unfinishedlibrary | do you bare your fangs at us, sir? MOONLIT RIVALS LOG 2, SCENE 2

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do you bare your fangs at us, sir? MOONLIT RIVALS LOG 2, SCENE 2

Who: Readers and Actors
What: The werewolves who are not sneaking into the party cause a bit of mischief... and did anybody actually agree to keep the peace tonight?
When: The night of the ball itself. [ooc timeline: Feb 6th - 19th]
Where: The city of Montica.
Content warnings: Please include any warnings in headers.

Waxing Gibbous Moon

In Town

Above the city, the Umbra Mansion stands tall. Its grand doors and windows have been opened, spilling light like a beacon. Music lilts in the air, drifting so far as to be faintly heard even in the neutral centre of the city.

The streets have emptied, particularly in the vampiric half of town. Most of the vampire loyalists have joined the masquerade, leaving their homes and shops unattended. Tonight is a special night - a once in a century event, and they wouldn’t miss it for the world.

Even some werewolves and neutral citizens have been enticed to attend. Jadis the Mystic has created a lotion that will disguise the scent of a werewolf; an effect that is broken by shifting, breaking the skin, or the gradual passage of time. It is not widely distributed, but rumours travel fast. The lotion is only given to any Guildulf-aligned werewolves, but… well, there’s nothing wrong with a little trade here or there. Right?

For all of the wolves in town - with the moon so close to being full, it’s natural for them to feel a bit more excitable. Energetic. Ready to take on the world. And seeing as Montica is so empty, it’s like a playground has just been opened up. The young wolves in particular are eager to take advantage of the empty streets, the sound of not-quite-mature howls breaking through the air in their excitement. There are hardly any people around to be scared if they play too rough or run too fast, and they are taking advantage of this with great enthusiasm.

In the highly-debated 'neutral' zone, some small packs of adolescent werewolves are gathering. There's banter and roughhousing, the not-quite-adults playfully shoving each-other over the invisible line where the vampire territory begins.

Some of the bravest amongst them take the challenge to dart over and brush their fingers over silver doorhandles - their yelps spurring courage and adrenaline in the others. What starts harmlessly enough quickly escalates as they urge each-other on, teenage excitement and the thrill of the moon encouraging all sorts of bad choices. The longer they go without reprimand, the more bold they become; and somewhere along the way, bulbs of garlic start winding up in places they wouldn't normally be found. (There is at least one group who is excitedly challenging each-other to leave the garlic in more and more absurd places. If they happen to sting themselves on some silver ornamentation on the way, all the better.)

Not all homes are unoccupied, though - sooner or later someone’s going to disturb someone else’s peace, and tensions are already so high. Hopefully there are some Responsible Adults around to curtail the worst of the mischief before someone’s temper is sparked.

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"I had expected to perceive his aura." There's a disgruntled note in Magnus' voice. "I could not, until I touched him, and recognized him for himself."

After that, there had been similarities in words and mannerisms -- albeit distorted by the canine form -- that a careful observer might have picked up. And Magnus does pride himself on being a careful observer, but even he will admit that his aetherial senses are an indispensable part of that ability. Finding them unexpectedly muted, without any warning, leaves him ... vulnerable.

He will not dwell on it. It is merely an obstacle to be overcome, and not a large one.

"I admit to relief, that it is not either Sanguinius or Roboute forced to play the role of one of the lovers." Unpleasant idea.

"And it will not surprise you, I think, should I say I prefer the ending with less bloodshed. We are not yet past the point of no return." And if he could find the time for it, there was much he wanted to learn in the city still ... But given it was within a Story, that implied all the knowledge in it was already safely preserved, did it not? So his greater duty was toward completing it ...

Something to meditate upon.

The wolves will need culling. A note in Konrad's tone implies an altogether more dire and immediate reason than the foolish rampages Magnus had intervened on last night. He turns his head, looking back with his inner eye to consider his slouching brother. "They did worse than juvenile chaos last night, then?"

There had been that vampire ...

That's a little reassuring in its way. Further proof that he had not been remiss in not realizing that pathetic cringing creature in the last Story had been his brother, not that it would help their tattered relationship by having it said. "Roboute's current ... facade, I expect, is building to such a thing with his pet witch as a subplot."

