sa-hareth | arrival (mingle log)

[groundrules]

WHO: Everyone ever + the local Sa-hareth squad.
WHEN: Arc I: Sa-Hareth arrival.
WHERE: Sa-Hareth citadel, salt mine, the old jailhouse,
WHAT: Our intrepid heroes get commandeered into the frosty unknown.
WARNINGS: the glorious undead, background House of Dew mentions, at least one person's terrible sense of humour.

Comments

[descendency]

Please, Five. It's not a brag. You asked him to elaborate on powers and he delivered. He's getting a sense for the crater of a chip on the shoulder of the boy trapped in the psyche of an old man trapped in the body of a boy, though.

"Boyfriend," Mingyu clarifies, shaking his head. "He... He makes me look like a joke. You, too. And your siblings. Fox is a legend. Literally— There are legends about him. He kept a very low profile back in Toronto, more myth than man. Smart, capable, and driven. He was breaking down the status quo, taking magic the big families had under lock and key and bringing it to the masses. Reverse-engineering anything he could get his hands on. It made him enemies."

This part makes Mingyu's smile thin to a razor's edge.

"Someone took him. To force him to work on some kind of stupid, civilian-murdering, world-devastating destruction spell. A war machine. I was in the middle of unraveling who when I got picked up by this mess."

[somebadnews]

Reverse engineering magic for the masses. Sure. He can hear the bias, but only raises an eyebrow. That's an interesting take on status quo. True, Five's family has their share of secrets, just not the kind that would benefit anyone if they got out.

After seeing what he saw, it shouldn't be hard to guess which part of that revelation gets the most attention from Five. Spend a few decades in the apocalypse and phrases like 'world-devastating destruction' take your right back there. It earns him a significant silence while he mulls it over. If it were even a possibility that Fox was supposed to succeed. Gabriel, or Mingyu, could have theoretically been targeted for trying to change the timeline by looking for him. It just doesn't make sense why they'd take him here instead of just sending Corrections after him.

Of course that involves an entire labyrinth of other assumptions, but he has to consider it along with anything else. If he finds more of them have the potential end of the world in common, it'll be worth delving into.

"I think that explains your significance." He says it with a shrug. If not for the earlier incident, he might even explain what he means, but he doesn't. "So what's your plan now? You must have one, as quickly as you settled in."

[descendency]

"Survive, primarily. There's too much we don't know. It's impossible to even begin to identify the potential threats, and our position as... undocumented victims of human trafficking, if we're being completely frank, is highly vulnerable," Mingyu points out, lips thinning at the thought. "So I mean to establish myself and gather as much information as I can so I can make an informed next step. Ultimately, whatever magic brought me here can, in theory, bring anyone and anything else here as well. It should be clear what about that is attractive to me, but first I need to make sure here isn't a worse bag of cats than I left behind."

He shrugs.

"I'm guessing you have much bigger picture considerations than that," he muses, rubbing his temples lightly as he recalls a few of Five's desperate thoughts, his despair, the walls closing in— "Makes my head spin. I don't envy you at all."

[somebadnews]

Five can admit that it seems like the best course of action for someone in his position, to gather information and keep a low profile, since that's not dissimilar to what he's been doing. It's just that Five's information gathering is more specific in nature, and with larger implications. 'Establishing' himself even sounds sensible, but it still gets a roaming glance around the room they're in. Knowing what he does now, there's a reason he's had so much success.

He chafes at his final comment. Regardless of the conversational tone, it would be a mistake to think that he's already moved past what he did to him. The fact hasn't left him that he's not entirely sure how deep it went, if he felt what he felt or read his thoughts while he cycled through his memories.

"You don't know the half of it." He can't really comprehend what becomes of a person who only has his eye on the big picture, and Five isn't about to fill in any blanks. When it sounds dangerously close to pity he's quick to correct him.

"Don't pretend to understand. You barely scratched the surface of the things I've done." He won't be put at a further disadvantage because of a stupid mistake. It goes without saying, but he still wants to get it on the record, dead serious when he looks him in the eye: "If you tell anyone what you saw, I'll kill you."

[descendency]

"You can certainly try," Mingyu replies airily, not out of a lack of respect for Five's admittedly formidable arsenal of abilities, but. Sorry, old man. Mingyu's not done yet, and honestly putting him down might be the more merciful thing.

Mingyu has not found, over the course of his life, that he is overly acquainted with mercy.

"What I'd rather do is propose a partnership, given we both know what we know," he goes on. "I'll back up your little story, aid in your search. We can put our information together, unless I'm mistaken of our common goal..?"

The main benefit of his trick with the lotus is that it gives the memory from the target's point of view, so Mingyu didn't simply see what they saw. He felt them too, all of Five's hurt, his anxiety, his fear. All of his love. All of his grim determination.

Mingyu is familiar with every last one of those things in his, well. Admittedly far less interesting life. But he knows them nonetheless.

"A place safe and stable enough for us to be reunited with the people we love. And this time, hold onto them."

[somebadnews]

That's not usually a proposal he hears after threatening someone's life. It seems to confirm for him that he wasn't a passive viewer when he used his ability on him. Spell. Whatever it was, he can't get past that unsettled feeling it gives him when he hears that note of sympathy.

He is, however, used to making deals with people he isn't overly fond of. And despite how revolted he is by what Mingyu did, he plainly cares about his boyfriend, and he's far from the worst he's encountered. It's never been a secret that Five's family is the only thing that matters to him, ranked even above preventing the apocalypse, and it's probably easier than it should be to sway him by evoking them.

"A partnership." He lets that sit with him for a moment, despite knowing what he'll do. Mingyu's obvious skill at gathering information surpasses his, and he rarely has the patience to fool someone with his appearance long enough to get very far with them. The only reason they're still talking is because he seems to be immune to Five's overall pleasant demeanor. Which begs the question of how much he's counting to benefit from the arrangement.

"I should tell you now that I don't take well to people who betray me." Just pretend he hasn't done that to the Commission a few times over. His only loyalty is to his siblings, but he can't deny that it would be easier to find them if he wasn't doing it alone. Maybe it speaks too much to his state of mind that he doesn't press him further on what that agreement would entail. He isn't exactly crawling in prospects.

"Fine. You have a deal."