Tzita's Cauldron :: Summon

It wasn't a question of where Elliott was located, nor when. Elliott had no physical body. He was a spirit. It was only with a supply of Vita's magical energy that Elliott was able to gain a physical body and exist, as he used to, on her world.

When Vita invoked her ritual to summon Elliott, she wasn't pulling him from a certain place and time, but from an "pool" of other beings that existed in the same capacity as himself. Through unknown means, further complicated by Elliott's appearance on Vita's world and subsequent blessings earned from the Zodiac spirits, Elliott was freed from the constraints of time itself and removed from the ring of reincarnation: Moved to this "pool" of spirits that had been gifted, or cursed, with the same fate, called the Throne of Heroes. A place that existed outside of both the multiverse and the time axis.

Unfortunately for Vita, she hadn't the power necessary to summon Elliott's "main body." She did, however, possess the power, and the catalyst, required to summon an emanation, or record, of him that would exist with her. It, Elliott, would remain with her until he was depleted of the magic she used to summon him, or she willingly, or unwillingly, willed him away. In essence, he could exist with her indefinitely and grow in power in tandem with her, as long as she was willing to sacrifice a portion of her magical power every so often, if for nothing else but to... improve his stats, so to speak. Eventually, if she ever commanded the massive amount of magical power required to, she could invoke him again and summon his main body from the Thrones of Heroes and she wouldn't need to supply him with magic.

The naked, chiseled body of the King of the Knights of Closa rose from the cauldron, dripping with the water of light that filled Vita's cauldron. He appeared every bit the same as Vita should remember, if she shared memories with Tzita, though there were some significant changes. Unlike the appearance of his 'main body' that rested on the Throne of Heroes, Elliott still bore the rounded horns on the sides of his head and the slim tail of the Taurus spirit that made him look more demonic in nature than heroic. He was still over 7 feet tall, another blessing bestowed to him by the Taurus spirit. His face, while still chiseled and stately, bore scars that he hadn't originally bore. He had shorter hair, and a full beard.

He floated there, above Vita's cauldron, for a time, before finally touching down upon the ground of Castle L'sia. His eyes fluttered to life, blinking a few times to make sure that he was seeing correctly, before he outstretched a hand to Vita. Her right hand, and up to her elbow, begin to glow red and burn with an unfamiliar magical power as a, seemingly, numberless amount of runes etched themselves onto her skin. These runes were command seals, spells that she could invoke to force Elliott to do anything she desired, despite any moral or physical objections he might have. She was his master, after all.

"My sword?"

He didn't sound quite as chivalrous as he once did, and his question sounded more like a demand, or a command, than a friendly request. There were some strange changes that happened, more internal than external. Vita could owe that to the differences in personality traits she had with Tzita, but she'd figure it out.

Vita looked the entity that was once a mortal man up and down as he -- 'it' -- appeared from the depths of the Cauldron and placed himself on the designated point of Summoning. Eyeing him up and down with a dead look in her half-open lids, Vita placed a hand on her hip whilst inspecting the new specimen that El had become through whatever sorts of energies mingled with his spirit during the time of his departure. He still had some of the same qualities as before he left, but now there was much more within him due to the transition and probably many other meta things that occurred during his time beyond the Veritas. Vita would inquire on such things when the formalities of their reunion were clarified and established.

The same hand that rested sassily on Vita's hip broke out in numerous seals that seemed to come with the Summoning Contract, which was the equivalent of dotting I's and crossing T's, in terms of 'Contracts' and things of that nature. It was the same in any language, be it runic, archaic or even standard English. The logic never changed, and she was fully aware of what came with the Summons and their contracts. She'd been doing this for nearly all her life. It was nothing more than regulation and procedure to someone like herself, who mingled and dabbled in these things by both nature and custom.

Raising her newly tatted right arm up fluidly, Vita's wrist would lay limp whilst her finger pointed off toward the Cauldron when El gave her such a brutish 'demand,' of sorts. "Did you check your pants...?" Vita said with a soft, but snarky tone, rolling her finger vertically to draw forth the signature weapon of Elliott Faulkner from the depths of the black waters of the Cauldron. It slipped out of the darkness seamlessly, like a sword out of a sheath, or a member from the soft lips of a woman. It rose with the same velocity and momentum as her single rising index finger, and likewise, when she suddenly lashed her finger toward El's genitals with a sharp point, the tip of the blade followed -- though, only just askew as to not damage the merchandise. The blade struck the ground just before him with the handle of the sword basically at arm length before him, just barely grazing him.