That's fighting words in some psyker circles. "Their relationship is not master and servant, however much they think it is." In the dark his nose wrinkles. "It's obvious." And he doesn't much like it. Roboute is going to have those memories later, if they ... do anything.

It's already going to be awkward.

Thinking of all of it purely in narrative terms helped maintain some form of distance and objectivity, but it's still strange. "Based on the stories this one is based on I suspect that is the preferred ending. Every implication in Twilight though suggests unlike Romeo and Juliet, Bella and Edward are intended to survive, so that too is a goal if it can be managed." He's comfortable enough, or what passes for comfortable, to begin working on picking any remaining debris out of his injuries so they'll re-heal properly. It doesn't bother him to tear them back open to do it, and work on digging out a tooth lodged against bone.

"They have. An attempted takeover of the position of alpha, done through terribly human means of home invasion and assassination. Our brother will have a lovely pelt to wear around as Horus does now." ..Oh, speaking of. "When you get the time you should see to him. I don't trust this story's knowledge of infections to keep him from becoming septic, he won but at a cost."

There is no immediate response from Magnus, to hear that. Not even to the loaded word witch applied to the Guildulf mystic he'd heard so much of. He merely returns his gaze to the rising light in the sky, examining his interior discomfort with the notion to see if it might hold a lesson for him.

... No, he decides. Nothing beyond that the Library might capriciously put them to uses they were not intended for, might throw merely fleshy distractions in their way after it had mazed their reasoning and hidden their identities from themselves. It is distasteful. It is wrong, and itself to be overcome. "If you should find me in such a situation myself," he rumbles at last, "kill me. I will forego whatever else I might learn as one of these Actors to be spared that indignity."

Would whatever subordinate being he'd been forced to portray disagree with that decision? Likely.

But it would not be that creature's will ordering the death.

In light of those dire musings, the Story's romantic core -- even if their ultimate objective is to finish it -- gets a snort out of the sorcerer. "In the Shakespire's work they did die almost too easily and for too little cause, while their paler Twilight realizations seemed almost immune to risk. A wide range of possible foolish outcomes they could find between those.

"I will put their feet on one of the better paths, should I encounter them." But he is not going to go meddling right away because -- oho -- one of these subplots has suddenly developed personal interest to him?

" ... I see. If the concern is long-term infection, then I presume I won't have to rush off and see him before you are settled safely for the day."

He is actually enjoying this conversation! And the opportunity to help the prickliest of his brothers in a way that does not trigger the spines.

"...Are you certain?"

That's a tall order for some of their kin but for Curze, knowing it's temporary? Knowing what the side effects had been for Sanguinius, and surely would next be for Roboute? They weren't made for this, this parody of normalcy and mundanity. "I can't guarantee swiftness or painlessness, hobbled as I am." Did he like admitting weakness? Not at all. Would it stop him? ... Also not at all. If every incarnation of Magnus was a sorcerer, he's certain he would eventually win, but it might not happen easily. Were it permanent, he'd refuse. But a brief inconvenience is different.

Sooner or later he'd request the same. He didn't know if he'd be granted any such similar kindness, out of some disturbed idea that he needs to experience a life other than his own.

The Romeo and Juliet plot is surely being handled on its own by people FAR better suited to romantic pursuits. It's dismissed.

He has other priorities. Like his kin. "She was able to heal the immediate damage a reasonable amount. I did mention you might be on the way at some point, she used most of her power beforehand to fight off several attackers. I am safe enough for the time being. The shadows are still long enough that I might flee if I need to."

He wouldn't enjoy it. But he COULD.

"I am."

There are those -- all mortals -- who would decry his certainty as hasty or ignorant. Surely there is something to be learned from experiencing the erotic love that centers their lives, as they feel it. Surely there is a profound truth in this urge they routinely destroy themselves over, moth to flame --

But it is not among the truths Magnus seeks, and therefore wholly dispensable to his life's work.

"A painful, lingering death would be an opportunity for whatever creature I am to prove itself brave, wouldn't it? I'll thank you for the new experience when we meet again!"

And the terrifying thing is he means it, completely, bluff and joyful about the idea as only he can be.

The air of bonhomie carries over to their other topic of conversation. It does not joy Magnus that Roboute's other-self should be injured, but this too is an opportunity. "I thank you for giving them notice on my behalf. It will do me no good to appear too early, though -- a sorcerer arrives exactly when he is meant to."

