[Sorey doesn't answer for a little while, mostly because he's taking a right turn. The coffee shop he likes to hit up goes this way.]
It's called resonance.
[He pulls up gently to a red light, somehow driving perfectly safe and slow despite the conversation.]
Normal humans can't see seraphim or... malakhim, same thing. They can't see the monsters everywhere either. To them, they all just look like normal beasts or people. They don't see it at all.
I think the last person who had resonance existed a couple hundred years ago, for me and Mikleo. We saw carvings and murals in the ruins.
"...Monsters, huh? Like those Daemons I saw then?"
[Like what Velvet was. Velvet, the Lord of Calamity. One of the more interesting things, or rather, people she had seen in her memories. She doubted Sorey would know anything about her though.]
"And if that's the case about resonance... then either I was some sort of weird hermit, or we're from different time periods altogether."
Demons? That's a good term... but it's not what we used. Hellions was what they were called. They're born of something called malevolence.
[Something that humans create... even without meaning to.]
... I mean, if anyone's a hermit, it would probably be me? I was raised by a whole village of seraphim. I didn't even see how humans lived til I was seventeen... I think the girl I met in the ruins was the first girl I'd ever seen.
"Raised by seraphim, huh? Well, I don't know what my childhood was like, in that world anyways. Still, I guess that makes sense with all this resonance stuff. But, if resonance is really that rare... it just makes me wonder if I even knew anyone else who had it. Well, besides Eleanor and Melchior, anyways."
[Perhaps, no matter what world she was in, and in one way or another, she had found herself isolated. But, she didn't feel like that had been the case, at least, when past her had been with Velvet's group it hadn't. But, she didn't even know.]
Edited (Rip I forgot Eleanor existed) 2017-09-03 02:18 (UTC)
"Eleanor... truth be told, I don't know much about her either. She had been a Praetor with a group called the Abbey. The Abbey... is also what Melchior is linked to."
[She gets out of the car, waiting on Sorey to join her.]
"Melchior was, my teacher, at one point anyways. But he had been involved with things such as turning kidnapping Malakhim and turning them into dragons, and he had a method of controlling the minds of Malaks as well. He had done so to Zaveid. Even so, I must have turned against him eventually. Since, I was fighting the Abbey alongside a Daemon named Velvet. The Lord of Calamity."
[Sorey listens to her as he gathers his keys and hops out of the car. But then she says something about turning seraphim into dragons and he actually slams the door on his hand. He almost doesn't notice until the pain actually gets to his face and then he lets out a soft squeak.]
W-what?!
[He casually shakes out his hand and tries to stay cool about it, even though that fucking hurt.]
Your teacher-- he was enslaving seraphim?!
[He'll get to the other part later, Zaveid's health is more important.]
"According to Zaveid, yes. I don't know how or why. I, don't even know that much about him."
[Still, she pretty much confirmed what she had been understanding implicitly from Sorey's reactions. That is, just how far into the realm of incredibly heinous actions something like that was. Which, to be fair, robbing someone of free will in any way was like that.]
[This... honestly has a lot of horrible implications.]
I haven't heard anything like that... I don't remember anything at all.
[Sorey turns away from her for a second so he can drag his hand through his hair. This is a lot of information at once, true, but it makes what he said to Zaveid-- god, he had no idea. None at all.
"I'm going to keep you safe. I promise I won't let that happen. I won't let you turn into a hellion or a dragon."
He takes a deep breath, nails worrying into his sleeves before he forces himself to relax.]
Let's go find a seat. There's... a lot more I need to tell you.
[And then Maggie stops in place. it's a memory. Not a concrete one of an experience or anything. It's just one fact. But that fact is enough to make her stop. So... even in her home world, she had still been abandoned and adopted as a Mayvin. Just by different fathers, and for different reasons.
[She manages a bit of a small chuckle at that. It didn't matter what world she was in, it seemed, the events of her life still unfolded similarly. Perhaps that is why the version of herself she saw in her memories was always so close to how she was. But she turned her attention back to Sorey.]
"...Well, as I was saying, let's just sit down and get to talking."
[He notices her hesitation and waits for an explanation, but he doesn't press when she doesn't give one. It's not his place. And he probably doesn't need to know, regardless.]
