tushanshu_logs | [OPEN] An agitation of the air...

Entry tags:

[OPEN] An agitation of the air...

Characters: Bakura; Jack Frost; River Tam & OPEN
Date: September catch-all log
Location: Various around Keeliai. Some general scenes in starters or make your own :)
Situation: General bits and bobs for my characters.
Warnings/Rating: Add warnings if needed in subject headers.

A. BAKURA W/ EMILY-HELEN - PARK

He might not be the kindest or most encouraging parent the hatchling could have chosen, but Bakura does seem to give the young turtle a fair amount of freedom to decide what she wants to do daily. Sometimes it will be exploring markets or shops, sometimes it's going out to the shell's edge to swim in the ocean. He never says that she cannot spend time with her other siblings, and Riva in particular as the two are very close, but he never joins them. Other days it is asking questions for hours on end (though thankfully little as problematic as the sex ed talk) and occasionally her days just consist of lounging in the sun, with Bakura more often than not using her as a convenient resting place.

Today it's in a park, and he knows that the summer weather will be turning soon so warm afternoons like this are going to be getting rarer. He's listening with half an ear to Emily-Helen's constant upbeat chatter about the clouds, about the people across the park, about the pink seaweed that she had which didn't taste at all like she'd expected. The rest of his attention is occupied with keeping a casual eye out anyone who might want to cause trouble. Eventually he realizes that the turtle's litany has ceased and there's an insistent, expectant prod with her flipper.

"Hm?"

I said, what do you like to do when you're bored?

---

B. JACK - WELCOME CENTER, CENTRAL KEELIAI

The spirit was staring up at the painted murals around the perimeter of the main room, feeling an unhappy knot in his stomach. They were Rapunzel's creations and the fantastic-haired girl had been among one of the many recent disappearances. His book, which he'd been writing in facts and stories about the people who'd been and left, was almost full. In fact, it was down to just he and Zatanna working at the Welcome Center, and that meant that he was hardly home at Mu-Hao at all anymore.

He'd done as much tidying as he could, done a thorough circuit of the building itself (a few weeks ago a cultist tried to break into the Center and Jack had sent him to the hospital frozen like a popsicle) and then sat down to practice his ability to become intangible at will. It was something that required ongoing use to maintain, and he'd been lax in recent months with everything else. So anyone entering the Center might catch the winter teen with a look of concentration, passing his hand back and forth through the edge of the table.

---

C. RIVER - WATER SECTOR BRIDGE

If the long weapon looks incongruous on the tiny young woman, it only does so until she grasps it firmly and begins a sort of kata pattern, balanced precariously on the railing of a water sector bridge. The surface she's walking on is only about six inches wide, so she's attracting a fair crowd to watch her, the long blade and straight shaft flinging end over end as she moves through each pose surely, even closing her eyes at some points.

If anyone asks, this is Hawke's fault.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

After Skulduggery's taint problem had been properly attended, the apartment had become somewhat more palatable. Somewhat. Not completely. But the ongoing unpalatability wasn't what had caused Solomon to go searching for Bakura with a motive.

"Laze in the sun, obviously," he said dryly, catching Emily-Helen's thought on the edges of its range as he approached. He'd at least managed to sleep recently, so he didn't look tired, but he did look serious in spite of his vague humour. Solomon stopped by Bakura, making sure to keep out of his sun, and nodded to them both. "Good afternoon. Apologies for the interruption."

It was mostly a platitude, and he didn't have the energy to pretend otherwise. This was too important not to pursue.

"It'll be cold and miserable here again before too long," Bakura answered, disgruntled by the prospect. "And the one witch-girl who was on the turtle, her magic's worn off the clothes she gave me and the other magician girl doesn't like me, so it's going to be cold. You," he added, elbowing Emily-Helen in the side, though of course it hardly affected the vehicle-sized creature. "When you grow up, you're going to stay a tropical continent. No exceptions."

And what if there is something interesting where it is cold?

"Then it really isn't that interesting."

