tushanshu_logs | and you seem to break like time

Entry tags:

and you seem to break like time

Characters: Catch-all for Solomon
Date: October
Location: Various places, specifically his apartment and Emily-Helen's pyramid just outside of the city
Situation: Solomon has things to do. And some people have things to do with him.
Warnings/Rating: Permadeath, Necromancy, mummification.

A: The tomb
The kedan finished the pyramid in impressive time. It helped that Solomon was paying them well, and when payment wasn't enough he threatened. At least some people were still afraid of the shadows--and Malicant's recent play had actually helped with that. It didn't make the kedan like him, and now they scattered when they saw him coming, but no one wanted to mess with a Necromancer when a being of the death-plane held so much obvious power over the city.

The pyramid was small, for a pyramid, set on one of the hills where Emily-Helen had enjoyed sunbathing. It was large enough for Emily-Helen's body and the barest necessities for her journey into the next life. Hieroglyphs covered every wall. The sigils protecting the inside and outside had been harder, and Solomon had in the end submitted to approaching Shudder for help with that in a very awkward encounter he had no intention of repeating. The writing of some of those sigils had been incorporated into the ritual when Emily-Helen was interred, but others were pre-written, only to be closed--ones to protect the pyramid from degradation and damage, and to ward the doorway and interior from incursion.

Solomon wasn't fluent in Egyptian, but he had been doing his research and he did remember some of the rituals in which he'd participated when he had visited the Temple there; between those he managed a complete, if simplified, series of rituals to properly inter the turtle-hatchling. He had left messages for those he knew would want to be present, but hadn't made a public announcement. Somehow he doubted Bakura would appreciate that.

The rituals took some time, but even after they were over Solomon waited at the tomb until the rest of those present had left. He send Marcelon away and stayed out of immediate sight but didn't try to hide himself either, standing in the shadows at the bottom of the hill. The door to the tomb had been left open.

B: At home
Leaving aside the work on Emily-Helen's body, Solomon still had plenty to do. There was trying to finish mapping the tunnels under the shell, for one. He had sent zombified birds down into the holes, trying to find where the chink in the shell in the ritual chamber led. So far few of them had returned, and without much success. He had left marks on the diomara where needed.

Right now his research into the Dreaming seemed both laughably off-track and potentially saving. If there was a way to flee into it, or use it as a weapon against Malicant ... there was too much potential in it to give it up, and yet it was time-consuming. Solomon persevered nevertheless, and now that Skulduggery wasn't tainted home was probably the safest place for Solomon right now.

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While emotional entanglements might be on a slightly more even keel, the situation of the turtle and the implications for the future were not, and after some time to consider the things she'd talked about with Bakura, Raine went to Solomon. It would be sensible for a number of reasons to bring the theory to him, but it would also be dissembling to call that the only driving force of her visit.

She did have particular cause to want to see him again, after all, and despite the events of the last months there was a certain lightness to her step by the time she made it to the Fire sector, and his doorstep.

It took a moment for Solomon to realise someone was at the door, mostly because he was in the courtyard and appropriating the area for a full-sized Dreaming doorway. With a flick of his wrist he sent a shadow skimming across the floor to open the door for whoever it was, and beckon them toward the courtyard.

In the meantime Solomon stood in the courtyard, in his customary suit but dressed down to his vest and with his sleeves rolled up. With great ease of movement beyond even his usual control he conducted shadows to build a stone archway, slotting the obsidian and white-marble he'd retrieved with Bakura into place. Shadows spun around the area in elegant wheels and flicking tendrils. It had been a long time since he'd had opportunity to conduct shadows like this; one of the reasons he had enjoyed having a cane as his item. He felt like he was a musician.

The shadow wasn't wholly surprising, and Raine followed the beckoning. In the doorway between house and courtyard she paused, and while part of the reason was reluctance to interrupt another mage at delicate work, another sizeable part was simply watching Solomon.

She recognized what he was doing, at least, despite how long it had been since they last spoke of it. Of more interest, however, was the way the shadows responded to him, delicate and precise and, quite frankly, beautiful. She might almost envy him, a little -- her own light was a harsh, killing thing, not suited for much beyond that -- but if she did it faded in the appreciation of the artistry, and Raine was content to wait where she was, leaning against one side of the doorframe.

