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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.”