The Path to Sin (Ikken Isshu + Griselda Banks)

[Ikken Isshu]

Calaman was stark white and trembling, naked under the sheets, and Aer looked ready to kill someone as he flipped through a tiny notebook.

"I think it's poison," Aer muttered, biting off each word. "It looks like Bio, but Valefor didn't do anything like that, and I can't find any wounds that might be infected."

"So now - you're a doctor," Calaman muttered.

"Quiet, you, unless you've something helpful to say."

"It's - It might - be Bio."

Aer lowered the notebook, eyes narrowed at Calaman. "What?"

"In the - Cloister. I tried to use - magic. Blizzard. But - "

"You tried to use black magic?" Aer said incredulously.

"Spellsword."

"You idiot. You wield that sword for a reason: You're not a mage." He cursed under his breath and looked to Eddora. "I don't have any curative items on me, and Calaman's got nothing but potions. If it really is just Bio, an antidote should do the trick, or a remedy. You don't have anything like that, do you? I suppose we could look for a shop on the island..."

 

[Griselda Banks]

Ed's eyes flicked back and forth between the two of them as they spoke, her mouth set in a grim line. "Are you sure that's all?" she asked, then sighed and ran her hand through her hair, making it stand on end. "Well, I think I've got something on me."

As she rummaged through her pockets, she muttered to Calaman, "I hate to say it, but Aer's right, you know. If I wanted some half-baked black mage as a guardian, I would have said so." She directed a brief glare at Aer, though she didn't think he noticed, and let out a huff of irritation when all her hands met were two potion bottles and a small pouch of gil. Snorting and muttering under her breath, she proceeded to undo the belt that held the skirt of her robes in place. It fell limply to the floor, but underneath it she wore loose black trousers. She plunged her hand into one of the pockets, and her face lit up. "Aha!" Stepping over her skirt, she handed a small green bottle to Calaman. "Drink up, Cal. And don't do something stupid like that again." She flashed him a small grin. "You make a better swordsman anyway."  

[Ikken Isshu]

Aer watched with narrowed eyes as Calaman quaffed the antidote. A few seconds passed and nothing happened, but then Calaman closed his eyes and screwed up his face.

"What's wrong?" Aer demanded.

"It - tastes - terrible," Calaman managed. Aer gave him a light slap on the back of the head.

"Drink it," he ordered. Calaman finally lowered the empty flask and stared in a grimace at the far wall.

"I'm cold," he whispered. Aer gave a glance to Eddora but said nothing. "And - " He convulsed suddenly, and Aer knelt to hold him up, fumbling a flask of water into his hands and pushing it to Calaman's lips. The boy pushed it away, and Aer sat back on his heels, frowning deeply.

"I now have absolutely no idea what is wrong with him," he muttered. "Maybe he somehow managed to fail so spectacularly that he crossed into a different type of magic? He did say he was trying to cast Blizzard. I'm no expert, but last time I checked, 'Blizzard' doesn't poison you."

 

[Griselda Banks]

"That's true," Ed agreed, stepping closer to her guardian and peering into his face as if expecting a diagnosis would suddenly appear in his eyes. "What on earth did you do, Cal? What's wrong with you? You've gotta help us out here, or we won't be able to help you."  

[Ikken Isshu]

Calaman didn't respond, except for an increased shuddering. Aer cursed under his breath and lightly pressed the back of his hand to the guardian's forehead. He immediately withdrew it.

"He's ice cold," the mage muttered. After a brief moment of thought, he removed his robe and put it over Calaman like an extra blanket. In black trousers and a sleeveless navy blue tunic, Aer turned to Eddora, bewilderment thick in his eyes. He was an almost comical sight, as the yellow cap wasn't nearly as natural without the robe to set it off. He almost looked like some sort of colorblind monk, though his arms were nowhere near as well-muscled as a proper monk's would have been.

"No idea," Aer said. "As he so succinctly pointed out, I'm no doctor. The Antidote didn't work, but I've never had an ailment that a proper Remedy couldn't, well, remedy." He glanced at Calaman, who'd curled up into a ball beneath the sheets, like a frightened child. Come to think of it, Aer realized with an uncharacteristic pang of sympathy, that probably wasn't far from the truth. "He may look like death, but I don't think he's in imminent danger of dying. I'm sure we have time to get back into Besaid and look for somebody that can brew a good Remedy. If you think that's the best course of action," he added, almost as an afterthought.

