This takes place the evening after the swords are stolen, the evening after Gwynfor’s powers are restored and arguments are had over marks.
It was ... a day. After it all, after the arguments, when people went their different ways to cool down, Vivienne went back to the room. She could grab her bow, maybe finally get the chance to take her time with Angelbeau-- No. Who was she kidding? She had two superior bows. She had plans for Angelbeau, besides. She'd intended to flop on her neatly-made bunk, but sighed instead. Vivienne picked up the hand crossbow Talmage had lent her the night before. She did need to return it. There was no telling, apparently, when it might be needed. She left, and went through the grueling process of finding people who would actually talk to her and tell her where anyone was when she actively had a weapon in hand. In the end, she just saw Talmage pass by an intersection at the end of the hall. "TALMAGE. TALMAGE I HAVE--" she jogged to the end of the hall, and when Talmage turned out to be Right There, she dropped her voice to a more normal, less echoing volume. "Sorry. I have your crossbow. Thank you for letting me use it. You should loosen the tension, it's a bit tight. Not too much or it won't work, obviously, but I probably don't need to tell you that."
Talmage bristled at the noise, his first instinct being to bolt - hearing his own name shouted at him was NEVER a good thing. Upon realizing it was Viv, he calmed slightly. "Oh," he replied, having already forgot he lent the crossbow to her. "Oh right, sure, yeah." Talmage took the weapon from her and began inspecting it. "Wouldn't know!" he said, confidently. "Never used it."
Despite having pointedly mentioned it, Talmage grew defensive.
"I mean--" he scoffed, "I haven't had-- okay, I was originally going to shoot magic out of it - which was super cool, by the way - but it didn't ..." Talmage paused. "achieve ... desired results." He paused, crossing his arms. "... What would you show me, though. Like, if I was interested."
Vivienne nodded along slowly at Talmage's stilted, defensive explanation. It probably would've been very cool. Viv pursed her lips and looked down at the crossbow, as if it had failed Talmage. "How to maintain it. How to ... shoot it? And shoot it well. The best time to reload." She gave a shrug, discussion of ranged weapons the largest part of her wheelhouse. "I could show you a few strategic maneuvers. They have a hidden Calloway firing range near the armory."
Talmage perked up at the word hidden, and then cracked a grin.
"... Yeah, you know what? Show me some stuff." He tried passing off as casual and uninterested, but his curiosity was clearly piqued. His mind began to buzz with what advice Viv might give to a someone with his experience.
"Okay!" She clapped, a little more excited at teaching Talmage to shoot than she'd expected to be when she offered. It was familiar.
Getting down to the range took some time. A wrong turn toward the armory, a course correction near one of the three different libraries. Someone slid out of sight when they saw the pair coming, though Viv was sure it had more to do with her than Talmage.
Once they felt like they were good and lost, there was a door that opened to a long room that ran lengthwise all down a corridor, with targets set up on sliding tracks. Blessedly empty.
"Alright. So, this is a hand crossbow. It's only got thirty good feet of range to it. If you're very, very luck, up to about one hundred and twenty feet, at the very most." She patted the weapon in Talmage's hand and went down the track to line a target up at thirty feet. "You uh, you know how to load it, and such, right?" she asked with no surety in the assumption, returning to Talmage's side with her hands on her hips.
"Uh," Talmage looked down at the small contraption in his hands and began fiddling with it. "Yeah, I mean, it just goes here right--" He knows where the bolt goes, and how it goes, but fumbles pulling it back and the shot sadly fires itself, landing about ten feet away from them.
After a beat of silence, he mutters, "Ok, this was easier when I rigged it to load itself," and slides a second bolt in place. Without shooting this one, he begins aiming at one of the targets, getting a feel for holding the device.
"You rigged it to load itself?" Viv moved behind him and leaned slightly, looking at his shot line. "Make sure you always keep both eyes open. You need depth perception." She moved to Talmage's side and nudged his foot back some with hers. "Move it a little closer to your body. Tense this arm. It won't pull as hard."
"I-- yeah," Talmage says, distracted by how quickly this had become an actual Lesson. He bugs both his eyes out to compensate for having definitely closed one at first, and attempts to rigidly align his body in whatever absurd way Vivienne was demanding. He feels incredibly stupid.
"--with magic," he clarifies, lining up his shot with the target. "It shot magic, I mean, so I never really had to reload it with anything--"
Talmage lets his shot fly, hitting the very outermost ring of the target, and lets out a cackle. "HA!!" he shouts, fist-pumping. "HELL yeah, look at that." He points excitedly to his accomplishment.
"Hey! Look at that! You did it!" Viv patted his back. It was a shot that didn't suck only in that it hit the target. Barely. She would've berated any soldier or St Arkadia student.
A very vivid memory came to mind. "Wow, Hector, those glasses really don't help you much, do they? Missed that one by a mile."
She shook it off. "Like Plate Piercer. That's ... very cool, actually! Maybe you can re-enchant it once we have our brands off, make it fire--magic missiles or something. You should be able to do all sorts of things with your full magic back, right?" She was sure she was allowed to discuss that with Talmage, of all people.
At Vivienne's praise, Talmage's grin twists as he tries to will himself into a more neutral expression. He mostly ends up looking like he ate something sour.
He begins lining up a third shot when Vivenne's words stall him. He doesn't lower the weapon, but his form noticeably suffers. Their brands? "Right, um ... that. Are you still--" He lets the shot fly, missing its mark considerably.
"Fuck!" He quickly begins reloading, hurrying to correct that embarrassing display. "Are you, like--" he isn't looking at her, focusing only on the crossbow in his hands. "--still planning on getting that removed?"
