97th of Ashan
This time it had been Hob's idea to go out into the woods. Jonathan always appreciated time alone with his Harvester; they were growing closer and closer by the day. Jon liked walking barefoot in the fading Ashan light at the end of the day. The days were getting longer, and hotter when the sun finally crested up over the trees. The sun now set so deep into the day it was genuinely difficult to keep track of time. Time, like the sun, seemed to bleed out between his fingers when he was practicing magic. At least near the end of the day he had a timeline. The light was turning gold and would deepen into oranges and rose shades that would shatter among the trees and splash their colors on the foliage. The temperature was still warm but dipping ever so slightly, and life was beginning to stir. This was when rabbits and deer would shake sleep free and travel carefully in the underbrush seeking out coltsfoot and wild strawberry.
All he could hear were the hum of insects. The gentle rush of water nearby. He'd discovered a little river earlier in the season. It tumbled down from shallow rapids and spread wide into a rocky system of pools and streams. One could leap from rock to rock easily, but also had to be mindful of the little spillways that ran from a finger's depth to half-swallowing a man within a few feet. Mosses grew plentifully, voles dipped in and out of the deadfalls, and fish scattered when Jon's feet left shore. He was happy here. Here he could just...leave his worries behind and swim with Hob. They had been working on the Conjunction, and now it was time to try and apply it. Small spheres here and there were fine, but allowing Hob to truly manifest inside one was a lot of work.
It was also dangerous. They had to be completely and utterly alone. It was the only time Hob was vulnerable to being hurt or killed. When he manifested outside of a sphere, he was merely a vision. A talking head. A ghost. He could have blades pass through him and could appear and disappear when he pleased. He could talk with others without any fear of being injured. Hob was far more cautious than Daeva when it came to such a conjunction and he had insisted upon the river as the place to do it. Jon took his time here. He rolled up his pant legs, shed his shirt on the shore, and splashed around in the pools. He wandered among the rocks, played with little salamanders that curiously nibbled at his fingers, and chased some of the smaller minnows. He wished he could bring Alistair here, but he wasn't sure if his lover would see the point in blind play. Everything seemed to be a power struggle between him and Alistair. Their last lovemaking attempt was a clear message; Jon was lesser, Alistair was greater, and that was how it was to be.
It was nice to forget that. He sat on a larger boulder protruding out over a spillway, and dangled his feet over the edge. They hovered only centimeters above the water, and if he was still enough for a long enough time fish would come and nip at them. Jon eased onto his back, looking up at the darkening sky. The rush of water hummed in his ears. Insects buzzed above the water. Birds flitted down to get their evening drink before settling into the trees. "Are you ready?" Jon asked the open air.
'If you are. This will be more difficult than the minor flayings you've done. I'm not just reaching into it. I will step through, this time. You will be able to touch and feel me, but only for as long as you can maintain the conjunction. Do not overstep it. It will only be for a few minutes this time. When you become stronger, it will be an hour. Right now, when you feel yourself getting dizzy I want you to pull back. Magic is like a muscle. If you tear it you'll be down for weeks. Understand?'Hob's voice was stern. He needed Jon to know the seriousness of what they were about to do. If he excelled in it, power would follow. With Hob truly at his side he could conquer worlds and bend anyone to his knee, but it started with steps like this.
Jon sat up. He took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. He needed every scrap of ether he could push into his hands. From what he understood such things were like density. He could create a small sphere that was dense and destructive, or a large sphere that might be less destructive but further reaching. Aberration was about manipulating reality within the sphere by the will of both the mage and the Harvester, and this time he wanted to let Hob step into it and become realized. It was a practice in trust. Jon's sphere started small, a simple thing hovering in his hands. He balanced it between the fingers of both hands, took a deep breath, and expanded it. He pulled the sphere wider and wider. He could feel the ether in him responding, streaming out from his skin like he had a thousand strings tethered to his inner being. Those strings went taut and strained, streaming his energy into the process. The sphere was weaker as it expanded. Like weak tea poured into a cistern it was slowly dissolving in power. Hob had reassured him it was fine. In a combat situation where they had to set a house ablaze or swallow a man in nightmares it would have gone sourly but they were merely making a gateway. With time and effort, the sphere would maintain its power even stretched to such a size.
