you magnificent fuck up
04 September 2029 @ 04:27 pm
[contact] a rarely used irritant.  


A recorded voice: You have reached [number]. Please leave a message.
Presumably nobody really thought Martel was at all likely to record a message.
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
28 April 2011 @ 01:00 pm
baedal » permissions  
the permissions meme )
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
28 October 2010 @ 09:44 pm
martel » the growth of frozen, interrupted hands  

and let us make fire and silence and sound )
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
25 April 2010 @ 08:44 am
[log] i'm not scared of dying, i just don't want to  
Three months or so have passed since Ewar was first given responsibility for the 'children', as Martel refers to them; if Ewar were to recount the conversation, he'd probably judiciously edit what was actually said to him ('make sure the children don't do anything miserably stupid while my back is turned') out of both tactfulness and loyalty.

It hasn't been a very taxing duty, but it's hard to say whether that's about to get better or worse when Martel amends his orders to 'I'm recovered enough, go and fetch her'. Ewar carries the message with him with his Lord's seal, and Martel occupies himself with his books while he waits.

He's not fully healed, and he doesn't have the range of movement without pain that he'd quite like- but it'll do. He's always chafed at idleness, and he suspects Magda has waited more than long enough.
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
10 March 2010 @ 12:25 pm
[log] but i pursue in vain the sinking god  
The road to recovery is fraught with perils mostly the result of the man doing the recovering being a lousy patient. 'Uncooperative' is a kind word for his irritable attitude, and one can only assume that either the attending physician is being promised vast sums of money or a masochist. A distant third is the possibility of being just precisely that professional.

The wounds are cleaned, stitched (again - he's pitifully grateful for the nausea's passing), and healing; the physician watches closely for signs of an infection, but so far he seems to have been spared that, at least. This doesn't make it any less uncomfortably painful, and sleep comes fitfully at best. It's an altogether unpleasant experience and Martel spends much of it flat on his stomach, 'resting', partially because the physician threatened him with further bodily harm if he does anything now to rupture his stitches again.

Onelle's messenger ought to have found Candice by now, and since discovering that the Duchess sent word to his wife the thought has occurred to Martel that he's probably going to be in trouble when she compares one note to the other.
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
26 February 2010 @ 06:40 pm
[narrative] because honey you're murdering me  
After the initial time spent drifting in and out of consciousness as the antidote began moving through his blood-stream, Martel spends a lot of time sincerely wishing he was still in that state over constantly bursting the stitches in his back when he's messily ill into the tin bucket by the bed. Nitral's personal physician stays with him through most of it, at least until he's able to go more than an hour or so without tearing his back open again retching. The cold sweat is almost worse and by the end of the week he's relatively sure that he's actually lost weight; there is a certain irony in his having been poisoned trying to protect the Duke, he thinks, and tries to be a good patient.

(He fails, mostly, but the physician is patient - and well-compensated for his patience.)

Onelle, Nitral's wife, brings him books to read and occasionally keeps him company simply out of, he thinks, gratitude. She's the one who brings him the paper and ink that he asks for, and who appraises him ahead of time that Koleika is taking the men ahead to Wenos to firmly discourage any more assassination attempts. She's also the one who pens the short note to Candice about Martel's condition ('incoherent' at time of writing), but the note he writes himself when he has the strength to master the spell needed to send it will probably reach his wife first.

    I'll be late. Nothing to worry about. -M.


The problem that Martel doesn't consider is that Candice presumably knows him well enough to realize there is something to worry about if he feels obliged to tell her that there isn't. Sparhawk, too, gets one of these terse missives after it occurs to him that his brother may have been awaiting a response to his announcement that he'd made it back to their world.

    Poisoned, irony of ironies. More details later. Don't do anything stupid. -M.


Onelle's messenger will reach Valdis a week after Martel's brief, ominous note. Martel endures the confinement and bedrest with poor grace, resting his chin on his folded arms and glaring at the wall that refuses to be intimidated by his pale, trembling irritation with the world.
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
19 February 2010 @ 02:23 am
[narrative] but from what wound it wells so far i have not found  
Just as he told his wife, Martel has no intention of going into battle - if it should become necessary, he's willing, but the Arums have an able commander already. He serves another purpose, and even if chafes at him to be cloistered in the ducal palace playing at diplomat when he could be on a horse with a sword drawn- that's not what he's there for, and he knows it. Nitral, the Duke, is unusually well-liked by Martel's closest Arum compatriot and he's along less because Koleika can't get along with him and more to save time and hassle all around. The iron-jawed chief had put it bluntly: "You like to talk, Martel. I don't. You can do the talking."

