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 Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2022 9:21 pm
Torn between talking about Percy and the tree, Alastor decided he’d just do both.
“I think it’s possible, there’s always been something special about this one. I grew mine from an acorn here, and it’s been around–well, for a while. A long while. A thousand-years while. But mine’s out in the open, right on a hill. Mine kept growing, but it never really had leaves. Not like it was supposed to. Can’t blame it, given the circumstances. But it’s big. I’d like to take you some time, but I wish my world was any bit nicer. I don’t want your first impression to be a bad one. It’s got storms, but no shelter outside.”
Also there was a grave, but he left that part out. Especially if he was already having memories of Percy.
He rested one hand on the tree and seemed to have nothing but admiration and pride for it and its resilience.
“But, Sessrumnir is full of magic. And it's strong. But, I think it has to be to survive on a planet like this.” Although, the storm had passed. He rubbed at his chest briefly, as if to hasten away the soreness.
“For what it’s worth, I’m glad I got to meet you, too. I’m glad you’re you. My heart might have broken if you were an a*****e. So if anyone was going to take the mantle of Sessrumnir,” he paused, nodded, and looked at him for a second. “I’m glad it was you.”
And, he meant it, but his mood shifted a little quickly, from the seriousness back to his enthusiasm.
“Do you want to see some of his paintings? I have a lot back on Alastor. There might be some here,” he said, but he knew that things could have changed after all this time. Probably had changed. Things could be moved or lost or taken. “I have a little one here, hold on,” he said, and began to rummage through his subspace. For a moment, he just pulled things out and stacked them in his arm–some things he’d put in to hold when they were getting ready to come here, some things that just looked old. Finally, he pulled out a box and passed it over for Sessrumnir to hold while he put everything back.
“Here,” he said, obviously excited to share this. He took the box back and opened it so he could pull out a locket. “The clasp is fragile so I don’t wear it. The bail broke but I fixed it, just a little while ago, but. He painted this. A very long time ago. The paint is fragile, too. And a bit faded. But I think he did a good job capturing himself.”
He was prepared to hand the necklace over, but he still moved in close. His shoulder was pressed to Sessrumnir’s, and he cradled the locket like the treasure it was.
“I think he’d have liked you a lot, Michael. Not just because you’re very good at taking care of me. But you’re smart, and compassionate. Strong, with a good head on your shoulders. Hardworking and innovative. Clever. Princess likes you, so I know you’ve got a good heart.”
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Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2022 9:09 am
Sessrumnir was quiet as he listened, and somehow managed to hold back from snorting in amusement at Alastor’s relief that he wasn’t an a*****e. He supposed it depended on who was asked. He hadn’t felt the need to be an a*****e to Alastor, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t capable of it. He didn’t like being an a*****e, but sometimes it was a necessary evil to get the point across.
He held the box when it was handed to him, and tried very hard not to smile at all of the things Alastor had to rummage through in his subspace to get to it. He would clearly have to help him get everything organized one of these days. Or at least get him proper containers so that all of his possessions were safe.
And then Alastor was holding the little locket up for him to see, shoulders pressed together, and other than a quick glance, Sessrumnir found that the locket and painting itself was a lot less interesting than the expression on Alastor’s face.
He wasn’t sure when he started holding his breath, but he made himself let it out after a few moments. His face felt warm and his heart had quickened, and all he could think about was how gentle Alastor’s smile was. How much he loved Percy was clear on his face, in the shine of his eyes as he looked at the little locket.
“He’s pretty,” was the stupidest thing he could have managed to say about someone’s beloved, descended spouse. He could have said anything else about the quality of work or how he was grateful that Alastor would trust him to share such a treasure. Sessrumnir cleared his throat and forced himself to take a step back before standing there next to Alastor got too comfortable.
“I’m not so sure about all that,” he added after a moment of making himself look at anything other than Alastor. “You still don’t know me very well. I might just be very good at pretending that I’m all of those things.”
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Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2022 10:13 am
Alastor laughed, softly but with obvious affection. Percy had always been pretty. For a moment longer he admired the face in the locket, but he finally closed it and placed it carefully back in the box that he then returned to subspace. “Are you an actor, Michael? I suppose you have to be to some degree if you’re a teacher. But you don’t strike me as someone who thrives on deceit. Why would you put all that energy into pretending to be all of those things?”
Why would he have to?
Alastor wasn’t really used to any sort of contact and probably would have been content just to have someone talking to him. If Michael was just acting, he was working too hard.
Being reminded that they hadn’t known each other for very long didn’t seem to really do anything. How could that matter? It didn’t feel like it had been a brief time, and Alastor had always been one to trust his instinct.
