Never Tarnish Nor Grow Dim - 09/05/2023 - Calla Prim
May 11, 2023 9:53:32 GMT
Andy D, Henri Fitzroy, and 1 more like this
Post by dee on May 11, 2023 9:53:32 GMT
Content Warning - Injury (breaking bones).
Calla Prim has trouble sleeping at the best of times, still loathe to descend into her people’s Dreaming. Sat on the edge of a barely used bed at two in the morning, she instead turns her blue hands over in low lamplight. Knuckles, creases, grazes on her hands, all veined with a purple mineral lustre: Amethyst from the Plane of Minerals slowly dissolving without its home. It fades from her like the day’s memory from her companions. Ruthenia’s anger and disappointment, deprived of solid footing. Archie’s age, suddenly apparent in uncharacteristic vagueness. Forfeit, all bluster, no reason.
Only Sterling also remembers, but he has been shellshocked by it. The contents of the silvery spar they went to mine. The weight of a monolithic door. The endless, infinite, beautiful, staircase beyond. The tension of its spin, that magnificent spiral.
It still turns through Calla’s heart. Her blood ripples with it. Having spent the better part of a century aching for a way out of her home, to now have this. A way out of Anything, of Everywhere. A labyrinth with value in and of itself. She recognises curse-work when she feels it. But this? This curse feels like a gift. Fading, yes, but a pull to the infinite still has her in a grip made of stone. The man with the quill and book, Gerhard? She recognises his role, his warning, but no hand upon the shoulder can compare to the weight of endless doors and doors and doors. Every maze worth the name has its herald. Every story of every maze has them ignored.
Calla closes her eyes, and reaches for the Weave. The staff at the Academy are quick to call her a wizard, but that is not what she is. Her ability to channel raw magic has outstripped her spellwork for some time now. Arcanist, fingers dipped into every school but the Natural, rote formulae upcast by habit, she has rarely met a spell that didn’t benefit from more power. She reaches for the Weave, clasps her marbled hands together, and twists them until they, too, form the suggestion of a spiral. Not quite right at first, it takes awkward finesse to form the right shape, to feel the frustration and anger that tightens her will.
The door arrives with no fanfare. Just weight. Barely five feet away. Made of a metal not quite like silver. Its pull is... impossible. The Weave gutters in Calla like a flame fed too much fuel, too fast, and before she knows it she is on her feet. Only the snap of her fourth finger stops her mid-stride.
Power arcs through her, a smell of lightning heavy on the air. Her dislocating hands should be screaming in pain, but that distress is faint, and distant: of no real consequence. Except for one tiny, glimmering, moment of clarity. The Will needed to call the door, the sheer compulsion and drive of it, is eating everything else in her. Even those things that keep her alive. This is the curse. This is the extent of it. The Staircase will devour her if she lets it. She can feel a cantrip reaching for the door’s handle even while her fingers twist and pop. She can see the face of the Watcher. That dark messenger on the black beach in Porphatys. On the staircase. That smile.
She can see Mal’s lambent eyes in the gloom, just past the door. They are the only thing she can see past the door. As she meets them, another three fingers splinter. Every warning she has ever given Mittens thunders through her in an instant.
And with a sudden rush of agony the curse is gone. The door, is gone. Those warnings, all gone.
She may never be able to call it ever again.
Calla Prim has trouble sleeping at the best of times, still loathe to descend into her people’s Dreaming. Sat on the edge of a barely used bed at two in the morning, she instead turns her blue hands over in low lamplight. Knuckles, creases, grazes on her hands, all veined with a purple mineral lustre: Amethyst from the Plane of Minerals slowly dissolving without its home. It fades from her like the day’s memory from her companions. Ruthenia’s anger and disappointment, deprived of solid footing. Archie’s age, suddenly apparent in uncharacteristic vagueness. Forfeit, all bluster, no reason.
Only Sterling also remembers, but he has been shellshocked by it. The contents of the silvery spar they went to mine. The weight of a monolithic door. The endless, infinite, beautiful, staircase beyond. The tension of its spin, that magnificent spiral.
It still turns through Calla’s heart. Her blood ripples with it. Having spent the better part of a century aching for a way out of her home, to now have this. A way out of Anything, of Everywhere. A labyrinth with value in and of itself. She recognises curse-work when she feels it. But this? This curse feels like a gift. Fading, yes, but a pull to the infinite still has her in a grip made of stone. The man with the quill and book, Gerhard? She recognises his role, his warning, but no hand upon the shoulder can compare to the weight of endless doors and doors and doors. Every maze worth the name has its herald. Every story of every maze has them ignored.
Calla closes her eyes, and reaches for the Weave. The staff at the Academy are quick to call her a wizard, but that is not what she is. Her ability to channel raw magic has outstripped her spellwork for some time now. Arcanist, fingers dipped into every school but the Natural, rote formulae upcast by habit, she has rarely met a spell that didn’t benefit from more power. She reaches for the Weave, clasps her marbled hands together, and twists them until they, too, form the suggestion of a spiral. Not quite right at first, it takes awkward finesse to form the right shape, to feel the frustration and anger that tightens her will.
The door arrives with no fanfare. Just weight. Barely five feet away. Made of a metal not quite like silver. Its pull is... impossible. The Weave gutters in Calla like a flame fed too much fuel, too fast, and before she knows it she is on her feet. Only the snap of her fourth finger stops her mid-stride.
Power arcs through her, a smell of lightning heavy on the air. Her dislocating hands should be screaming in pain, but that distress is faint, and distant: of no real consequence. Except for one tiny, glimmering, moment of clarity. The Will needed to call the door, the sheer compulsion and drive of it, is eating everything else in her. Even those things that keep her alive. This is the curse. This is the extent of it. The Staircase will devour her if she lets it. She can feel a cantrip reaching for the door’s handle even while her fingers twist and pop. She can see the face of the Watcher. That dark messenger on the black beach in Porphatys. On the staircase. That smile.
She can see Mal’s lambent eyes in the gloom, just past the door. They are the only thing she can see past the door. As she meets them, another three fingers splinter. Every warning she has ever given Mittens thunders through her in an instant.
And with a sudden rush of agony the curse is gone. The door, is gone. Those warnings, all gone.
She may never be able to call it ever again.