reflectionsofdestiny | There's science to be done! (RP scene: KH1 era)

There's science to be done! (RP scene: KH1 era)

If there's one thing that can be said about Even, it's that he's devoted to his work. Perhaps even too devoted, at times, and this holds true regardless of what his latest project. So really it ought to come as no surprise that tonight is no different. The worst of the Heartless have been cleared out, and so it is that they've returned to what is currently passing as home base. Naturally then, Even has returned to his usual task of categorizing the days worth of Heartless - there have been a few new variants lately and it's imperative that he both categorize them before he forgets the important details as well as cross-checks them with the types he already has. Understanding the 'species' such as they are is a vital part in understanding the plague they've been tasked with dealing with.

Wrapped up as he is, he doesn't notice as the hours creep by and barely even notes that it's growing darker. As long as he has some sort of light source he'll keep working, and Glacier is resting against his chair in case he has need to defend himself against attack.

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There's a secret hidden in plain sight, one that Aeleus is rather invested in maintaining the integrity of: if a guard is doing his job, then it's easy to tell that he's working. If a guard is doing his job well, then it's difficult to tell that he's done anything at all.

Notes are a part of his regimen, too--but significantly less detailed, not when there are other things to be done, and they can be elaborated on and pieced together later, when he has more time for it. They're bulleted observations and brief anecdotal descriptions, sketchy diagrams, silhouettes with just enough detailing to show proper anatomy--and decorated with points of impact marked and strike vectors indicated, some rough guess at speed and force dashed down beside them. While Vexen is so often the one tasked with general information review, Aeleus takes it upon himself to keep as thorough an accounting of their battles as he can produce, for everyone's combat that he can keep up with. From the efficacy of Keyblades, to magic and illusions, to simple brute force or projectiles.....

Each instance of combat is its own experiment, and deserves its own analysis, to draw out the important information that can be gleaned from its outcome. Resistances, weaknesses, capabilities, tactics for offense and defense..... a holistic, natural study of the creatures in action, far from concerning itself with the fundamentals of the species that Even works so hard on. It's important information to know, and it keeps him occupied as he walks the grounds on his patrols, assessing their fortifications and evaluating what weak points there may be, and how they could best be exploited or defended.

But this work of his, such as it is, is easily blended into his daily routine. Doodles and notes while he waits or eats, thoughts turned over in his mind during the watch--a low-intensity current that's often interrupted, but rarely ceases for long. So when Even fails to emerge from his laboratory for dinner, (again) and hasn't been heard from by the time the sun has set, (again) welll..... It's time to come check up on him. Aeleus brings a tray with him as he knocks on Even's door--a full meal, and an extra mug of tea for himself, as he suspects he may be staying for a while--, but enters after a brief wait regardless. It's polite to give warning, and to wait..... but it's difficult to know if he'll even be heard, or welcomed in at all. "Do you happen to know what time it is, Even?"

The knock on the door does get Even's attention, but it's only really for a moment or three, given that he's partway through a sentence when it comes and he'd prefer to not sacrifice his thoughts to answer. Most of the people who'd knock know his tendencies and it's not like it's any secret he holes himself up in his labs. So he categorizes the knock, returns to his notes, and is utterly unsurprised when Aeleus comes in all the same.

Not that he answers immediately. He has notes to finish and he certainly could do without the interruption. Even if it is only Aeleus, he's nowhere near finished with his cross-referencing and the various notes on variance in the species that have come up thus far. To be honest, it's only when he looks up that he realizes that the sun has set at all, given that there's not ever an abundance of natural light in his labs. He prefers light that can be adjusted as he needs.

Still, he does finally deign to answer, although it's not much more than a vague and inquisitive mumble. Clearly, the answer to Aeleus' question is 'not really,' although this likely comes as no surprise whatsoever. Not when Even's had this habit for quite some time.

