i'll say it to be proud

[peacefullywreathed]

Characters: Solomon Wreath and OPEN
Date: Anywhere between 6 May to 14 May.
Location: Various locations around the city. Specifically, places where people have died--anyone from PCs to kedan. The only place I know specifically will be the fountain where Bakura was killed, but if anyone has other specific areas in mind, you may assume Sol has been there.
Situation: Solomon needs to practice his control of his magic, since his control item was broken before he entered the game. This means using hotspots where people died to help him out. People are welcome to interrupt him at any stage of his practice, though his manifesting the echoes of people who died is only something that will happen later in the week.
Warnings/Rating: Death and after-death. Skulduggery's thread contains graphic details of a death (specifically, drowning).

After his semi-healing, Solomon's first priority had been, overwhelmingly, to regain control of his magic. His conversation with Skulduggery had left him a few steps beyond unsettled, and even now he wasn't sure what to think. Added to their differing timelines was Pleasant's uncharacteristic certainty that the armour was related to Vile, and on top of that was the fact that he knew the Temple's most closely guarded secret.

In the end Solomon had been forced to come to a simple solution: regardless of Skulduggery's current beliefs and knowledge; regardless of the current situation on the turtle; there was one thing Solomon needed, and that was use of his magic. Focussing on that, with luck, would allow his subconscious thoughts to ponder the other issues.

Necromancers didn't strictly need control items to use their magic, but it was usually how they were first introduced to it and it had been quite a while since Solomon had bothered to use magic without his. It was something like using a muscle he hadn't for longer than was wise, so to give him an edge he sought out places in the city where death had occurred, or were close by similar locations. Fountains. Street-corners. Parks. Frankly, it wasn't all that difficult.

His exercises were a simple routine. He would sit, meditate upon the deathly energy in a place, and then gather the shadows to him. They'd cluster on the walls or ground or features around him; at first two-dimensional, and then three, wrapping around his wrists and shoulders, curling around his body like a flock of affectionate birds.

Once he could hold them to him for as long as he needed without losing control, he moved on to spreading them around him as he needed and wanted, and in various shapes. If there was music nearby, he would make the shadows dance to it, filling the air with twisting shapes and cloaks, fading in and out from nothing. Once upon a time he had used to do this purely out of boredom. There was something beautiful about it. Something mesmerising. Something calming, and comforting, to watch the shadows sing and know he was the one performing, manipulating the shadows deftly like puppeteer. He hadn't done it in such a long time and it took more effort than it had with his cane, but now, it was soothing.

Eventually he was even able to summon the shadows of those who'd died where he sat. They weren't ghosts, of course; they couldn't speak or even interact. Necromancers couldn't communicate with the dead unless it involved the deceased's physical body. They were just shadows, cast black like graphic puppets, defined enough to tell details of their features. He could have traced the manner of their last moments, if he wished, but for now, he was content to assure himself he could fight without his cane if he needed.

Comments

Location: the alley where Hayley Stark died.

[backinakidflash]

Bart was taking a walk around the Metal Sector. Not a patrol, not an official one in his mind, but he was keeping an eye out for anything amiss. Too much had been happening in Keeliai lately for him to sit at home, though, and he'd felt like the air had changed, somehow. He noticed when it was cloudy, but he'd stopped seeing when it wasn't.

He started to cut down an alley way, heading for the crowded market, but came to a stop when he saw that this alley was already taken. A man was sitting there, right on the ground, like he owned this patch of shell. Ordinarily, Bart would have walked around him, perhaps after giving him a few spare juulan - with all the attacks, there had to be some homeless kedan.

However, the space around the man was filled with swirling... blackness that he doesn't have the right words for. Inky dark shadows that were deeper than the shadow Bart himself was casting on the ground. The one in front of the guy is larger and - his brain wanted to call it humanoid, but no, it couldn't be. It had to be a trick of the light.

Unbidden, the memory of Sinbrilee's portals to the Death realm surfaces in his mind, and he thought it seemed rather like the darkness that was in the corners of his eyes in that place, that he could never properly focus on.

That's stupid. They're hundreds of leagues from Sinbrilee.

But Malicant was in Keeliai now. Bart frowned at the vertex of his thoughts. Sharply, he asked, "What're you doing?"

Time: After Sol's meeting with Hayley.

