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 Posted: Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:45 pm
Kumoru I really wish it would stop being so rainy. I've been feeling a need to get out and walk around outside more, I guess because it's finally spring, but the sky has taken to raining on me when I do so. An umbrella no longer solves the problem, either, since it has rained enough to make some paths near my house quite muddy.
I came across the most interesting place a day or two ago, though. Gardens. I wonder if it just grew up out of the ground over night, or if I'd really never noticed it before. I felt rather drawn to it, which causes me to doubt the latter. They don't seem quite like normal gardens.
I met a few ladies there, but I didn't have much time to talk. While the clouds started pouring on us all, a lantern with a butterfly circling it started to give off the strangest feeling. I'm not quite sure if I can describe on this page exactly what happened, but the little pink-winged insect dissolved, and changed into an equally pink little girl. She didn't quite seem human in appearance, but she immediately took to one of the ladies with whom I'd been speaking. I think the lady herself might have been expecting this, somehow. I didn't want to bother them, but I thought I heard her telling the pink child to call her mother.
A curious occurance, I must say. Something about the place seems to insist that I return. I'll have to make some time to head out there again, though it's a bit of a walk (through the mud) from my house.
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Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2005 8:21 am
Kumoru stumbled through the door with two full bags of groceries, the mail, his house key, and his umbrella in addition to the lantern. The first thing he did was set down the lantern, a bit out of the way, so it wouldn't be in danger of having things dropped on it. A few letters fluttered out of his grip as he then fought to close the umbrella completely while not dropping anything else he was carrying. Once the dripping umbrella was closed and propped in the corner, things were a bit easier to manage. The mage craned his neck down a little so he could take the keyring in his mouth. With two fingers now free, he fixed his grip on one of the two grocery bags, and slipped his arm through the handles of the other one. One hand was now empty, so he leaned forward to pick up the dropped letters, which were now slightly damp, and as he was bent over, he balanced on one leg for a moment while using the other foot to kick the door shut.
Ten steps took him to the kitchen, where he promptly dumped the mail and groceries in a heap on the table. Kumoru opened his mouth and let the keys drop onto the table with a jingle, then returned to the doorway to retreive the lantern.
"... Thank goodness I live alone," he told the lantern as he lifted it to eye-level and looked it over. It was damp, but undamaged. And already, it had that strange swirl of glowing mist around it. The mage carried it to his living room, and set it down on the coffee table. "At least you came out of that clown act undamaged, which was all I was really hoping for."
Sighing and combing his fingers through his damp ponytail, Kumoru plopped down in his favorite chair. This put him just across the coffee table from the lantern. Strange how much of a presence that thing had in the room already... The mage leaned forward a bit, resting his elbows on his knees and his chin on his folded hands.
The lantern sat, inert, on the other end of the table.
Kumoru stared at it for a few moments until he realized that he probably looked like a psychiatrist looking a patient over. He chuckled a little to himself and sat back. "Maybe I do need someone around sometimes though. Not to laugh at my occational ungraceful entry, but because I'm starting to talk to lamps."
Mist drifted lazily around in a circle, orbiting the lantern's soft white light.
Bright sapphire eyes narrowing a bit, Kumoru leaned a little closer to the lantern, studying it more carefully. "... I hope you like reading. That's what I do. Reading and magic."
The light flickered slightly.
"You're one of those lanterns that attracts the butterflies that turns into children? I wonder what it would be like here with a child. If I keep you inside though, there won't be any butterflies. A lamp with presence is all I require, I think."
Silence.
Kumoru got to his feet, and turned to go back to the kitchen. "I should put away those groceries before I forget. Especially after how much trouble they caused." And so I stop talking to my furniture, he added mentally.
But why did it feel like the lantern listened?
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Posted: Sat May 14, 2005 7:59 am
accessorization quest!__.
Now it is time for a butterfly to come, regardless of closed doors and windows, to keep Kumoru company. Maybe, to speed this process along, he should find something that fits the memory absorbed by the soon-to-come butterfly?
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Posted: Sun May 15, 2005 2:30 pm
The mage descended the stairs quietly on slippered feet, rubbing his eyes a little as he does so. As he passed through the dark entryway of his house on the way to the kitchen, he stole a glance at where his lantern sat on the living room table; its glow was particularly eerie at night. Kumoru observed that he could still see the faint white light from his kitchen, as he filled up a glass with water from the tap.