Piece by piece the archway came together, as though each stone, tiny and large, were delivered by a flock of black birds. The look on his face was different too--not the intensity of focus, which was relatively normal, but the little smile of pleasure he wore to watch something of his own creation come together.

After so long fighting his own magic, he'd almost forgotten that he could, in fact, gain properly-earned pleasure from it.

Finally he laid the cornerstones down carefully, first the one that would support the whole of the arch from the top, followed by the collection of obsidian and white-marble placed on it. Only then did he turn with the smile still lingering, already expecting Raine there, because no one else would have let him finish before speaking. "Good morning."

Raine was easily patient till he had done, still fascinated by the fine control he had of the shadows, not to mention the steady, careful construction of the archway. When he turned to her she was already smiling, and she straightened before entering the courtyard proper, crossing toward him with a brief detour to circle the arch, curious. She'd only seen it from one angle so far, after all. "Good morning, Solomon," she returned, when she'd come to a stop near him. "It's good to see you again."

"Because you so rarely get opportunities to see me," Solomon said, and it would have been deadpan if it weren't for the fact he still hadn't quite attempted to restrain the smile or even realised it was there. He did, however, take her hand and lift it to kiss it, much as he had previously. "To what do I owe the honour?"

"Frequency doesn't much affect the sentiment," she said, arch. It seemed like that particular gesture was going to persist, and she found she couldn't object. "As to purpose, there were a few things I wanted your input on, none especially urgent, but relevant to the larger problem. Are you preparing a permanent emplacement, or still testing material suitability?"

"Both," said Solomon, straightening and turning back toward the arch to point toward the obsidian and white-marble deposits. "I commissioned some manufactured obsidian and white-marble, but I've had to change a number of details to account for the changes in consistency. I'm only now testing them. If they don't work, then at least I can use the pure stones to create a permanent door."

He turned back toward Raine with a raised eyebrow and a faintly lurking smile. "Relevant, is it? I'm going to start to think you only visit me to borrow my mind."

And if they did work, then the resource problem was effectively solved. Good. Raine nodded. "Manufactured how?" she asked, curious as ever. Either material might be feasible to create with enough influence over fire and earth, at least, but perhaps there were other ways to go about it she hadn't considered.

That faint hint of a smile, if not his tone, inclined her to think he was fishing, and she did not altogether manage to hide her amusement. "Rest assured, it's more than just your mind I find attractive," she said lightly. "As I said, it's nothing especially urgent." In other words, while she really did have the intent to bring up those matters, it was at least partially an excuse.

It had been a tease more than a fishing attempt, though Solomon wasn't opposed to the response. "I never said anything about attractiveness," he said innocently, "though I'm certainly not going to tell you you're wrong."

Then he could only shrug ruefully. "I haven't the faintest idea, and I'm sure if I'd asked Stark wouldn't have told me. He's not a youth particularly done growing-up." Not that Solomon was completely innocent, there; the boy was old enough to know better, but he always, inevitably, bit Solomon's hooks. It was amusing, in its own way, that an academically intelligent young man could be so stupid.

With a flick of his wrist Solomon conjured two shadow-scalpels, and presented one to Raine with a bow. "If you'd care to help me inscribe the arch?"

Amusement gained the faintest edge of exasperation, as much for herself as for him, and Raine left it at that for now, a wry smile turning up one corner of her mouth. No, he hadn't said anything on that front, had he. Ah, well; it was honest, at any rate.

Tony being involved explained the fabrication, at least, and though it did not serve to answer her curiosity it did tell her who next to ask if she did want to know. While he was certainly a teenager he had been for the most part fairly helpful to her, which pointed to an issue of either personal conflict or general caution. Either way, perhaps worth asking.

"Hm," she said, and took the scalpel he offered with a nod of thanks, turning it over to look at the finer details of the shadow. "Yes, certainly. Where shall I start?" She didn't have the necessary inscriptions memorized, but was presuming he had a reference nearby.

He hadn't, but even as Raine asked, Solomon sent a shadow upstairs to bring a book down for them. He'd long since memorised most of its contents, and hadn't brought it down given he hadn't been expecting company. When he turned around Solomon saw her examining the scalpel, and said with amusement, "Just don't cut yourself with it. Few things are as precisely sharp as a shadow."

