1st of Vhalar 721
Woe was within the small but growing library in Egilrun's outpost for the Order of the Adunih. One of the more recent acquisitions crossed his desk. He was already known by several members there to have been a mage, once upon a time. One with considerable experience and exposure to the world of the magi. Not only had he been a master in the Domain of Runewrighty, or Hone, but he'd been an expert in Empathy, Attunement, and even had some small experience with Abrogation.
He knew what it meant to be swayed internally, to be torn apart and rebuilt and readjust one's outlook to accommodate the foreign presence within, trying to pull you one way or another. In the event of so much conflux and personal conflict, one had to return to some sort of center, lest they be torn apart. Often Woe wondered how he had managed to maintain any sense of self, particularly with the emotional tempest left in the wake of Empathic intrusion, wondering where one person's emotions began, and Woe's ended, and vice versa. Now, in the absence of that spark, since the Feast really, Woe had cause to wonder who had really emerged from the ordeal. A man reborn and refreshed, emancipated from internal conflict, or the wreckage of a person torn from his solid moorings, arcs in the making, and cast to the riptide.
The mortalborn was reading through a rather dry dissertation on the nature of becoming magic. Why this book had crossed his desk... well Jan knew Woe had been a mage, and wondered if this particular volume might be of value to their collection, as a manner of understanding, and thus helping, those suffering from arcane afflictions of the mind. Why he thought Woe was qualified to judge or heal anyone's mental health was well beyond his reckoning. Hopeless Llyr had called him once. And Misery Vega Creede had dubbed him. Neither being mutually exclusive, he resigned himself to both labels.
Hopelessly miserable.
He licked his finger, and flipped the page, getting past the citations and research jargon that showed anyone reading the pages within that the researcher had done their due diligence in coming to their conclusions. He had no real knowledge of this system of citation and reference. Woe wasn't an academic. What psychological acumen he possessed was mostly focused on detection, rather than understanding or control. Even so, he hoped to gain something of value from the volume he was reading.
Becoming... Woe knew Llyr was a becomer. A shapeshifter. He'd shown him several of his totems in his time. The Cat, the sister, the mentor, and the one who he took to be his true form. His self-totem, if the pages of this book had any validity. A Self-totem was that which was taken on initiation, the original form. In Llyr's case, this seemed to Woe to be of particular significance, as Llyr was not just any flesh, not just any individual soul. He was mortalborn. Like Woe, like Doran, like Vega, Kura, Ralgar, Natalia and so many others that Woe had a chance to meet.
He wondered sometimes if their fates were so interlinked that they couldn't help but bump into each other, as rare as they were said to be. He wouldn't believe they were as rare as it was assumed, given the company he often found himself in.
Nevertheless, Woe read on. His curiosity was motivated in part by thoughts of his former associate, Llyr, as interest in the arcane, as concern that this tome was worth sliding into the knowledge base of the Order. The opening line of the editorial portion of the book began with a rather provocative and intriguing phrase:
Who are you?
Some more jaded philosophers may disregard the opening line as blithely maudlin wonderings of a juvenile. Self-indulgent tripe dredged from the shallows of an unrefined and stilted psyche. Perhaps they were right, or wrong. Woe made no judgments, either way, more interested in the substance of the essay than the cheap hook used to grab his attention.
Instead, he read on.
The Initiation Ritual into the Magic Domain of Becoming begins with this fundamental question. Perhaps it is merely meant to test the disposition of the mentee when the mentor makes this inquiry...
Woe quirked a brow as he held the essay in his hands, holding down the pages as he read over that passage. Had the writer then experienced a becoming initiation? Observed it? Heard about it second-hand from a mage? Woe was finding the questions arising from examining the text slightly more intriguing than its actual delivery.
When the determination of suitability for initiation is made, the mentor will take the student, and craft what is called a Self-Totem. Using three sovereign substances, the Structure, Lifeforce, Visage consisting of...
