multiversallogs | take a good look in the mirror and tell me

Entry tags:

take a good look in the mirror and tell me

Who: Severus and Amberdrake.
What: Business consultation.
Where: A restaurant in Flag Hill.
When: Presentlyish?
Notes: i'm in ur game spammin ur log comm
Warnings: I don't foresee any.

Taking a break from jobs that necessitate the corrosion of his soul is not a work hiatus, Severus would go mad. He remembers the man who contacts him over the CiD, remembers he pegged him for being awfully new and thus certainly under-funded; it's been a while since he walked into a job knowing he'll have to undercharge or work on barter, but maybe something about witnessing those riots is making him sentimental. He's not sure if that's a better or worse explanation than just doing something nice for someone new on his cohort.

The restaurant he's sitting in is one that he's been to before, both to get out of the house and to meet with potential clients; dimly-lit in a way that's subdued instead of shady, upscale without being exclusive, private seating, and no smoking restrictions. He waits sitting in a round, leather-backed booth underneath a low amber lamp, cigarette burning between his fingers, coffee at his elbow.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Which combined with every other sign Severus has shown, reaffirms that he's used to concealing (or perhaps just forbidding access to?) his damage.

Fair enough. Almost everyone does that, Severus is just better at the acting aspect of it than many.

"Well then," Drake smiles faintly and folds his hands together on the table, "that's excellent news for me. For some reason, I would prefer not suffocating face-down in a ditch somewhere after the next medical emergency crops up." And it will. They always do.

And while he doesn't intend to over-extend anymore, because Sanzo had been right about that issue, he knows it will probably be necessary again anyway. What if the priest gets a hand chopped off again? Drake's certainly not going to hesitate to fuse it back onto the stump, thank you.

"What did you do to that thermos the other night, if you don't mind my asking?" he's been curious about that ever since, at least during his coherent moments. Amberdrake didn't see him do much of anything to it, but it had been a fresh batch afterwards. Obviously it had been magic, but if Drake was content with 'magic!' as his only explanation, he'd be a poor kestra'chern indeed.

Severus refrains from making some kind of backhanded remark about throwing ones self into such emergencies. He'd shown up all on his own, after all. Something he doesn't quite has an excuse for. Instead, he raises one eyebrow, and then picks up his half-empty coffee cup, holding it forward.

"Duplication." He taps one finger against the side of the cup - he doesn't need to, it's just for show - and it's suddenly full again. "Most substances can be stretched a little like that before they begin to break down and make manipulation impossible. It's difficult to create something from nothing, if I don't know what my intended something is, but when it's within reach, it's easy enough."

(Holy shit, more than three words!)

Drake is fully aware that he's an idiot about such things! Although it's not really in his nature to sit back on his hands when the War slithers out from its hiding place in the shadows and feeds.

Thankfully, his own form of coping with his PTSD, at least when the shit hits the fan, is to roll up his sleeves and get to work. His instincts in fight or flight situations is almost always to take action, even though he is a non-combatant. If his mind worked any other way, he'd have been dead a dozen times over by now.

But here in the present time, he peers at the cup when it's held forward (leaning forward a little to do so) and blinks when it fills. He sits back again during the explanation.

"That's amazing," Drake knows better than to compliment when he doesn't mean it, and right now he certainly does. "That has to be infinitely useful, especially in your line of work. Does it work on non-liquids as well?"

Edited (Don't mind me, I just realized how to phrase a whole paragraph better. YOU SAW NOTHING.) 2012-10-15 17:18 (UTC)

"Yes," he says. "As with substances, not all materials allow for it. Conjuring allows for a lot of leeway in the makeup of any given item, duplication is far more precise. Generally, I can tell by looking at something if I can stretch it, and how far."

He relates all of this simply. He can't just wave a hand and make difficult potions appear from thin air, which some people seem to expect from him once they realize he's a wizard, or observe him conjuring a chair, or whatever else. Magic is as fantastic and nebulous as it is exact and scientific. Which he likes, frankly. If it was all fantasy or all science, it would be one or the other; it wouldn't be what it is. (The only godsdamned thing he cares about, sometimes.)

But being able to do so to simple things must make the creation of more complicated things via other methods a little easier. Drake can fuse a limb back on, but the process is made of a hundred smaller processes. He can Heal damaged wings to be flight-worthy again, but it's such a complicated balance to strike in mass and control surface and nerves that he was one of the few who could do so in Urtho's entire army.

