Raistlin Majere of the Red Robes (hourglass_mage) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-08-01 17:40:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, raistlin majere, tasslehoff burrfoot |
Who: Raistlin and Tassleoff
What: Raistlin's eyes have changed
When: Last week
Where: Raist and Tas's apartment
Rating/Warnings lowish
Status: Complete!
Something felt a little off when Raistlin awoke in the morning. Over the past six or so months he had been using his bed more for sleeping rather than a place to store books. Sleep was one of those items that had always fallen somewhere below food on Raistlin’s personal list of life necessities. Work and reading - which were often times the same thing - had always been on the top of the list, though recently had been supplanted with studying and memorizing spells. This usually meant that Raistlin often fell asleep at his desk when his body decided that he was done for an evening, and whether he agreed or not, just shut off. However the Dreams made sleep interesting. Not just interesting, but for the first time in a long time for Raistlin, necessary.
He didn’t like everything he Dreamed about. Most of the time his counterpart annoyed him, other times he straight pissed him off. It was odd when he stopped to think about it. That man in his Dreams was him, after all. A different world, a different life, different circumstances, but still basically him. It was kind of...amusing to know that Raistlin of Krynn had managed to nearly alienate everyone he associated with, even himself.
The other major thing about his Dreams Raistlin didn’t much care for was how his counterpart saw the world. Not just his negative and pessimistic perceptions - Raistlin of Orange County wasn’t exactly an optimist - but how he literally saw things. Withering, dying, decaying. It had been terrifying at first, but slowly Raistlin had gotten used to it. Used to it, however, did not mean that he liked it.
He had taken some relief in the fact that in the waking world, he saw things normally. That is, until this morning. The overall state of their apartment wasn’t particularly great - old peeling paint, cracks in the ceiling and that wet fur smell that six months after moving in they still couldn’t identify, much less get rid of - so Raistlin, half awake, didn’t notice much difference as he stumbled from his room to begin his morning routine. That is until he got to the bathroom and caught a glimpse at himself in the mirror. He did not recognize the man looking back at him. Man? By the gods, he may as well have been looking at a corpse the way the skin was pulled too taut over the bones of a face practically sunken back into the skull. His eyes. His eyes had changed. Golden orbs with pupils in the shape of hourglasses had replaced what had once been ice blue.
His scream echoed through the apartment.
Tas had been cooking breakfast when he heard Raistlin shuffle to the bathroom. He’d managed to find a stool that was tall enough for him to cook on without any issues. His smaller size was still taking time to adjust to, but he had to admit that it wasn’t so bad. He just tried to think of all the small places he could squeeze into now.
He pulled on the pan to flip the omelette when Raistlin screamed, and was startled enough to drop the pan and the eggs on the kitchen floor. He grabbed carving knife from the knife block, and rushed to the bathroom, expecting goblins or demons or even ghosts (how exciting would that be?). Instead, all he got was Raistlin standing in front of the mirror. He had to admit he was a little disappointed. “What is it, Raistlin? Did you see a ghost?”
No goblins. No ghosts. Just one very freaked out Raistlin standing in front of the mirror. One hand was gripping the sink so tightly his knuckles had gone white. The other hand was covering his eyes. His shoulders were shuddering with how hard he was panting. He wanted this very much to be a Dream turned to some kind of nightmare. Maybe he hadn’t quite shaken sleep off of himself and had only imagined what he’d seen.
He visibly winced when he heard Tas’s voice at the bathroom door. After swallowing hard he dared part his fingers to risk a glance in his roommate’s direction. Instead of Tasselhoff’s usual jovial and youthful appearance, Raistlin saw an old man with thin grey hair clinging to what used to be Tas’s beloved topknot, a pallid death mask and a thin frail body underneath baggy ragged clothing. Raistlin shuddered and squeezed his eyes closed again, turning his face away from the other man. “Go away, Tas,” he ordered shakily.
