[ CLOSED ] Grief will have to wait.

[blackscales]

WHO: Wrathion & fellow travellers
WHEN: Travel Arc!
WHERE: Mistress Isakanami's inn.
WHAT: A multi-prompt travel arc extravaganza! Check here for planning something custom, or he has an end of Serthica network post here or an open inbox!
WARNINGS: None at opening




Wrathion is exhausted.

So much as he is pleased to leave Serthica, so much as he is relieved to have had results there the whole experience has left him drained. The concept, then, of having some reprieve before they launch into more lengthy travel is... appealing, to a point.

It does, he assumes, mean staying somewhere else -- and based on their previous accommodation this may not necessarily be... pleasant.

Although it would be nice if it was.

The journey is long, but being flown there is at least pleasant initially. Far better than hiking, a wagon, or having to ride another creature. Then the weather begins to cool further, and Wrathion senses that they will not be relaxing in a tropical climate.

Snow. Of course.

The Merchant, at least, appear to have selected somewhere with pleasant-seeming facilities. They are, naturally, housed with the staff and expected to perform some minor tasks...

Still. If this place is devoid of any major problems, it does have potential. A hot springs in the mountains brings back fond memories, of a far flung place long ago. Of a time when he was young, before he felt the bitter sting of consequence.

It is also, so far, blessedly free of hozen.

Comments

[blackscales]

A interesting scar. Wrathion watches Eleven with all the casual curiosity of someone who has no particular shame about nudity, no modesty or concept of this being rude.

A much easier behaviour when you quite literally choose how you look.

"Yes," he agrees. "Perhaps not well, but we did. Difficult to avoid anyone entirely in this group."

He unties his robe, slides it off his shoulders and absently folds it to set aside. A towel is moved close to the edge beside it, then Wrathion moves to slide down into the water. The heat doesn't bother him, he doesn't even flinch as the water makes contact with his skin. If he'd been trying to affect human mannerisms, he supposes he should have, but no matter.

"You don't recall?" he prompts. It seems like he doesn't. Wrathion would like to think he is not so forgettable as a person, but their interactions were limited. Perhaps, in the grand scheme of things, he didn't stand out as much as he'd like to think.

[bearshermark]

Eleven glances off until the man has sunk into the water.

Goddess, immersing himself all at once for the sake of modesty likely hadn't been his best choice. His entire head and neck feel like they're suffused in a layer of sweat. The cold outside the glass windows looks entirely refreshing, rather than chilling.

He exhales a heated breath across the water. "Not specifically. It's feels like there's too much to remember, so it isn't all coming to me at once. But.. the longer I spend with people, the more seems to return to me. Your name will probably come to me in a little while."

[blackscales]

That does make sense. Especially if, potentially, much had happened for Eleven after he left. That is not necessarily required, of course. Wrathion knew for himself that the time that went by at home and then back here did not have to match. The beacons clearly could lash out to whatever point in the timeways they chose to. Still, he had quite the headache once he returned himself and tried to consolidate both sets of memories. To have his mind come to terms with knowing Anduin here and then losing those memories, then gaining them all back.

"The timelines corrected themselves," he infers, "and you forgot ever being here. Now that you have returned, you have... additional memories that will not quite fit."

[bearshermark]

Eleven nods sharply, staring into his mottled reflection in the water. A pinprick of unexpected loss blooms in his chest, then twists away before he can define its source.

He doesn't need a third set of conflicting memories; his skull feels ready to burst with it at times. In other moments, like now, the shadow of something important lingers at the edge of his awareness, waiting to be acknowledged, yet edged with enough unease that he'd almost rather never know.

"It feels like I know too much sometimes," he says quietly, almost to himself. Then he raises a wet arm out of the water and drags at the sweat on his face. The heat from his palm is not likely to help, but his face feels cleaner in the moment. "But then here, it feels like I don't know anything at all. Not even Life and Death seem the same."

[blackscales]

Not even life and death.

Wrathion lets out a low, dark chuckle at that.

