and i would give all this and heaven too

"No, that won't be happening, but thanks for believing in me even after I bumped into you. Unfortunately, the unveiling of my Brothers and Sisters will pale in comparison to the other Apprentices…" But the shadow of sadness that flashed across Karme's features disappeared almost as soon as it arrived, replaced by his beaming smile. "Well, there are reasons for it being my first, but if it's yours, you're not a local, right? There's so much to do on Progress Day, or so I'm told. You should focus on having fun! See some exhibits or eat some yummy food … I'm not even a fighter,r but I'm getting in the gladiator ring and it'll be so cool!" Being forced to stay inside during past Progress Days gave Karme a very idealistic point of view. It always sounded like the best day of the year. "It's a festival! You've been to festivals before, haven't you? What did you do during those?" The bruise forming on his ass was already forgotten.

"I can promise you your last name carries no weight here," there was little chance that Aurea had any interest in learning just who the Chrysanthos was. "Aurea is far more approachable and invests little time in the Game. If you wish to speak to her, then seeking her out would be fair enough."

Oh, did he say hangout?

"Well, between the Legion and my role here, my schedule is tight. But if you find yourself in Haven an... excessive amount, I've no doubt our paths will cross." She had nothing against Karme, he was a bright and talented witch - somehow - but every time they conversed Althea felt the need to take a shower afterwards.

Karme was invested in his image now to a certain degree. He didn't want to change, but he did want to grow. Plus, he wanted to be someone reliable. That was part of the reason he flew to Haven today. He wanted Althea to know that he wasn't the same, spineless witch he used to be. His days of being a footstool were over.

"Oh, well I totally get that. I wouldn't want to keep you from your duties. I can send word to you if you have the time to spare. Or even if you want to give your assistants a break I could carry stuff around for you … I know you're a lot busier than I am so that could count as a hang," he waffles about, verbalizing every concession he could. Perhaps the old days weren't completely behind him because he very much wanted to get on his knees and beg Althea to fit him into her schedule, if only for a few minutes a month. "Being in the Legion isn't too scary, is it? Are they giving you the respect you deserve? They should feel so lucky to have you in their ranks. I know I feel lucky that you're keeping the queendom safe, Althea."

Instead, Torsten craned his head forward and drank as deeply as he could dare, head tilting backward again as he relinquished a deep sigh into the air. A beat passed as the witcher was still, unspeaking and instead quiet in his reflection. He should have died in that gutter. He should have died in that snow. He should have died under the claws of the var'terral and a thousand times over on the floor of the witcher's watch.

And yet.

"Thank you," was all he expressed.

"You don't have to thank me. I told you, I'm always on call for you. I'm your mechanic now. I've got to keep all of you in good working condition, but especially your arm," he says a bit jokingly as he gently knocks on the mithril limb. In truth, Karme felt indebted to Torsten, so it felt strange to be thanked by him. He wouldn't have had the opportunities he did without the witcher. Heck, there was a good chance he'd be dead wihtout his strength on their slayer mission. Karme would be so sad to lose a friend like him, but he also figured saying such things out loud would only make Torsten angry. "Now that you're awake and talking, do you want me to send word to anyone that you're alright? I'm sure people are worried about you, and clearly, the Healers are focused exclusively on your physical condition."

"I fight beside the Legion of the Dead," in the vanguard, where the legionnaires were meant to be. "you'd only be a liability unless you choose to join." Which Alucard would never allow - Karme's constitution was much too weak to survive the Joining. A strong wind could dislocate one of those thin little arms.

"Yeah … I don't think I have what it takes to be a legionnaire. Maybe not by your side, but the frontlines are a little less scary now for me, I promise! I don't want there to be any more danger, but…" It wasn't his job to fight darkspawn, but he understood now that Olympians couldn't sit idle while the Dark continued to threaten his queendom. Plus, Beastbane's warning replayed in Karme's ear every day. "…the Dark One scares me a lot. I want to do everything I can to help Lysara. Even if that means flying toward another horde of darkspawn to fight. I can stay out of the fray and still be brave, can't I?"

Mea culpa. 

It’s all her fault, even if she knows it’s not. 

She should have been better. 

“Failure is a teacher,” she says through the knot on her throat, truth heavy on her throat even as she struggles to find the lesson Aventia’s fall had imparted upon her. “And it’s a good goal. To be determined to be better next time, to be determined to do better. It’s all any of us can hope for.”

Her mouth tastes like blood and ashes, but she keeps her attention on Karme, ignoring the pressure on her shoulders and the light buzzing on her ears. She is here for a reason, and even if her original idea has failed, maybe she can work something else out. In the end, she doesn’t have time to think about another avenue or plan, not when Karme races ahead, bright and willing to help her on her childish request with enthusiasm. It’s a breath of fresh air, and the knot on her throat loosens just enough for her to take a deep breath and offer Karme a genuine smile. 

