makinglies | Respite

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faerun

Respite

The lake is dark and calm with a small breeze by the time they arrive at its shores. The stars above reflect perfectly in the still waters before them, and a small copse of trees lines one side, starting on their side of the river and jumping along the other side.

Chris takes a moment to re-prepare the spell he hadn't been able to cast in five years and gestures vaguely to the area around them as a suggestion for what the others can do. Gathering in the forest, sitting on a nearby over-turned log, it didn't matter to him. What he needed was an hour without interruption.

He settles down on the ground and presses his hands together as he closes his eyes to focus on the image in his mind. Within minutes, the white, shimmering outline of a large building forms in thin air. The gentle glow of its light barely spreads from the growing structure.

As promised, it takes the full hour before the slowly filling-in form is complete and finishes with a jaunty, echoing click.

Chris takes a breath, now sitting in front of the stoop that looks annoyingly like the one he'd passed earlier in the night, and gets back onto stiff legs as the glow fades away, leaving smooth, but otherwise unremarkable, white stone behind.

"Here we are. Home for the next however long we need. I'll start working on food and water next." Once they're inside, anyway, which is why he takes back his things from where he'd left them and leads them into the temple, marked only with the carving of ravens on the black wood of the double doors.

Inside is something just shy of opulence. The same polished white stone makes the walls, though black and gold veins course through the marble. The floor is the inverse, a black stone with white, shimmering speckles like a night sky if looked at for long enough. A single window faced East high up on the wall. The temple was alight with sconces at regular intervals along the walls, illuminating an open area that held all the offerings of comfort Chris could think of.

A large hot-springs-like bath, complete with a miniature waterfall, took up the left side of the room and ran into a smaller, similar bath at dog-height. Next to it, covered by a retractable screen, was a shower. Along the back wall, a raven's head emblazoned the white wall in black and watched out over a set of tables, chairs, and a couple of sofas. The majority of the center was clear for walking, but the right edge and right side of the room held a deeply inset pit of pillows, cushions, and blankets in various soft (black and purple) fabrics.

Finally, in the middle of the right-hand wall, there were two closed doors that, when inspected, revealed one room with a large, soft chair and rug, while the other room was made of nothing but stone with jars, pitchers, and plates on shelves along two walls and a cork wall perfect for catching daggers on the other side.

"I hope it works for everyone. I didn't...I didn't make separate bedrooms this time. I didn't figure we would need them tonight."

♥

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"There's always a choice, Wolfe. Just because you don't like the consequences doesn't mean the option isn't there." Jon doesn't press that point, but he does lean a little more heavily against the other man. "You should condemn people when they do horrible things, even out of love. I've not had my finest moments the last few years attacking random SIN Guards when I was upset about someone disappearing." And now knowing what had actually happened to them...

"Loss. So much loss." Another phrase he doesn't need to look up. "We can't control each other, but guilting works better on some of use than others when it comes to stopping them doing something we won't like. Or vice versa. There's also the issue of... self-worth getting in the way of any adult conversation on the matter."

Jon knows he shouldn't share other people's thoughts, but he can side-step it a bit with implications. "I don't know how Amelia and I are going to manage together. We're not... I'm a bad fit for her. I don't care if she stabs me or yells at me, I can deal with those pieces of her. But I don't know what to do with her when she's completely lost her sense of self. I'd rather she be trying to domme me or chuck daggers at my head. And she's pig-headed enough to claim she doesn't know who she is while stubbornly refusing to be anyone apart from herself.

"Frustration."

"Consequences should still be had, but if its something I would have also done in your shoes, how can I condemn that?" How could he condemn Chris for doing anything and everything he can to keep him and Jon whole?

"I think you and Amelia will find your stride. You may never be the best of friends, but you do have common ground. You're both the most curious people I've ever met, to start. Her thirst for knowledge is almost as deep as yours." He squeezes Jon's finger with his own gently. "You're also both sore fo the most stubborn people I've ever met, so who knows."

He didn't have to look up that word either.

