Pleroma | Memory/Voice

[coupris]

[A few days after he returns to Godsblood, and things have started to settle down, Kim has started to experiment with his new ability that surfaced during the rescue of the new arrivals. For those with their minds open to shard communion, a brief memory will cross their minds.

Kim, standing on a relatively more remote dock in the shipyards, is talking to someone that others might recognize as one of the Greentruth rebels. He hands them a sturdy piece of wood, about the length of a baseball bat, and nods his approval. The rebel, looking a bit uncertain, squeezes their eyes shut before swinging the plank as hard as they can, directly at Kim's head. It seems to make contact, but Kim doesn't so much as flinch as the wood splinters in half. Not a hair on him is out of place.

He then reaches forward, also as tentative as his partner in this bizarre experiment, and flicks his finger against their chest. A ripple of energy seems to diffuse from him, and the rebel flies back as if Kim had punched them with full force, and falls off the dock, into the water.

Once the image fades, Kim's voice takes its place.]

I realize that magic is a bit more mundane for some of our number than others. However, no one else has shown signs of this ability since they arrived here, no?

[Something ripples through the shard that gives the impression of a sigh.]

Unfortunately, this is all rather new for me. Discovering I could manifest my own fire instead of wasting matches was tricky enough. If anyone has any information, I'd greatly appreciate it.

[A pause, and then a pale, gloomy bloom of blue before he speaks again.]

And I hope everyone is doing well. [Doing well considering, is the implication.]

Comments

text

[passio]

[ it’s an impressive display. dextera has not, as far as he knows, manifested anything new—but he hasn’t experimented, and along with everything that happened in venera, this is a good cue to start working on himself. his purification is limited. ]

You couldn’t do this before you came here?

[ kim will likely recognize the handwriting that manifests as the same in his notebook. ]

voice

[coupris]

[He does, and it's a relief to at least perceive someone familiar-- he hadn't been completely comfortable in sending this out to strangers.]

Not at all. None of the powers I've seen in Horos do.

[passio]

[ even if it’s stretching the definition, dextera is the only person with ‘magic’ as such from his own world. it’s still strange to hear that someone is completely new to it all. ]

How new is it? This power? Could you do it as soon as you were reborn?

[ even if it’s in his handwriting, the medium of the shard presents a rhythm in his writing a little closer to how he would speak—disjointed, but curious. ]

Things have changed. But I haven’t tried anything new.

[coupris]

It's recent. Since the new aions arrived.

[Had it been immediate, he realizes, being corralled by the Achamites would have gone much differently.]

What could you do before all this?

[passio]

[ a sensitive question. dextera would be able to hide his reaction if they weren’t communicating telepathically, but he palpably sorts through his immediate emotions before settling on honesty. ]

It’s called “purification.” Maybe to people who have never seen it, it looks like magic.

[coupris]

[He's good at dropping those without warning, though in this case, the palpable reaction demurs him.]

But it isn't?

[passio]

Maybe it is.

[ dextera has enough self-awareness to realize that isn’t helpful, though. ]

It’s preternatural. It does the same things magic does. It changes things. It’s something you have to channel. Is that “magic”?

[traversal]

[ oh, so she's not the only one manifesting something. ngl, it's also something that's found strange, to say the least. ]

If I find more information about it, I'll share it. But right now, I'm just as baffled over a similar discovery about myself.

Did your world ever have traces of it? Perhaps it's something that's been dormant inside of you ...

[ with the amount of power that seems to reside in this world, it wouldn't surprise her if innate abilities have started to wake up. ]

[coupris]

[If it isn't only him, that just makes it more curious. Was it something to do with visiting the shrines again?]

People have pretended to have supernatural abilities, but it's always been easily disproven. My "normal" seems relatively boring by comparison, it seems.

[traversal]

There's a number of people who would wish for "normal", really.

[ including her, because while traveling across worlds is great fun, she also just wants to find a place to settle and call home. ]

So the thing you've done to that other person, that's your new ability, then? Did you simply manage to figure out how to use it?

[coupris]

[Himself included. This feels like learning how to drive all over again, with far less instruction involved.]

It didn't start consciously. I first noticed it happen during the attack on the shrines, and I've just been trying to replicate circumstances.

[traversal]

[ if she could help, she would. she has no idea how his abilities work, so offering tutorial services on magic usage is a bit risky for the both of them. ]

How much testing have you done so far?

[coupris]

Not much. It's a bit difficult to induce on my own, and as you can see, my initial volunteer wasn't very keen to continue.

Voice

[locumstudentesquire]

I-- Sorry to ask this, but. Is that guy alright?

[The one that got flung off the dock.]

Voice

[coupris]

[The thought flutters like laughter, but Kim's voice stays as deadpan as always.]

I made sure he could swim first.

Re: Voice

[locumstudentesquire]

...How thoughtful of you.

[He can tell it's kind of a joke, at least.]

That's incredible, though. And you weren't able to do anything like that before?

[coupris]

Not remotely.

[Kim is stronger than his scrawny looks suggest, but these sorts of feats are reserved for fairy tales back home.

This one sounds a little more in awe of it than others he knows can use magic, though.]

What about your home?

[locumstudentesquire]

Mine? Much the same.

[Well. There's Spirit Mediums who can channel the dead and literally transform into them, but he's blissfully unaware of that shit.]

I still find the idea of developing such abilities somewhat unsettling, but after the month I've had... I'm sort of hoping for it, now.

[coupris]

Oh, you're one of the new arrivals?

[A hell of a time to get here, though that's likely all connected.]

It's... jarring, at first. But there is a sense of an even playing field, once you get used to it.

voice.

[deushexmachina]

This kind of sorcery? No — we haven't had mages for centuries. We've wrestled magic into machinery, but this still so new.

[coupris]

So people had magic, they just simply stopped using it?

[That seems... like a far greater act of willpower than humanity is capable of, if he has to be cynical about it.]

[deushexmachina]

Well — it was outlawed, when the foundations of Piltover were built. Because of all the mage wars.

[Humanity: a disappointment, again.]

[coupris]

[Of course, the mage wars. Another ripple like a sigh-- why is everyone else's world so much like a tabletop game?

That isn't fair to whoever he's talking to, though, so he reigns it in. At any rate, it sounds similar to the use of nuclear weapons in Elysium.]

I imagine that's hard to regulate. Unless people aren't born with the ability?

[deushexmachina]

Originally yes, people could only be born with the ability to wield magic, [the briefest of dramatic pauses, his latent skill for the dramatics now amply used,] before Hextech. Magic is more precisely utilized where I'm from — and when I'm from.

So I sympathize with your plight. This is strange for me, too.

[coupris]

So this place seems a bit... out of time for you, as well.

[Forget magic, he'd just love a coffeemaker.]