Copper: "Well, your mother is a dulahan, right, Ragna? That makes you part...demon? In a way. Maybe that's the case with him. Just...different type of mother." She puts her attention on Marth. "I don't feel that's quite his intention but a little extra security couldn't help. So long as you'll be able to make another for yourself as well. I'd feel a lot better if you had the means to do that instead of me."
RJ: "I-I could start with you, and then work on me..." Marth offered, unable to really process exactly what Azure wanted, while being more inclined to offer help than to help himself.
Copper: "All right. So long as you're not running around without that protection in place again for too long." It's really up to Marth when and where they do this, given he'll be the one working the spell. She's also curious to see the casting in action and maybe ask him a few questions about it in the meantime.
RJ: Marth nodded. "Um... We'll need to be somewhere I can concentrate..." he said. Eventually he'd say. "... My room." while Zidane would immediately announce. "You do anything funny and it'll be the end of you." he warned her.
Copper: "Perish the thought. Marth does need to concentrate, after all." She'll give a smile to the young wizard. "Anything you need before we get started, Marth?"
Copper: (Link:
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RJ: (This is?)
Copper: (pic of a lamia I found while browsing a thread. thought I'd share.)
RJ: (oh, was about to call bullshit on that being azure, so far off from my visual interpretation)
Copper: (eheh yeah, mine, too)
RJ: "No, just... You'll have to remain still for a long while as I put it on you, and be careful not to accidentally activate it." he instructed. "How much energy does that take?" Ragna inquired. "Well... A lot of it... I'll have to rest once I'm done helping Azure, and eat." he stated.
Copper: "I think that I can manage that, as long as we're not talking hours upon hours upon hours," she says with a chuckle. "And you'll at least be in your room to rest afterward and we can have something sent up for you afterward. It won't take too much out of you, will it, Marth?"
RJ: "T-two?" Marth seemed to inquire as Azure seemed to fuss about the time, and it seemed Marth was seemingly torn between choosing a safe time and a fast one to meet her seeming interest in cutting short on time. Just the mere look Marth was giving Azure was befitting a canine who is feeling guilty and is partially avoiding looking at you because of that guilt while also looking at you to try and communicate that they're sorry. "Dog ears would fit you so well," Ragna commented, causing Marth to look to him in surprise. "... W-what? Why?" Marth asked in confusion.
RJ: "I'll be fine too, so stop worrying about me." He instructed Azure, his angry expression easily a candidate for the cutest thing ever. The cute little mage not wanting to be coddled, while having the inverse effect on everyone around him.
Copper: "Oh, that's fine. Here I was afraid you were going to say something like six or the like, since I have a feeling that, at least, would cut in to when our mysterious stranger was going to show up." Azure shoots Ragna a look but it's more amused than anything else. Marth, in turn, gets a smile. “All right. I’m just feeling a little unsettled with that band of orcs so close. But, if we’re going to get this done, we likely should get to it.”
RJ: With that said, the group disbanded a bit, though kept relatively close, within eye distance, in case the orcs came back and their comrades needed help with a rowdy pig or two. Or twenty. Either way, Marth would bring Azure up, into the room he and Zidane were sharing. "A-alright, um... Could you... Turn around? I can't concentrate when I'm being looked at." He seemed to imply that in general, though it was clearly that being alone with a woman in his room was making him nervous.
Copper: Azure's a little surprised Zidane isn't insisting on being in the room with them, but then, if it makes things difficult for Marth, that's understandable. Knowing the werecat, he's probably sitting just outside the door, waiting for her to pull something. "I can do that." There's a pause. "Am I making you nervous at all, Marth?" Let's get that elephant right out and into the middle of the room.
RJ: "Y-you're not doing anything wrong!" Marth stated, ironically sounding even more nervous after she asked the question. Once she did turn around, Azure would feel her right arm being wrapped in an odd sensation of warm vibration as Marth was no doubt weaving around it. The boy was silent unless Azure chose to speak.
Copper: That gets a soft chuckle out of her and she will oblige by turning around. "I didn't think so." And he didn't exactly answer the question. Best to leave that be until he was done. "Now, I saw the effects of this on the orcs and they're fairly hardy. What about our friend, do you think? He might be part demon but he's still human."
