Carve

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**pinkgothic**:

And so Leila became Mateo's protégé. They would meet every Saturday (Veneris, technically, but the colloquialisms stuck) and spend the afternoon and evening together, going through materials, interspersing Mateo's 'lectures' with socialising as mood dictated. That was the plan; but as this was their first meeting, the focus was fully on the material.

Mateo was making sure she would understand that sorcery really fucking hurt from as close to get-go as was ethically advisable: First the nerve blockers and how to apply them, then the spellcasting. He was making her do the same spell he had demonstrated, helping her apply the symbols, sat behind her, his chest to her back, his arms moving around her to assist.

The nerve blockers themselves had only been a small pinprick and slightly unwelcome numbness in her target arm.

She expected pain, of course. Even past the nerve blockers, according to Mateo, it would be somewhere between 'scraped knee' and 'stubbed toe' once the runes came out, the kind of pain just below the threshold where it forced you to grimace - where you could, with enough concentration, pass for fine and carry on polite conversation.

But he hadn't warned her about the sense of //wrongness// that the blockers couldn't prevent.

A few seconds into the creation of the strokes, the mild tingling of her skin reached down, palpably extending under the dermis, becoming an obstruction that her blood pushed against. The edge of it crept through her flesh like the rough surface of wood chafing across skin. The visible markings rose subtly from her skin as though curling from heat, or forming a scar.

Her body protested with signals of alarm, a reaction that could, if she focussed enough, be purely physiological, with a raised heart rate and only a thin wire of nausea... or a part of her mind could get convinced a parasite was blooming into the limb and needed to be torn out.

**Nymphetamine**:

A secret apprentice. It was almost like a story from a book, but she tried to ignore those similarities. She would not be anyone's Chosen One. Or some such nonsense. She was punctual for these meetings, bringing herself to his apartment on Saturday. If anyone thought anything about their burgeoning friendship, they had kept it to themselves, Leila included. She listened patiently through his warnings and disclosures like this was a legally binding contract between them. Understanding that this would just feel //wrong// to her, cutting into her own flesh, she nodded and tried not to pay attention to him behind her in close quarters. The needle injection of the nerve blocker was just a pinprick that was over quickly. Once they had taken effect, she set to work. It felt like she was trespassing some sacrosant law of nature, pressing the pen to her flesh as she did, making the first line of the first character. Her heart pounded in her ears, and she was sure that Mateo could hear it in his close proximity. But perhaps that was just normal. Gritting her teeth, she moved the pen to make the second stroke, ignoring both the weird nerve blocked pain sensation and focused on just getting through the next few moments as she carved into her arm the characters of the spell he was teaching her.

**pinkgothic**:

 "Breathe steady," he was saying, his arms hovering near hers - he was expecting her to spasm or panic, if not during the writing, then once she set his pen down. He remembered his own first reactions, like inhaling water while struggling not to cough it back out, an overwhelmingly intense instinctive reaction. "Don't watch the runes rise. Press a thumb to your arm when you're done, give your brain some feedback that the arm is still there and whole." Although the fingers would start to protest with pins and needles soon, given the blockage.

**Nymphetamine**:

She could feel those notes of anxiety rising in her chest, and made a weak joke, "Maybe I should've taken some vallium before we did this." Not that she would've thought that would help, but anything to quell this rising sense of panic, danger and wrongness. It was that latter thing that was the most glaring, the sense of the taboo that she was crossing. Leila had to remind herself that this was what she had wanted. And that it was not going to disperse or get better the deeper she delved into these mystic arts. She took in a long, deep breath, her eyes still focused on the rising marks on her arm. At his instruction, she looked away, instead zeroing in on the new character she was working on. Another long, deep, steadying breath, forcing herself to breathe slowly because the flight or fight response of her lizard brain wanted her to stop and flee. She did as he instructed, pressing her thumb into her arm above where the marks had been made.

**pinkgothic**:

It helped. Clearly, since Mateo hadn't done this during his own demonstration of the spell, she'd eventually get used to it enough that she wouldn't need to trick her mind like this, but for now the pressure helped guide her thoughts. There was less of it than she might have liked as a distraction - the nerve blockers were dulling that, too, making for a strange sensation - but it helped.

"Breathe," he repeated. It was good that he was here to assist, really - less for the assistance as for the presence. "I'm going to place them for you, all right? That way you don't need to worry about fumbling it. Sound good?" Fumbling. As though that meant something other than 'probably bleed out miserably'.

