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Characters: Sabriel and Eva
Date: A day or two after Sabriel returns from the bottle
Location: Where Eva's living.
Situation: Sabriel's heard rumours about a non-foreigner magic user, and decides to investigate
Warnings/Rating: None, probably.

[The rumours had caught her attention, and she had followed them- and her own magical senses- to what she hoped was the place were this somewhat mysterious mage was living.

After her fight with Zatanna, it was clear that she needed to learn more about different sorts of magic- and so Sabriel had no hesitation about knocking on the door.]

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Not so different from the Old Kingdom then- although I can't access Death here, for some reason. Although I've been trying.

I assume the enemy can draw on this power as well? Or that attempting to tap into it would leave whoever tried it even more vulnerable to its influence? [Because spending too much time in Death had a tendency to twist people's spirits- sometimes to the point they no longer looked human. And with something like Malicant lurking in the realm... Sabriel shuddered.]

No. You wouldn't be able to. I can barely access Death, and I'm-- well, a sight more practiced at it.

[There may have been a slight pause there, indicating that perhaps she was going to say something else.]

You ever hear of the uroboros? The snake, eating its own tail to indicate perpetuity? That's how I imagine Malicant and Death. Symbiotic, of a sort.

I started walking into Death in my world when I was twelve, but here, it's like walking into a wall. [The implication that there's an aspect of necromancy she's totally inexperienced at smarts a bit.]

You mean... Malicant is affecting Death, but Death is also affecting him? [Sabriel turns that thought over in her head.] I know Malicant is corrupting Death, and apparently drawing power from it- but that makes him seem more like a parasite than anything else.

No slight against your own skill, girl. I doubt I could master your magic anymore than you can master mine.

[It's kindly said, and Eva nods in acknowledgement to her.]

You think he's any better than a parasite? Why else would he want what he's after?

He wants to kill the turtles and destroy this world- and any others he travels to. Or is there more too it?

[As far as Sabriel understood it, Malicant was something like a Free Magic elemental of terrible power- a creature of chaos and malic, bent on killing and destroying, though often in rather subtle ways.]

Not that I know. But we never knew all that much to begin with, and my knowledge is... out of date.

[She wrinkles her nose at that, as if she doesn't much like admitting it.]

That's true of almost anything we've been able to learn so far.

But what of Death? Is there some way to- to break his hold on that realm, or use it against him? [The ghosts thought it might be possible, though Sabriel did not mention them.]

[She gives Sabriel a bit of a curious look.]

I suppose it could be. Not that I've ever tried, myself, even powerful as I am I don't think I could pull it off. But a group of us, together... no harm trying? He uses the realm as--

[She pauses, and hunts around her apartment for a time, comes back with a salt shaker and a bowl, which she sets out on her table.]

Okay, so this-- [she holds the bowl aloft, upright] is Death. And he uses it as a place from which to stage his campaign. He treats it as a room with a door that swings both ways. We, generally speaking, ain't got the juice to fight him on it. If he's holding the door shut, we can't bully our way in, for instance. But maybe we could use that against him, too, and-- [she balances the bowl on her index finger (there's a bit of magic involved there, probably) and then turns it upside down against the table.] trap him. It could buy us the time to figure out how to kill him outright, yeah? Especially if we can shore up those defenses-- [now comes the salt, which she dumps liberally around the bowl] and prevent him coming out entirely.

[Sabriel nods, looking down at the bowl and the salt.]

I know how to create wards and bindings that make it difficult or impossible for things to pass from Death into Life in a specific area- though I couldn't ward all Keeliai, let alone the entire turtle, even if I baptized and trained all the Charter Mages I could. And there'd still be the risk of his servants trying to sabotage things.

He didn't use them last time.

[... A pause. Then,]

My last time. Not the last time. I weren't around for Sinbrilee. He didn't need agents directly, the way he's been using them here. He used to just influence everybody, just a little. Wonder what changed?

He was bound, after Sinbrilee. Obviously, it didn't work as intended- but perhaps it's still having some effect, and it's preventing him from using his full strength.

[She tilts her head to one side like a rather curious bird.]

Bound? Don't suppose you know how?

Only a little. He was possessing someone when they were killed, and he was somehow imprisoned in the body, even after it was dismembered.

[They'd never got so far in the first war as to consider options like that. There wasn't any time, there was only doing what was necessary, and Eva grimaces at the thought. If the revelation had come sooner, would she have been 'voluntold' for that, too? It doesn't cross her mind for a moment that he would have been, by necessity, imprisoned in a powerful mage.]

Wouldn't much have liked to be that fella, huh.

I wouldn't want to die that way... but death would be preferable to being used like a puppet by that thing.

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