"That's how you greet a lady now?" She narrowed her eyes, which glowed a very lucid light green. "Looks like chivalry's just about as dead as you are." She found herself snickering at her own joke, yet in no way dismissing the situation. "Guess I wasn't the only one that had something to hide beyond the sweet, innocent surface." Vita rolled her eyes and crossed her arms under her voluptuous breasts, perking them up just slightly. She tapped her elbow with a finger, looking somewhat pensive and calculating. Her expression and demeanor were vastly different from what El might have remembered, but the same was said for him in terms of herself.

The two of them would stand there for however long in the midst of the chamber that was sustained by Vita's Cauldron. The entire room was more or less empty and vacant, having only slightly elevated layers from the center outward with the impression at the very center being both the lowest point and central focus where the Cauldron was set. It was like they were two different people, yet at the same time an extension of who they once were. "What's your deal, huh?" Vita finally asked, eyes remaining narrow. "You're not the same El you were when we last saw each other." Not that she had any room to speak, considering Vita was an alternate personality -- rather, a more developed personality -- of Tzita that El did not know. Her hair was a luscious lavender and covered at the top by a traditional witch's steeple hat, yet the remainder of her garb was just the same; skin tight sleeveless blouse with twin coattails fluttering loosely at either end, barely covering the thong-like metallic belt chain and lock on the waist. Her sleek and slender boots with matching gloves covered what would have been a great deal of exposed skin outside of her torso attire. El had yet to see her with her lavender hair, which was her original hair color. Manna surged through it as she thought, giving it a sort of subtle radiance like the glow of a soft light.

El gently leaned to the side. It was a simple motion. Quick in its execution, and nearly impossible to perceive if you weren't staring directly at him with eyes that could track such motions. Vita's eyes definitely could.

The motion was why the sword narrowly missed his privates, only nicking his leg. He doubted Vita would have caused him any harm. In fact, if he hadn't moved at all then he probably wouldn't have been nicked by the sword. If she had "critically wounded" him, it wouldn't have really mattered. A day of non-materialization and a small donation of her magic and he would have been fully healed.

He gave her an eye, as he reached for his sword, finding humor in her jab about chivalry and all of that. Once he took hold of Durandal, the sword hummed pleasantly to his touch and vibrated its jubilance. Let it be said that if anyone ever thought Durandal had a mind of its own, then this moment would confirm it.

"You aren't the same Lady L'sia." He replied simply, plucking the tip of his sword from the bruised floor of her castle. He remembered the Lady L'sia before he was ousted for the second time. Each emanation of him remembered the events of their "life" and the knowledge was returned to the "main body" once that emanation returned. So every "clone" afterwards would remember the events that transpired during the previous's lifetime.

Lady L'sia may have been more provocation and open about sexuality than any lady he'd ever seen at court, but that difference made her much more appealing. She had a degree of youthful innocence, mingled with an idealistic, individualistic worldview that made her demeanor seem downright childlike. It fit well with his knightly nature because it made him want to fulfill her desires, no matter how selfish.

As he plucked his sword from the ground, he was shrouded in the colors of her manna, spreading from the hand that touched the sword outward, and clothing of a familiar ilk washed over him shortly after. Fully clothed, he looked to Vita once more.

"Not that I mind, Queen L'sia. You're still quite ravishing." After all, the aura that surrounded her was much more royal in nature. She was pensive and calculative. Mature and ethereal, though she stood right before him. He came off as debonair as he could be, truthful with his words, even if they were a means to alter the course of the conversation. Elliott couldn't possibly begin to explain how he had changed, because, to him, he was always as he was. However, this Elliott and the previous Elliott were different enough for Vita to take notice, obviously. He supposed maybe, if she still, absolutely, needed an answer...

"I'm older."

Of course the implications of that statement were perhaps much bigger than the meaning of the statement itself. Elliott wanted to leave it there, and discuss it another time, once Vita had, perhaps, caught him up to speed on anything of importance that he had missed. Alternatively, if she wanted to press forward then she could always use a command seal.

Vita couldn't help but notice that El had become somewhat more seasoned during his time in the plane beyond the mortal world, where he hailed. Though he was skilled as a mortal man in the ways of mortality and life, fighting to live another day and save the lives of others, it seems like he found out that things were fathoms different in the realm beyond. This interested Vita, despite the dead looking and dull expression on her face depicted by her half-open eyes. Only the raise of her brow during inspection of Elliott did her face even twitch out of place. "Perceptive," she muttered with an almost snarky snap in her tone, "But you don't know me very well, anyway," she continued, wavering her finger in the air, streaming through the lingering manna from his appearance.