The Remnants were proof of that, and it was difficult to tell just how much of their being actually was shadow or not. "You can start with the front," he said, opening the book to the appropriate page. "I'll do the back and the sides, and the circle."

Raine hadn't drawn these sigils nearly as often as Solomon had. Some of them were new--ones he'd found in the palace library, and only added with great consideration and thought. They might even look familiar--one or two had been in the circles inscribed in the ritual chamber and on the roof.

While the warning was appreciated, he didn't need to tell her to be cautious; even if she could heal most things, a blade was still something to mind carefully, shadow or no. "I know," she said, a little absently, thinking briefly to those few times she'd had cause to see the aftermath of a dark spell in her own world. "Thank you." That for the consideration and the book both.

Raine studied the page he opened to carefully for a bit, with an eye to the overall picture, before moving to the arch to start properly. Without Solomon's long experience with these things, she was slow, but precise, referring back to the book whenever she wasn't sure. "You've changed some of these, haven't you?" It might have been a while since she'd last seen these sigils, but she was reasonably sure that some of them she'd seen a bit more recently.

"Yes," Solomon admitted, moving around to the other side of the arch to begin his own work with quick, practiced strokes. "Some of them are ones I found in the palace library." And since he'd only gone looking to identify those in the circles, the implication would be obvious; therefore he left it unsaid. "They're stabilisers, primarily, to ensure the position of the portal relative to the planes remains stable at any given time. What was it you wanted to talk about?"

They may as well talk it over while they worked, provided Raine felt she could do so without it impacting her ability to work. Somehow Solomon didn't think that would be an issue.

She caught the implication easily enough, turned that over for a moment in her mind between glances at the book. Well, even if she misliked the place she'd last seen those sigils, the tool itself was not necessarily the purpose for which it was used, and Raine trusted that he'd done his research.

"A theory Bakura suggested recently," Raine said after a moment, continuing her admittedly slower work. While copying itself was a simple task, these shapes weren't as familiar to her, and the slowness that precision required was ultimately necessary. Talking, however, was not a serious distraction. "Are you on speaking terms with him again?" If there was someone she'd expect Bakura to judge passing that idea on to both worthwhile and unlikely to result in panic, it was Solomon, but only likely if they'd repaired things.

"I asked him for some input regarding my research," said Solomon, "and he was willing enough, if grumpy." He smiled slightly. "His words were, I believe, 'Go to hell. But since you'll just get lost getting there, bring the damned paperwork'."

Which made it a good thing Solomon hadn't been expecting forgiveness or outright amiability, and the fact Bakura had accepted his presence in his apartment building was a good step up. Solomon was patience. He was confident in his ability to bring Bakura around again in time.

At that Raine laughed, a startled little burst of humor. "Promising," she said, a bit dryly. And it was, barbs aside, because it was a large step up from throwing Solomon into walls. "I ask mostly because I wouldn't be surprised if he brought this to you at some point, as well. He's theorized that among the reasons our -- charming enemy -- hasn't chosen to outright eradicate everyone here is that it has, or is in the process of, gaining a foothold in us which it can use to get at our worlds, as well. It makes more sense than I'd like."

She'd had enough time to consider the idea that she could be calm about it, and her voice and hands stayed even as she kept working at the sigils, one piece at a time.

For some moments Solomon didn't answer in favour of working the stone with the shadow-scalpel, letting those words sink in and turning them over in his head. He and Skulduggery had also discussed Malicant's motives, and Solomon had wondered whether Malicant needed the help to properly cross the planal boundaries.

If Malicant had, all this time, been intending to piggy-back on the Foreigners, then--no, it made no sense. "If that's true," Solomon said finally, "why has he waited this long? He implied there were other sets of Foreigners, that he is Asti. If there were other Foreigners, why didn't he do it earlier?"

"The clones," Raine said, with a little sigh. "I don't recall if you know about that-- before I arrived, there was an underwater cloning facility producing bodies into which Foreigner souls were placed upon arrival. However, a group of Foreigners destroyed it. The people I spoke to initially had assumed there was a secondary, smaller facility in the Palace, but Foreigners continued to arrive with relatively little trouble even after the Palace became inaccessible. The assumption Bakura is making is that the source of our bodies now is significantly closer tied to our souls. That, combined with a perceived emphasis on weakening us physically rather than killing us outright..."

