Rewriting history with the stories we tell

[magicalarchaeologist]

Who: Istredd and you
When: September
Where: Thorne, Horizon
What: Catch-all, reaction to things going on, Singularity, and quest!





[ooc: hit me up if you want anything unique or just throw a wildcard at me.]

Comments

[magicalarchaeologist]

Oh. I'm sorry. I didn't --- that was stupid.

[ Istredd takes a step back and bows stiffly to her. He really has to start getting his shit together when it comes to interacting with new people. It isn't an excuse that he barely reacted to them for awhile now, he is now in a social situation and that means his social graces need to be worked on. He did learn them at school, they were all impeccably taught how to be diplomatic during magic. He can be charming, although usually only to normal people, most of his fellow mages write him off due to his interests. ]

I'm Istredd. If you know Yennefer and Geralt, I'm from their Sphere. Yennefer and I trained in magic at the same time back when we were young.

[ Very young, they snag them when their powers first emerge, and if they're lucky, it is when they are young enough not to kill someone or themselves using Chaos incorrectly. He was the first mage Yennefer ever met and while their relationship is fraught, it comes from a place of deep understanding. ]

They've both been helping provide me with information, but ... they've never talked about it the way you just did.

[ Probably because neither of them saw it the same way. Yennefer sent him toward Stephen Strange to talk out that more, and he is looking forward to perhaps getting to know Rhy better. Geralt is all about facts and he is only interested in it for the fact he has a young ward to worry about. Istredd has no idea she is here, and just assumes Geralt is still worried about her even here. The Singularity is too close to monoliths, it's impossible not to make the connection. ]

But you don't have to take my word. I will leave now and let you commune with it, but if you know them and hear from them that I'm trustworthy on this issue, I hope we can speak again. If you want, of course, no pressure.

[ Although he is very hopeful now that she will. This is the first person who spoke with any passion or emotion behind it at all, and that means she cares. And what he needs to learn is that sort of care. Intellectually is all well and good, research is another, but Istredd has always cared about it at his core.

He wants to ask her more, he is bursting with curiosity, but he definitely gets that he messed up the approach to this. So he sucks down his questions and nods respectfully to her again before turning to go, as promised. ]

[princessvegas]

[ Her posture does relax slightly when he steps back, an indication that her reaction was not entirely personal. The world she comes from was not very safe for women when society was intact, let alone after the complete collapse of everything. But she remains clearly cagey and suspicious.

It's just weird. Julie had not developed her own interest in the physical Singularity until well after she began learning magic, when she realized just how out of the ordinary her connection with the Horizon is. And even then, for quite a while, she had approached the concept of the Singularity as much more like a spirit than anything else. Still does, to an extent -- she has called on the Singularity from Cadens, in the waking world, and she's almost sure she got a response. She goes to it in the Horizon only because she's learned that's where it feels the most responsive. But it's the difference between speaking to someone who's awake and someone who's talking in their sleep. She can hear it either way, but it hears her best when it's awakened by her presence.

Her brow only furrows deeply when he brings up Geralt. Who the fuck is Yennefer? Istredd says Yennefer and Geralt, not Yennefer or Geralt. Doesn't that sound much more like they're somehow involved with each other, here? But he's never mentioned anyone from his world except Jaskier and Ciri. He's told her of Vesemir, of his brothers, and she has no reason to think that he would not mention them if they were summoned to Abraxas. Why would he not say that there's someone else here? And if it's someone that Geralt knows, then Jaskier and Ciri would know her too, right? How can all three of them be simply forgetting to mention a whole other person? ]

Um, thanks. I guess.

[ She only says it because she doesn't know what else to say. There's not anything to thank him for. Midwestern manners, more than anything else. If Istredd expects her to change her mind and speak up or stop him from leaving, he's sorely mistaken. She does nothing of the sort. She watches him leave, a deep knit between her eyebrows, her hand still on the Singularity. She's never taken it off.

The Singularity nudges her again, asks her what's happening. Its curiosity always feels more like pure question marks, a ??? of confusion rather than a pointed question, but she finds she understands it without need for words. Her weight settles closer to it, though she still stands, and she moves her thumb back and forth without thinking about it.

I don't know, she tells it honestly. She doesn't know what to take away from this meeting, from this man. She had not been expecting to hear Geralt's name, and it rattled her more than she would have thought.

Want comes the response, fills her like sudden starvation, and she leans her head to the stone for a moment, her temple against it. Yeah, I know, honey, she reassures. We'll figure it out together. Soon, okay?

Julie breaks contact and feels the Singularity give what seems to her to be a sigh, a rolling over. Acceptance. Then it fades away, trickles out of her body like it tends to when she leaves it, as if it wants to go back to sleep. She pats it idly and then heads back to her own domain, to see if maybe Steven knows anything about an Istredd.

Or a Yennefer. ]