paradisa | One more time with feeling

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dhaos

One more time with feeling

[Dhaos isn't quite sure what had happened; one moment he was bleeding out from a fatal wound, alone but for his murderers and worlds away from home. ...And then he blinked.

He's not sure where he is now. Not the afterlife certainly; he can still acutely feel the pain from the gaping hole in his abdomen and his vision is going. That blur on the edge of his vision looks a rather lot like it might be a gurney though. ...Is this a medical facility?

The thought prompts Dhaos to begin gathering up the last bits of spare magic from his reserves to cast a healing spell. If he can keep himself alive long enough for someone to notice him, perhaps there's a chance he can recover enough to complete his mission...]

((ooc: Dhaos has returned, and this time the castle had the courtesy to drop him in the Clinic instead of in the front hall. Feel free to bother him~))

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[ Kirby had been on his usual bored stroll around the castle when he peeked into the clinic.

Only to see a familiar face dying in the middle of it.

The puffball squeaked in shock and ran immediately to his friend's side, not knowing that he wasn't remembered and peering over him with fright. ] P-Poyo-okay?! Poyo!

[ He would be causing quite a ruckus with his freak-out, knowing he couldn't do anything to help. What could he do, what could he do...

Kirby ran for the doorway and shouted as loud as he could. ]

POYO!!!

[The noise can be heard from a fair distance outside the clinic, and Phoenix hurries over when he hears the panicking puffball.]

Kirby? What is it??

[Dhaos isn't sure who these two are, but he can't afford the distraction at the moment. Thus he ignores them in favor of concentrating on the spell. For a moment he's surrounded by a bright glow before it condenses and travels into the wound. It's not enough to heal him entirely, but Dhaos sure isn't about to complain about his stomach and left lung being in one piece again, nor about the ribs that had been partially reattached.

...Just one more spell. Just one more and maybe I can survive...

And thus he begins the process anew.]

[ Kirby pointed inside the clinic room frantically before running in, needing Phoenix to see him. Help him? ]

Poyo, poyo poyo! [ he would continue, panicked. ]

[It's been a little while since Phoenix has seen Dhaos around, and to be fair, he hadn't even known he'd been missing from Paradisa--he barely knew Dhaos at all. When he peers at the person inhabiting the clinic bed and so worrying Kirby, he's shocked.]

H-holy crap! That guy...! What happened to him??

[Dhaos just ignores them again, because not bleeding to death is a bit more important than answering the questions of strangers. The light gathers again and his flesh knits back together, leaving him with only a matching pair of fresh scars and covered in various bodily fluids. Out of immediate danger, he allows himself to kind of zone out. Remind him never to allow himself to get impaled by a magical broadsword ever again.]

[ Kirby would run to the bed and float on, exhaling as he landed. He seemed to have stopped glowing, the puffball realized, worried by how he suddenly seemed to zone out.

Taking a shaky breath, the puffball very gently shook Dhaos' arm. ]

Poyo... [ he would try gently, not understanding that he had healed himself. Besides, he still looked terrible. ]

Kirby... Kirby, I don't think you should shake him.

[Just staring at the injured person on the bed, he's not sure exactly what to do.]

I've heard this kind of thing is pretty common here, but... given the recent murder... maybe it's something that needs to be checked out.

[He speaks to Kirby even as he's leaning over Dhaos, peering around for the now-vanished wounds.]

Do you think a doctor's seen him?

No.

[Clearly these two are not medical professionals, because even a simple trainee would know a blood transfusion was necessary.]

...Please... get a doctor...

[ Kirby would nod, still a bit panicked, looking up to Phoenix. Would they go looking? ]

Poyo poyo! [ they had to try! ]

For the past couple of days, Sheena had had an upset stomach. Not as bad as some of the other residents seemed to have had, but enough of one to alarm her. At first, she had thought it was connected to recent events, but she was made of sterner stuff than to let a gruesome sight like the one she saw bother her.

Now, an unexplained illness--that was another matter. She was on a strange world and could be susceptible to anything. So, she was headed to the clinic in the castle when she felt something...odd...and this time, although eerily familiar, it wasn't her stomach. And just as quickly as the feeling came over her, it was gone.

She was almost to the clinic when it happened again--only stronger. And now, she was able to identify the sensation. Someone was using mana! Was it coming from there? It had to be. And if it was the clinic, it meant someone was hurt. Raine maybe? Forgetting her original reason for going, she began hurrying to see if it was her friend, only to be stopped at the door by both a doctor and nurse who told her to wait while they worked on the patient--without magic.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity, they moved away, and Sheena stepped inside, expecting the worse. Only to be surprised upon discovering that the mana-user had to be the blond man in the bed.

