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Post by Apronia Silvanus on Mar 14, 2006 2:12:12 GMT
Apronia nods sharply, leading a weepy Cain out with her. As they head for the Forest, she reassures him that she will be all right, and insists that he get some rest. He is unconvinced, but exhausted.
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Post by Prof. Algernon Moncrieff on Mar 14, 2006 2:30:26 GMT
Algernon waves a hand dismissively toward the door, after Apronia and Cain's footsteps fade. "Claudate." He casts. It swings close, the latch clicking definitively. He walks toward Rainer, a hand out to his side, running his hand along the bookshelf. When it ends, he reaches out, chancing on Rainer's shoulder. He grasps it, pulling himself close to the other professor.
Algernon can see his face through the darkness. He is not surprised.
He presses against Rainer, leaning down over him where he sits. Their faces are close, Algernon's eyes closed, but seeing the other man all the more clearly. His breath graces across Rainer's lips.
"You want to tell me what's going on, Langley?"
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Post by Prof. Rainer Freundschaft on Mar 15, 2006 21:34:38 GMT
Rainer's eyes widen before squaring as steel. A wordless scream. His shield bursts in to life in the same instant, a blur of combustion and repulsive force, exploding outward at his urging and throwing Algernon to the floor. The book on his desk flies upward in momentum, the desk pushed back by the expanding barrier with a sharp hiss of it legs against the stone floor. Rainer grips Algernon from afar and hurls him against the office's door, his knuckles white and hand empty. Pins him down with a gale that batters the contents of the small room and whips the pages of books from their bindings. Spits a curse to seal completely Algernon's magic for the next five minutes. Five minutes approximately. If Rainer is lucky. It lands as a ghost blow against Moncrieff's abdomen, stalling his energy centers with an ever eroding lock.
Rainer believe in luck, but believes even more in moving quickly.
His left hand swings knifelike across his body and each bolt and screw unfastens, flies forward in a drilling halo around Algernon's neck, inches from his throat. Rainer's three bookshelves collapse in the same space of an instant and he is still screaming. Three unbroken glass bottles, filled with a rich purple mist, fly from the debris of Rainer's office and in to his hand as he lunges forward, his fingertips curled in a menacing hook that forces the oxygen from Algernon's lungs. Back sliding against the door, he rises, pulled upward by the grip of a hundred small fists.
"Vhat did you just call me?!" he shrieks, teeth bared and bright. Three bottles rattle in his grip. He has four minutes and thirty six seconds to finish the deed. Go.
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Post by Prof. Algernon Moncrieff on Mar 16, 2006 22:25:26 GMT
Algernon's head smashes against the door. For a moment his head is filled with blurry images of pretty blonde boys, cowering under the touch of icy hands. Algernon can feel them, hear the voice that comes from a man he cannot see because he is the man, see the blue-green eyes before his own. He lifts his head grogily, the vision falling away into a blackness. He cries in pain as the nails meet his throat, yanking his head back only to meet the ones behind him. His own blood runs down his throat, and he chokes on his surprise.
"I should have known! I should have known!" He finally manages, spitting the words at Rainer. His hands ball into fists and he does not notice a circle of light on his chest beginning to glow green through his shirt."There was always something strange about you, I knew it from the moment I met you, but damn you for being attractive and talking to me." He is aware he is rambling but he feels naked without his magic, and, after all, a spell of that sort could not last very long... "Why are you doing this, Rainer? Langley! You're going to end up killing someone, and I don't understand, and--" Suddenly the light erupts from his chest, breaking the skin and cloth. He shudders violently. The ball of light levitates to the level of Rainer's face. Algernon's eyes widen, the force bubbling up into his throat. "Adava Ka-- NO."
He knocks the balls away to smash a large hole in the stone wall, the momentum causing him to impale himself again on the nails. He pulls himself off with a whimper, bringing his hand up to his face to examine it. "Sorry... reflex." He brings his hand up to the hole in his shirt, bringing the fingers away clean. "Forgot I made that..." he murmers. Algernon turns his face back toward Rainer, smiling sheepishly. He is feeling light-headed from blood loss. "Magic store, you know... just in case... worked pretty well, must've thought you were going to kill me." He pauses, then chuckles, the blood spurting faster from his neck. "And you are, no?"
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Post by Prof. Rainer Freundschaft on Mar 16, 2006 23:57:31 GMT
Nails drop to the floor with a clatter, scattering drops of Algernon's blood about them. Rainer touches the side of his face with the palm of his empty hand as if checking that it was still there. If that had been him, he'd have had you by now. He lowers Moncrieff to floor, clearing the space beneath him with the twitch of his still, glassy eyes. Dummkopf- how could you miss such a silly trick? Aubry will be faster. He traces the glyphs of harvest and restoration over Algernon's wounded neck, aware of the damage but detached completely from the scene around him, his own involvement. Drops his three bottles with a dull thud he doesnft recognize. Rainer collapses, knees landing hard against the raised heads of the discarded nails and shaking uncontrollably. He owns you.