RJ: "W-well, I didn't invent this weave to really hurt people... Since I learned how tough mamono can be... I found that it was a lot easier to fight them if I could somehow incapacitate them first, or weaken them." he explained. "So, the shock from this weave is supposed to hit your nerve system, scrambling it and causing you to lose control of your body. It's to help me escape more than anything else." He said, before Azure felt a tingling prickle that she'd react to instinctually before Marth let out a gasp of his own surprise. "S-sorry!"
Copper: (what sort of tingling prickle? are we talking a happy tingling? a zappy tingling? or just like a skitter across the skin?)
RJ: (skitter)
Copper: "All right. Well, that's good to know, then." Feeling the energy will get something of a shiver out of her, one that runs from shoulders and down through her tail. There'll be a slight shake of her head as she dismisses the feeling. "It's okay, Marth." She grins a little. "I didn't know magic could be so tingly."
RJ: "W-well, it can be a lot of things!" he said, sounding more excited talking about a subject he was intimately familiar with. "I could make all kinds of feelings with magic." He said, before Azure felt a sourceless vibration erupt on the back of her neck, right on the muscle. A unique and relaxing feeling that the snake woman would never have felt before. "Does that feel good?" he inquired.
Copper: Probably the best way to get the boy to relax. Get him talking about magic. So long as he didn’t get too animated. Or forget what he was supposed to be weaving. She’ll shift just a little, rolling her head a bit, getting familiar with the feeling. As long as it doesn’t stay there for a terribly long time, she does enjoy it. “Very good, Marth. Relaxing.” She’ll give him a bit of a smile.
RJ: Rolling her head, she'd see Marth blush a bit and look down at her smile. "... Thank you..." he said shyly, all other words either lost or caught in his throat as just the mere corner of her eye spotting him made Marth flustered.
Copper: And since we don't want a flustered mage while he's working on the weave, he might catch a gentler smile before she turns back around, making certain to not watch him while he works. "Is it difficult to learn to use magic if you've never done so before?" Time to distract him in a different, more comfortable for him way.
RJ: "Oh, certainly." he said without hesitation nor desire to soften the truth. "It's like operating on a whole new level of existence. The best way to think about it is to think of the whole world as yarn woven together."
Copper: "Hence the term 'weave,' I'd imagine," she comments. "I gather it's a matter of seeing how the different threads relate to one another and how pulling on one affects the others?"
RJ: "Pulling is dangerous. If I were to teach you anything about weaving, it would start from just creating new threads instead of bothering what's already there. The people who start with pulling at the threads that make up their own body... Typically they only get hurt... Usually...."
RJ: "Weaving is basically messing with what makes the existence we can see with our own eyes. It's very easy for someone to think they're god and mess with it as they please. Those kinds of people are... Well, they're the Magi."
Copper: "Would you?" She'll glance back at him at the question, then put her attention elsewhere. "Teach me about weaving? That's definitely one area I'm not very knowledgable."
RJ: This time, Marth's expression would be shock. "Um... M-me? Teach you? S-someone like that... Someone like Bishop might be better at it than me. I don't know how good I'd be at teaching someone how to weave who never did it before..." he stated, the aspect of the task seeming very intimidating to him.
RJ: Then, he seemed to get an idea. "Maybe... I could ask Bishop to teach you? You could get to know each other!" he suggested ignorantly.
RJ: Ignorantly, as in he spoke without knowing a thing about the situation between them that transpired.
Copper: "I don't think Bishop likes me very much, Marth. Though from what I've seen, I don't think he likes mamono very much in general." Or women, but she doesn't say that. Probably just confuse the boy. "Besides, I'd much prefer trying to learn from you first."
RJ: Marth frowns a bit, but not at her. "I know. I know he's got some kind of problem. He's an idiot who doesn't know anything sometimes." he sighed, before Azure stated her preference, and Marth seemed to recall what a certain someone told him about Azure desiring him. His face turned deep red. "Um... Am I... Really... Do I really seem that competent to you?" he asked.
Copper: His words make her chuckle softly but she doesn't say anything in response. “I think that you’d be a good teacher for a beginner, that’s for sure. Someone as intense as Bishop might scare me off learning. And you seem interested in theory, too, as much as what the spells can do.” She focuses the conversation more on the magic than him, hopefully helping him to grow a little more relaxed while thinking about that, not her.