'Not really'. Yes, he'd figured as much. He'd figured that there would be no response to begin with, either. Aeleus takes a moment to sweep a stack of papers farther up the desk--it's an effort even to clear enough room to set the tray down. But he manages to find the space for it, and Aeleus leans over Even's shoulder to glance over what he's currently working on. Variance notes? Those are important, certainly. He'd never deny just how essential Even's work is, or just what incredible data can come of it, but.....

Cross-referencing? Really? Of course it's necessary, but any fool can look things up. That hardly merits starving yourself. Aeleus offers a quiet but pointed hum. "It's a little past nine o'clock; the sun set nearly two hours ago. Have you even stood up since you started working on these?"

There's a slight huff of irritation at the sound of the stack of notes being shifted. He's not using them, of course, but it's still an imposition on his carefully defined order and that is always slightly irritating. Still, now that the food has been brought - and put into range - he can't deny that the idea is it least slightly tempting, if not yet more important than finishing with his categorizations. Any fool can cross-reference, yes. But given these are his notes, he knows exactly where to find everything and can thus be significantly more efficient with it.

"Did it?" The comment about standing is left unanswered for the time. He may get back to it later but it doesn't strike Even as the most important thing at the moment.

"Yes, it did. It was a very nice sunset, too." Aeleus smiles wryly over the top of Even's head, more fond than exasperated; it's hard to be too frustrated when you expect and predict this sort of behavior every step of the way. It's better than he gets some nights, even; it's not impossible to earn nothing more than a cold shoulder, or complaints that he needs to get out, he's busy. "But given that answer, I'll take the other one to be a 'no, I haven't moved an inch in hours' in advance."

Aeleus picks up the tea he brought for himself, taking a thoughtful sip and circling around to lean against the side of Even's desk. "You're going to tie yourself into knots if you don't at least stand up and stretch every so often, you know. And after all this time down here, you must be starving."

Even offers up a non-committal noise at the mention of the sunset. He's no stranger to the beauty of nature, but it doesn't move him as much as it might some of the others. Aeleus is correct in his assumption too, although Even doesn't deign to comment. He does still have work to do, even if it's not to the point that he wants or needs to shun all conversation altogether.

"It can wait." Whether this is in reference to his getting up and moving or his eating he doesn't clarify. It could just as easily be both too, given he's as of yet made no move to put his pen down, even if his note-taking is somewhat slowed thanks to holding a conversation at the same time. Besides, he figures that as long as the food is actually here he can get to it at his leisure.

In a way, Aeleus supposes he's lucky; he's always been close to nature, and always appreciated the beauty it brings. It's something he doesn't like to sacrifice for his work--and almost never needs to, given how often his duties keep him outside to begin with. He loves to learn, finds their work in the laboratories fascinating..... but to remain locked up like this, hour after hour and day after day, conscious only of words on a page? That's nothing short of a slow suicide, a living death--a state that he'd never be so cruel as to allow Even to be consumed by it utterly.

After all, life can wait for you--but how often does it, really? The seconds tick past, the seasons roll by, and the years follow one another, creeping past on velvet feet--and finally, when you do look up at long last, you see the frost in your hair and the wrinkles etched into your face, and you're left to wonder what has become of your life while you weren't paying attention. What do you have to show for it? What do you even remember?

"It can wait, but it can also spoil, if you leave it sitting out for too long. Paper has a far longer shelf life."

Even would argue that it's not so much locking himself in as it is focusing. He tends to the various Heartless infestions just as much as Aeleus does, over the course of their travels, and someone has to make sure their most recent home away from home isn't beset upon by Heartless in the absence of Xehanort himself. Being able to lose himself in even something as simple as cross-referencing is a joy, by comparison. It reminds him of what he's always been interested in, and occupies his mind in ways that combat can't.

"I believe I should have that taken care of." He raises his non-dominant hand as he speaks, and flickers of the pale blue energy that heralds most of his spells dance around his fingertips for a moment. The shelf life of prepared food is negligible when you can imitate a refrigerator at will, and he still has a few hot plates with him.

Of course, it probably isn't the healthiest for him to keep postponing dinner, but at least he'd be easily able to, as things stand.