When the glass was full, Kumoru took a sip and walked back out into the living room. In the silence of the night, he could hear the sound of a very faint breeze as the mist surrounding the lantern moved in its usual slow orbit. The mage frowned a little. The lantern felt so creepy, and not just at night. He suspected it had to do with his magic; being a user of magics concerned with death, he had a natural connection to souls and the like.
This lantern was a little different, though. Kumoru could tell it held no soul, only a presence. The presence was what made it frighten him a little. There was a singleness to the feeling the lantern gave, like it held only a single memory. As a result, the presence of the lantern was single-minded. And hostile.
A glance at the mantlepiece clock told Kumoru that it was about two in the morning. He figured he had some time, so he took a seat near the lantern and peered at it. Why would a /lantern/ have reason to give off the feeling it did? He had a spell that would allow him to communicate with souls, but there was no soul within this lantern, not yet. Recalling the "birth" of the small pink girl from the butterfly that he'd witnessed several weeks before, Kumoru wondered if perhaps the butterfly was what contained the soul, and the lantern played some other role.
Abruptly the mage's attention snapped back to the lantern itself. Was it demanding something of him? After a moment, Kumoru nodded a little, confirming the feeling he'd felt; the lantern - no, whatever force it contained - seemed to have noticed him somehow, and it felt to the mage as though it was lashing out at him. Primarily anger and a bit of fear. It wanted his blood.
Kumoru rose slowly, sapphire eyes widening a bit. "Why...?" he whispered, though he somehow doubted that the lantern would answer him.
The mist continued in its lazy circular path; nothing had altered in appearance.
Kumoru was, of course, a bit frightened by this, but he also was used to occationally giving up a few drops of blood as part of a spell. It only took a moment for the mage to calm down from the initial surprise at the lantern's apparent demand. Then he went back into the kitchen to fetch a good sharp knife. Once he had it, he stood beside the lantern and its table, gingerly testing the knife's edge with his fingertip.
The usual amount of blood required by a spell was only a few drops - large summoning spells were really the only thing that might demand enough blood to make one light-headed - so Kumoru figured he would just cut the tip of his finger and offer a small amount to the presence that resided in the lantern. But just as he began to cut himself, the knife slipped enough to leave a long gash across the mage's palm before dropping from the hand with which he held it. The knife, its blade now smeared with the wizard's blood, landed point-down in the wood of the living room table; the bloody edge of it rested against the peaked top of the lantern.
Swearing softly at the pain, Kumoru immediately pressed the fingers of his uninjured hand against the gash in his palm and started back to the kitchen to get some bandages. The wound was shallow, not too serious, but it was still bleeding quite a bit. As he lacked what was required for a healing spell, though, the mage had to deal with the injury through non-magical means.
It didn't take him long to wrap up his hand. The wound still hurt quite a bit, and looked likely to bleed through the bandages soon, but the bleeding was starting to slow down a little at least. Kumoru took the roll of bandages with him back into the living room, and stopped in the doorway.
The knife was still there, stuck in the table and smeared with his blood. Right beside the lantern. The mist's ring around the lantern had modified itself to more of an ellipse, to encircle the weapon as well as the lantern itself.
Weapon. The mage laughed a little to himself as he stepped over to the table to get his glass of water. It had just been a vegetable knife before, hadn't it...
He picked up the glass and took another drink of water. Then he returned to his bedroom. Kumoru left the knife where it was.
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Posted: Fri May 20, 2005 7:24 pm
Kumoru It has been several days since I cut myself trying to give a few drops of blood to the lantern, and the slash across my palm still does not appear to be on the mend. I would heal it myself, but the nature of my healing magic prevents that. Or my living alone does. I wonder if I could draw the necessary energy from the presence within that lantern.
That thing almost seems to have a mood now, albeit a weak one. It takes up my living room like the scented smoke of incense. Since I cut my hand, though, it feels somewhat weaker. Or perhaps I am getting used to it. Either way, I cannot quite pin down what I feel from it, but my guess is somewhere between frightened and angry.
I cannot help but fear somewhat for the child that will come from this lantern. If it forms from this presence, will it only ever be angry? The anger towards me is not my concern, exactly.... If a man could only feel happiness, he could certainly never be a poet. And if someone is too overly cautious, he probably will not fall in love.
