Closed Clipped Wings [Clyde Sullins]

[Annalisa Marin]

90th of Summer, 515 AV

Anna awoke in a cold sweat, breathing heavily. Her long dark hair was an absolute mess of tangles and her clothes were skewed and messy. Her single grey eye was dilated and searching around in naked fear. A shiver worked its way down her spine as the events of her dream were vivid in her mind. The destruction and chaos, the silver woman, her fall from the skies, and the terrible words. Not her worst dream by far, not even in the top ten really but it was enough to disturb her. The sorceress looked outside her window, the faintest beams of morning light shining through.

“A…Anna…”

The gravelly voice was spoken aloud, like stones grating against each other. It was weak, so very weak. Anna stared at the small form of Vex in her form of a Thorn Hare; she was easily small enough to fit in the palm of Anna’s hand. Alarm was written upon Anna’s face as she scrambled to the other side of the bed, staring down at her. The bond between them, already tenuis felt weaker than ever. Even this close it was next to impossible to form a mental connection. Fear, icy and real lanced through her body.

“Vex… what’s going on!? What’s wrong with you?” She asked, barely keeping her panic down.

“I… I don’t… know. I feel… weak.”

Anna’s heart stopped as she considered her dream from last night. Her magic. That was what the silver woman had claimed she would take from her. Vex was a product of that magic, or at least a benefactor of it. They were joined by it. Could it be that the dream- no. No, that was completely and utterly impossible. Short of Anti-Magic or some form of memory alteration or the intervention of a God or Goddess there was no way her magic could be gone. She still felt Rhysol’s power within her body after all. Surely her magic couldn’t be gone as well… could it?

The sorceress raised a shaking and sweating hand up to her face, swallowing hard as she stared at it. With fear in her very blood Anna searched within herself, grasping at the strands of her Djed. She willed it outwards, intending to form res. It was normally a laughably easy task but no matter how much she focused nothing happened. There was no rush, no res, and certainly no magic. Her eyes threatened to pop out of their sockets from the sheer amount they widened, her already pale face losing any and all color.

No.

No, no, no!

Anna was panicking at this point and tried to form a portal near her shaking hand. Nothing happened, not a single black dot opened. No magic at all. She tried to pull Djed into her eyes and nothing occurred. She tried to produce the threads necessary to weave a shield and still there was nothing. Her Djed did not respond to her commands in any way, shape, or form. It was as though all of her personal magic had been stolen away from her. All of it, from her strongest to her absolute weakest.

No, no, no, no, no!!

The sorceress was never one given to screaming but that is exactly what happened. She screamed. And she screamed. And she continued to scream as loudly as she could. If she still possessed her reimancy it was very likely the torrent of emotion swirling inside would have had the Safe Haven Hostel reduced to a smoking ruin of rubble. Her throat went raw as she fell to her knees on the floor, her fingers digging into her arms. She worked her way over to the corner of the room and held her legs against her chest, her pale eye still left bare to the world.

A mage. For the longest time that had been her identity. Her magic was her means of expressing herself to the world. The equivalent would be a master swordsman losing his arms. She had spent years mastering her craft, becoming the top of her field only for her magic to be stolen. It was like someone had reached inside of her and torn open a gaping and bleeding hole in her. She… she was useless now. What good was she to her master in this state? The sorceress was little better than cripple, hobbling through the world on one leg now. She felt tears spring to her eyes and, for the first time in a long time, she cried.

[Clyde Sullins]

90 Summer 515

Generally Clyde found the Safehaven hostel to be a quiet and subdued place. It being one of the only places for foreigners to stay, with rule enforced by the monks, one didn't often have disturbances.

Even compared to some of the darker bits of Ravok, the hostel seemed rather subdued. Then again in Ravok Clyde was at home, and likely that had a factor. Here he was a foreigner in a foreign land, trying to get things done while feeling unwelcome.

He felt apart from the others, and it had nothing to do with his being a Chaon.

At least in Sahova Clyde could properly use his magic, and so didn't feel quite so restrained. Likewise in Ravok he had his own home, his own lab, and could do as he saw fit in regards to throwing fireballs and casting spells.

Clyde slept in his somewhat uncomfortable bed, Cha clutched to his chest, when he was pulled fully awake from his mind's wanderings and thoughts on his situation.

He hadn't been asleep, but neither had he been fully awake, instead he'd been in that odd space in between where ones mind often wandered and thought about many different things.

It took Clyde a moment to realize he'd been awoken by screaming. It took another few moments to realize the voice he heard screaming was vaguely familiar, though he couldn't immediately place it.

Rolling out of bed Clyde came to his feet, and after groggily rubbing at his eyes with his free hand he headed out of his room. With the clear screams reaching out to his ears it wasn't too difficult to find the room in question with the oddly familiar sounds.

