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Varanim Bangbangbang! Varanim never knocks quietly, or once.
Lucent "Come in, it is open!" Lucent calls... and as soon as the door opens, a death's head grin greets Varanim, from a floating skull. It twists out of her way, a set of nerve connections moving past it, a muscles connecting to it at some point where they clash near Lucent, in the middle of a Kata in the center of the room. Every movement the myriad figures of the human body around him change, a whirlwind of images of humanity at its base.
Lucent Before him floats the Orb of Chiurgeony, Lucent's Essence blooming to it and striking it like a drum, echoing outwards with little droplets of moonsilver that touch broad, almost childlike images coming from Lucent and turn them into complex forms perfect to the most minute detail. He turns to smile at Varanim, finishing the Kata, and all of the bones and blood and nerves in the air shift to his hands, into a body and broken up again.
Lucent He touches it and it breaks down to components, components he weaves into Man and Woman, little models in his hands, parts of a greater whole brought with the moonsilver from the floating ball and a double-helix of golden light. "Did you know we were so INCREDIBLE?"
Varanim whistles, low and appreciative, at the flowing pageant of anatomy. Her eyes flicker along the display, then Lucent speaks and her face assumes a more normal expression of faint inquiry mixed with a smirk. "Izzums enjoying his new toy?"
Lucent He touches Man and Woman together, and they meld... for a moment it seems like a sexual act, but it swirls out, and they are light, Anima and Animus, Higher and Lower Soul. His anima stretches out, touches the ball and it sends out moonsilver refractions that give them all the details of a Human Soul. "Yes!" He says with the widest grin she had ever seen in his face.
Lucent Or any other's, for that matter.
Lucent ((Widest SMILE!))
Varanim Wincing as if Lucent's sunshine was aggravating the very hangover of her soul, Varanim edges into the room. "If you can pry yourself away from embracing the universe for a minute, you have a homework assignment." She flicks a gleaming sliver at him--a needle, a couple of inches long--though her eyes keep straying to the Orb.
Lucent blinks, taking the Needle from her hand as he watches the Soul-Bridge. "Higher and Lower soul, dancing together... we can only be as Gods when they touch. Behold! Exaltation!" The Orb spirals towards them, touching, and what occurs next is almost undescribable. The light subsides, with Lucent looking dream-eyed at what he had just seen... and, finally, at the needle. "I do not sew very well."
Varanim looks vaguely ill at the vision, and a little cranky. "I'm confident that you sew terribly--luckily, the needle is for you to stick in my eye." From her pocket she unwads a detailed diagram of the eye structure, tapping a little cavity in front of the lens. "I need some aqueous humour in a bottle."
Lucent picks up the paper, pressing the needle to it. The paper seems to disappear and it is in the air, an image of the eye, perfect and in all possible dimensions, and he touches the needle to it, a mistake. Another mistake. Correcting himself as he goes on, more a virtuoso with each failed try and each success. "Why?"
Varanim For a second Varanim looks distinctly jealous, watching the replica. "Hm? Oh, Zee thinks I can't cry." She beams. "And drunks have shaky hands."
Lucent "So you want me to... make you cry?"
Varanim "Weren't you listening? Try checking a diagram of the ear sometime, see what's wrong with yours. I want you to drain a bit of the fluid from there"--her finger jabs into the replica image--"so I can put it in here." She brandishes a vial. "There's some stuff about a life-death bridge, but I've got that part."
Lucent "Oh, I see." And then, he gets it right. A perfect slide in, taking the tears out, balanced in the edge of the needle. The image disappears. "So, please sit down by the bed," He gestures to it, delicate, exotic sheets filled with the medical books all open, "... er, sorry about the mess."
Varanim slouches into a seat, sniffing disdainfully at said mess. "Some people live like PIGS." She flicks her two index fingers together, leaving a bead of blood on the right one, and lifts it to her left eye before pausing to raise her eyebrows at Lucent. "I admit I expected more fuss."
Lucent "Are you kidding me?" The smile is large as he looms closer, "I have been looking at those diagrams, breaking and creating life the entire week. I was DYING for a change to put it on practice... now, lie down. That way your head will not move much. But, yes, I was DYING for a chance... this is like a Calibration Party come early."
Varanim Starting to look vaguely nervous, Varanim says, "You sound like Zahara planning to put in a new bed of torture roses--that's actually a little creepier than usual, nice try. But you can't chase me away that easily." She slouches back with a brief but visible effort of will, holding the bloody finger above her eye as a half-formed Essence pattern swirls in the droplet of red.
Lucent "You have spent so long with the dead that true enthusiasm scares you?" However, the big grin does not vanish as the needle comes closer, and closer... and touch. A cold light suffuses her, however, and no feeling comes from the touch. None at all. "Knowledge is like a drug, you know? You can never have enough..."
