a serum born of venoms @aigisthosia - Tumblr Blog

Posts

This is an independent RP sideblog for Theodosia of Aigisthos, an OC Eusebian defector from Sarah Monette/Katherine Addison's Doctrine of Labyrinths universe, though I've extensively expanded upon the world via headcanons.

Follow-backs come from my main blog, @tnott. Mun is 30+ and crossovers are highly welcome! 21+ only, as canon-typical dark themes are written here.

→ Rules → Biography → World → Verses

#pinned post #mun's PSAs #doctrine of labyrinths rp #dol rp #fantasy rp #high fantasy rp #wizard rp #sarah monette rp #katherine addison rp

feed-your-inbox

Send "🐣" to meet my muse as a child.

For child muses: Send “🐣+Reverse” to meet my muse as an adult.

#meme

oftomorrow

Clark does his best to hold still as she works, but there's a slight flinch every time she pries another shard from his skin. With each encounter, he hopes that kryptonite will affect him slightly less, that he'll develop some sort of immunity, or at least grow more accustomed to the pain. But that doesn't seem to be happening. Each time is as agonizing as the first.

The question gives him pause — he's hesitant to discuss his greatest weakness with someone who's essentially a stranger. But considering she's risking herself for him, and saving his life... he probably owes her some sort of explanation.

"It's called kryptonite," he replies quietly, after a long moment. "It only affects me." Then he adds, "If... you have anything made of lead... that works as a shield."

aigisthosia

Behind Superman's back, Theda pressed her lips together in a thin line for a moment, and then, her voice very firm, said, "No lead in this house. I've seen what it does to people." Lead might be easy to melt and shape, but it left colic, paralysis, madness, and death in its wake. There was a reason that Emperor Nikephoros II Griphos, grandfather of the current emperor, had mobilized the Corps of Imperial Engineers to renovate the water supply network in Aigisthos, replacing the old lead pipes with new ones made of copper.

Not that lead pipes were much of an issue in Smallburg, given that the place still relied on water drawn from hand-dug wells; there were many, many aspects of city life that Theda had found herself longing for, and plumbing was definitely near the top of the list. But there were other ways for lead to enter the body, and if this 'kryptonite' really was harmless to everyone but Superman, then she saw no need to invest in a shield made from poison.

"Why does it affect you when it affects no one else?" she asked him, as she began carefully removing some of the smaller shards from his wound. "Do you know? Is it some sort of targeted magic?" It seemed unlikely that Superman would be able to tell if that were the case, given that the man was not actually a wizard, but that hadn't really been the point of asking the question. Theda was simply fishing for any bit of information that she might be able to get.

#oftomorrow #c: clark kent #v; beyond the horizon

oftomorrow

Clark does his best not to put his full weight on her, but the flight here had taken a lot out of him. He more or less collapses onto the bench, grunting as the impact sends a shock of pain up his spine.

Unfortunately, he's dealt with kryptonite poisoning a handful of times before. But that means he has an idea how to deal with it. Assuming she'll believe him.

"If... if you... get everything out..." It comes out between sharp breaths. "And get it far enough away from me... I'll heal on my own. But... it has to be everything." Even a single fragment could kill him if given enough time.

aigisthosia

"Is that a fact?" Theda asked. She would have raised an inquisitive eyebrow, but since Superman had his back to her and wouldn't be able to see it, there really wasn't any point. "Even if I get every fragment out, the wound could still rot if not properly cleansed."

Not that she actually needed boiling water for that, but it wasn't as though Superman would know otherwise.

She would play along for the moment, she decided. So she rinsed her hands and then fetched her case of tools, pulling out a small pair of forceps. Then she began to pull the shards from his flesh, pausing after each one to stem the bleeding and to cast the silent spell that would burn the microbes from the wounds. Superman might claim that he would heal on his own, but Theda wasn't inclined to take that on faith.

"What is this stuff, anyway?" she asked, after several minutes' unbroken silence. "This crystal. I've never seen anything like it before, but it almost seems to be poisoning you."

As she spoke, she unfurled a tendril of her magic and sent it threading through his body -- and froze. She'd only been trying to determine the extent of the damage, but the picture that her magic had carried back to her was...strange. Theda had seen a lot of bodies, had studied them, had cut them open and laid the pieces out on the table for examination, and Superman's was wrong. The bones were too dense, the heart was beating in an impossible triple rhythm, and the cells -- the structure of Superman's cells was so bizarre and perplexing that Theda could feel a headache building behind her eyes.