“Yes, I want to help, just like you,” she admits. Part of it, it’s because she wants to do better, to make up for the fact that it was her responding to the invasion in Aventia and not her mother. To make up for her failure. But a bigger part calls back to the core of her motivations, now and always: she can help, so she will because she wants to. She had the luxury to have been born a Severian, and she will use that to ensure her people are taken off, to ensure those who seek aid get it. Aventia might be gone, but she has trained all her life to be the blade that protects her people, and that won’t change. “I am looking,” she says, voice hushed in awe, eyes focused on Karme’s work as he creates light out of nothing. Color fills the space between them, and a smile settles on her lips as she considers how much more colorful the world seems now than just a few moments before. Yes, this is what she was looking for, something to bring color and hope back to those who had forgotten the world could be beautiful because Aventia had shown them it could be cruel as well. “It’s beautiful. Just what I wanted, actually. Better, even, because you made it to help. Thank you, Karme.”

That's why he beamed so brightly at the end result of Araceli's request glowing in front of him. Karme knew that without his magic and the tools he built, he was a less-than-average guy. Strip him of those and there wasn't much that he was capable of. That was no longer his concern, though, because he confronted his worst fears already. Take everything away and he'd still want to help people. His heart and mind were his most useful assets, so seeing Araceli happy made him feel happy as well.

His spellweaves wrap around the kaleidoscope to shrink it, then Karme draws a glyph over it with his fingers and hands it to Araceli, now an object that could easily fit in the palm of her hand. "There you go. When you're ready to show it off, it'll return to its regular size, but until then you can keep it in your pocket and remember that helping others can take many different forms, Lady Araceli. I get a bit bored making armor for the queensguard, but someone has to do it! Even the smallest contribution helps the queendom. I haven't really suffered, so maybe my words are meaningless, but so long as you want to make things better, things will get better. I'm going to try and stay positive, so maybe you can too. And if not, I'd be happy to make you more cool stuff to show off." Karme grinned.

Mostly having been treated like someone with the taint, Adrian definitely faltered at Karme's interest to help him. The further they wandered and the more the Apprentice showed Adrian around, the clearer it was that Karme was not actually duplicitous on this whatsoever. The Apprentice showed all the excitement Adrian felt but could not ever conjure to the surface. It was staggering, wrought plenty of lingering eyes from other members of the Tower as they walked and Adrian wished his Accepted garb wasn't so obvious, though the sorcerer knew, at the end of the day, that was the point when it came to the specific flair of each garment they were affixed to.

"Look...." Adrian tried to be polite, it seemed Karme was the only Tower witch that did not possess the typical snooty aura each had in droves, "I just don't think people travel it on foot, no?" Adrian picked up his foot, his shoes and socks offering the most uncomfortable feeling as water sloshed between his toes and under his heel. He'd entered begrudgingly, despite the fact he had more or less steered clear of Vulcan's Vessel as he attempted to come back with further crafts that could possibly warrant even a mere reaction on Damaris' face, other than the typical scathing and reproachful glare. Karme rambled on, more or less stating Adrian's point, retracting from it - this way was so much more fun, no? It was, indeed, not, but Adrian was often called a fun killer, so he tried to be more open-minded in this moment, though he figured it was near impossible to kill the kilowatt smile Karme often had cemented on his expression.

"Oh, no one takes the aqueducts. There are much faster ways to get to Vulcan's Vessel than here. But you deserve the full Accepted experience too, don't you? When I was a white robe, getting lost down here inspired me so much that when I finally learned how to navigate to Vulcan's Vessel, I spent the next week making stuff nonstop!" Of course, it never even crossed Karme's mind that Adrian wasn't enjoying himself as much as he was. Luckily, Adrian's words got Karme out of his own head enough for the Olympian to consider how the other witch felt. He didn't think of himself as particularly wise, but he did know how to be a good friend now that he had so many. That's why he as able to laugh so hard at Adrian's comment he buckled over. Luckily, Karme had recently broken free of his inferiority complex when it came to his Olympian status.

"Wow, you really are acclimating well to the Tower! I've lost count of how many times someone asked how I earned my ring! At least you're wondering to my face!" Karme chortled, familiar with the sentiment since it seemed everyone doubted him as much as he doubted himself at the time. "If you could see Genovia, you'd probably assume the same as everybody else: that my house influenced my passing. I mean, I don't exactly meet their expectations for Apprentices. The tools I've made pale in comparison to what the Chrysanthos ladies create, but let me tell you they were against me studying here. Men of my house are forbidden from even trying you know, so being nobility had nothing to do with me passing my trials." Karme had a feeling he and Adrian were kindred spirits, but he just assumed that was because they were both outsiders. He never would've imagined that the other witch was struggling in a way that was similar to how he did.

