• Closed • An asterismwarming reunion?

28th of Cylus 718

The capital city of the of Rynmere, here is seated the only King in Idalos.
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28th of Cylus, 718th Arc
Early evening
Doran's House, Andaris

nce he had heard the name of the ambassador from Etzos, it hadn't taken Sin long to confirm his suspicions. A few well placed questions and some random rumors picked up from the taverns closest to the ambassadors residence in combination with a healthy dose of guesswork on Sin's end had brought on the result he'd hoped for. Sin was in Andaris for the upcoming meeting about the VII problem that was plaguing the kingdom now and had asked around, using some of Tristan's influence and his name to get where he wanted to go. The house was a far cry from the rooms he used to live in and Sin had to admit that he'd been a little disappointed at first, seeing his old mentor flaunting his wealth like this.

The whole Oakleigh company had moved to Andaris this time. After the events of past seasons and the mage burning and VII attacks earlier this season, Sin wasn't going to take any chances. Full mobilization. Sin wasn't sure yet whether Tristan had come to Andaris because he was planning on attending the VII discussions or because he was trying to meet once more with a certain lady. Either way, Sin had left Iemes in charge on the Tristan front while he was running his own errands. Between the five members of his company and the Duke's own guards, Sin was sure the man was probably the safest person in the city at the moment. He pulled his focus from his charge and to the room around him. It was respectable but the newness, the recentness of the move into the new house was clear to the young Yludih.

He'd simply walked up to the door and knocked. A servant had opened and, using Tristan's name once more, Sin had been given entry into a waiting room of some sort. Comfortable chairs were placed in the room so people could sit and relax while they waited for the ambassador to make the time to see them. Apparently, the ambassador was a busy man with a busy schedule. He had been meeting with various nobles on the island since his arrival, making connections with all of them, Sin assumed. He had known the man long enough to know how he'd make sure he had a good, if not the perfect, angle or bait to get them to support him, one by one.

Sin turned his head away from the generic landscape painting that hung on the wall as the door to the room opened once more. The same servant who had received him stepped back in and nodded. It was the 'the-master-has-deemed-you-worthy-so-follow-me' nod that servants who worked closer to the crown used. Sin got up from his chair and began walking after the man before stopping and turning back. He'd almost forgotten the empty rolled up scroll he had used as an excuse to get in. It was only natural that the Duke of Oakleigh would send his trusted right hand man with a message for the Ambassador of Etzos. Sin grabbed the scroll and followed the servant. The rest of the house seemed equally without a personal touch as he followed the man. It wasn't far from where he'd been waiting, this wasn't a noble residence after all, and they soon stopped in front of a door.

The servant knocked twice and then opened the door, inviting Sin to enter. He nodded to the servant, thanking him silently for his work and then stepped through the door into the next room. Sin couldn't tell what the other person in the room was doing but there was no room for mistakes. The shorter brown hair, the perfectly trimmed beard on the perfect jawline, the build of an experienced fighter and, while invisible, the steel vault-like mind of a scholar to boot. His hands without a single blemish even though they'd been coated in more ink in the arcs he'd known him than Sin had in his entire life. Piercing blue eyes, cold as ice, staring right into Sin's weakened asterism, judging him, finding him lacking and at the same time promising him that he could be better, much better, if he simply listened and did exactly what the deep and authoritative voice would say next.

It was as if Doran had stepped out of Sin's memory and into reality, right in front of him. "Eight arcs and you still look exactly the same as the last time I saw you, Doran."
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The residence that the Mortalborn had rented for the duration of his stay in Andaris was located in Mid-town, but close to the Crown as was befitting of a high-ranking diplomat. It was far more luxurious than any of the places that he had lived in thus far. There had been a time when he would have frowned on such a display of one’s wealth – he had spent the better part of the previous decades living like an ascetic, abstaining from most sensual pleasures - but a part of him had come to enjoy his newfound power and the things that came with it, perhaps the result of Syroa’s growing influence on his life.

He was just sitting behind his desk – mahogany, with carved legs – and going through the letters that had arrived that trial – if he wanted to succeeded, he needed to be aware of what was happening in the kingdom as well as beyond its borders - when Elias, the war veteran that he had hired as a servant upon his promotion walked into his office, informing him that a messenger from the Duke of Oakleigh had arrived.

He looked up and raised an eyebrow, finding it strange that somebody would come all the way from the Eastern Settlement to see him. Was the duke whose position was somewhat precarious from what he knew looking for allies abroad now? He pondered the question for a moment, and then he gave Elias a sign to let his visitor in. He had decided that he would talk to him, even though he was not convinced that there would be anything to be gained from it.

He couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw who walked into his office. For a moment he just stared at Sintih, as if he were seeing a ghost, and then he abruptly jumped up, nearly knocking over a few things that stood on his desk in the process, and rushed towards him. He slammed the door shut – he didn’t want Elias or anybody else to listen to what he would say to Sintih – it would have disastrous consequences, for both of them – and then he spun around to face his former student.

He had hoped that he would see him again one trial – Sintih was his only tie to Beira, the woman that he had once loved, that he still loved to some extent even though it was unlikely that he would ever meet her again – but not like that, never like that. Seeing him standing there, as if there was absolutely nothing wrong, scared him … no, it infuriated him, almost beyond measure. What was the boy thinking?

“Explain yourself”, he demanded and walked up to him, until he stood directly in front of him. He trembled slightly. It took all his self-control for him not to lose his temper and simply lash out at Sintih.

“Why are you still here? Don’t you know that the king’s men are killing mages? Do you have a death wish? You should have left the country seasons ago!”
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owever Sin had imagined this reunion going, this had definitely not been it. There was a feeling of satisfaction as he watched Doran stare at him in what could be nothing more than surprise. For once he'd managed to throw the usually stoic alchemist off of his game. Whatever satisfaction he felt quickly turned to confusion as Doran suddenly stood up, so sudden he knocked a few things over, and rushed over to him. They had never been on hand shaking or hugging terms but Sin didn't think he'd mind a little show of affection from his old teacher. The distance between them was quickly crossed and Sin... wasn't surprised to have Doran pass him by and slam the door shut behind him. Of course this wouldn't be a heartwarming reunion.

Sin turned to Doran and found the man standing right in front of him, their eyes meeting. Arcs of experience told Sin that Doran wasn't happy to see him, not even a little bit. This was quickly confirmed by Doran as he almost bit Sin's nose of demanding an explanation. He managed to stand up to Doran for about a trill and then took a step back, seeing the look on the man's face. He regained some of his composure as the distance between them increased a little. "Well, it's nice to see you too, Doran. I'm doing great, thank you for asking. How have you been?" His rebellion was short lived after his sarcastic outburst and he fell back on years of practice. "The king's men are useless. Besides, I haven't used any magic since it became illegal. I'm as much a mage as you are to them." His arguments were weak, at best, but he really didn't have another explanation besides an uncharacteristical belief in the good in people. Or denial. It could go either way.

Up close, face to face with the man, Sin studied his face and found that age had done nothing to Doran. Eight arcs and the man still looked like he was in his late twenties, early thirties even though he'd been in his late twenties when Sin had first met him seventeen arcs ago and he assumed he'd been roughly the same age as his mother when they had first met which meant he'd been around thirty at the time as well. As far as Sin knew, Doran had met his mother more than thirty years ago. By all accounts the man should have been around sixty now. "It'll blow over soon. Everyone knows this is a mistake, apart from the king himself. Someone will manage to change his mind soon enough." Despite sounding like it, Sin did not really believe his own words. The nobility had never been competent and now that it was being led by a child...

It was curious how the distance between them in the past few arcs made certain things very obvious in this moment. Sin managed to find a bit of courage from whatever information he managed to glean off of Doran's face. "You're one to talk. They'll burn you just as quickly for being an alchemist as they burned that girl at the beginning of Cylus. In your case it's even public knowledge and people are stupid enough to not know the difference. Why did you come back here if it's so dangerous for u-... magicians?" Once he got going, that little bit of courage ignited older, stronger emotions and Sin found himself taking a step forward, closing the distance he had retreated earlier. They were once again in each other's face, both of them smoldering towards each other for entirely different reasons.
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As Sintih began to speak, the Mortalborn just stared at him incredulously for a moment. In all the four hundred arcs that he had been alive he had never heard anybody spout such an astonishing amount of nonsense in such a short amount of time before. He was at a loss for words, a first for him. When Sintih had walked into his home as if he were visiting an old friend and didn’t have a care in the world, he had been wondering what he was thinking, but now he realized that he hadn’t been thinking at all. A man that was thinking would never do anything like that!

“The king’s men are not useless, boy!” he informed him. His eyes practically seemed to be ablaze now – like two burning embers, almost mirroring Syroa’s own – and his voice was louder than before for a moment before he abruptly lowered it again to decrease the risk of anybody listening in on them.