What was this man?

#oftomorrow #c: clark kent #v; beyond the horizon

IN-CHARACTER QUESTIONNAIRE.

stolen from: @oftomorrow

tagging: @burnnouts and @bokketo

1. What does your muse smell like? Bright and herbal. She uses soap scented with lemon, calendula, and rosemary. If she's recently performed an autopsy or spent a long stretch of time in her workroom, her clothes will pick up a silvery, medicinal odor.

2. How often does your muse bathe / shower? Any habits? She takes a full-on bath in a tub every other week, and a daily sponge bath the rest of the time. Like most things in the Bastion, this is done swiftly and with military precision.

3. Does your muse have any tattoos or piercings? One piercing in each earlobe.

4. Any movement quirks? Even years after she flees from the Bastion, Theda still tends to stand at parade rest. Habits that are beaten in young enough are often very hard to break.

5. What do they sleep in? A plain linen nightdress.

6. What's their favorite piece of clothing? Her boots. Theda spends a lot of time on her feet and has a deep appreciation for well-fitting, good quality footwear.

7. What do they do when they wake up? She cleans her teeth, takes a sponge bath, gets dressed, does her hair, and then proceeds to the mess hall for breakfast.

8. How do they sleep? Position? On her side, facing the door.

9. What do their hands usually feel like? She has a firm grip, but her skin is softer than might be expected. She's keenly aware that a substantial portion of her value to the Bastion lies in her hands, so she takes very good care of them.

10. If you kissed them, what would they taste like? Her honey and ginger throat drops.

#dash games #meme answers #headcanons

aigisthosia

“Witches know darkness. People like to think there is light and dark magic, but that’s not true. There is only dark. A black pool full of power and pain. The difference between “good” or “bad” witches is how responsible they are with the darkness.”

— Natalie Whipple, House of Ivy and Sorrow

#letters #about theda

milksockets

'the heart' from 'the anatomy of the human body' by govard bidloo + gerard de lairesse, 1685 in the art of medicine: over 2000 years of images and imagination - julie anderson, emm barnes + emma shackleton (2011)

#medical illustration

continued from here with @oftomorrow

Theda knew that it would be safest to say no, safest to send Superman on his way, because the very last thing she needed as a wizard in hiding was to come to the attention of Metropia's despotic king. But she couldn't do it. Because that was the trouble, wasn't it? That was the source of the danger: Metropia had a despotic king, and it was his laws that put her in peril, along with every other wizard in the kingdom who refused to bow to his whims. There was only one person in the whole country who dared stand up to King Lex, who dared defend the common people, and he was currently swaying in Theda's doorway, clearly injured and pleading for help.

And now she was privy, too, to a secret she hadn't even been aware existed, and that was this: Superman, the lone wizard openly defying King Lex's edicts, wasn't a wizard at all. He might be able to fly and to freeze things with his breath, but when she met his gaze, she saw that his eyes were annemer eyes. There wasn't a single drop of magical power in his body. Whatever the source of his extraordinary abilities was, it wasn't magic. It was something Theda had never encountered.

That made her decision easy. She'd never been one to walk away from a puzzle, and this was the most interesting puzzle she'd seen in a long, long time.

"I'll do my best," she said, grabbing hold of him and steering him into the other room. He was three times her size, of course, and shaking like an aspic on wobbly legs, but Theda knew about leverage. No one could maneuver a body on the autopsy table who didn't know how to move someone heavier than themselves.

Easing him down onto the bench, she let Superman catch his breath for a moment and then began to peel his shirt away with careful hands. The crystals embedded in his skin were strange to her, some unfamiliar greenish mineral, but geology had never been her area of expertise; like most wizards, Theda was well-versed solely in the magical properties of various stones and gems.

"I'll start with the largest shards," she said, "but allow me to boil some water first and get clean rags to bathe the wounds and staunch any bleeding."

The boiling water was mostly for show, of course. Theda would actually sterilize Superman's wounds with a silent, invisible spell that would burn away any microbes that might be present. But she could hardly tell anyone that, not only because she was concealing her magic, but also because she was quite sure that no one in this whole benighted kingdom even knew what a microbe was. So she rinsed her hands in vinegar, washed her tools in boiled wine, and followed all the other primitive cleansing rituals used by Metropia's annemer healers. It did her patients no actual harm, and it kept her safe from prying eyes -- or at least it kept her safer.

