westwhere | a heavy rain falls

Entry tags:

a heavy rain falls

WHO: Fox and OPEN
WHEN: Catch-all for July
WHERE: On the Journey to Taravast
WHAT: Tattoos, magic, chatting - whatever your heart desires
WARNINGS: will add if they come up

Fox spends a lot of his time bothering Karsa, trying to learn as much as he can from her despite her tightened guard. The magic here is different, and it's taking a frustratingly long time to parse it, but he's starting to at least be able to grasp the edges of it. She shows him what runes to use for the spell he offered, and that tiny clue is what he clutches as he works into the night.

He has a bad habit of not watching where he's walking, lost in thought as he scribbles in a little notebook that he bought before they left Sa-Hareth. It isn't ideal. It's too small, his thoughts too big - the almost seem to tumble off the pages as he hastily scribbles. But then he also nearly walks off the edge of the narrow stairs... Hopefully someone is around to catch him.

He's more subdued than he was, before the siege, though when he realizes he's being watched he does his best to keep up his usual cheerful demeanor. This had all felt a little like a game, at first. A dangerous game, but still a game. A puzzle for him to figure out how to solve, one in a long line of many. Now, he's not so sure.

Now, he's worried that neither this world or himself will come out the same now that he's in it.

[ ooc: feel free to make your own prompts, or hit me up and ask me to write you one in particular! ]

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Just as soon as they've made camp and eaten, Eleven made a point of seeking out Fox again. As expected, he found him poring over his notes.

"Hendrik agreed," he said with a smile in way of greeting, then gave his own journal a wave. "And I came up with an idea for mine, whenever you're ready- and not busy, of course."

Fox looks up from his notes and instantly lights up when he sees Eleven, beaming at him. It had been a hard time adjusting, and despite Fox deep wish that he stop more violence hand he caused, it has been a bloody time on top of it. Eleven was one of the few people he'd really been able to connect with when everyone else felt vicious and bloodthirsty sometimes. He shifted over, and gestured for Eleven to sit down with him.

"Great! I'm glad. I'm --" He glanced down at his notes, quickly scribbled something, then turned to a fresh page. "I'm not busy! Tell me what you had in mind."

Eleven settles next to Fox, his own smile widening in turn. It's nice to feel appreciated.

"I don't know how finely you can control the details, but it's a simple design.."

He opens his journal to a page with a sketch of a small, two-leafed sprout growing from a tiny, cracked seed. His smile turns a touch self-conscious.

"I'm not an artist, but uh, I thought something like this would be nice?"

Fox leaned over to look at it, taking it in, then offered Eleven a warm smile. "For not an artist, I'd say it looks pretty good. But yeah, I can definitely work with that."

He leaned over and pointed to the seed. "I can fit most of the runes in here, making it look like knotwork in the seed. And up here--" He pointed at the twin leaves, "I can make them look like calligraphy inside the leaf itself. I think that should work no problem. What about your man Hendrik? He want the same one?" His smile broadened into a grin. "Matching tattoos?"

Eleven colored.

"Ah, no." He coughed, clearing his throat. "I don't- I don't know what he's getting. I mean, I could guess maybe, but-"

That was Hendrik's business. They weren't that close as to get matching tattoos. "Anyway, erm, what you said sounds good."

He hadn't been nervous before, so why was he nervous now? "You said it would take a few hours?"

The blush only caused Fox's grin to widen, and he put an arm around Eleven to give him a friendly squeeze.

"I get it, I get it," he said, with a wink so obvious it was almost painful. Subtle he was not.

"Yeah. I've already been working on the set up, so we're basically good to go there. Here, show me where you want it. I'll draw it out with charcoal first, figure out how to place the runes, and then you can have a look. In a non-curse mirror, hopefully."

Eleven's color deepened, not at all sure Fox had the right impression or if he was just teasing him for fun. The latter was fine, but the former could be awkward if Hendrik heard of it.

"Okay," he managed after a moment and a soft clear of his throat.

