ιѕαвєℓα (rivaini) wrote in valarlogs, @ 2016-11-20 17:42:00 |
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Entry tags: | !complete, isabela, raistlin majere |
Who: Isabela & Raistlin
What: Bela catches up with her 'possessed by primordial darkness' friend
When: After the Naked Time plot
Where: Coffee shop, Old World Village
Rating/Warnings: Nothing really!
Status: Complete
Isabela wasn’t really one to stop and smell the roses - she had a busy life, a busy schedule, and was often up late working to burn the midnight oil anyway. But when she decided to grab a cup of caffeinated fuel, she preferred something that wasn’t urine-coloured and roasted to hell, meaning, Starbucks was out. You could find either one of those or a McDonald’s on every corner, in most countries in Europe (such wonderful things crossed the oceans, right?) so she often went with the latter - though sitting down to actually enjoy a cup was a lot different. In that case, it was more a social call. Here she was, she’d arrived first at one of those aforementioned social calls - it was a victory whenever she managed to get Raistlin out of the house (him going to work didn’t count) and besides, she kind of liked this little coffee shoppe in the Old World Village, in Huntington Beach. Sure, they could whip up one of those half-caf, vanilla whip, non-fat things but she preferred to go for what they did best which was an authentic Turkish coffee, in a ceramic cup alongside a tall glass of cool water - the cup was small, but the coffee packed a punch. The water was for cleansing the palate between sips, and you kind of needed it. It also came with a block of Turkish delight, and a chocolate rose. A bit of a treat she was now nibbling on while she waited, in her leggings which were covered with sequins (they shimmered, and looked either like leather or like they were wet, depending on the light) and t-shirt printed with death before decaf, sugar skull hoodie unzipped and thrown over that. She tapped the toe of one killer boot, checking the time. He’d be along any minute now. It was almost as if Raistlin had a hangover. A hangover that had lasted now for nearly two weeks. He still had no idea what had happened to either himself or Kitiara the first weekend of November, but it stressed him the fuck out. He’d had not-so nice (some may even consider evil) thoughts before, everyone did! But he’d never in a million years would have acted on them. He was an asshole, yes, but he was a fairly decent human being most of the time. Except for that weekend. He’d had absolutely no filter. Every disparaging thought he had he said and he’d taken arrogance to an entirely new level. If someone ticked him off, he had no compulsions in turning them into very unpleasant creatures or casting a spell in which an unpleasant creature seemingly came after them or, in the more extreme cases, setting them on fucking fire. Raistlin supposed he was lucky he hadn’t been arrested. The worst part of it all was that it had been fun. Once the haze had settled and Raistlin was back to what he considered normal these days, he had nearly driven himself crazy trying to figure out just what had happened to him and his sister. There had been very little on the Network to explain what had gone on, but from what Raistlin could glean he hadn’t been the only one to experience some kind of change. It was as though people had been reduced to their base elements or became how they saw themselves, and that only alarmed him further. He almost turned down Isabela’s call to come out and be social with her, but changed his mind at the last moment. His many books and the Network were providing zero answers and he wasn’t doing himself any favors by becoming any more reclusive. He arrived at the coffee house a few minutes after Isabela clad in a pair of jeans (uncharacteristic for him) and a simple plain blue t-shirt - literally two articles of clothing he had yanked out of his closet and figured to be good enough to serve the purpose he needed for them. He ordered himself one of those small turkish coffees (a certain vampire lawyer may have gotten him rather hooked on the stuff), a glass of water and sat rather heavily in the chair across from Isabela. She glanced up, putting aside her phone (that game where you stole jewels, moved jewels around, that was all up a greedy pirate’s alley) and lifted an eyebrow when Raistlin so cheerily (such an astounding use of sarcasm) planted his bum in a chair at the table in the corner she’d selected. He’d like that, a table in the corner - nice and secluded, they could be recluses together. “Alright, what’s going on with you?” Isabela wanted to know. “Had a rough go of it lately?” The notebook he’d asked her to keep for him, she’d done so - and scribed whatever he’d asked of her, making notes about his episodes. There was no other word to describe them besides episodes, when you were apparently being infiltrated by some dark, unseen force. It would have been easy - though no less disconcerting - if Raistlin could blame his antics on