Tonight, I think I shall call a few souls with my magic, to see if any of them can communicate at all with my lantern.
... HA, maybe I should try to spend more time around other people. I must be going crazy from living alone. It never bothered me before, but I suppose there is a first time for everything. Quote: I wonder if Ren still remembers me.
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Posted: Mon May 23, 2005 5:17 pm
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Posted: Thu May 26, 2005 4:15 pm
Kumoru took several deep breaths, calming his mind and blocking out the slight throbbing pain that still lingered in his left hand. A few spirits lingered close to him - he could feel them, but only slightly, like one might be able to detect a cold draft, but be unable to place its source. He planned on calling them out, closer to his own soul, and asking them to see what they could tell him about the presence within his mysterious lantern.
The wizard knelt beside his living room table, before the lantern, and spread his hands a bit, palms up. Closing his eyes, he began to whisper the words of the spell, in their cryptic language of magic. Blueish lights gradually appeared in the air around Kumoru, drifting lazily about his head and shoulders. He smiled a little, and spoke to them, no sound coming from his lips.
"Hello, friend. Contact from the living," they chimed as a chorus, voices that only the mage would be able to hear. "Do you need our help?"
"Yes, I do," Kumoru told them. "This lantern. If it exists in your realm. What lingers within it?"
The lights brightened, drifting cautiously closer to the lantern. Their blue glow bathed the room in a nimbus of light, all except for the lantern itself; the souls' azure seemed at odds with the white-gold of the lantern mist.
"Only an echo within..." they reported to the wizard after a moment. "But no voice."
"Interesting," was Kumoru's only reply.
He conversed with them for a few moments longer, trying to glean what information he could about the lantern. Then he released the spell, and the blue glow faded with the firefly-lights of the souls.
Kumoru shivered a bit as his attention returned to the realm of the living; that spell always left a cold feeling in the air for a few minutes. Watching the lantern, which still looked as it had for the last several days, with its mist looped around both light and knife, he rose slowly to his feet.
"You always make it look so beautiful when you cast magic like that," came a female voice from the direction of Kumoru's front door.
The mage jumped a bit, bright sapphire eyes narrowing as he caught sight of the woman standing in his doorway. She must have opened it while he was distracted. "What are you doing here?" he demanded.
The woman laughed, stepping into the house and shutting the door behind her. Her hair was short and light blue, and she wore darker blue robes in similar style to Kumoru's, if a bit more revealing and made for the female figure. "I just thought I'd pay you a visit, Kumoru. Since I haven't seen you in so long."
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Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 10:31 pm
"Ren," he sighed, relaxing a bit as he recognized her. "Really, though, why did you come?"
Ren shrugged, coming closer to embrace her old friend. "Well, the Tower was no help in telling me what had happened to you," she said. "Just that you'd gone on vacation two years ago and never sent any news since you left. So I thought I'd come find you for myself."
Kumoru frowned, wrapping his arms around her loosely. "I sent them letters, at least for a while. Never got replies from them, though."
"They seemed to want to forget about you entirely. I tried for several months to get them to reveal something about where you were or why you'd gone, and finally got a few of the elder mages to slip up and reveal that it was because they were afraid of you." She let him go and withdrew a bit, peering into his bright eyes.
"Afraid? I wonder-"
"You know full well why they were scared!" she cut him off, raising her voice. "You and your strange obsession with death. That's banned magic for a reason, you know!"
Eyes flashing, Kumoru took a step back, away from Ren. "I have the right to study what I want," he retorted. "And the power to perform it."
Ren crossed her arms."You were a good student, as far as the elders were concerned. Stronger than some of them, even. That's why they didn't bother you much in the first place." She sighed heavily. "You're just so reckless with your learning."
"Reckless how? Were they feeding you stories about how my studies would one day turn me into the next evil necromancer lord? That I would lead armies of undead against the Tower's gates and wreak havoc?"
The woman refused to answer either way. She stomped her foot, and insisted, "It can happen with any powerful mage, can't it? Regardless of what they study! They just wanted to protect you from that. From your own ambition."
Too much emotion in this girl. No wonder she hadn't learned as well as he had. "Why was I the only one they watched and tried to steer away, then?"
To that, she had no answer. Angry tears were starting to appear in the corners of her eyes. After a minute, she asked, "Look, will you just give it up and come home?"
