revivalproject | Open | My Oh My That Moon's A Fright

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Open | My Oh My That Moon's A Fright

WHO: Lark and You
WHERE: Temba Whale Comb Sent Her, Temba in general
WHAT: Storm affecting a mage by manifesting ghost-devils, and driving her magic wild
WHEN: During the storm
WARNINGS: First starter involves possible crushing/choking risks from magic gone wrong, or possible nudity (listen she's a thread mage), Second starter involves ghost-demons that will attempt to hunt people down.

I. Thread Magic Gone Wrong | CW: Magic might strangle/restrain/choke those approaching her wearing fabric, or may fall off a person completely

No amount of hiding from the storm could guarantee one would come out of it well. This was something Lark realized quite early on the first day. The fog was thick, almost magically so, not that she could sense it. Not that she could sense anything. All of her power had shuddered away from her when the fog had come, leaving Lark horribly nauseous and anxious. She had rarely felt so drained in her life, and she longed for the teas Rosethorn created that might soothe her.

Weak and tired as she was, Lark resolved she had to find something to soothe her belly. Mint collected from the greenhouse she thought as she looked out from the Whale Comb Sent Her and save the evening clear. The fog had retreated, and not thinking to look up, Lark resolved that she must seek supplies now if she was ever to find any. Tea leaves first, then perhaps she would try and set out for the ships.

So she slipped out into the night, not aware of the danger she was putting herself into as she strode out into the open night.

She didn't make it too far from the doors before it happened. A scream tearing through the air, the moon's call shaking through her and through the city. With it came Lark's magic in a rush, swelling within her in a tide she could not center and control, before it started screaming free of her, seeking threads and fibers and cloth around her to grab, to pull at.

Any fibers around her might easily be caught in this burst of raw magic, and oh but the horrid ways the pulling could go. Seams might give and clothes fall off from around the one wearing them, before the cloth and strings and fibers might try crawling toward Lark. Worse, though, might well be the threads that could not so easily pull themselves free, for those could quite easily contract, squeezing and constricting painfully around wherever they hang, as Lark's own habit did now. The green clad mage was soon screaming in pain as her own clothes started to constrict around her, crushing at her limbs and causing her to collapse.

II. The Ghost-Demons Are Real | CW: Chance of being hunted/attacked by a demon

There is quite a bit to be said for how unprepared Lark was for all of this. She'd heard talk of the storms of course, but the last two that had come she had found herself in Sh'Ka during. All she knew of them she had heard from others, and so it did not prepare her for what was coming now. A figure in the fog, a flash of green robe and crimson hair.

"Rosie?" Lark gasped, then gave chase after her. "Rosie, it's not safe outside!"

She followed the figure, and froze only when a flash of crimson light cut the air above her, lightning almost seeming to shriek. As the light faded the mist around her grew dark, swirling and shifting until it became quite like the form of a floating beast, eyes crimson, claws razor sharp, and oh but it reached for her.

"Yerui," she whispered, eyes wide as she started to back away. "Oh Mila, it can't be."

And with that she turned and ran blindly into the fog, intent on flight.

III. Tired But Sheltered

Hiding. She was hiding. Lark was very aware of this fact. Dealing with the Yerui, dealing with her magic gone wrong, it was all far too terrible. Lark, strong and experienced mage, Dedicate Initiate of the winding circle and thus in many ways priestess of a goddess, woman who had seen so many horrible things in her past, was hiding.

Cowering.

The very idea of it left a bad taste in her mouth, and Lark had to push it from her mind as she laid there in the Whale Comb Sent Her, trying to rest. Rest was not nearly so simple as it might have been, though.

"How long until this horror might pass," she asked of the room around her. "Oh Mila, let it not be long.

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They can only do that if she can't hear the cry of the moon, and so she offers him a sad, pensive smile. He was so kind, but she did not anticipate the comforts.

"Magic is a natural thing of the world, Tony, that can be channeled and stored and held. It is an energy around us, as much as air and light is. And this place is thin in a form of it I can take."

Though, while she knew it not, the caves and their crystals might well restore her quite quickly.

While Lark didn't sound terribly optimistic about this, Tony responded to her explanation enthusiastically, "That's great!" Crisis averted, as far as he was concerned. "If it's here, and it can be stored, then all we have to do is find it. You should know, you're lucky enough to be in the presence of the planet's foremost expert on making something out of nothing. Most planets'. I'm a genius."

How is it great? She doesn't look any more comforted by his declaration.

"Genius does not mean you are gifted in magic, Tony Stark. My dear, it is better that you just be away from me, so that my magic should not harm you again."

Now Tony had several problems, starting with, "Me? You didn't--" and a quick search around to determine what Lark might have thought her magic had done. "This?" he landed on, one hand drawing back against his shoulder, where the nanoweb had stopped squirming and settled into stripes and blotches of hold across his skin. "Pretty sure that wasn't you, it was doing that before, and it doesn't hurt, so, listen, I'm just--I'm going to try anyway." His hand curled into a fist as he tried to reform that thought and fit it back into a more logical sequence. He knew he hadn't given Lark any reason to actually trust that he was capable, so far he had spent his time on this planet being buffeted around by storms and his own failure, so it was probably a hard sell when he continued, "I know magic isn't my thing, that's where you come in. You point me in the right direction, I make an energy source."