“Have you not been paying any attention?” he wanted to know, a purely rhetorical question – Sintih’s being there made it obvious that he hadn’t. “They are dragging mages out of their homes and burning them alive! This is not a game! You are risking your life! I met with the Lord Arbiter last season. He may be a lot of things, but he is definitely not a fool. As for the fact that you haven’t used any magic since it became illegal …” He paused and shook his head. There had been a time when he had thought that there was still hope for the boy. He had obviously been wrong.

“Did you not pay any attention to what your mother taught you? It doesn’t matter whether you use magic or not. You still have your mutations and your spark. What if they have a way of detecting that? How long have you been living in this country, boy? The king’s new law has a lot of supporters. Most common citizens are afraid of magic! It won’t get better. This is only the beginning! There’ll be a war!”

As Sintih suggested that he might be at risk for being an alchemist, he couldn’t help but laugh, a bitter laughter for there was nothing amusing about what was happening. “I doubt that”, he remarked somewhat dryly. “The king’s men are more likely to try and recruit me, and I can handle the rest. When I met with the Lord Arbiter, he voiced an interest in alchemy. It’s mages, by the way, not magicians”, he pointed out. It was truly astonishing. Did the boy not even know the proper term for what he was?

“It’s not dangerous for me”, he disagreed as Sintih asked him why he had come back. He wondered if he had any idea what he had been up to during the past couple of arcs and that he had tried to kill an Immortal. Probably not. He seemed to be living in a world of his own and completely out of touch with reality these trials. “But we are not talking about my safety now. We are talking about yours. I promised your mother that I would keep you safe!"
word count: 548

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ne blow after the other. Doran wasn't holding back. Then again, had he ever? Sin had never really seen any sort of social grace from the man when it was directed at him and he'd always been able to take it, always been able to accept it as Doran's way, of teaching or of parenting, Sin wasn't sure, but it had been his way. Not this trial. The physical distance between him and his old mentor, the sting of his words and the fact that part of him agreed with the man all boiled inside. Logically, Doran was right and in his brain Sin knew it all too well but decisions weren't always guided by the brain alone. The emotions bubbling up from his asterism fueled his usually cold body with a heat he couldn't quite place.

This close to Doran, Sin could practically see the fire burning in his eyes. His asterism matched those two small embers as he waved his hand, dismissing the notion of the king's men being of any use to anyone. Parades maybe. Where Doran managed to contain himself and lower his voice to keep them from being overheard, Sin instead felt the need to raise his as Doran described the situation in Rynmere. The quiet head shake, the disappointed vibe Sin got from his teacher only pushed him more. His voice was sharp, as was the point of his finger jabbing Doran in the chest. "How would you even know what my mother teaches me?! You just vanished and left me behind!" An emotional slip up, one that passed Sin by without a notice. The outburst was short and sharp, enough for Sin to blow off some steam and get some semblance of control back. His voice lowered a bit as he continued. "If they had a way to detect sparks there would've been a hundred people on the fire, not just the one."

His illusion shifted as his jaw tensed. It took a lot out of Sin to keep from shouting some more at Doran. Of course, Doran was oh so amazing that everyone wanted him to work for them. He never made any mistakes. Sin took a visible breath, trying to calm himself. Then Doran decided that Sin needed more lecturing and the Yludih almost snapped back at him. "In Rynmere it's scum of Idalos and lawbreakers, by the way, not mages nor magicians." He tried to mimic Doran's lecturing speech a little, just enough to sound extra childish and annoying. He hated that Doran was always right and he hated it even more that he knew it and never stopped showing that he did. And then Doran went back and pulled the mom card once again.

"No! No. You don't get to do that anymore." Again the Yludih was poking Doran in the chest. "You up and left, gone without a trace. Your promise is worth nothing anymore." Other, older emotions mixed with the heat from his asterism. "You owe my mother nothing anymore." His voice raised as he poked Doran some more. "I'm fine. I'm safe. I know you think I'm just some stupid child! You never respected anything I did, never have and never will! You probably never thought so but I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. I don't need any help from..." Sin abruptly stopped his half shouted words, one poking finger hovering in the air between them, shaking. Everything about Sin, from his jaw to the fist at his side, was tense and shaking.