[peacefullywreathed]

It had been obvious for some days now that there was a great deal of death to be had in the city. Solomon could barely set foot anywhere without feeling the whisper of some death or another. On one hand, that was good. It meant he had a source of power readily available until he could manufacture another item.

On the other hand, it was ... dangerous. It was possible for a Necromancer to become drunk on power, especially without a control item. That was what had happened to Vile.

In a way, summoning the victims' silhouettes made it easier not to fall into that trap. Vile forgot there was such a thing as individuality. He had seen the souls of those he took as drops in an ocean meant for his use. Solomon was determined not to be like Vile, if only just out of principle. Vile had been a monster. The souls of those passing by helped somewhat as well.

Solomon knew when someone had entered the alley, but he ignored the other person in favour of maintaining his breathing and his concentration. The shadows swirled and added to the silhouette he was building. Her features weren't quite defined--yet--but he knew the face. He'd met the girl to whom it belonged not all that long ago, and known she'd died. Sensing death here felt different, but it was still death.

The man's voice almost broke his concentration, and the surface of the silhouette rippled and threatened to lose cohesion. "If you please," Solomon said mildly without glancing over, "I'm quite in the middle of something and I'd appreciate it if you didn't distract me."

He rebuilt the silhouette painstakingly from the echoes in the alley. The height, the width, the shape, the hair-length, the features of the face ...

[backinakidflash]

He was pretty sure that darkness wasn't supposed to jiggle like Jell-O nor was it to recoalesce into a more perfect copy of a person. The apparition was a copy, too. The familiarity of the profile, the turn of the nose, the way her hair curled out at the nape of her neck. He knew it. It was a copy of Hayley.

If it was a copy. This wasn't natural, not something this identifiable. This wasn't being able to see Jesus in a tree if you stood to the northeast and squinted when the light hit it just right. It was immediate, so much that he ignored the caution against not distracting the man, and crouched down beside her, too quickly to be seen until he was already there. "Hayley?"

The name was a question, tinged with open concern, but it fell on deaf ears. There was no reaction, no sign that she was more than a shadow. He couldn't even see her take a breath. It was only then that fear and alarm crept in. Before, he nearly believed it could be her creating the shadows and dabbling in another physical form, but she wouldn't ignore him like this. She'd know that he wouldn't let it drop without confirmation that she was OK. Nothing she'd told him about studying magic mentioned sitting around in an alley with an old dude. Something wasn't right.

"What did you do to her?" It's meant for the seated man, but Bart's yellow eyes barely flicker in his direction. What had he said, something about not distracting him. Distracting him from what - from whatever he was doing to Hayley? It's clearly him doing it; the energy duplicates that Bart can make never look like anyone but himself, and he'd know if he was doing that. He reached out, intending to shake her shoulder as hard as necessary to provoke a reaction. "C'mon, Hayl."

[peacefullywreathed]

It was probably far too much to expect a teen to actually listen to a request for silence. Solomon sighed internally. He should have known better. Theoretically, it was good practice for his concentration, except for the part where he didn't feel like he'd quite reached a point where he could work with that sort of distraction.

He watched the teen run straight through his shadows, debated attempting to stop him, and dismissed the idea. He was obviously the hot-headed sort, and Solomon wasn't particularly inclined to get into a fight today. Particularly as his new unwanted companion knew the girl whose death he was investigating.

"She's not real," he said with faint notes of amusement in his voice. "She's merely a shade."

The teen's hand went straight through the silhouette's shoulder, sending the shadows billowing outward like ink dropped in water. Hayley's face rippled, which was just as well. It held the same expression it had when she died. Solomon let the shade dissolve, and the shadows scattered to drift aimlessly. He didn't do the same with the rest, but he wasn't on guard--yet. Simply ... prepared.

"As far as I'm aware, Miss Stark is enjoying her time elsewhere in the city," he said dryly. "I'm simply borrowing her death for research purposes."

For one thing, now he knew resurrection didn't reduce the power of a death. He hadn't expected so, since the moment of death remained static in time regardless of what happened afterward, but it was still nice to have the hypothesis confirmed.

In fact--in fact, now that he wasn't trying to summon shades, this boy had his own sort of deathliness over him. He was alive, to be sure, but there was a sort of hitch in the sensation. Solomon had sensed that hitch before. Skulduggery had it, if a slighter version of it. How interesting.

"Of course," he observed, "you've some experience with dying yourself, don't you?" He was beginning to wonder if this wasn't some sort of afterlife after all.

