Being out in the wilderness again is like breathing after near suffocation. Certainly, Tav doesn't skip with his arms raised, but the smile spread wide across his face is close enough. He takes deep breaths whenever he gets too far from Strange, absorbs all of the greenery, picking occasional plants here and there--what he recognizes from books-- and tucks them into a bag specifically for the greenhouse.
"A farm? Truly?" Tav stops just short of a particular mushroom-- it looks particularly like a Noblestalk. "I would never imagine."
As soon as he finishes talking, Tav digs into the earth and pulls up the mushroom to examine it. No, not the Noblestalk he thought it to be and replants it.
"I suppose I'm the opposite, I originally from the Baldur's Gate but I have few memories from what should be my home," Tav taps his chin as he looks around. "If you find a mushroom that looks like a blue blossom, please let me know."
“Will do,” Strange says, pausing to catch his breath and standing behind the elf, watching as Tav investigates the patch of mushrooms and then sets it aside. The doctor’s been studying the local plants and herbs from textbooks, mostly to know enough to brew healing potions and to not accidentally poison a patient, but he still doesn’t have a green thumb for it; gets impatient with squinting at the striations of a mushroom or counting the number of fronds on a stalk. He’s not especially interested in how plants tick compared to how brains tick.
But this is why he brought Tav along.
He makes a thoughtful noise. “What drew you to the druidic arts and nature? Do you suspect it’s something you were skilled at beforehand, or might it have been something new that you just took a liking to?” He’d undergone his own transformation, turning over a new page going from surgeon to sorcerer; but at least that had been Strange’s choice, his decision, his own agency. He hadn’t been trying to fill an empty slate.
It’s an excellent question, really, but Tav doesn’t really have a good answer. From what little he can remember from his past, he was cruel and exacting, dissecting his victims without so much as blinking an eye.
When we woke up in the nautiloid, it simply made sense that he had been a druid, a loner who loved the waking world and all its inhabitants.
Well. Except Alfira.
“It simply made sense,” Tav replies. “Druids outside of circles tend to be loners. And I had woken up without any memories of friends or family.”
“Although regardless of your lack of memories, it seems you do instinctively gravitate towards it. Nature, I mean. Getting out of the city and the crowds and back to the wilderness.”
Strange readjusts his backpack, shrugging it back onto his shoulder, still considering the intellectual puzzle in front of him. The elf’s amnesia has always been a source of interest; despite gods and curses and magic, some part of the doctor still finds itself thinking neurological damage. A traumatic event, an injury, something which might heal over time given rest.
“It’s been a few months now. Has anything come back yet? Any memory, any recollection.”
(This might be a friendly camping trip but it’s also not not a physician’s checkup too. Listen, he can multi-task.)
“Of before?” Tav asks before he considers the question.
He has had some strange dreams, but none so revealing as his time in Faerun. The blank slate remains as such even months later, after trying herbs and the like from the greenhouse.
“Nothing before waking up in an Illithid pod,” Tav replies. “I’ve not found any herbs that help my memory either.”
He takes another full breath of the fresh air before turning to Strange.
“Thank you for doing this, by the way,” Tav continues. “I’ve needed this.”
“Well, the garden needed restocking after the collapse,” Strange says, instinctively hedging; it’s a convenient excuse, all business and practicalities and no reason to show that he’s nursing some sympathy.
But after a moment’s hesitation, he relents, reaching out to pluck a sprig of nearby embrium. “And to put it mildly: you sounded like you were reaching your limit in the Gallows.”
Tav nods at Strange’s first explanation. After all Tav’s research on herbs, he should be able to spot useful plants for rebuilding the greenhouse. Just as he squats down to pick some Elfroot, Strange continues and Tav can’t help but feel a little guilty.
“I’m not used to isolation,” he confesses. “Before coming here, I was constantly surrounded by people at camp. The change really affected me, even if I understand why they did it.”
Perhaps they can consider working in the Fade again, to finally free Tav of the darkness inside.
“Well, then you’re in luck,” Strange says, light, sardonic. “Now that we’re down two working towers I expect living quarters will only continue to be cramped for Riftwatch.”
