Myrobalan Shivana (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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aefenglom2020-09-15 05:07 pm
faithlikeaseed) wrote in aefenglom2020-09-15 05:07 pm
a totally normal and innocuous wanted ad
Name: Myr Shivana | un: mshivana
Date: 9/15
Format: Voice
Evening, Mirrorbound. My name's Myr Shivana, for those who don't know my voice.
I've need of someone with experience mediating disputes--a village elder, a judge, even a senior ench--senior academic, if you've had particularly bad students. [There's a note of faint amusement in his voice, there.]
You'd be helping settle a matter that's caused no end of pain and distress to those involved. The reasons behind it are sensitive in nature, so discretion's a must.
I can compensate your time--with cunes or honey or service, whatever's preferred.
[...]
Also--unrelated to the other issue, if there's any Witches or Fae who specialize in illusions invoking taste instead of sight, I'd like to talk to you. Or cooks specializing in food for folk who can't taste much, I s'pose could work too. [He sounds cheerier about this one, at least.]
Date: 9/15
Format: Voice
Evening, Mirrorbound. My name's Myr Shivana, for those who don't know my voice.
I've need of someone with experience mediating disputes--a village elder, a judge, even a senior ench--senior academic, if you've had particularly bad students. [There's a note of faint amusement in his voice, there.]
You'd be helping settle a matter that's caused no end of pain and distress to those involved. The reasons behind it are sensitive in nature, so discretion's a must.
I can compensate your time--with cunes or honey or service, whatever's preferred.
[...]
Also--unrelated to the other issue, if there's any Witches or Fae who specialize in illusions invoking taste instead of sight, I'd like to talk to you. Or cooks specializing in food for folk who can't taste much, I s'pose could work too. [He sounds cheerier about this one, at least.]
--> private;
It is a small misery and a small heartbreak, but misery and heartbreak even so.]
Say nothing of it, amatus. If we do find someone who can do it, and it makes it easier on you, so much the better.
[Though, speaking of. They'll switch to private for this next bit of conversation.]
I've a request, though. Something you should do, before we even find a mediator.
private;
[He says so quickly, before he's even considered what Myr might ask of him. Maybe it's hasty and unwise, but "anything" is what he wants to be willing to do, for one who's done so much for him, through so much.]
Just say what it is, and consider it done.
private ∞;
On the surface that should be something Myr's delighted to hear; he should be glad that L's willing to go along with this, despite his own reticence and injuries.
But it also came much too fast; though they're at a distance from each other, he knows what the accompanying emotion would be in their Bond.
That heartrending childlike eagerness is a terrible thing to bear when he knows what he'll be asking.]
Give Niles his eyepatches back.
The first you took from him, at the very least.
private ∞;
He feels he should, at least, be allowed to keep one eyepatch for every finger he watched Niles slice from his hands. That's probably how the impulse to take them started; that first one is actually the prize jewel of his collection, covering the face of the effigy he's cobbled together from fur and other scraps to continue tormenting Niles remotely.]
I see. It would be something like that, I suppose.
[He said he would agree to whatever Myr asked; that's not in question. But just as hoarding trophies hasn't brought him peace, he's not sure that letting them go will, either. At worst, it could make him the loser.]
no subject
You understand some of my bias in the matter, I think.
[For both of the disputants involved. He wants this ended, cleanly as it might be (clean as the amputation of a gangrenous limb, at this point) for L's sake; removing one of the pleasures of tormenting Niles was a step toward that.
He also--for all his anger at Niles--could not help his own sense of empathy with the Chimera's situation. All anyone would have to do to Myr would be steal his blindfold to paralyze him with misery and self-despite for days on end.]
What would be the difficulty in doing so?
[It seems to work, sometimes, to try and pry an analysis out of L when they come to a tricky problem like this.]
no subject
That's at the core of it, isn't it? Loss... and even at a distance, Myr can probably feel that sore and aching place through their Bond.]
Seeing it on his face. Knowing that he got the better of me.
[As if letting go of some trinkets will tip that balance, suddenly and unbearably.]
no subject
Niles had gotten the better of both of them and there wasn't any denying it. Continuing to play the game on the Chimera's level was a recipe for losing all they had, but it doesn't help to know or say so.
Instead:]
I don't have an easy answer for that one, amatus.
But you will need to return them, one way or another. Will it make it any easier to delay until you're ordered to by someone uninvolved?
no subject
[As immediate as his promise to do whatever Myr asked, maybe even quicker. Volition, or at least the illusion of it, is important to L. There's little he will not go through with, so long as he's convinced himself that it's his choice, in the end.
More people know that about him now than he's really thrilled with.]
That won't make it easier.
An intermediary [delivery person] might; I don't want to see him until I have to.
[Just a reminder of the fact that there was an ending, a clear and final one, and Niles used his claws to rip it away right after delivering it to one desperate for... well.
Something that's still being determined, perhaps.]
no subject
Nor would I ask you to.
I can deliver them.
[They could hand the task off to Lalu, of course. But that feels like an abrogation of duty to Myr--this is his to see done, no matter how little he wants to see Niles again.
(At least he won't, even on the Chimera's doorstep.)]
no subject
Thank you. That would be helpful...