He shifted in Fox's hold to set to work in rolling up his right sleeve. His duster cut off at the shoulder, so it was a simple matter of tugging insistently at stubborn fabric until he managed to bare his shoulder sufficiently.

"This should be all right? I haven't taken many attacks here that I recall. I'm guessing it'll break the enchantment if it's damaged?"

The caravan has been an exhausting experience. Mentally, Five managed to pull himself back from the edge of insanity that he was careening over during the siege, but he still hasn't totally found his footing. Before his sister appeared out of nowhere, he had been trying to work on the math to take him back in time a few weeks before he lost any semblance of control. Now he's forced to look forward or risk creating another paradox. Physically, he's trying his damndest to ignore the agony that's taken up residence inside him like an old friend so he can stay alert and keep his family safe. -- That leaves very little room for patience, and a lot more for a constant looming paranoia that something is about to go wrong.

As much as Five would have liked the time to work out his theories, he's forced to pay attention to the people around him. Outside of his sisters, there's a few in particular that he keeps his eye on. So of course he can't help but notice Fox and Karsa spending quality time together. He can't say he isn't curious what that's about, especially after he catches him scribbling in his notebook afterwards.

It's on his mind to ask him one day when he sees Fox walking alone, still preoccupied with his notes as they make their way up another steep path. He would have expected him to be chatting the ear off of whoever was near, but he seems completely oblivious to the outside world. Ordinarily, Five might empathize, but this isn't the time to be letting his guard down.

Even at a distance he can tell that he isn't watching where he's going. As luck would have it, no one else is close enough to alert him that he's heading right over the edge.

Five sighs and rips through space to appear in a pop and a flash of light to grab his shirt just before he tumbles, and then once more to blink back with him near the cliff wall where he's not in immediate danger of falling to his death.

"Seriously?" He frowns as he adjusts his blazer and runs a hand through his hair. "You might want to look up every once in a while."

Fox feels the ground beneath his toe give way as he lifts his foot, just enough time to think Oh shit-- before a sudden flash and loud pop herald someone grabbing his shirt and then bam - somewhere else entirely. He's teleported before, of course - had set up arrays of his own - but he can't help but be startled by how different it felt.

It's enough to distract him from the fact that he nearly just about walked off a cliff. Oops.

He looks over - then down - at his rescuer, and gives a sheepish, apologetic look. "Ah--" He glances down at his notes, where the sudden abrupt action has caused him to draw a streak of ink right across the page. "-- Ah." He looked back up at Five again.

"... Sorry. Yeah. Just trying to get my thoughts sorted out, I guess." He helplessly blew over the pages, drying the smudged ink, feeling and looking embarrassed.

"Um - thanks, though. For you know. Not letting me walk off a cliff."

Five's annoyance is short-lived for once. He's no stranger to getting lost in his work, so it'd be hypocritical of him to judge him too harshly. That doesn't stop him from making another comment though.

"Yeah, well. Don't count on me being there every time." He doesn't plan on spending half of this trip catching people from falling off of cliffs, though with the creatures flying around, he expects it won't be the last one. It's not worth the flack he'd get if he let them get picked off when his ability makes it so easy to grab them first.

There's always a sort of awkwardness around Fox. He can't really tell if it's him, or if it's the agreement he has with Mingyu that perpetuates the feeling. But he doesn't move away as quickly as he might have if he weren't interested in the pages he's holding that he can't quite make out.

"Are you getting anywhere with that?"

"I promise I will try not to fall off a cliff. Again. If I can help it." He grins a little sheepishly then looks back down at his notebook. Five isn't the only one who feels awkward, Fox still feels like he's responsible for so much more than anyone ever really blamed him for.

He knows he's the one to blame for every dark turn Mingyu had taken in the years between.

Thankfully Five breaks the awkward silence with the best possible question he could ask.

"Oh! Um - yeah, sort of!" He holds the book so that five can see it, but - that doesn't help. Like all of his notes, Fox has written them in his own personal code - half mixing Korean and English and then inscribing it all in his own symbols to boot.

For someone who was very vocally supportive of teaching everyone magic, he was very careful about who or what could read his work.