There were possible holes, but she wasn't willing to assume it was completely invalid, especially given that Malicant getting at their own worlds had been mentioned as a possible threat.

"It would explain how he intended to breach the planal boundaries," Solomon murmured, and then blinked and stopped writing to glance at Raine, his brow furrowed. "I knew about the clones--but I was given to understand they were still in use. I didn't know the facility had been destroyed some time previously."

Would he still have been able to see the deaths of those here if it hadn't been, if their bodies were true and not just copies? "So Bakura suspects he needs us to get close, to act as Trojan horses into our own worlds."

... That would explain why Malicant didn't just kill them outright when they accidentally walked into his turf. He needed saturation. He needed as many Foreigners to take his presence home with them. "'Not urgent', you said," he said dryly, and then sighed and returned to his work. "Well then. We'll have to make sure we go through a quarantine first."

"I wonder if that, too, was at least partially its orchestration," Raine mused aloud. At least one of the people who had mentioned it was now gone, but perhaps Annabeth might know something more. "But yes, I believe that accurately sums it up." 'Trojan horse' might not be a turn of phrase with which she was familiar, but the contextual meaning was clear enough.

Raine kept working her careful way up the front of the arch, one sigil after another, gradually referring to the book less often. "By 'not urgent' I meant there's likely no direct action we can take at the moment," she said, resigned to that much by now. "It's important to be conscious of the possibility as we work toward a solution, at least, but in the absence of a plan there's little to do with the knowledge, save to be cautious."

"Quite probably." If Malicant had been trying to facilitate a greater link between body and soul, then he'd almost certainly had wanted the facility destroyed. If that only happened relatively recently, it explained why events began to speed up only now, where earlier he was forced to take things slowly until that bond was created.

Solomon finished the back of the arch and moved on to the sides. "And to plan," he said. "If he needs us just to breach the boundaries of Life, then we might be able to stave off his infection by moving to another location he can't properly reach us." He indicated the archway with a nod, hesitant to say out loud what he meant. This was what he'd been planning for months--why he'd wanted to develop the archway. "He said he was eavesdropping on my conversation with my father," Solomon added after a moment. "But he couldn't do it until after the ceremony with the fountain. He doesn't have unrestricted access. We can use that."

Raine was not quite half done with the front of the arch by now, started again at the bottom of the other side in order to save the portion directly overhead for last. "Your father," she repeated, before making the connection to the summer's celebrations. "Ah-- of course. An invitation was required, even if it wasn't strictly intentional. Hmm."

She gave the arch a slightly more speculative look now. If it did work as expected, and remained stable, it would certainly be very useful in that respect. "That's promising, if nothing it's done in the interim has been able to change that."

"It is indeed," Solomon said with a smile. He appreciated the fact Raine didn't call attention to exactly what Malicant had said, what he had implied, about how the Dreaming conversation had affected Solomon to begin with. If it was fake--and Solomon wasn't sure he believed that it was--then it was so close to accurate that Solomon couldn't deny the changes it had wrought in him.

Even if it was faked, it was Solomon's. Malicant had tried to use it to taunt him, to taint him. Solomon didn't intend to let it do either, or to give it up just because Malicant had been watching.

The sigils on the archway's sides were limited, so it didn't take long to finish them, and soon Solomon was moving onto the circle around them, conjuring a long stick with a razor end so he wouldn't have to kneel. He wouldn't close the circle, of course, until after Raine had finished and left it.

She still wondered about her own conversation, sometimes. It was a useful one to have had, even if just for the reminder to keep reaching forward, but it hadn't been completely reassuring, either, and now the thought that she'd invited Malicant in... well. A little unsettling.

Solomon was certainly far ahead of her in terms of progress, but Raine didn't rush, keeping up the writing with as much care and precision as she'd started. When finally she'd completed the last of the sigils, she stepped back to give the work a last looking-over, comparing it with the book. Satisfied at last, Raine made her way to the edge of the circle, clearing the way for Solomon to finish and close it.

Huo-Wei; even later in the month;

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