Right.
[He leads her inside to a table in the back. The place is relatively quiet, though not completely empty; at the very least, no one will bother them or overhear their weird conversation.]
What do you want? I'll order for you.
[He's going straight for their vanilla chai in like, 15 seconds.]
[She just wants to get down to busines,s frankly. That particular piece of knowledge has put her off, somehow. So she waits there for Sorey to get back with his vanilla chai, the four fingers of her left hand idly taping the table as she does so.]
[Well. He's still getting his chai. Thankfully it doesn't take long, and within a couple minutes he's back with that and a water. Maybe she'll... want that... at least. His gray eyes flicker to her missing finger, but he doesn't say anything about it.
He had a student without an arm, after all.]
... Malevolence is actually caused by humans.
[He wraps his hands around the warm cup, letting it ground him.]
If those feelings take someone over, it turns them into a monster. Only someone called the Shepherd can purify them and that's only if they're strong enough. [The Lord of Calamity had been too much, even for him.]
The Shepherd is a human. They make a pact with a seraph and... [He's not actually sure what the entire life of a Shepherd entails, as he hasn't gotten that memory back yet, but he knows what Lailah told him in the moment.] And they receive a part of the seraph's power. But in return, the Shepherd has to serve them.
He becomes their vessel to protect them from malevolence. It's dangerous for both of them. If the Shepherd were to become malevolent, then it means every seraph connected to them would turn into a dragon, and the Shepherd would be lost without anyone to purify them.
In my memories, I'm the first Shepherd in a long time.
"And those monsters are these Daemons, right? So, then... how come the Daemons, or well, Hellions as you call then, I was travelling with seemed to be mostly human? I saw some monstrous ones, sure, but I was working with them against this Abbey group."
[But the pact thing he mentioned only raised another question. She just figured it was best to ask him it directly, given that he was more knowledgeable on the subject than her.]
"But about these "pacts"... I was in a pact with a Malakhim and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the Shepherd."
"I mean I was using magic, and that definitely counts as a form of power."
[Which, was honestly one of the things she was actually looking forward to from this Retrospec situation. Getting back Bienfu and some magical powers. THough, given Bienfu's nature... maybe looking forward to him was the wrong idea.]
"But about them. I think there were two. One of them, I know her name. Her name is Velvet, and she called herself the 'Lord of Calamity', whatever that means. She had this arm covered by bandages which turned into a giant demon claw. Like Noah's, if you know him. Then there was this other guy, who had half of his face covered by this black stuff. He seemed pretty alright."
You could use seraphic artes? That's... I guess that kind of makes sense, but I admit I'm surprised! I could use some elements added to my attacks but nothing like actual spells.
[He never had the aptitude; it was always Mikleo and the other seraphim who wove spells in his visions. Their elements were a part of them.]
"I saw Melchior do something similar. Guess it's just a Mayvin thing."
[That's what she was thinking, given apparently that Sorey had been the shepherd which was a pretty important position from the sound of it. It had to be something related to that, then, rather than just having a pact.]
"I got the name of our world as well. It was apparently called 'Desolation' which is a... rather desolate sounding name."
[He's still concerned about the Abbey, and about how Zaveid was enslaved... good lord. No. He's not over that yet.]
That's... a pretty awful name. But the world I saw didn't look desolate at all. Maybe some parts were having trouble, but Ladylake was beautiful and everything around it was green.
[He takes a sip of his chai.]
Did... did people worship seraphim or malakhim at all?
It always came up where I was, because some people believed I was the Shepherd and some people didn't. They couldn't see my friends at all.
[He's about to take another drink when a memory hits him. At this point he's kind of used to it, since he knows that talking about things can trigger them, but it's still disorienting to have all that shoved into his brain at once. He winces for a second.]
Wait, I-- I remember something... Mayvin the explorer! He was helping the-- [... assassin's guild, what the fuck was he even getting into back then.] He had a book! A huge book on his back. And he had the Celestial Record, too!
[What did a book have to do with being an explorer? Well, books could be used for recording information, she supposed, but then why the massive size? Still, another term piques her interest.]
[Oh man, the Celestial Record. Let him tell you all about it.]
It's--
[... Hold on, he only has bits and pieces.]
