The griffon is a menace, and there’s no stopping the little one once he gets started for the day — Gixx finds out, predictably, but even such an uptight scholar like himself can’t help but be charmed by the addition, and intrigued. Magister Turlough is given charge, predictably. And for now, observation and an attempt at taxonomy are all he can do while the avian felid grows and grows. By the end of the first week, it’s already grown to half a stone with regular feedings of mice and other small animals they can catch in the Priory walls.
For now, though, he sleeps. Ofelia the Canthan shorthair is wary and upset by Mercer’s presence, but truly, there’s nothing she can do but pace and brood over the fact he’s getting attention, draping herself across her human’s lap whenever she could in a haughty, feeble attempt to mark her territory. She’s always been clingy like that, and nearly suffocates Nemo nightly. The man himself welcomes her with scratches while he pours over the singular notebook that his explorer has sent back, finding the loss of the rest of his research is a feeble excuse but he’s not in the mood to send him mail and reprimand him before the Steward can.
A knock on the door — the Sylvari Keegan is back, and he’s brought dinner.
“You’ve been working all day” he hums, putting the tray down on Nemo’s desk – it earns him a momentary, frenzied look before he realizes his notes are not in danger, and he sits back, “there can’t possibly be that much in that book”
An agreeable sigh, Nemo’s pulling back his hair again and trying to tie it off somewhere off of his neck. “Yeah, you’d think so, but he’s got this way of letting details into the smallest places. If I was out there with him, we wouldn’t be having this problem…”
“Well, why aren’t you?”
He… snorts. A laugh, really, he leans forward in his chair and picks at the dried dolyak meat and cheeses the sylvari’s brought him. “There’s not really a simple answer to that one, but –” He taps his finger on the top of his right knee, and the brace that surrounds it, “– suppose it’s mostly physical. I have a knack for detailed notes but it’s useless out in the field where there’s danger abound”
“You don’t seem to like being cooped up in a room all day though” Keegan interjects, taking a spot around the other side of the desk and thumbing through Nemo’s notes, a map he’s working on. Silence fills the space. The sprout frowns. “What happened?”
There is no resigned sigh, no smile and the precursor of flamboyance that normally follows the magister with an animated liveliness. His manic brilliance simmered low.
“I joined the Priory just before Marshal Trahearne pressed into Orr, but. I was referred really, by an Asura I had been working with. Jin. I designed the sails on the airships they used for the Pact, you know” he smiles at that. Keegan doesn’t laugh, but watches somberly. “Anyways, that’s all history now, but… well. I enjoyed it! I loved the airships, I loved helping to make them, I loved inventing things, and… well. I went out into the field. After Scarlet Briar there was so much more good I could do, and… uh…”
Keegan has sat, brow knitting deeply. “The jungle dragon”
“…when Mordremoth anticipated our arrival into the jungle, I was one one of those ships. I thought… I could help. I was stranded on a ship for days before anyone found me, and even then, it wasn’t a sure thing. I shattered 3 bones, two in my leg and my wrist. I was shipped back before things could get worse”
“…and now you’re stuck here”
“I wouldn’t say stuck, but the bars above the stairs don’t paint the greatest picture”
A small laugh, and a trill from the ‘nest’ in the corner. “If it’s any consolation, I awoke after the whole ordeal, Magister” Another somber look between the both of him, Nemo’s back to eating, Ofie begging pitifully with a honk and purr. She’s awarded cheese. An uncomfortable quiet fills the room, and how it echoes with such ancient lonliness. It swallows them both, but there is a profound sadness that radiates with his story, an ache to leave, an ache that fills his chest as it does the Magister’s.
He understood this sadness, even in the Dream, even before experiencing it for himself.
“…Magister?”
“Yes, Keegan?”
“Did you know the Marshal?”
A brief pause. It morphs into something longer, more terrible and mournful, and for a moment there is a deathly stillness. Nemo shifts, uneasy in his seat.
“…we met once or twice, yes”
“Was he as good as everyone says he was?”
The sadness returns, it permeates the weak smile. He looks down.
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