tushanshu_logs | and all the sinners, saints, and winners [September, catchall, OPEN]

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and all the sinners, saints, and winners [September, catchall, OPEN]

Characters: Raine Sage or China Sorrows, and you! [open]
Date: September
Location: assorted: notably, Healer’s Guild, Fire Sector, Earth Sector.
Situation: assorted, open-ended
Warnings/Rating: obligatory mention of China's magic, which can't help but come up; minor violence in the thread with Cain and China.

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Raine

A; open; the Guild; most mornings and afternoons;

As Raine is anticipating disaster, she spends more and more time at the Guild leading up to the Chihuelans’ presence. Even after they’re gone, she’ll be relatively easy to find here.

Sometimes she’ll be at the desk in the front hall, taking her turn handling people walking in the door like the rest of the healers and students. In such cases she usually has a book open in front of her, and is usually frowning. When she’s not immediately apparent, any of the kedan who also work there will be able to direct someone looking for Raine to her office, a small room deeper in the Guild, notably ornamented with an ever-increasing number of notebooks and a single extra chair.

She’ll often seem lost in thought; barring screaming and blood, it may take her a few moments to focus on the person in front of her.

B; open and/or Duke?; Earth Sector; pre-Chihuelans;

Some few early evenings, it's possible to find Raine in a small park a little ways from the place she and Solomon live; she often takes her practical arte work outside, when she has any in mind. Lately, though, she’s been taking these infrequent occasions more to just sit in peace-- it looks rather like she’s meditating, in fact, save perhaps for the pale glow around her hands.

Though her eyes are closed, she will look up as soon as anyone comes within twenty to thirty feet, focusing on the person as the glow fades. “Did you need something?”

---

China

C; open; Fire Sector; most times of the month;

It’s not difficult to track down China Sorrows, if you’re putting your mind to it; she doesn’t make a secret of where she lives, and she stands out regardless. Most people in the area can direct the asker to the place where the too-beautiful Foreigner lives. In this case it’s in one of the nicer areas in Fire, a place she’s spent a good deal of time warding and is now almost entirely comfortable in.

Previously during the summer, she was doing work with sigils on the door, inscribing intricate designs in primarily circular patterns for a day or two. Those are all invisible now, leaving only unremarkable door and walls and windows.

It is still most advisable to knock.

D; open; College campus; specifically during the Chihuelan visit;

China does not manage inconspicuous well, but her network of informants is still not what it was. Thus, there are days when she’ll find herself a bench or a fountain’s edge or something equally useful to sit on, and watch the comings and goings from the College from one direction or another.

Not obviously, of course, she always has her head bent over some paper or book and she’s always arrayed in that elegantly artless way that suggests she just happens to be in the perfect light, but she hasn’t taken up a sudden interest in craftswork.

People stop to look at her, but most of them manage to restrain the urge to throw themselves at her feet. Once in a while someone stops to talk to her; if it’s not someone with a useful piece of information for her, China is much less inclined to smile.

---

[ooc; so it looked like, overall, no specific starters were necessary, but if you want to plot or want something I have not produced drop me a pm or a plurk at

makaricrow. I'm always happy to adapt. c:]

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Raine blinked up at him in some surprise, briefly startled by his presence-- she should likely have felt his mana signature coming, she certainly knew him well enough, but she'd been distracted. In a moment she shuffled the papers she'd been looking at under another set, and sat back, carefully rolling her head on her neck to stretch the muscles there. "I haven't," she admitted, a little ruefully. "I would have before too long. Is that why you're here?"

Cain merely smiled for the distracted surprise and let himself further in to give their conversation some privacy. He moved over to the desk but didn't sit down yet, shrugging to the question. "Well, yes. Did I need another reason?" He looked down at where she was working, taking in whatever projects she might have laid out before adding, "I can just leave it here and go if I'm interrupting or if you'd prefer not to have company."

The remaining papers looked like nothing but Guild minutiae, the myriad of things Raine was keeping track of. The thing she'd shuffled away, if Cain had gotten a brief look at it, looked somewhat like the elven she'd been teaching him, but sharper, more carefully interlinked, and not immediately legible.