In the silence, Sin managed to slowly un-clench his poking hand. In a moment of indecision Sin's hand was hovering between them, ready to assault Doran with it. Both his hands came up between their faces and Sin slowly squeezed imaginary Doran heads between the both of them until they were both fists. Memories came to him, from a time when Sin had been a little Eídisi boy in a bed he could barely leave and Doran sitting at the end of it, looking exactly the same as he did now. A study at the university, covered in open books and paper bits scribbled full of notes, with Sin standing next to Doran and pointing out something in a book. Doran beating Sin with ease in the training yard. Doran questioning Sin who was having trouble remembering the answer. Sin grinding down certain rocks and powders while Doran was overlooking his work. For all the time they had spent together, Sin couldn't pull up a single moment where Doran showed him any sort of affection, where the older man ever tried to fill the void in Sin's life.

There was affirmation for his work, silent smiles or nods for when he did a good job. Doran hadn't been completely closed off from him but he never got closer than being a teacher to Sin. His kind words had always been a reward for good work, never any other reason. While Sin had wanted more from the man, Doran had been closed off from the start. He'd played the mother card a lot back then. Maybe, Sin had once thought, maybe Doran was just having a hard time because Sin looked so much like his mother. He had been more naive back then. No, Doran had never had any interest in Sin, only to keep him around as a souvenir that reminded him of Beira, Sin's mother. The anger, the pain, the understanding and the mix of other emotions he felt in that instance, were clearly visible on the illusion that made up Sin's exterior. With a sudden growl he pulled his fists down and let go of them, almost throwing the imaginary, now crushed, Doran heads to the floor. The anger turned to ice, his asterism falling back to the more natural feeling of a cold chill in his chest. Whatever this was, this was worse.

"You're not my mother, you're not even the person I needed you to be." His voice was sharp, hissing almost. Every word he could bring forth was carefully selected to hurt Doran as much as possible, or at least to hurt a person who had emotions as much as they could. "Maybe you and my mother had a thing once but it was just a fluke because you don't have a heart to feel with..." One last sting, one last bite. "...and on the off chance that there is something capable of feeling in you, I hope, no.." A sad chuckle from his end. "I -pray- to Ziell that he freezes the rest of it. You've never used it anyway." With that said, Sin stepped to Doran's left, reaching for the handle on the door.
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“I thought that teaching you alchemy and how to fight would be enough!” the Mortalborn retorted and pushed Sintih’s hand away so that he would stop poking him in the chest. He did not step away from him though, but stayed exactly where he was and kept his gaze firmly trained on the false Eidisi’s face. Had Sintih been anybody else, he would likely not have bothered, but told him to leave the moment that he had begun to lash out at him – he could not abide such behaviour – but he did not want Beira’s son to be burned at the stake because he hadn’t been careful enough and overestimated himself, despite everything.

“I had to leave. There was no other way. If I had told you that I would be leaving, if I had talked to you about what I was going to do, you would have been in danger. I was trying to protect you. There were people that were trying to kill me for what I had done. They would not have hesitated to use those that were close to me against me”, he spoke and looked directly into Sintih’s eyes, almost daring him to make fun of what he had said and call him a liar as he seemed to be wont to do.

“As long as you keep acting like a child, I will treat you like one”, he replied coldly. “And I will honor the promise that I made to your mother for as long as I live. It’s the only thing that I can still do for her.” His voice took on a slightly bitter tone as he said that, even if it was only for a moment. There were not a lot of things that he regretted – he was not prone to melancholy - but he wished that things had happened differently back then. Beira had been the light in his darkness and the first one in several lifetimes that had touched his soul. She had eventually chosen another man though, and he could not have taken her away from her husband, even though she had deserved so much better than him in his opinion and even though she might have lived longer without him.

“You were one of my most promising students”, he retorted. It was only too obvious what the boy was thinking. He had never had his facial features under control, and he only saw what he wanted to see, as always. “Some of your ideas were in fact brilliant. I just could not stand to see you sabotaging yourself again and again. If you had listened, if you had shown a little more self-restraint, you could have become the greatest of all! I was worried about you! I did everything that I did because I cared about you!”

“Don’t you dare”, he hissed as Sintih called what Beira and he had had a fluke and raised a hand. He did not care about any of the petty accusations that the boy had thrown at him – he had lived too long for that - but he could not abide him belittling what he had felt for Beira and making fun of it. “I loved your mother. I loved her more than anything else in the world. I would have done anything for her. I would have given my life for her!”

“I doubt that you would have to pray a lot”,
he remarked as Sintih spoke about Ziell freezing his heart and laughed dryly. The boy obviously didn’t have any idea that he was facing Ziell’s son. For a moment he could not help but wonder how he would react if he told him. “He would probably do it voluntarily. You don’t know him the way I do.”

