Riven Wight

Of Science and Magic

*Gives a thumbs-up.*

*Is patiently awaiting any questions as they arise, legs crossed and hands folded sage-like.*

MUHAHAHA! When your dastardly plots succeed! >:-D Heh, nah, but now I'm interested to see if your writing style shifts at all between devices. I know mine always does. It'll be interesting! Though it may not mean much, I have faith in you!

Of Science and Magic

URGH! OOPS POST. I WANT TO SMASH MY INTERNET RIGHT NOW.

Of Science and Magic

If you want to start yours with a header and picture (if that's what you're referring to initially with the first question), you're most welcome to, but no, you don't have to. Just do what comes naturally to you, on both accounts! I just did that to help with the obviousness of that time skip. I'll probably do a sort of time update on the one where she does get out, just so you know when she's at, and you can let me know if you'd like that changed. For starting a day before with Byrce, that's entirely up to you. You could start a week previous, or longer, if you wanted and had the inspiration, and throw in your own time skips mid-post. Thea's is based probably more of a handful or so of hours prior, than a full day. She's not going to be unconscious for too long. But, like I said, how they get to the same time doesn't matter, as long as they get there.

At ease, soldier!

Exactly! YOU CAN DO THIS! And sweet! I may be making you drop the phone for a bit for a computer! <-- I'm partial to computers for writing, so what do you expect? Lastly, go you for challenging yourself!

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@Arista

Of Science and Magic

Of course. Do what comes best for you, and what you feel fits for Byrce. Will roughly three posts work for you? I can probably find something to delay it maybe by one more post, if you needed, but from how it's fitting on paper vs. in my head at the moment, I'm guessing I'll have her out by the end of a third (which I believe means after a second for you), decently sized post. If you have gaps you want to leave to fill in later, that's also fine by me. Like I said, I love when questions remain in a story--hence one reason for me not filling in the space between Thea's capture and their present--even if I know the answers to them. But I'm also good with knowing what went on, if you want to fill them all in.

Tee-hee. She called me "ma'am." And of course! At the moment, I might be more likely to answer things here than in PMs, though. I'm in that kind of mode.

Awesome. I'll let you know when I get around to editing that in. One joy of character profiles: they don't have to be perfect. For me, they're more of a set of guidelines, not rules, to start with that can--and likely will--be tweaked the more familiar you get with the character and his/her story.

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@Arista

Of Science and Magic

@Arista

Okay. Yay for posts! Don't say I didn't warn you about length. I'm going to break it up. As a quick prediction, would you be okay with, say, three loner posts before I get her to a place where they could potentially run into each other?

Since Thea remembers diddly squat in the story's present, and because I like leaving questions to be answered (plus, she's going to have to remember stuff sometime, so I'd just probably end up rewriting some of it in some form, anyway), I'm starting maybe a few hours--a day at most--before their potential reuniting. But please, feel free to base your next start whenever, so long as it ultimately ends up with both our characters at the same day and time.

By the way, my OCD loves that the time skip begins on the top of the second page. Oh, and would you mind if I were to add that Thea's presence sometimes cancels out the effects of scientific machinery? Realized I have more on the magic side of things on her profile than the science side.

