[Memory, PM to Join] Blood in the Cut

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Midday, 30th Vortas, 2709
The Lawn, Brunnhold

Niccolette heard a popping sound from Nauleth’s shoulder - the faintest beginning of one - and then he screamed. She had not expected it. She had known it would hurt, of course; she was not a fool. But Nauleth screamed, and there was raw and ragged pain in his voice - the popping noise - the oddly square shape of his shoulder -

It did not bother her, Niccolette realized. She did not feel nauseous or nervous; she did not feel sorry. She did not enjoy his pain, but exactly. She was proud of the cast, difficult as it had been, and she felt the knowledge of conquest singing bright through her field, but she would not have said she liked watching him suffer. It was necessary, not enjoyable, and Niccolette could understand the difference.

All the same, something inside her stomach curled - not nausea, but... she could not lie to herself and she knew it for fear. Shouldn’t she be sorry? Shouldn’t she be horrified? She had heard the murmurs and the gasps from the crowd, even though she had tried not to listen.

Not for the first time, Niccolette was aware that she was - different. Not for the first time, Niccolette was aware of an odd ache somewhere in her chest. Not for the first time, Niccolette bore up beneath it and lifted her chin and refused to compromise herself - refused to be any less.

But there were whispers - but the fabric of her dress was soaked - but it seemed a little harder, each time.

Nauleth was cursing at her, furious, and Niccolette bore up beneath that too, untouched by the first round of curses spat from beneath teary eyes. He spat that her family would be glad to see her gone, and Niccolette’s jaw clenched. It was too much - raw pain shuddered across her face, tightening her jaw, and her hands clenched into fists at her sides. How dare he, Niccolette thought. He did not know - he could not know -

She could not think about it. Not now; not ever. She could not think about it.

Nauleth was already casting again, and she had missed her chance to intervene. The first brush of the spell felt like a slap in the face, and Niccolette gasped, stiffly. Another, then, and another, and another, all the lashes targeting the sensitive skin of her face. Tears streamed down her cheeks, an instinctive reaction she could not control, the salt in them making the wounds sting worse.

Niccolette wrapped her hands in the fabric of her jacket and gripped, tightly; she refused, she utterly refused, to give him the satisfaction of seeing her cover her face in fear. And anyway, it would not matter - not to the mona. She stared at Nauleth through it, tears glistening down her cheeks, as blood began to trickle from her nose, as her lips began to swell, as one eye eased shut -

The push spell caught her off guard too, focused as she was on not responding, and Nauleth shoved her down, ground her into the dirt. She hit hard, hard enough to send a jarring ache through her body. Mud splattered her skirt, the wind knocked out of her so she could scarcely breathe, blood steaming from her nose.

Nauleth cursed her again, looming over her, as if petty cruelty made him strong; powerful as she spells had been, Niccolette did not believe it.

Niccolette jerked upright and spat a mouthful of blood and spittle at him without hesitation, not minding that some of it would splatter her already filthy uniform. She could scarcely breathe, but she twisted onto her hands and knees, clutching at the ground; she did not know if he was sensible enough or stupid enough to try to cover her mouth, but she could not take the risk.

Niccolette ran her tongue over her mouth, over the sensitive skin of her swollen lips, tasting blood. She exhaled, carefully - furious, beyond furious, but determined too, and it was the that determination that she reached for, that she brought to bear. He thought he could break her with pain? He thought this would make her yield?

As many times as he had begged her to fight him, had pestered her, and he knew nothing. Well, Niccolette thought, gathering herself, taking the time she needed until her breath had returned enough to speak, until the last of the bright red had eased from her field - he had not wanted rules.

Niccolette began to cast; she crawled away from Nauleth, forming the syllables as carefully as she could through her swollen, painful mouth, blood dripping from her lips and tongue. Hazy energy streamed from her and pooled sluggishly in his mouth, an anesthesia spell carefully and deliberately targeted for his tongue.

