Completed (Flashback) It's All In Your Head

[Kuvarakh]

OOC continued from HERE

2nd of Fall, 420

For three weeks or so, Trask had been an absentee teacher, advising Kuvarakh to keep at the mirror-stare exercise until he no longer felt he was even in the reflection any more. Trask would disappear for days at a time and secret himself in his malediction lab upon his return.

It Did serve to grant Kuvarakh the time to actually develop his ability to distance himself from his reflection. Once or twice, he started to sense an echo of his awareness similar to what had happened the first time Trask had attempted to urge him to send a djed thought back to him. The odd result of that attempt being the primary reason they had departed from the usual training technique.

But as soon as he tried to focus on it, it was gone and he'd feel like he hadn't even begun his mirror-stare at all. The meditation technique he had developed in his alchemy class didn't help. It was strictly a motion-related feeling triggered by the alchemy process and the spinning motion of the acceleration of djed within the ring. The "whirlpool", as he thought of it.

He would start over, having been given no instructions to the contrary. Trask would make occasional appearances, asking him if he was gaining any new insights or sensory impressions. he would describe the "echo" phenomenon and Trask would tell him that was exactly what he hoping for.

After two weeks, Trask informed him that he had been trying to contact his old professor. It had taken several days just to find someone willing to give him that name, not to mention the time spent tracking the man down. Trask promised Kuvarakh that his days spent were not just stalling, that the "echo" sense he was developing was a standard development for many disciplines of djed-wielding and there would be a use for it down the road.

It had numerous applications, he said, but for hypnosis, it was fundamental. He had a long way to go yet, though, judging by his inability to focus on it without having it fade and cause him to lapse back into normal awareness. He told him that he thought that the reason he had such clarity of his 'separate' self that first time, was that he had put him in an hypnotic trance.

What he had him doing now was entirely self-generated and showed great progress. Many students didn't show any hint of the ability for far longer, which was why so many people never developed any djed-wielding at all. Trask was of the belief that ALL people could develop djed-wielding skills, but that for a select few, it came easily, and for the rest, it required patience above all. Too many people simply gave up, thinking it beyond their capability. And if they didn't have the will, and the patience, to stick to it, then it WAS beyond them, and should remain so. 'For there is nothing worse than an impatient magic user'.

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh told himself he was lucky to have had any sense of progress at all. He had to admit that Trask seemed to have a knack for boosting his motivation at the right time, Because it was, again, several weeks before he had more than just an 'echo' of his awareness occur.

Maybe his meditative calm was become more conducive, or maybe it was simply that, when he felt the 'echo' developing, he made no attempt to focus on it. Maybe it was both. But whatever it was, he saw his image blur in the mirror as his reflection adopted a double-vision effect. He tried not to focus on the paired images, tried not to differentiate one from the other. 'Let it happen on its own.' he told himself.

But they stayed stubbornly jumbled together. His frustration mounted as his progress, again, stalled at the same point. He sighed deeply and rubbed his eyes, giving it up for the time being. This visual separation of actual dual images wasn't really what he thought Trask wanted anyway. He just wanted a "sense" of being separate from his perception of his surroundings.

Kuvarakh already felt he had accomplished that, as demonstrated by the 'echo' effect. It was the fact that nothing had come of it. Well, not nothing, more like the opposite had come of it. If he could generate a deeper state of meditation, they both felt he might be able to reproduce the effect of that first attempt.

He closed his eyes and leaned back, relaxing. Adjusting his position to rest the back of his head on the edge of the window sill. He exhaled and opened his eyes, gazing at the ceiling. There was a blur in his line of sight and he focused on it, curious what it was.

Two things became immediately notable. The first was that what had been blurry was the unfocused decorative end of the pull cord to the window blinds hanging only inches from his face. The second, and far more significant one, was that, when he brought IT into focus, the few other features of the room in his field of vision at this angle immediately split into widely separated twin images.

He sat upright with a gasp, eyes wide, mouth agape. "It can't be that simple!" he said aloud. But, in his heart, newly invigorated with the awareness of how many times in his experience that last statement had been proven wrong, he knew it could.

[Kuvarakh]

But it wasn't THAT simple...

Sure, he placed his finger in front of his face and, sure, he focused on it. Sure, the background scenery broke into two identical, semi-overlapping pictures, but the effort to hold them apart prevented any attempt to achieve a meditative state. And, as before, the moment he tried to focus on just one of the two images, they slapped back together and left him back where he started.

