Binding Offer
click
*silence. light tapping sounds. door opens*
ODAI: How did you get in here?! This door was locked. There is no other entrance. And I’m certain none of my wards were disturbed.
*Pause*
Not going to talk, eh? Well. I will warn you. I know a technique that has never failed to elicit… results. I call it… butt scratches.
*Jinx purrs*
Yes. I should think so. Still, doesn’t seem like you’re going to talk. Jinx, one day you’ll have to tell me what the weakness is that you keep exploiting. Just in case I ever need to seal against less adorable threats.
Jinx mewls
All right. But some day. Less of a mess than usual, but… oh. Jinx, you’ve activated the wax recorder. Is it…
muffled noise
Yes. Recording. Well. I suppose I had to stop delaying the inevitable. Is this what you were trying to do? Cease my hesitation, force me forward?
*Jinx mewls*
Right, right. Just a normal cat, I forgot somehow. Well. Hello. I am Odai, master of binding. I have been… delaying my first official recording of my work. At first, because I was in the midst of a hermitage period and it felt extraneous. Then, as I withdrew from my shell, because I was… intimidated by the possibilities this wax offers. Voncid and Olivia have already used it to record Remembrances, and to explore what other layers are heard by the wax and not our senses. I have begun to… call it hope. I have begun to hope that this wax may have abilities to overcome an obstacle we have long faced. It may be a foolish hope, and regardless, it shall be a long time before it can be tested. But the unique nature of the Phantoma and young Luca’s technomancy has resulted in objects with abilities I have never seen before. It leaves me optimistic that more uses may be possible. And hesitant that more dangers may be revealed. Still. It is past time that my voice be represented here. Perhaps I shall even contribute Remembrances of my own. Italy. Paris. Cairo. Even the Steppes. When duty allows.
*Knocking*
Ah. Synchronicity.
Door opens
Ah, Luca. Ms James. To what do I owe the pleasure?
LUCA: Master Odai. We’re just looking for… there he is.
Jinx mewls
ODAI: Of course. Go on then, Jinx. Next time you break in, we shall share tuna.
LUCA: Ah, you… he’ll never stay home if you keep making those promises.
ODAI: Well. What are you two up to now?
LUCA: We have to…
PIP: He called us.
ODAI: Voncid?
Simultaneous
LUCA: Yes.
PIP: No.
ODAI: Mm. Ms James, I was actually going to seek you out today. I have a matter to discuss with you, of a time-sensitive nature. Luca, will you let Voncid know I have stolen her, and convey my apologies?
LUCA: Uh… I guess.
ODAI: Wonderful. Oh, I have nearly finished the book you lent me. I should have it back to you tomorrow.
LUCA: No rush. Uh. Pip, you alright?
PIP: I’m good. Thanks, Luca.
LUCA: Okay. I’ll find you later.
PIP: Bye.
Luca leaves
Thanks for the excuse. I’m still not... I just can’t deal with… him. Even if I can’t see what he looks like, I know whose face he wears. I have to hear that voice.
ODAI: Oh, it was no excuse. I do have a matter to discuss with you. I have not eaten yet today. Have you, Ms James?
PIP: No. But I’m not hungry. Thank you.
ODAI: Nonetheless, you will eat. You are looking… anemic.
PIP: Dude, respectfully, you can’t make me.
ODAI: I am an elder of the Hamsa. And, more importantly than that, it is Wednesday. And Wednesdays in the canteen means…
PIP: Oh… lemon pie! Do you think there’s any left?
ODAI: I have a friend who works there, who always saves me two slices. One for me, one for a guest, or two for me if I can justify it. Come, join me, eat a slice of pie.
PIP: All right. I don’t suppose me eating was the entire thing you had to discuss?
ODAI: No such luck. Do you wish to take my arm, or not take my arm?
PIP: I don’t need help getting to the canteen.
ODAI: No, you don’t.
PIP: sigh But I’ll take it.
ODAI: Splendid. Oh, I should mention I am carrying one of Luca’s new “field recorders.” A much more easily portable version housed in a wooden case and carried about in an unassuming, and dare I say fetching, satchel. This microphone clips to my collar, I wonder if I could hide it in a small flower or lapel pin… At any rate I am recording currently.
PIP: What? Why?
ODAI: Future reference. And to build a habit. I can stop, if it makes you uncomfortable.
PIP: I… no, it’s all right. Thank you for telling me.
ODAI: Of course. So, I am led to believe you have been spending a lot of time in the Archives of late.
PIP: Yes.
ODAI: Are you finding it of interest, or simply avoiding Voncid?
PIP: I’m sorry, is this what you wanted to discuss?