"He used mana?" she asked aloud of no one.

[Dhaos cracks an eye open at the sound of a voice that is neither the doctor or nurse. He stares appraisingly at the new arrival for a moment, gently feeling out her mana signature. ...Curious. A human certainly, or at least mostly, and yet there's something in her aura that he's seen but once.]

...You are a summoner?

[Sheena's head is tilted slightly as she also takes in him and his own signature. She isn't as good as Genis or Raine, but this close, she can feel something from him.

And things suddenly get weird when he figures her out.]

How...How did you know?

[Dhaos inwardly winces, berating himself for revealing that sort of knowledge. He's seen firsthand the prejudice even normal Half-elves face, and the last time he had shown his power, he had been mistaken for a demon.

He opts to tell the truth in a somewhat vague fashion.]

Your mana signature. It's unlike that of a mage, and it is the only magic I am aware of that humans can learn, barring the healing artes.

[Sheena gapes at him a moment.]

What do you mean "humans can learn" to be summoners? [She shakes her head.]

I think you're confused. I'm the only summoner on my world, and it's not because I learned, but because I have the ability to make a pact with a Spirit.

Edited 2012-07-31 23:40 (UTC)

[Dhaos looks a bit surprised at this.]

But you are Aselian, are you not? So how...

[He trails off as realization dawns on him. This woman must not be from any of the eras he has visited. And she mentioned her "world," as if it was a foregone conclusion that life exists on other planets.]

...This may sound strange, but I believe the discrepancy may be due to time travel on my part.

[Her eyes narrow.]

You're the second person I've heard use the word "Aselia"...

But my planet is called Tethe'alla.

[Sheena has her own moment of realization.]

Time travel?

Tethe'alla...? But that would mean more than four thousand years separate our times...!

[Yep, he's startled to say the least. His expression of surprise only grows deeper as the metaphorical gears in his head begin to turn. If she was the only summoner from Tethe'alla, that could mean...]

...Is your name Sheena Fujibayashi, by any chance...?

[She cocks her head slightly.] Four thousand years? Humans weren't able to summon four thousand years ago...

[Her voice trails off and she takes a step back, her guard immediately up and she's in her battle stance without a thought.]

Who are you? And how do you know my name?

[And just like that, his expression is back to closed off and weary of attack. He speaks slowly, hoping not to provoke an attack as he is quite defenseless at the moment.]

...I am Dhaos; a Half-elf. I was born nearly four thousand years after the worlds of Sylvarant and Tethe'alla were reunited to form Aselia. You are a legend, though only a few beyond dedicated scholars know the names of you and your companions. Summoning was an art long lost, until one man learned to call the Spirits, though I know not how a human without a trace of elf blood did so.

[What did he expect? He knows her name, but she has no idea who he is. Of course she's going to get defensive. She's not too thrilled about his tone of voice, taking it to mean he thinks she's stupid, but she listens to what he has to say, her hands dropping to her sides and her eyes widening in disbelief.]

Four thousand years in the future? [It's not that part that confuses her, since she's seen the castle's habit of pulling people from different times first hand. It's the whole being a legend thing that makes her look at him askance.]

A legend? Me? But I didn't do anything. Lloyd's the one who joined the worlds. [Thinks a moment.]

Maybe he was able to convince the Spirits to make the pacts with him?

[Honestly, he's surprised by people who don't attempt to kill him. It's not that he means to sound condescending in the least, it's just that people seem to interpret him that way a lot.]

The way the story was told to me, each an every one of Lloyd's companions were a vital asset on the journey. ...And yes, I suppose making pacts would be necessary, wouldn't it? I must admit, I'm not well versed in the art of summoning myself.

[Well, she's been talked down to all her life by nobles, so if he has the same tone, then yeah, she's not going to like it. But that's not enough to kill someone. Smack them if they say the wrong thing, but not kill.]

Vital? Me? [Technically, she's the one who started all the trouble by forming the pacts to begin with and taking the Spirits away from Mithos. Of course, that only helped Lloyd in the end, since Origin would only work with her--but you can't tell Sheena that.]

Oh, yeah. The Spirits make the pacts with someone who "has the right" to make the vow. [You can practically hear the quotes as she speaks.] It's possible that after so many years, the Spirits have discovered that full humans have also earned the ability.

