Fable - Ask The Scent of Lost Magic

[Kyril]

His entire body seemed to shiver, shudder. Her voice was almost a trigger, something that forced him to quiver like a small child caught in the rain. "I..."

Without Lyrum he was once again a shell.

This time he did not even have the grace of a small dose, not even a small sniff. Every second he seemed to shake, every second he seemed to pull slightly back. The confidence, the anger, the violence of the man that had thrown her against the wall was utterly gone.

"A few hours." He told her. His voice shaking. "Maybe half a day."

There was a shakiness to his voice, an unsteadiness. "It's night now."

He told her softly, his fingers digging into his knees as he tried to gain some small semblance of control over himself.

 

[Neith]

She could tell that he'd used up whatever resources he had. The thrum of energy was quiet, the metallic smell of it faint on the air. She huffed a deep sigh into her hands and straightened up, glancing to the window and the puffed up raven that sat staring at her from outside. At least the rain had stopped, but she could tell that he was less than amused with her.

Neith rolled the tension from her neck and turned to settle her feet on the floor and test her balance. She'd been in desperate need of sleep before he'd tried to murder her, but she was pleased enough to find that her strength was building.

"I'm going to find an inn to spend the night. I'll return two mornings from now for payment." she told him as she pushed herself up and wandered toward the window.

 

[Kyril]

"S-s-stop." Gods.

Why was it so hard to speak?

Did the Lyrum slip away faster this time? Did it ache in his chest and hurt in his heart more just because of what she had done to him before? Lips thinned as he drew a breath into his chest, doing his best to stand up form the bed.

Muscles felt week, but he managed to at least turn to face her. "Where di-di-did you get the Lyrum."

The demand was made.

"I-I need it." Lips thinned. "You know I don't have the money."

 

[Neith]

Neith pushed the window open and the large raven hopped to her outstretched arm, his wings flapping as she lifted him inside and held him against her. The sounds he made were rattles and clicks as his feathers shivered in response to the affection she showed in pressing him to the crook of her neck, letting him share some of her warmth. Sage was still stood patiently outside, tied off to the fence and grazing at the shrubbery.

"That's not my problem." Neith answered, unable to hold back the bite of bitterness in her tone. "I don't care how you get it - I was willing to help you with what I had, but you fucked that up for yourself." she answered, her knuckles stroking attentively at the crow's wings.

"It's made in Elbion." she shrugged casually. "But unless you come up with the coin and extra for the inconvenience of you skipping town then I'd discourage you from returning there any time soon..."

 

[Kyril]

Shivers ran over his spine.

Elbion? It had to be made elsewhere. Someone else had to be capable, someone else had to know. His fingers tightened for a moment, a breath filling his lungs. He could hardly register her words, hardly hear them. Slowly Ky pulled himself upward, his muscles aching as he did so.

"I..." He couldn't go back.

The Guard would have him inside of an hour. He would have to face his father, the Courts, the College. All of them would crash in on him in an instant.

Not to mention the Cartel. "Y-you said you'd be a corpse if you returned."

Ky said slowly.

"What did you mean?" He had to seize at the opportunities he saw, the small bit of hope that he had now.

 

[Neith]

She was already moving toward the door, a little slower and more gingerly than normal, her confidence a little shot from staggering around and collapsing into a heap. She lifted her arm and the raven perched up on her shoulder, chewing at a tress of her hair as she turned back to look at him.

Her fingers curled into fists and she clenched them. It was none of his business, and she knew he was trying to pick weaknesses in her. But she wasn't weak, she could complete this task and prove herself after the messes she'd made. If she didn't, her fate was uncertain.

"You think I'd be sent all this fucking way if I was in Cyrus' good books right now?.." she snorted at him. "I have one or two mistakes to make up for. He doesn't hand out many chances. I need you to find a way of getting what you owe. If I return with nothing it won't end well for either of us." she huffed, and turned back toward the door.

 

[Kyril]

His head spun.

It was hard to focus, hard to even hear what she was saying. He shivered, his entire body forming goosebumps as she spoke about returning once more. "I-I-I."

There was such a painful torture to his voice that it was hard to even keep talking. It seemed like every syllable that fell from his lips was broken up and accompanied by a violent caress on his entire body. He tried to still himself, tried to gather up some semblance of calm.

"I-" A breath filled his lungs. "I can help you, if you let me."

Ky said. "If you're honest."

