"So . . ." Dorian scratches the back of his neck. He glances down. Then he glances back up again. "Do both of these need a happy memory?"
He begins to think it was a mistake. Train in the use of his shard: yes, it seemed like a good idea. It seemed useful to know how to activate it, if he had it in there. To have that strength and agility to support him, to be less hindered, less limited by humanity. And when Hermione also suggested some of his magical training, it did not seem strange to add that in as well. But now that he is here, before her, faced with the prospect of performing these feats . . .
Let's just say Dorian Gray hasn't had performance anxiety in a long time, but the day has come.
"That's how I learned," Hermione confirms with a nod of her head. "A happy memory, something that fills you up and makes you feel unstoppable. It's like... Calling for the power inside of you, like using your happiness to ask for it's help. That's what I learned with Lancelot; focusing on the things that make you stronger, the things that make you happiest, and using that to fuel you."
She's standing opposite him, dressed from her duelling lesson, wand in hand as she adjusts her stance to look over at Dorian, her smile fond and gentle. Her thumb brushes over the edge of the wood before she breathes out, her free hand coming to press over her chest, almost absently, as if the glow from her shard was visible somehow.
"It's a little difficult at first but you'll get the hang of it."
Can his happy memory be how good Hermione looks in that outfit? In fact, to distract from the attempt to search for that, he shakes his head and says, "You look very fetching today, Hermione."
A smile flashes across his lips. "In fact, if you weren't teaching me, I'd offer to tell you just how beautiful you look in those clothes by assisting you in removing them."
The red of her blush strikes her cheeks rather like a slap and Hermione stands, for a moment, shocked, before she shakes her head and coughs. She should be used to this, she supposes, but at the same time...
"And I would respond by telling you that comments like that are more than enough to get you hexed into next Tuesday, no matter how much I might like you." Her eyebrow raises, shaking it off as nothing more than a tease, before she steps forward. Admittedly, she's still pink-cheeked, a little smile creeping on the edges of her lips before she shakes her head, trying to ignore it all.
"Now, if we can focus..." It's been a little hard lately, she can admit, to draw upon her shard power, but she breathes out. "When I first learned to do this it was in a dream, so it was a little hazy, but I thought of my friends and home. That's what made me happiest."
He likes the way she blushes, how cute it is, the way she threatens to hex him. It's sweet, and at least there, he smiles. But when she asks him to focus . . .
He takes a seat. And yes, he sits like a prince, like a king on his throne or a cat on its perch. But his smile is somewhere else, somewhere far away. He is not looking at her, even when his voice, melodious and sweet, slips down into the shadow registers of its velvet tones.
"Friends and home, hm? I suspect it's a little different when you've reached my age, when you've lived this long and seen time pass by. Every memory of someone I've loved? It contains the memory thought of death that followed. Every triumph contains its fading. Every purity holds its corruption.
"Nothing stays a happy memory over a hundred years. Everything just turns . . . grey. Bittersweet. So you see, that pretty blush on your cheek now is my best chance. I haven't lost it yet."
She hesitates, her expression sliding from sheepish embarrassment to something soft before she nods her head and walks over. It's easy for her to kneel, to settle in front of him and reach for his hands, her fingers brushing over his without hesitation; this is natural for her. Dorian is hurting, even if it might just be something that haunts him eternally, and she intends to do what she can to help it, to make it better.
"Then think of me. Think about jam and toast, and - and fighting together, and how much I love you, and how happy you make me. You know I'm not going anywhere any time soon, so you're not going to lose it. You can use me to make yourself stronger, Dorian Gray."
Squeezing his hands, she rises to her feet and tugs a little, her expression soft, wanting to draw him up to follow her, to help him take this step forward in his magical education. It's the least she can do, really.
"Stand with me, hold my hand, and we'll do this together."
He does not tell her, For now. He does not explain that when he holds her hands like this he can see the withering and the decay, the age lines, the bones that will come through. He doesn't say that his whole damned life has just been a Victorian Gothic and this fairytale moment will go like all the rest of them.
No. He answers, "Sure. I'll try it," because it is better to try and keep living, because if he doesn't there is no point to being immortal. And there must be a point to it, a reason, so he gets to his feet, pulls her with him. He holds out his wand, spins it in a circle, and he tries to think of Hermione, of only Hermione, of their friendship—"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
Oh.
Well. At least there was something. If not much.
Dorian glances at Hermione, and actually, there's a little grin on his lips. "I swear, this has never happened before."
She doesn't laugh as much as she does smile in response, her eyebrows raised at the joke but her mind sliding over it easily enough. Instead, she squeezes her hand and breathes out, swallowing a little as she moves to adjust his arm, his posture, ever so slightly, into something more familiar - her days as a member of the DA might be in the past now but she recalls all the lessons from Harry, still uses them now.
