• Mature • Going to the Coast

[Jonathan Burr]

25th of Ashan

Jonathan hadn't been in a city since he'd left Etzos. He was still coming down off of the high of obtaining his Harvester, and he could feel power humming through his veins. He didn't feel like a mere human anymore but something greater with Daeva at his side, even when she wasn't currently manifesting herself in the real world. Travelling alongside her had been...interesting. She was massive, bigger than any bear or lion Jon had seen. Her shoulders were eye level with him, and he was an even six feet. She easily towered above him sitting down. Some small, trouble-making part of him wanted her out and about in Ne'haer, if only to show her massive, furless form off.

'It's not a good idea. Mages are hated everywhere these days, and you've chosen quite possibly the most hated of all.'

Even more interesting, she was in his head. He could feel her, somewhere in the back of his mind, settled calmly like a cat on a windowsill. If he reached to her, she warmed to the response. The bond between Harvester and Aberrant was far more intimate than any of the rumors or journals had described it. It was like he was no longer alone in his own head anymore. He had a roommate. Daeva, as far as he could tell, had been around a while. She'd not been attached to a mage before, but had hunted several of them in her own world. The bridges between them, called fractures, were rare but she promised to point out the first one she sensed to him.

The only thing Jon was hesitant about was flaying. He wasn't a killer. He had been an academic most of his life, and a screw-off for the rest of it. He didn't know how to kill a person, or how to feed Daeva. How often did she need it? How often did he need it? Becoming an Aberrant had only given him more questions, not answers. He was concerned for her.

'I don't get sick, or ill. As long as I'm not hurt, I can last a little while without feeding. You have a lot to learn.' she sounded mildly amused. 'There are mages here, in Ne'haer, who may be able to help you.'

"When can I see you again?" Jon asked quietly.

'Don't talk to yourself, you'll look mad. Just think it, and I'll know.' Daeva told him gently. 'When it's safe. I don't like to be hidden, most Harvesters don't, but there are many times it is necessary.'

Jon had been entranced with her strange appearance the moment he'd touched her. She was strangely sensuous, her monstrous feline form was covered in a velvety pelt so short it could have been mistaken for hairlessness. She had an abundance of extra skin that glided over her form as she walked, and supposedly made it extremely difficult to puncture her hide. Her paws were somehow simultaneously leonine and finger-like, her toes long and split halfway up her paw. Daeva's tail was long, but thick and paddle-like. It reminded Jon of the sinewy tail of some salamanders he'd caught on the Etzos rivers as a kid. The strangest feature of his Harvester by far was her face. Her head was human, but devoid of nose, eyes, or ears. She only had sensuous female lips...and her mouth opened both on a hinge like his own and outward. She could swing her jaws open like doors, exposing a pitch-black throat lined with spines and fangs. He'd seen that horrific well only once when she yawned, and determined that no matter what it wasn't going to be used on him.

"Why Ne'haer?" he asked suddenly.

'Necromancers once had a hold here. Perhaps Aberrants did as well. We tend to be a solitary people. Harvesters rarely get along with one another. It is a lonely existence, be grateful you had no wife or children.' Daeva told him.

[Alistair]

"Fucking hell," he scowled. "A perfectly sensible offer. There was no reason it should be rejected; few stipulations, all in fairness, all making sense. But..." his brows furrowed, eyes narrowed, expression grew more stern and angered.

"It was fucking rejected," he cursed. "And I don't get it. I really don't get it. He just -- he just had to accept the partnership, and we'd be fine. Honestly. Fine. Kaelserad would have a new supplier, and he'd have more than enough money to continue forward. What a fucking worthless buffoon of a businessman; a sniveling inbred shit carried down by generations of sheep-fucking and mud drinking. Rube. God, fuck, GOD."

Kleine stared, quietly, but not at Alistair. He looked far away - as far as he could. Damien, too, merely looked down. It was the product of that mark on his back - the black wings extending outward, etched into his flesh by Syroa's claws. The fury, the rage. He was always so calm, but when anger boiled, it consumed him. And he never wanted to let it go; he wanted to strike out, to bleed the life out of something. Anything.