However as he neared the room the screams stopped, stopped before he could even approach the door and knock.

In the wake of the screams, the odd silence seemed... Odd.

Approaching the door of the now silent room, Clyde knocked three times, using the head of Cha as a knocker against the wood of the door.

He struggled in his memory to place the voice, but he couldn't quite do so. Perhaps though it was because while he'd heard the voice, he'd never heard it screaming as such. But Clyde knew a pained scream when he heard one, and he had a feeling it wasn't due to some physical pain.

After all, if one was that injured and in that much physical pain, one would likely die before screaming for that long, or would lose strength slowly over time. Not stop all at once. Logically, that seemed to say to Clyde it was another type of pain.

[Annalisa Marin]

Anna clutched at her skull, pulling at her hair so hard that it was threatening to be pulled out. Her eyes were wide with the purest of terror as cold sweat perspired across her body. The gentle rocking back and forth in her corner was mostly unconscious though it certainly wasn’t helping the fraying edges of her sanity. This couldn’t be happening. Not to her! This was the nightmare, this was the horrible dream. She just needed to wake herself up, to close her eyes and will herself to open her eyes in the real world. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t real!

She squeezed her eyes shut and hugged her knees to her chest, willing herself to wake up. A tick passed, then a chime yet still when she opened her eyes she was still in the corner. Desperately she tried to form res in her hands or anywhere on her body. She knew the Djed was within her, she knew how to reach for it yet every time it did the power eluded her grasping fingers. There was nothing, nothing but a massive yawning chasm. There was no rush, no great surge of euphoria. It was true. This was real. Her personal magic… it was gone.

A whimper escaped her lips as a knock sounded on her door. Her mismatched eyes darted towards it, her magic deprived state inducing paranoid thoughts in her. It was them. It was Sahova. She had lost her magic and now they were coming to take her back to the island kicking and screaming. The sorceress swallowed hard feeling true terror as she imagined all of the nameless torments to be delivered upon her. Whoever was at the door she didn’t want to see them. She hadn’t bothered to lock the door, a foolish move though she had not felt the gesture necessary. Not when she had possessed magic.

“Go away! It’s already gone! My magic is already gone, must you take everything from me!? Go back to your island you walking corpses! Leave me!” She shrieked.

They wouldn’t leave though, she knew that much. They were going to come in anyway. Well, she had a surprise in store for them. Annalisa Marin was not just a mage after all, she was a Chaon. She still felt Rhysol’s touch upon her; still felt his mark staining her very soul black with his influence. Her eyes were focused upon the door, the white orb marking her as a favored servant ready to peer into the depths of the person. She was going to show the corpses what true terror was.

Rational thought had fled the sorceress in that moment. In her mind the person at the door was a Sahovan Nuit sent to drag her back. It was the only thing that made sense to the distressed woman. After having the second most defining thing in her life stolen from her, Anna was as frantic as they came. Confronting a frantic twice marked Chaon was perhaps not the most healthy thing to do.

[Clyde Sullins]

When Clyde heard speaking from within, words in a voice he knew, he was surprised to say the least. His cousin, none other than Annalisa Marin, was here. Not only that, but she was the source of the screaming.

Clyde wasn't sure why she had been screaming, or what she was doing here, but it certainly made him curious.

“What the petch.... Anna?” The earlier words were more spoken to himself, the last one of his cousins name was spoken to her and more loudly.

It did explain the touch of Chaon he felt from within, though it was different than the last time he'd met her. Stronger. He hadn't seen her for awhile, not since she'd unexpectedly disappeared from Sahova. He'd never gotten an explanation, or a reason why she'd left, she'd simply been gone.

“Anna what are you?” Clyde paused, opening the door, stepping inside to see his cousin.

“Anna, what are you doing here? Whats wrong, and whats going on?”

Somewhat by instinct, and somewhat out of habit or a natural caution or defensiveness, Clyde extended his own senses, willed his aura to rise and spread. He imagined his aura as a cloud about him, and he focused on sending out a tendril to seek out and latch onto his cousins aura. Locking onto a single aura at close range was a simple thing.

While a full reading or anything proper would take a long time, it would take but a single look to ascertain that it was his cousin's aura. He'd seen it before, though he'd been less skilled then. But he knew aura's quite well now, their distinctions, and didn't doubt he'd know right away if it was her. Even better than looking with his eyes.

He had many questions for her, starting with why she'd been screaming in her room. And why she was here.

[Annalisa Marin]

Anna had been prepared for anyone entering through that door. She had expected anyone up to and including Daren Marlow himself, there to steal away her memories. The crazed hypnotist was a distant memory by this point but for some reason she was expecting him. How twisted would that have been? In her weakest moment, when all of personal magic was stolen from her he would appear with that crazed look in his eyes to steal away everything from her. All of her memories, all of her ambitions and dreams, even her faith in Rhysol would be stripped from her piece by piece while she was helpless to stop it.