 

[Ikken Isshu]

((I was planning to have Calaman's mysterious ailment simply be a relatively insignificant drama point, but it occurs to me that I might be able to make something more out of this. After all, in good literature, nothing is superfluous... More to come on that later. razz ))

 

[Griselda Banks]

((Yeah, character torture is always better when there's a good reason for it xd I'm getting increasingly curious, I must say.))

"Ice cold, huh?" Eddora briefly touched Calaman's cheek and shivered. "He sure is. Do you think he might have somehow cast Blizzard on himself, or...?" Ed's mind was whirling, as it always did when she tried to figure out the inner workings of magic, so she put a stop to her thoughts. "Okay," she said briskly. "I think I agree with you; a Remedy should do the trick, and if it doesn't.... Well, anyway," she hastily cut herself off.

A glance at Aer reminded Ed that they had just recently been in an exhausting battle, in which Aer had actually passed out. She immediately made up her mind. "You stay with him," she ordered. "Try to figure out what's wrong, or at least try to keep him warm or something. I'll go back to the village and ransack it till I find a Remedy. I'll be back soon," she added, half to Calaman, though she wasn't sure if her guardian was paying attention. Not waiting for Aer's response, she hurried from the room.  

[Ikken Isshu]

Aer shook his head and sat beside the bed, sucking pensively, as he often seemed to do, at the inside of his cheek.

He'd been making a halfhearted joke when he'd mentioned Calaman's crossing between types of magic, but in all actuality, it was possible... Unlikely, but possible. In a way, magic was like weaving colored threads. Black magic, anyway, and he didn't see why Spellsword should be much different. Some people had clumsy 'fingers' and couldn't use magic at all, because they couldn't grasp the threads with any dexterity. Aer wondered, though, if some people might be able to weave, but... Well. Color-blindness would be a decent way of explaining it, if it was possible. Maybe Calaman was 'color-blind' to the different types of magic. But, while this bizarre ailment seemed to have elements of poison, which would suggest that Calaman had hit himself with Bio, Aer was reasonably certain that one major symptom of Bio was a high fever. Calaman most certainly did not have a fever.

Maybe the boy had combined Blizzard and Bio? Aer almost dismissed the notion out of hand, but there wasn't much else to explain it. Blizzard would not have made him sick, and Bio should have given him a fever... And, too, there was the ever-present fact that Calaman was no mage by any stretch of the imagination.

Shaking his head, Aer decided to experiment. Trusting his own skill to get him out of any problem he might encounter, he closed his eyes so that he might better perceive the magic power that welled up within himself. Threads of both Blizzard and Bio were there, easily found. Experimentally, he reached out and touched a thread of Bio. The poisonous spell welled up like a dormant beast, ready to be released upon a victim. He withdrew, let the thread return to its dormant state. He touched Blizzard, felt the same stirring of icy power, and released it again. Maybe Calaman had unknowingly grasped both threads at once? He would have to be exceedingly clumsy to do that, but -

"Well," Aer muttered, opening his eyes, "I think 'exceedingly clumsy' would be an adequate description for our non-magical friend." Reasonably assured, he rooted around in the cabin until he found a square of cloth, one that would typically be used for washing... something, he had no honest idea. Dishes, maybe. Using a severely watered-down (pun intended) Water spell, Aer soaked the cloth with warm water and laid it surreptitiously on Calaman's forehead. It might not help much, but it was (hopefully) better than nothing.

 

[Ikken Isshu]

((It occurs to me that I haven't made any attempt at a detailed explanation of how someone could cast magic on themselves without intending to, but I think we can assume that that's a common, probable, and natural consequence of an idiot using magic. razz ))

 

[Griselda Banks]

Eddora rushed up the stairs onto the deck, then hurried past a confused crew member and onto the deck. She began to run full-out when her feet hit the sand of the beach, but the sand sucked at her feet, slowing her down. Gritting her teeth in irritation, she hastily pulled off her sandals and ran in her bare feet, carrying one sandal in each hand. The sand burned the bare soles of her feet, but she didn't slow down. She made a slight detour to the wet part of the beach, where the sand was cool from the waves constantly washing up over it, and ran the entire length of the beach before quickly cutting back across the hot sand to the path that led to the village.

On the dirt path, her damp feet picked up dust and mud, and she kept on stepping on stones, but she didn't slow down. She was too busy concentrating on keeping up a steady pace and gasping for breath as the path rose over the hill. She could feel the back of her throat stinging as the air tore in and out of her open mouth, and she could see the blood pounding against her eyeballs.