But there was a difference. That little bit of eyestrain lingered strangely. Even after he relaxed the double-image focus it felt as though it remained in effect, as though his eyes were focused on a spot in the air between himself and whatever he looked at. It wasn't unpleasant, as though he was going to get a headache. Nor were the things he looked at out-of-focus. It just felt like he OUGHT to still be seeing double images, if only slightly.

It passed quickly. He felt both frustrated and excited at the same time. He was the verge of something, but he didn't know what. He ran the last several weeks through his mind trying to find the connection.The pieces were there, but there was always an obstacle. The focus trick to create a vivid double image seemed like the missing element, but he couldn't hold it while he meditated.

True to form, Trask burst in with perfect timing. "I found him! Your old professor!" he announced triumphantly. "He was sacked by the Board of Regents as an object lesson to - how did he say it? - 'those equally irresponsible meddlers in areas of research abandoned by proper practitioners as too volatile to control and criminally disrespectful of the sanctity of social stability and the reverence of the intended all-consuming cycle of life and development of the species of Mizahar as dictated by the gods."

"The GODS?" Kuvarakh choked, "Lhex' Teeth! Did they include Rhysol and Uldr in their 'Pantheon of Benevolence' as well? Damn Them! It's because of me they're doing this. My accident led to this. Technically, we were forced to conduct an alchemical activation on Andrik and Myself. But it was to Restore us! Not alter us! I tried to argue on his behalf, but they wouldn't listen. They were going to expel me, but the professor himself stepped in and argued that I was still affected and shouldn't bear responsibility for it."

Trask waved him down, "Kuvarakh listen, he told me about several things you probably didn't know, and probably still shouldn't know." At Kuvarakh's glare, he continued. "All I can tell you is that there was then, and still is, an..."expeditionary"...element among both the faculty and student body that he took the heat off of. A LOT of incidents were lumped on his shoulders to free up the more experimentally daring groups operating on campus a little while longer.

"He knew they had had their eye on him and he chose to keep it there. What happened with you WAS the "last straw", but he wanted me to assure you that, had it not been you, it would have been someone else. And what he learned, he said, was worth it. He has moved on and wishes you to know he has no regrets. The only reason they allowed that class in the first place was because they were going to burn him for it. He knew it at the time"

Kuvarakh was overwhelmed. He had always assumed that the professor had harbored a grudge against him. To find out he was so far wrong filled him with both pride and shame. Suddenly several things made sense to him. The way the professor had yelled at him at the time of the accident, accusing him basically of being some kind of 'plant' designed to discredit him. Some of the odd methods he had employed to get to the truth of things. All the after-hours planning and preparation. The cavalier attitude he had displayed regarding the University's "Manifesto of Discovery", as though he already knew there would be no acknowledgement of any accomplishment.

His resolve solidified as his respect for the old teacher soared. "Those bastards!" he hissed. He shook his head and took a deep breath. He straightened his back and turned to face Trask directly, "Then I'd best be sure I leave myself with no regrets either. I think I'm on to something, and your arrival is quite timely. I want you to put me in one of your trances. I want to try an experiment!"

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh sat, opening himself to the calm, to the orientation '...that all things are connected...That feelings are shared by pathways of djed from one soul to another through the focus of the mind...That to touch the thoughts and impressions of another, you need only direct your will to that other...'

Trask's droning voice settled Kuvarakh's consciousness into a mode of receptivity as he steered his mind to an omnidirectional embrace of his surroundings. His voice did not remark on the mirror. Kuvarakh had insisted that it be his own effort to focus on that. As he found himself enrapt in a full sense of the room around him, his mind touched on the mirror and his focus was alerted.

He maintained a general unfocused gaze in the direction of the mirror. He slowly raised his finger before his face and drew his focus to it. The mirror against the back wall doubled itself as did his image in it. Remembering the cord pull, he avoided looking past his finger while he let his mind flow to the images in the distance.

There was nothing to touch, he didn't really expect there to be. That really wasn't the point. The purpose had been to exercise his mind to separate his identification of self from his surroundings. Not to imbue a reflection in a mirror with a copy of his own self-awareness.

There was a pull, though. An odd reluctance to free his mind from the mirror. He recalled the strange sensation he had experienced back at the University when the "accident" had occurred. It was if some mental void was trying to fill itself from his consciousness. Anxiety gripped him as he felt the pull growing in strength.