#oftomorrow #c: clark kent #v; beyond the horizon

oftomorrow

Jonathan Kent may well be the most stubborn person in the whole kingdom. A full week of aches, chills, ragged coughs — yet he insists on going out to the fields every day, rain or shine. Clark had promised to help him, but there had been a mine collapse, then a fire, then a raid in Granburg by some of Lex's soldiers looking for sorcerers... Superman has been rather busy.

But when he finally makes it home to find his father on the verge of collapse, he puts his foot down. There's been a new healer in town. He'll cover the expense, somehow. He won't even let Pa protest before he's out the farmhouse door, making his way to find her.

His hearing quickly locates the unfamiliar voice, paired with one he knows quite well — Lana. With a quick glance to confirm no one will see, he bursts into the air in a blur of color. It only takes a few seconds to reach Lana's home. He can hear them inside, wrapping things up. So Clark steps forward and raps his knuckles against the wooden door.

Lana opens it a minute later. "Clark."

"Lana." His gaze drops to her bandaged arm. "Are you alright?"

"Yes — I just had a little accident." She offers him a shrug. "Do you need something?"

"Actually, I... heard that the new healer was here."

"She is. How did you...?"

"I need to speak with her. It's Pa."

Whatever questions Lana still has evaporate, and she immediately nods, beckoning him inside. He follows, fingers drumming anxiously against his leg, until he sees the other woman.

"Excuse me. Are you Theda?"

aigisthosia

Theda was more than a little taken aback when she saw the man who had just walked through the door. He was massive -- easily the tallest person she'd ever seen, and among the broadest in the shoulders, too. She'd met a few Troians in her life, because anyone growing up in Aigisthos would encounter at least a few people from any country within reasonable sailing distance, but while Troians were often six feet or just under it, they tended to be willowy and slim.

This man, on the other hand, looked like the human equivalent of one of the 660-caliber cannons that guarded the Emperor's palace back Aigisthos. If he was a farmer, which his clothes suggested, he might not even need oxen to plow his fields, because he could probably pull the plow all by himself in a pinch.

She looked up at the man with her eyes alone -- an old habit from the Bastion, where exposing a vulnerable area like the throat to someone whose motives were unknown was foolish in the extreme -- and upon meeting his gaze found confirmation of what she'd already suspected. He wasn't a wizard. In fact, Theda was fairly certain by now that the only wizard in all of Smallburg was the one who had just finished bandaging Lana Lang's arm.

"I am," she confirmed. "I gather you're in need of medical assistance?"

#oftomorrow #c: clark kent #v; beyond the horizon

gonewiddershins

In conclusion, Felix is a flaming pile of shit raining down on everyone even remotely associated with him and I love him so much.

#c: felix harrowgate #c: mildmay foxe #c: gideon thraxios #crack

@oftomorrow

It had been a difficult few months for Theda -- few months, she was still saying to herself, as though it hadn't already been over a year since she'd departed Melusine. After that agonizing stretch of time spent working around the blinkered, narrow orthodoxy of the Cabalines -- an eternally frustrating situation for Theda, who was heterodox to the bone even by Eusebian standards and who had always considered that trait to be one of her strengths -- and witnessing the dysfunction of the Mirador as a whole, she'd finally seen the tragic culmination of the Lord Protector and the Curia's wretched mismanagement -- the brutal murder of one of her only remaining friends.

After that, there had been no point in staying. So she'd left, together with Elissa Bullen, and traveled first to the city of Vusantine in Tibernia, where Elissa had opted to stay, and then alone to the northwest, fearing the whole way that some agent of the Bastion would track her down and try to kill her or, worse, drag her back to be tortured and burned. After all, Gemma Parsifal was general now, and Gemma had never forgiven a single betrayal ever in her life. Gemma was Jules Mercator with better instincts, and it was clear to Theda that with her in command, the hostilities between the Bastion and the Mirador would go from a smoulder to an outright war sooner rather than later. There wasn't a damn thing she could do to stop it, either; all she could do was get herself out of the line of fire.

