bakerstreet | thursday pic prompt

thursday pic prompt

the picture prompt meme

i. COMMENT WITH CHARACTER
ii. OTHERS LEAVE A PICTURE (OR TWO OR THREE....)
iii. REPLY TO THEM WITH A SETTING BASED ON THE IMAGES.

THIS POST WILL BE IMAGE HEAVY.

link to an image:

embed an image in your reply:

control width and height:

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

[Here's to being ever hopeful! And yes! I love it--it's so right that he zero in on exactly this issue! (It makes me so curious to know how he'd react if he learned the Super Secret Spoiler about sylvari that Aurus doesn't know yet too.)]

Aurus was quiet for a moment, thinking before he spoke again. He would not deny the wisdom of what Charles had said, and now that he'd said it the issue seemed glaring, the double-bind unavoidable.

"I was not part of the battle again Zhaitan--what I know of it has come to me through the Dream. I have been away from Tyria for quite a long time. But I can say this: defeating the dragon required unprecedented cooperation, the formation of a Pact between ancient Orders, the skill of the world's greatest military minds. All the world's races stood together in that campaign. The Pact fleet--airships armed for war--now knows its power. I do not think that they will fragment or turn their course aside easily, not when Mordremoth attacks ever more boldly, striking in places presumed to be safe.

"But indeed I am here, and I will admit that even now I feel no urgent need to hurry back. Having absented myself from the events of my world these last four years--arguably longer given all the time I spent as nearly a hermit--I've grown to feel almost like an outsider. Now it is all, literally, a world away, but it already felt like that for a very long time before this."

He looked at Charles earnestly and admitted, "That probably makes me sound horribly callous and apathetic, I know. I don't mean for it to. I only mean that I feel that for now I ought to stay right where I am, whether it's to learn something that your world has to teach me or purely because of you. So long as I don't wear out my welcome, I'm afraid you might be stuck with me." The warm, familiar smile returned to his eyes as he said this--not flirting at the moment, but undeniably fond.

Edited 2016-10-13 19:18 (UTC)

[I never even heard of this game until you came to tag me. XD I would have no idea.]

The look registered with Charles and it was returned. Not quite the brightness of eye that had been there before, dulled by their earlier conversation, but something closer to it. It came with a small smile, then a shake of the head. Really, he didn't believe it of Aurus. It seemed more like this was a young man who simply had different goals, different focuses than the whole of his world. There were many out there to look into that picture, and while he wondered if Aurus wasn't the one who could bring a completely different look on the outcome if he was involved, he also knew not everyone could handle that pressure. Still, a tiny part of him disagreed even with that logic and suggested someone who could bring together the legends as Aurus did should be involved more than any other.

Maybe because he had been forced to make those sorts of decisions himself.

"You need to do as you feel you need to do. I only know a small part of your existence and the path you've been walking, so all I can say to that is that you are something special. Everything you've spoken to me about, the spirits of those who reside with you... it speaks volumes." He let that hang in the air between them for several moments before shifting things slightly. "Other than learning about volcanos, is there anything else you'd be curious in seeing in this world? I have to admit, I'd be curious to see more of your magic."

[I blame my partner completely--I'm like 100% not a gamer, but he has played from this franchise since GW1 and eventually he dragged me kicking and screaming into playing it. I always figured I'd hate any MMO, but once I tried it I got hooked. It was the lore that really grabbed me ~~that and all these talking cabbages~~.]

Charles' assessment of Aurus's difference was about as accurate as anyone could ever come. Aurus had always marched to the beat of a different drum. It was in his pith and his sap, and he didn't actually want it to change. Years ago, before he'd left the Grove, one of the Firstborn had tried to convince him to become a mender, given his already extensive knowledge and interest in drugs and their effects. For Aurus, the suggestion sounded about as appealing as stuffing cotton batting down his throat until he stifled himself.

Working alongside the right group of people he could (and would, whether he knew it right now or not) become a valuable asset. But whereas one of the Firstborn had now become the Pact's Marshall and leader, Aurus knew that the last place he belonged was in a similar role. It wasn't self-deprecation or humbleness that drove that assessment; it might almost have been the opposite.

That didn't mean for a moment that he disregarded Charles' words though--it was something quite significant, he felt, for the man to tell him these things aloud, to say to him that he considered him something special. What Aurus took from the remark wasn't a sense pride or flattery, but instead a focus on the on the honesty and intimacy it carried. "It pleases me that you think so," he smiled, not bothering to disguise the fact that what mattered to him most was less the praise than it was Charles himself.

And then, since Charles had asked to see more of his magic, Aurus decided to take the opportunity to show him some.

Stepping just to the side of the path, he knelt down and pressed a hand to the grass. He gestured towards Charles with a tilt of his head, encouraging him to come closer though it would be easy enough to see regardless: Aurus closed his eyes for a moment in light concentration, and things began to grow--wildflowers of yellow and white and blue, trillium, blue aster, birdfoot violet, all spreading in a tidy, obedient line edging the path. They were New York's flowers, native things to this soil, but for many this was not their time of year, and they'd not bloomed or been planted there regardless. It took only moments before the blooms were full.

Aurus selected the one that grew nearest his hand--a broad purple aster with a golden center--and plucked it. Turning to Charles, still on one knee, he presented the blossom to him with a slightly coy smile. For the moment, he was most definitely flirting with him, but a lighthearted, sweet flirting that was deliberately a bit corny. Hopefully Charles would take it well.

"There are a few things I'd like to see, yes."

