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 Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 2:46 pm
((I'm not entirely certain what to put up here, but from the looks of the others, just an explanation of what he's supposed to be studying and so forth. So here I go...
Location: The labs
Subject of Study: Flesh sculpting (and a few other things Varian is a bit curious about...)
Tutors:
Dessa & Zaniel: Quote: One of the fae that followeed seemed to consist entirely out of shadows. Dressed in a white lab coat that seemed to be smudged with fingerprints, he paused, straightened, and nodded his head. "Varian." he purred. The other was a woman. A Woman, with curves that seemed to threaten to pull the coat apart, and long hair made out of snakes. Except... somethign was wrong with her skin. Shadows chased across the surface, like... well. It wasn't good to think about it.
Varian had not been a very happy little boy the past few days. After his fight with Kayce, he'd been understandably upset. But when he'd realized he couldn't figure out how to fix his ear, well...
Temper tantrum was putting it mildly.
In order to try and keep the rest of the house from being destroyed, Aletea had called and scheduled some lessons for Varian. And he had calmed down when he realized he could work towards developing the skill to fix his ear.
So the little was seated in the waiting room, in a navy blue yukata, waiting for his tutors to arrive. His mother'd had to be somewhere, so she had already left...and Varian, well.
He was contemplating a few of the more interesting questions he had for them.
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 3:15 pm
Beth, having been watching Varian over her desk for a few minutes, had been experiencing a serious internal debate as to whether or not she should greet the boy. Unfortunately, she remembered having mislabelled the pretty boy as a girl, and with his response in mind, she settled for a polite and friendly smile. There. That was safe, right?
"I still say we should have used the other room!" a male voice echoed from down one of the hallways, increasing in volume. "It's more suited to him."
A very undignified, albeit higher-pitched, snort echoed back. "I like the room we got better," Dessa was saying as she emerged from one of the hallways, Zaniel trailing along beside her. Her face was expressionless, but Zaniel, who happened to be looking her in the eyes, seemed suitably cowed.
The dark fae looked more interested when he spied Varian sitting and waiting, though, and he immediately went right to the boy, holding out a hand with a darkly sweet smile. "Varian. Good to see you again."
He wisely neglected to ask what had happened to the boy's ear. Best not to inquire, he thought.
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 3:22 pm
Cooly ignoring Beth (Varian still held a grudge about that), he perked up as he heard his tutors arguing. And he stood up as they entered, and he took Zaniels hand in greeting.
A smile (although not one that held the sweetness of most children) was how he greeted them; he liked his tutors. And his mother thought they were creepy...ha! Obviously, she was mad.
"Zaniel, Dessa. You two are a better sight then what I've had to deal with, lately."
Was that a snipe at Beth? Or at every human in existance? Hmm...better make that everyone except for himself and his tutors, of course; because Kayce was a fae, and she certainly wasn't something he wanted to see.
Varian would be asking about how to fix his ear later, of course...although who knew if he would state what happened? He still wasn't sure about that.
"Asides from just training in my ability, I had some questions about some...other things," glancing over at Beth, he added, "But I'll ask them a bit later, I think."
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 3:28 pm
Zaniel fairly purred, his dark eyes wide and gleeful. "We would be honored to answer your questions," he replied, following the way Varian glanced over at Beth. Ah ha. Private questions. "Yes, let us go somewhere more private," he added, resting his other dark hand atop Varian's pale one and moving to lead the boy toward the hallway.
After simply nodding her greetings at Varian, a ghost of a smile flickering around her lips, Dessa turned and moved back through the doorway from which she and Zaniel had just come. Despite the calm manner in which she moved, her hair was flaring out everywhere, hissing its annoyance at the world, or, more specifically, the bright, newly-fixed lights of the lab. Oh, shame on the light.
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 3:37 pm
Going his tutors out of the waiting room, Varian pondered why everyone he had seen around them seemed to always be so unnerved. They looked different, certainly - but they were fascinating! What was so creepy about them?
Needless to say, Varian wasn't the sort of boy to pick up on certain undercurrents, and his ignorance towards how frightening Zaniel and Dessa truly were was remarkable.
As they headed towards the room, he broached the topics.
"Firstly, I want to be trained to fix my ear."
He didn't mention how it had wound up in this state
"And secondly...do you know anything about poisons?"
The library hadn't had much. If anyone would know, Zaniel and Dessa would - he felt certain of it.
They surely made an odd picture as they traveled down the hallway: Zaniel and Dessa, dark and seeming like visions from a nightmare...and Varian, seeming pale and golden.
