"Everyone's manipulative, the only variation is in motive." That's an absent aside, though, because he frowns at the page, looks up and tilts his head at Zerxus, studying him intently.
A ripple of playful amusement is timed perfectly with the revelation.
"You only think that because you were raised in Hell." Which makes it extremely understandable but he still has to point it out. "...Not much. The fear, mostly. Being...frozen, I think, on the ground, with violence all around me."
He's frowning, now, leaning forward to get a better look at what exactly Bruce is reading. "I told you it didn't really mean anything - "
"No, I think that because everyone for various motives and by various methods is manipulative."
And yet, his response to Zerxus leaning forward is to light up the passage that he was reading, and that is of immediate relevance, like some sort of magical highlighter. Why? Because there's no reason not to.
That gets an eyeroll, but he does flip the book around to read. His first expression is baffled annoyance, before it shifts to stunned denial as he looks up.
"You think - ? No." That doesn't make any sense at all. "There are similarities, they helped me train as a paladin without a god, but I never - it says right here, you dedicate your entire life to making prophecies that way. No one just dreams about the future by accident."
"I do think. I more than think." He has no proof, but what is missing in the details of what should be possible does little more than explain Asmodeus' interest - and amusement. "Particularly as they helped you train." For a while, of some indeterminate amount of time. "The bigger question is if they knew and that is why they helped, or it was you subconsciously seeking them out."
He sounds very patient, calm, and composed.
He wants to shake Zerxus - or maybe just scream.
He does at least believe that Zerxus didn't know.
Though how he could have not is beyond Bruce. It seems obvious (from Bruce's position of mostly hindsight.)
He's shaking his head, but the nagging doubt is already clear in his eyes. "No, it - Evandrin sought me out to begin with because of what I could do. Avalir doesn't have many healers, and none of them are warriors."
That's the problem with a city of wizards. Some mages had access to healing - certain kinds of bards and sorcerers, mostly - but they were in the minority, and it wasn't a speciality for any of them. The vast majority of the city's defenders were eldritch knights; training to be fighters or barbarians gave them ways to prevent and withstand damage, but not to heal it.
"The oracles were clerics, in a way. They helped me understand my magic, how to hone it, how to extend it." He'd hit a bit of a wall, back home; so much of it was instinctive, but eventually he needed some kind of direction. "They knew about the nightmares, but they never - they would have said something - "
Wouldn't they? He hadn't trusted many people in Avalir, but the oracles had always seemed different. There wasn't the same smug superiority or naked hunger for power he saw in so many others; there wasn't even the constant clash of loyalties and expectations that even the best of them struggled with.
"Everyone is manipulative," he repeats. The only variation is in motive. Sometimes it's to protect someone, sometimes it's another prophesy, sometimes it's to use them as a means to an end. Everyone is manipulative.
Everyone.
He pulls the book back around, lets the lit up words fade and closes the book. Then pushes back in his chair, the chair away from the desk and stands, half sitting on the desk top, in a casually elegant way.
"So the question becomes: What are you going to do about it?"
"They really aren't." He sounds sure of that in the abstract, at least. When it comes to the oracles specifically -
It's been such a long time. Was he wrong, back then? Too young and naive to see what was really going on?
Zerxus sighs, closing his eyes as he reaches up to massage his temples. He's still got a bit of a headache. "What is there to do? Even if they do mean something, they're never - they don't make any sense, even when I can remember them."
He reaches up, bats Zerxus' hands away and replaces Zerxus hands with his own. They're, unsurprisingly, really warm. More surprisingly his touch is really gentle and he's not half bad at easing pain out.
He moves one to the back of Zerxus' neck, too, because this is either a side-effect or tension, and whether or not the headache is caused by tension, he's certainly tense.
But. "Are you trying to tell me you don't understand your dreams?" Seriously? He sounds disbelieving (he is disbelieving).
There's a half-hearted grumble of complaint, but he sinks into that soothing touch despite himself and it takes a moment for his eyes to flutter back open.
