IC INBOX for The Last Voyages

[magician_king]

You know what to do.

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[credere]

Credence cringes, partly at the mental image but also because:

"I...I think Grindelwald is Austrian?"

So 'the other side' might not be the one Quentin's thinking of.

[magician_king]

"Okay well we need to get you some books, my dude."

Says Quentin, who has said this to him before but seriously.

"That is not a side you want to be in. That is the side that loses, and what we find out after they lose redefines how we term 'atrocity' and also results in the first international courts and the idea of war crimes and a whole bunch of legislation about ethics around human research subjects, and just utter horror. You make sure he's not them, okay?"

[credere]

Credence looks a little wide-eyed, tensing in a way that makes Coldwater mewl with concern.

"...Okay."

He wants this not to be true. He wants, desperately, not to have been that badly taken in.

[magician_king]

"I mean, just because he's Austrian doesn't automatically make him terrible. But we're going to pre-arm you with a list of screening questions and a healthy skepticism, and a couple of totally good enactable plans that can go either way depending on what the hell he's up to."

Oh, and-

"You know Steve Rogers, right?"

[credere]

"I...a little?"

Most people he knows 'a little' are not people he has good relationships with.

[magician_king]

"He fought in that war. Talk to him."

Says Quentin, who does not think personal conflict should disrupt intellectual pursuits.

[credere]

"...Would he want to?"

'Forthcoming' is not a trait he encounters much in the few veterans he's met.

[magician_king]

"Mm, I mean. He'll have had better days, but if he understands what you're dealing with I bet money he'd support you anyway. Want me to make an introduction?"

He doesn't mind; he likes Steve.

[credere]

"I...yes? I just don't know if - it's like you said, it'll be different with magic."

Little does he know that Steve has fairly applicable experience there.

[magician_king]

"It won't be perfectly analogous, but the more you know is always better."

Is Quentin's experience.

"And it's not like you don't have the time."

[credere]

"I suppose," he says, quietly. "I'll ask if he wants to talk about it."

Honestly, he doesn't want to know enough to push for it.

[magician_king]

"It's good that you have a long time to think about this stuff."

Says Quentin, earnestly.

"But it's a question, I guess, of assessing his motives and what he's trying to do, which you're not going to know until you get home."

[credere]

"If I go home," he corrects, boldly and quite possibly out of nowhere.

[magician_king]

"That's new. Where are you going instead?"

Cheered by the news.

[credere]

"I don't know. But if you're right about him, then...I've got nothing else to go home for."

A quiet, sad truth. He doubts Nagini would forgive him.

[magician_king]

"What about the girl you met?"

He asks, eyebrows lifting.

"It sounded like you were close."

[credere]

"We were. But...I went to Grindelwald, and she didn't."

He closes his eyes for a moment.

"A Maledictus' curse can't be broken. Even if I go back, even if she does forgive me, I'm just...I'm going to have to just watch until she can never be human again."

[magician_king]

"Dude. Graduate, get an inmate, get a deal, go get her, bring her somewhere good. Like out into the multiverse with me and team 'free the clones,' or wherever Shiro's going. Just because she's probably going to be mad at you for awhile doesn't mean she doesn't need your help."

One of Quentin's philosophies in this life.

[credere]

Credence makes a noise that wants to be an incredulous laugh.

"I couldn't graduate someone."

He's not even convinced of that assuming the 'someone' is himself.

[magician_king]

"I'm figuring it out. Yeah it's been four years, but Elijah doesn't hate me and seems to be- you know. Thoughtful. If I can do it you can definitely do it."

He's so firm in this conviction that he's forgotten what he was doing with the blanket, in favour of staring into his eyes and trying to convey this to him.

[credere]

Credence looks very much like he doesn't agree with this but can't summon the energy to launch a serious argument.

"But you're - better than me. At everything."

[magician_king]

"One, no I'm not, two, when I am it's because I'm ten years older than you, three, you cap me easily for raw magical power, and four, that sounds like Mary Lou Barebone and not like Aurelius C Dumbledore."

Says Quentin, imbuing the name with all the power and sorcery he knows how to. Spoken as incantation, the lights around them flicker portentously.

[credere]

Credence frowns at the name.

"No, she'd say you're worse than me and even more likely to go to Hell because you have one and a half boyfriends."

It's somehow both true and almost a joke, simultaneosly.

[magician_king]

"I agree that I probably am, but not for that."

He says, quietly, and goes back to the work on the blanket. His face gets a little red, but he does insist;

"Loving people never makes you evil."

[credere]

"...I don't think there's any such place as hell any more, either," Credence says, which is at least an implicit agreement with Quentin's other remark.