09-11-2020, 12:25 AM
He’s tired. He cannot be magic and mortal, and he has long since slipped onto the magic side.
It’s the sort of tired where you’ve bypassed tired, actually, and you’re in some other realm of exhaustion where dreams and reality cease to be two discernable entities.
For Brennen, now, the reality is that he’s basically given himself up to the magic. He’s not aware of the outside world at all – he no longer feels the icy water against his skin or the bite of the bitter wind. He could no more defend his physical body than a fish could defend itself on land.
He is soaked, and the winter cold has turned the water to ice on his coat, in his mane and tail, layers and layers over the months he’s been motionless in the surf. As a result, there is no longer a bay stallion in the waters of Nerine but a vaguely horse-shaped ice statue, under which everyone assumes Brennen still stands. It glitters in the sunlight and gleams in the moonlight, and when the days are overcast, it is simply an eerie reminder of the precipice of uncertainty upon which they all find themselves balanced.
Can he maintain it forever? They will not know until he is challenged. It seems he is more magic than man, now, so the better question might be can he ever recover?
The voice of the witch is a whisper at first in his mind, but the insistent tug of his net at the Taiga border draws his attention and irritated, he turns his magic “eyes” towards the dissonance, feeling the intentions of the gathered Pangeans, “seeing” them simply as life signatures in varying colors and intensities. As the blood flows from the one, oozing towards the border, it freezes everywhere it touches the invisible line, frosting to a lurid pink that pools in frozen streams. But it keeps coming, and he imagines the metallic taste of it in disgust, recoiling from the oily dark blood magic that goes against all of his own principles.
The trees tower above even his magic self; their magic is not the same as is, it is turned inward with incredible peace that Brennen almost loses himself in for a moment. It’s cool and green, but even that green is incredibly warm compared to the blue and white of his own magic, flooding now into his every vein and artery as if he has never been a red-blooded creature. It’s seductive and he has to draw himself away with great effort, caressing the tall proud trees with a shiver of bottomless regret.
He is not going to save them. But their magic will preserve their essence, and some day they will grow tall here again. The fire will cleanse this forest as fire naturally does; it will bring new life here. Perhaps another magician, one whose blood runs green rather than blue, will help them along. Brennen “reaches” out for the sign of lifeforms, and if they are in danger they cannot deal with themselves, and they are willing, they are absorbed in the cool touch of the ocean and whisked away to Nerine. Those who are not in danger or unwilling to go he leaves behind, with the same idle feeling of regret he leaves to the trees.
When the evacuation is complete, Brennen simply…. lets go of Taiga. His magic recedes like the tide, and the cool net of protection gives way to the heat and fury of @[Maleficar]’s feral minions, their fire sweeping across the redwood to be dealt with by someone else.
That magic must go somewhere, it cannot simply cease to exist, so it flows with a rush of power back into the shields still in place around Icicle Isle, Nerine, and the Pampas. Ripples flow from the Brennen-statue out into the water, and the ground trembles for some area around his feet. Fleetingly, he reaches for @[Neverwhere]’s mind, and from her gaining the knowledge to connect as well to @[Leilan]. There are no words – magic does not speak, after all, and the words Brennen has always been so adept at are frozen inside his physical body. But magic has eyes, and images, and feelings; he shows them Taiga, Maleficar, the young creatures rushing towards Nerine, the fire that comes from them and spreads to the ancient redwoods. He leaves them with a sense of urgency, his deep sorrow at the fate of the forest, his fury at the attack of the witch.
A part of him that knows that there is an existence outside of the magic hopes they can make sense of the images from the perspective of magic and the overwhelming feelings of a magician who has lost all ability to filter his feelings through society’s social graces.
He regrets giving up Taiga, but strategically he knew it must be done.
The dragon-children with @[yadigar] burn their way across Taiga towards Nerine, but the backwash of magic brings them up short. Their fire doesn’t touch the cool green meadow on the hill underneath the crisp white of the frost and snow; it wouldn’t harm the water or the cliffs anyway, but he doesn’t allow even the smallest of stray scorch marks. The physical barrier holds for now; they cannot enter with the magics that have been worked so far on their behalf.
Maleficar will need a much bigger sacrifice.
Or other magicians who can face off against the bay warrior without his limitations; magicians willing to shed their physical limitations as he has and meet him magic-for-magic.
The magician sends another tremor along his connection to Neverwhere and Leilan – a harsh note of warning, a heartbeat of uncertainty. The slightest caress of affection.
In this fashion he could hold forever against the fire, against the dragon-children who need to be reined in before they burn down the world. He is tempted to swat them from the sky; he has seen nothing in his life from the dragonborn except mindless destruction stemmed from unbearable arrogance and lack of self-control.
But he can’t hold forever against other magicians, so if they dragonborn have brought friends, Brennen will eventually fall. This is not the danger he was recruited to stand against, but he will stand for as long as he can.