"...The broad strokes, yes. Sometimes." What's a concrete possibility and what's entirely metaphor isn't exactly clear. "That's still not helpful." If this really means Asmodeus is going to do something that hurts Bruce - why? What will it be? When will it happen?
Maybe, if he had more details...
His muscles tense all over again beneath Bruce's palm before he says, "I could try meditating."
Bruce... growls at the suggestion that Zerxus meditate. It would be useful if he could have more detail, it would be a stupidly dangerous act for Zerxus. He ... doesn't want Zerxus to do that. He does want detail. He wants Zerxus to go back to relaxing into his touch.
"I understand your dream just fine."
...He doesn't want Asmodeus to have that additional detail, himself, or Zerxus that open to him.
He hasn't felt this touched and affronted at the same time since Eaedalus sent one of their only clerics after him. (He was only a few hours late and hadn't lost that much blood.)
"Then tell me when, why, and how it will happen. Tell me what I can do about it."
"Why do you believe knowing more detail will provide you with a way to avoid what you are concerned about, rather than simply taking another step along the path of causing it?"
There was something wrong with both of them.
It may be the same thing.
Bruce is fairly certain Zerxus is the bigger problem and has more wrong, though. If only out of self-defense and stubbornness.
He's suspecting Zerxus is the cause of it. He also keeps expecting an abrupt interruption that isn't coming, and he's glad isn't coming, but is paranoid about.
While still, deeply, suspecting the man in front of him is the cause of it.
"You trying to help is the most credible threat to my safety that there is."
His gaze had gone distant, as he remembered the brutal shellshock of those first days. Avalir was a ravaged husk of itself but Domunas was still whole, and they'd managed a few brief, scattered reunions in the roiling chaos. Sofyra had recited the prophecy to him that was written off as madness, and the first line is ringing in his head: The stars are leaving us.
Later, he thought it was because of the way Domunas was destroyed; the ash choked the air and cloaked the sky, and to this day no one mortal can see through it. But he knows that every line in a prophecy can have two, three, four meanings -
the stars are falling, and his mouth is full of blood, and the light is screaming
Bruce's voice jolts him out of it, and he jumps sharply enough to dislodge the hand at his neck, if it doesn't tighten.
He's gone clammy and pale, the way he was when he first woke up; it makes the brand of Bruce's palm is even more intense, cutting through the haze. It's enough to focus Zerxus's gaze squarely on Bruce but it's wild, lost, half-panicked.
"I don't know." It's half frustrated growl, half plaintive confession. His heart is a drum in his chest. "It was - it was there, for a moment - "
Softly, as if trying not to intrude overmuch, You need to calm him down.
Bruce is bewildered, concerned, somewhat lost himself - but he isn't frightened or panicked, and he does at least respond both to Zerxus' state once he's back.
Albeit with a little more direction thanks to his Father than he might have otherwise managed. He uses the hand on Zerxus' neck and pulls him solidly in, puts a second hand on his back.
"Breathe. No one and nothing is in immediate danger." For now. He is (or feels) bad at this, but his hands are steady and his voice is low and calm.
Zerxus can't even tell if that was an order or not; he just latches onto it, and it's clear he's done breathing exercised before. Slowly, his heartbeat stops racing.
He's heard a prophecy before, and not one of those trifling fortunes; the sort that can drive a mortal mad. It may, or may not, be connected to the dream. He doesn't sound at all concerned, but he does sound intrigued. You should see how much of it he remembers, once he's settled down.
It's good that Zerxus has done breathing exercises before, because Bruce's experience with calming distraught mortals is... limited. Even doing this has thoughts (or at least emotions and under the surface memories) of Jason trying to raise to the surface.
Mostly, he leaves Zerxus to it, and rubs his back in a continued, steady, pattern.
"Better. Keep doing what you're doing." Bit of an order, at least, though the first hadn't been intended to be.
I'll give him water, take him back to bed and investigate. At least this isn't likely all about me. He also just wants to go back to bed and curl up around Zerxus.
And if Asmodeus had been concerned, Bruce would have been... shocked. And very, very alarmed.