"I can't," he told her quietly. "I live here now. I can do what I want. I don't want to go back to that stifling Tower where I can't even study what interests me."
Ren nodded, though her expression showed that she didn't agree with him by any means. Then she took a few steps toward the table where Kumoru's lantern sat. She'd had her eye on it since she saw him casting his spell, but decided only now to ask about it. "What's this here?"
"A lantern."
"Well, I see that, but why? What is it for?"
"It will attract a soul, so I hear, and that soul will become a child."
Ren tensed a bit. Then a bit more as she noticed the knife stuck in the table. "And... you tried to stab it?"
Kumoru came closer to join her, shaking his head. He tucked his hands away in his sleeves, mostly to hide the bandages. "Actually, that's my blood."
The woman went white as a sheet, whirling around to face her old friend. "Good lord, what are you doing, Kumoru? Creating life with your soul and death magics? You can't do that!"
The blue-eyed man looked a bit pained. "It's not my magic that will cause the transformation. I got this lantern from somewhere else."
Ren still looked suspicious. "Why do you have it, though? If the Tower finds out about it, they might deem it a reason to be even more afraid of you."
Kumoru shrugged. "No idea why I was chosen. And at this point, I don't really care what the Tower has to say about it. They apparently don't want me back anyway."
She looked about to say something for a moment, but decided against it. Ren went over and hugged Kumoru again, whispering, "I just hope you're telling the truth, that the magic isn't yours..."
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Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 11:29 pm
"How can you stand this?" Ren asked with a laugh as she peeled back the top on her styrofoam cup of instant noodles. "You should get someone to cook real food for you."
Kumoru shrugged. "I cook for myself often enough." He took the top off of his own dinner and blew gently on the steaming broth a few times. "I was planning on instant soup tonight anyway," he added, giving his friend a sidelong glance. "I wasn't expecting company."
Ren frowned and poked at the lump of freeze-dried noodles under the broth's surface with her fork. "Well, alright, I was unexpected. But still, can't you order carry-out or something?"
"You didn't have to stay for dinner."
The lady wizard's eyes narrowed, and she glanced up at the other mage. "I thought you'd want to hear from me, since you haven't been getting any of the letters I've been writing you."
Kumoru rolled his eyes and slurped down a few noodles. "I appreciate you coming, Ren, I just... I don't know. It's been a long time-"
"Almost two years. That's all." Ren sighed and reluctantly ate a few of her own noodles. "I missed you, you know. Stupid mage...."
"I missed you too," Kumoru admitted with a sigh. "I just wish you'd given me a bit of notice first..."
Ren couldn't help but wonder if the reason why had to do with that lantern on her friend's living room table. But she figured it best not to bring that up again. "Well," she began instead. "Would you mind if I spent the night, too? Since your house is so far out and all?"
The blue-eyed mage laughed a little. "Really counting on my hospitality, aren't you. What would you have done if you had the wrong house, or if I'd decided to drive you out with my army of evil corpse monsters?"
Ren opened her mouth to say something, but Kumoru cut her off.
"It's fine, really, you can stay," he said with a small smile. "I'd just need to clean off the guest bed so you can fit in it."
"... Can't I share with you, just like we did sometimes back at the Tower?" Ren asked quietly, turning her gaze to her dinner before eating another forkful of noodles.
In an instant, Kumoru's bright sapphire eyes turned stone-cold. "It won't take long to clear out the guest room," he told her frostily.
"Kumoru," she said, looking up at him again somewhat pleadingly. "You've been alone all this time... Aren't you lonely at all?"
"Was this why you came? A'rendalith, we can't just go playing around like children. I'm quite fine on my own!" His irritation was clear in his use of the lady's full name.
"You never were a child!" Ren growled. "That's what got you in trouble, can't you see? You're so... damn single-minded! Isn't there room for anything in your life but magic and study?" She was determined not to cry or anything, but a small part of her felt like it. Then she abruptly realized that she was clutching her fork in a white-knuckeld grip; Ren switched it to the other hand, and gobbled down the rest of her noodles, somehow feeling that eating them quickly would help her feel better.
Kumoru paused with his own fork half-way to his mouth at Ren's outburst. Then he sighed and slurped down the food before telling her, "I thought I told you when we first started dating that I really didn't connect with people..."
"... You should have been born a book," the lady wizard grumped.