It's not terrible, anyway; the city is everything Koleika promised him that it'd be and when they're not translating Arum work ethic into something the rest of the Duke's command can actually understand, Martel takes the opportunity to acquaint himself with this brilliant architect conveniently born into just the position to indulge his passion. He can relate, and they're right, really; he has always liked the sound of his own voice. There's another reason he's here - to get a feel for how they do things, to get these people used to dealing with him - and the fact that they don't need to discuss that is just one of the reasons that Martel so admires his friend.

Wenos can't pay the high prices that the Arum clans demand for their soldiers, and Martel expects to be leaving the city in plenty of time to take care of the little problem he has Ewar keeping an eye on for him. It doesn't work out that way, of course; it never does.

Wenos may not be able to afford to pay for an entire Arum force, but they can find the funds to try cutting off the head of the snake; Martel is pacing his guest chamber in sleeping trousers when he hears the tell-tale choked gurgle outside in the hall, interrupting his reading. The guards are dead, he judges, and Nitral and his duchess lie sleeping across the hall. The decision to pick up the knife he'd been cleaning and sharpening earlier is an easy one to make, and he nudges the door ajar to get an idea of where they are before shoving it suddenly open with a satisfying crack against the back of the first man's skull.

The first one down draws the other two in his direction - it's a short, ugly fight and a kick in the back has Martel slamming face first into the wall unexpectedly. He and the assassin behind him simultaneously misjudge each other; the knife slices his back open instead of stabbing through his ribs when he pushes his hands against the wall and slams himself backwards, knocking the other man off-balance and snagging that knife in one, smooth movement-

-it embeds in the back of the last man's neck, bringing him down to his knees in front of Nitral's door even as Martel crushes the second man's windpipe under his bare foot, leaning hard- hard- harder, when he falls, his knees buckling underneath him as he realizes only belatedly, when the fracas in the hallway summons the Duke with his own sword out, that the sting of the blade hadn't been entirely the fault of the steel.

His vision swims and then, mercifully, he passes out.
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
22 January 2010 @ 12:29 am
[narrative] he knew human folly like the back of his hand  
Winter is a miserable time to go to war - in particular due to winter being a miserable time to tramp down from the mountains - but the frost should have broken at least by the time they're passing Maghu, and between then and now Martel ought to have plenty of time to regret agreeing to this. It's a profitable thing, though, and God knows it's worthwhile to establish his contacts in the flatlands sooner rather than later. He treats it like an idle stroll in the countryside, the way he and Kalten used to look at each other and shrug instead of bothering to consider that the sometimes chillingly casual attitude of Pandions toward their violence wasn't normal or appropriate; where they knew what lay beneath that, he wonders where the differences lie between himself and the nearest and dearest of worlds he still doesn't understand and doesn't care to find out this way. All things in Martel's life come down to perception, sooner or later; Candice knows better, sees through him, and then he feels the most secure in his decisions.

Having learned a long time ago that shrugging off any battle is tantamount to suicide, regardless of skill or experience, he ignores the cheerful fiction that he's along to do nothing more than grease wheels and prevent Koleika from finding himself in the position of threatening another Treborean nobleman - he would've ignored it even if it were true, because a diplomat bleeds just the same as anyone else. Easier, usually, in Martel's long and storied history.

Despite what will be weeks, maybe months, of his absence - he chooses not to mention what he's doing to more than a few people, and none of them outside his home are informed of anything like 'when' or 'where' or 'why'. Sparhawk and Martel are alike in some ways more than others, and their habitual secret-keeping is nothing especially new. He thinks of his brother in a detached sort of a way, and occupies some evenings penning the first [eight] drafts of a letter that he will send. He finally does early one morning before they break camp, twisting enchantment around a pathway into the nexus instead of bothering with a messenger that almost certainly wouldn't be able to find him.
S.