So, Amberdrake's eyes don't exactly glaze over at the concept.

"Just the little things I've seen you do casually with your magic is remarkable," Drake admits, "are these things just... normal Mage-craft on your world?"

Because he's used to mages, certainly; he was in an army full of them, lead by one of the strongest his world has ever seen (or will ever see again). But even Skandranon would have had to concentrate and gather energy for a moment before doing a simple spell. It was nowhere near as intrinsic and casual.

And that was before the storms.

Ah. The opportunity to be insufferably smug about himself, conflicting with the desire to keep his life private. What a puzzle. But he ends up conceding to, "More or less. There are varying degrees of aptitude and work ethic just like anything else."

Which should be sufficiently self-important without giving too much away. Severus is indeed naturally a bit more gifted than the average wizards (half-bloods tend to be, surprise surprise), but he also takes it to the extreme of being completely infatuated with advancing his own knowledge. His work is geared that way; he would be bored if he merely reproduced a stock of potions. Taking on individual projects means he gets to stretch his abilities and his intellect.

"I see," Amberdrake smiles at that, because Severus refers to other professionals in his field with distancing language, and will show off with his coffee far easier than he'll briefly touch someone's hand...

Drake's been a kestra'chern for longer than Severus has been alive, if one counts his time spent in Haven. These pieces aren't terribly difficult to put together.

"Mage-craft was thoroughly disrupted on my world," he says instead of any of that, "quite a few years ago. So it's always interesting to see someone else's magic at work." Unfettered by the Cataclysm, and alien besides! Either one is interesting, both in combination is even more-so.

"But it runs off your own power? Not some external source?" That's Amberdrake's next line of query, although tempered with, "I apologize if I'm being nosy, it's just that I haven't seen many non-Velgarthian mages."

Also true. Haven had been full of gun-slinging fighters and vampires and the occasional machine-person. The closest he'd heard of that could be considered a mage had been that purple-haired woman who everyone had been nervous around.

"It is innate, yes." Severus has always found beings whose magic is an outside source, they themselves being glorified tuning forks, to be somewhat pitiable. What is power without control over it?

"You don't consider what you do to be magic?" No word on what his power might constitute - either he doesn't know (unlikely) or doesn't feel like sharing (more likely). Personally, Severus doesn't like announcing that witches and wizards of his world aren't hampered strictly by physical exhaustion, just potential and concentration.

"It's arcane, but it's a different branch," Amberdrake gives a light, easy shrug, "I can't rain lightning or fire down on anyone, or rend stone with my bare hands, or produce mage-lights, or create Gates... or anything that falls under the Mage Gift. Nothing terribly useful until someone gets themselves mangled in some colorful manner or other."

It's not a very gentle way of putting it, but he doubts he needs to speak in dancing terms about medical things in his present company. Severus hadn't seemed squeamish in Vanessa's house.

"At the same time, a mage from my world can't really heal anyone. There's a variety of other Gifts, Mind-Healing, Mind-Speech, Seers, Empathy... all with their own unique abilities, and all of them vary in strength from person to person. The Mage Gift is the only one that relies on the ley-lines and nodes for power, so when they were uprooted and scattered..."

Drake spreads his hands. It's a simplification of what the Cataclysm did to his world's mages, in truth, but not inaccurate. It doesn't touch on the main obstacle to regular mage-craft on Velgarth; the storms of chaotic raw energy that warp everything they touch and disrupt everything they can't.

Severus' brows knit, following that. His opinion of people being limited like that is clearly rather low, but we've already established he's a snob about magic.

"I see." How unpleasant, to be bound by something like the earth. He thinks of Sebastian briefly, and the way he'd had his magic stripped... It's unimaginable. Severus is not, contrary to popular belief at home, a subscriber to the notion that those without magic are subhuman, but he is what he is - a wizard - and it's an enormous part of his life and identity. He's honestly quite discomfited with the notion of it being diminished.

"Healers must be in high demand."

"Less-so now that the war has ended, thankfully," Amberdrake, like the rest of Urtho's people, doesn't really think of it as gone. They all came to think of 'the War' as its own creature, with its own thoughts and hungers -- and this feeling was especially true among the Healers and kestra'chern.

And the War lurks, and it waits. Always. It's up to the fragments of the army, Drake included, to stay prepared for its return.