It was not playing by the rules - it was not done, in dueling league, to target the tongue, even without doing harm, because of the risk of backlash. A sensible duelist would yield after such a spell, with all the delicacy and precision it required; a sensible duelist would not know to continue.

Niccolette was not sure if she hoped Nauleth was sensible.

She could feel the sluggish response of the mona in the air around her, the unease with which they stirred. It was a difficult cast, but Niccolette knew she could not respond to his attempt at humiliation with anything less. She knew, too, that she had come close to mispronunciation; she knew her usually crisp monite had dragged. But she curled the spell as she shoved herself up to her feet and turned back and lifted her chin to face him, streaks of bloody red standing out against her pale, blood-splattered skin, the skirt of her uniform wet not only with mud, her hands filthy and tangled in her jacket once more, her eyes blazing with determination. Niccolette felt the mona bend to her will, just a fraction, at least to make his tongue tingle, at least to make his control of it soften for just a moment.

Rolls

Tongue anesthesia spell: 2

[Nauleth Siordanti]

30th of Vortas, 2709
THE LAWN | THE TIME IS NOW

Those tears were so clocking satisfying, and the boy felt a rush of misdirected pride swell in his chest with all that adrenaline already swirling in his system. That sorcerers high, that galdori divine right, twisted by ignorance and immaturity, broken by Nauleth's comfortable position as a bully.

Where Niccolette had no emotional attachment to the pain her well-cast spell had caused the redheaded fifth form, her misguided opponent absolutely let the bloodied welts and trickle of tears fill his heart with some needful hum of feeling as if nothing else could have filled the cracks within in the same way as witnessing the suffering of others. It was wrong, and perhaps at some time or another, the eldest Siordanti had moments of self-awareness, some trickle of light in the dark he'd told himself he enjoyed wading into.

Not today.

The push spell was just salt in the wounds he'd caused, honestly, and as he stepped forward to glower at her in some warped sense of victory, the voices of objection were raised in the gathered crowd. A few students hissed that this was enough, someone else called for one of them to yield, and Professor Thompson pulsed her field in warning. There was still some laughter, too, though, at least one student finding the gross abuse of galdori power humorous.

Then the Bastian had the nerves to spit at him and he sneered at her, meeting her defiant gaze and feeling confused when the red flare of anger drained from her field. She found some semblance of focus in all of this! He couldn't understand—

How could he not have done enough?

How could she not be ready to give up?

The realization that there would be no surrender stirred an irrational fury in the Anaxi student—the realization that he could not best this particular opponent crawling under the skin of his entire existence and reaching coldly for his unruly ego, gripping it tightly. This was unacceptable. He'd failed enough against her—he'd attempted to study every response, to find that one angle of success. Even now, bleeding and soiled at his feet, Niccolette was victorious.

Already godsbedamned winning.

There was not another outcome, and Nauleth was cunning and calculatingly intelligent enough to quantify that conclusion without the aid of magic or equations. It was clear in the way she began to intone syllables of Monite that he was, without question, already the loser here.

And he hated it.

He hated that she'd called him a coward and not cowered before him. He hated that he'd wasted so much of his time only for it to come to this. He hated that everyone watching would know the truth—would know the boy they'd come to fear was nobody worth being afraid of, no matter how hard he tried to fool them all.

She crawled away, unfamiliar phrases of a spell and blood on her lips, dribbling smoothly, mingling in the air as Living mona swirled again around them both. It was reluctant, there was a hesitance there but it was not an objection to Niccolette so much as some deeper resentment the mona did not feel the need to explain. Pressure would build in her ears while she cast, as if she were climbing altitude in an airship, as if she were diving deep beneath the surface of a calm country pond.

Naul felt it too, but the insolent fires of self-loathing and resentment had already been kindled too hot, too bright for him to at all heed any warning. He heard the concern. He felt the monic caution. While she was still casting, without waiting for her turn, he was already speaking a spell of his own, seeking to steal the very breath from her lungs to keep her from finishing her spell. Physical mona stirred alongside Living, invocation on his lips, the redhead ordering the air to flow in the wrong direction—up out of her nostrils and mouth for a single painful exhale, uncaring as to whether or not it caused her to brail.