"Ultimately, give each other some slack. You do have some control over yourselves, you know. I find it very frustrating when the both of you despair at 'this is just how I am' and then make little effort to change it. Or at least not apparently." Wolfe falls quiet after he says that, a thoughtful look crossing his face. "Though... that... may be me not seeing the attempt. It's difficult to see what path someone didn't take."

He used to be good at this. The snarled knot of their interpersonal issues is something he feels is his responsibility to help with, but perhaps that's not true either. He's gotten bitten trying to smooth things between Chris and Amelia before, would it be the same between her and Jon? And Amelia... He still needs to apologize to her for treating her the same poor way he had Chris. How can he even begin to offer help when he can't even practice what he preaches?

"I'm afraid that may just need to be between the two of you unless you need specific help. It's hypocritical of me to try and help you understand her when I owe her an apology." He turns his gaze down to the book, wondering if he'd be in the line of fire if he went to do that now. He hates leaving something festering between them, but he also doesn't want to break from the closeness Jon is offering. He needs this. Wolfe needs this, and Jon had offered it freely. It's high time he accepts what he needs, even when it stings his pride or puts someone else out, so long as they offered.

"Thank you," he says haltingly in Common, remembering the phrase from Caleb's lesson rather than looking it up. "Sorry."

'You're allowed to be a hypocrite here,' Jon doesn't say. He knows Wolfe will just be... empathetic about it. As he almost always is. There's no winning with self-flagellation where this man is concerned. Although, he's surprised when the mage doesn't immediately offer to interpose himself in the situation with Amelia. He's always been so anxious about his friends being in tiffs with each other. Given his reasons why, Jon can understand, but it had always been something frustrating about the mage. Good to know he can learn.

"You're welcome." The very basics are nice. Easier than some of the more complex words, especially as Jon searches for complicated thoughts and feelings.

"Why, precisely, do you need to apologize to her, though? Did something happen in the lake? Or are you apologizing for going missing? I don't think any of us need that apology from you. It was hardly your choice." He has his own reasons to apologize to the woman, but Jon is struggling to think of anything Wolfe's done or said to her in the past day and a half that might warrant that.

Maybe something similar to what he feels like he needs to apologize to Chris for? Should Jon be apologizing? He hadn't actually said any of his more... problematic thoughts aloud. Then again, that might be reason enough. He should talk to Amelia before telling Chris and Wolfe what he's done, though. Frustrating as that conversation is likely to be.

"For the same thing I always do, pushing her when she's not ready. It's difficult to tell when I should give her a shove and when I should stand back at the best of times, but I was working on it before getting taken. And now we're here and I feel like we're back to square one." Running his free hand down his face, Wolfe makes a small disgruntled noise. "I made the same mistake I did with Chris, just less bombastically. I made her feel useless. Mak- Gods know I think the opposite, but it doesn't matter what they know if she thinks I don't value her skills, much less her presence. I'm so damned relieved she's here, Jon. I thought I was going to have to work for years to walk the planes and find her again, or that I would never even be strong enough and she'd be waiting for the rest of her life because of my shortcomings."

All of that and he's been pushing her away on top of it. Keeping her at arms length physically because he doesn't know himself anymore. Because he wants her too badly, too much, and he can't tell if its all him or partly the city's conditioning. "There's other things I need to apologize to her for, too. And explain. I'm just not sure how. But none of it is going missing."

He huffs in what could be a laugh and could be a scoff at himself. "I know why you think I would do that, but I'm aware it wasn't my fault I was taken."

Jon knows he likely hasn't helped with the Amelia situation, nor has Chris. Nor has whatever cosmic force thinks it's funny to put them just within reach of so much while calling into question so much of what they know about themselves. "Right..." He's quiet for a moment as he processes. "You know we're actually ourselves, right? That we're not suddenly... not us because our lives hit a divergence point? Like a parallel universe. We're just aware of that other universe in a way most people aren't."

He has a good sense that Chris is on his side where this is concerned, but if he needs to worry about another in their group having a massive existential crisis about this specific issue, the Archivist would rather be aware of it sooner. It's probably something they should address as a group, rather than splintering off for their own conversations, but then it might just feel like ganging up if Amelia really is the only one.