"It's not something that anyone gets the first time around. It's very advanced magic and it took me ages to get it right and I still sometimes struggle. A lot of it has to do with the power of your memories, your thoughts, and your self-confidence... Not that I think you have much to worry about in that regard."
Her smile is a little more teasing, now, her elbow nudging his side before she breathes out and closes her eyes. Her own movements are by-the-book perfect, as always, but something a little like fear prickles over her face when she tries to focus on her own happiness, the sum of it blotted out by the last few months. Rather than allowing herself to dwell on joy she gets caught up in thinking too hard (not for the first time) and when she casts the silver of the spell itself just seems to come out as a useless fog.
"Oh."
Swallowing, Hermione glances at her wand, her cheeks burning a little before she lifts her head and breathes out, determined not to let on just how much this failure was prickling at her.
Dorian glances over at her, seeks out her hand. He gives it a gentle squeeze, and his smile is present, but sad. "I seem to recall friends of mine saying it was easier for stupid people to be purely happy. Of course, those friends of mine were referring to how ecstatic I was in the moment, so perhaps there is little to be said for their opinions."
It will be all right, he wants to tell her. She is strong. Happiness is fleeting. But he doesn't, for he doesn't know how to say it truly.
"Should we focus on trying to activate the shards instead?"
She does welcome the touch of his hand, though, moving a little closer so she can feel the warmth of his body and the way that she seems to relax. It's harder to focus on the happier times when things are so painful and hard, but she does what she can. She has to make herself stronger, she has to stand tall, and she does, as much as she can. She isn't the little girl she had been, once upon a time, and she nods her head in assent before she shoves her wand up her sleeve.
"That sounds like a good idea. I first learned in a dream but then Lancelot taught me more a year or so ago." Which is astounding; to think she's been in this world for so long. "What do you know about the shards already, Dorian?"
Not a little girl—a young woman. But still young in that.
His eyes flick up as he tries to sort through the information as far as he recalls. "They're all pieces of the bigger gem, they come to physically manifest when you're dead or or near to death, they hold a bit of the power of your world . . . and mine hurt like b—" He looks at her, changes his mind, "—bad . . . person . . . after I tried to play that dream harp."
Someone is learning, and she appreciates the censoring even as she tilts her head to consider.
"A lesson learned the hard way then. You're right on all accounts, as far as what I've learned about the shards themselves. The gem the shards come from was called the Uaine Cridhe, or the Green Heart, and it's said that the shards are what helped make or begin our worlds, as they are. That might be why it responds to our feelings and our memories; because it's a part of us and our world all at once, tying us to this one as well."
Her hands lift, touching the spot in her chest where she had felt the warmth and the glow in her training and her testing, with Lancelot and Aslan both.
"The sizes range, though I'm not sure what it depends on, and the only people that know how to remove a shard without you losing it entirely are the dwarves, but that's not really something anyone should do without some serious consideration. Like you said, they manifest when you're on the brink of death."
Dorian offers her a lopsided smile. He knows where his shard is in his chest not from warmth but from pain. "So you're saying that I'm a bit S.O.L. if I want the dwarves to get rid of mine."
Even so, the theory seems sensible to him. In some ways, it is just an extension of sympathetic magic, and other kinds of magic Dorian has well learned over the past hundred years. The part resonates with the whole, the cornerstone with the building. As above, so below.
"I don't suppose memories of any of my deaths would help me summon forth its powers? There are a few very vivid ones that would count in evoking strong emotions."
"It doesn't mean much if you don't struggle. And if you can't remember anything worthwhile, that won't help, either."
And there it comes, the voice of someone familiar, manifested from a single ball of light. And so there Gilgamesh was, all along, concealing himself and watching their attempts from his private stage. Hanging off the edge of a lower roof, a grin splitting his features with a golden bow clasped in his hands.
It's a hop, skip and a jump back onto solid ground, and he glides past Hermione as if she doesn't even exist, weaves an arm about his Master's waist and brushes foreheads before dancing back again in a casually flippant display.
"Your magic drew me here," Gilgamesh explains, eyes flickering ever so briefly to Hermione. "Were you in need of assistance, Master? I suspect I know the issue. I can resolve it."
Honestly, she isn't even offended at being somewhat ignored. She much prefers Gilgamesh's focus being on Dorian, on his Master, and she turns her head away as soon as she recognises the voice and the appearance, the way that something inside of her seems to twist and shrivel at his company. Any hope she thinks she had of dwelling on happiness seems to have been ripped out from under her feet for a moment - and she breathes out, swallowing her ire.
