The First Age
Sören Lindgren - Printable Version

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- Sören - 06-01-2014

Sören (Sir-in) Lindgren

2026

The room drips shadows. The dark places writhe, calling him like crooked fingers. Trinkets hang from the ceiling, beads and tiny skulls, feathers and dried skin. Noises shuffle. Somewhere in the darkness sounds the tinkle of chimes, disturbed by no wind. She sits on the floor amid the chaos, a square of white cloth in front of her. It is a dare to be here. He thinks she is a cliché, a charlatan. But he does not like the weave of her fingers, the glint of carved stones in her grip, clacking together conspiratorial of his fate. He senses his mistake too late. The lack of control rolls anger in his gut, but submission to his curiosity lulls him closer. He needs to know what she knows, even if it is lies, and though he holds the price he is willing to pay close to his chest, the curve of her smile suggests she knows the answer. <em>Anything.

There is nowhere to sit but the floor. He doesn't want to, but even at fourteen he is tall; he towers and it makes him uncomfortable. "Mamsell."
That's an old honorific, something he shouldn't know, but he reads old things. Her brows flicker surprise but she accepts the words and nods. Finally, he sits.

When she speaks it is in Swedish. The words are mechanical, and he watches her hands more than he listens. Her fingers are very pale, her nails short and clean. The stones peek dark between the flesh. They whisper.

The secrets they keep irritate.

He flips his wallet and offers two crisp CCD notes, but she scowls at him - he has obviously caused an offence. Then she drops the runes. He stares curiously at their alignment on the cloth, drinking in the knowledge that is utterly indecipherable to his gaze. The cut of the shapes and symbols forge a link even so. He wants to know more. Intent, he reaches out. His finger touches one in the same moment her hand moves to stop him. In the brief moment of contact she snatches her hand away, speaking in a rush. Her eyes have widened, afraid he thinks, though the breathy rush of her voice suggests that maybe she is just shocked. He does not know what has happened.

He stays for more than an hour. When he leaves, his expression is heavy.</em>


Hailing originally from Stockholm, born some thirty years ago, parentless but not destitute.

At fourteen years Sören's life adjusted course, and he has never shared what he discovered. He'd perhaps always been a little odd - unrelentingly confidant despite his age, his interests esoteric for a child - but where before the world had been mathematically shaped, of clear and finite black and white pieces, now his eyes opened to the hidden otherness. His curiosity delved to the occult, the taboo, the maligned. Knowledge that one must bleed to acquire. He began experimenting with fasting, pushing his body to the outer reaches of sustainability, forcing it to a meditative state that dropped the shackles of flesh.

And he discovered transcendence to a whole other world. A world where the ephemeral shifted and swirled but history stood firm. A world of knowledge and secrets. Sören's obsession deepened until gauntness lined his cheeks, and medical assistance intervened. They labelled him with an eating disorder, incarcerated him in a wellness centre paid for by his dead parent's money; a place he became intimately familiar with over the next four years of his life.

Cared for by his family's estate, there was no single parental figure to guide Sören in his youth. A string of tutors and guardians marked his emergence from child to adult, and once he received his inheritance at eighteen, nothing sentimental tied him to the many faces who had littered his childhood. It was the same year he encountered a wolfish presence in the dream world he visited. Wariness sunk deep claws in that first meeting, but the cool steel of hostility bent to the greater need for control, even over such a concrete thing as his own fate. He'd be damned before he allowed it to cow him, which is perhaps why he has taken an interest in the affairs of those golden-eyed strangers who stalk the dream world, when he encounters them.

Alone in the world, and armed with the wealth to make a gift of the freedom, Sören chased his obsessions.

2037

Sweat drenched his skin, shooting ice in his veins. His vision blurred, refracting the light like a thousand shattered diamonds as he stumbled across the room, staggering against the desk, knocking everything loose. Paper floated. The sound of smashing reached his ears long after the items had broken, like a pale echo as reality shuddered against his senses. He blocked it out, sinking into his chair, heart hammering high and fast.

Wisdom demands sacrifice. Sören grimaced, the tendons in his neck straining. He hadn't eaten in days, keen to slip his physical shackles, but this felt more sick than spiritual, and it was manifesting worse than it ever had previously. Advice that had before seemed logical and well reasoned coiled as hypothetical and useless as smoke. He thumbed the rune hanging from a thong round his throat, gripped it. A sting marked its unintentional snap from his neck, and he cursed, panting.

Your heart rate is spiking. The words flashed a letter at a time on the holoscreen floating above the ruined desk.

"I know! I feel like I'm dying."
The words growled out, translating a reply back into the anonymous abyss of the network. He shut his eyes, squeezed out the pain, and told the returned message to vocalise.

'Core temp is high. But there's nothing... unusual. What are you feeling?'

"War. A battle of spirit and mind. It is consuming me."
His vehement inflections were lost in the translation, simplified to their component letters. His grip fisted around the rune in his palm, the sharp spikes of eihwaz digging into his flesh. He knew he was not going to die, not yet, but the knowledge didn't seem to arm him with an epiphany. The days of fasting helped unhook his mind from his body, but his penitent spirit wandered a wasteland. Ask a price. I will pay it.

Sweat rolled down the planes of his face. The room spun, smearing shadows and light. Wisdom demands sacrifice. A fire burned in his palm. Sören pressed tighter, like he could accept it into his flesh, consume the knowledge as the Sickness consumed him. The world whirled faster, until there was just him and the rage of the storm. It flayed his skin, a vortex of sharp angles and light, scorching shapes into his retinas. Delirium distanced him from his starved body, keened his senses to this unknowable force.