"I know it's something she's... struggling with. And I should probably apologize to her about."

"It took me awhile but I decided its basically the same as the rest of the multiverse. We're just the ones that came into being by being copied instead of born. What's mostly been difficult to reconcile about it is relationships before Duplicity, so before I was "born," basically. I have these memories and they inform who I am, but the people in them from before aren't mine," Wolfe says, looking aside instead of making eye contact. "It's frustrating too because I have all these faults and traumas from things I technically never experienced. My upbringing, the Blight, Quinten, Meredith, the Nightmare, I still get fits of anger that I have to suffer through those memories when it wasn't me in them. Only it was, in a sense, and it's why I'm who I am."

He sighs, finally looking at Jon in the face again. "Do you feel that at all? Angry that you have to deal with what feels like someone else's shit life?"

There's a long pause because Jon isn't entirely sure how Wolfe is going to take the answer he has to give. Amelia had received it very poorly. "No?" He shifts so that he can look up better at Wolfe, even if it's only out of the corner of his eye. "Because it... is my life. I'm Jonathan Sims. The fact there's another Jonathan Sims who wasn't taken is... irrelevant? Or I-I'm as much Jonathan Sims as I was after the Unknowing."

Jon looks down again, frowning. "I've lived with an existential crisis of who and what I am for years, Wolfe, even before I arrived in Duplicity. I died for all intents and purposes when a building crushed me. In some other version of reality, I decided to stay human and was just... dead. But I didn't die. I became something"-more-"else, the Archivist. I've had people with the ability to see souls tell me I'm twined with something else, incomplete without the Eye, and I've felt different since that change."

He lifts a hand to gesture around them. "The city didn't feel any different. It's only since I drank that vial that I... did you feel it? Like you were being slotted into place? Like you were whole after being broken?"

Jon says no and Wolfe smiles a little, affectionate and happy for his friend that he doesn't have to experience that unplacable anger. Jon has so much else that eats at him, its good to know that in this, at least, he doesn't have trouble.

"I don't think it affected me the same. I didn't feel complete so much as felt something sever. I think it was the connection to Duplicity in truth but in practice it felt like what I imagined it must be to be severed from the Fade," he admits, smile fading and leaving a worried line behind across his face.

"I can still feel my magic, but its already draining slowly. I'm afraid to use it and hasten that process, and I may... not be able to sleep until we're in the Weave, if I don't dream in the Fade. Do you remember when I had the magic blocking anklet in the city, after the heist? It will probably be like that." So he can fall asleep, technically, but the terror of dreaming lucidly in a void instead of the Fade as he should is enough to jerk him awake almost immediately.

He shakes his head. That's not the point. "I'm glad it gave you a sense of completion though, that's wonderful. Do you feel better than you did before the Eye?"

So, a man with Swiss cheese soul felt completed, a man with his soul caught between the veil of mortalkind and magic felt severed. What had Amelia felt? Jon had been too wrapped up in the overwhelming sensation and emotion to pay attention to either of the other two and regrets that now. Would he have seen discomfort marring Wolfe's features? It's passed, though, and he knows now. He hadn't felt fear from Amelia, at last not about that. Christ knows she's had enough other terrors pinging about in her head it might have been lost in the shuffle, though.

The mention of magic and fear of sleeping does bring a grimace to Jon's face. "Not really. Just... it was a lot like becoming the Archivist. There was a sense of completeness in that, too. Of being finished in a way I hadn't felt in years. I still feel- Thinking about who I was before I became the Archivist, he still feels like a photograph that's faded at the edges. When I drank the vial, it was like the color pouring back into me. I've only had that the one time. When I changed... metamorphosed.

"You mention your magic draining, I, um... I think I might be in more trouble faster than you. I can't turn mine off. I'm hearing all of you, feeling what you're afraid of. I'm trying not to, but it's not exactly a battle I can win."