It's... a book I carried around all the time. I was always making notes in my copy. It had a bunch of ruins and historic places, and it was full of stuff about the Shepherd legend. Whoever wrote it was a real explorer.
"So it's a sort of weird mix of adventure's guide and history book then. Huh. I dunno why someone related to me would have it then. Maybe it has something to do with whatever my clan did."
[Which is one of her largest questions, but she doubts Sorey knows enough to answer it. Still, there's one thread she had hanging open.]
"But earlier, you mentioned Mikleo. So, he's from the same world as you too?"
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[And, she wasn't exactly sure if they could even have that power anyways, or needed it.]
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It's called resonance.
[He pulls up gently to a red light, somehow driving perfectly safe and slow despite the conversation.]
Normal humans can't see seraphim or... malakhim, same thing. They can't see the monsters everywhere either. To them, they all just look like normal beasts or people. They don't see it at all.
I think the last person who had resonance existed a couple hundred years ago, for me and Mikleo. We saw carvings and murals in the ruins.
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[Like what Velvet was. Velvet, the Lord of Calamity. One of the more interesting things, or rather, people she had seen in her memories. She doubted Sorey would know anything about her though.]
"And if that's the case about resonance... then either I was some sort of weird hermit, or we're from different time periods altogether."
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[Something that humans create... even without meaning to.]
... I mean, if anyone's a hermit, it would probably be me? I was raised by a whole village of seraphim. I didn't even see how humans lived til I was seventeen... I think the girl I met in the ruins was the first girl I'd ever seen.
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[Perhaps, no matter what world she was in, and in one way or another, she had found herself isolated. But, she didn't feel like that had been the case, at least, when past her had been with Velvet's group it hadn't. But, she didn't even know.]
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[Ah.]
We're here. [He pulls into a parking space and shuts the car off. This is definitely getting into darker territory faster than he anticipated.]
I don't think I've heard of either of those people. Maybe we were just on different continents?
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[She gets out of the car, waiting on Sorey to join her.]
"Melchior was, my teacher, at one point anyways. But he had been involved with things such as turning kidnapping Malakhim and turning them into dragons, and he had a method of controlling the minds of Malaks as well. He had done so to Zaveid. Even so, I must have turned against him eventually. Since, I was fighting the Abbey alongside a Daemon named Velvet. The Lord of Calamity."
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W-what?!
[He casually shakes out his hand and tries to stay cool about it, even though that fucking hurt.]
Your teacher-- he was enslaving seraphim?!
[He'll get to the other part later, Zaveid's health is more important.]
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[Still, she pretty much confirmed what she had been understanding implicitly from Sorey's reactions. That is, just how far into the realm of incredibly heinous actions something like that was. Which, to be fair, robbing someone of free will in any way was like that.]
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I haven't heard anything like that... I don't remember anything at all.
[Sorey turns away from her for a second so he can drag his hand through his hair. This is a lot of information at once, true, but it makes what he said to Zaveid-- god, he had no idea. None at all.
"I'm going to keep you safe. I promise I won't let that happen. I won't let you turn into a hellion or a dragon."
He takes a deep breath, nails worrying into his sleeves before he forces himself to relax.]
Let's go find a seat. There's... a lot more I need to tell you.
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[And then Maggie stops in place. it's a memory. Not a concrete one of an experience or anything. It's just one fact. But that fact is enough to make her stop. So... even in her home world, she had still been abandoned and adopted as a Mayvin. Just by different fathers, and for different reasons.
[She manages a bit of a small chuckle at that. It didn't matter what world she was in, it seemed, the events of her life still unfolded similarly. Perhaps that is why the version of herself she saw in her memories was always so close to how she was. But she turned her attention back to Sorey.]
"...Well, as I was saying, let's just sit down and get to talking."
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Right.
[He leads her inside to a table in the back. The place is relatively quiet, though not completely empty; at the very least, no one will bother them or overhear their weird conversation.]
What do you want? I'll order for you.
[He's going straight for their vanilla chai in like, 15 seconds.]
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[She just wants to get down to busines,s frankly. That particular piece of knowledge has put her off, somehow. So she waits there for Sorey to get back with his vanilla chai, the four fingers of her left hand idly taping the table as she does so.]