RJ: Marth still went silent as Azure threw him compliments. He seemed to be in thought. FIfteen minutes passed of Marth being silent while working on his weaving, before he finally spoke. "Um... Azure..." he seemed highly hesitant to ask this question. "Don't take this the wrong way, it's just conversation... But... Well, you probably hear the things Zidane says and... What is... W-what is your relationship truly, with Capri?"
Copper: She lets him work and stew over her words. The way he starts the question does have her glancing back at him with one of her brows arched slightly but she's willing to hear him out. "My relationship with Capri?" She grows quiet while she thinks of her answer to that. "We're partners. To shorten the story, I claimed him after he'd been captured by some dark elf slavers and was escaping. When I caught him, he said he didn't want to be abandoned. So I made him the offer to stay with me. We talked about going to a sea bishop but he's not ready to take a step like that. So, we're partners. I'm trying to help him with his dream, which is to study mamono, and," she draws that last bit out, trying to find a good way to explain it. "I have a partner."
RJ: "Oh... I see." Marth said, seeming to have a tone of relief as if fully understanding the situation. The amount of comfort Marth had seemed to increase exponentially after that conversation, and Marth was content to just finish his work unless Azure spoke further.
Copper: She'll let him get most of the work done, especially since he seems to be very much focused on the task at hand. As he's winding down, she will pipe up with "So what brought that question on? About Capri?"
RJ: Marth seemed to go right back to being flustered when questioned. "Uh...! No... No reason?" he replied, revealing himself once again as a bad liar.
Copper: Which amuses her a little. "You seem to have had some reason. Are you curious?" There's a pause. "Jealous?" She's not looking at him, so he can't see the smile that she's got on her face, knowing she's teasing him horribly with that one.
RJ: "Jealous!?" Marth exclaimed, as Azure felt a sharp prick as if a needle poked her. Whether that was on purpose or not wasn't clear. "Azure, you could be a little more humble!" Marth scolded her. "I was only asking because Zidane seems to think you an offender to men. And when you talk like that I can see his point a little."
Copper: "Ouch!" She got poked. Natural reaction. "Not really in my nature." She's resisting the urge to reach around to the spot where she felt the jab and rub it. "Besides, Marth, I was just teasing. I didn't think you would be. Though I'm curious what you think about his and my relationship."
RJ: "Well..." More time spent thinking. "I think it's a good thing for people to fall in love." he gave a generic reply.
Copper: "I'm not entirely sure we're there yet. So you see it as...romantic?"
RJ: Marth blinked. "... I don't understand, why wouldn't it be romantic?"
Copper: "My and Capri's relationship isn't exactly what you'd consider traditional romance, Marth. I care for him, certainly, but," there's a pause, "at least right now," another pause, "we're still figuring things out."
RJ: Marth went silent at that, finishing the weave before leaning back, going flat on the floor. "Whew... That was tiring..."
Copper: "But it is complete." Azure will turn around slowly, keeping a bit of distance between them still. "Just don't fall asleep on me before you tell me how to make it work," she says with a bit of a laugh.
RJ: "Oh... Can you feel like something's wrapped around your arm?" he inquired. "Put your other hand on your arm and grasp as if grabbing your sleeve, then pull." he instructed.
Copper: At his direction, she'll reach over and lay a hand on the opposite arm, though she doesn't pull yet, since, well, that sounds like a trigger. She wants to make sure that she can feel it at the very least.
RJ: She most certainly can!
Copper: Then she'll confirm with him. "And the pull is the trigger? Like...ripping it off?"
RJ: "Yeah, the spell is contained in something like a package, and I wrapped you in some protection so you should be good for a couple days."
Copper: "Well, here's hoping I won't actually have to use it, but...thank you, Marth. For doing this."
RJ: "No problem..." he said, yawning. "I just wanna lay in bed for a while." he said, almost crawling over to bed and crawling on the sheets, getting comfy rather quick.
Copper: "All right." She lets out a soft bit of a chuckle as she catches him crawling, moving over and gently scooping him up to place him on the bed and gather the covers around him. "I'll send Zidane up with something to eat later for you."
Copper: (time to make Marth panic briefly)
RJ: Marth let out a panic as he was picked up like a princess, when Azure felt an odd surge flow through her. A pleasant and unforseen sensation came from Marth that would make her feel light headed and send her heart aflutter. A feeling that would pass the moment she broke physical contact with him. "Y-you shouldn't... Touch me." Marth warned her a little too late after she already suffered the apparent effects.