**Nymphetamine**:

His steady voice was an anchor in a storm of anxiety and the tiniest hint of trepidation. She clung to it like a life preserver, needing something to keep her in the moment rather than screaming and vomiting while trying to run away. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to look at the marks despite his warning. She nodded to his question. "Yeah." Agreeing easily to what he said even if she might not have realized exactly what it meant. Her mind wasn't *fogged*, but it was definitely feeling detached from her usual sensibilities, which were, for the record, screaming at her to stop with this profanity.

**pinkgothic**:

His right shoulder pressed against hers as he leant forward slightly to accommodate the coming motion. There was only a distant impression of his right hand's fingers touching her skin, running along the edge of the arm, the visual signal and the sense of touch subtly misaligned. Then his fingers reached the point of the runes, where her heartbeat was dammed, and they set down against the outmost one first.

Her body //howled// at her. It was as though she'd dared to touch a mouldy fruit, except it was //in her arm// and it wasn't even a touch that she controlled. Then the sensation closed around her arm as though a giant were pinching it between his fingers, Mateo pushing his nails against the risen edges of the symbol and pulling at it. As it left, there was a sick feeling of relief, like a removed thorn, but she could see blood gradually pooling into the gap it had left behind, a deep, dark, angry red.

The rune itself looked almost nothing like flesh at all, now that she was seeing it this close. It was cherry-red, but almost smooth by comparison, with a surface that looked more like sloughed stone than fibre, although by consistency it was a tough jelly. Eerie, to see her own flesh do the same trick.

Then Mateo plucked out the second rune, closer to her elbow, and it became clear that it had, indeed, been blocking her blood circulation. Blood welled up much more aggressively, taking no time at all to form drops that fell onto the table. A dull sting was settling on the first wound, muted cousin of what she would otherwise be feeling. Her stomach protested.

It was all well and good that he was doing it - it would take a lot of getting used to before she could focus on anything than the physical sensation of losing a chunk of her arm, nerve blockers or not, not to mention the psychological stress of it all. There wasn't enough focus that she could muster to check if he was //actually// arranging the runes the same way he'd demonstrated the other day. She could only infer it.

**Nymphetamine**:

She felt the bile rise to her throat, the sense of wrongness pervasive and strong within her thoughts. This was something taboo, something profane and just plain wrong. Gritting her teeth, she forced herself to watch, though all she really wanted to do was run the fuck away. A grunt rumbled in her throat as he pulled it free, the rune that had been crafted of her very own flesh and blood. No wonder Mateo had warned her. She had thought she would just take a knife to her skin, but this was deep bites of her flesh carved from her arm. It was sickening and she was glad that she had chosen against eating before coming to his apartment. Nearly wretching, Leila continued to lock her jaw so teeth stayed clenched together. She had to remind herself that Mateo knew what he was doing and would *not* let her bleed out and die.

**pinkgothic**:

Even as the desperate thought finished, reality //flexed//. A dark umbra sprang into existence around his fingertips, the same glow from before.

...interestingly enough, it was his fingertips, not hers. Even though he'd carved the components out of her skin, the effect was bound to the fingers that had arranged the runes. Perhaps not an intended lesson just yet, but a vivid one, regardless.

Next thing she knew, a cool, soothing balm was flowing into her wounds, his glowing fingers running across them. Her tender arm tingled intensely even past the blockers - was that normal? What would it feel like //without// the blockers? - and washed away the foreign taste of it all in a torrential patter of relief bordering on pleasure. Some visceral part of her felt whole again and was confused by it.

**Nymphetamine**:

The quiet continued as she watched him manipulate the bits of her flesh into the proper arrangement and sequence. When the darkness fell, she watched. This was magic made from her blood. And that was overriding the revulsion she was feeling, that wonder and responsibliity. Not wanting to break the silence, she watched him as he ran his fingers over the wounds. She sighed in relief as most of the sensations she had been going through were soothed away somehow. She felt the tingling across her arm even though the nerve blockers were functioning properly, as far as she could tell. "Oh that's much better," she murmured, her eyes finally sealing in relief. But not for long, as she twisted somewhat to look at him over her shoulder.

**pinkgothic**:

"Yeah," he echoed her 'that's much better'. It was something of an understatement - like a whiplash of sensations, all prior disgust inverted into a visceral reverence. If it weren't for everything leading up to it, it'd be a good effect of some party drug. "It'll heal quickly relative to the size of the wounds we've inflicted," he explained, his voice sounding a little far away, as though she'd been temporarily submerged in the rebound effects and was listening from under the waters. "But you should still be careful with the arm for a day or so, the same way you would with a superficial cut."