[This weekend was absolutely beyond exhausting. I don't like getting up at 6:30 in the morning on a weekend day! It shouldn't be allowed. Still... worth it to get everything done. The MMO stuff, though?? *giggling* That's pretty awesome, though. It's obvious how cute you guys are! And man... lore makes or breaks an MMO. I've been playing FFXIV for almost two years now, and played FFXI for 6-7 years before that. The lore in these games is what keeps me... the story is so god damn good. Even when the gameplay is frustrating me, I want to find out what's the next part of the story soooooo badly. So basically, I feel you! (...now I want to badly play someone from FFXIV... this is your fault. XD) Is Aurus an NPC? The player-character? *so curious now*]

Charles' eyes were wide, watching with something that very much approached joy and went beyond. It was beautiful to watch, those elegant little flowers coming up along his path as neat and tidy as if he had asked for the gardeners to do so, yet entirely out of their season. He took the flower, feeling it real and delicate between his fingers as he spun it slowly between forefinger and thumb, a smile splitting his lips. Oh, he saw what Aurus was up to with his little bit of flirting, but his excitement (almost child-like, every time he found a new mutant) went beyond that.

"It's incredible," he whispered, his smile growing even more as he looked to Aurus. "If I didn't have your word for it, I would have said this was a mutant power at work. It's facinating. It's so similar, in some aspects, to who we are yet... yet I know it isn't the same."

That smile curled up into a smirk on one edge, his expression of happiness turning into a bit of sarcasm as he added, "however, you are a terrible flirt, Aurus." It turned back into a real smile, showing he was just playing, before he tucked the flower into his lapel. No wonder Raven used to roll her eyes at him - he had been no better in his youth. Youth. Sometimes, he felt vaguely old even though he knew that was a lie. He was still a young man, but those college days felt like a lifetime ago.

[Oh goodness--what had you up at 6:30am? I had a really early morning on Saturday because I took my students on a walking tour of central London, and I was sick (still am) which made the whole thing extra miserable. BUT you won't believe it: We saw Patrick Stewart!!! Like we walked around the corner at the back of the theatre where he and Sir Ian are in a production of No Man's Land and he was just there heading towards the stage door! I practically walked straight into him! I was so stunned. I still can't quite believe it happened lol. As for the MMO things, I've not played FFXIV but I have heard pretty good things about it, especially the character visuals. In GW2 the player character's canon story is ultimately the same for everyone--you play as the Pact Commander and there's only a slight degree of variation early on for members of different races. A few chapters in, all the stories converge. Of course for RP that gets dull and redundant, so my partner and I have written this web of other interconnecting stories for our lot of characters. All of which is to say that Aurus is an OC. We've basically got a guild of characters whose stories are parallel to, but less centre stage than, the canon player character. (And ultimately, of course, even when they try, they never succeed in shaping the overall course of world events the way the player character does.)]

Aurus didn't try to disguise for a moment the pleasure it brought him to see Charles smile that way. Of course he knew that the man was right--he was being a terrible flirt--but he didn't care, since his gift had been accepted. (Actually, in point of fact, Aurus was much less a flirt than he was a seducer. But in this case it was clear that the only route by which to approach the latter project was by taking up the posture of the former. And if Aurus hadn't been specifically intending to seduce Charles, that perspective had rather changed when he learned that the man hadn't had a lover in the past decade.)

He let the smile and affection in his eyes linger before giving a self-deprecating bow of his head: "Guilty as charged," he laughed lightly at himself, and then got to his feet again. "To be fair, what I've just shown you is something that all sylvari can do. The Grove as you will see it in the Dream tonight has been shaped by our race--its whole 'architecture' grown by the careful sculpting of plants and years of willing them to grow in deliberate forms, which was begun with the Firstborn. A good deal of the magic that I am most practiced with has its chief application in combat. And much of the rest is largely quotidian.

"There is one other thing I've been saving though. Something I'd like to show your students--and you as well--this afternoon. Hank had asked if I would like to introduce myself to them in some way, and I do think I know just the way to do it." He looked quite pleased with the prospect of this, though he didn't specify precisely what it was that he was planning, seeming to quite want to preserve the surprise.

"And, since you did ask," (and he'd not yet given a proper answer beyond his flirting), "I think I'd rather like to see an example of the sorts of things your people send back and forth instantaneously across the earth with these satellites of yours."

[Yard Sale of DOOM on Saturday, 5K race on Sunday. (I walked, didn't run.) @_@ SO tiring. Still, worth it in the end. WAIT YOU WHAT NOW!? You lucky dog!! That is so awesome! Did you say anything to him!? AHHHHHHHH. I would have geeked out, I admit it. You clearly give the BEST tours. FFXIV is absolutely beautiful, no doubt. This is my character from a few months ago - same everything but the armor. https://images.plurk.com/C5FGr9yKqckokyJ7Fi4qe.jpg I gathered that Aurus was most likely an OC, but this explained it a lot better. And sometimes... you just need to write things to make it work. XD The player character is often the least interesting of all the stories.]

For the briefest of moments, Charles allowed himself to extend his mind to Aurus', brushing across it as he read the 'flavour' of the other's words. It involved the children, and after a moment of combat, it was almost an unconscious test. His ultimate goal was the protection and growth of the children here, and he had to be certain they would safe from whatever this spectacle was that Aurus was planning. When he found no feeling of threat, it wasn't a complete relief - without touching the other's mind deeper, he knew that the real truth could be hidden - but Aurus had yet to show any signs of deceit.

So he smiled in response and nodded. "We can put out the word for students to gather together after classes have finished for the day. Am I safe to assume this will need to be somewhere out of doors, then?" Spoken with a briefly raised questioning eyebrow before he gestured. "We have a few places where everyone could gather safely if this demonstration is... expansive." Aka: Dangerous.