Jon stepped back, freeing the sphere to settle on the boulder while he sank his legs into the river. The water burbled and streamed around his bare skin, but he ignored the cool tendrils of water. He had to stay completely and utterly concentrated. The sound of the water was a white noise that helped him to drown out everything else, as Hob materialized in the sphere. When he wasn't expanding it, Jon had to maintain it, and even though he dropped his hands he could feel those strings of ether streaming into keeping that doorway open.
"Did it work?" he asked, slowly climbing up onto the boulder with Hob. When the Harvester reached out a hand and put it on his cheek, he could feel it. He could feel the soft leathery pads of Hob's palms, and the squirming fur that tickled his skin between them. It sent a little shiver up his spine; seeing the wormy fur was one thing. Feeling thousands of them whip and slither across his cheek was another. They were touching, truly touching, and it was incredibly dangerous for them both. There was unmistakable power in the paw that was cupping his cheek. He could feel the weight of Hob's claws curling around the back of his head and resting under his ear. A little tighten of those claws, and they'd sink into his skull like butter.
"It worked. You're maintaining it, yes? You don't feel any headaches?" Hob was speaking, truly speaking. Sound was coming forth from that nightmarish maw, not just a disembodied voice. Jon blinked owlishly for a moment before nodding and leaning his head into Hob's hand. Jon's hand reached out and buried into the thick nest of fur on Hob's collarbone. He resisted the urge to pull away as the longer strands of hair curled around his fingers and tickled their tips under his fingernails. A little pressure, and the thick coils of Hob's muscles glided under his hand. He ran his hand down, over the pectoral muscles. Strange; Hob had a second collarbone to support his second pair of arms. It was a small ridge of elegant bone right where the end of a man's sternum should have been. Down lower over a seething mass of abdominal muscles. Jon paused there. Hob's muscles were more active in spots where he had to use them to maintain an upright position. His back muscles were fairly still but his stomach and legs seethed like a nest of snakes set ablaze. He found he couldn't track one particular individual as it dipped and dove around Hob's frame.
"You're incredible." Jon breathed.
"And you're delicate. I could shatter you so easily." Hob grinned, but there was no malice in his tone. It was only an observation. Jon felt a combination of giddness and illness. The sickness from the effort it took to maintain the conjunction, and the giddness from actually touching his Harvester. Hob's claws traced a path around his waist and over his stomach. Clearly, exploring in the same way.
The dreamlike spell was broken almost as quickly as it had sucked them in. Hob's frame jerked and his claws raked a light set of lines over Jon's stomach. The cuts weren't deep but they were so sudden Jon cried out and almost lost his concentration. What? Confusion filled his eyes until he saw a cut on Hob's left shoulder. Worms sprouted from it, writhing and spewing black down his Harvester's snowy fur. There was only one message coming through their connection in that moment: CLOSE IT. Jon lost the last of his control. The ether cords snapped and ripped back into him. Black spots hit the edge of his vision and for a moment he was terrified he'd fall over and strike his head on a rock in the river. He had the presence of mind to stumble into one of the deeper pockets of water, sinking up to his chest. The cold water bit into the cuts in his skin. Hob vanished, unable to maintain a physical form without Jon's assistance.
What had happened? Jon scrabbled for a better handhold in the current and grabbed onto a stick protruding out from one of the deadfallen logs draped across the spillways. He blinked, and stared at it. Not a stick. An arrow was embedded deep into the rotten wood. It clicked. Someone had tried, and failed, to bury this into his Harvester's spine. They'd missed fantastically, and the shot had only grazed Hob. Jon yanked himself up to get a better look. A hunter, downstream, was staring at him. The man was sheet-white and sweating, and had a longbow he was lowering.
"Are...are you alright? Gods I can't believe I hit that thing!" the man called to Jon.