"I do eat, even on my own recognizance," she said, and it was just a little bit tart. "I can take care of myself." But she stretched, and stood, and smiled at Cain, any irritation fading rapidly. "I appreciate the thought, however, and I'd be happy to join you for lunch. Perhaps outside?"

"That wasn't what I meant," Cain said mildly, unperturbed. He understood the rejection of being coddled, but he hoped Raine would see the fact that he just wanted to do a nice thing for the young woman he was becoming rather close to in recent days. Even if she didn't, it was good enough that she was willing to accept the gift as it was. "Outside sounds good. It's been better than it was."

He nodded, stepping back to allow Raine the lead. If she had somewhere specific to go for lunches on Guild grounds, or simply had a spot she preferred, then it was probably better than Cain's idea of simply finding a nice spot of ground or a public bench to take in the scenery while they ate.

She inclined her head to him, understanding but something a little short of apology. "All right," she said, and left her papers where she was. "There's an interior courtyard, if you haven't seen it before. This way."

Raine moved past him and into the hall, leading him with ease. She was long since accustomed to these surroundings. "How has your day been?" she asked over her shoulder, something genuinely curious rather than asked just for the form of it.

An apology wasn't necessary. Cain wasn't really looking to be anything more than a friend to her, helping out where she needed or just being there if she wanted. This was more of just an opportunity to hang out, and it seemed like she was beginning to get the idea of that. "Haven't really been around much aside from visiting you," he said easily. What business would someone like him have with healers if not personal?

Cain followed, smiling at the question and the real interest inside of it. "Surprisingly good," he answered. "I managed to get all the ingredients for this without a hassle, and it looks like I'm getting the hang of all the back streets again. What about you?"

That, of all questions, gave Raine brief pause, thinking of the strange not-quite-missive now sitting on her desk, under all the other papers. She herself didn't know what to make of it yet; she wasn't sure she wanted to tell anyone else. But... perhaps.

"There haven't been any major crises today," she answered before too long had elapsed, smiling a little. It was almost a joke. "It's good you're finding your way around the city again. What did you find for lunch?"

It was with effort Cain was keeping his thoughts away from his own letter. That wasn't something he wanted to breach just yet, if at all during this visit, and it was nothing much to at least act like it wasn't driving him to distraction as he sorted his feelings over the matter. The fact that he couldn't just accept it only made the whole situation more ridiculous than it ought to have been.

"Managed a salad that isn't wilted or barely green," he said cheekily. Not the easiest of feats in a drought but perhaps not as hard as his accomplished tone indicated. It was the little things. "Not sure exactly what you don't mind eating, but there are sandwiches in there, too."

"I'm not especially picky," she said with a little shrug. "Certain foods have a more beneficial effect on my mana regeneration, but that's all." Today hadn't been busy enough that she'd need it, either.

She led him out into the open courtyard; it wasn't an especially large spot, but open to the sky and a welcome spot of greenery, and there were benches set up to take advantage of the light and air in relative comfort.

It occurred to her that she knew the large things about Cain, his name and his age and the weight of his guilt, but they'd had no opportunity to learn the little things, as friendships normally went. "Hm," she said aloud, considering that, and, "What do you prefer? To eat."

"It would be stereotypical of me to say pasta," Cain said with amusement while he followed her into the court. It was a nice spot away, a bubble hidden from the public eye for moments of peace. He took a spot on the bench and grinned for her. "Not the least because that earth-stereotype after my time. My own tastes tend toward fish and root vegetables if you'd believe it. Not that I'm picky, either," he added.

He motioned for her to join him and started to pull out a wrapped parcel in one hand and a clear container holding some nicely fresh greens inside in the other. He raised a brow, lifting each one slightly higher in turn. Preferences?

Edited 2015-09-23 15:34 (UTC)

"Stereotypical?" Raine prodded, curious, and, following the logic, "The area you're from has a strong association with pasta, then." She'd heard stranger things to be known for.

She sat next to him, considered the options. "Would you be amenable to some of each?" she asked after a moment's debate with herself, her head tipped a little to the side. "It could go either way, but from a strictly nutritional standpoint, the best would be greens and protein both."

