[East Street] No More Pencils, No More Books (Hadrian)

[Vhast]

NotePermission given by Paragon 54th of summer 512 av East Street. Where the inspired degenerate toiled for a dishonest living, and courtesans numbered higher than the gutter rats themselves. A place where men of employ could loosen their purse strings for a game of chance, and speak candidly over cheap grog while still managing to keep a furtive eye out for trouble. Yes, these streets had a certain type of charm about them that pandered to a certain type of denizen. But alas, Vhast was not one of them. How he'd come across this particular haunt was still a mystery, the early evening air cooled by a breeze carried in from the sea that swept through ebon locks and momentarily distracted the scholar's concentration. He'd been reading while walking again, a book on philosophy poised between the fingers of a single hand with the pages open to the scribblings of some blithering sophist who thought he knew a thing or two about life. Vhast was less than impressed by the author's efforts, but it had still been enough to garner his attention. Perhaps more for the sport of calculating rebuttal than discerning information. But what was thought to be a mechanical walk home from the docks back to his dormitory housing was now faulty assertion, eyes quickly scanning for a landmark to order his bearings and give his feet proper guidance. He moved forward rather than retracing his steps, a decision Vhast had never dreamed would have dire consequences given that he'd never been threatened in this city. Eyes began to watch him as he developed a pensive look about distinct features, a few esoteric gestures shared between some men of disrepute who knew a mark when they saw one. The scholar was making their work too easy for them... A hand appeared over Vhast's shoulder in the same amount of time it took the young man to shudder a gasp, frantic gaze searching for the source of the appendage as he narrowed in on a man who reeked of self importance. He had a hand clasped to the lapel of a gray wool jacket and pants that were too large for his legs, gloves that had seen their fingers lopped off and boots that were worn around the toes. The scent of alcohol lay heavily on his breath when he spoke, and the salt of age had weathered away the hair from the top of his scalp, leaving a scraggled patch of gray to crown it. "Ah, young master, tis good tuh see yeh in these fair parts. Don't get many o'your kind 'round here. If yeh 'ave the coin tuh spend I know a few gamblin houses'd be glad to have yeh. Maybe a drink to wet yer tongue? Looks like yeh been out in Syna's light all day!" "I uh..er..." Vhast could feel the man's callused hands strengthening their grip upon both shoulders, his feet unwittingly being led towards a darkened alleyway. Eyes that had been intent on watching before were now all turning away curiously, a few unknowns trailing in the pair's wake with casual glances held towards the sky and edifices surrounding them. Vhast was still trying to comprehend what the man had said, fearful realization sparking only a few seconds too late. Elevated suddenly from earth itself, his body was tossed into the decrepit depths between buildings. Vhast's feet found little purchase with the ground when he returned, tumbling forward as his shoulder smashed violently into a crate stacked up against the side of a dilapidated building. The book he'd been holding fled from his grasp and disappeared to the shadows of the alley. He was already on his side pulling a hand to his bruised shoulder when the first fist struck him against the other. Grimacing in both a mixture of pain and fear, the young scholar was still left wondering just what in the petch was happening.

[Hadrian]

Hadrian was a different sort of professor from the others already, taking Stonemiller's style of more one on one mentoring as his template, and then exploding it, putting the pieces back together in a manner he found appealing. Vhast was his first prize student, or was like to be, his fields of interest almost perfectly overlapping Hadrian's own, at least where academics were concerned. And so he had outlined a reading list, balancing things that were fact as well as proven fiction, interesting and dull. There were writings, like the one Vhast had now, that were boring and debunked, but important to know for a wider context of the world, a deeper understanding of the flow from one zeitgeist to the next. He did not want a sheep following him around, but to guide a sharp wit toward the level of scholarship in which they could eventually be colleagues, sharpening their understanding of the world upon each other. To say that he missed the long, ambling conversations with Caelum would have been part of this equation. The geometry of Zeltiva, of his life, had changed over the years, two of them spent in exile from this place, putting what he had learned to some use, accepting what seemed true, and setting aside that which the world denied. There were things that brought him to the darker parts of Zeltiva, and while he was still cautious, he had grown more confident in his ability to protect himself. All the same, as a master aurist, he could keep track of the auras around him without much effort, keeping a part of his mind open to the impressions he received on that plane. Of course he recognized Vhast instantly, having spent enough time with him over the past few weeks that he knew the general pattern of his soul better than most. What alarmed him were the sickly flames of ill intent gathering around him like hyenas scenting weakness. He knew these streets well, and hurried toward his student, who was from Ravok and should know better. Zeltiva had its dangers too, and didn't Hadrian know it. He moved quietly down one street, around another corner, not calling out to alert the predators, but gathering his power strategically, Fluxing djed from here to there in preparation for combat if he could not dissuade the sharks and wolves from the lamb in his care. It tingled just under his skin, charged muscles and strengthened bone. He was not a fighter, but he quavered with temporary strength. With any luck, he could make this bloodless.