He meanders a little way down the path, minding their periphery, listening and watching but still staying within conversational distance while Tav forages. “Is there anything else we could accommodate to make you feel a little more comfortable otherwise? God knows I try to hold onto what I can of my own home.” A beat. “The cloak you saw me going back for, that’s part of it. Memorabilia.”
Even in saying this, there’s a kind of faint wincing distaste in his voice, the most grudging admission that he actually experiences sentiment. He’s not wearing the cloak today, just dressed in regular trousers-and-shirt for their hike.
“I’m not entirely sure they will allow me to stay in a room with others,” Tav says as he picks the Elfroot and tucks it into his satchel. “Not until the Urge is defeated.”
He gets back up to his feet again to fall back into step with Strange.
“Being outside more would help,” Tav continues. “I miss the stars.”
The sorcerer starts walking as Tav rejoins him, the two of them continuing deeper into the forest.
“Some people are sleeping in tents out in the yard. If you can get this under control, you’d be able to sleep outdoors by yourself again,” he says. He’s been researching this off-and-on, but differing projects keep pulling him away and it’s such an unprecedented problem besides. Perhaps closer to an exorcism than anything else.
“Have you been keeping up with any of the deep breathing or meditation I recommended? Mastering your own mind. If mages are able to resist demonic possession in our sleep, you should eventually be able to resist the Urge.”
“I have, yes,” Tav replies as he wrings his hands. “The deep breathing and meditation may be the reason it’s been so long without an incident. But I’m still under guard.”
Tav looks up at the trees and the sky beyond.
“I think going into the Fade is the way to defeat the Urge once and for all.”
Strange twists his head to watch the elf over his shoulder as they stroll along, piqued. Tav had understandably been somewhat horrified when the Head Healer first described their idea, but —
“So you’re ready to try it?” he asks. “Going into the Fade and re-making yourself. Re-asserting yourself.”
“I’ve been considering it while reading about the Fade,” Tav replies. “The isolation has been worse than I imagined.”
Tav spots another sprig of Elfroot and bends down to pick it.
“I’m not sure how much longer I can take,” Tav continues, tucking the Elfroot in his satchel with the other one. “I must take a decisive action and that means going into the Fade.”
“Good.” There’s a faint smile at the corner of his mouth; he’d been waiting for this. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I’ll speak to Niehaus once we’re back.”
And they keep going, forging into the Planasene as the day wears on. Eventually the well-traveled paths fade away, so they have to push through the undergrowth; whenever they reach a particularly difficult impasse, Strange summons up magical energy to brusquely whisk it aside, or Tav draws on nature for a gentler manipulation to make the branches lean away for them.
Tav’s bag fills with herbs and roots and seeds where they can find them, and the light drains from the sky. The sorcerer eventually calls it when twilight’s close (he’s just an ordinary human, he doesn’t have darkvision), and they camp out in a fairly large glade to set up their individual tents and bedrolls, with a low fire between the two tents. Hopefully they’re far enough from the front that there aren’t any Tevene forces nearby. If any wild animals get any hungry ideas, he’s certain they’ll be able to take care of it between them; having already fought an alien invasion and no end of demons and other sorcerers, the doctor is terrifically blasé about the idea of danger. They eat a simple dinner; they bid each other a polite goodnight.
Strange lies on his back, hands folded over his chest, restless, the mouth of the tent open so he can see the stars. It feels odd, not feeling the faint movement of water underfoot, not having the weight of someone else on a mattress beside him. It turns out he’s gotten awfully accustomed to sleeping next to Gwenaëlle on her houseboat, and he didn’t even realise until now how much that’s become home —
Still. It’s just one night away. It’s not going to kill him.
Tav doesn't need a tent, but he sets one up for himself regardless. He drags his bedroll out near the fire, lying on his back and gazing up at the stars. Sure they aren't the stars he recognizes from home, but they are stars nonetheless. The crackle of the fire, the presence of a companion just across the way, the stars overhead. It feels so much like home his eyes begin to sting.
How long has it been since he listened to the bickering of Lae'zel and Shadowheart? Or listened to a lesson on magic from Gale? Perhaps the quanderings of Astarion as he considers whether to kill Cazador or not.