that dark unseen force lurking within him. However, he could not. He had not lost any time nor had he not simply ceased to be. He looked at Isabela with his glamoured blue eyes. He frowned slightly at the way his vision warped her appearance, making her look old before her time. “Yes,” he stated flatly, Raistlin was never one to sugar coat anything, “two weeks ago, and seemingly without any reason whatsoever, my sister and I turned...well evil would be the best way to describe it. Tell me, Bela, did you or your husband notice anything out of the ordinary the first weekend of the month?” Old before her time! Probably a good thing Raistlin didn’t say that out loud, because it would have made Isabela cry - perhaps not literally, but she’d have had a stroke or something. It wouldn’t be pretty. She knew he saw the world in Decay O’Vision, but was certainly vain enough to not want to look like her grandmum to him. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Picking up the Turkish coffee to have a sip, she then carefully set the cup down and went for the water next. “Mmm, no?” ‘Out of the ordinary’ could mean a few things in Orange County, but she was adept at knowing how to interpret what went on by now, and knew how to read between the lines - especially if they were trying to sell the ‘LSD in the water’ shite again. “Oh, wait!” she stopped herself, thwapping her hand on the table. “Come to think of it, we had some weird customers pop by that weekend. It’s like they didn’t seem to give a shit about anything, and they hadn’t even drank yet. Plus Hawke’s other pirate friend came by all done up - I thought it was off because he didn’t even grab my husband’s ass like he normally does.” Yes. Very bizarre behaviour. This was her life now, defining ‘bizarre’ in those terms. “Something was probably in the air, you think? Made you and Kit go all evil twins?” Even if they weren’t the twins, but you know. Raistlin nodded solemnly. That sounded very similar to what he had experienced and read online. He frowned darkly and made a vague gesture with his hand. “In the air, or in the water, or wherever they want us to think. There is very little information available from the usual sources, so it is unclear, however, I would venture to say that it is an Orange County ‘occurrence’. From who or where or why, I have no idea. What concerns me more is how natural it felt to be in that state.” He looked up at Isabela once more, “I find myself wondering if perhaps deep at my core if I’m not as corrupt and vile as the man I Dream about.” “Perhaps at your core you are, love,” Isabela responded, her tone a bit gentle - for her, anyway. She was about ready to unleash a whole machine gun’s worth of philosophy, and her opinion, but hopefully she could help Raistlin - he had enough to worry about, he didn’t need the residual ‘what if?’s from something like this too. “I think, at our core, we’re those people we dream about, most definitely. That’s the whole point, of why we dream - it’s like, we see who we really are.” Tracing the ridges of the ceramic coffee cup with her index finger, she continued. “There is no vanquishing the demons, you realise. There is only coming to terms with them, an inner truce of sorts - the sooner you do that, the better off you’ll be. I mean, look at me - “ Bela sat back, and she meant to fold her hands but she ended up gesturing anyway, “...I’m a monster in the dreams, at first. Captain of the Siren’s Call and, apparently, no qualms about transporting slaves as long as I get paid. I freed a whole ship’s worth eventually, which caused a shitstorm that I was caught in for literally years but before that I was a pirate, and a woman leading a crew of men - whatever ruthlessness they would give into, I had to give it back one-hundred times more so they’d respect me. Do I like that person I once was? No,” she sighed, shrugging. “But I don’t have to go back to it. I’ve earned my freedom by now.” It wasn’t the answer Raistlin wanted to hear, but that was why he was speaking with Bela regarding this. She wasn’t the type to simply tell him no, of course you’re not in placating tones. He had suspected a similar philosophy himself, as much as he was loathed to admit it. Raistlin had always been a man who believed he was in control of his own destiny. He may have been smaller, weaker and less liked by his peers and family (minus Kit) than his twin brother, but he had done his damndest to not let that run his life or to give in to the bitterness that sometimes threatened him. He didn’t have the greatest relationship with his family at the moment, yes, but he had removed himself from under his brother’s looming shadow before any kind of unhealthy toxic relationship could form. The same type of relationship that had been allowed to grow between the Raistlin and Caramon of Krynn. And therein was the rub. As much as Raistlin attempted to distance himself from his counterpart, that man in the Dreams was him, brought up under similar and yet at the same time, very different circumstances. It was