[By making it possible at all.]
Soon?
[The stash, along with the effigy, are hidden in plain sight with illusion magic in L’s room. It could be soon; it could be now.]
no subject
The relief is a balm to his frayed nerves. Hard not to get addicted to that feeling, though he's well aware that would doom them in the long run. Not everything L needed to do could be handed to a proxy.]
How soon can you have them ready? I can be over in ten minutes.
no subject
The soft sounds of leather being pulled tight and the clinking metal of L’s prosthetic fingers can be heard in the background. He doesn’t wear them when he bathes or sleeps; it’s safe to assume that he was recently engaged in one of those pursuits.]
Ten minutes is fine. I’ll be here.
[With the eyepatches, and a growing hollow pit of fear he’s tried all this time to fill. Niles will not send someone to replace what he’s lost, after all; L assumes that his fingers are scattered knuckle bones at most by this point, and his wounds have long since closed, flesh joining flesh where it was never meant to and beginning to callous where the prosthetics rubbed and chafed.]
--> action; wow this sure is an exposition chunk
He's asked much of his Bonded, he knows, and much more is yet required before they're out of this fix. But having his hooves on a path toward a real solution has bolstered him; the situation may not be good, but it's neither hopeless nor insoluble. He can swallow his own pride and brace his own shoulders for the unpleasant parts...
Asking L to do the same, though, to trust Myr that there would be a worthwhile resolution at the end of this travail--that there'd be an end to that gnawing fear--that's harder. That tears at Myr sore, because he cannot give an absolute guarantee of resolution, cannot place an absolute duration on the length of his Bonded's suffering. He can only offer himself and his own unwavering affection as a vouchsafe of something better, and do everything that's in him to win it.
One step at a time.]
Linden? [he calls, quietly, once he's inside.]
action; you know i luv it
He touches each one carefully, smoothing it out as he stacks them, rearranges the order several times. They're his, less rightfully stolen and more purchased at a very painful loss. It's doubtful that any number would have satisfied him, not until he stopped breathing, but pursuing more gave him some kind of sense of purpose. So he kept at it, kept breathing, and now...
He lifts the effigy. It's doll-shaped, scruffy, crafted roughly and grotesquely into the vague shape of a chimera. The eye patch is large enough to cover its entire face area, and when he peels it away slowly, a featureless and empty patch of wood stares back.
Myr's coming; it's a small blessing that he would announce himself through the Bond, at least, rather than just barging in on a difficult moment when L's heart beats quick and his chest feels too heavy to take more than the shallowest of breaths. Quickly, with the same kind of reckless deliberation he'd use to knock back an amount of alcohol he knows will make him blackout sick, he sweeps them all into a cream-colored linen pouch and shuffles out to meet his Bonded.
He isn't sure what will happen when he hands them over. The panic he fights to suppress hints that it's bad, that he could vanish on the spot if he loses one more piece of what he's struggled to obtain and hold onto.]
Here.
[A word that means "I am present," and "I have them." A word that serves dual purposes: to strengthen resolve, and to stall the actual handoff.]
no subject
And though the hesitation is instinctive, what follows on its heels is not--the slow, shivering shedding of Myr's veiling shields, those gossamer-thin layers that even he needs to be assured they can't mutually overwhelm each other in emotion. It's both invitation and acceptance, as he stands there very still and simply feels the depth of what he's asked his Bonded to give up.
This will hurt. This will be his due for not knowing any better than to lance this wound before it festers further--for having no substitute other than his own tattered self to offer in trade for his Witch's obsession. It isn't enough. There will need to be something else, as quickly as he can arrange it.
But for now he he gives commiseration and the shadowed warmth of a desert twilight. I am sorry.]
Thank you, amatus.
[Now he holds out his hand.]
no subject
The approaching steps he takes are slow and reluctant, along with the metal-fingered hand that rests the pouch in Myr's extended, warm palm.
At first, Myr won't be able to take it, because L isn't letting go. He doesn't seem to be able to, as though the signals making their way down his still-healing arm are jamming, making his artificial joints tense and gripping. It's a very conscious, very deliberate process to override it, decision or not, and when he's finally managed to let go, his retreating steps are much quicker.]
They're all there. I think you should... probably take them, before...
[Before I change my mind; before I can't let you.]
no subject
Within a breath of having it, he tucks it away in the satchel at his side and fastens it closed.]
I understand. I'm going to return them right now.
[Thus making the choice irrevocable as rapidly as he could manage.
A very large part of him wants to linger, wants to wrap his wounded Witch in his arms and hold him to reassure them both.
He turns back to the door, to let himself out. That thwarted embrace trails behind him in the Bond as he leaves; if I could, I would.
But this is an errand that admits to no delay.]
no subject
He thinks there's mead in one of the cabinets, which would help him sleep... but as he shifts his weight, one of the cottage's floorboards creaks beneath his heel. It occurs to him that there isn't a cellar, but there could be, and his steps are lighter as he transfigures the cottage's broom into a perfectly good shovel. This will take hours; there are myriad worse ways he could spend them, and putting a small crater under the pried-up floorboards in the kitchen until his limbs give out from exhaustion actually ranks low on the scale of the damage he could do with that time.]