Rage. Cold rage slithering up like one of Hob's muscles had coiled in his stomach. Jon's teeth gritted so hard he feared he would shatter them. His headache pulsed in his forehead with the beating of his heart. There was not a single thing on this planet he hated more than the young hunter picking his way over the rocks toward him. Hob's pain, though minor, streamed through their bond. The second the man knelt to give him a hand out of the water, Jon seized his arm like a polecat. His fingernails dug deep into the man's skin, his shoulders clenched, his hands grasped with as much strength as he could humanly put into them. He bared his teeth at the hunter like an animal, a feral light in his eyes. All he could see were the black worms of Hob's wound at the edges of his vision and his brain had clicked off what was left of his thinking.
Ether, sharp stabbing claws of ether, sunk into his prey. "You hurt him." Jon snarled with a voice that didn't sound like his own. It was far off and tinny in his ears like he was trying to hear himself over a party. The river surged in his ears and Jon used it to drive his ether deeper into the hunter. The man screamed and tried to pull away. Jon wasn't having it. He was a water hunter in that moment. A crocodile that had latched onto a leg and was sinking his teeth deeper. Jon pulled, and the unfortunate hunter's ether came with it. He clawed it toward him like a beggar picking up spilled nel. He was tearing the fabric of this man's reality apart.
A boot struck his shoulder but he barely felt it. He pulled tighter and tighter. His coils were choking the color out of the hunter. His struggles were weaker as grey crawled up his flesh. With a final strangled scream, Jon lunged forward and released his grip. Fanatically his fingers found the man's face and his thumbs buried themselves into the man's eyes. He pulled a final time, and instead of bleeding flesh, his hunter collapsed into ashes. The river ran grey and black with blood for a few seconds...and then all was still.
No birds sang. The frogs had fled in a panic. Even the insects had the presence of mind to bite someone else. All Jon could hear was the rushing of the water and the cool wetness of a mossy rock under his cheek. Faintly, he watched the longbow slide off the rocks and float along the water toward the man's other belongings.
He was tired now. So tired. His body rested in a comfortable crook in the river. The water wouldn't carry him away here. It was only embracing him. 'Rest, for a few hours.' Hob told him. Affectionately, gently, touching him through their bond. It wasn't nearly as magical as the feeling of the Harvester's fur against his skin but all the same Jon felt it. 'I'll wake you.'
This time it had been Hob's idea to go out into the woods. Jonathan always appreciated time alone with his Harvester; they were growing closer and closer by the day. Jon liked walking barefoot in the fading Ashan light at the end of the day. The days were getting longer, and hotter when the sun finally crested up over the trees. The sun now set so deep into the day it was genuinely difficult to keep track of time. Time, like the sun, seemed to bleed out between his fingers when he was practicing magic. At least near the end of the day he had a timeline. The light was turning gold and would deepen into oranges and rose shades that would shatter among the trees and splash their colors on the foliage. The temperature was still warm but dipping ever so slightly, and life was beginning to stir. This was when rabbits and deer would shake sleep free and travel carefully in the underbrush seeking out coltsfoot and wild strawberry.
All he could hear were the hum of insects. The gentle rush of water nearby. He'd discovered a little river earlier in the season. It tumbled down from shallow rapids and spread wide into a rocky system of pools and streams. One could leap from rock to rock easily, but also had to be mindful of the little spillways that ran from a finger's depth to half-swallowing a man within a few feet. Mosses grew plentifully, voles dipped in and out of the deadfalls, and fish scattered when Jon's feet left shore. He was happy here. Here he could just...leave his worries behind and swim with Hob. They had been working on the Conjunction, and now it was time to try and apply it. Small spheres here and there were fine, but allowing Hob to truly manifest inside one was a lot of work.
It was also dangerous. They had to be completely and utterly alone. It was the only time Hob was vulnerable to being hurt or killed. When he manifested outside of a sphere, he was merely a vision. A talking head. A ghost. He could have blades pass through him and could appear and disappear when he pleased. He could talk with others without any fear of being injured. Hob was far more cautious than Daeva when it came to such a conjunction and he had insisted upon the river as the place to do it. Jon took his time here. He rolled up his pant legs, shed his shirt on the shore, and splashed around in the pools. He wandered among the rocks, played with little salamanders that curiously nibbled at his fingers, and chased some of the smaller minnows. He wished he could bring Alistair here, but he wasn't sure if his lover would see the point in blind play. Everything seemed to be a power struggle between him and Alistair. Their last lovemaking attempt was a clear message; Jon was lesser, Alistair was greater, and that was how it was to be.
