( open ) you cut me deep

[winscenario]

Who: James T. Kirk & you!
What: Finding out about his blood magic spell (blood telepathy) + Odin's compulsive honesty curse
When: Early/mid April
Where: Around
Rating: PG? Just a bit of blood but not expecting anything more.


I ▹ BLOOD MAGIC

Jim should have figured they wouldn't come back from that cave entirely unaffected. The last time he died he ended up with a soreness in his shoulder and down his side that has never quite vanished, sometimes even prickling and feeling a little numb, so when he actually can't sense anything different in him for days after they come back, it starts to feel like something is just strange or off.

It starts with vague dreams, at first; he can hear droplets fall, something dripping, dripping... it's not until the third night that he notices that the droplets are dark red, thick, pooling on the ground, spattering around. Then he begins to hear voices. Unintelligible words, and it's his voice reaching out, calling, the whispers and the sound of the falling blood drops growing louder and louder, almost deafening, until everything goes still and quiet and all he can hear is his own voice:

Listen to me.

He doesn't know what compels him to try this in the morning, but he does: he goes out to the field at the farm, and he takes out a sharp knife and nicks himself on the finger with it. There's a prickle of pain and he hisses, but instead of focusing on that, he closes his eyes and thinks of a specific person, someone he knows, and reaches out with his mind.

The message is short. A test, just to see if it really does what he thinks it should or not. Somewhere in the city, someone should be getting Jim's voice ringing in their head...

This is Jim Kirk. I'm at the farmland in Sigyn's district. If you can hear this message, please come meet me here.

II ▹ COMPELLED TRUTHS

Like many others, Jim doesn't escape Odin's curse. He's not a secretive person by nature, however, nor does he tend to lie, so he doesn't worry much that he might say something he doesn't want to. However, depending on what hour of the day someone runs into him, he may be feeling less or more frustrated with the curse that compels him to speak the truth, even when unasked or unprompted.

On the other hand, he might instead run into someone else who's affected. He won't use that to his own personal gain, though he might tease just a bit if he's comfortable with the person... But he won't be mean, really.

((ooc: for this prompt, basically feel free to write up your own starter as you think might best suit the compelled truth curse! I'm open to anything at all.))

Comments

[winscenario]

"I thought about that too," Jim nods. Whether a message left there purposefully, or a means for his subconscious to reveal his new ability to him.

Before he says anything else, though, Malcolm is suddenly pulling out knife and cutting himself. "Holy shit," he heaves out with a gasp before he can think twice of it, reaching out to grip around Malcolm's wrist as he steps closer to him. "What the hell do you think you're doing?!"

[prodigalmess]

Malcolm furrows his brow, confused. He's startled when Jim grabs his wrist. "What do you think I'm doing? I'm trying to figure out if I have it too." Seriously, Jim?

He manages to get out of Jim's grip and then turn his hand over, watching as the blood drips from his finger onto the floor of the barn. Malcolm's not sure what he's supposed to be feeling right now, so he tries to compose a message in his head, figuring out who he wants to send it to.

Nothing.

"Okay, was there anything else you did in order to send the message?"

[winscenario]

"Don't you think there would be-- I don't know, a better way to do that?"

Never mind that this is exactly what Jim himself did. He'll just breeze past that bit-- but he does let go of Malcolm's arm, looking admittedly curious about what Malcolm might be able to do.

Nothing happens, but Jim still waits with bated breath.

"Just... thought about the message, and tried to focus on it reaching someone," he says. It was all rather intuitive, so it's hard to explain to Malcolm what he did. "You know... maybe your power will be different from mine. Just like our God powers are all different."

[prodigalmess]

"It's what you did," Malcolm replies, pointing to the bandage on Jim's hand. At least he went for just his finger and not the whole palm. Maybe that's the problem. There isn't enough blood. Of course, if he cuts himself again, Jim might lose it.

He watches the drops of blood make tiny red circles on the barn floor. Jim has a good point about his powers being different. "My normal power is an ability to locate objects. Maybe I need to.. draw an object or something?"

[winscenario]

Jim opens his mouth, looks down to his own hand, then pulls it back while pressing his lips into a thin line. How dare you call him out like that, sir.

"I don't know," he shrugs, looking at Malcolm. "I felt something compelling me to do what I did. Have you tried just... letting instinct guide you? Sometimes the ability itself will tell you what to do, if you let it take over."

[prodigalmess]

That's a typical reaction Malcolm gets when he calls someone out. He's used to it.

Letting instinct guide him is actually something that he can do. Malcolm closes his eyes for a moment, concentrating. What he's being called to do is kind of insane, and he hopes Jim won't freak out again.

Malcolm moves to the wall of the barn and begins to draw a square on the wall with his bloody finger. Once he pulls away, an almost invisible field seems to grow out of the place where he drew the square, expanding until both he and Jim are inside of it.

"Huh," Malcolm says.

[winscenario]

Jim follows Malcolm towards the wall, honestly too curious about what he's doing to freak out about it. Well, he doesn't freak out about the blood, at least...

However, once Malcolm is done with drawing his symbol, and that invisible field stretches out to encompass them both, Jim is taken over by a sudden surge of panic, his whole body shaking almost violently as he feels the overwhelming need to get out.

"Shit," he heaves, already feeling his heart racing, his head spinning. He stumbles back and away from the barn wall, until he manages to somehow leave the warded area, stopping a few good feet away from it for good measure.

"Holy shit," he pants, still a little dizzy. His heart's calming down now, but he's still breathing heavily, hands on his knees as he tries to regain his balance. "Not sure what you did there, but that-- that definitely worked."

