Forget-Me-Not

Chapter Two

VI

Rationalize Jace. Think!

Why did he flee in the face of compliment instead of fleeing when confronted with rage? He doesn't know, except that his brain went overdrive when he realized what Sorin meant and he did the next best thing his mind came up with when he panicked: escape.

He was starting to notice a pattern here, but he needed to calm down and go over what happened in the manor.

After taking a great lungful of air, Jace plopped on the squishy armchair inside Tezzeret's library hidden in Lorwyn. It was pretty large, but there was an area that's obviously great for relaxation and reading. It was definitely liberating from the stone cold walls of Ravnica and the minions breathing down his back from the Consortium. It was rare for him to go on through days without a courier telling him someone was at the door or something like that. He does manage to concentrate, but not on things that he would have preferred. Jace did not have the luxury of selfish solitude.

It really was sad.

Except for the part that he wasn't in Ravnica, he wasn't in the Consortium, and he now had the time to ponder on things he actually wanted. It was definitely preferable over the headache-inducing paperwork consisting of logistics of supplies, funding for buildings, and any other accounting-related migraines. He can now rationalize and think what interested him for the past few days. Starting with the most recent until the point he left Ravnica for Innistrad.

…

Well… Make that minutes turned hour.

Now that he's calm, he can rationalize why he fled yet felt ah… thrilled at the eh… compliment. Alright, why did he flee? Well, first thing that flashed in mind was 'vampire' and next to vampire, the following words followed: seduction, hypnotism, they can fuck you with using their eyes only, and they can trick people into turning into their willing food-supply or fuck slave. He understood the appeal of men kissing men, what scared him was the probably chance of eternal servitude of a stranger.

It wasn't good on his future career as a mage.

Next was his show o satisfaction. It just shocked him, but why was he pleased again? That part got a little confusing because, as much of a prodigy he was when it comes to the cerebral aspects of magic, social niceties and human interaction eluded him occasionally. His past… well… romantic… liaison wasn't very successful, and said liaison had issues. So he wasn't really sure how to react to whatever the enigmatic vampire said, but when he managed to realize just what Sorin said… He was pleased right before realizing he was talking to a vampire and potentially condemning his life as a blood-supply to a very powerful planeswalker. Not good for his 'independent guy' resume!

Now, why was he pleased again? Was he pleased because someone as powerful as he was acknowledged him as an equal and decided to treat him with equal footing? Was he pleased because an eternally aesthetic man like Markov found him fetching despite obvious implications of immortality details and opening himself to other better-looking species over the years? Was Jace pleased that he didn't offend the man, and Sorin found his sarcastic quip amusing?

See? Romantic interaction creates complications that a single entity cannot have the answer for it, which was why they seek others to answer them.

As a man who learned from other people's mistakes, these kind of things end up in disaster more often than not.

…

Alright, he was speaking from experience. And no, he wasn't bitter damn it!

Of course, there were outside parties, other acquaintances that he could ask assistance from, but Jace felt that if he shared his experiences, his listeners would have said or asked the following: did you like him? Was he perfect? Why did you leave? He could have been a good lover! Did you feel an erection?

Sorin Markov was a handsome man, but Jace won't have a go with him in that place -too creepy and bordering on stalker-ish-like scenarios for his tastes. If they met in a bar in Ravnica, he might have gone off with him to somewhere private. Bu that's that. Not unless the vampire redeemed himself by proving he's not a creepy stalker, Jace might give him a chance.

If ever though.

Screw that.

If there was anyone acting like a creepy stalker, it was him. First of all, he was the one who trespassed into someone else's property. As much as it hurt to admit it, Sorin was within his bounds, but did he have to invade his personal space? Okay, it wasn't much of an invasion, it was more like poking at his personal bubble, but he did not cross too many boundaries. He also needed to apologize or make up to the man for trespassing.

Thinking about it now, he really shouldn't have been surprised a fellow planeswalker knew his name. He was rather well-known in Ravnica, and everyone loved going to Ravnica. That also meant that Sorin wasn't stalking him or he was a mind-reader.

Damn his great affinity for logic.

VII

Thank Ravnica for small miracles.

Liliana and Garruk decided Ravnica wasn't a very good place to play hide-and-seek anymore, so they moved to Lorwyn. Which meant Jace now had a clear signal to go home. That was half-good and half-bad though.

Good because he can get some work done and bad because he had to work. Oh the libraries. If only paperwork can be passed through special planar devices, but alas there was no such thing. If ever someone thought of inventing artifacts that had no need for papers and ink, Jace would have gladly bought it. If Tezzeret were still alive, he might get around to tell him about it. Too bad he's dead though.