[Vhast]

A viscous soup of spittle and blood filled Vhast's mouth as another bony fist collided with his cheek, a body cloaked in the tatters of shadow looming above him with no mercy to be found in the eyes. Warmth spread across the afflicted area like a torch that was held too close to the skin, a river of tears beginning to splash down a face which had not known their touch for many seasons. Confusion however, was quickly wearing down, replaced by an emotion Vhast did not entirely comprehend, but still fed all his energy towards as though it were his last thread of hope. Foreign fingers skittered across his clothes in search of wealth, their intrusion a point of great discomfort that willed the young man's body to wriggle helplessly on the ground. But as the sound of coin echoed delightedly off derelict walls, Vhast felt his breath catch and pupils dilate. His own hands which had been so useless to him before, found sudden purpose in their application as they swept down to his waist where his purse was hidden beneath a length of his wool jacket. It took only a second to find a wrist with grizzled hair upon it, Vhast's hand instinctively clasping around flesh and bone like an ironclad shank. Ripping it away with such severity as to create a certain sense of panic within his assailant, the scholar had not given much thought beyond prying the limb from his body--that was until he saw a set of fingers writhing before his very eyes. Before he could even speculate as to what filth this man's hands had been privy to, Vhast's pearly whites smashed down ruthlessly around them. The blood curdling scream was only a corollary next to the taste, cartilage popping like bloated cysts as his teeth rent flesh savagely from muscle. Bone splintered before shattering completely as though it were a bundle of twigs, a sensation he would not soon forget as he spit the mangled monstrosity back out and released his grip on the man's wrist. For a few brief moments there was not a soul that would touch him, his hands scrambling around in the dark until he found the object he'd been searching for. The man's vile screams carried on, amplified by the acoustics of the enclosure he found himself in, though his assailant was soon backing out into the street again. Sweeping the book he'd been carrying back into his possession, Vhast rushed to his feet only to find another hand latching unceremoniously onto the collar of his shirt. This new silhouette was decidedy more brutish than the last, a malefic glare imparting enough meaning that any mind with an iota of intelligence could decipher clearly. But something over the thug's shoulder drew Vhast's attention more acutely than the impending doom he faced, a familiar presence he did not at all suspect, but was relieved to see. Professor... Vhast's sheepish expression spoke volumes along with the shrug of his shoulders, left cheek swollen to the size of an apple. The thug however, seemed hardly amused.

[Hadrian]

It didn't take long for Hadrian to comprehend the scenario playing out before him, and his decision was quick. He began to glow with a cold fire, that same stuff beginning to manifest upon the walls of the alley until it began to gleam icily. Everyone's breath became visible, puffs of warm air in the sudden, Avanthalian cold. Morwen's breath, he thought. The cold light leached all color from Hadrian's skin, his too blue eyes icy and dangerous, his face as seemingly cruel as any potentate of Ravok. "Return his coin and unhand him," he said, his voice strident and trembling with the power of a cracking glacier. The blood on Vhast's teeth looked black in the light of his freezing res, but his brows drew down, dangerously down. "Or lose your hands." There was no exit save to pass through Hadrian, unless someone opened the lone doorway in the alley, and the denizens of these burroughs knew better than to open their doors when violence skulked outside.

