'No, they can't understand. They've been captured, we're trapped.'
That will stick with him.
"No."
It's a whine. Hundred-percent a whine. He drops his hands from their fidgeting and for a moment looks like the most petulant child, not a billions-year-old entity.
His "attitude" is what keeps him sane.
"I socialize strictly out of necessity to get what I want from people." He's told Istredd that people are easy. That they're a game. He'd stopped himself from saying more on that branch, but he doesn't feel like he has to anymore if pushed, even at risk of being overheard. Thorne knows some of what he is now; they shouldn't be surprised by his methods. "I don't do small talk."
Istredd rolls his eyes at the whine. It is fine to say no, it is a big ask for Istredd to try and force his friend into being the social one because it's uncomfortable for him to do it. So that's perfectly reasonable. It's the petulance that makes him wonder if he shouldn't have said charming at all.
There is a pause after that and he stares at Lucifer for a few long seconds, the wheels in his head turning. "What is it precisely that you want out of me?" Istredd is not asking if this started because he does want something. He assumes that he is not the exception. Lucifer wanted something so he tolerated the quiet nerd living in his space. That's fine.
If his Father and brothers couldn't get him to not act like a child, Istredd is going to have no choice.
Really, if Istredd should ever have the unfortunate luck of meeting his Father one day, he would see the uncanny similarities between the two. Like Eternal Creator, like Satanic Son.
But then Istredd asks the question that Lucifer did in fact walk himself into and he, still in that childish sort of behavior, thumps his back down onto his bed and stares up at the ceiling with a bit of a groan. In the way that Lucifer's attitude is a constant pendulum though, the behavior is dropped in an instant, like it was physically sucked out of the room. Lucifer is holding one arm up perfectly straight, tracing a symbol in the air that Istredd wouldn't recognize and is simply another nonsense sigil connected to Lucifer.
"Honestly, you were simply a placeholder," he starts, his voice devoid of much of anything. "The simplest of uses. Far less 'diabolical' than Wilhelm." He continues drawing air symbols until Istredd might recognize Abraxas' Devil arcana, and maybe might make the connection to the rest. "I had to move rooms constantly in order to avoid something absurd like having a roommate. It was exhaustive. You held up decent, worthwhile conversation, and I doubted you'd stab me in my sleep. Win-win."
He drops his hand and drags himself back up to a sitting position, slow, like the walking dead him and Kyle had fought off. Unnatural. There's a soft, almost firelight glow to his eyes and he tilts his head and looks to Istredd, and despite the two enchanted logs providing them heat, for a moment there is nothing but cold. Ice particulars creeping up the window. He leans in, voice a brittle whisper, "What if I told you I was using you to get to Yennefer?"
Lucifer, always trying to find a way to shatter a good thing. Some useless, archaic piece of him innately telling him that the devil isn't deserving of nice things.
Istredd is calm, still sitting up and watching him, blue eyes narrowed. He has no doubt there were reasons to start, and he is not inclined to be offended. Lucifer has acknowledged that there is a shift in their relationship since then, so it doesn't necessarily matter what his first opinions were. Although perhaps it was, because he makes a face at him.
"I'm slightly annoyed it wasn't the obvious. I'm a mage and can make wards, I can be useful and add a layer of protection. Placeholder. Disappointing." Not that he thinks the initial want to have a roommate he can tolerate was a bad one. But he's always been underestimated, and maybe back home there were reasons for that, but here he has turned out to be more useful. His power and control of it very strong.
It's strange how Lucifer is acting then, so cold and closed off, and Istredd isn't particularly sure why this revelation is supposed to matter more. "I would say first that you don't understand our relationship, because I am extremely low on her list of priorities or concerns." That is a mixture of his bitterness and low self-esteem talking. He doesn't think she would care whether he lives or dies. But he didn't indicate their exes state at first.
