[Open]

[flightybookshrew]

Date & Time: Any time between the 20th and the 25th, in the afternoons.
Location: An abandoned, half-ruined building.
Characters: Rose Lalonade and OPEN
Summary: Rose is reacquainting herself with the Thorns of Oglogoth.
Warnings: Violence against inanimate objects?

Rose was fairly certain this was a terrible idea.

Which wasn't stopping her, unfortunately, but at least some part of her was aware that this particular decision was probably going to bite her in the ass. That was at least what brought her to this out of the way, already ruined building on the edge of the inhabited area of the city, standing in the half-destroyed second floor, enough sections of the walls and ceiling missing that it looked like some monstrous beast had taken a bite out of it centuries ago.

She couldn't help but feel it was an oddly appropriate setting as she reached into the sleeves of her robe and drew out the carefully wrapped black cloth that contained the wands. Her wands. The Thorns of Oglogoth. As much as she didn't wish to claim ownership over them, there was little questioning that they were hers now, if they had been drawn across time and space to arrive with her.

Either that, or this universe had as twisted a sense of humor as the last one.

She unwrapped the wands, leaving them laying across her palm for a moment, the thin silk fabric between her skin and the weapons. She hadn't been avoiding using them, precisely, but she hadn't been going out of her way to do so...she hadn't touched them since her little dalliance with her past self, but she couldn't keep putting it off any longer, could she?

Before her brain could object again, she snatched the wands from her palm, holding them between two fingers as she stuffed the fabric back into her pocket and then quickly slipped one of the wands into her now-empty hand. With one in each, she could feel the dark magic that constantly lingered within them, crackling faintly, her hands wrapped in a soft purple glow.

A long, deep breath and she reached out, mentally, feeling the magic wrap around her form, the soft purple glow flickering to every limb, up around her head, and then she spun around and a small arc of lightning lashed out from the wand in her right hand to smash into a pile of boxes she'd stacked up in the corner. Bits of wood and cardboard scattered about, but the pile itself remained mostly intact.

Hrm. Maybe she really did need practice with these...

Comments

[speakveryclearly]

"Those weapons don't suit you when your soul's not actually overtaken by the darkness, you know."

The arrival of the rainbow drinker in the warehouse was unannounced by anything other than the sudden presence of a glow behind the Seer. In reality, at a casual pace she tracked the hint of lavender candy just barely distinguishable from the standard human swill of rust and iron. Her tone was crisp and her makeup immaculate.

"It is in fact possible to trade them in for something else, Rose."

[flightybookshrew]

If Rose was surprised that Kanaya was behind her, it didn't show...though that was added back having her face turned away, so even if she was surprised, it was gone behind her usual pleasant mask when she turned to face the glowing troll.

"And what then, Kanaya? I abandon the thorns to the ever-so-secure hands of our new associates? What if they are given out to someone else?" She glanced down at the wands in her hand for a moment, then back over to the troll.

"There is no one better suited to dealing with them than I, and it would be wrong of me to force them on others."

[speakveryclearly]

"They could be snapped in half," she offered amicably. "I don't know much about wands yet, but I am fairly confident that would permanently stop them from working.

"It was my distinct impression that you ascended. Don't you have other abilities now?"

[flightybookshrew]

"And what of the power trapped inside them? If we snap these in half, where does it go? Does it simply dissipate? Or could their be an explosion the likes of which either of us can barely comprehend." Rose frowned. "It's one of those fifty-fifty chances where I don't like either possible outcome, regardless of how they might follow through."

"I have, and I do," Rose was quiet for a moment, considering Kanaya carefully. "But they are not offensive in any direct way."

[speakveryclearly]

"Well," she said with the slowness of thought, "if there is an explosion it'd probably be safer if I left, but there's nothing particularly heroic or just about a magic experiment gone wrong, is there. And dissipation is from the theories of power I've gleaned from your own putative mother a likelier option."

She left the assertion of defensiveness untouched for now.

[flightybookshrew]

"I was thinking an explosion on a somewhat larger and grander scale than one that would simply inconvenience me with a temporary demise, to be fair. Given the power contained with these, I don't really have a frame of reference for how large it might be if we destroyed them."

She shook her head. "I have considered it, honestly. And this ravaged world is certainly the most appropriate place for such a thing, but the survivors hardly deserve to have me unleash some kind of dark magic WMD on them."

[speakveryclearly]

"You know, I think that considering hubris is what began this flirtation with darkness in the first place, you might not want to overestimate the power wielded by those either."

Kanaya was getting concerned about Rose's reasoning. She could follow it, but it didn't seem to lead towards any kind of solution. "You know, if you gave them back to the Initiative, their inheritor might be willing to be the dark gods' puppet."

[flightybookshrew]

"I can tear a building from its foundations and hurl it through the air like a ball with these, Kanaya. If I'm overestimating, I've seen no evidence of it."

She frowned more. "I haven't heard the whispers since I arrived. There don't seem to be horrorterrors here, so far, but I don't think giving anyone else this power is any safer than me having it myself."

[speakveryclearly]

Kanaya crossed her arms and leaned away. "I can see there's no convincing you here."

There never was. She'd almost forgotten for a few seconds that Rose didn't need her anymore - if she ever had in the first place, considering how she'd done in the game on her own.

[flightybookshrew]

Perhaps there is no convincing me because I am unwilling to risk placing the Thorns in the hands of anyone who may be capable of losing themselves to whatever dark power lingers within them.

We already know I am capable of handling it, one way or another.

[speakveryclearly]

You say that like someone who was never overtaken before. You're going in circles - first they're too dangerous to be destroyed, then they're somehow safe for you in spite of that.

[flightybookshrew]

I did not say they were safe, merely that I am the prime candidate to handle them.

And that it is my burden, I can't push it onto someone else and expect them to understand.

[speakveryclearly]

[Oh, well, snap, does that phrasing just hit her right in the core.]

They're going to evolve, you know.

[flightybookshrew]

I'm still not entirely certain I believe that. [She considers the wands carefully.]

Has your weapon changed, Kanaya?

[speakveryclearly]

Yes. I've gotten preternatural accuracy among other things.

[She sticks her left hand out to the side and decaptchalogues her gun. With her vision still locked on Rose and her target perpendicular to that, she fires into the wall bullets that form a five-pointed star around an additional center hole.]

[flightybookshrew]

[Rose is suitably impressed, though as usual it's mostly hidden. After a careful moment considering the holes in the wall she turned back.]

I was under the impression you preferred your chainsaw.

[speakveryclearly]

[Very calm about the whole discussion.] I do. But it's not a weapon with very great evolutionary potential. I wanted to branch out, to have a reason to train. And this did take training; you should have seen me at first. I think I took off somebody's foot.