Come to your senses yet?

I've attached directions to the portal I found. It's safe either side, near as I can tell, but for what I assume are painfully obvious reasons I haven't had the occasion to go through and be utterly sure that it's going to the right world. You'll come out on a beach opposite Thalesia's strait, if I'm any judge, so I suggest finding yourself a horse in the interim. Faran will find it somewhere in his black and volatile heart to forgive you the infidelity, I'm sure. Every means I can devise to test it indicates it's the right world. There's only one way left to find out, and my brother, better you than me.

If you haven't come to your senses - marvelous. As much as I could go a hundred years (and well might; evidently the physiology of a resurrected soul isn't entirely unlike that of a troll) without seeing Elenia again, happily, my wife is interested in visiting. Discreetly. Apparently I have myself a sentimentalist; she also thinks this is a good idea. There are many, many things that you and I need to talk about before we do any such damn thing - and they'll have to wait, I'm doing a friend of mine a favour with his little war - but as I can't be sure you remember how our conversation turned out (was it very good wine, old boy?) I felt obliged to properly indicate my willingness to be reasonable.

You'll find instructions on the spell I use to send letters through the nexus with this, too, and I feel confident that you can master something simple enough for even Kalten's understanding of sorcery. If you hurry home, mother might help you with the tricky parts.

Your brother,
M.
There have probably been warmer invitations to reconciliation, and there have almost certainly been kinder ways of helping a brother; he doubts Sparhawk would trust his aid if it came gently, and rightly so. The best way of determining an Elene's sincerity in his concern for you is judging how annoyed he seems to be about the inconvenience.

(He has no intention of riding into a battle with these worries still hanging over his head. Sparhawk has the means of getting back to his child-bride now, and he can do with it what he will.)
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
21 January 2010 @ 01:08 am
[log] to bury my head, full of pain, in your skirts rendolent of your perfume  
Several weeks ago.

For some time now, Martel's been steadfastly ignoring the knowledge wallowing in the back of his mind, and as much as he knows he can't continue ignoring it forever he'd really like to try. Relegated to the same place as 'Sparhawk used the word reconcile without spitting on it', his understanding of what he's been told lies not dormant enough for his comfort and in retrospect he sort of wishes he hadn't been able to grasp it so quickly. Another precious few moments ignorant, instead of this prissy refusal to examine the inside of his own mind-

He's not that self-pitying, he tells himself, and he's a very good liar.

"Candice?" he calls, pulling his gloves off as he comes down the hall towards wherever she's sequestered herself, having saved everyone a bit of time by merely asking where to find her when he arrived back from his bi-monthly tete-a-tete with the nearby chieftain and heading immediately in that direction. The problem with taking the time to go on horseback, alone, is that there's nothing better to do except think. He has a few thoughts, and there's really only one person he's inclined to share them with.

in a slumber doubtful as death )
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
31 December 2009 @ 12:53 pm
[congratulations] i love so tenderly the desert and the sea  
One of Martel's worst habits - in the opinion of the poor sod who gets to take care of it when his lordship can't reach the burns to clean them up on his own - is probably the fact that he appears to firmly believe few enchantments could fail to be improved by the involvement of fire. This one, though, this one needs it.

The glass is the hard part, he decides; a hollow eternity symbol in crystal clear glass, fashioned 'honestly' and completed with sorcery, it's not his usual sort of occupation and there are broken shards of his previous attempts littering the workroom as a silent testament to how long it took him to master it. (Not as long as you'd think, but he did cheat and without a hint of shame, too.) From there the water - half full, clean spring water that he blessed as an afterthought - and then, then the fire.

All right. Maybe this is the hard part.

Inside the glass an enchanted fire burns merrily, and endlessly, unbothered by the water that it shares its space with and flows against, and Martel makes a mental note to wrap his raw hands when he's finished. Not before he's finished, though, it'd make him clumsy and really - it doesn't hurt that much. The last thing is a stand for it, and a bit of metal sculpture is much easier for him than the glass proved to be.

He takes a step back to admire his handiwork, when it's done, and then swears when he realizes he stepped directly onto a piece of broken glass.

