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

[libraryassistants]

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.

Comments

[logosmaxima]

The worst of it is that there is nothing Magnus can do in this moment but grieve. No action he can take now will bring him any closer to that future horror, or do anything to avert it. He cannot save a single one of his sons; he cannot even -- and here the grief roils into confused anger, hatred and refusal laced with bitter understanding -- tell Russ that his obvious anguish in his duty is commendable.

Is made all the worse by the Wolf-King being victim of the same horrible trick that's condemned Prospero to burn.

No, the only person close to him he has any chance of saving, of protecting, is Konrad -- so perhaps it is no surprise that old, old mammalian instinct moves Magnus to hold his brother's too-light, winged form against him as he weeps. Tears seep into that over-soft fur, its dampened touch a dim comfort for the long minutes it takes Konrad's aura to show signs he's coming back around.

For once his brother's awareness does begin to return, Magnus must put himself back together. Must submerge his own terrible grief and all it does to him deep in his own mind, held down by the discipline of the Enumerations until such a time as he can contemplate it in solitude.

Until he can abide within it and understand all the lessons it has to teach, in a time and place where he is not needed at his full capacity. That is not now -- not until they are back in the Library, and perhaps not even then, for who knows what the hours or days of vulnerability might cost them all, if he allows himself them.

The Magus steadies his breathing by an act of will, banishing the tears from his eyes and clearing the merely biological remnants of grief from himself with a simple exercise of his power. It is likewise trivial to release his paralytic hold on Konrad, and gently set his bat-brother down on the floor of the wagon, off his lap.

"I am sorry," is the first thing he says when he believes he'll be understood again.

"You described the horror of your experience, and I did not believe the depth of it."

He will not make mention of the content of the visions until Konrad does.

[curzed]

Strange, in a way, to think that the savage Russ might be so unwilling to add a third empty plinth. Everyone knew what the wolves were for, what they were really for. That any of them, never mind their Primarch, might ever hesitate is almost unthinkable.

Beg a brother to surrender instead of deliver vengeance, so their lives can be spared? Harder yet.

Things that Curze himself may dwell on later, in the long restless hours of sleeplessness that will inevitably follow. His fits left him exhausted to the bone but his mind wouldn't let him rest any time soon, and now is not likely to be an exception. There is an impression, through the haze of disorientation, of someone crying. Pain and loss and terror for a future that can't be evaded. It's not his. It's the red, and the drowning tide of blood. Maybe his too, a little, the horror is real enough, the bitter taste of ash seems real enough.

It isn't. Reality sorts itself by degrees, and he is aware, more or less, when he's lifted again and set down on wood and woven carpet, fur ruffling up against dampness. The scent of salt and tears lingers, the sour tang of grief and rage. His? Not his?

Magnus.

The bat shape shakes itself like a dog, wings flapping once to reassure that motion is in fact possible before settling down into a tightly packed fluffy lump, limbs pulled in, ears flat. Throne, he was tired. He felt weak, with the drive to fight-or-die bled away, the pain ended. Like he hadn't stopped running or fighting for weeks. "Did you learn what you wished to?"

Something in his weary tone suggests he is not going to be willing to provoke that again if he can help it.

[logosmaxima]

"Yes." In more ways than one.

"We will not need to do that again."

Though Magnus still has so many questions about how and why, so much he needs to understand if he wishes to change that horrible future. But he cannot -- he cannot use Konrad to answer those questions. He must find another way.

As if mirroring his brother -- or still in need of tactile comfort -- he draws his own knees to his chest, making himself as compact as a human-shaped creature might.

"What you see -- it always comes to pass to the last detail? As you've foreseen it?"

He can sense the exhaustion bleeding off of his brother, and that will keep him from other questions, but this ... this he will need to know the answer to, before he leaves for the day.

[curzed]

It always happens. And with the revelation that it isn't going to be someone else, some other fate, but Magnus' own world, his own sons, must throw it into a very different light. "Always." There's resignation in that weariness, by degrees. "The true future has a feel to it. Once found, it invariably comes to pass. All else is a distraction."

Fate is fixed. "The future sees to itself. By attempting to change it, you make it occur. By doing nothing, life proceeds as it must. I have tried, again and again." What must it be like, for someone who actually cared for his spawn, to have so many of them strewn across the wreckage of a beloved world?

What must it be like, to have a beloved world at all? "Better to not know, and be surprised by the terror of it, than know it approaches and nothing can be done to stop it. I would not have shown you that had I a choice. Some other thing perhaps." Dark eyes close. He won't be able to sleep but he can rest a little. "Ferrus' beheading, perhaps."

[logosmaxima]

"I see," Magnus replies, his voice subdued, and closes his single eye.