Should she even say anything? It's obvious that her company is nudged to the side in the wake of a Servant and while she's not exactly put off by it (she knows she can't really touch upon their connection nor their relationship) it does make an irritated frown cross over her lips.
"No, deaths won't help, thank you. I said positive emotions, not horrific ones, Dorian." She swallows, crossing her arms over her chest, refusing to let her gaze flick to the gold man at his side, ignoring the way that something softens inside of her at the tender display. She was still angry and if there was one thing to be said about her it was that, when she wanted to, she could hold a grudge for a long time.
"Happiness, love, contentment, not pain and sadness."
He doesn't mean to; it happens against his will. A beautiful creature appears from nowhere, takes him in arms, and pulls him close. Of course he smiles. His king, his servant, his magnanimous and tyrannical Gilgamesh. Dorian does adore him.
And then he remembers where they are, and who he is with, and what Gilgamesh has made Hermione suffer in the past. The smile drops away in an instant, replaced by a harsh frown.
"Peter Pan emotions it is." He reaches for Hermione's hand again, wants to reassure her. Gilgamesh may be Dorian's Servant, may hold in him all possibility and so a kind of infinity that Dorian is in love with. But there is one thing that Gilgamesh will not offer. One impossibility for him to give.
Hermione is Dorian's friend. There is nothing Dorian values more.
I am curious, Dorian admits to Gilgamesh across their telepathy, But Hermione won't be grateful for your company. Not after what you did. "Perhaps you should leave for the moment, Gilgamesh."
Dorian's concerns and Hermione's all too obvious irritation both go ignored.
"Hermione is correct." Leave this to me. Trust me. "Focusing on such miserable thoughts won't do you any good at all. You must instead focus on the here and now, the presence of the present. You, yourself, and the world around you, and what you treasure within it, in order to draw upon magic of that caliber."
He speaks as though he knows the spell personally; in a way, he does, as a being of magic and thus naturally attuned to all aspects of it. Just as Dorian reaches for Hermione with one hand, Gilgamesh reaches for the other. Squeezes around his fingers, but again, he glances at Hermione. He's looking only at her now.
"You have a very fine protector," Gilgamesh admits, and thus unveils his trump card: some buried sense of politeness and decency. "Allow me to instruct him further. I believe he can succeed at this with an extra push."
It's easy to smile gratefully at Dorian, to let his hand in hers be a comfort rather than a painful reminder of why, exactly, she is so on edge in Gilgamesh's company. She's not an idiot, not as much as she had been a few months ago, and a part of her prickles at the idea of being in his company at all. Desperation has bruised her ego, her sharp stubbornness not wanting to let her back down or admit that Dorian might be able to use his Servant's help, and she breathes out a noise.
Her eyes close, a tight squeeze, as she fights back something she doesn't want to name, but after a moment she does nothing more than breathe out, a soft sigh, before she manages a smile and she nods her head.
"If you think he can help," and she's looking at Dorian, pointedly ignoring the other man, like an elephant in the room that she doesn't want to address. "Then you should try. He knows a lot about magic and he knows you as well." Perhaps better than I do, she thinks, her mental tone bitter as she bites her tongue. "I think if you're going to master this you need to make sure you try it from all angles."
Eyes, sharp and hard, flick to Gilgamesh before her hand slips away from Dorian's, her steps following, one and two, putting distance between them.
"Go ahead. I'll... Watch. If you need me I'm here, but I won't get in your way." She'll ignore this and the buzzing hurt inside of her for as long as she can; she's useless in instruction now, she thinks, unlikely and incapable of summoning a patronus to show how it ought to be done, in finding joy enough to light up the power inside of her.
He can feel it. Instinct, intuition, or a sense of what Gilgamesh is. The presence of the present. Gilgamesh knows him; Gilgamesh is right. And with a push from Gilgamesh, Dorian could get it.
But Dorian is not a real magus. For what real magus would look away from an opportunity for power and instead turn to a friend, squeeze her hand and clasp it so that she can't walk away?
This is hurting her. He wants to trust Gilgamesh. He often does. But trust him with Hermione? Not after what happened before.
(Even so, he doesn't force his Servant to release his hand.)
"I'd prefer to learn from you." With a deliberate choice, he just slaps it down on the table: "And I have a suspicion that Gilgamesh's presence isn't helping you reach for your happy thoughts."
Elephant, indeed. It takes a great deal of patience that Gilgamesh frankly doesn't have to keep from lashing out, and there's a quick pull of tension on their bond to prove it, but it's just as quickly shoved aside. Proof in practice that he's willing to set matters aside for the betterment of his Master.
And at their core definition, Servants existed only to ensure the successes of their Masters. Gilgamesh may have been an elephant, but compared to this man, Hermione was all but irrelevant. Just a mouse trying to understand grander schemes beyond itself.
