7th of Frost, Year 121 AS
The Crown & Lion
As soon as he was finished tidying up his little garret apartment, Finn checked his clock and nervously approached his door. He was expecting someone, but he didn't know how it would all go down. He opened the door carefully, then backed away. Unsure whether the door needed to be open or if Zef would be on time, he sat down at his little table and began to clean the old lute he had picked up from Phoma's. His hand was getting stronger and he was finally turning the corner where he wanted to hope that he would regain the full use of his hand, which meant he needed to get back into the habit of daily training on the lute.
It was dirty, with scratches, but it had "good bones." He planned to clean it, add a new coat of varnish, and then see about replacing some of the pegs. Torin might be able to runeforge him some, though he wasn't sure how that might improve the instrument. He still had some spellthread that Talon had gifted him, and he would have to see if it would suffice as strings, whether they could be pulled to the correct tension to resonate on the notes he needed. It was exciting to have a project and be able to entertain the idea of being able to play again.
He was carefully scouring away grit and grime with a soft cloth when the hairs on the back of his neck prickled and rose. Perhaps it was the rune he already had on his scalp, hidden by his hair, that had him attuned to the flux and flow of aether, even if it wasn't a sort that he had the ability to manipulate. He looked up and the air in his doorway shimmered, then seemed to coalesce into a sheen, mirror-like, that reflected his astonished reflection back at him before it faded into a view into another room. Zef appeared, red robed and grim. He stepped through without fanfare, the membrane of magic clinging to him just a little before bursting and allowing him through along with faint scents from the room beyond. He looked around; it had been some time since he had visited Finn in his garret. Then he turned, concentrated, and his portal blinked out of existence. He closed the door and turned back to Finn, not saying whether opening the door had been correct or not.
"A commission from the Shinsei and you haven't moved into a better place?" he asked garrulously. He held out a bundle wrapped in wax paper and tied with twine. "Scones."
Finn carefully set the lute aside to accept them with his thanks. Zef took him by the wrist, examining his hand.
"Mm, necromancy isn't my art, but everything looks... well, it isn't my art. How does it... wait, what is that?"
"What...?"
But Zef was crouched in front of the battered lute.
"I picked it up at Phoma's," he admitted. "Had a sort of a vision, but I might have just been hungry." He laughed.
"There's magic here," he said. "Dormant but powerful. Huh." He stood, giving Finn a strange look. "Well, let's settle the matter at hand before we worry about your magical lute."
"Magical...?" He glanced at the lute and then back to Zef, who was quite focused when he made the decision to be. Finn would ask later. He nodded, nervous. "What do I do?"
"Show me where you want the rune inscribed," Zef said, businesslike, "and then best lay down on your bed. You'll be in a trance and I know you aren't much for meditation so best just to keep you prone so nothing happens to your body while we work."
Finn nodded, then pulled out some of his writing materials so Zef would have a stylus to work with.
"What is that?" Zef asked again.
"What? Oh." He held out his grimoire for the mage to peruse. There was only so much he could see, even with his rune of knowing, but Finn didn't really hide things from his grandmother's curmudgeon of a friend. "Made by Mistress Lyra at Ale'Ephirum. I'm afraid it's wasted on me. I'm not really a mage." There was a distinction in his mind between a mage and someone who had some magical ability; it wasn't his profession, in any case.
"Clever boy," Zef mused. "Perhaps I ought to have made more efforts to enroll you in the Circle when you first came to me." He handed the grimoire back, then eyed Finn as if taking his measure again. Finn shrugged and handed him the stylus that came with the grimoire and Zef examined that for a while before nodding. "All right, then."
Finn stoked the stove to keep the room warm, then pulled his shirt off over his head and folded it neatly before setting it aside and laying down on his bed, which was tidily made. He didn't have much room, but he kept it well enough that his father wouldn't scold him if he showed up at his door. He tapped his right shoulder.
"I don't want it on my face or anything, but I don't suppose I need to hide it. Not that my shoulders are regularly on display."
