Closed Getting blood out of a stone

[Ximal]

55th spring 21st bell. Xi rolled his shoulder and felt the bandage upon his chest now resting beneath his shirt. the cut on his face having closed but still it'd end up scarring. Xi sighed lightly and headed back towards the hostel. The trip to the infirmary had taken longer than he had anticipated. But Xi was going to go and check on her, and that blue bugger. Xi trudged through the streets following the single road of walking and the lights. His stomach growled loudly, he'd missed food for the day so he'd hoped vysia would have some spare. Xi closed his eyes and willed away the distance, speeding up subconsciously as he trudged down the road towards the hostel. The walk didn't take long it was only a few meters away but the time getting the injuries fixed had drained the light and now he had to get back he was in no state to be fighting with a monk. luckily he didn't run across one until. vysia. Xi entered the hostel and was met with a glaring look, the same one he'd got when he brought in eva earlier the day, even if he was hungry that glare told him he'd be getting no food. Xi closed his eye's and sighed before trudging up the stairs. He may have wanted to go to sleep and forget the events but he'd said he'd check in on evalin. Sighing he tapped on the door, before announcing that he was coming in. He opened the door slowly following in behind it.

[Evalin]

Evalin sat upon the bed, head leaned back against the wall as her eyes gazed unblinkingly at the ceiling. She mouthed soundless words as she listened to the sweet whispers that begged her, pleaded with her to cast, to congjur, to destroy... How she wished to give in, to let go of all her reservations... yet Tsenrika stayed close to her ear, fighting back the urges with his own cold words.

As the door opened Evalin's eyes flickered momentarily to the man as he stepped through the portal, a small smile playing her lips as she looked back to the ceiling, "Come to claim what was promised? You are very quick to seek compensation..."

[Ximal]

Xi entered and saw eva staring up at the ceiling her eyes a little glassy but her demeanour all the same spooky over tones. Xi smirked though when she spoke. claiming what was promised Xi smirked and glanced at her before looking up to what she was on the ceiling. Xi chuckled softly before glancing back down to her his own body easing alittle as he felt his ribs ache with his chuckling. "Well not really, at least not entirely. Mostly i came to check on you. When i brought you here you seemed a little..."out of it?" either way i'm hear to check up on you. Your "friends" broke at least one rib and fractured another two. That and the fact i was almost turned into char grilled beef like those friends of yours says that i need to get better. So i'm here to ask you a few things. One to teach me reimancy. Secondly is to claim that familiar. I'm now requesting two thing because i said i'd teach you and i still will but the second thing is for the really large risk to my life." Xi smirked a little and stepped closer pulling the chair from the desk and plopping himself down upon it pulling his mouth up into a half grin he leant back. Letting his spine take the strain to ease the apin of his chest. "Still, i have to admit...i did not expect a pair of giant fiery snakes nor did i expect you to fire off a gods dammed lighting bolt at me. So i'd like to learn what you do. Not so i can use it against people but i'd like to learn how it works...So i can learn how to counter it." Xi smirked and took a slow deep breath before continuing on. "I also spoke with your "orb" it told me that you plan on doing something with "great consequences". I'm unsure about what he means however. Is it something that could effect just you, or something that could effect the world?"

[Evalin]

Evalin offered the smallest of smiles, a true smile for once in her long life, and she winced slightly with the effort it took to keep the whispers at bay. To make matters worse the craving in the back of her mind had grown to an aggravating pitch, nearly splitting her head with the force of need that washed over her. Closing her eyes, Evalin touched a hand to her forehead, Tsenrika floating to the other side of her head as she did so.

"It seems I can no longer trust your silence when I am indisposed my Dear Tsenrika..." She said without looking up. Eva knew she would have to speak with the Familiar at a later time, for if his lips were so loose at more inopportune times all could be lost for the Witch.

"I spoke of what needed to be said. Nothing more, nothing less. Came the simple reply.

Evalin opened her eyes, smile slipping from her lips as she stared at Ximal, "Be wary of the words you speak, for you do not know of what you ask of me. You wish to claim from me an ability that I have fostered for over 200 years, and you believe I would so easily pass on my teachings? Already you ask me to rend a tear in the fabric of this world so that you might have an eternal companion. Does your greed know now bounds?" Her eyes narrowed, "These flames which I wield shall consume those weak of heart. You may very well die in the process. Do you still wish to ask this of me?"

