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

[involuntaryturncoat]

He politely does not react to the wayward crochet hook. "I have had better times than recently, but I've also had worse, so I suppose the best answer would be just to say that I've... been."

[rememberettersberg]

"Sometimes that is indeed the best one can hope for," Nightingale agrees with knowing familiarity. "I'm happy to lend an ear, whatever ails you." He second-guesses himself straight after saying it; it feels too forward, unnaturally so, but he schools his face to mildness.

[involuntaryturncoat]

He's quiet, not responding immediately. After a moment, he walks over and has a seat at the bar. "You wanted the story of my world and my abilities." Whether it's a simple change in subject or the start of the answer is not immediately obvious from his tone.

[rememberettersberg]

"I did, yes." He puts the mess of his work aside. "If now is a good time for you, of course."

[involuntaryturncoat]

Asmodean nods. "As I said, it's a wide-ranging tale." When he first arrived, there was an amusing novelty to telling of events he lived as if they were long ago myth and legend, but the shine has worn off a bit since. Still, he continues, although barely bothering to pretend he wasn't there to witness it. "Thousands of years ago, in the last age, today called the Age of Legends, men and women together worked the One Power, divided into saidin and saidar, the male and female halves. They worked in concert to produce wonders. It was a clean world of gleaming cities, where no one's needs were neglected and status was determined by the service you provided others, in accordance with your ability. Those who could channel were called Aes Sedai, servants of all, as great ability afforded could be used for even more benefit. But the One Power, divided as it is, had limitations, even with all that Aes Sedai could accomplish with it, so searches for other sources of power were conducted, until one proved successful."

[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."

[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]

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

[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]

"That sounds dire indeed." It's the scope of it that's terrifying. Nightingale has dealt with creatures of similar aims, but nothing quite so encompassing. "And where do you return to this tale?"

[involuntaryturncoat]

"Over the next century or so, society slipped into decline, with an increasing number of people, including many highly regarded ones, publicly pledging themselves to the Dark One. It eventually plunged into war, the first the world had known in an Age. Ten years of that until, with the the forces of Shadow creeping towards victory, roughly a hundred male Aes Sedai, led by Lews Therin Telamon, known as the Dragon, launched a desperate gambit to attempt to reseal the bore. It did work, sealing away not only him but thirteen of his most powerful followers who happened to be meeting at the time."

He pauses in thought, as he was not in fact personally present for the rest. "There was, however, a reprisal. As the Dark One was being sealed away, he reached back through the power they were using and tainted saidin. The surviving members of the men involved in the strike were driven mad immediately. The rest of the male Aes Sedai would inexorably follow over the next few hundred years. Imagine madmen with phenomenal power running rampant worldwide. Cities were leveled, mountains created and destroyed, the landscape itself would change until it was unrecognizable. That time is now known as the Breaking of the World."

He shrugs. "Since then, Aes Sedai, now by necessity all women, have hunted down men who can wield saidin and severed them from the Source, to prevent the same from happening again."

[rememberettersberg]

Nightingale takes some time to process this, considering the entirety of the tale as he gets up to fetch them both a drink. "I can't begin to imagine what it's like to be a part of such utterly world-shaking events," he says. "You said you missed much of the intervening time between then and your present - were you one of the men sealed away?"

[involuntaryturncoat]

"Men and women both, but yes, I was. We woke to a world... very unlike the one that we fell asleep in, in many ways."

[rememberettersberg]

"How long were you locked away?" Nightingale sets a glass of beer down for each of them. "And how did you come to escape?"

[involuntaryturncoat]

"It's hard to know, exactly." He frowns. "While the world was being torn apart, recordkeeping was hardly anyone's priority. Somewhere between three and four thousand years. The seal was... imperfectly created, and it started to weaken, gradually releasing us."

[rememberettersberg]

"And to think I've been feeling ancient at 113," comes the very dry reply. "Was the Dark One also released? It must have been a very rude awakening if so."

[involuntaryturncoat]

He lets out a short, amused laugh. "Channeling increases lifespans, in proportion to your strength in the Power. I was over three hundred years old before bargaining for immortality, and over four hundred when I was sealed away." He shakes his head. "As of when I arrived here, he was not released fully. He was able to influence the world directly once more, but was still working toward full release. And his Chosen were... dropping. Events... fell so that even I lost my immortality, was marked as a betrayer, and ultimately killed-- or would have been if I hadn't arrived here instead."

[rememberettersberg]

"You must find yourself either terribly bored here or simply basking in the mundanity. What's a tiny undead invasion after the things you've experienced?" Nightingale grins a little.

[involuntaryturncoat]

"Oh, this place has been, by and large, a welcome respite," he says. "Undead included. I came from a world where there may have been only one man who wouldn't have happily seen me dead, and him only barely."

[rememberettersberg]

"May I ask why?" Nightingale is projecting the total lack of cop energy that has been standing him in such good stead here. "You've told me much of your world's history, and I thank you for it, but I don't think any of it explains why you might have garnered such a reputation."

[involuntaryturncoat]

"During the Collapse, and the war thereafter, lines were drawn. And I placed myself very deliberately on the wrong side of them. I do not mean the losing side, though it was, at least in that particular war. I mean the wrong side. The shadow was not a place of kindness and mercy and I rose highly in those ranks. I do not... I do not particularly care to go into detail, but there were things I did that I was unequivocally wrong to do. While we were sealed away, our names turned into specters to fear, and I cannot say that they shouldn't have been."

[rememberettersberg]

"Such self-awareness is admirable." Nightingale takes a long swallow of his beer. "I hope I haven't stirred up too much negative emotion in asking you to recount all of this. It's in my nature, I suppose, to know as much as possible about other practitioners around me. It's been my duty to protect the less powerful for a long enough time that I can't entirely switch it off." He offers up something like a smile. "But I do believe this is a place for second chances, and it seems that your thoughts already lead you down a better path."

[involuntaryturncoat]

"It's a path I stepped onto only very recently," he replies, and takes a drink of his own. "I have intended no harm to anyone since arriving, but I had not had the time or opportunity for self-reflection before I came here, and had not had the inclination after. But the day of forced truth abruptly shoved me toward a place I likely would have taken years to stumble upon on my own."

He has another drink. "It's a better path, perhaps, but it's also a markedly more difficult one."

[rememberettersberg]

Nightingale snorts. "At least that dreadful day has paid dividends for somebody, no matter how difficult."

[involuntaryturncoat]

The sound he briefly makes would be a laugh if it were remotely amused. "Dividends. I suppose that's one way of putting it."