"I suppose I see magic in the way that have been written in our books. I don't know... flashy? Lights." He gestured with one hand in a 'magicy' way. "To see it seem so similar to our powers is quite the surprise, and I wonder about the implications of it. However, your appearance in this world was more like I might have imagined. As for the return of showings... I would be happy to. I think you will find television as incredible as I found this." Pointing towards the flowers.

[Congratulations on the 5k!! Whether walking or running that's still fab! And I hope that the yard sale went better this go round than the previous attempt! Re: Patrick Stewart, I didn't say a word to him because he was clearly trying to look inconspicuous--he was wearing a blue baseball cap and a big checkered flannel shirt and kind of keeping his head down...and he was also clearly about to get swarmed by a group of fans waiting at the stage door. Also, I was trying to be at least vaguely professional about the whole thing. But would you believe that my students didn't even know who he was?!! We went round a corner and I showed them a poster for the play to point him out on it. Your FFXIV character is lovely! Do you RP from the game at all? (I could tl;dr about our gaggle of GW2 losers forever, negl, but I shall spare you ~~at least for now~~.)]

"Actually, it could take place anywhere at all," Aurus said of the demonstration he was planning which, when Charles reached out to brush his mind, had one clear enough association in his thoughts--Ventari. "Though I imagine that outdoors will be most convenient."

He glanced at Charles and then added, as though he could guess that there might be a lingering caution, "It's nothing you need worry about. Actually, it's all completely intangible, while being quite spectacular to see at the same time. Really, I don't think you need trouble about organizing them or anything so formal. I suspect that, should you leave me outside for a time, their curiosity will draw them over for a look.

"I'm happy to speak with them. I'll tell them whatever they'd like to know of my world if they're feeling bold enough to ask." Though he wasn't really a teacher per se, Aurus did have a tacit notion of personal pedagogy: straightforward questions deserved to be answered. The answers might just be slightly iceberg-like--evidently clear and distinct on the surface, but with a huge breadth of meaning that would only be appreciated by those who paused long enough to consider everything that lay beneath.

"As for the flashiness of magic, I suppose that perhaps the sort used by mesmers in my world might comport better with what you would picture. Lots of purple butterflies."

What in the world 'television' was or what sort of spectacle that might be, Aurus could only imagine and wait to discover, and the curious cocking of his head made it clear that he was eager to get to see it.

[Thanks! the yard sale went GREAT! Made almost $200 and got rid of SO much stuff. My basement looks faboo now. I AM SEVERELY DISAPPOINTED IN YOUR STUDENTS. Who doesn't know who Patrick Stewart is?!?! That makes me hurt inside somehow. I would LOVE to RP from FFXIV, I just haven't actually done it yet. Trying to pick just the right person... I think I have an idea on who I would like to try, though. (And nothing wrong with that. :3)]

Interesting. What did Ventari have to do with this? Charles brught up a hand, rubbing his chin as he thought about it, before chuckling. "I hope you don't learn to regret those words, but that could work out well. If you're out in the common grounds without Hank or I around, the children are absolutely bound to approach you. The majority of them can be quite forward... they've learned here you can ask questions about powers and differences without being afraid, as long as you're polite. We try to stress that as much as possible, even if they are still children... it can slip."

Charles raised a brow slowly at Aurus at the 'purple butterflies' comment because really, purple butterflies? of all things?! He laughed a little at that before he started to turn, heading them back towards the entrance into the house. "Dare I even ask why butterflies, of all things? That.. might have been one of the last things I was expecting you to say." They could pop into one of the sitting rooms; it would most likely be empty at this point in the day, given that students most likely were in classes.

[Ahh that is great success on the yard sale! We must be a little forgiving of my students since they are almost all east Asian year abroad students. ~~They didn't know who Robin Hood was either.~~ Nonetheless I flailed at them a bit because ?!?!?! WHAT DO YOU MEAN I NEED TO EXPLAIN SIR PATRICK STEWART?!?! Anywho. Are you thinking you'll RP one of the NPCs or a character of your own? I don't know how crossing over between these two MMOs would be, but if it seems like a good match up and you ever want to try something out with one of my GW2 characters just say the word!]

"I trust that you will come and rescue me should I get in over my head," Aurus laughed about the potential swarm of student interest he might draw. He wasn't actually worried though: he was quite capable of drawing boundaries and of asserting himself with a firm look when he needed to. Besides, he was certain that no group of students accustomed to being taught by Charles and Hank could be that rude, even at their worst.

As for the butterflies, "Honestly I'm not sure. I think perhaps it could be any symmetrical shape, if someone bothered to try and shift it. Mesmers are best known for making illusionary clones of themselves, you see. The clones often aren't all that durable though. They tend to shatter apart into tiny pieces, and the pieces most often look like butterflies when they dissipate. I suppose the whole effect could just be a trick of the eyes--a suggestion of wings or some such. But it is definitely purple."

Aurus followed Charles back inside and into the sitting room where he led them, feeling pleased with how the mood had lightened once more and relaxed. It had been such a long time since he'd had company that was alive and physically present and charmingly engaging to talk to. The companionship of echoes left by legendary heroes, though he valued it, was never like being around a living person, and Aurus almost hadn't noticed how he'd grown to miss this kind of social intercourse before now. It was illuminating. And it made him wonder whether it was now time to do something other in life than continue his wanderings.

[They are only minor-forgiven. It is a crime to not know the lovely Sir Patrick Stewart. XD I might give it a shot, RP wise, for one of the NPCs. I actually don't find the player characters very interesting. We're somehow very ridiculously powerful but yet we just seem to stand by and do nothing. Also trying to remember how television was broadcasted 30 years ago, not so easy!]

