01. (For Strange) Two in the folk who keep the dead down

[choosethepath]

This place stinks of death. Sabriel stands up from the ice, confused but not panicked. She had not crossed the First Gate, which meant that she had likely been pulled back into Life. But where? And why? At first, all she can see is ice, great pillars of it that seem like a king's guard. As she turns, she finally spies the ship- the source of the death, though she senses great life too. But no danger.

She doesn't question how she has her bells back- all in proper shape and well cleaned except for Astarael. She checks the bandolier across her chest, touching each bell gently. Abhorsen's sword at her hip and the bells at her chest, she feels a least somewhat protected. Her surcoat, decorated with a key pattern, is still around her shoulders, though she has lost the majority of her armor. It didn't seem as if she came straight from the battle, but she didn't feel any different. She could even feel the Charter here, around her, like a comforting blanket, so she must still be north of the wall.

Forming the charter marks for warmth, strength, and light, she whistles them out and finds herself with a comforting light at her shoulder that gives her enough warmth to cut through the ice. "Is anyone there?" she calls out softly, not wanting to draw attention to anything dead that might be lurking.

Comments

[choosethepath]

Normally, Sabriel would balk a bit at sitting alone in a strange man's room with no chaperone, but that's the least of her worries. There was a lot to take in- the creature, the deaths, but one thing he said made her panic. "What do you mean...they will be back soon?" She instinctively reaches for her bandolier, touching the handle of the bell though she doesn't let it ring.

[kingsroads]

"The dead do not stay dead," Strange remarks, with a small sigh. "I am living proof of that fact."

As they reach the door to his room, Strange opens it and then gestures for Sabriel to enter.

[choosethepath]

She steps inside, shaking her head. "You don't feel dead. Not any more than the this ship," she remarks, though she takes a visible step back. She stands for a moment before finding a place to sit. She's clearly unnerved, but not panicked. Not yet.

[kingsroads]

The bedroom doesn't fit with the ship. The floors are a different wood, the walls are wallpapered, the ceiling is a little bit higher than the ceiling of the hallway. Inside is a large, four-poster bed, a divan placed against one of the walls, a desk with a chair in front of it, and a clothes-press sitting against the wall. There is a window with the curtains drawn that oddly, looks out over the English countryside.

Of course, the room has also suffered a bit from the attack. Two of the posts on the bed have snapped and a large beam has fallen from the ceiling, smashing the desk chair and blocking access to most of the desk itself.

"But I am. Or was, I suppose. I remember my death and others found my corpse." As he talks, Strange instinctively reaches up to rub at his neck, a nervous tic he's developed since his stay on the ship. "I do not know for certain why that is possible, but most suspect that it is because we are not in reality. I believe we are in a shared dream."

[choosethepath]

Once she's sitting, she finally takes stock of the room around her. It's odd, to go from the ship to this strange bedroom, but she's honestly just trying to keep up at this point.

Watching him, it's clear that he's been through something, and she decides to soften her approach a touch.

"A shared dream," she repeats, mostly to herself. "Odd. And so you are from...a different reality? I suppose you don't know what Chart Magic is? Or who the Abhorsen is?"

[kingsroads]

Strange shakes his head: two terms unfamiliar to him. He isn't dismayed by the lack of recognition. In fact, he seems interested more than anything else. He's already accepted that different magics may exist, thanks to his experiences here. But that just means there are more things for him to learn about.

"Do you know of the Raven King? Or what about the realms of Faerie?"

[choosethepath]

She actually smiles as she shakes her head. So that explained why he didn't recognize her. And why his magic didn't use the Charter. She had been pulled into a dream. She could feel the realm of Death here, too, opened by the loss of so much life, but perhaps that was something of her own choosing. "I think we have a lot to learn of each other, Mr..." Oh damn. She forgot to introduce herself. Miss Prionte would be livid if she knew.

[kingsroads]

Almost at the same time, Strange thinks oh damn, he forgot to introduce himself. Having spent most of the last five years as a recognizable public figure, Strange occasionally has to remember that new arrivals won't know who he is.