[Ximal]

Xi smiled and leant back in his chair. Smirking at the light discussion between eva and her floating orb compatriot. Xi then decided to chime in a little. "in the orb's defence, he did say it was for beating you, which being frank i cannot say i did, after all. You've pushed me the farthest out of all i've fought in my time, of all the foes I've fought my greatest ones have appeared in this city. and now i'f like to say i can call both of them allies if not friends." Xi extended the word as if he was bridging a gap between two islands. Lost in a wide stretch of water. True he was asking a lot of her. Her to rip open the very fabric of space and time, But still he wanted more he wanted her other magic, not for the purposes of greed but the purposes of understanding. Xi coughed lightly feelign the pain fo the ribs in his chest as he did so. Xi smirked though as she continued about her flames consuming the weak of heart. "I'd like to say i know i'm strong of heart but being honest i am not sure about that. I wish for one thing freedom. Its the only thing that keeps me pressing forwards the wish to be free. I've fought against reimancers in sunberth and he there used fire, one i fought against in the spires, and that one hurled water at me. Now i've fought you and youve hurled both lighting and fire at me. It's time i learnt how this skill worked how this very complex magic operates and in turn i shall learn how to defeat it, where it's weakness lies. So you ask me if i wish to ask this of you? I respond your the only one i can ask this of. MY greed though...MY greed is only out of the need to defend, i wish to give freedom to those who have none, and defend those who already have a form of freedom." Xi grunted lightly at the pain in his chest and he looked at her long and hard. "Which is worse having the power before you to save more than you already can and not taking it? Or taking it and then not trying to help those who need it ? I'm not afraid of being consumed. Because then if i am i know that i was not strong enough to fulfil my wishes and dreams anyway. I lacked the will to carry my goals out. I consider this one of the many crucibles i shall have to go through to prove my fortitude, and my resolve. Do you still question if i have the heart to go through with this, becuase i have the will to go for it, even if i am too weak."

[Evalin]

"Despite your will, if you are weak you will die." Evalin said simply, "If you have not the strength to wield power you deserve it not, as you have said. What foolishness it is to think that you could defend anyone, for those who need defending were not worthy of their life in the first place. That is the laws dictated to us by our so called fate given unto us at birth when we have little to say in the matter..." Her words were embittered, filled with deep feelings fostered over hundreds of years, yet through the anger and loathing Evalin could not hide the tones of sadness there, for she had experienced this crippling weakness for herself. She had been told the very same thing, so long ago... She was fated to die because she was weak, and so she did not deserve to live.

Her eyes looked over Ximal, burrowing hard into him, "I cannot give my power to one who can so casually claim weakness of any kind." She said bluntly. Her eyes roamed upward once more as her mind fell back in time, to a place in her past that such feelings as these dwelled. She thought of how she had felt during those times when she knew her time was coming to an end, when the hands of Fate dictated she must die... how powerless she felt, how weak she truly was. She has been week then... had she not? Weak of body yes. Weak in knowledge of course. Though... not weak in resolve. Her eyes wandered over Ximal once more as she found notes of her old self within his words.

"However..." She let the word hang in the silence for a moment, "If you wish to learn of my teachings, I shall give you chance to observe. If I find your resolve to be unwavering, then perhaps my mind might be swayed to the contrary..."

You show kindness to this boy...?

Evalin gently rubbed her temples, I present him with an opportunity. If he be fitting, then he might become one of many pawns that follow at my cloak hems toward the future.

[Ximal]

Xi listened to her words carefully and glared back at her, they eyes of his now seeming to glow with the fire of his resolve. If i die, i don't deserve the power. And i accept that. And foolishness is the only thing i can claim to have then if i wish to follow through. The weak are ones who need teh strong the most. Not to rule them not to lord over them but to protect them from those who would seek to control them with their strength." Xi shifted in his seat agian wincing a little as his ribs moved the pain still evident. He took in and let out a slow streamed breath. And listened as she spoke regarding not being ble to give her power to one who could claim a weakness of any kind. Xi closed his eyes and spoke again, this time his tone was much harder. "One who cannot claim any weakness, is one who cannot claim any power either. For you cannot know where your strength lies, if you do not know where your weakness lies." Xi stared at her now the burning fire of will in his eyes. eventually she spoke again. One word, "however" the word hung in the air like a dagger lost in time. a chance to observe ? "What do you mean a chance to observe. I think i observed your power fairly well when i was surrounded by your snakes of pure flame. If you wish to test my resolve look no further than what happened earlier today. I was entangled by your flames and still i did not give an inch. But if you wish to test me again, fine. Run your tests past me, you'll find my will unwavering." Xi's manner now was firm hard like marble, his eye's like cut sapphires steeped in marble. He was not going to give one solitary inch.

[Evalin]

Evalin smiled at the steely look directed at her, and she could not help but notice her ichor boiled at the intensity of it. Anger... Indignation, possibly hatred? It was what she desired, what she longed for, what she craved. Though he knew it not, but Ximal had played his hand just as Evalin had hoped he would.