And the hour is not yet ripe! Better for the furor to die down and the sun to be high enough in the sky he could not be mistaken for a vampire on his arrival. "And, I have been testing solutions for the problem the sun presents -- if you will indulge my help in seeing you safely to the underground, when the light is brighter."

There is nothing beneficial to be learned about 'how to be a mortal'. What good would it do? It wouldn't change what they truly are, or how they must do what they are made to do. Magnus is already practically a bleeding heart when it comes to baselines! Curze just doesn't .. quite connect it to romance only.

Not with one example already of how much being forced to live someone else's life had negatively affected one of his brothers. "So be it. I don't know how that ends, but I believe Kaiisteron was dropped in some sort of apothecarium after I struck him down. Perhaps it will be the same." It's not murder. It is however battery.

But for now Magnus is definitely himself, in all that entails. Like stealth quotes. He doesn't recognize where it's from or that it IS a quote, the noise he makes vaguely acknowledging. Everyone arrives when they're meant to, that's how fate works. That he doesn't respond to the idea of more experiments right away might have the sense that he's thoroughly weighing it and whether or not this is going to end in a lot of sunburns. "I suppose it will do your business ill if I'm lurking in your shop made of kindling the entire day," he allows eventually. Honestly just roll him up in a big rug and carry him off that should do it. "Somewhere so fragile is hardly ideal should.."

This place would shatter under the impact even 'indexed' if he began thrashing around like a beast in a cage. It's wood, and he's both large and heavy. "..." And would he be able to go to ground even with the minute or two of warning the drone provides? He doesn't share Magnus' levity, he rarely had time for any kind of such feeling, and having his mood darken further is also no surprise. "Do you truly believe this affliction of mine is curable?"

Psychic powers, to him, is not a gift, it's a disease.

It's not murder. It's an opportunity! Not just for Magnus to gain new experience, but also for all of them to learn whether -- and how -- the Library is proof of its own promises to keep them intact.

"Ah. There is that as well, is there not." Magnus had not at all been thinking of the threat to his business -- such as it was -- or the wagon containing it, so much of what a hideously indefensible little box it was, to hold someone at risk from the sun. Especially with grudge-bearing werewolves roaming.

The seizures complicate that further still. "I do. The seizures themselves can be controlled. The visions as well. And the scars they have left on you can be remediated."

He turns his attention down to the little drone. At least it came along, but his mind is turned now too to the idea that any warning it gives would not come soon enough. Quietly, then, "Is another a possibility so soon?"

Any grudge-bearing werewolves would be in for a very bad time, sun or no sun, weakened and indexed or not. Curze is a very efficient, very experienced killer, and in his own defense he won't bother holding back.

The drone remains sedately doing its job as monitor, content to go nowhere. It doesn't seem like it's watching for something more serious pending. Curze didn't mind it, except that it belonged to the servitor SecUnit and it could recall its drone at any time save that it did seem genuinely interested in preventing unnecessary deaths. "And if they can't be?"

Learned helplessness is a bitter thing all its own. "...Sometimes they chain, within days of each other. But not often." The little ones, the impressions, the flicker of certain futures, did not cause the same effects. Those were tolerable. That they have been gradually getting worse, more frequent, is not mentioned.

"My apothecaries, my librarius, those who do and do not share my 'gift'," the word is all but spat, but who could enjoy something that causes so much pain? "Have been able to do nothing. We have tried." And some were even trained by the Fifteenth! "I know, when the assassin finally comes for me, this affliction will remain." With a door between them, he doesn't bother to try to school his expressions, but control is maintained on his voice. Dispassion he didn't feel. Not with the remembered echos of what it feels like to have his throat cut open and drown in his own blood.

"...If there are ways you know, that they do not." Is it going against the Emperor's will to try to remedy something he created this way? Is it attempting to dodge his own eventual penalty for the life of a monster? Is it worth the pain of failure again? Or is it pride that keeps him from asking? It's hard to admit weakness. To admit of all his brothers, he is the only one so cripplingly flawed by design. What purpose it served he did not know, but it had to be deliberate.

He licks his teeth and cracked lips in some absent habit that leaves the taste of his own blood in his mouth. "Will you help me?"

That sounds terribly, bitterly like shame.

