roleplayers = set(['Kestrad', 'Foleo'])

[Foleo]

【ｔｈｅ　ｐｒｅｍｉｓｅ】

• Step 1: Get assigned a thesis exam in Voltar.
• Step 2: Secretly sign up your friends for a Voltarian hot spring resort's mailing list.
• Step 3: Profit?

【ｔｈｅ　ｃａｓｔ】
= Ⓛ Ⓐ Ⓒ Ⓗ Ⓔ Ⓢ Ⓘ Ⓢ
- ℂompanions -




Ⓚ Ⓘ Ⓔ Ⓡ Ⓐ Ⓝ =
Former war criminal theater kid, current magical office worker. Though naturally predisposed to umbramancy, presently specializes in runic magic and spell composition. Quick-witted, with a knack for finding patterns.

Wore a lot of eyeliner as a teen. - ℂompanions -


= Ⓓ Ⓞ Ⓝ Ⓞ Ⓥ Ⓐ Ⓝ
- ℂompanions -

[Foleo]

“And...checkmate.” Kieran nudges a lever, and the sixth row of their cubic board rotates about its y-axis. Doing so brings a rook and his last pawn into the plane of his opponent’s king, finally completing the trap he’d been constructing over the past fifty-three moves.

As his opponent leaps up to frantically scrutinize every side of the board, Kieran sighs, leaning back in his seat. That one picked up his pulse a bit, too—free-pivot hexaplanar chess isn’t for the faint of heart, and he definitely had some shaky moments in there.

It’s just that he’d be a little more proud of his victory if his opponent wasn’t two months out of the egg.

“The Amphistan Gambit,” he drawls imperiously, though the Aresian foal hardly seems to be in the mood for a lecture. “Page 814 of Tactics in Three Dimensions. You’d do well to remember the words of the great Warmaster Belmos: ‘always read a chapter ahead of the assigned reading.’”

He’s bullshitting at this point, and the foal knows it, breaking her focus on the cube to glare murderously at him. Kieran laughs, rising from his chair to scoop her into his arms. Her wings—feathered enough, now, to support her in short bouts of flight—beat against his face, and he uses a free hand to shove them down and pin her fully against his chest.

“You know what this means,” he says, sing-song, as he uses his foot to turn off the hexaplane projector. “You have to be a good girl on our trip! No biting, no killing, and definitely no messing with Donovan’s thesis exam, even if it would be really funny.” A brush of his fingers across the panel of runes next to the door sends stray papers and self-cleaning quills shuffling into his desk. Kieran steps neatly out of his office, arms laden with grumpy pegasus, before the lockdown ritual reaches the sweeping stage—last time, one of the dust bunnies stirred up by the process had ended up being alive, and he doesn’t fancy being around for a repeat of that experience. As fond as he is now of Davros.

On the way down to the stables, Kieran sends a querying ping down the thread connecting him to Elegy. Almost immediately, he’s returned a low, warm hum. Ready to go, then—sure enough, when he exits into the courtyards of the Keep, the enox is waiting for him, next to a student in second-year’s robes.

Kieran opens his arms, and the pegasus drops to the ground. She shakes herself off and trots towards Elegy, much to the student's chagrin.

"Archivist Kieran?" the student calls as Kieran gets closer. They shuffle a few steps away from the Aresian foal, casting a nervous glance her way as she headbutts Elegy in the shoulder. "I was responsible for tacking your enox. Do you require any modifications before your journey?"

Kieran casts his gaze across the one-sided saddlebags, the double saddle, the white silk sling draped across Elegy’s flank. Through their connection, he receives a sense of satisfaction, though with an overtone of gentle exasperation as the foal gives off a particularly huffy nicker—whatever they were talking about, it wasn’t anything Kieran was privy to. He thanks the stablehand, fishing out a small pouch of gold from his pocket, and sends them on their way.

Kieran shifts his weight, squinting just a bit as he looks across the courtyard in search of his traveling companions. Lachesis, at least, should be along anytime now...

[Kestrad]

Lachesis led Midnight, her trusty sleighbell confara pegasus, out from the stables, towards the courtyard where Kieran and Donovan had agreed to meet up. Midnight trotted patiently beside her, but through their bond, she could sense the thrum of his excitement. Her current position as an alchemist didn't lend itself to much travel, as gathering ingredients was usually a job left to the apprentices, and so Midnight was left to languish in the stables, with only short rides for exercise. But today, with fully packed saddlebags alongside the birds perched in his mane and the two excited arkenian geese waddling in his wake, he knew this was more than merely a short exercise flight.