Finally she came to the top of the hill and started her descent towards the village. The path was steep, and she slipped several times, but she didn't dare slow down. Soon enough, she was in the village again; only then did she stop, clutching the pain in her side and gasping desperately for breath as she scanned the tents, trying to figure out which one was a shop.

((I stopped it here in case you want to have some kind of interaction with other characters; if not, you can write your next post as if Ed's back with the Remedy.))  

[Ikken Isshu]

((I think I'll take advantage of that offer. smile ))

Aer spent the next quarter of an hour periodically taking the wet cloth, warming it or re-wetting it, and laying it back on Calaman's forehead. After a time, he began to think about ways to find out for sure what was wrong with Calaman. He wasn't a doctor, of course, and as skilled as he was with magic, he'd never approached the art of manipulating the inherent magic of other people. He had magic power inside of himself, as did everyone to a certain extent, but he couldn't touch the magic of another person. In fact, if Calaman had any magic power, it was probably so weak as to be all but impossible for himself to touch, let alone Aer.

Of course, Aer didn't need to use the boy's power in order to see it. He'd done that many times. Normally, of course, he'd only used that particular 'sight' to gauge a mage's strength, but in this case...

At first, he found himself profoundly disappointed. He saw little other than a predictably low store of power within the boy. As Aer had said, the boy was no mage by any stretch of the imagination. And as weak as the power was, there was no way Aer would be able to use it in any way. If it had been his own magic, he'd be hard-pressed to light a candle. But that wasn't his concern.

For a second, Aer found himself baffled by a sudden question: No matter what Calaman had done, how could he devastate himself so badly with such weak magic?

He shook the question off for now and focused, closing his eyes. It was a strange feeling, peering at another's store of magic power. Almost like crossing his eyes, in a way. But all he could pick out were minuscule, hairlike threads of power. White... green... white... green... All of them, he realized, were threads of Bio and Blizzard. Well, if he'd somehow managed to 'infect' himself with Blizzard and Bio, that might make sense - might. But, Aer reflected, he'd been under the effect of Bio several times in his life, and it hadn't restricted his power to Bio. So perhaps it did not make sense after all. Muttering half-formed curses under his breath, Aer leaned forward and struggled to peer deeper into the inner machinations of Calaman's magic. Now it was not so much like crossing his eyes, as it was like crossing his eyes and trying to read absurdly small print at the same time. Bio, Blizzard. Bio, Blizzard. All he could see within the boy were Bio and Blizzard. As he concentrated, something else occurred to him.

He was having some difficulty discerning anything in Calaman besides threads of Bio and Blizzard.

Aside from magic, all people - as far as Aer knew - also possessed an inherent life force. It wasn't magical, but there were some rare spells that made use of that life force. It, like magic, was formed of threads, in a way. However, those threads were slightly different from magic threads.

Not Calaman's.

"Bizarre," Aer murmured. "I must be reading this wrong. That doesn't make any sense."

He leaned further forward and clenched his teeth, frustrated, deep in concentration, trying to peer deeper. At that moment, though, the door snapped open and Eddora stood there, panting and wordlessly holding out a deceptively small blue bottle. Aer took it without comment and poured it down Calaman's throat. The boy didn't protest; in fact, he moved very little save to breathe and to swallow.

The effect was instantaneous. Calaman's eyes fluttered open like a sleeping princess awoken, much to Aer's amusement, and he stared at them, wide-eyed.

"Expect the worst," Aer quoted indifferently. "That way, all your surprises are pleasant ones." Experimentally, he sat down and closed his eyes, once again opening his awareness to magic. Now, he could feel Eddora behind him, a powerful magical presence, even if she used neither white nor black magic to any great degree. It was the summoner in her, he knew. But he wasn't here to measure Eddora's strength. Turning his focus to Calaman, he frowned deeply. The magic within him had... risen, ever so slightly, and the threads of Bio and Blizzard were brighter, if anything. And his life force...

"What was that?" Calaman breathed incredulously, rolling his arm around tentatively. "Worked like a miracle, whatever it was."

"I'm not so sure," Aer said slowly, as if mildly confused. "Magically, he's no different. If anything, the poison and the cold are even stronger. But..." He trailed off, surprised to see that the color was already returning to Calaman's face, and the boy looked, for all intents and purposes, perfectly healthy. As Calaman started to swing his feet out over the floor, though, Aer shook his head, rose, and planted both hands on Calaman's shoulders. The guardian bristled, but relented.

"I feel fine," he said sourly.

