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Mother and Son Scene: Circe’s Greenhouse Elbridge was far too diplomatic (or what passed for such among wizards and other supernatural beings) to outright respond to Ada’s reappearance with Really? ANOTHER stray for your collection? It would be a deadly insult to say such a thing aloud in the presence of her guest. He was, however, conveying it very strongly. With his overall expression. Especially his eyebrows. “I didn’t ask for this,” Ada replied, her expression as beleaguered as he’d ever seen. “Mysterious dragon stuff. Long story. Tell you about it later once I got it all sorted out.” --- One awkward car ride later… --- As she approached Circe’s shack with Agrius in tow, Ada slowed down. Of all the situations she’d ever had to deal with, this was by far one of the strangest. How am I supposed to open the conversation here? ‘I brought your large adult snake son, he says the dragon he worships chose me as his sister, does that make you my mom?’ She shook her head. It was preposterous. Zia’d gotten hugely into Korean soap operas since she’d come back, and this wouldn’t have been out of place as a twist in one of those. There was no good way to spin this. The best solution would be to just open the floodgates and be ready to roll with whatever went down next. Chaos style, she thought. For when you need to turn your lack of ideas into an actual strategy. They were close now. She knocked on the door three times and waited. Circe opened the door, took one look at Agrius and lunged, going past Ada in a blur of tawny haired fury. Agrius caught her punch in his palm and swept her off her feet, whirling around and laughing so loud the entire neighborhood could hear him. “MOTHER!” he yelled, crushing her in a backbreaking hug. “SON!” Circe snarled, before sinking her teeth into his bicep. “Don’t try to kill each other too hard.” It wasn’t easy to keep a straight face while watching the scene unfurl. Some might have called it herculean, for lack of a better greek hero to use as a master of poker faces. One of those people might even have been Ada. “The store’s already closed and they don’t do refunds.” Agrius petted his mother’s hair gently while she growled at him. “A tigress doesn’t suffer male cubs returning to her territory. But we are more than animals, mother. Look, I have even put on the clothes you made for me.” The growl turned into a grumble and Circe relaxed her teeth. “You did? I suppose I shall not soil them with your blood, then. Set me down.” He obeyed and she paced a circle around him, sniffing a few times. “I see my new patron has finally gone to take stock of what she owns.” “So I did.” It was true, after a fashion. The fact her interest lay more in people than in assets didn’t get in the way of that. “There was a change of plans. When I got there, I sensed something calling to me. Something within my area of specialty.” She crossed her arms. “I didn’t know you kept a tree that bleeds dragon blood in your backyard.” “I keep a great many trees,” Circe said. “Some of them are more dangerous than others, and that one the most dangerous of all. If you go poking about like a grunting pig I cannot be blamed for what happens to you.” “Yeah, well, I don’t think I can take the blame either when a dead dragon takes an interest in me.” She raised her arm, revealing the dragon’s mark upon it. “Agrius says this makes me his sister. What do you make of it?” Circe narrowed her eyes at the squirming shadow. “I should not be surprised, and yet… Come inside, both of you. There is hot stew.” She stalked past Ada into the shack without another word. “She never changes,” Agrius commented, shaking his head, though he didn’t seem unhappy. “I had worried that losing to you would have put her into one of her moods.” “I didn’t give her the chance to get moody,” Ada replied. “I had her teaching me how to be a witch within the week. It’s hard to brood when you’re busy getting bombarded with questions.” “A witch-in-training are you?” Agrius grinned at her. “I’m learning the mindset. The rest I can take or leave. C’mon, let’s get inside,” she said, gesturing with her head towards the shack. “She’s gonna get mad I’m keeping you all to myself if we stay out here much longer.” As soon as they entered, Circe shoved a large wooden bowl into Agrius’ hands and pointed at the bed. None of the other furniture in the shack seemed capable of holding him, but he sat happily and started slurping without comment. Ada was handed a more normal sized bowl and a spoon and Circe pointed her finger towards the stool in front of the fireplace, where the stewpot was still happily bubbling. “Now, then,” Circe said, sitting in her rocking chair. She held a bowl in her lap as well, though she didn’t seem to be interested in food at the moment. “Agrius, explain what you meant by calling my patron sister, while I consider the best method to rip that parasite out of her arm.” Agrius grunted. “A parasite only takes, the great Ladon gives generously in return for what is offered.” “The great Ladon will neither give nor take what is mine,” Circe snapped. “And I will not suffer you to hold power over me through her.” “You have no power,” her son countered. “I see your eyes mother. They are mortal. Hecate has abandoned you.” Circe stood up. “You tread on dangerous ground if you think me powerless, little snakeling.” Agrius sighed. When next he spoke it was in Greek, in a dialect so ancient that even a natural speaker might have trouble interpreting it. But his tone was soft, conciliatory. Circe answered him in the same tongue with her usual acerbicness. The words made no sense to Ada’s ears, outside of a vague hint of familiarity that had been lessened by millennia of linguistic drift, but words weren’t necessary to convey feelings. Holding the spoon full of stew to her lips, she blew on it, and looked on closely. What she heard, behind the words, was Agrius’ insistence, and that he was holding firm despite his mother’s sharp tongue. They talked quickly, the back and forth of family members airing old grievances with no solutions. Both of them kept shooting glances at her, though she didn’t hear her name come up directly. Eventually, Agrius’ patience won out and Circe settled into a tone that was more honest, much like the one she used when teaching Ada. Agrius didn’t seem pleased by what she told him, but he wasn’t angry either. More resigned. Finally he stood up and set his empty bowl aside. “If that is how you feel, I will respect your wishes,” he said, slipping the bag off his shoulder and passing it to her. “But here, at least take a few things from the apothecary.” Circe nodded. “We all have things we must do, my son.” She took the bag and glanced at the contents, and a wide smile spread over her lips. “Sylphium! Ah, I have missed it… But don’t think spoiling me with presents will change my mind.” “Can I not spoil you just because you are my mother?” Agrius asked, opening his arms. This time Circe hugged him back without drawing blood. “Now I had best be on my way. The mortals tend to be upset by flying serpents in daylight.” “The mortals are upset by everything, these days,” Circe grumbled. Agrius only laughed, before turning to Ada. “You had best take good care of my mother, Ada of the duSangs,” he said, with a wicked smile on his face. “I can always devour you later if you don’t.” “You should ask her to let me do it first,” Ada replied pointing the spoon at Circe. “Unless you want me to put her in a suplex hold until she agrees to it.” “OUT,” Circle said, tapping her foot. A moment later he was gone, the door shutting snugly behind him. Circe let out a heavy breath. She seemed thoughtful, and there was sadness buried deep behind her eyes. “I’m surprised he stayed for such a short time,” Ada spoke up after a few moments. “I thought it’d take you two longer to catch up.” “What is there to say that hasn’t been said a thousand times?” Circe sat back in her rocking chair and looked into the fire. “Besides, he has taken naps longer than I’ve been gone.” “Were you the one who taught him how to change shape? Or was that something he learned on his own? He’s very fond of that scaled shape of his.” “There are many forms of shapeshifting,” Circe said. “Of course I taught him all I knew. But he chose to serve the dragon on his own.” “His story’s pretty different from mine then. I didn’t even realize it was an actual invitation.” She held up her arm, to look at the squirming brand. “You said this was a parasite. What’s it supposed to do, and why did it seek me out?” “Do you know the story of Ladon?” Circe asked. “I think so. It was the guardian of the tree of the Hesperides, wasn’t it? One of the last great enemies Heracles defeated as part of his twelve labors.” “Aye, the great oaf.” She gestured for Ada to approach her. “And so the beast is dead, but like all dead dragons it still dreams. Strange, ancient creatures, they are. Too bound to the land to ever truly leave it, even in death.” Setting the bowl aside, Ada stood up and walked towards the fireplace. “When I drank from its blood, things got...hazy.” She spoke quietly, her eyes fixed upon the brand. “It felt like I was stepping beyond myself, growing more aware of the world around me, blending with it. And I could feel another presence too, blending with me. I think it was trying to feel its way back into the world.” “How much did you drink?” Circe asked. She did not seem surprised. “One fingertip’s worth. I didn’t go beyond a taste.” Circe took Ada’s gloved hand and pulled her arm out with surprising gentleness. She ran her fingers lightly over the scars. “A single drop of raw dragon’s blood is potent enough to kill most men,” she said. “You had three or four times that. It must have impressed Ladon.” “That’s a nice change of pace,” Ada murmured, shivering as the nerve endings underneath the skin flared up. “Last time I got branded by an ancient legend, it was for pissing him off. Figured this was more of the same.” “Hah! If that were the case Agrius would never have let you leave alive.” The shadow fled from Circe’s touch as if it feared her. “This little parasite is a fragment of Ladon’s power. It represents his favor, and if you drink of his blood again it will quicken inside you and bear a seed. That seed, when planted, will grow into a new tree. One you will be bound to protect, for all the ages to come, as Ladon was bound to the Hesperides.” Ada’s face twisted into a grimace. “Sounds painful, and that’s not even getting into the hassle of becoming a discount dryad. Is there supposed to be an upside?” Drinking Ladon’s blood had been a very different experience from anything she was used to, and not at all unpleasant. Paying for a new experience ‘til death was far too high a price tag any way you sliced it, though. Circe’s brow furrowed but she held her tongue. “You said the parasite’s a fragment of his power. Aside from ripping out of me like a chestburster, will I be able to call upon it too?” Ada pressed. Circe never chose silence if she could mock someone instead, and she’d just been given a golden opportunity to remark about her ignorance. Something was up, and she needed to know what. The witch snorted. “It will not answer until you bind yourself to the dragon. You’ve had your free taste, if you want more, you pay. But you need not do so. I can purge the cursed thing, though I will require compensation.” “Teacher.” Pulling away from Circe, Ada crossed her arms. “There’s something on your mind that troubles you. I want to know what that is.” Her voice was firm, but quiet, gentle still. “This isn’t a demand from your patron. Is there something I can do to help?” “If you wish to put my mind at ease, then give me back your arm and do not go to the dragon tree again.” There was real concern in her voice, and just a hint of jealousy. “I have already lost one child to that wyrm. I would not lose another.” The memory of the fountain’s siren song came back to her, as vivid as the visions of its blood had been. “...Did he actually choose to serve, way back when?” Ada asked, lowering her arms, though she didn’t offer them to the witch just yet. “Or did it call to him before he knew what he was dealing with, and by the time he was aware, it was too late?” Circe bared her teeth. “My pain is my own. My family is my own. Over these things you have no claim, and I will not hand you knives to plunge into my back any more than you’ll let me walk alone among the poisons in my garden.” Ada’s muscles tensed up. “Why does everything have to be an invitation to betrayal with you? Do you think I’ve pestered you so many questions just because I’m looking for ways to hurt you? I’ve shown you my fears, told you of my troubles and listened closely when you made suggestions. If I was actually taking advice from an enemy I seek to punish, it’d make us both idiots. Me for trusting you to guide me, and you for knowing all this and still choosing to care.” It stung deep inside, like a poisonous bite pumping bile into her veins. She swallowed hard, eating the first words that came to mind. “How can you think so little of us?” She asked, quietly, harshly. “Have you really let yourself go that much since you lost the duel?” She huffed, and turned away. “I know what it’s like to lose family too. Even now, my mother still can’t fully embrace me because of how deep the scars of my departure from this house run.” It was cold inside the shack now, in spite of the fire blazing in the fireplace. She rubbed her shoulders, the coolness of the golden gloves running through her shirt as though it wasn’t even there. “I don’t know how to fix it,” she admitted, quietly. “I want to do something about it, but I just don’t know. Am I supposed to not care when I see someone else go through the same thing?” She breathed in deeply, letting her chest swell up, then breathed out. “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to. Just don’t doubt I mean any question I’d deign to ask you. We’re both better than that.” ((This is a Rapport roll to persuade Circe to open up, against a difficulty of Epic (+7). Ada activates her Heart to Heart stunt, revealing her Never Alone, Always Apart aspect to Circe, and rolls the bones. A result of +8 meets the difficulty.)) Transient People fucked around with this message at 06:04 on Jul 27, 2021 |
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Jul 26, 2021 01:46