Of Science and Magic

Pain. Sometimes, when the guards forgot to relight the lamps outside her cell, it and the cold darkness were the only friends that paid her a visit. There were times when it was like an all-consuming fire toying with her body, and others it was an ember, lurking eternally beneath her skin, waiting for the right hand to feed it. Tonight—or today, for all she knew in the everlasting midnight of the dungeons—it was somewhere in between. It prickled at her left leg and arm, and crawled up toward her neckline. It feasted savagely on the right side of her body from the center of her stomach to her spine, working its way down the side of her leg. It blazed the worst from just above her hip downward courtesy of the newest additions the Sages had recently added to their experiment.
Thea lay in the darkness, her gaze staring unseeingly toward the ceiling she had long since memorized every crack of. The lamps outside had flickered out an eternity ago, though, she supposed, it could have only been a few minutes. Time was cruel like that. Minutes passed by in years when you wished something would end, yet years flew in minutes when all you wanted was for life to slow down. Here, it was only worse, as if even it was on the Sages’ side. In a place without even the thinnest sliver of daylight to judge it by, it slunk through the halls and cells, passing with malicious, excruciating slothfulness.
She inhaled slowly, each breath exciting the burning pain in her side, and tried to focus on something else. With her jumbled memories useless, leaving her with not even her own name to dwell on, she shut her eyes, clenched her teeth, and listened.
It was always chilly in the dungeons, but she had grown used to that. Even the dank smell of the stale air filled with the stench of death and decay had lost its pungency to her. Water dripped somewhere in the distance, echoing loudly as it drummed out an uneven rhythm. The gentle scurrying of rodents passed through the hall and occasionally within her cell, looking for food. A rat sniffled beneath her hard cot, and she wondered if it was Terrain, the rat she had been sharing her meals with for a while now. She always knew it was him, with his missing ear and scarred body. The creature had begun to trust her, perhaps because it sensed a kindred spirit, becoming, she supposed, her only tangible friend in this place of suffering and death.
She took a startled breath, wincing and hissing through her teeth as it irked her body, when the all too familiar sound of screams sliced through the silence. Screams of pure agony. Screams she knew the meaning of all too well. The distance between her cell and the lab did little do muffle them. They belonged to a man, likely the one who had been shouting profanities at the guards nonstop earlier that day. She must have been unconscious when they took him away, but it would explain the quiet that had settled in his cell.
The Sages were at it again, trying to replicate the success they had had with her.
A nauseating pit formed in her stomach. Not because of the man’s screams, but because she was glad. Glad that, for the time being, it was not her, and hoping it would work so they would have someone else to torture for a while in her place. Her hands clenched, sending a spike of pain shooting up her left arm, but she ignored it. Deep down, she knew that thought was wrong, that at one point in time, it would never have crossed her mind. But the more she tried to remember who she was, who it was that would have cringed at such a thought, the harder her head began to throb.
Inevitably, the screams cut off as suddenly as they had begun. A sickening silence filled the halls once more, broken only by the confused dripping from a source Thea was content with not knowing.
The Sages’ experiment had failed.
Thea swallowed hard and took a shaky breath at the silence of her hopes being dashed. The Sages were always that much more brutal with her after a failure. Still, a small voice swirled in the back of her mind, filled with sorrow for the man and the family he had been stolen from. Though her first few weeks there were one large, jumbled blur to her, she could never forget how the Sages tested her "compatibility" with their plans, no matter how hard she tried. Though she wished the man had made it for selfish reasons, it was not a death she would will on anyone.
Soon, she promised herself. I’ll do it soon.
For the last… well, she could not say, but however long it had been, she had begun to downplay her strength as much as she could. She would need the element of surprise if she was ever to have even a faint chance at escaping.
Her eyes snapped open and her heart quickened as it always did at the sound of heavy footsteps coming down the hall. Thea knew the guard’s patterns by heart; it was too early for their usual patrol, and they had stopped dragging the corpses past her doorway somewhere around a couple months after her arrival. Or perhaps it had been years.
Doubting they would take the time to go out of their way to relight the lamps, she held her breath, staring into the darkness as the flicker of firelight filtered in through the barred window in the heavyset door of her cell. It was about time, she supposed, for a “training session” with the Mage. They followed the Sages’ work on her almost as predictably as the guards’ patrols.
She squinted when someone held a lamp up beside the window, the light cascading over the half of her in its path. It glinted off what looked like a thin gauntlet elegantly conformed to her left arm, looking as if she had simply slipped on a metal glove with plates of a gold color and various shades of bronze. The gauntlet covered her fingers and rose to the base of her neck where its thin metal visibly merge with her skin, nothing visible keeping it in place. An opalescent sheen coating the apparent metal shone as the firelight flickered, hitting it just right, the color also creating a haze over her gold-flecked eyes as she turned her head slowly to look to the door.
“You still alive in there?” the guard wheezed mockingly though the bars in his familiar, irritatingly squeaky voice, his head nothing but a dark shadow on the other side of the door.
“You still a Mage reject out there, Gaillard?” she bit through her teeth, her own voice hardened in pain and horse from its rare use—in conversation, at least.
Gaillard snarled. Whether from her comment, that she had picked up his name, or both, she could not say, but he lowered his lantern and jerked his head up in a nod to someone beside him.
The dark outline of another guard appeared. One with magic, she deducted, as the sound of locks sliding back echoed through the door.
Thea tensed, trying to mentally prepare herself to move as Gaillard used his own special key to finish unlocking the door. The Sages took no shortcuts in making sure she stayed put. They often even moved her between cellblocks, which was one thing she had yet to find a pattern in. That, and when they remembered she needed food. As far as she could tell, they moved her at random through the massive place, but they had unwittingly let her become familiar with both some of the layout of her prison, and the guard’s routines in more than one area.
