noniad: (Default)
Ortus Nigenad ([personal profile] noniad) wrote in [community profile] deercountry2022-04-13 04:55 pm

[semi-open] i am the world's poor pessimist | april catch-all

Who: Ortus Nigenad and YOU
What: April Catchall
When: April
Where: Various
Content Warnings: Discussion of death, Harrow the Ninth spoilers

mehanizovati: (Default)

[personal profile] mehanizovati 2022-05-04 03:14 am (UTC)(link)
[to be fair to the skull the average trench fishermen who frequent here probably look gaunt and unsettling enough to pass for skulls. still, viktor feels some level of contentment that ortus looks a little less lost than when they started talking.]

May I ask after the inspiration? [he's never really read poetry, mostly because it wasn't something readily available for most of his life. unless you count dirty undercity limericks, which he does not and ortus has already had to deal with the sixth's horny poetry anyway.] Oh yes, especially here where you never know what odd occurrence may keep you from your work. It's always something with this place.

[viktor nods- that is a very valuable insight, actually, one he'll remember.] It must be alarming, to have their entire system of magic and the rules that govern it turned on its head. I had always assumed mages and the like would have an easier time adapting to blood magic, though perhaps there's something to be said for having to unlearn what you know first. [a pause.] I suppose in terms of reticence it is true that the vulnerability of asking for help isn't easy to learn when you are used to being powerful.
mehanizovati: (31)

[personal profile] mehanizovati 2022-05-07 09:01 am (UTC)(link)
[that strikes viktor, that assessment, even in terms outside of magic and necromancy. maybe he's been thinking too much about power and those who wield it, what it does to people, the typical, tired line of thinking.

he finishes his drink with a little 'bah' at downing the last of the now warmed beer. yuck, but the task is done.]
Interesting you should put it that way. I've met a couple of people who came from a world without magic and the magic they have been developing draws on natural talents they did not regard highly. One man good at reading people able to occasionally read thoughts, for example.

[poetry seems to slip into ortus' words now and again, giving viktor an idea of the kind of poem this man might right. something epic rather than the flowery love poems he usually imagined when thinking of poetry. maybe more like the operas heimendinger was fond of, the rare times viktor saw one himself.

the way he speaks of this matthias though, it really does make the man seem like a the stuff of myths rather than stories.]
Perhaps you can explain it better- when I spoke to Palamedes of cavaliers the understanding I got was it would be belittling to call them mere bodyguards. Would you say they are more like... hm, knights? Soldiers?
mehanizovati: (31)

[personal profile] mehanizovati 2022-05-11 03:13 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh not at all. [viktor's the curious sort anyway, he'd be a hypocrite to judge people for questions. also he thinks that's a rather fair question to ask in the trench. maybe it's typically a magic faux pas.] I've only noticed one ability myself and have done minimal testing of it.

I accidentally bled over a machine I was working on and found I innately knew the issue was a clog in the tubing. It was... hm, not unlike reading the machine, I suppose. Another example of a skillset I already have emerging in the blood magic.

[his reaction to this was a bit of irritation when if first happened, which he now looks back at with some amusement at finding it a slight, as though he needed blood magic for such a thing. ah, pride. still, a useful enough trick that isn't terribly invasive.

well, and viktor thought pal was top notch at hyping up cavaliers. ortus just blew him out of the water and poetically, which is impressive because pal wasn't a slouch in that department.

(he also glances to his empty glass and feels the oddest spike of envy, at such a bond and from birth. not the knighthood really, not all the drama and protection and ennobling, but just the simplicity of a person there. hm, morose and only one beer in. definitely not having another.)

he pushes the glass to the bartender and shakes his head about another, turning to ortus to ask,]
How are they chosen? I was under the impression it all starts quite young.