Some of his minions in the inner circle (ha! He sounded like a horribly-done villain from an adventure novel) asked about his whereabouts and sanity, but the others were thankfully aware that he didn't want to be disturbed. That didn't stop them from demanding pay rises.

Oh the horrors of paperwork. Good thing he found about that cloning spell before leaving Innistrad, else he might bemoan his unfortunate fate twice as loud.

Well…

That was what he was actually doing, honestly.

In a rather clean, but thankfully dim bar, Jace hid away in a booth as he drank some Zendikar Elven Vodka. He wondered whoever started the myth that elves were lightweight, the booze he had was pretty strong. His first sip already gave him a nice, fuzzy buzz going.

Whatever happened next, Jace blamed it on the alcohol.

He was feeling really mischievous for some reason (read: under the influence of alcohol) so, he subtly (read: tried as subtly as he can, but it was pretty good because no one noticed, except for the sober people) called for blue mana and brushed (read: slammed on baloths like Garruk on a bad hair day with Liliana at forefront of the mind, which also meant everyday) past through some mental shields and tried to see (read: almost erased everything) what were on the forefront of the patrons' minds if not for the barkeep's boisterous voice that said a single name that had Jace clam up like a man on his death sentence.

"Sorin! Been a long time, how's Yvana?"

Oh, it wasn't Liliana, Garruk, or Chandra, but… Shit! It's Sorin fucking Markov! Jace pushed the vampire away from him like a rag doll the last they met in his own property.

Jace decided now was a good time to sober up and subtly leave, preferably leaving no trail to follow. He already had plenty of people he offended, and Bolas definitely had his attention and vice versa (that sounded wrong, urk), and he definitely did not need another planeswalker 'vowing to have his head and mount it on a wall to enjoy the warmth of a fire during winter'. Chandra already made that vow, or was it Garruk? He wasn't really sure, he was drunk that time too and there was a holiday and a 'no killing fellow mages today' ward around Ravnica and—Sorry for unnecessary rambling, said the alcohol.

He tapped for blue mana once more, but it wasn't enough and the magic fizzled in his hands and Jace decided that manaburns from your own spells hurt more than from enchantments. Damn, he didn't want to repeat whatever happened on the day of the festival with Liliana and when they had to rescue Kallist—

And he cursed his alcohol induced angst-ridden nostalgia for making him hesitate.

He stumbled out of the booth; some of the patrons and the bouncer were thankfully respectful of privacy, but they were too respectful that they decided to not help him out after suffering the effects of serious alcohol intoxication.

The bad part? The person he was avoiding had to be one that paid attention to him. If he wasn't suffering from alcohol intoxication, Jace would have the foresight to cast an illusion to keep people's eyes away from him. What happened to Tezzeret's warnings of always be prepared?

"Sir, your bill, you haven't paid it yet."

Curse his need for anonymity and decision to get drunk in a bar where he did not have any tabs. What the hell logic?

"How much?" God, his slur sounded awful. Alright, the bill… where was his wallet? Right, Elven booze was ten pieces of gold. Jace put them over the table as gently as he can.

His eyes flicked towards Sorin and a bit of guilt flared in his gut. Damn, he really should stop running away from people he offended.

"Sorry about trespassing into your property weeks ago, I honestly thought it was abandoned." Sorin, once again, seemed amused with him.

"It was no problem. I was rather intrigued someone managed to unravel the wards in a span of months. I knew, of course, that you were trying to access my property, but I was curious whether you can dismantle them or not." The bartended handed the vampire a glass of red wine (or blood) and he took a sip from it. The white-haired man gestured for Jace to take the seat next to his. "I'm paying."

What? No angry and offended rebuttal? Just amusement? No threats of castration for going over other people's property? Was this a trick? The lack of a negative reaction surprised jace. For all his time invading through other people's minds (and houses) this was a rare time someone found amusement in his plight. Honestly, he didn't know if he should be offended or not.

He chose not.

Jace sat down on the stool and called for a shot of whisky. The lack of raged rebuttal was a nice change over getting strangled, burned, nearly maimed, crawled on by the undead, and other unsavory experiences. No way in hell he's letting this pass. In case his liver managed to fail him, maybe he can get Sorin to take him to pay for his possible alcohol-purging via medical tube.

They didn't talk.

VIII

He now has free access to twenty libraries across the Multiverse. Three were in Innistrad and a five were in Ravnica. A really large one was in Dominaria.

Glee.

He now had access to spells that were unavailable in most planes (due to some family secret or another), let alone knew they existed. They all looked just as old as the ones Sorin had in Stensia. By the approximation of the really older man's age, his collection was more than five thousand years old. Glee. Absolute glee.