 

[Neith]

"Look, no offence, but what makes you think I want or need your help? The only thing I want from you is what you owe so that I can get out of here." she turned to face him, Rok swaying unsteadily on her shoulder as she took a step toward him.

"I tried to be reasonable with you. If you hadn't pulled the shit you pulled I might even have felt sorry for you. But you're just another pathetic fucking addict letting their life run down the street in a river of shit." she frowned at him with another step forward, her fists clenched.

"You think you're the first scumbag that I've dealt with?" she laughed almost manically. Every reminder of how fragile her life was was more difficult to accept than the last. She lived to face another day of this bullshit. "I am dispensable, clearly.. That coin isn't. So fucking find it." she snapped.

 

[Kyril]

He frowned for a moment. "W-wait."

What arguments did he have left to make? What could he say that would drag her back? There wasn't much. He knew that. He knew that the violence he had done already tainted whatever chance that he had, but the sorrow in her voice...what she said.

It was a mark. It was a tell.

Something that they shared, something that he knew that he could appeal to.

"Would that other scum have saved you?" His voice was quiet. "Brought you back? Dressed you. Fed you."

Ky slowly turned towards her. "I d-don't think you're dispensable.."

There was a pathetic desperation to his tone.

"I just want to live." And he needed the Lyrum to do that, at least he thought so.

 

[Neith]

She should've just left. She'd had countless arguments with countless men just like him and yet with him she was finding it difficult to hold her tongue. He was desperate, of course he was, they all were. But this time she really needed him to somehow find what he owed, and leaving him to do that on his own didn't seem like it was going to work in her favour.

And he irritated her.

"I wouldn't have been dead in the first place if it hadn't been for you trying to murder me - do NOT expect me to fall at your feet with gratitude. I don't owe you anything. You however, owe plenty." she sneered. "Do you think I make a habit of listening to every desperate soul who tries to flatter me, offer me bribes, cries to me about their life stories? Life isn't fucking fair - you shouldn't have taken what you couldn't afford. It's not a difficult concept."

Rok's feathers ruffled as Neith paced the room, and he quickly gave up trying to maintain balance and fluttered to the bedpost instead, his eye focused on Kyril.

"Fuck you're pathetic." she huffed at him, rubbing irritably at her face.

"I have more. If you get me what I need you can have it."

 

[Kyril]

He couldn't disagree with the comment, but it still wrankled him. Teeth sank into his tongue for a brief moment, his gaunt cheeks tensing until she finally spoke again.

She had more?

How much more? Would it be enough? Something stashed away? Fingers unfurled slightly, his body shifting on the bed as he drew himself up. His eyes looked at her, that strange hollowness still clinging to his gaze as he took in a breath. "Okay."

He wasn't going to argue at this point.

Ky knew that his situation was steps from death. Even if she didn't turn him into Cyrus others would eventually coming looking, and without more Lyrum he was already as good as dead.

That wasn't even to mention the withdrawals.

Gods...he hoped wherever her Lyrum was it was close.

"I can try, but..." Ky knew she wouldn't like the answer. "I need more Lyrum to take it."

It would be solving one problem by creating another, but it was the only thing that he could think of. The Duke was wealthy, and if he broke into his vaults he would most certainly be marked for death, but he was a dead man anyway.

 

[Neith]

Neith laughed under her breath and shook her head at him.. "Of course you do.. And how will you try to kill me next time?.." she quirked a brow, regarding him with a look of scrutiny.

"If I do this. if I give you the Lyrum, you get the money, you give it to me and the deal is settled. Right?" she stared at him. She wasn't about to divulge the information to him about where the Lyrum she carried had come from. Her father had taught her how to make it, she'd spent years perfecting it, and she'd been kidnapped twice now for her talents. Desperate men done desperate things for the stuff, and she'd learned to keep it quiet.

 

[Kyril]

He frowned for a moment. "I can write a sealing scroll."

The magic that went into them was simplistic enough, based off of the ancient Runes. Most students at the College never cared for them, but Ky had studied their effects in his earlier days.

"A contract that will bind me with magic." It would only take him an hour or so to craft the thing, and once they both signed it they would be held to their part of the bargain. Until the terms were complete anyway, or the contract was destroyed. "That way you don't have to worry about me killing you."

His head nodded. "With those terms."

He would get the Lyrum, she would get her money, and then...then he would have to figure out another source.

