Open Post: Hooked On A Feeling

[rememberettersberg]

What hobbies have you got? Susan had asked him, and he had to admit to not being sure. At school and for some time after, he played rugby. More recently, he only watched it on the television Peter had set up in the tech cave. Here at the mansion, he has books and research and the beginnings of mentoring, but it occurs to Nightingale that he has been building himself a facsimile of work and very little else. He's survived that way for half a century and been perfectly all right (though others may disagree with that assessment) but here, in this hinterland between realities, he is feeling a growing itch for... whimsy, perhaps.

At this moment, propping up the bar with a pint of bitter and a crochet hook, no one would dare accuse him of being whimsical. Nightingale is scowling fiercely at the hook, the yarn, his pint, and the book sitting open beside it. Company would be more than welcome.

Comments

[rememberettersberg]

"Control the heat," Nightingale warns. "Concentrate on making it exactly the same every single time. Feel the word as you say it. Let the saying of it help the spell into existence."

[rememberettersberg]

"I think a week should be enough time to pull something together," he replies, then realises he's not actually sure what that means in Nina's world. "Seven days," he amends, squinting at his notes. "So on or after the 16th day of Melanippe, according to this." He sounds vaguely pained at having to voice it.

[timebethine]

The admonition sharpens Laertes's focus. He has learned swordplay by the same principle--repetition until his muscles remember each position innately, until he can snap into sixte without conscious thought. Banishing the werelight, he imagines it in its purest form, like a single pure note of unvarying pitch. He pictures the link between that note and the spindle, until the note becomes the sound that the spindle makes as it winds spring and summer into light. "Lux," he says. The light of it is cool, clear.

"Lux," again: the same note, the same pitch, the same image of the spindle winding up. It comes more swiftly, this time. Still not easy, and a long way from instinctive, but his heart thrills to feel the same cold, clear light. The act can be repeated. It isn't a fluke; it isn't a miracle. It's an act of will.

"Lux." The werelight illuminates his smile, the shattering gladness of it.

[rememberettersberg]

"Were you there to witness this Age of Legends?" Nightingale asks. He remembers Sagramore counting in hundreds of years when talking about Jasin and tremendous longevity is no surprise to him even outside of his own extended span. The genii locorum he's met include true ancients. "It sounds too good to last."

[wickedwit]

Tell me the story about the jazz vampires is something to save for another day. Instead he goes right to answering Nightingale's questions, counting them off on his fingers. "As I understand it, infractions are narrative in nature -- divergences from, and inconsistencies with, the original plot. The kind that might be produced, for example, by the villain of Hamlet absconding after the inciting incident of the play. She doesn't know why we're here, but she does know of a crime where characters were abducted from their books and placed inside another. She suspected the mansion was a book at first, because of how orderly it is, without visible imperfections. I don't know whether she's a part of it -- she claimed to be as trapped here as we are, with one or two potential routes of escape she needs to investigate further. I asked her to involve Tress, because Tress wants to escape, and ... can I be honest with you, Nightingale?" It's more of a nervous tic than a sincere question, so he continues. "Whether we're from books or worlds or other histories of the same world, I do not wish to return to where I came from. I hoped to to travel to other worlds and histories, which now I'm discovering may be a literary crime."

[ravkanwitch]

"Melanippe," Nina repeats. It's a strange word. "That sounds fine to me. The most important question, however, is what you're doing for the talent show."

[involuntaryturncoat]

He pauses. "I was there, but missed much of the intervening time." He chooses not to elaborate on that for the time being. "That said, yes, it was too good to last. The power source that they found... When the research team attempted to tap into it, there was a backlash that destroyed the facility and many in it who did not have a chance to escape. It was looked at as a tragedy as is, but no one knew for quite some time just how much of one it was. The source of power they had found was a malevolent entity that came to be known by most as the Dark One, who had been imprisoned outside of the pattern for long enough that even legend had long forgotten of him. And his prison had been bored into. Even the smallest opening let his influence begin to touch the world."

[rememberettersberg]

"You've got it." Remembering the beer slowly warming on the table at his side, Nightingale raises it in a toast. "For the next few days, set aside some time to keep practising. The word is the spell is the word. They should be entirely entwined. But Laertes, this is very important now that you're progressing - don't overdo it. A couple of hours a day, no more."

[rememberettersberg]

This is a truly bewildering array of information. How on earth could such plot inconsistencies occur? Are all books alive in their own pocket universes? Before he can meander too far into this fresh existential crisis, Nightingale refocuses on the man in front of him. "Did she seem sincere to you? If she is as trapped as we are, then I doubt her organisation is aware of anything we're doing." He pauses, considering. "What could the penalty be for committing such a crime?"