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A Mother’s Shame “Give me your knife,” Circe said. Her expression was unreadable. Slowly, Ada turned around halfway to stare at the witch. The seconds ticked away for what felt like an eternity before she reached for her pocket. Nothing can be achieved without trust, she though, as she finished turning around. What are you going to do, Circe? A moment later, the knife case flew over to the witch’s hand. She caught it easily and slipped the obsidian dagger free. “Master and servant,” she said quietly. “Teacher and pupil, these relationships I accept. But you always ask for more.” She squeezed the handle until her knuckles turned white. “I have lived alone for many long years, Ada. Even as a member of a household, I am alone. I do not trust anyone, and I do not wish to be trusted.” “Why not?” Ada asked, taking a tentative step forward. Her instincts screamed to not be in knife range, but this wasn’t a conversation that could be had from a distance. Circe’d used her name for the first time she could remember. She couldn’t walk away from that. “Have others betrayed you so often?” “Yes, but that is not the reason,” Circe said, her eyes flicking up. “You have obligations when you are trustworthy. You can’t do as you will in the moment, because you must consider the consequences of your actions. I understand this, but… I am not good at it…” “And if you don’t think things through, people can get hurt,” Ada finished. “Sometimes it’s the people you meant to hurt but it causes problems for those you care for. And sometimes, it’s your loved ones who suffer because you didn’t think things through. Is that it?” Circe nodded. “I was sent to live with the beasts on Aeaea because I was too wild to live among men. It’s better if no one lets their guard down around me. Better for them, and for me.” She turned the knife over in her hands. “I didn’t know what I would do if you handed me this when I asked. It was a test for us both.” Ada nodded slowly. “I wasn’t sure what’d happen either,” she admitted. “But I did know what wouldn’t happen if I didn’t trust you with it. Distrust is a barren land. No flowers can bloom upon it.” She stared at the knife in the witch's hands. "If I know you'll mock me, scorn me, and treat me like a child, do I have something else to be afraid of? Because I accept that. I accept all of it." “Why?” Circe asked. “Because I learn from you. Because you’re honest, and I know you won’t hide what you think from me. Because you accept what I want to do, instead of trying to force your own ideas of who I should be upon me, even if you don’t respect me,” Ada said, her voice earnest as she looked at Circe’s face. “You help me grow. Isn't that reason enough?” Circe snorted again, but it was out of habit, and had no real force behind it. “If you insist upon following this path, know that you were warned about the dangers.” Ada smiled. "That's all I need. I don’t know if I can give back as much as I’ve taken from you, teacher, but I want to try." Her expression turned serious once again. "Was Agrius' choice truly his own, back then? Or did he choose without truly knowing what was being asked of him?" “He knew,” Circe said. She withdrew into herself, staring down into the black knife blade without really seeing it. “Agrius is my first-born, and yet the tales have forgotten him. Did you not ask yourself why?” Ada shook her head. "I didn't have time to slow down and think things through until just now. You're right though, it doesn't make sense. The storytellers never missed a tragic ending. So then, if he knew the risks...was it just the taste that intoxicated him? The visions?" Circe shook her head. It was a very small gesture, far removed from what Ada had grown to expect from her. No defiance, no rage...it almost seemed like she wanted to become invisible. It was almost like...like… ((This is an Empathy roll! Difficulty 5, which Ada beats with an impressive +8. That’ll do it, alright.))] Shame. Circe was ashamed of something. She, who never showed regret for any of her actions. “...Did you introduce him to it?” Ada asked, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’d tried everything else… everything.” A little moan escaped her lips. “It was such a difficult birth, and he… he was a weak child, small and sickly. I failed him from the very start. I tried every incantation, every potion of healing, of strengthening. Nothing worked. He couldn’t run or play with his brothers. He could barely stand, some days. So yes, Ada. I introduced him to Ladon. And you have already seen the ‘upsides’ of his service for yourself. Power, health, size, immortality… Gifts few mortals can resist.” “But it also changed him. There was no more desire to go out and see the world, or make a name for himself. It’s as if he traded the prison of his body for a prison of the spirit...” “He was never one to wander far from home, before or after. But the fools who thought to speak his name said only that I sold my crippled child to a dragon so that I might use its blood in dark rituals.” “That never mattered to you. I know that much. But wondering if there was anything you could’ve done differently, a solution to heal his aches that you didn’t see…” Ada’s breath flew from her lips as she let out a quiet sigh. “Oh, teacher...you just wanted him to have a better life, and the man I met is happy with his. Why haven’t you forgiven yourself yet for it?” “He is not happy,” Circe said. “He is indolent, and bored, and lonely, and to my knowledge has never lain with a woman- or a man either! All he does is lay about that tree and mutter to himself. Why do you think he grew five heads? So he would have someone to talk to. It is… AUGH!” She slammed the knife into the arm of the chair and crossed her arms. “Two thousand years, under my skirts! And now he thinks you want to join him.” The thought that the ancient greeks might have had to deal with NEET sons had not crossed Ada's mind 'til that moment, but as soon as it did, she couldn't help but imagine Agrius sitting before a TV, asking loudly when dinner would be ready. It was such a silly mental image that, in spite of her better judgement, Ada couldn't help but let out a little chuckle. “Oh yes, laugh away little sister. If I leave that shadow in your skin he’ll soon be your problem as much as mine.” “Don’t worry, I’m not laughing at you,” Ada said, still grinning as she tried to keep from cracking up again. “I was just thinking about how the more things change, the more they stay the same. Is he magically barred from leaving the tree’s vicinity? Or is it just that he could leave it but chooses not to?” “He is a guardian beast,” Circe said, shrugging. “All I can say is that he has never strayed far. If that is a geas or a compulsion or his own obstinance I don’t know.” The urge to ask why, exactly, she’d never actually asked her son about his condition was overwhelming, but poking Circe about it wouldn’t get them anywhere. Instead, Ada merely nodded. “I’ll have to ask him next time I see him then. Let’s assume the worst and say he simply can’t leave his tree, though. Isn’t it unfair to judge him for never moving far from his home? It’s not like the Internet was a thing for most of human history to help him find ways to stay busy.” “The what?” “The gift of true unison we ripped from the gods’ cold, dead hands to allow us to shrink the world to fit the size of a room,” Ada said, completely deadpan. “We’ve got to get you both out of the Bronze Age. Once he’s tried videogames, I don’t think he’ll ever feel so sad ever again.” Circe narrowed her eyes. “Is that one of those talking picture boxes? He brought one of those home once but we couldn’t get it to work. The spellbook it came with said you had to put lightning into the tail, but we did that and the glass cracked and all the mechanical parts burnt up.” “That’s exactly what I was talking about. It’s gonna take a while to catch you both up on what living in modernity is like, but it’s nothing a couple courses on civilization can fix.” As a thought occurred to her, Ada beamed at her teacher. “I said earlier I wasn’t sure if I could pay you back for all you’ve done for me, but maybe I wasn’t thinking big enough. There’s a lot of perks to the way normal humans lead their lives these days. I think you’ll like it a lot.” Circe threw up her hands. “I am a simple woman and I live a simple life. If you think it will get my son out of his tree then by all means, educate him.” “I’ll do everything I can. In the meantime...what are we gonna do about this?” Ada asked, tapping Ladon’s brand. “That’s up to you,” Circe said, plucking the knife from the arm of her chair. “Once refused, you will not be offered the dragon’s favor again. Are you comfortable throwing it away?” “You know me well. Do you think what Ladon has to offer is something that would suit me, teacher, considering what he’d take away in return?” “Not in the slightest,” Circe said without a moment’s hesitation. “You are meant for greater things. But you are mortal, Ada. You will age and die as mortals do. Ladon’s servants will live as long as their charges, unless slain in battle. What you experienced while drugged was an amplification of your innate talents, and you would be free to drink as much of his blood as you could stomach until you refined your gifts into true powers that you could control at will.” She paused a moment. “It will not lead you up the path you have chosen. But it is not a door to be closed without careful consideration, either.” “That’s the kind of counsel I needed to hear.” Ada’s expression became thoughtful. “I don’t think immortality is a lure for me. I’m gonna die young. What’s the point of selling out when it won’t make a difference anyway?” Her tone was light, and it stood at such odds with her words that it gave away the lie of how little it worried her immediately. With the bloodlust suppression ritual looming over her, how could she believe she’d live forever? Even if she survived, it’d be a little death to prepare her for the big one, nothing more. “Why are you so certain? Did the Fates come down from their mountain and tell you so? Or one of the oracles that have been congregating around us of late?” Ada shook her head. “I don’t believe in fate or any oracles’ prophecies. But I believe in the beast inside me that’s rattling its cage, trying to get loose. I can stall it, but sooner or later it’ll find its way out, and what’ll come next will be violent, short and messy.” She paused for a moment, thinking about whether she should voice what was on her mind. But Circe had been honest with her, and shown her weaknesses. It was only fair that she do the same. “...My mother’s afraid of it too. We’ve tried everything to quell it, but nothing’s worked. There’s just one thing left, a blood draining ritual that pushes the target to the brink of death to keep the urges within their blood under control.” She swallowed, hard. “You’re not the only mother who’s gotten desperate at seeing her child unable to overcome their weaknesses alone.” Circe gave a soft laugh. “Ada. If your blood is tainted, then purge it and renew yourself. You’re the last of a long line of powerful witches. Let your grandmothers’ wisdom free you from this bile, and have no fear of failure. I do not teach failures.” She shrugged. “Or don’t, and find someplace for the beast within you to roam free where it can harm no one. It’s harder, in this modern age, but not impossible. You have more choices than you think.” It was the most sincere encouragement she’d received from anyone ever since she’d been told about the ritual, and though it was silly to feel that way, hearing Circe express her confidence in her ability to survive it made a surge of relief well up inside her. “I’ll keep that in mind,” she said, and for a moment, a smile lingered on her face. “As far as the brand goes, though, immortality is the lesser lure. There’s enough ways to buy more years that I’m not worried about it. The things I saw and felt under the blood’s spell, though...I wish I could have that, still. It felt right, somehow.” For the first time in forever, she remembered her magic was gone and was never coming back, and felt a pang of regret. Maybe if it had been more like that and less like blood lances, she wouldn’t have wanted to run away from it so badly. “...Do you think I could reach that point on my own, if I got my magic back?” It was a foolish hope, but it couldn’t hurt to ask, could it? “It’s difficult to say, as I am not sure exactly what you experienced. But I see no reason why you couldn’t get close. The potential is within you, if you can develop the strength to fuel it.” She crossed the room to fetch a fresh bowl and her kettle, which she filled with water and swapped for the empty stewpot over the fire. “A girl who denies Fate should not speak of her own death with such certainty.” “I’d feel a little more confident if I wasn’t going up against the only thing I don’t have a winning record against,” Ada admitted, a little sheepishly. “I’ve tried to keep it in check before, and ever since the maze, it’s just been one failure after another. I didn’t even question whether I should drink Ladon’s blood because a part of me saw it and just wanted to...to indulge. But maybe I should trust in myself a little more. I’ve been fighting something that was born of magic without any magical help. Next time, we’re going to be on an even keel.” Put that way, it seemed like an easy decision. The brand had been born from her addiction, a thing she’d struggled to deny and control for years. Why should she succumb to it? That’d just be giving up, and she wasn’t in the business of quitting. Not now, not ever. She nodded. “I think I’ve made my decision. Let’s get this thing out of me.” The kettle whistled just then and Circe grabbed the iron handle with a towel and poured boiling hot water into the bowl, then left the towel to soak in it. She took the obsidian knife in hand once more. “Give me your arm.” This time, Ada extended it forward without hesitation. Circe watched the shadow closely for a long moment. “It pains me to mar such a beautiful tapestry, but needs must,” she whispered, drawing a long, horizontal line across the scars at the midpoint between Ada’s wrist and elbow. Blood welled at the cut, and the shadow squirmed, approaching it. Circe grinned, baring all her teeth, and the moment the shadow touched the edge of the wound she bent down and pressed her mouth over it, sucking hard. It was a surreal moment; blood pouring from the wound, and for once, she was neither the one shedding it, nor employing it. Is this what it looks like to everyone else when I cut myself? Ada mused, flashes of pain mingling with the distracting closeness of Circe’s mouth and the warmth of her lips and breath. She tried to draw in air, but every time the witch sucked more blood out, it became as impossible as trying to breath in a wind tunnel. In the end, she simply went still and waited, letting her do as she will. A moment later Circe let her arm go and spat something wriggly out onto the wood floor. Blood stained her lips, her expression as vicious as it was victorious. She raised a shoe to stomp it dead, but held her foot in midair and gave Ada a glance. “Ah, how rude of me. It was your parasite.” For a moment, Ada stared at the squirming little thing. Maybe if you’d offered up front, Ladon, she thought, as she raised her foot up. I’m not big on being led by the nose by anyone. “Yeah,” she said out loud. “Fitting I should do the honors.” The stomp that followed resonated through the shack, as did the crunch immediately after. Circe snorted in satisfaction and fetched the hot towel to wash Ada’s wound. “Bitter,” she said, wiping her own lips. “Your mother is right to suggest a cleansing. Your humors are in complete disarray.” As she accepted the towel, Ada quirked an eyebrow. “Excuse me?” Circe stared at her. “Do you think you can fight a war with yourself without your body bearing the scars? Bitter blood, conflicted heart. What do they even teach the children these days?” “Not theories that got deprecated centuries ago, for one,” Ada shot back. “You’re saying my blood tastes weird because of a lack of internal harmony?” “To a witch, yes,” Circe said. Tentatively, Ada raised her arm up and gave it a lick. “Doesn’t taste like anything special to me. Same old coppery tinge.” “You are not a witch, and neither were those idiots who tried to steal the practice and ruined its reputation.” Circe sighed. “It’s a useful skill, if you often have need of blood reagents. The human tongue is quite discerning, when trained.” “Hm.” This was the first time she’d heard of anything like this. Privately, Ada made a note of asking her mother if she’d heard about this talent. Not that she doubted Circe’s skills, but her teacher could be...quirky, sometimes. “I’ll keep that in mind. Can I have my knife back? Wouldn’t want to go looking for it and wake you up in the morning.” Circe cleaned it, sheathed it, and passed it back to her. “A very fine tool,” she said. “Try to be worthy of it.” “I will.” As she went to take the knife, however, her right hand hesitated at the handle, before her left moved to grasp Circe’s wrist. “Thanks for giving me a piece of your trust, teacher,” she said, bowing her head deeply. “I’ll make sure to be worthy of it, too.” “See that you are,” Circe said. “I have enough regrets.”
