a 'girl' who spent the last centuries planning how to save a different world and every being upon its skin had succeeded before coming here.

"Yes."

For someone who almost broke his own world, Kell is very sure of his opinion. Mostly, because he's been of a completely opposite one at the start.

"Either fix it or break it permanently, but given what I've seen until now, I'd say fixing is more probable. At least the people I know really want to help."

He shudders. Now he's going fully into speculation territory, but it's actually something he had time to think a lot about. He knows too little about the Summoning ritual. It's not like Ambrose or any other mages are exactly forthcoming how is works. So he doesn't know how the Summoned are chosen, but most of the people he knows are definitely able to make a difference.

And then there is Wilhelm... ruining his pretty theory. Kell has a hunch Wille just hasn't got his great chance to shine yet. At some point he will, and they all will be surprised.

"Looking at who gets here, most are people capable of inciting change. Even if no one, not even they themselves, can predict what that change would be."

No one predicted Nocwich, and then the werewolves were instrumental in helping the rescued Summoned. Small changes cause bigger ones down the stream.

As much as Sabine doesn't want to think about it—alive and awake, here with Jack—Kell's words do make her have to consider deeper contexts. Have to consider a fact she's not sure she wants to turn over. If she knew the omniversal context of this world, would there be a way she'd suddenly agree with all of it? Understand the choices being made, the scope of the acceptable losses, and the sacrifices needed to pave the path.

Had she and her parents not made deals with similar devils, would they not, upon many counts, be counted as devils, too, both in being and in action? Especially if they were put to the decision of those who'd worked upon the Rift. Except. Except she was the outlier, wasn't she? The 'girl' who broke the rules, the pacts, the plans; who dared to take the one piece of the board that was the least and most sacrificable, but only in that order, and only the second on the last day of the world's last chance against an eternity of agonized subjugation.

It had cost her everything and set off a line of dominoes no one expected.

Sabine realizes she's been silent a little too long—a faint crease in her brow.

"Do you?" It's a piqued acquisitive. "Want to save this world? Its people?"

Kell shrugs. It's a straightforward question, with an unstraightforward answer.

"I guess," he replies, then adds. "I don't like what they did. I don't like that they continue doing it. But they are desperate, and I understand desperation."

He might disagree, or even outright hate how Thorne in particular approaches the issue. He emphatically disagrees with Free Cities government approach to Singularity. But he's here, and if he can help, he doesn't see reason why not to. Not the rulers of Thorne, or rulers of any other faction, but people? Like in Nott? People he can and want to help.

Sabine is pondering the words and the vastly unknown motives when he gets to those last three words, and she considers him over her tea cup. It could be considered impolite and impertinent, but they've started off on the oddest of feet already, far into the more intimate of details people usually cannot see at a first look and is usually only given after so much longer a knowing.

"Do you? Why?"

Kell looks away. Darkness crawls, staining the bright red of his magic. Staining it black, like ink spilled. An accident, but impossible to hide.

"Personal history. A long one. Not exactly flattering."

He's been there. Full of pain and anger. Willing to do anything, and everything, to stop the catastrophe from happening. A consequence of one, grievous mistake. Just because he got played. They both got played. Then there was blood and death at the end of it, and Kell was ready, desperate enough, to try anything to fix it.

He looks back, smiles, bows his head slightly in apology.

"Sorry, I didn't want to drag the conversation down."

[ CATCH-ALL ] look at me, look at me

𝓣𝓱𝓸𝓻𝓷𝓮.

𝓝𝓸𝓬𝔀𝓲𝓬𝓱 & 𝓝𝓸𝓽𝓽.

𝓗𝓸𝓻𝓲𝔃𝓸𝓷.

𝑎𝑛𝑜𝑡ℎ𝑒𝑟 𝑓𝑙𝑎𝑠ℎ𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘

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𝓚𝓮𝓵𝓵.

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But what if I came back to this utter cuteness, now that I'm not heartbroken? <3

I shamelessly hoard all Sabine tags

yes, good, she needs that

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