"Put on more clothes," Solomon suggested, "or talk to Shudder at the Hotel. He's no tailor, but he ought to have enough knowledge of sigils to enchant some of your clothes for you." Useful or not, the suggestion was somewhat distracted.

And, since the knowledge was bursting in him and there was no good way to change the subject, Solomon said bluntly, "I summoned my ka."

"Because dressing in layers is such a radical and complicated solution that I simply hadn't thought to broach it before," Bakura rolled his eyes. "It's not as though I'm going around barefoot, it's still cold."

The sudden burst confession leaves Bakura momentarily silenced. "Ah," he said finally, neutrally. "So that's what the Ring reacted to."

"Did it?" Solomon shook his head. He really shouldn't have been surprised by that. The Necromancer took a seat on Emily-Helen's back, patting her head absently in thanks for the liberty. "How did it react?"

He hesitated for a moment. "And is it normal to feel ... open, afterward?"

That was the best way he could think to describe it. When his ka had been summoned, his being had been bared; but now it felt as though it hadn't quite closed after the fact. Possibly that was simply a result of his own ability to sense death. Possibly it was a result of seeing his own being in the process of being rent apart. Solomon wasn't certain; that was why he asked.

Rather than try to explain it, Bakura lifts a hand to the Ring's edge and it glows faintly. The spires chime and then lift under their own volition to point at Solomon. "Like that."

Then he lets the Item fall against his chest once more and readjusts himself against Emily-Helen's side. "Yes," he replied. "It's one thing to know about having different parts of yourself... another to live with it."

"To say the least," Solomon muttered, watching the Ring fall. "During the ... circumstance which obliged me to summon it ... I saw all the facets of my being." He grimaced. "Being torn apart, hence the obligation, but even so. I saw myself."

It was almost incomprehensible, and even after a day there was no way to find the words to describe the experience. Solomon wasn't sure he'd find them after a year. He could have taken his true name if he wanted--fortunately, he didn't want. Insanity wasn't something one could control.

More to the point, how could he have furthered the Temple's knowledge of death so far only once he doubted his faith in it? It was laughable, and yet.

In contrast to Solomon's emotional reaction, Bakura's responses were controlled and neutral, if not a little brusque. "Then you should decide sooner rather than later if you intend to make a habit of summoning it. What was it?"

Edited 2014-09-24 03:55 (UTC)

"I don't know its name," said Solomon, hand brushing his arm absently as if to track the memory of a touch. "But it was a luminescent ... mist. Thought it acted more like a shadow, in truth; it seemed to accompany and divert them at once."

He re-focussed his attention on Bakura. "What would happen if I chose either?"

Unfortunately Solomon's description didn't provide enough information for Bakura to decipher what creature it was, and that was even assuming it was one that Pegasus had transformed into a modern day card. It was also entirely possible that it wasn't a monster he'd be familiar with at all, given that the necromancer wasn't from the same world.

"It's part of you. It could be like your given name, there but for all intents, inert. It won't hurt or take away from you. But if you choose to make it stronger... it's more like your true name. Capable of being a great force, but intertwined with who you are. It's not something you can stop, if you go down that path."

Solomon gazed out across the park with every appearance of not listening, though he was considering what Bakura had said. Like his true name. He wasn't sure he liked that description; one's true name usually carried with it insanity, after all.

"I saw that too," he murmured. "My true name. I didn't take it." He smile wryly. "I decided we had more than enough to worry about." He didn't particularly want to think about the fact that he could potentially find it again, if he wanted, now he knew something about the trick.

But his ka felt ... safer. Some theories said that true names were intertwined with the lifestream, and if so, then it was a thing partially outside of his control--no wonder people went insane with the power. Solomon didn't want to take that risk. His ka was wholly his, and that meant, judging from what Bakura had said, that it shouldn't want anything he didn't want either.

And then the thought occurred: if he developed his ka, would he stand a better chance of some part of him remembering what he experienced here, if he was ever forced to go back?

