Number FIVE ☂ (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
somebadnews) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
westwhere2021-05-22 06:37 pm
somebadnews) wrote in westwhere2021-05-22 06:37 pm
tell me all about your problems
WHO: Five, Alina, their guest of honor + OPEN to anyone who wants it feel free to discuss
WHEN: hours after the Unhalad/Anurr conflict while they're busy with the "rescued" (extreme judge-y quotation marks) miners
WHERE: one of the bathing rooms in ye ol' cursed farmhouse
WHAT: Five kidnaps a forest person, Alina joins in and they play 20 questions, Five loses his temper and yadda yadda it's a situation
WARNINGS: here be a hostage, possible violence(??), definite language... less so because Alina wanted to be a good cop so thank her
For someone who spent years (decades) working on an equation to bring him home, Five has surprisingly little patience. He's spent the last few hours pacing the room where he took the old man, his frustration growing by the second since he started to relent to the woman who inserted herself into the situation. Maybe he should feel lucky that it was only one, considering he decided to do this inside the farmhouse, but thankfully the rest of their merry band seemed to be preoccupied. He can't imagine how much slower this could possibly go if word spread to the others.
Alina insists on treating their guest with kindness, coaxing answers from him instead of letting him handle this on his own. It doesn't take long to escape him that he only seems to respond to her. And is that really surprising when he's restrained himself from appearing as the threat he is?
What they manage to pry out of him is deceptively vague, and only reaffirms some of his assumptions. Anurr's followers are essentially a cult of worshippers. They only seem to have hostility towards them because they've taken up residence in this old building, which is what they get for following Haltham. And the wolves and voices terrorizing them are simply the wind.
It's the mocking smirk that finally breaks him.
"Is that all?" His head jerks up from where he's been listening from the other side of the room, and he barks out a laugh as he breaks into a wide, incredulous smile. This asshole. Then he shakes his head and stares at the ceiling, feeling that building frustration boil over.
"This is waste of time," he tells her, pointing as he paces back to the man tied to the chair. It's with restraint that he doesn't grab him by the throat and throttle him right then and there. "He wants to be avenged so badly, let him! I'll grab a sword and we'll give them a reason."
WHEN: hours after the Unhalad/Anurr conflict while they're busy with the "rescued" (extreme judge-y quotation marks) miners
WHERE: one of the bathing rooms in ye ol' cursed farmhouse
WHAT: Five kidnaps a forest person, Alina joins in and they play 20 questions, Five loses his temper and yadda yadda it's a situation
WARNINGS: here be a hostage, possible violence(??), definite language... less so because Alina wanted to be a good cop so thank her
For someone who spent years (decades) working on an equation to bring him home, Five has surprisingly little patience. He's spent the last few hours pacing the room where he took the old man, his frustration growing by the second since he started to relent to the woman who inserted herself into the situation. Maybe he should feel lucky that it was only one, considering he decided to do this inside the farmhouse, but thankfully the rest of their merry band seemed to be preoccupied. He can't imagine how much slower this could possibly go if word spread to the others.
Alina insists on treating their guest with kindness, coaxing answers from him instead of letting him handle this on his own. It doesn't take long to escape him that he only seems to respond to her. And is that really surprising when he's restrained himself from appearing as the threat he is?
What they manage to pry out of him is deceptively vague, and only reaffirms some of his assumptions. Anurr's followers are essentially a cult of worshippers. They only seem to have hostility towards them because they've taken up residence in this old building, which is what they get for following Haltham. And the wolves and voices terrorizing them are simply the wind.
It's the mocking smirk that finally breaks him.
"Is that all?" His head jerks up from where he's been listening from the other side of the room, and he barks out a laugh as he breaks into a wide, incredulous smile. This asshole. Then he shakes his head and stares at the ceiling, feeling that building frustration boil over.
"This is waste of time," he tells her, pointing as he paces back to the man tied to the chair. It's with restraint that he doesn't grab him by the throat and throttle him right then and there. "He wants to be avenged so badly, let him! I'll grab a sword and we'll give them a reason."
no subject
Which makes it that much harder to blame him for the tattoo. Five is so thrown by his honest approach that he nearly forgets that they're still standing out here in the hallway, in reach of something he'd probably be outraged by. He's fully aware that he isn't an easy person to get along with, and he doesn't try to be. There are plenty of people who would be more receptive to him, so why is he putting himself through this?
This isn't the first time Fox has tried to level with him, as he calls it, and he still doesn't have a clue how to handle it this time around. But before he can tell him to take a breath, that he's not out to cause trouble for either of them, he goes and brings up his sister.
"You met Vanya." That shouldn't be alarming in itself. They've be sharing close quarters, so of course she must have run across most of them by now. And yet it brings out a whole different kind of tension in him. Someone like Fox, who has a passion for magic and looking into things, could be a dangerous combination with his dear sister who is still trying to understand her abilities. ('Stopping bullets is neat...') If he encouraged her to use them when he isn't around...
"Is that what you told her? That she has potential?"
no subject
"Sort of?" He said a lot of things. He does not remember everything he said, mostly because he doesn't even tend to think about what he said when he says it.