Even so. Even so, he tells his Master, too. He won't budge.
"Hermione may decide for herself what she wishes to do or not do. I will abide her."
That's all Gilgamesh says; otherwise, he remains still. The final choice rests with the woman he betrayed.
It warms her, how easily Dorian turns to her side, even as she knows the bond he shares with Gilgamesh is something she could never hope to touch upon. She has seen his soul, true, and has accepted him, loved him, in spite and in part because of who he is and who he claims to be, but their connection is deeper. She can feel it and she lets her gaze flick before she swallows.
"I already know how to summon a patronus and activate my shard," she says finally, her hand squeezing his, the other resting on the crook of the same arm, thumb brushing over the curve of his elbow gently. "I'm not..." She hesitates. She isn't some spineless, sad little girl that might bow in the presence of a man that had tried to use her and had hurt her in the process. She has faced Lord Voldemort, stood before Bellatrix Lestrange and torture itself and not wilted.
Gilgamesh will not get the better of her.
"He can help you and he should stay. The two of you share something very special and that can't hurt, especially when you're still just starting to learn. It might do you some good and stop you from thinking about death instead of happy things." It's obvious that she's still not looking at Gilgamesh himself unless she has to, her features soft and her smile for Dorian alone. "Let him help."
She can stand here and hold her head high, her pride in herself and her decision not to let this drag her down making her seem tight, drawn like the bow she has so slowly begun to master. Hermione may not be as strong as either of them are together, as Gilgamesh is alone, but a part of her still thinks she might well be better; she would never deliberately hurt someone the way he had her.
The tension pulls at Dorian, but he is as unflinching now as he had been those months ago. He is not, however, as hostile, and he provides over the link some sense of the affection he holds for Gilgamesh to assuage him.
But it is Hermione that decides what happens next. Hermione's choice and Hermione's strength. That is how Dorian dresses her, in lines of smooth sharpness, fabrics of beautiful bite. Armour and weaponry, he wants Hermione to know she is someone to be reckoned with.
It is her choice, so he can accept it.
There is a sweetness when he smiles at Hermione. "All right, then."
There is a sense of pleasurable hunger when he looks at Gilgamesh. "I'm ready to be instructed."
The desire in Dorian's voice and expression are a mark of just how soft he was going on Hermione with his little jokes. As he trades teachers, he trades faces: the Dorian Gray whom Hermione knows transforms without any sign of change into the one that Gilgamesh gets. And he is ready.
Hermione has made her choice. There's nothing more to be said on the matter. It would only patronize her, anyway.
The air shifts almost instantaneously from the second Dorian turns. Casual armor and weaponry disappear, replaced by gilded plate, and Hermione will sense at least one thing far better than Dorian ever could: the entire area fills with raw magic, ancient and awe-inspiring and beyond comparison. This is the truest presence of Gilgamesh, King of Heroes.
Gilgamesh takes Dorian's sealed hand and summons his power thus:
"I call upon the sacred bond between Master and Servant. Invoked upon the Seals, I delve within. I erase all errant thought. I become every breath and every waking moment. Beginning, middle, and end. Surru. Qabassu. Qatu."
A great weight descends upon Dorian's mind with those words. The world seems to vanish; everything descends upon one fine point, that point being Gilgamesh, that blots out all else. Presence of the present. One overwhelming figure to guide him down the proper path.
"Open the gate."
(Undo the lock.)
"Banish all darkness, all despair, all shadow and woe."
(Begone.)
"Gaze into the depths. I am the master, the very center of myself. Believe ardently in this prayer; believe in my boundless will, my endless might."
(Awaken.)
And at the very end, as warmth flows into Dorian and cradles him in an effervescent embrace, Gilgamesh leans in to brush their lips together, and offers his final instruction through word and through thought alike. "I believe in your strength. Step back when you are ready. Cast the spell and may all be in awe before you."
For a moment, all Hermione can do is stand and watch in awe. She can feel the raw power, the brush of magic, as familiar to her now as her own - she has been in this world for almost two years and she is accustomed to feeling magic, it's power and it's strength, to seeing how it exists and the way people manipulate it. She had always known Gilgamesh had strength, more than she had expected when they'd first met, but this is certainly awe-inspiring.
She can't watch, though.
Dorian and Gilgamesh are together, a set pair, Master and Servant with a bond that she can't conceive nor touch, and the visualisation of the bond she had only heard about and imagined makes her shift. While she has never been ashamed of her own physical affection (her hugs and hand-holding are second nature, her smiles tender and for all the people she cares about) something about this feels... Too intimate for her. It feels like she's watching something she shouldn't and her stomach recoils with it, her eyes closing before she moves.
