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Entry tags:
[CLOSED]
WHO: Xishen and Matt Jamison
WHAT: Xishen needs Matt's help with some magic.
WHERE: The Citadel Lodestone, and then elsewhere.
WHEN: Early Soviseri.
WARNINGS: N/A
When Matt makes it down to the Lodestone, as promised, he will find Xishen waiting for him. She is dressed in the simple, black clothing customary to her, and if it weren't for the motes of golden light that flicker in and out of existence around her, it'd be entirely possible to miss her in the dim lighting. She has a bag slung over her shoulder.
Her gaze falls upon him blankly as he arrives. She nods once, and then starts heading back out the way Matt just came.
"Good. Come with me."
WHAT: Xishen needs Matt's help with some magic.
WHERE: The Citadel Lodestone, and then elsewhere.
WHEN: Early Soviseri.
WARNINGS: N/A
When Matt makes it down to the Lodestone, as promised, he will find Xishen waiting for him. She is dressed in the simple, black clothing customary to her, and if it weren't for the motes of golden light that flicker in and out of existence around her, it'd be entirely possible to miss her in the dim lighting. She has a bag slung over her shoulder.
Her gaze falls upon him blankly as he arrives. She nods once, and then starts heading back out the way Matt just came.
"Good. Come with me."
no subject
As a few things click into place, most of which occurred in this very cavern. He considers the offer--this time, with a more self-conscious sense that his thoughts probably aren't translating to words very well.
"And this power you have ... would power this particular spell, but afterwards I'd be back where I was in terms of--my own, I don't know, Kenoma journey. Is that right?"
Right on the heels of that question comes the one of arguably more consequence:
"How much do you think this will take? I use my own blood in spells sometimes, and I'm used to being pretty sleep-deprived from school, so I don't know if that factors."
no subject
She shrugs a shoulder.
"I do know that giving years off your life probably won't work. You're essentially immortal, now."
no subject
Well, he hates that!
"What about ..." He looks himself over, gaze landing on the back of his hand. The one whose palm bears the Visionary's symbol. "A fingernail? That feels like the process of losing it would be pretty seriously unpleasant. I could go up to a finger."
All he knows is not the pinky. That one you really need for making the whole opposable-thumb thing work.
no subject
"I can't decide for you," she says. "I can only take what you want to give me. I don't know how much it'll take to accomplish this, either. I've never done it before."
no subject
And he considers--
The pain of losing a fingernail, or a finger. How he might live with it after (pretty easily), and what that says about the odds of success (hmm). The ease with which he sank into the Innocence, and saw others do the same, lulled by its snowbank of serenity.
He thinks about how shitty it would be to go through losing a fingernail only for the spell not to work. He thinks about taking someone's face in both hands to kiss them, of using both hands to hold them, to bring them pleasure. He thinks of meditative hours spent braiding bits of string or leather, of preparing herbs for a new spell he's excited to try.
"Hand," he decides, holding out the left one. The right is his dominant hand, which might be better, but it's the one with the Visionary mark. "That feels symmetrical. And I'd miss it."
He flicks Xishen a quick, small smile.
"I promise I won't be mad at you."
no subject
"If that's what you want," she says softly. She reaches out to accept his sacrifice, her dagger in her other hand. Its blade tints black, becoming hard to perceive with eyesight alone. "I'll do my best to honor your sacrifice."
She brings the edge to one side of his wrist, where the joint is, hoping to make a cleaner cut, to leave the bone of his forearm undamaged.
"By the blood of the Martyr, I accept your sacrifice."
In one swift moment, she cuts, severing his hand irrevocably from his body. Matt will feel the flood of magic that it represents spill across them in the same moment the blood does.
cw for anybody reading along at home: gore!
