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Nov. 18th, 2013 10:50 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pegunicentZeke didn't train too often. When he did, it was a spinning, whirling, dancing style of staff work that only a Blue Wizard could really appreciate.
He cast off the illusion of friendliness, feet sliding along the Earth, stance solid as mountains. The ebony of his staff turned the gnarled wood into a black blur as he worked, swinging and blocking.
His style was mostly improvised, gained from years of after-dark practice with the Blue students who could be egged into beating the shit out of him. He wasn't great, against any real knight he'd fall and be skewered on multiple swords, however against most Wizards and Witches and the occasional drunk farmer, the staff was his best weapon.
Now, sheathed in the Serpent's fang, he had to relearn all his tricks, the heft and balance thrown off. He quickly learned that the rounded ball shattered anything it struck, the clawed foot tearing through leather and hide like skinning knives.
More interestingly he learned, when one of the Blue students challenged him to a 'friendly spar', the metal of the Serpent's fang was horrible for Wizards. One blow to the boy's arm and the kid collapsed in a fit, magic siphoned off to such a degree that shock set in.
After that Zeke refused to risk anyone else to the metal's hunger.
Honestly after the first four months he barely felt the pull, though he took care not to lean the staff against any shelf containing Grimoires. He wasn't sure that the staff worked on such thing, but after walking through the White's warded Library doors after hours and feeling them part like wet paper along the metal, he suspected that all magic was effected.
Heroes were idiots, hunting down anything that screamed danger and throwing themselves at monsters like a buffet. The serpent knew this when he allowed the first one to take his fang. He could have chomped the fool in half and corroded his body to ash with his venom, but instead he let the tooth be pulled and made into a sword.
That sword was still a part of him. Everything it touched, everything it destroyed fed back into the serpent. Every scrap of magic it drained sank into the serpent's gullet, coated his scales. Now, ages past the first idiot to take his fang, a new idiot gallivanted about, *feeding* him like a well spring. Magic flowed into him constantly, not the dribs and drabs that a hero smashing monsters might find, but the very life force of mages in a steady flood.
It might not be enough, the serpent was prosaic above all. The feast nourished, but it could end. Eventually, one day, he would have enough magic to emerge from his tunnels and embrace the sky again. In time he would see the world of mortals burn to ash beneath his scales, on his way to assault the gates of heaven.
The cookies were better than the bread, so Zeke had some hope he was learning something through trial and error. He was getting a bit tired of soup and stew, but those were the only things he could think to make in Clover.
Clover was a happy thing at least, he didn't mind Clara climbing in and out of him all the time and scrubbing him all over. She even used him as her new bath tub and scrub bucket since he followed her around and never spilled.
If they weren't both animated objects nominally under Zeke's control, he'd think they were building a friendship.
The lighthouse didn't really fit near the Akademy, it caused a lot of staring, foot traffic, and demands for answers or magical home repair.
He cast off the illusion of friendliness, feet sliding along the Earth, stance solid as mountains. The ebony of his staff turned the gnarled wood into a black blur as he worked, swinging and blocking.
His style was mostly improvised, gained from years of after-dark practice with the Blue students who could be egged into beating the shit out of him. He wasn't great, against any real knight he'd fall and be skewered on multiple swords, however against most Wizards and Witches and the occasional drunk farmer, the staff was his best weapon.
Now, sheathed in the Serpent's fang, he had to relearn all his tricks, the heft and balance thrown off. He quickly learned that the rounded ball shattered anything it struck, the clawed foot tearing through leather and hide like skinning knives.
More interestingly he learned, when one of the Blue students challenged him to a 'friendly spar', the metal of the Serpent's fang was horrible for Wizards. One blow to the boy's arm and the kid collapsed in a fit, magic siphoned off to such a degree that shock set in.
After that Zeke refused to risk anyone else to the metal's hunger.
Honestly after the first four months he barely felt the pull, though he took care not to lean the staff against any shelf containing Grimoires. He wasn't sure that the staff worked on such thing, but after walking through the White's warded Library doors after hours and feeling them part like wet paper along the metal, he suspected that all magic was effected.
Heroes were idiots, hunting down anything that screamed danger and throwing themselves at monsters like a buffet. The serpent knew this when he allowed the first one to take his fang. He could have chomped the fool in half and corroded his body to ash with his venom, but instead he let the tooth be pulled and made into a sword.
That sword was still a part of him. Everything it touched, everything it destroyed fed back into the serpent. Every scrap of magic it drained sank into the serpent's gullet, coated his scales. Now, ages past the first idiot to take his fang, a new idiot gallivanted about, *feeding* him like a well spring. Magic flowed into him constantly, not the dribs and drabs that a hero smashing monsters might find, but the very life force of mages in a steady flood.
It might not be enough, the serpent was prosaic above all. The feast nourished, but it could end. Eventually, one day, he would have enough magic to emerge from his tunnels and embrace the sky again. In time he would see the world of mortals burn to ash beneath his scales, on his way to assault the gates of heaven.
The cookies were better than the bread, so Zeke had some hope he was learning something through trial and error. He was getting a bit tired of soup and stew, but those were the only things he could think to make in Clover.
Clover was a happy thing at least, he didn't mind Clara climbing in and out of him all the time and scrubbing him all over. She even used him as her new bath tub and scrub bucket since he followed her around and never spilled.
If they weren't both animated objects nominally under Zeke's control, he'd think they were building a friendship.
The lighthouse didn't really fit near the Akademy, it caused a lot of staring, foot traffic, and demands for answers or magical home repair.
