Post by lillium on Nov 23, 2010 23:31:36 GMT -6
December 1932
It was a cold winter, but Haven Havergal didn’t care. She was currently fascinated with her work, which was currently a potion, with a sickly green colour to it. She dropped a little bit of some unknown element into the potion and stirred it around, and the potion soon faded to pink. Havergal grinned behind her gas mask, and added a few drops of a strange liquid in an even stranger bottle. The potion began letting off pink smoke, and she grabbed another machine and used it to suck up that smoke. The machine was hooked up to another machine, and soon, Havergal had a few dozen bubbles- Seemingly made of glass- That were filled with the pink smoke. She waited a few minutes for the fumes that had gotten away to dissipate into the air so that she wouldn’t be affected, and then she threw off her gas mask and pushed up her goggles. She stood up after taking off her gloves. It was time to get something to eat. She could find someone to test them on afterwards.
Havergal was 30 years old and of average height for a woman her age. Her auburn hair was currently a mess, her dark blue eyes were threatening to close from exhaustion, and she was certain there was grease underneath her fingernails. Oh well, no matter. Appearances didn’t really mean much to her. She was at least wearing her mage robes. That was important. Well, probably.
Just as she went to open the door to her room to go out to get something to eat, someone was about to knock on her door. Havergal was surprised; it was Ian Dedalus, one of the Elders. One of the people who were high up, and obviously very, very good at magic. What was he doing here, talking to her? Something important must have happened, the Elders must have made a decision and it must have involved her. Havergal wasn’t stupid. Her heart rate sped up and she did her best to keep the grin off of her face. Finally, those years and years of hard work and sacrifice had paid off.
“Haven Havergal,” the old man said, “You have been summoned to the Council of Elders.” He sounded very official, Havergal thought. Actually, when Havergal thought about it, all of the Elders were official-sounding old men. That made her frown. It was ridiculous, that she should have to work harder than everyone else just to be seen at the same level as all of them. Well, there were other female mages, but none of them spent their time inventing.
Dedalus turned and left, presumably back towards where they were supposed to be, and Havergal quickly followed him, closing the door behind her. It was a long walk, and silence hung in the air. Havergal wasn’t about to speak, and she knew that Dedalus certainly wasn’t going to break the silence. Finally, they got to the meeting room. It was ominous, Havergal thought, as she walked inside. Very ominous. Then again, this was a secret society filled with people who spoke in a language long dead. It probably would be ominous.
“Haven Havergal,” someone said. Havergal could name them by name, but the next thing said distracted her so much: “You have been chosen to be the next leader of the Order of Eradicto Pravus.”
December 1934
For the first time in years, Havergal was feeling fear.
Everything made sense to her now. Of course. Now that it was too late. She would have been able to handle it, would have always been able to handle it, if it were any other person, if it were any other demon, if it were any other situation. . And if there wasn’t proverbial salt water flowing into the proverbial knife wound in her back. Or not so proverbial salt water.
Havergal realized she was shaking. She couldn’t think straight. A million words came to mind but they quickly left as all she could think was how there was no one here that would help her. No one here that would save her from the sea.
May 1921
Dimitri Archer couldn’t be more obvious if it was written on his forehead, Havergal couldn’t help but think. She knew he was sort of trying to hide it, a little. Well, perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn‘t. But she pretended to be oblivious. It was fun and profitable, competing with him. Why did he have to go and ruin it like this?
Havergal had been at the Order of Eradicto Pravus for nearly two years now, and she had quickly become the best student. Sure, some of the other students here were better than her for virtue of simply being here longer- But Havergal was the hardest working, brightest, and most talented student. She had made sure of it. The only person she was worried would do better than her was Dimitri.
Dimitri, her rival, who was currently coughing and trying to tell her something. “. . So what do you think?” she heard him ask. Havergal snapped back to reality and tried to think of an answer. Of course, her brain didn’t feel like coming up with one. Well, that was fun.