ODAI: No, just small talk on the walk to the canteen. I’m sorry, I am emerging from a period of hermitage, my ability to chitchat is somewhat atrophied. Am I doing it poorly?
PIP: I mean, a bit? But I also don’t really want to talk about… him. I know I technically brought it up first, but… it’s not something I want to dwell on. It’s no ones fault, it just… sucks.
ODAI: More than fair. I apologize for pushing. Ah, we’re here.
PIP: That was fast.
ODAI: I know shortcuts. Here, take a seat. I’ll get our pie. Oh, and-
click
*click*
ODAI: -iend doesn’t care to be recorded, so I… ah, there it goes.
PIP: Damn, this is good. All right, you got me to eat.
ODAI: Then this is a good day.
PIP: You say you’re coming out of a hermitage?
ODAI: Hm? Oh, yes.
PIP: Voncid talked about that once. Said Luca had drawn him out of one, but didn’t say what it meant. Is it a Hamsa thing?
ODAI: No… well, yes, but not exclusively. I’ve seen it happen with other types of beings. Basically, anyone who is functionally immortal, or at least extremely long-lived, goes through… cycles. Of socializing, and withdrawing. Often… when a particularly close-knit group of friends… disperses.
PIP: You mean dies.
ODAI: Yes, that too. It often causes us to draw back, become a, well a hermit. We’ll still fulfill our duties, respond to others. We don’t vanish into a cocoon and hibernate. But we don’t seek out new connections. We aren’t ready yet. Then, after a suitable amount of time, or when events force us to get over our sadness, we emerge. Ready to seek out new connections again. Friends, or lovers.
PIP: Oh. OH. Oh god. Listen, I’m flattered, but I’m not looking for-
ODAI: genuinely started
Oh! No, I’m…
laughs
No, I’m sorry, I didn’t… I should have… and now I’m laughing at… I’m sorry, truly, my social conversation habits are atrocious, I haven’t exercised them in so long… No, no, this is not a date. I don’t really feel such needs myself. And, even if I did, you’re far too young for me.
PIP: How old are you? Voncid was always cagey when I asked.
ODAI: I’m afraid I will be too, but I’ll try. Voncid and I are among the eldest. We pre-date our time on this world, we did not form here as some others did. That is part of what makes calculating our age so difficult. I spent a long few months once just trying to do the math, and gave it up as a bad job. Oh, we can determine the date we arrived on Earth to within a month or so, but before that, we did not measure time as we do now that we bind to human bodies. Plus there are complications, always. We have each been trapped in time eddies since our arrival, and it’s difficult to calculate how long those last, since they continuously spiral and reset.
PIP: Like Groundhog Day?
ODAI: The… holiday where a rodent prophesies the future?
PIP: The movie. Bill Murray gets caught reliving the same day over and over again, until he learns to be unselfish and focus on those around him.
ODAI: A morality tale?
PIP: A comedy.
ODAI: Really. Yes, very like that. How long does Mr. Murray spend in his cycle?
PIP: The movie doesn’t say.
ODAI: Reality says even less. I’ve been trapped in eddies lasting only minutes, due to accidental mystical side effects, and maliciously cast eddies that held me for years. So, do I calculate age based on time passed or time experienced?
PIP: Experienced, probably.
ODAI: Then yes. Impossible for either of us to say.
PIP: Okay. That’s a better explanation than I ever got out of him.
ODAI: You know, you could still ask him these things. He isn’t dead. That is still him.
PIP: suddenly No, it isn’t. retreating I mean, I know it is but, not… not in some ways that really matter.
ODAI: He is trying. The mask he's taken to wearing isn't exactly an improvement, but he-
PIP: It's still the same voice. Yeah, it's Voncid-y, but it's Charlie's voice. The voice that betrayed us all. Tortured me. Blinded me.
ODAI: Yes. We should have seen this sooner.
PIP: Was that a joke?
ODAI: makes a little sound Uh…
PIP: I’m just giving you shit, it’s how I cope apparently, but, Yes, you should have. Is there anything else?
ODAI: Yes, I'm sorry, none of this was... there is something. I have an offer.
PIP: Can it wait?
ODAI: No. I'm sorry, truly, but it only became available today, and by tomorrow it won't work anymore. It has to be decided now.
PIP: Is it my automobile warranty?
ODAI: It is not.
PIP: Of course. All right, get it over with.
ODAI: Well. It's about Nash Faraday.
PIP: Nash?! Nash is dead.
ODAI: Yes. And like most of the Faradays, Nash was devoted, fully devoted, to the Hamsa, the Ardent. He left everything he had to us. All earthly possessions, and his body. His family has been serving us a very long time and they have certain, rituals, they perform upon the death of an honored son or daughter. That period of ritual has just ended and certain… components have been gifted to us. After this process they are exceptionally puissant, suitable for magic not always available.