It was nice to forget that. He sat on a larger boulder protruding out over a spillway, and dangled his feet over the edge. They hovered only centimeters above the water, and if he was still enough for a long enough time fish would come and nip at them. Jon eased onto his back, looking up at the darkening sky. The rush of water hummed in his ears. Insects buzzed above the water. Birds flitted down to get their evening drink before settling into the trees. "Are you ready?" Jon asked the open air.
'If you are. This will be more difficult than the minor flayings you've done. I'm not just reaching into it. I will step through, this time. You will be able to touch and feel me, but only for as long as you can maintain the conjunction. Do not overstep it. It will only be for a few minutes this time. When you become stronger, it will be an hour. Right now, when you feel yourself getting dizzy I want you to pull back. Magic is like a muscle. If you tear it you'll be down for weeks. Understand?'Hob's voice was stern. He needed Jon to know the seriousness of what they were about to do. If he excelled in it, power would follow. With Hob truly at his side he could conquer worlds and bend anyone to his knee, but it started with steps like this.
Jon sat up. He took a deep breath, and closed his eyes. He needed every scrap of ether he could push into his hands. From what he understood such things were like density. He could create a small sphere that was dense and destructive, or a large sphere that might be less destructive but further reaching. Aberration was about manipulating reality within the sphere by the will of both the mage and the Harvester, and this time he wanted to let Hob step into it and become realized. It was a practice in trust. Jon's sphere started small, a simple thing hovering in his hands. He balanced it between the fingers of both hands, took a deep breath, and expanded it. He pulled the sphere wider and wider. He could feel the ether in him responding, streaming out from his skin like he had a thousand strings tethered to his inner being. Those strings went taut and strained, streaming his energy into the process. The sphere was weaker as it expanded. Like weak tea poured into a cistern it was slowly dissolving in power. Hob had reassured him it was fine. In a combat situation where they had to set a house ablaze or swallow a man in nightmares it would have gone sourly but they were merely making a gateway. With time and effort, the sphere would maintain its power even stretched to such a size.
Jon stepped back, freeing the sphere to settle on the boulder while he sank his legs into the river. The water burbled and streamed around his bare skin, but he ignored the cool tendrils of water. He had to stay completely and utterly concentrated. The sound of the water was a white noise that helped him to drown out everything else, as Hob materialized in the sphere. When he wasn't expanding it, Jon had to maintain it, and even though he dropped his hands he could feel those strings of ether streaming into keeping that doorway open.
"Did it work?" he asked, slowly climbing up onto the boulder with Hob. When the Harvester reached out a hand and put it on his cheek, he could feel it. He could feel the soft leathery pads of Hob's palms, and the squirming fur that tickled his skin between them. It sent a little shiver up his spine; seeing the wormy fur was one thing. Feeling thousands of them whip and slither across his cheek was another. They were touching, truly touching, and it was incredibly dangerous for them both. There was unmistakable power in the paw that was cupping his cheek. He could feel the weight of Hob's claws curling around the back of his head and resting under his ear. A little tighten of those claws, and they'd sink into his skull like butter.
"It worked. You're maintaining it, yes? You don't feel any headaches?" Hob was speaking, truly speaking. Sound was coming forth from that nightmarish maw, not just a disembodied voice. Jon blinked owlishly for a moment before nodding and leaning his head into Hob's hand. Jon's hand reached out and buried into the thick nest of fur on Hob's collarbone. He resisted the urge to pull away as the longer strands of hair curled around his fingers and tickled their tips under his fingernails. A little pressure, and the thick coils of Hob's muscles glided under his hand. He ran his hand down, over the pectoral muscles. Strange; Hob had a second collarbone to support his second pair of arms. It was a small ridge of elegant bone right where the end of a man's sternum should have been. Down lower over a seething mass of abdominal muscles. Jon paused there. Hob's muscles were more active in spots where he had to use them to maintain an upright position. His back muscles were fairly still but his stomach and legs seethed like a nest of snakes set ablaze. He found he couldn't track one particular individual as it dipped and dove around Hob's frame.
