abraxaslogs | [open]

Who: Michael Ralston & Various
What: Catch-all for August
When: post-Horizon, but will probably use this space as I see fit throughout the month.
Where: Castle Thorne
Notes: Feel free to hit me up on discord or plurk if you want to plot something or want a ~*~bespoke~*~ starter. Prose or brackets are a-okay; I'll match your preference. See Ralston's optional opt-in info HERE .

THE CASTLE.

There is a man in Castle Thorne who walks with a cane and has made little effort to seek out anyone's company. By all accounts, he is easily missed and cuts a fairly unremarkable figure—he is neither particularly tall or short, nor especially good looking or plain. In fact if not for the tell-tale tunic and trousers and a penchant for haunting the guest quarters, he might be easily mistaken for some servant or native of the castle who is only as interested in these out-of-world travelers as he is employed to be.

And yet—

[A] Here he is, making use of the library available to Thorne's 'honored guests'; he has rooted his way to some back series of shelves, and is presently standing at the foot of a ladder clearly doing the mental math on scaling it to reach an upper series of books when movement at the end of the stack draws his attention. Ralston snaps his fingers at whoever has had the distinct misfortune to cross paths with him, saying,

"You. Step this way for just a moment."

[B] Or he is in some quiet courtyard available to Thorne's guests, sitting on some bench in the shadow of a high stone wall where the air of the day is most temperate. He has an orange in hand, and is peeling it slowly with every appearance of waiting for someone. Ralston's dark eyes search out any figure who happens to pass across the yard. If he happens to recognize them as either an ex-prisoner or someone who has demonstrated a particular talent for the little magic spells being taught by the Thornean mages, he will whistle to get their attention and motion for them to come closer. Worst comes to worst, he might flick a bit of orange peel in your direction to clarify the urgency of his demand for conversation.

[C] Or, rarest and strangest of all, Ralston might be found in some part of the castle where he shouldn't be. Perhaps it is a merely a rarely used back staircase, or a quiet corridor in some wing of the castle which guests have ostensibly been discouraged from visiting, or he is quietly letting himself into a room in which he has no business being.

WILDCARD.
[You know the drill. Feel free to hit me up on disco or plurk if you feel moved, but I can roll with pretty much anything.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"No need to be so jealous of my attentions, Strange."

It's a blithe, off the cuff thing and punctuated with a smile that is as automatic as it is mean. Aren't you glad you stopped to say hello?

The last of the orange's peel is shed. With a bright burst of summer smelling juices, Ralston divides the orange. One half, peace offering bright and glinting, is offered out at the length of his arm. Whether the dark eyed look that accompanies it is a dare or a genuine welcome is highly debatable.

"Have I interrupted your morning constitutional?"

The dare, if it is one, is taken up. He won't be intimidated by an orange.

"Yup. But since you're in a giving mood, I don't mind."

In fact, he doesn't mind so much that he invites himself to a seat, turning to settle down with his accepted half a fruit far enough along that somebody else with exceptionally poor judgement could still fit in the gap. Pulling a segment of the orange away from the rest he casts a look Ralston's way, pointedly placid.

"What about you? Assuming you're not here for the view."

The castle is impressive from certain angles, sure, but sequestered away in the shadow of towering walls with nothing much more to see than the passageways walked by unsuspecting passersby and the slits of windows too high up to tell any stories? It's not exactly a prized breakfast spot.

It is evidently the correct amount of distance to maintain. Surely by this point, Strange has gathered how Ralston uses the line of that borrowed cane to enforce his personal boundaries; here, he makes no move to fetch the thing up to ward him off. Instead, Ralston simply crosses his leg ankle over knee and shears a segment from his half of the orange. There is some figment of—good humor is not the right light to cast in it. But something near to that. A dog recently loosed from its leash to run still keeps some of that elastic energy even after he has been called back to the chain.

"Perhaps I've just been after some quiet place to think in. Rather a lot to consider these days."

And perhaps he is the crown prince of the Second Chair.

He eats a sliver of orange and asks, "Did you enjoy our trip?"

Stephen huffs out a short, amused breath. Perhaps.

The conversation drifts on, apparently disparate but not necessarily disconnected, and he eases another segment away from the bulk as he responds with an easy, "Oh, yeah. There's nothing I love more than an impromptu amnesiac's tour of another dimension."

