[Days bleed into weeks, weeks into months; the days grow longer and warmer and then cool off again, and it's not until they're deep into autumn's chill that Isaac grows annoyed of zagging from place to place and builds his life around the West Wing his tower, leaving Hector to make a place for himself anywhere else in the castle. There's no offer made to help; letting him in was never an act of forgiveness or grace or generosity. If Hector couldn't respect him enough to have kept his distance, than he deserves nothing in turn, and, in Isaac's mind, should consider himself lucky to be alive.
With no real means of keeping him out, Isaac settles for slowing his progress with a lock and a magical seal on the door at the top of the stone stairs winding up the tower, so he can at least hear him coming when he's too deep in his experiments - or deep between the legs of the occasional demonic guest lured over by the surges of magic his work is generating - to sense Hector's approach early.
While he's made headway on the forging front, it's still not enough. The pursuit of perfection consumes him like a fresh obsession: he forgets to eat or skips it willingly, time slipping away from him as he throws himself into trial after trial, aggressively challenging his creations through exposure to stress and attack and pain in a bid to will them to evolve sooner, until they're both wholly exhausted.
Tonight he's hit another wall and has the sense to step away from his worktable before smashing it in half, hoping to clear his head. His latest devil - a wingless black dragon barely the length of two hands - takes in the world from its perch up on his pauldron while he leans up against the outer wall and closes his eyes a moment, filling his lungs with his first breath of raw, bracing air in nearly two days.]
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the West Winghis tower, leaving Hector to make a place for himself anywhere else in the castle. There's no offer made to help; letting him in was never an act of forgiveness or grace or generosity. If Hector couldn't respect him enough to have kept his distance, than he deserves nothing in turn, and, in Isaac's mind, should consider himself lucky to be alive.With no real means of keeping him out, Isaac settles for slowing his progress with a lock and a magical seal on the door at the top of the stone stairs winding up the tower, so he can at least hear him coming when he's too deep in his experiments - or deep between the legs of the occasional demonic guest lured over by the surges of magic his work is generating - to sense Hector's approach early.
While he's made headway on the forging front, it's still not enough. The pursuit of perfection consumes him like a fresh obsession: he forgets to eat or skips it willingly, time slipping away from him as he throws himself into trial after trial, aggressively challenging his creations through exposure to stress and attack and pain in a bid to will them to evolve sooner, until they're both wholly exhausted.
Tonight he's hit another wall and has the sense to step away from his worktable before smashing it in half, hoping to clear his head. His latest devil - a wingless black dragon barely the length of two hands - takes in the world from its perch up on his pauldron while he leans up against the outer wall and closes his eyes a moment, filling his lungs with his first breath of raw, bracing air in nearly two days.]