Hide and Seek [Torin]

[Aurin]

Below Kilvin's Forge
25th of Glade, Year 122 Steel

Torin knew where he was. It had seemed prudent given the trap Torin had walked into that they warn each other if they were going down into the hidden basement. It would be more hidden sooner or later, when he could partner with Torin to use his glamour trick to help make something to hide the entrance from view. He hoped the runesmith might partner with Finn to work on something to encourage the mind to avoid the entrance or looking down with any sort of magical sense. Torin had several friendships which might prove advantageous to Aurin.

For the time being, however, he was practicing his bequest from Talon Novalys, who was still missing. He wondered if he would feel it if the man-cum-demigod expired. He certainly felt more connected to his boys since inscribing his runes into their skin, but he might just have been imagining that. If he was honest with himself, he allowed that he wanted to feel more connected to his boys. When the time came, Timon might do well with both of his well-established tricks, though he wanted to ensure he knew how to do everything in his power to prevent another spiritual walkabout like Torin had undergone.

It wasn't exactly searing above ground, and it was always cool down here, but he had stripped his shirt off and was sweating from the effort. It would take more than one session to ward the entire basement, so he was focused on the wall that was nearest the street, spreading aether like jam over toast. The aetheric energy was similarly clumpy and sticky, difficult to work with. Like a bratty lover, it wasn't cooperating as much as he would like. It was a testament to his skill with his other tricks, though. He hadn't realized how deft he had become at using them given he had no proper schooling.

The Shinsei hadn't offered training, only initiation. He supposed that was a godly thing to do—the fucker.

[Torin Kilvin]

It had been almost a month since Aurin had cut his pretty mark into Torin's skin and gifted him with a magic that had nearly washed him away with its strange power. He was getting used to the extra sense, manifesting as a sixth to his natural five rather than overlapping any one of them. His mind still used the language of his normal senses to describe the information he received from the rune, but outside of the need for language, he knew better.

He spoke about it a bit with Aurin, Kala, and Sivan, who were able to understand what he was saying even when the words didn't quite line up with what he meant. It was nice, having little lessons and getting advice from each of them. They had decidedly different styles of teaching, and, he was beginning to realize, interpreting what the rune gave them. Learning multiple versions of interpretation, in addition to the one his mind had easily stepped into after a lifetime of using aura glass on a daily basis, felt good, like stretching muscles he'd always known he had but hadn't been able to reach till the rune let him.

Aurin was down in the basement now, Torin could feel him as well as the magic he was wielding. It was pleasant, feeling the redhead's presence in the house. The shop was closed for the day, as it was the common day that most shops closed in the week. Some shops did two, and Torin did that once in a while too, but he would be working in the forge six days a week anyway, so having the shop open made sense. The smith was in the house, setting up the new work table he'd bought for the kitchen after Timon had complained about the old one being 'splintery'. The last thing he wanted, not that his apprentice was baking, was bits of sharp wood in the bread, so he'd bought one made for cooking and kneading dough. It was sanded so fine it was soft to the touch and lacquered with food-safe finish so it felt almost buttery when he ran his hand over it.

Timon himself was out doing... Torin wasn't sure actually what the boy was doing with his day off, but he trusted him and wasn't worried.

Once the setup was finished he made his way outside and opened the swinging doors down into the basement. He'd cleaned it out thoroughly and had new stairs installed so it was safe to climb in and out. He had also spent many hours over the last two season examining the incantations over both the swinging doors and the trapped one within. He had just been getting a real handle on the ways they had both been hidden originally when Aurin had given him Semblance. The first time he looked at them with the rune their secrets had opened to him as easy as breathing. Which, though very useful, had also been highly annoying after having spent the better part of twenty hours trying to suss them out without Semblance.

A lot of his runesmithing had just flowed into perfect clarity like that once he had, tentatively started working again. Things that he'd believed he understood came clear in whole new ways; like he'd been reading from a translation and now he spoke the original language. All the little hints of things he'd been sure were real since his childhood but hadn't been able to talk about clearly were not things he had a language for, at least with those friends who shared the rune.