"i- am- sorry-sorry-i- am -sorry -i- i- am- sorry," he mumbles, slumped against Algernon's immobile form, the side of his mouth pressed against his bare chest. Liquid seeps from a crack in one of the three bottles, spreading in a wide arc across the floor. The solution eats away at the material of his robes, his shoe leather, the skin of his ankle and calf. He is going to make you kill all of them and he will have you relish it. Rainer pours more magic out of himself, pressing the healing charms to an alarming buzz and wishes he could die before Erich finds him.
Oh. Langley.
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Post by Prof. Algernon Moncrieff on Mar 17, 2006 0:32:01 GMT
Algernon lies in the haze of healing until he feels the potion burning his skin. He smells Rainer's flesh burning as well, and pulls the man further on top of him, rolling them away. He feels stronger, suddenly. His magic is coming back. But Rainer...
Algernon pulls himself upright, sitting against the wall, and pulls Rainer into his lap. He is mailable, lighter than Algernon would have thought. His arms wrap around him tightly, sharing his tremors. His mind is cloudy from lack of blood, and all he knows is that the pain has ceased.
This is not what has been terrorizing the forest, he thinks, brushing a strand of hair from Rainer's eyes. This is...
This is the man who saved you. Whose face you could not forget. The man whose fear you can smell, who is here, trembling in your arms, who you do not understand but oh, how you wish to, to know every inch of him, every memory...
Algernon's fingers trail over Rainer's forehead, the word which will allow him to delve into Rainer's mind, to know everything with only the effort of a spell... but he leans down and kisses him instead.
Algernon's eyes flash on.
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Post by Erich Aubry on Mar 17, 2006 0:52:48 GMT
Erich is stock still in the corner, his false body atomized and fuming. Bastards. He focuses himself on an unbroken vial, and though his magic is weak here, hurls it at the back of Algernon's head.
A crater forms where the bottle crashes, narrowly striking stone instead. Acid and glass runs in a thin stream down the wall, searing the surface as it goes. Erich turns his glare to the floor, feels the idea of his eyes blur at the sight of his torso disappearing in to the air; his legless apparition fading.
When he turns there will be no one there to see.
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Post by Prof. Algernon Moncrieff on Mar 17, 2006 1:17:12 GMT
Algernon's lips tear away from Rainer's, pulling him up and diving toward the other side of the room before the acid and shards of glass could reach them. He lays Rainer down carefully in his chair before he remembers to look for the source of the potion. Sight is an amazing thing.
He pulls his wand from his pocket, spinning around to aim it violently toward the corner, though he already knows nothing is there. His eyes sweep the ceiling, the other walls, the floor.
Nothing.
He returns to Rainer, kneeling by his side, and taking his hand.
"Alright, Rain... You're going to have to answer my question after all," he murmur's. He presses the tip of his wand to the man's forehead.
It would be so easy to... to just...
"Ennervate," he casts.
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Post by Prof. Rainer Freundschaft on Mar 17, 2006 22:43:26 GMT
"That is a very rude spell," Rainer replies calmly, several moments having passed in the interim. His legs have nearly healed, returning to their unmarked state without prompting. He does not open his eyes.
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Post by Prof. Algernon Moncrieff on Mar 17, 2006 23:37:04 GMT
Algernon breaks out in laughter, unable to contain his relief. "You're alright?" he asks, his hand flying over Rainer's body to check for injuries, imperfections. "I thought for a moment..." he shakes his head. "You keep tiring yourself out like that and your magic won't come back someday, you know?"
He is shaking himself now, the adrenaline rush having worn off. "What happened? I was just--" He stops, examining Rainer's face, his closed eyes. Surely if he remembered.. if he knew...
"--The spell was necessary, anyway. Something threw a potion at us... ." He gestures to the crevice in the wall. "... And you still need to tell me what's going on."
He will be hard now, get to the bottom of things. He will not think about what he felt. He... well, he has Kieron, after all.
He hastily removes his hands from Rainer, scooting backwards a few inches.
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Post by Prof. Rainer Freundschaft on Mar 19, 2006 21:11:10 GMT
Rainer pulls himself off of Algernon awkwardly, pulling his legs to his chest and crossing his arms over his knees. "There is nothing to tell." Two undamaged jars sit nearby, and Rainer tugs at them weakly with his magic, brining them close in what he hopes is not a threatening gesture. What he hopes is a threatening gesture.
