The Tea Tree

forced soulbonding	loss of powers
abandonment issues	WILD CARD

A small card from hc_bingo. The soulbonding one will be interesting -- such a concept doesn't really exist in Malanee beyond the creepy quasi-necromancy shit Sybille does. I can totally see it being a thing in the Sheep universe though.

Here's an excerpt from a story fresh hot the press for loss of powers:

( TW for violence, kidnapping )

Yep, it's the Rose May attack again, from Mahli's perspective. It's been an incredibly long time since I wrote from Mahli's POV, and back then I didn't have the chronic pain issues I do now. So it's going to be interesting writing Mahli without his telepathy around to augment his broken body.

The excerpt is quite rough so my apologies for the word repetition and typos. Writing these telepathy fights is a bit of a pain. The second part is post-fight and deals more with the prompt's premise so hopefully it'll be less of a broken record.

Tschuess.

First the excerpt. Then I'll explain the subject.

( In which we learn about Mahli )

And now, the explanation! It's like behind-the-scenes, except Inception behind-the-scenes since this isn't published yet and... Yeah.

My issue ever since writing modern Mahli has been convincing the reader that, considering his attitude and power, that he still can't take over the world. THis is very difficult considering modern fantasy and just media in general. People who are super powerful compared to others invariably try to take over the world, pose a major safety hazard, whatever.

But the thing is, even with the ability to mind-control twelve people? That still leaves hundreds of thousands of people who could use that opportunity to go after Mahli. Twelve people also is assuming he is not using his telepathy to make up for his severe physical disabilities, which Mahli implies he does with the "manage eight" comment. Mahli's arrogance, stemmed from his special treatment and just growing up with mountain faeries, results in him tending to spy on people's thoughts freely, trying to get an advantage, impress people, etc. This uses up yet more of his power.

If Mahli wanted to get into a fight? He'd most likely pour a lot of energy into removing more of his physical disabilities than he does normally (he still uses a cane). This would be taxing enough that he'd be reduced to likely an average vampire in terms of telepathy, and human officials know how to deal with that kind of power. And as shown in this scene, any magic users would quickly sense shit going down and go in to subdue him.

So in conclusion: Mahli is extremely powerful, but still a human, and a significantly crippled human at that. He is also smart enough to know that even with his awesomeness, an attempt to truly skirt the law would end up with him severely injured or dead.

And so he deals with society and being regarded as a freak due to his physical deformities as best he can. For those who don't know:

( Severe physical deformities )

So yes. That's him using telepathy so he can walk more easily, and he still needs the cane. Multiple times in the story he gets sick of it and just floats around, freaking people out XD But to reserve power and not exhaust himself mentally, he usually just sticks with the cane and walking.

I should stop babbling and go to bed but yes. Mahli is one of my favourites for whatever reason. He's just interesting.

Tschuess.