The Stars' Praise

[Seven Xu]

Seven’s fingers groped at the darkness behind them until they came upon the familiar shape of his notebook, having been long abandoned in favour of memories and windows to the sky. It opened to a page marked by a thin pencil, and he began to scribble the numbers on an old draft of what looked to be a district in greater Syliras.

“It’s beautiful,” he smiled, his fingers working independently of his attentions. “Remarkable.”

His eyes drank of the green glow and were black beyond swollen pupils meant for the blackness of night. Seven had collected and memorised sequences of numbers that mages gave stars for years; there was no practical purpose in them for the sake of charts, but it felt wrong to simply ignore them. Tonight, he had another. The halfblood also jotted the word vilemoss beneath the summoner’s coordinate.

“Quite remarkable, indeed—and you, Hadrian,” Seven closed the book, pressed it to his lap, and inched closer. “You can do this whenever you want? Open windows—portals, to the sky, to space itself? Gods,” he laughed, “if I had such power I’d go mad with possibility. That or I’d accidentally off myself with low world spores.”

Seven settled against the old wood floor again, suddenly sober. “You must know much of being careful.”

[Hadrian]

Hadrian didn't argue; it was that, and dangerous too. But where once he had rolled his eyes as an adolescent would at every mention of peril, now he was one of those cautionary voices added to the choir. He took risks, but tried to prepare as best he could. Human understanding would be stunted without risk, but stupid and foolish risk could sometimes be taken out of the equation. "Ah, theoretically, although I wouldn't do it if I was distracted or tired. It takes some willpower and attention to maintain the link, and I can't hold them for very long. I offer the sigil blood, which links me to it, which means it drains me for sustenance. There are more complicated circles for more complicated summoning, but when I have a question, it is often just a simple matter of opening a portal to Swalden and asking the hive mind of the memosites to share. One learns with time and experience how best to ask for what one wants. If they think, they don't do it as we do." He smiled again. "There are only so many accessible worlds that I know of, which does limit me somewhat. I haven't found the coordinates for them all. I haven't had the need, though the memosites might easily fill me in on what I want to know. And yes, some worlds should be marked here there be dragons, or... well, glassbeaks."

[Seven Xu]

“Glassbeaks?” Seven’s brows rose on incredulity. “Monsters from the plains, they thrive on other worlds? Interesting.”

The halfblood grew quiet in his thoughts as he stared down at the rippling plain of yellow, pockmarked by shadows and light. The world itself ended abruptly for a stark black sky with innumerable stars; more than he’d ever seen from the ground. It was jarring to think traveling too close to that window on the ground would result in an endless fall through them. Seven’s fingernails dug into the floor at his sides.

“I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm to tell you,” he fought for the right words, black gaze fixed on Kseyden. “I used to try my hand at magic, though I never could manage to make sense of it. I had a book on the basics of it, of shield magic,” Seven bit his lip, “I just couldn’t do it. Then, a spirit showed me. He became me, for a moment—it was so cold—and he pushed it out of me. I’ve gotten pretty good at it, since, but I’m not sure of it. I’m not sure I even have the will for it. I’m not sure why I dared in the first place. I … does … does that make sense?”

Seven looked back to Hadrian. The laugh he forced was a bit too eager, and a bit too loud, and it did nothing to brush away an embarrassing confession. “Sorry. Sorry, I’ve gotten all personal on you.”

[Hadrian]

Hadrian nodded. "Glassbeaks were apparently taken to Shoyden, and now one can summon them. Perhaps someday when I can safely summon them, I might compare them to our native species and see whether life on another world has changed them aught." It was an interesting question, at least to Hadrian. "A spirit taught you to shield?" he asked, interest piqued. After a moment, "That makes sense." After another, "I could teach you the basics of necromancy. I mean, if you are going to learn things from spirits, you should know how to force them out of your body, or how to create food for the dead, which might be a more suitable payment than whatever else they might want." He shrugged off the apology, trying to break the awkwardness with his offer, which implied a knowledge of certain disciplines he didn't normally advertise.

