Merriment 17

[thawed_pride]

[Vexen, unsurprisingly, still looks exhausted. Even his hair, normally kept meticulously clean and brushed, looks as though he's been doing the bare minimum to keep it from tangling. But despite that, there's a serious and determined look on his face.]

I realize that many are still fatigued from our exertions on Diagad, but that may make my request even more urgent. For you see, I do not speak figuratively when I say my heart is not wholly my own. I...

[He hesitates, and rubs at his face.]

The details are multiple stories in their own right, so I will simply say that there is a fragment of pure darkness belonging to another lodged within my heart. I have it largely contained, however it...has been able to influence me in the past, and those who have had this condition for an extended length of time have seen significant degradation of self, as they became extensions of the person to whom the darkness belongs.

I currently lack the capacity to fix this on my own, without taking drastic measures that may not even work as they would in the worlds with which I am familiar. Anyone with both capacity and willingness to remove this corruption from my heart, without doing harm to the darkness naturally present within it, would earn my intense gratitude.

Comments

[weifinder]

Huh.

( What a way to start anything, but he's tapping his chin. )

Pending no one has better offers, I may be at least able to seal it within you to prevent it from influencing what you do, as it's a foreign influence of some kind of... energy, I'd say. Not sure if it'd work, but that is something I've experience in, as a temporary help while those with the ability to extract are in process of managing that much.

[thawed_pride]

I would prefer it excised outright, but sealing it would be far better than nothing. I will be certain to let you know should it seem as though it will be some time before I have a more permanent solution.

[weifinder]

I can imagine it is! There's enough of a spread of abilities here things are possible in ways I would have been struggling with back home.

Is this sort of condition common, where you're from?

[thawed_pride]

[Excuse him a moment as he bites back a wry laugh.]

More so than one might expect. There is an individual who has been attempting to spread his heart to fill thirteen vessels, whether the owners of those vessels wish it or not.

[weifinder]

That's horrifying. ( Which perhaps shouldn't be said so factually but here we are. ) How much autonomy does this allow these people at the point where his influence outweighs their own?