"Oh, I'm terribly sorry, I should have introduced myself earlier. I am Jonathan Strange." And he offers a hand for Sabriel to shake.

[choosethepath]

Sabriel is tempted to introduce herself as the Abhorsen, but it seemed rather strange to do here when no one would know what that means. "Sabriel," she tells him. "Just...Sabriel." She takes his hand and shakes it formally. "So...tell me about your magic. I've just started learning mine. I mean...I learned it in school, but then I went to the Old Kingdom and realized I just...don't know anything." It felt like such a relief to admit to someone who hopefully wouldn't think badly of her.

[kingsroads]

If anything, Sabriel admitting that she doesn't know much just makes Strange all the more charmed by her. Because that's a feeling he's experienced as well.

"I suppose I'm like you in that way. I learned my magic from my mentor, discovered the king's roads onto Faerie, realized how little I knew compared to the magicians of old, and strived to learn more. But my magic is derived from the world itself. I create alliances with things around me or rely on previously crafted alliances and ask the elements to do what I wish."

As he talks, Strange walks back to his bed. He places a hand on one of the intact bedposts and closes his eyes for a moment. When he opens them, the wood of the bedpost starts to grow outward, like the branches of a tree, some of which start to flower at the ends.

[choosethepath]

Sabriel watches intently, pleased to see the flowers grow. They were beautiful, and she couldn't help but be impressed. "You ask them?" she chuckles. "Do they ever refuse?"

[kingsroads]

"Of course!" Strange laughs. "I've found the Arctic to be more stubborn than England. When I first arrived here, I almost passed out simply by trying to change the weather. I doubt I would have been able to do half the magic I've done recently during my first week here."

[choosethepath]

It was so odd, but it made sense, in a way. What made things stranger was that Sabriel could still feel the Charter, almost like it had been there the whole time. But she could not sense a Charter Stone, or anything resembling it. "I imagine not. You must be polite and form a relationship?" she asks, a little teasing in her voice.

Standing, she walks over to the bedpost he had enchanted and touched the flower gently with her fingertips. "Our magic is somewhat similar. We use the Charter. It flows through everything. It's in the air. I can form the marks in my mind and whistle or use my hands to make them." She formed the marks for growth, for expansion, for life, and made them against the flower. She stepped back as the flower grew to twice its original size.

[kingsroads]

Strange's face lights up as he watches the flower grow. He reaches over to touch it, letting his fingers brush against the petals before he turns to give Sabriel a wide grin.

"How complex are your marks? There are some spells I use that are a combination of smaller requests—why, the spell to have a missing part find it's whole can be cast as a spell of like recognizing like combined with a spell of path-finding."

[choosethepath]

"The Charter is similar," she tells him, astounded at how much they had in common. "I wish I had my books. I could show you. But...we have Master charter marks and lesser charter marks. So, to do that, I cast the mark for growth, expansion, and life," she explains. "If you have a pencil and paper, I can write them out for you."

[kingsroads]

"I do!" Strange says, with a grin. "Give me a moment, they're in my desk."

The desk that is partially obscured by a fallen beam. That doesn't seem to stop Strange though, as he hurries over to the desk, practically scrambles over the beam and attempts to wrench free a desk drawer that's slightly crushed by the debris. That's not going to stop him from talking, though.

"Occasionally, books from our homes show up in the dream. The one that I wrote appeared in—" a pause while he yanks on the drawer handle, "—in the captain's library a week or so ago. It–ah ha!"

There's a bit of a clatter as the drawer falls to the ground. Strange reaches in, pulls out a pencil and some papers (half of which are covered in idle scribbles and half-written spells) and offers them to Sabriel with a wide smile.

[choosethepath]

Sabriel just tsks softly as she watches him. He is quite a mess, though she finds him mostly endearing. It is clear that he has been stuck here with no one to relate to, and she is happy to provide an ear. While he searches out the papers, she unhooks her sword from her belt and sets it against her chair, trying to get more comfortable. After all, magic is a complicated topic.