After all, Ma'ar hadn't been the only power-hungry Adept in the world.

"You are able to heal with your mage-craft, correct?" Drake asks, because letting his thoughts linger in those dark corners won't do anyone any good, "Although I seem to remember you saying something about it not being as reliable on mundane wounds?"

"I can make salves and potions that can mend flesh and regrow bones," he says, "But more often than not, for me to... point at something and cause it to be healed with magic, it's a matter of reversing whatever caused it to be damaged. Counter-curses, that sort of thing." He sips his coffee. "Medical magic has never been my primary field of study, though I've made a point to keep myself well-rounded."

"Reversing instead of repairing? Interesting," Drake stows that information away; it's always good to know what other healing-capable people are able to do, after all. "The Healing Gift is a bit more detailed, I suspect. I must bridge every nerve, reconnect every tendon, shift and pin every bone, and so on and so forth. Each must be deliberate, and then when I spur the body into healing at a rate a thousand times faster than normal, I have to stay 'present' to guide it. Burn out infection before it can begin, shift fluids before pockets can form..."

Is it any wonder it costs so much energy?

"I've long thought that Aftershock is there to keep us Healers from abusing the Gift. It would be easy to stop a heart, but I suspect it would kill the Healer as surely as the victim."

He considers discussing the difference between healing magic and counter-curse magic and why mundane medicine doesn't work with curse damage and many other magical ailments and... decides he doesn't feel like it. He's talked enough already, and he doesn't actually like teaching.

"It's fortunate you're so altruistic then, isn't it." H.aa.. ha?

"I'm worthless in a fight, you mean," Amberdrake smiles, anyway, because it's more true than Severus probably thinks. He has little choice about being a pacifist. "I've never heard of anyone using the Gift in such a way. Even Ma'ar used mages as assassins, never Healers."

And if there was one guy who would have turned the force of Healing and repair on its end in some poetic mockery of itself, it would have been the Kiyamvir Ma'ar. But even he, apparently, hadn't found anyone he could twist into that use.

Or perhaps he'd never considered it. Ma'ar tended to think of things in mage terms, after all. Almost all of his most cunning maneuvers and schemes had involved some horrific curse or other, and even when he'd taken out Urtho with the most heinous, horrifying poison known to the world, he'd had Conn Levas -- a mage -- shoot the darts.

But in a war between Adepts, perhaps that was expected.

"The most dangerous thing I've ever done to someone with the Gift is paralyze them temporarily while reconstructing their wings." And a good thing, too, because the Nosgothian vampire Raziel in a flashback-frenzy panic was danger personified. If Drake hadn't been ready for it, he would have been turned into a smear on the floor.

"Is paralyzing someone dangerous?" Severus drinks more of his coffee. It's lukewarm again, but that's his own fault; reheating it will just make it taste awful. He shall endure.

The thought of mages as assassins is privately funny. There's a surprisingly small number of primary magic user in the Assassins Guild; a great number of people who can use magic, or do a few specific things with it, but Severus finds himself an anomaly within their ranks. It is slightly irritating to be asked to make poisons and draw plans more than he's asked to take care of anything - just like it was with the Dark Lord, sequestered as a tactician, as a potioneer, socked away in Hogsmeade, playing nice... Well, it isn't the same, now. He learns enough in the Guild to keep him happy. Someone's even humoring him with lessons on how to throw a damn punch.

"Depending on how you do it, certainly," Amberdrake raises an eyebrow, "dropping a limb here and there is one thing, of course. I can turn off muscle control at the joints and they'll be fine when I release them. But anything involving the spine... I've only done full-body paralysis on those I knew didn't need to breathe to live."

It's faster to go for the neck and turn everything off all at once, like hitting a light switch. That hadn't exactly calmed Raziel down (far from it!) but it had kept Drake in one piece long enough to put his patient back into one piece.

"...And speaking of internal anatomy," he adds with a faint smile, "you haven't answered me about those lungs of yours. Let's not even pretend you couldn't kill me as easily as you filled your cup a few minutes ago if I for some reason tried to do something stupid."

Drake doesn't even know the extent of what Severus can do, but he knows what it would do to a human brain to suddenly double the amount of blood in it. Or his arteries.

He's not terribly concerned by this; Skandranon could shear him in two in a heartbeat with his beak, or pop a talon through his eye socket. Sanzo could shoot him or break his neck. Urtho probably could have willed him into non-existance if he'd ever been inclined. Vikteren could have lit him on fire. Shalaman could have had him drawn and quartered with a gesture.

