RP:It is Done

From HollowWiki

Into the Woods

Satoshi dozes, coiled up beside a tree and half-concealed by a blanket of frost. Draped across her shoulders lounges Aeron, although the ermine is far from asleep, eyes bright and alert to his surroundings. After leaving Kirien, Satoshi had every intention of seeking out Svilfon, she'd even written him a letter saying as much. Yet, the kit found it difficult to leave the bounds of the wild north. Entering Frostmaw proper had even proven a trial, something in the untamed lands calling to her, insisting she not leave just yet. And so, Satoshi had relented and returned from the way she'd come, only to reach her physical limit and end up here, sleeping beneath a tree with an ermine and the brewing storm serving as guardians.


Svilfon staggers through the trees, looking like a wizard of old; for the windswept snow has built upon his face a beard of ice. It droops down low, hiding a mouth that's set in a determined line. Through the blizzard he trudges on, his robes barely billowing behind him, so clogged with the cold they are. Yet if he feels it himself, there's no sign of it. His mind is focused, and in truth he is thankful. For his body is still a mass of wounds from when he fought the Warlord, and the bite of the cold is a numbing poison he most assuredly needs. He pauses for a moment, drawing in a frosted breath, before he spies upon the ground a curled up ice magus and her most strange companion. With a sigh born of relief, he moves forward before speaking. "Lady icicle?" He was cautious... one cannot be too careful when waking up an ice magus; who knows what surprises she may have in store for those who bother her.


Satoshi, for the most part, is not a swift or violent waker. Svilfon's words reach her from a distance, causing ears to twitch and swivel forward, trailing snow, before eyes flicker open. For a moment she just stares at the wizard. How long was she asleep? He looks so old with that bea- Oh. It's just ice. A laugh escapes the magus then as she sits up and shakes her head, shedding snow and ermine alike, much to Aeron's annoyance. She habitually ignores the ermine's protests however, investing her energy in a bone-deep yawn that emphasizes the weary lines on her face. "Wizard~, did you walk all the way here with those wounds? Hellfire, if you'd asked, I could have sent Buster to find you!" Satoshi's tone is lightly scolding, with a hint of apology in it, for her not having made it nearly as far as Svilfon in her search.


Svilfon waves away her words with a smile that cracks his beard-of-ice, and sends it tumbling like a small storm to the frozen ground below. "They are but flesh wounds!" He attempts to strike a pose, before he staggers forward and places his left hand against a tree. With a slight shake of his head he carries on, "I am fine, truly. But are you?" He spends a moment looking her over, concern evident in the depths of his pale gaze, before he moves forward and kneels down in front of her. "What did you do, lady icicle?.." Like her own tone, his is mixed with a light scolding and a depth of apology. For he is sure her condition is his fault, and there is nothing he wants less than to have caused serious damage to the frozen queen of Frostmaw.


Satoshi waves away the wizard's concern with a hand and a laugh. "Oh, all I did was the usual. Pushing boundaries and testing theories on the fly. I just over-extended myself was all, I'm unharmed otherwise." Shaking herself again to send away a bit more of the clinging snow, Satoshi sits up straighter and draws a still-grumbling Aeron into her lap. As she looks up at the wizard and his frozen injuries, she can't help pulling a grimace before staring pointedly at a snowbank behind him. With only a short whistle, the snow is reformed into a chair for Svilfon. "Sit. Please. Anyway~. I'm fine, truly. In fact, better than fine. I've learned some grand things and managed moreso~!" While you got yourself mauled by a bear, she silently adds with a very readable look.


Svilfon has long since gotten used to the ways of Satoshi. So alike his own they are; chaotic to those who do not understand that life is always best when it's lived. Even if such living means you often dance so close to catastrophe. So he nods and smiles, even as he takes a seat upon the chair she crafted for him. To her words, he doesn't immediately answer. He eyes her up and down, before another, smaller and knowing smile spreads across his lips. "You are... whole again, then? You understand it." The last isn't a question. He can see it in her. "I didn't know for sure, lady queen. Yet I had hoped it was right." Despite it all, he lifts his hand and offers her a tip of his hat. "You.. Frostmaw.. it is all the same, it is all one." With that, he leans back and for just a moment allows his weary body to rest. A mistake, as pain flows through it once more, but he hides the wince behind his next words, "Did you... finish what I asked?" The 'readable' look she flashes is replied to with a grin that says he gave as good as he got. And could she really expect anything else from a wizard?