Lachesis paused just outside the courtyard to glance at her arrayed flock. Her cinersi Calida, steady companion and voice of reason, perched on her shoulder. Somewhere above, Yin, her silver alicanto, flew overhead, gleefully reflecting blinding sunlight into her peripheral vision. Huginn and Muninn, her alagoses, stared back at her from Midnight's back with beady eyes, behaving for now. She addressed them in particular when she cleared her throat and said sternly, "I know this is technically a vacation, but it's also Donovan's thesis trip. So you're not going to do anything to mess that up, all right?"

The two alagoses squawked, almost catlike in their protestations of innocence. Lachesis glared. "You're only allowed to prank me. Not Kieran or Donovan."

Huginn croaked out a caww, and Lachesis huffed. "Or I might get jealous, that's what." While the two ravens mulled on that, she led Midnight and the geese forward again, to where a familiar shadow was lurking in the courtyard. That was Kieran accounted for, then, but where was Donovan? He was who this entire trip was for in the first place.

[Foleo]

The coming of Lachesis is, as always, heralded by the sound of her flock, and Kieran turns just in time for her alicanto to shine its spotlight on his eyeball.

"Ugh," he says, blinking away the spots. By the time his vision returns, Lachesis is pretty much in front of him, so he leans forward to sling his arm over her shoulder⁠—the one not occupied by Calida.

He exhales deeply, resting the weight of his head on Lachesis's collarbone. "Hey, Lachy." His arm reaches around to play idly with the soft plumage of Calida's neck. "I don't know about you, but I am beyond ready for our spa week."

[Kestrad]

Lachesis rolls her eyes, peeling Kieran off of her as Calida squawks something mildly irate about overly familiar dark mages, miming a warning peck at his fingers. "Don't call me Lachy," she says, stepping aside to put more distance between the cinersi and Kieran. "It somehow feels like a nickname for a 10-year old and also sounds like you're calling me your flunky at the same time." Calida chirps directly in her ear, and Lachesis adds, wincing, "Also, Calida says you haven't earned scritching-without-asking privileges yet."

Calida jumps into the air to help look for the last member of their trio with one more sideways glare at Kieran, and Lachesis straightens to adjust for the lack of weight on her shoulder. Her back and neck twinge, making it abundantly clear that she's been spending far too much time hunched over a desk lately. She could definitely use some time at a spa, but she's not sure getting covered in volcanic mud would be her first choice of treatments.

Neither is bringing an aresian hellenic pegasus, she thinks, glancing up to see that Midnight has wandered up to Elegy, and the confara pegasus seems to be examining the foal intently. More to her concern, the alagoses are still perched on Midnight, and are clearly sizing their new rival troublemaker up.

[Foleo]

"Ah, right," Kieran drawls, following Lachesis's gaze over his shoulder. He sticks his hands in his pockets, shoving the itching feeling of rejection to the back of his mind. Later, he tells himself. "Your little Keep founding present."

Dead-eyed, he watches as the aresian foal lifts her upper lip, tossing her head at the approaching challengers. A little nudge of his mind and Elegy snaps her wing over the foal, pinning her to her body. Kieran watches the foal's legs dance as she struggles to escape her feathered prison. He sighs.

"Do you know how much—" he turns back to Lachesis. "I thought I was done with studying for my life! Instead, I—I had to check out Applied Leyline Resonance in Military Conquest last week, and she's already done reading it! It has five thousand pages! And we have daily discussions!"

He takes a breath, composing himself, and breaks eye contact. "She's... not like the lore says, though. Sure, if I left her alone, she'd probably burn this place down, but if you keep her busy, she's not inherently bad or anything. Just. Too smart for her own good." He pauses. "So that's why she's coming along. If you were. Wondering."

[Kestrad]

"Hey, blame Donovan for being terrible at egg identification," Lachesis gripes, though she nods absently at Kieran's observation, snorting slightly as Elegy entraps the foal under her wing. What Kieran's saying makes sense - the work of countless patient magi has proven a lot of the lore on companions traditionally considered "evil" to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Besides, given that she's currently bringing two alagoses with her on vacation, she really doesn't have much room for complaint. Huginn and Muninn might be sharp-beaked and in the habit of stealing her things, but her stuff does have a tendency to turn up again right when she needs it, and experience has taught her that they know exactly when to needle her to fuel her spells with spite, and when silence will serve her better.

Midnight and Elegy have some sort of silent conversation between each other, and then to her surprise, Elegy reluctantly lifts her wing. The foal nickers angrily, but before she can do anything more, Midnight begins grooming her mane. Startled, and clearly very confused, the foal pauses, her entire body tense. Whatever she had been expecting, it wasn't this. Huginn and Muninn stare, and then burst out in great squawks of what can only be laughter.