[If that can be traced back to Lloyd's group regaining their trust, she'd be impressed.]

I would think it to be based on individual cases as opposed to humans as a whole. I've seen a kingdom rip itself to shreds thanks to Magitech, and that nearly destroyed Yggdrasil in the process. ...Most beings with greater ties to Mana than that of humans would have perished soon after.

[He sighs.]

I tried to warn them, but they refused to listen...

Magitech? [Sits heavily on a nearby chair.]

It came back? But that's what caused the world to be split in the first place! And the tree... [The tree whose seed Lloyd and saved and named.] It almost happened again?

[She looks at him.]

They refused to listen? Why? Wasn't the history known?

[That's... a very good question. It takes him a minute to figure out how to answer that one.]

It... seemed both as if they did and did not. In the interim between our times, civilization destroyed itself utterly at least once, forcing most knowledge to be lost. As I understand it, magitech was rediscovered in ruins and studied. The Mana Cannon was constructed based on this knowledge, and still nobody cared to question why ancient civilization had been reduced to ruin.

...As for why I was ignored... I suppose it was in part due to being as skilled with the magical artes as I am.

[Always awkward when you're magic power gets you mistaken for a demon, even by another Half-elf.]

The-- The Mana Cannon? Of all the things to build! [She knows just how powerful that thing is, and can't believe people of his time hadn't realized that. She looks at him in shock for several long minutes in silence before she finds her voice, which is tinged with anger.]

And the other part... Because you're a half-elf?

[The anger's not directed at Dhaos but at the idiots 4000 years in her future who hadn't learned a thing.]

[And indeed they had learned nothing. The people of Aselia continued to discriminate against those neither human nor elf, and overused Magitech. And as much as it pains him to admit, his own people were not much better. They had destroyed their own World Tree because of a Mana Cannon and necessitated his journey in the first place after all.

He answers her question truthfully.]

...Because they believed me to be a demon.

[It doesn't even cross Dhaos' mind that he might not be taken literally.]

[They wouldn't need to write their own history books. Just borrow the ones from Sheena's world and put their name on it--since it's so similar.

Her eyes widen and the corner of her mouth quirks a little.]

A demon? Funny, but you don't look like one.

[She fought against a few while traveling, and he looks nothing like them.]

[Considering the entire population of Derris-Kharlan is descended from people from Aselia, it's where their habit of repeating history comes from.]

Indeed I don't. It has puzzled me for years how he concluded that as no demon I have met looks human enough to pass as one.

[And he's met quite a lot of demons in his time living amongst them.]

[That's not really a good thing...]

No, they don't. But if it helps, I don't think you look like one.

[At least not the ones she's seen.]

[He smiles a little.]

I should hope not. They're a decent people for the most part, but I'm hardly one of them.

[No matter that he's their king, no matter that they had mostly been civil to him, Dhaos will always put his beloved Derris-Kharlan and her people first.]

[She tilts her head.]

Why do I have the feeling we're talking about two types of demons now?

[Sounds like her and Mizuho. Yes, she's their chief, but she's sworn to protect everyone on the planet.]

[He tilts his head back at her as best he can from his reclined position.]

Perhaps. Four thousand years is a long time after all.

A very long time.

So, what are the demons like in your time?

They're about as fond of humans as humans are of them. They're not terribly pleased about having been trapped in Daemonium for as long as they were. I... cannot say I blame them.

[He suppresses a shudder as a memory from his own imprisonment rises to the surface of his mind.]

[Any further questions she has about the demons are halted by his words and reaction. Is he in pain?]

Dhaos? Are you all right?

Edited (Yep! He told her his name! (Sorry)) 2012-08-28 21:26 (UTC)

...It's nothing.

[He doesn't quite meet her eyes as he says this.]

[Oh yeah, like that'll dissuade her.]

Dhaos, what is it?

......

[He'd really rather not answer.]

Okay. You don't want to say anything, but if you do, I'll be willing to listen.

[He returns his gaze to her.]

Perhaps one day. I just... I do not have the energy to speak of it today.

All right. I won't push you.

[Although he's been physically injured, she has a feeling what's bothering him is more emotional in nature.]

[He smiles a little at that.]

...Thank you.

[She tilts her head as she observes him for a moment.]

Is there anything you need? Anything I can get you?

[To Sheena, "need" and "want" can be two different things.]

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One more time with feeling

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Timeskip...Recovery Time

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