Maybe he was usually more cautious about people, but he knew a part of Michael that he didn’t know. And–yeah, maybe starseeds could change from one life to the next. His had. Sort of. He hoped. He’d known who he was, what he was getting into, as a child. A young child. Everyone knew the stories of Sailor Alastor. Everyone dreaded him. And then he’d died, and been reborn, and one day someone sat Devyn down and told him that he was Alastor.
And Devyn hadn’t wanted to be. The only benefit of awakening at such a young age was that he’d had time to figure out who he wanted to be and who he didn’t want to be.
And, he didn’t want to be a monster.
But, Percy had never been a monster. There wasn’t anything bad about him, nothing that could have seeped into his starseed and polluted him from one life to the next.
So, Michael couldn’t be a monster. At the core of him, at the center of everything that made him what he was, there was that starseed. No matter what else made Michael who he was, he knew that starseed.
He did not doubt that Michael was any of the things he said. He wondered why Michael did.
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Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2022 10:28 am
Sometimes, he didn’t know what he was, or who he was. Sessrumnir felt as though he’d already lived a dozen lives, crammed into thirty six years. An innocent child, proud son, enthusiastic scholar and engineer. Naive soldier, lover, pilot, poet, broken vet. A teacher, a Knight, a husband.
Some of those lives had died, and some remained. Some evolved into something else, or became embittered and pulled away from everyone else. Sometimes he wondered if it was less to protect himself and more because he liked being lonely. Liked being miserable. Not that he was going to admit to any of that.
He didn’t answer Alastor right away. He didn’t know how to answer. A part of him didn’t think it was fair that Alastor -- Devyn -- was so trusting of him so quickly. Another part of him was relieved and grateful and hopeful that someone was giving him a chance. Yet another part reminded him that he was destined to be alone and shouldn’t expect anything.
Sooner or later, Devyn would tire of him, or learn more about him that would make him decide that, starseed or not, he wasn’t worth the trouble.
Or would it be worse that Devyn only decided to stay around because of his starseed. Because a thousand years ago it belonged to Percy.
He hated that he didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know how to counter anything Alastor said. Someone else he might have been able to go along with telling Alastor that he would find out sooner or later. But he didn’t want to try and deceive him.
Princess had jumped up from rolling around on the ground, and was thankfully distracting enough because she decided she wanted to join in on the praise over the tree, apparently. Because she yipped up at the trunk. Her tail swished back and forth, so she wasn’t fearful or annoyed, but her entire focus was on the tree as she whined and talked at it.
“What is it?” Sessrumnir asked, grateful for her timing. He kept his eyes averted from Devyn, hoping that the redness in his cheeks would dissipate quickly so he didn’t have to worry about explaining himself.
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Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2022 10:54 am
Alastor seemed prepared to wait for the answer. The lighting was just enough that he couldn’t exactly make out if it was a shadow or color on Sessrumnir’s cheeks but he didn’t press it. Princess stole his attention again, but it wasn’t too hard. He’d missed her, and here she was in a form he recognized and knew.
He was still elated that she remembered him, and his mood lifted almost immediately just to see her being so energetic. Sessrumnir was far from forgotten but if his interest was in Princess, so was Alastor’s.
“Did you find something?” he asked, and crouched to get a better view of the tree from a different angle. While he was there, he couldn’t help but reach out to comb his fingers through her fur, brushing the stray grass that had collected while she was rolling around.
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Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2022 11:03 am
Princess seemed more than happy to return the attention she got from Alastor, and she turned to lick at wherever she could reach of him, before turning her attention back to the tree.
A tree that, Sessrumnir noticed, was very slightly moving.
His brows furrowed with curiosity and concern. Trees didn’t move a little at a time like that. As though the bark was moving.
No, it wasn’t the bark. It was what was on the bark.
Very carefully, Sessrumnir reached up to collect the small brown moth that was blending into the bark of the oak. It seemed like such a normal thing to find, except--
“This shouldn’t be here,” he said with a frown, holding the tiny insect in his hand as he brought it closer to show Devyn. “I haven’t seen… anything alive--”
Except Ganymede said she’d seen butterflies in the fields of her World. Had the moth just been hibernating for the ten years he’d been a knight, so he never saw them? He knew he told Soleiyu that something was happening, but he didn’t expect that something to happen at Sessrumnir.
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Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2022 11:10 am
Alastor tilted his head just slightly and looked from the moth, to Sessrumnir, and back again. One brow was raised, and while he bothered to wipe his face with his sleeve, he continued to pet Princess.
“They shouldn’t be here?” he asked, just to make sure Sessrumnir was talking about the moth. “The last time I was here, there were plenty of them. They’re harmless. A little troublesome, they like to hide in the leaves. You have to be careful when the trees shed, or you’ll wind up stepping on them.”