Ah, well she has some comfort in knowing his pain wasn't her doing.

"I don't... I don't think one can make a magic source. Magic must be put into things that will be later used as sources. What goes in, comes out."

"Like a battery," Tony surmised. "Even easier, I can make a battery. Then you've just got it, nearby, you can top off when you burn yourself out, and we've both got more time to figure out this moon thing. That's not so different from getting your magic-calories from tea, that's got to be something." He did sound a little desperate, to himself, because Lark didn't sound like she was going to budge on this joint project, and Cal and Jon had made it sound very important that Tony figure out how to do this kind of thing specifically. What was he missing?

IT was less that she could top off, but rather that she could tap it for force for doing other spells and that would mean the drain on her would be words.

"And how, Tony, would you propose making one? I do not know this world enough to say I could find something to suit. And it's not like we've got a handle earthquake to foolishly channel through crystal matrices. Though that did destroy an entire small city when containment failed."

The exact theory would really have to depend on the nature of this magic, so Tony wrinkled his nose and tilted his head, willing to solve that problem when they came to it rather than try to predict what magic was going to do. The expression fell for Tony to raise an eyebrow, not entirely sure what Lark was trying to tell him about the small city. "And what if we did have a handle earthquake and crystal matrices?" he tried. It was either a good or a bad thing to have that, and he couldn't tell which it was between the 'something to suit' and city destroying qualifiers.

"No," she says, her voice broken. "I will not see us all killed, Tony. So we have to find a different answer."

Bad then, point taken. Tony gave a short nod, though didn't seem entirely convinced, like he might independently figure out what a handle earthquake was, just in case. "Then--so--what do you do? Can't we put your magic in something else?" he tried instead. This seemed reasonable enough; extract and isolate the problem.

"Not without draining me further," she admitted. "I wish there was some good shelter from this moon, from these storms."

That would be her best hope for now.

That was the whole problem, wasn't it? And with the years Tony'd had to work on it, he still didn't even have an effective solution to even shelter them from the storms, let alone stop them entirely. They were consistently difficult to anticipate, so it was with some reluctance, jaw tight and a cough through the frustration caught in his throat that Tony suggested, "Last time..." The odds that the storms were that similar were very low; some hallmarks like the network or power not working and people seeing things that weren't there could be consistent, but things like the behaviour of celestial bodies were a crapshoot. "When the moon did this, it wasn't so bad when you couldn't hear it. Somewhere insulated, try to cover your ears, sleep through it."

Well, now that was something she might be able to agree to.

"So, we need somewhere that will buffer us from the sound. So underground is better perhaps?"

Yes, she might well go to the mines to see if she can find good shelter there.

With a nod, Tony agreed, "Somewhere with a basement is a good start. The one in the library is...not very cozy right now, but it's structurally sound. I don't know if I could say that much about anywhere else. The ships, maybe--they're insulated to survive atmosphere breach, they might work. I don't know if it's the same, though. It's rarely the same."

The library seemed quite a way to go for such an expectation. But the hangar was likely further.

Still, at least she could see right now, and there was comfort.

"The ships then. I can make my way there if I must, but I don't wish to force you to join me if you do not desire."

It didn't seem like a solid plan to Tony--if the insulation wasn't enough, or it didn't matter anymore whether anyone could hear it or not, Lark still might die, apparently, which was not a gamble that he was eager to take. It has a chance of buying them some time, though, so Tony tried to sound as jovial as he could muster to respond, "And let you do this walk of shame half way across the city alone? Absolutely not. Besides, I have to...find my parts." He pursed his lips apologetically for that, not having a better way to explain himself and what a mess he was. He couldn't just leave the scattered parts of the Iron Man out there.

"Your parts?" she asks as she finally makes her way to her feet. Walking would be better than sitting, no matter how tired she was.

While Lark found her feet, Tony help up a hand like he might catch her if she struggled, but was also turning his attention to gathering up the mess he had made of her stuff with an unfocused sweep of his arm around the bulk of it with about as much artfulness as he had dropped it. It didn't exactly fit back in the pouch the way he tried to cram it in, and mostly the things were tucked between him and the leather in the curl of his arm as he got to his feet as well so he could turn his attention to trying to pull the remains of Lark's robe into something resembling decent for her, and combing her hair back. They didn't have to go back out there looking weak.

"The armor," he explained as he moved, "kind of glitched out. And with the network down, I can't track any of it, so--hey, could be kind of fun, like a scavenger hunt, and if I lose then some kid might brain himself with my work, no big deal."

Oh, she looked weak. Like a weak wreck. But the care he gave to her, the attention, earned a grateful smile. He would be treated well for this in the future.

"That doesn't sound very pleasant. And yet, I might have to thank you for the glitching of it. It saved my life."

"Sure, thank the glitch," he complained in return, with a long-suffering roll of his eyes and delicate hand to his wounded chest for his thankless toiling. Before Lark could make any suggestion to correct this mistake, he was ushering her out into the night with his nose in the air to maintain this dramatic slight as long as he could indulge in it. They had a cold walk ahead of them, they were going to need something to keep it light.

Had she not already thanked him? Well, she would have to make him another gift later.

"Is this what the storms are always like?"

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Open | My Oh My That Moon's A Fright

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