"You might, you might not. Having your powers ambiantly working and actually using them are two different things. I'm still colder in temperature than the average person and that's not something I can turn off. Its just something that's part of us, but it will drain away regardless since we're not connected to our sources anymore. Just... try not to hasten it by using your powers actively." That's the best they both can do for their shared family and for themselves.

"Is... Can I ask what Amelia is..." He trails off and shakes his head. He shouldn't ask, he should talk to her. "Nevermind. About feeling complete, could it be the Eye hollowed something out initially and now the vial filled it in again? Metaphysically I mean. Anders said something similar about having a sort of gap in him when Justice was removed."

Wolfe stops himself before he asks the question, and Jon is grateful for his self-control. He's not in the business of sharing people's feelings and thoughts around, but he might have made an exception if it might mean the mage would be better equipped to handle the rogue.

The idea that ambient abilities aren't draining them seems dubious, though. It might be why there's a steady drip Topher had pointed out. Even their best efforts not to use their powers couldn't account for that. And Jon knows he's already been bad about that on the active side of things. Still, a conversation about that needs to wait for one with Amelia. He's set his mind to that, at least.

"Possibly. I'd need someone like Emet-Selch or Hythlodeus to look at me, I guess." Or maybe the Raven Queen, herself, if she does visit them. There's a long pause before he adds, "I, uh... once we're woven into the Weave, I will try not to be, but my... Part of the comfort of being the Archivist is being able to just know things. Or know I might be able to force people to tell me the truth. Without that..." He trails off. "I've always been a-a paranoid man."

And it has been easier to trust people when having a potential idea of their intentions. When that goes away, Jon doesn't trust himself not to backslide.

"That might be a struggle," Wolfe agrees, looking at Jon with very little surprise that he has, in fact, always been paranoid and this isn't an Eye-fueled development. Predatory beings like Entities and Gods and Templars exploit what's already there. Its less effort than starting from scratch. "You'll have to work at it, Chris said people seem to be able to resist magic more often here than we're used to. I know you do better with consequences, though. Maybe you should talk to Chris about some kind of structure."

He'd offer to keep Jon honest too, but setting formal consequences seems intimate in a way that relies on the kind of relationship Jon has with their mutual partner, not him. Still, a little exchange wouldn't hurt. "I'll call you on it if you help keep me focused on studying."

'Some kind of structure' for consequences. Jon turns his attention back to the book in his hands as he feels color paint his cheeks. He knows Wolfe knows some of that part of his relationship with Chris. If they hadn't done a bloody scene together, he'd have picked it up from living with them. Still, having it called out when they haven't actually talked about what was going to happen with all of that is more than a little embarrassing.

Jon clears his throat. "Yes, well... Consequences might well come from the people around me, regardless. I can keep you on track for your studies. But if I don't regenerate like I usually do, that... Well. It ought to leave a more lasting impact. Although... Maybe it's just me, but did you feel actually rested this morning? I had my nightmares like usual, but it was like-like they were restful?"

"Oh! I thought-" He thought he only slept well because he was finally curled between his two partners again, but if Jon felt it too, then maybe there's something there. "I did. For the first time in a long time."

That's good news, at least. They really should get back to studying, on that topic, but something about what Jon said gives him pause.

"Wait, back up, when you say lasting impact, what do you mean?"

Maybe it's something of the magic here. Chris had always seemed annoyed when he'd slept and hadn't felt fully refreshed in the city. Which is ridiculous. Magical sleep? They're not even woven into the Weave. How could that be affecting them?

He's about to start looking through the book he has more properly, but Wolfe's follow-up gives him pause and a furrowed brow. "I mean people can stab me and have the damage last. I told you I tried to cut off my own finger once, didn't I?"

"I knew you removed a rib, not cut off your finger," Wolfe replies dryly, making it very clear that none of that is normal. But what about any of them is ever normal?

"Why?"

"Well, I had to have the rib removed after I tried the fingers." His tone says that ought to be obvious. "I needed an anchor to the world so I could find my way out of the Buried. I was going in to rescue someone. It seemed sensible to have an escape once I found her."

See! He can plan ahead. Not that his rib had worked as intended, but the thought had been there.