"I told her that I thought I could help. She said she struggles with keeping them under control, yeah? So I said if she wanted, I could see if I could help her regulate them better. Build her something kind of like a magical focus."
no subject
Because she's family. Because Vanya losing control means, quite literally, the end of the world. She's been learning, but the consequences of something trigging her are high in a place teeming with the undead and threats he's yet to define. He does all he can just to keep her from being overwhelmed and it seems he's already been slipping.
"A focus. You've done that before?" He doesn't immediately reject the idea, no matter how it makes him shift like he's trying very hard to stay calm enough to have this discussion. It's important that he understands. "What she has isn't the same type of magic. We don't even call it that. How do you know it would work?"
no subject
“I don’t,” he replied simply and honestly. “I can’t know that, not without trying. But the principle should apply whether it’s magic like what I know or not. But I use focuses in my work a lot, yeah. They’re really helpful when you’re working with unstable elements, or components where you aren’t totally sure of their strength.”
Where Five feels discomfort, Fox seems to grow in confidence now that he’s talking about a subject that makes sense to him (magic, abilities, energy) rather than one that doesn’t (people, reactions, emotions). So he just glides right into problem solving mode as if the previous conversation never happened. He also had no idea that Vanya isn’t supposed to practice on her own. Sorry for being a snitch, Vanya…
“Essentially, it would work like a heat sink. Or a circuit breaker. Something tuned to her that she could sort of shunt off extra or unneeded energy into, and it would diffuse it. Since I think her abilities mostly work with sound waves and air pressure, it should work. I have a suspicion she already kind of does it, with her violin. But that’s something that’s hard to have on hand all the time, you know?”
no subject
Would she want this kind of help? She already spoke to him about how she almost missed the pills, so it could be a fear based decision. All he can do right now is gather information and give his opinion when they talk.
“You’re not giving her a tattoo.” Let him draw that line in the sand. He straightens up slightly, sounding more forceful with his next questions. “Has it ever gone wrong? What happens to her when it cuts off?”
no subject
He pauses to consider the question more fully, running a hand through his hair and ruffling it as he thinks.
"I mean, focuses themselves aren't usually what goes wrong in a spell. They're kind of an inert factor. A spell might go wrong, but then it's your fault, not the equipment. I think in this case, the biggest worry would be an overload of the focus itself, but then you're talking about like, the opal or crystal - diamond maybe? Diamond could work but they are super expensive especially at the size required - anyway, it might shatter."
He paused, then started rummaging in his pocket for chalk before he forgot to write down what he was thinking.
"Depending on how much energy it had soaked up, it might shatter at a very high speed, but - I think - maybe encased in leather, something elastic? I think you could probably dampen the force and contain it and not risk shrapnel."
He started writing on the floor as he talked, almost like he was mumbling more to himself than to five at this point.
"Hmm. Maybe-- Might be possible to make a redundant system? Depending on the max power levels that it needs to deal with. But something like - five gems, enchant to link to each other, so if one sink overflows it just passes on to the next--"
no subject
When he starts talking about spells and crystals he stays silent, mostly over the fact that the concept of magic is still foreign to him. Five's abilities are deeply rooted in logic, in complicated equations that he solves whenever he makes a spacial or temporal jump. What Fox does is in another language, and not knowing how it works bothers him more than the possibility that it could be a solution.
At one point he scoffs and shakes his head. All he can picture is a handful of shattering gems, and he scolds himself for getting too invested in the easy way out. His sister blew up the moon, they can't just throw something at the wall and see what sticks.
"We're not going to be testing the max power levels." If they get to that, they're already dead. He seems to realize that might be telling, so he follows it up with another question. "Who controls it? Does it work by proximity or is it something she'd have to consciously focus on?"
no subject
"Her. But, she should be able to set it up in advance. I don't think it would be useful if anyone else had control over it - she's the one who can react the fastest. But I think - Well, I'd have to test it, but I think, for example, if she kept a low level anchor to it most of the time - like when she was talking, or humming, for example - that the link would keep even if she was no longer concentrating on it. But to be the most effective, she would have to focus - haha, sorry, pun not intended - focus on it directly."
He looked up and gave Five a shrug.
"This is all kind of new ground for me, and while I think the theory is solid, testing is the only way to verify its use. I don't think we'd need to do anything stronger than what she already does with her violin, though. Not when --" He paused, then gave Five a sympathetic wince. "I mean, with where we are, and our luck, there's a good chance that shit is going to go down whether we want it to or not. There are other power modulation techniques for spells, of course, but this is by far the safest mechanism for it, especially since as far as I understand, she can't cast magic herself." A pause, a frown, then a thoughtful raised eyebrow.
"Yet, anyway. I haven't been working on that with anyone other than Eleven, so far, but - I could try teaching you guys? You might not have it at home, but that doesn't mean you can't use magic here."
no subject
Is that what this is? Finding something in common in someone? That doesn't seem right, but the more he goes on, the more interested Five is to know. The theory is simple when it just involves accepting that magic makes it happen, but he needs more than the dumbed down version when it involves his sister.
When he comes out and offers to teach them, he finds himself nodding.
"I'll talk to her." Apparently he's going to actually take this into consideration. It's risky, and he might regret it, but he's right. He can only shield his sister from so much and she doesn't have the time to figure this out on her own. So he huffs out a breath and tries to ignore that pit growing in his stomach.
"Don't start anything without me."