video; un: deathweaver

[respired]

[ Koltira's back to his usual self once again--his hair pale as ice, his eyes burning with lichfire. His skin sallow, tinted with hypothermia, and shot through with spiderweb cracks. He wears the black ALASTAIR uniform as he sits on the edge of his bed, twisting a new ring around one gloved finger.

Beside him, his lynx cub rolls around sleepily.

His voice is still deceptively lilting, but the ethereal echo, the underscore of a guttural scratch, haunts him. ]

I must ask for a favor, should you have the capacity to grant it.

[ He glances back at the lynx cub. ]

The dead are not meant to care for the living. If one of you would take responsibility for this creature, I'd consider myself in your debt.

[ A pause. He frowns slightly as he goes on. ]

Recently, some of you met me as I once was. Understand something now. That man is gone. He died nearly twenty years ago, and nothing--nothing--of him remains in me. His house is ash, and cannot be recovered.

[ Not entirely true, though Koltira maintains otherwise.

Another beat, longer this time, as if he's unsure whether to keep talking. But, eventually: ]

Many of you recognized me, yet you did not ruin the past with visions of the future. For this ... I thank you.

[ And that's all. ]

Comments

[grunehexe]

[Wouldn't you want to know if you grew up hot if you know you technically shouldn't ask more important time-line-y things?]

Did I mention motherhood at any point?

[respired]

[ HIS UNDEAD SELF DOESN'T KNOW HOW TO JUDGE ... A BODY IS A BODY ]

You did not. Would you expect to?

[ He remembers their talk in the desert ... ]

[grunehexe]

[She will gather all sorts of opinions to form a consensus!!]

Well, depending on the age, I would expect to have an heir, yes... though perhaps it is best if I do not spoil myself for who the father is...

[respired]

You seemed quite young yet. But I admit that humans are born and die young, as far as my people understand them.

[ He's already frowning--he went into this post frowning--but his sour expression turns a little more thoughtful. ]

Sieglinde ... you are always rushing towards the future. Why?

[grunehexe]

[The frowning isn't new... the question, a bit more so.

It makes her pause before replying, the more frivolous expression bleeding away.]

... There's nothing else to rush for, is there?

[Not for her, with her whole life revealed a lie, her handmaidens dead, her ultimate magic hidden for now. Technically, not for anyone.]

[respired]

There is no reason for a mortal to rush at all. Have you not built something of a life here? Have you not people, and goals, with which to occupy your time?

[ She is so young, and yet it seems to him that she thinks only of being old. Why run towards death? The inevitable? Enjoy what you have, while you have it. ]

[grunehexe]

Of course there's reason to rush... Mortals die! We die all the time- I could die tomorrow, for all anyone knows! Or in a year! I could get hit by a falling stone from the castle parapet and die in ten minutes, and then what will happen to all my work?

[Oh.

That's.

Not what she meant to say.]

[respired]

[ He murmurs. ]

It is true. Your lives are as gossamer. Fragile and thin. All the more reason to focus on what's in front of you. What lies ahead may never come.

[ he's super helpful ]

[grunehexe]

[That's so not helpful, Koltira.]

Who says I am not focusing on the now?

[respired]

[ SHRUGGING MAN EMOJI ]

Are you? You worry so much about planning your future. Why not let it come as it will?

[ Somewhat bitterly. ]

You are alive, and your circumstances will be ever in flux. It is not a bad thing.

[grunehexe]

Because important things cannot just be left to- to "what will"! People rely on me, and what I do- for their futures!

[don't even make this a bitter race let's go.]

[respired]

If you mean the people in your own world, that may be so. But you cannot solve those problems now.

If you mean the people here, I have little doubt. What you do is important to us. Your healing and expertise. I fail to see how these things are bound up in your concerns over marriage and childbirth. Your rush to live an adult's life.

[ He shakes his head. ]

Young or old, you will always be a genius. The rest will come in the fullness of time.

[grunehexe]

I am living an adults life now, for all anyone seems to notice!

[respired]

[ Talking like this is a tremendous effort for him. He makes an irritated noise in his throat, annoyed that she seems to have dismissed the substance of what he's said to focus on semantics. ]

That is not what I meant, Sieglinde.

[grunehexe]

No, you meant it.

[Everyone means it. She wishes she remembered what it was like, to be older. She's sure no one treated her like this- like they often do, and no one would say dismissive things and chalk things up to "childhood", and "youth", and-]

But I have patients whose problems will not wait for the "fullness of time", so, if you will excuse me.

[respired]

[ Koltira is not a patient man on his best days, and right now he's just a ring twist and a hair's breadth away from actual hysteria, so her response makes him just snap. ]

Enough, Sieglinde. You think I do not take you seriously? Why, then, would I refer to your expertise? Your knowledge? This goes uncontested by everyone. You have students, or so I have seen. Do not presume that I--and the rest of us--do not see your worth.

But you are in your twelfth season. The long ribbon of experience is unfurling for you. When I speak of adult life, I mean the life that humans draw up for themselves. That you have drawn up for yourself. Motherhood. Marriage. The like. Telling you to let such things come as they will does not mean I disrespect what you are now!

[ He scowls. ]

But if you fail to understand that, so be it. It will be perfectly in line with my experience, in any case.

[grunehexe]

[She has to bite her tongue, because no- not everyone believes that at all. If they did, she wouldn't be this sensitive about it, wouldn't be so defensive. She had some with brains who could apparently "see past" her age, but few who just accepted it from the beginning, and even then... but if she argues that point, it will just be fuel to the fire, look petty and "childish" even though it's true.]

Motherhood and- I do not need either of them! Once I have an heir, the Green Witch's duty will be complete and I may unbind myself from- from whatever ribbon it is that humans draw for themselves, or whatever else can be expected! It will be done as soon as I can, and be done with, not just happen whenever it is deemed proper-

Do not think it is only I who does not understand.

[respired]

[ Ah. Something of the truth. ]

... I see.

You worry because you are bound.

[ By law? By tradition? He doesn't understand the concept of 'Green Witch' fully. But it seems stifling, regardless. ]

[grunehexe]

[... Ah.]

Is that not also why you do?

[He's just bound by something else. Not duty, but death.]

[respired]

I worry because I am cursed, and because its demands cannot be ignored.

[ He grits his teeth, pain spiking in his nerves. ]

Because I do ignore them. And for this, all will suffer.

[grunehexe]

And the demands?

[She isn't about to not ask. Bound by duty, bound by curses... Shackles are shackles no matter their form.]

[respired]

Pain unto others. If I do not inflict agony, I am wracked with agony myself.

[ He grits his teeth. ]

Until I lose my mind to it.

[grunehexe]

... I assume plants do not count?

[Its not a joke, however flippant the words could be taken. She's checking. The enemies of ALASTAIR were... A "safe" option to unleash ones rage upon, but. With their last mission being where it had...]

[respired]

A plant cannot beg for mercy.

[ He's sure she means well. But the conditions are pretty specific. The target has to suffer. ]

[grunehexe]

I thought not.

[But here she's just been letting herself ask whatever she wanted, when-]

Is this a conversation best held privately?