"Will the great warrior possibly need rescuing from the hoard of children?" Charles teased gently, chuckling himself. It was obvious Aurus could handle himself just fine, and he knew the children would behave themselves despite their curiosity. Most likely, though, Aurus might find himself overwhelmed by their matching desire to show off their own abilities to him, given how much they showed off to each other when they had the chance and 'outside' company could be very rare.

"There's just something very amusing about the idea of something breaking apart into little purple butterflies, though I'm not sure why. Just unexpected, I suppose, but then again I'm not quite sure what I would have imagined it being instead. Sparks, maybe?" He was pleased to find that the sitting room was indeed empty as he hoped, and he gestured for Aurus to shut the door behind he wheeled over to the telly. Aurus was right and their conversation from before still lingered at the back of his mind, something he would need to tackle, but for the moment he had it pushed back there on purpose.

"This," said with a pat to the large box, "is a television. Like the photograph you saw in my office, it is made up of millions of photographs in sequential order to make a moving photograph captured on film. The film is broadcasted by..." He thought how to explain something so complicated in a few sentences. "It breaks up each photograph, not physically, and sends it to one of those large white dishes, where it is sent to homes through wiring infrastructure. We receive it here." Another quick pat, watching Aurus to make sure the other had some idea before he reached down and flipped it on.

[I told some of my colleagues at work about my Sir Patrick encounter and found out that they had seen him in the West End once too, at a restaurant where he was sitting at the next table! They said he was there doing this performance of "an ordinary person" clearly trying not to be noticed and I realized that's the perfect description for what he was doing when I saw him too. He was performing a working class British man on his way to/from a job. It was like his "cover." (They also told me that at their joint performance of Waiting for Godot a few years back, Sir Ian had stepped outside during the interval with a cup of tea...and someone walked by and took him for an actual homeless man begging and dropped a coin in his tea cup! /dies) Also, 1980s era TV--ahh, those were the days...when the cable box had two rows of buttons and luxury was having 36 channels.]

"I won't deny the possibility," Aurus joked back, also knowing that he'd be fine with the children but wanting to encourage the idea that Charles ought to turn up to "rescue" (really just to join) him.

As to mesmer magic, he would have liked to show Charles some, but these were not skills that he personally had. Perhaps, he thought, within the Dream they might chance to see someone working them. Of course he didn't want to promise, but as he pulled the door closed and the conversation turned towards the topic of television, mesmers and their ways temporarily fell by the wayside anyway.

Head cocked at an angle as he approached the box that Charles was indicating, Aurus tried to parse the explanation as best he could. Honestly though, he was quite out of his depths. This "broadcasting," he thought, sounded vaguely like projecting--the sort of thing one saw with holograms where an asura (it was almost invariably an asura) had recorded themselves into some kind of a device for later play-back (usually to warn that lab security measures had been triggered and the self-destruct sequence activated). At the same time, though, it sounded like something completely different, and Aurus might have said so had Charles not turned on the television just then.

Whatever the sylvari had been expecting, it wasn't at all what he saw. It wasn't a box that held a perfect miniaturized world, with multiple people moving and speaking, both them and their surroundings in full detail and accurate color. If Charles had been wanting to surprise him, then he had certainly succeeded: for a long moment Aurus was actually speechless, staring open-mouthed at the box and its moving pictures. He couldn't even decide what question he wanted to ask.

In part, he realized, it was because he couldn't understand how anyone (or anything) could draw fast enough and with such minute precision that they could produce millions of images to be shown in sequential order in the first place. Especially considering that the pictures the television showed didn't seem to quickly loop back on themselves and repeat the same sequence over again.

As he'd watched, he'd moved closer so that he was now standing just beside Charles, leaning down to see the television more clearly (and then discovering that actually that didn't help at all and pulling back again).

Finally, after thoroughly exhausting his ability to sort the whole question out for himself, he looked back at Charles, jaw still hanging open and managed: "Perhaps it would help if I understood photography a bit better--am I to believe that someone somewhere has drawn all of this, like a flip book?"

[That's actually both sad and adorable. I imagine they just want to be unnoticed sometimes when your life is constantly being filmed/photographed, but you also don't want to disappoint fans... I can't even imagine having to deal with it. Also that tea-cup bit made me giggle. That's sort of even more adorable somehow. I also remember being my family's remote when I was very, very young!]

Getting to actually surprise Aurus to that level was almost childishly gleeful for Charles. He had a grin wide on his face, sitting back and just enjoying getting to watch the range of emotions that crossed the sylvari's face knowing full and well that had been his expression at least once since Aurus' arrival, more than likely multiple times. So he let the other try to figure it out for himself, first, and waited for the inevitable question before he puzzled out on how to explain.

So, carefully, he explained what he could of photography. Chemicals and light affecting the chemically treated film, creating a negative, the creation of the positive, and that television was the same thing simply much faster, recording things that could be broken up and sent as transmissions instead of physically. Very complicated stuff, no doubt, but while they had the time, he would go slow and answer questions as he had the knowledge of it. He was a bright man but certainly didn't know everything about photography and broadcasting, after all.

"In the end, it all has to do with light and electricity, which perhaps is about as foreign to you as your magic is to me."

[My inner Brit weeps about the loss of a good cup of tea. I've clearly lived in this country too long lol. I can only imagine the frustration of being constantly recognized and approached though. This is one reason why I don't do the whole flailing fan thing.]

Aurus listened carefully, closely, pulling up a chair at some point so that he could sit beside Charles and give him his full attention. He watched the man's face while he talked, letting the television and all other distractions filter out into the background. Elbow resting on the arm of his chair, he leaned towards Charles as he spoke, letting the whole of context of the world shrink down to encapsulate just the two of them. It let Charles watch the play of expressions clearly on his face, of course, but it let him watch too and appreciate the enjoyment he saw in his companion's eyes.