Edited 2012-07-09 05:38 (UTC)

Most of the others know better than to get in the way of Even, when the shimmering ice energy begins to whisper between his fingers. But Aeleus isn't like most of the others--his skull is just as thick as any other's, when he's made up his mind to be stubborn, and he doesn't shy away from a course of action once he's committed to it. But he's always had a thick hide, too; the cold hardly fazes him at all, and even ice magic is something he tends to shrug off with relative ease.

So Aeleus quite matter-of-factly reaches out to take Even's lifted hand, ice magic or none. "I believe you could have that taken care of." He corrects, leaning forward to level an expectant look at him. "But I don't believe that you should, Even."

Unsurprisingly, there's a distinct chill to the air around Even's hand - a chill that never seems to bother him - even if whatever spell he might have had in mind has yet come to full being. It doesn't either. While he doesn't entirely mind Aeleus taking his hand, the comment itself draws a frown out of him and that in turn means the energy he'd been calling dissipates in favor of a new bout of irritation.

"I do still have work to do."

Aha, success. It's a bit of a roundabout way of dissipating the magic, but by now, he's come to learn a few tricks to maneuvering Even into slightly healthier behavior. "You always have work to do, Even. You always will. And you'll always have a body that needs to be taken care of, too; that doesn't mean you should stop working entirely, or stop eating and sleeping entirely."

Step one, to force a break in the cycle, and an acknowledgment of the issue. Step two, to make it stop being an either-or proposition. Step three, to persuade him, or at least make giving in tolerable..... "I'll take dictation for you, if you'd like."

"I sleep!"

It an old rebuttal by now, and even if it's true more often now than it might have been once, he knows it's not going to hold much weight. Of course, that knowledge isn't enough to keep him from using it, but at least he does know. He knows that he'll always have work too, or will always be able to find work to do. He does tend to keep himself busy, and he generally prefers it over not being so.

There's a long silence, at Aeleus' comment. Even though the same offer has been made time and time again, it still requires thought. Especially since it would sacrifice some of the efficiency he'd be getting out of he doing it all on his own. Eventually, however, he offers a sigh. "If you insist."

"You do sleep. I'll grant you that. Not as much as you should, but you do." Aeleus agrees readily. He hardly even misses a beat; argument and counterargument are both old hat by now. He's more than willing to give credit where it's due, but distracting him isn't going to work, and nor will generalizing the aspect he has improved on.

Aeleus is quiet to allow the requisite weighing of priorities, before nodding in satisfaction and releasing Even to pull up a chair of his own. He sets his tea aside, reaching to take Even's pen; isn't it nice to have predictable checkpoints like these? If this one is bypassed, the next step would have clearly been to argue the wasted efficiency of lacking mental clarity that came with not giving his mind the proper fuel it needed in a timely fashion. \

Even if this short-term loss of productivity slowed him down, in the long run, it would make things faster, especially since having an extra set of hands would help to offset this initial loss. He should appreciate a good investment when he sees one, and well understand the basic mechanics of any energy-driven system. "I do insist. Feel free to start." Start at both, that is; he's ready to pick up where Even is leaving off, and the food is there to be eaten, and still hot at that.

Even's not surprised at all by Aeleus' comment, just as he's thoroughly unsurprised that his pen is claimed in short order. There is a faint noise of almost-complaint at that latter, but there's no real heat to it. Just the habitual remnants of irritation and a long ingrained habit of grumbling at the slightest of things.

"That species there is the most interesting at the moment," he begins, nodding at the set of notes he'd been working on when Aeleus had come in. "By general habit alone they seem to share much of the same tendencies as the most common of Shadows, but their tendency to favor spells alone offers enough of a difference to suggest there's more at play here. Especially if you compare them to some of the other variants that have been known to cast spells."

He pulls the food closer as he speaks. For all his complaints and suggestions of doing otherwise, he knows that it would a shame to not eat it while it's still hot.

Aeleus chuckles quietly as he settles in, picking up the indicated papers to glance over. Ahhh, yes..... He does remember these. He also remembers the others taking the lead in decimating them--he has a respectable repertoire of magic, yes, but he's by far the least likely to rely on spellcasting during a battle.