"It's fine, Ali, it's just one --"

"Shut the FUCK up, Kleine!" he yelled, stepping over angrily and balling his fists, glaring violently at the younger man. "I'm not going to have this. I'm not. I'll destroy his fucking business, and buy the rubble of that building. I'll have another supplier take his fucking place, and I'll give them a rate worse than fucking dirt. And they'll like it - because they always do. It's a fucking food service for a damn hospice -- not an alchemist's lab. Uneducated shit-faced peasants, I'm so fucking tired--"

Damien's hand came upon his shoulder. Alistair's body froze in place, as he restrained himself from throwing an elbow back.

"Stop," the Lich demanded. Alistair's blood boiled. "This is absolutely absurd, Alistair. You deal with disappointment all the time in your life. Why are you acting like this now?"

"Because he was a fucking bitch, Damien," he growled. "He was ugly, with broken brown teeth, disgusting breath and a ear-twisting cackle. He was worthless, a slave at best. And he turned me down -- after everything. All my fucking work, all my generous negotiations. He just did it to spit on me. He did it because his cattle of a wife wanted me - and I had the luxury of not wanting her back. I'm so... sick -- I'm so..."

He continued to fume. For as long as it took, he did. Kleine and Damien left, as they couldn't handle him in his state of rage. It was endless, the anger flowing for as long as the amber color filled his eyes. Syroa's emotions were sporadic, and they ran through him with such fire. Lust, fury, and the need to lie and conceal. The anger, right now, was what hit him. Perhaps a moment from now it'd be gone.

But for the moment, it felt good. It felt good not to use Thespian to contain it. It felt good not to be disciplined. He felt right, just like this, and he wanted to enjoy it while it lasted.

It was time to be a cunt. To someone, somewhere. Alistair couldn't always be a good man. He was tired of being good and being defecated on endlessly for it. Storming out of Kaelserad, he followed the cobble roads and simple trails, his eyes resting upon the distant Willow Woods as he balled his fists and stomped. Perhaps he could kill a few wildlife. That always satisfied him immensely.

Coming to the edge of the woods, he channeled his magic through his palms, his hand lighting up a strong red-tinted black as he blinked, stepping in a flash to the side of a deer, who he punched hard in the neck, the beast immediately falling and beginning to twitch, dying and then... dead. He wanted to tear it up. Uthaldria had always been good for moments like this. The city was a fucking drag.

[Jonathan Burr]

Jonathan actually kind of enjoyed the loose structure he'd wandered into. It was sprawling buildings, the outskirts of a city before the buildings started to shoulder one another for room and the stench of humanity poisoned the air. He was content, but the only thing that would make it better was viewing his prize. He was on the edge of the woods, and he plunged into them. Here there would be fewer people. He could feel Davea in his mind questioning his decisions; she'd expected him to go right in to the center of the city and begin his search.

"I can't help it. I have to see you." Jon grinned with a greedy light in his eyes. Davea, flattered, appeared before him among the trees. She padded toward him as silently as a tiger, flicking her tail and her mouth upturned in an amused grin. Jon had to crane his head up to look at her, and he tentatively put his hand on her and stroked her fur. This was power. Having such a nightmarish and yet sensuous beast as a companion. Davea was amused at his wonder at her. She arched into his hand a little, but the moment was ruined by the loud snap of something nearby...and the groan of the dying.

Jon frowned. Davea chuckled. 'Another mage.' she said lightly, pulling herself up on all fours and beginning to pad toward the sound. 'And a strong one.'

Jon wasn't so sure. He followed his Harvester, his hand on her side. "Isn't it dangerous?" he questioned.

'Oh, absolutely.' Davea slid through the trees, and looked at the mage standing over the dead deer.

[Alistair]

The deer bled out in droves, a singular half-bleat escaping its abysmal vessel as the blood pooled from a number of orifices along its upper body, particularly its nose, mouth and even ears. Alistair was satisfied with his kill, particularly the speed in which he'd slayed it. He recognized that he could kill a man just as quickly, with a spear to the gut or a fist to the neck. He'd come far. It was satisfying to let himself out like this -- immensely so.