easy for him to see that he could very much be that person and that meant to him that he wasn’t nearly as in control of his life as he thought he was. What was worse, with his health diminished, his new vision and whatever it was that seemed to take him over at random, it appeared as though the Dreams, or whatever powered them, were very determined to make him actually become that man. And for four days, they had succeeded. “Inner truce,” he repeated softly as he wrapped his long fingers around his small coffee cup. The words sounded nice. “That is something I very much would like for myself, even if these Dreams of mine weren’t showing me a person I very much despise. However, I wonder if that is something I have hope of accomplishing. I still have yet to identify the thing that lurks within me, much less a way to combat it and I very much doubt any sort of peace can be found until that time.” That sounded rather defeatist, didn’t it? Raistlin raised his eyes to the pirate woman seated across from him. “That being said, of course, whether or not we Dream of the people we really are, I refuse to allow myself to become that person, or allow some other unseen force dictate who and what I am.” He smiled faintly across the table, “I have fought too hard to come this far.” She understood fighting to tame the pesky demons - it was always easier to give in to those ‘base’ instincts, in turn throwing restraints to the winds of a blizzard, but not necessarily better. “You have fought hard,” Isabela agreed. “And it is difficult to combat something you haven’t really got a name for, but that’s why your mates who are helping do what they do - so we can all figure it out together, right? Without a doubt, I can say that thing isn’t truly you. What you are at your very core isn’t...primordial darkness.” Raistlin of Krynn had made some type of deal with It, whatever It was, maybe for the sake of obtaining power, and now he was experiencing the bleedthrough in this life. But it was just a test, Bela believed that. He would pass. “I know going forth it’ll try to...bait you or whatever. Maybe it’ll be tempting to listen, or give in. I won’t let you fall down into the depths of evil though, I promise.” Primordial darkness. Raistlin rather liked that. It was probably the most apt description of what was going on in his soul, that slithering feeling, like a serpent, that lurked below the surface and reared its head whenever it pleased and just took over. Plus, when Isabela said it wasn’t truly him, Raistlin could believe her. “Yes, Bela, I know you won’t. You have been very helpful. Speaking of which, do you have that notebook with you? I feel as though I should write my most recent experience down.” “Got it,” she responded cheerily, as if they were talking about a grocery list and not a chronicling of ‘weird shit Raistlin did while being possessed.’ But Isabela wouldn’t be all dour about this, she wouldn’t give in either - or give up on him. That’s what friends were for, no? To trust you, and believe in you and all that rubbish? Her loyalties were hard-earned, but believe her, he’d long since obtained them by now. She removed the notebook from her purse and passed it to him, sliding it across the table. “So did you and Kit actually do any evil things or did you just talk about it?” she asked, biting one of the leaves off of her chocolate rose. Raistlin sipped his coffee as Isabela removed the dog eared notebook from her purse. He set the now empty cup aside and took a drink of water before taking it. His eyes flickered upwards when she asked him if he and Kit had actually done any evil. There was a moment of silence on his part and it was a fleeting moment that his blue eyes flickered gold, as if something were peering out a window at the beautiful pirate woman with curiosity. Then it was gone in a breath. A blink and it would have been missed. “We did,” Raistlin responded, as though nothing odd had occurred. He turned his attention to a fresh page of the notebook. He started writing with swift strokes in block letters to match a few of the entries before. Oooh, creepy. But Isabela liked her brooding, would-be evil sorcerer here. Raistlin was conflicted, and sometimes he struggled, but she appreciated that - appreciated that he wasn’t perfect and would never be, just like her. She’d had her own share of struggles with doing the right thing, whatever that could be defined as. “Interesting,” she smirked, sitting back to finish off her chocolate rose and let him write. After that, she’d take the notebook back as he wanted. “Living here is never boring, is it. But alright, no need to go into detail if you don’t want to - “ But if he did, she certainly wouldn’t complain! Hearing tawdry, nefarious tales was one of her favourite pastimes. Along with hearing the dirty ones. Sometimes she missed that chesty dwarf Varric. “Let’s just enjoy the rest of the afternoon, celebrating in the fact that I got you out of your delightful little flat.” Hey, you had to take your victories where you could get them sometimes. |