[flashback] hands (caelum & hadrian)

[Hadrian]

21st Summer, 507 A.V.

Some were always trying to ice skate uphill.

The best laid plans often went awry, but one couldn't think in that vein if one wanted to accomplish anything great. Or, rather, one should be aware of Murphy's Law--that anything that can go wrong will go wrong--but one should still be bold, be detail-oriented, and, if possible, be careful.

So he had done his homework, but still he was trying something that might just be beyond him, or in a manner that just would not work. He couldn't know until he tried.

As of that day, his meager skill with reimancy allowed him to conjure up a bit of water, which could have practical application, he supposed, but was not what he had hoped for. Hadrian wasn't a pyromaniac, but he was worthless in a fight and he knew it. If cultural immersion failed, he was going to need some way to protect himself. What element caused the most obvious damage? Fire.

Water was all well and good, but the best he had managed was wetting a colleague's trousers while said colleague slumbered away in class, and he had felt a little bad after the fact. Not that bad, but he would have to be more careful with fire and less likely to turn it against someone for whimsical purposes.

Hadrian had planned ahead. It was the aestival solstice, so the element of fire should be more powerful than the others. His sleeves were rolled up above his elbows and his skin scrawled with glyphs, sigils, runes--calculated to work with what he had to conjure what he didn't. He would be a pyromancer yet.

Algiz, Protection. Uruz, Strength. Eihwaz, Defense. Kano, Opening, Torch. Laguz, Flow, Water. Thurisa, Gateway. Dagaz, Breakthrough. Sowelu, Sun.

It should work. Or, rather, it could work.

The practice room was bare except for protective glyphs around the walls that would keep just about anything from getting out without the proper incantation to activate the release. But Hadrian didn't need anything. He set a red candle in the middle of the room and tried one last thing: prayer.

"Holy Ivak," he said simply, "please bless my endeavor."

He bent down, struck a lucifer, and lit the candle.

Fingertips brushed over the runes inked onto his forearms and hands, careful not to smudge them. He said each one in sequence, and then focused his djed out of himself with much effort. Personal magics were not his forte.

He stared into his cupped hands and felt the djed almost perspire out of his pores, then evaporate, swirling under his limited control into a loose, slowly spinning sphere of dimly glowing energy. Once he had accumulated the energy, he took a deep breath. From here, he could transmute the gathered Res into water, but he wanted fire.

"Burn," he commanded.

The djed pulsed, darkened, and struggled against him, trying to assume a liquid form despite his will set against it. Minutes passed as he tried to bend the Res to his purpose, but it continued to change into something between energy and liquid.

Frustrated, he said again, "Burn!"

The near-liquid djed darkened, reddened, and if one could say that it was made up of little particles of Res, then each one began to vibrate and hum audibly. Eyes of chlorine blue opened wide, wider, widest and suddenly he lost whatever control he had over it, at which point the Res turned to water.

Incredibly hot water, but water all the same. It sizzled against the sudden barrier his runes provided, spilled down and doused the candle. And then it overpowered his jerry-rigged protections and began to burn his hands.

Hadrian shrieked like a wounded little girl.

"Son of a whore bitch arse shyke bugger bugger bugger!"

Shaken, he stumbled toward the door, somehow managed to vocalize the key and release himself from the magical prison, and then dropped his hands so the too-long sleeves of his new student robes fell over his injured hands. White-faced, he elbowed the door open and hurried out of the room.

He all but ran to the university clinic, which, due to savvy planning, wasn't far at all from the College of Magic.

[Caelum]

The clinic was relatively slow. Oh, the beds were packed as well as the vast majority of private examination rooms; but for the university clinic in Zeltiva, that was slow. There was a minimum of shouting, of screaming, of blood squirting in sheets against the walls. All in all, it was almost peaceful. The drumming music of footsteps swishing forth and back again, the low hum of conversation rattling from aide to professor, from physician to patient.

Long since, Caelum had lost himself to this lusty lullaby of life and life's fading. He was, at present, implementing the morning's lessons in herbology with the skin ulcer livid on his elderly patient's back. It was the same material migratory birds used to line their nests that he used to create the poultice, such plants being packed with antibacterial elements.