[timebethine]

"What might befall me, if I overdo it?" he asks, and unconsciously rubs out an old ache (long since eased) where he'd strained his wrist in fencing.

[rememberettersberg]

"Wearing a navy dinner jacket and introducing the acts, as previously discussed." He grins. "Everyone has seen my only other talent." He conjures a tiny orb, just to make his point.

[wickedwit]

“I don’t want to find out,” Claudius says with a sigh. “That’s why lied to her, and told her I’d come from the end of my play rather than the beginning, limiting the scope of my infractions. And —“ It does occur to him finally that Nightingale is a lawman, but he does focus on magical crimes. Besides, it’s not like this is blackmail or bribery. This is a reasonable deal. “I agreed to provide her with information if she prioritizes severe infractions, and doesn’t involve anyone from her organization.” Oh, that still sounds bad said aloud.

[ravkanwitch]

Nina narrows her eyes slightly at him, jokingly suspicious. "Are you sure you can't perform anything? Not a song or dance? Or even a monologue?"

[rememberettersberg]

Nightingale opens his mouth to give his usual blithe answer ("strokes, brain haemorrhages, aneurysms") but then thinks to pause and translate into something less modern. "Too much magic can wither the brain," he settles on. "It's not usually a concern for apprentices but better to be safe than sorry."

[timebethine]

"How does that happen?" Laertes asks, resting his elbow on the bar and his chin on his hand. "Magic seems rather to train the mind, like any other skill. What causes the brain to wither, rather than flourish?"

[rememberettersberg]

"Outside of the pattern? What does that mean? And what sort of entity is this?"

[rememberettersberg]

"That seems reasonable enough," says Nightingale. "Though if she's in the same boat as us, I'd prefer she not focus on any infractions at all. It all sounds rather draconian, telling people they're deviating from some preordained path."

[rememberettersberg]

"I certainly could do any of those things, but I rather think the goal is for people to enjoy themselves, don't you?"

[rememberettersberg]

"It seems to boil down to simply forcing too much energy through too small a conduit. Picture a dam with a tiny hole bored through it. The water may trickle through slowly and steadily, but trying to squeeze more water through more swiftly or with greater force will eventually destroy the dam." Nightingale shrugs. "I'm not a medical man - I have a brilliant doctor friend researching the matter much more thoroughly - but that is my understanding, at least."

[timebethine]

"Tell me more of your friends," says Laertes, remembering how it felt to hear of Enjolras's closest companions--as though, for a moment, their ghosts filled the narrow compass of the grounds, and their two disjunctive worlds overlaid each other like a palimpsest. (And, admittedly, he's also remembering Claudius's coy remarks about Nightingale's apprentice.)

[wickedwit]

"There, you see, I agree with you," Claudius says. He knew he could count on Nightingale to be reasonable and not come at this with cop energy¹. "That's why I wished to convene and strategize. It all depends on whether she can get out, or get out quickly -- if she can't, I can sway her to our way of thinking with time. But I'd like to stay ahead of her, if you understand me."

¹Claudius, we can see your internal monologue.

[rememberettersberg]

"Dr Walid, Abdul, is known around the world for his gastroenterological expertise, but his more private fascination is the science of magic and its effects on the human body. He has a wonderfully morbid sense of humour, the oddest things delivered in the most gentle of Scottish accents." He smiles, wistful. "My housekeeper, Molly, is probably my oldest friend. She was a refugee of sorts, brought to safety at the Folly before I began working there. For decades after the war, it was just the two of us. She is of the fae, so other people often find her disconcerting, but her demeanour is not her fault."

[timebethine]

"Now I'm curious," says Laertes, and indeed, his expression is rapt. "What about her is disconcerting?"

[involuntaryturncoat]

"As it's said on my world that the Wheel of Time spins the threads of our lives into a vast pattern, everything woven together, no thread influencing nothing, but some more notable than others, everyone's threads rewoven intermittently into the pattern from Age to Age. The Dark One exists outside of the Pattern itself, but able to exert his influence when given the opportunity. After the Bore was drilled into his prison, he began to make himself known, and strife started making its way into the world. But, eventually, he also made compelling offers to those who would agree to follow him. He fed selfish motives to a world accustomed to service. Power. Glory. Immortality."

[rememberettersberg]

"Indeed. I have no interest in seeing anyone forced back to a world they'd rather leave behind, but neither do I wish for anyone to be stuck here without cause." Nightingale is very aware that this is all a little shady, but it itches at him, the way they've been brought to the mansion without consent and may now, if Aornis is intent on carrying out her duties, be equally powerless to avoid leaving.