"And I would say second that I hope you don't mean get as in trying to kill her or ... woo her. Because that would be far more offensive." If Lucifer wanted Yennefer dead, that did make him an enemy, and Istredd does not like that idea at all. He would be far warier about this. Yennefer may not give a fuck about him, but he does about her. And then there would be the sting and slight jealousy of being used to get with her.
"I only knew your expertise a few months ago, idiot," he snaps. Sure, it's because Lucifer never bothered to ask because he hardly saw the importance. But despite the tone there is an attempt to make Istredd feel better about that because look. Look. Mages alone didn't matter to him, okay?
The man is still an idiot, he thinks. He revealed his connection to Yennefer almost immediately and while innocuous the continued information about their world and structure provides a value in itself. Nothing more than barbs to be used as weapons, but all you need is a single one to land just the right way for it to make an impact. Yennefer, while keeping herself closed up, has a leak that she may or may not realize to be Istredd.
"Do you know how many people share worlds?" he says, having not yet cracked, because this is important. "It isn't about relationships. She's a guarded personality and you're a thread about her life that she can't control." He doesn't know if that's enough to make Istredd understand. It's all Lucifer is willing to outright say.
He will not voice the true value of Yennefer to him. That's too weighty, almost as much as Wilhelm for different reasons. Yennefer is the closest to the queen of any Summoned, and a constant insult to High Mage Ambrose as someone that had deemed many of the original Summoned as "mistakes" to be locked up. That position Lucifer lauded as the most important cog in Thorne.
Now though...
It isn't until Istredd suggests that it was about wooing Yennefer that Lucifer breaks, a loud, almost disturbed scoff jolting his frozen posture and the glow to his eyes cutting out. The room temperature is immediately swallowed up by the heat, but the frost takes some time to recede.
"Woo her? God, no. I am not interested in this hooking up thing humans do." Ugh. Ugh! The mere suggestion. He knows they're exes and good on them for whatever but nope. No thanks. "I'll tell you some other time." A Nocwich trip, maybe. Away from here and untrustworthy walls. "It doesn't matter now."
For the moment, anyway. That could change down the road, just as much as anything. And maybe that's why part of him does want Istredd to know, eventually. But the in-the-moment is what matters.
He smooths a tired hand over his face. "I'm worried about her, Istredd." Which had better never get back to her. "She's too much like me." All that survival no matter the cost, all that bundled emotion, all the razor-edged wrath like Lucifer in this room, all the breaking points that they hope aren't there if they just ignore them hard enough.
Istredd almost replies that they're not the only people here from their world, but luckily, he has actually done some soul-searching lately and tries his best to think before he speaks. They do plan on doing a spell on him soon as an extra layer of protection for Ciri, but there he is, almost making that connection. Without knowing if it's one already known. He opens his mouth and then closes it, which may indicate to Lucifer that he almost said something and thought better of it. See. Attempts have been made.
He looks relieved at the reassurance no wooing was happening. Istredd has a bias since he's been in love with Yennefer most of his life, so he assumes everyone wants her. He suspects she has lovers and/or admirers here, and that is only reasonable, he wouldn't say a word about it or against it. It's her life. But he is very glad it doesn't include his roommate. He does have limits. He notes that Lucifer indicates he's not interested in people like that in general, a fact to remember.
Istredd knows at least one or two major things about Yennefer that would make her very vulnerable, and he would never say a word about it. That he doesn't need a spell to shut his mouth for. His devotion and love for her is absolute, and the situation with her magic is something he is hoping to help fix. He won't stop trying to fix it.
"Gods, if that's true, it is just my luck to be wrapped up in both of you." If they are that much alike, and they are the two most important people to him, what does that say about his taste in the people he's drawn to? He is so different from them in every possible way. "She will be fine. Both of you will be fine. If I have faith in anything, it's that if the worst happens and the Singularity is destroying everything, somehow the two of you will survive."