But the moment passes. Then there's only a flash of darkness in the dark, and startlingly bright blood, and his hand looking eerie, unutterably wrong as it lies on the cavern floor. Like the ghost of itself. Matt thinks something not entirely cogent enough to be--
Oh God oh fuck oh fuck what the fuck did I do
--but that's the general gist. At least until his moment of adrenaline is swallowed by magic and howling pain. It's a pain that feels vicious, animate, as if it's a living being whose aim is to annihilate not just his hand but his entire self, down to the very core of him. Matt's too paralyzed from the searing hurt to try to stop the flow of blood. He's started moaning fuck, fuck without his brain's permission. It's only after the first wave of pain that his decade of breathing exercises kick in, automatic, and he starts to drag in air on a shuddering count. It doesn't help. If anything does, it's the magic--the familiar flow. Something he could drown in. Matt tries to drown out the pain in the swell of occult energy.
no subject
Again, there is opposition, but the power of his sacrifice has become a blade of enlightenment, of defiance, of transgression in the face of stagnancy. Xishen wields it against the heavens, and knowledge spills forth.
Beneath them swirls infinity and above them heaven unfolds. It's above that the visage of the Innocence appears, an image of its swirling wings entering their minds, its form shifting as if slowly awakening. They have its attention, and Matt's mind will fill with white. Oneness catches him in its embrace, an omniscient knowledge of all that there is all that there will be: a brightness of life at the center, and a dark decay that has burned outward from it, on the verge of swallowing all.
In this overwhelming knowing he recognizes fragments of the home he lost in that rot, blackened and rigid with death.
Though he will not fully remember the details in the aftermath, the weight of it will remain, the understanding of the sheer scope of that destruction lingering in this thoughts. Just as he achieves that understanding, another presence comes upon him.
"Begone."
It's the wings of the Innocent, battering him away from that light, that Oneness. He does not belong there, it conveys to him. He is a bearer of darkness, the bringer of death.
Begone, begone, begone, begone- !
As the Innocence pushes him downwards, forces him from heaven, he will recognize the tethers holding it to the living world. Two bright lights, and several more of more fragile shades, one of which is rooted in the same darkness that he is. Above him, the Innocence coils around the spirits of Her beloved, Her sanctified.
He wakes from the vision by being very literally slammed against the stone of the circle he and Xishen sit upon. Xishen falls in the some moment, the gate snapping shut.
no subject
This feeling is not quite that ecstasy, but it shares some things in common. The dagger-flash of insight. The winged, soaring sense of transcending limits that were never real to begin with. Later, he won't be able to think of the brightness without conjuring an equal and opposite dark. Rot will linger in his mind like a bad aftertaste. Later he'll wonder, Do we have to kill them to stop this thing? What else might be whispering itself into being through an umbilical link to other Aions? To him? (Later he'll remember watching his hand fucking unravel.)
Now, pain is surging back too loud for his brain to get around it. Matt cries out as his back hits stone, the sound twisting and sharpening as agony flares through his left elbow. The pain is actually slightly less bad than it was a few moments ago, thanks to the onset of shock, but Matt is not in a state of mind to appreciate that.
"Fuck," he whimpers, staring at the ceiling. "Fuck, ff--what--?"
Kaeya's scarf has half-slithered from his neck. Dimly, Matt realizes, I probably shouldn't bleed out, and jerks the scarf free. His attempt to one-handedly wrap up his wrist is spastic, the pressure not really sufficient, but he's doing his best before he passes out.
no subject
"Wait-"
She fumbles, grabbing her dagger from the ground where it fell. Taking it in her left hand, she rams it into her own thigh, while in same moment reaching to place her hand on Matt's severed wrist. A flood of vitality pours from her fingers, in the same moment she emits a shaking gasp.
The bleeding will begin to slow, a bit of the pain numbing. It isn't a one stop fix, but it will be enough to prevent him from dying. She makes a guttural sound, pulling out of the knife.
no subject
After a moment, he determines he isn't teetering on the verge of oblivion (derogatory). The pain has quieted to a dull roar instead of an all-consuming fire. Matt breathes in, counting consciously this time, and holds the breath at the top of his inhale. He loses some of his evenness as he breathes out, wincing as fresh pain makes itself felt.
He doesn't seem inclined to get up just yet. But he turns his head to try and catch Xishen's gaze.
"Did you see that?" he says. "Did you see ... her? Where is she?"
no subject
She trails off after that, getting lost in her own thoughts regarding the subject. Maybe the visions they saw weren't exactly the same. She slowly starts trying to pick herself up.
"I think... 'where' might be complicated... for someone like that."