In short, Drake is very much used to being the unarmed guy in a room full of dangerous people. His Gifts may have the potential to do harm, but they also have their own built-in preventative measures.

Severus had rather meant how paralyzing was dangerous for him to do, not for the person being paralyzed. Still, it's certainly interesting to know more about how his ability works.

That, though. He raises his eyebrows just so. "Do you prefer that position?" Lurking pleasantly in the peripheral vision of people that can kill him. Amberdrake certainly seemed to be in his element in the field.

(Avoid the question a little harder, Severus.)

"Preference has little to do with it," Amberdrake actually sounds a little dismissive, there. "It's never been much of a choice, really."

It's very matter of fact.

"Make no mistake," he adds a little more pleasantly, despite the topic, "if anyone went for my throat, I'd defend myself. Supposing there was time to do so, of course. There are people who I would rather not leave behind. But I'm under no illusions about being the dangerous one in most of my interactions with others."

Severus shrugs, elegant in a learned way. "You brought it up. Either you enjoy it, or you think you're putting me at ease."

Which he isn't, really, because Severus is enormously confident in his own abilities anyway and thus already knew (or decided he did, anyway). It's more curious that Amberdrake has singled something like that out to say.

"I suppose you'd like to barter that service for mine?"

"Most people would be at least a tiny bit nervous if I asked about doing things to their lungs a breath after discussing the potential ways the Healing Gift could harm someone," Amberdrake notes with a small smile, "it was morbid, certainly, but what side would you err on with a stranger, in my position?"

You know, assuming Severus cared about not being seen as a threat.

It isn't as though Drake has trouble admitting he's outgunned. And, of course, he doesn't completely buy the nonchalance. Severus might be certain that he could turn Drake into so much paste -- and he's right -- but then there's that whole touching issue.

"If you're well-off enough to afford to do that, perhaps," Drake says after a moment's thought. He's pretty sure they both normally fetch quite the high price for their work. He certainly knows he does.

"I'm not terribly worried, I'll likely have the funds to pay you long before my cache of herbs grows low."

Nope, he didn't come here expecting a discount!

"I don't think that I'd offer to do that to someone's lungs, honestly."

Elbows on the table, cup near his face, he looks-- well, his age, which is sometimes surprising; people tend to guess he's older, when he isn't being a complete prat, and looking like he does it's hard to tell at the best of times. (Mileage, versus years.)

"I'd be fine with a trade, should I decide to take you up on it." A beat. "Is lung tar damaging?"

... This is not as shockingly, willfully ignorant as one might think, even if it contrasts starkly with how learned he's seen so far. Cigarettes are far more of a Muggle habit than a wizarding one, and Severus has quite successfully missed uprisings of anti-smoking propaganda and health risk advisories by virtue of immersing himself in a culture that doesn't need it.

"We don't have your cigarettes on my world, and pure tobacco is not as easy to come by. So I have never cut someone open who had, say, died of it."

You know, like at thirteen when he'd been learning to be a purely non-magical surgeon. You don't start on the living!

"I have cleared lung tar out of another avid smoker in the past, however, so I've researched some of what it does." Because he's an awesome Healer like that. And also because he rather gives a damn about that other pair of lungs he's cleared in the past. "It makes your lung tissue less elastic, which results in less lung capacity, which also equals less stamina should you need to run or fight," in a non-magical way, of course.

"There are risks of the tissue staying inflated, making exhaling difficult, called emphysema. The lower oxygen levels can damage your heart, and there was some awful thing about it causing tumors."

"I've heard it might cause lung cancer, years down the line, but I've never imagined getting quite that far." Blasé. No, Severus is quite sure someone will be dropping a house on him very soon after his return to the UK; it's a certainty that would make him unmoved by the thought of fixing his lungs even if he was fully cognizant of the damage it does. (It's not his fault he was born in the sixties.) "I'll have to look into it, I've never thought about it before."

"It would take quite a few sessions," Amberdrake notes mildly, "but there would be no side effects to stopping early if you got fed up with the whole process."

A little cleaned up or a lot cleaned up, it would be better than not at all, surely.

But he's not a salesman making a pitch, here, so he's not going to push. An 'I'll think about it' is an answer, for now. A 'no' would work just as well in the long run.

take a good look in the mirror and tell me

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