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WHO: Terra, Illidan
WHERE: THE CITY
WHEN: Around 2 am, 5/7. So, before and ~*~after~*~ Alex's warehouse solo rave.
WARNINGS: Do not eat, drink, or smoke this log.
WHAT: Some people get affected by magic. Some people don't. This is one such occasion.
WORDS: yes

It had been... a strange week, to be sure. The boggling magic that was the "Renaissance Faire" had long since dissipated, but it hadn't gone without residue. Things had been uncomfortably strained between Terra and Zelgadis, matters more complicated than ever. True, Terra thought to herself to the sound of her quiet footfalls, things were often complicated in Terra's life, especially where he was concerned, but it was a great deal more pronounced when they shared an apartment. It certainly didn't make it any easier to sort out her own mess of a life.

So it was well, well past midnight, and Terra needed space enough to think. She forewent the roof this time, instead taking a spring night stroll like more normal people.

Well, like normal people would have done six hours ago.

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She bowed her head; not nodding, but keeping her face down. "I was."

In tone she sounded chastised, but it was not disappointment in herself, or shame, for being affected. Rather, she was worried as to where Illidan would take this conversation. They had met, the three of them, during the spell's hold. She, he, and Zelgadis all had been captured by that strange magic, and none of them had known one another for who they were.

Terra and Illidan had not precisely made instant friends.

"You were indeed wary of me, I am curious," he said, his lip falling into something more like a sneer. "Why such an attitude would fall to you. Have I been nothing but kind toward you? Was it the spell itself that tainted your opinion of me? Or perhaps was it Zelgadis?"

"You have," she agreed, for it was true. He wasn't particularly selfless about it, or doing kindness to her for her sake alone, but Illidan had never been unkind to her. To Zelgadis, however...

He had already suffered enough on her behalf; the last thing she wanted was for more suffering to befall him because of her actions.

"But... like you, I couldn't... truly remember anyone. Everyone was a stranger to me..."

Her shoulders rolled in a shrug, and she lifted her head as she continued, hoping that he would believe her. She spoke truthfully. "The disadvantage to feeling magic... is how frightening power can feel. I... you terrified me, Illidan."

Midway through her speech, Illidan had been about to stop her with a snap, a command, but at that moment, he saw somehting and completely ignored the last. It was a haze that was starting to blanket the city itself, covering every inch of the buildings, slowly from top to bottom.

His eyes narrowed as he watched it. Yet another spell? This one was indistinct, incapable of being read or discovered. Something about it...

By the time it was close enough for each intricate weave to be read, it was too late, and like an instant flash, what was once large, and dark, and powerful wasn't there anymore. What was there was still quite tall, but different, the magic in him softer and not so formidable. The potential was there, of course. It always had been, but Illidan was no longer Illidan with horns and tattoos lacing across his chest. Instead, it was unmarred and still in just the pants he'd worn moments ago. He looked up and around, eyes no longer green and held behind a blindfold, but gold and full, and they were real eyes. Well, as real as a night elf's could get.

Edited 2011-05-07 20:40 (UTC)

The magic that had so transformed him had washed past Terra without effect, but not without notice. She staggered a step before halting in their walk, dizzied, trying to right the world around her. With the heavy dark of Illidan's usual magic cleared away, it was almost like falling out of a dark pit into moonlight. Not brilliant like the day, but light enough to make an unworldly difference.

With the change as drastic as that, Terra should have been prepared to see some great change in Illidan himself, but she was not; his most distinctive features were gone, and if she had not been walking beside him this whole time, she might not have even recognized him.

Even then, she was uncertain. Terra had to take a step back to look him over, eyebrows bending for her concentration. "... Illidan?" she asked, almost expecting to be wrong.

"Who?" he asked, his voice came out higher, and it was not English, but his native tongue. He tipped his head in curiosity at the girl, his eyes finally actually focusing on her.

Wow. Was she a human? He hadn't seen humans before. She was pretty! He found his mouth stuck and trying to figure out the words that he couldn't say. "Who are you?"

Unfortunately, the native tongue of Night Elves was not one Terra understood, and so his sudden speech left her confused. The questioning tones she understood, but not the content. "I don't understand," she replied, her words slow and attention fixed. "Illidan? That... that is you, isn't it?"

She spoke the common tongue? He paused, and shook his head. "Me? Yes, I am Illidan, who are you? How do you know me?" he asked.

He was finally straightening, and taking in everything. Absorbing what the city was, how people were everywhere and there were screams and squeals echoing dully in the background.

Considering they just went through a spell where they had no recollection of one another, it really wasn't that surprising that the Illidan before her (who was not the Illidan she knew and ... tolerated...) didn't recognize her. Regardless, the whole experience was jarring, and Terra struggled to find her conversational footing.

"I... you don't remember me." She said it more to assure herself than to inform him; with the idea more firmly in place, it became easier for her to speak. "My name is Terra."

He blinked at her. "I know you? I don't even know where I am, let alone..." he trailed off, looking around the city again.

"Let alone you! Where am I?"

"You... did. Or maybe it was another... you..."

Terra was not used to playing welcoming committee, and it showed; she struggled to find a place to start.

"This is no land you would know. It's a human world. You're the only..." What had he called himself? Terra paused, trying to dig up old conversations; there was a worried hesitation as she spoke. "... Kal... dorei? That I have known here."