“Sorry. Could you repeat yourself?” Havergal asked, trying to sound kind of nice. She liked Dimitri- Not as in, she wanted to sleep with him, but he was a good rival. And so if she was telling him “Fuck you,” she only wanted to do it while one-upping him. That was how it worked!
Of course, Dimitri didn’t seem to think so, as he scowled and stormed off after muttering: “Nevermind.” Havergal shrugged. How strange. Oh well, it probably wasn’t important, she thought. She walked back to her room. She’d read something very interesting in a book about da Vinci’s inventions the other day, and she wanted to test something out.
November 1929
The outside world was crashing down around her in a downward spiral towards a singularity of hopelessness, but Haven Havergal didn’t care. She was busy reading a paper by a Dr. Albert Einstein, who had just won an award from the German Physical Society in Berlin. A bunch of old men, Havergal couldn’t help but think, who would never give that award to a woman. Then again, Havergal also wasn’t a German theoretical physicist. She preferred to work with the real world as she knew it, not the abstract.
Havergal of course was still bitter about the Max Planck medal, but it made her feel a little bit better to know that Marie Curie had won the Nobel Prize a few years earlier.
In any case, she was now in no mood to be reading papers. She was feeling restless. Over the past few days she had made plans and blueprints for a ton of inventions. However, she needed materials. She couldn’t create iron and wood out of oxygen and carbon in the air.
Or could she?
Havergal sat back in her chair and thought. What about the alchemists of long past? They had attempted to turn lead into gold. It hadn’t worked, of course, but they hadn’t been mages. Well. Perhaps some of them had been. But they hadn’t been Haven Havergal, most certainly. Havergal cleared her desk in a rather violent fashion and grabbed a pen and paper and quickly began scribbling out formulas.
Perhaps physics wasn’t such a good science after all. Perhaps chemistry was where enlightenment was. Or perhaps both, in conjunction, would be the right path. Havergal liked the latter. After all, Marie Curie was a physicist and a chemist. Marie Curie didn’t have magic, and Havergal did. Havergal couldn’t keep the smile off of her face. She would accomplish so much more than Marie Curie! She not only had the means, but she had a nice extra power that Mrs. Curie didn’t have- Magic.
February 1934
Dimitri was speaking to Havergal, and she was listening. She was now the head of the Order of Eradicto Pravus; she couldn’t afford to go off into Lala Land every time that her old rival spoke to her. Of course, sometimes, like right now, Havergal couldn’t help but wish that she could go back into La La Land.
“The two of us are both rather powerful mages,” Dimitri began. He sounded a little uncomfortable, Havergal noticed. He was fixing his glasses, which he seemed to do around her an awful lot. She frowned. This conversation could go a lot of places, and quite a few of those places, Havergal really did not want to go. “And according to the laws of natural selection which are so in-vogue these days, the two of us could have very powerful children. So, Haven, would you like to-”
Havergal didn’t mean to cut him off, but she couldn’t stop the laughter. He was making this sound like a business proposal, for one. For another, she wouldn’t ever be with Dimitri Archer. Finally, he was just insulting her! Why would she waste her time having his children when she could be doing something for the world? Of course, this was Dimitri, it was to be expected. He was always so angry that she was doing better than him, so angry that she would dare turn him down, so angry that she was the head of the Order. .
And he was so angry that she would dare turn him down, he wasn’t just scowling and walking away. He was fuming. Havergal could practically smell the anger coming off of him, and she was almost, almost afraid. She gulped. Dimitri could control a lot of things with his will, couldn’t he? Oh, he wouldn’t dare attack her though, she thought quickly. He couldn’t. That would be mutiny. He would be a traitor to the Order.
Of course, he seemed to realize this and turned on his heel and stalked off. Havergal found herself cringing, but she turned and left to go back to doing her job. Oh well. It was bound to happen eventually, she thought, glumly. Too bad. Dimitri Archer had been such a good rival, too.
August 1919
They were both new to the Order of Eradicto Pravus, and they both had full confidence in their abilities and ambitions to succeed. Perhaps a little too much of both, but Haven Havergal didn’t care. She would do better than this kid any day. She thought of him as younger, as below her, despite their ages being rather close.