The one voice she had not expected to hear however, was his. She immediately stopped her rocking as the voice triggered something in her memories. Not all of her time upon Sahova had been sheer mind bending horror. Indeed, some of it had been downright enjoyable. Some of that time was spent with him. It had been admittedly brief and brought to an end too quickly but it had been fun. Refreshing was what Anna might have called it. If there was any person on Mizahar she wished she could actually have trusted, it would have been him.

The door opened wide and Anna stared as he entered. His blue staff was unmistakable The same blue staff she herself had helped to create. Clyde Sullins entered the room, looking just as surprised to see her as she was to see him. Honestly the sorceress had not expected to see him again after departing Sahova. Now he stood before her. As she stared at him her blessed eye could see in her mind’s eye Clyde’s greatest fears, desires, and insecurities. They flashed through her head, seen as easily as he could look upon her aura.

“I… Clyde…” She said, her raw voice coming out as little more than a croak.

Immediately it all came flooding back to her again. It was gone. It was all petching gone. Her magic. Her means of expressing herself in the world was just gone. She might as well have lost and arm. No, losing an arm would have been preferable to… to this. With this it was like a very piece of her soul had been altered. It was a violation of her very being, one of the things that made Annalisa Marin, well, Annalisa Marin. It rent at her very soul to think of what she had just lost.

“Anna…” Vex tried to say something, letting out a pained gravelly groan upon the bed.

Hearing her once confident voice as such hurt Anna as she hugged her legs tighter against her chest. Her eyes possessed a haunted look about them as she started to look past Clyde. Like she had noticed him for a moment but then he had vanished. She looked down at her bare toes and stared at them. The rocking started again as she started speaking, though from her words it was very likely she wasn’t so much as talking to Clyde as herself.

“It’s gone. My reimancy, my voiding, my auristics, all of it is gone. It won’t come forth when I call it. My magic is gone. Its petching gone! Just like the dream had told me. I can’t generate res, or even just a tiny portal.” She rambled.

“I’m not a mage anymore. What is the point of these scars on my palms now? Of the pain of the initiation? Of all those days spent meditating to open my first portal? What does any of it amount to now? I’m a wizard with no magic. What a joke. What good am I as a tool to Rhysol now?” She wondered aloud, despair rising up in her.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde, as his aura sense pressed against Anna, felt the familiar contours of her sensing, of the Anna-ness that was unmistakably her. It couldn't be faked, at least not as far as Clyde knew. It was her.

Though Clyde still felt it odd that they'd meet by such chance. Often, Clyde reminded himself, there was a hand in something if things appeared to be occurring by chance. Someone manipulating or arranging things so they happened as they did.

It might be called mild paranoia, but Clyde preferred to call it a healthy sense of suspicion.

While Clyde was getting a sense of Anna, unknownst to Clyde his cousin was doing the same to him. Likely what she'd see would be surprising, even more so than unexpectedly meeting Clyde. Though perhaps it would make some of the things he said, particularly afterwards, make more sense.

His greatest fear was of forgetting. Forgetting who he was, and thus losing his identity. His person. His magic. Of forgetting and not even remembering what he'd forgotten, or that he had forgotten. A fear gained by having just such a thing happen before.

His desires were varied and broad, and a specific instance of his greatest one was much harder to hold separate as the greatest. They did however have a common theme, that of ambition, or perhaps what some would call greed. A hunger. More knowledge, more power, more influence, more money, more and more and greater and on... A hungry chasm that could not be filled, that would not be sated. A never ending reach for higher and greater that could not be satisfied, and if it was reached would only lead to reaching for higher.

His insecurities were also not so well defined. Who he was, his purpose, what he was meant to do, if he would achieve his own great expectations, his need for progress and gain, weighed on him to varying degrees.

When Anna finally explained what had happened to her, why she was bereaved, he felt many things. Pity wasn't one of them. More so he felt a need to shake her out of her sulk, to kick her into action and get her to DO something about her problem.

“Get over yourself Anna. You think you've got it bad? Consider yourself lucky. Worse...” Here Clyde paused for a moment, a small bit of pain at the memory. “Much worse things could have happened, and have happened, before, and will happen, in the future.”

“So you lost your magic? So what! Get it back. If you know you lost it, know what needs fixing, then you fix it. Find out the cause, find out the solution, figure it out, and solve it. ”

“But what good is crying and moaning over it doing to fix things? Find a direction. Find a purpose. But don't sit there and pity yourself. Consider yourself lucky. And maybe you'll even learn a thing or two from it, if you make it through.”