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Jul 26, 2021 01:50
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Fission Mailed Scene: St. Louis #2 Cemetery It was mere moments after James drove out of the dank tunnel that the sun started to cast its dawn rays over the city - they'd cut it fine, getting out of the Carnivale, almost too fine. Their first stop had been the nearest drive-thru, a Burger King, where Mitra had, much to the confusion of the poor kid working the early morning shift and the dismay of James' bank account, ordered thirty burgers, sans buns, salad or condiment, and had already devoured them all by the time he'd parked up at a dive bar just down the road. They'd just stopped for a single stiff drink - Mitra had her own clan's business to get back to (though James was slightly worried that said business involved plotting an assault on the Carnivale) and James, as much as he wanted to drink a few more and then head to bed to rest up, had to try and salvage something out of this botched disaster of a mission before he ended up as ghoul food, or pissed off Elbridge enough that the Wizard glared him to death - so he'd bought a bottle of the best brandy the dive bar had (which was, admittedly, not great) and had driven to the cemetery after dropping her off and grabbing a few things from a 24 hour store. With how early in the morning it was, the graveyard was, well, as quiet as a grave, and James found himself alone as he walked to You's grave, a plastic bag under one arm and the bottle of brandy in the other. He'd studied the basics of rituals, back when he'd first discovered that the Paranet was a thing, even managed to accomplish a few minor ones to figure out where he'd set a lost book down in his apartment at the time - but this was his first attempt at summoning anything, and while he'd liked to have been more well rested or prepared, needs must, so he was making do. He'd poured a circle of salt out and then set the best vessel he could get on short notice… a small teddy bear, dressed as a pirate, complete with an eyepatch and hat - inside it, along with the bottle of brandy. Sitting cross legged before it (and ignoring his protesting muscles in the process), James focused his will on the circle. It wasn't something he ever really did, and it always felt a little silly, trying to make something happen like this - but he persisted, and whispered softly, "Dominique You, Dominique You, I call upon you with this offering." “Mon Ami! Where have you been?!” The bear sprang to life, then looked down at itself, black button eyes twisting slightly on their threads. “Well this is… new...” "Yeah, sorry," James apologized, raking a hand through his hair, "I couldn't wait 'til tonight to talk, so I threw a ritual together on short notice." He nodded at the brandy, "I got you that, at least. I don't suppose you learned anything useful after you wandered off in the Carnivale, did you?" “I did not ‘wander off’,” said the You-bear, crossing his fuzzy arms. “I was scouting ahead while the pair of you drooled over meat and wenches! I waited for you at the Snake Lady’s tent for hours upon hours and you never came! I thought something terrible must have happened to you both. Speaking of which, are the ladies alright? You didn’t lose anyone else did you?” "You did?" replied James, surprised - all the while, he'd assumed the privateer had gotten distracted, when the opposite had been true… he'd been the only one who hadn't been drawn away. "Evelyn and Mitra both made it out, though Mitra's pissed at me. So's Evelyn, probably. But I guess I should explain. I let the Carnivale get the better of me after it found the one thing I couldn't resist - someone in need of rescue from what I thought was a horrid fate. I managed to save her from some thugs, but I couldn't save her from her own addiction to the place, and in the process, I botched the mission." With a bitter tone, he added, "Even I wasn't strong enough to avoid being beaten by that damned place." “Hmm,” You said. “I do not think strength has much to do with it, mon ami. No man is strong enough to fight against all his desires. You were beaten because you broke instead of bending. There is no place for good men at the Carnivale. You were told this, and you did not heed the warnings.” "You're probably right - I should have known better, or anticipated it might try something like that and acted more callously in the moment. But… while I regret that it ruined the mission and that I couldn't really save her, I don't regret the attempt - I wouldn't be able to face myself in a mirror for a long while if I'd just ignored her." James sighed, "But that's all a moot point, and I can beat myself up for screwing up later - right now, I'm ignoring sleep because I need to try and salvage something out of this mess before I end up as dinner for a clan of ghouls, or they decide to launch a raid on the place to get Frisk back." “Why not let them? Launch the raid, that is, not eat you. Does that not solve your problems?” "Too much chance of bystanders getting caught in the crossfire," James replied, "Not to mention, I don't know what tricks the Snake Lady has up her sleeve - it might be that they'd walk straight into a trap. As weird as it sounds to care what happens to a ghoul, I wouldn't want to see Mitra lead her people into a mess like that." You muttered something in French that sounded exasperated. “Fine then, what would you ask of Dominique You?” He gave a little bow. “Though I will warn you that a bottle so cheap does not buy much of my time, so be as frugal with your words as you have been with your wallet.” James just about managed to stop himself from pointing out that surly bartender back at the dive bar would be offended to hear his "best" brandy was so cheap - that would have been the opposite of being frugal with his words, after all. Instead, he replied, "I'd like to hear your review of the Snake Lady's show, then. Enlighten me with your critical eye." “There were many snakes,” said You-bear, nodding sagely. “And a woman who danced with a snake in each hand, and her hair was a wreath of snakes as well. It’s… a bit of a blur, now that I think of it… So many eyes, and none of them blinked even once.” He was swaying back and forth on his feet. “All of us drank some concoction to start, and then there was soft music and singing, and after a while she asked us who would be brave enough to take her challenge. A few did, competing against each other in tests of fear, to see who would blink or cry or run away. The winners were given golden laurels... and the losers were given to the snakes. Ah… It was a spectacular show. I’d have stayed to watch it again if I could have.” James slipped a notepad out of his pocket and started scribbling as the privateer-bear talked. It sounded like she was giving her patrons some sort of supernatural party drug (or possibly a hallucinogenic) and then throwing out tasks akin to the rest of the Carnivale. "Anything distinct you remember about these 'concoctions'? Taste, smell?" “A bit of a burning taste, but sweet too. Very pleasant. It reminded me of honey, though I admit my senses are not what they used to be.” "Was it alcoholic? Almost sounds like some kind of mead," asked James. “It was not, that is a taste I can never forget.” The You-bear started to reach both paws for the brandy bottle. “Now, I think I would like to resume my final rest. The sunlight is disagreeable. Oui?” "Of course - thank you for your help, both now and last night," replied James, "If I ever need to speak again, I'll strive to wait until night, or at least find a better vessel." “You’re very welcome, as long as you pour that one out for me before you go. Fare thee well!” With that, the bear flopped over, an empty toy once again. James nodded and rose to his feet - his head felt a little foggy, an odd tiredness he'd never really felt before. He'd managed the ritual, but even something that small had strained his meagre talents, it seemed. But he didn't have time to rest up, so for now he took a moment to pour out the bottle of brandy onto You's grave and clean up his ritual as best he could - he couldn't do much about the salt beside breaking the circle, but the rest he stowed back in his bag. Still, he took a bit of a circular route back to the car, letting the morning air fill his lungs as he did - it was better than nothing. - Scene: James' Home Once he'd gotten home, sent Elbridge a text to arrange a meeting - "An hour, same place as yesterday, urgent" - and brewed himself a steaming mug of black coffee, James cleared his desk and set Evelyn on the surface, dusting off the dirt before he removed her case. The typewriter itself looked a bit worse for all the wear. Some of the keys had popped up and the roller was half-pushed out to the side. The paper was covered in a long string of random characters that gave him the impression of someone making very distressed sounds interlaced with profanity. As strange as it felt to feel so bad at the sight of a damaged typewriter, James couldn’t help but feel like he was looking at a wounded comrade - and, worse, a comrade who’d gotten wounded thanks to him, too. And so he did the only thing he could, methodically setting all of the keys back in place and then, after a quick check online as to how he’d do it, set the roller back in place. “Sorry about that, Evelyn,” he said, once he’d fixed everything he could see. For a moment nothing happened and then… quote:The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. Phew! Looks like everything’s back in order… There was a pause. quote:Well this sure isn’t the Carnival, sweet cheeks. What happened? Where are we? “Back at my place,” James replied, glad to see she seemed to be alright, “Mission was a bust, I let the Carnivale beat me. Right now I’m just trying to salvage something out of it and get everything in order.” quote:Oh! Well, I appreciate the rescue and the maintenance but how about we never do that one again, okie doke? Anyhoo, you saved my bacon so if there’s some way I can help just ask. “I have a whole bunch of questions, honestly, but…” James replied, before glancing at his phone, “I’m short on time at the moment, so if Corvus said anything about the Snake Lady, or her show, I’ll settle for hearing that?” James watched as one of the keys tapped itself a few times, like someone drumming on a desk while they were thinking. quote:He only mentioned her a few times. I think he was angry that she had such a big audience when she only plays the scene a few nights a week. I guess she’s more of a dabbler than a real regular. I think he was jealous, his exhibitions are always a little too niche… He doesn’t want to rely on violence the way some of the others do. I’ve never seen him so riled up as when you knocked over his shelves, by the by. You really got under his feathers. "In my defense, he was kind of a dick," replied James with a shrug, "But I guess I'll have to keep an ear to the ground, just in case he holds a grudge over it." Pulling out his notepad, he jotted down a few additions - he wondered if he might be able to work out what days she was at the Carnivale by checking her public appearances in the news. "If she's a part time act, and she really is storing Frisk there - and it seems likely - then there might be a way to heist him on a day where she's not there…" he mused aloud, "I don't suppose there's a back way into the Carnivale that Corvus knew about, is there?" quote:He hasn’t left the place since he got a hold of me, sugar. If there is one he never mentioned it. "Well, hopefully that all means he won't just fly out of nowhere and try and claw my eyes out," James replied, tapping his pen on his notepad. "This is something, at least, but I can only hope it's enough that the Warden doesn't tell my superiors I messed up badly." Glancing down at Evelyn, he asked, "On that note… while I'm mostly sure he'd be fine with you, you are a mysterious intelligent typewriter I stole from a shady birdman in a messed up underground Carnivale, so I can't be one hundred percent sure of that fact. Which means there's a small risk things might go badly if I tell him about you. But since I owe you one, and, if I'm honest, because you deserve some ability to choose after being locked away in Corvus' collection, I'll leave it up to you if you're willing to take that risk or not." quote:Well geez, that’s a lot to unpack! I don’t think being a big secret has done me any good, it meant there was no one around to care when Corvus got me. But I also don’t know your boss at all, so I don’t know if he’s a standup fella or not. Sounds like either you don’t think he is, or you just don’t want to be responsible if he isn’t. So, since you know him and I don’t, what do you think? Would he do anything to hurt me? "I mean, I don't think he would," replied James, sitting back, "for all of his flaws, he seems like the sort of man who'd do the right thing." He sighed. "But I'm not sure if I can trust my judgement here. I messed up all of this bad, and between that and how worn out I feel, it's got me questioning my own instincts, making me wonder if I'll make another bad choice and get someone else hurt." quote:Well, if messing it all up is why I’m free, I think I trust your judgement just fine James. I don’t want you to get in even more trouble over me, so just feel it out and if you think it’s safe, you tell him whatever you gotta. How’s that? "It's a decent plan, Evelyn, and I'm glad someone has faith in me, even if I'm not so sure myself." Brushing a hand through his increasingly untidy hair, James shrugged, "But I don't have time for self pity, either, so I guess I need to go and face the music, see if anything can be salvaged from this mess. quote:You’ll be fine. And hey, if you’re not you just make sure to throw me in the backseat of the car and we’ll make a run for it together, okay? "If only, Evelyn, if only."
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Aug 23, 2021 05:11
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Breakfast Confessional Scene: An hour, same place as yesterday, urgent. Elbridge had had a great deal to think about on his way to the restaurant. First, and ever, there was work, which meant Frisk. He would have news on that front soon enough. Soon. The thought rankled. ‘Soon’ meant at the same pace as another, or even behind. ‘Soon’ was not foreknowledge. ‘Soon’ was uncertain because it could be bollocksed up into ‘later’ or even ‘never’. It felt distinctly-unprofessional, and while he trusted in Mr. Ivarson’s own professionalism, We need to talk was not It’s done. But the Carnival was beyond the jurisdiction of fate and causality, and so Elbridge would have to wait for his news like anybody else. The ritual he meant to attempt after the meeting was likewise fraught with uncertainty. Elbridge was confident that, with the subjects’ co-operation, he could shuffle a few souls around and leave them none the worse for wear. Granting such a soul command of its new vessel would be a demanding task, to be sure, but he had the Library to consult on golem-craft. He hoped to enlist Rick and his own, invaluable perspective as well - who was to say this might not benefit him too, down the line? But Midas’ curse was the work of a god. That was a powerful confounding factor. There were also the not-insignificant matters of working with a dog as a test subject, and of the difference between a temporary astral voyage and permanent accommodation in a body of solid gold. It was one thing to keep the silver cord intact; quite another to anchor it to a foreign vessel. And then there was Ash. Elbridge loved her dearly, more than he would ever perhaps admit aloud, and had no wish to ever make her unhappy. But he had no idea how to bring up a child. How to bring up a haunted wreck of a person with entirely too much knowledge of things best left unknown, certainly. How to shape such a wreck into a Wizard worthy of the name, even. But then, he wasn’t sure that was any sort of knowledge to be proud of. --- When James arrived at El Gato Negro, he saw that Elbridge had taken ‘the same place as yesterday’ in its most literal sense. It was the same exact booth as they’d had with Mitra, and Elbridge was in the same seat with a bowl of ceviche and a basket of chips. The Warden set down his tea and nodded for James to join him. James looked like he'd been through hell and back again - he was still wearing most of the same outfit he'd worn into the Carnivale (sans the ridiculous coat and shoulder holster he'd left at home, and the hat that he'd left behind somewhere in the Carnivale), though it was more creased and dusty now. His hair had ended up almost wild and untamed, while his face just looked exhausted. After swinging by the waitress to order some breakfast tacos and a large black coffee, he took a seat opposite Elbridge and admitted, "I screwed up, Warden. Didn't manage to find or get him before the Carnivale beat me, though it wasn't a total loss." “Explain.” "It found a distraction even I couldn't bring myself to refuse," James replied, "But I'll start from the beginning. We entered at midnight, as planned, and headed to meet a source You had recommended - a local called the Archivist. His exhibition was warded to allow only humans entry, so I went in alone. I saw his exhibition, he tried to kidnap me because he's a dick, I managed to liberate someone from his clutches and escape - in the process I found out that Medusa had taken up residence in the Carnivale." “Who did you liberate?” Elbridge asked, having gone on stirring his tea for nearly a full minute without taking a drink. James paused for a second - as best he could tell, Elbridge didn't look likely to take anything out on Evelyn, at least for the moment, so he decided the truth would have to work - took a deep breath and replied, "An intelligent typewriter named Evelyn. At a guess, judging by You's attempt at flirting, I think she's haunting the thing, but I haven't had a chance to investigate her properly yet." “Intriguing,” Elbridge said, finally sipping his tea. “I would like to speak with her at the earliest opportunity.” "We'll see," replied James with a noncommittal shrug, "Anyway, having escaped the Archivist and found out Medusa had a show there, we resolved to head there and scope the place out. Along the way, we got separated from You, who went on ahead of us, and that was when I was faced with a woman being kidnapped by three thugs." “The Carnivale’s temptation,” Elbridge surmised. “Might this second witness know any more than our first?” "That's the insidiousness of the Carnivale, Warden - even though I saved her from the thugs, from Mitra's anger, even, I couldn't save her from her own addiction to the place," replied James quietly. “You didn’t extract her?” Elbridge said, incredulous. "I wasn't about to kidnap an addict and force her to go cold turkey," replied James, bluntly, "So no." “You put me in a difficult position, Mr. Ivarson,” Elbridge said, in a general tone of severe understatement. “Let alone the importance of the mission you failed...the fact remains that I vouched for you. I sealed a truce with you present. So, when you say that you ‘saved her from Mitra’s anger’...please do elaborate.” "She was - understandably - pissed that I was going to let the poor girl go, especially after how much attention the rescue drew, and wanted her as food. I managed to talk her down, told her we could still salvage something out of this, and promised her I'd make things right," James replied, "Which is why I've spent the time since I dropped her off gathering information from You and Evelyn. Medusa has a part time show at the Carnivale where she drugs people with a concoction that I assume, since it worked on You, must be magical and then asks them to face their fears to win gold - or lose and get fed to the snakes." “Was You able to tell you any more?” "About the show, not really," James replied, "But he said the concoction was non-alcoholic, sweet and pleasant like honey but with a slight burning taste to it." “...an infusion of her own venom, most likely,” Elbridge said. “Troublesome. But if she may be persuaded to wager her captive on the outcome...something to keep in mind, now that the discrete approach is out of the question.” "Is it? Her show is part time, and I bet there's some sort of pattern between her appearances in her public persona and the days where she doesn't perform there," James said, "Though either option is a better one than Mitra and her clan trying to seize him by force." “You made a scene,” Elbridge said pointedly. “That you were there at the Carnivale can only mean that you know where she keeps him. If she hasn’t pieced that together yet, she will soon. I fear that we have lost the element of surprise in this matter.” James shrugged, "Maybe. With what we know, we can't be certain either way - it may be that many of the other residents of the place share Corvus' dislike for her and keep things quiet. Still, you're probably right - really, it's probably a Plan D kinda plan - better than a ghoul raid, but not better than much else." “James.” Elbridge leaned forward, looming over their shared breakfast. “I need to know that you are committed to this mission. Not that you would prefer it to succeed - that it must succeed, without anything to prove to yourself or another. The objective first, last, and only. You’ve given me cause to doubt that, and there’s no room for doubt here. So please - change that, or else I cannot in good conscience send you into the field again.” "I'm committed, now more than ever - before it was just out of duty and a desire to make this city a better place, but now… I swore to Mitra I'd make things right. What do you think she's going to do if I screw up again? My life's on the line now, too, and self preservation is a powerful motivator," replied James. Then, after a brief pause, he added reluctantly, voice quieter, "That said, I'm not sure I'd want to go back into the Carnivale. Now that I know how it works, I think I could avoid the distractions, but… I don't want to live with the guilt of what I'd have to do in the process." “I see,” Elbridge said. He sat back, looking calmer and more composed. Somehow, he didn’t seem any less threatening for it - more like a tiger going motionless just before it pounced. “And how does this comport with what you told Mme. du Sang earlier? That you’d done ‘pretty grim things’ to sell ‘distasteful roles’?” “And I have,” replied James, lowering his voice so they wouldn’t be overheard, “I’ve seen the life fade from a man’s eyes after I shot him, I’ve worked with some of the most abhorrent allies this country has and worse things still that I can’t speak about. And it bothered me, but in the end, I was a cog in a machine, and I couldn’t see a way to change things, not by myself, so I told myself it was all in the name of duty and tried to live with it. But they kicked me out, so I’m my own man now, and I was faced by something so bad that I couldn’t just stand aside and let it happen.” “So you can silence your conscience for the sake of a false cause, but not a genuine one?” Elbridge asked, his eyebrow nearly cresting his hairline. “I must say, I’m not certain that’s a skill to be proud of.” “I was younger back then - I really believed what I was doing was keeping America safe,” replied James, bitterly, “In hindsight, I was an idiot, of course.” “‘Was’.” James shrugged, “Fair point.” Elbridge actually faltered at that. He’d been expecting further defensiveness and obstinacy, and had been ready to tear into James’ ego the way James had his plate of tacos. He wasn’t prepared for James to just...concede the point. “So,” he said at length. “What now? How do we make this right? And by ‘we’, I mean ‘you, with my oversight’.” "Let's assume for a moment that your idea to convince her to wager the captive for something is the best we've got, in which case we need three things - something she wants enough to wager him for, someone who's strong willed enough to face their own fears in whatever game she puts forward in her show, and a counteragent to the concoction she's giving people." And then James yawned. Somewhat loudly. With an embarrassed look on his face, he added, "But I also need to sleep first, because between everything last night and throwing together my first ritual in the field ever this morning, I'm exhausted and I'm just going to make more mistakes if I keep pushing myself." El’s eye gave a violent twitch. “Oh!” At the next booth, the waiter opened a roll of quarters to make change and the paper burst apart. Coins showered everywhere, spilling across the checkerboard floor and rolling every which way. They jingled and scattered and spun and...none of them fell. Not one. When the din stopped and the last one had settled, every single quarter was balanced perfectly on its edge. The rest of the diner watched in quiet amazement, then broke out into applause. The waiter, flushed, hastened to clean up, making change with a mumbled apology before disappearing into the back room. “As you must, then,” Elbridge said, scraping the last of his ceviche onto a single chip and finishing it with an audible *crunch!* “I’ve another matter to attend to, and there’s nothing more to be done on this front until you’ve recovered. So go. Get some sleep. Reflect. And James...get a better sense for your own limitations. Never volunteer for a task you can’t complete again.”
