sortinghat_logs | Dragged you down below

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Dragged you down below

WHO: Rhys and Kurloz
TONE: Surreal, disturbing
RATING: Up to R, possibly, for violent imagery
WHEN: March 1st
WHERE: Rhys's office, Kurloz's head
WHAT: Rhys wants to introduce his protege/son to a particularly disturbing form of magic
STATUS: Ongoing

Rhys sat opposite his son in his office, as they had done weekly since he'd first approached the boy. It was time for the next step. The thing that could bind the boy to him, no matter where his mother took him, no matter what happened later. The thing that could open Kurloz's mind to a whole realm of possibilities previously unavailable to him.

"I think you're ready, m'bach," Rhys told the boy. "It's time for your first test."

(OOC: This was posted in the wrong comm, responses there are c&p'ed to here so it could be moved to the right one.)

Kurloz perked at that, looking eager and leaning forward slightly in his chair. The quill on the table between them began scribbling:

what is it being, sir?

"We've talked of your dreams, and taking control, and you've had some success there. I want to see for myself what you can do, and how you respond to certain ... scenarios," Rhys explained, steepling his fingers. "I'd like to come into your dreams tonight, if you'll allow me."

Kurloz's eyes widened and for a moment he looked mildly conflicted.

it's not a nice place in there.

"Lad, I've lived through two wizarding wars. I believe I can manage in a teenager's head, no matter how dark, and if you wish me to continue teaching you, I have to know certain things," Rhys said, gently.

The student fidgeted some more, needing a moment to consider it. This wasn't just his sketchbook with a few dark drawings, this was t heart of it all, the centre of his mind that he often shied away from with horror.

But, as Rhys said, if the man had survived two wizarding wars...

Mutely, Kurloz nodded, dusky skin a bit pale but eyes determined.

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He was still wary, but he nodded slowly, wiping the excess ink off his hands with his black robes. He couldn't be sure what Rhys would show him, but surely it wouldn't be anything he couldn't handle.

Rhys leaned over, unlocking part of his desk, and pulling forth a stone basin carved with runes that he set on the table.

"When I was a young man," he began, and took his wand out, setting the tip to his temple. "I had a similar problem to your own, though with different circumstance. I had not seriously hurt anyone I cared for, but I did have a dichotomous nature I was aware of, frightened of, and tried to suppress. It worked, for a time."

He fell silent for a moment, closing his eyes, and then pulled his wand from his temple. A long, silver, shimmering strand clung to the tip, stretching longer and longer, until it finally pulled free of his head. He set it into the bowl, where it swirled through the water, like living moonlight on the sea.

"But bricking things up, tying them down, trying to restrain certain parts of one's nature utterly has consequences. Eventually things ... crack."

He pushed the bowl toward Kurloz. "Look inside. And remember that nothing you will see therein can hurt you, it is only my memory."

Kurloz's eyes fixated on the silver thread swirling in the basin, snapping up to Rhys' face. He'd seen pensieves before, he'd just never had the opportunity to use one.

He took a moment before leaning in, staring down into the basin. He took a breath, glancing up at Rhys again before lowering his head towards the basin, entering the memory.

Kurloz tumbled down, down, down until he landed in the corner of a low ceilinged, smokey room. The wallpaper was garish and the lights were dim - mostly a few candles. There were bottles of things everywhere, and a mattress in one corner that looked less than clean. Sitting on the mattress was a long-limbed young man, his hair tied sloppily back, big bushy sideburns framing his face, though the rest of him looked like he could use a shave, too. Dark circles under his blue-purple eyes marked his lack of sleep, and his fingers were ink stained, his fingernails long and dirty. At this age, there was more resemblance between father and son - Rhys was without the lines that later marked his face with such character later on - but his state of disarray obscured that somewhat.

He was bent over a mirror that he was speaking rapid Welsh into, something soft and imploring, and one hand gestured as he spoke, though the person on the other side of the magic mirror wouldn't have been able to see the gestures. His occasional pauses were punctuated with a woman's voice coming from the mirror, though from the angle Kurloz was at, he wouldn't be able to see her face. She was speaking Welsh, as well, and her tone was high and musical, and soothing, as though she were trying to calm Rhys down.

Kurloz righted himself and stared at the young man, recognising those eyes for Rhys'. The face reminded him of someone else but for the life of him, Kurloz couldn't think who.

