Riven Wight

Of Science and Magic

Darkness. Thea often enjoyed the darkness. When it came with the painless bliss of unconsciousness, even if for just a little while, it was her greatest ally. But now, in trying to escape, hiding from the true monsters of the world that children saw only the shadows of in their nightmares, it had turned on her. It clung to her mind like a cobweb coated in sap even once sensations broke through into her waking mind.
She had no idea how long she had been out for. Minutes? Hours? Long enough for the familiar heaviness to settle and make the prickle of moving rake its sharp fingers over her. For all she knew, she could be back in her cell, the Sages waiting for her to wake to exact their ire on her.
Panic settled in the black abyss as she felt a pair of hands lifting her from beneath her armpits, sending pricks of pain through her arm and side that her mind was not entirely capable of comprehending yet. She felt her body drag backwards before whoever had a hold on her managed to pull her up, forcing the sticky blackness to begin to peel away.
“How are you so heavy?” she heard a strained voice mutter behind her. The voice of the unfamiliar guard.
She had been found.
It was enough for her mind to finally return to awareness as her breath caught in her chest at the realization, every ache and pain creeping back over her and making her clench her teeth. He had her back against him. He wrapped one arm beneath her left one and around her chest, the other still at her right armpit.
She gave a pained groan. Swallowing hard, the fire reigniting in her left arm as a reminder of its recent rough treatment, she yanked her right from his grasp. It felt as if she fought to move through molasses as she brought it forward, formed a fist, then rammed her elbow back as hard as she could.
Her elbow hit the metal of his breastplate with a cringeworthy thunking clang, sending a shock through her arm. Though far from the same intensity as using her left one, it was enough to make her grit her teeth to keep from crying out.
The guard gave a shocked “Oof!” and released her, stumbling back.
Thea fell to the rough floor. She instinctively moved to catch herself to keep her face from smacking into the stone, but the sudden weight on her arms sent a nauseating wave of pain up the left one. She collapsed to the floor, gasping, face scrunched and right hand clutching the left, the metal just slightly warmer than the chill of the dungeons.
Breathing heavily, she tried to focus on the guard as he collected himself.
“Take it easy, would you?” he growled, his helmeted head just visible in the light of a lantern he had hung on a nail stuck into one of the stone walls. Only a sliver of light shone from the lamp’s mostly closed shutter, but it was more than enough for Thea to make out the room.
Buckets, brooms, and mops coated in spider webs leaned against the walls. A couple wooden racks lined one wall, stocked with bottles so caked in dust and cobwebs it was impossible to see their contents. A few ragged, holey cloths draped in a discarded heap from one of the shelves.
Thea tried to snarl warningly at him, the expression mixed with her pain as she struggled to her feet despite the eternal ache encompassing her.
“I’m here to help you.” The guard raised both his hands in front of him as if to console her.
“Is that what you think the Sages are doing?” she growled through her teeth as she managed to stand, her back bent slightly and still cradling her left arm. “Helping me?”
The guard’s growled sigh echoed through his helmet. “I didn’t say they’re here to help you, did I?” He rubbed his chest where she had elbowed him. Surprise glittered in his greenish-blue eyes, and he glanced down. “You dented my armor!”
“I’ll do more than that if you so much as twitch.” The quiver in her voice tainted the threat. She did her best to take a defensive stance, her left arm shaking as she raised it and formed a fist with both hands.
The guard’s eyes narrowed. “I’m here to get you out of here. Your poor excuse of an escape attempt couldn’t have come at a worse time, but here we are.”
Thea hesitated, confliction joining the other emotions warring for dominance on her face. “Give me a single good reason to trust one of the Sages’ guards,” she spat, taking a small step back. Her knee caved under her weight, making her lurch forward, but she managed to steady herself.
“Use your head, girl!” Impatience saturated the guard’s voice. “I saw what you did to Gaillard. If I wanted to return you to them, I’d have called backup. Besides, you don’t have many choices. Either you can trust me, or head out that door,” he nodded to the rickety door behind her, “and get caught by the guards in ten seconds flat. They’ve all been called on duty to search for you. The place is teeming with them. It’s worse than an anthill on fire out there, and the more time we waste here,” he pointed a finger at the ground, “the more likely it is they’ll stumble on us. And I’m not compromising my position for you!”