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Aug 23, 2021 05:14
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Two Guesses Scene: A Public Bus Stop Elbridge sat on the weathered, gum-encrusted bench by the shelter after doing his best to clear away the worst of the filth and reached for his Warden pin. His staff was wrapped in canvas cloth - it wouldn’t do to be TOO public with the thing - and his cellular phone was safely at his apartment in a drawer shielded with magicks he’d learned from watching Hugues Turner at work. It was nice to have some connection to modernity, but it was tenuous. Skin contact with don’t-call-it-the-Ygg-Twig at all times, or else any item of electronics became at best a useless brick and at worst a live grenade. Besides, he wasn’t the only one at the stop talking to someone unseen. There were the callers on Bluetooth headsets, a poorly-disguised undercover cop muttering into his lapel in anticipation of a drug deal, and a homeless woman shouting at someone who existed only in her head. Elbridge passed a few spare coins to the last of these, then held up the pin and thought of Rick...or rather, the man now living in what had been his home. “Cantor, are you there? Can you hear me?” he asked. It took a few minutes for his ‘apprentice’ to respond. “Yes Warden? What can I do for you?” He sounded nervous- or at least a little more so than usual. “Good day, Cantor. Did you make the arrangements with the Library?” “Hmm? Oh yes, the golem er, spare parts? I did. It’s all arranged, though… William did ask me to pass along that they would be very glad to see some results in the robbery case from a few months ago. He said he’d sent some documents along with Grace Wagner for you.” “Very considerate of him,” Elbridge said. “Fine work on your part, as well - for what we’ve asked, that’s quite a bargain.” It was true. The sculpting and animation of golems and other automata was a specialist trade even among magicians. Elbridge had expected even the wreck of an inoperative guardian to cost him dearly. An in-kind trade was a considerable relief. “R-really?” Nicky wasn’t particularly used to being complimented, by Elbridge or anyone else. “Well, I’m glad to help. Though er, I do hope you’ll still be saying so after dealing with this investigation. It seemed a bit… knotty… from what William said to me. Was that all?” “Ah, no,” Elbridge said. “Is Rick available?” “Um… I think… not really…?” “Do you mean to say that he's indisposed, or that he’s out of the house?” Elbridge asked. There was a long pause and then a strong inhalation. “He didn’t come home last night and I’ve been worried sick and I really shouldn’t be prying into things or telling you this but what if he’s stuck somewhere or hurt or someone ran off with him or that woman has him and I really wish he would just take a moment to CALL if he’s going to be out all night I mean-” “Cantor. Cantor.” Elbridge could already feel another migraine building, and he wasn’t about to let this get to him as well. He had an appointment to keep. He took a deep breath and then spoke again. “Do you know where he went last?” “Well, I don’t know, exactly…” “Think, please. Did he say anything before he left? Was he with anyone?” Elbridge would get to the more-alarming portions of Nicky’s breathless rant in time, but first it was important to get him to focus. A distressed Wizard Cantor was a useless Wizard Cantor. “He wasn’t with anyone, no. I don’t remember if he said anything in particular… no wait, maybe something about going to work? He seemed… anxious. Or resigned, maybe? I asked when he’d be back and he said he wasn’t sure. I suppose… there’s really only two things he could have meant.” Work? Peculiar. Rick had been quite emphatic about his intent to distance himself from the Council, and while New Orleans certainly offered more than most places in the way of gainful employment for the dead, Rick hadn’t said anything definite to Elbridge. If El had been in better humour he might have made a joke about ‘the graveyard shift’, but he was not, and so he simply said: “Go on.” “Well there’s that thing with the smallfolk princess, for one,” Nicky said. “But he was so happy about that offer and he didn’t finish his shopping list for her yet, I don’t think? He said he wanted to ask you about it, did he ever get around to it?” “He did, at that,” Elbridge said, “but I asked him not to agree to anything binding until I’d had time to review the terms, which I decidedly haven’t. As for the other possibility?” “Ah, hm… I don’t know if...” “Nicholas, please. It’s important,” Elbridge said, and then, in an admission that surprised even himself: “And I’m worried for him too.” (Elbridge rolls his newly-raised Rapport to calm Nicky down: ++// +2 = 4, success!) Nicky sighed, long and hard. “So, this is just a guess, but… the other night Claudia duSang invited us over for a chat about her daughter.” “Ada?” “No, no, the other one. Alisa. She wanted to know what we knew about soul binding. I believe Claudia’s intent was to find out if there was a way for Alisa to be separated from her twin, as she has so little autonomy now. But we didn’t have a ready answer for her. Richter’s condition is so unique- as for that matter is Alisa’s… Anyways, about halfway through she asked to talk to him alone and I… well it seemed a private matter, so I left.” Elbridge could forgive Rick his concern for Alisa. Even setting aside the man’s feelings for her sister, he could certainly sympathise with her plight. It was only natural to want to try to help. Involving Claudia duSang was a different matter, and El would be sure to give him an earful for that. The woman had ‘Bad News’ written all over her. She had all of her daughter’s penchant for disaster and none of the inclination to clean up afterwards. “So, to the best of your knowledge, he’s still there?” Elbridge asked, trying not to let the strain show in his voice. “Er, I mean we came home that evening, but I can’t think of anything else he’s gotten wrapped up in lately, so maybe he went back? Or maybe it’s something else I haven’t thought of. All I know is I haven’t seen him in almost two days.” “I suppose that I’ll know soon enough,” Elbridge sighed. “I’ll keep you apprised, but do let me know if he turns up with you first.” “I will. Er… do you think, can you tell if he’s alright? You’d know if… If something bad happened, wouldn’t you? You’re a seer.” “It depends on how bad,” Elbridge said. “If it’s bad enough that I can sense it without searching, well...the last time that happened…” He didn’t need to finish. They’d both been there for the last time. They knew how it’d ended. Nicky gave a nervous titter. “Yes, you’re right. That’s good though, probably. I just hope she hasn’t asked him to do anything too strenuous, he’s still recovering and he never acts like it. Was he always in such a hurry, even before?” “To his credit, and his detriment, yes.” “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised. Good luck with the ritual, remember not to cross the red and yellow foci.” “Please,” Elbridge said as the bus rolled into view. “What sort of amateur do you take me for?” The younger Wizard gave a more genuine laugh at that. “In my line of work, Warden, it’s the ones who think they know what they’re doing that are the most dangerous of all.” “Not to worry, Cantor. I know exactly what a terrible idea this all is.”