"You're incredible." Jon breathed.
"And you're delicate. I could shatter you so easily." Hob grinned, but there was no malice in his tone. It was only an observation. Jon felt a combination of giddness and illness. The sickness from the effort it took to maintain the conjunction, and the giddness from actually touching his Harvester. Hob's claws traced a path around his waist and over his stomach. Clearly, exploring in the same way.
The dreamlike spell was broken almost as quickly as it had sucked them in. Hob's frame jerked and his claws raked a light set of lines over Jon's stomach. The cuts weren't deep but they were so sudden Jon cried out and almost lost his concentration. What? Confusion filled his eyes until he saw a cut on Hob's left shoulder. Worms sprouted from it, writhing and spewing black down his Harvester's snowy fur. There was only one message coming through their connection in that moment: CLOSE IT. Jon lost the last of his control. The ether cords snapped and ripped back into him. Black spots hit the edge of his vision and for a moment he was terrified he'd fall over and strike his head on a rock in the river. He had the presence of mind to stumble into one of the deeper pockets of water, sinking up to his chest. The cold water bit into the cuts in his skin. Hob vanished, unable to maintain a physical form without Jon's assistance.
What had happened? Jon scrabbled for a better handhold in the current and grabbed onto a stick protruding out from one of the deadfallen logs draped across the spillways. He blinked, and stared at it. Not a stick. An arrow was embedded deep into the rotten wood. It clicked. Someone had tried, and failed, to bury this into his Harvester's spine. They'd missed fantastically, and the shot had only grazed Hob. Jon yanked himself up to get a better look. A hunter, downstream, was staring at him. The man was sheet-white and sweating, and had a longbow he was lowering.
"Are...are you alright? Gods I can't believe I hit that thing!" the man called to Jon.
Rage. Cold rage slithering up like one of Hob's muscles had coiled in his stomach. Jon's teeth gritted so hard he feared he would shatter them. His headache pulsed in his forehead with the beating of his heart. There was not a single thing on this planet he hated more than the young hunter picking his way over the rocks toward him. Hob's pain, though minor, streamed through their bond. The second the man knelt to give him a hand out of the water, Jon seized his arm like a polecat. His fingernails dug deep into the man's skin, his shoulders clenched, his hands grasped with as much strength as he could humanly put into them. He bared his teeth at the hunter like an animal, a feral light in his eyes. All he could see were the black worms of Hob's wound at the edges of his vision and his brain had clicked off what was left of his thinking.
Ether, sharp stabbing claws of ether, sunk into his prey. "You hurt him." Jon snarled with a voice that didn't sound like his own. It was far off and tinny in his ears like he was trying to hear himself over a party. The river surged in his ears and Jon used it to drive his ether deeper into the hunter. The man screamed and tried to pull away. Jon wasn't having it. He was a water hunter in that moment. A crocodile that had latched onto a leg and was sinking his teeth deeper. Jon pulled, and the unfortunate hunter's ether came with it. He clawed it toward him like a beggar picking up spilled nel. He was tearing the fabric of this man's reality apart.
A boot struck his shoulder but he barely felt it. He pulled tighter and tighter. His coils were choking the color out of the hunter. His struggles were weaker as grey crawled up his flesh. With a final strangled scream, Jon lunged forward and released his grip. Fanatically his fingers found the man's face and his thumbs buried themselves into the man's eyes. He pulled a final time, and instead of bleeding flesh, his hunter collapsed into ashes. The river ran grey and black with blood for a few seconds...and then all was still.
No birds sang. The frogs had fled in a panic. Even the insects had the presence of mind to bite someone else. All Jon could hear was the rushing of the water and the cool wetness of a mossy rock under his cheek. Faintly, he watched the longbow slide off the rocks and float along the water toward the man's other belongings.
He was tired now. So tired. His body rested in a comfortable crook in the river. The water wouldn't carry him away here. It was only embracing him. 'Rest, for a few hours.' Hob told him. Affectionately, gently, touching him through their bond. It wasn't nearly as magical as the feeling of the Harvester's fur against his skin but all the same Jon felt it. 'I'll wake you.'