Zerxus, meanwhile, is trying very hard not to think at all. With very few exceptions, he's managed to avoid breaking down like this in front of anyone since the war started. When you're the pillar of a crumbling community you can't afford to let anyone see the cracks.
So most of his memories of being guided and comforted like this are tied to his parents, to his brother, to Evandrin - and he cannot afford to make that emotional link. Even he knows that's too dangerous.
I meant that his emotional reaction to the prophesy isn't about me.
Broken he knows he didn't do, thank you. He is still pretty sure he's supposed to make it worse and maybe he will be ... probably he won't.
He slowly eases back from Zerxus but does not stop touching him. The hand stays on Zerxus' back. "Let's get you a glass of water and go back to your room. Do you want to bring your notebook?"
Not entirely. Whether Asmodeus is actually hinting at something or just being ominous for fun is hard to say.
"I'm fi - " It's reflexive, before it trails off into a choked laugh. No, it's officially too obvious that he is not. "Yes, I'd like to." He's already reaching for it, but distinctly avoids actually looking at anything he's written.
It is not. It is alarming and his assumption will be that it is a hint at something ominous because assuming otherwise would be entirely too trusting.
He grabs the notebook, does not avoid looking at what has been written, and puts his hand lower on Zerxus' back. "Stay close - and cancel your spell." Cancel, remove, whatever works. The light does not need to stay.
Once the light is gone and shadows return Bruce simply walks them into one of those shadows and out very near his suite.
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"Everyone's manipulative, the only variation is in motive." That's an absent aside, though, because he frowns at the page, looks up and tilts his head at Zerxus, studying him intently.
"How much of your dream do you remember?"
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"You only think that because you were raised in Hell." Which makes it extremely understandable but he still has to point it out. "...Not much. The fear, mostly. Being...frozen, I think, on the ground, with violence all around me."
He's frowning, now, leaning forward to get a better look at what exactly Bruce is reading. "I told you it didn't really mean anything - "
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And yet, his response to Zerxus leaning forward is to light up the passage that he was reading, and that is of immediate relevance, like some sort of magical highlighter. Why? Because there's no reason not to.
And because he wants to watch Zerxus' reaction.
Doesn't mean anything his ass.
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"You think - ? No." That doesn't make any sense at all. "There are similarities, they helped me train as a paladin without a god, but I never - it says right here, you dedicate your entire life to making prophecies that way. No one just dreams about the future by accident."
They just don't.
They don't, right?
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He sounds very patient, calm, and composed.
He wants to shake Zerxus - or maybe just scream.
He does at least believe that Zerxus didn't know.
Though how he could have not is beyond Bruce. It seems obvious (from Bruce's position of mostly hindsight.)
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That's the problem with a city of wizards. Some mages had access to healing - certain kinds of bards and sorcerers, mostly - but they were in the minority, and it wasn't a speciality for any of them. The vast majority of the city's defenders were eldritch knights; training to be fighters or barbarians gave them ways to prevent and withstand damage, but not to heal it.
"The oracles were clerics, in a way. They helped me understand my magic, how to hone it, how to extend it." He'd hit a bit of a wall, back home; so much of it was instinctive, but eventually he needed some kind of direction. "They knew about the nightmares, but they never - they would have said something - "
Wouldn't they? He hadn't trusted many people in Avalir, but the oracles had always seemed different. There wasn't the same smug superiority or naked hunger for power he saw in so many others; there wasn't even the constant clash of loyalties and expectations that even the best of them struggled with.
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Everyone.
He pulls the book back around, lets the lit up words fade and closes the book. Then pushes back in his chair, the chair away from the desk and stands, half sitting on the desk top, in a casually elegant way.
"So the question becomes: What are you going to do about it?"
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It's been such a long time. Was he wrong, back then? Too young and naive to see what was really going on?
Zerxus sighs, closing his eyes as he reaches up to massage his temples. He's still got a bit of a headache. "What is there to do? Even if they do mean something, they're never - they don't make any sense, even when I can remember them."
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He moves one to the back of Zerxus' neck, too, because this is either a side-effect or tension, and whether or not the headache is caused by tension, he's certainly tense.