She was in the middle of undoing the bandolier when he returns with the papers. Placing the bells carefully on the table, she takes the paper with a small nod of thanks. "You wrote a book?" she asks, sketching out the charter marks carefully. "About magic? Maybe I can bring the charter books here."

[kingsroads]

The bells and sword catch his attention for a moment but soon Strange goes back to focusing on the marks Sabriel sketches out. Already he's thinking of various ways to incorporate them into his own magic.

"I'm certain you'll be able to bring your books," Strange says, as he gives Sabriel a little nod. "Admittedly, I haven't yet figured out how to bring objects into the dream, but between the two of us, I'm sure we can find a way. Though I have to ask," Strange continues, as he gestures to the sword, "do all magicians in your world carry weapons?"

[choosethepath]

It was a strange magic indeed that would allow them to bring in objects. She knows the charter marks for concealing something, to hide it from sight, but she also realizes that he was talking of actually creating it. Creating books.

Turning her attention from the marks to her sword, she places her hand on it. "Yes. In my world, the dead...sometimes do not stay dead. But unlike here, it seems, the dead come back as monsters. Feeding off of the living like leeches, destroying their homes, bringing them into death and trapping them beyond the gates. The sword is...was...my father's. The Abhorsen, which...I suppose I am now. The bells were his, too. The sword is spelled with charter marks, which you probably can't see. And the bells are..." She laughs, sitting back. "Do you have necromancers in your world, Mr. Strange?"

[kingsroads]

Having been risen from the dead has done a lot to dispel Strange's mixed feelings about necromancy. Still, there's something a little morbid about just how casually Sabriel talks of raising the dead.

"Miss Sabriel, my world barely has magicians. There was only a handful of us before I arrived here," he admits, with a little smile. "But I do know of spells that can raise the dead. Some involve old magic where a magician raises the dead with his own blood. Others involve the help of an outside party, such as a fairy."

[choosethepath]

"You misunderstand, Mr. Strange," she tells him quickly, not wanting him to get the wrong idea. She desperately wants them to be able to get along here, though the fact that he knows spells to raise the dead unnerve her slightly. "I'm not a necromancer. I don't bring the dead back to life. I put the dead back where they belong." She raises her eyes to him. "People who raise the dead usually do so for power and control." She touches the bells. "These are the tools of a necromancer, but, they can also be used in the opposite way."

[kingsroads]

Sabriel's explanation reassures him more. Though idly, he can't help but wonder what she thinks about someone like him, who's been brought back from the dead due to the dream's unknown power.

"I could have used you in the peninsula," Strange remarks, with a wry little smile. "The only time I successfully brought back the dead was during the war. The spell for revival worked perfectly. It was in sending them back to the grave that we ran into a few issues."

Namely that it's kind of useless to try and shoot a zombie.

[choosethepath]

A war. She feels a pang of sympathy for him, hoping it doesn't show on her face as pity. "You needed Saraneth," she smiles, hoping to keep the topic light. It is their first meeting, after all. She touches the handle of the deepest bell fondly. "Saraneth is the binder. It is what I use to bind dead souls and send them back. I make them walk the gates with Kibeth, when it isn't feeling contrary."

[kingsroads]

Fortunately for Sabriel, Strange is oblivious enough that he outright misses that pang of sympathy on her face. He's far too focused on the bells.

"Saraneth," Strange repeats, trying to feel the sound of the bell's name in his voice and hopefully not mangle it with his accent. "May I touch it?"

[choosethepath]

She considers it, then takes it from the holder, ignoring the handle and keeping her hand around the clapper, inside the bell. She wouldn't normally be so open with them, but Strange wants to learn. And she is happy to teach what she can and hopefully dissuade him from raising the dead again.

"We can't let it ring, or I might be fetching you from the first gate," she tells him. The bell looks perfectly ordinary on the outside, but Sabriel is sure the magic of it is obvious.