"You said the same thing just after you collapsed on the deck. You'll stay right where you are until both Ed and I agree that you're 'fine'. Besides all of which, you'll do well to remember that you haven't got any clothes on."

With that, he snatched up an idle glass, filled it with magically-created water, and set it by the bed.

"Eddora," he said, turning to face the summoner. He paused, about to speak, and took in her appearance. She was barefoot, and unless he was mistaken, she'd cut her feet on a number of rocks. "I... don't think the danger was quite that great," he said slowly. "But never mind that. I think Calaman may well owe you his life." He glanced back at the guardian over his shoulder, who returned the glance with a steely glare. Smiling grimly, Aer looked back to Eddora. "If you don't mind, we need to talk." Elsewhere, he mouthed. "I'll keep it brief. You look like you'll be wanting a rest yourself."

 

[Griselda Banks]

((Hee! WoT quote! biggrin I actually recognized it this time! xd ))

Eddora burst through the door to their cabin, clutching the Remedy in one hand and her sandals in the other. Her lungs heaved with the effort of breathing, and as soon as Aer took the Remedy from her, she bent over, clutching her side and squeezing her eyes shut as she desperately tried to get her breathing under control again. Her legs felt like rubber, her throat like ice and fire combined.

After a few moments, Ed straightened up again and wiped the sweat from her brow, still breathing heavily. She watched as Calaman sat up, apparently as good as new. Relief washed through her, and she leaned back against the wall wearily. Aer was saying something about magic, but she could make no sense of it, so she ignored it and concentrated on getting her breath back enough to speak. Before she could, however, Aer turned to her and said, "Eddora. I...don't think the danger was quite that great."

Ed straightened up, angry blood pounding through her head. "That's right!" she snapped, still a little short of breath. "Not going to thank me at all, are you? Here I am, afraid you're going to die or something, worrying my socks off, and you-" she gestured wildly at Aer with her sandals "-up and say the danger wasn't that great! Well, excuse me if I happen to care when my guardian does some strange bit of magic that nobody can figure out! For all I know, he might've cast Doom on himself or something! But no, you conveniently neglected to tell me just what was wrong and that I didn't have to worry or run all that way or make everyone stare at me or...." Ed let out an angry shout and threw her sandals across the room, where they flopped lamely onto the ground, and stomped out to the stairs that led to the deck.  

[Ikken Isshu]

((I myself wasn't quite sure what you meant by that until I looked back at my post. razz ))

Aer stared after the summoner, open-mouthed. He could still hear her angry footsteps as she emerged onto the deck.

"Wonderful," he grated. "What do I do now?"

"Prostrate yourself and apologize, I'd suggest," Calaman said from behind him. Aer threw his hands in the air.

"I said you owed her your life," he growled, "and if she hadn't been so busy shouting, she'd have heard me."

"That may be, but she was, and she didn't."

Muttering under his breath, Aer left the room to chase after Eddora.

"Ed," he called as he caught up with her, then corrected himself when he realized they weren't precisely in private. "Eddora. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply that you screwed up. I'm sorry, Ed. Calaman might have died if not for you." Damn it, I don't know if we can afford to waste time with apologies. "In fact, I wanted to talk to you about... that. I'm concerned for his health. It's difficult to explain, but... you're a summoner, you know how magic works. Suffice to say the effects of his - sickness, or whatever it was, were very unusual. Now, though, he appears healthy, but the magical effects haven't changed."

 

[Griselda Banks]

Eddora stomped over to the railing of the deck and gripped it tightly with both hands, breathing heavily. The breeze rolling in from the sea cooled her hot cheeks and sweaty neck; she closed her eyes and let it calm herself a little. After about a minute, she heard approaching footsteps. She thought she knew who it was, but she kept her eyes closed and her face tilted into the breeze.

Anger still prickled in her throat, but Ed remained silent and listened to Aer's words. His apology came as something of a surprise to her; she had expected him to follow her with angry words instead. I suppose I really don't know him at all, she realized, and she felt rather guilty. The anger turned inward, and she opened her eyes to glare out at the cheerful, sunny afternoon. Resting her elbows on the railing, she asked, "So what will that mean for him?" She nearly surprised herself with her own calmness. "Didn't the Remedy work?" Her lips twitched almost into a snarl for a moment, as she added to herself, Did I do all that for nothing?  

