3rd of Ash, 4623
The return to House Socorro was not one Vivian had planned, but now that he was here...a strange sense of peace had fallen over him. The house laid quiet. The pantry was long emptied. The kitchen no longer bustled with the noise of the cook demanding the day's orders or preparing meals for the staff. Vivian's mouth quirked as he thought about the man; he had always been kind to him, and Vivian wondered where he had ended up. Vivian had always been quick to offer him a hand or mouth, and the cook had always slipped him extra meals, even when Degare disappeared and the money dried up.
Vivian's hand slid along the kitchen counter, and he looked down into the sink deep in thought. How many hours had he spent here? How many days laying in the sun eating dried fruit and studying magic? Those had truly been the best days of his life. He had food. He had money. He had a powerful mage who was willing to teach him anything and everything about the mark on his back. Degare had been a bastard hungry for power and blood, but...he had been damaged. He had been wounded and destroyed by growing up in the shadow of the Entente. Vivian couldn't hold that against him no matter how much he wanted to hate the old bastard.
Some part of him thought that Degare might just saunter into the kitchen, open a bottle of wine, and ask him where the hell he had been for a year. Vivian smiled sadly. "If only you knew." he whispered quietly, and dropped his hand away from the kitchen counter. Dusty smears marred the once flawless surface. Gods, this house didn't even look the same without servants polishing every inch of it. It was as though it had taken a long sigh, and had simply gone to sleep. Granted, it didn't look nearly as bad as others in its state might have; perhaps there was still some protective magic over the place. Perhaps Degare's nephew had shown back up and properly closed up the house. Perhaps time itself was hesitant to cross such a powerful mage. Either way, he wasn't likely to get any answers. The only footprints in the dust were his own.
Vivian glanced over at the window, smiling at the morning sun. Ah, morning in the Socorro household. The master of the house would sleep in, but Vivian never liked to lay idle when there were fresh scones to purloin and chores to dodge. He'd always had plans for each day that usually involved either seducing Degare or bugging him for lessons. The servants had always treated him like an unwanted housecat.
Searing was over, and Ash was still warm enough to take a book out onto the lawn and read until his eyes started to blur. It was as though once Degare had taught him to read, the old bastard had unlocked an entirely new world to Vivian. He had shown the younger mage a love of books and the finer things in life that he likely would have never seen without him. Vivian pushed the back door to the kitchen open, and paused to touch a distinctive split in the wood near the doorframe. He chuckled; no one had ever bothered to get it fixed after his untimely break in.
He thumbed the split doorframe, and walked out into the back garden. With no servants to attend it, it had grown wild and thick. The stables where Bara had rested and played were overgrown with moss and vines, and the grass clipped short so neatly by the mule's teeth was now up to his knees. Vivian shook his head; it had always been such a lovely place. He walked toward the rose garden, gently moving branches of thorns out of his way. The early morning light stained everything in shades of orange and pink, making the dying blooms look better than they really were.
Vivian stopped along the garden path, and wriggled his toes into the soil. Here. Here was where he had first prayed to the God Azunath, and had asked him for power. Gods, what a fool he had been. A young mage, brimming with power, speaking to a god who had no reason to regard him. "How, I wonder, do you think of me now?" he whispered. "Ascendant. Your ascendant. The first one of my kind since we danced in firelight in the woods."
A soft glow in his peripheral vision caught his eye. Vivian squatted along the path, and spotted the eerie blue glow slithering through the grass. It moved in the slow, peristaltic way that caterpillars did, but this one had armor along it's back and was much more independent than a caterpillar. Some sort of millipede? Vivian extended a hand out in front of the little creature, slowly angling his palm so as not to startle it, but encourage it to wander up his hand. The animal hesitated, staring at the little wall of pale flesh in front of it. Feelers tickled his skin, gathering chemical information about the odd roadblock. Vivian waited patiently, and was rewarded with the prickle of hundreds of tiny feet as the animal clambered up onto his hand.
"Well, hello there." Vivian smiled, and straightened. He brought the little animal up to eye level to get a good look at it. Incredible... it was glowing blue. A soft, pale light that he might not have noticed had the sun been a little higher. Held up to the sunlight, the creature's beauty faded into a nondescript tan and gold color. When he shaded it with his other hand, that echanting cerulean glow flared back into life. "You make your own light, and so lovely too. Won't you share it with me?"
Vivian extended his ether out to the creature. He didn't want to startle or scare it, but he wanted to know more about it. His magic touched hard, chitinous armor on its back. The soft, delicate, transluscent flesh along its flanks and belly. The hard little thorns of its segmented legs, powerful jaws, and glittering little eyes. Vivian smiled faintly, catching the faint whiff of almonds. Cyanide. The little thing wasn't startled enough to bite him, but was giving him a stern warning not to attempt to eat. "I wouldn't dream of harming you." Vivian whispered.
He delved deeper. Poison and glowing bacterial beauty, all wrapped up in a fine little package no more than three inches in length. Twisted into his own magic, it could become beautiful and terrible. The ability to manufacture cyanide through his very skin. The ability to glow, and produce light of his own making. So clever, so useful. Vivian closed his eyes, and sank deeper. He could feel leathery skin under his many hundreds of armored legs. He could smell human sweat, and the dust from the kitchen, old snatches of the perfumes that Vivian decorated his skin with. He had the distinct sense he was high up in the air, launched by a gigantic god that he could barely begin to comprehend but didn't seem set on hurting him. He felt curiosity wash over him, tinged with caution and the confidence that the cyanide gave him. However, there were no leaves here. No delicious little fronds of algae or lichen to sate his hunger. No chemical signs of a mate with which to breed.
The giant had nothing meaningful to offer him. Escape was the only option. He peered over the edge of the palm, digging his little claws into the ridged flesh of the giant's hand. The grass was so far below that the landscape looked alien... full of twisting vines, and so far away from the crawling things and the scent of dirt. He would not survive such a fall. He looked up to the giant's face.
Vivian's eyes opened, and he felt glowing warmth spread along his skin. Little flares of blue light peeked out of the pores on his hands, illuminating the millipede with its own distinct shade of blue. "Thank you for the gift, little one." Vivian told the millipede, and stepped closer to the stone outer walls of the house. He tugged at a cluster of moss with his fingers, peeling it free from the old stones, and squatted to set the millipede back on the ground. He offered it the moss, settling it near the confused little animal with a smile on his face. "I know you're hungry." The mage told it, and stepped carefully away. The new imprint was settling into his ether nicely, and the glow faded from his fingers.
The glow would be useful for things like reading, perhaps finding something in the dark or if he got stuck. The cyanide...he lifted his hands to his face and smelled almonds. Such a small dose wasn't enough to harm a man, but if he could concentrate it in his sweat, he could become truly deadly. The cyanide could be useful if anyone ever decided to cross him. A little swipe of a finger along the rim of a glass, and he had no need to ever carry poison with him.
He smirked; so many Malformists underestimated insects at their own peril.