[Seven Xu]

“Sounds like magic,” he remarked, stone-faced despite the playful lilt in his starry voice. The offer had come from nowhere, and sounded almost too good to be true. Not that he doubted the mage’s ability; it just seemed out of place, considering the halfblood’s admissions of ineptitudes and insecurities when it came to weaving djed tangible. There were other concerns, as well: “Ghosts are unpredictable, aren’t they? Bound to the world by business undone and near impossible to reason against.”

White nostrils flared and glassy eyes twitched as he fell into consideration. “It wasn’t so bad. The possession, that is; it was like stepping into ice cold water.” His head tilted. “Well, no, I guess it was the opposite of that. I never thought to push him out. The circumstances didn’t exactly offer me the chance.

“If I’m so fortunate as to meet another of his kind, I guess it wouldn’t hurt to better know what I’m dealing with.” Seven finally cracked another smile, easing away from the portal and Kseyden’s endless mossy plains to look Hadrian up and down. Something familiar itched on his neck, but he ignored it. “How do you mean to teach me?”

[Hadrian]

Hadrian snorted laughter at the humor. "Indeed." Seven's questions were cogent enough, and luckily Hadrian's knowledge far outweighed his skill. He could answer them. "They can be. Having lost their bodies, they are limited. They are also bound here until they are banished or finish their earthly business and let Dira take them. It's bound to be frightening, and anything frightened becomes unpredictable at times. "Anyway, shamans and necromancers apparently go through many possessions in order to learn how better to control their interactions with spirits. It gets easier with practice, I'm told. There's no true initiation required. It's a world magic. But creating soulmist can take a great deal of time and concentration. It also requires food. Would you like to come to my cottage?"

[Seven Xu]

Seven’s brows knitted together. Now? Whatever hadn’t felt right in his gut before had blossomed into sickening apprehension. Could Hadrian conjure up spirits—if not from necromancy, from some other talent? He gathered leather-bound notes between his hands and pushed from the floor to stand, numb legs wobbling from having sat prone for so long.

“It’s late,” he admitted, “and I’ve probably exhausted you enough looking at the sky. I wouldn’t want to burden you further.”

He crossed the floor to place the small telescope back on its stand. “I … I would like to see what you have to show me. Don’t mistake that, I just …” Seven’s small fingers scrubbed a smudge off of the scope’s well-polished bronze skin, “Never mind.” He forced a laugh. “Does tomorrow suit you?”

[Hadrian]

"Very well," Hadrian agreed, though he watched Seven's sudden nervousness closely. He then gave him directions to the cottage near the University he had had since his student days. For a moment he wondered whether Seven would stand him up and he would never see him again, but he supposed that was his prerogative. He glanced up at the stars, letting the portal to Kseyden collapse in on itself with nothing passing through to their world. His heartbeat stopped throbbing in the little pinprick where he had blooded the circle, and eventually it all faded away into night, and the stars burned the brighter for the darkness. One day, perhaps, he would number the stars, but for now they were an unknowable quantity of glittering jewels on the velvet throat of night. "Zintila be praised," he said quietly, and nodded his farewell to Seven, leaving him alone with the goddess' faraway realm.

END

[Paragon]

Seven Xu

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Observation	+2
Writing	+1
Philosophy	+2
Astronomy	+2
Writing	+1
Rhetoric	+1
Socialisation	+1

Lores

•	Lore Earned
•	Zeltiva University: Astronomy Tower
•	The Memosite and its Memories
•	A View of Kseyden
•	Kseyden: Vilemoss
•	An Offer to Learn Spiritism

Hadrian

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Summoning	+3
Observation	+2
Teaching	+2
Astronomy	+2
Philosophy	+1

Lores

•	Lore Earned
•	Swalden in the Sky
•	Kseyden: 3893849280160001
•	Zintila's Lhavitian Festival
•	Eager to Teach

A Hero's Work Is Never Done

Great thread - stellar (get it?) writing from the both of you. If you have any questions or concerns regarding your grade, please send me a PM and we can work from there.