(This is one of those occasions Ewar doesn't mind being reduced to a messenger boy, carrying the package and short note - Congratulations. - M. - to Ithaca personally.)
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
18 December 2009 @ 05:31 pm
[narrative] there are cemetaries that are lonely, graves full of bones that do not make a sound  
Some perverse part of his mind - he supplies 'all of it, then?' mentally on reflex - refuses to let go of the knowledge that Sparhawk saw fit to share with him. He avoids it; he works, he travels, he busies himself with acquiring the odd gift for those of his acquaintance who celebrate this winter holiday he keeps hearing about, and those he just likes well enough to give things. He spends his hours with books at Candice's feet and he does anything else but think of it - and yet.

And yet it nags at the very edge of his consciousness, not allowing him to ignore it, to forget it. It refuses to be forgotten, though it serves him no real purpose to know. What can he do now?

The worst part, of course, isn't just the understanding of how he was used. How Zalasta barely had to manipulate him, how all he needed was the pathway that he'd walk of his own volition. How the worst downfall the Pandions have known, the most defining moments in his life, were nothing more than moves on a chessboard he couldn't see he was standing on. The knight, yes, isn't that funny.

No, the worst part is that he can't just be disgusted at what Zalasta wanted; he can't just be angry and bitter and riddled with familiar guilt all anew. All of that is true, but it's not all. No, no - it's an affront to his ego. To have all his achievements weighed and measured and reduced to-

Martel throws the quillpen down on his desk and pushes back, furious and ashamed.
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
02 December 2009 @ 04:50 am
[log] both your friend and your enemy think you will never die  
The crisp cold air in Arum gives way to the more temperate nexus, and Martel loosens his cloak as he walks further away from the portal - habitually, as if this is something that he does quite often, because it is. The nexus has become a routine the way he knows just about anything can become routine, and he uses it for recreation and for business and for self-indulgence and for all sorts of things that are alternately useful or logically pointless. His opinion of the place changes daily, but tends to baseline at 'tolerant'; today he's not really thinking about it, going about his business unremarkable and unremarked on.

In the nexus there are any number of places he could be found, for any number of reasons. As he makes his way through the semi-Elene market that he's been frequenting for months without bothering to mention this slice of his homeland to anyone else (even the precious few Elenes who pass through, who have enough without taking this from him, too), he knows that if he's needed at the castle he's not impossible to find. Unfortunately, he's not impossible to find for anyone else, either, unconcerned as he is.

He's probably not anticipating being interrupted as he disagrees with a vendor about the worth of these pieces, and where they came from in the first place.
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
29 November 2009 @ 06:40 pm
[log] wide-eyed grinning in the darkened room  
[16:25] Grif: "And yeah, without admitting to anything in particular, transitioning to legit work does take some getting used to."
[16:25] * Martel coughs. ...what. Nothing.
Read more... )
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
06 November 2009 @ 04:02 am
[prompt] a broken hand works, but not a broken heart  
Time passes.

In Savannah, he answers to Professor Lefevre and they wonder at his decision to adopt his wife's surname when they marry, at the expense he went to for a computer that looks at home next to his grandfather clock and antique fountain pens, at his blend of accents and casual assertion that as a lapsed Catholic he's switched his fealty to good red wine.

In Arum, he answers to my lord and they puzzle at his seeming lack of a history before this land he wasn't born in, at his foreign methods of warfare and its tactics, at his willingness to become their own myth, at his unhurried and patient route to influence, at his vast library and enchantments, at his eccentricities and unselfconsciously solitary faith.

At the end of the day, Martel shrugs his shirt from his shoulders and feels the pull of scar tissue over his heart, because he will carry the end with him until there's no where left to go.
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
02 November 2009 @ 10:56 pm
[log] everyone i know goes away in the end  
The week or so following his foray into spellcrafting on the fly is quiet - at least for Martel himself. Classifying his workload as 'quiet' is probably a matter of perspective, but it's a familiar hassle and one that most days he even enjoys. Nevertheless, if he wants to fine-tune anything out of what he pulled together for Hasibe he needs a bit of time not spent knocking heads together, not to mention the fact he doesn't have here at the castle all of the texts he's particularly interested in while he frames his notes into something more coherent than 'BY GOD I AM UTTERLY BRILLIANT'.

(Accurate, but lacking a certain something professionally.)