Months. Seven long months, most spent in an isolated room, only allowed out under guard. He's so painfully homesick in this moment that he can't help but reach out to the sorcerer across the way.
There’s something in it which is a little like a sleepover: an adventure away from home, staying up too late and getting punch-drunk with tiredness, teenagers whispering to each other in hushed voices. Not something Strange has experienced in far too long,
(perhaps not since he and his younger siblings shared a room, staying up far too late despite their parents’ protests, Stephen and Donna and Victor hissing at each other and squabbling to see who could stay up the longest)
So. Strange is still awake. He’s a restless sleeper, and certainly an insomniac, and he doesn’t even sound groggy as he answers: “Yes, Tav?”
It takes Tav more than a few moments to gather himself. For such a chatty elf, he's struck for words in this moment. How does he convey such a profound level of gratitude to one who may be his only friend in Riftwatch. If Strange had not stuck by him through his frustrations, then maybe Tav would be back in the Gallows, sleeping on his familiar cot.
"I wanted to say 'thank you,'" Tav replies, counting the stars to reign in his emotions. "I cannot express just how much this night means to me."
Strange is bad with sincerity; allergic to it, sometimes, the way he skittishly sidesteps matters of substance and deflects them with humour, with sarcasm, with his habitual barbs. Humour is easier than real connection, no matter if he could (and should) foster more of the latter. So Tav struggles to express his gratitude and then Strange struggles to accept it in turn, feeling himself flood with a kind of self-consciousness. At least he’s spared having to see the elf’s facial expression; instead they can simply stare out at those same stars and chew over the sentiment.
“I didn’t want you to snap and fling yourself into the Waking Sea. We’re low on mages with healing magic,” he says. It’s yet another deflection, an excuse, a mild joke.
There’s a pause which drags on perhaps a little too long, then: “You’re welcome, though.”
Tav turns his head to look at Strange through the dimming fire. It's a very practical answer. He hopes that one day he can spend more time in the Infirmary without guards, that perhaps this journey into the Fade will seal away that Dark Urge for good.
What a life that would be; all he would need is a few friends from home to help him re-warm to the Riftwatch.
When the pause rests between them, Tav thinks that will be the beginning and end of the conversation, but Strange continues and Tav can't help but give a proud sigh.
And hopes the rest of the night will be uneventful as he settles into his bedroll.
And if they were luckier, or fate had less of a sense of humour, perhaps it would have been dull and uneventful. A few hours’ sleep on uncomfortable earth, waking too-early with the sunrise and perhaps an animal snuffling through their supplies, then another quick meal and back to the hike.
But they are unlucky, and Stephen Strange’s life has a habit of being so very eventful, and Tav has been stuck in the Gallows and fraying at the seams for weeks—
So instead, the sorcerer finds himself abruptly awake in the middle of the night, uncertain what roused him. Some small noise. Some crack of twig underfoot or the shift of air or rustling of fabric. Some movement.
What Strange hears is Tav groaning in his sleep, tossing and turning as his stomach churns. He wakes with a start and for a moment expects to find Astarionc Gale, Karlach, or anyone he can turn to. However as he looks over the faint glow of the coals, he sees Stephen Strange.
Tav is dripping with sweat, his vision blurring as he crawls around the fire pit. He fights with himself as he opens his mouth to ask for help when his arms slip out from beneath him and the darkness takes him.
The Urge wakes up instead and sees the barely awake sorcerer before him. An easy target. And maybe he'll get to slice the sorcerer open and see just how he ticks. The Urge doesn't have a blade, but he doesn't need one right now. No, he straddles the sleeping sorcerer, hands closing around the sorcerer's neck.
In that span of a heartbeat, Strange goes from barely awake to oh, someone is trying to strangle me.