He stood up so Sessrumnir didn’t have to stretch to share the bug with him but stayed close so he could get a good look at it. “I’m surprised there’s only one. I’m not used to seeing less than a handful at a time.” Briefly, he leaned away, examining the tree like he expected to find more hiding in plain sight. “He looks like the ones that light up. If there are more, we’ll know when it gets darker, I guess. Is that all, you found a bug?” He ruffled the fur atop Princess’ head and stroked behind her ear once more in a gesture that was clearly habit more than something he put any thought into. “You’ve got better eyes than I do. I’m not even as old as you and you can see better than me! Help me find another one.”
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Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2022 4:28 pm
Sessrumnir opened his mouth to try and explain, but…
Maybe he didn’t need to force Devyn to accept that everything had been dead for… a thousand years at the longest. He wasn’t sure what happened to the people who lived at Sessrumnir. Were they all killed? Were they taken off-world? Did they continue to live there until… maybe a few hundred years? How long did it take for the creatures that lived there to die off? Or the plants? Those at least still seemed to be growing, but not flourishing. The oak tree looked like it had seen better days, certainly.
Princess, however, was very proud of her discovery. She whined and shook out her mane and tried to lap at Devyn’s hand as he ruffled her fur. Not because she wanted him to stop! She was obviously very excited for the attention.
Which made Sessrumnir feel more guilt than he already did. He didn’t understand what she was. He didn’t think she was more than just extra magic that Knights were able to use to help them fight. But here? With Alastor talking to her and treating her like she was her own living creature?
Sessrumnir was glad that she and Alastor were distracted by the search for moths. They didn’t have to see the way he clutched at the orb around his neck with his free hand. The moth crawled along his fingers, seeming maybe too tired to fly on its own. Not wanting Alastor or Princess to think they found another so easily, he reached up to set the moth on one of the lower branches to keep an eye on.
For now, it seemed like it was the only one. Princess circled the trunk of the tree at least five times, trying to catch sight of anything moving, but in the end whimpered and butted her head against Alastor’s leg for more pets.
“We’ll just have to keep an eye out for more,” he said after clearing his throat. He didn’t know why he felt so emotional about a bug, or about buds on a tree. Or how happy Princess looked. Maybe he was just tired. It had been a long month.
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Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2022 7:34 am
Alastor was easily convinced to pet Princess any time she did anything to get his attention. He followed after her for all five laps around the tree, looking a bit higher than she was to make sure they didn’t miss anything. When she butted his head, he stopped to give her his full attention, and began to pet and fluff every part of her that he could reach.
“We will. We’ll find more,” he promised. “Sessrumnir has a lot of nooks and crannies, and trees hiding in strange places. Do you think they were hibernating or something?” he asked; he was crouched again so he could pet Princess properly but he looked up at Sessrumnir again.
“I read something, a long time ago–so the research might be dated–but it said that our worlds have some sort of sentience. Which, I’m personally inclined to believe. But the theory was that there is a tether to all life, connected to the Core. And when the world is dying, it preserves what it can until its energy is restored. I’ve been on sick worlds before, where there’s a stillness in the air? You can feel the energy, it’s rancid. I’d always meant to go back and see if it was true. If the world could be purified, if it could heal itself, could it manifest life on its own? I mean, it all has to start somewhere.”
His lips pursed a bit and he was deep in thought, but he continued, “Maybe it’s just superstition. You get a lot of weird beliefs from people who aren’t quite in touch with modern society. Oh, although, I suppose that describes me now, doesn’t it? Huh.”
Alastor almost seemed amused by this, but he looked back at the moth on the tree, and then he couldn’t help the way his eyes were drawn back to Sessrumnir. “Well, who knows. Maybe you’re doing a really good job here and you’ve coaxed them into coming out from wherever they’ve been hiding. That’s possible, too, isn’t it?”
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Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2022 9:22 am
Sessrumnir didn’t know what to think. Moths -- or any creatures for that matter -- hadn’t been seen on Sessrumnir or any other world or wonder that he knew of. Not until Ganymede first saw butterflies on her world not too long ago.
And then Alastor showed up. Was it really all just a coincidence of things falling into place now, or did the Velencians’ arrival have something to do with it? Did that energy pulse across the ceiling of the Celestial Theater have anything to do with all of this?
But to Alastor, Sessrumnir nodded in agreement. There was no point in arguing when the evidence that there was life was right in front of them. It was just startling.
“I’ve only been to a few other places. What do you make of this place? It doesn’t feel corrupted or dying, but there’s also a stillness. For me. Or there used to be when I first came here. It’s why I didn’t want to do too much to it because it felt like I was disturbing a tomb,” he admitted, although maybe he should have left that part out. He wasn’t there to continuously remind Alastor of what he’d lost. He just wanted a chance to rebuild and make things as they were before. Moths coming out of hiding was a possibility, he supposed. Not very probable, but possible.