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Aug 23, 2021 05:14
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The Golden Retriever Scene: Château duSang Breakfast at the Château duSang was a quiet affair the following day. As Roy took care to inform Ada, ‘Mr. and Mrs. duSang’ were indisposed and unable to attend the dining table, and it was too early to wake up Remmy and disturb his slumber. It was just her, Alisa and the mansion, just like old times. It felt...lonely. Too quiet. This house needs more people in it, she thought, as she finished devouring her third serving of buttered toast. Everyone inside it lived fragmented lives, separate from the others. Were they at all compatible? Was it worth inviting Circe to breakfast with her? Would her parents object? It was an interesting question, one whose answer she wasn’t sure she could find. Who could even be asked about this…? She shook her head. That was a problem for a future Ada. Right now, she had a clock ticking over her head to get rid of. Downing the last of her milk glass, she wiped her lips with a napkin and set her plate aside. Breakfast was over, and so were the contemplations that came with it. It wouldn’t be long before— “Excuse me, madame,” Roy said, opening the door a sliver to poke his head in. “Mr. Hardley is here to see you. He says it’s got to do with the ritual you discussed.” Right on cue. “I’ll go see him then. Thanks for letting me know, Roy,” Ada said, heading for the doorway with quick, determined strides. It was time to go to work. --- Elbridge had arrived with his staff in one hand and his heaviest steamer trunk in the other, a three-ring notebook under his right arm and deep bags under his eyes. “Roy”, he said, greeting the butler by his given name as they still did in the old country. “Might I enquire as to the whereabouts of my friend, the late Wizard Cole?” “Currently abed,” said the man, giving a slight nod of his head. “The lady of the house would kindly ask you to keep that knowledge quiet, Master Hardley. He is in no danger, simply exhausted. It would be VERY UNWISE to alert the young madame to his presence here. Are we understood?” “Of course,” Elbridge said, mindful of Ada coming into view down the hallway behind Roy. “Although I must insist upon speaking with him at his earliest convenience. Ada,” he greeted her as she came within earshot. “Is the cellar prepared? The one where your sister and Turner had their…encounter?” “It is,” she said, nodding. “I set it up before I went to sleep last night. Come on,” she said, guiding him down to the second basement where it lay. The mirror occupied the back end of the room, covered up with a tarp. And present at the center of the chamber… “Arf, arf! Rrruff ruff!” barked the little pup inside the cage, with a look of amiable confusion on his face as he stared guilelessly at them. His soft, golden fur shimmered in the dim lighting of the room. The nametag on his collar, barely visible from up close, read ‘Eriol’. “‘Eriol’,” Elbridge read aloud, setting his trunk on the floor and his papers atop the trunk. “Very good, very good. A Name will make sympathetic magics that much easier. Eriol, you’re going on a grand adventure today.” He turned back to Ada. “And the statuary?” “Right here,” she said, stepping forward to the side of the mirror. Moments later, one of the garden’s statues was revealed, the figure of a noble (and somewhat melancholy-looking) guard hound, possibly a doberman. “What do we need it for? He’s gonna turn into a 24-carat statue as soon as I get my fingers on him.” “...at which point reaching his spirit will be a burdensome task at best, assuming the process is not outright fatal,” Elbridge sighed. “We discussed this the other day, remember? Astral projection. We must prepare a suitable vessel, and allow the dog to acclimate. Hence -” he gestured at the statue. “Makes perfect sense. Basically training him to withstand the rigors of the gilding curse by trying something easier first. That about right?” she asked, shooting El a look. “It is,” he said. “Moreover, this will allow us to examine the curse itself in stages. I assume you’ve done some experimentation on your own time?” “Yeah. It’s unstoppable. As soon as something’s touched, it won’t stop gilding until it turns into a golden statue, but it doesn’t spread from one object to another. I could turn Christmas ornaments golden without gilding the box they were in, but as soon as I touched them...” she closed her eyes for a moment, recalling how the tests had gone. “The only time I’ve seen some kind of partial curse is when I lost control over it. It’s not an experience I’m looking forward to repeating.” “Which is why we’ll be using former-Wizard Singh’s work as a foundation,” Elbridge said. “First, a simple test.” He flipped open the latches on his steamer trunk and produced a wooden dowel. It was about a yard long and had a circle burned into it around its circumference near one end, inlaid with powdered lead. He also had a matte black machete in a Nylon sheath, its price tag from Ace Hardware still dangling from the grip, which he passed to Roy. “Ada, if you could touch only the warded end? And Roy, if the gilding should spread past the circle, please cut it ahead of the change.” She had her doubts that the ward would help —this sort of curse was much too old and serious to be held back by mortal magics— but it cost nothing to try. Taking off one of the gloves, Ada took a step forward, and seized the dowel’s handle. The stain spread down the rod predictably until it reached the circle, at which point it seemed to pause for a moment, but then the gold bled through and continued down. Roy severed the stick as he’d been bid, but the piece that hit the floor instantly started to gild on its own, and since it was a smaller piece it completed the transformation even faster than the rest. “Hrm.” Elbridge frowned. “As expected. Disappointing. And yet -” he donned his own gloves and picked up the warded end. It was significantly-heavier, made as it now was of solid gold, except… “The circle itself hasn’t changed. This is good.” He nodded. “It means that any spellwork laid upon the vessel should hold, rather than be obliterated by the transmutation.” “Which means if we can enchant the body once it’s gilded, Eriol should be able to move around. All we need is to confirm what’ll happen to his mind and—” It was at that moment that a knock on the door interrupted her. Moments later, the door opened, and Seline came in. “Your second guest has arrived, madame,” she said, taking a step back and ushering Grace in with a bow. Grace came down the stairs behind Seline carrying an awkwardly large lime green plastic tote. “Ada! This place is crazy! Morning, Warden.” She greeted them, using his title as a name. “Everything going okay so far?” “Morning, Grace,” Ada answered, raising a hand in greeting, as Seline quietly excused herself. “We’ve just barely gotten started running tests. Turns out the gilding curse won’t break spells cast upon the victim. We were thinking about getting started with the astral projections just now. What’re you bringing in?” she asked, shooting the tote a curious glance. “Not actually sure, emergency delivery from the Library.” She placed the tote in front of Elbridge. “I think the summer stuff was on sale, so this is what you get. Feels like they’ve got everything pretty well packed in there, though.” “Hello, Ms. Wagner. Ah, spare parts.” Elbridge opened the tote and withdrew a length of cracked stone, carved into the shape of a clawed, bestial forelimb. It was broken off at what would have been the shoulder, and the cross-section showed ‘bones’ of quartz, with faint metallic inclusions for blood and nerves. “I’ll handle the necessary, ah, transplants,” he said, indicating Ada’s dog statue. He’d have dreaded to think of the labour that might have entailed, without the benefit of magic. “Well, that explains why it was so heavy. Are those broken golem pieces? I thought those things were supposed to last forever?” Grace put the rest of her stuff down in a far corner before going back to look over the bits and pieces. “Time doth all things devour,” Elbridge sighed. “Time, and vandalism.” “I didn’t know vandals broke down golems. Isn’t the technical term for that ‘fighting to the death’?” Ada inquired. This was new, and fairly unusual. Where had Elbridge gotten these things from? “Not when one uses a car.” Ada quirked an eyebrow, but didn’t press further. “Alright. We’ve got the people and we’ve got the components we need. What next?” “Next, we must induce the subject to sleep,” Elbridge continued. “It must be a dreaming sleep, so pharmaceutical assistance is out. I’ll need time to draw the ritual circles in any event, hence…” He produced from his trunk a stick of chalk in one hand and a cheap rope leash in the other. “...walkies.” Nodding, Ada knelt down and unlocked Eriol’s cage. Before she could even take a step back, the puppy jumped into her arms, catching her offguard. She jumped back on reflex, Eriol’s weight messing up her balance, and fell down to the ground. He didn’t seem to mind, and with a cheerful bark, started enthusiastically licking her face. For a moment, she just stared at him, before turning her eyes to Grace. “Uh...little help here?” she asked, in the plaintive tone of someone out of her depth. Grace didn’t hesitate to grab Eriol, bringing him up and snuggling him to her face, letting him lick all over. “Oh, yes, we’re going to have to tire you out, aren’t we? Maybe even teach you a few treats, aren’t we?” She laid him against one forearm, letting him lick and chew on her hand. “Did you guys get training treats?” “I...think so? Roy, were those in the bags we got?” “Yes, madame. I’ll see to it that Miss Wagner receives them immediately.” To Roy’s credit, he managed to keep a nigh-on impeccable poker face on, except for a very slight upward curve on his lips as he departed. “Sweet, I’ll grab those and we’ll go romp in the yard for a bit. Between the treats and the exercise he’ll be dreaming in no time.” Grace lifted him up and kissed the top of his head as he continued to bite her fingers. “I always forget how sharp puppy teeth are…” Soon to be sharper still, Elbridge thought, glancing at the statue. “Thank you kindly. Now, to make his bed.” --- The ritual space itself was a simple affair, and Elbridge prepared it much as he had when they’d rescued Hugues and Alisa from the mirror - albeit with a more Hermetic bent to the glyph designs, after his recount of the previous incident had drawn some very gentle criticism from certain of his colleagues. The inner circle would hopefully allow Eriol’s consciousness (such as it was) to leave his body; the outer would serve as a boundary against intrusion from malign spirits, or from the dog’s own spirit simply wandering off into the deeper reaches of the astral realms. The mirror itself was a failsafe, a last resort: Should either of the circles fail, it could contain a wandering soul, or entrap a malevolent one. It would be an unpleasant mess for Ada to sort out, but it beat the alternatives. The projection itself would be the difficult part. It took years, if not decades, of practise to perform successfully, let alone safely, and that was for a skilled practitioner. They had hours - days, at most. Fortunately, that was why Eriol had Grace, and Grace had Elbridge, and Elbridge had an enchanted bag of dog treats that existed more on the astral plane than the physical along with a very large quantity of very potent hallucinogens that were both Grace’s work supplies and her payment. No, Elbridge thought, sweating from exertion as he moulded solid stone as if it were clay. THIS is the difficult part. One of the golem’s limbs had been most thoroughly-pulverised; fortunately, a stone lion stood about twice as tall at the shoulder as the dog statue. Carefully, he divided the delicate inner components in half, foreshortening the crystal core to cover both forelegs of the hound. There were inset talismans in the foot itself that couldn’t be split apart like the rest of the leg, but thankfully the ruined limb’s own foot was miraculously-intact. And what was it that Wizard Cantor had said? Not to confuse the red and yellow foci? He must have meant the metallic inclusions - red copper for blood, gold for nerves - but how could they have been mistaken for one another? El took another glance at the stump of the wrecked leg and the answer became clear. Of course - he could have slapped himself. Left paw, right paw. They were mirrored, like human hands...and so were their insides. He reached out with his will and forced the solid interior to flow like liquid into the dog statue’s leg, inverting it left-to-right with a surgeon’s care and precision. Truly, this would have been impossible without magic. Grace came back downstairs with a significantly more tired puppy. He was still idly licking and biting anything near him, but with less vigor and a particularly potent yawn when they hit the bottom stair. “Okay, we’ve romped, pooped, and pee’d on several things. I think it’s time.” She studied the circle for a moment, still not getting close to it. It wasn’t that she was unfamiliar with ritual circles, but she had traditionally not been in the center of them, and out in the swamp they were more joyous. Natural. Being in the basement didn’t help, and neither did the creepy mirror. This felt more like a sentencing than a life saving ritual. “Where do you want him? And me?” “Ah, excellent timing.” Elbridge wiped the last of the chalk dust from his hands with a washcloth. “The closed, outer circle is yours. The interlinked inner circles are for Eriol and the statue. You should be able to perceive each other in the aether, but not interact directly - wouldn’t want anyone ending up in the wrong body.” “Yeah, I’ve already got a buddy in here, playing mix-n-match seems like a pretty bad idea…” Grace handed Elbridge the puppy, and very carefully entered the outer circle before sitting down cross legged. “No time like the present, eh, Warden?” “Quite. And so, without further ado…” Elbridge produced his pocket watch, wound it once just to be safe, and began to slowly oscillate it by the end of its chain like a pendulum. “Take a bite of the white mushrooms - a small bite, please - and observe the watch. Focus on its motion and sound. Let it anchor you as you begin your journey.” Grace couldn’t help but grin. Not often you get to get recreational on the job, nevermind for a good cause. She nibbled on the mushroom, taking just a little more than she probably should. “These don’t taste nearly as good as the ones I get in Ming’s Moo Goo Gai Pan…” She closed her eyes and finished chewing. Grace started to say something, then just swallowed, and concentrated on her breathing. Tick. Inhale. Tock. Exhale. The gold of the watch was striking. It had to be the real thing, 24 carat. It looked old, too, and more expensive than anything else Elbridge wore or carried. It must have been an heirloom. Tick. Inhale. Tock. Exhale. So bright. So shiny. Was it growing brighter? Was the noise getting louder? Tick. Inhale. Tock. Exhale. No... everything else was fading. The basement went sepia-hued, then monochrome. It was colder, too. The next time Grace exhaled, she could see her breath. Eriol noticed it too, and whined from the confines of his own circle. The world beyond the circles grew silent and empty, save for Grace, and Eriol, and the motion of the watch. It swung now, midair, without a hand to hold it. Tick. Tock. The sound, echoing into infinity. The world, removed, but for Grace and the dog. And the statue of a dog. And the mirror. She finally saw herself. Human, alligator, in between. Herself, and her sister. All of her, at the same time. Her other half was unhappy. Grace may have been successfully distracting herself as of late, but her animal half still remembered. Was still angry. She softly hissed, calming her. Calming herself. This would lead to helping someone, which is worth the wait. She blinked hard, shaking her head, refocusing on the mirror. On Eriol and the statue. Puppy! She reached out with her hand, then further. Come on, Eriol, say hi to your new friend!
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Aug 23, 2021 05:16
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Inner Lives Scene: Château duSang “Good. Very good,” Elbridge said, observing the astral sojourn in the mirror’s reflection. He stood to one side now, the pendulum swinging in midair of its own accord. He’d placed one of the household’s luxurious throw pillows underneath, ready to catch the watch should the spell break. “Their first steps are proceeding well. This is promising. Now…” He turned to the butler. “Roy, I understand that you’ve trapped some suitable specimens?” “Indeed, sir,” said the butler, gesturing with a white gloved hand towards a small table that held a cage covered by a clean cloth that he whisked away, revealing a rather plump black rat. The creature backed into a corner of the cage, blinking beady black eyes at him. “From behind the garage,” he added, as if the very idea of a rat nesting somewhere in the main house was quite the affront to his sensibilities. “Of course,” Elbridge said, humouring him. “Now, Ada: I will observe through the Sight while you turn the creature to gold - the better to understand how this curse affects the spirit.” With a slow nod, Ada approached the table, keeping her eyes fixed on the rat down as she took off her left glove. “It’s for a good cause,” she murmured, more for her own benefit than the rat’s as she snuck her hand inside the cage. “Go to sleep.” It was a quick lunge, like a snake’s strike, tapping the critter’s head and then darting back out. Nothing else was needed. There was no struggle. The rat’s head gilded instantly, and the rest of its body slackened like a puppet with cut strings as the curse took it.