Stepping down into the space, lit now by one of the illumite lamps since they weren't needed elsewhere, he watched his lover work for a few minutes. It was fascinating seeing the ward creeping over the wall, attaching at points that created a latticework of protection. After a time he said,

"Do you have to attach it like that? Is the shape a part of the ward?"

[Aurin]

Aurin's shoulders didn't hitch at the footsteps. Even if he hadn't had his trick, he would have known it was Aurin from the way he walked to the faint hint of his scent on the air. But there was also the trick. He was keeping a little bit of aether running through his Rune most of the time now in order to be on the same page as his boy. He was even starting to process some of his guilt when he saw how the gift of the Rune had helped Torin make sense of the world, feel more comfortable with his place in it. It had been worth the danger, then. It was also gratifying to see how many people showed up for Torin, that they recognized his worth, and that he had other people to depend on when needs arose that Aurin couldn't really help him with.

"I don't actually know," he said, chuckling at his own expense as he wiped perspiration from his brow with the back of his wrist. "Feels like I'm spreading wallpaper and just... willing it to stick to the wall. His Royal Divinityship didn't really leave instructions, though at least I got to see him work when he drew it on me. Who knew you could just draw Runes on people? Not me."

There was a faint bite to that. He knew Torin liked pain in some ways—needed it, even. But Arry was a more delicate flower, and Aurin didn't like the idea of hurting him, even for a purpose.

"Might nose around for a book about it or something," he continued. "I don't want to go to the Circle library... I believe it's open to the public with some... you know, documentation. In case you want to go to them. But I don't want them registering me on their rolls or anything."

He paused, stepped back, and observed his work. He could sense it through one trick, but he was also primed to sense it from the Rune that gave him access to it, which was a strange doubling. Of course, his glamouring trick worked like that as well, so he wasn't surprised.

"I think that's about all I can manage without some rest, though," he admitted. Torin was allowed to see him weakened, tired. "First I'll make it as impervious as possible, then worry about hiding it from anyone with the Semblance Rune. Going to have to layer things separately, though it seemed as though Talon could just weave multiple tasks into one. But, you know, magical family. Divine bloodline. All that."

Aurin certainly didn't have those.

Glancing sidelong at his boy, he took him by the back of the neck and pulled him in, tucking Torin's nose into the crease between his arm and his chest. Torin didn't mind him sweaty. In fact, he enjoyed it. So he was rewarded for descending with a whiff of his musk.

[Torin Kilvin]

The knowledge that a person could apply cardinal runes in various methods was something that Torin knew. He knew that different people did it differently and had assumed that Aurin's way was the way that would work for him. If Torin was ever to pass on his rune, his mind told him it should be a brand. Non-traumatically drawing it would be safer, but it felt as though imparting his personal magic in a personal way, in fire and metal, would do the job better.

His scar was healing beautifully, both health-wise and aesthetically and he might someday ask Aurin to carve more slim, pretty scars into his body for no greater reason than the scars themselves.

"The next time I'm at the Library with Kala I'll ask the scribes or librarians, if they know of good books but don't lend them out I'll take the titles and go buy copies."

He could do that now. Just go buy any books he wanted. If they were common enough that copies existed he could just trot over to a bookseller, if they were less common he could afford to pay the scribes to make him a copy. He even had a nice set of short bookcases in his front room to keep books. Probably more than a hundred if he filled them.

"It is probably a matter of practice." The smith mused while leaning this way and that to examine the wall smeared in aether. It looked quite a bit like the work the mage he'd hired several times now to aid in his work had used on his New Year's present for Sivan. "Renalt spoke a little bit about it when we were working together last season."

Aurin would have seen the mage on occasion, he was young and had an ill reputation due to having fallen out with some high-level Circle mages, but his work was good. Torin preferred to hire people who actually needed the work when he could help it. Particularly during Frost when low funds were even more likely to lead to privation than other times of the year.

