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Sometimes when Astrid looks at her arms, she finds herself 16 again, no tattoos, just the beginnings of the scars. - Trauma barely formed. - It passes in a second at most, but a second can feel like minutes, and even, occasionally, hours at a time as she falls into the moments that made her. The worst slips create a momentary confusion upon return of when and where she is.
Which well. She can’t complain about the strength of her memory; it is this strength that allowed her to achieve all she has. It is a core component of her magic. But perhaps it would be beneficial if merely glancing at her arms didn’t bring the chance of reliving excruciating pain.
The worst are the times she finds herself back in that chamber, Bren and Wulf facing her, watching Trent Ickathon as he worked on Wulf or on Bren. Her pain she could manage but theirs always caught her breath. Seeing their pain, and then watching the worry on their faces, that must match her own, somehow that felt worse than the pain itself. All of them were scared, terrified even, but oh so proud too. They were the best of the best of the empire, and this was their prize, and what was a little pain for the protection of their home.
Less haunting somehow, were the times she finds herself alone in the room. Arms and legs strapped to the chair, teeth clenched, unable to look away as Trent makes a precise incision along her forearm. The cut itself stung but was mild compared to what followed: thin tweezers widening the incision, held aloft by Trent’s deep purple mage hand, as Trent oh so carefully wedged in a piece of what she now knows to be refined residuum. The initial placement stung but the minutes and hours after were agonizing. A slow and steady pulse of pain that built with each heartbeat consuming all rational thought, trying to tatter her composure. The pain may be 16 years past but, in these moments, it feels like it occurred just a second prior. She has to restrain herself from gasping following such memories.
She thought this suffering made her stronger but well, the recent growth of Bren has left her wondering. Questionings she thought long since resolved she found now reopened. But ultimately, this questioning was a distraction from her goal. And Astrid had always been the best of the three at ignoring distractions.
Wulf was interested in magic of course, and talented enough, but he had no innate drive, he did what was asked, and he did it well, but that was all. Bren. Well Bren was infatuated with magic, wanted to understand it all, to master it all but to be curious is to let your mind wonder. He was brilliant and just as driven but some of that drive was put towards pure curiosity. Astrid though, Astrid was in it for the power. She loved hearing Bren’s rambles on the theory of magic but wouldn’t dream to distract herself with such research herself. Magic was a tool to sharpen and hone. She could and would deny herself many immediate desires to make her long term one just one step closer. And well, look at her now, oh so close to all she had ever dreamed.
One could argue that Bren had more innate talent – Trent always had – more potential as he had told the Nein at dinner. But did it matter if it came slightly easier to him if she could do everything as well as Bren? And that was taking Trent at his word. It served Trent to lie to push her to excel. Besides their focuses lay differently. She left Bren to his fire and raw power and embraced the more subtle methods. Illusion and enchantment with just enough evocation to get by, that was her style. – Though it seemed since Bren’s return his focus had perhaps shifted. His magic now seemed to be more transfigurative in flavor compared to the evocation (her) Bren had embraced previously. She hadn’t expected that polymorph in Eiselcross. –
Not all the memories are the ghostly remains of a pain long since ended. Somedays as she walks the candles a glance at her arms drags her to days as a student and a moment the location holds. Walking next to Wulf, Bren on his other side as Wulf uses that newly gained height to pull her and Bren in, ignoring their indignant sputtering. Complaining about how a teacher described a technique of abjuration, while they compared their new scars. Sitting on the grass, perpendicular to Bren, feet ever so lightly touching his, with Wulf laying to Bren’s side; his own arm over his eyes. Bren still deeply absorbed in the evocation book, unaware of her gaze, her own book resting in her hand against her leg.
The callbacks are frequent enough that she has built a resilience to them. She can’t make a mistake due to an unasked-for memory. In casual moments they still manage to sneak up on her. But not on a job. In her work these memories no longer seem to haunt her, as to do so would risk her goals, her power. She hadn’t had such a slip up in years.
Astrid walks the stairs, as slowly as she could justify, till she faces the door all the noise of the tower seemed to be emanating from. She had heard panicked chanting and is praying they are gone by the time the door opens. But as she darts in, she sees Bren reading a scroll, an attunement rod in hand – planeshift then – and unconsciously begins to cast counterspell.
As she puts out her arm to counterspell the plane shift - gods if only she had arrived seconds later. Why couldn’t she have arrived seconds later. She tried to give them enough time to leave, arguing with that ridiculous goblin doorman. Who hires a goblin for such work? - her eyes catch on her tattoo.
No, they catch on the scars beneath. And she shifts back nearly twenty years ago to an average morning. Waking too warm from the combined embrace of Bren on one side, Edowulf the other, - she swore Bren had started in the middle - legs all intertwined, things to accomplish awaiting them, never mind the pain from the previous night, throbbing even now in her arm, in all their arms.
And then she is in the present looking at Bren’s face. Resignation barely forming, panic underneath it. She hardly notices any of the others in the room. She should cast it. She has to cast it. She has risked so much already and for what? But. But she knows what awaits if they fail to escape. And she. Can’t. She can’t consign Bren again. And then, they are gone.