"... I'll go empty out the guest room."
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Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 12:21 pm
Kumoru I cannot believe her. Ren. She comes and visits me because she is worried and she thinks that I get lonely, and what does she do? I let her spend the night - not with me, mind you - and she goes and cuts my hair. A good two feet or so of it, right off. While I am sleeping, no less. I completely cannot believe she would do that.
And then she goes and tells me that this is supposed to be a "humbling experience"? She is a wizard, too, from the same school, even. Ren should understand the pride behind training all our childhoods to cast spells. That is not something just anyone can do. The elders told me I would make a very fine mage, too. Is that not a good reason to take some pride in my abilities? Not like I was being particularly stuck-up, either. Just growing my hair long. A lot of mages do that.
It was all her reasoning that really irks me, not the loss of two feet of silky black hair, really. Like cutting my hair off will make me any less of a mage? It sure as hell cannot change any of the past.
A'rendalith was never as skilled at magic. I suspect it was because she was too emotional, too immature, and far too easily distracted from her studies.
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Posted: Fri Aug 19, 2005 9:42 pm
Ren hid in the woods, and once Kumoru had left, she waited another little bit, then decided to sneak back in. She had to learn more about that lantern - where it came from, why Kumoru had it, what it would do, and why his blood-smeared kitchen knife was resting against it.
The front door of the necromancer''s small cottage was clearly a bad place to start, so Ren went around to look for a back door. Down a little hill and around the back of the house, there was a door, but as the lady wizard placed her hand against it, she felt the distinct tingling of a ward against simple spells. She could break it, of course, but it was not worth the effort unless the windows were sealed, too.
She slowly circled the house, looking for a good window, and grumping to herself about Kumoru''s arrogant attitude. It didn''t matter that he could study whatever he wanted, it mattered that there were some things best left alone. Being expelled from the Tower should have been enough of a lesson, but no, he had gone and taken it as a blessing, delving even deeper into the darker points of magic.
Independent of the Tower and unemployed, and that silly mage was still strutting around with his hair long like he was a student or an elder! Good thing I took care of that, A''rendalith thought to herself with a smirk as she looked up at a window that looked suitable for entry. The glass was frosted so she could not see through, but it was close to the ground, and carried no feel of warding spells.
With a few whispered words, Ren cast a simple knock spell to unlock the window, and opened it from outside. Stepping up to the sash, she glanced around quickly, then stepped awkwardly into Kumoru''s house through the window. Ren found herself in the necromancer''s library, which looked as though it contained about twice as many books as it was meant to hold. The lady wizard moved carefully between the precarious stacks for the door, and found her way to the living room not long after that.
In the silence of the empty house, A''rendalith could hear the faint sound of the tiny breeze that drove the mist in a ring around both the lantern and the knife on the table. Cautiously, she stepped closer. There was certainly a presence in that lantern, and it almost made her feel ashamed of breaking in like she had. Yet she could see why Kumoru had been drawn to it; it was quite a curiousity. Ren found herself reaching out ever-so-slowly to touch the lantern.
Ren felt a bit of a shiver as she realized that the blood on the knife was still fresh. Kumoru had told her that it had been a few weeks since he had cut himself, and that the wound had not yet started to heal. And here was the other half, the missing blood. Why had he even tried to do that? she wondered as her finger came close to the dull edge of the kitchen blade. Such a dangerous thing....
Suddenly, a butterfly materialized from the mist, sitting on the dull edge of the knife just under Ren''s finger. She was touching its slender, fragile body. And it felt hot. The lady mage instantly withdrew her hand, gasping and sitting back. Was this happenening because of her? Would she disturb Kumoru''s delicate magic over the thing? Would it kill her?
The butterfly took wing, and began to join the mist in its orbit around the lantern. Its wings were pure white, but with each pass of the knife, some of the blood on it seemed to smear off somehow, gradually staining its wings red. Ren just watched, wide-eyed.
Time must have passed more quickly than she had thought, though, because when she finally turned her attention away from the blood-stained insect, it was much later than she had anticipated. With a mild oath, she stood and, as carefully and quietly as possible, started for the stairs back to the library.
Just as she reached the bottom, however, Ren heard the door open. Rather than running, she stopped and turned, and instantly realized that she should not have.