He was just finishing up with the door to his examination room burst open, causing sun-shattered eyes to snap up. They widened ever so slightly at the sight of someone he knew, but without missing a beat, he smoothing finished tying off the muslin bandaging and murmured to the old man, "And done. Have your wife change it out three times a day as we earlier discussed and if the swelling and/or discomfort increases, come back to see me immediately."

HIs patient's wife flashed a wrinkled smile at him, blessing him with a cool kiss to his cheek, before leading her husband away. Caelum directed his attention to Hadrian and, after one, sweeping glance, immediately reached for the pitcher of water on the counter.

[Hadrian]

Upon entering, Hadrian opened his mouth like an Eypharian opera mask, his burned hands raised dramatically, but he found Caelum in the company of old people, so he caught himself, trapping the impending scream with a bit of a pitiful whimper. He had been staring at his hands ever since he got to the clinic, which wasn't long, but he was calming down a bit. They hurt terribly, but they didn't look serious enough to worry overmuch.

Once the elderly couple was gone, he risked breathing through his mouth, a great gulp of air that ended up a gasp.

Nothing was said. His jaw was twitching with the effort of not making noise against the pain. He just held out his hands to Caelum with the silent command: fix me!

[Caelum]

"You're going to unbalance yourself," Caelum scowled.

Of course, he was already moving as he said this, the door whispering swiftly shut behind the elderly couple even as he gripped Hadrian's shoulder and shoved him around so his hand were held over a basin. A careful, visual inspection was made of the young magician's hands, his mouth still caught in that frown before he filled the basin with cool water from the pitcher.

Once he had wiped his own hands down with a carbolic soaked cloth, the water pitcher slid to the broad table top littered with neatly labeled jars, vials and bowls not unlike a magician's own paraphernalia, he shifted back to his friend. Hadrian Aelius was, in fact, one of the few people that this introverted, apprentice physician might actually refer to as such. Lillis, of course, was an entirely different subject.

"Hold your breath," his gruff voice gentled, taking on it's more musical qualities, and he gripped Hadrian's elbows, well above the burns, and firmly, slowly, lowered his hands into the basin of fresh, clean water until the entirety of the damages area was submerged.

"I'm going to mix you something up for the pain," he informed Hadrian. "Don't move your hands out of that water."

[Hadrian]

A strangled groan vibrated in his throat, but he held his breath as the water shocked, then soothed a bit. When he could breathe, he took several deep breaths. Then, "Thank you. Shyke, I forgot my candle."

He gazed at his forearms, wondering if the grey flame curse of Ivak might show up after his failure. So far nothing. Thank the gods for small miracles. The ink of his glyphs had soaked into his skin enough that the water wasn't fading them quite yet. As far as he knew, Caelum could read the runes as well as he, and so he might be able to figure out what Hadrian was up to.

"I'll have to remember to bring you this herbal remedy for sunburn I got from a Konti pirate last week. It worked like a charm. Perhaps you can suss out the secret from the leftovers." He had used it without any knowledge of what it was; sometimes he was stupid for pretty girls.

"Oh," he added, trying to distract himself from the pain. "I hope the pain-killer doesn't make me stupid for the rest of the day. I have to figure out what I did wrong while it's still fresh in my mind.

"So how has your day been?" he asked through gritted teeth.

[Caelum]

Willow bark, ginger and black haw went into the tea, creating a concoction of herbal pain reliever and anti-inflammatory. It was one of the stronger brews whose recipe he had reviewed just yesterday while preparing for one of his fellow healer's quizzes. He slid the mug onto the counter next to Hadrian, allowing it to steep and the steam to rise, intoxicating the air.

"This is a bit more than sunburn," he remarked, but his interest was piqued. "Yeah, bring me the leftover tincture. As for making you stupid," he reached for clean rolls of bandage and a mortar and pestle. The primary ingredients for a lightweight cream that would assist in fighting off infection were added -- goldenseal and garlic. Aloe, a dash of mint, and he mixed it up while frowning down at Hadrian's submerged hands.