His reflexes are quick — quicker than they once were — and so his paranoia instantly latches onto instinctively fighting back, even as the Urge’s fingers dig into his throat and Strange’s scarred hands scrabble and shove ineffectually at the elf’s arms, feeling his windpipe closing and his air suffocating. This is oddly familiar. He’s been choked before. Like, to a surprising degree of frequency, why is this always the bad guys’ go-to—
A rapid list of options scrolls through his mind, a set of tools. He could summon a spectral knife and bury it between Tav’s ribs, he could send a burst of fiery energy against him, but no, his hands are metaphorically tied because he doesn’t want to outright kill the elf, just—
What eventually comes is a roiling explosive wave of telekinesis, blasting outward from the sorcerer and sending the druid flying several feet away. The tent collapses as Tav-slash-Urge is flung through it, and Strange finds himself tangled up in the fabric, needing to scramble his way free of the now-clumsy construction. Gasping for breath, he comes stumbling out, searching for the other silhouette in the half-darkness and already reaching for more magic.
The Urge goes flying, but as familiar as the Sorcerer is with choking, so is the Urge with killing with improvisational weapons. He rips one of the tent stakes free of its ties and stands hunched over in the moonlight. As soon as he spots the Sorcerer, he charges with the stake in hand.
It’s been a while since he’s been in immediate combat like this: not facing grandiose spellslinging Venatori on the back of a dracolisk, just an elf brandishing a sharp stake. But a companion. One he doesn’t want to harm.
Strange’s arm whips up with a glowing golden shield snapping into place: the stake slams into the magical barrier and skitters off. The sorcerer keeps the shield up as the Urge comes barreling at him, swinging wildly, and Strange has to desperately meet each strike with a deflect of his own. He has to occasionally sidle backwards and give way, not going on the offensive yet, shouting instead:
“Tav! Tav Whatever-Your-Unknown-Last-Name-Is— Tav, for the love of god, stop this. Snap out of it!”
The Urge growls as he continues his onslaught. When the stake glances off one direction, he swipes in a low squatting motion, only to be rebuffed again. He knows he can't keep at it like this, so he reaches out for the shield itself, to try and grab onto the edges (if they are corporeal) and wrench it to the side to make room for another attempted swipe.
Any words the Sorcerer says make little difference to the Urge as he continues to go for blood.
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sorry again for the delay. life is being life :(
Date: 2024-07-06 12:17 am (UTC)"A farm? Truly?" Tav stops just short of a particular mushroom-- it looks particularly like a Noblestalk. "I would never imagine."
As soon as he finishes talking, Tav digs into the earth and pulls up the mushroom to examine it. No, not the Noblestalk he thought it to be and replants it.
"I suppose I'm the opposite, I originally from the Baldur's Gate but I have few memories from what should be my home," Tav taps his chin as he looks around. "If you find a mushroom that looks like a blue blossom, please let me know."
same 😭
Date: 2024-07-21 11:24 pm (UTC)But this is why he brought Tav along.
He makes a thoughtful noise. “What drew you to the druidic arts and nature? Do you suspect it’s something you were skilled at beforehand, or might it have been something new that you just took a liking to?” He’d undergone his own transformation, turning over a new page going from surgeon to sorcerer; but at least that had been Strange’s choice, his decision, his own agency. He hadn’t been trying to fill an empty slate.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-23 02:29 pm (UTC)When we woke up in the nautiloid, it simply made sense that he had been a druid, a loner who loved the waking world and all its inhabitants.
Well. Except Alfira.
“It simply made sense,” Tav replies. “Druids outside of circles tend to be loners. And I had woken up without any memories of friends or family.”
no subject
Date: 2024-07-30 05:40 pm (UTC)Strange readjusts his backpack, shrugging it back onto his shoulder, still considering the intellectual puzzle in front of him. The elf’s amnesia has always been a source of interest; despite gods and curses and magic, some part of the doctor still finds itself thinking neurological damage. A traumatic event, an injury, something which might heal over time given rest.
“It’s been a few months now. Has anything come back yet? Any memory, any recollection.”
(This might be a friendly camping trip but it’s also not not a physician’s checkup too. Listen, he can multi-task.)
no subject
Date: 2024-07-30 06:01 pm (UTC)He has had some strange dreams, but none so revealing as his time in Faerun. The blank slate remains as such even months later, after trying herbs and the like from the greenhouse.
“Nothing before waking up in an Illithid pod,” Tav replies. “I’ve not found any herbs that help my memory either.”