Slowly, she moved her right arm behind her, the skin around her wrist still red and raw from pulling against the binds that had held her in the Sages’ lab. Her body always felt that much heavier when she tried to move after being still for so long.
Gaillard pushed the door open. “Up with you, you little brat.” He spat on the ground at his feet as he stood in the doorway, glowering down at her. The fresh stubble of a beard had begun to sprout from his pointed chin, and a tribal patterned tattoo circled his neck.
Knowing it would be futile to try resisting, she clenched her teeth and suppressed a moan as she managed to put weight on her right arm and lift herself up, the embers ever waiting inside her waking up. The flames already gnawing on her side decided to chew with more vigor, making her give something between a loud groan and hissing shout.
She could practically feel Gaillard’s smirk as she struggled simply to sit up.
“So, what?” she asked almost breathlessly as she tried to let her body adjust to being used, wanting to wipe that expression from his face. “They don’t have anything more fitting for a reject to do than crawl around a dungeon like the pathetic worm he is?”
On the bright side, it worked; his smirk turned into an angered snarl. On the bad side, he thrust the lamp into the other guard’s chest, who fumbled with it before catching it, stormed over to Thea, gripped her, hard, between neck and left shoulder, and yanked her to her feet.
She staggered up and screamed through her teeth as the fire turned to a knife stabbing at her right side and legs. Her legs gave out at the sudden use, but what Gaillard lacked in magic, he made up for in strength. He kept her upright, his vice-like grip on her only adding an extra discomfort.
The other guard, his face hidden behind a silvery helmet branded with the insignia she saw everywhere here of a savage-looking, two-headed eagle, gripped her right arm, his bulky gauntlet rough and cold against her skin. For a moment, she hung limply between them, breathing hard through clenched teeth from a mix of anger, hatred, and pain.
The nightdress she wore with its thin straps in place of sleeves hung loosely from her pale, sun-deprived body. Dirt, dust, and blood, both dried and some still damp around her right side, stained the once white fabric. Her long hair hung around her face, dark circles beneath her eyes and her cheeks a bit sunken, the tangled mess of the red strands only enhancing her pitiful, emaciated appearance.
Finally, her muscles seemed to remember how to work, and she slowly supported her own weight. The chill of the stone floor beneath her bare feet made her shiver slightly.
The guards hauled her out of the cell, and she let them support some of her weight between them. The intense ache infesting even her bones always eased a bit once she got moving, at least enough to be on the verge of bearable, but she was not about to show her captors that. Not yet, at least. For now, she stumbled along between them, playing the helpless little princess in need of rescuing.
The thought struck a chord somewhere inside her, but it disappeared as quickly as it had come, leaving her to wonder what kinds of pathetic books she must have once read about kidnapped princesses being rescued by their knight in shining armor.
“I quite like this job,” Gaillard began, the squeak in his voice lessening its desired, threatening effect. His dark blue eyes made up for the lack of menace in his voice, glittering maliciously.
He leaned in a bit closer to her, readjusting his grip. Thea could smell a hint of ale on his breath, but it was not enough to mask its usual stench, as if he was rotting from the inside out. “My favorite part is getting to hear your screams and pleas for them to stop. This place wouldn’t be the same without them. But since you’re feeling so talkative, I’d love to know what it is they do in there.”
To Gaillard’s amusement, her hands clenched and she looked away, in part to avoid breathing in his breath, but mostly to keep him from seeing the fear she knew shone in her eyes.
She swallowed, trying to not think about the answer to his request. “Sure.” Her voice trembled slightly. “But only once you figure out what a toothbrush is and stop eating skunk butts for lunch.”
A snigger burst from the guard on her right, but Gaillard snarled and forced them to a halt. She looked over as she felt him turn, and tried to pull away when he reached to draw a dagger hanging at his right hip.
“Gaillard!” the second guard growled. His voice was deep and imposing, filled with life and authority.
What unnerved Thea about it was that it was an unfamiliar voice. She had heard at least every guard speak on their rounds. She knew which ones came when. She had timed them. She knew exactly how many steps it took for each of them to walk the hall leading to her cell. She had listened to their hushed conversations, making note of every voice, every tone that echoed through the dungeons. After all, there was little else for her to use to attempt keeping her sanity. But she had never heard his voice before, and the Sages did not strike her as the kind of people to bring in new guards unless it was absolutely necessary.
“We have our orders!” the guard barked. “Harm her, and I’ll skin you myself. Then we’ll see whose screams these walls hear tonight.”
Despite herself, she smirked. If he wasn’t one of the Sages’ men, she would have said she almost liked this guard.
Gaillard glared at his companion so hard she was surprised the other guard’s head did not explode. Reluctantly, he released his tight grip on the dagger, his eyes burning with fury. With a snort, he jerked her forward, making her stumble with a shout, and their procession continued.
Just before they reached where the cellblock branched off into three other corridors, lit lamps began to line the halls, hanging from ironwork sconces. To the left were more cells. She started to angle herself toward the right as they neared, already visualizing the number of doors between her and the room the Sages enjoyed testing her abilities in.
“Wrong way, wretch.” Gaillard grinned down at her with dark glee, then pulled her to continue straight down the hall.
Her attention snapped to the hall ahead, terror quickening her heart and making her forget how to breathe. Her steps ceased and she shook her head with a quivering exhale.
“Don’t want to keep the Sages waiting,” Gaillard purred. “They’re already in a rather foul mood as it is. Wouldn’t want to make it worse, now, would you?”
The guards pulled her forward, not to the training room, but toward the lab and the Sages where they waited hungrily for their next victim, haunting her, torturing her even in the rare bit of true sleep she managed to get.

A Land of Wonder and Nightmare

Yay for lack of motivation. xD

Oh, nice! That’s cool you made them for a customer. Aww, keep looking. I’m sure you’ll find one. I always run into them on the rare occasions I end up going. Always gotta see if there’s anything new to add to my button pin collection.

I think it’s great so far! I’ll hopefully be capable of getting an IC post in here sometime during my version of tonight. But I make no promises, because I just end up breaking those when they’re centered around posting.

Oh, nice. Maybe I should try to download it or something so I can actually get through it. I’m book-hopping again. Re-reading Inkheart right now. And EXACTLY about the movie!

It’s a conspiracy. Now have a couple pictures I randomly found or were posted on my Facebook page. Even FB is in on it. And I don’t have any FB pages on the topic “Liked”!

Because Alice In Wonderland is Everywhere

Well, gosh. How could you? I mean, it’s not like it’s already on a public forum or something. Of course it’s alright! I’m honored you enjoy it enough to share it with her. So glad she likes it! Woo! Fan art! And thus the tally has grown to three. :-D But you might want to warn her about the conspiracy.

Eh, could be better, could be worse. So, basically, just the norm now. Hope you’re doing well as well!

Of Science and Magic

Woo!

So, do you mind if we do kind of like what we did at the beginning, with a post or so before before they potentially run into each other? What I have right now's rather lengthy, so would be better broken up for the sake of readability (I was in a writing mood), and it'd be good to know where you have Byrce at after thirteen months! Zane would probably often be around him, almost like a lost puppy with a burn scar on his face and neck after Thea's kidnapping.

Oh, judging by your last post, I'd guess you're good with dark story bits, right? I'm not good at defining "dark," but I'd say a good portion of this is headed that way, so wanted to make sure. (Sorry if I already asked, and forgot. It's been a long couple months.)

Of Science and Magic

Sorry for my vanishing act! Got busy this weekend.

Yep! I figured we're working our way up to that. How about once you have Byrce go down for the count, I'll start my next post with the time skip to nearly a year later? Sound like a plan?

MONSTORY

Izzy rolled her eyes good-naturedly as Riley took his shirt. Her brows rose at his normal method of doing laundry. “I’ll add that to the list of mental images I’d like to erase.”
You and me both, she thought in agreement. Trevor was one of the last people she thought could intentionally hold a grudge. Especially considering how he had reacted when telling her about his guardians.
She gave a heavy, irritated sigh at the look Riley gave her, but did not press the matter. She knew well enough that it would be pointless in the long run.
Bidding him a good night and wishing him a speedy recovery, she left him to his rest and at last took care of the vampire child, giving him her apologies though she knew he would not respond with anything more than his usual glare.
Leaving the school with one of the thin scarves she had snuck in with this year’s school clothes as backups-- she had learned to keep more extras after the loss of her jacket and single spare--wrapped around her neck, she paused on the road leading away and glanced back at the school. Though she did not consider them friends, per say, the two staying there had unintentionally become the closest things to them she had, besides Trevor.
With a quick salute in farewell to the inhabitants of the dark building, she mounted her bike and rode through the muggy night beneath the watchful quarter eye of the waning moon.

With her usual morning routine with her brothers done with, the problem of the two going out after the Wolf temporarily solved, and the end of the freedom of summer vacation coming to a rapid close, Izzy jumped on the opportunity to take some time to herself and do one of the things she loved most.
After slipping on a simple t-shirt, pair of jeans with a stringy hole at one knee, and one of her most comfortable pairs of shoes, she eagerly grabbing her walking staff from its careful storage in the corner of her closet. She took a moment to brush her thumb against one of the wings of the owl carved at its top, then hurried out into the warm, humid summer day.
For once, she wanted one semi-normal day. A day where no one’s life was in danger, where Trevor wasn’t being controlled by an aberration. But she would have to settle for the familiar feeling of concrete and grass beneath her feet. Not entirely caring where she ended up, she chose a direction and just walked.
Soon, she slipped into the web of her thoughts, her feet carrying her on instinct along sidewalks and backroads. If Trevor was potentially going after anyone he held a subconscious grudge against, she would have to think of a way to find out who, if anyone, would be on that list. She had no idea what she would do with it, but that was a start, at least. She could visit some of his usual haunts, try to find some of his other friends and strike up a casual conversation.
Wouldn’t that be a great conversation starter? she thought with a snort. ‘Hey, guys. You’re Trevor’s friends, right? I don’t suppose you know anyone he might subconsciously want to maul or anything, would you?’
Izzy sighed heavily and transferred her staff from her left hand to her right as she went. Trevor was in this mess because, at least in part, of her. If only her brothers could have chosen that fateful night so long ago to not drive her crazy, or she had gone in a different direction, maybe he would not be in this mess. But then, Cerasus would have died, and those crazed hunters would have won. And, as insane as it all was, she had certainly gotten the adventure she had longed for, even if that wasn’t quite what she had had in mind. If only Trevor had not become collateral damage in the mix, especially after all his help.
She ran a hand through the lose portion of her hair, her usual scrunchie holding the back half in a high ponytail, and finally took in where she had ended up. She stopped when she realized she was by a park. The park. The place that started it all.
Without fully thinking about it, she slowly ventured deeper into the park to the relatively secluded playground. It looked different in the daylight. The swings and slides, monkey bars and backhoe diggers shone in the sunlight, deserted as they waited, lonely, for eager children to play on them. She found herself walking across the sand to the merry-go-round where she had heard Cerasus’ pleas for help. Almost in a daze, she started pulling at one of its yellow bars to get it moving.
As she started another loop, she nearly bumped into someone, making her startle back, look up, and release the bar, letting the equipment turn on its own. She gasped and took a fearful step back when her eyes met the White Wolf’s.
Her heart pounding in her chest, she cast a quick glance around the playground, making sure it was still deserted and wondering what in the world the Wolf was doing out in daylight, where anyone could see him. But she did not dare keep her eyes from the Wolf for long.
Despite its tone, Izzy remained tense, part of her ready to flee, and the other keeping her in place for fear of turning her back on it.
She stared at it, brows raised, at the comment about looking ‘uptight’.
“How am I supposed to look after you tore off my arm?” she hissed, her voice low as if trying to keep the Wolf’s presence a secret from the trees. She subconsciously flexed the fingers of her once torn limb at the thought, but stopped. “You... want to reason with me?” she echoed incredulously when it paused.
She listened intently, looking him over suspiciously and her grip on her staff tightening nervously as the Wolf began its explanation. When it mentioned her being in the home, it made a small part of her glad to know that Trevor must still be in there, somewhere. She only shook her head at his questions.
“That's all good to know,” she began slowly, afraid of angering the Wolf, “but why are you telling me all this? What is it you want to ‘reason’ about?”