Copper: Once he's on the bed, her hand comes up to massage her temple and she's taking slow, deep breaths to help clear the fog. Whatever the hells that was, it certainly goes along with what she and Capri were talking about earlier. "Marth, what...is that? Another weave?" She hasn't moved off but she's keeping to herself and it looks like she's going to, so he needn't worry about that.
RJ: "Yes." Marth said quickly, not wanting to go in further. "It's been around for a long time. It's better if you don't come into direct contact with me at all." he said to her. Again, the sensation would be far from unpleasant. In fact, it would have been easy for Azure to keep him in close contact and just be absorbed in the magic as it wer.e
Copper: She doesn't press, at least not on the initial question. "Is it like that with anyone? Or just mamono?" The questions aren't asked to pry but to understand. In fact, she might even look a little worried.
RJ: "W-why do you want to know so much?" Marth said defensively. "It's just a weird thing about me. It's better if you don't know anything. Okay?"
Copper: "Well, for one thing, if we're going to be working together, I'd like to avoid surprises like that. What if you hadn't actually been awake to tell me that." There's a pause. "And for that matter, why didn't that happen when I carried you out of the slaver's back at the temple? I don't remember feeling anything like that when I carried you back to the house. Does it only happen when you're awake? Or aware? I'm not honestly intending to pry, Marth, but I want to at least understand. If you don't know, then that's fine. Tell me. There's nothing wrong with saying that you don't. And if you do but there's things you don't want to share, I understand that, too, but please, at least tell me enough so that I can understand the boundaries of it."
RJ: Marth took a moment, but he finally turned around and seemingly had intent on addressing Azure directly. His expression was serious. "Azure, if you stay too close to me, you may end up losing who you are. Something very bad happens to those who come too close to me. It's a very long, and complicated story, but trust me when I say that you don't want anything to do with what I am." he said flatly, before rolling back over in the bed. "It builds up over time, and seemingly only through physical contact. So... It's best if you treat me like I'm diseased, for your own sake." he stated simply.
Copper: She settled, listening to him. "Even if it is long and complicated, I'm willing to listen. When you're ready to share," she adds, since it's clear this doesn't seem to be something he wants to talk about right now. "I'll keep what you said in mind, Marth, but it's not going to stop my working with you. Or the fact that I'd still like for you to teach me to use magic." He'll feel the covers of the bed drawn up and draped over him, Azure taking care not to come in contact with him again. "What you described sounds frightening for someone to have to carry. And lonely. Just remember that it doesn't have to be, not with us here with you." That said, she'll leave him to rest, heading back to join the others, if they're around, still half expecting to find Zidane standing guard outside of the room.
RJ: "That's what I was afraid you'd say." Marth said as Azure left to join the others. And indeed, Zidane was standing guard directly outside of the room, his ears twitching as a feline's would. "You're being way too nosy." Zidane commented. "Marth has us, and that's all he needs. His curse doesn't affect the same sex like it does to someone like you. We're the ones who protect him from it becoming a problem. And I'll tell you now, the more you help him the worse it'll get. Once you fall into the curse, it'll be too late for you. After all, we confirmed that you weren't the first manager we've had that was a woman right?" he reminded Azure. "We had to kill the other one because she lost her mind. Think about that." Zidane said, before standing up from where he was leaning against the wall and turning to leave.
Copper: Azure's brow goes up at Zidane's words. "Actually, I'm afraid you neglected that little bit of information." He'll find his way blocked by her tail stretching across the hall in front of him. "That at least answers one question, which was whether you all were aware of it or not. I'm presuming you've looked into the cause? Or how to get it lifted?"
RJ: Blocked, Zidane looked angry that Azure continued to push despite his warnings. "It's for his sake that I'm going to tell you absolutely nothing! If you want to dig further, it's your tombstone! Marth himself is looking into it every day." he'd mention, as Azure would no doubt recall Marth in that small library hiding books from Azure. "So, your assistance is not wanted. The last thing he'd want is another victim of his condition."
Copper: "That I can understand." There's a pause. "Are you sure it only affects women or is it people who might be attracted to him? Sexually speaking."
RJ: Zidane raised his brow. "What? Why would you ask that?"