"Heartless that vary so widely like this in habits and methods of attack..... It seems to reflect fundamental differences in the type of Darkness affecting the source heart, don't you think? Perhaps an individual who never had the strength or opportunity to affect the world around them in a direct manner, or whose hearts were lost to Darkness so insidiously they had no idea until the very end."

There's a slow nod from Even at the suggestion. He hadn't really begun to think about the hows and whys of their creation, but it makes sense. A less violent - or less strong - heart might well affect what sort of Heartless was created after the initial loss. They've never really had the best data on Heartless creation and he's not so sure he wants to try figuring it out anymore. Not now that he's had more of a change to see them in action.

"It's certainly plausible. If a person were less then accepting of their own strength it could certainly affect how they thought of themselves in those crucial last moments."

Aeleus nods in agreement, scrutinizing the sheets; self-destructive work ethic or not, there's no way he can fault Even for the thoroughness of his work. While he has a distinct, undeniable slant to his work, and favors some elements far more than others--within the scope of his own domain, it's difficult to rival the sheer quality of work he produces. Still..... There really is very little they can know about the causes of such things, is there? Nothing they can test, knowing how terrible the end results are.

All that remains, in situations like these, are speculation and observation. Correlational studies, able to guess at relationships and their nature without discerning causal influences. "Indeed. The perceptions may well influence them that strongly, as well as their natural inclinations. Still, what we've managed to observe suggests at least that Heartless capable of magic are fundamentally more powerful than those that can only rely on direct attacks." A thought that should probably be humbling, given his role within their camaraderie. Still, it's a necessary role--and he doesn't mind acknowledging himself as the weak link, in terms of pure potential, so long as he's able to do his job well.

It's almost a shame, really. Even would have been quite grateful for anything more about the genesis of the Heartless. If they had that, the categorizing would be much easier, and there would be a significant decrease in the amount of guesswork he has to do. Not that guesswork isn't still an important part of an scientific inquiry, but it still irritates him to not know all he could.

"From what we've seen, yes. It's simple enough to avoid physical attacks, when they come, but magical attacks aren't quite so easy to see coming. Similarly, the vast majority of the magical variety seem to have something of a... native resistance to a variety of things. Physical attacks, perhaps, or simply the element they seem to prefer." There was a moment of silence following his words, as Even turned his attention to the food for a moment. Theorizing could wait for a moment, after all.

"I suppose it could compensate for the weakness of the individual at the relevant moment."

"Certainly. A victim who was, say, physically immobilized at the time of their loss, unable to trust in their body in the slightest....." It seemed as though it must be some sort of natural process--like other senses growing to be sharper when one is lost, or a heightened immune system response to foreign pathogens. Perhaps magic was simply the body's way of compensating for what it was not physically capable of.

(Perhaps that would also explain his lesser magical standing, relative to the others? He had everything he needed in strong arms and cold steel. Even so, would that theory stand up to the fact that even Dilan has proven more gifted than him?)

Aeleus smiles wryly at his own line of thought, but holds his peace; he's here to let Even eat, after all, so he can take care of this work for him. Two heads are better than one, but he knows Even will be going over this work carefully later, anyway. There's time enough for him to render his judgment then.

Physical immobilization. Yes, it could happen that way. By leaving the body incapable other abilities would naturally rise to take their place. In this case, magic. Of course, Even can't help but wonder whether or not the physical incapability were new would affect the Heartless. But this too is something he can't test, and something that would be frowned on in most worlds. Such is the life of a scientist, not that the worlds need any more Heartless.

Still, he considers the problem as he makes his way through what Aeleus has brought him. Without tests, there can be no certainty, short of asking all the wrong sorts of people. But then again, that usually all a theory is. A guess that makes logic sense.

"It would be easier to tell for certain with some proper data, but I doubt we'll be able to get it. Not with the worlds as they are."

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There's science to be done! (RP scene: KH1 era)

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