(ooc: since brennen isn't really "here", I'm cross-posting this in several relevant places).
It’s the sort of tired where you’ve bypassed tired, actually, and you’re in some other realm of exhaustion where dreams and reality cease to be two discernable entities.
For Brennen, now, the reality is that he’s basically given himself up to the magic. He’s not aware of the outside world at all – he no longer feels the icy water against his skin or the bite of the bitter wind. He could no more defend his physical body than a fish could defend itself on land.
He is soaked, and the winter cold has turned the water to ice on his coat, in his mane and tail, layers and layers over the months he’s been motionless in the surf. As a result, there is no longer a bay stallion in the waters of Nerine but a vaguely horse-shaped ice statue, under which everyone assumes Brennen still stands. It glitters in the sunlight and gleams in the moonlight, and when the days are overcast, it is simply an eerie reminder of the precipice of uncertainty upon which they all find themselves balanced.
Can he maintain it forever? They will not know until he is challenged. It seems he is more magic than man, now, so the better question might be can he ever recover?
The voice of the witch is a whisper at first in his mind, but the insistent tug of his net at the Taiga border draws his attention and irritated, he turns his magic “eyes” towards the dissonance, feeling the intentions of the gathered Pangeans, “seeing” them simply as life signatures in varying colors and intensities. As the blood flows from the one, oozing towards the border, it freezes everywhere it touches the invisible line, frosting to a lurid pink that pools in frozen streams. But it keeps coming, and he imagines the metallic taste of it in disgust, recoiling from the oily dark blood magic that goes against all of his own principles.
The trees tower above even his magic self; their magic is not the same as is, it is turned inward with incredible peace that Brennen almost loses himself in for a moment. It’s cool and green, but even that green is incredibly warm compared to the blue and white of his own magic, flooding now into his every vein and artery as if he has never been a red-blooded creature. It’s seductive and he has to draw himself away with great effort, caressing the tall proud trees with a shiver of bottomless regret.
He is not going to save them. But their magic will preserve their essence, and some day they will grow tall here again. The fire will cleanse this forest as fire naturally does; it will bring new life here. Perhaps another magician, one whose blood runs green rather than blue, will help them along. Brennen “reaches” out for the sign of lifeforms, and if they are in danger they cannot deal with themselves, and they are willing, they are absorbed in the cool touch of the ocean and whisked away to Nerine. Those who are not in danger or unwilling to go he leaves behind, with the same idle feeling of regret he leaves to the trees.
When the evacuation is complete, Brennen simply…. lets go of Taiga. His magic recedes like the tide, and the cool net of protection gives way to the heat and fury of @[Maleficar]’s feral minions, their fire sweeping across the redwood to be dealt with by someone else.
That magic must go somewhere, it cannot simply cease to exist, so it flows with a rush of power back into the shields still in place around Icicle Isle, Nerine, and the Pampas. Ripples flow from the Brennen-statue out into the water, and the ground trembles for some area around his feet. Fleetingly, he reaches for @[Neverwhere]’s mind, and from her gaining the knowledge to connect as well to @[Leilan]. There are no words – magic does not speak, after all, and the words Brennen has always been so adept at are frozen inside his physical body. But magic has eyes, and images, and feelings; he shows them Taiga, Maleficar, the young creatures rushing towards Nerine, the fire that comes from them and spreads to the ancient redwoods. He leaves them with a sense of urgency, his deep sorrow at the fate of the forest, his fury at the attack of the witch.
A part of him that knows that there is an existence outside of the magic hopes they can make sense of the images from the perspective of magic and the overwhelming feelings of a magician who has lost all ability to filter his feelings through society’s social graces.
He regrets giving up Taiga, but strategically he knew it must be done.
The dragon-children with @[yadigar] burn their way across Taiga towards Nerine, but the backwash of magic brings them up short. Their fire doesn’t touch the cool green meadow on the hill underneath the crisp white of the frost and snow; it wouldn’t harm the water or the cliffs anyway, but he doesn’t allow even the smallest of stray scorch marks. The physical barrier holds for now; they cannot enter with the magics that have been worked so far on their behalf.
Maleficar will need a much bigger sacrifice.
Or other magicians who can face off against the bay warrior without his limitations; magicians willing to shed their physical limitations as he has and meet him magic-for-magic.
The magician sends another tremor along his connection to Neverwhere and Leilan – a harsh note of warning, a heartbeat of uncertainty. The slightest caress of affection.
In this fashion he could hold forever against the fire, against the dragon-children who need to be reined in before they burn down the world. He is tempted to swat them from the sky; he has seen nothing in his life from the dragonborn except mindless destruction stemmed from unbearable arrogance and lack of self-control.
But he can’t hold forever against other magicians, so if they dragonborn have brought friends, Brennen will eventually fall. This is not the danger he was recruited to stand against, but he will stand for as long as he can.
(ooc: since brennen isn't really "here", I'm cross-posting this in several relevant places).