"I've been trying to get Karsa to teach me how to thrall. As far as I can tell, I should be able to do it - it doesn't seem to be an inherent power thing - not like you and your sister. It is definitely teachable, she just - um - well she's touchy about it. I think she thinks I'm trying to undermine her work? Or something? So it's slow going. But she did show me--" He flips backward several dozen pages, then shows Five the contents. These runes look nothing like anything else in Fox's book - smudged by charcoal rather than ink. "I showed her the spell I was working on, and she sort of - fixed it. I mean, I was trying to cast on the thralled quartz's, yeah? And it always gets tricky layering one kind of magic over another, especially when the original enchantment was made in a way I haven't figured out yet. But I wanted to be able to piggy back it, so she edited my work with these."

It's not totally unexpected to see the indecipherable writing, Five got enough of a sense of how he took notes from the farmhouse, but he also hasn't spent a lot of time attempting to read it. So he listens instead. That he's suddenly decided to mix his magic with Karsa is an unexpected choice, and it's even more unexpected that she shared that with him, but it might reveal something. He still hasn't figured her out, and she tends to get his temper flaring before he ever makes it very far.

If nothing else, he solved the mystery of what they've been talking about. Though he still hasn't grasped magic enough that it's clear what that means by 'thralling' and how that relates to the quartz, or if he's even talking about the same thing he started with.

"And if you succeed, what are you trying to use it on?" He hates having to ask such basic questions, but he did offer to teach him before, when he was helping his sister. He's learned what subjects he'll speak openly about.

"Well, everything, I hope," He answers easily, thumbing through his notebook again as they walk. Hope you're paying attention to the road, Five, because it has been almost two minutes and Fox is already distracted again.

"The most useful thralling that we've seen so far is the communication network that they have between quartz. I want to figure out if - well, if I can piggy-back on those enchantments. Or if I can use thralling to trigger magic at further distances. Or if I can use it to boost the power of my own spells. But first and foremost I think it's important for us to be able to talk to each other without anyone listening in." He glances up, then, and back, just to make sure none of the rest of the caravan were in earshot, and then he drops his voice.

"Not that I don't think these people honestly want to help us, but... We're going somewhere where we have to pretend we're working against each other, right? We need secure lines of communication that we know are secure."

Five is indeed keeping an eye on the edge of that cliff, subtly glancing to the side as he starts to walk again. Then, thinking better of it, he moves to step to the outer edge of him just in case this turns into one of his more longwinded explanations and he forgets the warning said moments ago. Truthfully, part of him envies how he's able to block out everything; Five hasn't been nearly as successful since the caravan started.

Longwinded turns out to be right, but in this case, he's tolerant because he's interested in what he has to say. Once he gets a better sense of his use of the word, he has to wonder again why Karsa would even choose to point him in the right direction. From what he knows of Fox, that's a slippery slope, and he doesn't doubt he'll keep at it until he figures it out. At least, that's what Five would do in his position. So why does it benefit her to trust them?

He doesn't muse on that very long when Fox lowers his voice. His expression is enough to reveal what he thinks about giving them the benefit of the doubt for wanting to help them, and his eyes narrow further when he reveals why he's interested in a secure line of communication.

"That would be ideal," he says slowly. Of course, that would only be trusting someone else with the same issue. Unless he can understand how the magic works, he'd be accepting what he's told on blind faith. "How close are you to being able to test it?"

"...and that's when we found out Lee Chang's actually your distant ancestor, making all this weirdly incestuous, and it's gonna be an adjustment getting used to zombie brain worms being a real thing back home," Mingyu concluded, eyebrow arching sharply at the fact he knew for certain that Fox was no longer in any way listening to him and hadn't been for some time. His lips thinned as even that provoked no response, and he resorted to flicking pebbles at Fox's forehead as he often did in the past.

"Honestly, Huli, if I'm that dull you can just tell me." He paused at that, then sighed.

"What's wrong?"

