Author: This is a favorite topic of mine to explore, oddly enough.
Disclaimer: lawl
~Names~
"Master."
Medivh looked up from pushing the food around on his plate and quirked an eyebrow at Khadgar. "Yes?"
"When is your birthday?"
Medivh frowned. "Why do you want to know?"
"Just curious. What about you, Cook, Morose? When are your birthdays?"
Medivh saw his two servants look at each other in brief bewilderment before Cook said, "I honestly don't know. Time moves so strangely in here that I may be an young girl and not even know it!"
That made Khadgar frown as much as it made Medivh smile faintly.
"Do you know, master?" Khadgar addressed Medivh, turning to face him.
Medivh shrugged. "Much is lost in Karazhan."
Khadgar frowned. "I tend to keep a good track of things."
"Not everything that is lost is physical," Medivh replied.
Khadgar paused to place a bite of food in his mouth and chewed it as he thought.
"So…" Khadgar said after he swallowed, "Information might be lost? Time, perhaps?"
"Among other things," Medivh affirmed.
Khadgar tapped his fork against the edge of his plate before a thought obviously dawned on him. "I can't imagine someone naming their child Cook or Morose. Might they have lost their real names?" Khadgar asked, mild horror mixed with intrigue coloring his voice.
"I am who the master calls me," Morose said tonelessly as he finished his meal and dabbed the corners of his mouth daintily. "It doesn't matter anymore if I've been named anything else in the past. Or future. Whichever comes first."
Khadgar was obviously both terrified and enraptured. "Have others come before, who've lost their name? What happens if you lose your name?" Khadgar asked, both to no-one and to Medivh.
Medivh put down his fork and caught Khadgar's eyes. "If I called you 'dog', would you respond?"
Khadgar frowned. "No."
"What if I called you Varian?"
"No."
"What if I kept on calling you something, would you eventually respond to it?"
"You call me 'Young Trust' all the time, and I respond to it," Khadgar replied, obviously latching on to the lecture.
"Why?"
Khadgar frowned. "It is a translation of my name, and, well, I am younger than you."
Medivh waved his hand dismissively. "Age is a state of mind, a malady of the body. What if I kept on calling you something that wasn't your current name or a translation?"
"I'd be annoyed, but I'd eventually know you were talking to me when you used that name."
"So you would, at least in part, accept that name as it belonging to you."
Khadgar frowned. "I…suppose?"
"Let's say that you're somewhere without outside contact, or in a place where you can't tell others your name and who do not know you. Would you eventually stop thinking of yourself as 'Khadgar', and perhaps by this other name?"
Khadgar frowned and crossed his arms, obviously thinking hard, his dinner forgotten.
"I would have no choice but to respond by who they knew me as, but I'd always be Khadgar," he replied slowly. "I wouldn't be…" Khadgar trailed off as his mind stubled over an idea. "Are you saying that I would no longer be Khadgar because I'd stop thinking of myself as attached to that name?"
Medivh nodded slightly. "Names have power. The minute you stop thinking of yourself as 'Khadgar' is the moment that Khadgar dies and a new person is born."
Khadgar was obviously deeply troubled by the thought. "So, Khadgar can die without ever physically dying?"
Medivh smiled faintly. "What do you think?"
Khadgar licked his lips before he whispered, "Names have been lost here."
Medivh pushed his plate away, finished pretending he was hungry. "Why do you think Karazhan has so many ghosts?"
Medivh stood as Khadgar stared at him.
"Sleep well, my apprentice," Medivh murmured smoothly, a small, malicious smirk on his face. "Try not to get lost on the way."