"It does," he said with a nod. "More so what the area I'm from became, however, although some wouldn't keep cognizant of that fact. Etruria into Rome into Italy. Have you ever seen a map of earth continents?"

At such a peaceable and logical conclusion, Cain had to laugh. "No, that's fine," he said, scooting apart just enough to place the food between them so he could reach in and get the utensils he had intended for the salad. "You make a good point. Eating out of the same container okay, or...?"

"It hasn't really come up," Raine admitted. "I have some concept of it, since so many people here are from Earth, but I haven't had a chance to study the geography." As much as she might have liked to, at some point. But the names she tucked away anyway, in case she had the chance to fit them together with other pieces later.

It occurred to her that she had never seen a map of Aselia entirely, either, and she quirked half a smile to herself.

"That's fine," she agreed, not particularly concerned by the prospect of sharing. She tucked one leg up beneath her and half-turned, so she was facing Cain. "What sort of sandwich did you find?"

Cain tilted his head to the first part, but for the moment didn't comment. As he uncapped the salad container, he set the lid aside and unwrapped the sandwich to set upon the lid instead of keeping it inside the paper. It had already been cut just as a general thing, done without thinking, and that was going to make it less awkward to share it by far. Cain hadn't exactly considered packing knives for a salad. "This is just a simple ham, cheese and tomato sandwich. Or... whatever passes for ham around here, anyway."

That said, he pulled something out of his pocket and actually scooted himself off the bench, taking the sandwich wrapping with him. He set it down on the ground and clicked the pen he had pulled out earlier, beginning to sketch straight, expert lines across the waxy parchment. With a glance up to her and a grin, he said, "No reason we can't show you a map now, right?"

Raine snagged one of the forks Cain had set out and started with the salad, nodding. She had been a little concerned he might have happened across mushrooms -- the one thing she actually genuinely disliked -- but he'd played it safe, and he'd been thoughtful.

Lloyd would have outright refused, she thought, but the missing him only lasted a moment, and the reminder was more warm than anything else.

What Cain proposed made her eyes brighten, and Raine leaned over to watch him sketch, mindful that she didn't drop anything. "It's a large world, isn't it?" she said. "At least, compared to my own."

At her question, Cain automatically and wordlessly diverted to the top right corner of the map. He penned in a small bracket for scale and wrote down what amount of space meant how large it was; even if they didn't have the same units of measurement, it would give a springboard for figuring out how to convert it. "I wouldn't know," he said in explanation, jumping right back to where he had been and continuing.

He had started with the Arctic regions and planned to work his way down. For how long mankind had known the shape of the earth and the places on it, pulling it up in his memory and recreating it really wasn't that hard. "There's a lot of people in it, though. Seven billion, give or take. Once we started to figure out how to treat illness and major injuries, life expectancy went up, infant mortality rate went down... I wouldn't say we're overpopulated just yet, but it sure does emphasize how large everything is."

Raine eyed the scale, but it looked familiar, she could make sense of the units. "At least in terms of population," she said, agreeing. She'd heard the figure seven billion before. "We hardly have an accurate figure for our world, and with the reunification of the worlds everything will need to be re-figured, but... I would be surprised if Aselia had more than a billion people. Even taking into account any Desians still remaining."

The task ahead of them was still a large one, but they could do it.

She kept watching, as continents took shape. Perhaps she should be surprised, that he was reproducing the entire thing from memory, but after all he had had quite a while, hadn't he?

"Desians?" he asked, moving further down as he worked, not lingering on anything overlong as he tried to do this in a timely manner. He more wanted to make a piece for conversation rather than spend the whole lunch doodling on the ground, but when Raine said she hadn't seen a map of the earth yet despite being surrounded by so many people who everything about it for granted... well, he wanted to make sure she had her own reference to compare to.

Reunification of the worlds sounded vaguely familiar, as odd of a concept as it was. It wouldn't hurt to have a refresher, though, something to keep his mind busy as well as his hands. "How did all that go again?"

"The name for the primarily half-elven group of forces employed by Cruxis as a threat in the declining world," Raine said absently, more focused on the developing shapes. "The Kharlan War was retroactively blamed on them as well, and while there were recorded instances of humans among their ranks, for the most part the term Desian became synonymous with half-elf in many parts of the worlds."