Instead, he glanced around the room, reading the labels on some bottles in the dim light. He finally approached Rhys and waved his hand, testing to see if he'd be seen. When no recognition followed, he took a seat in front of the mattress, resting his arms on his legs and watching Rhys talk into the mirror.

The conversation seemed to be coming to some natural conclusion - when Kurloz leaned over to wave his hand in front of Rhys, a glimpse at the mirror would have shown a teenage girl with a wild mane of black hair similar to her brother's. Rhys was getting more and more agitated, and he kept glancing away from the mirror, and finally he murmured to her,"Dwi'n dy garu di."

She repeated it back, and then he deliberately picked the mirror up and smashed it against the nearby table, staring at the glittering shards on the floor for a long time, before getting up and picking up one of the bottles on the windowsill. He stared at it for a long moment, then cut open the wax seal with his thumbnail before pulling the cork out with his teeth. Then he took a few swigs, throat working, before he set the bottle down and walked over to stare at the mirror shards once more.

He sank into a crouch, mumbling to himself, "I'm sorry" over and over. And then the walls began to melt.

Kurloz flinched when the mirror was shattered, but otherwise remained still. Rhys was behaving in a way he'd glimpsed every now and then when passing the village tavern - there was always this one old man who had a half empty bottle in hand, bloodshot eyes staring at one thing for long spans of time before switching to others, muttering to himself and so on. Kurloz didn't know the man personally, and his mother didn't know his story either.

So now he sat still, watching Rhys drink whatever was in that bottle before facing the mirror pieces. He started when the walls began to melt, and narrowed his eyes, glancing back at the bottle Rhys had been drinking from.

The visions that followed were as horrific as they were fragmented, the way Rhys's memories were. None of the dimensions of the room would stay put - walls bleeding into the floor and ceiling, windows meandering. But that was by far the most innocuous thing to happen, as subtly disturbing as it was.

At first there were voices. Whispers, mumbling, screams, maddeningly on the edge of coherency, clarity, but never quite there, always just escaping before the words became clear. It was as though Rhys could hear the entire city of Cardiff, as though every voice in the whole of the town was fighting for attention.

He glanced up at the window where a smiling girl sat, maybe fifteen or sixteen. It was the girl from the mirror, but someone had plucked out her eyes and sewn up the lids. It didn't stop her from hopping down cheerfully, though, and walking up to her brother. She gently touched his jaw, tilting his head up to joke at her, still smiling beatifically. Then she began plucking the stitches out of one eye, neatly pulling the black thread from the flesh with awful little wet noises. He stared at her, transfixed, but shaking his head in denial. She placed her thumb on his chin, and opened his mouth for him as he make a soft croaking sound. Then she leaned in, and opened her eye, and the worms came pouring out, right into his mouth, squirming down his throat.

He choked and choked, but they wouldn't come back out. Writhing. Black. Just under his skin, now, all in him, pressing up against it hard enough to make it buckle outward, in some places very nearly cracking the flesh. The young man grunted - it hurt - and tried to push them back down, but they wouldn't go, they kept slipping away, only to emerge somewhere else on his body. He stripped off his shirt to stare down at his torso in despair. His chest was a writhing mass of flesh, there was some kind of nest under there. Rhian was gone, there were just these worms, and he had to get them out, the look on his face was frantic, and there were these shard of mirror ...

Kurloz flinched back as the girl forced the worms into Rhys. His hands clenched tight into white-knuckled fists as he continued to watch the horrors unfold, dusky skin pale and indigo eyes wide open. The multitudes of voices were bad enough, but then the sight before him was worse. He had to keep reminding himself that he couldn't change this, he couldn't stop this from happening.

As Rhys took his shirt off and the distorted flesh was revealed, Kurloz bit his lip hard enough to draw blood, stifling the whimper that wanted to come out. This was too much like that one nightmare where his 'evil twin' had been crawling impossibly under his skin, ending with a bloody hand shooting out of his chest.

But the things inside Rhys weren't going to get out on their own. No, they were there to stay, and the young man reached for a splinter of mirror, picking it up and slicing into his fingers. He barely seemed to notice as he gripped the heavy piece of glass by the thicker end, and then started carving on his own chest. He sliced one line through the skin, following the path of a worm, then shoved his fingers into the flap, feeling around with a look of intense concentration. Nothing. He looked down at the squirming, and tried again. The sound of the mirror glass glancing across the bone of his ribs was a sickening one, but he barely noticed as he shoved his blood fingers into the wound again, trying to pull the intangible worms free. Again. And again. Rhys's chest was becoming a mass of raw flesh, shredded meat, and still he kept digging ... right until the movement he passed out, and the memory went black, thrusting Kurloz up and out and back into the real world.