Perhaps wherever she got hers from, or perhaps he'd have to go to Cyrus himself and get the rat to squeal.

 

[Neith]

She stared at him for a long moment, her gaze narrowing slightly as she gave him a short nod. In his current condition, he didn't seem like much of a threat to her. She may have lost what other threads of magic she'd carried but she still had her own. She could still hurt him, she could take every last drop of his magic straight from his veins if she wanted to..

But she'd seen the sort of thing the mage was capable of with just a little Lyrum, and there was a brush of ice on her spine as she considered handing him a full vial of the stuff. But, it was the only way that she would be able to get what she needed from him and she sighed as she conceded.

"Fine. Do it, and I'll fetch a vial.." .. She should've said 'the' vial, and she bit sharply on her tongue as she turned and left the room, the raven pulling himself into the air to go after her.

 

[Kyril]

The misstep didn't go unnoticed, but he kept his face even.

Even the mention of more Lyrum was able to perk him up slightly, his body straightening, his fingers curling as he tried to stop their incessant shaking. As she pulled herself free of the room and the raven rushed after her Ky let out a long sigh.

He knew how difficult this would be, he knew that the Duke would want to have his head...but there was little choice now. Without the Lyrum he was a dead man, with it he at the very least had a chance to keep himself alive.

Alven was a nice enough city, but it never would have been home.

He'd known that from the first day stepping off that boat.

As he heard Neith leave the house, Ky slowly pulled himself up and made his way down the stairs. He moved to his writing desk, pulling out a piece of parchment a quill, watching his hand shake violently for a moment as he dipped it into ink.

Lips thinned, and although it took him twice the time that it would have half a decade ago Ky managed to create the contract.

It was an intricate, almost beautiful thing, marked with the common tongue in terms and then inscribed with runes. Two circles sat at the bottom of it, both just large enough for the print of a thumb.

 

[Neith]

Neith reentered the house without knocking this time, pausing at the foot of the steps when the thrum of magic tickled at the back of her neck and she turned toward the study where he now sat in front of a desk. She turned the vial over in her palm as she wandered a little closer, though she'd keep a safe enough distance from him, half expecting him to lunge at her again.

"Is it done?.." she asked curiously, standing up onto her tiptoes to peer over his shoulder.

 

[Kyril]

He did not lunge, no. In a strange way sitting at that desk he did not appear the addict, he did not appear the gaunt and dismal form that he had been in that doorway. Holding that quill and staring down at what might as well have been a magical piece of art Ky looked almost...normal.

It was a mark of where he should have been, what he should have been doing. "It is."

Ky said with a nod, putting the quill back into the ink pot before he slowly grabbed the bottom of the parchment and turned around in his seat. He showed it to her, offering the document so that she could read the terms he had put in them.

They were as she had said earlier, nothing less, nothing more.

She would give him the Lyrum, he would get her the amount of gold he owed, and he would in no way harm her while she was within Alven or it's countryside.

"We will need to sign it in blood." He told her, gesturing to the two small circles. "A pinprick and press of the thumb."

 

[Neith]

"Of course we do.." she mumbled as she read over the terms, her gaze narrowed in scrutinous study as though searching for any loopholes. She found it odd that he assumed she could read at all, she could, of course, but she didn't exactly look high born or particularly well educated. She was a fucking Lyrum dealer.

She slipped a small dagger as if from nowhere and pressed the point of it into her index finger, smearing the ruby bead of blood over her thumb before pressing it into the circle to leave her print, her agreement to the terms.

Neith would wait until he had followed suit, before pressing the vial of blue shimmering powder down on the table next to the contract.

 

[Kyril]

Ky reached his thumb up to his lips, biting down on his thumb hard in a tiny line. A practiced motion, clearly, and a few seconds later he pressed his bloody thumb to the contract.

There was a spark of light, a bright glow around the two circles, and then every rune and letter on the parchment seemed to burst into life. It lasted for only a second, and as the parchment glowed Neith and Ky both would feel a weight on their shoulders.

The magic settled, and then then the weight was gone. A heartbeat later the glow on the parchment disappeared, and it once again was no more than a parchment. "If the parchment is destroyed so is the binding."

He told her.

"You keep it." This was about trust after all.

Slowly, his hand shaking, he reached out and grasped the vial that she had set upon the table. HIs heart skipped a beat as he looked at it, confirming it was real.