PIP: Oh, God. You aren't going to offer me Nash's eyes, are you?
ODAI: No, no. Our resident physician healed some of the physical damage to your eyes, but there was a deeper layer to your injury. Young Mr Baybridge also managed to sever your vision from your body on a mystical level. No amount of physical healing can reconnect it, including replacing the eyes themselves. No, I'm offering you Nash's vision.
PIP: I don't understand. How is that different?
ODAI: Primarily because a master of binding is able to do it, rather than a physician. Vision is the meaning of sight, not the literal nature of sight. Sight is the denotation, vision the connotation. When the Oversoul struck at you, through the traitor, it shattered the connection to the meaning, badly enough that it cannot be repaired. But I believe that I can layer in a replacement, let you see the world with Nash's vision.
PIP: No, I mean... how is that different? How would it feel, how would it be for me? Would I just... start seeing again? Like I did before.
ODAI: No, I... I don't know how it would be different. You'd likely have a new favorite color. You would notice things that you didn't before, the things Nash was trained to look for. Threats. Potential incursion spots, fallback positions. The sort of things a good soldier instinctively scans for. Those instincts become stored in the vision, not the brain.
PIP: Jesus. Anything else?
ODAI: Oh. Uh, did you ever have that philosophical realization, that pondering, where you wondered if the color you saw as red was what others saw as yellow, and vice versa?
PIP: Yeah. Oh shit, would that happen?
ODAI: Possibly. This hasn't been done often enough to get a feeling for how common that kind of change is, but it is possible. It might just be a slight dulling or sharpening of how bright colors look. It might be a reversal of one or two pairs. It might be a complete spectrum shift, where everything is different.
PIP: So I might have to completely relearn how to see. You're really selling this.
ODAI: Also...
PIP: You're fucking kidding me.
ODAI: Well. There are other visual preferences that might crop up. I don’t know much about Nash’s personal life…
PIP: oh you MUST be kidding me.
ODAI: continuing … Since this vision would be directly connected to your mind, not thru your eyes, the eyes' limitations wouldn't apply. You'd likely see about 270 degrees, but possibly as much as the full 360. And closing your eyes wouldn't cut it off. You might have to sleep in a completely dark room.
Pause
I know this seems-
PIP: This is a lot.
ODAI: Yes, high sorcery usually is… a lot.
PIP: And there's no way to know if any of this will happen?
ODAI: Not without doing it. No one can compare vision except by experiencing it.
PIP: And I suppose I can't just... just test drive it. You put it in for five minutes, I see if I'm looking at Satan's asshole through a kaleidoscope or have frog people eyes.
ODAI: No. I mean, I could take it off once it's bound to you, but the process of binding and removing would degrade it. It would become useless for other purposes.
PIP: What else could you use it for? Where the hell else could you put Nash's fucking vision?!
ODAI: The Ardent lobby. As a sort of... security camera. Vision for a Servant like Cosa. Transcendent scrying spells, I may fashion a Eventialusian Mirror, a shallow dish of water you can gaze through layers of worlds, makes a sort of porthole into the oceans of possibilities. See what some of the other time lines are up to. We have great uses for most of our good soldier’s constituent conceptual parts.
PIP: beat That's fucking horrifying. beat Nash was a person
ODAI: I know it sounds ghoulish, believe me I do. But Nash left them to us expecting that they be used. Believe me, if a final testament does not give us explicit permission, we respect the dead. What does not go with them is allowed to decay here.
PIP: I rescind all uses, recycling and upcycling of my body thinking and likeness and… fucking concepts in the event of my death.
ODAI: Noted.
PIP: Okay… Shit. And I have to decide today?
ODAI: By tomorrow, it will have begun its natural decay. It will quickly grow useless to anyone.
PIP: Why now? It's been a year! Why didn’t you tell me about this sooner.
ODAI: It took some... discussion, to even agree to make this offer. I didn’t want to get your hopes up if other decisions were made.
PIP: Right.
ODAI: And... well. Some thought it would be... cruel to even make this offer at all. To force this choice upon you.
PIP: Let me guess. That was Voncid?
ODAI: No. No, Voncid recused himself from this discussion. That was Olivia.
PIP: Really. I didn't know she had human feelings.
ODAI: She masks well. Was she right? Am I being cruel, even in asking?
PIP: If I say no... Give me your honest opinion. Will I get another chance?
ODAI: No.
PIP: Shit. I don't know if you're being cruel. But this sucks.
ODAI: Yes. May I tell you a story?
PIP: Sure, fuck it.