He hadn't been listening, but it wasn't Mingyu's fault, and he snapped back to attention as he felt something smack him in the side of the head. Feigning a wince of pain far stronger than he actually felt, he shot an apologetic glance at Mingyu.

"Sorry. No. It's not - You're not dull. Sorry. I guess I've just been... rolling a lot of things over in my head."

He rubbed his temple where the pebble had struck, then frowned as he glanced back at the warm fire.

"I guess it just... all feels a lot more real, now, than it did. When it started. Like I was playing along with a dream only it really isn't."

"I've learned the hard way that it's not a good thing when you get quiet," Mingyu pointed out with a weary shake of his head. Then he put his arm around Fox's shoulders to pull him in, kissing where the pebble hit in apology.

"...I guess I can't really relate. Nothing's stopped feeling surreal to me since you went away." Lifting a troubled gaze skyward, Mingyu let out his breath in a slow, measured exhale.

"Everything is and isn't happening to me, all the time. You're here and you're not. I'm me and I'm not."

He leaned into the arm, looking at his hands rather than at Mingyu as he felt the kiss brush his brow.

But there it was, again. The wall he could not quite cross. Here and not here. It was more true than Mingyu realised, he thought. But in the same breath utterly wrong.

"I'm here," He murmured, trying and failing to make it sound certain. Then he sighed. "It's-- I guess at first I thought-- This was an experiment. A failed experiment, but an experiment. That I had done something, messed up somewhere, ripped open time and space and pulled us both here. But it wasn't me. It's whatever magic these - hell, I don't even know exactly where it stems from. The warlords, maybe, but I think something beyond even them. Something else brought us here. And we are here. We're here, and--"

He hesitated, his brow furrowing, before he sat up a little straighter again and ran a hand through his hair.

"... I've got two paths in front of me. Yeah? The first is one or both of us don't survive this, which isn't something I even want to think about. But the second--" He hesitated, his voice trailing off.

"You've lost me," Mingyu informed softly, smiling as he felt them falling into an old pattern. Fox lived so much in his own mind, it often caught him off guard to remember that others did not live there too and had to be taken for the entire journey between his leaps of logic. It was something of which Mingyu had always been immensely fond, and in spite of the situation it eased some of the tension in him now.

"I wasn't aware we were boxed into two singular paths, to start. And we're surviving this," he added, giving Fox an affirming squeeze. "Or no one is."

Was it a joke?

Well, Mingyu was smiling as he said it at least.

The fact that Fox gave him a smile in return meant that he definitely took it as a joke. Please no murder, babe.

"Sorry, sorry." It was an old apology. He'd made it a hundred thousand times. The world would be a much easier place if people just innately understood what he was thinking when he wanted them too, but no, words would have to suffice.

"And I mean - not two paths exactly, but- if we do get to where we're going, if we do find the magic that can send us all home..." He trailed off, wet his lips, then forced himself to continue. "It was just a thought experiment, before. You know? None of this felt real so the end goal didn't feel real either. But I have to be prepared. I have to know what I'm going to do, when we're face with the kind of power that can send us to different worlds - to different times." He paused again, not quite able to look at Mingyu directly. "It's - I don't know what I'm supposed to do, when we get there. I know what I should do. But I'm not sure I'm strong enough to do it."

Mingyu's grip tightened, and the ambient temperature of his mood plummeted several degrees.

"I don't know what it is you think you should be doing, but you're absolutely not leaving me," Mingyu asserted before he could stop himself, before he could stop to consider his words, to take more care with his planning. He didn't know how not to show his hand with Fox, it seemed.

Perhaps that was the best.

"Whatever has to happen, we'll work it out then. I can't— I won't—"

He sucked in a breath, tight and shallow.

"The next time I lose you will take the last of me."

"You're not going to lose me," Fox said gently, turning to look at Mingyu and then reaching up to brush the bangs that threatened to fall into the man's eyes. "You know the last thing I want to do is hurt you like that again."

There was a pause, and then he let his hand drop, seeking out Mingyu's and giving it a squeeze.

