text ; @Qubit (backdated prooooobably a week-ish?)

[superposition]

[ AND NOW IN THE RIGHT COMM... ]

Qubit here. Keeping this quick: I need a few volunteers to provide blood samples for testing purposes. These will need to come from both sick and healthy individuals, please. Contact me if you're interested. Thanks in advance.

Comments

[superposition]

[ Qubit's taken aback by ... all of it, really. The wards catch his eye first, obviously, but Reynir's gone and made tea and biscuits for this? He almost laughs, bemused. ]

You didn't have to do all that.

[ Plus, he's right - Qubit can't stay long. He's half of what essentially amounts to a two-man skeleton crew trying to keep Anchor in one piece. But he's got years of experience working insane hours in dangerous conditions while on call 24/7, and this is not the longest marathon shift he's pulled by a long shot. So he's actually fairly well put together at the moment, in spite of the chaos - he's clean, energetic, didn't skip breakfast today. He knows how to keep his body running under extreme duress; anything can become routine if you keep at it long enough. ]

Honestly I'm more of a coffee man, but tea's fine, too, if we have time.

[ Caffeine is caffeine, after all. He sets down the box he's carrying on the table near them, scootching the teapot to one side to make room. It's a white plastic case the size of a small toolbox, with a biohazard symbol on the front and a label that reads "BIOSAMPLE KIT". Self-explanatory. ]

[braidmage]

[ Reynir gives a happy sort of a shrug; he's been trying to keep the Anchor in one piece in his own ways - less of this investigating the plague and maintaining critical technological systems and more doing everybody's laundry and dealing with all the dishes that've been piling up. He doesn't mind, though. His life has always involved a certain amount of long hours and hard work - just with more sheep involved than Qubit's likely did. Reynir knows that, amidst all that stress, a little break, a little tea, can go a long way.

So when Qubit mentions time as a concern, Reynir doesn't question it. It might not yet be completely steeped, but it's close enough - Reynir pours some tea into one of those teacups and plonks it down in front of Qubit and then plonks himself down in a chair. He wastes no more time in pulling his sleeve up past his elbow and holding out his arm. He'd been poked and prodded plenty in his month of quarantine, coming back from the Silent World. He knows the drill. ]

So you're immune, too?

[ He has to assume so, for Qubit to be willingly investigating in this way. Reynir's not used to thinking of himself as immune. Does it make him a bad person that he's enjoying it a bit? After his whole life of being the one non-immune siblings, watching his siblings go off and have amazing careers and lives? ]

[superposition]

[ Well, that saves him having to ask whether Reynir's had blood drawn before. Leaving the tea alone for now, Qubit opens the kit and gloves up. Some of the tools inside are higher-tech than modern-day Earth has available, but he handles them like he knows what he's doing. Today's gadget is vaguely pistol-shaped, with a disposable plastic tip covering the "muzzle," but otherwise the procedure is exactly what you'd expect. ]

Looks that way, but testing ought to tell us for certain. [ Just gonna put that air cuff on your arm there, and have another look at the glyphs while it inflates. ] I like what you've done with the place. Did you freehand all these?

[braidmage]

[ Reynir sits, patient and unperturbed by the proceedings, apart from a little of the usual restless energy that he gets out by fidgeting with the end of his braid idly in his hands - clearly not a nervous gesture, but mere habit. ]

It's always best to know as much as possible and be absolutely certain. There's a reason the quarantines back home are weeks longer than it'd take anyone to start showing symptoms. Better safe than sorry.

[ Even if it had been a complete drag, getting stuck in one of those quarantines for a solid month. Reynir just wishes there had been a bit more space, more things to do. But even then, it would have been okay... except that Tuuri had just died and being stuck in a clear box for a month isn't exactly the ideal way to grieve. Not a whole lot of distractions available. ]

Huh? Oh! Yeah, of course.

[ How else would he have painted them? But he realizes now that perhaps he should explain, and tells Qubit: ]

They're for protection and stuff. Just in case.