As she trailed on with her finger, Vita continued, "And that's Mistress to you," whilst drawing the wafting creative energy toward her. "Chump." She snatched her hand back with great force, but keen precision, causing a vacuum of gravitational flux to fold into the palm of her hand and suck her manna into it. The velocity of the gravitational force drawing in the energetic particles in the air pressurized and solidified them on command, compressing them into the form of linking chains wrapped all up and down El's bulky frame. She licked her lips, yet her face returned to staleness moments after. "You don't know who you're dealing with..." Vita wrapped the chain around her knuckles and yanked it tightly, intending either to draw El to her or herself to him. Whichever got the job done faster, or both, most optimally. The keen green gleam in her eyes intensely focused on the look on his face and the eye he was giving her and she returned him the favor with a sharp glint. "... Do you...?" As she drifted lightly closer to him, as if having trotted off the ground and into the air in a lucid skip, Vita, swirled her arm around her loosening chain and raveled herself up in it in an elegantly alluring manner. By the time she reached him and/or he reached her, she would be tightly wrapped up all in the extensions of her chain right at the segment where it secured El.

Vita pressed her bulbous chest up to his impressive chest and peered deeply into his face; her arms were wrapped around her body cast in her own spiral of chains, folded tightly under her bosom, yet were also securely fastened where they were by the outer later of chains. "You gon' lurn t'day." She laughed lowly; lucidly, curling her faint chuckling in the back of her throat as she thought of the things she might do. Yet, simultaneously, she couldn't help but to incur the memories of their time together before they split up and remember not only what happened but also that he had no idea about anything beyond the surface.

"I am Vita," the metallic mummified matron proclaimed as she rested herself before El in a reclined airborne position, gazing at him with a lurid, yet also distant and ominous stare. Her face seemed lifeless, though in her eyes it was clear that her mind was sharp, active and calculating. Every link on the chain should have been a testimony to such, and yet, the fact actually remained widely unknown beyond speculation from the expression on her face. "There are many things that you don't know about me and this world that both just happened and also are currently in progress." She curved her neck to the side with a curiously speculative look on her face. "You're just in time, actually. I was about to wrap up around here and head into town to take care of a few things." Finally, she closed her eyes, hovering in place before El at the chain-link segment binding them together. "Got some business to take care of with some friends of mine." Her loose lids lifted lightly, leveling lowly as she looked on, lost in her thoughts. The glow in her eye was radiant. "So, uh," [color#404040]she giggled teasingly,[/color] "Giddyup, partner~." She rolled her neck around sassily in a playful manner, but the look on her face remained peculiarly deep in further thought beyond the playful demeanor. "I'll fill you in along the way."

She was certainly different. Otherworldly as her race were denoted to be, though El only knew that from the brief knowledge he was granted of this world. Nothing more than how to survive and what was and wasn't more dangerous than he could handle. The Fae were empyrean and incredibly hard to define. You could never know if they were with you or against you until it was too late. Luckily, Vita was his master, so they were intimately tied, for better or for worse.

El smirked, if you could call the small insignificant movement of his lips a smirk, "Lead and I shall follow, Mistress Vita." Along with the trailing off of his words, his physically form faded and Vita's grew slack and eventually empty.

"I don't need to physically follow you, by the way," El's voice echoed around her, "Incorporeal movement is more cost effective."

The moment the bearer of the Taurus Zodiac Spirit transitioned from a physical form to an incorporeal form, he drew power from an energy pool that was greater than his and Vita's own, which was directly linked to the other 'Contract' so to speak with a different entity that he embodied in his new form. This was the Zodiac Spirit Taurus, which had given Elliott his Blessing quite some time ago before he became a 'Familiar.' The attachment to the Zodiac Spirit bore an automatic ethereal link something like an umbilical cord that Elliott Faulkner was too undefined as a spiritual energy to see, even if he experienced it. He remained connected to the Taurus though the only method of communication between them was severed, which disallowed any contact beyond simply the bearings of the Blessing and the Taurus' natural influence over other things as a Zodiac Spirit.

