Aasa Bow I

[21:56] The artificer winds her way back into the depths of the academy, up the stairs, and to a small office sequestered in the farthest side of the hall.

It is dimly lit and smells of smoke. A front desk, with all the paperwork one might expect of a teacher's office, and just behind it a workshop. Sparsely populated, but serviceable.

Katrin shrugs off her cloak and goes rummaging through one of the crates.

"So...what's on your mind, Lirry?"
(Katrin Weiss)
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[22:03] {LONG DISTANCE TO: Ailen W. Ivanovich}: I'm sorry. I've heard some of the news. Please be safe. At Starfall with this Teraphim kid named Lierin if you need anything.

I can always drop what I'm doing and come.

-K
[22:05] The blonde follows, in a thoughtful sort of silence. The office wasn't terribly far from his dorm, and the way there is largely memorized save the final few turns toward the doors.

It is not terribly impressive- but he hadn't expected it to be. Even the smoke doesn't bother him as the two enter, Lierin's normally-prevalent total aversion to smoke going unmentioned.

He coughs, just once. The boy sits, staring at Katrin's back as she begins to rustle through one of the several boxes- shrugging his own cloak off to pool around him in a heap as he does.

"Heartache. Bad kind." Three words, spoken crisply and clearly. Like they were talking about taxes, or the fucking weather.

The forlorn, contemplative look on his face tells something of a different story, with gilded eyes glaring daggers at the floor and the slightest tremble in his soft, boyish hands.
(Lierin)
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[22:09] It's a slow trudge, but the pace is made up for with her long stride. One of the few good things the drakanite blood had actually gifted her, she might say.

She takes a few large hunks of arcanium, sets them onto the table, then turns to the forge. Katrin goes about her business of lighting it. Which takes considerable effort, apparently.

There's a few attempted snaps of her fingers. It generates a bit of heat, throws a few sparks, but not enough. Instead she resorts to matches. How droll.

Katrin gives him a dour look. A slow nod.

"...Talk to me 'bout it then. What happened?"

For all her oddities, for all her sins. She tries even still.
(Katrin Weiss)
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[22:16] He settles back. The use of matches is frankly shocking, and any other time, he'd comment. Perhaps she was merely under the weather?

A single pale finger begins to trace lines, down on the floor from his criss-crossed position. "Did you meet Delphine, miss Weiss? She's my roommate. She..." Lierin's steady, calm tone halts.

A pause.

A much, much smaller voice finishes, "She was my roommate. She's... gone. Went home."

Lierin's eyes don't turn from the floor. Not yet, anyway.
(Lierin)
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[22:17] The artificer does not look well, putting it shortly. Haggard. Pale. Worn, as if spread too thin. Then again, in recent months, that has been the norm.

She trucks onward regardless, taking the arcanium over to the forge. Within its belly sits a great crucible of porous stone. In the two, three hunks go.

Katrin remains near it to monitor the temperature, operating a manual set of bellows. Old school.

"...Mighta' in passin' once. She just...left for home? No harm came to her, did it?"
(Katrin Weiss)
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[22:27] The boy's chest tightens, and he quite literally aches for a moment. "N-not- Not that I know of. Gods- the thought that something might've happened..."

It's perhaps unfair of Lierin, in how little he comments on his professor's state of being. He had grown so used to seeing her disheveled and unwell, it hadn't even crossed his mind. Still- norm or not, some part of him is guilty for it. After all she had listened to him rant and rave, more than once- not to mention the supervision of the incredible stupidity of the Academy's courtyards...

… regardless.

Eyes track up from the floor, finally, to watch the woman begin to fan the forge with the bellows.

"... I don't think anything did. She left me a letter, saying goodbye. And, I... Oh, gods..." His voice trails off, emotion beginning to crack through like a wave against a dam.

Teraphim process emotions differently, it is often said. Lierin is not different to his kin in that regard, certainly- though perhaps unlike many, the blonde tries desperately to hide the ache in his chest or the sadness beginning to creep onto his face.

(Lierin)
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[22:32] The artificer, for a time, remains dull. Insensate, unusually so. She goes about her work. Fanning the forge. Tending the metal. This is what she was meant for.

She upends the great lava stone crucible and dumps its contents into a set of trays to mold the metal into more workable ingots.

Then, as she looks up towards Lierin, there's a pause. She remembers, for a moment. Something she'd almost forgotten.

The lanky artificer slowly ambles over. Katrin looms over the young Teraphim. A dark presence, a strangely cold spot in the room.

Then she stoops down, closer to his level. A rough hand offers out a small swatch of cloth.

"...Here. 'Least they're safe. And they left ya words. I know it ain't seem like much. But it shows they care. Yeah? S'important."
(Katrin Weiss)
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[22:42] Her looming figure is given only a glance, from his position on the floor. A gentle upturn of his chin, to raise gleaming eyes to hers just as she begins to kneel and reach his level.

Not a word escapes him, for a good and long moment. Instead, that same pale hand takes the swatch of cloth with a sniffle, and a worn-out smile.

A few more moments pass in peaceful silence, save the quiet noise of someone blowing their nose and wiping their face of lonely, pointless tears.

"... thank you, Katrin... I hope she- she cared, truly. I don't- I don't know if I even felt that way about her. But she was my-" A choking noise escapes his throat, and he balls a fist in what is almost certainly physical pain.

"She was my first real friend. I cared about her. I wanted to keep her safe. And she's gone, and- And I'm alone again."