His memory of the accident had a strange effect just then. He tried to release his focus on his finger, expecting it to cause the double image to rejoin and end the sense of separation. But instead, the reflected image on the left took on the appearance of Andrik, his lab partner during the class when the accident had occurred.

There was a rush in his ears, and he fell back crying the name "Andrik". He hit the floor on his back, feeling as if he'd fallen out of bed during a troubling dream.

Trask was there, helping him to sit up. "Are you alright? Did you see something? Someone? Why did you say 'Andrik'?"

He felt dizzy, "What?...Who?...Who is 'Andrik'?"

[Kuvarakh]

Trask was silent for a moment. "You don't remember Andrik?" he asked, not in a tone of recrimination, but of analysis. "Your old lab partner?...The university?...The accident?...You experienced a temporary boost to your ability to access his djed because of the accident. Do you remember any of it? It was a lot like hypnosis, according to your old professor."

Kuvarakh stared dully at him, shaking his head a moment later. "I DO remember my professor...Feldorin...there WAS an accident...Yes...yes, everyone was in groups of two. We all had partners." Anxiety strained his face, "Why can't I remember mine?"

"Calm down...calm down" Trask said, his voice soothing and generating a sense in Kuvarakh's mind that answers only come to those that apply reason to a problem, and that reason is only found in calm. After a chime, he went on, "What DO you remember, Kuvarakh? I don't mean back then, I mean just now, before you passed out."

For several bells they compared notes. Trask describing what the professor had told him compared to Kuvarakh's impressions of what had just occurred. There were some remarkable similarities. Both times, there had been a sense of a "pull" towards Andrik. Both times, the sense of pull had flowed through his head alone. Both times, someone had been caused to forget something named by Kuvarakh.

The only real difference was that, at the university, it had been Andrik that had forgotten, whereas this time it was Kuvarakh. Also, the first time, Kuvarakh had sensed the pull coming from Andrik, but this time, it was from his own reflection, so, in a sense, himself.

For several weeks they tried ways to trigger Kuvarakh's memory of Andrik in an attempt to help him get the recent events in focus, because, like Kuvarakh, Trask believed there was a breakthrough lying just beyond the forgetfulness obscuring his understanding of exactly what had happened.

But they made no progress. In fact, it was only Trask's hypnotic ability and foresight that prevented Kuvarakh from forgetting his own name. it was no trouble achieving the double image event now, but it seemed that all they gained were additional items of memory being lost. Nor did there seem to be any pattern to what was forgotten. Sometimes though, the memory came back relatively quickly. And while this was basically a good thing, it was also another puzzling inconsistency.

There was one consistent point Trask took note of, however. Kuvarakh didn't feel the "pull" every time, but whenever he did, there was always a loss of some memory. They weren't always significant, sometimes nothing more than having failed to put something away, or whether it had rained that day. But sometimes they were.

[Kuvarakh]

Needing a break, they decided to go into town for a few drinks and some relaxing diversion. There was a lute player that was becoming well known in a tavern that night and they went to see him. If Trask had known who this man was, he might have done this intentionally.

As the night went on, Trask noticed Kuvarakh looking strangely at the lute player on the stage. "Do you know this man, Kuvarakh?"

"I...I'm...not sure.....I think I...should..." he answered, puzzled and regretful.

Trask left the table and went to talk to the tavern keeper for a few chimes. He came back and sat down at their table again. Not sure of the best thing to do, he kept to himself that the lute player was Andrik. He considered putting Kuvarakh in a hypnotic trance, but was undecided on what to do while he was under, or if it might have some backlash on the lute player, since he was still clearly the focus of Kuvarakh's attention.

The music itself was entrancing, and as Trask sat there pondering what to do, he realized the lyrics were quite unflattering to the University, poetically citing totalitarian policies and unjust reprisals. The younger members of the audience were cheering certain passages quite enthusiastically. The lute player Andrik was definitely playing TO these people and ignoring the few conservative looking patrons scowling and motioning to the door. He launched into a song he called "An All Too Final Exam" as the younger crowd cheered him on.

"Uh oh..." Trask muttered as the angry patrons left. He figured twenty chimes to the University, ten more to report "seditious behavior" or possibly "inciting a riot" and gather a response team of thugs, and thirty more to return and set up an ambush right at closing time, about one bell from now.

He turned to tell Kuvarakh that he feared that a crew of traditionalist thugs were going to beat up Andrik when he left after the tavern closed, but saw to his surprise and uncertainty, that Kuvarakh had raised his finger in front of his face, his eyes slghtly crossed as he focused on his finger.