But. "Are you trying to tell me you don't understand your dreams?" Seriously? He sounds disbelieving (he is disbelieving).
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"...The broad strokes, yes. Sometimes." What's a concrete possibility and what's entirely metaphor isn't exactly clear. "That's still not helpful." If this really means Asmodeus is going to do something that hurts Bruce - why? What will it be? When will it happen?
Maybe, if he had more details...
His muscles tense all over again beneath Bruce's palm before he says, "I could try meditating."
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"I understand your dream just fine."
...He doesn't want Asmodeus to have that additional detail, himself, or Zerxus that open to him.
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"Then tell me when, why, and how it will happen. Tell me what I can do about it."
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There was something wrong with both of them.
It may be the same thing.
Bruce is fairly certain Zerxus is the bigger problem and has more wrong, though. If only out of self-defense and stubbornness.
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"Ignoring prophecies is worse."
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He's suspecting Zerxus is the cause of it. He also keeps expecting an abrupt interruption that isn't coming, and he's glad isn't coming, but is paranoid about.
While still, deeply, suspecting the man in front of him is the cause of it.
"You trying to help is the most credible threat to my safety that there is."
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Later, he thought it was because of the way Domunas was destroyed; the ash choked the air and cloaked the sky, and to this day no one mortal can see through it. But he knows that every line in a prophecy can have two, three, four meanings -
the stars are falling, and his mouth is full of blood, and the light is screaming
Bruce's voice jolts him out of it, and he jumps sharply enough to dislodge the hand at his neck, if it doesn't tighten.
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His hand tightens - hard enough to hurt, hot enough to burn, neither enough to not damage.
"What," he asks sharply, "just happened?"
He's heard of flashbacks, yes. He is aware. This feels like more than that.
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"I don't know." It's half frustrated growl, half plaintive confession. His heart is a drum in his chest. "It was - it was there, for a moment - "
Softly, as if trying not to intrude overmuch, You need to calm him down.
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Albeit with a little more direction thanks to his Father than he might have otherwise managed. He uses the hand on Zerxus' neck and pulls him solidly in, puts a second hand on his back.
"Breathe. No one and nothing is in immediate danger." For now. He is (or feels) bad at this, but his hands are steady and his voice is low and calm.
What was that?
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He's heard a prophecy before, and not one of those trifling fortunes; the sort that can drive a mortal mad. It may, or may not, be connected to the dream. He doesn't sound at all concerned, but he does sound intrigued. You should see how much of it he remembers, once he's settled down.
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Mostly, he leaves Zerxus to it, and rubs his back in a continued, steady, pattern.
"Better. Keep doing what you're doing." Bit of an order, at least, though the first hadn't been intended to be.
I'll give him water, take him back to bed and investigate. At least this isn't likely all about me. He also just wants to go back to bed and curl up around Zerxus.
And if Asmodeus had been concerned, Bruce would have been... shocked. And very, very alarmed.
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So most of his memories of being guided and comforted like this are tied to his parents, to his brother, to Evandrin - and he cannot afford to make that emotional link. Even he knows that's too dangerous.
Oh, no, he was broken long before you.
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Broken he knows he didn't do, thank you. He is still pretty sure he's supposed to make it worse and maybe he will be ... probably he won't.
He slowly eases back from Zerxus but does not stop touching him. The hand stays on Zerxus' back. "Let's get you a glass of water and go back to your room. Do you want to bring your notebook?"
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"I'm fi - " It's reflexive, before it trails off into a choked laugh. No, it's officially too obvious that he is not. "Yes, I'd like to." He's already reaching for it, but distinctly avoids actually looking at anything he's written.
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It is not. It is alarming and his assumption will be that it is a hint at something ominous because assuming otherwise would be entirely too trusting.
He grabs the notebook, does not avoid looking at what has been written, and puts his hand lower on Zerxus' back. "Stay close - and cancel your spell." Cancel, remove, whatever works. The light does not need to stay.
Once the light is gone and shadows return Bruce simply walks them into one of those shadows and out very near his suite.
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