The long and the short of it is that when he finishes for the day, he intends to spend the rest of the evening and further working at the nexus library - and he is presently kneeling in the stacks in the section devoted to the development of new Styric spells as influenced by cooperation with the church of Chyrellos. It's going to be a very long night.
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
23 October 2009 @ 12:29 pm
[log] i fall into the shadows, to the core of shattered things  
After Henry and Hasi are gone following Ethina to their guestrooms, Martel speaks with Ewar briefly before meeting Langler at the library. No one (particularly Langler himself) is entirely sure why he's found himself more and more called upon personally - but nevertheless, there he is and he does as he's bid without complaining or questioning. The fact he's actually capable of working when he's set to it is probably why he's still got a place here in the first place- but that's not the point of this.

When Martel's satisfied with what he has noted down and has run out of errands to send Langler on, he dismisses him and files it away in his working library, and finally leaves work and wondering for the night. It's not nearly as late as it feels, just late enough that he can safely rely on expecting Candice to be in their rooms - which is his next destination. There are conversations he's been avoiding, and...he intends to continue avoiding them, but now he has something much, much more interesting.

And he prefers to spend as much of his time as possible in her company, yes, yes; obsession, thy name is Martel.
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
18 October 2009 @ 05:30 am
[prompt] and i feel the leaves dying to the very core  
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
17 October 2009 @ 11:03 pm
[prompt] instead of making them into things of my will, i only gave them a life of their own  
In ten, twenty, thirty years they will not forget the crunch of metal and bone before Martel went to his knees in Zemoch, breathing blood; he was blessed and then he was dead, and what followed is burned into memories not belonging to him. The city fell, then, taking its dead with it - and there were many of them.

And yet here he is, as if untouched, and once again standing at the end of his brother's sword with a dry smile and cold, dark eyes. Ultimately it's almost impossible to say which of them wants this less.


 
 
you magnificent fuck up
17 October 2009 @ 01:01 am
[prompt] and just bewilder the hell out of people the way that love should  
The masquerade is nothing that Martel has any interest in attending - but Petrana gets wind of the fact he's been invited (which means she's been invited, and he suspects his mother pointed this out), and then he really doesn't have as much say in the matter as he might have liked. Despite the effort on his part that would be required to give any less of a damn about the proceedings of some courtier's melodrama-laden royal anniversary celebrations, he submits to a few fittings and the bare minimum of input into what exactly it is he's being wrestled into for the evening. There are stars, silver and ivory silk, sewn into the black velvet doublet that Petrana was utterly convinced would be a good idea, and he takes comfort in the fact that very few of his fellows are going to be able to witness this indignity.

The mask is a little more tolerable; modestly sized, admittedly because Romiar glimpsed what they were planning in the first place and pointed out that Martel's hair is probably sufficiently reminiscent of moonlight without any encouragement at all. (Veleda commended her husband for his poetry of thought, and Martel got his father another drink for sparing him what he'd seen on paper.) All the same, when he waits impatiently for Petrana to come down the stairs so he can hustle her into the carriage waiting outside, it has more to do with a desire to get this evening over with and less to do with anticipation of the costume that matches and opposes his.

That, he reflects, as he takes in the gold chains knotted into braids holding the translucent yellow fabric that is her sun's halo and the skirts flaring out from her tightly-laced waist, may have been an error on his part.

"You're going to have a terrible headache by the time we leave," he predicts, even so.

"Thank you, dearest," she replies - sunnily - as she sails past him to the door.

Of course.
 
 
you magnificent fuck up
15 October 2009 @ 04:37 pm
[log] i wish i had the blind faith of an atheist  
Not once, but twice; there is something disconcerting about reliving that particular moment all over again, not quite able to disconnect himself from these men who might very well come from different worlds entirely. They look at him the same way - with rightful suspicion and outright shock, like they've seen a ghost put to rest and he's tearing open old wounds, like he always would - and it feels the same, like a lifetime ago wasn't long enough.

(It wasn't; it was little more than a year.)

The situation, Martel has decided, calls for a drink and a friendship one has to be this twisted in the first place just to fall into. He tells Candice, first, being not entirely a fool, and sends warning ahead to the castle to see if he's welcome enough to drop by.