[prodigalmess]

"Are you okay?" Malcolm asks, leaving the force field that he's somehow created. It disintegrates once he steps outside of it. "What happened?"

Apparently he can make some kind of barrier that nobody can cross. This could definitely have some good uses in the future.

[winscenario]

"I'm... fine. I'll be fine," he assures Malcolm, though still breathing a little rapidly, racing heart only now starting to calm down. He shakes his head, standing upright again as he looks to the symbol drawn on the wall of the barn.

"I don't know," he lets out a huff, glancing at Malcolm with his eyebrows knit together. "I felt this... deep anxiety, I can't explain it. I just felt the urge to move away from the symbol."

[prodigalmess]

Malcolm looks back at the dried blood on the wall, then returns his gaze to Jim. "So you can send telepathic messages and I can make an anxiety barrier." He wonders if this has anything to do with his own fear and anxiety, using it to keep people at arm's length.

His finger is smarting and he notices the pain seemingly for the first time. "Uh.. do you have any bandages?" he asks.

[winscenario]

"Looks like it," Jim frowns, staring at the barn wall warily. He's still too scared to step any closer to it. The powers are pretty useful, he'll give it that. His own might even be a lifesaver if he has no other options. But considering what he has to do to make it work, it really is a sort of 'last resort' measure.

He looks down to Malcolm's hand, nodding. "Yes, back at the cottage. Come with me," he turns to walk towards the house, going to fetch the first aid kit as soon as they're inside.

[prodigalmess]

This should be last resort magic for Malcolm, but cutting open a finger really isn't that big of a deal to him. The force field might come in handy if he just wants to be left alone at some point.

He follows Jim into the cottage, taking a look around once they enter. "This is nice," he says. "You live here with someone. A woman."

They're not questions, but statements. It's the type of casual profiling that doesn't usually go too deep or get him in trouble.

[winscenario]

"Yes," he answers nevertheless, once he comes back to the living room, a first aid kit in hand. A little quirk of his eyebrow, "And a little girl. Have a seat."

He does the same, opening his kit on the table next to the couch. Since Malcolm's helping himself, Jim may as well clean up his own wound.

"How'd you know?" He asks as he takes some antiseptic wipes. "About the woman. Was it something you saw?"

[prodigalmess]

"The decor." He waves his uninjured hand as he sits down. "It has a feminine touch to it. Not that I'm sure you aren't in touch with your feminine side, but it's all very neat and tidy. It speaks to a woman's presence."

Malcolm takes one of the wipes and starts to clean the cut on his finger. "Thanks."

[winscenario]

"You should see my bedroom," he chuckles, then adds quickly when he hears his own words. "I just mean-- it's even tidier than this. It's, ah... an officer thing. I've had it drilled into me since the Academy, so I like to keep things tidy. Everything neat and in its right place."

He nods at the thanks, cleaning his own small cut, then taking some bandages to cover it up until it's stopped bleeding at least.

[prodigalmess]

"That makes sense," Malcolm says, pointing at him with his free hand. "I don't know if I would have pegged you as police right off though. Neatness aside, you don't seem strict enough."

All cops have a strictness to them, a no-nonsenseness. Even Gil, his mentor, is that way. Sometimes Gil looks the other way when Malcolm acts like a reckless dumbass, but he behavior always gets called out, just like it had when he was a kid.

[winscenario]

"Oh," Jim lets out a soft laugh, shaking his head. "Sorry, my mistake. I didn't mean the Police Academy, but Starfleet Academy."

Malcolm clearly doesn't know it, because if he did, that would be where his mind would go to first. So he further clarifies. "I'm a starship Captain, back in my world. When we say 'Academy', that's the one we mean."

[prodigalmess]

"Oh," Malcolm says, not expecting that. Honestly, it can be difficult to profile people here. Things that exist or make sense in his world might not exist or make sense in another's. "So you travel in space? Is that common in your time?"

He wraps the bandage around his finger.

[winscenario]

"I do. And yes, it's pretty common, even if you're not a Starfleet officer. Transit is free between planets officially belonging to the Federation."

So far as they're inhabitable, whether established cultures or colonies set up there by Starfleet itself. But he figures he doesn't need to specify that much.

[prodigalmess]

"That's amazing," Malcolm answers. "I'm from 2020. Travel in space is still pretty much in its infancy." By comparison, at least. "Have they discovered a lot of planets? Enough to have a Federation of them, I guess."

[winscenario]

"Well, we were discovered first, actually," he chuckles. "And then we were introduced to a number of new planets and species. Once the Federation was established, we've been working alongside all these species in exploring uncharted regions of space, documenting everything we can find along the way."

[prodigalmess]

"So aliens actually landed?" he asks. "How did the world react to that?"

Chaos, he imagines. People thinking it was the end of times, widespread fear, leaders around the world jockeying to figure out how it can benefit them.

[winscenario]

"Hm... calmly?"

It's the best way he can explain it. He knows most people expect to hear that there was chaos and mayhem, conflict or even war, but the fact is that it was a very peaceful meeting.

"We met them, talked to them, and we made new friends, that day. Vulcans were the first species we befriended, and it's been a long lasting relationship."

[prodigalmess]

"Really?" Malcolm arches an eyebrow. "Wow. People must have really calmed down between my time and yours."

Because in the current climate, he can't see it. People still freak out when people who are a different color than them move to their city, let alone a being from outer space.

[winscenario]

"Maybe. Or maybe our timelines have differed in some way. Let me ask you, if I mention the Eugenics Wars, does that ring a bell with you?"

That's been the most notable difference he's noticed, so far. People from the early 21st century would be all too familiar with it. If Malcolm hasn't heard of it, then he isn't from the same place that he is.