ODAI: I had a friend about... 65 years ago. Norman. World War 2 veteran, saw some things there that awakened him to this aspect of existence. He eventually came to us, as a Blade Gold. He and I became quite close. I was in a different body then, I walked the world as a stately old English lady. One of the strongest women I've ever known, I was proud to walk with her after she died. And he was a rough-and-tumble former marine. We made quite the pair. He was... was driven, to destroy the cruel of this world, to quiet a screaming need within him. I tried to help, but only action brought him solace. One mission, we were part of a small team investigating what seemed to be a series of confidence man thefts, but had some kind of mystical element. Turns out the con man had an... imperfect ability to control the mystical arts. He was also on the premises that we were investigating, to our great surprise. We literally ran into him, and he started throwing half-baked spells at us before we put him down. Norman was hit by an acceleration. It's pretty much just what it sounds like. It speeds up your existence. A one month spell ages you by one month in less than a second. A one year spell, ages you one year. A twenty year spell... In the kind version, you suddenly become twenty years older. In the cruel version, you experience every instant of those twenty years. As you remain frozen in place, only a second or two of real time. Unmoving, unable to call out or twitch your eyes or lose consciousness, twenty years pass before the rest of the world begins to move again. The strongest mind can break under such a strain. Regardless. Norman caught a twenty year spell. But a poor-quality one. He experienced no passage of time, his body experienced twenty years change in patchwork form. Half his head retained its jet-black hair, half became salt-and-pepper. His skin, his heart, his brain, unchanged. But. His bone marrow aged. And, as it turns out, it had a genetic predisposition that hadn't occurred yet in his life, but kicked in during that twenty year flash. Blood cancer. From nothing to stage 4, in a heartbeat. We could reverse the spell, but it had been so shoddily done, it would take time to figure out how to reverse ONLY the affected aspects of Norman. And he had only days to live. So we were left with two choices. Do nothing, and he would die. Or do a full twenty-year reversal. FULL. This was 1957, he was 31. He would become 11. And, much worse, he would lose 20 years' worth of memories. Every moment of the Ardent. Of World War 2. Two thirds of his life, erased. His parents were dead, he had no friends still from grade school. His entire life would become unknowable to him. I begged him to accept the reversal. To get a fresh start. To get a second chance to be happy.
PIP: What did he choose?
ODAI: He chose death as himself, rather than life as a stranger.
PIP: Oh.
ODAI: Yes.
PIP: Oh, shit- SHIT. beat You're in his body, aren't you?
ODAI: Yes. Yes, well done. You're beginning to tap into your gift without your cards?
PIP: Just intuition. That's what you do, isn't it? You don't blend with living people like Voncid or Olivia. You inhabit the dead.
ODAI: I walk with my friends, after they're gone. When they let me. Do you know why I told you that story?
PIP: Because it could always be worse.
ODAI: Because one of the best friends I have ever had, in my uncountable years, chose to die. Chose to stop existing, forever, over my strenuous objections. Because it was a choice that only he could make. And I have never respected him any less because of it. This choice you have now? It… sucks. But your worst case is to choose to remain blind. A condition that millions in this world live with every day, while thriving and loving and feeling the sun on their faces. Both options are a drastic change from what you’re used to and it is profoundly unfair that you have been forced to make it. But it is your choice.
PIP: There are things that I want to do, things that would be so much easier if I could see, but beat they are things I have to do, that I need to do as myself - for myself. So… beat No. Not like this. beat But thank you for the offer.
ODAI: It was my honor to be able to make it. Well.
Chair pushing back
I'm afraid I must go. I will bind good Nash's vision to the Ardent immediately. He will watch over us all, and defend us still. Do you want me to escort you anywhere?
PIP: No, I think I'd like to stay here for a bit. Find my own way back.
ODAI: Of course. It was my pleasure, Ms James.
PIP: Next time, let's just chat, okay? No soul-shaking decisions.
ODAI: I... yes, I would like that. What shall we chat about?
PIP: How about that stately old British lady? I bet she had some stories.
ODAI: She did. You've probably read one of them.
PIP: What?
ODAI: Oh, she was quite talented. And more than a little famous. But, that's for next time.
PIP: Next time then. I’m happy to chat, as long as there’s pie.
Odai walks away, humming
ODAI: Oh, yes. Well, the offer was refused. Which means, Delia, that I owe you a dollar. I didn't broach the subject of how much time she's been spending in the Archive, or what she and Cosa have been up to. I was... concerned, if I pushed harder, she would withdraw. It's frankly miraculous that she seems interested in extending this friendship. For now, I'll take that as a sign she's willing to avoid slipping into her own hermitage, so long as Voncid is not involved. Oh, and note. Her intuitive leap was... I felt something flutter in the air. It was more than intuition. I couldn't tell if Pip... if Ms James knows that yet. Let's keep an eye on that. Signing off.
click