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 3:46 pm
Not entirely sure what to make of that query, Zaniel's face assumed an expression of deep thinking for a moment. Really, the expression looked rather painful, almost as though he had a very bad stomach ache. "Yes, the ear. The ear, we must discuss. How is it that you did this to yourself?" he murmured, his tone quite petulant. Beauty was not to be tampered with. How had the boy incurred such injury?
"Here," Dessa said suddenly, gesturing to one of the open doorways and standing aside to let Zaniel and Varian enter.
The room, in and of itself, was quite beautiful, if a little morbid. The windows were draped in heavy curtains in shades of deep purples and reds, effectively filtering out any outside light. The room was lit by lantern-like fixtures on the walls, and in the center of the floor was a small, polished table that looked like it was made of black wood. Four cushioned chairs were arranged around it, and it was to these chairs that Zaniel guided his favorite fae. Whoops... had he just admitted that to himself?
"Poisons... yes, we can discuss those. But later. More important things first," the male fae was saying.
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 3:54 pm
"I didn't do it."
Varian's expression darkened, as he considered this. It tied into his second question, but his tutors didn't know that, of course.
"There's another fae by the name of Kayce..." Speaking coldly, his eyes betrayed exactly how he felt about her, "...I believe you'll find that she now has several scars on her face, as well."
He didn't state exactly what had happened (honestly, his ear nearly get bitten off wasn't exactly tasteful), but anyone who paid enough attention could tell what that answer meant. And of course he expected that his tutors were intelligent enough to figure out that this meant he'd fought with Kayce.
Or had some sort of confrontation, anyway.
Assessing the room, the little blonde fae obviously found it at least decent, before he followed Zaniel to a chair, and sat down.
"She's a complete barbarian."
Nevermind that she was a fae; she was still a barbarian.
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:01 pm
Zaniel and Dessa exchanged glances over Varian's head as the female shut the door and came to join them at the table. "Kayce," Zaniel said aloud, tilting his head to one side as he settled himself in a chair. "An interesting name. I will assume you two got into an altercation." That was a rhetorical statement, of course. He had to wonder how, exactly, the female fae had mangled Varian's ear, but he didn't want to push. No, no. He'd tap into Shy's spying system later to figure it out.
"Being a fighter does not make her a barbarian," Dessa said as she seated herself, turning her hauntingly dark eyes toward Varian. "And if you caused damage to her, you are the same. That is the way of things." She leaned forward toward him, her upper body threatening to bust out of her lab coat. "But that is of no matter. You are here about your power. To control it," she said, slipping a file from beneath her labcoat to set it on the table.
Zaniel looked as though he didn't want to know where she had pulled it from.
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:09 pm
"It's not the fighting that makes her barbaric; it's her chosen methods."
Spoken grumpily, Varian pleasantly ignored the fact that shoving pizza in someone's face wasn't all that civilized either. At least he hadn't bitten her ear. And he wasn't too happy that Dessa wasn't taking his side...glancing over at Zaniel, he wondered if the man was on his side or not, as well.
He was rather spoiled, after all, even if Aletea tried her hardest to control him.
If Varian was a bit older, he may have been just as uncomfortable as Zaniel about Dessa's...retrieval; but, be things as they may, he paid it no mind at all. Instead, he merely focused in on her words, and began to prepare to learn.
Not knowing how the tutors would direct the teaching, he remained silent, and simply waited for the lessons to begin.
((I'm not too sure how lessons are conducted, so...yeah sweatdrop ))
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:15 pm
That completely convinced Zaniel that he didn't want to know at the moment. Time to bug Shy for those records later. "Yes, lessons," he said, returning his attention to the matter at hand. "Your power is... to mold flesh, yes? To make it look as you want it to?"
Really, the male fae knew exactly what the power was, but he wanted to hear Varian's explanation. He wanted to know what the young fae thought of it and how it worked for him. He had the distinct impression that it wasn't a very powerful gift yet, though, since the ear still looked... damaged.
Dessa turned her gaze to Varian, her expression blank as always. As it was, a passing glance made her seem disinterested, despite the fact that she really was listening intently, intrigued by this odd young boy.
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:23 pm
"That's what it seems to be, yes."
Pausing for a moment, Varian thought over it. He hadn't had many opportunities to experiment yet, but he thought he had a pretty good idea of how it worked.
"I just...put my hands wherever it is, and picture how it should look," Zaniel had described it more accurately, of course - how he wanted it to look; after all, he had gotten rid of a few 'minor' imperfections when he'd first discovered his ability.