He noticed the other man approaching almost immediately, his senses as keen as the beast he'd just slayed. Alistair immediately turned to face him, his eye catching an apparition in the meantime, but assuming it was merely a Sylvithia. They came in all shapes and sizes - just like Harvesters - and had a tendency to quietly stare at their would-be prey, particularly during tense moments, and after the usage of supernatural capabilities. He looked past the creature he determined to be a Sylvithia, and Alistair bit his lower lip in frustration.

"What the fuck do you want, peon?" he asked, fists clenching tightly as he stared at the other mage between the bodies of the trees. "I'm clearly occupied, and gleefully avoiding all of the pleasantries. I don't want to see a fucking person right now. You get it? I hope you do, because I want you to leave. Start running. I'm a good throw," he threatened, glaring. His charm and composure had clearly left him, and they weren't coming back for some time. Would he actually throw his spear at some random bystander?

...probably not. He was almost entirely talk. But sometimes, it felt right to rub his power in everyone else's face. To make them feel fear and apprehension. That was the right that mages had given up as they cried out at the sharp stick of their masters. He wanted to earn it back, sometimes. He wanted to make others know him, and fear him. Right now was one such time. Right now, he wanted to be that nightmarish man that others so often warned about. He was so sick of being good, and fair, and meticulous. It grew raw and burned with friction, his skin proverbially calloused from all the years of pleasantries and self containment. It never got him what he wanted.

[Jonathan Burr]

Jon was a bit taken aback by the aggressiveness of the man, but...he could align with it. The bottled up rage streaming off the man. His own newfound power bleeding into his brain. The power of the Harvester next to him. This man wanted to wreck some shit up. "You want me to run?" Jon grinned nastily. "How about we make some of these fucking peasants run?" his eyes slid over to the edge of the trees, where the suburbs began and the forest ended. He wanted to hurt someone. He wanted not to be weak anymore. He could feel ether, new and raw crackling around him.

Davea smiled her grotesque grin. She stretched, her skin bunching up around her shoulders and a huge set of curved, black claws kneading the ground. "Aren't you sick of it?" Jon asked the other mage. "Feeling like you have to fucking...behave all the time? Well I don't anymore, thanks to her. Thanks to her...I finally have power." he forced the humming he felt into his hand, and an orb coalesced. He had a wild light in his eyes. He had power. He had Davea. With her he could do anything. Ambition was bubbling up into the formerly hermit-like academic. "I'm going to destroy all the little fuckers I've had to kowtow to over these years. Everyone who slandered me when I couldn't do shit about it." he growled.

Davea rolled her shoulders. 'I think we've wasted enough time talking.' she purred.

Jon grinned at Alistair, and headed off in the direction of the town. He needed this. He needed to kill. He had never even considered harming another person before but the addiction was burning bright within him. It was more than any drug he'd ever taken as a teenager. It was drinking pure power, and Jon only wanted more of it.

[Alistair]

Aren't you sick of it? he asked. He was sick of it - all of it. The people, their stupidity, their superstition. The way they tormented themselves and others, needlessly. The way they were arbitrary and ridiculous - the pretense in which they always spoke, a pretense which was always without fail a collection of ridiculous assertions. That was why he'd always wanted to rule. Just so that he could subjugate these indignant things that roamed around, endlessly. He could make them better, under his control. They couldn't act right on their own.

For a moment, he felt the same ridiculous rage as the Aberrant, as a grin consumed his lips. He spoke, nodding along, feeling the fury. "I am sick of it," he admitted. "I've behaved all my life. I've held it all in. I'm trying to build up my business to help the bloody townsfolk, and what do I get? Disrespected. Treated like a criminal. And if only they all knew I was a mage - so many of them would hate me just because of that," he whispered, a raw disgust lining his voice.

He held his palm before him, elbow bending his arm into a ninety degree angle as his fist pumped up before his chest. A portal came from behind him, and three dead men stepped out -- Deovan, Icarus, Andreas. They were powerful. They were his. He had almost forgotten how strong he was, trembling in the mud, fleeing the crown. He should've fought them, back then. He could've won. He could've killed the King. He could've changed the world.