Come to think of it, he hadn't seen Ralston. Not that he would've known either way at the time, but he remembers the rest of it now and it's doubtful his memory's that selective. It's not a huge surprise. There are a lot of faces he didn't see there. A lot of people who might have seen his if he'd bothered to open his door.

"Nice that we've got a season ticket. Have you been back?"

Beside him, Ralston's hmm is a mild thing. Another segment of orange comes free in his hands with a spit of sweet smelling citrus juice. The pale flesh of the orange has left behind some viscera under his nails.

"I have not," he says. And then, with a sharp toothed smile and dark eyes lacking in humor, he adds— "It seems I've become something of a realist who has trouble imagining himself elsewhere."

That isn't true. That much is obvious; maybe that place frightens him. Or maybe Ralston had done something there in the throes of memory loss that he is now ashamed of. Or, or, or. Who can say.

"And yourself?"

The latest in the parade of perhapses, another swerve. Stephen casts him a sideways glance, put on doubt rife in the way it lingers. Playing, as much the citrus sharp edges of the majority of their conversations can be called good-humoured. At the end of the day, none of the answers to any of their questions are anyone's business but their own. And if the sweet and gradually dwindling offering he's busy picking pieces out of is the extent of Ralston's generosity for the morning, that's fine.

It's more than he was expecting.

"A few times." The first time almost entirely by accident. Subsequently, less so. "More, once things have settled down out here."

A whisper of intention, information. There to be plucked at or quietly ferreted away, a segment of something in return for one already chewed and swallowed.

"Ah, our missing friend from the dungeons."

Rebecca? Renata. No, those aren't right. Though the name doesn't matter so much as the fact that she is missing does. Hardly shocking information, but an ill omen regardless.

He sucks the juice from his fingers.

"Funny that there hasn't been some word given how happy the High Mage was to inform us of Sims' imminent hanging."

Only the most cheerful of conversational topics for here in this shadowed little courtyard.

A disappearance, an impending execution, the arrival of a new selection of stolen supposed barriers to the end of the multiverse as we know it. Never a dull moment in Abraxas.

"Maybe even Ambrose understands that there are limits to our collective tolerance. At least he can dress a death sentence up in legality."

An under-the-radar prisoner abduction for who knows what purpose, though? Start broadcasting that one before you've got something to show for it and you're going to rock the boat a little more than you might have liked.

It's building to something. All of it - this strange and tentative peace, gilded cages for well behaved birds up above and the poorly kept coop for the others down below, all the actions not yet taken.

"I wonder if he thinks he has a handle on it."

"We had best hope so."

He shouldn't like to be part of a failed experiment; he has seen what happens to those rats. But he suspects that taking them through that portal to Horizon where they might gaze on the Singularity and feel its ravenous pull had been a compromise made by a man who had sensed his control slipping. That much High Mage Ambrose had made clear all on his own. Here is why you ought to do as I say for just reasons; here is why you ought to do what I say to preserve your own skin.

Only desperate men, he thinks, employ both carrot and stick at once.

With a dismissive noise, Ralston drops the orange peels into the stone planter beside him. He has a finite appetite for conspiracy when everyone knows the same talking points.

"You're welcome to practice your work here," is punctuated with a flippant gesture to mean to rest of the shadowed courtyard. How very magnanimous.

A change of subject isn't unwelcome. Stephen's been running these same conversations around on loop both in- and outside of his own head for as long as they've been around to have. He pops the final couple of segments of his half a fruit into his mouth with a hummed note of acknowledgement - freedom to utilise a public space, how generous - and pushes himself to his feet.

An audience isn't really what he came for but his options are a right-now audience of one or a trek through the castle in search of another secluded corner. Dr. Stephen Strange, M.D Ph.D, is no stranger to watchers in the gallery.

Turning, an underarm toss passes something round and bright and waxy to the touch Ralston's way. "Thanks for sharing."

It's another orange, plucked from empty air. A snack if he's staying for a show. Payment with interest for an earlier offering if he's not.

He catches it easily enough; say what one might about Ralston, but his reflexes—including the physical ones—aren't slow. Merely desperately off putting to most sensibilities.

Case in point: the thing which flares in his face runs distinctly along the lines of a flicker of surprise chased by a more obvious resentment, his keen expression slanting in some stormier direction even as he turns the orange in his hand and sets it on the bench beside him.

"Here I was growing concerned that I might starve to death."

Obviously he's staying.

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