+Hold!+ Kumoru yelled as soon as he could react at seeing the wizard in his home again, as he dropped his parcels and flung a spell at her.
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Posted: Sat Aug 20, 2005 10:37 pm
+Winds, protect me!+ Ren called out reflexively as Kumoru cast the hold spell at her, and flung her arms up defensively in front of her face. Kumoru's spell dissolved as it hit the barrier she had formed.
Kumoru smiled dangerously as he nudged his parcels aside with his foot and stepped more fully into his home. She was quick to react with spells, yet her repertoire was more limited than his own. She was not as fluent as he in the language of magic. "Tresspassing once wasn't enough for you, A'rendalith?" he asked, taking a combative stance.
Ren retreated a bit between the walls on either side of the ascending staircase. "I told you, Kumoru, I only came because I was worried about you," she countered. True enough, but she knew that was far from an adequate response.
"I need none of your concern." The necromancer stepped to the side slowly so that he would have a better shot at the woman. "Especially if it means having intruders. I let you stay for one night, and all you could do to thank me was cut my hair."
Ren's temper flared. "Because it was making you so damn conceited! You're a lone, renegade wizard, Kumoru. The Tower likely won't allow you to live here completely undisturbed-"
"Then let them come!" Kumoru growled, and immediately began to prepare another spell. Switching to the language of magic, he told her, +And don't think the length of my hair had anything to do with my studies. Magic is a gift. It is one I am proud to have, and I will use it how I please. You are the one being arrogant if you think you can change my mind yourself.+
"What about your lantern, Kumoru? You're putting your blood into that like a necromancer's spell! I highly doubt you know as little about it as you let on." Ren crouched on the stairs as Kumoru started casting again, and held up her hands in preparation for another barrier. "You're not selling your soul to that thing, are you?"
"My soul is my own," he replied, relaxing slightly, but still looking determined to send the lady mage out of his home. "I need it too much to be able to offer it to some spelled lantern. Why do you think you need to watch over me? Do you truly think me so foolish that I would go and do something like that? I'm not power-crazed, A'rendalith, I merely want knowledge." Perhaps that was not completely true, but Kumoru certainly did not want power in the way Ren feared.
"Yes, actually, I think I do need to remind you occasionally when you are in over your head, Kumoru. Necromancy is practically a forbidden art. I don't fully trust that lantern, either. You're too curious, and it's going to get you killed. By a mistake, if not by the Tower elders."
"I don't care what they think, Ren, shouldn't that be clear by now? And I'll point out that a good number of them were afraid of me. I should haul you back to them myself. I bet they sent you to spy anyway." With a shout, Kumoru tossed his spell at his old friend. What had gone on between them in the past was over; all he cared about now was that now she was the one trying to steer him away from his dream. And then she had had the nerve to accuse him of arrogance on top of it! Could he not simply be left alone to do as he pleased?
Kumoru's spell was a simple paralysis spell, so he would be able to safely remove the offending sorceress from his home. Yet it was fueled with all his frustration at her excessive worry. Ren thought him too foolish to preserve himself during his studies? He would show her up. Best he paid a visit to the elders again anyway; even better if he could drag Ren back there, too.
+A'rendalith, I know and accept the dangers of my studies! Now leave me be!+
+Winds, protect me!+ Ren cast again, renewing her previous barrier against Kumoru's first spell. Such a hard-headed man....
Much to her surprise, however, this spell was much stronger than the first one. With a shattering sound, her barrier collapsed, and she gasped in surprise as Kumoru's paralysis spell coursed through her body, freezing the muscles that controlled her limbs.
"Gods, what's gotten into you...?" Ren whispered as she collapsed onto the stairs like a marionette whose strings had just been cut.
"Nothing you shouldn't already know about," Kumoru told her tightly as the last of his conjured magic power faded from his fingertips.
Yet somehow... it seemed to fade more quickly than usual. Like it was being drawn off. Kumoru frowned in confusion for a moment, then glanced at the lantern.
"Ren?" he asked quietly after a moment. "Did you put that butterfly there?"
Still unable to move, the lady wizard replied weakly, "No, it appeared when I came to look at it."
A reddish glow began to fill the room.
"It drew off some of my magic.... I wonder if this is the soul for the presence I've been feeling within the lantern." And he closed his eyes, concentrating upon the bloodstained insect.
The glow intensified, coming from the butterfly.
"Kumoru, what's going on?" Ren asked fearfully, unable to turn to see what was happening.
Kumoru was too deep in concentration to respond. Something had been touched off in the butterfly by his magic or something, and now it was changing. As he opened his eyes again, the insect dissolved and reformed into the glowing form of a slender boy, crouching on the carpet beside the table on which the lantern rested.
The glow then began to fade, leaving behind a white-haired child with crimson skin. A black cloth covered his eyes, but with no trouble at all, he turned to grasp the handle of Kuomru's kitchen knife in his small hand, and pulled it free from the table. As he tugged it out, the tips of the boy's pure white hair became tinted blood red, and the last of Kumoru's blood disappeared from the knife. As though to complete the transformation, the knife took on the same reddish glow the butterfly had, and lengthened and sharpened from a simple knife into a sheathed katana, scaled just right to fit the size of its owner.
The necromancer could feel the wound in his palm throbbing again, but he tried to pay it no mind, and just watched the child in wonder. So this was an anima....
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Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2005 8:38 pm
He could feel them. The man and the woman who now occupied his house. Tension had crackled between them since the woman had arrived, and it made him feel all the more energetic. But now, he could sense that their feelings had reached a height of dissent.
Each of them was trying to show the other that how they thought was correct, and the energy of it flowed directly into the soul around the lantern. When it came to literal blows of magic as each tried to prove his or her point, the soul finally felt that it had gathered enough, and began to fight its way out of its prison.
The soul began to forcefully draw the energy out of the male wizard's latest spell, into itself and the space around it. Then, through methods the Anima would never be able to explain, he began to form a body. From the bottom up, kneeling on the floor, he collected light and the energy of magic into childlike feet, hands, legs, a back and chest, arms, shoulders, a head, and finally a pair of wings and a long tail.
He flexed his joints to test out this new body, but it soon sank in that he was still no less in darkness than he had been before. Nothing around him but the two things he had been able to feel all along - the lantern, and the knife stuck in the table beside it. With no trouble at all, the Anima's hand found the handle of the knife; with just as much effort, he used the last of his borrowed energy to lengthen the blade and improve the weapon into what resembled a child-sized katana.
The lantern had been his cocoon, his old skin, a discarded shell he had outgrown. This blade was as much a living part of his body as the eagle wings upon his back or the lion tail that lashed behind him.
The boy would have smiled, had he saved the energy to do so. But having spent himself forming a body, he could do little before his eyes closed and he collapsed back onto the table, asleep. But he was here now... Nothing could change that, at least.
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Posted: Sat Oct 01, 2005 1:37 pm
With Ren still paralyzed by magic, it was not difficult for Kumoru to move her outside. He just sort of left the sorceress leaning up against the side of his house, since he did not quite want to drag her all the way out into the middle of the forest or anything. Too much work.
When he returned to his living room, the mage knelt beside the sleeping form of the red-skinned boy. Gently, he touched the child's red-tipped white hair, then glanced over at the lantern sitting on the table. It no longer held light, or any feeling within it. The edge of the lantern still had its cut mark from when Kumoru had dropped the knife against it, and the cut in the table remained as well. Yet the knife seemed to be gone. The mage could only figure that the boy's sword had somehow come from the knife.
Kumoru picked up the lantern and turned it over in his hands. On the bottom, in the very center, was a small metal tag that he had not noticed before. It read, "REVENGE". The mage frowned and gave the boy a wary glance. "That must be why I felt such rage from him... but is it me he is really mad at?" he wondered aloud, glancing down at his bandaged hand.
It had been hurting again lately, in truth. When the boy had first appeared, in fact, and absorbed Kumoru's spell power, the mage had felt his energy being drained through the cut in his hand. It had not hurt at the time, but now he could feel twinges of occasional pain from the wound, and the bandages were beginning to stain through with blood.
Sighing a little, Kumoru glanced back to the anima, and smiled faintly after a moment. With any luck, he would at least be able to raise this child not to be quite so vengeful and dangerous.
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Posted: Wed Oct 26, 2005 10:10 pm
Kumoru Women. I will never understand them. I throw Ren out four? Five times? And each time she returns like a boomerang, and one with harsh words, at that.
And then I bring Serif home and say I can take care of her myself and Ren just up and leaves.
Thank god.
Revenge has calmed down considerably since she left.
He still needs a name.
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