"I couldn't explain what has been done with electricity in my world, nor the mechanisms by which golems operate though there's certainly some sort of energy that powers them. I know, though, that no one has ever used it to create a device like this. They've never used magic to make something like it either.

"What amazes me is not that it works--these chemicals and film and the processes you describe, nor even that photographs could be made to 'move' and 'talk' this way. What truly amazes me is that no one in my world ever thought to do it. I wonder if perhaps we never saw the need or if there's some more profound difference that I don't understand yet.

"The pictures that the television shows--they're of things that are really happening somewhere else in your world? They let people know about events from far away? Or is it only events that have taken place in the past and been photographed--filmed--sometime before?"

[YOU HAVE ADAPTED. YOU WILL NEVER BE FREE AGAIN! It is in your BLOOD. Your very soul! ...or something like that. XD]

"That... is what I find most fascinating about humanity. That constant striving to survive, that constant need to keep learning and inventing, the ability to outdo ourselves with greater and greater attempts at becoming master of a cosmos in which we are not only such a small part of but very much at the tail end of strength against other than our minds. It's taken us off of our planet and onto the moon and people wish to go beyond, yet we have yet to safely explore the whole of our oceans or the depths of our jungles." He smiled almost whimsically at those last thoughts, then faintly shook his head to clear it.

"As far as where they are happening... I would hope to believe you have some form of theater? Traveling shows? Television contains a mix of things happening around the world, even right now they could be happening and shown mere moments later at this set... as well as things filmed previously. Shows can be created much like a theater performance and recorded to be shown at a later time, whenever it would like to be viewed."

He was not blind to how close Aurus had placed himself, yet perhaps there was a tiny part of him that despite his earlier words, the verbal pushing away he had immediately done, still thrived on the old favorite game of flirting and charming.

[Englishness starts in small ways, see. First the tea. Then, before you know it, you're telling people things like "it's not the winning or the showing up; it's the crushing sense of despair" and talking about the weather with everyone you meet. XD]

"We do have plays, yes, and street performers, musicians, circuses, menageries. And the norn have their skaalds--storytellers and bards who sing the legends of their people. There is even an asura who has invented his own entertainment 'box.' It's completely unlike your television though. It transports a person into a game inside of it--a sort of physical puzzle and adventure track that they have to try and beat. But all of these are things to which one must go. None are broadcast to lands afar."

Aurus thought about what Charles had said of inventing and mastery, and how different the great works of humanity seemed in this world and in his own. By comparison, the humanity he knew seemed much more modest, its horizons less ambitious. But he was easily willing to pick up on Charles' momentary whimsy and laugh a little at these differences. "I can tell you with confidence that no one from my world has ever been to our moon! I suppose you're going to say that someone figured they'd just pop by for a visit there since they were up in the neighborhood anyway putting your satellites into the sky."

He joked like he thought Charles was teasing him still, but he didn't really think that now. He could believe all of these things were indeed true and possible for this world. Extending the posture of the faux teasing, however, was too good a flirtation tactic to simply let go.

For a moment, Aurus let that flirtation blossom in a pause of quiet, his gaze focused on Charles letting a heat build that echoed the earlier moments when he'd begun to let his interest in the man become visible in his eyes. But he didn't push it too far, didn't try to press them into territory that edged from playful to serious, and instead presently indicated the television again: "So tell me about this show then. And about all these--" he was pointing at the vehicles on screen though he obviously didn't know quite what to call them. "They seem to be very popular."

[You are infected. /snicker (to be fair, pennsylvanians do the weather thing constantly too as ours goes up and down and up and down way too much.)]

"Someone dreamed about going to the moon, that we could reach it, and thus, it became a goal, and one day, a reality. That's how we've managed things like television and radio and computers, I suppose." He looked around the room briefly, the corner of his mouth lifting. "Same with this school." One day, he had realized what he wanted... and it became reality, even if that reality had nearly broken apart completely in the face of life.

It would be Charles that broke that gaze first, fingers briefly clenching on the arm of his chair before he tried to relax it again. A part of him spasmed, clenched up, tore apart as Aurus' little notions reminded him of a past where pain still lingered in an open wound. Moira... he could have seen things going much further with her. A beautiful woman with a quick wit, a strong mind, and someone he believed understood him... but someone he could no longer stand to hurt as he had with his choices. Still, it was growing slowly and slowly less and less painful the more Aurus pushed against it.

The change of topic was welcomed, and quietly, he started to answer those requests. Cars and trucks and a little beyond that. A bit of the world, countries, where they were in relation to it all. He didn't go into too many details, but he hoped... enough. However, he would turn it on Aurus, asking about how they would travel. Could they fly? Horses? Did everyone use these teleportation methods Aurus had talked about earlier.

[Brits don't have nearly the talking-about-the-weather monopoly that they like to think they do lol. We're going down to spend the rest of this week in my partner's hometown in Devon. (Predictable weather remarks about English seaside towns in late October go here.) We should have internet at our holiday flat though, so I expect I'll still be tagging as usual. Also, waypoints = one of the biggest sources of argument for GW2 RPers--no one can agree how best to deal with them, but neither can they ignore them because they factor directly into the story of the game.]

"It's a lucky person who can draw a clear line between having a dream and seeing the reality come to pass," Aurus smiled. "There are many who lack the means, whatever their dreams may be, and I suspect that must be true in your world as well as mine." He was thinking here of Hakkyuu who grew up alone and on the streets, and of the best friend he'd been told the boy left behind in Ebonhawke when the city cast him out in fear; and he was thinking, by contrast, of Trahearne, one of the Firstborn whose Wyld Hunt had called him to cleanse the corruption from the land of Orr, a task which for decades seemed purely impossible.