She fumbled over a few of her words and he caught a slipped sound, a slurred consonant, here and there, but the mona had its own mind and he felt his tongue begin to tingle. It began in his mouth, there while he refused to stop the momentum of his ley bridge, a self-righteous sort of demand in his tone. Speaking became difficult, Niccolette's spell taking on a life of its own outside of either of their intention or control, and what began as pins and needles became something sharp and magnified. It began to spread.

The numbness clawed down his throat and Nauleth gagged, eyes wide while a chill washed over his face, crawled behind his sinuses and under his scalp, reaching downward along the already injured nerves of his dislocated left shoulder, curling his fingers toward his palm in a cold pain.

Everyone felt it, then—Mateo standing nearby, a handful of eager fourth forms, Professor Thompson, Niccolette, and the gaggle of older students who had followed—a numbness washing over their exposed skin in warning, digging deep into their muscles: the caress of unseen sentient particles as they gathered together with a sensation that could only be best described as angry. Professor Dallium was approaching. A few other students had stopped their practicing in another part of the Lawn to stare.

Everyone was watching now, and everyone would know what was happening.

Enough. The mona had had enough: enough of the boy, enough of his mockery of a duel, enough of his words meant to call them in partnership twisted into demands of subservience, enough of his lingering attitude, enough of his insatiable need for superior affirmation.

"Step down, Mister Siordanti."

"I think you should yield."

"Miss Villamarzana's clearly done, anyway, oh—"

"There won't be any winners if one of you doesn't stop!"

"That's enough!"

Enough, indeed.

Naul was stopped mid-cast, suddenly silenced, but not by another student or even by a professor.

While there was nothing actually audible, the forceful feeling of a rush of sound rippled from the eldest Siordanti child outward, and had he been able to make any noise of pain, he would have. As the mona filtered swiftly from the Lawn, it felt as though they made a very poignant effort to tear through his entire existence—not ripping flesh and blood like hatcher teeth but biting at the very root of his galdor nature: the delicately bundled nerves and ley lines that gave him genetic rights to casting in the first place. It only hurt for a singular moment, so intense that his shoulder lost any point of reference in comparison, bright and searing like someone had poured magma down his spine and it trickled its way through his entire body, one nerve at a time.

The mona lashed out, objected. The mona judged based on standards no one had privy to entirely understand. The mona punished years of abuse, addiction, disrespect, and insolence in a single, swift moment: just like that, just as Niccolette could inhale again, the boy crumpled to the scorched earth of the Field of Practical Application like someone had cut the strings to a marionette on a fine day in the West Garden.

Just like that, when everyone who'd crowded around the petty duel collectively remembered to exhale the breaths they'd held, the mona was gone. The cool Vortas air was unmoving, completely devoid of mona, and for a few moments, no one else seemed willing to do anything, ears ringing and pulse racing. Some lower form started crying. Someone else sniggered. A few kids heckled, but their words were all whispered under their breath.

Nauleth was just as unmoving on the grass, just a lanky jumble of limbs and a dirty uniform under his coat. It was not immediately clear whether or not the boy was even breathing, completely still and silent.

It was then that the professors present set into motion, very aware that everything was wrong.

RollsShow

Spell casting before backlash:
AvraeBOTToday at 12:51 PM
Muse:
Result: 1d6 (2)
Total: 2 - Not very effective, considering it was interrupted in the middle.

Collateral Damage:
AvraeBOTToday at 12:52 PM
Muse:
Result: 1d2 (1)
Total: 1 - A few other students feel the effects of the backlash.

Welcome to Brunnhold. Now go home.