"If," Magnus says, slowly and thoughtfully, "all of my knowledge and skill do not avail us in curing this, then I will simply have to learn more. The Library's capabilities to restore the dead and the damaged faster even than my Pavoni can point at something that might be harnessed, and used, when I master it."

He shifts on the steps of the wagon; his mass is not so much, in this diminished shape, to cause it more than a tremble, but that gives away how he has once more turned back to regard his brother through the barrier of curtain and wall. The state of Konrad's aura ... the bloody, wounded colors of it that read of a profound and intractable despair ... it hurts to witness, makes both his hearts clench in his chest like fists.

How could Father have left this alone? ... How could Father have left his own sons afflicted with the flesh change? Left Magnus on his own to find an impossible cure for it, rather than watch them suffer and die?

Thinking too far down that track will lead him places that still hurt to walk, after the conversation with Roboute. He turns his inner gaze away, pulls himself through another of the Enumerations to find his center again.

"If even that attempt at a cure fails, I will not let you continue to suffer. Palliative methods may be a poor consolation, but you are my brother. I cannot bear you to live a life of intractable pain, even if that is all you foresee for yourself.

"I will help you, Konrad." The words -- his tone -- are grave. But there's still the smallest flicker of a smile on his face.

There's still something lurking beneath his tongue, unsaid, because he won't ruin this moment -- but there will be another one, soon, that can afford a little levity. (A little smugness.)

They were all fools, marching blindly to the cliff's edge without bothering to slow down or wonder if the path was an unwise one. Even he shied away from questioning too deeply why their Father did - and did not - do the things he did. That way lay doubt, the seeds of disobedience and rebellion. And he knew now that those seeds were even buried in the heart of Guilliman, and if the lord of Ultramar could doubt, what of the rest of them? Even Sanguinius, bleeding inside from the wounds of countless lost sons and living in the shadow of his own flaws, had reason to fear.

A small unrecognizable item of some unknown purpose is plucked off a nearby stand to give his hands something to occupy themselves with, picking it apart bit by bit. He can't see that flicker of smugness, hear it in an otherwise grave tone. When this inevitably failed, and it would, one more failure wouldn't do more harm than the rest did.

"Sometimes I wonder if there's help for any of us. What happens to the dream of a brighter future, between our poor present and the decaying future?" If it weren't for a primarch's uncannily sharp hearing, that wouldn't even be heard though Magnus isn't that far away at all. "When does it fail? When does all that is gold become so much dust?"

It has the sound of something he neither wants nor expects an answer to, bitter shame melting to a strange melancholy. "I will die alone, my craven murderous sons lurking only to see what they can scavenge in my wake, and you ... you never die at all."

Edited 2026-02-22 00:31 (UTC)

Magnus hears those words that Konrad means for himself alone and wisely keeps his tongue. It does not lessen the hurt in his heart -- but neither would re-fighting a topic they have already contested before. The Night Haunter's adamantine belief in the immutability of the future could not be changed by words, so much Magnus is sure ... But he has made progress, through action, on convincing his stubborn brother that at least his suffering was not intractable.

That is surely food for hope.

"Roboute has told me," the sorcerer replies, low and soft -- reverent, almost -- in the face of the horror of that future. "How I come by that immortality. I will tell you now I would prefer death."

He does not want what his hidden patron would make of him. He never wanted that, even if some part of him knew the noose he was putting his neck into when he bargained for his sons' future.

Now that it has been brought in the open, he can contemplate fighting it. He can -- ask for help, in fighting it.

Novel thought. Hopeful thought.

"And I would trust you with that, too, you know, if it were possible."

Perhaps not a burden Konrad wants, but there it is. And -- "Did ... you know before now? Did you see, what would -- what would become of me?"

Would. Not will.

It's difficult to believe that anything might ever change in the future when everything he's ever tried has done nothing. He doesn't even believe this will change anything. These conversations, this time in the Library. They would return to their proper places and time's relentless passage will march on, grinding them all to nothing but fading memory and spoiled myth. "Perhaps when it arrives it will seem more preferable."

He didn't know. None of his visions ever told him why, only what. How does such a thing happen? How does one gain immortality? It's feathers and power and fury, indistinct and strange, nothing like the countless different deaths he'd seen waiting in Vulkan's future.