He would say like cockroaches if he knew what they were. But it isn't an insult or anything. Yennefer's ability to survive is something he's glad for, it is why he had such a hard time accepting she was dead before, and then he turned out to be right and she was still alive.
"You don't have to get so defensive. I'm not mad that you had reasons for tolerating me. Don't we all."
Good. He can learn. Lucifer may have actually throttled him if he had slipped anything, just to teach him a further lesson, posted guard outside be damned.
He glances away from Istredd to the window, the last of the frost melting away.
He almost tells Istredd that being so close to the two of them will no doubt get him burned one day. He doesn't. Istredd likely already knows, if he's been around Yennefer for as long as he has. Add Lucifer to the mix, well. There's a wildfire.
But he does bristle at being called defensive, like it makes him even more defensive. He sniffs, shaking it off. "Truly, it's a wonder you tolerate me." Is his self-loathing showing? Ha, ha, ha, hilarious.
Istredd suspects that he'll get burned someday, yes, but it's not as if he really has a choice in these things. He's permanently attached to Yennefer and he isn't going to stop being friends with Lucifer because things might get complicated. It is pointless to worry about. Things will happen as they happen.
"I don't tolerate you, I like you. Even if you did just give me a bad headache and told me you saw me as a placeholder."
He is going to just be annoying as fuck by countering Lucifer's defensiveness with honesty and teasing him about his cold explanation of why they started interacting. Istredd is fairly certain this headache is going to last him until tomorrow but that is fine. He'd love to go back into his head, to be honest, but he is definitely not going to saky as much.
"At least I didn't try to turn you into a spy!" He folds his arms with a huff. You know, the whole reason they are currently in their room like this. Which--no, that's not the reason, the reason is Lucifer got whammied and his control stolen from him and then tried to be a good guy regardless about it.
It has nothing to do with his original actions!
(Give it time and maybe he'll come to terms with the truth.)
"Be happy you only got a headache." Is he glossing over the 'I like you' comment? Yes. Yes, he is. "I assumed you might turn out to be braindead." He says it like it's a joke but there is the barest visibility to actual concern there, but they didn't have much choice.
Istredd actually laughs. "Me? A spy? How very glamorous." The very idea is genuinely hilarious. Istredd with his inability to keep his mouth shut. Very little subtlety. Disliking people and crowds. There would be ways in which he'd be a good one, but he simply doesn't have what it takes.
"Someone less qualified than I am very well could have." He is still being careful not to indicate what it was that they did in case someone is listening in. Although he very much doubts they are. He would feel the brush of spells if that was the case, but it's better to be safe. "It was fascinating though. Beautiful, in a way."
"You'd make it work." But even as he says it he makes a face because no... Istredd's inability to keep his mouth shut is completely a problem. "Eh. I'm sure you'll lead your glamorous library life instead."
It's been a long time since anyone referred to any part of him a beautiful. The angels, despite everything he'd done to them, still saw something there. Maybe spitefully. But he's been sunk so far from his own kind that everyone else only sees the monster. The demons, Sam, Rowena.
It was his true form and multiple faces that followed him in mockery, and because of the proximity to that event he doesn't just flippantly say 'of course it is.' Instead, Istredd gets the extremely eloquent, "Uh. Thanks."
"Honestly I hope if I make it a few more centuries I just fake my death and retire to a library somewhere and stay out everything." He's not a century yet so he is still young by mage standards, but he has an old and grumpy soul who is often tired of everything. As it is, he can't just disappear without people going looking, they want all mages accounted for. But once he's older, he could probably swing it.
Istredd pauses when he realizes what he said and that it might be, well, bizarre. He flusters a little, having not (as usual) thought before he spoke. "Sorry, I know that must seem like a strange compliment."
"No it's--fine." He waves Istredd off. For him honestly it's not bizarre. It didn't used to be, anyway. "Thank you in... general, really." For more than tolerating him, for Wilhelm, for whatever partnership they've found themselves in that Lucifer is still learning how to handle.