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[Well. He's still getting his chai. Thankfully it doesn't take long, and within a couple minutes he's back with that and a water. Maybe she'll... want that... at least. His gray eyes flicker to her missing finger, but he doesn't say anything about it.
He had a student without an arm, after all.]
... Malevolence is actually caused by humans.
[He wraps his hands around the warm cup, letting it ground him.]
If those feelings take someone over, it turns them into a monster. Only someone called the Shepherd can purify them and that's only if they're strong enough. [The Lord of Calamity had been too much, even for him.]
The Shepherd is a human. They make a pact with a seraph and... [He's not actually sure what the entire life of a Shepherd entails, as he hasn't gotten that memory back yet, but he knows what Lailah told him in the moment.] And they receive a part of the seraph's power. But in return, the Shepherd has to serve them.
He becomes their vessel to protect them from malevolence. It's dangerous for both of them. If the Shepherd were to become malevolent, then it means every seraph connected to them would turn into a dragon, and the Shepherd would be lost without anyone to purify them.
In my memories, I'm the first Shepherd in a long time.
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[But the pact thing he mentioned only raised another question. She just figured it was best to ask him it directly, given that he was more knowledgeable on the subject than her.]
"But about these "pacts"... I was in a pact with a Malakhim and I'm pretty sure I wasn't the Shepherd."
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Some hellions are really humanlike, I guess. I remember one we fought was suppressing her true nature, so she just looked like a woman.
If you were traveling with daemons or hellions, then a seraph would need a vessel, I think. Did the pact give you any power?
[He can't really imagine traveling with hellions, but he'd seen them living in Ladylake like they weren't actually ten foot tall tiger dudes... so.]
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[Which, was honestly one of the things she was actually looking forward to from this Retrospec situation. Getting back Bienfu and some magical powers. THough, given Bienfu's nature... maybe looking forward to him was the wrong idea.]
"But about them. I think there were two. One of them, I know her name. Her name is Velvet, and she called herself the 'Lord of Calamity', whatever that means. She had this arm covered by bandages which turned into a giant demon claw. Like Noah's, if you know him. Then there was this other guy, who had half of his face covered by this black stuff. He seemed pretty alright."
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You could use seraphic artes? That's... I guess that kind of makes sense, but I admit I'm surprised! I could use some elements added to my attacks but nothing like actual spells.
[He never had the aptitude; it was always Mikleo and the other seraphim who wove spells in his visions. Their elements were a part of them.]
Maybe that's why the Abbey wanted them...
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[That's what she was thinking, given apparently that Sorey had been the shepherd which was a pretty important position from the sound of it. It had to be something related to that, then, rather than just having a pact.]
"I got the name of our world as well. It was apparently called 'Desolation' which is a... rather desolate sounding name."
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[He's still concerned about the Abbey, and about how Zaveid was enslaved... good lord. No. He's not over that yet.]
That's... a pretty awful name. But the world I saw didn't look desolate at all. Maybe some parts were having trouble, but Ladylake was beautiful and everything around it was green.
[He takes a sip of his chai.]
Did... did people worship seraphim or malakhim at all?
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[And, in fact, she just found out it was a thing so... Sorey you're kind of out of luck for now in that department.]
"And I can't really say anything about worship. It never really came up."
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[He's about to take another drink when a memory hits him. At this point he's kind of used to it, since he knows that talking about things can trigger them, but it's still disorienting to have all that shoved into his brain at once. He winces for a second.]
Wait, I-- I remember something... Mayvin the explorer! He was helping the-- [... assassin's guild, what the fuck was he even getting into back then.] He had a book! A huge book on his back. And he had the Celestial Record, too!
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[What did a book have to do with being an explorer? Well, books could be used for recording information, she supposed, but then why the massive size? Still, another term piques her interest.]
"But, this Celestial Record. What is it?"
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It's--
[... Hold on, he only has bits and pieces.]
It's... a book I carried around all the time. I was always making notes in my copy. It had a bunch of ruins and historic places, and it was full of stuff about the Shepherd legend. Whoever wrote it was a real explorer.
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[Which is one of her largest questions, but she doubts Sorey knows enough to answer it. Still, there's one thread she had hanging open.]
"But earlier, you mentioned Mikleo. So, he's from the same world as you too?"
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