"My decision is final, and you may accept it or not for it matters little to me. I sense in you a craving for power, for strength that is not quite as pure as you might hope it to be." She chuckled, leaning forward a bit as she opened her gleaming red eyes wider so that Ximal might see her weight they carried, "What is it that eats away at your soul now? What has caused your blood to boil so? Do you hate me for denying you what you feel you have earned? Do you feel that, by besting me you have somehow earned the right to all of my knowledge?" She grinned in an expression that might have been cute on any other child, "Perhaps it is this very foolish quality in you that I see that truly endears me to such kindness toward you. I enjoy that fierce expression that lights within your eyes. The eyes of a killer, one who has been drenched in blood and felt nothing for the life taken. One who has stripped from men their honor and pride with little heed of the consequences, and never suspecting the harm he has caused in doing so."

She leaned back, raising her left hand to pull down her left eyelid, making the stark red of her iris more so, "Tell me Ximal, do you wish for eyes such as mine?"

[Ximal]

Her final decision ? Xi sighed and glowered at her not through anger but resolution, an absolute unyielding stand point. Xi smirked though as she spoke. "It's true...I'm not going to hide it. MY wish for strenght is'nt as pure as i make it out to be. I've been seen through enough times now. Yes i wish to have power yes i wish to be strong, it may be fore selfish reasons but those are my reasons." Xi could feel his shoulders tensing, the weight of the situation grinding on him. Something that ate away at his soul. Do i hate her for denying me what i want? No. Do i feel i have earned her knowledge by beating her? No. "No...I feel that by defeating you i've earned the right to at least be considered an equal. I'm sick of being considered beneath people. I am tired of being called "stupid" just because of my size and the fact i fight. Yes I am foolish yes i am head strong but does that make me stupid ? Does that make me beneath people ? No!" Xi rose from the seat and threw a hard punch at the wall to his right with his right fist, the impact of the steel coated fist of his left a slight dent in the wall. No now his anger was ignited now he was going to burn. Xi listened to eva continue he had they eye's of a killer, it was try he'd taken life with no regard for the repercussions, no heed for the issues he may have caused. He'd taken lives and not cared about the price it chipped at his soul. Xi kept his eye's fixed on eva and watched as she revealed the full redness of her irises. Xi kept his hard glare on her. His arm still tensing, the muscles straing with contention. Xi then closed his eye's as he drew the djed down from within him and up into his eye's focusing on the colour of her eye's using them as a base. It took a few moments before he spoke and felt the energy drain from him lightly. Xi then opened his eye's slowly and spoke out at the same time finishing his first sentence as his eye's would open fully. "I already have eye's like yours. Yes i've killed, yes i've felt no remorse. The thing is though...I didn't do it out of my own need to satisfy some sort of vendetta, i've done it to save people...Or at least...that;s what i keep telling myself. Tell me Evalin...You've lived for two hundred years straight in your own words. And in all that time...Have you ever looked back at your life and seen only the chains of constraint holding you back? If so then you know why i have the ye's i do. But you'll not know my reason for adopting them as i have." That fire in Xi's eyes remained and glared back down at eva.

[Evalin]

Evalin closed her eyes, chuckling as she caught sight of the change he had preformed. Had she not seen another preform such astounding feats she might have been more surprised, yet more and more she was learning that this man was simply too full of surprises to ever be taken off guard by them.

Such strong feelings he holds... such emotion and blackness circles within his soul. He is a pot close to overflowing, seething in anger and hatred that needs just a little more to froth to the surface.

He is easily swayed by the heart...

Evalin opened her eyes and raised a finger to brush Tsenrika's smooth surface, But that is precisely what makes him useful. Now the question is... what would be the final tender that it would take to alight the blaze of hatred within him?

Mind the flames of hatred do not consume you as well...

Evalin sneered at Ximal, "To save people?" she scoffed, "What a ridiculous notion. This power you wish to gain is not for the purpose of saving others, it is to ruin them, to bring them down in suffering to a state of dread and despair beyond anything they have ever known." She touched her lower lip, the black tongue licking the end of her index finger, "These flames I wield are only good for consuming life, snuffing out the stars as darkness envelopes all. Would you cut bread with a broad sword? Of course not for the sword is meant to kill, to slaughter and to maim, not to provide nourishment to starving children in need." Her smile widens to a grin, "Though of course you may carve bread with your bloodied sword if you wish. I doubt the starving children care if their bread be covered with the entrails of those you slaughtered in their name. They would feast all the same."

She laughed, a cold and cruel laugh, "I care not for your reasoning. I care not if you take my power and strike down men, women or children. What I shall never allow is your illusion of its purpose. You would carry a tool for death, and no matter how much blood soaked bread you pass to the masses forever will your hands be stained crimson for the crimes you have committed." She licked her lips, fingers folding around her staff as she chuckled again, "Very well then, perhaps my words have been in haste. I shall grant you what you desire, for what matter it if a murder is given another weapon for which to continue to kill? Feast as you like with those dirtied hands, and carve the carcasses of your slain into a feast for those you 'save' as you see fit in your kindness."