Welcome to Gaia! ::

As he sat in wait, Scholomance felt his whole body throb. The wind bit, though he bundled up accordingly. His arm itched in places he could never scratch. His thoughts ached, somehow, and he couldn’t make sense of that himself. His gums felt swollen beneath the half-mask.

From where he waited, in an unused courtyard between apartment complexes, he could feel no other signatures. The appointed time had not yet arrived; the message sent from one of the Negaverse agents demanded that he wait at this location for Xenotime and one other officer. The reasoning for it remained unknown to him, despite pressing for answers in badly-scrawled papers. The captain who delivered the message knew not why. Were he of sound body and mind, he’d have found it funny - the Negaverse proved much too adept at compartmentalizing their knowledge across their officers. He started to wonder - how much of his predicament went on a ‚need-to-know basis? Or was his use to the Negaverse considered a privilege that only certain officers undertook?

It didn’t matter, he decided. Thinking it over offered more frustrations than answers. He leaned back against the long bench and tried to cross his arms, though only one responded to his urge. The pool on the opposite edge sat placid and untouched by the fair winds above. Soon, Xenotime would come.

Soon, Xenotime would come, with her officer in tow, and she would put him to work as expected if he wanted to ‚earn‘ his ring back. Briefly he wondered if that offer included the rest of his body.

That didn’t matter, either. The evening grew bitter as its chill deepened.

As a new recruit to the Negaverse, Saponite had a lot to learn. When he was notified of his first lesson, he was happy to report to it. It turned out that the lesson would not be with General Benitoite or any other members of his team, as Saponite had expected. Instead he would be working with a different general, Xenotime. And it seemed they would be going out to the city to meet someone else. As he had no frame of reference, Saponite had no idea if this was unusual, but it didn't matter either way; he had his assignment, and he reported to it.

The someone else turned out to be a tall figure clad in dark clothing and bones, who Xenotime as Scholomance. Saponite smiled and greeted him with a pleasant "Hello." He would have said more, but he paused, head slightly tilted in curiosity. Something felt odd about this man. He couldn't quite place why, but there was something about him that felt different from any of the Negaverse agents he'd met so far. After a moment he noticed the man seemed to be missing an arm, but he didn't think that accounted for the different. What was it about him?

It all just seemed terribly amusing to the general. Not just the sorry state the knight had found himself in, but the lieutenant as well, his reactions to everything. He still had the 'new agent' smell to him, that brightness in the eyes that said he'd yet to encounter anything awful in this role. It would fade, in time, it always did. The shine would wear away, the adorable naivety would wear away, to be replaced by something darker. Fear in some, exhaustion in others. Or, in a lucky few, acceptance and excitement.

With an interested hum Xe glanced down as Scholomance produced paper and pen, giggling softly beside him before stifling the sound with the press of a knuckle against her lips. Mustn't be rude. Well. She waited, patiently, for him to finish writing, then met that pointed stare. "Oh, someone's very grouchy." Her fingers flexed where they lay on his shoulder, not yet causing pain, but enough to remind him of just how very strong she was.

Leaning a little closer, she lowered her voice in an illusion of privacy. Saponite would be able to hear, but it didn't matter. "You're right, I didn't. But if I had, you'd still be sitting here, indulging my whims as you are now. Would't you?" Slender fingers squeezed, just a touch, before relaxing completely, and the general straightened up again, pleased smile sliding back into place.

"Now then!" Back to business, it appeared. "You're here, my sweet little Saturn knight, because Saponite needs a lesson in energy gathering." This wasn't her usual teaching method. She had a rather firm belief in the sink-or-swim ideology, which usually had her pointing her new recruits at civilians or opponents of equal strength, and letting them figure this lesson out on their own after being talked through the process. Saponite, however, was not one her officers, nor did he look especially scrappy. This would be better for him, safer.

When Scholomance returned Xenotime’s look, only tiredness remained in his gaze. Only a short week passed since his maiming, and his spirit flagged and struggled to keep pace with his body. A knight’s power hardly extended past his physical capabilities.

He blinked slowly to her taunt; he knew from experience that attemting to dance around the Negaverse or deny them their whims entailed utter disaster. Hell, he was a walking billboard of proof. Her display of force proved unnecessary for this reason, and he tried to ignore it. Bleakly he stared at the gap where he once had a finger, and tried to remember what it looked like. The nail was squared off, often grew long, and a nuisance to cut into the rounded shape of the rest of his nails. The joints often stuck out harshly, suggesting the scrawniness of the muscles between each knuckle. He tried to remember if he had a mole beneath the second knuckle on his right ring finger or his left, but soon gave up when he heard Xenotime wind around to business.

A lesson in energy gathering - he sighed in mild relief. No great task would be asked of him today. Briefly he wondered if she would consider it rude of him to ask for a ride home once they finished their work with him.

When Saponite confirmed her words, Scholomance only snorted. Flipping a page on his notebook, he started on a message to the boy. The poorly-scrawled writing was soon held out to him. You’re asking the wrong person. Ask her →

Scholomance’s eyes narrowed; he wondered precisely how knew this recruit was. Days? Weeks? Months? He looked like he carried hardly a thought in his head just yet. On another page, he wrote his followup: do you know what I am?

In response to Saponite's question, Scholomance wrote something else and held it out towards the Lieutenant, so he leaned forward to read it. The man's handwriting was terrible (which was not surprising, considering how he was writing), so it took Saponite a moment to make out the message. Once he did understand it, he said, "Oh! Yes, I did mean the question for her, sorry for not being clear." He smiled apologetically and straightened up, looking to Xenotime for instruction.

The scratch of pen on paper called his attention back to Scholomance, though. It seemed he wasn't done "talking" yet. Saponite waited patiently for the next message, but once he read it he cocked his head, brow furrowing in puzzlement. "Um, no, I can't say I do," he answered. Nobody had really said, as far as he knew. Was it something he was supposed to know? There seemed to be quite a lot he had yet to learn about the Negaverse. He looked over to Xenotime, looking for her reaction to his lack of information.