From his words, Clyde seemed to have an awfully clear opinion on the subject. Implying perhaps that he'd thought thoroughly on the topic before, or had perhaps even had experience in the matter himself. After all, it wasn't a topic one just stumbled upon and had a fully formed opinion on.

Perhaps it was this reasoning that he ended on a somewhat softer note.

“If a tool loses its edge, then one must either resharpen, or re-purpose it. If its initial purpose can't be met, then it must be reforged or renewed for a new purpose. A broken or dulled tool though has not lost its purpose. It must simply find a new one, until or if it is repaired.”

[Annalisa Marin]

Clyde’s words were biting, perhaps to some they might even find it cruel. Anna however found them almost comforting in a way. It reminded her of something Amaryllis might say in this particular situation. The Chief Embalmer of Sahova was horrible to her in so many ways though she had also taught the sorceress so much about how the world worked. The Nuit had seemingly lacked any form of magic and had become one of the most powerful beings on the island. The sorceress frowned slightly as she looked up to her cousin, her eyes narrowing slightly as she recognized his existence once more.

The twice marked Chaon could feel his presence rather easily through his blessing. She could understand who and what he was. As such she focused upon that. She had lost her personal magic yes but perhaps… Immediately Anna started tracing her finger along the floor. The movements were instinctual as she traced the pattern of her Focus Glyph. A sigh left her lips. She still had her connection to Rhysol and still had her world magic for whatever it was worth. That was something. With this in mind she stood upon shaking legs, drawing herself up to her full height and nodding to Clyde.

“What are you doing here? Last I remember you were still upon Sahova.” The sorceress inquired.

It was then that Anna realized she had made a very dangerous mistake. If Clyde was indeed still of Sahova then he could be here to drag her away. She licked her lips slightly as she crossed towards her bed where Vex lay, sitting near her diminutive familiar. Her eyes never left her cousin, ready to spring the power of her blessed eye upon him if necessary. Even if he was not of Sahova any longer he was still a fellow Chaon. Anna knew quite well what their lord demanded of them. Quite well indeed.

“And besides that, do you understand how it feels to have your means of expressing yourself stolen from you? It is as though a limb has been cut away from me. If you suddenly lost your magic would you react any differently? Once stronger than most mortals can hope to be, then all of that is gone in a single instant.” Anna growled, her anger returning to wash away her despair for the time being.

As for a way to fix this. The dream had said… something. It was so fragmented and broken it was hard to reach now. She remembered her magic being stolen but beyond that when she reached for anything else it fled her grasp. Not that it wasn’t there it just continued to gleefully elude her grasping fingers. Of course the biggest question was why this had happened. Why now and why to her of all people? Certainly she was not the only mage to use magic for selfish ends. Sahova had far more people deserving of such treatment in her opinion.

“Anna… the knocker…” Vex reminded.

Immediately the sorceress felt her blood freeze. That was right. The knocker. She had used it yesterday. At the time of tapping it nothing had happened of course. She had assumed that was it then. It was just some legend of the city she had proven false. It seemed far too convenient to have just finished with that and then the next day she was no longer a mage. It was the only culprit she could think of. Though… Clyde appearing when he did was also rather convenient, the paranoid woman thought as her eyes flicked to her cousin once more.

[Clyde Sullins]

Clyde was not one to suffer a fool or a complainer. Nor was he to suffer someone whining about something he'd experienced, only worse.

When she frowned back at Clyde he did not respond, except to keep his face solid and empty, not angry or sad, not happy or mad, simply stern and serious. Ungiving.

However quickly she pressed on from her annoyance at Clyde or his words, to questioning him. Already she sounded more like herself, as she asked him why he was here. The fact that she'd not answered his own question to her of why she was here... He was a bit annoyed that she'd ask him the same question she'd yet to answer for him, but didn't dwell on it. He breathed in once, let it out slowly, and pressed onward. He did however have to pause and think a few times, as recalling dates off the top of his head wasn't one of his forte's.

“I haven't been on Sahova in... Awhile. Left back in... Uh... Last fall I think. Went to Ravok for awhile. Left there last season, spring, and ended up here this season.”

In response to her second question, asking if he knew what it felt like, felt like to lose your way of expressing oneself, he simply glared back at her, now with a cold look on his face as he answered with a simple “Yes.” He didn't explain any further than that, any didn't feel like going into his past and retelling what he'd gone through.

“I'm sorry to disappoint you, to be the one to tell you, but your not the only one who has ever had problems in their life. I'm sure this feels like a lot, as it just happened, and you are still coming to terms with it, but worse things have happened. Trials are not the end of you, unless you let them be. Either you quail and give in, or you strive on and become stronger for them.”

“So besides whining, what do you plan to actually DO?”