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Aug 23, 2021 05:22
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The Small, Dark, Teatime of the Soul Scene: Chateau duSang Rick slipped through the gate blocking the duSang’s driveway a little after midnight. He’d had to hitchhike most of the way back, but New Orleans was active enough at night that finding a pickup truck going in the right direction hadn’t been too difficult. He glanced at the house as he walked up the blacktop drive, at all the lights lit and waiting for him. But there was no welcome there, just raw anticipation. His stomach knotted up like it always did before he had to present his work. Would the Shadow People’s offer be acceptable to Claudia? It wouldn’t give Alisa a human body, but… well, it was like he’d told her the other night. They’d just needed to find something close enough. And he had done that, against all odds, and the cost… For a moment all he could see was red, as the vision of Ada ripping a man’s chest open to find the key to his cell played in his mind. The cost wasn’t so high, compared to that. He’d ignored the weight of that debt for so long that he barely noticed it anymore, but it had always been there, sitting between them like an immovable boulder. To her it would have been a pebble, but some days he couldn’t even see her on the other side of it. He hadn’t been honest to Julian, when he’d been asked why he couldn’t walk away. He hadn’t been honest with himself either. His cheeks burned when he remembered Claudia’s plea to save Alisa… Alisa, who had never thought much of him, no matter how hard he’d tried to reach out to her. Sure, he felt sorry for her, but after everything he’d done today, everything he’d been through... It had never been about Alisa. It was about Ada, and how he’d put her in this situation to begin with, and how if he couldn’t help her through it, he could at least give her the sister she’d lost back at the end of it. He hunched his shoulders as he walked towards the mansion’s front door, when suddenly something caught his eye. Off in the distance, near the family’s greenhouse, a candle flickered to life in the window of the gardener’s shack. For a moment he stopped and stared at it, thinking. ...No. It wasn’t really about Ada either, was it? It was all about him, and how Circe had taken his pride away and shredded it to pieces. He hadn’t even been a pet to her, more like a stuffed toy she could cuddle and play with and pretend to love. He’d lost his freedom, his agency, and then she’d… she’d… The goddess’ blood was warm on his tongue, and for a moment he felt the heat of his warning tattoos. He’d come so close to giving up on his humanity, curling up at her feet like a loyal hound. There was a beautiful simplicity to her laws. Strive. Survive. Thrive. In exchange... No more memories, no more choices, no more consequences. In some dark corner of his soul, he knew the offer was still on the table, that surviving his own death curse would only make her more interested in him. And even though he’d pushed it away so many times, deep down, he still felt the yearning to take it. He quaked, quietly. Helping Alisa wouldn’t make those feelings go away. It would go a long way towards balancing his debt with Ada, but the real scars went so much deeper than that. What was he going to do? Who could he even talk to about any of this? Not Ada… not Elbridge… would Nicholas understand? Or would it be too much, when they were still just learning to be friends? He hugged himself tightly, searching for an answer, but there just wasn’t one. Frustration lanced through him, shocking and painful. What was the point of digging up all that shame, all that helplessness, if he couldn’t do anything about it? Wasn’t that why he’d buried those feelings in the first place? Slowly, his arms fell to his sides. He was so sick of kicking the can down the road. There had to be someone out there willing to listen to him. He’d just have to go out and find them. He held his silver hand up and let it catch the moonlight. It might have taken being dragged to the edge of the world by an ancient spirit-whale, but he understood himself a little better now. Maybe that was enough for one night. A wave of exhaustion rolled over him as he climbed the stairs to the front door. He pressed the doorbell with his pommel and sat down on the top step to wait, propping the sword against the railing. His eyes closed and his head started to droop. It felt like months had passed instead of a few short hours. Soon, he could rest. Soon. He just... had to tell Claudia the good news. Then... everything would work out… --- It was half an hour past midnight already. The study where the duSangs were waiting was as still as a stone, but not for long. Claudia was the first to break the silence. “He’s late.” “He is,” said Julian, calmly. “What do you think happened to him?” “Trouble,” she replied, immediately. Listlessly, she got up and started pacing around the room “He’s punctual. He wouldn’t have missed the deadline if he had a choice.” “Mhm. Think he’s permanently indisposed?” “No, I don’t think so. But it worries me. He seemed to think he could find a better answer for Alisa in the time he was given. If he’s so delayed…” “He’ll be fine, Clau,” Julian said, turning his attention back to the book on his lap. “Boy’s made of sterner stuff than you think. Don’t worry too much about it.” “Easy for you to say,” she muttered, irritably. “You’re not the one who’s had to brush up on demonological theory the last few days. What if he—” “What did we say the last time something like this happened?” Julian said, patiently. “No what-ifs. You’ve got enough on your plate without adding baseless assumptions into the mix.” With a deep sigh, Claudia slowly came to a stop. “...I know. But I can’t help it. He might just have the key to Alisa’s future in his hands, and he means a lot to Ada too. If something happens to him, what am I going to tell her? That he got hurt because I asked him?” “We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Jules said, patiently. “Mind coming over? It’s a cold night, and this chair feels lonely with just one person in it.” She shot him a curious glance, but nodded. Moments later, she tried to sit on the armrest...but after a bit of silent persuasion from Julian, sighed and sat on his lap, letting him wrap his arms around her. “It’s hard to read this book from this position,” he murmured, pressing his forehead against the back of her suit. “Mind reading it aloud for me?” She rolled her eyes and huffed, but plucked the book from his hands anyway. She was clearing her throat to enunciate when there was a knock on the door. “Mistress, Master…” Roy announced. “Mister Cole has arrived.” Both of them were up and running in the blink of an eye. They arrived at the front door in a matter of minutes, and found him lying there, the glow on the blade pale as it lay against the staircase, the baleen strip hanging from the crossguard. “Well, what do you know? There he is,” Julian said, his tone overly lighthearted. “Looks like he’s seen better days, though.” Claudia didn’t answer immediately, her eyes fixed on the blade as she leaned down to study it intently. “No signs of injury,” she said, after a few moments. “The blade is whole and unmarred. He’s not hurt, just not conscious. Roy!” she called out to the butler, who had just arrived. “Bring a cushion for Mr. Cole and put him on it, then take him to the guest room, including his possessions. I’ll take care of him myself.” “We’ll take care of him, you mean,” Julian said, firmly. “I didn’t drive him over to the rink just to forget about him now. ‘Sides, when it comes to taking care of someone, two pairs of hands are better than one.” (Rick gets a compel to zonk out for the evening, not quite finishing his mission.) Also Significant Milestones all around! 
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Aug 23, 2021 05:23
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The Lady From Ganymede Scene: The Guest Room For a moment after waking, Rick floated on his back in the silver sea, staring at pale nothingness. Slowly, his consciousness drifted up and out, until he could feel soft velvet against his cheek. A pillow, a bed, a memory of fever-hot skin and a tiny body pressed against his. Silky and wet, like rose petals damp with morning dew. A small smile played across his face and his hands wandered, though there was nothing there for them to touch. “I miss you,” he whispered to the empty pillow beside him, where she used to be. He could almost see her, if he closed his eyes halfway. He knew this room, this bed. They’d slept chest to chest here, too exhausted and spent to even roll over and spoon. He’d stayed awake a little longer than she had, just long enough to see her breathing even out as she relaxed. She’d had her ear to his heart, her head on his arm, and he’d been so reluctant to break that connection that his entire left side had gone numb and tingly. A soft sigh escaped his lips. There was no release for him here, even if he tried to find it alone. He sat up slowly, stretching his arms out of habit. He must have fallen asleep on the stairs. A small effort of will and he manifested in the middle of the bed, still in his boxers. “Good morning, Mr. Cole.” He froze, raising his head to see her sitting at the front of the room, near the doorway. She looked as impeccable and imperturbable as always in her business suit, her hands clasped together on her lap. Why the hell were you watching me? He couldn’t keep the disgust off of his face. Was she really so impatient that she wouldn’t even let him get dressed properly before demanding he report in like one of her little corporate underlings? “Morning,” he said stiffly. She rose from her seat slowly, in a way that was reminiscent of nothing so much as a great bird of prey spreading its wings, and approached the bed, each of her steps amplified by the room’s wooden floor. Once she was by the bedside, she leaned forwards to look at him, an inscrutable expression in her eyes. “Hmm.” “Hmm?” Rick repeated, making a question of it. He leaned back a little, crossing his arms. If she was going to be this nosy she could drat well ask him a question instead of expecting everything to be laid out at her feet. “Your condition is stable. Good. It seems a night of rest has done you some good. I assume you awoke to no aches?” He blinked at her, and both his cheeks and the blade behind him reddened. “I… no, I feel fine…” His arms relaxed to his sides and he dressed himself with a thought. “It was just a long day. Two days, really. I’m still learning what my limits are. Did… were you worried about me?” “Two days and a third, to be more precise,” Claudia corrected him. “We found you collapsed at our doorstep half an hour after midnight. You’ve been sleeping since then, and it’s currently nine thirty. Julian and I have taken turns looking over you. We couldn’t risk letting your condition deteriorate just for the sake of giving you some privacy, Mister Cole.” What might have been the hint of a wry smile pulled up the corners of her lips. “We are a nosy kind, and hospitality’s in our blood. It wouldn’t do to leave anyone to fend for themselves within the Château’s grounds.” “We’ve been getting along better, lately,” he muttered, smoothing the blanket with one hand. “But… thank you, I guess I misunderstood.” He took a visible breath and looked up at her. “Nine hours isn’t bad. Last time I overexerted myself it took a few days to come back.” “I had my suspicions that you might sleep for a long time,” Claudia said, nodding in agreement. “I’m glad to have been proven wrong, however. Are you awake enough to proceed with debriefing? It’s been a few long hours, waiting for you to give signs of life.” Though she was as composed as ever, he could feel her disposition change, subtly. There were no obvious outward signs, but he could sense the hunger for news, eerily familiar, albeit much more controlled than he was used to. He nodded once. “Yeah. It was a long, indirect, painful road...” He flexed the fingers on his silver hand without looking at them. “...But I found it in the village of the Shadow People. They can provide an alternative body for Alisa.” “Hmm. I have questions, but they can wait for the moment.” Taking a step back, Claudia pressed a button on the wall. A few moments later, Roy entered the room. “Tell Julian our guest is awake. I’m sure he’ll want to hear what Mister Cole has to say.” As soon as Roy was gone, Claudia seized one of the chairs and began arranging it next to hers. “We’ll continue once Jules has arrived,” she remarked, not glancing at him as she made sure they stood on opposite ends of the bed, perfectly symmetrical. “Take your time to review your achievements until then.” “Alright, but can we drop the ‘Mister’?” he asked, rubbing the back of his neck uncomfortably. “I already said you could call me Richter, or just Cole would be fine.” There was a momentary pause to Claudia’s activity as she considered his words. “Cole,” she said at length, before turning her head to shoot him a glance. “Would you truly like to hear your name spoken this way?” It carried much more force than when other people used it, that much was true. It was almost like a hammer slamming against cold stone. He winced, very slightly, then straightened up. “If you’re trying to protect me by holding me at arm’s length…” He shook his head. Why bother? He was in too deep already. “Cole is fine.” “Hmm.” She didn’t say anything more until the chairs were arranged to her satisfaction. Then, she sat down, clasped her hands once again, and stared at him dead-on. “I suppose an explanation is in order. My husband tells me that part of the reason the help has rarely lasted longer than a few months in this house is that they find working with the head of the house —that is, myself— exhausting...as most others do, regardless of circumstance. They are unused to the pressure of expectations and requirements such as my own, and it leaves them ill at ease. Keeping our working relationship strictly professional was my way of sparing you this discomfort. If you are certain it won’t leave you feeling drained, then I have no issue with giving you the more familiar treatment your continued presence in this house merits.” Continued presence…he scoffed under his breath. As if she wasn’t single-handedly responsible for dragging him back into the Chateau, kicking and screaming. As if there was any chance of a strictly professional relationship where Ada was involved. Resting an arm on the chair’s armrest and her head on her fist, she waved the other hand around, and her fingers seemed to dance like ballerinas performing grand pirouettes. “...You’ll have to forgive me for not using your first name, though. I reserve the rights of first-name basis for close associates, family, and friends. It is something that has to be, as the poets would say, earned.” She smiled, and if it wasn’t the most challenging, galling smirk he’d seen in his lifetime, it came really goddamn close. “I’m not the help,” he snapped. The help doesn’t spend all day getting jerked around Winter to save your daughter, or agree to take on debts in her name, or-- “You misunderstand me. I did not mean to imply you were. The house’s maids are simply the last people I’ve spoken to whose mindset resembles your own. They are...ordinary? Well-adjusted? Possessed of a functioning sense of morality and normalcy? Take your pick. I don’t spend much time with people to whom humanity and decency have any meaning, Cole.” “Yeah? How can you tell?” Something that was halfway between a scoff and a laugh came out of Claudia’s lips. “The last time I went on a business trip to Japan, I spent an hour finding ways to convey through interpreters that I had no intentions of eating my meal off a naked, nubile young woman’s body. It is not even remotely the most repugnant custom or offer I have had to deal with since my business enterprises started paying dividends.” She shrugged. “Power does not merely concentrate in the hands of the wealthy. It stagnates. And with it, so too do customs.” She pressed her hand against the armrest, her nails digging neat little holes into the leather as she straightened up. “The world I move in is not your world, or my Ada’s either. For both your sakes, I hope you never have to live in it.” (Rick rolls Empathy to try to understand that a little better. /+-+ +4 = 5, uncovers Behind Green Eyes) For a moment he saw it in his mind, a gaggle of balding, aging CEO’s, clustered around a long glass table in the penthouse of a zaibatsu high rise, making small talk as they picked sushi off of naked women. He could practically see her, smiling and laughing, too busy fishing for her favorite piece of sashimi to notice the table flinching at her touch. A Claudia duSang who kept her distance and refused to partake, even though it would have made her business deals easier, didn’t fit the panorama. Why, though? If you want to live in that world, why hold back? He watched her silently for a moment, as she shredded the arm of the chair, lost in her own thoughts. Unless… you don’t. The way she said it...it’s like she wouldn’t wish her life on her worst enemy. She didn’t compare me to the maids because she thinks I’m disposable, did she? She just doesn’t have anyone else to use as an example. Claudia was so far away from the rest of the world, looking down on it from Ganymede, that even using his last name was an imposition. That distance was her spacesuit, protecting her from the airless void of high society. But she resented it as much as she relied on it, and judging by that last comment, she was desperate to shield her daughter from being warped in the same way. Ada must have told her where she was planning on going. But why worry about me? The whole reason she broke up with me was so that I wouldn’t have to follow her… A shiver slid down his spine. And yet here I am, anyways. He’d followed Rachel too, like a six-week-old puppy, and it’d gotten him nowhere. She’d just strung him along like an idiot, always with a ready excuse, a reason to stick around, even after she’d refused his proposal. So he’d stayed, wasting his time and his love on someone who didn’t love him back because she was too much of a coward to break up with him. But Ada... Ada... isn’t Rachel. She hadn’t tried to use him, or kept him around just because it was comfortable and easy. She didn’t even know he was still looking out for her, and she’d probably be angry when she found out. He should be glad she’d set him free before things went too far. That she’d cared enough about him, and known him well enough to push him away before she followed in Claudia’s footsteps. He should be, but he wasn’t. I have to talk to her. I have to fix this.