Varanim stares unblinking as the needle approaches, squeezing the blood from her finger just before contact. A single drop falls on her eye, spreading in a smoky red film as her vision slides over into Netheos. She lets out a breath, holding her eyelids apart with soulsteel fingers to keep from blinking. "If you start to give me advice about addiction management, I think I'll throw up in my...
Varanim ...mouth," she says, in a tone even more snappish than usual.
Lucent goes on, very, very carefully. It touches the lacrimal gland. "No, not that at all. I am just happy. Intoxicated, you could say, with all that knowledge. The eye is a beautiful thing, I wonder how Thirteen managed to live so long without..." The tears begun to slide on the needle. "Thank you."
Varanim "Yes, well." Varanim, who would shrug or shuffle away with a sneer at this point, can't even content herself with scowling without risk of jarring her eye. "Ophthalmology was never my specialty."
Varanim "At the risk of triggering horrible screams, could you hurry up a bit?"
Lucent touches hidden spots close to her eye, lowering the needle. Just a bit. Still keeping it from tearing the eye even as it flows so deep in. It begins to fill. "No, thank you for asking. For trusting me. Almost full. Almost..."
Varanim "It's just a homework assignment. Don't be such a GIRL," Varanim says through gritted teeth.
Lucent ... and it slides out. "Filled. The tears of a Solar Necromancer. You could use it to break half of Stygia, I am sure." He places it on her hand, although she does not feel it. The cold light vanishing, she finally does. "There. You can look at Creation again."
Varanim stands up with great haste and then recovers herself with a slouch, spinning the vial in her soulsteel fingers. The other hand lifts to poke at her eye gingerly, then she says "ow" with some relief and blinks the reddish film clear. "Neat," she adds, a little grudgingly.
Lucent tries to prevent her from getting up, but sighs. She had to do everything too fast. "Well, I am still honored you trusted me to suceed on such a complex homework, nonetheless. So, teach." He beams, "How do I grade?"
Varanim "Pfft, whatever. If you'd screwed it up, the guilt would just give you extra incentive to learn right for next time." She still looks a little fidgety, but brightens at the chance to grade. "Good technique, bad melodrama. Forget about being bright and pretty all the time; if you want to do medicine as more than a dilettante, sooner or later you'll be up to your elbows in shit and blood."
Lucent "People will be dying, crying, they will need me to be even brighter."
Varanim "It won't be enough," she says harshly, then twitches her shoulders in a shrug. "Anyway. If you ever need a sharp poke in the eye, I'm naturally generous and kind-hearted to return the favor."
Lucent "Of course! Not that I think you need to. I have reinvented myself so few things can harm me. Oh, and I was thinking of your Essence..." His anima reaches out. It touches the Orb of Chiurgeoni and bounces, and Varanim feels an F-Sharp sound touch her back as his palm does, and then... before her comes images of her skeleton, of her nervous system, of her soul, as if they jumped out of her body...
Lucent ... "... how an arm like yours' works, and thinking... see there? How it moves?"
Varanim "Gah." Varanim jitters enough to drop the vial, though her hand flashes out and catches it before it can fall more than a couple of inches. She stuffs it in her pocket and wheels to glare at Lucent. "Stop DOING that. I--oh. Huh." She looks ferociously torn between stalking out and studying the diagram, and knowledge wins out for the moment.
Lucent The skull-diagram and the nervous-diagram countain some cues but he moves straight to the soul-diagram, watching the soulsteel arm, so shadowed over something so bright. "See, I think I am learning about how this works, the way it is fused with your Essence, and I am pretty sure... that we could give you your arm back."
Varanim Varanim, who was rubbing absently at her shoulder joint, stops and glares at Lucent. "Wow, and here I thought you had another problem to work on. Im... rana? No, that wasn't it."
Lucent "... and why do you think I came accross the effects of necromantic infusions on Solar flesh and soul?"
Varanim "Cute, but your next homework assignment is learning to have a little more focus than a drunk hummingbird. My arm is fine, unlike certain broken Solars' Essence patterns. So make a folder labeled 'Fixing Imrama' and another one labeled 'Fixing Varanim,' and slap yourself every time you reach for the second one."
Lucent "Is that because you feel fine the way you are, or because you cannot abide someone helping you in that?" Nevertheless, the images of Varanim In All Her Layers begin to vanish, coalescing into the... folders.
Varanim "Didn't you know?" Varanim smirks. "The gods help those who help themselves."
Varanim A little unwillingly, she adds, "If you MUST tinker, try to figure out how po readjustments. Mine's been on a little sideways since that nonsense with the Herald."
Lucent smiles, "That IS true, yes... but the world will never stop being at stake, Varanim. And when all our friends are together, you WILL be my priority." He nods, however, a good student. "Will do!"
Varanim shudders a bit, and leaves.
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