Haven Havergal was the daughter of a man who repaired watches and a woman who had died in childbirth so many years ago. She had no siblings, and so her father had taught her the art of repairing watches, despite the fact that no respectable woman worked- Unless, of course, it was to be a nurse and to take care of men in the war.
But the war, the Great War, it was over now, leaving plenty of people with broken seals and the ability to use magic. Just like her and this boy in front of her. He seemed a little arrogant, Havergal thought. Well, whatever. If he was worth anything, he would lose that mightier-than-thou attitude soon enough and learn to be a decent person. Of course, Havergal was willfully ignoring her own arrogance.
“I’m Haven Havergal,” she said, introducing herself. She didn’t offer her hand. That was a strange practice. The boy in front of her didn’t seem to care, either, and he just looked down at her- Or, at least, that was her perception of it.
“Dimitri Archer,” he said, his voice seemingly filled with conceit. Havergal frowned. She loathed people like that. He would probably be one of those idiots, just like the rest of the world, who thought she was an incompetent little girl simply because she happened to be born with different genitals. Well, whatever. She’d just show him and everyone else up, and then they would never, ever disrespect Haven Havergal again.
December 1934
Havergal’s breathing was getting faster and getting more and more ragged, and she was getting more and more afraid. Was she to die here, die alone, be killed by a monster slowly but surely and have to sit and suffer through this torture?
She saw a familiar face, suddenly, and she wasn’t sure whether it existed or not and perhaps she was just seeing things but how could one see things that did not exist here? It was cold and wet and Havergal did not want to be here, she couldn’t be here. She wanted to go and kill whoever had caused her to be in this situation. Whoever had set her up like this.
But the familiar face was still there, and Havergal tried her best to speak. She grimaced, and then the grimace turned into a wry grin as she stared into the face of her enemy. “Et. . Et tu, Demetrius?” she asked breathlessly, feeling feeling fade away from her and be eaten up by the darkness.
It was a cold winter.
It was a cold winter, but Haven Havergal didn’t care. She was currently fascinated with her work, which was currently a potion, with a sickly green colour to it. She dropped a little bit of some unknown element into the potion and stirred it around, and the potion soon faded to pink. Havergal grinned behind her gas mask, and added a few drops of a strange liquid in an even stranger bottle. The potion began letting off pink smoke, and she grabbed another machine and used it to suck up that smoke. The machine was hooked up to another machine, and soon, Havergal had a few dozen bubbles- Seemingly made of glass- That were filled with the pink smoke. She waited a few minutes for the fumes that had gotten away to dissipate into the air so that she wouldn’t be affected, and then she threw off her gas mask and pushed up her goggles. She stood up after taking off her gloves. It was time to get something to eat. She could find someone to test them on afterwards.
Havergal was 30 years old and of average height for a woman her age. Her auburn hair was currently a mess, her dark blue eyes were threatening to close from exhaustion, and she was certain there was grease underneath her fingernails. Oh well, no matter. Appearances didn’t really mean much to her. She was at least wearing her mage robes. That was important. Well, probably.
Just as she went to open the door to her room to go out to get something to eat, someone was about to knock on her door. Havergal was surprised; it was Ian Dedalus, one of the Elders. One of the people who were high up, and obviously very, very good at magic. What was he doing here, talking to her? Something important must have happened, the Elders must have made a decision and it must have involved her. Havergal wasn’t stupid. Her heart rate sped up and she did her best to keep the grin off of her face. Finally, those years and years of hard work and sacrifice had paid off.
“Haven Havergal,” the old man said, “You have been summoned to the Council of Elders.” He sounded very official, Havergal thought. Actually, when Havergal thought about it, all of the Elders were official-sounding old men. That made her frown. It was ridiculous, that she should have to work harder than everyone else just to be seen at the same level as all of them. Well, there were other female mages, but none of them spent their time inventing.