"How would I go about summoning it without an Item?" he asked at last.

Solomon's musings made sense; Bakura had never felt safer than with Diabound at his back and that was significant, given the life he lived and how little he trusted anything or anyone.

"You don't need an Item to summon your ka," he replied. "You don't even need to know how to manipulate the khajbit, though it's certainly going to be of help for you. All you need is a strong ba and you have that. The Items were originally used to summon out other people's ka, whether from them while they were still in possession or later, after they were sealed, from stone tablets they were bound to. There used to be a whole massive temple of them right in the city, called Shrine of Wedju. It was where the priests stored all the stolen kaa of the criminals they'd convicted."

"Which doesn't in the least bit answer my question," said Solomon dryly, "given that, regardless of their necessity, the Items obviously make it easier to summon one's own." He'd already known about the shrine, though a refresher wasn't necessarily a bad thing. But he'd never summoned a monster without being in the khajbit, and he already knew how to channel magic through an item (though, granted, not one of those Bakura owned).

"I'm used to summoning shadow, whether by using an item or not," Solomon said, lifting his hand and bidding shadow to come, and it swirled around his palm. "I haven't the faintest idea how to shift focus from magic to ka." Frankly, he was concerned about simply diving into it, in case he did accidentally run into his true name again.

The thief sighed a little, though he knew he couldn't blame him for not havig quite the right mindset. "I'll tell you how," he said. "Close your eyes."

And once Solomon had, he waited a few seconds and added, "Now open them. Congratulations, you've got it."

Solomon rolled his eyes, very deliberately, though the point was made ... somewhat. "As simple as that, is it? Unfortunately, that doesn't make it easy."

Still, he closed his eyes again, and didn't concentrate. It was simple--so simple that not many sorcerers would have figured it out. His ka was him. He didn't have to try to call it, as he didn't have to try to be himself. If anything, all he had to do was remember how it felt, to have that wire bared.

Luminescent mist slunk across the ground, and wreathed around Emily-Helen's shell.

It was what many people in his own time hadn't been able to figure out either, so Bakura didn't hold it against the necromancer. Bakura had learned it on his own through (as most things) trial and error, and "met" Diabound the first few times without even realizing what the creature was. Only by recognizing what affected one affected the other had he been able to put things together. As time went on and more people discovered these strange manifestations, he was able to get more information through watching.

Ironically it had been the Priests themselves, who bore the Items and tried to help Egypt's people come to terms with these monsters, who got it wrong. As Bakura only now knew, were side effects of Zorc's awareness being unlocked and thrust back into the living world. Before that... well, it was entirely possible that the last time such creatures had been free was in Atlantis' time. (Bakura had a number of theories on that as well, but that was for another time.)

But the priests had tried to instill the idea that good people had good heka, and therefore they weren't to be feared because the strongest of them, like the Pharaoh, had more powerful kaa than anyone who might stand against them. And yet Bakura saw that there were a disproportionately large number of criminals with ka, not ordinary citizens. From that he had reasoned that most people had approximately the same amount of heka inside of them, and that the kaa were shaped by something else. Many criminals showed little or no regret for their actions, and Bakura further surmised that had a great deal to do with it.

His understanding of the whole thing had improved significantly with the Ring (with Zorc) but Bakura had always been satisfied with how much he'd put together on his own.

Look, Emily-Helen said, surprised and cautious at the appearance of the glowing mist. Oh, it's pretty!

It was Emily-Helen's delight that told Solomon he'd managed something, more than anything else, but when he opened his eyes he was still vaguely surprised to find himself wreathed in the mist, or shadow, or whatever it actually was. It was spreading, but not far--just far enough to make it seem as though the turtle was an island in a floating ocean.

"That seems far too easy not to be dangerous," he muttered, and the mist contracted, shivering, like a laugh. Solomon found himself smiling.