"Oh boy...here we go." he shrugged.

[Kuvarakh]

Kuvarakh didn't achieve any breakthroughs over the next bell, other than suddenly remembering who Andrik was. Trask seemed to think that was significant. But Kuvarakh was hesitant to rush over and make himself known. For one thing, he had a different body than when he knew Andrik from the University, and he had no idea how the man felt about Nuits.

For another, the old accident had not been a fun experience for either of them. It was a great relief for them both when it was over, but it hadn't exactly been a bonding episode for the two of them. And the difficulty with the University's political climate had thrown a damper on any likelihood of forming a friendship. No one from Professor Feldorin's class had been allowed to 'fraternize'. And judging by the rebellious nature of the lyrics he had been singing, things there had not improved.

Soon the last set was over and Andrik packed up his lutes and took a break, sitting with the younger customers that had been cheering the most. It was a courtesy most performers extended to the members of the audience that showed the most appreciation. And he had a to wait for the owner to tally the draw and pay him.

Trask went over and spoke to him for a minute. Kuvarakh was expecting Andrik to make some gesture of recognition, favorable or otherwise, but that apparently wasn't what Trask had said to him. Andrik looked at the front door and then grabbed one of his lutes and took it behind the bar.

The last party of students left and Trask turned his stool towards the door with an odd look on his face. Andrik returned to do the same, removing the remaining lute from its case. He didn't start playing anything though. Something about the way he held it made it look heavy. Kuvarakh started to rise, but Trask immediately waved him down and made a gesture to drink.

Being a Nuit, Kuvarakh didn't drink, although he had a mug of water on the table before him. water was one thing Nuits could refresh themselves with to some extent. It didn't rot in the unused stomach, and in small quantities, served to keep an overall presence of necessary moisture. He knew a Nuit could die of dehydration the same as any other race.

He was just beginning to wonder what Trask and Andrik knew that he didn't when he heard the slow, measured, threatening bootsteps of six men as they entered the bar with clubs and knives. Suddenly, it was all too clear.

[Kuvarakh]

Two of the men shot Kuvarakh a glance laced with warning as they spread out to form a wide circle around the table where Trask and Andrik sat, looking unconcerned. Kuvarakh pretended he didn't notice.

"Show's over, friends." Andrik said with mock sadness that the men had missed out by arriving so late. Trask just shrugged beside him, pulling a chair out as though offering it, but keeping his hand on it , his other hand on the heavy mug of ale he was finishing.

Kuvarakh chuckled to himself at his current mentor's ability to conceal his size while sitting. He was loathe to pull his daggers, but if the knives these men were carrying left their sheaths, he would answer.

"You've got THAT part right, troublemaker." the apparent leader began, "This town doesn't need your kind stirring up protests. Now if you want to pack up right now and head out, we'll be happy to 'escort' you, isn't that right boys?" his sneer was every bit as ugly as the laughter that answered him.

Trask eyed him with a look that took his measure and found him lacking. "Well, that's unfortunate, gentlemen," his sarcastic tone left no doubt that he was insulting them. "You see, I've made preparations for this artiste to stay at my home for the remainder of his contract at this fine establishment, and I would hate for my efforts to go to waste."

"Your FACE is what's gonna be goin' to waste, old man! You stay outta my way and you might be lucky to wake up at your home."

Kuvarakh was already on his feet. He began flipping chairs over on the tops of the tables as though closing up. He kept his back to the confrontation, but managed to keep his efforts to tables nearby. He knew what was coming.

One of the men spun and called to him to stop. Trask laughed, "He's deaf, idiot! You'll have to get his attention some other way." He watched as the man turned and started walking towards Kuvarakh. He tapped his knee against Andrik's as he looked the leader in the eyes, his own narrowing dangerously, "By the way, were you threatening me?"

[Kuvarakh]

Not actually being deaf, Kuvarakh could hear what was happening. He knew one of the thugs was approaching him. He knew that just before they guy touched him to get his attention, Trask would act. He knew that when Trask acted, there would be a lot of crashing and shouting noise. He knew this would make the man approaching him turn around, exposing his back.

Right on cue, and right in the middle of a sentence, Andrik flung his edge of the table up and spun out of his chair, snatching up the "lute" on the floor beside him. Trask kicked out at the underside of the partially lifted table, sending it into the face of the leader of the University's thugs. He used the chair he was still gripping as leverage to launch himself from his seat, spinning and swinging his heavy iron mug in front of the shocked goon on the right. The goon managed enough awareness to lean away from the path of the mug, but did not notice that, as Trask continued his spin, it brought the chair he was holding back around with much greater reach.