That was what magic was -- the power to do anything you desired, without bowing and begging to the Immortals. He knew that so many arcs before, but he'd forgotten it until now. This man reminded him - he was just as angry at this world, just as inflamed.

But as Alistair stared out at the town sitting on the horizon, he frowned. He couldn't do that - just... go there and kill them. That would've been the end of his dreams, and the end of so many others, pointlessly. Syroa found satisfaction in his fury, but not in arbitration. He needed to act cautiously, with the same callous wisdom he always had. He could not let this outbreak be his last.

But he did want to punch something, and make something grovel. And there was one man in front of him perfect for the task, considering he needed to be humbled. Besides, he thought he'd like it, anyway. He was clearly a wild one.

The mage blinked, and pulled the Aberrant's hair from behind him, before throwing him hard against the ground. He leaned his weight into him, sitting on his lower back as he growled furiously into his ear, a hum following afterwards.

"Where do you think you're going, weak one?" he mocked, grinning. "I could slander you, and you wouldn't be able to do shit, either. I can smell the weakness in you. Confidence cannot hide it," he demeaned him, glancing to the Harvester and gritting his teeth. The two of them would be all the entertainment he needed. Angered mage on angered mage. It would be fun.

[Jonathan Burr]

"People hate us. For no fucking reason." Jon agreed. "They're so stupid, all of them. Too weak to reach out and take the power that's there. I spent years of my life finding her, and I'm never letting her go." For a second he believed the man was going to help him. That they would raze the town together and destroy each and every living thing in it. They would be drunk on ether, on pure power.

Instead, he was yanked sharply backwards and sat on by quite possibly the heaviest, most muscular rear end he'd ever had on top of him. That was saying quite a bit. He laughed madly into the ground, little puffs of soil blowing up around his cheeks from his breath. He clawed at the ground. His Harvester chuckled and settled down in front of the pair of them, looking at Alistair almost fondly. 'Some of them just can't handle the initiation. Others cannot handle what happens afterward. He might, in time, if you let him.' she told Alistair. 'Our bond is new. Three days.'

Jon writhed and managed to squirm onto his back. He laughed and ran his hands through his red hair, which was now tangled with leaves and dirt. He seized the back of Alistair's neck. "Fuck me." he growled, the mad light still shining in his eyes. He had to expend some of this energy. He wanted to fuck, destroy, tear something from the inside out.

'It should pass.' Davea shrugged her massive shoulders. 'It's more difficult when they have ambition and dreams of power.'

[Alistair]

This man was mad, but he was right. All of them could be mages, too. They were simply afraid because they were incompetent. They knew that they would fail their initiations, fail to harness either, fail to adequately match their peers. Magic was a meritocracy, but the common men and women of Idalos could not ever be meritocratic. They formed castes and built up generational wealth for a reason -- they didn't trust themselves, or their children, or their mind. All they wanted was comfort. Magic was not comfortable.

But this man was not... any better than any of them, not yet. Alistair could only mock him, a lamb playing like a wolf. If he went into that town and started on his 'killing spree', he'd be shot down by the bolt of a guard within bits. He wasn't ready for anything like that, and Alistair could only rub that in. If he wanted to act as if power were everything, then he opened himself up to the domination of other powers. Alistair's in particular.

"You wouldn't be able to do fucking nothing, you cretin," he growled, taking grasp of the man's neck from the front, slowly tightening his grip to play at choking him. "And you," he looked to the Harvester, his brows lowering. "Shut the hell up. I don't give a damn about your explanation. He's a weak fool of a mage, and the type of man that makes us hated," he said, angrily. While at first it seemed his anger was directed at the townsfolk, Alistair couldn't handle a single other word coming from this madman's mouth. Talking so big as if he were actually important. He was nothing yet, just a liability to his kind.

Fuck me, he commanded, Alistair freeing his hand from the man's neck to slap him.

Somehow, this had been... incredibly therapeutic. Relaxing. He enjoyed slapping him, demeaning him, choking him. It felt right -- it was what the Immortal wanted of him, because she knew how to entertain. She knew how to relieve the lingering mental ailments. Now, Alistair saw just as well as she had; his vulgarity was wondrous.