Eventually she'd reached the city of Bernatha, but she'd quickly abandoned any ideas she'd had of settling there, because three things had immediately become plain: Female wizards were not respected in Corambis, she wouldn't be able to practice medicine or magic without licenses from their institutions, and their magical philosophy was so utterly foreign that Theda didn't think she'd ever be able to convincingly adopt it. While the Corambin wizards wouldn't burn her for belonging to a different school -- in that respect, at least, they were better than the Cabalines -- they would stop her from working in her chosen field, and that was a prospect that would surely drive her to insanity.

But Bernatha had a harbor, and that harbor had ships, and those ships were headed to places Theda had never even heard of, places with strange names like Ygres, Themyscira, Gotha, and Metropia. Parts of Ygres, she'd learned, were currently at war with Corambis, so she'd ruled Ygres out, and Themyscira was so far away that very few of its inhabitants would speak any language Theda was familiar with. The common tongue of Gotha and Metropia, however, was close enough to the language of Marathat that, while Theda would certainly sound foreign to them, she at least would still be intelligible. News from from both places was slow to arrive, as it was ten weeks' voyage by sea, but the most recent word was that a civil war had broken out among Gotha's noble families following the death of their last king. Metropia, however, was apparently enjoying a period of relative stability and peace. So she'd bought passage on a ship called the Isabella, which was bound for a port in Metropia.

Theda wasn't certain yet whether that had been a mistake. Metropia was indeed at peace, at least when it came to the state of its relationship with its neighboring countries, but King Alexander I -- and how strange that the ruler of this far-off land bore a name derived from Theda's own mother tongue -- ruled his own subjects with an iron fist.

So iron was his fist, in fact, that she had yet to find a single broadsheet seller in the entire kingdom, which had left her well and truly baffled. Without broadsheets, how were the people of the city supposed to learn the news? Word of mouth was notoriously unreliable, and the only possible explanation Theda had been able to come up with was that King Alexander desired strict control over what information was available to his subjects.

That wasn't the only thing he desired control over. As Theda had discovered almost immediately upon disembarking, every living wizard in Metropia was in the service of King Alexander. Those few who refused to serve him did not remain living for long.

It was for this reason that Theda thus far had refrained from identifying herself as a wizard. Instead, she began to travel across the kingdom, providing medical services in exchange for room and board. For the past week she had been staying in a little hamlet called Smallburg, whose local healer, she had been told, had been dragged away by the bailiffs over a month ago and hadn't been seen since. And once she'd learned that there wasn't a single other soul in the village with even basic medical skills, she'd decided that she would stay, at least for a little while.

The residents of Smallburg were strangers to her, and it was true that she had no personal reason to care about their welfare, but Theda had done things for the Bastion that she wasn't proud of, and as much as she told herself that it was inevitable, that that was the only way to survive as a Eusebian wizard, those actions still troubled her, still kept her awake at night. Using her skills to heal the sick and injured made it a little bit easier for her to look her own reflection in the eye.

"You'll need to keep the wound dry, Ms. Lang," she told her current patient, as she wrapped a bandage over the stitched-up gash in the woman's forearm. "That means sponge baths only, and no doing the washing up or the laundry. Someone else will need to take care of it, whether that's a neighbor, or your husband, or whomever. I'll come back in three days to change your bandages, but if you feel any itching or burning, or if the wound begins to ooze, or if you start to run a fever, send for me immediately, all right?"

#this got very long so don't feel like you have to match length <3 #oftomorrow #c: clark kent #v; beyond the horizon

#face #v; the new recruit

“The Virtu of the Mirador was created by the Cabal back in 16.5.1. It was a big blue globe, as tall as a man. They kept it in the Hall of the Chimeras, smack in the middle of the Mirador, and what it was supposed to do depended on who you asked. The Mirador talked a lot of mystic bullshit about purity and strength—the name “Virtu” was some kind of cleverdick Marathine-Midlander pun. The hocuses in the Lower City talked about focusing and matrices, and made even less sense than the official line. All I knew for sure was that all the hocuses in the Mirador swore oaths on the Virtu every single day, and that was what kept the Mirador from tearing itself apart. No matter how you felt about the hocuses sitting on top of the city like a pack of vultures, you didn’t want the Virtu broken.”

— Mildmay Foxe, Melusine (by Sarah Monette)

#canon quotes #c: mildmay foxe #the mirador #the virtu #cabalines