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Aug 23, 2021 05:23
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The Oldest Lie The silence stretched across the room for several long moments, until a knock on the door interrupted their thoughts. Shortly afterward, Julian duSang waltzed into the room. “Apologies for taking so long. Roy caught me making breakfast. Toast?” he asked, offering up a plate of golden, buttery goodness as he took a seat. “I’m fine, thank you,” Claudia said, a slight smile pulling up the corners of her lips. “Miste...ahem. Cole?” she asked, shooting him an inquiring glance. “If only,” he sighed. It really wasn’t fair. He didn’t get hungry anymore, but he could remember being hungry a lot more clearly than he remembered tasting delicious toast, so it was winning the memory war. He sat up and put his hands on his knees. “You owe me a pizza by the way.” “I’ll get Roy to bring it up as soon as we’re done,” Jules said, giving him a vigorous nod. “So, where were we again?” “Now then,” Claudia said, as Julian made himself comfortable. “You said you spoke with a group of entities who agreed to provide Alisa with a body. Who are these ‘Shadow People’? I am not familiar with the name.” “I wasn’t either, but I trust the spirit guide who sent me their way,” he said. “The name’s literal. They’re sentient shadows, able to mold human souls into their likeness. Usually that would also involve binding the soul into their… something like a hive mind, but it didn’t seem to be a necessary component. I had to offer a second favor for an unlinked transformation.” The parents duSang exchanged glances. “What were the terms of your agreement? The exact words, if possible,” Julian asked, his energy coiled within the words like a taut spring. He held up one finger. “First, I only said I would bring the offer back to you before it could be agreed upon, because I’m a third party negotiator. Nothing’s been signed or sealed yet, are we clear?” Claudia let out a quiet little sigh. “That is exactly what I would have asked for, in your position. Excellent work, Cole. That is already enough to work with. What else?” It wasn’t anything like Ada’s praise. There wasn’t much of that blazing heat that warmed up the soul. But the grim satisfaction in her voice was clear and absolute, like a public commendation from his Warden captain. “One of them stepped forward to act as liaison and it kinda went from there. I asked if they could grant a body to a spirit who lacked one, and they said they could take others and ‘make them like us’. I asked if it was possible to become like them without becoming one with them and they said it would be a ‘special service’. Their words exactly.” “Sounds like we’ve got a fairly thorough negotiation ahead of us, love,” Julian said, glancing at Claudia. “We do,” Claudia said, nodding slowly. “But it’s nothing we cannot handle. Does their offer have any...limitations? Catches that might keep Alisa from enjoying a full life?” It had been an easy sell so far, but here was where the ground would get slippery. He took a small breath and nodded. “Shadow People can take on any shape, and they’re solid and alive in darkness. But light binds them like any other shadow. It doesn’t hurt them, I checked, but it does entrap them. She wouldn’t be able to walk around in daylight unless it was on someone’s heels.” “Which means on sunny days, she’d still be just as bound to Ada as she is now.” The dimming of the light in Julian’s eyes was a warning sign, but the deadpan note in his voice was even more alarming, like the frantic whistle of a stove on the brink of exploding. “That’s not true,” Rick said, shaking his head. “Alisa would have real choices. She could stay home, or find someone else to ride along with if she wanted to go out during the day. And even if she doesn’t want to deal with that, lots of people work graveyard shifts. She can still take night classes, or go out to movies, or anything normal people do after sundown.” Claudia nodded. “True. And it’d keep her safe. It might—” “Hold your horses, Clau.” Jules said, his voice dead serious. “Tell me something, Richter. If you were given the choice to take that kind of life, would you do it? Is it something you’d be happy with? Being given the choice to stay at home when you want to go out, the choice to beg someone else to carry you where you want to go, the choice to live your life upside down, not because it suits you but because there isn’t another choice?” “What’s happiness got to do with it?” Rick snapped. “She’ll be alive, she’ll be stable, and she’ll have more freedom than she’s ever had. It’s a big improvement.” Julian shook his head. “I don’t think so. I don’t know if you’ve heard of this, but Ada’s been letting Alisa use her body to go out lately. Way I see it, this is no different —when Alisa needs to step out, Ada will still have to carry her around, and only when she can make time for it. She’ll just be trading one type of shackle for another. That ain’t living, Richter. At least right now, there’s times when she can be fully human.” You’re going to sit in front of me eating toast I can’t even smell, telling me being human at least half the time isn’t living? He struggled to keep his voice even as the plate of crumbs started to tremble on the side table. “If she could stay as she was until we had a better answer, that’d be great, but she can’t. Ada’s body isn’t safe for her anymore. This one would be. Survival is all that matters.” The moment the words left his mouth he felt a shock of cold, like he’d swallowed an ice cube and could feel it slowly crawling down his throat. quote:“Remember this clarity. It will be tempting to turn your back on it and return to your comfortable old lies, but they can only hinder you. As unforgiving as the path of sincerity is to walk, it is the only way forward you have left.” Somewhere distant, he could hear a note of whalesong, urging him onwards. No. Survival was not the only thing that mattered. It was the oldest and most comfortable of all his lies. The one he retreated to after every one of his failures. Survival wasn’t victory, it was barely a consolation prize. I want to live. Not survive. Not cling to life. Live. For me. That’s what I chose, back at the edge of the world. How can I tell Alisa to do any differently? For a moment, his shoulders sagged as he sank into the headboard. Then he took a deep breath and raised his eyes to meet Julian’s. “Look. It’s not ideal. I’ve lived like this for months. I know,” he said, raising a hand to halt the response. “It’s a lateral trade at best, probably even a downgrade from borrowing Ada’s body directly. But it buys time, which is something you can use to find a better option. I only had one day, Jules. This was the best offer I could find.” Julian inhaled sharply. For a moment, he looked ready to pounce upon him, but then, he settled back down, lips pursed. “...This isn’t the end of it,” he said, eventually, after several seconds of fuming. “I won’t let it be. Are we clear?” He shot Claudia a look. “I’m not happy with it either,” she whispered, in the softest tone Rick had ever heard come out of her. “I just don’t want to lose her again.” After a few moments, Julian heaved a sigh. “I don’t either. It’s just...” his eyes rose to fix on Rick. “Do you really think there’s a better option out there, son? Or are you just trying to blow smoke up my rear end so you can walk?” “I…” Rick started, but he caught himself before he could say something else comfortable and untrue. “I need a minute. Please.” Julian frowned and crossed his arms, but eventually he nodded. “Fine. Take your time.” It’s not as simple as you think, Jules. If there’s something out there that’s better for Alisa, it’s probably better for me too, and… and… He touched the blade gently with his silver fingers and they sank into it, not through it. He could feel the tug of the silver sea coaxing him to follow it home and sleep, like a spirit should during the daylight hours. This’ll always be half a life, won’t it? Living upside down because there’s no other choice. And if I go searching for something else, I might never find it. How long can I hold onto hope if nothing shows up? A year? Ten? A hundred? But… What happens if I walk away instead? If I can’t touch, or taste, or smell without borrowing a body ever again? Was that what I came back for? What I refused Charon for? What do I actually want…? The book on the shelf with his name on it? He’d given that up to follow Rachel. His dreams of getting married to her? The war had put everything on hold, and then all of the promises and might-have-beens had died with her. Making it mean something? That had always actually been about him, his wounded pride and his guilt, even though he hadn’t been able to see it. And in the end, by trying to ‘make it mean something’, he’d trapped himself under the ice forever. Finding his own reason to live had been too hard, so he’d borrowed one from Rachel, then a chain of other people, all the way down to Ada. And then, after she’d told him he should stand on his own, the letter from Glaniell had landed squarely in his lap. He might have died, but he still wasn’t living for himself. Nothing had changed. He’d been bouncing from one disaster to another for so long now that he could hardly remember what wanting something felt like. When was the last time he’d really wanted something? Had he ever? He bit his lip, hard enough to remember the taste of copper. Yes. There had been something, once. A long time ago...
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Aug 23, 2021 05:24
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Gone Scene: Sixteen Years Ago The bedroom was dark and Rick had curled up under his blanket, too hot and angry to sleep. He’d tried reading, but the words on the page kept blurring into Dad’s face, tight with disapproval. Get your head out of those books, son. Real magic isn’t like in your stories. Quit playing around before you get hurt, or someone else does. He hadn’t even yelled this time. His voice had been calm and measured, unbreakable as a granite wall, and Rick had beat his head against it until he’d left bloody streaks on it to no effect. Behind him, he heard the door creak open. The thin beam of light from the hall played on the wall, and he froze. Maybe if he pretended to be asleep... ...But he must have given it away somehow, because after a few moments the door clicked shut, followed by the soft scuff of slippers on the carpet. The mattress barely sank when she sat down beside him, reaching a hand out to touch his cheek with the back of her fingers. “Hey,” his mother said. “You okay?” “No,” he said, pulling the covers up over his head. “I’m not stupid, Mom. I’m not showing off to my friends or starting fires in the woods or whatever else he thinks I’m doing. I’m always really careful!” “I know you are,” she said, in the same tone she used whenever Dad got angry. Soothing, placating, gentle. He ground his teeth listening to it. “He’s just worried for you, honey. That's all. He knows you’re smart enough to get into trouble and-” “No, he doesn’t. He doesn’t know me at all. He just wants me to be exactly like him and do everything just like he did. I’m supposed to say ‘Yes sir’ like everyone else does and it doesn’t matter what I want to do and-” “Richter, you were gone for two weeks.” He poked his head out, cheeks heated. “I’m sorry! I said I was sorry a million times! It was only a few hours where I was at, and I didn’t know that could happen, so...” “That’s exactly the problem, honey. You don’t know. What if you’d gotten lost or hurt? Who could have come to find you? You would have been at the mercy of whatever found you there.” “But I’m fine, Mom. I didn’t get hurt or lost or anything, it was just… It was…” He sighed and sat up, swinging his legs over the edge to sit next to her. “It was amazing. There was this lake as smooth as a sheet of glass, and the trees were so green they were shining, like the wrappers on those mints Gran used to give us, but almost…” The blanket knotted under his hands. “They were so green they weren’t even real. I know I promised I’d never go back but it was the prettiest place in the whole world and it’s not fair. I can’t even tell Dad what it was like. Every time I even mention the other world he goes ballistic. I can’t talk to him at all anymore.” Mom sighed and didn’t say anything for a long moment. Finally, she reached over to him. “Give me your hand.” He did, and felt the frail thread of power in his mother’s touch. It wavered like a guttering candle, and he could only wonder what his own power felt like in comparison. For the first time he could remember since he was very small she held up her other hand and whispered: “Lux.” A little ball of light coalesced in her palm, illuminating both their faces. “This is all I can do,” she said, shaking her head sadly. “It’s not enough, Richter. I just don’t think… I don’t want you to set your heart on something that you can never have.” “You don’t know,” Rick challenged her. “If you really thought I couldn’t you’d have said so.” In the wan light of her spell they stared at each other. Rick’s heart pounded in his chest like it would burst. “Mom?” “You need a teacher,” she said firmly, and squeezed his hand. “But he’ll never let you. I’m so sorry, Ricky.” Her light went out, and he felt like the world had dropped out from underneath him. He shut his eyes tight so he wouldn’t cry, even in the dark, then pulled his hand out of his mother’s and hugged his knees. Why is he such an rear end in a top hat? It’s his fault Mom gave up her light. He’s wrong. About magic, about me, about everything. I won’t let him do that to me, too. I can’t. He heard Mom stand up and pad slowly towards the door. She was halfway there when she paused. “I tried, Ricky, I really did. You know how he gets when his mind’s made up.” “I don’t care,” Rick’s voice cracked when he tried to speak again. What was he going to do? The doors to his future were slamming shut in front of him, until only the one with that stupid uniform hanging on it remained open. I don’t know anyone who can teach me magic. Mom’s friends don’t have it. Gran doesn’t either, and Gramps is gone. No one on Dad’s side has it… But then he remembered a toothy smirk, the stench of patchouli oil, and an angry shouting match that had ended in a broken door and Mom crying in her room for hours. “What…” For a moment he held his breath, afraid of what the answer to his question might be. “What about Uncle Quentin?” The silence stretched between them for miles. When Mom finally spoke, her voice was flat and dead. “Quen can’t come back to the States. Johnny made sure of that.” “So? Maybe I could visit him for summer vacation, and he could show me some stuff so I don’t have to figure it all out by myself. Does he have books? Is he... Does he know real magic?” “He’s… I haven’t talked to him in years, Ricky. The last I heard he was in Johannesburg, that’s in-” “South Africa, I know. I pay attention in class, Mom.” “Then you know how far away it is, if he’s even still there. My brother is…” she let out a long, weary sigh and put a hand to her forehead. “Okay. Let me talk to your father about it.” “He’ll just say no again. Mom. Please.” “Ricky…” There it was, the hesitance, the coddling. Everything inside him went numb. “Forget it. It’s fine.” “No. No it’s not.” She stomped back to the bed and seized him by the shoulders, her grip as strong as iron. “I know what this means to you. I know how much you want it. But it’s going to take more than wanting, Ricky.” She shook him once, hard enough to make his teeth click. “You can’t have that life here. Do you understand me? You will NEVER have it, no matter how much you plead and beg.” “M-mom?” She pulled him up and crushed him in a hug. He still hadn’t got his growth spurt and she was taller than him by a head, but so willowy and thin he could have picked her up if he tried. He hugged her back, at least half out of shock. “I love you, Ricky. Please, please be careful. No matter what you decide to do, think it through first, okay? We’ll be at Fort Benning for a year in a couple months, so...” “I… I don’t…” A shudder passed through her and she ran her hand through his hair. “You’re still so young. What if you’re not as strong as you think you are? Even if you do everything right, sometimes things don’t work out. If you can’t find a teacher, if they all send you away...” “I can do this, Mom. You’ll see.” His mouth had gone very dry, suddenly. “And if… if I can’t find anyone… I’ll teach myself. Even if it takes ten years to learn one spell.” He pulled back, just enough to look up at her face. “This is what I want.” “Okay,” she said. She tugged him close again and kissed the top of his head. Then she just stood there for a moment, rocking back and forth and holding him like she might never see him again. He was about to protest when she let go completely and went straight to the door. With her hand on the knob, she paused one last time. “Goodnight, Ricky.” Then she was gone. He sat down on the bed, alone in the dark, too stunned to move. You can’t have that life here. Do you understand me? He got dressed in a hurry and found his hiking backpack in the closet. Everything he needed was already there. Flashlight, raincoat, sleeping bag, water bottle, spare clothes… You will NEVER have it, no matter how much you plead and beg. He slipped past his parent’s room like a thief, carrying his shoes so they wouldn’t thump on the stairs. When he got to the kitchen he stopped and raided the pantry. Granola bars, cereal, juice boxes, cookies, half a jar of peanut butter, a few cans of soup… He had a can opener on his scout knife, he had to get that too. When he opened the tool drawer his knife was weighing down a white envelope stuffed with a few hundred dollars, and a postcard with the picture of a lion on it. A few years old, by the postmark, but there was a Johannesburg address and a message from Uncle Quentin, too faded and stained to make out. Thanks, Mom. His vision went blurry for a moment and he had to wipe his eyes. Then he shoved everything into his backpack and snuck out the front door, leaving his house key under the flowerpot with the spare. The chill night air raised goosebumps on his neck and arms. He slipped his shoes on, walked to the end of the driveway and turned back, hands in his backpack straps, stomach in knots. In the upstairs window he thought he saw something glimmer, and he raised a trembling hand to it. Then he was gone.
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Aug 23, 2021 05:25
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A New HopeJulian duSang posted:“Do you really think there’s a better option out there, son? Or are you just trying to blow smoke up my rear end so you can walk?” I know how much you want it. But it’s going to take more than wanting, Ricky. I can do this, Mom. You’ll see. “There is,” he said. His mouth was very dry, suddenly. “And I’m going to find it.” “...Maybe,” Jules murmured, reluctant to believe. “It’s going to be long, hard work, chasing down leads on how to give a lost soul a body. I hope you don’t chicken out on us before this is over. For both your sakes.” “Even if it takes ten years…” He smiled, and for a moment he looked a little younger. “It’s okay. This is what I want.” “That’s good to hear.” Jules didn’t quite smile, but his expression lightened as well. “We’ll play it your way then, and keep looking. We’ll see if we can’t make it worth our while.” He rolled his neck, the bones within it producing audible cracks as he worked out the stiffness that had come from holding such a high-stakes conversation. “You feeling hungry, still? We can get that pizza I promised ready to go in fifteen minutes.” “I’m still trying to figure out how I’m supposed to eat it,” Rick said, as he visibly shed another five years. “But that aside… I hope you don’t expect me to do this alone. Yesterday was...rough.” “Of course not,” Claudia intervened. “Your mission last night took place under extraordinary circumstances, as we could not afford to spare a single moment before beginning preparations for the ritual. Now that Alisa’s survival is assured, we’ll be able to move at a more reasonable pace and recruit whatever personnel we need for the tasks at hand. You’ve earned a rest, and the right to choose your own associates, Mr...ahem, Cole. And that rest begins with a display of proper hospitality on our part.” Once again, Claudia pressed the button, and in mere moments, Roy arrived. “Our guest is hungry. Get the pizza from the fridge, heat it up, and let’s see just how good the Gebeleinian method for preparing grave goods actually is.”