He takes another full breath of the fresh air before turning to Strange.
“Thank you for doing this, by the way,” Tav continues. “I’ve needed this.”
no subject
Date: 2024-07-30 10:32 pm (UTC)But after a moment’s hesitation, he relents, reaching out to pluck a sprig of nearby embrium. “And to put it mildly: you sounded like you were reaching your limit in the Gallows.”
no subject
Date: 2024-07-30 10:59 pm (UTC)“I’m not used to isolation,” he confesses. “Before coming here, I was constantly surrounded by people at camp. The change really affected me, even if I understand why they did it.”
Perhaps they can consider working in the Fade again, to finally free Tav of the darkness inside.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-30 11:23 pm (UTC)He meanders a little way down the path, minding their periphery, listening and watching but still staying within conversational distance while Tav forages. “Is there anything else we could accommodate to make you feel a little more comfortable otherwise? God knows I try to hold onto what I can of my own home.” A beat. “The cloak you saw me going back for, that’s part of it. Memorabilia.”
Even in saying this, there’s a kind of faint wincing distaste in his voice, the most grudging admission that he actually experiences sentiment. He’s not wearing the cloak today, just dressed in regular trousers-and-shirt for their hike.
no subject
Date: 2024-07-30 11:28 pm (UTC)He gets back up to his feet again to fall back into step with Strange.
“Being outside more would help,” Tav continues. “I miss the stars.”
no subject
Date: 2024-07-31 12:01 am (UTC)“Some people are sleeping in tents out in the yard. If you can get this under control, you’d be able to sleep outdoors by yourself again,” he says. He’s been researching this off-and-on, but differing projects keep pulling him away and it’s such an unprecedented problem besides. Perhaps closer to an exorcism than anything else.
“Have you been keeping up with any of the deep breathing or meditation I recommended? Mastering your own mind. If mages are able to resist demonic possession in our sleep, you should eventually be able to resist the Urge.”
no subject
Date: 2024-07-31 12:06 am (UTC)Tav looks up at the trees and the sky beyond.
“I think going into the Fade is the way to defeat the Urge once and for all.”
no subject
Date: 2024-07-31 12:09 am (UTC)“So you’re ready to try it?” he asks. “Going into the Fade and re-making yourself. Re-asserting yourself.”
no subject
Date: 2024-07-31 12:13 am (UTC)Tav spots another sprig of Elfroot and bends down to pick it.
“I’m not sure how much longer I can take,” Tav continues, tucking the Elfroot in his satchel with the other one. “I must take a decisive action and that means going into the Fade.”
no subject
Date: 2024-07-31 01:29 am (UTC)And they keep going, forging into the Planasene as the day wears on. Eventually the well-traveled paths fade away, so they have to push through the undergrowth; whenever they reach a particularly difficult impasse, Strange summons up magical energy to brusquely whisk it aside, or Tav draws on nature for a gentler manipulation to make the branches lean away for them.
Tav’s bag fills with herbs and roots and seeds where they can find them, and the light drains from the sky. The sorcerer eventually calls it when twilight’s close (he’s just an ordinary human, he doesn’t have darkvision), and they camp out in a fairly large glade to set up their individual tents and bedrolls, with a low fire between the two tents. Hopefully they’re far enough from the front that there aren’t any Tevene forces nearby. If any wild animals get any hungry ideas, he’s certain they’ll be able to take care of it between them; having already fought an alien invasion and no end of demons and other sorcerers, the doctor is terrifically blasé about the idea of danger. They eat a simple dinner; they bid each other a polite goodnight.
Strange lies on his back, hands folded over his chest, restless, the mouth of the tent open so he can see the stars. It feels odd, not feeling the faint movement of water underfoot, not having the weight of someone else on a mattress beside him. It turns out he’s gotten awfully accustomed to sleeping next to Gwenaëlle on her houseboat, and he didn’t even realise until now how much that’s become home —
Still. It’s just one night away. It’s not going to kill him.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-01 11:51 pm (UTC)How long has it been since he listened to the bickering of Lae'zel and Shadowheart? Or listened to a lesson on magic from Gale? Perhaps the quanderings of Astarion as he considers whether to kill Cazador or not.