Lachesis's brain catches up to the details of Kieran's complaints a moment later, and she stares at him. "How in the world could you possibly have read a five-thousand paged book in a week? There's literally not enough time in a week for you to have worked AND read the book AND done literally anything else." She blinks, and then adds, "Please don't tell me you dabbled in time manipulation to make it possible." There are certain spells that desperate (or merely extremely procrastinating) students have been known to use to cram in some extra studying time, but the energy cost tends to be extremely nasty and therefore rarely worth it.

[Foleo]

"Me, practicing dark and forbidden magics?" Kieran gasps in mock affront, letting the mystery hang for a few seconds before snorting and shaking his head. "No, I'm too old for that. I just leverage the one thing I have over her: years of experience in bullshitting assignments without doing the readings."

As he speaks, he sees a flash of tousled blond hair across the courtyard. Grinning, he cups his hands to his mouth. "Donovan!" he shouts, then lifts one arm to wave wildly at his friend. "Over here!"

[Kestrad]

Lachesis rolls her eyes at Kieran's dramatics. "I'm sure," she says primly. "Good thing that you're the one who ended up with her, then, since I always did all of my readings."

Fortunately, Kieran doesn't dispute her statement because he's distracted by Donovan's arrival. As he hails their friend, Lachesis gently tugs on her bond with Yin. The alicanto does one more swooping pass, an incandescent streak as the bright morning sun glances off her wings, and lands onto Lachesis's outstretched arm.

Blinking sunspots out of her eyes, Lachesis scratches Yin's neck absently as she turns towards Donovan, who's just finished crossing the courtyard. "Took you a while to get here, oh 'please come on my thesis trip' man," she says by way of greeting. "This is Yin." She holds her arm out towards him so the two can inspect each other. "She's agreed to help you search for ore veins, as long as you ask her very nicely. Yin, this is Donovan, the magi who needs your help for his artificer exam."

[Foleo]

Donovan frowns, fiddling with the bracelet around his left wrist. The silver metal still feels unnervingly cool, even after wearing it throughout the calibration process—and an hour of slinging around fireballs is a very sweaty hour. If he focuses hard—and he hardly wants to—he can almost imagine the bracelet sipping up little bits of his ambient magic from where its nodules touch his skin.

"—onovan."

Startled, Donovan drops his hands to his sides, straightening his posture as he turns to the woman who has, apparently, been trying to get his attention for some time. Lana, his thesis advisor, raises her eyebrows at him, crossing her arms. Her winged cat, Fish, swoops in and delicately bumps its head against his chin, then attempts to clamber onto his shoulders. With claws.

Juggling an armful of winged cat and trying his best not to get fur into his mouth, Donovan clears his throat. "Yes. Hello. Lana. I'm sorry, were you saying something?"

Lana gives a little huff of a laugh, then gestures to Donovan's hand. "Nervous about the casting restriction? You've been playing with the monitor since you put it on."

Ah. Well, he supposes he hadn't exactly been subtle about it. "It's, um. Just feels like I have to watch myself, is all."

"The month will pass faster than you expect, don't worry," Lana says, and Donovan winces. A month? And here he was thinking he could be free in two weeks, if he sacrificed a few nights of sleep. "Then you can return to setting the workshops on fire all you like." Her eyes crinkle as Donovan groans. "Well, anyways. I just wanted to see you off before you left. You'll be traveling with Alchemist Lachesis and Archivist Kieran, is that right?"

Donovan nods. "Yes. They were gracious enough to accompany me." Though he now knows way more about Kieran's skincare routine than he ever wanted to.

"Metzli's said good things about Lachesis. She's a fire magi as well, isn't she?" At Donovan's confirmation, Lana suddenly seems distracted. She hums, then holds her arms out. Fish pushes off of Donovan's shoulders and lands deftly in her grasp. "There I go again. Don't let me keep you, artificer candidate. Best of luck, and remember, safety comes first."

"Right," Donovan says. "Not much I can do with a thesis if I'm dead."

"Oh, don't be dramatic," Lana says, laughing, and clasps a hand to Donovan's shoulder as she walks by him. "But seriously. Stay safe, and I'll see you soon. The makou will be here when you get back."

--

"Donovan! Over here!"

Donovan turns toward the voice and makes his way across the courtyard, picking up his pace. His robes swing pendulously, weighed down by the pygmy phoenixes in his pockets.

"Hey," he says as he gets close, inclining his chin. Kieran greets him in turn, a grin on his face. Then, Lachesis is speaking, and introductions are being made.

Donovan bows neatly at the waist, one hand on his chest and the other folded behind his back. "Honorable Yin, it is my pleasure to meet your acquaintance. My apologies for the delay. I shall be humbly requesting your aid in the future." He sticks his fingers into his shirt pocket, pulling out a gold filigree pendant that he had prepared for the occasion. "A light snack for the journey ahead," he says, offering it to the alicanto. "In appreciation of your companionship."