He did not dwell on this point though, nor did he dwell on the momentary whiteness in Charles' knuckles. The way Aurus saw it, all the flirtation was all a bit like stretching a limb: you had to back off before it reached the point of strain, but if you backed off too far, it would never get more limber.

Besides, it was perfectly clear that if Charles would just let go of his resistance, he would actually be quite good at the game of it. The kind of good a person only got from having had a lot of practice. That rather made Aurus wonder what Charles had been like in the past, before his injury. (Of course it still wasn't really occurring to him to wonder much whether gender was any factor in the whole equation--given their species difference, the fact that they were the same sex seemed to him possibly the most minor point of consideration.)

For the moment, though, they could talk about modes of transportation. Aurus could even manage to flirt while talking about modes of transportation if he set his mind to it, since flirting was as much about delivery as about topic. He told Charles that horses, while not unknown, had not been seen in Tyria for many centuries, though no one could say why. They had oxen and dolyaks--massive, shaggy bests of burden--and most local transportation was simply by foot or in wagons.

They did have means of flying though: airships, primarily. The Pact had a whole fleet of them, and they were huge and mighty...but not terribly fast. "And, though I have teased you about people living up in your sky, we do have some who live in ours: the Zephyrites, stewards of the heritage of Glint, have a whole culture based on their own airship fleet which rarely lands at all."

As for the asura gates, some people found them prohibitively expensive, especially for moving goods or cargo, and waypoints were even more specialist: they could never take you anywhere you hadn't already been and were almost exclusively used by adventurous sorts and explorers.

"We do have vehicles that are more like your cars and trucks though. They are made by charr, of whom I've told you little so far. They are the greatest engineers of our world, but the machines they build are machines of war--tanks, helicopters, armored charrcars. They've been at war with humans for centuries, and its only within the past few years that a truce has finally been struck. They're a massive, horned feline race--like a cross between a war-cat and a minotaur. So perhaps you can imagine how unlikely they'd be to produce vehicles so brightly colored or shiny," a nod towards the TV here and the cars on the screen. "Or, I think, with so much glass."

[Eh, don't worry about it! FFXIV has all sorts of crazy that would be really difficult to explain IC sometimes - even when there IS an IC explanation! Also yesterday was... insanity. Something was wrong with the heater, so I had to call a guy out... turned out two of our radiators were freaking out and the boiler was dry. @_@ The piece that tells the water regulator to give the boiler more water is dead. So they got it working but now they have to come repair this damn piece. Blarg.]

Species seemed the less odd thing in the face of simply being. It was not easy for Charles to admit to himself what he had felt for Erik, in particular given the climate of this world as it currently stood in this day and age, and he would not have to anyone else. Not Aurus, not Hank, not Erik himself. That had been... too personal. Yet in this case, even gender seemed a far removed step in the face of species, and those both paled in the shadow of Charles' issues. Yet step by step, Aurus was slowly working his way into those places Charles had closed off to prevent further hurt, coaxing the professor out of that shadow even as Charles pulled himself back in.

"We have airplanes - not quite like your airships, but similar in certain principles - but no one would wish to live in them as a culture. Sadly, we have those machines of war as well. I'm glad to hear some form of peace is starting to occur with these charr, even if it is a very slow to spread peace. If someone other than the charr learn to produce these vehicles, I imagine that they would begin to make vehicles that look so very different as well. For ours, the glass is required to allow the driver to be able to safely see all around him, but if you see military vehicles, they're quite different. Much less glass, if any." Images from shots of war on the telly came to mind, things he had never seen in person but knew in that general sense.

"And what about you, Aurus? You've seen so much, traveled through these Mists... what is the greatest thing you've seen so far?" A vague little gesture. "In anything. Technology, culture, magic... what would you call the greatest?" He couldn't help but be curious, wanting to hear more about Aurus' travels. Who wouldn't want to hear about the things the traveler of another world had seen?

[Oh no! That sounds terrible! I hope it's not going to be too expensive to fix at least. And you're not without heat/hot water while waiting for the repairs? That's the absolute worst.]

It was almost certainly a good thing that Aurus did not know Erik and likely never would. Given how sexually liberal he was, he might well have read the tension and wounded intimacy between the two men straight away. He'd have had no reason to presume their relationship was nonsexual, after all. Besides, while he was in many ways fairly atypical of his race, he did have some notorious sylvari tendencies--a potentially discomforting directness when it came to emotional matters, for example. He had a good deal more tact than most sylvari, so he at least could be counted on to bide his time and speak at a well-chosen moment, but ten-to-one odds, he would have said something to Charles about it all.

No, it was clearly better for all concerned that Erik was currently very far removed from the picture, fascinated though Aurus would have been to know about the history of Charles' past loves in general.

With a small self-deprecating laugh at Charles' questions, the sylvari gave a little shake of his head. "Oh, I am a bad person to ask. I tend to have a rather unconventional assessment of these sorts of things, or so I am given to understand." But he considered for a moment, and then he did answer:

"I think the greatest things--the most awe inspiring--may also be the most terrible. Years ago, I saw Glint's body in the Crystal Desert, shortly after she died. It was the day that Kralkatorrik awoke. I saw its flight in the distance, its gold breath blackening the land, and the Branded emerging in its wake. I realized later that I must have seen its path as it flew away from her body where it killed her. It was twenty times her size, but even still, the experience of seeing it--that couldn't compare to seeing her there on the sand."

Aurus looked into Charles' eyes meaningfully as he told this story, trying to convey the full impact of it, which was difficult to capture merely in words. "I know that later the Zephyrites came to tend to her remains, but when I saw her they'd yet to arrive. I walked up to her body, and I placed my hand on her skin." He splayed his fingers here, as though he was remembering the feeling of it, what it had been like to touch.

"Even in death there was a power that thrummed through her, something...uncanny that I wanted to understand. That is what led me to come to the Mists--a wish to try and find some trace of her, to learn what she might teach me.

"As it turned out, that was the day that I met Hakkyuu too," this also made him shake his head a bit. "He was half mad, and had I found him any later he would have been half dead as well. I suppose you could say it was a busy day in the Crystal Desert, especially for ancient forces no longer content to be mere relics of the past.

"At any rate, I'd say the sights of that day were among the greatest I've seen...provided we're excluding the rather marvelous range of tasting sounds and hearing colors I've experienced with all the hallucinogens I've tried over the years. Some of those has been particularly extraordinary." He might have been joking about this final comparison, especially given the coy smile he gave Charles as he said it.

[Hoping it won't be too bad. The part itself is like $200-ish. Thankfully, the hot water heater is a separate system! So I do have hot water. We're just having to watch the heater really carefully. It's working, but there's a regulator that like... asks the water system for more water to make sure the boiler has enough water at all times, and that's what's broken. The system's filled right now, but we have to watch to make sure it doesn't go below the minimum which could break things. Basically: not letting the heat turn on until things are fixed.]

Charles had a very keen feeling that Aurus would not have taken well to Erik, or perhaps that was the other way around. Possibly even more stubborn, colder, harder Erik who only had warmth if you knew where to look.

Aurus' description left Charles closing his eyes briefly as he tried to imagine the words into the visual in his mind. The endless spread of a desert, the magnificence of a dragon, the sheer scale of her, and the heartbreak that came with finding something majestic broken. A smashed crystal vase, the ruins of a once beautiful home, and here... scales that had rippled gone still, the sun beating down making them reflect but without the brightness of life.

He felt the weight of Aurus' gaze on him, making his eyes open again and finding them piercing, almost willing him to understand, but it continued in his mindscape. Scales warmed by the sun but not within. His mind imagined the feeling of magic as that faint vibration that remained after turning off a telly and running his hand over the screen, but more powerful. Death... it was often a life changer, and at an impressionable time in Aurus' life, he wasn't surprised to think finding such a thing changed Aurus' life forever. Finding the boy who would become his student as well, two back to back influences? A day truly to be remembered.

"I prefer not to remember those sorts of experiences from University," Charles said so dryly it was hard to tell that he was joking except for the faint crease of lines around his eyes that spoke of amusement. "But..." His expression softened, a touch of awe coming instead. "I couldn't imagine having found her. ...I can picture it, but the immensity of it..." He let his voice trail on purpose, his mind going to the memory of putting on Cerebro for the first time. That terrible feeling of power that was intoxicating as it was horrifying. Maybe he could imagine it, to some degree.

[I hope that it's not too terribly cold there yet (though end of October, I know it probably is, especially if you're up in the mountains at all)...or at least that you have some space heaters to tide you over for a few days. It's good that you still have the hot water but being without heat is totally rotten.]

"Here," Aurus said, realizing that Charles was trying to imagine what he described and that imagination alone could never really do it justice.

Reaching for the man's hand, he drew it forward towards himself, encouraging Charles to rest his fingers--his whole palm if he was willing--on Aurus's chest, fingertips just by the base of his throat. He could, of course, have brought Charles' hand to his temple, encouraging him to read his thoughts that way, but it simply didn't occur to him. This memory was something he felt deep in his pith more than in his mind.

He focused on it, his own hand still resting lightly on Charles', and let it fill him the way it had that day: this suffusing sense of energy, like every molecule within him was on the cusp of some tremendous motion.

It wasn't the sort of power on which madmen sought to glut themselves--it was too amorphous. The feeling was more like light refracting, reflecting, focusing; like becoming refracted light, so that the whole of one's body was ready to shoot towards some tremendous velocity, dart impossibly across the landscape and glimpse the world from impossible angles, unreal vantage points. In its way, it was intensely disorienting--or perhaps it was reorienting. (For Aurus, at least, the former tended to present the latter, which was one of the reasons that he'd never met a psychotropic substance that he'd said no to.)

Even in death, Glint had seemed to embody the force of some total and incomprehensible motion, and that was what Aurus had felt that day, what he hoped Charles would be able to read from his memories of the experience, provided, of course, that he was willing to do so.

[Oh no no no, we have heat, we just have to be careful to watch it and leave it off otherwise. It's chilly here but that's what electric blankets are for. XD I'm not in the mountains - just outside of Philadelphia to the west. My family however says they've had frost up in the mountains already!]

The sudden pull of his hand was a bit of an surprise that showed on his face, as people generally did not invite him to enter their minds in such a physical manner, or ever, really. However, after a moment, he let his eyes drift shut again and he concentrated. He had learned early on that different touches provided different information with a touch to the temple being the greatest connection he could manage - himself or another.

But he felt outward, breathing slowing until they breathed as one. When he caught the edges of that forward most thought in Aurus' mind, he almost didn't understand it at first but quickly realize he had to not analyze it but simply feel it. Another breath and he cleared his mind, delving into the sensation. Physical things - pain, touch, scents - could never be fully replicated in the mind. They could be thought of, things around them remembered, but never the full feeling of that memory. So he 'listened' to the thoughts around Aurus' memory as much as the memory itself, letting out a breath at the incredible nature of it.