It's not possible to trust him with that and so he doesn't speak on it. He is not the family executioner.. and it's not Magnus' fate, besides. Events would conspire to prevent his successfully striking Magnus down. "I have known since we first crossed paths. It's the same with everyone." How it ends - or doesn't, in some cases. "The worst that can come for you, fate's ultimate blow isn't death. But it is beautiful. Gothic ... doesn't have the words to describe it."

Will. "It's a comfort, in a way, to know some of us will live on."

There's a long, long silence from outside the wagon as Magnus digests that. As he spirals upward through the Enumerations to control the animal surge of fury -- and denial and fear -- at the inevitability in Konrad's tone. It is not until he has found his way back to the mind of no mind that he can respond -- his tone a rumble nearer what it would be in his more accustomed shape, than Miracle Max's more human voice.

"If I were to shed the flesh Father gave me, I'd be a wonder mortal eyes would burn to behold. And I would belong, soul and mind, to the Primordial Annihilator. I will not be Its creature."

See here the unstoppable force of Magnus' hope pitted against the Night Haunter's immovable fatalism -- and the sorcerer refuses to be the first to yield. Let him be broken on the rocks of that unchanging future if he must, but he will not go blindly into what waits for him any longer! He will not go lying to himself about it!

" -- These visions of our fates, then. They come without the seizures? Have you ever invoked one voluntarily?"

-- And he will also not be distracted too long from his promise to help.

The refusal of what must be draws silence. He both did and did not want his brothers to understand the futility of fighting against what must be; it would spare them the pain of repeated failure if they did not know. Ignorance truly was bliss.

"It's different. The small flashes are headache inducing but little more, a handful of moments at best." The poor item he's been picking apart is now little more than debris, and he reduces it further bit by bit. "The unceasing ones are not more than an annoyance, I know the fate of everyone I encounter."

Everyone. Though the Emperor's had left him screaming, clawing at his own eyes. ".. When I was young, I tried a time or two. There's little to be gained in the alleys of Nostramo from being insensate to the world around you and luring in hunters like a brokenwinged crow."

"Then in one way it is perhaps fortunate you are still capable of such violence in the midst of them," Magnus says, pragmatically. It is possible, though very unlikely, one of their number could be killed by merely mortal predators. Were he helpless for an extended period of time -- "But the usefulness of that defensive response is long past. I ... am still sorry, that I had not noticed your -- "

Not gift.

"Affliction, sooner. That you have suffered this long."

And now he must ask something more difficult, on top of that. Perhaps it would be better to wait until they are back at the Library -- but he would be remiss if he could not acknowledge the spur of his own guilt driving him on, to solve this quickly as he is able.

"Would you be willing to bring one on yourself now? If -- you may be due, while we are here in the Story, it may be better to provoke it in a time and place where I can assist you."

Rather than risk one striking without warning.

Dorn would be killed by merely mortal predators. Many, many of them.. but mortal. One sting is an annoyance. Ten thousand.. "Likely it has kept me alive through my childhood. I don't remember events that happen in the midst of it." If he'd come to awareness soaked in blood that was rarely different than when the fit took him to begin with! Telling the difference was impossible.

Psyker anything will never be a gift to him. He could not utilize it with the joy and curiosity the Thousand Sons and their sire had. "I am as I was made to be. There is nothing to apologize for."

It didn't interrupt his duty much.

The idea of his visions being on a time schedule is absurd enough to draw a sardonic chuckle, but the question itself, inviting it, on purpose seemed like asking for trouble. "In the middle of a mortal city while in a wooden box. That doesn't seem like a good idea, brother." It's not a no.

There was -- in Magnus' mind -- much to apologize for even if this was how their Father had intended Curze to be.

... Which perhaps, should he sit with that thought longer, would show much -- and how rapidly -- he's absorbed Roboute's opinion of their sire. (Which perhaps, would reveal how much pain he'd encysted within himself, and how much resentment at the rules placed upon him by someone who would not heal his own grandsons.)

"We might remove ourselves to the sewers beforehand," he says, with a wry smile in his voice. "Though you would be surprised at my wooden box's durability, and some of the tricks I have in it." It's no Spartan transport, but it could not be smashed or burned quite so easily as it looked.

"Consider yourself duly warned, here or there." There's something terribly surly to the words. He understands intrinsically how unpleasant it could get. Subjecting himself to the endless horrors of the future on purpose was a different beast than being seized unawares and forced to endure it. "The price of curiosity may be high." Still not refusal. "I have very little control of what happens."

