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"Massster..." this came from a disembodied head floating in front of Raistlin's desk. The archmagus didn't look up immediately, busy scratching writing onto a piece of flattened parchment, the quill in his thin golden fingers practically vibrating with the speed of his notes.

Genessia was a land of fascinating marvels. He'd be sure not to forget a single one.

"Masssster pleasssse," the head tried a second time.

Finally, Raistlin glanced up, impatient at the interruption. "What?"

"Therrrre is an intruderrr in the Grrove."

That. That was interesting, and Raistlin's hand finally stilled. "In the Grove, you say?"

"Yesssss. The defenderrrssss have not been able to kill it..."

Extremely interesting. Something from Genessia, no doubt, nothing else would make sense. The blackrobe dabbed the last of the ink off the feather quill onto a pad and set the instrument aside, and then took the time to carefully close up the inkwell. This could take a while.

And so it was that whatever this stranger was doing, he suddenly wasn't the only living creature in the dark, ancient grove. Raistlin lurked in the deepest shadows, silently watching.

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The reaction was instantaneous, Raistlin both shying away and reaching up to snatch at the hand on his head, intent to shove it away. "What are you--"

Everything derailed the moment his hand latched onto Wade's. Skin contact. That was a lot more intense. The mage just sort of froze up at that point, completely derailed.

"Helping." HE'S A HELPER. Look, ninety nine point nine percent of the time, he'd listen. He would. But there were two factors at play here.

First of all, it was... incredibly difficult to not latch on to someone. He was enjoying that constant current of chroma, and it was nearly painful to lose it all of a sudden.

And second... Well, he'd been told exactly what happened when one burned all of their chroma. It wasn't actually a fate he would wish on Raistlin, of all people. He figured the second the wizard came into contact with his skin, there might, perhaps, be a change of heart in completely separating.

Well, that was... that was something. Although the very fact that he automatically physically relaxed irritated Raistlin to no end, there was no arguing that the influx of power was far stronger this time.

He almost felt... okay. For him, anyway.

"Fascinating."

Naturally, nerdiness immediately took precedence over annoyance.

"I know right? I haven't tried touching people without the gloves yet but I didn't wanna start up any rumors of a hideous flesh eating disease epidemic."

He shifted a bit, getting good and comfortable on the bench.

"By the way, I don't think I need to tell you this, pretty sure you figured it out but, if you don't keep up the chroma levels, you die."

"Naturally," Raistlin sounded bitter, he couldn't help it. "If there is some new manner in which death can loom over my head, it will always do so."

Between his general health, and his cursed vision, death was a constant companion. Why not add a whole new element to it?

"You and I have quite opposite experiences with death. I stand in my own grave, clawing after immortality in much the same way you chase after death."

"Living forever isn't all it's cracked up to be, but I guess that might be a matter of opinion." After all, maybe Raistlin would find a way to actually enjoy not dying. Who knew!

Wade certainly couldn't see any bonuses to his immortality.

"The oblivion of death, of no longer having a mind to think... the finality of it all. Being here, and real, and then no longer being at all..."

That shit, right there, that terrified the mage. It had ever since he'd watched Gilon slip away on that cart, bled out from a freak logging accident. And then Rosamun had wasted away slowly and with great agony, no matter what he'd done to try to help her. It had been like she was running from him, charging after death and he just couldn't keep up.

Plenty of people had died in front of Raistlin since, but his parents had definitely left an impression. Especially coupled with his health.

"Not all immortality is worth having. What I tore from the Gods was more curse than not. Taking their power changed me just as much as death may have."

Thus he'd screwed with the timeline some more and avoided it outright.

But hey, acknowledgement that some forms of immortality sucked, right? Wade's certainly didn't seem to be a picnic.

Edited 2019-08-22 04:29 (UTC)

Well... at least he acknowledged not all immortality was the same! Wade picked at an open sore at his jaw, just as the lesion was starting to heal up.

"I guess if you think everyone sucks, you don't really lose too much when everyone dies." An idea he was familiar with, once. A long time ago now, it seemed. He still understood that idea, even if it no longer really applied to him.

"As long as the terms and conditions don't suck dick, it'd probably be great to be young and hot and not full of tumors or hacking up a lung until the heat death of the universe. Could probably get a lot done."

"I see them die anyway, whenever I don't blink fast enough."

Thanks Par-Salain, your plan really h e l p e d his connection to other mortals.

A+ work, whiterobe.

"Oh yeah. I guess dead people that are already dead would actually be a one hundred percent improvement then."

Good job, Par-Salain.

Best whiterobe ever, truly. Just a real paragon of good choices.

"Quite."

Raistlin finally remembered he could move, and picked Wade's hand up off his head. That shit was awkward. But he didn't let go, just letting their hands fall naturally between them.

"How long does this even go for."

Definitely, holding hands on a park bench is a lot less awkward.

... Well, for Wade it might be, anyway.

"I 'unno, until you feel good enough to start looking for that twenty four hour donut place?"

It was still less awkward for Raistlin, yes, at least in terms of blood flow to his hand went. Socially, all of it was pretty equally awkward.

He wasn't a toucher.

Except for when he was, of course, but that was a very different context than... this.

"What exactly is a 'donut'?" May as well get an idea as to what he's in store for, here.

"It's pretty much just bread. Bread full of sugar. A bunch of different kinds of sugar. You got chocolate, vanilla, jam filled donuts, cream filled donuts, cinnamon covered donuts, glazed donuts..."

Gods above, why were there so many types of everything from worlds like Wade's?

~~It was called technological advancement, Raistlin.~~

The mage shifted his grip on Wade's hand to be more typical hand-holdy, even going so far as to lace their fingers together. A bit of unspoken trust, there, because it would be terribly easy to hurt those thin, bird-boned fingers of his.

His brain was a little clouded, to be fair. Going from almost dangerously low chroma to a nice steady supply like this felt a little like he'd been drinking. Drinking magic, somehow, or perhaps life force itself.

"I will trust your judgement on the matter of doughnuts." After all, Wade had done a good job figuring out a coffee he'd like, and of the two of them, Wade was the expert on the topic.

It would be very easy, especially for someone built like Wade, to break Raistlin's fingers. Hence why it was pretty clear that, when the wizard actually chose to lace his fingers around Wade's, the merc's hand visibly slackened.

No mistakes are going to be made here.

"Trust me, they're a life changer. You're gonna love this, I swear. I'm, like, a doughnut sommelier." A beat.

"And they go great with coffee."

Even in his current hazy state of mind, that relaxing of the hand was noted. And appreciated. Raistlin was used to being around people built like Wade, and used to them being brutish oafs at best, and purposefully cruel quite often.

"Do they, now." Hazy-brained, Raistlin couldn't hide the note of interest in his tone there. Coffee had been a fucking home-run hit; Wade was doing pretty good at this game of finding things the mage might like.

Look, Wade liked Raistlin. Though to be honest, even if he didn't, he wouldn't probably crush the guy's hand. ... Well no that would depend on why he didn't like him, but in general, he'd just set about making this a lot more awkward than it had to be.

As it stood though, he liked Raistlin. Thus, he'd try not to get too weird, and the wizard's hand was perfectly safe.

"Oh yeah, great for dunking in coffee, getting the last drops of it out of the bottom, hell you can get doughnuts made with coffee already in them, or coffee that tastes like doughnuts. It's pretty sweet."

It was part of a pattern of Wade handling him with care despite his own large build, and it was a pattern Raistlin appreciated regardless.

Gods knew he'd treat Wade a lot differently if he didn't like him at all, as well.

"It sounds as though they are quite common where you are from. Baking is much more haphazard on my world."

It existed, but, no one was mass producing stuff like this.

Care, but not so much that it would become patronizing. He definitely understood that Raistlin was only physically delicate. The quintessential glass cannon.

"Fuck yeah, they mass produce this shit. They have factories for doughnuts. The ones you get at the coffee shop are made on site.... ssssssort of. They're mixed and shaped in a factory, then shipped out and baked or fried in the shop.

I should know, I watched a documentary on doughnuts once. ... I didn't have any legs at the time and Al wouldn't give me the remote."

"We don't have refrigeration," which meant mass producing anything that could go bad just... wasn't going to happen. "There are spells that can have a similar effect, but mages are not so common. Nor are most of us willing to use our power for such matters."

Himself included, generally. Generally.

Might change his mind if he ended up living in a tent in the woods.

"Then man, you are gonna love modern convenience, refrigerators are awesome. Shit comes with freezers too, it's fucking fantastic. No magic necessary.

Nnnnnone of which you actually get to enjoy if you live in a tent in the woods."

"I am still uncertain the pros of living in one of these apartments outweigh the cons."

"Alright well let me just put the pros to living in a tent along side the pros of living in an apartment.

Apartment pros: No bugs crawling into your bed as you sleep, less chance of being attacked by bears, if it rains, you probably won't have to worry about your sleeping area turning into a small lake, air conditioning, a lot less mosquitoes, the fridge, television, running water in general, electric light, a stove that's already here, and also, less bears.

... Did I say less bears? There's less bears.

And on the tent side uhm....." He pauses, staring at his hand for a moment.

"Ttttteeeeennnnnnttttsssssssss.... Tents. .... What's your opinion on bears?"

"A perfectly suitable ingredient for stew."

Like he's bothered by bears.