Istredd is getting anxious when he thinks he maybe misspoke, so he relaxes at Lucifer's wave off. He generally believes he would tell him the truth, so it was probably him getting into his head too much. As per usual. He isn't that good at having friends either, even if he's found it very rewarding so far.
"You're welcome in general, really." He smiles faintly along with a slightly teasing tone. "I ... like having someone count on me. It's new."
"You have no idea how much I can relate to that," Lucifer says, though perhaps that isn't completely true. Lucifer hasn't told Istredd what he's done in his world, but he has alluded to an extent what he is. The storybook villain--much of it true, much of it very wrong.
Emotionally wrung-out, he flops down to his side. Better than the last time he dropped back, but Lucifer is very much more cat than bird most days, and his constant ways of movement prove it. He might sleep. He might dip into the Horizon anyway. He has some books here but three days in confinement is enough to make him twitchy, even if it's their room, even if he gets Istredd to bring him something.
He's going to be hell to live with towards the backend of it, regardless.
"Say hello to the outside world for me," he says, as though he actually has much of a social presence on a good day.
"I'll go get you more books." If he is going to stay there, he will have the Horizon or he will have that. And Istredd does not want an excuse to get those claws into him, which feels inevitable. "And yes, yes, they won't be my kind of books." He says before Lucifer can make a face at him and ask for something not as dull as Istredd's mountain of history textbooks and spells.
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That will stick with him.
"No."
It's a whine. Hundred-percent a whine. He drops his hands from their fidgeting and for a moment looks like the most petulant child, not a billions-year-old entity.
His "attitude" is what keeps him sane.
"I socialize strictly out of necessity to get what I want from people." He's told Istredd that people are easy. That they're a game. He'd stopped himself from saying more on that branch, but he doesn't feel like he has to anymore if pushed, even at risk of being overheard. Thorne knows some of what he is now; they shouldn't be surprised by his methods. "I don't do small talk."
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Istredd rolls his eyes at the whine. It is fine to say no, it is a big ask for Istredd to try and force his friend into being the social one because it's uncomfortable for him to do it. So that's perfectly reasonable. It's the petulance that makes him wonder if he shouldn't have said charming at all.
There is a pause after that and he stares at Lucifer for a few long seconds, the wheels in his head turning. "What is it precisely that you want out of me?" Istredd is not asking if this started because he does want something. He assumes that he is not the exception. Lucifer wanted something so he tolerated the quiet nerd living in his space. That's fine.
why are you like this lucifer
Really, if Istredd should ever have the unfortunate luck of meeting his Father one day, he would see the uncanny similarities between the two. Like Eternal Creator, like Satanic Son.
But then Istredd asks the question that Lucifer did in fact walk himself into and he, still in that childish sort of behavior, thumps his back down onto his bed and stares up at the ceiling with a bit of a groan. In the way that Lucifer's attitude is a constant pendulum though, the behavior is dropped in an instant, like it was physically sucked out of the room. Lucifer is holding one arm up perfectly straight, tracing a symbol in the air that Istredd wouldn't recognize and is simply another nonsense sigil connected to Lucifer.
"Honestly, you were simply a placeholder," he starts, his voice devoid of much of anything. "The simplest of uses. Far less 'diabolical' than Wilhelm." He continues drawing air symbols until Istredd might recognize Abraxas' Devil arcana, and maybe might make the connection to the rest. "I had to move rooms constantly in order to avoid something absurd like having a roommate. It was exhaustive. You held up decent, worthwhile conversation, and I doubted you'd stab me in my sleep. Win-win."
He drops his hand and drags himself back up to a sitting position, slow, like the walking dead him and Kyle had fought off. Unnatural. There's a soft, almost firelight glow to his eyes and he tilts his head and looks to Istredd, and despite the two enchanted logs providing them heat, for a moment there is nothing but cold. Ice particulars creeping up the window. He leans in, voice a brittle whisper, "What if I told you I was using you to get to Yennefer?"