It wrenched his spirit, flung him like a rag doll. Vaguely he could feel his body spasming, his heart shuddering arrhythmic, but he ignored the warning, pressing forward anyway. Words echoed in his ears, keying urgency into the glow of the holoscreen, but he was blind to that too. Knowledge taunted so maddeningly close, but he would shred his hands trying to capture it. A precipice loomed, and he flung himself resolutely from the edge.

He hung there, in the midst of the power. It flooded into him, cold and violent. He gasped.

His mind was strong. But his flesh was weak.

In his chair, Sören's eyes rolled back.

*

When he woke, sunlight streamed bright into the study, softening every crevice, soothing every shadow. His skin was clammy with dry sweat, his head fuzzy and weak with hunger, mouth parched dry. His palm ached. The rune eihwaz had clattered to the floor, but its shape had left a bloody welt in the flesh before it had fallen. Sören flexed his fingers, and glanced up. A message flashed forlorn on the screen. Are you there? The time reference placed it more than eight hours ago. They'd know he wasn't dead because of the monitors he'd placed on his body, transmitting every vital sign, so he closed off the communication for now.

He felt remarkably calm, considering. His eyes found his palm again, contemplating the mutilation, then closed his fist a single digit at a time. Squeezed. And felt it.


Three days denying food or sleep carved his exploration into this new gift. Conquering it, as his instincts demanded him to do. Half delirious, he read runes in the vortex of power; used them to shape webs of luminous silver and gold, like the world allowed him a glimpse of the scriptures that held it together. When his senses finally crawled back, weak and feeble, the office was a mess. Bloody scratches etched the floor, gouged sharp forms into his arms, runic shapes. His fingernails were plucked half from his fingers, the vulnerable skin beneath excruciatingly tender.

When his strength had returned, he began more traditional research, searching his secret places for answers, liaising with his contacts, sharing information and claiming it. He discovered that when he closed his fist, like the act of crushing, he wrenched the power to his will. Shaping it was more difficult, his understanding intrinsically woven with his comprehension of runes. Intention proves essential, then and now. In those early days he had the shapes inked permanently on his arm, spent hours committing the meanings to memory. Speed had increased with familiarity. His methods have limitations and advantages.

The blessing widened the scope of interests, or perhaps ignited his ego to new considerations. If he had before thought himself different, now he knew himself to be special. And he wished to find others.

2040

Fine mesh dominated the sky of the aviary, pressing dappled shadows that merged with the splay of branches and leaves. The birdsong was a shrill and vibrant cacophony, bright little bodies darting from branch to branch, some swooping low past his head. When Sören clenched his hand, the world brightened and focused sharp. He could count the furious beat of wings, hear the fast flutter of heartbeat in those fragile little chests. The birds did not seem to lament their captivity.

Ornithomancy was an old and neglected art, its practise and understanding relegated to ancient texts and scholarly minds. Sören didn't purport to understand, but he was curious, as he was with most methods of supposed divination. He was also fond of birds. Not that he had ever minded the ceaseless travel, the unending search for answers, but his quests had taken him to worse places than this.

Some hundred yards from the stone bench he sat on, a boy crouched in the grass. Sparks of truth had less to do with the method of understanding and more with the individual, or so Sören believed. He had first met Daniel in the world of reflections and death, an echo of an echo; it had taken months to finally find him, to begin to unravel the mystery himself. Blades of grass framed the canvas, Daniel hunched over rather than using an easel. He glanced up every now and then, stared through squinted eyes, then returned to his work. He was watching the birds, but he wasn't drawing them. Not exactly.

A woman hovered nearby, arms folded, her expression a subdued mix of pride and concern. The boy's mother. Fortune would help smooth out her worries, he imagined. It nearly always did. He smiled at her, lighting the serious expression of his gaunt face. "Your boy is going to make you very rich."



These days Sören is an art dealer and avid collector in his own right, wandering the globe to sate his obsessions. His niche tends towards the unusual, eccentric and rare, though he does not focus on a particular era. He nurtures several artists, and has blossomed careers through his extensive contacts with international galleries, museums and the CCD's obscenely rich children. A comfortable bank balance ensures it is not a business he relies on, but he is nonetheless well suited to his chosen vocation. Sometimes he sources pieces for the CCD elite, particularly when the request is unusual or idiosyncratic, but does not take every job offered. There's no obvious reason for his finickiness, except that he is often very busy. Fervour underscores his passion for his work; he chases a mystery.

Appearance: Short light brown-blondish hair, and generally sporting a close cropped goatee beard. Inoffensive brown eyes, intense and brooding, sit above sloping cheekbones; there's often something slightly gaunt to his features, like a man settled right on the edge of contentment. He has height enough to shadow most men but does not dominate in his presence. Speaks accented english. His state of dress depends entirely on circumstance - he is a consummate wanderer - but in official capacity is immaculately turned out. He has a tattoo on his left inner forearm, the Elder Futhark. A very faint scar presses on his right palm, like a jagged S.

Personality: Quiet, watchful, patient, stoic. Reflective, perhaps to the point of obsession. He has an endless thirst and passion for knowledge, often for its own sake; it is his driving motivation.Interests include the occult and cutting edge technology. Generally he is of amenable disposition, but when pushed displays a ruthless edge. Lies come unaccountably easy, though usually have no discernible advantage to him. He dislikes feeling out of control. Very much.

RP History