[Niccolette Ibutatu]

Midday, 30th Vortas, 2709
The Lawn, Brunnhold

Nauleth was casting too; Niccolette could feel the pull of the mona between them. She could feel a sense of wrongness in the air, something eerie that tingled down her spine, an odd tight feeling, like a precursor to backlash – it was echoing in the air between them, and if she had not already started her spell she would have backed down, and yielded, if that was what it took. Conquest was one thing, but if the mona asked you not to continue – but she had had no symptoms, until now, no tingling or nausea, not even a nosebleed.

There was a sudden sort of pressure in her throat, Nauleth’s spell starting to take hold; it was harder than ever to continue her cast, but Niccolette utterly refused to brail. She knew it was not her usual precision, this cast, but she forged on through bloody, aching lips and a pressure in her chest, and she curled the spell – and her field held in the air around her, and the spell took hold of Nauleth. Niccolette was conscious of a sense of unease; it should not have worked, she thought. She had fumbled – her will was strong, she was a good caster and she was not remotely shy about owning it, but she knew she had misspoken at least once, and it would have been not in the least surprising if the spell had failed.

If anything, it seemed to be getting stronger. There was a feeling in the air, a tightness, and Niccolette inhaled, sharply, staring wide-eyed at Nauleth as he forced his way through his cast. “You clockstopping - stop!” She told him, and it wasn’t anything about the duel – not anymore –

There was a clamor of voices from all around them, the crowd intensifying – a tension like flame in the air, emanating from Nauleth in front of her –

Something rippled out of him, and Niccolette stumbled back, caught her heel on the edge of her soiled dress and landed hard on the ground, shaking and wide-eyed. She felt it, dim and distant at the edge of her attention, more intense than any backlash she had ever felt before; it sucked all the air from the world, drew it all into whatever was happening to Nauleth –

And then it was over, and Niccolette gasped, desperately for breath, and Nauleth dropped to the ground.

Niccolette rolled over, rose up ono her knees, and threw up; she coughed, and choked, and gasped for breath, and she threw up again, clutching at her stomach with her hands, her face pale. It hurt the lashes in her mouth like she could never have imagined, but she could not help it; she gagged, and the very last of what little lunch she had eaten spilled onto the dry, cracked earth. Niccolette shuddered, her eyes squeezing shut, tears stinging at the edges of them, and sniffled, wiping her face on her arm; her dress could hardly be more soiled.

Slowly, shaking, the Bastian student stumbled back up to her feet, and turned, slowly, to face the opponent. Not her victory, she thought, looking down at him. She knew better than to take credit for the mona’s work. She shivered, wrapping her arms around herself, reeking and filthy, bleeding from her nose, her mouth sore and miserably painful, and felt an enormous rush of relief. She, at least, would heal.

Niccolette looked up, slowly, at Professor Thompson, the first of the faculty to reach Nauleth. “… Is he…?” She dropped her gaze back to Nauleth. It was not quite concern in her voice – curiosity, certainly, but there was a faintly dispassionate sense to it. The galdor blinked long lashes, and ran her fingers over the welts on her face with a grimace, lowering her arms back to her aching stomach. He was so, so still. "... dead?"

[Nauleth Siordanti]

30th of Vortas, 2709
THE LAWN | THE TIME IS NOW

Professor Thompson knelt on the ground, rolling the redheaded boy over while those that had gathered to heckle and stare broke into various forms of concern and panic, satisfaction and disappointment. At least one or two of the students had the decency to turn and take off across the Lawn, the Infirmary conveniently located quite near to the Field of Practical Application by some centuries-old architectural foresight to the dangers of galdori student life and their sorcerous pursuits. A few other students were, of course, still just oggling while Clemency Thompson reached to hover a palm in front of Nauleth's face and feel him breath while her other hand set fingers on his wrist to check for a pulse.

The boy didn't stir, but his chest rose and fell. His heartbeat was faint but regular.

"He lives." She responded tersely, clearly displeased by both students' actions but also unwilling to place blame on the victor for what was obviously a backlash the young Siordanti had been setting himself up for over time, years, really.