"If it was easy, you wouldn't need to have asked me how to do it," Bakura pointed out. "If it makes you feel better, you could make say a phrase to trick yourself into triggering it 'out'. Or rap yourself three times over your head with your cane, either way there are options. But at its simplest level, it's not a summon like you're thinking of it. It's not even like the shadows you command, easy as they are for you. It's a reflex... like blinking or breathing. What was going on when you called it out the first time?"

"Dying," said Solomon dryly, "to a given degree of dying, at any rate; as I said, I encountered something which risked the integrity of my self." He wasn't going to explain exactly what that something was, no more than he would have talked about Kul Elna to Skulduggery without Bakura's permission.

"Hm." With his foot he reached down and prodded Bakura in the shoulder, and the mist drifted in its wake. "If I didn't know any better I would think you wanted to delight in my pain. I don't suppose you could identify my new friend for me?"

"That makes sense," Bakura replied, utterly unperturbed by Solomon's admittance to such a thing having happened, as if it was a regular occurrence. He swatted at Solomon's foot, causing Emily-Helen to laugh at them both for their antics, before making a show of getting to his feet.

The ka was in such a dispersed form that he couldn't identify it, but it should, like any monster, be bound to obey a Duelist. That was a major component of what the Ring did; it allowed Bakura to exert the weight he carried in the shadow realm as a Duelist into the physical world.

"Be recognized," he said in Egyptian, addressing the glowing mist and bending his own will through the Item. "And show your form."

The mist shivered and recoiled close around Solomon, and the Necromancer frowned at the sensation of Bakura ordering a piece of his self to the thief's bidding. "I'd say that's rude," he said, "but I asked, I suppose. Please don't do it again."

He couldn't see behind him, but the mist was taking a form; horns and a eyeless sockets, and fanged maw, and heavy clawed hands that settled protectively on either side of Solomon. What he did see, however, was when one of the chubby, misshapen babies flopped in his lap.

Solomon paused. "That's mildly horrifying."

Bakura uttered a "tch" at the request not to compel the ka again, only because Solomon was right; he had asked him. It wasn't the thief's problem that the creature hadn't made itself known until prompted.

The form that it took was one that Bakura did indeed recognize, being familiar with fiends and this one distinct enough to be of note to him. "Interesting," he allowed, letting the current of power dissipate, leaving the ka to maintain or dissolve the form as it chose.

"A Light fiend... there aren't many of those."

"I would have thought that would be a contradiction in terms," Solomon said bemusedly, lifting his hands while more of the misshapen babies crowded his lap. One of them clung to his arm as if pining for a hug, or a head-stroke, or some manner of comfort, and after a moment Solomon acquiesced, putting his hand lightly on its head. It leaned into the touch.

"What are its characteristics? Aside from an apparent need for tactility." The last was muttered to himself.

"It's called now Theban Nightmare," Bakura answered. "Though I doubt that is its actual name. A Light fiend with an effect: when you possess no Spells or Traps, its strength doubles."

From 1500 to 3000... the thief thought without giving the actual values, knowing that Solomon had no frame of reference for them. "Strong enough to take out very, very powerful creatures."

Seeing the creature's obviously affectionate behaviour made Bakura's throat knot and with an additional cord of power from the Ring, he dismissed the ka, rejoining it with Solomon.

Edited 2014-09-26 03:00 (UTC)

"It's a shadow." A light-based shadow. The explanation did give some context into how it had reacted to Skulduggery--it hadn't been able to work based on brute-force, since Solomon had magic of his own; but its attributes had been such that it could work with Solomon's magic as a complementary force. Still, it was good to know that without magic or any other course of action the monster would be more powerful.

The title wasn't exactly a surprise either. The babies seemed so starved for affection, clustering around his hands, that Solomon wondered what nightmare had tormented them so.

Abruptly his ka registered surprise and chagrin, and then vanished under his hands, and Solomon grunted, feeling as though someone had just kicked him in the--well, soul. He glanced up at Bakura and said coolly, "I presume you had a good reason for doing that."

BAKURA; PARK (SP book six spoilers in linked thread)

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