He was still musing over the shield when he was grasped tight about the neck and led down forcefully against the redhead's body. Resistance didn't enter his mind, his instincts were keyed to obey Aurin before even themselves, and it was Aurin's touch that controlled him, his scent that surrounded him.

The blond's brain stuttered and shut down as he realized what was being done and pushed deeper for the scent and -flicking his tongue out- the taste. Aurin was always clean, relative to other men, anyway. Some were probably cleaner, but, despite his official job behind a desk, Aurin worked. He always found a way to keep his muscles moving, which left Torin with little hints of his lover in nearly every part of the house.

The insistent invitation for a more substantial dose would not be missed, and within a moment the smith was lapping under his fox's arm, then up, over his neck, even to his brow; like an animal cleaning its mate.

He fully intended for them to have the conversation about what they both intended to do to secure the hidden space beneath the house... in a minute.

[Aurin]

The fox didn't balk at Torin's ministrations, but rather seemed almost to preen under them. If Torin was in touch with his animal nature, Aurin responded properly. The things the smith needed weren't new to him now, and if he ever thought they were strange, they were long past that now. Eventually, he claimed that tongue with his mouth and pushed his lover against the wall with his weight holding him there. The wards almost sang at the contact, resonating through two of his runes—the one that sensed and the one that created.

He kissed him long and hard, and while there was a hunger to it, there wasn't the sudden foxfire that would push a casual conversation into sex.

Perhaps later.

Torin's face was pink from the abrasion of Aurin's kisses, the bristling of his short beard. Aurin held him firmly by the jaw, hazel eyes peering into blue, those pools of reactive lust.

"I'll ask Renalt about it the next time he's here," he said, his voice a husky whisper of hot air that caressed Torin's skin. "And you can bring me books." He nipped Torin's lower lip between his teeth, then sucked it between his lips. Then he trailed kisses along his jaw before whispering several terrible things he was going to do to him later. And then he eased back, stepped away, and found his shirt, pulling it on before he caught a chill.

Then he turned back to see how his boy was recovering from the sudden fire between them, and the absence as Aurin banked it for later. He smirked. While he had sussed Torin out as a submissive from the beginning, it still pleased him to overwhelm the young man with things, leaving him off balance, the better to have him fall into his arms for support. No, he amended, Torin wasn't submissive—he just needed to submit to Aurin.

Perhaps there were things that were meant to be.

[Torin Kilvin]

The large blond man was left heavy-lidded and uncomprehending by the time the fox was done with him; leaning against the wall and trying to remember why it mattered that blood be allowed to return to his head.

The wall, smeared over in new aetheric energy hummed at him in a similar way to how Aurin's own aura sang in Torin's senses. The part of him that would never stop being fascinated with how magic worked wondered if someone else's wards would sound different, or if Aurin's aura sounded like the wards because he was, by nature, a protective person. Shaking himself slowly out of the lust-induced haze he pushed himself back up fully standing and, trying not to ogle too openly, glanced around the space.

It was a large room, the largest in the house, an opening the size of a whole floor of what stood above it. It could be divided into smaller rooms with construction (something Torin would likely attempt to do himself rather than let strangers become aware of the hidden space) or left open and divided into spaces more conceptually.

Another part of his mind, a more childish part, sort of wanted to turn it into a secret hideout like the ones gangs of thieves had used in the books he'd spent his youth inside. The thought wasn't wholly a bad one, considering he did work with an organization that had reason to need hidden spaces. A sort of shelter/hideout that also could serve as a workspace for Portions for Foxes had merit.

He mentioned this to Aurin, wondering out loud if such a space would be useful or wanted. The business didn't have an official location, which was part of its charm, in the smith's estimation, but having a space that couldn't be located short of god-like powers where someone could be safe seemed like it could be a boon in many circumstances.