Having said that, he quickly stepped towards the door and put a hand on the door handle in order to prevent the boy from leaving before he turned to look at him again. “I’m not done with you yet”, he informed him coolly. “You never told me what you needed me to be, but were only ever spiteful and jealous because you could not stand the thought of your mother being with anybody but your father. You claim that you are not a child anymore, but a grown man would be able to accept the truth!”
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alm and collected, the face of tranquility right in front of him. Sintih couldn't take it. Why was he always like this. Why did Doran never yell, never get angry, never... nothing. He'd seen cracks, over the arcs, a smile, a tightened jaw, emotions did exist within the man, but he kept denying them to Sin. Just standing there, preventing Sin from poking him too much but taking everything he said to him, yelled at him, and finding an answer for it. It was amazing to see such a brilliant man, such a learned and experienced mind being unable to understand what he wanted from it, what he needed from him. "Protect me? Keep me from danger? You mean like the wealth of safety I've got now? Is that the safety you were looking for by abandoning me again? You could have said goodbye or left a note even, something, anything."

Sin was glad he'd turned so outwardly cold. The emotions churning underneath were painful to bear and he knew they'd be even more painful to bring forth. Freezing the gates with cold, hard anger was the easiest way to deal with them in this situation. He didn't and couldn't accept the praise Doran was laying on him in that moment. He couldn't believe it. If he did, his entire reason for being angry fell apart like a house of cards. No, Doran didn't care about him, didn't think any higher of him than he did of the servant who led him here. Nothing he'd ever done or would ever do would be enough for his teacher, his mentor. His voice clung to a steady, hissing, cold tone. "You didn't care about me, you were never interested in me, only in my mother and your promise to her." He almost spit the word out. "That's all I've ever been to you, isn't it? A connection to my mother, a souvenir of someone you lost. You just kept me around to remember her, like a nice pet. Did you even want to teach me? You say you loved her but you never knew anything about her, not really."

He was getting to some dangerous terrain and he knew it. Yludih was a big secret, even for the "dead", perhaps especially for them. Doran was more than smart enough to figure it out if Sin gave him anymore. His illusion sucked in a sharp breath of air as he quickly wheeled back on just how much Doran knew about things. He couldn't stick around, he'd do or say something he wouldn't be able to take back and, even though he was currently outraged at the man, he didn't want to lose him again. Before he could get out of the room, however, Doran showed he was more than willing to continue the fight. The fact that Doran was completely right, as usual, bothered Sin more than it used to.

His hand hovered over Doran's holding the handle of the door. Don't. Just let me go, please? The cold anger within cracked. Don't look at me like that. "You know I don't actually need the door to leave here..." He growled but his voice didn't carry much of the previous fire or ice. He hesitated for a moment, hand hovering above Doran's. He wasn't stupid enough to actually use his abilities to get away from Doran. He didn't -want- to get away from Doran. Sin pulled his hand back and turned away from Doran, facing the room. There was a lot of room to move around in but none of it felt any further from the man than where he stood right now. "I thought you were breaking up my family, my parents. I didn't understand." From one trill to the next, Sin felt empty and exhausted. He could practically feel his emotions splash to the ground like water, gone in a trill.

He didn't want to fight Doran, he wanted to be angry at the man, he wanted to be right but he couldn't do either of those things. The only thing left, the one thing he could still do was reach for one of the tools Doran had handed him in their time together. Analyze, study and explain. It was curious for Sin to learn he'd long ago done the first two things as those answers came to him in a trill. Doran was right once again, self sabotage through denial. "By the time I did, by the time I knew you wouldn't take my mother away, by the time I started to like you, you were gone, vanished without a trace." He turned back to Doran, couldn't stand the distance between them, how close they were, and took a step back from the man. I understood that. You were just another doctor and your job was done." He actually did understand it. Back then Doran hadn't made any promises yet and Sin was simply Beira's kid. "Ten arcs later you were there again, dangling some promise to my mother over my head. I learned so much from you in the arcs after that. I couldn't stand you, not at first. But you were smart, maybe even a genius, and I could respect that, because I know my mother does. That respect grew to more, maybe even l-..." Sin swallowed the word. He couldn't break down now, he couldn't put the truth to words or he'd lose it.

"Maybe even more." Much easier. "But you never really saw me, did you? You looked at me and saw a promise. You only saw my mother, next to me or above me, and the promise you made her. She died and you couldn't see me because of how valuable the promise was to you." A little of the fire returned to him. "She was dead and we were alive, you and I, and you... you just couldn't see me. You clung to the dead more than the living kid in front of you. How would Beira have taught him? What would Beira have shown him? Beira, Beira, Beira... You loved her, maybe to an extent I couldn't understand back then, but it left no room for me. I understood that, not at first, no, at first I was angry and then hurt. But I understood. And after some time I even accepted it. And when I did, you disappeared. Again."

"You taught me so much about everything but the one thing I'll always remember is that you left me, not once, no, twice. You never cared about what I thought, about how I felt. I could have helped, I could have gone with, I could have..." Sin had moved further from Doran still and sat himself down on the armrest of one of the chairs around the room. Why was it so hard for Doran to understand all this? For a man with his intelligence, why didn't he already know all these things? He had never actually told him what he wanted from Doran, in that Doran was, as usual, right. Maybe... "I need... no..." Sin shook his head lightly. "No..." He looked up from the floor, right into Doran's cool eyes. "I want you to look at me and to see me. Forget the promise to my mother. Don't see the son of the woman you loved. Don't see the last remaining souvenir of a colleague you respected beyond anything else. Just me. I'm alive, right here, right now, right in front of you. Promise me, pl-..." Again, he cut himself off, choosing to keep the full truth from Doran over breaking down. There was more he wanted to say but it would simply be a repeat of previous words and if they didn't work the first time...
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“Yes”, The Mortalborn replied as Sintih accused him of just keeping him around as a souvenir of somebody he had lost and met his gaze. He would not lie to him, not anymore and not about something like that and soften his blows. The boy needed to face the truth – and accept that he had been wrong, in a couple of different ways. „I kept you around because you were the only thing that was left of her and because I had promised her to protect you and keep you safe. Sometimes I could barely stand looking at you because you reminded me so much of her.” The tone of his voice was harsh. “You reminded me of everything that had gone wrong – and of what could have been, of what should have been.”

“I didn’t want to teach you, at least not at first”,
he admitted and stepped away from the door again as it didn’t look as if Sintih was going to run anymore. The mask that he had been wearing all the time began to crack. Seeing Sintih again, after all those arcs and under such circumstances brought all the feelings that he had thought that he had buried for good to the surface again, all the despair, the bitterness and the nearly endless fury and jealousy – because that should have been his life, because Beira should have been his wife and Sintih his son. “I only did so because I couldn’t deny Beira what I thought was her final wish. It was the only thing that I could still do for her.”

“You are wrong”,
he spoke as Sintih accused him of never really having known anything about her. He was tired of feigning ignorance. “I know everything about her, and I’ve known for arcs. I know what she is – what both of you are. I know where she is now, that she isn’t really dead and that I can’t reach her without potentially tearing the fabric of reality apart and bringing the end of the world about.”

“Of course”,
he replied sarcastically. “You are a rupturer. The moment you use your magic, the Order of the Mantis will know what you are and come here – unless you are good enough to teleport to the other side of Idalos which I doubt. The last time you used your magic in my presence, you almost killed yourself. You don’t know what you are talking about. You truly don’t have any idea. If you had gone with me, you would have died, and I couldn’t allow that to happen because you deserved to be so much more than another one of their victims. I almost lost my life back there, on the battlefield in Oscillus, despite all my experience.”

“You claim that my leaving you is a sign that you never really mattered to me”,
he spoke. He took a seat opposite of Sintih, leaned back and met his gaze. A part of him felt exhausted, almost beyond measure, for a reason that he couldn’t quite define, and he had no patience left for any of those foolish games. “The opposite is true. I did everything that I did because I had begun to see something in you – something more than just a version of Beira that the Immortals had created in order to mock me, but of course I could never see you – because everything that you did and said to me was based on a lie. You never planned on telling me that you are an Yludih, did you?”

“Of course”,
he conceded because he was tired of all the lies. He had lied to both Beira and Sintih for arcs and never gained anything from it. If things had gone differently, if he had confided in her, maybe Beira would still be there, with him instead of far away in Uleuda with that husband of hers. They had both had their secrets, but he hadn’t realized that until it had been too late. “I kept a few things from you as well. Do you want to know why I lied to you? Do you want to know why I kept disappearing from your life, why there were people that were trying to kill me and why I claimed to know Ziell so much better than you do?”

