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This last lesson was purely hand to hand, no real magic. An attempt to measure if they're each others' equal on the physical level. The answer is that it's pretty close, though Lamont has the advantage of more experience as a streetfighter, though.
Now it's time to stretch, though….and of course, the first thing he dons post-fight is that ring, sitting in the place one usually reserves for one's wedding band. Pacing around so his muscles don't immediately stiffen up, still wearing only those loose black pants and singlet.
*
The skill sets in the physicality of street-fighting are indeed in Lamont's favor and Strange is off at his corner of the mat, wincing as he flexes an elbow.
"Seven hells, that Chi Pinch." Fingertips are regaining their feeling, in the odd metaphysical sense of things, and he gives the Shadow a mildly flat side-glance. "When I figure out how to block that, you will find it less useful, I assure you. Don't rely too heavily on it." Because oh yes — the man does do his homework when it comes to weaknesses in his own abilities. The Sorcerer is in a white t-shirt, the same one might wear beneath a dress shirt, and Gi pants in grey. He wiggles the digits of the beleaguered hand once more before turning his full attention upon Lamont.
Oh…the ring. It might be possible to feel, on some level, the focus crystallize upon the other man. His feet make little sound as Strange pads across the mat, loose limbed and yet graceful given his height, and he pauses short of the Shadow, eyes rising from the dark gemstone and to his face.
"Allow me to inspect the ring?" He seems to know how presumptuous the request is and doesn't even hold out a hand to receive it.
*
He owes Strange so much, and will further, in the future. But even with that debt, it is clearly a favor he's reluctant to grant. Only a beat of hesitation, before he draws it off and proffers it to Strange, gleaming on his palm. That little worm of fire seems to twist and gyre in the heart of the dark stone, though the lighting in the Sanctum isn't so bright that it should provoke such things in an ordinary opal.
*
"I'm reminded of Tolkien, in a way," Strange murmurs as he carefully retrieves the ring, holding it between thumb and forefingers' pads. The ambient light of the Sanctum gleams along its white-gold curves and that gemstone does seem very…alive, in a dreadfully interesting way. The Sorcerer squints as he rotates the ring, watching the facets of the low-burning ember within change by the degree of turn.
A small tickling of the lethe that knocked his knees from beneath him enters the Sorcerer's mind, but again, someone's been doing their homework. Mental barriers slam down forcefully and he's able once again to grant it his full attention rather than consider how sleep sounds like a terribly good idea.
"How did you come across it?" He lays the ring in his opposite palm now, holding it without curling fingers or assuming any sense of possession beyond the borrowing.
*
It's warm, even though he's just put it on…and the levels of sympathy acquired from decades of wear make it like touching its owner, almost. That sense of having broken personal space, though Lamont's taken a step or two back. The setting is intensely plain on the outside, though there's something engraved in an intricate, old Russian script around the inside. The words are still sharply defined, though the outside of the ring has that worn look gold gets. "I was given it," he says, and his voice is very low, "As a token of thanks for a task performed."
It's not like the Cloak, with that sense of defined presence and some opinions of its own. Far less sentient. But….nonetheless aware of magic. There's a sense of something rousing to the Sorcerer's touch, a pulse of warmth and a turning….and then what can only be offering. It's meant to augment strength, and here is someone far stronger than Lamont.
*
"Ah, a gift. The best way to receive a relic, I've learned. When you 'borrow' them," — there's the sense of projected quotation marks about the word — " - they tend to bring bad luck with them. Or worse."
He turns the ring over in his hand before capturing it up between two fingers again. If he's not projecting, the jewelry is attempting to cajole him, in a metaphysical way. The warmth spreads down into his fingertips and his brows dip into a pensive frown.
"I can read your signature upon it, Cranston, that much is certain. Still, it retains no…self. Amplification seems to be its only boon."
*
"It was not crafted by a true sorcerer," Kent's voice is carefully neutral, and there's a wary tilt to his head. "A ritualist and craftsman, but….legend has it the stone was prized by Rasputin, a talisman he carried." He can feel it reacting to Strange, it seems, and the sensation makes him uneasy.
*
A carrying hum accents his slow nod. "I see," Strange murmurs. Indeed, he can still sense the entreaty from the ring and apparently from the gemstone itself. The slow fluctuation of ember-light continues, perhaps a bit more brightly for the upkick in general aural power found about the one holding it still up between the two of them.
"That makes an unfortunate amount of sense. From what I've heard of the man, he had an uncannily persuasive oration skill that ran absolutely counter to his general demeanor.
*
"He was a sorcerer. He may not have known it himself, never formally trained save in whatever mysticism the Orthodox church offered. But his power was unmistakable, even though I knew him before my own was properly awake, and then only briefly as a young man," There's that distant look in his eyes, contemplating memory, incidents long past. "But it was a dark magic, and very much focused on that persuasion."
*
Strange nods. With ring still in hand, he shifts his weight, his other free hand resting fisted upon his hip.
"Inasmuch as I hate to define magic itself as 'right' or 'wrong', the man did abuse it per my own inclinations in the matter. I have an obvious bias, clearly," he adds quietly, a laugh more of a scoff at himself. "Still…" The unfinished sentence hangs in the quiet of the practice room, with its faint tang of sweat and lingering sensation of the wards hovering in the very walls. "I do wonder if it would respond to my commands." He dares a glance at Lamont nearly through his dark lashes and then squares his face to look straight upon the Shadow.
*
He doesn't look away or down, no motions either of submission or misdirection. Especially not when Strange holds what feels like a piece of his heart in his palm. But there's that sense of him just shuttering certain things in a futile effort at defense, reflexively….and then promptly overturning that impulse and saying, voice utterly toneless, "I'm sure it would."