Months. Seven long months, most spent in an isolated room, only allowed out under guard. He's so painfully homesick in this moment that he can't help but reach out to the sorcerer across the way.
"Strange?" he asks, his voice quiet.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-02 12:31 am (UTC)(perhaps not since he and his younger siblings shared a room, staying up far too late despite their parents’ protests, Stephen and Donna and Victor hissing at each other and squabbling to see who could stay up the longest)
So. Strange is still awake. He’s a restless sleeper, and certainly an insomniac, and he doesn’t even sound groggy as he answers: “Yes, Tav?”
no subject
Date: 2024-08-02 12:57 am (UTC)"I wanted to say 'thank you,'" Tav replies, counting the stars to reign in his emotions. "I cannot express just how much this night means to me."
This freedom, these stars, it's everything.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-02 06:57 pm (UTC)“I didn’t want you to snap and fling yourself into the Waking Sea. We’re low on mages with healing magic,” he says. It’s yet another deflection, an excuse, a mild joke.
There’s a pause which drags on perhaps a little too long, then: “You’re welcome, though.”
no subject
Date: 2024-08-03 01:36 am (UTC)What a life that would be; all he would need is a few friends from home to help him re-warm to the Riftwatch.
When the pause rests between them, Tav thinks that will be the beginning and end of the conversation, but Strange continues and Tav can't help but give a proud sigh.
And hopes the rest of the night will be uneventful as he settles into his bedroll.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-03 09:57 pm (UTC)But they are unlucky, and Stephen Strange’s life has a habit of being so very eventful, and Tav has been stuck in the Gallows and fraying at the seams for weeks—
So instead, the sorcerer finds himself abruptly awake in the middle of the night, uncertain what roused him. Some small noise. Some crack of twig underfoot or the shift of air or rustling of fabric. Some movement.
Something.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-03 10:05 pm (UTC)Tav is dripping with sweat, his vision blurring as he crawls around the fire pit. He fights with himself as he opens his mouth to ask for help when his arms slip out from beneath him and the darkness takes him.
The Urge wakes up instead and sees the barely awake sorcerer before him. An easy target. And maybe he'll get to slice the sorcerer open and see just how he ticks. The Urge doesn't have a blade, but he doesn't need one right now. No, he straddles the sleeping sorcerer, hands closing around the sorcerer's neck.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-05 02:40 am (UTC)His reflexes are quick — quicker than they once were — and so his paranoia instantly latches onto instinctively fighting back, even as the Urge’s fingers dig into his throat and Strange’s scarred hands scrabble and shove ineffectually at the elf’s arms, feeling his windpipe closing and his air suffocating. This is oddly familiar. He’s been choked before. Like, to a surprising degree of frequency, why is this always the bad guys’ go-to—
A rapid list of options scrolls through his mind, a set of tools. He could summon a spectral knife and bury it between Tav’s ribs, he could send a burst of fiery energy against him, but no, his hands are metaphorically tied because he doesn’t want to outright kill the elf, just—
What eventually comes is a roiling explosive wave of telekinesis, blasting outward from the sorcerer and sending the druid flying several feet away. The tent collapses as Tav-slash-Urge is flung through it, and Strange finds himself tangled up in the fabric, needing to scramble his way free of the now-clumsy construction. Gasping for breath, he comes stumbling out, searching for the other silhouette in the half-darkness and already reaching for more magic.
no subject
Date: 2024-08-05 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-08-06 08:58 pm (UTC)Strange’s arm whips up with a glowing golden shield snapping into place: the stake slams into the magical barrier and skitters off. The sorcerer keeps the shield up as the Urge comes barreling at him, swinging wildly, and Strange has to desperately meet each strike with a deflect of his own. He has to occasionally sidle backwards and give way, not going on the offensive yet, shouting instead:
“Tav! Tav Whatever-Your-Unknown-Last-Name-Is— Tav, for the love of god, stop this. Snap out of it!”
no subject
Date: 2024-08-06 09:42 pm (UTC)Any words the Sorcerer says make little difference to the Urge as he continues to go for blood.
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