Lucifer, always trying to find a way to shatter a good thing. Some useless, archaic piece of him innately telling him that the devil isn't deserving of nice things.
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"I'm slightly annoyed it wasn't the obvious. I'm a mage and can make wards, I can be useful and add a layer of protection. Placeholder. Disappointing." Not that he thinks the initial want to have a roommate he can tolerate was a bad one. But he's always been underestimated, and maybe back home there were reasons for that, but here he has turned out to be more useful. His power and control of it very strong.
It's strange how Lucifer is acting then, so cold and closed off, and Istredd isn't particularly sure why this revelation is supposed to matter more. "I would say first that you don't understand our relationship, because I am extremely low on her list of priorities or concerns." That is a mixture of his bitterness and low self-esteem talking. He doesn't think she would care whether he lives or dies. But he didn't indicate their exes state at first.
"And I would say second that I hope you don't mean get as in trying to kill her or ... woo her. Because that would be far more offensive." If Lucifer wanted Yennefer dead, that did make him an enemy, and Istredd does not like that idea at all. He would be far warier about this. Yennefer may not give a fuck about him, but he does about her. And then there would be the sting and slight jealousy of being used to get with her.
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Of course.
"I only knew your expertise a few months ago, idiot," he snaps. Sure, it's because Lucifer never bothered to ask because he hardly saw the importance. But despite the tone there is an attempt to make Istredd feel better about that because look. Look. Mages alone didn't matter to him, okay?
The man is still an idiot, he thinks. He revealed his connection to Yennefer almost immediately and while innocuous the continued information about their world and structure provides a value in itself. Nothing more than barbs to be used as weapons, but all you need is a single one to land just the right way for it to make an impact. Yennefer, while keeping herself closed up, has a leak that she may or may not realize to be Istredd.
"Do you know how many people share worlds?" he says, having not yet cracked, because this is important. "It isn't about relationships. She's a guarded personality and you're a thread about her life that she can't control." He doesn't know if that's enough to make Istredd understand. It's all Lucifer is willing to outright say.
He will not voice the true value of Yennefer to him. That's too weighty, almost as much as Wilhelm for different reasons. Yennefer is the closest to the queen of any Summoned, and a constant insult to High Mage Ambrose as someone that had deemed many of the original Summoned as "mistakes" to be locked up. That position Lucifer lauded as the most important cog in Thorne.
Now though...
It isn't until Istredd suggests that it was about wooing Yennefer that Lucifer breaks, a loud, almost disturbed scoff jolting his frozen posture and the glow to his eyes cutting out. The room temperature is immediately swallowed up by the heat, but the frost takes some time to recede.
"Woo her? God, no. I am not interested in this hooking up thing humans do." Ugh. Ugh! The mere suggestion. He knows they're exes and good on them for whatever but nope. No thanks. "I'll tell you some other time." A Nocwich trip, maybe. Away from here and untrustworthy walls. "It doesn't matter now."
For the moment, anyway. That could change down the road, just as much as anything. And maybe that's why part of him does want Istredd to know, eventually. But the in-the-moment is what matters.
He smooths a tired hand over his face. "I'm worried about her, Istredd." Which had better never get back to her. "She's too much like me." All that survival no matter the cost, all that bundled emotion, all the razor-edged wrath like Lucifer in this room, all the breaking points that they hope aren't there if they just ignore them hard enough.
All the possibility for self-destruction.
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He looks relieved at the reassurance no wooing was happening. Istredd has a bias since he's been in love with Yennefer most of his life, so he assumes everyone wants her. He suspects she has lovers and/or admirers here, and that is only reasonable, he wouldn't say a word about it or against it. It's her life. But he is very glad it doesn't include his roommate. He does have limits. He notes that Lucifer indicates he's not interested in people like that in general, a fact to remember.