Especially now that he essentially had a guide for what things used to be like at his wonder.
“We’ll fix your world too,” he promised after a moment. He’d already promised, but he felt like Alastor could use a reminder that he didn’t have to worry about fixing everything by himself any more.
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Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2022 10:54 am
Alastor didn’t like the word tomb. His lips pursed together just a bit and his brows furrowed just slightly. The mood might not have been fleeting, but his reaction was and he nodded. “It does feel a bit empty. I’m used to movement. People. It was always busy, here. Maybe not here, specifically, but. Sessrumnir is a big place. I don’t know that it’s sunk in that we’re the only two here. And Princess.” This time, he gently ran his hand over her head. “And a moth.”
His eyes traced the lines of the tree once more because it was good to just see it. Even like this, without all its leaves.
They’d come. He had faith.
“This place is special, though. A lot of old magic. It’s not a tomb. Or,” he was quiet and then corrected, “It doesn’t have to be.”
People had died here, he knew that, but he didn’t want death to be Sessrumnir’s legacy.
“I don’t think it counts for disturbing it if you’re helping it heal. Sessrumnir has always been very picky with its Knights. No matter how much danger it was in, it’s stubborn enough that it would have waited for the right one. And it’s you. I don’t think it would have given you the tools to become what you are if it didn’t trust you. Which is all the more reason for me to trust you. I think the best way to honor Sessrumnir, what it is now and what it’s been before, is to just treat it with respect. It’s a school, but it’s always been more than that. People did choose to be laid to rest here. There were rituals for it. I don’t know if those places were sad, though. Just powerful. If you’re worried about disturbing anyone, just don’t dig under any trees. Everything else is just something to fix.”
Finally, he planted his hands on his hips once more, and surveyed all that he could see.
“And you’re doing a good job, Michael. I can’t imagine that any of this has been easy.” Not just tending to the Wonder, but fighting in a war for so long. Losing people you cared about.
“I’m glad to have any help you’ll give. I’m fortunate to have you. Just don’t push yourself too hard. I’ll worry if I don’t see you taking breaks and taking care of yourself, too.”
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Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2022 11:05 am
Princess seemed like she was just happy to be out and about, but wagged her tail in agreement with Alastor’s comments. Or maybe just because she was thrilled he was there.
Sessrumnir took in a deep breath and let it out slowly as he looked around them as well. It was obvious that Devyn knew more about this place than he did, and he was trying to think of that as more of a blessing than a critique of his own attempt at trying to understand things.
He didn’t exactly have more than memories to learn from. Not until now. He didn’t understand what Alastor meant by not digging under trees, and he certainly hadn’t seen any crypts like there were in Valhalla, but he nodded to show he was listening and taking everything to heart.
“I should say the same for you,” he grunted softly, glancing over Alastor again. “You take care of yourself and I’ll do the same.” It sounded like a reasonable compromise.
“Alright, well. We have our work cut out for us if we’re going to be cleaning this place up. Might as well show you what we have to work on,” he suggested, nodding his head to the door of the atrium. “Unless you and Princess want to take a few laps around the tree first.”
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Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2022 11:32 am
“Are you sure you don’t know me very well?” Alastor asked. A smile danced on his face and he seemed like he was contemplating it, but he really didn’t have to think that hard about it. He looked at the tree, at Princess, and then back to Sessrumnir. “Yeah, give me a minute. Princess, I’ll race you. Three laps around the tree. Percy’s not here to give the winner a kiss so the winner only gets bragging rights this time. Unless Michael’s feeling generous, but let’s not hassle him.”
He ruffled her fur again, this time a bit more playful. “You’ve got an advantage though, you’ve got twice as many legs as me.” And he wasn’t an Eternal right now. Not that it ever really mattered, he’d have raced her if he wasn’t powered up at all.
“Michael, you’re the judge. Don’t let Princess cheat. You say go and call the winner, all right? If you want to race her, I’ll be the judge next round. Oh, but don’t let her judge if you want to race me. She either doesn’t pay attention at all or decides she should be racing, too.”
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Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2022 1:08 pm
“Maybe you’re just predictable,” Sessrumnir snorted quietly in amusement, but turned to watch as Alastor ruffled Princess’ fur and she bounced around with excited yips. She looked as though she had done this a number of times before -- she probably had, Sessrumnir realized. She’d known Devyn back when Percy was alive, so maybe this was the most familiar thing she’d done in… centuries.
“Alright, stand over there,” he gestured to what looked like a good starting place at the edge of the room. Maybe one day he would agree to racing too, but for now he was content with just watching. Princess and Devyn having fun was good enough for him.
“Ready? Set. Go!”
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