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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.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"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.

"Well there you go, plentiful stew ingredients.

You could probably get stew beef at the market though, with a lot less bear fighting involved."

"In exchange for chroma."

Which meant in exchange for touching more.

"Well yes, but even if you lived in the woods setting bears on fire, you'd need plenty of chroma for that too."

"Ugh."

This world's really going to force the issue, isn't it?

"Hey, if you want, I'm fucking loaded, I can go get food at the store."

"From your... high fives."

And low fives, as it were.

"Yeah, I've been pretty busy." Look not all of them were idle slaps!

Sometimes he couldn't get away fast enough and got a lot of percussively acquired chroma!

Edited 2019-08-26 04:15 (UTC)

"There is still the chance our arrival here was a side effect of one of the spells I used."

And he's going to really hope that chance pans out. Raistlin won't cling to any given hope, ever, but this is as close as he gets.