Dedalus turned and left, presumably back towards where they were supposed to be, and Havergal quickly followed him, closing the door behind her. It was a long walk, and silence hung in the air. Havergal wasn’t about to speak, and she knew that Dedalus certainly wasn’t going to break the silence. Finally, they got to the meeting room. It was ominous, Havergal thought, as she walked inside. Very ominous. Then again, this was a secret society filled with people who spoke in a language long dead. It probably would be ominous.
“Haven Havergal,” someone said. Havergal could name them by name, but the next thing said distracted her so much: “You have been chosen to be the next leader of the Order of Eradicto Pravus.”
December 1934
For the first time in years, Havergal was feeling fear.
Everything made sense to her now. Of course. Now that it was too late. She would have been able to handle it, would have always been able to handle it, if it were any other person, if it were any other demon, if it were any other situation. . And if there wasn’t proverbial salt water flowing into the proverbial knife wound in her back. Or not so proverbial salt water.
Havergal realized she was shaking. She couldn’t think straight. A million words came to mind but they quickly left as all she could think was how there was no one here that would help her. No one here that would save her from the sea.
May 1921
Dimitri Archer couldn’t be more obvious if it was written on his forehead, Havergal couldn’t help but think. She knew he was sort of trying to hide it, a little. Well, perhaps he was, perhaps he wasn‘t. But she pretended to be oblivious. It was fun and profitable, competing with him. Why did he have to go and ruin it like this?
Havergal had been at the Order of Eradicto Pravus for nearly two years now, and she had quickly become the best student. Sure, some of the other students here were better than her for virtue of simply being here longer- But Havergal was the hardest working, brightest, and most talented student. She had made sure of it. The only person she was worried would do better than her was Dimitri.
Dimitri, her rival, who was currently coughing and trying to tell her something. “. . So what do you think?” she heard him ask. Havergal snapped back to reality and tried to think of an answer. Of course, her brain didn’t feel like coming up with one. Well, that was fun.
“Sorry. Could you repeat yourself?” Havergal asked, trying to sound kind of nice. She liked Dimitri- Not as in, she wanted to sleep with him, but he was a good rival. And so if she was telling him “Fuck you,” she only wanted to do it while one-upping him. That was how it worked!
Of course, Dimitri didn’t seem to think so, as he scowled and stormed off after muttering: “Nevermind.” Havergal shrugged. How strange. Oh well, it probably wasn’t important, she thought. She walked back to her room. She’d read something very interesting in a book about da Vinci’s inventions the other day, and she wanted to test something out.
November 1929
The outside world was crashing down around her in a downward spiral towards a singularity of hopelessness, but Haven Havergal didn’t care. She was busy reading a paper by a Dr. Albert Einstein, who had just won an award from the German Physical Society in Berlin. A bunch of old men, Havergal couldn’t help but think, who would never give that award to a woman. Then again, Havergal also wasn’t a German theoretical physicist. She preferred to work with the real world as she knew it, not the abstract.
Havergal of course was still bitter about the Max Planck medal, but it made her feel a little bit better to know that Marie Curie had won the Nobel Prize a few years earlier.
In any case, she was now in no mood to be reading papers. She was feeling restless. Over the past few days she had made plans and blueprints for a ton of inventions. However, she needed materials. She couldn’t create iron and wood out of oxygen and carbon in the air.
Or could she?
Havergal sat back in her chair and thought. What about the alchemists of long past? They had attempted to turn lead into gold. It hadn’t worked, of course, but they hadn’t been mages. Well. Perhaps some of them had been. But they hadn’t been Haven Havergal, most certainly. Havergal cleared her desk in a rather violent fashion and grabbed a pen and paper and quickly began scribbling out formulas.
Perhaps physics wasn’t such a good science after all. Perhaps chemistry was where enlightenment was. Or perhaps both, in conjunction, would be the right path. Havergal liked the latter. After all, Marie Curie was a physicist and a chemist. Marie Curie didn’t have magic, and Havergal did. Havergal couldn’t keep the smile off of her face. She would accomplish so much more than Marie Curie! She not only had the means, but she had a nice extra power that Mrs. Curie didn’t have- Magic.