Thea stared at him for a long moment, the tremble of her left hand intensifying. The guard glanced to it, and she gently gripped it with her right, trying to steady it.
“Who are you?” she growled through her teeth, her gaze boring into him. She turned slightly as she took another step back. She sucked in a sharp breath when the movement sent a sharp stab of pain up the right side of her body.
“Sorry, kid. Can’t tell you that. You going to let me help you, or not?” He slowly reached out a gauntleted hand toward her to take.
Thea eyed it warily, glancing between it and the guard’s eyes. She saw no deception in them, no malevolence, only a fierce determination. She quickly weighed the risks, but, in the end, he was right. Her options were dismal, at best. The worst-case scenario of going with him, was he would turn her in instead of her getting caught in the halls while trying to find a way out. The best case, he was telling the truth, and she would get out of this forsaken hole.
“Fine.” She stepped toward him, the eternal ache finally beginning to diminish to a more tolerable level from use.
A familiar, enraged “ARGH!” echoed from the other side of the door, making Thea gasp and spin around, her heart jumping into her throat. She stumbled backward, but the mysterious guard caught her, preventing her from falling.
“Not a sound!” the guard hissed in her ear. But she did not need to be told.
“This can’t be happening!” the Sage Scientist shouted, his voice accompanied by the sound of two pairs of footsteps.
“Say it louder,” the Mage scoffed in his—or her—soft, gender neutral voice. The dark malice in it made Thea shudder. “Maybe she’ll hear you and come running.”
She swallowed hard. It sounded like they had stopped near the door.
“We’re this close to completion!” the Scientist growled, lowering his voice so it just managed to filter into the forgotten storage room. “Without her, the last year’s been for nothing!”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“Can’t you use that connection you have to track her?”
Thea inhaled softly through her nose. A connection? She looked back, sharing a quick, almost panicked glance with the guard.
The Mage snorted. “You know it doesn’t work like that.” The Mage paused. “What about your failsafe?”
“It’s short range only. And I haven’t tested it yet.”
“What are they talking about?” the guard whispered, his voice nearly inaudible.
Thea only shook her head with terrified uncertainly, unsure if she could speak even if she wanted to. She pressed her back against his armor to get as far from the door and the Sages outside it as she could. He took a slow, careful step back, and she followed his lead, not daring to take her eyes from the door, her bare feet making scarcely a whisper of a sound.
“Try it as we go.” Their footsteps began again, slower this time, as the Mage spoke. “Maybe fate will be on our side and it’ll trigger as we pass.”
Thea was sure the two were walking by the door now, the Scientist’s footfalls the heavier thud of boots and the Mage’s more of the soft clip of something simpler. For a short, precious moment, forgetting to breathe, Thea thought that, for once, fate was instead on her side and the Sages would simply pass them by. But she was gravely wrong.
Without warning, a searing, hot agony erupted within her. It ravaged through her like a raging, starving beast, making her knees buckle and a red film freckled by blackness consume her vision. She was scarcely aware of the scream that left her lips before one of the mysterious guard’s gauntlets pressed tightly against her mouth to stifle it, his other arm the only thing keeping her from collapsing to the floor.
With a burst of adrenaline-fueled strength, he dragged her toward the back of the storeroom as the locked handle jiggled. He struggled to keep his grip on Thea’s writhing body, making it that much more difficult as he snatched his lantern in passing. It swung wildly in his hand, making frantic shadows dance around the room as he made it to the wall and stepped through the seemingly solid stone.
With a burst of blue flame, the door tore from the hinges and slid across the floor with an alarming clatter. The Sages rushed inside. Blue electricity sparked around flames of a darker shade in the Mage’s hands, his face hidden by the hood of a black robe and a white mask pulled up in a wicked grin, leaving only slits for eyes. The Scientist, a bit taller than his companion, held a coiled whip in one hand, his own robe white and his mask, twisted in an agonized frown, black.
But the silent storeroom was empty.

MONSTORY

The unexpected voice made her jump as she spun around to face whoever had spoken. She startled back at the close proximity of one Holden Sandstrom, making her tilt her neck to be capable of looking him in the eye. At least she would now not have to go on a hunt for him. And, apparently, it must have been that he was only avoiding her that day. Still, he had somehow managed to find her now.
She pointed a thumb toward the classroom’s door and opened her mouth to answer, but he interrupted before she could so much as get out the W sound of ‘We.’
At his demand, she blinked, staring after after him for a moment in surprise as he headed down the hall. Getting answers might, for once, be easier than she had anticipated. But she did not dare get her hopes up too high quite yet as she hurried to catch up to Holden, staying close behind him as he had requested. The second part of it, though, she had difficulty complying with.
“How’d you know where I was?” she asked suspiciously, keeping her voice down so it would not echo. She hoped that question, at least, would be a safe one in the open.

A Land of Wonder and Nightmare

Elayra snorted at his comment of, ‘not bad,’ her gaze darkening at his smirk. “Shut up and just do it. You’re wasting time,” she snapped.
She watched Ghent try to mimic her position, then quickly summoned a shield in front of her, just in case. It curved slightly over her head and sides, ready to deflect any flying debris in case he really did blow the store to oblivion. At his comment about her nickname for him, it became her turn to smirk.
“Would you rather ‘Stumblebum,’ Featherhead? Or maybe ‘Dunderhead?’” She crossed her arms. “Because all of those would suit you rather well.”
She rolled her eyes at his reaction to saying the focus word. She listened to him when he said it aloud, giving a slight, satisfied nod when he said it correctly. When he began to search for the world’s magic, Elayra grew tense, her gaze shifting between him, the store, and the roads. She scanned the shops, making sure no one was watching, or showed any sign of having seen her use of magic.
Time seemed to drag on. Though no more than a minute could have passed, Elayra started tapping her foot impatiently, the sound of her boot clicking against the concrete drowned out by the downpour.
“Nothing’s there.”
She scowled, and released her hold on the shield, making it disappear in a glittering burst. “It’s there. You’re just not looking right. You need to do this little thing called ‘concentrate.’ Maybe you've heard of it?”
She eyed him suspiciously when he stepped toward her, and took an instinctive step back before he gripped her shoulders. She reached up with both arms to push him off, but he spun her around. She blinked at the empty sidewalk now in front of her, wondering if there was something she was supposed to be seeing, some sort of hidden threat, her confusion the only thing protecting Ghent from her.
"Sorry. I think you're making me nervous.”
Her eyes narrowed and brows rose as she turned partially back around, realizing what he was doing, his back already to her.
“You’ve got to be joking,” she growled as he returned to his place at the opposite side of the awning.
She ran a hand down her face as Ghent grew still. For their sake, she tried to keep from looking at him, but she could not stand having him at her back about to try his hand at magic, especially after the last time. Without a sound, she turned mostly back around, her back hunched slightly, ever at the ready to act should he prove successfully unsuccessful.
This time, she did not have as long to wait.
The full word had barely left his lips before a powerful burst of air and energy erupted an inch from his palm. It carried enough of a backwards rush to make Elayra’s waterlogged hair billow wildly around her face even from her distance. Though Ghent could sense the slight dwindle of the magic over the span between him and the shop, like an unfamiliar sixth sense, the burst hit its target. It shattered the storefront window into hundreds of thick shards, sending them flying through the air from the force of the rotating gale like tiny, knife-like missiles.
Predicting the end result a millisecond before it happened, Elayra leapt across the space between her and Ghent as she summoned another shield. She tackled him to the hard, wet ground, directing the shield to cover both of them in a protective dome. Before the two hit the ground, she sensed and heard a few of the shards collide with her shield.
She laid there for a short second to make sure the threat had passed, hoping she had made it to Ghent in time to keep him from getting skewered.
She quickly propping herself up, her forearm on Ghent’s side. Once more, she dropped the shield, and the torrent of rain she had thrown them into poured over them as she looked him over, hard worry in her gaze.
“You alive?”

A Land of Wonder and Nightmare

You actually want me to choose? I might have to agree with you about Shiro (THAT SEASON FINALE WITH HIM! *Cries about having to wait.*), and maybe either Lance or Keith. But Hunk is so hilarious. And Pidge is the only girl, so she totally gets bonus points for that on top of her major techno skills. xD And Coran is, well, Coran. Must I say more? *Gasp!* Really, about season three? *Looks it up.* Ha! That same friend is planning on visiting again around then. Guess I know what I’m going to try talking her into while she’s here! Maybe I should start re-watching it to give myself a refresher of everything.

Awesome. Let me know what you think! I’m sorry to hear that your stress levels are that bad. I kinda feel you there. Let me know if there is anything I can do. Including listening to you vent. PMs are beautiful things for that. Hope you find a way to lower them! Ha, nice about the jackets. Have you seen the new Spiderman movie?

Yes. Just yes to that picture. It’s irritating, to say the least, that people actually think like that.

Nope, I haven’t, as far as I can remember. >:-D

Of Science and Magic

Hey, as long as you end up catching up in the end! Heh. We just need to be in the same time when they meet.

Hmm. Would you be okay with saying that pausing time would have been extremely difficult to do, and taken a good amount of preparation for his grandfather to accomplish?

I can’t remember what all we established about werewolves. Besides that it’s unknown if they’re creatures of magic or science, and even thought to not be of magic, science, or even neutral in some cases, but some mix between the three that makes them unstable and thus capable of turning into wolves, or even having a couple magic-based abilities. But they wouldn’t be capable of being an actual Mage as well as a werewolf. Unless we didn’t actually establish that, and that was just something mulling around my brain.

Okay. The original first time skip posts were planned something like this, since you wanted to add more of Byrce’s backstory and what happened between our ‘then’ and ‘now:’

Me: Present day intro for Thea
You: Past intro for Byrce, less of a time-lapse at start.
Me: Present day continuation, leading toward Thea’s escape.
You: Finishing up past info and going into where Byrce is at in the present.
Me: Thea gets out. Set up for meet-up (based on your last post) between Thea and Byrce.
You: Whatever you decided to do with that set up!

How it’s going at the moment, is looking more like this:

Me: Present day intro.
You: Past intro, less of a time-lapse.
Me: Present day continuation, leading toward Thea’s escape.
You: Past continuation.
Me: Final present day continuation leading up to Thea’s escape. Currently where we’re at.
You: Whatever you decide to do next! It would be great if you could get him into the present day by the end of this post, but if not and you feel like going longer with individual posts, that's okay too. I would just need to know the general area that Byrce could be found in to know where she needs to be for them to meet.
Me: She’s getting out this post. Further delays in the dungeon would really only result in her recapture at this point. Any meet-up set up here will depend on your previous post. If you do not get him into the present (thirteen months after the ambush, ten-ish months from where you’re at, I believe), I'm sure I can figure something out to stall with Thea.

Did that help clarify it better for you, and are you okay with all of it?

Oh, and I had like half of my next IC post already written, so expect that here probably my version of later tonight. xD

Of Science and Magic

I take it we're extending the loner posts by one, then? xD Sweet. Means I get to add something in my next one I thought I was going to have to cut out for length's sake. I kinda need to have some idea of where Byrce is before I get Thea out (near or in a town/village/city? A lone, random cabin in the woods with his grandmother?), so if you find yourself in a position to get to where he is at in the RP's present day, that would be awesome. Remember, I'm writing ten months ahead of where Byrce is at right now. Gotta love RP time. Oh, and I was thinking that she'll escape just as the moon is rising, if that works for you, and we haven't discussed or otherwise mentioned a different time that I forgot about.

Don't hate yourself! We all have good days and bad days. Pretty sure I got most of it, but the end bit confused me, so I'm going to make sure I figured that out. Blue-eyed guy "killed" him, but his grandmother used some kind of magic/other remedy to make it so he survived? Oh, and I do believe it was murder we decided on being the charge, not just kidnapping, right?

Oh, and don't feel bad about making me wait. Stuff happens. And just do your best!

MONSTORY

Izzy suppressed a relieved sigh, both because Trevor did not question her further about it, and because it meant she could get out of dealing with the student council funds. At least, for the time being.
She gave an exaggerated, playful groan. “I suppose, that’s only fair.”
She gave him a thankful smile and stood. She grabbed her backpack from where she had leaned it against one of their table’s legs, shouldered it, and headed to the door. She paused with her hand on the doorknob, and glanced back at Trevor.
“See you Monday, then!” She gave him a quick wave, then entered the halls of the school.
Without a mass of students or teachers roaming about, the halls were relatively quiet as she made her way to the front doors. She had walked to school, as per her usual, so paying her home a visit first seemed a good idea so she could trade out her backpack for her bike, before heading to the abandoned school.

Of Science and Magic

Though quite late, I hope you had a good 4th of July--if you celebrate it!

MONSTORY

Izzy did her best to keep her face innocent beneath Trevor’s gaze, while her insides squirmed. He was smart, and she was sure he could see right through her.
She shrugged at his question, biding her time for a short second. If she brought him in on her odd encounter, there was the chance, as slim as it may be, that it could spread. Even the faintest whispered rumor tended to catch hold and explode, no matter how softly it was first spoken. Especially in halls filled with teenagers itching for gossip. And if it was something that could potentially escalate and spark Trevor’s dark subconscious again…
No. She would find out more about it, see if she could catch Riley at the abandoned school tonight and ask him, before potentially endangering anyone else.
“He just doesn’t seem like he’s doing so well. I overheard Mrs. Young talking to him about his grades slipping, and he’s been absent more than usual,” she fibbed. A guilty knot at lying to her friend formed in her stomach, especially after everything they had been through together, but, she tried to convince herself, it was for the best.

A Land of Wonder and Nightmare

Aww, darn. Oh well. I’ll try to find it somewhere else, then, if the mood to do so strikes.

Voltron! That’s such a great show. I ended up binge watching that with one of my best friends when she came to visit. You know, I didn’t even think about that! HA! That’s funny it has those similarities. I’ll have to give it a re-watch and keep a closer eye out.

Yep! Jim. I quite like Trollhunters. I would definitely recommend it, especially if you're a DreamWorks fan!

Doesn’t it, though? The world needs to come with a zipper built in or something, so when you’re overwhelmed, you can just be like, “Yep, it's time to check out.” You know, I think they make jackets with zippered hoods, thinking of.

That made me happier than it probably should have.

Seriously! Sometimes, if I like it enough, I’ll try to find a larger version of it. If I can’t find any, the smaller one usually gets used for something else besides wallpaper.

And Elayra knows to some extent what it was “supposed” to be like. Same! I can’t wait until they meet their first iconic character. At least, my version of the character! Muhahaha.