[Solo] Learning the Past
Posted: Tue Aug 30, 2022 3:20 pm
12th of Searing 4622
Vivian was exhausted. The new house was in complete chaos. There was furniture to be moved. The entire place needed cleaning. Even though Degare wasn't exactly one to let standards slide they certainly had in his absence. The rooms that the staff didn't want to maintain had been shuttered, and dust covers thrown over whatever they didn't want to polish, oil or wash. Their days had been relatively restful with only themselves and the house to maintain, and those days were very sharply over. The new mistress needed to retailor Degare's chambers to her wants and needs. The man had been in favor of rather dark woods, black, and reds. That certainly didn't suit the new couple that had just moved in, and who wanted to sleep in another man's leavings?
So the bed things had been thrown out or sold, Vivian didn't know which. Most of Degare's wardrobe was gone, including the dressing gown Vivian had worn when he had attempted to steal Degare's eyes. It just made him sick to look at it now, and he was grateful the old ghosts of the home were being slowly chased out. The rooms were thrown open and aired, the furniture that didn't fit thrown out or sold. Being a natural scavenger, this was to Vivian's advantage. He took a mirror that the mistress didn't approve of and hung it in his room, along with a small portrait of Degare that had also been considered trash. He was aware he could get in trouble for keeping them...he also didn't particularly care.
Practicing magic was out of the question today. He still battled nausea, and every attempt to use his magic resulted in nightmarish episodes where Degare haunted his head. That didn't mean he couldn't educate himself on his magic. Degare had always put an emphasis on learning, and while learning magic had been far too exciting in the beginning to restrain himself to learning history...now he was put in the position where learning it was wise.
Vivian pulled the first of his Malformity textbooks out from the hiding place under his bed and blew off the thin layer of dust that had accumulated over it. Under his bed wasn't exactly the cleanest spot for a leatherbound tome, but hopefully it wouldn't have to be hidden for too much longer. He hoped the new masters of the house wouldn't object to him keeping textbooks about his own magic. Really, if he was to become more than what he was, he needed to educate himself. He had spent most of Glade learning basic sentences, and he still wasn't a fast reader and an even worse writer. He needed the practice if nothing else.
He opened the book and turned to the first page.
Malformity was one of the more ancient of magics. It had its roots in the times before great cities, where humans clustered around campfires in small dirty tribes begging for the benedictions of their various gods. The one they prayed to for the blessing of Malformity was Azunath, a great god of blending and madness. He was depicted with the head of a great elk, decaying and twisting, holding the egg of a serpent being birthed. Vivian ran his fingers over the portrait for a moment. The men who worshiped Azunath lived in the woods, blending themselves between man and monster, animal and sentience, consuming their fellow man. Vivian winced; he recalled the first time he had become the Consumer...he had eaten a man whole. It had taken days to digest him after shedding the form. He'd already stepped over that threshold.
Vivian thought back to how it must have felt to the first practitioners of the magic. He had been terrified the first time he had set down his broom in the brothel as a young boy and scooped up a humble cockroach. He had stared at the insect for a solid hour, enchanted by the way her legs moved, the gentle sweeping motions of her antennae. The power in her claws and wings. The more he stared, the more he felt a kinship with her. Her hunger was his own. Her need to survive was his own. He did not have her claws or armor, but they were very much one and the same. Undesired and overlooked, yet elegant and masterful in their own way. Was this the way the first adherents of Azunath had felt? Had they crawled along the soil seeking worms and spiders and beetles, fascinated at the mechanizations of chitin and flesh? Had they humbled themselves before worms, those with many hearts and without the restrictions of bone? What had fascinated them, what had captivated them? What was the first form ever to be taken and was it a symbol of their kind?
Such a magic would have penetrated deep into the heart of the world. It was the essence of change, of never accepting one's fate. Shifting the stars to suit yourself even at the cost of your own sanity. Vivian looked back at the portrait of Azunath. Was this god alive still? Was he taking house calls? If so, Vivian had a lot of questions for him. Who had chosen him to be initiated? Was it truly his father that had gifted him the magic, or a mage feeling the urge to depart such an odd gift?
Vivian usually didn't put much faith in the gods. To him, they had always rejected him. Perhaps this was a sign that not all of them forgot their followers. Perhaps this was a sign that Azunath had given him the ability to change his stars to suit him.
He toyed with the idea of making an offering to the god. Azunath didn't seem like the type to have great temples in his honor. No, it wouldn't suit him, not from what Vivian was reading. Offerings to Azunath would need to be made in places with many creatures, places of change and rot and life. Places where, under their very noses, life and death was cycling endlessly.
Vivian shut the book.
He walked outside, slowly with his hand on the wall to support himself. Bara was napping in the sun, enjoying the heat of Searing. Vivian squinted in the light, and made a face. Well, if the god was to respond...maybe it would take pity on him. He stumbled across the lawn into the garden, and sat down on the flagstones. Despite the heat, the rosebushes rose tall around him, sheltering him from the heat. The servants had just watered them, bringing insects out to drink and mate while it was still cool. Even prey on each other. Life and death. Change. Vivian dug around one of the flagstones, flipping it up to expose the crawling worms and wet earth to the air. Pillbugs and beetles scattered, and Vivian gently herded them onto his hands and arms.
He buried his fingers in the cool soil, feeling crawling things flee from him. This felt right. This was no deep, dark and primal wood that the magic was birthed in...but it was the best he could do under the circumstances. He hoped the god wouldn't be offended by his affinity to insects and worms. Normally, mages liked grand creatures like gryphons and tigers. Not cockroaches and worms. Then again, maybe the god would see the same elegance he did?
Vivian put his forehead to the earth.
"Azunath. I know I'm...not what you expect. I'm not some wild thing born in the deep woods, just a city dweller who's never known anything else. But even here, I feel you. There is always wilderness, even here. There is always predator, prey, death and life. Decay and growth. I have chosen here because it is here I see change. Worms spin cocoons and become butterflies. Eggs become larvae. Corpses become soil. Change happens here. I don't know you, avatar of change, but I want to know you. I was never told of you. I was left to change and live or die on my own...I have never met another of my kind. Take pity on your servant, for he thought he was alone in the world." Vivian whispered.
He laid like that, prone and quiet, until sleep took him.
When he woke, he felt...better. He wasn't cured by any means, and the soil around him was dry. The worms and beetles had long fled. He replaced the flagstone, sitting up slowly. He hoped the god had heard him.