She paused there. They'd spoken of some of it, in the Dreaming, but she wasn't surprised detail had gotten lost. "How much detail would you like?" she asked. "It's something of a long story."

That made some sense, and Cain nodded with the explanation. He had the idea that half-elves were not looked kindly upon in general where Raine was from and knew better than to prod deeper into that now. Still remaining didn't sound so great, anyway, and he tucked it away for later. A better time.

"How about this? You tell the story and see if you can't make it last as long as it takes me to finish this," he said, only briefly looking up to see if she agreed or thought he was being ridiculous. He could take either at this point and was slightly, pleasantly surprised she hadn't blinked an eye at his spontaneous cartography. "Then when we're done, we can go over each other's details."

"All right," Raine said, and paused for a bite of salad. "The Kharlan War, between the kingdoms of Sylvarant and Tethe'alla, escalated the use of magitechnology until it outpaced the Great Tree, and the Tree began to wither as a result. However, the war was a human war, and I can only hypothesize that they truly didn't know what they were doing."

It still meant that they were too caught up in hatred and killing, but it was something a little better, than simply not caring. "A small group of half-elves did notice," she went on. "Most specifically, a woman named Martel Yggdrasill. It seems she was especially attuned to the Tree, in some way." She wished she knew exactly what it had been about Martel; perhaps the spirit would know? "She had raised her younger brother Mithos on her own, and together they sought to make it known that the Tree was dying. I don't know the details, but they were joined by another half-elf, who Martel must have loved, and a human who..." Raine let out a breath, frowning absently to herself. She didn't know where he had come from. "I can only assume he must have thought their quest worthwhile. But in the end, it was useless. The Tree died."

It had taken her a little while, to piece things back together. "It wasn't hopeless," she said, after another pause for salad, and to watch the lines under Cain's pen take shape. "When the Tree died, it left behind the Great Seed, a mass of pure mana which had the potential to germinate into another Tree. But it would require a great infusion of mana from another source. There was such a source -- a comet, called Derris-Kharlan, which orbited Aselia at the time. However, it had an elliptical orbit, and would take roughly a hundred years to come back to a place where its mana could be used for that purpose. The world would have died in that time. So Mithos made a pact with the spirit Origin, the spirit of All Things, and with his power split the world apart."

She said all this evenly, distantly, like it was simply a piece of history and not something impossible, something that had made such a ruin of their world. "The Seed still generated a trickle of mana. Not much, not enough for the entire world, but... some. Mithos set it up as an hourglass, so that mana flowed from one world to the other, allowing both to survive without outright dying. Further, he put Sylvarant on one side, and Tethe'alla on the other, thereby separating the two powers that had caused the war, in the hopes that that would end it." Raine sighed then, and looked genuinely downcast. "It didn't. The two kingdoms were still aware of each other's existence, and the battle then became to control the mana flow, so that one could continue to flourish. But, of course, Mithos with Origin's help was the only one who could do that, and in the attempts to gain control of the mana, soldiers from one side killed, not him, but Martel.

"Mithos did not take it well," she added, and grimaced. It was perhaps the largest understatement of her life. "I won't go into the details unless you're curious about the mechanics, but essentially, he paired Martel's soul with the Seed. It sustained her, so she didn't truly die, but if the Seed had germinated, it would have consumed her with the rest of the mana it used to do so. So Mithos... didn't. He simply let the worlds persist as they were, while he looked for a way to resurrect her in truth. Every so often -- I estimate every few hundred years -- the mana flow would be shifted, so that neither world would die, but neither could be allowed to genuinely flourish for very long, either. Mithos obliterated all knowledge of the nature of the worlds; I have reason to believe he was at least the cause if not the instrument of the deaths of the entire Tethe'allan royal family at the time." Spiritua, the first Chosen, was also Spiritua, the angel of death. "In the wake of that, he set up a church in his sister's name, to manage the world. The Desians he created so there would always be a threat to be fought. Those factors, paired with the continual system of waxing and waning mana, ensured that neither world would ever develop so far as to generate the same level of magitechnology, and while Mithos kept them in a state of stagnancy, he worked to breed a vessel with a match to Martel's mana signature, one that could bear her soul."