When Sintih had stepped into his home, he had not meant to tell him anything because he had thought that he was a hopeless case. He had meant to just convince him to leave Rynmere, by any means necessary so that he would be able to keep the promise that he had once made his mother and be done with it, but as he looked at him now, he could see a spark of something … the same thing that made him care about him, back then, almost against his will. Besides, the boy’s outburst didn’t leave him entirely unaffected. Sintih had lost his temper before, more times than he could count, but there was something different about it this time. Beira’s son seemed … desperate, almost beyond measure.

“I promise”, he simply said as Sintih asked him to. “But I can never forget.”
word count: 878

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An asterismwarming reunion?

urtful and direct. Words meant to cause him pain. Sin did not doubt the truth in Doran's words. He never had before so why start now. One verbal blow after another, Doran wasn't holding back, not anymore. Seventeen arcs seemed to be spilling over in one go. A little bit at first but more and more as he continued on. Sin was strangely relieved to feel the pain he felt at the words aimed at him. Pain meant it mattered and in this case it confirmed that Doran did matter to him, even if he'd often been stubborn and always argued with him. It confirmed the results of his analysis, his study of himself, of how he thought about the man across from him.

For the first time in a long time, Sin could see emotions form on the man's face. Something more than a teacher upset or disappointed with his student, something more than a mentor approving of his apprentice's ideas or work. His emotions were just as clearly written on his own illusion as Doran revealed just how much he was aware of. The absence of a fight or flight response caused shock to mix with fear and awe as he stared at his teacher, illusionary mouth open just a little bit. "...How..." That was all he managed to utter in response. He'd only been exposed once before, the greatest betrayal of his lifetime, but other matters had taken priority then, like a crossbow bolt aimed at his face from mere inches away. Somehow, the reaction he had expected from himself never came. Should he defend himself? Find the problem and fix it? Pretend not to know what was going on? "How did you find out?"

There was no use in trying to hide it further. The extent of Doran's words told Sin that the man knew more than enough, almost as if he had lived the life himself. Yet, not really, as he stated that Beira was out of reach for him, which meant he was unable to sleep his way to her. Sin wondered how much that pained him, knowing exactly where she was and being unable to do anything about it. He wondered for a trill how he'd take it if Yana was suddenly removed from him like that. Before he could properly respond to anything, Doran continued on, talking while moving closer, away from the door. It seemed Doran had accepted Sin's desire to stay, despite initial words and half threats. Sin wanted to defend himself, tell Doran that whatever happened at Oscillus, he would have excelled there, he would have taken that battlefield and molded it to his every whim, as if it had been snow in his hands. But he didn't. He listened, he let Doran vent, no, emote and nodded.

As Doran admitted that he'd begun to see Sin's potential, Sin couldn't help but tear his eyes away from the man. In the corner of his eye, a crystal cracked silently and the slightest ray of light escaped before the crystal managed to remake itself. His illusion turned the light to water as Sin quickly wiped thumb and wrist against his face, hiding the tear as best he could. The Yludih question came up and Sin replied, mostly because he wanted to but the trained reaction to answer Doran's questions was still part of the reason as well. "No. I would have never mentioned anything. I'm Eídisi and that's all that is needed -here-. My mother never saw the need and she is a far more intelligent person than I will ever be." Even in his answer he didn't actually use the word, didn't say it out loud, out of a built in defense mechanism. Yludih training at it's best.

The next question, or questions rather, caught Sin by surprise. He could accept that Doran could feel more for him than he always had but that he wanted to share so many important answers with him in one go meant Doran was... was what? Feeling the same as Sin was? Trying to connect? Sin had trouble thinking of Doran doing either of those things, despite earlier proof. Sin shifted backwards on the armrest and let himself fall back into the seat, one leg hanging over the armrest. Not his most respectful position ever but then again, it had been quite a shocking afternoon, a little out of character should be allowed. Even Doran was saying things Sin had never thought possible. There was no answer, not at first. Instead, Sin tried to figure it out for himself.

Why would Doran have people after him? Magic had only been outlawed a few seasons ago so it wasn't because of that. He was a scholar first, despite being a fighter as well. Maybe something to do with the university? But then what did Ziell have to do with it? Sin didn't think Doran was just claiming to know Ziell, Doran never claimed anything he could prove with ninety percent certainty, or at least he never had around Sin. "You're not an Immortal..." Sin shook his head as he put his statement out there between them. "There's not enough..." He motioned with his hands, trying to indicate something more, something bigger. "Power, I guess. Not that you're not powerful." He added quickly. The more he spoke, the more he set his mind to the task, the more he got out of his leaned back, slumped position. His leg came off of the armrest and sat up straighter.