Woe read past the technical aspects of the tome, wondering more with each passage why Jan had thought it worthwhile for him to examine. And there were many technical descriptions which were useless to the layman, and Woe had to think to magi themselves. Magi didn't become better magi by sticking their noses into books. They learned by actual practice, by channeling ether, thereby strengthening the symbiotic bond that the spark enjoyed with its host, and vice versa. Which begged the question, how did one judge a spark's symbiosis against its parasitism? The spark seduced each mortal it entered, causing them to change to suit its aims for that host. Its aspirations and desire to make itself manifest in the world of Idalos. To what end? Another question for those philosophically or metaphysically inclined. For Woe's part, he was mostly concerned with the consequences, and how one dealt with them. But then, sometimes one had to wrestle with the cause, hadn't they?
With the extraction of these substances, any three of the types will do, one would craft a singular item. Whether a finger bone smeared with blood and wrapped in a cord of hair, or a tooth, set into a ring of hardened skin...
Grisly work and Woe did wonder how Llyr's initial adventures into becoming had gone. He found himself traveling back to the time when he'd revealed what he could do, after their long session of torture in Woe's Etzos basement. Woe had tried to treat him with medicine, but he turned it down, instead favoring him with a secret. That he was a shapeshifter.
Now, the mentor advises the student to meditate upon that totem, telling them to meditate upon who they are. To internalize every aspect of their being. Identity being a core aspect of the transformation process in general, if not the Initiation, and the resistance to become the monster that the spark will indelibly draw one toward should one fail to recall who one is. The Mimai...
Woe skipped the part about the initiation monster, as interesting as it was, he doubt he'd have occasion to treat such a patient. Such arcane monstrosities were dealt with most mercifully by putting them down, regrettably. Still, something about what the author spoke of, bringing oneself back to center by virtue of remembering who they were. It had seemed like such a terrible conceit, placed into the text for the purpose of backing up the initial premise of asking who the reader was.
The mortalborn was almost tempted to shut the book then. But something caught his eye from the text.
Essentially the mage becomes their own self as the ultimate act of self-acceptance that is required to survive a Becoming initiation. One mustn't forget who they are, as the spark is ever striving to pull one in a direction that belies its intent. Yet one thing that most Becoming sparks appear to have in common, are their proclivity for mental mutations, rather than physical. The Becoming spark appears to have a special reverence for the physical forms it bonds with through totem creation. None more potent than that of the Self-Totem, ironically, as it twists the mage's mind for better or worse.
His eye caught by this trail of observation by the author, Woe found himself enraptured by interest once again. Was that the source of Magpie's incredible confidence, or was he so advanced in his arts because he'd always been that way? What of the changes that occurred to the self through merely lived experience? Now the text appeared to touch on issues of identity that went beyond the arcane and grappled with fundamental questions of identity that extended beyond even that. Yet Woe felt compelled to ignore these fanciful distractions. Something drew him toward a cynical disregard for the deeper philosophical meanderings. He wanted to remain above the fray of emotional turmoil, induced by such juvenile concerns. Yet were they so juvenile? Did people fundamentally change when they became adults or even elders? Perhaps they were all just children, walking around in grown bodies and making variably complex sounds, but still spouting the same substance as when they were young?
It brought Woe to the point where he had to put the book down. He might pick it up later, but for now, it was enough to have been influenced by the tome's ramblings about the nature of identity and Becoming. Idly, he rechecked the front of the book's cover, checking over the first page's attributions. As if something in there would illuminate his impressions. But no names or titles grabbed him as familiar.
He tucked the tome away in one of the shelves, which were every day filling up with new books. He did think it had some interesting concepts on the nature of identity. However, he placed it high on the shelf, marking it as something that was of less academic significance, at least by way of his own categorization methods. Jan could always ask him later what he thought about it, and he'd tell him later. Then they'd put it in the right place.
For now, he was content to leave it where it lie.
He had some considerations to see to.
