#magical experiments

No wonder he and the Illidari were so active, alert and jittery and prone to bursts of speed and noise. Even with their fel magic contained and channelled by tattoos it remained a potent force, seeking to escape its imprisonment.

He noticed the felfire ink clumping and set to whisking it with fresh vigour. This was a very weak mixture, nothing as strong as the paste he used to mark an Illidari. It would wipe straight off the flesh. Lord Illidan wanted runes that would protect the Illidari from being imprisoned by their own blood.

No one said it was for protection from the wardens, once all this was over. No one had to.

Jace had no idea where to start. Magic flowed through an Illidari very differently in comparison even to a warlock. Compared to a mage or a druid they might as well have been a different species. Magic affected them very, very differently.  

No matter. He was the one that designed their tattoos, he knew the best how magic flowed through their bodies. This was just another rune- 

Fel energy squirmed weakly against his wards and he shunted it back into the bowl.

Jace supposed he couldn’t blame it. Didn’t every living thing desire its freedom? Hadn’t demonic magic allowed them to sprout wings, didn’t it give them the strength to break almost any chain set upon them?

Though that of course raised the knotty question of whether or not magic was alive. Centuries ago the Highbourne would have laughed him out of their hilltop halls for such a statement, and the Kaldorei of the forest would have used such an idea to justify their ban on arcane power, their destruction of the Eternal Well.

As if that had been anything more than politics. As if druidic magic was any better, twisting into the body of the user like roots cracking open a rock. Everyone knew that the oldest druids bled out sap, that their scabs were amber and their scars were bark.

As if the magic of Elune were any better, folk offering up their devotion to an immortal being in exchange for power. What was ultimately the difference between a god and a demon?  

Jace had always been a heretic, believing in magic rather than Aszhara, ignoring Tyrande’s strict ban on arcane casting after the destruction of the Well. That very intolerance had forced him and his mate to live on the edges of the forest, easy prey for the demon raid that had – that had -

Jace snarled softly and set the bowl down so that his talons didn’t crack it open.

Other races thought his silence was serenity. No matter. Each and every Illidari knew and understood such rage, the futile fury that sprung from helplessness, the grim vengefulness that arose from their fel-rebirth.

Concentrate.

The rune had to be large enough that it couldn’t be easily burned or damaged and it had to go on the back or chest. Hands and arms could be cut off. But he also had to be careful to ensure the new rune didn’t interfere with the channelling of pre-existing tattoos.

Times like this, he missed arcane. Arcane was cool and easily moulded, with energies as smooth and supple as a silk scarf. Working with arcane he could have created a layered chain-ward within a day. The magic would have sat into place easily. Arcane always felt as if it was fond of the mage wielding it. A housecat to fel’s wild saber.

Jace remembered vigorous debates over the true nature of arcane magic. As it sprang up from Azeroth’s leylines and geological upheavals, it could be argued that arcane was a most natural form of magic. However certain schools of thought had maintained that arcane felt calm and kind and easy to use because it was a form of predatory parasite, propagating itself through the world via the mage.

He scoffed at such fearmongering, though it had to be said that arcane power had brought no small amount of folk to ruin. The Highbourne, the Sin’dorei, the Shal’dorei, even the eredar had suffered because of their relationship to arcane powers.

Then again, the druids had been devastated of late and none of them so much as sniffed at arcane. The highmountain tauren suffered under the Legion without an arcane mage amongst them.

Now that they knew of world souls, perhaps there was some support for the notion of magic as an entity. Perhaps Azeroth liked to have her power utilised by those creatures roaming her surface. 

Fel certainly felt as if it were alive, felt like it was fighting back. Lord Illidan had noticed him struggle in the early days, when he still thought he could apply arcane structure to nebulous energies broiling up inside him. 

"It will never feel under your control. Let it wriggle all it wants. Focus only on your goal."

This could be useful by times. Fel took no concentration at all, no elongated casting, no complex enchantments. All he had to do was feel malice or fear and it would strike out at the target of his emotions.

Hm. Fel magic as a manifestation of negative emotions. An interesting thought. He ought to wrangle Tehd into helping him write up a report to some of the more unbiased magical journals.

Said forsaken was assisting him in designing the new ward rune. Jace did not want the assistance. But the forsaken was insistent.

It was true what they said about humans, that they would bond to anything. Marius was currently Tehd's model and sat with remarkable patience as the warlock daubed Jace's test patterns on him. They were working mainly with circular and spiralling shapes, as was traditional for a warding spell. Perhaps bracketed by flowing lines so as to part harmful magic around them? Ideally it needed to link the largest runes, the ones that tended to wrap around the shoulders...

The wings.

He sat back.

An arc, a drawn bow, a crescent of tension from wing to shoulder to wing.

A curve could be as powerful a protective force as a circle, properly done. Better yet it was a rune of activity, not passivity. An arc could well bounce magic right off them.

Risky. Wings could be cut off. But their wings were magical fixtures rather than physical, they could never to truly destroyed.

It wasn’t an answer, not yet. But it was a starting point.