"You are not worthy," he whispered, demeaning him. "Three trials of magic filling your veins and you think you're someone," the mage mocked him, rising from the seat of his abdomen and looking away, as if to not grace him with his vision.

"Magic does not make a man. A man makes magic," Alistair stated, as the three Revenants he carried came pacing to his side, their oddly preserved and human forms standing quietly, their muscular shapes covered head-to-toe in a hardened black leather armor. Each and every one of these three could fight many men to their lonesome. And the mage himself -- a hundred. More. This was power. Jon had nothing in comparison, only violent delights.

But this was an opportunity. He calmed himself, smirking at the corner of his lips. Finally, he looked back to the man, and held his hands behind his back, clasped together palm-in-palm.

"You don't gain power through spontaneous violence. Every mage who grows high on their own abilities falters and dies. It's mages like me who win - and Ellasin, and Effren Galien. You need to play like we do, or you're bound to lose."

[Jonathan Burr]

Daeva rolled her shoulders. 'Don't presume to think that because he is weak and newly birthed to this world as a mage...that I am as weak as he is.' she said slowly, dangerously. 'I do not pick partners who will die so easily. He will become used to the addiction. You can either let him rot, and know that you could have helped him change into something for the better...or you can help him. I can only do so much.' Daeva truly did want to see Jonathan succeed. He was so ambitious, had dreams of so much power...but he didn't want to use it for ill. He wasn't greedy. He had grown up in money, he didn't want any more of it than he needed. Of course, a few months on the road had dashed the romanticism of being poor but he didn't have the drive most men did to put people down over coin. Seeing into his heart had been an interesting experience. Jon was born to drink, fuck and laugh. Aside from this obvious lapse in self control he had no will to hurt anyone.

It had scared her, for a moment, that he wouldn't be able to do what an Aberrant needed to do to survive. There was something dark and hardened in him yet, and she would uncover it. Daeva was a patient Harvester. She didn't burn out one mage on ether and jump to the next. She wanted to cultivate this one.

Daeva sighed. Jon was laughing as much as the hand wrapped around his throat could allow him. Quietly, Daeva began pulling back on the amount of ether she shared with Jon. Just enough to help him calm down. Slowly, his laughing stopped and he laid on the ground, breathing and recovering. Daeva stepped over him, protectively. She looked down at him. 'This one is right.' she told him. 'You could not kill a bear right now. You need guidance, and teaching. Breathe. You will become used to this feeling.You did not come all this way, and survive my touch, only to die now.'

That seemed to wake Jon up a bit. He sat up slowly between Daeva's arms, rubbing his eyes. He felt...drained. The fire in him guttered low. It was there, but it wasn't roaring in his head like it had been. It was the aching exhaustion of a hangover without the headache or the easy cure.

[Alistair]

This was... what Aberrant ether did to someone. It was horrific, just how much it had broken his mind. He laughed, outrageously, he sought death and destruction. He blurted out carnal desires, only to allow them to be rejected thoughtlessly. He was lower than an animal, now. Not intelligent, not wise, just wholly unpredictable. But this creature, this spirit, claimed to want to cultivate him; claimed that Alistair could help him. He had only been a mage for three trials. Still, this was unusual. He'd never seen arcane megalomania extend this far.

He needed to be tamed and controlled, before he caused an incident.

"Fine," he said, staring towards the forest, kicking back to launch sand at the Aberrant's face, if only to get him to shut up and choke on dirt. Quickly though, he did calm, sitting up between the arms of the Harvester and catching his breath. Alistair scoffed; how did one transition from maniacal laughter and murderous fantasy to calmly laying in-between a spirit's arms?

If not him, though, he would be taken by the Coven. Each mage like this was either destined for death or a lifetime membership with the Necromantress' cult. Alistair needed to shepherd him. This was a part of his duty in making war with the Coven - if they were not the right way for the fallen and misunderstood magi, he needed to be.

"Okay," he nodded. "I'm Alistair," the man offered his name. "Stand the fuck up and greet me," the mage commanded, clearly not intending to be a kind and benevolent instructor. If this Aberrant wanted to act like filth, he would be treated as such. And honestly? It felt really, really fulfilling to speak to someone like that. Like he was higher than them. Because he was.