Pieces of the chair, and a selection of teeth littered the floor around the man as he crashed to the floor, the side of his face already swelling and discoloring. The man that had been on the left side of the table charged in, swinging a club. Trask parried it with what was left of the back of the chair he had hit the first man with. It served its purpose, but was reduced to kindling. Trask spun, swinging the mug backhanded, but the man grabbed his arm. He let the mug drop, grabbing the mug out of the air with his right hand, driving it into the man's ribs as he drove his knee into his crotch.

Seconds earlier, as the sounds of the first impacts filled the room, Kuvarakh heard the scrapes of the man behind him spinning around to see what was happening. He grabbed the back of the chair, upside down on the table before him, and whipped around, smashing it against the back of the man's head. What he didn't see until he was swinging, was that the man was wearing a metal helmet of some kind. He was still knocked forward off balance, but after catching himself on a nearby table, he spun around with a club in his hand and a sneer on his face.

"So, not so deaf as we are led to believe, is it? Well I hope you enjoyed your advantage, asshole. Let's see how you like mine!" There was a blur of motion and even as Kuvarakh spent the first fraction of a second to gauge what the man would do, it was done. He had hardly blinked when the man's fist pounded the side of his head like a sledgehammer. The room spun and the floor rose up to smash the other side of his face.

Dizzy disorientation seized his brain as the man leaned in close, knife in hand, to finish him off. It seemed that up and down were one and the same. two or three images of everything spun, diverged and coalesced before his vision. His thoughts swam in a soup of pulsing, changing pressures as scenery, near and far blended in a blur. His head felt stretched across the room and compressed into one spot at the same time. Standing, lying and in a headstand all at once.

The man perched the tip of his knife under Kuvarakh's chin as he leaned in so close, Kuvarakh could see his reflection in the man's eyes.

[Kuvarakh]

The bullying, the intolerance, the crushing of enthusiasm to view new attitudes with an open mind. And now, outright violence to silence the freedom to speak ones mind, when speaking out had never been so crucial to Mizahar's survival. The wielding of unfair odds, the deaf ear to alternative viewpoints being the tactic for those purporting to be held as leaders, when a united purpose was never more essential!

It was self-defeating, it was criminal, it was madness! It would bring everything to ruin. And these fools embraced it with thuggish glee! Kuvarakh's anger drove the fear of pain and injury and possible death from his mind. He focused his thoughts to shout defiance into the face of the knife-wielding man leering over him.

There was on odd sensation as he tried to pull his consciousness into focus, a resistance, an instinctive drive to be aware of the entirety of the room. His anger reoriented this priority to the man before him. He felt this awareness flood back to him. His angry focus on the face grinning maliciously at him caused this awareness to rebound at the man, at his face, his eyes. He saw his own reflection. It radiated the anger he felt. He saw it. He felt it. He identified with it. He became it!

He did not know whether he actually spoke the words or not, but the will to overlay the concept, 'You're ruining everything!', over whatever else the man might be thinking, in his ignorance, poured from Kuvarakh's mind into the man before him.

The man's face swooned in confusion. He rocked back dizzily on his heels, dropping the knife and putting one hand on the floor to steady himself while the other gripped his own forehead tightly. "I...I'm ruining...WE'RE ruining EVERYTHING?...What...?" he stammered in a disoriented stupor.

Realization of what he'd just done nearly reduced Kuvarakh to the same stunned stammering as the man before him. Of course, the focus disappeared instantly. Kuvarakh got hold of himself, forcing down the impulse to try to regain the connection, knowing instinctively he'd be unable, and instead leaned in, thinking quickly.

"Idiot!" he hissed at the man, who stared up at him with a look of need to understand. "Stop them! We need Andrik in place, don't let those fools hurt him, he works for us! Where ever he plays, we find out who the troublemakers are!"

A look of horrified understanding gripped the man's features and he sprang to his feet, running to pull his compatriots away from Trask and Andrik. He looked back at Kuvarakh, who nodded and subtly indicated the front door. The others began to protest, but the man's intense insistence soon quieted them as they slipped out the door and left.

Trask and Andrik looked confused but greatly relieved. Though they had made a good showing, they were on the verge of being overwhelmed and they knew it.