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]

There is sharing in a bright student's enthusiasm to help her stay focused under duress -- indeed, quite appreciating her explanation of her methods -- and then there is negligence. And while Magnus may be rightly accused of having pushed those under his aegis too far -- by their own consent, granted, but still too far -- in emergencies, this is not that. Even so, he lets Jadis come to the end of her explanation -- "a commendable understanding of the forces involved," he deems it -- and seeing the pain she spikes through her own aura for focus, rests a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"You are on the bitter edge of exhaustion," he observes, "some difficulty is expected and excused, but you do not have to carry the whole weight of your responsibilities alone. I'd be remiss if I did not offer you my aid, as well, if it would help."

Could he have at the gate? Yes. Could he have also swept her blood of the toxins of fatigue and pain without asking her consent? Also, yes. But the path of the sorcerer is one, he knows, that is often difficult to walk in company for those who come to it on their own. It is better to treat her pride, her autonomy, with the respect she has earned, than trample on them by dint of his greater experience.

[steelfeathered]

Jadis sways on her feet when he touches her, but - to the great relief of the part of her that's insisting she's fought her way to where she is and that means something damn it all - instead of being overcome, the contact is bracing, though the absurd joy remains at a high. She sucks in a deep, stuttering breath.

A few hours ago she'd dosed herself to keep from becoming a werewolf. Having had enough insight to the nature of the body and of infection to conceptualize it as a walled city, Jadis thinks of the contagious quality of lycanthropy and the neutralizing quality of her wolfsbane potion as beasts racing after each other through her streets, rather as the young wolves had run wild overnight. The wolfsbane will win and the damage will not be terrible, but: she's physically exhausted, she's taken various mostly minor injuries, she's emptied her magical reserves, she really should've eaten something by now... And, even if he's holding it covered and restrained so as to not overwhelm people, part of her is open and sensitive to the point of rawness, so the cotinga's aura of wonder and power is still rolling into her like she's waist deep in the sea, getting pulled forwards and shoved back.

A twist of insight sneaks through in the trough between waves - he's had very bad news. He came here grieving.

That's so sad, and she can do nothing about it but put her hand atop his and allow him to solve this problem for her. Jadis says honestly into that paternal regard, "I have a pearl with some stored magic that I was saving for some new emergency. But I'm at the end of my strength. If I used it I could do two or three things and then collapse. I - please. Yes, please."

[logosmaxima]

"I will still expect you to collapse, when we are through," the sorcerer says. His tone is stern, but there is still a genial twinkle in his bright eye. (He is so, so very good at appearing as exactly what he wills himself to be -- to those who cannot part the Veil, and look at what lies beyond.) "Though in a more measured way. Save your pearl against a future trial."

His foresight is not hideously perfect as Konrad's is, but he doesn't need that to know that forces are already in motion to bring worse trouble than this down on Montica. Let her get a night's decent rest before that.

He keeps his hand on her shoulder, turning his inner eye to the disrupted balance of her chemical humours. One of his Pavoni sons may have simply torn the stress hormones and vestiges of cellular injury apart, cycled them from her body, and left her jittering on epinephrine for hours -- but that was a battlefield remedy and took its own harsh toll. His approach is gentler: first, urging the battle in her blood past the point where fever and markers of molecular panic at the infection sap her energy and demand sleep. The draught had already done the most important work, but the lingering symptoms could be dispensed with.

Her burns he likewise nudges another step toward healing, to diminish the toll of pain upon her. The toxins of fatigue and prolonged stress cannot be entirely dispensed with -- if she's to sleep soon -- but their effects can be blocked and redirected, and the worst of their clouding cleared from her brain.

Last is the restoration of her soul's empty reserves, restoring them partway from the eternal wellspring of his own. The difference left is -- once more -- nothing a much-needed rest won't make up for.

"How do you feel now?" he asks, after the minute or so the process takes him. Cleanly tired, he had aimed for, but still capable, rather than staggering and nigh-delirious.

[steelfeathered]

"I'll be good, I swear it," she says, completely without irony. "I only have to know he'll be safe."

When he starts to work on her, Jadis can follow a good portion of what he's doing, if not how. Would she be able to do anything like it to someone else, theoretically, with what she has and knows? Hmm. It would be much slower. Her patient would have to be lying down and she'd have to rely very heavily on concoctions, themselves laboriously made with extensive use of magic. Having her patient inhale the vapors coming off opener-of-the-way to relax unconscious resistance... and drink a really strong dark-

And then he's done! Jadis blinks, putting the thought experiment aside and taking stock. The beasts are still on her streets but they're trotting, now, neat as carriage horses. There's less 'carnage', more like the aftermath of a festival with just a few rowdy drunks. More of the flow of daily life is happening. Instead of having to hold fast and limit the damage, the city of her body is poised to start cleaning up and putting things back in place.

She adores this creature - this man - and those waves are still there, but she can brace against them now. The threat of being bowled over and drowning is far less imminent, the frantic sense of being a child overcome with limerence is gone. That is, she can admit to herself, a profound relief.

"Like I've been working and it was a long day, but I can go on a bit longer," she says, calmer. A bit of tightness at the back of her head tells her she must have been grinning like an idiot. Well. He's used to that. Jadis smiles more shyly. "Thank you. Ah... my name is Jadis Akabane. I'm afraid I have great trouble with names, not just wayfinding. It's an effect of my wound. Thank you for not touching it."