It's deliberate and slow, the turn of her head and then her body, the silence with which she does it, holding her breath and drawing herself away. She doesn't want to see this. Not because she cares about either of them romantically, despite her professing her love for Dorian at every occasion, but because of her own fierce jealousy, her own decisive envy that makes her want to reach out and grasp at something like it for her own. Their bond might be based upon a give and take of mutual benefit but there is no denying that they share something special.
It's not wrong for her to want some of that for herself, is it? To want to be that special to someone, to share something secret and special with them that no one else is privy to and no one else can touch?
It's hard to imagine her having that with anyone, especially now, not with all the secrets that haunt her and all the pain she hides, deep inside of her, polluting her soul and her spirit with pain and suspicion that she cannot bear to name.
She doesn't turn back, not even when Gilgamesh commands his master to cast; if it works then she will hear the result, only turn her head if Dorian asks her to. She can't look; it hurts, and she's ashamed of that pain when, in reality, she should be celebrating her friend's strengths.
(It isn't so wrong, she thinks, to not want to be alone, is it?)
Šurrû. Qabassu. Qatû. Possessed entirely by Gilgamesh, taken up by him, there is nothing beyond him, no sensation, no reality. Dorian is consumed completely by the moment, and he welcomes his own devouring.
"Expecto patronum."
The light is far beyond what Dorian could do on his own; it is charged with Gilgamesh's force, with the strength of his will amplified in the empty vessel of Dorian Gray. There is the roar from that light, a proud call as heavy paws bound in circles through the air—
But it is not the only light here. Where once Dorian felt a terrible burning, now there is a warmth glow. Šurrû. Qabassu. Qatû. The beginning. The middle. The end. It is everything, all experience, all pleasure, and still he wants more and more and more.
If another had taken hold of Dorian in this way, it would have faltered. The power would not have been Dorian's happiness. The wish would not have been Dorian's wish. Šurrû. Qabassu. Qatû. Filled up with Gilgamesh's power, Dorian expresses his own will. I want it. Such is the panther that comes to rest at Dorian's feet: a creature of desire, always craving, pushing, seeking out. Never satisfied.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
MARCH TRAINING
He begins to think it was a mistake. Train in the use of his shard: yes, it seemed like a good idea. It seemed useful to know how to activate it, if he had it in there. To have that strength and agility to support him, to be less hindered, less limited by humanity. And when Hermione also suggested some of his magical training, it did not seem strange to add that in as well. But now that he is here, before her, faced with the prospect of performing these feats . . .
Let's just say Dorian Gray hasn't had performance anxiety in a long time, but the day has come.
that icon is really cute
She's standing opposite him, dressed from her duelling lesson, wand in hand as she adjusts her stance to look over at Dorian, her smile fond and gentle. Her thumb brushes over the edge of the wood before she breathes out, her free hand coming to press over her chest, almost absently, as if the glow from her shard was visible somehow.
"It's a little difficult at first but you'll get the hang of it."
dweeb icons
A smile flashes across his lips. "In fact, if you weren't teaching me, I'd offer to tell you just how beautiful you look in those clothes by assisting you in removing them."
no subject
"And I would respond by telling you that comments like that are more than enough to get you hexed into next Tuesday, no matter how much I might like you." Her eyebrow raises, shaking it off as nothing more than a tease, before she steps forward. Admittedly, she's still pink-cheeked, a little smile creeping on the edges of her lips before she shakes her head, trying to ignore it all.
"Now, if we can focus..." It's been a little hard lately, she can admit, to draw upon her shard power, but she breathes out. "When I first learned to do this it was in a dream, so it was a little hazy, but I thought of my friends and home. That's what made me happiest."
no subject
He takes a seat. And yes, he sits like a prince, like a king on his throne or a cat on its perch. But his smile is somewhere else, somewhere far away. He is not looking at her, even when his voice, melodious and sweet, slips down into the shadow registers of its velvet tones.
"Friends and home, hm? I suspect it's a little different when you've reached my age, when you've lived this long and seen time pass by. Every memory of someone I've loved? It contains the memory thought of death that followed. Every triumph contains its fading. Every purity holds its corruption.
"Nothing stays a happy memory over a hundred years. Everything just turns . . . grey. Bittersweet. So you see, that pretty blush on your cheek now is my best chance. I haven't lost it yet."
no subject
"Then think of me. Think about jam and toast, and - and fighting together, and how much I love you, and how happy you make me. You know I'm not going anywhere any time soon, so you're not going to lose it. You can use me to make yourself stronger, Dorian Gray."
Squeezing his hands, she rises to her feet and tugs a little, her expression soft, wanting to draw him up to follow her, to help him take this step forward in his magical education. It's the least she can do, really.