And by way of explaination, "No one has called me that in a very long time." Rainer pulls a mostly undamaged book from the debris, no bigger than the size of his hand and filled with a minute type that remains impossible to read. Within it he senses the tug of spells he hates most and more closely, the instinct to use them.
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Post by Prof. Algernon Moncrieff on Mar 19, 2006 21:26:05 GMT
Algernon glares at Rainer, his hands clenching into fists in his lap. "That doesn't answer anything," he points out, coldly, avoiding the other man's eyes and examining the book in his lap. German, it looks like, can't read German, especially not upside-down.
"I want to know why the forest is whispering your name at night. I want to know why it has started hurting students, and I want to know why everything falls to pieces when I'm in bed for a few days? You'd think no one can manage around here without me, it's rediculous." He scowls, gesturing violently around the wrecked office. "I mean seriously, look at this. That wall was thousands of years old, and now we have intangible spirits destroying it with nothing but an acid potion! And, come to think of it, why do you have so many bloody acid potions? What are you afraid of? What is going ON?" He pauses for a moment, breathing hard with anger. "And I'd much prefer if you didn't throw one of them at me yourself and blind me again," he adds bitingly.
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Post by Prof. Rainer Freundschaft on Mar 19, 2006 22:47:53 GMT
The Portrait Yells Something About Obliviation:
The book hits the floor thirty seven seconds after Rainer has kissed Algernon. I am so afraid. I am so afraid. He murmurs again and again between breaths. His hand grips Algernon's neck hard, leaving a bruise where it has touched him. Two bottles roll away from them, from the impending charge of a spell.
Everything feels like need. The way his ribs are all impact and nothing like snowfall. Rainer grips Algernon's collar and presses himself against him with the harshness of one hundred and four years of anger and longing. I am afraid. He kisses him again, lips chapped and only now beginning to bleed for thirteen springs and Erich laughing on the coast of the Baltic, because he has sand in his eyes and knows exactly what Rainer is all about...
Algernon doesn't resist and maybe that is only part of the spell. He allows himself to be pushed to the floor, and later will allow himself to be pulled on top of Rainer. Because I want to be destroyed. His two hands are warm and make buttons tear from their holdings and all manner of clothing unfasten. This is urgency. So when Rainer has Algernon in his hands, he kisses him against the edge of his right eye and makes sure he will remember nothing of this. Forget me. Sudden light blisters against the nerves and the vision. Forget me.
The small text book flutters, pulls to page when the energy gathers. The Property of Erich Aubry: Third Year it reads in German. Rainer will tell him that they were attacked, when he asks about the state of the office. That the force came in its violence and he knows nothing. When he asks why they are both, though scratched and flushed with adrenaline, still alive?
Rainer will tell him that Algernon has finally returned the favor of saving him.
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Post by Prof. Algernon Moncrieff on Mar 20, 2006 0:03:51 GMT
Rainer's eyes are the first thing Algernon sees when he awakens.
For a moment he thinks he is blind still, lying in his hospital bed and examining the face etched on the inside of his eyelids, berating himself with memories of Kieron, of they way they kissed, cried together, of how much Kieron loved him, but entirely unable to quash the swelling of his heart. But the eyes close, and Algernon knows where he is.
He eases himself into a sitting position, marveling at how easily his body moves. His eyes consume Rainer first, committing to memory the details he had nearly forgotten, the little changes. The redness of his eyes and flushed cheeks, then the rest of the room.
He remembers...
He is standing over Rainer, deliciously close to him, but somehow angry, uncertain instead of excited, and he is whispering to his lips, whispering a name...
"...What happened?" He whispers to the man before him. The scratches on his face and lips. Suddenly concerned; "Are you alright?" He reaches out to touch his cheek.
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Post by Prof. Rainer Freundschaft on Mar 20, 2006 23:04:30 GMT
Rainer does not answer at first, looks in to an empty corner of the room, disgusted with himself. He stands suddenly, offering his hand to Algernon.
"I am fine! Just- fine. Whatever force that has taken up in the forest, attacked us here when we were alone. Ugh, mein gott, look what it did to my office! Der schamlose bastard!" Rainer kneels to collect the scattered books and stray potions, doing his best to ignore the result of his handiwork. "You managed to disrupt its manifestation with a sound based spell... which has managed, inadvertently to destroy my stock of potion." He places the two acids in to his pocket, warding them from premature breaking. It seems we aren't so different Erich, not now at least.
Rainer faces Algernon, dead eyed and exhausted again. "This will be impossible to clean up. We should alert the others?" Moving towards the door, Rainer discreetly buttons his shirt. His hand on the knob, he continues more quietly without turning to face Algernon. "You saved me back there. Thank you." Looking over his shoulder, Rainer manages a grin and holds his hand out for him.
"It looks like you returned the favor, afterall, my friend."
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