usir | this is an illegal library

Character(s): Billie & Daud
Status: Closed
Location(s): Abandoned House, City of the Free Peoples
Date(s) Early April
About: Billie has an odd taste in reading material.
Warnings: Discussion of dead things, necromancy probably.

"Red, that isn't food," Billie says quietly, tiredly, as she nudges the dragon away from the cover of one of four books sitting on the table next to her. The hatchling has been puttering around the tabletop, nosing what she's brought home with her, making sure it isn't actually food before sprawling out by her arm and stretching wings out with a curious chirp.

So far, having the damn thing is turning out to be like having a kitten around. That's something she can tolerate, seeing how Red isn't actually a cat at all and, speaking from the perspective of a cat, that causes less stereotypical irritation. Prodding at the dragon isn't what she's up to, though.

What she's actually down here for, at a ridiculously early hour of the morning, is paging through one of the books in particular. The first three are professionally bound and well-cared for but the fourth one, in front of her? Handmade, hand-written, and clearly something worth losing sleep over at this hour.

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“Did he mention it granting him any other elemental affinities as well?” Daud asks, with no commentary on relative skills keeping secrets or otherwise.

"He didn't," Billie admits. She hadn't even thought to ask and now she's mentally kicking herself about that. "He didn't seem surprised about the scales, though. I've asked him to help me find a way to track them back to where they came from, which is why I was looking for any of these—"

She waves towards all the books. The other two on the table are much more mainstream, one about dark magic and monsters and another about empathic spells.

"In the first place."

"Shouldn't mistake talkativeness for a lack of things to hide," Daud says, but it's not scolding -- more an observation, than anything else. The mage's proven useful before, and he has no doubt in his mind he will again, but a fixation on dragons like what he possesses? Can't lead to anything good.

"Be careful what you let him see. He may not be inspired to imitate that ritual, but there's enough in here that I'd be worried what he might try to do with the dragon's corpses, given the chance."

He pauses, looking at her shrewdly.

"What do you plan to do, if you find out where they're from?"

"You mean besides cry over it?" Billie sounds less concerned over what Strange may or may not do with a dragon's corpse, mostly because she's seen the fixation towards them as more akin to reverence than anything else. It isn't an observation to dismiss outright, however.

"But I'll keep an eye on him."

Hard not to when she's stuck working with him even without this dragon scale mess. That, what her plan is if she does find them? That's a very good question. She considers it for a moment. Having dragon magic — or whatever it might turn out to be — thrust upon her unexpectedly has been an unwanted, if useful, happening thus far.

Red is a fate she chose, however haphazardly that may have been. This? Different. A little off-putting.

"That's going to depend on the who and the where. If Strange is right and it is the dragons, that's out of my league." Daud's, too. There's no better assassin but taking down what's practically a god-tier dragon isn't going to happen. "If it's something a little more our size yanking our chains, I may see about tracking them down in person."

“I see,” is Daud’s impassive, likely infuriating answer. He could comment further on the matter — has more than enough experience to — but it seems wiser to keep his opinions to himself for now, focusing on skimming through the book. It’s a plan that Billie came up with and began to execute without his input. If she wanted to know what he thought about the matter, she wouldn’t be shy asking, though there was a time he could have taken that as a matter of course. The days he was trying to shape her in his image.

Of course, that belligerent obstinacy is something she comes by naturally, not something he taught.

Billie waits for a tic or two for Daud to expand upon that but, of course, he doesn't. She's not surprised. She imagines it's pointless to prompt for more than that, only she's tired and finally trying to talk about all this weird shit.

"And? That's it?"

That slips out in a very flat tone of voice. If he's looking for belligerent obstinacy, he's getting it.

All that aside, he does finally come across a few pages based around usage of dragon scales. The one that is most likely to catch his eye is titled "Breath of Idan". The spell is a complicated one requiring an extensive list of materials, a few of which seem near impossible to collect: basilisk venom, elemental tears, phoenix ash, dragon scale, unicorn blood, and stardust.

The spell is alchemical and from the looks of it could be considered dark magic by the current laws of Idan. It creates a touch transfer of magic called an "echo" that grants the first person to touch the enchanted transfer charm of choice an echo of an ability of the original source. The source is the reason for the dark magic connotation as it is specifically defined as heart's blood.

"Were you expecting something more?" Daud asks, glancing up at Billie briefly. "It's a matter worth investigating. I assume you've considered the risks and decided the benefits outweigh the possible costs. If you started it, then you have to see it through."

Because that's how I taught you.

But even as he says that, his expression changes -- not because of what he's telling Billie, but something that's obviously caught his attention on the page. As he reads, he only looks more concerned, but rather than explain what he's found, he turns the book and pushes it closer to Billie.

"I think your scale was enchanted with this."

If she was expecting more, she won't say what. Advice, maybe, or to know whether or not he disapproved of this, too, though he isn't wrong in what he does say instead. She started it. She'll follow it to the end. Anything else she may have said dies on her lips the second Daud actually has any kind of expression on his face.

That it's a concerned one makes it that much worse.

She'll take the book back when he offers it over, picking out the passage fast enough. It's a quick glance over the words at first but then she's sitting up straighter, backtracking and rereading it all a second time, how she holds herself growing tenser by the second.

"Who would have all of this?" She asks at last. A pointless question. Neither of them can answer it but it's hard not to wonder aloud when every ingredient for the enchantment is wilder and rarer than the last. "Why would they waste it on a total stranger?"

"Someone with a lot of magic," Daud surmises, hands folded together on the desk. He can't help glancing over at Red as he says it, though he knows the little dragon can't possibly be the source of the enchanted scale -- he can barely figure out what's edible and what isn't, some days.

"And they're either desperate enough to take the risk, or have enough power that this is nothing to them." Which one is more dangerous to them in the long run? Hard to say. "Perhaps they simply thought it would be interesting."

No keeping the touch of bitterness out of his tone, there. Daud's not heard from the Outsider since he came back to life, but this feels uncomfortably similar, being kept blind and in the dark.

Edited 2019-04-14 07:37 (UTC)

Red, who's apparently gotten tired of watching the adults look stressed and has fallen back to trying to figure out if Strange's book can be eaten. He has a corner of the cover in his mouth, though his jaws aren't even remotely strong enough to cut through leather. Therefore, he's mostly just drooling on it.

He'll stop when Daud glances at him, perking up immediately and lets out an inquisitive little chirp. Is the conversation about him again? Yes? No?

It isn't, but the chirp draws Billie's attention away from the book and back to the hatchling briefly. She looks less than impressed with the slobber and toothmarks now marring a few pages but she also doubts Strange will care. If anything, he'll consider it a blessing, knowing that guy...

"All the more reason to track down where the scales came from," she sighs and turns back to the page in question. "I don't know if I'll get my answers but I have to try."

Which is funny. Daud isn't the only one who's mind strays towards the Outsider when that hint of bitterness comes out in his words. She'd always wanted to find him, same as Daud had, probably too curious about the spirit for her own good, and now she has her own Outsider to hunt down, only she has no name or idea of who they even are.

Edited 2019-04-14 17:42 (UTC)

“Be prepared for whatever you find,” Daud answers, simply. He could offer inane advice about any number of things pertaining to the matter at hand, but that, in his view, is the only insight that matters. Being ready for the consequences of your actions.

“Or the attention you attract,” he adds. Is distinguishing herself a good thing? He highly doubts it is, in the long run, but he’s curious too.

this is an illegal library

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