[center][h3][color=C0392B]Rudolf Shilage[/color][/h3][/center]

Miina...

Well. He supposed her focusing more on the technical aspects of what he had become was a given. They had already done this, in part, once before while he was stuck mummified beneath a mountain of medicinal bandaging. She was already pretty out of sync with the societal norms he had once believed basically universal, and short of seeking out her missing brother, or...

[color=c0392b][i]Let her off, Rudi.[/i][/color]

... It seemed the finer details of magic, that she had been pulling out of the aether from first principles for so long, had held the lion's share of her interest in the time they had been traveling together. He had a feeling proper schooling would put her over the moon, were it realistically available.

He closed his eyes, letting his mind's eye proliferate through the nerves of his body, focusing on feeling.

[color=c0392b]"...No."[/color] he intoned after a moment in response. [color=c0392b]"Not unless it's a situation like the last battle of Drana Asnaeu, where that aethereal essence, is basically stitching me together from the inside."[/color]

One eye opened.

[color=c0392b]"Other than that, it's just kind of heavy—"[/color]

The brow above it rose, and though his stoic mask didn't leave the features of his face, he did lean away from the diminutive Mystrel as she seemed to have all but teleported right on top of him, the golden irises catching the firelight and seeming to glow as they scanned his frame, as if trying to peel back his outer layers to reveal the meat inside, as if on a hunt— however benign her intent might have been,. he couldn't help but be reminded of the very first sabertooth he'd slain, who had been stalking him even as he stalked it, whose fang had forged the knife at his hip.

He scooted away, a small shuffle of the hips.

[color=c0392b]"No, I haven't. Unless I've missed something, I still have no innate ability to weave aether the way you, Neve, or Eve do— Everything is downstream of the contract. Were it to be severed, I would go back to the days where I had materia, and materia alone."[/color]

The profaned swordsman frowned, glancing towards Galahad before meeting her eyes again.

[color=c0392b]"Additionally, Black Magic is going to be hard to track down from here on out. I don't know whether the proliferation of white mages has changed attitudes in Drana Asnaeu— given how my mother reacted to all this I doubt it's much different— but naturalborn mages are shunned if they're lucky, on the rest of the continent. [i]Hunted[/i] if they aren't. Black Mages most of all. What society [i]wouldn't[/i] fear somebody that can do... What [i]Eve[/i] did, for example. Tampering with the aether the Mothercrystal has allotted for the world to produce such an unholy firestorm that not even Valheim's airships could withstand it? You would always be looking over your shoulder, praying they don't decide they want to take that power and call themselves King with it."[/color]

Another crackle from within the flames, as if punctuating the argument.

[color=c0392b]"Galahad and his fellows hunt dragons to protect Midgar from them. A proud, specialized warrior tradition, going back hundreds of years, if not millennia— but what happens if a dragon can take the form of a man, and walk right inside the walls, where a bunch of unsuspecting normal humans are there to be burned? That's how black magic is seen— volatile, untrustworthy, destruction itself wrapped up in a person. Even [i]if[/i] I could manage magic... anyone that would be able to teach it to me would keep themselves very, very hidden. I appreciate what you're trying to get at, but I doubt it's in the cards."[/color]