Walking around he tossed out ideas for a small living quarters, spaces to store food that wouldn't rot, perhaps an office space for Aurin, even a training space would easily fit all together. There was, of course, the already magically concealed tiny room where Torin now kept anything work-related and too valuable to leave in his forges. Only Aurin knew about that room, even Timon and Destyn were ignorant of its existence.

Gesturing he let his ideas come out as they came to him, some overlapping each other, some admittedly silly and fanciful. He felt free to ramble with Aurin, to relax and let his words tumble out like water over smooth river stones. When he ran out for the moment he turned back to his man and gave him a shy smile that wasn't nearly so small as it would have been a year ago. A shy grin, bright as Searing sunshine, waiting for the flame of his master to refine and purify his ideas into something realistic.

[Aurin]

"No, I think you have the right idea," he said, pleased that for all the effect he had on Torin, the man could find equilibrium again quickly. A man had to be ready for whatever life threw at him, and life rarely waited for one to be ready.

"We can be slow about carving this place out for ourselves." The were in many ways a we now, so whatever they built would be for them. "I'll be slowly adding to the warding, and we can clean the place up." He seemed conflicted, but he added, "Perhaps your patrons might work the earth into supports or... your friend's elementals. You said his earth demons were slowly remodeling his house? The fewer people that know about it the better, of course, but it could be a safehouse if the Zaichaeri invade. A place where we can do things we don't want other people to know about..."

There might have been a wicked, lascivious barb in that, but he would do things to Torin where they could be heard—he didn't care if Torin's people knew what they did together. He only cared that Torin not become a public target to any enemies Aurin might have.

"Might be some time before my wards can hide the cursed key, so I'll keep that on me for the time being." He might not be sure of the gift Talon had given him, but he was more certain of his ability to slip out of dangerous situations, all the more so now that he had those bracers from Torin. It occurred to him that he ought to do some training with them so the first time he fell from a height wasn't an untested feat. But he wondered whether he ought to do that where Torin could witness it, whether the man would have faith in his enchantments or if seeing Aurin fall would be too traumatic for him. Aurin trusted Torin and his enchantments, anyway, and that was something extraordinary. He didn't know if the younger man understood how rare trust was for his fox.

[Torin Kilvin]

The smith was nodding along to the idea that supports could be added to the space by Sivan's elemental sprites when it occurred to him that they could probably expand the space as well. The land that he owned was several times the size of the house and could be tunneled under without much difficulty for the creature who was expanding on Sivan's cottage. The thought of having a large clandestine space that no one outside his intimate circle was aware of was exciting to the parts of him that had dreamed up secret adventures as a child, but he wasn't sure if having a huge space would be practically useful in reality.

He mentioned the idea, letting his lack of surety in its efficacy bleed into his voice. Aurin could mull it over and get back to him, or, more likely, they would revisit the idea should they ever find themselves in need of additional space. Another thought struck Torin, the fact that the Warrens lay under Kalzasi. Glancing down he wondered how deep he would have to dig before he broke through to the dangers of that place. Swallowing around a suddenly dry throat his mind flipped the idea and wondered how far up something would have to did to break through into his basement.

Most people in the city had basements, and there was no hew and cry of people being dragged down into the depths from them, so the smith banished the thoughts, hoping they would not come back in his dreams. What dreams he remembered had been strange since he had come back from the illness accompanying receiving his rune and he tried not to hold on to them any longer than the first moments of waking.

The pair continued to speak of the refitting for a little while. Torin agreed to have Sivan take a look at it when it was convenient. The floor would need to be pulled out, as the wood had gotten damp into it and there was no salvaging it. He could probably take care of that himself, and see about laying a proper foundation for a new one. There were books about such things and the smith wanted to try and get them done himself. After that he could see about finish the walls in a basic way. More could be done once they were sure what was needed. The work would likely have to wait until the next season, as busy as he was with panic-orders, but it was something to plan for.

[Rune]

R E V I E W

Lore: 8 each

Points: 10 each,
Torin may use for Semblance
Aurin may use for Semblance or Negation

Injuries/Ailments: None

Loot: None

Notes: