November catchall | and every city was a gift

[ruinsprofessor]

Characters: Raine Sage, others!
Date: any November
Location: Keeliai, specifically apartment, Healers' Guild, and others
Situation: a few!
Warnings/Rating: none yet, will update if that changes



A | the usual suspects

Raine can usually be found either in her apartment in Earth sector, usually in the evenings or early afternoons of her few off days, or at the Healers' Guild. She doesn't vary her routine all that much, having relaxed a little from the worries of earlier months.

She's normally happy enough to greet people, though if you go to find her at the Guild she may be in her office and rather engrossed in administrative duties or magical research. Or both, where applicable. She is, however, easily roustable for emergencies.

B | others tba as necessary, inquire to Makari

Comments

[peacefullywreathed]

Solomon was in the office. He heard Raine come home, heard her speaking to someone, even felt the ripples that indicated a soul--but he assumed, at first, it was one he didn't know, and that was why it seemed dim. His fingers were resting on the pin-created maps on his corkboard, and he reached out for a notebook and ... didn't find it.

Hm. Not on the shelf, either. Where could it have gone? Possibly Raine had borrowed it; sometimes she had a look at his notes, for some sighted observations. If so, it would be in the living-room or the bedroom.

He stepped out of the office, mostly dressed in shoes and suit, even up to a waistcoat, but without a jacket and his sleeves rolled up. "Raine?" he asked, but she had already left the living-room, and instead Solomon was drawn by the ... actually somewhat familiar soul nearby. Quite familiar, rather. Solomon tipped his head, his gaze passing over the bunny unrealising. "Ravel? If you're here for designs on the Master Healer, we may have to have words."

His tone was dry rather than accusing. Ravel had never come to their apartment before, or seen the need.

[edgeoftheknife]

He knew that Raine and Wreath were together. He knew that probably meant they lived together. But would it have been so much to ask that Wreath not be home in this particular instance?

Not that Erskine and Solomon were necessarily at each other's throats these days. The bone puns over the network a couple of weeks previous had been amusing, and amiable, enough. It proved that they could hold a conversation, however strange and mocking a conversation it might be, without Erskine feeling the need to throttle Wreath with his own tie. That was surely progress.

Except now what the hell was he supposed to do, with Wreath blind and asking after him, and Ravel a goddamned bunny rabbit and incapable of speech?

Charades weren't going to cut it this time.

Erskine scoffed in his fluffy little way, crinkling his nose and padding to the other end of the table where a book sat. It look a bit of doing, several tiny nudges, but eventually Erskine managed to shove the book off the side of the table and send it to the floor with a THUMP.

[peacefullywreathed]

There was no answer, and Solomon lifted his eyebrow in lieu of a frown. Ravel's soul was strangely ... muted, almost twisted, but he still would have thought the man would answer. "The silent treatment, Ravel? Really, I thought--"

The thud cut him off and Solomon paused. Something was ... very strange, here. Ravel surely wouldn't be able to keep his mouth shut with Solomon making quips at his expense, and there had been something pointed about the thud. It had come a few seconds too late to be a reaction to his appearance; therefore it had been an attempt to attract his attention.

"Ravel?" Solomon stepped forward, his fingers out to brush the table, and then he moved along it to find the chairs and see whether Ravel was in one of them. His senses were alert, just in case some idiotic kedan chose to rob the flat and didn't realise it belonged to the shadow man and the light healer.

[edgeoftheknife]

Ravel certainly wasn't in any of the chairs. He watched from the other end of the table as the necromancer approached, not entirely sure that he really wanted Wreath's attention after all. Maybe he should have just waited for Raine to return and explain everything. It would save him being alone with Wreath--at least with Wreath aware of him--and much more helpless than usual.

But Wreath was nearly upon him and short of running, Erskine was just going to have to find a way to get his attention. He didn't really expect Wreath to do anything to him, anyway. Especially not with Raine having taken responsibility of him from Anton.

He waited until Wreath was right next to him, fingers brushing the edge of the table as he moved, and then put a paw out to lightly tap Wreath's fingers. And then immediately hopped back a little, waiting for the expected flailing that usually comes from fingers being brushed by something unknown.

[peacefullywreathed]

Something tapped him. Solomon went very still and turned his head. It hadn't been a sharp thing. In fact, it had been rather ... furry. A furry thing? And Ravel's soul was just there, over the table, in fact, but strangely warped--like he'd been funneled through a tub and only part of it was left sticking out.

"Ravel?" he asked again, his head tilted, and put his hand out a little further along the table, until he felt something warm and fluffy under his fingers. His frown deepened. "Are you an animal?"

Good grief; what would the Dead Men think of next?

[edgeoftheknife]

If Erskine could have leveled an unamused glare at Solomon, now would have been the perfect time.

Yes, Wreath, I'm a bloody animal. I'm a rabbit. Now how do you expect me to answer that question, given that I'm an animal?

But he was small and fluffy and adorable, and Wreath wouldn't have seen any such glare anyway. In fact, none of the bunny charades he'd worked out with the others were going to work. This was--all history between them aside--possibly the worst combination of people (or man and animal) that could have been devised.

Great.

He reached out and bopped Wreath's hand again with his paw, the only way he was sure he could communicate with the necromancer at the moment. Not that he knew just what he was communicating, but they could work that out later.

[peacefullywreathed]

He was a fluffy animal. Solomon left his hand where it was, so Erskine could pat it or whatever he was doing, and for the first time actually looked properly at the man's soul. He'd made lists of the ways souls interacted and Ravel's was reaching toward him in a manner that indicated he was, in fact, trying to communicate.

What he was saying? Solomon had no idea. But it probably wasn't complimentary.

Besides, the actual state of his soul was more interesting.

"Were you aware that you look like a balloon full of water, constricted in the middle?" he asked, and then tilted his head. "Or constricted into a quarter to three, as the case may be. It's all still there, just ... moulded differently."

Fascinating.

[edgeoftheknife]

For a moment the bunny just sat there on the tabletop near Wreath's hand, staring up at the man.

Wreath had said that he could see souls. So Erskine's soul had been distorted, not just his physical form? Or was the soul linked inextricably to the physical? To the point where warping one warped the other?

Better question: did it matter? Clearly Wreath was fascinated by the whole thing, but that's what came of talking to a necromancer. Or, well. Having a necromancer talk at him, anyway. Erskine didn't much care what shape his soul was in at the moment unless it would somehow tell them how to get him back to normal. Besides, once again, he couldn't answer Wreath anyway. Not unless he kept bopping Wreath's hand with his paw. Or... or gnawing at the cuff of the man's shirt.

Being small and cute wasn't just good for getting cuddles.

hope this is okay

[peacefullywreathed]

Of course. Ravel, being a bunny, was really in no position to appreciate the fact that Solomon was seeing the manipulation of a soul at work. Not that it was much good for him, really. Solomon took a moment to examine the way it was shaped, as best as he could, before he felt a tug at his sleeve.

And paused.

And reached out, and, with some fumbling, found the scruff of Ravel's bunny neck, and lifted him up.

"For your sake," he said, though he sounded just barely amused, "that had better not have been my sleeve. I suppose you'll be wanting Raine, then."

He turned away from the table and brought the bunny in to cradle it in his arm, and went in search of Raine.