Now, though, Raine smiled, a wry little expression. "She was my student," she said, wistfully. "You would like her, I think. Colette... truly believes in the goodness of people; she's always finding the best in them. Even assassins sent to kill her." And that had the sound of a joke, to Raine, rather than the serious matter it really should have been. "We fought for her. Eventually, we were able to make a new pact with Origin, and defeat Mithos, and Derris-Kharlan was where it needed to be. Sylvarant and Tethe'alla were reunited, and the Seed was germinated. I saw the new Tree myself, only a few minutes before I woke in Keeliai."

It seemed a very long time ago now. Raine's fork hovered in mid-air, and her head was tilted a little to the side as she regarded Cain's work.

That was a lot to take in. Cain was listening intently even though he never looked up from his work. Soon enough the continents were finished and he began to draw smaller lines and divisions along the map: countries. He would deal with places like the United States later and just focus on the pertinent pieces while Raine told him an almost-unbelievable recounting of her world's history. It was a lot to take in, but Cain kept up just fine. Most of the terms had already been explained and Raine was definitely a teacher at heart to be able to give him a clear picture of the situation.

It was a moment after she had finished that Cain had finished as well. One last touch was to circle where his city would be, and wrote Rome underneath in the Elven script he had been learning from Raine. He could fill in other major names later, but that one... that one was the important one to start with where he was concerned.

"You said that all happened in about four thousand years, right?" asked Cain, looked up to Raine with a smile, and with a flourish he presented the finished map for her to take and inspect as she wished. He stood, brushed off his knees and sat back down, perhaps a bit closer than before so he could reach over and point things out as necessary. "It sounds like he went insane if he was able to focus so completely on a single task for so long. Not that I could blame him, strength of corruption is often correlated to the amount of power someone has," he added, a casual knowledge in his tone. Even if Cain couldn't blame him, he didn't harbor much sympathy, either. Idly, he wondered at the fate of this Martel's soul, and whether she was supposed to have survived or perish when she had; if she had been destined to wait for so long in a cage of her brother's insanity.

It seemed she'd timed it just about perfectly. Raine set her fork down, took the map in her hands and bent her head over it, as if she was settling to study already. "Yes," she said, absently. "The withering of the Tree was almost exactly four thousand years ago. I believe I told you-- elves live naturally about a thousand years, half-elves a little less. Mithos and his companions used something called a Cruxis crystal to stop their aging process."

She still didn't think it had done any of them any favors.

"I wonder," she said a few moments later, looking up at Cain's later comment. "Perhaps he was from the time his sister died. Fixated, at the least. Everything he had done, from that point, was for the goal of bringing her back, and when he succeeded, and she denied him... he became much less rational." It had been a terrifying devolution to witness, even knowing who Mithos was and what he was capable of.

Raine sighed, and glanced back down. Focused on the single word of elven script, and smiled, even if it was little. "Rome," she said. No difficulty in guessing what Cain found most important. "I see."

"Losing a sibling like that is enough to drive anyone outside of their head," Cain said. That much he knew for certain, but it was also why he knew Mithos had no excuse. They faced the same sort of eternity with the same sort of despair in front of them, and Mithos with his power had simply ripped the world into pieces in his grief and insanity. Everyone was different, and reactions to grief were among the least understood, yet Cain couldn't help but be vaguely disappointed. He shook his head. "He made his choices, and it's resolved by now at any rate."

Seeing her smile, Cain couldn't help but smile as well. "Yes, Rome. That's my city," he said. Not much of an explanation or what the possessive really meant. To him, it said everything. It was everything. Where he had grown up only retained significance in that he'd grown there with Remus. Rome was where he belonged — where he had made sure it prospered so that Remus could have belonged there, too.

"I can only imagine," Raine said soberly. It had never been a stretch, to think of what the loss of one Sage would do to the other, and that among other things had driven her acquisition of healing artes. Cain's voice... it was the voice of experience, she was sure, in no small part thanks to what she'd seen beneath the shell, with him.

Abel.

It was a better thing to think of the unmistakeable pride when he called Rome his city. "I take it this is Italy, then," she said, tracing with one light fingertip the area around the mark Cain had made.

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