Kurloz went tumbling back when he was brought out of the pensieve, his chair falling back and sending him rolling on the floor of Rhys' office. He immediately doubled in on himself on all fours, quietly retching and bringing up the remains of his small breakfast to spill out on the floor.

Sure, he drew disturbing images, occasionally saw them in his nightmares and imagination, but he'd never seen something like that so viscerally played out in front of him. He remained hunched over on the floor for a while, waiting until the tremors and tightening of his stomach passed.

Rhys rose from his desk, pulling out his wand and silently spelling away the mess on the floor. He crouched next to Kurloz, but didn't touch him, well aware that the boy might flinch away, might be horrified by him now.

"I'm sorry I had to show you that, lad. It was a terrible time in my life. But you needed to see what happens if you keep things completely repressed, if you cannot learn to live with certain aspects of yourself - it always comes out. Always." The big man's voice was heavy with regret.

Skin clammy with cold sweat, Kurloz lifted his head and stared at Rhys, eyes still a bit wild as his hand shot out and flattened over the professor's abdomen. It wasn't to push the man away, no, it was to make sure this was reality and that Rhys' torso wasn't going to fall away under his hand in a mess of cut up flesh and blood.

Rhys paused, then lowered himself to his knees next to the prostrate boy. He undid the buttons on his robe and opened it, so Kurloz could see the the skin of his chest. Tattoos covered some of it, ornate black designs with splashed of color, but very faint scar lines could be seen under the hair on the un-decorated skin. Without magic, they'd have been much thicker, but the healers had managed to reduce them to something considerably less horrific than they might have been.

Without thinking Kurloz moved his hand over the exposed flesh, delicate artist's fingers feeling out the scars easily. He could clearly see the younger Rhys' chest as it had been when cut to ribbons, almost superimposed over the adult's body, and had to fight back another wave of nausea. Sweat beaded on his temples for a moment and then he realised he was touching his professor without permission on his chest and quickly snatched his hand back, signing "sorry" with embarrassment and lowering his head.

"It's all right. I wouldn't have shown you if I minded." Rhys reached out, setting two fingers lightly under Kurloz's chin so he could tip the boy's head back up. He wished he could reach out, embrace the child the way a father should when his son was in pain, distressed, but it wasn't his place. Not yet.

"I was sick for a very long time," he said solemnly, looking into Kurloz's eyes. "It took me years to put myself back together from that, to become a whole person again. I don't want to see that happen to you. I know why you're mistrustful, why you're angry, but I don't do the things I have lightly, or without understanding. I misjudged your readiness for what occurred, and for that I apologize. But this isn't a process that can be put off indefinitely."

He leaned in, so that they were very close, and said, in a soft, solemn, and yet warm voice, "I only want you to be well, my child. Well and strong, as I know you can be."

It was ironic that Rhys didn't do what he wanted then, since in that instant all that Kurloz wanted was a hug to feel comforted. Still, he kept still and obediently looked up into Rhys' eyes. He felt raw and exposed which shouldn't have been the case considering he'd just seen Rhys' memory, not vice versa, but it had clearly been an ordeal for the both of them to some extent.

When Rhys leaned in and used that gentle voice, Kurloz nodded mutely, squeezing his eyes shut because they felt like they might be watering and he didn't want to show more of his weakness to the professor. He didn't realise he was leaning in just a bit closer towards Rhys, but at least he wasn't drawing away.

When Rhys saw the boy swaying in, he gave in a little and wrapped one long arm around Kurloz's shoulders, gently rubbed his hand along his son's spine. "You'll be all right, m'bach. I would not allow harm to come to you, you're my ... responsibility. Trust me."

Kurloz ducked his head, nodding again and just accepting the adult's words. He was still a bit sore about the nightmare incident, but he did trust Rhys, probably more so after bearing witness to the man's past.

Rhys remained that way for a moment, then rose up, helping the boy to his feet. "We will talk more on this. But for now, I'll give you time to think, to decide if this is what you still want to do."

And if it looks as though Kurloz is turning away from this path ... well. There are ways to ensure he comes back to Rhys.

Again came the quiet nod as Kurloz adjusted his clothing and gathered his things. He looked embarrassed as he stood fidgeting for a moment, glancing up at Rhys' face before looking away again.

He slowly waved to sign "good bye" and turned away, closing the door near silently behind him.

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