"That's what I need to figure out. Because I don't think... I don't think we really can go home." His voice dropped to something far more quiet. "I don't think either of us want to just - go back to how things were before. I don't want to let you go back to that, and I'm pretty sure if I step back into my previous life I'll completely ruin the timeline just by knowing what I know. But I--" He hesitated, then murmured:

"What if I could fix it, Mingyu? Make it so we did have a home to return to again? Together."

"Stop," Mingyu murmured softly, though his voice was firm as he spoke, the light in his eyes hard and brooking no argument. "Fix what, Huli? You always, always do this."

Sighing wearily, he cupped Fox's face in his hands, drawing him in for a slow, lingering kiss before he went on. Fox tended to listen a little better after his breath was kissed away. Not a lot better, but better.

"You try to fix things that can't be fixed, look for perfect solutions in an imperfect world. You get so far ahead of yourself, you can't see the trees for the forest."

Mingyu took in another tight breath, stroking Fox's cheeks with his thumbs.

"So stop, okay? Don't. For me. Don't try to fix this. We'll find another way, and we'll do it together, and we're not going to worry about anything being fixed. We're just gonna find a way to keep going."

The kiss helped. It always did. Mostly because it forced him to focus in on a singular, fixed point, and tied his wandering thoughts to a post. He let out a sigh when Mingyu pulled away again, his eyes dropping into his lap even as he felt the brush of thumbs on his cheek.

"That's what I'm trying to do," he mumbled. "Find a way to keep going. Find it, not just... let zombie warlords or space invasions or whatever else is next decide it for us."

He couldn't speak for that little part of him that still whispered that it was possible. That with magical that powerful, he could remake the world if he wanted. Or at least pull a timeline off away from the others and make it their own.

"Then let's just keep doing it," Mingyu whispered back, stroking his fingers over Fox's hair and down his back.

"Don't get caught up in it. Don't worry about fixing the whole thing. We'll take it as we go, and every time the path diverges, we'll stay on the one that keeps us together. Okay? Whatever else happens, happens."

He made a low noise of discontentment, raising a hand to rub at his face.

"I can't ignore it if I can see it, you know? I won't just - I refuse to just take one of the paths offered anymore. That's what-- So much of the mess is--" His words kept running into roadblocks, catching in his throat, and he clicked his tongue to try to free them.

"What if there's no path out where we are still together?" he asked finally.

"Then I'll make one," Mingyu replied without thought, without hesitation. That was the difference between them, he supposed. Fox was always looking ahead, at the big picture. Mingyu only saw this. Fox, right before him.

"No matter what, I'll keep us together. Everything else is just details."

Fox looked at Mingyu for a long moment, then breathed out and looked away again.

"... Yeah," he agreed quietly, after a silence that was a little too long to be comfortable.

He picked up a stick and poked the fire unhelpfully, having never gotten very good at tending them since usually he would just magically make one if he needed. But he'd been trying to get used to using other things instead of his magic, here. He wasn't sure why.

Maybe it felt like he was saving it up for something.

"... So you don't think about it at all?" He asked softly, watching an ember jump from the flames next to his foot. He put it out with the toe of his shoe.

"Think about what?" Mingyu asked, sliding an arm around Fox's waist and leaning in. He kissed Fox's temple, trying to put comfort back into the spaces between their words.

"About where we're going. About- about whether we'll go home, or--"

He cut off, frowning, leaning a little into Mingyu's embrace.

"... About whether or not maybe we should just find a way to live here."

Hendrik was doing his rounds. No one asked him to but he wanted to keep the people safe. He figured it might be a throwback to going around and collecting survivors after the fall of Yggdrasil but didn't give it much more thought beyond that.

The tall knight thought about the words of the Luminary, something about getting tattoos but he hadn't gotten around to finding the one he'd called 'Fox'. But he recalled the physical description and found himself walking the stairs for exercise. And that's when he found the man scribbling notes, walking near the edge.

Blue eyes looked up a few steps ahead of him and spotted Fox, but his eyes narrowed in concern. "Be careful or you will fall."

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a heavy rain falls

Tattoo~

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