[Vhast]

Faint was the sound of the world, drowned by the pounding of Vhast’s own heart like a ball peen hammer striking against rawhide. The life, what little there was, had been drained from his youthful features. Not from the sudden cold that animated his fevered breaths, but from the sterling realization of his actions and their looming consequences. What blood remained had been corralled in his cheek, though not all of it could be claimed his own, a thin red trail dribbling from the side of his lip where spitting it out had failed him. It tasted of soured iron. It was repulsive. And yet the firm, harsh grip of reality kept him grounded, Vhast’s other senses heightened by the keen awareness of his own mortality being raised for judgment. He could smell the stale breath of the man holding him by the collar, look into his eyes and see the intent that had been hastily constructed without much thought for consequence, feel the calloused touch of grizzled fingers brush against the softer skin of his neck. Beating a student of the University to within an inch of his life would earn him the taste of the lash if not worse. But the brute wasn’t considering consequence at this moment, his mind filled with a hate his childhood had never taught him to curb. An orphan who had been taught by life rather than by lesson, earning his keep through aggression and intimidation. His growing body only provoked a hubris that went unchallenged, until the day came where no one would even look him in the eye without shuddering quietly. Vhast felt like he was reading all of it, pulled from the man‘s soul awaiting beneath the dark eyes staring down at him. It was a past filled with gloom and sorrow, the kind of tale better left untold. It inspired the young scholar to take pity on him, a dangerous emotion for one who was too proud to admit weakness. Hadrian’s threat did not fall on deaf ears, however, the stranger pulling his gaze away from Vhast to look upon the newcomer with a transference of loathing. He knew the cold was unnatural even in his crude state, the puffs of steam rising from his nostrils more pronounced than the faint wisps ushering from his captive’s. But knowing something was amiss never seemed to stifle his temper, and before Vhast could chance a reaction, the brute snapped his arm to the side, the boy along with it, crashing into the dark wall of the alley with a wet smack as the blood from his cheek splattered brilliantly across the surface. Stars blinked into existence almost immediately as Vhast’s legs buckled, falling to the street with book still clutched earnestly in his palm. Another trail of blood began to stream from his forehead this time, thinner than the other as it slipped along his brow before cascading down his nose. Crumpled though not flattened, his torso leaned awkwardly against the wall while his eyes watched the silhouette of the stranger advance menacingly towards his mentor. He wanted desperately to give caution to his friend, but the words never made it past his lips.

[Hadrian]

"His coin," he reminded the thief. There was a deep current of compassion in him, but he kept it hidden where nobody could find it. Vhast might understand if he tried to explain it to him, how compassion could be turned against a man like a weapon. It was no shame to have it, but it were better kept in the dark. "And if you try to hurt me, I'll show you how the winter winds earned the name bonesnapper," he assured him. Cold blue res curled up around the man's limbs like sentient fog, sending a shiver through him. Hadrian, despite what some might believe. He was not a sadist. In fact, he might take suffering onto himself for the well-being of another in the right circumstances, but he would never call his actions noble. He wasn't even a confrontational man, but Vhast was his student. He saw a great deal of himself in the younger man, whether for good or for ill. He could stand a confrontation on the Ravokian's behalf. He could hypnotize, perhaps, but it was much easier to wield one discipline at a time. He might even risk some slight overgiving for the young man, but that was dangerous territory, a slippery slope toward the sirens of magical addiction.

[Vhast]

Though the air was stiffened by the cold and bent to the reimancer’s will, sensibility became a trait the thug did not seem to possess. His would be a tough knee to bend, disciplined by years of never backing down from even the scent of a fight; a mongrel of the streets fueled by the injustices society had dealt him and his adrenal-fueled desire to offer recompense. This Vhast knew, taken from their silent exchange not moments before he’d been dashed violently into a wall. His only hope was that his mentor became equally aware before it was too late. With the jingle of coin bouncing in the thug’s swaying palm, he advanced doggedly towards his new adversary. His head had been shaved to stave off another settlement of lice, a list of small white scars running across his bare flesh where the telling of countless brawls could be revisited. A thick neck was supported by broad shoulders, down to a barreled chest that was covered by a partially unbuttoned tunic. The gray cloth hadn’t seen a wash in what could have been decades, dotted by bouncing fleas that held no appreciation for the cold. He smelled of pipe smoke and cheap beer, a musk that covered the pungent stench of sweat he cared so little to wash away. His eyes may as well have been two black holes, buried deep in their sockets and sheltered by simian brow. If there was a stereotype to be filled, he seemed almost the perfect candidate. “Coin’s mine. But you can take the boy with you,” he growled, stopping five feet away from the man who had fog coiling around his arm. “Fancy trick, but it won’t scare me none.” To his credit, the thug seemed intelligent enough to know the meaning of the first strike. Perhaps some time spent in the jailhouse had taught him one lesson, however unwilling he wished for it to stick. But the dice had been cast, and he knew the inevitable loomed before them. Tossing the purse up into the air, its fabric casing molded to the coins bobbling around within it, a taunting gesture as his face shaped into a yellow toothed smile. Vhast meanwhile was doing everything within his power to regain some notion of balance. With the bashing he’d received dazing him well beyond reason, the pin pricks of bright light clouding his field of vision faded and were replaced by a nausea that settled in his gut. Anchoring the flat of a palm against the wall, he slowly stood until his back was hunched with his head dipped towards the ground. It took everything he had not to vomit.