Satoshi certainly didn't expect anything else from the wizard. She has no doubt at all he gave as good as he got! It's enough to make her smile, the expression unwavering when she nods a moment later and says, "Yes, yes, I understand it now. I am... me. I don't think I could have managed what you asked, if I hadn't realized. But I've done it." As much as Satoshi loves the dramatic, she doesn't waste time drawing out the whole affair. Svilfon's waited long enough and she's far too eager to show him what Kirien and she managed to create. And so from the front of her coat the magus draws out a pair of items, the smaller of the two is the first to be held out to Svilfon: a tiny, delicate-looking key of a shadowy black stone. It should be easy to recognize the distinct colors of the Draconite gem, once a sphere and now a key. "I took every tool I could think of to that gem, and nothing so much as scratched it. I called on Kirien to give it that shape, and the effort it took left a mark of himself in there too, I think. Like a proper dragon, it'll guard your treasure and only answer to your kin. It won't break, not unless the offender can break the soul of Kirien and mountains alike." The second item Satoshi keeps clenched in her hand still, letting Svilfon examine the key first.


Svilfon flashes Satoshi a crooked grin, though the source of his amusement isn't immediately clear. Yet the look fades as she pulls out the key forged by Kirien, imbued with a part of him... Svil can feel it, even now. As she continues to speak to him of what she did, he doesn't seem to react to the words. He simply stares at the key for a long moment, before he reaches out and reverently takes it. For a long time he is still, his eyes shut and the key held tight, before he speaks very quietly. Even still, Satoshi would have no difficulty hearing the words. "Your stone... you gave up your stone for me..? Why?" There is a simplicity in the quesiton, yet is one he must know. "And Kirien..." The wizard's head shakes, the enormity of what he asked once again almost causing him to waver in his resolve. "I can feel his touch... I can..." Only then it seems does realization come to him, and with a start he looks back up at Satoshi. "What lock does it open, lady icicle?"


Satoshi flashes Svilfon a grin, full of fangs yet affectionate in its delivery. "I'm lending you my stone, because I know it will be safe, and will keep safe something dear to you. To me, that's a much better fate for it than gathering dust in a display case." The wizard's second question doesn't get a verbal reply, Satoshi instead holding out her other hand before uncurling her fingers to allow the ribbon concealed within to unfurl off either side of her palm. Its threads can't properly be described with colors alone. They're much more akin to an orchestral piece made solid, or the Season's ensnared in fabric, to subtle are the colors and their arrangement both chaotic and ordered. It is a piece of the Aurora's curtain woven into a ribbon. And capping each end of the ribbon are two halves of a locking clasp, wrought from an ice too pure to be natural--Satoshi's own soulfire, Svilfon will likely have little trouble sensing. This, this is why Satoshi is exhausted to her core. She's taken a piece of herself and forged it into a lock only the gods could truly break. And judging by the prideful way the kit's beaming, she's not the least bit displeased with the results or side effects. It's worth it, to give Svilfon what he asked for, and to test her own boundaries.


Svilfon nods his head at her words. He both accepted and understood them, perhaps better than most would, though he doesn't offer any words of thanks to her. For his breath is stolen by what she shows in her hand. Where the key is forged of a stone immortal, the ribbon is the essence of life itself; a shifting blend of music and colour, silent it rests, yet it speaks to the perceptive wizard in words that are not spoken, in a feeling that is beyond description. For just a moment Svil looks up at the sky, thanking Frostmaw itself it seems, before his gaze once again lowers to the lock itself. He knew what it was, he could feel it as keenly as he feels the tumultuous flames within his own soul. He had seen it before; felt it when his own essence flushed through Satoshi to free her from Bozrah's insidious taint. Yet here it was, solid and still, greater protection than Svil could ever ask for, stronger than any who would seek to break it. And only then does he tear his eyes away from the lock and rest them upon the proudly smiling Satoshi. He has no words for her just yet, he merely stares, before he pulls himself from the chair and reaches out. He would not take it from her, he would wait until she passed it to him. And only then would his voice come, quiet again, yet strong in its own fashion. "I cannot begin to thank you, lady icicle. You give me a gift I am undeserving of, yet it is one I must accept." He nods, then, and flashes a brief and altogether crooked smile. "Clever you are, queen of Frostmaw. Never did I doubt my loyalty was misplaced, and here again I am proven correct. I thank you."