Without the Ankh, there was no way to communicate to the one who bore the Spirit because no translation that was verbal could be established legibly between them; there was no medium, as was the custom of the long-distance communication for the Spirits as a default. Therefore, there was no way to even explain to Elliott that the bond between them was still just as it was without the method of communication gifted them by the Spirit, and so he drew both the energy and attention of the Zodiac Spirit haphazardly, expending part of its energy beyond his knowledge because of his transition. It was not that the Zodiac Spirit was not generous, but he was known as a hard man in many lifetimes of existence and knew of the recklessness that came with the blessings of the Zodiac Spirits. Long entwined with brethren Zodiac Spirits which were linked to each other under the ones born under their universal influence, many things had been done throughout their clusters of which brought treachery and injustice among them, upsetting the balance of the universe at a greater scale because of what was done by the mortals that bore their influence and likeness. Secret things came out among the greater Spirits came out among those that took after them, which established animosity that brought many things into retrograde in the foundation of the universe.

The only other manner of communication there was for the great Spirit was through the Blessing, itself. When Elliott drew power to shift into his incorporeal state, he would feel his own body growing tired, like an ox pulling a large cargo. This feeling was the feeling of everyone and everything else connected to the Taurus that also drew from it, including the Zodiac Spirit, itself drawing from its own reserves. He had a 'Cost' for transitioning between 'Physical' and 'Incorporeal' forms, and it would drain his energy and cause him to move more slowly because of it until he acquired a different 'Taurus' Blessing.

I. Taurus: Shifting from the 'Taurus' primary Element of 'Earth' and basic state of 'Solid' has a constant 'Energy Transfer' exchange because the Taurus' primary specialty and element is 'Earth'. - Cost (Drain)

Though what just occurred was indeed a Law -- which the Zodiac established relatively leisurely, at times -- there was no way of expressing this universal phenomenon to the youngling that had drawn his power from the 'Great Beyond,' as was so humorously spoken by the ancients. The Taurus could only continue to uphold this Law which sustained it and its blessing and communicate in that fashion until another Medium was found for the duo.

Vita's allure suddenly fell through the cracks of her chains wrapping herself up completely when El transitioned, leaving her completely enveloped in her own entanglements, as usual. She'd been distracted by both her attempt to be sexy and the fact that she saw the Zodiac Spirit's presence suddenly rear up again, which startled her. "BWAK!!!" she cried as she suddenly fell to the ground in her daze.

Completely awkward, Vita did not spare the moment a chance to continue without her intervention in the manner, knowing that the presence of the Zodiac Spirit meant something very important. The fact that it even appeared again, even if only indirectly, was still a very major sign for them. It meant that the Zodiac still had interest in them beyond whatever Khrona was doing, which Vita had not actually foreseen due to the barren wasteland that was the Zodiac Dwelling now. It was a sign before when the Zodiac had awoken once she and El came to the old Witch Province the first time, and she knew that this time was yet another one.

That meant only one thing; the two of them had to get back to the Zodiac Dwelling as quickly as possible.

Still wrapped in her own chains, Vita suddenly rose up from the ground with the chains dangling off of her perfectly wrapped toes. Swirling around elegantly easily awayed her own undoing in a spiral of whip-like chains spinning together into a single link, then bonding into one enormous chain. "Well, don't worry, we don't have to go far." Their first destination was right out in the back of Castle L'sia, which was Vita's family estate. "I'd say something witty, but we actually don't have time for idle chitchat." She hurled the hand harboring the humongous chain and extended it out through the wall, which it passed through incorporeally and out toward the 'Alchemic Dwelling' that was in the back of Vita's house -- her secret garden. "Just follow this 'Link' and it'll take us right there." She released the palm with the gravity orb in it -- where the entanglement connected -- and bound the chain link by a segment as its designated starting point; the sharp head extended outward toward the land outside and securely fastened itself so that both Vita and El had a clear path straight to the destination. It would be the fastest route passing straight through the walls.

That's when Vita remembered something important. Many of her abilities were still locked, including her ability to change into different states of matter with her Soul Dispersion, which allowed her to take on a pure Manna form. "Tch. My powers are still sealed, though," she murmured as she broke the chain and shook her gloved hand a bit, "So I can't just do everything I want to like I used to..." El didn't know anything about Vita's history, so he wasn't aware of just how much power she actually had before she was restricted. Fortunately this sort of journey that this was turning out to be might just get her the experience she needed to reclaim her former glory, which she saw when she noticed the Taurus Spirit appear again with its presence flaring up in El. "I'll have to take the long way." As lax and carefree as Tzita was by herself, once she became the more clever Vita, her lackadaisical demeanor shifted as her persona did. "Don't worry, I won't take long. Just meet me right at the spot marked by the chain, and we'll go from there." She kissed the tips of her fingers and blew toward El, as if to blow his incorporeal self off into a different direction in order to see him off before darting off, herself.

She would meet him at the 'Alchemic Dwelling.'