"I have to know what it should look like, of course; I'm still not entirely certain I corrected those twin fae right. I hadn't paid much attention to their appearance, beforehand."
They weren't as beautiful as him: that's all he needed to know, afterall. And from the hint of smugness on his face, his thoughts were showing through.
"No complaints from them though, of course; if I didn't get it right, I obviously had to have made them more beautiful then they were before."
And his arrogance didn't need to show through anything; it was right out there for the world to see.
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:27 pm
Zaniel was inclined to ignore Varian's arrogance. After all, what self-respecting male wouldn't think himself the most beautiful creature in existence?! It went without saying, really. He smiled at Varian, looking rather like a large, contented cat. Oh yes. This child had potential. "What sort of things does it not work on? It hasn't worked on your ear. You've tried." That went without saying too.
"Try it again with your ear. Here. Now," Dessa said suddenly, her eyes fixed on Varian's damaged feature. "Try to fix it." She tactfully ignored the distasteful look Zaniel gave her. She was allowed to take charge; she was female, after all.
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:43 pm
She wasn't even going to give him instruction on it? Feh! Varian doubted it would work without any more suggestions...he'd tried, but he couldn't quite seem to get the finer details ironed out.
Raising his hands to his ear, he spoke before he attempted."The problem seems to be with getting it to work on the finer details."
There was a faint glow under his hands, as he concentrated, focusing on his ear as it should look - no marks, no scars. If one could see past his hands, they would notice the skin roiling, seeming more like liquid then what it really was - and as it melted and rolled over where the injuries were, it seemed to remove the scars.
But when he lowered his hands, the skin simply faded right back to where it had been before he worked it.
Varian had already considered the possible reasons it might not work, of course. Perhaps it hadn't worked when he first tried, because it was still technically an injury - simply scabbed over. Another reason could be a lack of adequate power (which he refused to believe), and the final one he had considered, was that he simply didn't have the control to manage it, just yet.
Feeling his ear, and noting that it was the same, he explained with a grumpy expression.
"I managed to smooth it over a bit, when tried last time - at first, I think it didn't work because it was just scabbed over. But when I last tried, I just couldn't seem to get the little bits all done correctly...it just won't cooperate!"
One thing he hadn't considered, was the possibility that his own doubts and fears about his ear being stuck like this, were interfereing with the visualizaton. After all, if he had to create an image in his mind, and he was terrified he wouldn't be able to fix it...how could he keep that from intruding on the image already built?
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 4:55 pm
Zaniel nodded wisely as Varian raised his hands to try. "Finer details are things that will come with time. Let's just see what you can do for... ohhhh, very nice!" the dark fae said, his voice definitely sounding like a cat's purr. Oh, that was a very nice power. Very, very nice.
Having watched the demonstration with much interest, Dessa nodded, her gaze not leaving the ear throughout the whole attempt. After a moment of silence, she abruptly stood and walked over to one of the other pieces of furniture in the wood, a desk made of the same black, polished wood as the table.
Unperturbed by her sudden movement, Zaniel gazed intently at their protege. "Hmmm. It could be from a lack of practice or a lack of power. You're young, and it's still developing. I'm guessing it's practice, though. You need practice." He tilted his head to one side, frowning faintly as if to best consider how to help Varian work on it.
Dessa, it seemed, was multiple steps ahead, for she returned to the table with a square, ornate-framed mirror which she propped up on the table in front of Varian. "Look at your other ear in the mirror and try again. Focus on it," she said without preamble.
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Posted: Mon Apr 02, 2007 5:08 pm
Varian had thought they'd just be able to give him a little tidbit, some bit of information to fix his ear instantly. Instead, they told him to practice. Ugh.
Focusing on his unscarred ear in the mirror, he completely disregarded his own, mental image. And as the skin under his hands began to ripple and glow faintly, it seemed to be reforming better then it had before...
Until one noticed that it really was an exact copy of the ear in the mirror. Thus, facing the wrong direction.
Thankfully, as he lowered his hands, it melted back into what it had been before. At least he didn't have to try and fix that too...a scarred ear could be explained. And ear facing the wrong direction? That was a little stranger.
"I focused."
Stiffly spoken, Varian could feel his face heating up. He just knew there was red in his cheeks now, from embaressment - and frustration. However, it had formed better then when he'd tried with his own mental image; except for the direction thing, anyway.
It just wouldn't seem to stay.
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