"You wouldn't be wrong," he admits, and shifts to begin gently cupping hot water to scoop up over the tops of his shoulders. "We had a conversation about that once, in Ellethia. I cannot say things have improved since then."

Things may not have been trapped in an endless cycle of death and rebirth, but in Serthica he would argue they were worse. Cursed, sick, trapped in some twisted state where few things were truly alive. He dislikes this world more the longer he spends in it.

[bearshermark]

He frowns, hand pushing through his hair, then drops to slip back into the water. Eleven stares at the ripples across the water, letting his mind make of that what it will. Ellethia. The name tugs at indistinct memories- grass and dead animals.

"Can you remind me what it was we'd discussed? I know this world doesn't have Yggdrasil, but I'm sure there was something else wrong that interrupted the cycle."

[blackscales]

He settles back into the water, humming in agreement as he watches Eleven think.

"Ellethia," he repeats. "The Merchant's home. Abandoned, destroyed. We stayed in a tower on the coast. We though it was a lighthouse, but it used to be an institute of learning. Within a certain radius around the building, things were more or less safe. Outside of that, we wore protective clothing. Things lived an accelerated life cycle, in an endless loop. Dying and then returning to life, then dying again."

[bearshermark]

The Merchant. There's that surge of tight displeasure again. To think there's someone he's come to dislike so much that just the name of him can threaten his mood. But that's not what's important in the moment.

An accelerated life cycle, life and death in visible turns- yes, he can remember something to that effect, now.

Eleven tips his head back, eyes on the rafters overhead, then slowly closes them. He lets himself drift in the humid heat of the room and the water that's grown comfortable against his skin. A long, pleasant silence, calling up echoes of lost memories and piecing together undercurrents of feeling.

He returns to the present with a thoughtful hum. "..I was worried this world didn't have a cycle- that it was interrupted by undeath. It could be that it holds true, though perhaps not on a cosmic scale.."

Eleven lifts his head and straightens up to peer at his companion again. "There are undead warlords still?"

[blackscales]

"Yes," Wrathion accepts. A moment of hesitation, then: "although I'm not certain I'd term all of them warlords. The minutiae of their alliances, their agreements, is something I couldn't speak to."

Another pause, a hint of wariness, then he blinks it from his expression into an even mask of indifference.

"For one thing, the last one we encountered was a child. He had some control over his powers, but not enough to stop things when he wanted."

How much of what the child said was truly a lie? He couldn't say, but it hadn't seemed as if he wanted to make people sick. That was just an... unfortunate side effect of his presence, of his state -- something perhaps done to him willing or unwilling. Only the child or the White Wanderer could tell them that.

[bearshermark]

Eleven frowns at that, brows creasing. An undead child warlord? A shiver passes over his skin and he sinks a little further into the water's warmth.

"They were called brothers, I think." For some reason, that small detail comes to him, absent others. Again, he's struck by the knowledge that he knows more than he does in the moment- that there's some understanding locked behind a particular branch of memories, behind a name that sets his heart stuttering.

He breathes. "Five said.. that we're the one disrupting this world, because we aren't supposed to be here, but I can't imagine we're the ones behind the disrupted cycle. The warlords existed before we did.."

But neither does he look too certain of that suddenly, attention casting into hazy memories as far as he can throw it.

[blackscales]

"Some call them the Brotherhood," Wrathion confirms. "If they were gifted abilities from the same source, certainly they'd be brothers of a type. I have begun to suspect that might be so. As for disruption..."

He tilts his head, as if considering the point.

"I suppose if one were to be precise, we are disrupting it by apposing this force. Were we not here, things would continue along a different path. If path is ultimately better or worse, I could not say."

That's the trouble with interfering for a greater good -- the ripple of consequence can behave differently to your expectations. A pause, as he considers this.

"... The child in Serthica, for example, assured me that the people were not unhappy. They did not know what was going on, their... awareness of some of those around them being raised undead was masked. He didn't understand why we would interfere, if they were not unhappy."