"Those are second degree burns, Hadrian. You're going to want the pain medication. Trust me on this. You can ease up on it tomorrow, but in the meantime you're running a high risk of infection." He nodded at the glyphs scrawled on his friend's arms. "What were you trying to do exactly?"

[Hadrian]

"Well, will I be too stupid to go home? Do I have to spend the night here?"

He realized that it didn't really matter. Unless Caelum was mainlining Rak'keli's grace, it wasn't like he was going to be able to hold a pen in his hand without wetting himself from pain for a while.

"Shyke," he said, shoulders slumping. "I'm shyke at reimancy. I can do little tricks with water. I was trying to glyph a spell to convert it to fire because I figured that would be more useful if, say, I move to Sahova and things go sour and I need to defend myself from a shambling horde of the undead." He paused. "I kind of want a shambling horde of the undead of my very own. And maybe a tower. With a harem of kelvic sex slaves. When we get you back to Syna's heaven, will you see what you can do about that for me?"

The words spilled out in order to take his mind off the pain. He wasn't really that shallow and horrible. Maybe.

[Caelum]

"I'll be sure to put that down beneath trebuchets," Caelum muttered. A smile flickered against the corners of his mouth however as he sniffed at the poultice/cream concoction he had created. No true creams, oils or anything that could potentially seal the heat into damaged flesh and further increase the already high likelihood for infection ought be used on burns. This was a compromise, one had learned from an Opal Order Healer a few weeks back and labored over intensively in various recreations.

A lean hip caught the edge of the counter, slumping him down as he lifted the mug of medicinal tea, blew gently on it's surface, and at length lifted it to Hadrian's mouth to, with the deft expertise of a healer, help him drink it.

"You'll get better," he informed, perhaps, his only friend. Then, maybe if he took the time to be nicer, more open and receptive to people other than Lillis and Hadrian, he might have more friends. He was adept at keeping the majority of the world firmly at arm's length. It was not out of disdain for them, but out of self defense. "It takes practice as do all things. Besides, Ivak," his smile edged into a smirk. "Is unstable by nature. Looking at it one way, you conjured his aid perfectly."

[Hadrian]

Hadrian drank down the tea as quickly as he could with Caelum's help. It gave him something to focus on other than the burning at least for a little while. Once he had swallowed the last of it down, he paused in silence for a few moments, trying to feel the effects take hold of him. He was, obviously, fascinated by things unseen.

"Well, perhaps he's marked me with gnosis as well as burns underneath all these glyphs," he hazarded finally, but he didn't sound too hopeful in that arena. In fact, he added a doubtful, "Pfft!"

He let his eyes relax into a soft focus so he could allow his other-vision to ease into his awareness, gradually letting his altered sight refocus on his hands to see how the burn damage was affecting his aura. Never one to let a opportunity to learn pass, he noted the angry flush to the energy around his hands and an internal dimness that belied any imagined strength to that flush of burnt djed.

"Would you call your ascension an apotheosis?" he asked, apropos of nothing. Sometimes they caught up with old conversations by tangent from a current one.

[Caelum]

"An apotheosis?" That had Caelum raising an eyebrow while he set the now empty tea mug on the counter. Shifting out of his slouch, he reached up into one of the open, pale wood cabinets and felt around until he found the sterilized, muslin based gauze.

The gauze was unwound in his hands, a solitary strip cut off before being laid aside. Now that he had successfully cooled the burn with the water, it was time to pack the poulitice between layers of gauze, thin and lightweight, and the bandage Hadrian's hands to defend from infection.

As he went about these actions, his motions careful, gentle and deft, he considered the question put to him. "No," he answered finally. "Not in actuality. The ascension of a soul into ethaefal is not denoting a godhood upon it. We are not gods, nor even demigods. We are the claimed devotees of gods. You see? Now, down here, people don't necessarily realize that. I've run into a number of varying reactions over the years. There are those who clearly are awed by what they deem to be a godhood, and then there are those who are disgusted, thinking me some kind of monster. Abnormal. Queer."