[backinakidflash]

When his hand broke the form apart, Bart tipped backwards in surprise, backing up like a crab before pushing up and getting to his feet. He can't stop staring at where she - it - the shade had been.

Shade. There was a man in his universe who went by that name. What did he do again? Something with shadows. Oh. Bart eyed the man warily now, not being able to recall what Shade looked like. He'd always been too busy snickering over the top hat and opera cape to notice the face. But neither of them were in a costume, so he decided to sit on the idea for the time being.

"Borrow her death? 'Borrow.' For 'research.'" The skepticism pours out of his mouth like the Niagara River over the falls. He couldn't begin to figure out why someone would want with a death. It was over. It was somebody else's business. "You don't get to use somebody's death for. Whatever you're using it for. It's not a library book. It - it's private."

He doesn't know how to better explain how prying into someone's death, when that person was alive again, was rude. Intrusive. If that was how Hayley looked when she died, well, Bart didn't want to know. There wasn't a single point in life more open and vulnerable than the one where you lost it, and she could be awful touchy.

"You don't know that." He tried to blow the question off, but his poker face wasn't good enough to hide his apprehension. He wanted to find Hayley and make sure she was OK, but how could he leave when some random guy knew that he'd died? Had he mentioned it on the consoles? Maybe. Bart has said so much on the network that it's become too much to ever remember. He told his friend Kon about it; that's right. But that was under heavy encryption. It should've been safe. Did the old locked feeds unlock when the consoles crashed? He hadn't thought to check.

Of course, it could just be that this is Shade recognizing him. That's the simplest solution. "Who are you, anyway? You're new. Or a hermit. I've seen everybody ten times this week."

[peacefullywreathed]

"Hardly," Solomon disagreed with a slight raise of his eyebrow. "A death is a very public thing. Anyone can witness it. Anyone can ignore it. It lingers in a place and infects its location for years afterward. Everyone shares in death, because death is the ultimate equaliser. There's nothing private about it at all."

Especially when a person was alive again. If they were alive, their soul was somewhere else. There was no need to revere a place, no need to avoid platitudes and socially ingrained affront toward confronting the fact that death existed.

He shrugged gracefully. "I'm a Necromancer. I am, indeed, new. My name is Solomon Wreath. And yourself?"

He didn't bother to bow. The teen, thus far, hadn't even been apologetic about his interruption. At least Hayley had been more polite about it, after her initial shock.

Ignore the mask. Comic book problems.

[backinakidflash]

"Bart Allen." The introduction was quick and clipped, like everything else he said. He didn't offer his hand, and bowing would never occur to him. It was a rote response, a name for a name, and a rushed one at that. Being polite wasn't nearly as important as correcting how egregiously wrong Wreath was.

"Witnessing it isn't owning it," Bart spat at him. He still didn't agree that death was public. Maybe it was, if you stayed dead, but neither he or Hayley had. It reverted to private when the person was around to be hurt or offended by it. "It's not making your creepy little puppet version of my girlfriend in an alley. And come up with a better story. I'm sure you're gonna tell me how you're cleansing the 'infection.'"

To him, it was worse for her being alive again. Hayley is here in the city, and she lives in this sector, too. It could have easily been her that wandered into the ritual-in-progress. "Are the will o' the wisps your deal, or is the latest one of Dumbass' stunts? Like the goo monsters."

o7

[peacefullywreathed]

"Did I say anything about owning?" Solomon said, all the milder in response to the boy's aggression. He didn't move, didn't flinch; simply watched the boy with dark eyes and an impassive expression. "A public event, by definition, cannot be owned."

This was more along the lines of the reception Solomon was used to. Not that it was comfortable, or particularly helpful, especially when it involved hotheaded young fools. He had to wonder how on Earth an idiot like this became romantically involved with an intelligent young lady such as Hayley.

Solomon lifted an eyebrow. "Cleansing? Hardly. Death isn't an infection. It isn't something that can simply be washed away." Yet. "I'm investigating the manner in which death reacts to a soul being placed in a clone, and Miss Stark is the only person with whom I'm familiar who has had that experience."

He wasn't about to admit he needed the practice to regain control. Not to this idiot. It might encourage him unduly, and Solomon had no desire to call attention to himself. "Perhaps," he said just a touch coldly, "you ought to take a step back and reconsider your assumptions. You're making yourself look a fool."