"But something connected with an Immortal like Ziell." He remembered Doran's words in regards to his own faith, or faiths, as he sat up fully straightened. "Not a champion either... I doubt you'd accept an Immortal like that." How right and wrong he was in that statement would surprise Sin if he really knew. He grabbed the chair by both armrests and lifted it while turning so he was facing Doran properly now, right across from him. More memories came to him, conversations they had shared, opinions Sin had set aside as simply being Doran dismissing his pupil's work. There were plenty of snippets lying around in his mind, things that held more value now than they did before but he couldn't place his finger on what that value was, exactly. He tilted his head slightly as he studied Doran's face more intently.

He remembered the feeling from before, from when they had been much closer together, the details in Doran's face, the absolute lack of aging since they had first met, the vast amounts of knowledge and skill Doran seemed capable of. It all meant something, something he couldn't put his finger on, not fully at least. Sin shook his head, stuck in his own thoughts. Not wanting to leave Doran without an answer, he gave him what he already had, the only logical conclusion, at least if you left magic out of the question, which was obviously out of the question for Doran. "You're not too different from my mother and I, are you? I mean... Not what you seem to be, human in your case?" He knew it was barely half an answer. So many things seemed clearly out of place now but what place they did belong to, Sin couldn't say. "Tell me." He half asked, half demanded from his mentor.
word count: 1269
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Doran
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An asterismwarming reunion?

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“With a touch of my hand”, the Mortalborn replied. At this point in his life he was utterly tired of pretending to be human and less than what he really was. He had attacked an Immortal and lived to tell the tale, and he would not go back to the life he had led before and become invisible again. He had spent centuries lying and moving from place to place so that nobody would ever find out that he didn’t age and that he had all those abilities that no mortal man should ever possess. “I’m no more human than you are. I am able to read the memories of the people around me, among other things. You had just told me that your mother had died, and I needed to see her one last time, even though it would only be in somebody else’s memories.”

“That was the only time that I read your mind”,
he said. He didn’t normally have any second thoughts about invading somebody’s privacy, and he didn’t apologize for doing so – the people around him with their ridiculously short lifespans mattered little to him – but he had promised Sintih’s mother that he would protect him. Did that not also entail protecting him from himself and never doing anything to him without his knowledge? He still remembered the moment he had found Beira’s secret out with the utmost clarity – and the remorse he had felt when he had reached for her son that had been lying unconscious in front of him …

For most of his life he had had little interest in mortalkind, but there had been something different about Beira from the beginning, something that had elevated her above all others in his opinion. There was a chance that Beira would be his now if they had confided in each other and trusted each other just a little more. Did her son not deserve a bit of honesty as well, that insolent, stubborn and nearly insufferable boy with his moments of brilliance that made him wonder what his own child would have been like if she had been allowed to live?

With his statement that Beira was more more intelligent than he would ever be, Sintih showed an amount of self-awareness that he had not thought him capable of. There were few people that would ever be Beira’s match in the Mortalborn’s opinion. She had even challenged him every now and then, despite the fact that he was so much older than her. As Sintih admitted that he would never have mentioned anything, the Mortalborn inclined his head, even though a part of him was still furious and would always be because they had not been honest with him – event though he was guilty of the same deed.

As Sintih insisted that he was not an Immortal, Doran laughed, finding the statement fairly amusing. “You haven’t seen me use my powers yet”, he replied dryly. He realized that he was treading dangerous ground now, that it would be foolish to trust Sintih never to use that knowledge against him just because they seemed to have reached some sort of understanding now, and yet he could not remain silent. He wanted more now, more than centuries of hiding his divine heritage and only ever doing what he did in secret. “I am not a champion. I found most of the Immortals to be volatile and untrustworthy”, he admitted. There had only been one who had ever given him something worthwhile – Syroa, the Immortal of Fury – but he would not talk about her now or mention the mark that she had placed upon his skin, as a sign that he was hers.

“Neither am I an Yludih. My father is Ziell, the Immortal of Winter”, he told Sintih. He spoke calmly, and his posture changed very little – he was not nervous, and he was not tense as he saw no point in either of those things - but there was something different about his gaze now. Ziell and the things that he had done and hadn’t done were the reason for everything that had happened during the previous arc. “I was born of his union with a mortal woman, when Rynmere was a very different place. I am not an Immortal, but I do not age, and in time I might be able to become as powerful as one. Others of my kind like Jesine and Kielik, have ascended before and gained the ability to bestow their mark on your kind. They call us Mortalborn.”
word count: 770

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