[Ikken Isshu]

Aer hesitated just slightly before replying, "I... don't know. I've never seen anything like that in myself, and of course I don't spend a lot of time examining other magic-users very closely. I suppose a proper doctor might be able to explain it, but I doubt that. I've never even heard of anything like that." He looked down at his hands, then stepped forward to look out over the rolling sea. The rolling, cold sea.

"As strange as it sounds, it appears that all of his internalized magic threads have been changed to threads of Bio and Blizzard, including his life force. The practical upshot of all that technical nonsense is that, if I had to hazard a guess, it looks like the only magic spells he's now capable of casting are Bio and Blizzard, even if he had the magic power to do it. Which I doubt. But that can't be all, not when he was so ill. Honestly I have no explanation for - " He stopped suddenly, and his face took on a very speculative look.

"Do you think," he began, paused, and started again. "Do you think Valefor might have had something to do with it?"

~

Back in the cabin, Calaman grunted irritably to himself and swung his legs out over the wooden floor. By Sin's biggest boil, where were his clothes? Here, Aer had stuffed them into a cupboard. Calaman struggled into the gear and muttered to himself as he went. The Remedy or whatever it was had done its job, and he felt fine. Yes, yes, he'd said he felt fine earlier, but that was only... well. The point was that he hadn't really been fine then, but he was now.

He strapped his sword around his waist and checked his equipment, and finally left the room and climbed the stairs to the deck. Aer and Eddora appeared deep in conversation - kissing and making up, Calaman thought sardonically, and then scolded himself for his lack of propriety.

It was then that he realized this pilgrimage was already having profound changes on him, and not all of them for the better. For one, he was developing quite the sense of humor - at the expense of his professionalism.

Bearing that in mind, he drew himself up and walked, very professionally he thought, to the prow, where he stood and looked out over the scenery. To one side, the island of Besaid, deceptively tranquil in contrast with the harrowing trials that awaited beneath the temple. To the other side, the ocean, vast and seemingly impenetrable.

For an instant, just the barest moment, the word 'home' flitted through his consciousness. Where was his home? Was it Bevelle, the seat of Yevon's power, where he had been raised by his master, Althemen? Was it here, this bright and tropical island? Was it there, the wide ocean, rolling on the gentle waves? Then it was gone, and he was simply a watcher, an observer.

Finally he lowered his gaze and turned, only to find himself face-to-face with Yachesen, the male guardian of Oebr. Calaman was suddenly struck with a bizarre feeling of displacement, and after a second, he realized that it was because he had never seen the boy without his sister. Nor, he thought, without Oebr, for any length of time.

"Something changed you," Yachesen said tonelessly, and Calaman was deeply disturbed by the boy's demeanor. He had no expression... no tone.... His eyes didn't look tired, they simply looked... blank. He was like a doll, moving and speaking in an almost human manner.

"What do you mean?" Calaman said guardedly, not wanting to walk into some sort of verbal trap. It mattered little whether the boy decided to insult him as before, but he would avoid it if possible.

"You entered the Cloister with your fellow guardian and summoner," Yachesen enumerated patiently, "and now you are different."

Calaman looked down at himself, already feeling foolish. What was he getting at? "I am the same as I was before," he said, almost growling. Somehow, he just knew he was being made a fool of.

"No," Yachesen said. He still betrayed no emotion. "Not your body. Remember that I am a mage. You are not. But there is much magic within you, magic which was not there before."

Calaman stared at him. It no longer seemed like a cruel joke, but he had no idea what it was. "I don't know what you mean."

Yachesen was silent for a few seconds, and Calaman had the curious sense that, deep within himself, Yachesen was sighing with exasperation. He didn't show any exasperation, though, as far as Calaman could see. The boy's steady stare was beginning to unnerve Calaman on top of everything else about the boy.

"My sister might be able to cure you," Yachesen said softly. Then he smiled slowly, and Calaman was abruptly frightened half out of his wits. He didn't know what it was - perhaps the combination of blank eyes and bared teeth. He didn't know. But when Yachesen murmured, "After all, she cured me," he could abide the disturbing boy no longer. He made some hasty excuse and hurried over to where Aer and Eddora were speaking.

((Agh, I can just imagine speaking with Yachesen during that scene...

"My sister might be able to cure you."
*Evil grin*
"After all, she cured me..."

Sounds like something from a horror movie.

We-ell, I now have a fairly good idea of how I can milk Calaman's illness for all it's worth, later anyway. And now we've had a decent IC introduction to just what the heck is up with Yachesa and Yachesen, so maybe I can build on that and develop it officially, instead of just sticking it in a character description.[/rant] razz ))