He'd withdrawn his fingers by now - it was unclear when exactly that had happened. Instead they rested on the table in front of her, near where he had arranged the runes, revealing a thin, oily residue with their glow.

**Nymphetamine**:

His far away voice echoed in her ears, and she had to repeat what he'd said in her head a few times before it really surfaced to the top of her mind. Such was the effect of what she had done, what she had wanted to happen, and allowed. One must never forget that she had asked for this. "Does it need to be bandaged?" she asked, though even her own voice sound strange to her.

**pinkgothic**:

"Shouldn't be necessary," he said. "The runic residue is quite sticky, so it closes the wound quite efficiently. It promotes healing and is quite adaptive, so your blood circulation should go back to normal quickly, too. Might still feel lingering pins and needles for up to another half an hour, though."

**Nymphetamine**:

Nodding quietly, she listened to him explain about the unnnecessary need for a bandage. "That's handy at least," she murmured, perhaps too soft to be heard. A little out of it for the moment, she looked down at the wounds on her arm, intrigued by the process that was currently going on there. After a few moments, she added, louder, "So that was sorcery... It sure is... it sure is something. Strange, but fascinating..."

**pinkgothic**:

She could feel him nodding behind her, even as he started to peel away, his luminescent fingers wandering off to the side like a ghostly light and disappearing behind her for a moment as he rearranged himself, sitting down beside her instead.

He brought the fingers up to his face, touching his right cheek, making his expressions clear. "Arranging the runes... it's best thought of as an engineering task. It can get arbitrarily complex. This spell is one of the simplest - even beginners usually don't get it wrong. But you can see how there is a certain handicap to getting it right. The pain and discomfort are quite distracting. Once you're healed up, you should try the spell again, this time of your own accord. I'll watch, of course, but you should review the spell structure and then try it yourself. It's fine if you mess it up, as long as I'm there to un-mess it up."

**Nymphetamine**:

Still staring at the wounds like a fascinated child, she heard him, and the words registered, but she didn't immediately respond. He was speaking wisdom, of course. This was not something that she should do alone, ever, and it wasn't something that she should do without him. Glancing over to where he sat, she managed a thin smile. "I don't think I'm that cocky to try this shit without you, to be frank," she said as if that was mollification for her asking for sorcery lessons in the first place. Her opposite hand prodded a finger at the wounds, her expression still stuck in one of wonder. "How long before I can try again?" Though it appeared that the wounds were already beginning to knit themselves together. "And uh, do they leave scars? Should I always wear long sleeves after this?"

**pinkgothic**:

"They won't leave scars unless you mess with the healing process. I don't mean 'pick at scabs' level of interference, though," he assuaged, sucking on his lower lip for a moment. "Like... trying to push your finger in, or put in a paperclip or something like that." The paperclip example sounded just about specific enough that some sorcerer might have tried that exact thing in the past. "But it will be visible for up to a day, so recommend a long-sleeved shirt for the next twenty-four hours."

It was hard to tell in the pinched light of the spell, but the trace wounds seemed to have a vaguely golden colour, somewhat pale, appearing gelatinous in texture. It wasn't too hard to see why someone would want to poke at the substance with a little more vigour, especially a scientist.

**Nymphetamine**:

Her head turned to him sharply, eyebrows raised in mild surprised amusement. "Lemme guess... You stuck a paperclip in there once, didn't you?" It was just specific enough to be anecdotal. "I'll try not to mess with it... Might be hard. But don't want anyone catching onto what we're doing here..." With great reluctance, she pulled down her sleeve over the wounds so she wouldn't be tempted to do exactly what he warned against.

**pinkgothic**:

He arched a disappointed brow at her, the gesture acutely visible in the pinched light. "I'm sorry, did you see a scar on me?" he popped her theory. "But no, it's one of those cautionary tales from early sorcery." He shook his head in emphasis. "The substance rapidly attunes to the structure the healed flesh should have, within the first five minutes of settling; if it's disturbed after that, that's a bit like poking into your own flesh, even if it doesn't feel or look that way at the time, hence the scarring."

**Nymphetamine**:

She shrugged at his indignant response, whether he meant it deeply seriously, or just a return tease for her. Leila felt like she could make a snippy comment in return about having never seen the man nude, but that seemed a little too risque for her at this juncture in their friendship. "I see. That makes sense..." she said of the cautionary tales. Sticking a paperclip into an open wound seemed like a bad idea no matter how it was made. "I will not stick a paperclip or anything else into the healing marks." It was added with as much solemnity as she could manage in the moment. Still, she had performed a little bit of sorcery, or at least had made her first forray into it. It was worth celebrating, she felt.

**pinkgothic**:

He nodded mildly, evidently pleased with her assurance. "To answer your earlier question, you can again in about two days. One and a half if you're really pushing it, which I don't recommend. Usual sorcerer practise is three days wait, just to be sure."

**Nymphetamine**:

"Is that just for the same arm? Or do you mean at all? I'm sure my handwriting would suck if I tried it with my other hand, as I'm not ambidextrous but could you do the other arm, if you were pushing it? Or is the body just not able to handle that?" There were so many questions roiling about in her mind that she could easily throw his way.

**pinkgothic**:

"You do //not// want to try writing with your non-dominant arm," Mateo shook his head. "Messing up the glyphs isn't a recoverable error. I can certainly write for you, if what you want to practise is the arranging, but you want to learn arranging with your dominant hand anyway." He paused with a look of contemplation. "To be honest, I don't know if the body could handle it. I don't see why not. It'll be a strain for your heart if you do it before normal blood flow to your fingers is restored on the left arm, but otherwise?" He shrugged - the motion was almost invisible in the pinched light, but the secondary motion that rippled through his body made it clear, regardless.

**Nymphetamine**:

It was just as well that Mateo warned her about this, or she would have been too tempted to try it. Though, she definitely needed his guidance, so perhaps she wouldn't have. While she might be overly ambitious in their covert sorcery lessons, she certainly wasn't going to try stepping out of the restrictions that he was giving her. They were, after all, for her own safety, and she should respect these warnings as they were delivered to her. Nodding in return, she signaled her understanding. "Gotcha, gotcha. Good to know. Too bad there's no primer on the runes, or like... just the basic rules written down somewhere. Maybe I should be taking notes..." Leila looked around for her tablet to do just that, but the light was faint. She could barely see him, looking for her tablet would be impossible just then. She wasn't even sure she knew where she had left it. "I'll write up notes later."

**pinkgothic**:

"I could give you a light," Mateo quipped, half-seriously, half-jokingly, drumming his luminescent fingers against the table they were sitting at as though to indicate that he was itching to do something useful with them.

**Nymphetamine**:

"Oh! That would be useful. Maybe you could help me draw runes on the tablet so that I can start memorizing, or is that not how it works?" There was so many questions she almost felt like she had to apologize for the surfeit of them.

**pinkgothic**:

"The best way would be that I start sharing the papers with you," Mateo said. "So you can learn the nomenclature for the rune shapes. They're usually not visualised in the papers, in case they leak into the black market." No word about the fine detail that Leila was technically in said black market, and deliberately being leaked //to//. "It's not much of a protection, but it helps a little bit."

**Nymphetamine**:

"'The papers'?" There was a question there, obvious and bold in its face. They were both aware that the scenario he described was the exact one that he was supposed to be avoiding, and yet instead was indulging with her. "That sounds like 'Papers' with a capital P. Very official and important sounding..." And then, a pause as she considered the implication of what else he said. "Is there much of a problem with leaks and people... well, I guess people like me."

**pinkgothic**:

"Academic papers?" Mateo clarified, tilting his head - or rather, the outline of it, in the artificial darkness. "It depends on what you mean with 'problem'. As far as I'm concerned, the buck stops when you start carving up other people nonconsensually or under duress to do your spells, doubly so if you mess it up and consign your victim to a death sentence. That's usually what the laws want to prevent, same way you can't just call yourself a medical doctor in most places and get away with it. But yeah, academic papers leak. Given the small number of sorcerers, it didn't happen often; back on Earth the chance someone could trace the leak back to a particular country and then from there to their likely only appointed sorcerer was pretty high. But it still happened, and they only stopped about a third of it. Though for all I know, the other two thirds of reported cases are all from one particularly clever person." A pause, then, deadpan: "It's not me, just in case you were wondering that."

**Nymphetamine**:

"Oh." The vowel was formed as if duh, she should've thought of that herself. Listening to him as he explained, her nose wrinkling in distaste as he mentioned the fact that some people //could// or //did// use people against their will to perform their spells, or to experiment with new spells. She frowned at that, brow knitting together. "That's abhorrent," she murmured, her head shaking sadly side to die. "I getcha now." The leaks seemed a lot more traceable on Earth than they would be on Mars, and as long as they kept their shenanigans under wraps, they wouldn't have much of a problem, it seemed. She laughed a little at that flat remark, denying that he was the clever person leaking the various papers on the subject. "Well. Maybe not //two thirds// of it now... it's not even a real leak. Just a little trickle..."

**pinkgothic**:

Mateo scratched lightly at his chin with the luminescent fingers, making for an eerie display of light. "I guess this is a leak?" he said, sounding slightly uneasy about it, albeit on an intellectual level only. "I mean, it doesn't feel that way. I'm not just dumping some information on you and have no control what you do with it. I'm teaching you sorcery, properly, with all the ethical constraints that the job comes with."

**Nymphetamine**:

"That is true. A very good point." Leila seemed to have picked up on the fact that he was mildly discomfited by the idea of being a leak. So she was definitely going to be reining in that verbiage. "Well. In case it wasn't clear, I'm awfully thankful that you agreed to teach me. I've always been fascinated by it..."

**pinkgothic**:

The fingers swerved as part of a larger gesture of friendly dismissal that disappeared into the darkness. "As I've said, it can only be a good thing if more Martians know how to spellcast. The usual constraints that apply to a randomised society don't apply if every single crew member here has been hand selected. No one here is going to be some kind of crime lord."

**Nymphetamine**:

Her grin hitched a little higher at his remark. *She* had no intentions of telling anyone what she was doing, or was learning, let alone was going to do it to unwilling subject to spare herself the pain. The nerve blockers helped, but there was still a far away sense of pain when they had been drawing the runes into her skin earlier. "How did you know I wanted to become a crime boss?" It was a joke, a tease, there was playfulness in her voice as she asked, tongue in cheek.

**pinkgothic**:

"Don't even joke about that," Mateo said, flatly, although not quite short enough in tone to suggest that he'd taken offence. Probably just nipping that kind of humour in the bud. Her illegal apprenticeship aside, he seemed rather insistant on being law-abiding, especially the spirit of the law.

**Nymphetamine**:

It was not a long, suffering sigh, but a sigh nonetheless. "C'mon, you know I'm just joking. What the hell kinda crime boss is a botanist?" Already her brain was working to debunk that theory too on its own: cocaine and marijuana both came from plants, after all. Mushrooms. Peyote. "Okay, okay, I get your point..." she added after a moment when her mind came up with a whole bloody list of plants that could be used for criminal purposes.

**pinkgothic**:

"I appreciate the enthusiasm," Mateo said, gently. "And the levity, since it means that you're evidently not traumatissed by today's exercise - uh, unless these kinds of jokes are your coping mechanism, I guess?" A mostly-invisible shrug. "But I'm sure we can agree that we want to help Mars prosper with this knowledge. Right?"

**Nymphetamine**:

"Not //too// traumatized." That was a promise. While it had been weird to basically self harm and carve foreign and strange runes into her arm, making herself bleed to perform magic, she was more intrigued in a scientific way than she was disgusted or afraid of the dimmed pain. "The jokes are just half and half a coping mechanism. The other half personality, I think... now that I'm getting to know you better... if it bothers you, please just say something." At his final remark, she nodded, also unseen in the dimness of her tiny apartment. "That would be the goal, of course." Assuming she could ever do it in front of other people. Right now, their clandestine master/apprentice relationship was not one that she could discuss with any aside from him.

**pinkgothic**:

"'Bother' is a strong word," Mateo dismissed lightly. "It's a cheesy cliché, but it's also true: With great power comes great responsibility. I discourage the jokes because it's important to keep that in mind. This isn't a recreational sport, it's a powerful tool that can do serious harm to you and others." A soft sigh. "I'm sorry if that sounds condescending."

**Nymphetamine**:

"It doesn't. But I understand the point you're trying to underscore here. It //is// dangerous, and dangerous things like this should be respected, if not feared just a little, you know?" she said in reply, apparently unbothered by how he had spoken. Maybe it was a teensy bit condescending but she understood, as she said, the importance of taking it seriously.

**pinkgothic**:

"Exactly," he nodded, the motion partially visible as his fingers hovered near his face. The eerie light illuminated a growing smile and friendly eyes - despite everything they'd said, despite the friction of the mismatched jokes, he clearly trusted her to do the right thing, revealing just how deeply his conviction ran: //It can only be a good thing if more Martians know how to spellcast.//