[ Then, with a hint of pride creeping into his voice: ]

I came up with most of the designs, myself. Who needs a dumb mage academy, anyway?

[superposition]

[ Qubit's a little surprised at that - he knew Reynir was coming up with experimental designs of his own, but not that he was self-taught. Nor that there was an alternative, actually. ]

There's an academy for that? [ Not to say he's unfamiliar with "wizard school" as a concept, but in his experience it's unusual for a world to have magic accessible enough to warrant one. ]

[braidmage]

Oh, yeah. In Reykjavík. They make all this big fuss about how it is free for anyone with magic to enroll and be trained because all mages are assets to their communities and the world. Mages from other countries, like Sweden or Norway, come there to study, too. The Academy really think they're hot shit.

[ That pride is joined by increasing bitterness, now - not something Qubit is likely to have heard even a tiny hint of from Reynir before, who is usually optimistic and cheerful, almost to a fault. But in this case, it's clear there's some bad feelings and a history. Fortunately for Qubit, he won't have to wonder for long, because Reynir explains. ]

So I went there for a summer course, after I'd been out into the Silent World. I learned some stuff, but then when I tried to enroll in the more advanced classes, they wouldn't let me. Not because I wasn't skilled enough, but because I wasn't immune, so I would never be allowed to get a job with the military or anything important, so it wasn't worth the bother to train me. They said I should stick to using magic to grow crops and help with livestock and farm stuff and that was all I was good for.

[ Okay, so they might not have put it in this exact words, but the meaning was still the same. ]

But mages are mages because the gods chose them. And I know I wasn't chosen to just - stay in my village. I can do more. I have done more. I'm not going to squander the gift I was given, just because some narrow-minded people told me no.

[ Reynir seems to realize, then, that he had gone on rather a rant, in response to a simple question, and gives a small, embarrassed smile. He apologies: ]

Sorry. I guess I'm a bit touchy about it.

[superposition]

[ While Reynir talks, Qubit continues the blood-taking procedure - all pretty routine, except that instead of finding the vein with his fingers, he's using the handheld device from the kit. But he does look up and nod at appropriate points to confirm he's listening.

He files away the new information, but what strikes him in particular is this notion of mages as "the gods' chosen." Because he gets that. Not so much the religious side of it - his own Gød is distant and aloof at best - but that feeling of a higher calling. That drive to learn, to make the most of the gifts you've been given, to be something more than ordinary.

In a word, ambition.

It's interesting. It's not the first thing you notice about Reynir, because he's so kind and generous and eager to help. But it's not just eagerness to help - it's an eagerness to be helpful, and that's an important distinction to make. Beneath the surface, there's a hunger to prove himself.

This, too, Qubit makes note of. ]

[ At the apology, he shakes his head slightly. ] No need. I'd feel the same way, in your position.

[ But it does raise a question he's had on the back burner for a while: ]

You said this was after-? So you're not immune, you can't join the military or leave the country - how did you end up on a Silent World expedition to begin with?

[braidmage]

[ Qubit's reassurance is fairly spare, and yet it still comforts Reynir. He hasn't had a lot of people telling him that, honestly. That he is justified in his anger over being denied that opportunity. That he shouldn't just put up and shut up and accept a quiet, safe life on his parents's farm... ]

Oh! I got a job on a small boat that was headed towards Denmark, where the people weren't asking too many questions. But when I found out they weren't going to let anyone off or even dock outside Iceland, I stowed away in a crate of supplies that was being sent ashore, and then I just... sort of joined the expedition that those supplies were for.

[ None of it is a lie, exactly, but there is plenty that Reynir is eliding in his retelling. He makes it sound like a cunning plan, like he was circumventing the system. Which, in a way, he was. But he was also just a sheltered, naive farm boy who had had no idea what he was doing, and who had hurled himself into unimaginable danger and only survived thanks to good luck, the favor of the gods, and the competence of the strangers who took him under their wing. ]

It's not... technically illegal for people who aren't immune to leave the country anymore, it's just. Um. People make it very hard, unofficially.