Satoshi slowly lowers the ribbon into Svilfon's waiting hand, not from reluctance to part with it, but because it feels wrong to simply toss it to him like a trinket. It is a piece of herself and Frostmaw, after all, she's never created anything like it, nor does she imagine she ever will again. "You promised me some time ago, atop Emiur's back, that I could trust you. Consider this my way of saying the same. I don't doubt you or anything you do, and never will. Besides," and here Satoshi's tone suddenly changes, from a mixture of proud and solemn, to light and playful, "-someone- had to make sure that book was prettied up~! You can't be counted to do that, so it was my job." Naturally, it's a joke meant in good fun, Satoshi's attempt to lighten the mood.


Svilfon 's face splits into a crooked smile that hides the immensity of what has transpired between them. Though there is much he could say to her, he knows it needs not be said. It never has between magus and wizard, even now with all that's changed between them, that is something which will always remain true. So he responds in kind, his words light hearted, even as he clutches the ribbon and lock tightly in his hand. "First you try to pretty me up, then my robes, then my book! One day, queen of frost and snow, I think you'll give me a complex." He lifts his hand and tips his hat to her with another easy smile filled with gaps and fangs, before he draws in a deep, cold breath. "The last things need to be done, lady queen. I must bound this to my book, as I must with its key..." Svil looks around, then, before his gaze again falls on Satoshi. "I can do this alone, or I can do this with you here. You can decide, lady icicle. I do not know what will happen if you remain, but..." He was going to add she would probably be safe, but she knows too well that being in the company of a wizard, especially one casting mighty magic, is never really all that safe. But the decision was hers to make.


Satoshi's response to Svilfon's complex comment is a sighing, "One can only -hope-." His other comment gets a pointed look from both the kit and her ermine companion, until Satoshi's takes on a more incredulous nature. "Saying it like that just makes me want to stay even -more-, wizard, you should know that~." As if she'd run off at the promise of potential danger and magical mishaps. Just who does he think she is?! Aeron can only shake his tiny head, being the more reasonable voice of Satoshi, and one that she never seems to hear.


Svilfon snickers, clearly far from offended at the snow queen's remark. "I'm the balance, lady queen. You are the pretty, I am the... wizardly." He nods, thinking that a rather adequate explanation, before his smile fades slowly away. For a moment he looks at Aeron, as if saying, "I know!", before he nods again. His voice shifts then as he speaks a series of strange words, causing a thin tendril of black smoke to appear before him. It is not at all bothered by the wind, and as it grows, it begins to take the shape of a midnight-black cat. When it is fully formed, the creature looks up at Svilfon with eyes deep with intelligence, before it softly meows. Svil nods at this, understanding, before he leans forward and speaks. "Go, L'or... bring it back to me." The creature is motionless for a while, before the wind begins at last to tug upon it, evaporating the cat into nothing more than ebon smoke which is soon gone... For a long moment it remains so, before on the snow in front of the wizard and magus, a shimmering is apparent. No snow will fall upon the patch, and even the wind seems to halt there, until slowly a book solidifies, with a cat curled upon its cover, seemingly asleep. Svil smiles a strange smile as he sees it, before he bends down and picks up his spell-book. As he does, the cat once again fades, as if it were never there. The book's cover is dominated by a gold-etched picture of a wizard's hat, Svil's symbol. On two of the corners are his magical mark, yet the other two have different images on them. One is a jagged piece of earth, thrusting up into the sky. The other is a billowing storm cloud, which occasionally flashes with built up lightning. Holding it close to his chest, Svil speaks to Satoshi. "As were the first two, these must also be bound... Just... if something goes wrong, will you promise not to let what remains fall into the wrong hands?" And almost inane question, but one the wizard must first know.


Satoshi watches the appearance and departure of the smoke-born cat without saying a word. She's not quite certain what the creature is, although unusual animals tend to go hand and hand with the arcane, so its presence is far from surprising--although its qualities are intriguing to no end. When the book is manifested, Satoshi sits up straighter, as does Aeron. They both can feel the magicks encased within it, and not just any magic either, the sparks and fragments of their Coterie kin are present. It's enough to put Satoshi's whiskers on end, the rigid silvery threads hardly moving as the kit nods in response to Svilfon's question. No words are needed, as always. Should something go wrong, that book would be as fiercely guarded as the lyre that always rests close to Satoshi's heart. There's no doubt of that, as is obvious in the blazing amber flecks of the Magus' eyes. "Go on, Svilfon."