"That makes sense," Wolfe nods, wondering how in the hell Jon could ever claim that what he does isn't magic. "It sounds like what the Circle does with phylactaries."

Which he also considers magic, now that he's seen the breadth of what's possible in other sorts of practices. Enchantment is a type of magic, which means Dwarves have been practitioners all along, and even some of the things that the Templars use - like the phylactaries or even their anti-magic abilities - could easily be recatagorized under magic. It's been semantics this entire time. Honestly its kind of infuriating. "Every Circle mage has blood drawn and placed into a phylactary so that if they ever escape, the Templars can use it to find them again. Sort of like bloodhounds following a scent. I didn't know that was an ability you possessed as well."

"W-well, I mean... that was the theory of how it might work given some of the Statements I'd read. Things that ground you tend to be a sort of... barrier against some of the Fears. It doesn't always work, but sometimes." Jon clears his throat. "In any case, that makes sense I suppose? If being a mage is genetic, there's probably something in your blood that could be traced. Interesting that it's almost like a fingerprint, though. You don't have issues with mage brothers and sisters being confused?

"... I wonder what would happen if you had mage twins and one escaped."

"I have no idea, I was never in the Circle," and that was never a question he thought to ask Anders. "I imagine no one would know, though, because siblings were generally sent to separate towers. Family ties are discouraged," he makes a face like he's tasted something sour.

"I guess it wont matter in a few years, or already doesn't, time is strange. I learned from Bellara that another Blight devastated both the north and south of Thedas. Thats as close to an apocalypse as any. If there are still Circles after that, I would be... well, not surprised. Disappointed, certainly, but not surprised." But he'll never know. Maybe that's for the best.

"Once we're in the Weave, maybe you could study magic scientifically here and find out if it works that way? Not sure how you'd go about it, but there should be plenty of time for that sort of study."

"We seem to have nothing but time." And still they're struggling with waiting. "On that note, I think we ought to use what time we have left to keep studying. Chris is... he's stopped somewhere. Or he's not moving anymore. He's flown off that way." Jon points off in a direction. "Which I believe is back toward the Deismyr."

He sighs. Chris can't leave well enough alone sometimes. "In any case, these books are identical, so I expect you to keep up with me. We can work on our Common pronunciation."

"He went to Deismyr?" Wolfe probably shouldn't find that as alarming as he does, but right after a large-scale battle with many losses, Wolfe isn't sure any of the Guardians are going to be in a state to believe a story as outlandish as theirs.

"What if he gets into trouble? I thought we were going to lay low and avoid the Guardians. What is he thinking?" He's not panicking, but there is very real concern that is going to make studying impossible until its addressed.

"Likely that he's upset and needs to feel like he's doing something." Jon leans harder against Wolfe as he resettles himself, shifting so that his legs are on the sofa, tucked up next to him, and Wolfe is providing a support on the other side. "He's not an idiot. He'll likely either watch to hurt himself or disguise himself and keep to the edges of the city. Do you really think he's going to waltz up to the Guardians and announce his presence?"

"No, of course not, but they're likely running all over the place tending to their land and their people. There's no guessing where they'll be at any given moment. Chris likely remembers where he was - is - but that doesn't account for all the rest." So much of Wolfe wants to run off and be there to defend his love, but there isn't... really a threat. It feels like there is, but even if one if the Guardians spots Chris it's not likely to turn into a confrontation immediately, and Chris is more than capable of handling himself. Usually.

Wolfe will just have to trust him. Especially with Jon shoved into him like a begrudging cat. Its calming, having the weight of another person against him, and Wolfe tries to make himself settle down. "...He will call for us if he needs us, won't he?"

There's a long pause. "He can send, I suppose, but what are you going to do? We don't have cars or teleporters. And you can't run for miles in an instant. It took us more than an hour to get here. Even granting you could sprint back there, you'd be 20 minutes, at least.

"I'm the paranoid one, remember? There's literally nothing we can do at the moment if something does go awry. That's not worth agonizing over. Now turn to page 3 and read off the second sentence for me, please."

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cw: mention of self-harm

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