Tas wasn’t sure if he’d ever seen Raistlin looking so scared and shaken up. He took another look around the bathroom. It must have been a ghost. Well, except that Raistlin had already met ghosts in the dreams and he hadn’t been like this. In fact, even when they’d fought that creepy Raistlin!Monster, Raistlin hadn’t seemed this scared.
What kind of exciting monster did their bathroom hold? Why did Tasslehoff have to miss it? Stupid breakfast.
Then he shook his head. His priority wasn’t the monster, it was his roommate, and even if his brain was frantically thinking up what kind of monster it could be (nine feet tall with dozens of tentacles coming from its mouth and arms and legs. And the tentacles had teeth! And mouths too! And maybe a dozen eyes. Or no eyes. No, a dozen eyes was scarier), he tried to just let it run in the background of his mind while the forefront was taken by Raistlin.
He tentatively reached for Raistlin’s hand. “Raistlin? It’s okay. It’s gone now,” he said. “Come and eat some breakfast!” Or. Well. Toast and fruit, since he remembered now that most of the rest of breakfast was now on the kitchen floor.
Raistlin felt Tas’s hand on his and jerked it away from him with such force that the momentum sent him stumbling back towards the toilet. He knew what he was seeing wasn’t real, a product of his cursed eyes. But at the same time he didn’t want what Tas had become touching him.
He kept his eyes tightly closed when he reached out to grab hold of something - anything - to keep from taking a spill onto the bathroom floor. Hadn’t he told Tas to go away? Why did he think Tas would even listen to him? “I don’t want breakfast,” he managed to say. Oh, gods, what the hell would breakfast even look like?! What his imagine alone produced made his stomach churn. “It’s not ok,” he went on. He suddenly didn’t want to be standing anymore. He felt around for something to sit on. His hands caught on the toilet seat and decided that was a good a place as any.
“My eyes…” he started. Tas knew about them. They Dreamed the same thing more or less. Surely he’d seen those hourglass eyes of his counter part. “...they aren’t mine anymore. They’re his.”
Tas frowned when Raistlin pulled away from him, a little hurt by how violently Raistlin had pulled away from him. But he had never been the type to let rejection get him down, so instead of going away he came closer to Raistlin, this time knowing better than to try to touch him.
“Who’s him?” Tas asked, a little confused. Then he realized that Raistlin must be talking about about his dream counterpart. “You mean extra grumpy Raistlin? The hourglass eyes? That’s not so bad! I always thought that his eyes were kind of cool looking. A little creepy, but really neat once you got used to them! And you can always wear contacts if you don’t want other people to see them!”
“Yes. His eyes,” Raistlin answered. He scowled a little bit and shook his head. “You don’t understand. It isn’t the eyes themselves. It’s what...it’s what I’m seeing with them.” Did Tas not know? Raistlin thought back through the Dream Memories and found there was no reason for Tas to know how the hourglass eyes worked, what their curse was. He took a breath. “He only sees death and decay with these damn eyes. And now, apparently, so do I. You...you look as though you’re dying or maybe even dead.”
That… was not what Tas was expecting to hear. He placed the knife he’d grabbed into the bathroom sink. “I didn’t know that,” Tas said, surprisingly subdued. It wasn’t often that Tas was at a loss for words, though he was now. He felt like he should do something for his friend, but he didn’t know what he could do. Tas didn’t know magic, or fancy spells that could get rid of them, or any of that. But he did know how to hug, so he moved to do exactly that. Raistlin might not like hugs, but it sure looked like he could use one.
And now he was being hugged. Tas was trying, there were only so many people who would when it came to the mage. Raistlin told himself that how he saw Tas wasn’t really how Tas was. Some old dying man wasn’t actually attempting to hold him with thin frail arms and bony gnarled hands. He forced his body to relax. He had gotten used to the eyes in the Dreams, he would have to get used to them here.
After a moment - which was surprisingly longer than Raistlin normally would have stood for such displays - Raistlin gently pushed Tas away from him. “I’m alright now, Tas,” he said. He dared open one eye to look at his roommate. Ugh. Up close he looked even worse. The skin of his face was dried and wrinkled, peeling away from under his eyes and over his cheekbones. Raistlin winced.