Displeasure with the situation is surely warranted, and Magnus won't grudge his brother that.

But it's also not no.

The sorcerer gets up off the cart's steps, casting a glance upward as he does. Bright enough to now warrant another sunshade, before he opens the curtain, and he fashions one from a kine shield thick enough to condense air to fog. It keeps the weak morning sunlight at bay long enough for him to step inside, letting his form slip smaller to something near their Father's born proportions.

It's still a tight fit with Konrad sprawled on the floor, and the sorcerer frowns thoughtfully at the problem. Fortunately, much of the wagon's cozy interior is removable. "If you will consent to being bound, control will not be an issue," he remarks offhand.

"I'm going to make enough light to find what we will need -- and give us more workspace." He'll wait a good few seconds to offer Konrad a chance to close his eyes, before the wagon's contents gain the dimmest firefly limning of warpfire. By that light, Magnus' eyes are nearly black as his brother's, reshaped to suit the conditions as he begins a planned kinetic demolition of his wagon. All these bits of furniture and siding can slide right out the door ...

A displeasure that magnifies under the light of day, no matter how oblique; no one from Nostramo tolerates it well, sun or the witchfire, though this is at least faint on both accounts. Unsurprisingly it reveals him filthy once more, what wounds he possesses healing already, most of the blood definitely not his nor the little object he's systematically destroyed. The drone, now able to actually get inside, floats in promptly and settles on a convenient flat surface.

The Guildulf attackers had been prepared for werewolves, not vampires, but they'd done what they could. There's also no mistaking he doesn't like the idea of being bound at all, but in the faintest of lights, reluctantly he nods. No need to ask how Magnus planned on doing that, it wasn't like he bothered with such mundane things as manacles. "If we are very lucky the next little tale we're to aid will be Jack and the Beanstalk."

He shifts over minutely; there's precious little space to be had in here but there's only so far to go, and this interior is meant to continue the illusion of normalcy, not hide a primarch. Magnus is watched through narrowed eyes, but not much else is done to help or hinder, doing so might just get in the way. He says nothing. He'd agreed however reluctantly to find out if an actual remedy existed, but submitting willingly and deliberately to the abject weakness that was his visions was an uncomfortable way to do it. Displaying weakness, even to his brothers, was intolerable.

The drone is forced to move as it's perch floats out the door, choosing to remain hovering towards the ceiling in uniquely mechanical annoyance.

The sorcerous parade of objects continues out the door until the wagon's fully empty, divested of every bit of paraphernalia Magnus has collected and stripped down to the pegs. Now it's wide enough through the middle that Konrad at least has couple of inches of clearance on either side of him, and could lie down (almost) flat without his feet poking out the door into the all-searing sunlight.

Magnus regards the wagon's transformation with eminent satisfaction -- one that's dented just a little as he finally takes stock of Konrad's renewed patina (sigh) and the destroyed remnants of the object his brother found to pick apart ( ... sigh). "Do you know how long it took me to find that bezoar?" he says, mock-peevish, before escorting its remains out the door as well with a brush of his hand.

Then, his moment of acted annoyance complete, he turns to secure the door -- checking, as he does, the telempathic illusion of disinterest thrown over his wagon's heaped contents is secure enough to prevent anyone noticing them to tamper with -- then fixes his attention back on Konrad. "It occurs to me," it already occurred to him, but he'd been busy, "that this may be safer, both to you and the wagon, if you were comfortable resuming your chiropteran shape for it."

Konrad made a much smaller, lighter bat that wouldn't need nearly so much subduing.

It's.. almost space! And he shifts around a little bit to get marginally more comfortable. it's not easy but he's spent much of his life in confines meant for human scale, not primarch; the often hunched posture is learned. The debris of the thing Magnus calls a bezoar is after a moment dusted off a little; he didn't know what it was and wasn't sure he cared except that it had potentially been something important. Not to him, it never would be important to him. But it was to Magnus, and he was unfortunately relying on his brother's help.

"Sorry." it sounds completely insincere, but an effort was made.

With door shut and sealed it is at least more tolerably dark again, but not as comfortable as utter blackness would be. Magnus' suggestion of his temporary, story-granted other form is a good one, he supposed. Then it wasn't fitting something primarch sized into a space this small, just something coyote sized. Which is still massive for a bat, but not for other things. "I've never tried to maintain another form under duress. It may go badly." All of this may go badly.