"How can I put this…" he pondered aloud as he reached for his key ring, removing it from his belt to show Adrian. "These were the first items I ever made in my father's forge. Again, I was forbidden from using the forges of my house. They're nothing special, just keys to help me with conjuration. I … get distracted easily, so summonings can be tricky and having a physical item helps. They're called the Pleiades, my 7 Sisters, tools I've been honing for years. Do you know what the Sitters said when I first showed them off? They said that the concept and execution were overly flawed and a complete waste of my weaves.  They basically demanded I toss them into the flames of Vulcan and try developing something new. I refused. Well, more like I said I would then kept working on them in secret."

Karme puts the ring back on his belt, pulls the sixth one from his ring, and makes a show of waving it around as it glows, conjuring Asterope from her pocket dimension. The rings of her armillary sphere shape spun around their nucleus, immediately producing a holomap of the way forward and even lighting the aqueduct per the task Karme gave her when she was summoned. "When I started at the Tower, she was nothing more than a light source. But look at her now! Mark two has a multitude of advancements from mark one, and now I have the best navigation system in the queendom! Did you know that she was even able to display where wild magic surges in the cities would pop up? Cool right?" he says, beaming at Adrian. "The point is, I didn't turn away from what I love and it worked out for me. I'll admit, I was lucky that I had the best Apprentice as a teacher, and she likely wouldn't have looked my way if not for my house. But she helped me refine my ideas and create something spectacular! Psionics, divination, elemental magic, and even some temporal weaves too. Hundreds of enchantments and little instructions, not to mention the effort spent in the forge crafting a body with materials capable of containing complex weaves. She's one of a set, each of my Sisters has a different function and I can tinker with them any time to improve their functionality. I dabble in all schools and methods of magic to get the job done, as is customary for engineers in Genovia."

Now that Adrian could see the way forward was that far off, Karme summoned Maia as well. At least she'd be able to carry them. Her metalloid slipped under their feet, lifting them out of the water and hovering forward through the air as Karme chuckled. "Your specialty isn't an issue. Turning away from what you know doesn't make any sense, I mean I never did. I love round, spherical shapes so that's what I make. Orbs speak to me, so think about what speaks to you. Tell me Adrian, are runes the kind of magic you most enjoy? Do you have fun when you weave with them? Do you make stuff because you love the craft or is there some other intention behind your forge activities?"

She had not taken to the battlefield of Aventia, although she had resided in Eterna where magic was welcomed, she knew the harsh lands of Iskaldrik had sentenced those with magic in their veins to life of servitude, cleaving or transforming into an anti-thesis of who they were born to be and so she stepped with grace and carefulness, which could be seen as cowardly to some. Even if she hadn't seen the warfield for herself, it was never far from her thoughts and her guilt grew more in depth for those that she saw returned and devasted and those that would never come again.

She travelled to where she had heard pockets of wild magic had erupted to see if she could soothe the land or gleam anything as to what was causing the explosions that had taken root in the soil and would never belong to the natural realm. She hadn't expected the temper tantrum or the waterworks and yet she had shared her bed with more than one unstable man in her life, a gentle weave of magic as wind tenderly tugs through his hair as if he was being petted by the wind itself, wind brushing the tears that had fallen aside, she let the elements do the comforting for her, never dropping her own composure or falling to her knees. "You must. Get to your feet, it's not over until it's over. There are people that count on you for safety and security, picture them and dare to whine to their faces. You are strong and even if you don't feel it, you must endure." It's the hardest she's ever been but he does not pay her coin to hear what he wants.

Of course he wanted to prove himself, but this was too much. Crumbling under the weight of expectation was normal, though, it's just now the people looking to see what he'd do changed from Chrysanthos ladies to the Tower Sitters. Containing the wild magic was a critical mission but also a test. Karme knew well that the Game was always in play. At least one person would be routing for his downfall as was standard when it came to interwoven witch agendas, and Karme was about ready to let them have their win.

'I'm sorry mom, I can't be you…'

Just as he was about to curl into a tighter ball and start wailing out for her, a breeze washed over him, carrying with it the gentle words of a stranger. They broke through, just barely, but enough to get Karme to look up and at least. He wouldn't dare meltdown in front of Lady Juliana out of sheer terror, so he needed to pull it together as if it were her standing over him. He was still sobbing as he unfurled his limbs and stumbled back to his feet, but Valthar's hand was right there at Karme's back, encouraging him to heed the woman's words. "O-Okay, I'll keep going, but you should back away, my lady. This surge is close…" Asterope was functioning again, providing Karme with the insights he needed. Contain this surge, redirect a portion of the wild magic to Electra's location so she can trigger the other, then harness all the power released. His weaves began to swirl around him in preparation, wavering at first but calming enough to flow with the expertise buried beneath the swell of his emotions. It wasn't the thought that he could do this that drove Karme to continue, it was the understanding that he had to. He was the only one. "I want to go home, I want to tinker with whatever is around, I want to have fun again, but I also want to make my queendom proud. I-I want to be a proud and brave Olympian too!" Right on cue, the wild magic surged from beneath the ground around them.