"Stand with me, hold my hand, and we'll do this together."
no subject
No. He answers, "Sure. I'll try it," because it is better to try and keep living, because if he doesn't there is no point to being immortal. And there must be a point to it, a reason, so he gets to his feet, pulls her with him. He holds out his wand, spins it in a circle, and he tries to think of Hermione, of only Hermione, of their friendship—"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
Oh.
Well. At least there was something. If not much.
Dorian glances at Hermione, and actually, there's a little grin on his lips. "I swear, this has never happened before."
(He hopes she won't actually get the joke.)
no subject
"It's not something that anyone gets the first time around. It's very advanced magic and it took me ages to get it right and I still sometimes struggle. A lot of it has to do with the power of your memories, your thoughts, and your self-confidence... Not that I think you have much to worry about in that regard."
Her smile is a little more teasing, now, her elbow nudging his side before she breathes out and closes her eyes. Her own movements are by-the-book perfect, as always, but something a little like fear prickles over her face when she tries to focus on her own happiness, the sum of it blotted out by the last few months. Rather than allowing herself to dwell on joy she gets caught up in thinking too hard (not for the first time) and when she casts the silver of the spell itself just seems to come out as a useless fog.
"Oh."
Swallowing, Hermione glances at her wand, her cheeks burning a little before she lifts her head and breathes out, determined not to let on just how much this failure was prickling at her.
"Like I said, even I struggled with it."
no subject
Dorian glances over at her, seeks out her hand. He gives it a gentle squeeze, and his smile is present, but sad. "I seem to recall friends of mine saying it was easier for stupid people to be purely happy. Of course, those friends of mine were referring to how ecstatic I was in the moment, so perhaps there is little to be said for their opinions."
It will be all right, he wants to tell her. She is strong. Happiness is fleeting. But he doesn't, for he doesn't know how to say it truly.
"Should we focus on trying to activate the shards instead?"
no subject
She does welcome the touch of his hand, though, moving a little closer so she can feel the warmth of his body and the way that she seems to relax. It's harder to focus on the happier times when things are so painful and hard, but she does what she can. She has to make herself stronger, she has to stand tall, and she does, as much as she can. She isn't the little girl she had been, once upon a time, and she nods her head in assent before she shoves her wand up her sleeve.
"That sounds like a good idea. I first learned in a dream but then Lancelot taught me more a year or so ago." Which is astounding; to think she's been in this world for so long. "What do you know about the shards already, Dorian?"
no subject
His eyes flick up as he tries to sort through the information as far as he recalls. "They're all pieces of the bigger gem, they come to physically manifest when you're dead or or near to death, they hold a bit of the power of your world . . . and mine hurt like b—" He looks at her, changes his mind, "—bad . . . person . . . after I tried to play that dream harp."
So, not much.
no subject
"A lesson learned the hard way then. You're right on all accounts, as far as what I've learned about the shards themselves. The gem the shards come from was called the Uaine Cridhe, or the Green Heart, and it's said that the shards are what helped make or begin our worlds, as they are. That might be why it responds to our feelings and our memories; because it's a part of us and our world all at once, tying us to this one as well."
Her hands lift, touching the spot in her chest where she had felt the warmth and the glow in her training and her testing, with Lancelot and Aslan both.
"The sizes range, though I'm not sure what it depends on, and the only people that know how to remove a shard without you losing it entirely are the dwarves, but that's not really something anyone should do without some serious consideration. Like you said, they manifest when you're on the brink of death."
no subject
Even so, the theory seems sensible to him. In some ways, it is just an extension of sympathetic magic, and other kinds of magic Dorian has well learned over the past hundred years. The part resonates with the whole, the cornerstone with the building. As above, so below.
"I don't suppose memories of any of my deaths would help me summon forth its powers? There are a few very vivid ones that would count in evoking strong emotions."
no subject
And there it comes, the voice of someone familiar, manifested from a single ball of light. And so there Gilgamesh was, all along, concealing himself and watching their attempts from his private stage. Hanging off the edge of a lower roof, a grin splitting his features with a golden bow clasped in his hands.
It's a hop, skip and a jump back onto solid ground, and he glides past Hermione as if she doesn't even exist, weaves an arm about his Master's waist and brushes foreheads before dancing back again in a casually flippant display.
"Your magic drew me here," Gilgamesh explains, eyes flickering ever so briefly to Hermione. "Were you in need of assistance, Master? I suspect I know the issue. I can resolve it."
no subject
Should she even say anything? It's obvious that her company is nudged to the side in the wake of a Servant and while she's not exactly put off by it (she knows she can't really touch upon their connection nor their relationship) it does make an irritated frown cross over her lips.