Tas was a little surprised at how long he managed to hold on to Raistlin. He must have really needed it. He didn’t miss the wince though, and frowned thoughtfully to himself.
“Oh, I know!” Tas said, dashing from the bathroom to his bedroom. He dove into his closet, loudly tossing aside clothes, a didgeridoo he’d forgotten he owned, a stop sign that someone had written “Hammertime” on, and a pool cue he had borrowed from Kitiara (he was going to have to remember to return that to her) before he finally found what he was looking for lying under a pile of brightly coloured clothes that were now too big for him.
When he returned to the bathroom, he was wearing a Venetian mask. “Is this better?”
Raistlin blinked and stared. Well, he wasn’t looking at a dying face any longer, at least. “Where did you…?” He trailed off. Where Tas had gotten the ornate (and somewhat creepy looking) mask was not important. He let out a bemused breath. “Yes, that’s…better. Thank you, Tas.”
He could look at his roommate without seeing a nightmarish version of him, but it really was only a temporary fix. The rest of the world wouldn’t be donning masks for his comfort. It was a massive adjustment Raistlin had to make, but if his other half could do it, then dammit, so could he. The initial shock and horror of this morning discovery was starting to fade, leaving Raistlin with figuring out how, exactly, he was to make this adjustment. Not only that, but what these eyes meant for him. He hadn’t done anything wrong, so why was he being cursed this way?
Another deep breath. “This is going to take some getting used to,” he said. “Please, do me a favor. Do not mention this to anyone until I’ve had a chance to speak with Regina. Do not say anything to Kitiara, and for the love of the gods, say nothing to Caramon. Can you do that for me, Tasslehoff?”
Tas frowned, though Raistlin likely couldn’t see it, and looked at his feet. “Uhhh…” he said. He really wasn’t good at keeping secrets. He knew it. No doubt Raistlin knew it. But then, he’d had to keep a few secrets in his dreams. Like when he’d seen the golden dragon - he hadn’t told anyone about that. Partly because everytime he tried he just talked about a golden woolly mammoth. But he’d also gone on a super secret mission with Fizban, and that he really hadn’t told anyone about.
“Okay,” Tas said solemnly after a few moments. “I promise I won’t say anything. And I can wear the mask for however long you want me to!”
Trusting Tas with secrets was risky business and no one knew that better than Raistlin. However, he had no choice. At least until he had the opportunity to speak with Regina Mills, who as far as Raistlin was concerned, was the most knowledged magic user on the network. She could at least give him some kind of glamour to hide the eyes if not lift the curse altogether. However, deep down something was telling Raistlin that this was his cross to bare and he’d better get used to it. He wished he could contact Magius, the only other mage from Krynn Raistlin had met thus far. But the man had gone off to locations unknown to have his own adventures away from this place.
Raistlin sighed. He eyed Tas carefully in that mask. The kender sounded sincere enough in his oath. Tas wasn’t a malicious liar, he would do the best he could and that would have to be enough. It would be up to Raistlin to act quickly and tell those he needed to tell before the temptation to speak was too great for Tas and the embellishments came. He would not be able to do that from within their bathroom.
“Thank you, Tas,” he said. “I can’t expect you to wear that thing forever and I don’t. Wear it as long as you like.” He pushed himself up from the toilet seat and made to leave the bathroom. He was not yet prepared to see how breakfast looked, which was just as well as he had no appetite to speak of that morning. “I have a few calls to make.”
Tasslehoff frowned a little as Raistlin left the bathroom, stepping away from the doorway so Raistlin could get through. It hurt a little that his best friend had to go through something like this, and he his brain was already in hyperdrive trying to figure out how to make it easier for Raistlin. In the meantime, however, he’d have to just make due with making all of Raistlin’s favourite meals for the next little while. And by wearing the delightful, funny mask that Tas had found.