The mona was gone, however, and no one could even attempt to quantify the extent of what might have happened to Naul. Professor Dallium glanced at Niccolette once she came to an abrupt stop at her unconscious opponent's feet. She reached into her robes and withdrew a handkerchief, handing it to the bloodied girl with a look of judgmental warning, "You will also be walking to the Infirmary, Miss Villamarzana. We will decide whether or not both of you require demerits for this activity when Mister Siordanti recovers. As a ninth form, surely you knew better."

"There is nothing in school policy about dueling." Muttered Professor Thompson as she released the boy's wrist and stood up, dusting off her robes and squinting across the Lawn, waiting for a doctor and some servants to arrive from the Infirmary with a stretcher, most likely.

Professor Dallium was known for her strict interpretation of policies as well as her own abhorrence to non-league, unsanctioned dueling among galdorkind, if not league play itself, the Perceptive Professor considered it all brutally outdated forms of gratifying the gods, preferring to believe that galdori culture should have elevated itself beyond combat centuries ago. She kept her opinions to herself most of the time, but staring at a bleeding teenager with an unconscious, possibly severely injured teen at her feet, did very little to sway her from her internal decisions.

"That is not the point, Clem." She quipped, adjusting her glasses.

Some students had begun to wander off. One sniffled. Those that remained had no idea what to do with themselves, really, and were wide-eyed. Even Niccolette's friends seemed hesitant in the eerie absence of the mona, in the ozone-tinged atmosphere of some monic smiting of unexpected proportions, to really leap into any form of action as if somehow, for no real reason, they too would find themselves subject to judgment, no matter how undeserved.

The crunching of dry, scorched grass announced the approach of Infirmary staff—a young, blond doctor probably fresh out of his hospital residency and a pair of middle-aged passives. The blue-uniformed servants waited at the edge of the gathering of galdori, stretcher between them set delicately on the ground while the young man moved toward Nauleth,

"I cannot examine him here." He announced as if no one else was aware, blinking in confusion, "Did he brail, or—"

"Backlash, Doctor, uh—" Professor Thompson smirked at the nametag as if she knew the young man, "Whittleby. We will discuss on the way. He is in need of immediate care. So is the Miss here."

"Y-yes, of course." The blond looked with concern at Niccolette before moving to assist the passives in gingerly lifting the young Siordanti, noting that the boy didn't even seem responsive to the motions. Limp but breathing, he was carefully secured and Doctor Whittleby waved them all toward the Infirmary with a sweeping motion of his hand, "We will get this all taken care of as thoroughly and quickly as possible."

Professor Dallium hovered behind them all, dismissing the other students with stern words and even more stern looks, shooing them all away from the Lawn for at least a house while the mona had left a vacuum in their wake before falling into stride with the others, jogging only a little to catch up,

"I will notify the Siordantis with the Infirmary Scryer. I do not think this bodes well for Nauleth." She offered dourly while the group made haste across the expansive Field toward the Infirmary. Once inside, the comforting, familiar sensation of the mona in the area was almost a relief, washing over everyone as if welcoming them back into somewhere safe. Niccolette was immediately met by a nurse and taken to be cared for without question while her opponent was ushered away toward the more private area of the student care facility in a whirlwind of questions and almost an overwhelmingly urgent flurry of Living and Quantitative magic, diagnostics immediate as soon as spells could be used again by anyone.

Not privy to the results, whatever they may have been, the full extent of Nauleth Siordanti's consequences wouldn't reveal themselves to Niccolette or anyone in the student body at all for weeks, months, long after winter break was over and the new school year began. Eventually, after arduous physical and magical recovery, the boy would resurface, but it would take another full year before he'd ever dare to return to dueling league, let alone make much of himself publicly at all, the only lingering external evidence of the extensive damage his own mistakes had wrought being minor in comparison to the internal changes required of the youth for years following.

Welcome to Brunnhold. Now go home.