"No, deaths won't help, thank you. I said positive emotions, not horrific ones, Dorian." She swallows, crossing her arms over her chest, refusing to let her gaze flick to the gold man at his side, ignoring the way that something softens inside of her at the tender display. She was still angry and if there was one thing to be said about her it was that, when she wanted to, she could hold a grudge for a long time.
"Happiness, love, contentment, not pain and sadness."
no subject
He doesn't mean to; it happens against his will. A beautiful creature appears from nowhere, takes him in arms, and pulls him close. Of course he smiles. His king, his servant, his magnanimous and tyrannical Gilgamesh. Dorian does adore him.
And then he remembers where they are, and who he is with, and what Gilgamesh has made Hermione suffer in the past. The smile drops away in an instant, replaced by a harsh frown.
"Peter Pan emotions it is." He reaches for Hermione's hand again, wants to reassure her. Gilgamesh may be Dorian's Servant, may hold in him all possibility and so a kind of infinity that Dorian is in love with. But there is one thing that Gilgamesh will not offer. One impossibility for him to give.
Hermione is Dorian's friend. There is nothing Dorian values more.
I am curious, Dorian admits to Gilgamesh across their telepathy, But Hermione won't be grateful for your company. Not after what you did. "Perhaps you should leave for the moment, Gilgamesh."
no subject
"Hermione is correct." Leave this to me. Trust me. "Focusing on such miserable thoughts won't do you any good at all. You must instead focus on the here and now, the presence of the present. You, yourself, and the world around you, and what you treasure within it, in order to draw upon magic of that caliber."
He speaks as though he knows the spell personally; in a way, he does, as a being of magic and thus naturally attuned to all aspects of it. Just as Dorian reaches for Hermione with one hand, Gilgamesh reaches for the other. Squeezes around his fingers, but again, he glances at Hermione. He's looking only at her now.
"You have a very fine protector," Gilgamesh admits, and thus unveils his trump card: some buried sense of politeness and decency. "Allow me to instruct him further. I believe he can succeed at this with an extra push."
no subject
Her eyes close, a tight squeeze, as she fights back something she doesn't want to name, but after a moment she does nothing more than breathe out, a soft sigh, before she manages a smile and she nods her head.
"If you think he can help," and she's looking at Dorian, pointedly ignoring the other man, like an elephant in the room that she doesn't want to address. "Then you should try. He knows a lot about magic and he knows you as well." Perhaps better than I do, she thinks, her mental tone bitter as she bites her tongue. "I think if you're going to master this you need to make sure you try it from all angles."
Eyes, sharp and hard, flick to Gilgamesh before her hand slips away from Dorian's, her steps following, one and two, putting distance between them.
"Go ahead. I'll... Watch. If you need me I'm here, but I won't get in your way." She'll ignore this and the buzzing hurt inside of her for as long as she can; she's useless in instruction now, she thinks, unlikely and incapable of summoning a patronus to show how it ought to be done, in finding joy enough to light up the power inside of her.
no subject
But Dorian is not a real magus. For what real magus would look away from an opportunity for power and instead turn to a friend, squeeze her hand and clasp it so that she can't walk away?
This is hurting her. He wants to trust Gilgamesh. He often does. But trust him with Hermione? Not after what happened before.
(Even so, he doesn't force his Servant to release his hand.)
"I'd prefer to learn from you." With a deliberate choice, he just slaps it down on the table: "And I have a suspicion that Gilgamesh's presence isn't helping you reach for your happy thoughts."
The elephant might as well be announced.
no subject
And at their core definition, Servants existed only to ensure the successes of their Masters. Gilgamesh may have been an elephant, but compared to this man, Hermione was all but irrelevant. Just a mouse trying to understand grander schemes beyond itself.
Even so. Even so, he tells his Master, too. He won't budge.
"Hermione may decide for herself what she wishes to do or not do. I will abide her."
That's all Gilgamesh says; otherwise, he remains still. The final choice rests with the woman he betrayed.
no subject
"I already know how to summon a patronus and activate my shard," she says finally, her hand squeezing his, the other resting on the crook of the same arm, thumb brushing over the curve of his elbow gently. "I'm not..." She hesitates. She isn't some spineless, sad little girl that might bow in the presence of a man that had tried to use her and had hurt her in the process. She has faced Lord Voldemort, stood before Bellatrix Lestrange and torture itself and not wilted.
Gilgamesh will not get the better of her.
"He can help you and he should stay. The two of you share something very special and that can't hurt, especially when you're still just starting to learn. It might do you some good and stop you from thinking about death instead of happy things." It's obvious that she's still not looking at Gilgamesh himself unless she has to, her features soft and her smile for Dorian alone. "Let him help."