[Hadrian]

Under Hadrian's will, the fog clinging to the grizzled criminal grew ever more chill, flaring more brightly. As he tossed the pouch in the air, his attention divided, Hadrian struck with all the force of his hypnotism behind one fear-laced word: "Run." With luck, it would knock him for a loop and he would let the pouch fall before he did so. But if he did not, well, Hadrian would see that Vhast didn't starve. For his part, Hadrian edged around toward the wall, getting out of the man's way should he fly per the hypnotic suggestion. His eyes still on the adversary, he took Vhast's wrist and pulled his arm around his shoulders. He had to stoop a bit as his crane-like physique was half a foot taller than his student's. He hadn't any skill at healing, but he could carry him back to the university if he had to. The coin was less important than Vhast's blood. But now he had him, and if any of the men tried to touch him, Hadrian would make good on his threat. Bones frozen solid would snap quite easily, he imagined.

[Vhast]

There was a pause as the coin slapped noisily back into the mugger’s palm, a silence filling in all the areas of his countenance where enmity once dwelt. Tightly clenched teeth fell down to an unhinging jaw, and his vacant expression soon twisted into one of fear. Without the presence of mind to control his own actions, the thief left no grip on the boy’s purse, and so let it fall to the wayside as he dashed thunderously down the alley and around the corner, away from view, and out of their lives. Vhast found himself in awe, if not incomprehensibly bewildered. Supported by Hadrian’s arm, the student’s moss green eyes continued to stare blankly ahead as though he had just witnessed the god of implausible likelihoods descend from the sky and beam at him encouragingly. Other onlookers appeared to do the same, and where some initially had the intention of joining in the foray, they were now all left with the growing sensation of being outmatched. With the streets having been cleared of most its peopled stock even before the threat of violence was made clear, it now became a ghost town as the pair made their way from the alley, Vhast’s purse back in his possession. “I’m all right, I think.” His stomach would have protested had it had a voice. “How did you…?” With investigative eyes looking first down each direction of the abandoned thoroughfare, Vhast finally turned to Hadrian and eyed his mentor with no small amount of curiosity, a dash of fear mixed in. “Th-th-thank you. Whatever you did.”

[Hadrian]

Hadrian scooped up the coin purse when it became clear nobody else would claim it out from under them, and tucked it into Vhast's pocket. He hoped this was a one time occurrence, and that he wouldn't have to come to his student's rescue on the regular, else he would have to teach him some means to defend himself. While he enjoyed Vhast's quick wit and agile mind, he was not sure yet of the wisdom in initiating any Ravokian in magical abilities. Realizing this was a knee-jerk reaction from his own Syliran upbringing as much as anything else, he tried to set it aside. They would just have to see how things panned out. "Reimancy," he said quickly. "The magical manipulation of the elements. Water is my specialty still, and condensed water at a low temperature. We'll have to go over philtering and alchemical theory at some point." The light was already dispersing, and the summer heat returned to them. He hadn't used all that much energy in that display, diffusing a little res over the range of the alley and then freezing the air, and the curling fog for show. He had always struggled to find the most economical use of his power, for fear of overgiving. "It's an old discipline. The elements are primal things, though they are also the basis of more sophisticated understanding of the djed and, thereby, everything else." He was helping Vhast along, shoulder still up under the student's arm, in case his knees should give out or something. Hadrian might have to Flux in order to carry him bodily, but even his gangling body could handle a little bit of extra weight without buckling. And he spoke calmly to calm the younger man's mind. Words shaped thoughts, and thoughts shaped reality.