The (relative to Katrin) small and dimunitive figure shudders for a moment, desperately beginning to cast his gaze around the room for something to latch onto.

His gaze, perhaps predictably, lands smack-dab on the forge, and the used crucible. At least it was something bright.
(Lierin)
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[22:47] The forge space is stiflingly dark. But the forge casts a warm glow. It's the only emitting source of light. The lanterns on the wall are empty, their flams snuffed.

She lets him take his time, allows him to take the cloth. The sinner offers her company.

"...I'd wager she did. If she ain't, wouldn't have left a letter," the artificer reasons.

"It's hard to handle sometimes. But people come. People go. S'the way of things..."

Katrin rises back up, offering Lierin some space as she returns to the forge. There was still a bit of work to do as the metal's partially cooled.

There are no fire magic tricks today. No shaping of the metal like clay. Instead she does it all the 'old fashioned' way. The artificer takes a pair of tongs, lifts one of the arcanium ingots from its mold, and shunts it into the waiting forge's flame.

When it's pulled free, a merry cherry red hue mixed with orange, she takes it to the anvil to begin its pummeling treatment.

"You'll find your way, Lirry. It'll get better with time."
(Katrin Weiss)
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[22:56] At the very least, he got to see someone work another kind of magic; that of skill and art.

To witness arcanium be forged and molded properly, without seemingly a hint of magical assistance, seems to at the very least distract him, and the boy's breathing steadies a few more moments of watching, his lips pursed in thought.

"I don't... think life'll get easier, but... I hope- goodbyes do, at least." There's a beat, and a teeny-tiny smile forms at the edges of his lip. "It was- ki-kinda funny. Part of the letter, said- Said, ah..."

A clearing of the throat, and Lierin gives his chest a thump for good measure. "... said to- keep trying to motivate Esshar to fix itself. To make things... better."

"I'm sorry for making you listen to this, Katrin. I'm- I'm sure you've got bigger problems than my being lonely."
(Lierin)
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[23:00] She'd done it before, she could do it again. Katrin had gotten her start in the belly of society, in the dark and dank places were civil folk didn't tread. Even without her fire, this is still several degrees better.

Even over the ringing of metal against metal, she can evidently hear him just fine. The great clattering ringing brings to rise the frame of another creation.

A long arm, half of a bow. It's set aside and, predictably, she begins to repeat the process with the other bar.

"And are ya?" she asks between blows of the great cross-peen hammer. That was the question that mattered most.

"Ain't nothin' to apologize for, Lirry. If I wasn't willin' to hear it. Ya wouldn't be here. It's my own lil' way of...

...Of tryin' to make things better."
(Katrin Weiss)
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[23:15] The repeated clanging gives him a beat, a rhythm to calm himself to. Evidently, it helps- he seems to finally recover from the worst of the malus he had been suffering. His chest... untightens.

Clang. Clang. Clang. Her question seems to stump him. Was he? Really?

"I'm trying. I want- T-to help. To stop v-vampires, and Sibyl, and- and save the world. But I'm just..." He looks down at himself, at the tell-tale glow of gold he could summon with merely a thought, power borrowed from the stars themselves. He looks at the pistol on his hip, and the rifle across his back.

"... I still feel like a helpless child. But I'm trying.

Gods, I'll keep trying. I promised her." There is steel in his tone at that reminder, a sudden touch of conviction in the willowy and depressed Teraphim that hadn't been there moments ago.

"In- in any way I can. Li-like you, miss Weiss. Finding... ways to make things better. It's all I can do, I think. I told you, those few years ago... that I want to use my second chance to help."

Clang. Clang. Clang.

"... even if it hurts. Even if I'm afraid."
(Lierin)
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[23:20] The rhythm is steady, like the thrumming of a great, primal heart. But soon she finishes the base of the two arms meant for the bow.

She takes them both over to the center table for inspection. They are not perfect- nothing starts out perfect. But she is able to refine them even in the dimly lit room. Maybe she does it all by feel.

"Ya can get there. I know ya can." Katrin hears the edge in his voice. Perhaps there's hope after all. Just maybe.

"Mn. I ain't always made things better...But I try. I try."

No. Her own second chance had, at first, not been made to help. Not in the slightest.

"Ya can do better than I've done. Trainin'. Practice. Time. Equipment. That and a lil' fire...s'all it takes, Lirry."
(Katrin Weiss)
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[23:22] Katrin Weiss asks, "Maybe. Ya should think to go gettin' some rest soon though. Yeah?"
[23:22] Katrin Weiss says, "Clear head. It's a good thing..."
[23:22] Lierin says, "... yeah."
[23:22] Lierin says, "I-..."
[23:22] Lierin says, "... I wish it didn't have to be this way."
[23:23] Katrin Weiss says, "..."
[23:23] Katrin Weiss says, "Me too."
[23:23] Katrin Weiss says, "I wish it coulda' been any other way."
[23:24] Lierin hauls himself to his feet, rubbing his eyes clean a few final times.
(Lierin)
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[23:24] Lierin says, "... maybe Esshar will know peace. Eventually."
[23:25] Lierin says, "I'm gonna... get some sleep."
[23:25] Lierin says, "Goodnight, miss Weiss."
[23:25] Katrin Weiss says, "I hope."
[23:25] Katrin Weiss says, "...I hope I can be alive. To see it."
[23:25] Katrin Weiss says, "G'night, Lirry."
[23:26] Katrin Weiss says, "Ya know where to find me."