His imagination hadn't been exactly wrong, but it was far removed from the strength of that feeling and the precise angle it took. "Unbelievable," he whispered into the air between them.

[Ahh I am glad to hear all of this (except for the bit about frost; I don't even want to think about frost starting to be a thing anywhere). It's still quite mild here for the moment, but we changed the clocks today and I already mourn the loss of daylight. orz ]

It would have pleased Aurus tremendously to know that he was doing something that was so rarely offered, but even without knowing for sure, he already suspected--there was the expression of surprise that crossed Charles' features, but more than that there was something about the man's general reservedness that seemed to suggest it.

Regardless, it mattered to Aurus very much that he could extend the offer of intimacy in this way, and that intimacy could exist between them on a level beyond the sexual. This was what he hadn't quite managed to convey to Charles in words: all his flirtation had never just been about sex, though of course it included that. He wanted the moment of touch between the two of them to be something that conveyed more than merely the contact of their skin, and he was not at all disappointed.

It wasn't precisely that he could feel Charles in his mind--that would have been an overstatement. The door, at this point, swung only one way and Aurus could not read Charles the way that Charles read him. (He had ideas on how he might change that: magic akin to what he used to forge his bond with the Legends, chemicals that could alter his mental state.) He did, however, feel the sense of synchronicity. It was not merely their breath that harmonized. That was a first step; it could go so much deeper.

With his own eyes closed and focusing only on the feelings--first of Glint's body and then, on a level beneath that, of his body and Charles' in reciprocity with each other--Aurus encouraged them to continue, to dive deeper, swept along in the dizzying blur of light and motion into a domain of living crystal, a hall filled with light that seemed to bend at impossible angles where sound echoed like a chiming of glass off the ice-like surfaces.

This was Glint's lair, and though Aurus had never been here in any straightforward physical sense, he had "been" here through Glint, and through her he hoped that he might manage to bring Charles here too. It was an experiment--an attempt to see what might be possible purely from the connection as it existed at this level--but one that he hoped Charles wouldn't shy away from.

[IT HAPPENED. I came out to frost on my windshield this morning! *sob* We'll change our time this upcoming weekend and honestly I'll be happy to wake to sun instead of total darkness, even if I will miss my longer days. Also sorry on the slow! Anniversary dinner was last night + handing out candy.... won my job's Halloween costume contest, though! Rawr I love being a werewolf. XD]

Charles could understand easily why it happened so rarely. The mind, for any mind of sentience, was that sacred place where no one could intrude, where thoughts of any ilk could be voiced within and without judgment, where the memories and the very person stood. To have someone enter that space violated something deeply fundamental in most people and thus his power was not welcomed. That was how his morals had been created, learning through experience and circumstance. Unintentionally outing Hank had taught him a powerful lesson. Accidentally hinting something was different about children when he was trying to find his first students. The loss of his students. Making some people very angry or feeling threatened by him.

(He would not take so well to the idea of Aurus coming into his mind, ironically enough.)

Perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise that Aurus was so welcoming. After all, he shared his mental space with others already so it might be second nature to open it willingly to those he trusted. He kept his breathing slow and steady, feeling his heart rate slowing as he sunk out of his own body. It wasn't a near-complete disconnect like it was when he used Cerebro or when he went truly deep into another's mind. His brows knitted unconsciously as he felt things begin to change, the feeling not of movement about to happen, like building pressure, but movement within. The change of memories. He would have pulled back physically if Aurus wasn't still holding his wrist, so it took a moment or two to realize that Aurus was trying to show him something else. Something that was more than the feeling at the surface.

He let himself go further on that assumption of consent, but only just enough to see what had been opened to him. It was strange, because at first, he didn't understand what he was seeing. A sudden light in the darkness of seconds before. A brilliant light, faintly blue, the sound like glass... an ice cave? He asked, without even opening his mouth, what is this? His sense of curiosity and wonder came through, wanting to know.

[Here too, actually. First frost on the car, but I am home sick. Had to cancel my class and feel terribly guilty about it, but I have no voice and can barely croak like a frog. I was going to ask how your Halloween was. The UK barely celebrates it at all. We can only console ourselves with GW2 Halloween-themed events. Also, happy anniversary!]

It wasn't just because of the Legends that Aurus was so willing to invite Charles into his mind. Perhaps ironically, it was because of all the years he'd spent alone.

When one becomes a hermit, they must necessarily come to terms first and foremost with themselves, since they are the one person they cannot leave behind, whose company they will always keep. Aurus had meditated and reflected and examined every corner of himself in those years. He had come to know himself from the inside out, and there was nothing inside of him that he'd not already sorted through, addressed, and put into some sort of order. He trusted Charles inside his mind because he trusted that he knew what was in there. It was like inviting someone into a well-kept house.

Put another way, Aurus was just so fundamentally shameless that he had no fear of what Charles might see inside him. He knew that there were plenty of things there that some people would find shameful, but he simply accepted them.

Glint's lair, Aurus answered, replying to the question with equal silence. He smiled, and the impression of his happiness might well have been conveyed as well--happiness at the success of the little experiment, the fact that he and Charles could, for the moment, speak without giving voice to their words; the fact that they could manage to come to this spot together.

I've never been here. And yet I've been here often. This is where she sent me when I studied with her--always like this, meditating on it until its contours became sensate. Her power still dwells in this place, even long after her body has left. That's part of what I learned in these chambers. It is not all safe, but we are safe here.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

The real answer about purple butterflies: bcuz game design. Ahem.

Lawl

I don't have an icon that looks nearly gobsmacked enough for this tag.

/just laughing

They're adorable. I have no words.

Re: They're adorable. I have no words.

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject