Quote:
To Mont Blonc:

I must preface this by saying that these letters feel like outmoded email communications.
My urge to keep these to a professional politeness probably stymies some of my charm,
so I hope you forgive me for this. It’s been a while since I received this signet ring and I
admit that I haven’t found much reason to use it before now. But, in light of recent events,
I think it’s time to put use to it.

What I mean to say, in this long-winded message of mine, is that I wanted to see you
again. Not only for reconnecting, but I need your help in learning about some of the boons
we are given as Saturn knights. If you find time, please meet me on the East End Bridge
tonight at 1900. You will find me near the center of it, where the cables to the arch of the
bridge are tallest.

I hope to see you soon,
Scholomance


The letter was sent past over three hours ago now, Scholomance noted, from the cell phone that often rested in the breast pocket of his uniform. The upgrade offered a host of benefits, from a longer coat to stave off the chill of the night air to useful pockets hidden within the coat itself, although he noted some very obvious drawbacks to such an event. He now wore bone as if an accessory, which unnerved him greatly, and the method by which he gained this new level of power came at a cost that never left him. Scholomance continually glanced toward the stars while he waited, expecting some sign from Saturn to depict its distrust of his attempts to support his duties, and found little beyond absence.

And, he found, it was an empty absence - one that spelled abandonment more than quietude. At the time, he felt no watchful eye turned upon himself, but he found it far more gut-rotting than the eternal malevolence that followed him as a page. Of course, at that time it became a constant, but as a squire he felt an intermittence to that viciousness that he considered his own fault. Nothing about his knighthood felt entirely natural or correct - and it wore on him, on quiet nights like these.

The cables connecting to the arch loomed tall and rankled quietly against their connections in the mild breeze. The nights grew cool now with autumn’s rule, and he felt a chill despite the many layers given to him by his uniform. His attention diverted to the stray rocks that dusted across the recently-poured sidewalk to the bridge, and he kicked them into the street while he waited. Inwardly he hoped that his directions were clear enough, that he hadn’t misspelled Mont Blonc’s name, and that the page would find his note before the appointed hour passed. As his first message, Scholomance knew nothing of delivery times or locations, which only contributed to his mounting neuroses.

Mont Blonc would be lying if he said he wasn’t a little tickled by the letter. Not just for the vestiges of Scholomance’s usual easy charm and humor in text form (the whole letter endeared to him endlessly), but just for the sheer fact that he’d gotten a letter at all. More than once, his attempts to communicate with other knights had fallen shamefully flat. Come to think of it, he was pretty sure it was the first letter he’d ever gotten from anyone that wasn’t an emergency call from someone he didn’t know or some other weird summon type thing. The smaller touches, the ‘I want to see you again’ and ‘I hope to see you soon’ - especially after the recent loss of Ploutonion, again, the parting look his once-friend had given him still burned fresh in his mind’s eye - Scholomance didn’t know it, but he needed that. He might have failed again, but Scholomance was still here. He was not the sole knight in their little circle anymore.

The whole affair felt a bit romantic, too - not like a date, but like in the old movies or something, vague notes between the film’s two main protagonists, perhaps detectives or something similar, shuffling together to exchange clues beneath a street light. (Yes, he was painfully aware of how silly that sounded. They were both knights of places with body and bone everywhere, let him have this.)

Long before Mont Blonc drew close, now, the steady sound of his heeled boots and the light rattling of the chains that held his coat shut probably gave him away. He had, after all, changed since he’d last met Scholomance - although they didn’t yet know how close they’d come to crossing paths that night with the trains. Lorne had taken a few days for himself after that, both to allow the lingering traces of burns to heal and to give himself the brief mental break he knew he needed, especially with classes - and then the whole thing with Archer had - things had gotten a little messy. All the more reason to be glad for this, for Scholomance. He’d practically counted down the minutes, not wanting to be too early or too late.

Still, he couldn’t help but notice there was no aura of a page here. Although he couldn’t say for sure, the two weren’t close enough yet to distinguish each other’s aura on a personal level, but - it was in the designated meeting place, and he sensed no other knights here, and suspected long before he even saw -

“Scholomance.” A bright, eager smile lit his face, easily reaching his eyes as he finally caught sight of his friend. Still a short distance away, he took off at a trot, stopping some few feet away from him, smile broadening to include a flash of teeth. “You’re a squire!” A bit of an obvious statement, and that was an understatement..

Scholomance, too, expected a page. He knew not under what circumstances or how often other pages grew to greater levels, but he expected, somehow, that his friend would not have acquired more power in such a short period. To the squire, that sounded like an improbability that remained so low that it wasn’t worth considering. So when Mont Blonc showed in a new change of garb, and his auric energy felt curiously more powerful (and Scholomance relished the fact that he could tell, for he found difficulty telling the difference between power levels as a page), it shocked him quite boldly.

Additionally, Scholomance felt significantly more glad for his friend than he did for himself. He only hoped they found highly different methods of obtaining their power.

“So are you,” he returned with a smile. A moment later, he remembered to tug down the toothy half-mask for effect. “Hopefully it didn’t require any life-threatening situations to earn the rights to being a squire.” He considered, then, that with the macabre state of their wonders, they might have upgraded in very similar ways - and from that, he wondered if Mont Blonc faced greater danger now that he held more power. ‘With great power comes great responsibility’ and all that rot. “You should tell me about it.”

However, Scholomance felt the need to explain why he asked Mont Blonc to the bridge initially. “I should tell you why we’re here. First, this bridge, I like to think, is fairly memorable. Second, I wanted to see if this correspondence system actually worked. And lastly, Aegir once told me that squires are able to wield magic, and… Well, since we’re both squires now, I think we could stand to puzzle out how to access this magic and what it does. I’m not entirely certain how that magic is summoned, but I expect it has something to do with our weapons if it’s anything like powering up or visiting our wonders. I was actually hoping that you might have some ideas on that.” From the area he could sense, he felt no further intrusions from the quiet autumn night; it seemed that Scholomance and Mont Blonc found a span of solace in which they could explore their recent upgrades.

Slowly Scholomance started toward his comrade, hands folded in front of himself as was often habit at the pawn shop, and he paused only when he drew to better conversational distance. From their proximity beneath the sodium lights, Scholomance noted that his squire friend found more modesty in his upgrade (which is a shame), guyliner (which is a plus), and a little more confidence (which could go either way, depending on how manipulative Scholomance felt).

“I suppose congratulations are in order sometime, too.”

Any life-threatening situations. Not to himself, no. “No. No, I don’t really know what - it wasn’t really much of anything, really.“ Mont Blonc smiled a little ruefully with a shrug of his shoulders that would have seemed careless if it hadn’t been so stiff. He never had been much of a liar, and it showed in his body language. “I was just - I was trying to help someone - I don’t know if you got my letter back then, but I was on the train when - anyway, I tried to help someone, and then this happened. It’s not really much of a story.”

His gaze dropped for a moment, more intensely sad and worried than he would have wanted it to be, lips subtly pursed. Ploutonion’s bruises, desperate parting gaze, and the woman toying with his braid and mocking him in her sickly-sweet voice played out fresh in his mind’s eye. There really wasn’t much of a story; Methone had said the time wasn’t right, Aegir had said much of the same, and he knew they weren’t wrong. Even so… he hadn’t done anything. Again. Just like when Ploutonion had been corrupted, he could do nothing more than stand there and stare.

(If Mont Blonc was going to be honest, he probably would’ve preferred something life-threatening. He was sick to death of seeing beloved friends hurting.)

“But anyway, “ his smile returned, trying to push past the past week and focus on the now, focus on Scholomance and this time spent with him. “How about you? - you weren’t in any life-threatening situations, were you?” he asked with undeniable wave of concern, his eyes widening a fraction now, unconsciously taking a step closer to him.

The moment of fragility had more than left him by the time Scholomance began to explain why he’d called him here, and the squire nodded along enthusiastically to what his friend was suggesting - “I love this bridge, “ he noted quietly with a slight smile, allowing the moment to wash away like water beneath them. Speaking of the rings, “I need to have Ash look at my ring, actually - “ and he pulled it out, and pulled up the irritatingly familiar blueprint that hadn’t really done much of anything to help him sort out what exactly he was supposed to be doing with it. “Technology was never really my forte, and as far as I can tell this is supposed to improve the ring somehow, but - I can’t make heads or tails of it, “ and hadn’t been able to for going on nine months now. A little pathetic, really. But better to wait it out than to potentially ruin his communication device, right?

“But yes, yes, I’d really love to figure out this magic business! I’d - “ He was laughing, suddenly, because finally, he had a chance to share this and have it be funny. Mont Blonc summoned his weapon to his hand and held out - a more elaborate pen. “I still have a damned pen for goodness sakes, “ and he tried to sound exasperated, but he was giggling too hard. It was about as useless as it’d ever been, and by this point it was just ridiculous. “I guarantee if I ever make it to knighthood I’ll get - I don’t know - one of those pens with the two inks in it or something - fear me?” He waved the pen ominously before letting his hand fall at his side, flashing his friend a playfully dejected look that was completely ruined by a helpless smile.

Congratulations, “Yes, “ and he clapped Scholomance warmly on the shoulder, squeezing, “Congratulations, Scholomance; I’m really very happy for you, “ and he sounded as though he meant that. And it was true. He had no remorse for his some years it’d taken to get here versus Scholomance’s months. His friend being more powerful meant he was less likely to end up like hurt, or like Ploutonion. Yes, yes, he was very happy indeed. “ - I like your mask, by the way.”

”The train…” There was only one train, in the length of his experiences, that demanded such an article. ‘The’ train, as opposed to ‘a’ train, referenced the meaty conglomeration that left him marred with bruises for weeks. Some of the deeper damages still remained in stubborn splotches that refused to heal over completely. And truthfully, he remembered that Mont Blonc was involved- cell phone messages were sent, but in the din of it all… “It’s always a story when you behave like that. Blanca, you’re a terrible liar, and you have the worst taste in audiences. A pawn shop owner is hardly the person to audition to here.” His arms crossed over his chest and he frowned somewhat. “But stories always interest me. You should tell me what happened.” And Scholomance meant such a statement as a demand more than a suggestion.

A light breeze knocked the cables together in hollow clangs. The squire looked skyward toward the brilliant twists of metal while he spoke. “I’m not sure if it was life-threatening or not.” The encounter felt much too ominous to maintain the benign quality suggested to him. Scholomance grew more bleak then, even if its intermittent loathing of its knight eased him somewhat. But how could he explain it beyond intuition? And beyond that, how often had intuition proven wrong in a scenario? However, he knew he would add no more to that statement. Speaking of it urged his skin to crawl off his bones and depart into the midnight shadows.

“Hmm?” His attention was arrested from his wonder, and the squire stepped in closer to eye Mont Blonc’s ring. “I wasn’t aware that anything like that existed. I actually have a lot of experience in appraising jewelry, and know a little of lapidary, but something like that… No, that definitely doesn’t have much to do with stringing a few stones together and curving some wire into aesthetic shapes. Is Ash proficient with such things? As a cat, I imagine that…” He paused, and pressed his lips into a thin line. “Well. She doesn’t have thumbs. Need I say more?”

The mask comment received a halfhearted smile, and Scholomance avoided thinking about the positive reception of his new power. He, personally, felt it more as a bitter trade than a step in the right direction. But instead of voicing such thoughts on the matter, Scholomance simply absconded with his friend’s pen absent any asks to borrow it. Afterward, gold eyes shifted to and fro suspiciously before the squire held a finger to his lips. A gloved hand then reached for the hem of Mont Blonc’s jacket (which now covered his stomach, alas) and lifted the bottom past his peer’s midriff. “It’s a nice pen,” he added somewhat offhandedly while he commenced drawing on his ally. “I don’t know if you took much notice of it while you were at my condo, but I have a pretty considerable pen collection. And if you’re able to get a different weapon by trading this one away…” Scholomance let the offer hang.

Quick shading and quick contour lines left a fairly accurate, lifelike depiction of an erect p***s and testicles just below Mont Blonc’s belly button. Scholomance found it quite charming.

He also kept the pen and placed it in his pocket. “While I’d say it’s a terrible weapon, your pen offers a lot more use to it than, say, a bone ring.” His own weapon found summons moments later, and materialized in the grip of his right hand was a cane uncannily similar to a femur, which sat against the ground with a hollow thump. “Mine works a little better for a weapon, but I imagine it’s meant for dragging my half-dead a** out of the fray more than cracking over someone’s legs.”

”Blanca?” In spite of his almost humorous, vaguely baffled reaction to the nickname, Mont Blonc’s cheeks burned as he was called on his dismissal. He fidgeted a bit; everyone had always told him of course he was helpless at lying, and even he shamelessly admitted it, but sometimes he still tried. Was it shame? Or was it because he was simply sick of talking about it? Being placated for it? - then again, Scholomance wasn’t much for placation, and that’s what made him good to talk to in the first place. It was just - he relied on people so much already. To turn around and rely on Scholomance for his honesty, his frankness, wasn’t that more of the same of what he was trying to stop doing?

“It’s - a longer story, “ he stumbled out, “But I’ll try to make it short, I - uhm - there was - before you, there was another page, someone of Saturn, like us - Ploutonion, that was his name, and - he was a friend of mine, a friend of Aegir’s, and- anyway, the negaverse, they attacked him, corrupted him against his will.” He paused, biting on his lower lip at the memory. “I was there. But I couldn’t do much to help him. So I just - stood there - and I saw them change him, and - a-anyway, “ he was trailing off, getting lost in the memory. Even now it played out too vividly for him. Things like that, they just didn’t fade away with time. Which, privately, frightened him. Made him think too much of the Lorne from the future with the hollow eyes and the padded cell. “He was on the train, and - even if they corrupted him, he was still - him - and that’s - you lose at least part of your life when you corrupt, so I hear, so - he remembered me, he forgave me, and - there were so many bruises on him, Scholomance, so many - “

He bit his lip again and blinked hard once or twice. “S-sorry. Anyway, I tried to protect him from one of the officers, so this happened - “ he motioned vaguely to his new outfit, “But the most I did was get myself hurt trying to help him. He helped me off the train, and there were negaverse officers everywhere - this awful captain was there - and this general - she’s the one that hurt him, I know it - “ The squire winced and sighed. “In the end they took him again and there was really nothing I could do. Even if I knew how to use my magic, there was no way I would have stood a chance. I know that, but, “ and he let it hang there with another shrug of his shoulders. He didn’t really want comfort; he’d gotten that from Methone, from Colin.

Maybe he sort of wanted someone to say it was his fault.

“Anyway, there’s my story, “ and he gave a tight smile, more than happy to be done with it. “Now you. Fair trade, right?”

Maybe it said a little bit about Mont Blonc and his priorities when his eyes widened, a ghost of a smile on his face as he nearly whispered, “You can make jewelry? - sorry, but that’s - really cool, “ as though that really merited an apology. He chuckled then, and Scholomance earned himself another shrug with a roll of his shoulders. “You’ve got me. But I’ve heard from Methone and Aegir that she’s really wonderful at this sort of thing, tech and all that. I’ll have to let you know how it goes - if I get something out of it, you’d probably benefit too, yes? - although I’ve got to say, with all we’ve seen, a thumbless cat as tech support doesn’t seem so strange anymore, “ he teased in his own Lorne-way, with a half-shy smile and a soft peal of laughter.

Then, all at once, Scholomance had gone from examining him to pushing up his shirt and drawing on him. Mont Blonc gave a short of yelp and rocked on the backs of his heels like he wanted to scurry away, blushing an intensely dark shade of red - “ Scholo - “ and then darker still as he realized just what his friend had sketched out on him, tugging down his shirt and stumbling haphazardly over words and sounds before finally settling on, “Scholomance!” and it was really more of a protest than an explanation, his voice getting a little higher and tugging the fabric down lower still as though that made any kind of difference.

Probably because he was reeling from the drawing on his body, flustered beyond belief, or maybe because he’d just been wound so tightly with everything lately, when his friend summoned his weapon - Mont Blonc didn’t know whether to laugh or groan, mumbling in a half that was half under his breath and less meant to be heard out loud by anyone, “A boner for a weapon. That figures.”

Then he promptly snapped his jaw shut and looked at the ground like he wanted to sink into it, and please no don’t have heard that.

”Yes, you and your pen are such an intimidation factor. How dare you let him get corrupted.” He leveled a glance of abject disappointment to Mont Blonc, though he did so for purposes that Mont Blonc likely misunderstood. “It’s complete folly to try to overextend and then self-deprecate when it doesn’t work. There wasn’t anything to forgive you for on his side, unless you count lack of shoving your pen up someone’s a**. His lot in the Negaverse is his responsibility to get out of now since he was the one who got himself corrupted in the first place. If he doesn’t like the position he’s in, then wouldn’t he ask for help to get out of it?” Did Mont Blonc really expect to make a difference with a writing pen and sheer determination? He hoped his fellow squire wasn’t that terribly misguided. “But your story is interesting for a few points - for one, I am familiar with Ploutonion. Ashanite, isn’t he now? Bit of a whiner. Good-looking, though. And for two - you saw a corruption. What was it like?” He wondered, then, how the process of becoming a Negaverse agent worked and which parts demanded memories for sacrifice.

The note on technology was received favorably, and Scholomance nodded to the squire’s assertions that he, too, may benefit from Mont Blonc’s upgrade. If nothing else, inspecting an upgraded ring might be quite interesting. “And my lapidary skills are absolutely terrible, by the way - I mainly picked up the skill to understand how jewelry is made in some respects. Job demands and all.” Lapidary, however, provided him no insights on signet rings.

“You’re extremely ticklish, by the way, and you know what they say about that…” Scholomance grinned easily. A choice came down between giving his own story or continuing to torment Mont Blonc, and the solution proved terribly obvious to him. It was an effort, but Scholomance tried to seize that shirt once again and get close enough to suck a bruise into the top of his phallic drawing. He doubted Mont Blonc would surrender for it, however.

“And since you’re so interested in boners…” Scholomance hefted his weapon into his grip, with hands poised near the base of the weapon. He held it over his pubic bone and offered Mont Blonc the handle, holding it rather closely to the other squire’s face. “It’s your turn. Come on, Blanca, polish my knob.”

He hoped, in the jest, that he wouldn’t need to speak of Scholomance.

Mont Blonc listened to what he had to say - and for all the bluntness, true, it was sort of reassuring, although the guilt couldn’t help but linger. Still, he trusted Scholomance on his word; he wasn’t the type to placate, something the squire knew and needed from him. He knew he was weak, in almost every sense of the word, and he did need soothing sometimes to overcome his own anxieties and upset, but - but he needed this too. He needed this kind of clarity in his life to know he wasn’t just being tucked into a protective bubble or something.

But there were some things that needed amending, or that he couldn’t just let slip past without at least trying to give Scholomance more of the whole picture. “He’s been through a lot - Ploutonion - he - please don’t call him Ashanite, “ and he wasn’t saying that to try and correct him, but a near-plea because it pained Mont Blonc to hear it. It was a corruption that never should have been, and a name that was not - it wasn’t him. To say Ashanite was real was to acknowledge Ploutonion as truly one of theirs, and he wasn’t. “He’s afraid to leave, now. He saw people get hurt the last time, when they took him and all, and - and he’s afraid.”

He bit down on his lip, fidgeting. “The people they’ve attached him to - I know one of them, he plucked Ploutonion’s starseed once. Uh, mine too, actually. Separate occasions. Not a nice guy. Umber, that’s his name. - and some general, I don’t know her, but she’s - she’s small, but - that doesn’t really mean anything, and I’m almost sure she’s been abusing him. If you saw the way she touched him - “ It was Scholomance, so he didn’t even pretend not to shudder. Mont Blonc could never say he was happy to talk about corruption, but it was a reprieve from imagining the way the woman had touched Ploutonion’s hair and the bruises on his sides. “It was the - “ He was about to say the worst thing he’d ever seen, and it was up there. But with the fractured, still vivid memories of the future, the planet with the spider king, the ghoulish train - could he really honestly say that anymore? “ - one of the worst things I’ve ever seen.” Better. “This woman plunged her hand into his chest and pumped him full of chaos energy. I could see the change from where I stood, felt his energy shift, and - and the way he screamed - “ He shuddered again, shaking his head. “I’ve never heard anyone scream like that. I can only imagine how painful it must have been.”

Again, the talk of rings was a proper distraction; Mont Blonc smiled almost weakly, running fingers through his hair to push it away from his eyes. “You should - “ No, no should. “Maybe you could make me a ring sometime. Or something like that. If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.” His cheeks burned and he laughed softly, fidgeting a bit. “Sorry. I just thought - it’d be nice to have something you made. I can’t imagine doing something like that myself.”

If the mention of tickling made him blush (and it did, and god he was terribly ticklish), imagine the colors his face became when Scholomance tried pulling that stunt. He gave a laugh that was a yelp, or a yelp that was a laugh, depending on which angle you looked at it, flailing and half-dancing away. “Schol!” The blush didn’t diminish in the slightest, not with that comment, with the weapon angled at this face - although the squire did take a hold of it, almost timidly, nudging it down with a hint of a soft smile. “You’re ridiculous, my friend - “ Never mind he’d made that terribly inappropriate comment in the first place. The company he was keeping was rubbing off more than he thought. “ - now tell me your story. Did you think I’d forgotten?”

Scholomance’s antics did well to lighten the mood, and for that, he enjoyed seeing Mont Blonc smile. The squire looked a little too solemn about his friend, and attached much too quickly to his name of old. Did Ashanite particularly prefer it, then? Scholomance couldn’t remember. However, he recalled with aplomb his irritation with the captain upon learning of his current position. “I have absolutely no pity for that boy. If he wants to cover his ears and close his eyes to what he’s got as a captain now, then that’s his decision. Personally I think the memory loss sucks a bit, but it could be useful - and teleportation is certainly nice. He has real weapons, as opposed to this,” he paused to raise his cane, “and as part of a military he has responsibilities and privileges. An outside motivator, instead of our own wholesome senses of morality that are supposed to make us go out at night and die for a bunch of strangers.

“I don’t understand the whole aversion to corruption, anyway. Sure, it jams up your life a bit, but what’s to say it’s so immensely terrible afterward? You get a convenient ability to kill anyone you want, you can additionally drain energy to quiet all the obnoxious people around you, and you get some damned useful abilities.” He wondered, then, if Mont Blonc’s or Scholomance’s magic could compare to the sheer utility behind teleportation. Or a clean murder. “To be serious with you, I’m getting tired of the whole ‘chaos is terrible’ disquisition without a single valid reason to perpetuate its existence. Why, then, is it so abominable for him to be corrupted? What is preventing him from working with us, and us from working with him? If he means so much to you as a former Saturn knight, what is preventing you from assisting him in the Negaverse? You don’t have to corrupt to do that.”

Scholomance shifted position to cross ankles and lean on his cane. A gloved hand found his prominent hip, and he hoped that the fitted nature of the clothing didn’t reveal too much about his scrawniness. “I’ll tell you what. Give me an adequate answer, and I’ll make that ring for you.” It sounded a fair bargain when evaluated by effort involved.

“Out of curiosity, have you ever heard Ploutonion whine about his lot in life? It’s a small wonder that those officers are beating the s**t out of him. I’d do it too; he sounds like a lonely furbag in heat caterwauling to the rest of the neighborhood to pity him. He seemed to brighten up a bit when I took him to my wonder, though. And he finally shut up about the quality of his life.” Scholomance still couldn’t discern what rendered the Negaverse as such an archenemy to the rest of the world. He imagined that most knights ran off the assumptions that ‘murder is terrible’ and ‘hurting other people makes one a bad person’.

The pain from corruption that Mont Blonc mentioned, though - that intrigued him. He would ask after it later; would Cinnabar be willing to divulge such information to him?

Alas, his deflections came to a close when Mont Blonc stubbornly insisted on his own personal recount. The squire sighed, dismissed his cane, and pressed hands into pockets thankfully provided. “I don’t understand the point of talking about it. It’s done, and the results are what matter to this war - not the stories.” But no amount of stubborn refusal mattered to the other squire. Mont Blonc would ask after it regardless, so Scholomance finally relented in his stonewalling.

“It didn’t involve a meat train, for one, though I would’ve liked it quite fine if we’re talking double entendres. I was visiting Scholomance again, and that in itself is interesting because it’s such a terrible compulsion, like the entire choice of it was already out of my hands. I imagine this is what OCD diagnoses feel like when they can’t leave the damned house without checking if all magazines are facing the same direction at least six times. And I mean checking six times as in they know the magazines are facing the same direction, but they literally have to check them six times. But I digress,” he self-corrected begrudgingly.

“When I took Ash-... Ploutonion there, I met a man that looked like me - he said his name was Blaine, and that he was the last knight to serve Scholomance. He seemed okay, much in the way that sushi does when it’s kind of bland and the ingredients aren’t particularly befitting of the lack of garnishes, but he was honest enough with me during the visit. Interestingly, he didn’t remember much about the place and could hardly be of use to me. But he did confirm that this ugly gold ring was my signet ring,” he paused to show Mont Blonc the gold and blue ring hooked upon a chain (which was an idea stolen from Ploutonion for the usefulness of it).

“But when I came alone… I don’t know that showing up by myself changed anything, or if Ploutonion’s absence somehow helped, but Blaine seemed a little different. It was hard for me to figure out how, too - I remember spending a lot of time just staring at him and trying to deduce if his posture changed, or his uniform changed, or if he simply remembered more, but I never did figure it out while I was there. I still don’t know. But he did explain to me a few things about my wonder. Never did answer why my wonder is constantly staring me down, though - the answer he gave on that sounded a little too comically grave for my taste. All he said was, ‘Scholomance expects’. He seemed confused at the end, too, though I can’t tell you why.

“The whole visit demanded hours of gallivanting around and looking at unimportant s**t, but I’ll cut to the chase: Blaine took me down to this tiny building out back - and by the way, Scholomance looks like a campus - and while I couldn’t get the door open, he could. When he pulled me inside, it felt much too similar to how Scholomance breathed down my neck. He kept speaking in… Riddle, or metaphor or something while we were down there. I never understood his meaning past those doors. lt seemed to me that he endured a paradigm shift. He led me back to this room that looked like it was meant for a storage space, or records of some sort, and had me go rummaging through the lot of it. Wouldn’t tell me what he was looking for - just that I was the only one who could help him find it. And then I found this… Nondescript-looking wooden box. It didn’t particularly impress me or anything, and I figured I’d rifle through it like I did the rest of the s**t. But…”

Scholomance paled, then, and tugged his half-mask up over his face restlessly. His hands sought pockets either for his cigarettes or some excuse to distract themselves. “I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I started having a panic attack but there was no reason for it. I just…” He sighed, and cast hands up in the air. In the last of his discourse, his voice trembled against his will. “I recovered, I was a squire, and I remember feeling so pervasively rotten about it that I left. The end. So how about that magic now?”

Mont Blonc adored Scholomance, he did. His adoration of his friend did nothing to stifle the look of subdued horror that etched itself across his face when his friend spoke of the merits of the negaverse, as though it might be better to be corrupted and fall in line with their ranks than to stand against them.

“Scholomance, I - “ He laid a hand over his own chest subconsciously, his head dipping forward. “ - I don’t know what - kinds of encounters you’ve had with the negaverse, or - b-but this, our starseed, it’s - it’s our life force.” His fingers curled against the fabric of his shirt. “It’s more than that. It’s what makes us who we are, as people and as knights. Without it, we are shells. Nothing more than hollow vessels, left dying or dead. It’s the most - it’s the most personal thing about a person. More than sex.” He stumbled over the word. “More than anything. To corrupt someone is to reach into that part of a person and mold them to fit your designs, or even to make a monster of them. The negaverse tampers with this part of you. They don’t just kill. They warp people to make them suit their needs. They force you to be something, someone you’re not. Like Ploutonion. They harvest peoples’ being for energy.”

He fidgeted, biting his lower lip and laying his hand gently on his friend’s shoulder, furrowing his brow a little. “More than that, even - chaos energy warps people. Twists their minds and their hearts. These things, like teleportation, they come at a cost to yourself. Your humanity. - and you can’t tell me you could just take a life, Scholomance. Don’t look at me and say you could so easily take an innocent's’ life without flinching? - that you could turn on us so easily?” He sounded almost pleading, there, and that’s when it became obvious without words why he looked as afraid as he did. Not that he was afraid of Scholomance or his words, but more afraid that he would slip away too. That he would lose the closest knight he had, now, and he’d lose with it Isaiah’s company and much needed voice in his life. “That’s not a road to be traveled Scholomance. It’s not.”

The compulsion of wonders what something Mont Blonc understood, comprehension dawning in his expressive eyes. Although he had little to no desire to go to his mountain, sure enough, it still here and there prowled at the edge of his mind like a scavenger waiting to claim its prize. But as for the rest of the story, he could only listen in awe as he told the story of Blaine, of himself in a past life, and by the end of it all - the fractured Blaine, or shifting Blaine, whatever it was - it didn’t seem to make much sense at all, but - he understood a little. The sensation of panic flooding, the quiver of Scholomance’s voice. He was trying to deflect it, now, either to forget or minimize his own discomfort to save face, but -

Here and there, Mont Blonc did things without overthinking them, caught in the moment. This was one such thing as he stepped forward and hugged his friend before he could second-guess himself, sliding fingers quickly through his hair in a soothing gesture. He didn’t say anything; he would have stumbled over his words anyway, redness already seeping into his cheeks in its familiar way. So he hoped this spoke for itself, maybe just a little.

Mont Blonc wrapped arms about him, and Scholomance couldn’t speak. He froze to the touch of fingers against his scalp, where they toyed with trusses of hair that curled outward. Affection felt like an impossibility now, so long after a road traveled of carnal expectations from one another. To accept a hug constituted thievery - the action alone stole from Mont Blonc the simple endearments that he so willingly spared toward others. Coiling his arms about his fellow squire meant conveying unto him that same bitter darkness that shaped the wonder Scholomance. He knew what he touched, he knew what lay within that box, and the iniquity of it stained his gloves so thoroughly beyond any malice that chaos conceived of. It held an agelessness to it that smelled of acrid earth.

Scholomance relented, finally, and gloved hands wrapped about his friend’s thicker figure. He found that he liked the way the insides of his elbows fit so neatly against Mont Blonc’s waist. With eyes closed, he laid his forhead to rest against the younger squire’s shoulder and stared at the lukewarm darkness that painted his lids. Warmth flowed readily from the soft material of Mont Blonc’s jacket. The night offered no ambience beyond the eternal white noise chirp of crickets. Beneath the cables, they stood in a dim luminance spared by the moon. And yet, he found himself fundamentally dissatisfied with the ephemeral shimmer over his lids, the fleeting glitches that his mind provided to fill the emptiness.

Darkness never satisfies, he reminded himself bitterly.

When he spared a glance to his dim surroundings, his gaze lit upon a single Saturn symbol affixed to Mont Blonc’s ear. It glittered dully in their dim moonlight, and danced only to the tune of an empty breeze. You would call it backstabbing, wouldn’t you? You would curse it, and rail against it, and draw your crusade upon it until you righted what you perceived as wrong. I suppose that’s part of your charm, Blanca. Your blacks and your whites are so much easier to distinguish than mine.

Try as I might to differentiate values, to illustrate subtlety, my world is still covered in charcoal.

“It’s not something you need to worry over. I can murder someone in cold blood about as well as I can watercolor, which is to say, not at all.” He considered letting go, but Mont Blonc radiated a warmth about him that Scholomance enjoyed leeching, and he found it was a kind of warmth that never grew too much, despite core body temperature.

Mont Blonc’s hand was tender and unsure in Scholomance’s hair at first, his hand light on the squire’s back - because as easy as it was to overstep his boundaries, he only naturally extended the same kind of consideration to others. But when his friend wrapped his arm around him, the caressing hand moved with more confidence, fingers curling against his back. Some part of him, a selfish little part that he’d like to pretend wasn’t there, relished in the chance to comfort someone he cared about. So often people did it for him, caught him when he fell, soothed his wounds when he ached, held him when he quivered and shook from his own nerves and anxieties. To be able to do this for someone else, to be there in any capacity, it was all he’d ever wanted to do. He wanted to give, not to take.

I can do this for you. I’m happy to do this for you.

He tightened his embrace when Scholomance said that, fingers resting in his hair as he drew a shaking, unsure breath. “I do, though. - I do worry about you, “ he admitted quietly with more than a hint of color in his cheeks. “I’d - I’d be sad if you weren’t here, you know.” He didn’t say outright that his sanity had been called into question in a darker future, that he sometimes feared for it now. Scholomance didn’t need to know about that. He didn’t need to know that Mont Blonc didn’t know if he’d able to take the departure of another knight, another friend, someone who’d gotten closer to him than Ploutonion had. He didn’t need Scholomance’s face in his nightmares too.

A thin smile creased his lips when Mont Blonc offered his concerns. He enjoyed quite deeply that the squire considered him beyond their immediate discourses, and that he had an impact on the boy of significant magnitude. “Don’t mistake my lack of staunch hatred for the Negaverse as an interest in joining their cause.” Lingering so close to Mont Blonc wrought memories better left buried. He considered them where he remained, and mulled over their stale sadness that still clung so stubbornly to minutia.

“Besides, you should be wary, not worried.” The squire grinned mischievously, and hands shifted from Mont Blonc’s waist to grabbing two bold handfuls of a** at once. “Roman hands and Russian fingers, after all.

“But you are too kind, Blanca. You should try being an a*****e sometime.” He gave that a** a firm squeeze before he let go, and wrenched himself from the heat of his friend.

When Scholomance uttered those words, Mont Blonc breathed a sigh of such profound relief that his shoulders sagged slightly - he himself was unaware of the shift in his stance, but it was obvious to an outsider. “Sorry, “ because of course he’d mutter an apology for assuming, for thinking - but who could blame him for thinking? “Thank you, “ for clarifying, for giving him some peace of mind, for -

Not for that. “Scho-lo-mance!” he choked out, blushing furiously and stiffening, but almost smiling as he did it - not because it was okay exactly that Scholomance was fondling him, but more because he was just beginning to accept that this was part of his humor and it was just that, humor. No more added pressures or expectations beyond this.

Or he hoped so, anyway.

He squeaked at the squeeze, blushing deeper as they shifted away from each other. “There’s more than one way to be an a**, “ and the last word tumbled off his tongue with a bit of discomfort, simply because Mont Blonc wasn’t much for cursing. He left the statement ambiguous with a sort of half smile as he willed his pen to him in a small rush of magic, and Scholomance’s pocket was left empty then. “So anyway. About this magic.”

frayedflower
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