Despite his willing otherwise, the vision of Prospero burning plays in the darkness there. He permits it; he does not in the least believe in Konrad's fatalism, but perhaps soaking in the terror of it will also yield to him what he must know in order to change it.

"I think," he finally says, "I would rather know. Even if all that I try must fail, it is better to know."

That was, after all, his eternal stance on knowledge -- wasn't it? Even the worst of it was better discovered than left to rot.

Though -- Konrad's offer of an alternative gets a twitch of a warped smile out of him. "Ferrus' beheading," he echoes. "Yes. A far more cheerful subject, to see one of our other brothers slain, and know I could do nothing about that either."

Black humor does help, sometimes.

"We can speak more of this later. I have -- had an idea, of a path we might take to remediating your affliction. But for now, you need sleep."

[curzed]

Maybe the idea of Ferrus' death is easier to deal wiht than the loss of his world and all his sons! "Every one of you has a fate. Even I do."

And he knows them all. Every single one, every time he meets them. Any time he meets anyone. "...I will not sleep," the comparatively enormous bat grumbles. "The images do not stop. The echoes linger. I wait it out. Staying in one place and waiting it out is the best I can accomplish." Which is better than nothing, all told.

[logosmaxima]

Every one of you has a fate, and suddenly he wants to ask more about Roboute's, and what Konrad knows of it. Of their Father's -- but that is not germane, right now. So little of his curiosity is germane right now, and likely to only bring him further pain if satisfied.

To say nothing of Konrad really, truly needing rest. "That is something I can also help with, you know," the sorcerer says, his smile becoming a little more earnest. "Inducing sleep is easier than paralysis. And your visions do not seem to trouble you if you are cut off from the Great Ocean."

It's nothing to him to maintain the Symbol of Thothmes on one little wagon, for a few hours.

[curzed]

That sorcery Magnus had used to guarantee their isolation right before this ridiculous Story. "That didn't go well once you stopped that particular spell." It's not spells, he knows it's not, but it's a suitable enough word and conveys the meaning well enough. He wouldn't waste time on technical names unless he had to.

But the temptation of submitting to oblivion for even a few hours was a strong one. He'd be vulnerable in this wooden box, out in the middle of the city. But better perhaps than being unable to wake when underground. The little vampires that skulked about would reasonably want to take advantage of the predator in their midst being incapacitated. "It would be welcome," he allows after a long moment. True sleep eluded him often, and he knew he relied on it more than his brothers. Since arriving at the library, he'd indulged in perhaps one try at sleep deliberately, and it had gone as well as ever.

[logosmaxima]

That gets a snort out of Magnus. "It did not," he says, "but I am forewarned this time and will be here in person to remove it."

So. He'd had the hunch he might be able to stop a seizure before it began, and if the Symbol of Thothmes is a reliable trigger, he'll be there to get the next one during its prodrome, however short that might be.

Konrad's eventual acceptance garners a nod. A relieved nod, for Magnus is well aware of how fatigued his brother is. "Good night, then. Or good morning," as the case might be, for vampires. He reaches out briefly to touch Konrad on the head, bringing sleep with the contact.

[curzed]

A flash of sharp teeth from the resisted impulse to snap when touched, and then ... nothing else. Sleep truly is welcome, and if this method cuts off the endless parade of terrors rattling around in his mind like loose screws in a bucket, then all the better.

Unfortunately being awake is directly tied to his ability to maintain that significantly smaller, lighter form. Even in the throes of his fit he'd still been awake, more or less, and in its absence so too does the shapeshift, leaving the full sized primarch behind instead. At least he's maintained what few clothes he bothers to wear.

[logosmaxima]

-- And at least Magnus' own future-sight, if not his more mundane foresight (currently rattled beyond reasonable function) alerts him in time to not be squashed as his brother reverts to all seven hundred pounds of his true shape.

It's a little bit of a scramble, but only a little.

He spares himself a moment after to simply watch Konrad sleeping, as much because it is a strange and precious novelty to see any of his brothers so vulnerable, as to assure himself the compelled sleep is deep and healing and true. From the uncommonly peaceful eddies of Konrad's aura, it is, and Magnus will take that as success.

A low mutter and an intricate pass of his hands sets the Symbol of Thothmes in place to ward the wagon's interior. Another tracery of warpfire joins it -- a simple thing of eyes, to give him advanced alert if Konrad begins to wake before he returns.

And all that is nothing on how zealously he wards the outside of the wagon in making ready for his departure. Anyone foolish enough to tamper with it while he's on his errand to House Guildulf will find themselves quite neatly paralyzed for him to deal with on his return.

It still doesn't feel like enough, to guard one of his family in the face of all the horrors that await them. But it will serve.