"I do remember an old friend having the same expression as you. He was quite overjoyed when I let him inside one of my old libraries in Esper. I believe that he was your old mentor. I do remember him mentioning you some time ago. Too bad we haven't seen each other since he disappeared. I never knew how Tezzeret was ousted from the Consortium and how you took his place."

The glee came to a screeching halt.

"You knew Tezzeret?"

"He is quite an inquisitive man. He was once callous with his words. Of course, he learned to, how was it, ah! 'Dress his words up like pretty little trollops' over the years. And—are you alright? You look a little pale."

Jace nodded, smiling weakly. "Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just… tired." How lame did that sound?

Sorin shrugged and clasped a hand over his shoulder. "Well, if you are tired, then I suggest retiring for the night. The trip was long and we had to go through three planes all within the day. There's a room upstairs that you can use."

Jace nodded once again and insisted that he can find it on his own.

The room was pretty Spartan, but there was an elegant air to it, albeit dusty.

When Jace plopped down on the large white bed, he groaned.

Of all the people in the Multiverse, why did it have to be Tezzeret? Of course, of all the people that could give Tezzeret a free library, why did it have to be Sorin? How messed up was that?

He wanted to hurl, but he didn't want to ruin the nice patterns on the carpet, but he still wanted to hurl. He could hear Lady Fate laughing at him mockingly; did the Gods hate him or something? He was trying to get away from everything (mostly a lot of things, but he can't really leave Bolas or Tezzeret's old cabal behind), and what he was avoiding collided with him head on.

He really should have denied Sorin's free booze.

Alright, rationalize Jace. That's what you're good at, thinking a way out of this mess.

On second thought… Perhaps he can use this to his advantage. He does know that Sorin had a hand in sealing the Eldrazzi in the Eye of Ugin (Jace did apologize for being partly responsible for breaking the seal, he also made up for it by sharing a memory-erasing spell he invented), and Sorin was very pissed with Bolas for planning the whole thing. They could make up an alliance and stop Bolas from whatever nefarious plan he was scheming.

Why did he never mention Tezzeret? If he mentioned Tezzeret during their conversations about protection magic, he might have known about this earlier! Was he avoiding everything so much that he pretended they did not exist when in the company of others?

IX

"Kallist?" His throat felt tight and his heart ached. Wasn't this a mirror? Didn't he steal his best friend's identity and body all those years ago? Of course this was a mirror. It's impossible to bring back the dead in a state where they didn't seem dead, except if you're a necromancer. Still, Jace looked away. It hurt every time he looked at any reflective surface, he never saw Jace Beleren. He only saw Kallist Rhoka and how he killed the man that he called a brother.

He really hated mirrors.

He was about to turn away when he felt a warm hand over his bare shoulder. His heart clenched painfully and he gritted his teeth in annoyance. Why did his body betray him when he trusted it that it would not?

"Jace." Still, he wasn't looking at Kallist (best friend, brother, first love, stupid crushes, stupid fighting lessons, grief, "I'm sorry"s, and fuck) he did not want to look at Kallist. He wanted Kallist to go away and stop bothering him.

Dead people should stay dead.

"Leave me alone."

And Kallist did.

X

Strange, wasn't a mansion supposed to stand behind that mountain that had a bid rock perched on a very narrow tip? Stensia did not seem like a dry and water-lacking location to him, so what's with all the dead plants?

"Sorin! Don't go too far!" He froze.

"You're too slow Erik!"

From the distance, he could see white hair whipping around the wind and a mop of dark hair following it. They were headed toward him in a slow pace, but he couldn't move an inch. He couldn't move his fingers. Gods, what's happening? He can't move and he wanted to open his mouth to chant a spell, but not a single muscle obeyed his mental commands. He wanted to call out to Sorin and ask what he was doing in Innistrad instead of hanging around in Ravnica.

Then he saw them.

Sorin did not look like Sorin at all, except for the white hair and unnaturally pale skin. He looked really young, younger than Chandra and he was really sickly-looking.

If Jace wasn't frozen like an icicle, he would have frozen once again.

Behind Sorin was himself—no, it was Kallist. Didn't he just tell him to leave him alone, because Jace decided this was one sick dream and he couldn't really—

They passed through.

They passed through him like he was an illusory mist.

He was still frozen, but his mind was racing with a thousand thoughts. How did they pass through? Was this real? What's going on? Why was Kallist with Sorin? Was he fading away? What the—

Jace shot up from his bed with a shuddering fasp and tears in his eyes.

To be continued…

Notes: Was that a good enough mood whiplash? XD