paradisalost | (no subject)

Entry tags:

(no subject)

Who: Emil (

siebter ), Felix Harrowgate (

lord_wizard ), and Cain Knightlord (

derpish ).
What: Attempted curse removal! Shit's goin' down.
When: A day.
Where: Chimera HQ
Rating: Prolly no higher than PG.

It was kind of strange to think that this was actually happening, for real. He'd been waiting for years back home to find some clue that would aid in his search for a cure for his eyes. And now, within months here, he'd found someone who could help. Though it seemed almost too good to be true, Emil honestly felt about as excited as he did nervous. After all, when (if) this worked, he'd be able to see his friends, and he might finally be able to help them when they needed it, instead of always the other way around.

He didn't quite know what the room he was in looked like, but for now, any thoughts of locations and knowing where he was had been pushed out of his mind. Instead, he was thinking only of what was going to happen now, with an almost childish sort of nervous energy. "Um...this won't hurt, will it?" he couldn't help but ask; half curious about the answer (but he wouldn't mind that, not if it was necessary), and half to dispel some of the nervousness.

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He'd had an inkling before Felix said it, but all the same, when he said he couldn't remove this curse...Emil still couldn't help but feel disappointed. The man truly did sound repentant, though, and it wasn't as though Emil blamed him for being unable to change things. "It's okay." He was thankful to Cain for having spoken up, though, even if it did feel as though Felix knew before anything was said. "Um, but if there is something else, you can try it."

He was disappointed for Emil that his hopes had come to nothing, but he was trusting Felix the more time went on. He had stopped when asked to, and wasn't condoning anything dangerous.

"What is it?"

He doesn't want Emil to jump in without thinking it through, just for the hope of his curse being removed.

"It's a meditation technique...not even properly magic at all. Mostly it is a way to organize and give form to your thoughts, and through which you can control the way your mind accesses dreams. My purpose with Emil would be to help him open up the dreams of his past to help give us more information. It would not be an immediate fix, nor a guarantee, but there is no harm in learning it," Felix explained.

Of course, he'd been sworn to secrecy in various blood-curdling ways to never talk about it, but that had been in the Mirador, and the man who had helped him was dead, and most of all, this was just a boy who needed help.

That's right, there was the possibility that this curse and its meaning was somehow related to the memories that he was missing. Even if it didn't entirely fix this problem, maybe it could still help him understand. (Even that was something, maybe.) "That's fine, right...?" It was a question somewhat posed to both Cain and Felix. He may have just been far too excited about a possible cure, and didn't want to worry Cain too much or trouble Felix with all of this.

"I don't see a harm in that."

It sounded like a type of hypnotherapy, which wasn't dangerous in itself. If it could help unlock the secrets to curing the curse, then there was no harm in trying it.

Felix nodded, straightening his posture that had unconsciously slumped, guarding himself against rejection or persecution.

"Emil," he said, keeping his voice calm, clear and gently commanding, "I need you relax and concentrate and do everything that I say. Clear your mind of worry. Try imagining a single object, like a golden egg, until you feel your mind focus. Tell me when you've done that."

He knew, with Cain in the room, that he was rushing this process somewhat. This was a tool for wizards, who normally had years of experience in intense concentration and training of the mind. Emil was just a boy who happened to have magic trapped in him. Felix was certain that the latent magic would be enough to power the symbolism he was going to help Emil build to map his dreams.

He nodded, though it took him some time to push the new nervousness from his mind; he didn't exactly want a repeat of the last attempt at fixing this problem, and even though this was even less likely to hurt, the thought still remained in his mind.

However, he eventually managed to stop thinking of things like that, and once he had finally figured out something to imagine-- and focused on it-- he nodded again. "I'm ready."

"Good. Now I want you to picture a place," the wizards told him. He falters slightly at this, not knowing if Emil could actually remember being able to see before. He figures that if the boy can get around, he has at least some idea of architectural layouts, though perhaps not the details.

"It can be anywhere but it will have more power if it is a place familiar to you. A house. A city. Anything. The castle lobby would do nicely if nothing else comes to you. Don't focus too hard on the details. You're building a map in your mind. Just imagine the structure, the bare outline, and the details will come in time," Felix said.

That much came a bit easier to him; he remembered the layouts of the rooms of his manor with relative ease, and so it was not entirely difficult to construct the memory of that; the room was mostly empty, anyway, just a few benches, most of all, the piano in the center of the room; it was simple to recall.

"Okay," he said, a bit more confidently now, "what should I do next?"

"You need gateways," Felix explained, leaning back in his chair a little, "Doors will do nicely, though they can be gates or arches or anything like that. Whatever makes sense in what you've imagined, there just must be at least six of them. If you can incorporate these into the portals that are already in that location, all the better."