February 1934
Dimitri was speaking to Havergal, and she was listening. She was now the head of the Order of Eradicto Pravus; she couldn’t afford to go off into Lala Land every time that her old rival spoke to her. Of course, sometimes, like right now, Havergal couldn’t help but wish that she could go back into La La Land.
“The two of us are both rather powerful mages,” Dimitri began. He sounded a little uncomfortable, Havergal noticed. He was fixing his glasses, which he seemed to do around her an awful lot. She frowned. This conversation could go a lot of places, and quite a few of those places, Havergal really did not want to go. “And according to the laws of natural selection which are so in-vogue these days, the two of us could have very powerful children. So, Haven, would you like to-”
Havergal didn’t mean to cut him off, but she couldn’t stop the laughter. He was making this sound like a business proposal, for one. For another, she wouldn’t ever be with Dimitri Archer. Finally, he was just insulting her! Why would she waste her time having his children when she could be doing something for the world? Of course, this was Dimitri, it was to be expected. He was always so angry that she was doing better than him, so angry that she would dare turn him down, so angry that she was the head of the Order. .
And he was so angry that she would dare turn him down, he wasn’t just scowling and walking away. He was fuming. Havergal could practically smell the anger coming off of him, and she was almost, almost afraid. She gulped. Dimitri could control a lot of things with his will, couldn’t he? Oh, he wouldn’t dare attack her though, she thought quickly. He couldn’t. That would be mutiny. He would be a traitor to the Order.
Of course, he seemed to realize this and turned on his heel and stalked off. Havergal found herself cringing, but she turned and left to go back to doing her job. Oh well. It was bound to happen eventually, she thought, glumly. Too bad. Dimitri Archer had been such a good rival, too.
August 1919
They were both new to the Order of Eradicto Pravus, and they both had full confidence in their abilities and ambitions to succeed. Perhaps a little too much of both, but Haven Havergal didn’t care. She would do better than this kid any day. She thought of him as younger, as below her, despite their ages being rather close.
Haven Havergal was the daughter of a man who repaired watches and a woman who had died in childbirth so many years ago. She had no siblings, and so her father had taught her the art of repairing watches, despite the fact that no respectable woman worked- Unless, of course, it was to be a nurse and to take care of men in the war.
But the war, the Great War, it was over now, leaving plenty of people with broken seals and the ability to use magic. Just like her and this boy in front of her. He seemed a little arrogant, Havergal thought. Well, whatever. If he was worth anything, he would lose that mightier-than-thou attitude soon enough and learn to be a decent person. Of course, Havergal was willfully ignoring her own arrogance.
“I’m Haven Havergal,” she said, introducing herself. She didn’t offer her hand. That was a strange practice. The boy in front of her didn’t seem to care, either, and he just looked down at her- Or, at least, that was her perception of it.
“Dimitri Archer,” he said, his voice seemingly filled with conceit. Havergal frowned. She loathed people like that. He would probably be one of those idiots, just like the rest of the world, who thought she was an incompetent little girl simply because she happened to be born with different genitals. Well, whatever. She’d just show him and everyone else up, and then they would never, ever disrespect Haven Havergal again.
December 1934
Havergal’s breathing was getting faster and getting more and more ragged, and she was getting more and more afraid. Was she to die here, die alone, be killed by a monster slowly but surely and have to sit and suffer through this torture?
She saw a familiar face, suddenly, and she wasn’t sure whether it existed or not and perhaps she was just seeing things but how could one see things that did not exist here? It was cold and wet and Havergal did not want to be here, she couldn’t be here. She wanted to go and kill whoever had caused her to be in this situation. Whoever had set her up like this.
But the familiar face was still there, and Havergal tried her best to speak. She grimaced, and then the grimace turned into a wry grin as she stared into the face of her enemy. “Et. . Et tu, Demetrius?” she asked breathlessly, feeling feeling fade away from her and be eaten up by the darkness.
It was a cold winter.