Svilfon nods and smiles just briefly, before his gaze falls far away. He spends just a moment preparing, before, with a rather wizardly lack of caution, he begins to fill his body with the essence of his magic. He draws it like a man dying of thirst drinks cool water; more than ever before, pushing, much like Satoshi did, the very boundaries of his existence. The air around him grows still, wind no longer blowing through the small clearing in the trees, yet even still he brings more and more power into his wounded body. Eyes shut against the onslought of magic, and in a strange, almost strangled voice he begins to chant. The words are lost to time itself; almost fleeting in their existence in this world, yet carrying a strength that would resonate with Satoshi's own... with Kirien's own... with the might of Dami and the raw power of Kasyr. They are all of them together, and with them Svil binds to his book the lock and its key.. For Satoshi, just fleetingly would she see the world as Svil does, as his own soul is laid bare before her. The shifting noise of everything, of everyone; a sound that is quiet, yet whispers with perfect harmony. Only occasionally clashing against itself, and that is when the wizard must go. To set it all right again, to make harmony within the disharmony of life; like a conductor to an orchestra, ensuring no muscian becomes wayward. There is no discernment between good and evil, between living and undead. None of it matters to him. As long as it is... right. As long as it doesn't harm his family, that is the price he must pay... It lasts just a moment, before there is a strange noise, a shriek that fades, a cry which is never there, and with a final gesture Svilfon unleashes his magic into the book. A brightness comes, blinding in its intensity, causing snow to melt all around him even as a few trees wither and die. But within it Svil pushes, filling the book, binding it together, making it complete... and only when a dull thud sounds the light begins to fade. Svil has dropped down to his knees, his head bowed forward, unmoving. And of the book, it rests before him. One of the images that was his magical mark is now a proud mountain, immortal against the passing of the years. The other, a perfect snowflake which shifts patterns occasionally, yet remains as ever flawless. The ribbon is wrapped around the book, and unmistakingly makes it beautiful. The lock is sealed, keeping it together. And the key rests within the wizard's grasp, the only thing which can undo it, open it, and let free the magicks hidden in the pages. It is done.


Satoshi, although instinct (and Aeron) tell her to ward herself, does not make a move toward self-defense. Throughout it all she sits still and silent, an observer on the most intimate of levels, given a full view of the wizard's bared soul and the magic that makes him so. Despite lacking anything resembling modesty, Satoshi still feels a twinge of unease. It is no light matter to see the threads that make a person what they are. These are images only the gods should have been allowed to see when they first formed the man before her. These are not images meant for mortal eyes. And yet, she cannot look away despite the desire to do so. Svilfon did not shy when he'd had to burn and purge her own soul of Bozrah's taint, and so she would not shy now. Thus, when the book is completed and Svilfon drops to his knees, he'll find the eidolon exactly as he'd left her, unmoving and unwavering--although a tremor runs through her visibly, a result of suppressed flight instincts and a familial desire to reach out and brace the exhausted wizard. Satoshi resists, however, somehow feeling it would not quite be right to intrude during the final stops of such a project.


Svilfon remains motionless for a long time, not even drawing breath. The pain from his wounds is forgotten; buried deep beneath a swirling pool of clashing emotions within him. He is angry, but thankful, weary beyond words yet filled with a desire for action. He had done what he had to, yet he knew the price for this would be high. He can already feel the strands of his magic fading apart around him, and it takes all his remaining energy to settle them back, to restore that which binds him to his power. When done, he lifts his now dull eyes - the pale blue looking lifeless and empty - up to Satoshi and offers there merest ghost of a smile, before he speaks in a whispery voice that sounds far older than himself. "It is done." He wouldn't wait for a reply, before reaching out laying his hand on the cover of the spell-book, imbued now with parts of all the Coterie. "It... is done." The last words are spoken more to himself than the queen, before his hand sags and he draws in a ragged breath. "So that's... the worst that can happen... not too bad, now, is it?" With another brief smile the wizard falls forward. Exhausted completely, yet satisfied. He would repay his family for the gifts given, but for now, all he can do is keep his grasp on unlife while his body, his soul, begins to repair the damage that was done this day.


Satoshi reaches forward then to take hold of the wizard's robes and, with a surprising strength born of a stubborn will, drags him to rest beside the tree and herself. Once there, she offers a gentle pat to his hat, still sitting proud upon his head. "Rest then," she says, as much to Svilfon as herself. With a spark of the errant magic in the air, residue from the wizard's spell and her own presence, Satoshi draws up a layer of snow to drape over Svilfon like a blanket and properly tucks him in. That done, the kit slumps back against the tree with a weary sigh, eyelids already drooping. Aeron settles down in the snow between the two casters then and glances between them, expression unreadable and thoughts unspoken. A hand from the kit shift sideways as if making to pet the little creature, but it never quite makes it before her eyes close and she's asleep, words trailing off among the trees, "Rest then. It is done.."