She can stand here and hold her head high, her pride in herself and her decision not to let this drag her down making her seem tight, drawn like the bow she has so slowly begun to master. Hermione may not be as strong as either of them are together, as Gilgamesh is alone, but a part of her still thinks she might well be better; she would never deliberately hurt someone the way he had her.
no subject
But it is Hermione that decides what happens next. Hermione's choice and Hermione's strength. That is how Dorian dresses her, in lines of smooth sharpness, fabrics of beautiful bite. Armour and weaponry, he wants Hermione to know she is someone to be reckoned with.
It is her choice, so he can accept it.
There is a sweetness when he smiles at Hermione. "All right, then."
There is a sense of pleasurable hunger when he looks at Gilgamesh. "I'm ready to be instructed."
The desire in Dorian's voice and expression are a mark of just how soft he was going on Hermione with his little jokes. As he trades teachers, he trades faces: the Dorian Gray whom Hermione knows transforms without any sign of change into the one that Gilgamesh gets. And he is ready.
no subject
The air shifts almost instantaneously from the second Dorian turns. Casual armor and weaponry disappear, replaced by gilded plate, and Hermione will sense at least one thing far better than Dorian ever could: the entire area fills with raw magic, ancient and awe-inspiring and beyond comparison. This is the truest presence of Gilgamesh, King of Heroes.
Gilgamesh takes Dorian's sealed hand and summons his power thus:
"I call upon the sacred bond between Master and Servant. Invoked upon the Seals, I delve within. I erase all errant thought. I become every breath and every waking moment. Beginning, middle, and end. Surru. Qabassu. Qatu."
A great weight descends upon Dorian's mind with those words. The world seems to vanish; everything descends upon one fine point, that point being Gilgamesh, that blots out all else. Presence of the present. One overwhelming figure to guide him down the proper path.
"Open the gate."
(Undo the lock.)
"Banish all darkness, all despair, all shadow and woe."
(Begone.)
"Gaze into the depths. I am the master, the very center of myself. Believe ardently in this prayer; believe in my boundless will, my endless might."
(Awaken.)
And at the very end, as warmth flows into Dorian and cradles him in an effervescent embrace, Gilgamesh leans in to brush their lips together, and offers his final instruction through word and through thought alike. "I believe in your strength. Step back when you are ready. Cast the spell and may all be in awe before you."
no subject
She can't watch, though.
Dorian and Gilgamesh are together, a set pair, Master and Servant with a bond that she can't conceive nor touch, and the visualisation of the bond she had only heard about and imagined makes her shift. While she has never been ashamed of her own physical affection (her hugs and hand-holding are second nature, her smiles tender and for all the people she cares about) something about this feels... Too intimate for her. It feels like she's watching something she shouldn't and her stomach recoils with it, her eyes closing before she moves.
It's deliberate and slow, the turn of her head and then her body, the silence with which she does it, holding her breath and drawing herself away. She doesn't want to see this. Not because she cares about either of them romantically, despite her professing her love for Dorian at every occasion, but because of her own fierce jealousy, her own decisive envy that makes her want to reach out and grasp at something like it for her own. Their bond might be based upon a give and take of mutual benefit but there is no denying that they share something special.
It's not wrong for her to want some of that for herself, is it? To want to be that special to someone, to share something secret and special with them that no one else is privy to and no one else can touch?
It's hard to imagine her having that with anyone, especially now, not with all the secrets that haunt her and all the pain she hides, deep inside of her, polluting her soul and her spirit with pain and suspicion that she cannot bear to name.
She doesn't turn back, not even when Gilgamesh commands his master to cast; if it works then she will hear the result, only turn her head if Dorian asks her to. She can't look; it hurts, and she's ashamed of that pain when, in reality, she should be celebrating her friend's strengths.
(It isn't so wrong, she thinks, to not want to be alone, is it?)
no subject
"Expecto patronum."
The light is far beyond what Dorian could do on his own; it is charged with Gilgamesh's force, with the strength of his will amplified in the empty vessel of Dorian Gray. There is the roar from that light, a proud call as heavy paws bound in circles through the air—
But it is not the only light here. Where once Dorian felt a terrible burning, now there is a warmth glow. Šurrû. Qabassu. Qatû. The beginning. The middle. The end. It is everything, all experience, all pleasure, and still he wants more and more and more.
If another had taken hold of Dorian in this way, it would have faltered. The power would not have been Dorian's happiness. The wish would not have been Dorian's wish. Šurrû. Qabassu. Qatû. Filled up with Gilgamesh's power, Dorian expresses his own will. I want it. Such is the panther that comes to rest at Dorian's feet: a creature of desire, always craving, pushing, seeking out. Never satisfied.
"I want more."
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)
(no subject)