*
The Sorcerer recognizes the lack of emotion as a response to an encroaching on his part.
"I'm not asking to test it upon you, Kent." His voice is quiet, the pressure on the Name minimal; it's not too unlike an offered palm to a wary animal. "I have no interest in subsuming your will. If you're certain that it would, I am more than able to contain my curiosity in the matter."
*
He nods at that, but it eases again. "Good," he says, softly. "It would," No doubt in his tone at all. Hypocritical, perhaps, considering the way he so often rides roughshod over the will and direction of lesser mortals, in pursuit of his dark crusade.
*
"It would," Strange echoes, sounding…still dreadfully thoughtful. The ring is rotated a last time in his fingers as to be maximally appreciative of the light-play within the dark opal. It tickles his pride, the way the ring continues to offer up breaths of heat to his bones and sniff at his own source of power.
"Have you had it turned upon you before?" Lamont is considered again, though in a distant way, as if the Sorcerer is good parts distracted.
*
"I have," he inclines his head, gravely. There's a shiver from him, as if it tickled. The ring….it merely wants to be helpful, to demonstrate what it can do. Not so much fickle as merely conscious of its own purpose, nevermind the smoky thread to its glow, somehow a trace of the Shadow.
*
Strange runs his eyes down to the man's bare feet and back up again, noting the way that he reacted to the admission.
"And…?" he asks, apparently expecting a further explanation as to the matter. The ring is shifted back and forth in his pinched hold, the circlet resting in passing overtop the tip of his pointer finger again…and again…as if teasing the relic right back for its efforts.
*
His lips have thinned out in that way he has when he doesn't want to say what will come next. "It went very badly. I was under the wielder's hand for a very long while."
*
In a near-mirror of the Shadow's expression, his own mouth draws to a knife's edge. A wicked, snarling curl of passing protective temper might make the dark opal's inner gleam flash in sympathetic surge. The silvery wards ooze from the walls and wisp about behind the Sorcerer.
"Would that I had known at the time." What else can he say? Nothing to be done but acknowledge the darkness of the past and revel in the now, in the survival beyond the scarring.
*
The wards are enough to make him go still, carefully, even though they are not directed at him. "He'll find me again," he says, and his voice and face are empty. One of those moment where some inner knowledge of Fate and his vagaries speaks up of its own accord. "We're bound."
*
"Really." Is that…a hint of a snarl in tone? Lamont, by proxy of fauxpprentice, is absolutely considered to be under the wing of Strange's immediate protective inclinations. The wards swirl behind him again, twinkly stardust with the propensity to sublimate first and ask questions later.
"And who is this person?" Perhaps the cold finger of Fate is drawing goosebumps down this being's spine at this point.
*
"Shiwan Khan," Lamont explains, softly. "A descendant of the Great Khan, a fellow trainee of the Tulkus. But he abandoned his purpose as Shadow and yielded again to his own corruption." Now there's a terrifying image - a counterpart as deadly and as strongwilled, but without even his minimal conscience and deference to the laws of karma.
*
The silvery wards explode outwards and fill the back-half of the room with the terrifying white-fire of thousands of contained collapsing stars, minuscule and yet so deadly-bright. Then the universe in miniature comes back together to the wending ribbons even as Strange inhales and exhales in equally slow and measured parts.
"I know the name well enough. This ring once belonged to the man then? Now gifted to you?"
*
His jaw tightens. "No. It was always mine," he says. "He took it from me, when I lost a battle to him. He wanted to make me into his minion, tried to use it to break me. I stole it back when I broke free."
*
"Your strength is to be admired, Cranston," and the Sorcerer gives the man a respectful nod even as the distance between them closes for the tilt of his hand. It seems to offer the white-gold ring back to the man, to refuse the offering of the relic to display its powers. Now is not the time or the place, at least according to the good Doctor.
*
There's an odd sort of curl to his lip, at that, the gray eyes dark. As if he'd wave away the compliment with some thing self-mocking. But he doesn't, as he takes the ring back, slips it onto his finger, and then curls his hand into a fist. Like he fears losing it again.
*
"No? Not to be admired?"
There's a thread of gently-remonstrative tease even as Strange turns to walk away across the padded floor, his hands now folded behind his back. It proves to stretch the cotton weave of the shirt across his chest even as he turns and considers Lamont again.
"When is a weakness not a weakness?" He even sounds properly gnomic in tone. Bonus point multiplier.
*
He should be used to this. His old masters LOVED these sorts of questions. But Lamont is rusty on that front, and his brow furrows. "When it can become a strength?"
*
A marked nod — and a charming flicker of a grin, pleased in a way, but only enough to bolster a potentially uncertain moment to land on the shores of conclusion.
"Precisely. To quote my old master, you likely succumbed to the current rather than continue to fight it. It brought you above the surface of the compulsion and…here you stand, a rightful claimant to the ring." He holds Lamont's eyes. "To be admired," comes the echo with a steely conviction.
*
"That's one of the ideals that was held up before me," he says, slowly. "That that which bends survives, and that which is brittle in its resistance only breaks…." His smile is tentative, in return.
*
"A willow before the wind, yes," says Strange, citing a wise proverb with origins in multiple societies and beliefs. "Flexibility gets me places." There's a decided impish streak in the additional comment, a twinkle in his eyes even as he turns to consider the silvery wards. "We're fine, shoo."
Back into the walls they go and he sighs, glancing to his pseudo-apprentice once more. "I would have you attempt your power with the augmentation of the ring again next we spar. Three days of no sleep had sure as hell have gotten me somewhere." He wears the mild exhaustion with a noble air of acceptance.
*