"Yes, obviously. Okay, that one sucked, but that's--fine--there are plenty of bolts--" She reached to adjust his pose again, but took her hands back after a moment, just in case. Viv could remember instances of touching Talmage, of grabbing and holding onto him even. Being in the base just made her so aware ... usually. "There are things I just know I should be able to do, but it's like they're. Fading away from me. Like I'm losing touch with something magical I was just starting to grasp." Vivienne was unaware that would be the dying's fault, that she parted ways with something that day. "I don't know--" It was her turn to be defensive, and she did adjust Talmage's arm before he fired. "I don't know how fucking magic works."
His fourth shot is better than his third, but only because it barely hits the target again.
"I-- I get it, it's shitty and you feel helpless and it sucks, but--" he sighs, frustrated. He didn't like thinking about how powerless they were. “I talked to … the clown, after what happened. And he told me that … that a part of his … self? Is gone now? Because of what happened in there.” Talmage pauses, guilty for being the bearer of bad news. “Actually, he said … half.”
He suddenly lowers the crossbow and shakes his head as if to dismiss any bad thoughts. “But, I don’t know— maybe he was being dramatic. He seemed fine otherwise. He's alive."
"What do you mean, 'half'?" It was a dismissive, disbelieving question, shot back without second thought to what Talmage had said. She walked out to the target and brought it closer, to about fifteen feet away, more for time to think than anything. "What, you're saying because--he died--or because he got his magic back?--he lost half of. What? What did he tell you?" Anxiety gnawed in her back teeth, at the tips of her fingers. It threatened to steal her breath. That seemed like an awfully high cost.
"I don't know--" Talmage snaps, immediately defensive. "I don't know if it was the dying or the weapon or the what but he-- said he talked to the Jericho guy, and they said he would lose something 'big'." He kicks the dirt a bit, not acknowledging that Viv had brought their target closer.
"He coulda been a little less vague, but everything was kinda overwhelming and--" Talmage mutters. "I don't know. He told me I shouldn't do it." An even quieter, "but what does he know."
Vivienne folded her arms, but there was no good defense against information. Once it was there, it was there, and she had to think about it. "Well. He said Jericho so it was probably the dying, which." She uncrossed her arms and turned away, hoping Talmage wouldn't see her shaking her hands out a little. Half. Half of what? She felt worse than nothing, praying. She felt empty, and numb, and cold sometimes, and there was something in Moonbow she'd been bonding with that felt further away from ever.
"I've died. And I would say--I lost something big." Talmage had been freaking out about Luci when she'd mentioned it to Raja, and even that hadn't gone anywhere. She straightened up and squared her shoulders, but there was a hole in her where something was before. She wasn't sure if the world was less vibrant, since she died in Hell, or if it was her.
Talmage was, maybe, not the person to talk that over with, but she hadn't found anyone who was, yet. Viv hadn't had time to talk about what happened with Bishop, and she wasn't sure when she and Bishop would be cooled down enough to have a chat like that again. "I don't really ... want to lose too much more, I think. Of myself," she said quietly.
Talmage is quiet, idly running a hand through his hair or picking at his clothing as Vivienne pieces things together. Part of him is thankful she seems to acknowledge that this could be a bad idea. Part of him is ... disappointed, wishing he had the validation to go ahead with it.
"But, like, is he ... right? When you-- when that happened, did you lose a part of you? What does that mean." He's frustrated, and for a moment forgets that people might not know how to describe or feel about their own passing.
"I don't know." She sighed and paced, fingers threaded together on top of her head as if she had a running cramp and not an existential crisis. "You'd have to ask him what he means. I'm certainly not going to, he'd never tell me and I don't want to put him through it besides. Maybe we can ask Bishop, or one of the mages. Or Jericho themself. They seem to be ... skulking about."
Vivienne turned and gestured, her fingertips forming a hollow circle, somewhere near her solar plexus. "I don't know, it's like there's a hole right here, and it's empty, and sort of. Slowly pulling some other things in. And ... some other shit you'll think is dumb."
"Well, I-- UGH--" Talmage groans and lets his head fall back, defeated. "I guess. Until then, I don't know. I'm-- going to ... " He grimaces at himself. "... wait, I think. I don't want to turn into a fuckin'--" and he stops, backpedals.
"If-- If once was enough to make you feel ... like that. Twice can't be. great." A pause. "But ... maybe the hole can be filled, y'know?" His words are positive, not wanting to end on such a low note, but his tone feels hollow.
Vivienne took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. "Right. Maybe." Both of them sounded hollow in reassurance, though. She took a moment to sit with that. She considered the consequences of dying again. Surely it couldn't be good for a person's immortal soul. That was a thing she still believed in completely, after so many devout years. Talmage didn't need to shoulder all of that personal and religious baggage. That wasn't his job.
"Um." She took another breath and put her hands back on her hips. "Alright. The brands stay on, then. You can still do magic, anyway. The things you can do are plenty cool, I'm sure you could enchant the crossbow again anyway, if you wanted to." She walked back to him and gave him a little nudge. "If you weren't focusing so much of it on talking to Luci every day."
Talmage sputters, taking obvious psychic damage. "That's-- That has nothing to do with it!" It has everything to do with it.
Suddenly very eager to continue their training, he fumbles to load his crossbow and takes another shot at their target. His fifth is quick, emotionally-charged, and his best so far - Talmage is thrilled until he remembers Viv had brought the target closer.
"Uh-huh." Doubtful, but for all she knew, the two things didn't actually have jack shit to do with each other. "HEY, look at that, much better! You're not totally useless at this. Not that I expected you to be. I mean, I am pleasantly surprised, but. ... good job, just do that again! Then I can teach you to do it while you're moving."
She made it sound like something to look forward to, rather than something to dread, which was closer to the truth of the situation. The topic of marks and souls was settled for the time being: Neither would try to have theirs removed.