I'LL TAKE IT, THE TREE SEEMS TO SAY
a new, slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm.
At Andras’s admission, and then his faint smile, Septimus’s own grows – then stops, although he is still smiling, at You must have been busy. Septimus can’t help but wish that he’d been busier than he was. He was busy, of course; millennia of working on his own had granted him a truly impressive skill for time management. However, he also had the distinct feeling that, no matter how busy he was and had been, none of it really mattered in the broader scheme of things, and it was that sense of insignificance that had driven him back towards Delumine, and towards other people. “Not half as busy as you, I imagine,” he echoes, smile lingering on his lips. It tastes faintly melancholic on his mouth; how long has he been gone? Surely, it’s been a year. A year of mortal time. Normally, that would mean nothing to him, but it’s been meaning more, lately. He can’t say for sure why.
He moves to trail after him, and Septimus continues to work, with the occasional glance up; Andras doesn’t seem to want to interrupt, and Septimus is more than happy to oblige him that. (Besides, he finds that conversations are better held in more comfortable settings; ones that are less frosted over.) When Septimus speaks of his conundrum, he mentions the sovereign, Ipomoea, and says that he might be able to coax some more troublesome specimens from the ground, even at this time of the year. Septimus takes that as an implication that he has some sort of plant-related magic, which is as good a reason to finally meet the Dawn Court’s sovereign as any.
“I’m not sure that I’ve even met him,” Septimus admits, nodding his head thoughtfully. “Sounds like I should, though. What’s he like?” Andras is, after all, the Warden – he must know their leader to so much as bring him up.
He has leaned down to study the sharp, rigid prickles of some plant with an especially hard seed when Andras asks a question he has been caught somewhere between anticipating and dreading. He nearly reaches for one of his notebooks, but he manages to strangle the impulse before he can open to his diagrams and begin showing Andras what he has been working with in the most elaborate detail possible. (Magical circle upon circle, diagram after diagram of strange thing upon strange thing, chemical analysis, pages upon pages of equations…) “I’ve been studying the island, mostly.” There is a gleam in his bright green eyes as he continues. “It seems to change with the end of each season, and it’s only become stranger and stranger with each shift. I’ve been trying to find the source of it – we don’t know much of anything about it, but that it’s dangerous, and I think that it would be in everyone’s best interest to better understand the place. It attracts travelers constantly, and sometimes I feel like....I feel like it's growing towards something.” That was why they made guides and books and studies – for understanding, and for safety, and for wonder. He shakes his head, green jewels clinking against his antlers like a row of windchimes, and a wry smile twists its way across his lips. “But plenty of magic defies any kind of explanation. I’m not sure that I’ve found anything, and I’m not sure that there’s anything to find.”
He nearly asks what Andras has been doing in his absence, but then he pauses.
Here is where Septimus settles, his dark wings shifting, then settling, at his sides. He’s heard the rumors, of course. He doesn’t know how many of them are true – but he’s heard them, and they’re enough to make him feel a wide streak of sympathy for Delumine’s more powerful figures. “I must have missed a lot.” It isn’t a question. It’s not a question at all. But it is, ostensibly, an invitation, an extension of a metaphorical shoulder – an, if you need to talk about it… by any other name.
What he’s learned from several thousands of years (if not more) of wandering, he’s sure, is this: the world is often cruel and often untrustworthy, even in the moments that we think it is kind.
@Andras || <3
"Speech!"
a new, slick leaf unfurling like a fist to an open palm.
At Andras’s admission, and then his faint smile, Septimus’s own grows – then stops, although he is still smiling, at You must have been busy. Septimus can’t help but wish that he’d been busier than he was. He was busy, of course; millennia of working on his own had granted him a truly impressive skill for time management. However, he also had the distinct feeling that, no matter how busy he was and had been, none of it really mattered in the broader scheme of things, and it was that sense of insignificance that had driven him back towards Delumine, and towards other people. “Not half as busy as you, I imagine,” he echoes, smile lingering on his lips. It tastes faintly melancholic on his mouth; how long has he been gone? Surely, it’s been a year. A year of mortal time. Normally, that would mean nothing to him, but it’s been meaning more, lately. He can’t say for sure why.
He moves to trail after him, and Septimus continues to work, with the occasional glance up; Andras doesn’t seem to want to interrupt, and Septimus is more than happy to oblige him that. (Besides, he finds that conversations are better held in more comfortable settings; ones that are less frosted over.) When Septimus speaks of his conundrum, he mentions the sovereign, Ipomoea, and says that he might be able to coax some more troublesome specimens from the ground, even at this time of the year. Septimus takes that as an implication that he has some sort of plant-related magic, which is as good a reason to finally meet the Dawn Court’s sovereign as any.
“I’m not sure that I’ve even met him,” Septimus admits, nodding his head thoughtfully. “Sounds like I should, though. What’s he like?” Andras is, after all, the Warden – he must know their leader to so much as bring him up.
He has leaned down to study the sharp, rigid prickles of some plant with an especially hard seed when Andras asks a question he has been caught somewhere between anticipating and dreading. He nearly reaches for one of his notebooks, but he manages to strangle the impulse before he can open to his diagrams and begin showing Andras what he has been working with in the most elaborate detail possible. (Magical circle upon circle, diagram after diagram of strange thing upon strange thing, chemical analysis, pages upon pages of equations…) “I’ve been studying the island, mostly.” There is a gleam in his bright green eyes as he continues. “It seems to change with the end of each season, and it’s only become stranger and stranger with each shift. I’ve been trying to find the source of it – we don’t know much of anything about it, but that it’s dangerous, and I think that it would be in everyone’s best interest to better understand the place. It attracts travelers constantly, and sometimes I feel like....I feel like it's growing towards something.” That was why they made guides and books and studies – for understanding, and for safety, and for wonder. He shakes his head, green jewels clinking against his antlers like a row of windchimes, and a wry smile twists its way across his lips. “But plenty of magic defies any kind of explanation. I’m not sure that I’ve found anything, and I’m not sure that there’s anything to find.”
He nearly asks what Andras has been doing in his absence, but then he pauses.
Here is where Septimus settles, his dark wings shifting, then settling, at his sides. He’s heard the rumors, of course. He doesn’t know how many of them are true – but he’s heard them, and they’re enough to make him feel a wide streak of sympathy for Delumine’s more powerful figures. “I must have missed a lot.” It isn’t a question. It’s not a question at all. But it is, ostensibly, an invitation, an extension of a metaphorical shoulder – an, if you need to talk about it… by any other name.
What he’s learned from several thousands of years (if not more) of wandering, he’s sure, is this: the world is often cruel and often untrustworthy, even in the moments that we think it is kind.
@
"Speech!"
AND RARELY, IF THE WOOD ACCEPTS THE BLADE WITHOUT CONDITIONSthe two pieces keep their balance in spite of the blow❃please tag Septimus! contact is encouraged, short of violence