Istredd knows at least one or two major things about Yennefer that would make her very vulnerable, and he would never say a word about it. That he doesn't need a spell to shut his mouth for. His devotion and love for her is absolute, and the situation with her magic is something he is hoping to help fix. He won't stop trying to fix it.
"Gods, if that's true, it is just my luck to be wrapped up in both of you." If they are that much alike, and they are the two most important people to him, what does that say about his taste in the people he's drawn to? He is so different from them in every possible way. "She will be fine. Both of you will be fine. If I have faith in anything, it's that if the worst happens and the Singularity is destroying everything, somehow the two of you will survive."
He would say like cockroaches if he knew what they were. But it isn't an insult or anything. Yennefer's ability to survive is something he's glad for, it is why he had such a hard time accepting she was dead before, and then he turned out to be right and she was still alive.
"You don't have to get so defensive. I'm not mad that you had reasons for tolerating me. Don't we all."
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He glances away from Istredd to the window, the last of the frost melting away.
He almost tells Istredd that being so close to the two of them will no doubt get him burned one day. He doesn't. Istredd likely already knows, if he's been around Yennefer for as long as he has. Add Lucifer to the mix, well. There's a wildfire.
But he does bristle at being called defensive, like it makes him even more defensive. He sniffs, shaking it off. "Truly, it's a wonder you tolerate me." Is his self-loathing showing? Ha, ha, ha, hilarious.
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"I don't tolerate you, I like you. Even if you did just give me a bad headache and told me you saw me as a placeholder."
He is going to just be annoying as fuck by countering Lucifer's defensiveness with honesty and teasing him about his cold explanation of why they started interacting. Istredd is fairly certain this headache is going to last him until tomorrow but that is fine. He'd love to go back into his head, to be honest, but he is definitely not going to saky as much.
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It has nothing to do with his original actions!
(Give it time and maybe he'll come to terms with the truth.)
"Be happy you only got a headache." Is he glossing over the 'I like you' comment? Yes. Yes, he is. "I assumed you might turn out to be braindead." He says it like it's a joke but there is the barest visibility to actual concern there, but they didn't have much choice.
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"Someone less qualified than I am very well could have." He is still being careful not to indicate what it was that they did in case someone is listening in. Although he very much doubts they are. He would feel the brush of spells if that was the case, but it's better to be safe. "It was fascinating though. Beautiful, in a way."
Apparently you have a beautiful mind, Lucifer.
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It's been a long time since anyone referred to any part of him a beautiful. The angels, despite everything he'd done to them, still saw something there. Maybe spitefully. But he's been sunk so far from his own kind that everyone else only sees the monster. The demons, Sam, Rowena.
It was his true form and multiple faces that followed him in mockery, and because of the proximity to that event he doesn't just flippantly say 'of course it is.' Instead, Istredd gets the extremely eloquent, "Uh. Thanks."
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Istredd pauses when he realizes what he said and that it might be, well, bizarre. He flusters a little, having not (as usual) thought before he spoke. "Sorry, I know that must seem like a strange compliment."
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Could be nice.
"No it's--fine." He waves Istredd off. For him honestly it's not bizarre. It didn't used to be, anyway. "Thank you in... general, really." For more than tolerating him, for Wilhelm, for whatever partnership they've found themselves in that Lucifer is still learning how to handle.
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"You're welcome in general, really." He smiles faintly along with a slightly teasing tone. "I ... like having someone count on me. It's new."
wrap here or the next?
Emotionally wrung-out, he flops down to his side. Better than the last time he dropped back, but Lucifer is very much more cat than bird most days, and his constant ways of movement prove it. He might sleep. He might dip into the Horizon anyway. He has some books here but three days in confinement is enough to make him twitchy, even if it's their room, even if he gets Istredd to bring him something.
He's going to be hell to live with towards the backend of it, regardless.
"Say hello to the outside world for me," he says, as though he actually has much of a social presence on a good day.
here!