Zef nodded. "You gave me spellwright's ink. Unnecessary, but helpful."
Zef Mirlind's approval was new to Finn. The corner of his mouth twitched into something like a smile.
"Just relax. For now, I'm only drawing."
That said, he drew the sigil where Finn had indicated, then scrived several other symbols down his arm and up nearly to his neck.
"Only the first will be permanent. The others, well, I'm scriving some things that ought to mitigate threshold sickness. The effects are psychological and temporary when they happen. Distance could seem... funny for a few days. You might see places you have been, places you haven't been. Best to remain calm through it all, weather the storm, you know. There are much worse aftereffects from other runes. I'm going to have you meditate as I taught you when you were first learning your Mesmer, and then I'm going to pull aether through your nascent rune to activate it. It will separate your astral body from your physical form so it can move into the slipspace, the place between places, and into the Aetherium. Exposure of your astral body to the Aetherium will seal the rune into your soul and grant you the ability to move through the slipspace on your own. I will be with you the whole time in my astral body, guiding you to the Aetherium and then back to your body. All you have to do is follow me, stay with me, and then your challenge will be reintegrating with your body. But I will be there to help with that as well, so try not to panic at all the strange sensations. You will be as safe as I can make you. These symbols I've scribed will also prevent you from accidentally engaging with your rune until you have recovered from your threshold sickness and I can train you to properly utilize it. Do you have any questions?"
"No," he said. He had a thousand questions, but he knew the answers wouldn't only beg more questions. He could ask them later, when they were working on his actual skills and it would be easier to retain the answers, tying them into experience.
"Very well. Trance."
Finn schooled his breath, slowing it and deepening it. His mind followed the lead of his body until he was at the point where he couldn't hear Zef's symphony, but he was aware of its presence. It was a strange, liminal space, another space between spaces like this slipspace Zef had described to him when he decided his unofficial mentee needed another magical discipline so he could escape danger if he wasn't going to fight against it.
He became aware of Zef's hand upon his wrist, though he didn't feel it exactly. That was when he realized he wasn't entirely in his body anymore, that the aether was unstitching two parts of him from each other. Everything felt strange, but his mind tried to parse it in ways he recognized. Much like he heard the symphony even though it was merely a pattern of the aether and not an actual song, he felt himself getting up from the bed, Zef's hand on his wrist. But when he looked down, he saw his body in repose, and Zef's bent over it.
Looking at Zef's astral body, his mind couldn't decide on how it ought to look. It was Zef. It was Zef, but translucent. It was a silvery thoughtform, mirrored like the membrane of his earlier portal. He could see or, as he didn't have physical eyes any longer, sense a sort of energetic cord connecting their astral bodies to their physical bodies, an umbilical leading back to their navels. That made sense—a tether that he didn't want to snap.
Come.
The journey was indescribable. Perhaps after dreaming, his mind would be able to process. They were at one point still in his room above the inn. Then they were in the slipspace, where he could sense the interconnectedness of all things, all places. Then, they didn't transcend the planes entirely. He didn't think Zef could take him to the home of the Endir and the Aldir, but he felt bathed in the fires of creation. He wanted to be a bard, but he had no words for it.
He wondered if Talon felt this.
Come.
He didn't have a wrist anymore, but Zef tugged him back from the precipice that he wanted to jump off. The light of it dimmed. The connections didn't disappear, but one in particular took up all his focus, and then they were back in his simple, spare room in Kalzasi. He was more aware of himself as a singular being again. He was Finn. Zef was urging him back into his body. He had a body. He tried to remember what it felt like to be bound by skin, to be supported by bone, to feel the thrum of his blood rushing from part to part. It was a challenge as Zef had warned, and he didn't know how long it took. Time was strange, as well.
"You're fine," he heard. He couldn't see. "I've given you a sleeping draught. Best keep you subconscious as much as possible while your soul digests all this. You are safe. Sleep, my boy."
fin.
