audio;

[fadeling]

[Cole's been doing some thinking. Always a dangerous proposition, but unavoidable, really. It hasn't been all that long since the fire, but...well. Maybe it could have been worse, but it could have been a lot better too.

At least he's managed to make this audio. Probably entirely by accident.]

I can't tell if it's better. Is it better? [He doesn't specify what "it" is. But there's a pause for a few moments while he considers what else to say. It's hard to verbalize what he's thinking, his thoughts pulled in a thousand ways at once like they always are. He doesn't make sense at the best of times, and now he's trying to find words that probably don't exist.]

The whispers are worries, but the calls are clarion and confused. Did I do the right thing? Is it good at all?

[Another pause, longer than than the last one--almost long enough to wonder whether Cole has hung up.]

Maybe this time it's different.

Comments

[roseofthetyrells]

That's quite a lot of things all at once.

[fadeling]

It's twisted and tied into tangles. It can be too many things.

[roseofthetyrells]

This place? I'd have to agree. I've seen things I never dreamed possible here.

[fadeling]

It's like the Fade sometimes. But only almost.

[roseofthetyrells]

May I ask what the Fade is?

[fadeling]

It's a dream-place. It's where spirits are, but demons too.

[roseofthetyrells]

I've never heard of such a thing! Spirits sound like they might be nice, but I don't think I like the idea of demons.

[fadeling]

They tear, twisting people apart to nothing to try to take a soul. They want to see. Outside the Fade. In the world where they don't belong. Spirits are kinder, but harder to find, easier to catch. People twist them into shapes they weren't meant to have. We don't want to be bound but we can't help when the tie us down with the blood.

[roseofthetyrells]

[sounds concerned Tie you down with blood? That sounds awful.

[fadeling]

It is. [He won't lie about that.] I won't be a demon. If they make me, you should kill me.

[roseofthetyrells]

Who would make you be a demon? That sounds--so cruel.

[fadeling]

The summoners. They sing the songs so the spirits will come and then bind them in blood and power, poison. Tainted and twisted too far to go back. There's magic in blood, but it's bad magic. But some of the mages use it sometimes anyway.

[roseofthetyrells]

Do--do they use their own blood or that of others?

[fadeling]

Both, sometimes.

[roseofthetyrells]

That's terrible!

[fadeling]

Yes. But they do anyway.

[roseofthetyrells]

But, why? If it's bad magic, why would anyone use it?

[fadeling]

Because it's power. Power they can have when others try to take it away. Too many men in the same armor.

[roseofthetyrells]

[she gets a bad feeling when he mentions the too many men in the same armor. it reminds her of the Faith Militant]

But at what cost is the power?

[fadeling]

Demons. Darkness. Deadness. Then they lose their dreams.

[roseofthetyrells]

It doesn't sound worth it to me. The mages who use that power must be desperate indeed.

[fadeling]

Sometimes. Sometimes they just like the hurting.

[roseofthetyrells]

I assume you mean the hurting of others?

[fadeling]

Yes. Power makes them feel like more while they make themselves less.

[roseofthetyrells]

That's something that power does to a lot of people, not just mages.