Unfortunately, the room he'd envisioned only had one door, but trying to "imagine" more of them shouldn't have been an all-too-difficult task. It took him a bit longer than it perhaps should have, but once he'd finished (two each on either of the long walls, one each at the other ends of the room), he nodded again. "I did it."

The rest was a little harder to explain, especially without being able to see what Emil was seeing. He could pull others into his construct, but Emil's was not going to be fully formed enough to do the opposite.

"Very good, Emil. Now, picture yourself standing in the center of this place. Tell me where you are," Felix demanded gently.

It seemed to be a simple enough question. "I'm in my room at my manor...it's a long room, but it's kind of thin. Um, there's a piano in it, and some benches on the longer walls..."

He wasn't exactly all that good with explaining spaces like this, partly because he wasn't exactly sure what Felix wanted to hear, but also because he didn't know a whole lot about what the room looked like, either.

Felix nodded, picturing this for himself. The details didn't matter much, it was the layout he was after, to better guide how Emil would designate his gates.

"That's fine. Do you know where north is? If you don't, just pick a direction to be north, and face it. It may work best if it's on one of the smaller walls. But again, this is your construct, not mine," he told Emil.

In that case, north would be the wall one would face upon entering the room from the actual door; the back of the room. "Okay, I have it."

"Excellent. Now listen carefully. Each of your doors is a gateway. A passage which channels a particular type of dreaming. To open or close a certain door denies and grants access, which either decreases or increases the chance you will have such a dream when you sleep," Felix explained, taking a deep breath before he launched into the rest of it.

"Now, follow along with me. North controls dreams of the future. You are already facing that door. Turn clockwise, to the right. The next door you encounter controls true dreams. Turn again, and the next door is for dreams of revelation. The next door...is your dreams of the past. Don't linger there yet...complete the map. Turn again, the next door. This is the gate of nightmares. Turn again, to the last door, and this is your gate to dreams that answer questions. Keep facing that door. Do you understand?"

He nodded; in his visualization, he was almost entirely facing the piano, though turned away slightly. "What should I do with the door?"

"Try and open it," he said, simply. There was a chance Emil would need more practice with the construct before he could interact with it.

He took a few steps closer to it in his mind, ready to reach for the handle to the door, and...all he touched was the wall. To this, all he could really come up with was, "...I think the door moved. Or something."

"Your construct isn't stable enough to manipulate yet. That's all right. It just means you'll need to practice. You can let go of the image now..." Felix said. He'd almost said 'open your eyes', but well...

"You have the structure now. Just work on picturing your room every day, preferably right before you go to sleep. Once you have enough control, you can open the doors. That door and your door to the past are the ones you will want to try and open. Leave the others. In time, as the construct gets stronger, it may change on it's own. The doors in particular may take up traits according to the dreams you assigned them. Don't be alarmed by that. It's subconscious. And above all remember that whatever you see cannot harm you unless you let it."

In a way, all of this sounded kind of scary, but maybe this would be just what was needed. Even though it hadn't worked right away, it had a better chance than simply removing this curse. "Thank you," he said, really meaning it. "I'll try my best."

"I don't think there is much to thank me for, but you're welcome. Let me know if you need help remembering how the door are ordered, but hopefully you will only need to recall those two," Felix said, feeling a little uncomfortable, as always, with praise. He fidgeted slightly with the cuffs of his jacket and glanced back at Cain, wondering what the other man thought of all this.

"I think I'll be fine now...thanks again." He stood from the chair, though hesitated, in case either Felix or Cain had anything else to say for now.

Cain had watched this process with a keen fascination that seemed almost inhuman, bright blue eyes taking everything in and storing it in his memory to go over later and analyse.

It was odd, nothing like he had come across before, and yet echoing with remnants of hypnosis.

"Thank you, Mr. Harrowgate."

Felix rose from his chair as well, waving away the platitude.

"Please, it was really nothing, and feel free to call me Felix," he said pausing as the feeling of familiarity grew the longer he looked at Cain.

"I'm sorry, but I have this feeling we have met before, but..."

Though his mind was half on the process that had just occurred and half floating around elsewhere as he prepared to leave with Cain, any distractions fled when Felix said that. So they didn't know each other, but...maybe they did? That was kind of weird. But maybe it was something like his own memories.

Cain smiled, a bright derpy grin that made him look a different man from the one that had been watching the proceedings so intently.

"Maybe you know my identical twin, Abel? He's resident here as well."

Felix raised his eyebrow at that, but at least that reaction served to strengthen the similarity.

"Yes, we've met a few times," he said, smiling back, "I had no idea. How lucky for you to have a twin here."

He was a little confused how anyone could have met Abel and not noticed the similarity before, considering how identical they were, and it saddened him a little to know the priest could look so different now.

"I don't know what I'd do without him."

"I have thought much the same in regards to my own brother," Felix said with a slightly sad smile.

He and Mildmay looked very much alike, though they weren't twins, but in nearly every other way they were entirely different.

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