Exhilaration poured through him, joy and mirth. The Vial was enough to last him weeks. Even with a full dose every day he would be able to use it for nearly two weeks. Long enough to get Neith her money, and then protect himself.

 

[Neith]

Neith watched in mute fascination as the magic of the contract worked, her brow furrowing as she felt the weight of it slowly seep down into her bones. Her head tilted at his words and she reached to take it, casting a glance over the now simple parchment before rolling it up. "How does it work? Prevention or consequence?.." she quirked a brow at him as she pushed herself back from the table to flop into the velvet chair that sat in the corner of the room.

"How do you plan on getting that amount of coin? I have to leave two mornings from now..." she reminded and ran her tongue across her teeth in thought.

 

[Kyril]

"Both." The magic was of an old sort, the kind that most had forgotten about now. "I am compelled to complete my part of the bargain, as you would have been had the Lyrum not been real, or had you decided not to hand it over."

He frowned. "It is a tickle at the back of the neck, a press. In a few days time it would grow to lack of sleep, aches, pains. All compounding until I set upon my task."

Ky remembered when he had first stumbled upon these contracts, when he'd learned how to make them. They had seemed so interesting at the time, and had mostly been used to bind marriages between Kingdoms. A novel, and terrifying idea.

"If I were to kill you, or harm you, the contract would render the same hurt onto me." Though only if he somehow instigated that hurt.

He stepped around the room, taking up a place behind one of the large chairs opposite her. His hand settled on it's back. "As I said, the Duke is a rich man."

Very rich.

"There is a Vault beneath his estate. I will take the gold from there." He told her. "You will have it in two days."

The entire time he spoke Ky softly ran his finger over the vial with the Lyrum, a reverent touch that he did not even realize was going on.

 

[Neith]

Neith regarded him expressionlessly as he spoke, but as he explained the consequence of breaking the contract she felt instantly calmer. Not that she trusted him, per se, but she didn't believe he'd break it's terms by harming her for him to suffer the same fate. And so she let herself ease and sink into the chair as he spoke of the gold he intended on taking.

"Well, best get to planning. I'll assume he has some level of wards and protections around it. And I'm sure you can handle that now that you're fully equipped." she gestured to the vial with a jerk of her chin.

"The fee has risen fifteen percent. Make sure you take that into account." her lips pursed.

 

[Kyril]

He considered her for a moment. The weakness was still clinging to him, there was no Lyrum in his system and he had not eaten in hours, but that didn't seem to matter. Even just holding the drug he felt stronger, he felt powerful.

As if he had some secret knowledge which kept him upright. "There will be enough, you don't have to worry."

Stealing the gold was not as difficult as getting away with it. Once the Duke discovered it was gone he would have the city shut down. The guards would be everywhere, and escaping would not be so simple. A fact that he did not share with Neith.

"There are wards, but they were set by simpletons." Even though he had not been fully capable over the last weeks, he'd still been able to read the magic around him. "When I was in Elbion I learned many things."

He told her. "Including the magics most professors would not like to admit to."

Those that had belonged to thieves, scoundrels, and other less 'civilized' folk.

 

[Neith]

"Oh I'm not worried. This thing is just going to prod you to insanity if you don't get me what you owe, so." she waved the roll of parchment at him as she shrugged nonchalantly. Her lips pursed into a thoughtful pout as she listened to him, and a second shrug rolled over her shoulders.

"Eh. I don't care how you get it so long as you get it.." she stretched out, trying not to seem interested about what he had learned.. What else he was capable of. Magic always interested her.

"Then what?.." she asked out of nowhere as she looked up at him, letting her eyes wander over his gaunt features. "Do you plan on just...wasting away some more?..."

 

[Kyril]

He perked an eyebrow, but didn't comment on her 'lack of interest'. If she did not want to know, then he would not tell her.

Within the College certain things had always been closely guarded. Those who discovered new secrets did not always want to share them. One spell or another kept at bay could help you best any foe, even in the world of academics.

"I..." Slowly he glanced down at his hand. His skin stuck to him, his skeletal form almost more glaring now than it had been before.

"No." He wasn't a rag doll to be thrown away. He wasn't some walking corpse. He was more. So much more. "But."

Ky said as he walked around the chair, sitting himself down. "That's not really for you to worry about, is it?"

He asked.

"You're just here to get Cyrus his coin." Though, he had already guessed the money didn't mean much to her. It was a means to an end. Cyrus held something over her. "What debt do you owe him?"

Ky asked as he leaned back.