But it is, he's reluctant to admit, a good idea. Although Magnus could use psyker power to wrangle him easily enough, two primarchs in this space at full size would be distinctly hazardous for the entire wagon to not become so much debris. The reluctance remains even as he swaps humanish form for that of the creature he'd arrived as, as comfortable on four limbs as in the air, enormous ears pinned flat against furred head and neck in an almost canine expression of displeasure.

Magnus knows Konrad well enough to know that even an insincere apology is still a concession -- and he will take it with his usual bluff grace (and perhaps a particle of internal satisfaction).

But he won't dwell on it long. No, with his workspace now swept clean, and Konrad as ready as he will ever be -- note the writhing gray and marrow-red of unease lightening his brother's aura -- it is time they be about the work. The sorcerer stretches out his hands to touch either wall, drawing the warpfire into his grasp. A deft passage of his fingers, a series of swift mudras, reshapes it into a pattern of silence and strength that seeps into the walls and vanishes to all but aetheric senses.

Full dark falls. Magnus settles himself on the floor in lotus position, regarding his bat-shaped brother with eyes grown larger and blacker still in the midnight of the wagon. "It may," go badly, "but if you consent to it, I will block the voluntary nerves of your spine. Even should you revert to your right shape, it will limit the harm you might do."

To the wagon, mostly; Magnus augurs he could evade the worst of it.

Then he holds out a hand in invitation. "Contact will make this easier."

~~come sit on his lap konrad~~

It's still strange and not at all welcome to have a shape other than the one he's born with, to feel air crawling across skin he shouldn't have in broad leathery wings or every vibration in the air across black fur. Useful, absolutely. And so it's endured, but there's no mistaking that endured is the right of it.

"Paralysis?" The sibilant tones of Nostraman accent seem somehow more suited to this chiropteran form than his natural one, but it's still his voice, the same pitch, the same tone. Magnus is hardly an enemy, but part of him resists hard the idea of being so utterly helpless around anyone else, and the primarch turned enormous bat considers it silently for a long, long minute, absently licking sturdy fangs better suited to breaking spines than draining blood. It's asking a lot, and he's not given to trust.

The broad vanes of his wings fold when he shifts, balancing easily on his wrists; some bats simply couldn't maneuver on the ground well but whatever species he's become is apparently not hampered at all similarly, picking his way closer only slowly. None of this is anything he likes. Not the form he wears, not the pending deliberate provocation of his 'gift', not the idea of being paralyzed in another's grip. He can be picked up easily enough.

Bat fur is depressingly soft. "Very well."

"Paralysis," Magnus affirms. And waits.

Because even if Konrad does not consent to that further loss of control -- which decision the sorcerer could fully understand; it's the point of offering the choice in the first place -- he is confident that he can manage this.

He is also aware he is asking a great deal of trust -- from someone he has given reason, in the Library itself, to not wholly trust his motives when it comes to Konrad's "own good".

So he waits, and it is only after that grudging acceptance is given that he picks up the giant bat that is his brother and sets him on his lap. (Even he must repress the urge to put his hands on that fur more than is absolutely needful; fey and impulsive as Magnus can be, he does understand that one does not randomly pet one's brothers.

At least not the brothers he's not on hugging terms with. Why can't Perturabo be the giant, appealingly furry bat?)

"Then we begin," he intones, with ritual solemnity. One hand rests on Konrad's head, above the crown chakra; the other, at the nape of the neck. Using the biomantic arts to inhibit only the voluntary action of skeletal muscle -- without unstringing the autonomic processes -- is one he has long practice in, but something that still requires studied focus. There is no sense -- as there might be with paralytic drugs -- of lassitude or heaviness or clouding of Konrad's abilities, only between one moment and the next any attempt to lift a wing or change his posture will fail.

It's probably more unnerving, rather than less.

"Now. Whenever you are ready, you may open the inner eye and seek your vision."

A soft litany in Prosperine follows -- the names of the First Ennumeration, the same he would speak over any Neophyte given leave to part the veil between Material and Immaterial.

In Town

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finally a suitable tag for this icon

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letting magnus fail to specify and leave an opening for later misunderstandings >8]

oh nooooo o/`

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i swear he's gonna notice the thing konrad took apart soon

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