"You know of my people?" that's all he has for a moment, as he stops to consider what she's telling him. There's an older him? He's been here? She knows him?

"You know of me? You know my name, so therefore we must be acquaintances!" he shrugs, and has gotten to the stage where he bounces back a little bit, and smiles cockily.

"I made a pretty friend!"

Stop.

What.

What?

Terra had to blink rapidly at her own confusion at that phrase, especially coming from Illidan — for the only time she heard the word friend fall from his lips, he was always referring to Zelgadis, and more often than not it was with belittling tone. To have Illidan declare them friends was, well. Continuing the trend of things happening that Terra wasn't suspecting, truth be told.

(The 'pretty' part was unexpected too, especially when juxtaposed with the fact the Illidan Terra knew was blind and thus had never truly seen her face, but it was pale in comparison to 'friend.')

Eventually she managed to force herself past that. This wasn't the Illidan she knew, of course, and he wasn't the one who had taken and then cursed Zelgadis worse than he'd started. If he didn't recognize her, then he'd have no idea who Zelgadis was, even if they met on the street. That realization made some of the tenseness in her shoulders ease, relaxing.

"Yeah," she replied, belatedly managing a smile in return.

He nodded, as if that was all he needed to know! And it was, mostly. Illidan didn't really like questioning things all that much. That was his brother's job, so the confused look just got a slightly quirked eyebrow over his golden eyes, and then he crossed his arms.

"So, we were walking? That's kind of boring, isn't it? Is there something to eat in this place? I'm starving!" and thus proving to Terra, that Illidan was once pretty much a normal teenage boy.

Teenage being relative. He was several thousand years old now.

"We were talking," she replied, and though her voice was getting steadier, her brain was not. Just. Look at him he's so tiny and not-scary and normal, what is this. More than anything else she keeps glancing at his eyes, if only because of how unusual they are, set in his face. She's too used to the bandage and green glow of magic.

It was pretty late, but there should still have been a couple restaurants open. Maybe a bar? She couldn't exactly abandon him like this...

"But we can get something to eat. What do you want?"

He paused, and looked over her again, before looking straight back forward. She was offering to feed him. Only Tyrande did that. He bit the inside of his lip. Why was she nervous? Were they lovers? Her and future him? It was possible.

Although he always figured--

Well, if they were lovers here, then he wouldn't exactly be with Tyrande? Was she dead? Maybe something had happened? He couldn't just ask her about that though! That was wholly inappropriate!

"Anything is fine. I mostly eat whatever they're selling down at the market back home anyway. I'm sure their markets would be the same here?"

She'd already claimed this to be a human world, so it wouldn't really be her fault if wherever she led wasn't actually palatable to an Elf. (What did Illidan eat, anyway? He didn't strike her as the type to go grocery shopping.) "I don't know," she answered honestly. She had no way of knowing what the markets of his world were like.

As they walked, curiosity got the better of her. "What do you remember?"

He thought about it as they walked. "Remember? I was with my brother, and Tyrande, and..." this trailed off as he attempted to put the pieces together.

"Well, then I was here? You said you knew me as I was older? That doesn't make sense. There's no magic like that! None that I know, anyway."

Which, as far as Terra could tell from his tone of voice, meant he probably hadn't been imprisoned for ten thousand years by said brother.

Probably a topic to avoid, then.

"Yes... much older," she decided with a nod, glancing up again. "And magic doesn't make much sense here. This world... it doesn't have any magic of its own. The only people with magic here were brought here. Like you, and me."

He tipped his head, his mouth screwing in curiosity.

"But..." he reached out, his magic senses dipping so naturally into something familiar, but it was sick, corrupted. It felt like slime and waste that rushed into him, and he felt sick when he touched it. He resisted the urge to upend the last of the food in his stomach, and instead cast a small fire spell, letting it dance on his fingertips before the magic rushed through him, and he had to rid himself of it, he tossed it quickly, before it burned him, straight into the streets.

"The well is here," he said resolutely. "The Well of Eternity, but it's sick."

It was a night of nothing but surprises. Terra paid little mind to the fire, flicking ice to chase and snuff it with barely a murmur. "So you can feel it..."

It had been created during the time she was absent from this world, dead and gone. When she had returned, she didn't possess the magical strength needed to sense it; regaining her powers had been such an ordeal, it had taken her a time to notice that dreadful distant presence. The other Illidan had reeked of it.

Her tone was curious, but a more serious tone. "It's sick?"

"In my world, the Well was the source of all magic in my world. It was everything, it was life. This feels like darkness, like it was there, but something covers it?" he ended in a question.

"Does that make sense?"

A hesitation, but she nodded. "Yes... I wasn't here when it was created, but I was here before... and after."

Her bare shoulders came up in a shrug. "There is no Well where I'm from. I can feel what you're talking about, but I... I had no idea it was like that."

He paused, thinking. "It was created? Who made it? Why is it here? It should be at home, and not like this!"

She shook her head once more. "I don't know," was only partially true; the whys wasn't something she understood, and the how -- both for how it had come to be here, and how it had been so contaminated -- were not things she knew.

Terra didn't want to be the one to break the news on 'who.' So instead, she redirected, and hoped he wouldn't notice. "What should be done with it?"