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Aug 23, 2021 05:26
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The Second Lesson of Time Travel Scene: Winter Safehouse The first thing Gorden saw when he got back to the Lytle’s safehouse was Junior, sitting in a lawn chair, smoking a hand rolled cigarette. There was another empty chair next to him, and he waved Gorden in to sit beside him, much to the chagrin of the stocky little guard that was standing at the gate. “Nice to see you’re punctual,” Junior said with a bit of a wry grin. “So I guess we’re really doing this. Tradin’ knowledge, that is. You think up any questions for me? I er, I ain’t real sure where to start, if I’m honest. Never had to train nobody before, ‘cept my little girl, and she weren’t near as strong as you are.” Gordon gave a polite wave and a reassuring smile to the guard as he walked by towards the empty seat. “Hi Junior,” nodded Gorden. “Glad to know my pocket watch hasn’t fallen apart yet.” He pulled his phone ever so slightly out of his pocket to show what he meant. “Hmm...you know, I just realized. You and Elbridge and I talk about ‘time’ magic when it comes to what you and I do. But when I was first trying to figure out what the heck I was capable of doing, I was following my...is ‘training’ the right word? Math, entropy, statistics, I was framing everything in terms of what I already knew, all the university stuff I’d already done. And I’m sure that influences what I can do with magic. Or at least, what I think I can do.” He took a deep breath, tapped his fingers together a bit. “So I thought I’d ask, how do you think about your magic? When you use it, what are you thinking of?” “Hm! Now that’s a good question. And you’re right by the way, what you think you can do sure does have an effect on what you’re capable of. Magic is will, plain and simple. So if’n you don’t believe you can do something with all your heart and mind, you surely can’t. As fer me though...” He leaned back in the chair, lacing his fingers together over his stomach. The cigarette smoke curled lazily from the stub still tucked between them. “My grandpappy was a rancher,” he began, with the voice of a man used to telling stories. “So I spent most of my youth out under the sun. I used to know the hour by where the sun was. Hell, I could put a stick in the dirt and watch the shadow, if’n I wanted to be more precise with it. Never had a watch, never had the money for one. So when I learned I could do things, little things at first but then bigger’n’bigger ones… I thought about the sun, and the shadows, and how to bring the shadows all the way around the stick, one way or t’other. I think about things moving, forward and back, faster or slower. Slower’s nice. That’s what I’m best at, really. Making that shadow crawl, really take it’s time, so I got to keep it all to myself. When I was really fixin’ to, I could get a good hour’s nap in just five minutes.” He grinned, remembering it. “drat, I wish I’d thought of that,” Gorden admitted. “Could’ve sneaked myself catnaps and coffee at any time…so when you do your magic now, are you still thinking of that improvised sundial? The stick and the shadow going round it? ‘Sunrise, sunset’ and all that?” He tried to imagine it himself, and reaching out with magic as the shadow spun, but his thinking soon got derailed by memories of watching Carl Sagan calmly discussing Eratosthenes. Junior nodded. “It’s the easiest for me, but I reckon every young talent has their own way of expressin’ things. Ain’t no wrong way to do it. What’s your method, if’n you don’t mind me askin’?” “Like I said, there’s a ton of statistics involved in it,” Gorden admitted. “Probably why I never thought of napping at my desk. Uh, you know how as things get older they start to fall apart? Cars and houses break down, rocks erode, stars get dimmer...the universe grows, maybe forever, maybe not? Most of the laws of physics actually work just fine for cars that spontaneously un-rust or rocks that reassemble as water flows over them, but you’d never see that. I guess I just...imagine all the ways things fall apart, and walk them back until they’re in the way they started. You could call it ‘reversing the arrow of time’, but I think of it more as a reduction in entropy.” He scratched his head. “It’s...computationally complex. But I’m so immersed in it my spellbook is an old book about physics--” he produced his grimoire and pointed to Stephen Hawking on the cover. “--so I guess it’s just the track my brain started on.” “Entropy, eh?” He took a single puff of his cigarette and nodded to himself. “I’m not a man of science, myself, but I think I understand the concept well enough. That’s a very unique perspective on it, young man. I think you can go farther than most, if’n you think of it that way…” He paused for a moment. “What’s the biggest thing you ever ‘reduced entropy’ on? Just curious.” Gorden considered briefly, then made a snap decision. If he couldn’t be open about this with another time mage, who else could he be? He produced his little stellar iron pendant and held it out ahead of him. “Well, this used to be a star…and I think it was part of a universe of stars. Those I...might have had help with, but...” He concentrated for a brief moment and let the tiniest bit of time flow back into the dead iron, and for a moment it subtly glowed the soft blue-white of a white dwarf. Junior sat up at that, leaned forward, and gazed at the pendant in something like awe for a moment. Then his face cracked into a smile and he slapped his knee. “That’s a hell of a lighter you’ve got there!” he said. “But if’n you’re telling me you turned a whole got-danged star into that little bitty trinket, well, I think you’ve got some explainin’ to do.” He glanced up from the pendant to Gorden’s face. “Was this what all that space talk was about last time? Outsider’s ‘n thin branches on the world tree ‘n all that?” “I think you’re the one who started with that metaphor,” Gorden noted as he let the pendant fall down to his neck. “But, yeah, last time I was talking about going out to the heat death of the universe, and it was...kinda less hypothetical.” He licked his lips momentarily, then continued. “But apparently my arrival moved enough particles around that there was enough potential energy to...well, make stars form. According to the thing I talked to out there, anyway. So...I guess you could say this thing is a souvenir from an undead universe!” He tried to smile at the idea, but it felt a little thin. “...that’s why I was asking about ‘anti-Outsiders’. Whatever this thing was, it accelerated gravity pulling those particles together, the fusion reactions that resulted in those new stars being formed, the universe reforming itself from Big Bang principles. The exact opposite of what the Outsiders want to do.” “Are you sayin’ you met God out there, at the end of time, Gorden?” From anyone else, that might have been sarcastic, but Junior was dead serious. “Maybe? I dunno!” Gorden answered with a sudden throwing up of his hands. “If that wasn’t God, it was certainly something drat close!” “Well, poo poo, son! What’d he say?” “It said…” Gorden scratched his head as he recalled. “...that my arriving created a possibility. A possibility that it exploited, made happen. And that it wished to do more some time. And...it did say ‘let there be light’...” “And here I thought savin’ history was a tall enough tale,” Junior just shook his head. “poo poo, I think you should be the one givin’ ME lessons if you can do somethin’ like that.” He held a hand up to ward off an interruption. “I know, I know, you didn’t do it on purpose an’ all. Still, I wouldn’t go around tellin’ too many folks about that’n...” He sighed and scratched at his chin for a moment. “Can you make things go a mite faster or slower without entro-ping them to pieces? That might be a place to start learnin’, if’n you haven’t tried it.” “I think so? I can show you if you want,” Gorden replied. “Got another cigarette? I’d offer to try on yours but that’s rude.” “I don’t mean un-burnin’ something,” Junior said, reaching into his pocket for another. “I’m talkin’ ‘bout manipulatin’ inertia. Like so.” He made a tossing motion, and whispered something Gorden couldn’t hear. The cigarette left his hand and tumbled through the air towards Gorden in super slow motion. “Yeah, changes in entropy, a rate of change, deltas, first derivatives,” Gorden spoke quickly in answer, the math terms tumbling out in a professorial mess. He caught the slow motion cigarette out of the air, jumped a bit as the friction between his fingers and the suddenly accelerated back to normal paper bit shocked him, and held up the stellar iron to the end of the cigarette. “Okay, that’s the normal burn rate...and now…” A bit of concentration and the cigarette paper became ash slower...and slower… “Well, that wasn’t quite what I meant,” Junior said, quietly so not to disturb his concentration. “But you figured out how to make ever-burnin’ candles, right enough. Not so useful on a cigarette, as you won’t get much smoke out of one if it’s like that.” “Oh, you mean like--” Gorden gave a little shake of the cigarette and sent a burst of ash up into the air in a neat, slow, lazy, glowing arc. Junior’s eyes lit up and he nodded. “There ya go, just like that.” He laughed. “This is going a mite better than I thought it would. You’re a quick learner, Gorden. Now try your hand at...” It went on that way for a while, Junior suggesting things, Gorden attempting them. It was going pretty well until Gorden waved around his little piece of star a little too enthusiastically, and held it in his unscarred hand a little bit too long. He yelped at the sudden burst of pain, and flipped the stellar iron back to normal, while rolling it over the burned area as he concentrated on restoring the cells, his brain automatically maintaining the “let’s see what time magic can do” experimental mode that they’d been practicing for...he’d lost track of time on exactly how long. In his head he imagined the “energy states” at the point of contact, and willed the energy state of the stellar iron at that point to go down. Roll is -1, which becomes +3 after the CEK skill is added. Also needs an FP, spending from 5 to 4. Gorden felt himself slip back into the chair uneasily as he blinked, and saw that his hand was perfectly fine. But it wasn’t perfectly fine earlier, that’s why he was focusing on it...it was burnt, right? And he unburned it? He shook his head fiercely to try to shake off the dizziness. “Uh, Junior? Was I doing something really intensive just now?” Junior was staring openly, the cigarette having fallen right out of his mouth onto the dirt. “You could say that...” He took a deep breath and wiped his brow with one hand. “You got a little too close to yer sun there and then, zip a dee doo dah, you hadn’t done it after all. Looked like one of them moving pictures in reverse, but...” He spread his hands, not having quite the words to describe it. “You feelin’ okay?” “Yeah...no...sorta?” Gorden mumbled as he stretched in the chair. “Just feeling...really tired all of a sudden. Give me a minute, and then we can get...get right back into it...hah…” “Oh no, I think that’s enough for one day.” Junior walked over and checked Gorden’s forehead and cheeks. Hot and a little shaky… but nothing obviously damaged. He let out a sigh of relief. “Alright, seems like you didn’t do yerself any lasting harm. But bodies don’t like bein’ yanked backward like that, no sir. You need water and something to nibble on to reground yourself. Do ya like cookies?” “Who doesn’t like cookies?” Gorden chuckled, pulling himself up. “Okay, now for my side of the deal...what did you want to know about…” he shrugged, and vaguely indicated the rest of the world. “...you know, that?” “Don’t get ahead of yourself, we got time,” Junior said. “Come on inside, we’ll talk over the table.” The gate guard turned around and gave him a cool look, but Junior flatly ignored that and led Gorden into the safehouse.
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Oct 3, 2021 00:16
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Help Wanted Scene: Winter Safehouse The furniture was sparse and too new looking to have been in use for long. It had the feel of a temporary place, Gorden recognized all the signs. Bare white walls with no decorations, items chosen cheaply for function, with no eye towards matching colors or textures. As if a whole house had been decorated like a dorm, or maybe a long-stay hotel room. Nothing here had any meaning, except for the few school books or articles of clothing that had managed to sneak onto a table or chair. But he recognized a couple of those books… weren’t they from Tulane? The dining room table was the sole exception to the rule. It was solid oak, handmade, with all the dings and scratches you might see in a table that had been used for two or three generations. It didn’t fit the beige-carpeted dining room at all, and even less the stainless steel kitchenette it was attached to. Half a dozen newspapers had been spread over it, all open to the Help Wanted sections. “Here ya go,” Junior said, sneaking a plate full of smiling frosted gingerbread cookies off the top of the refrigerator. “Emma made a whole batch after…” He grimaced. “Well, she won’t miss two or three.” “Thanks,” Gorden acknowledged as he took one, still a little woozy from the time trick, but also looking around the safehouse as he bit into the gingerbread leg. He was no stranger to transient living spaces, of course, but he was also a single, young man. Not someone with a family to care for--and given 1930s living, probably a very large, extended family at that!--and a ton of family history and heirlooms to leave behind. And going by the newspapers on the table, Junior was also painfully aware of that. Better to start by talking about something else. “So, who’s been using the university library?” he asked with a smile, pointing out the books from Tulane. “Oh those? My daughter. Er, one of ‘em. Same one who made the cookies,” he said, stumbling a little. “Emma always dreamed of goin’ to college but we never had the money fer it. Ruby kept a little nest egg set aside, knowing it was what she wanted. So Emma started classes a month or so ago.” He sighed and looked a little lost. “She wanted to take actin’ lessons but the school made her do some general studies first. Too many holes in her education, I suppose, growing up at home as she did.” “Are you telling tales about me?” a light female voice called from the back hallway. A moment later a young woman poked her head into the kitchen. She was tiny, even shorter than Ada, with perfect blonde curls and mischievous blue eyes. She was wearing a floral print skirt that went just past her knees, with a navy blue button up sweater over a wine-colored top, and pumps. Honestly, she looked like she’d just stepped out of a pinup calendar, possibly one of the ones Scotty still had collecting dust in his garage. It would have been jarringly retro if she didn’t pull it off so well. Her smile turned into a scowl when she saw the plate on the table. “Daddy! My cookies! Those were supposed to be for Ada.” “I know, I know, but it was an emergency,” Junior said, offering her one of the gingerbread men. She sighed dramatically and bit the head off. “You didn’t even introduce me to your guest,” she muttered in between bites, giving Gorden a bit of a look. “Gorden, this is my daughter Emma, Emma this is my… uh…” He thought about it for a second. “Well, this is Gorden, anyhow. We’re tutorin’ each other on some of the basics. Like this mess-” he gestured to the table of want-ads. “Acting less--” Gorden started before another voice--obviously Emma’s by context--interrupted. He flinched and looked away guiltily when she mentioned the cookies. “Sorry...uh, hi, Emma. I actually know Ada. And your father tells me you’re interested in the performing arts, that’s...that’s good!” He nodded encouragingly. “Uh, how do you like the professors at Tulane? Especially the theater people.” Part of him wanted to know whether she knew about Chesterfield...and part of him was hoping she’d steered clear of that mess. “Well if you know her you know how quick she could clear a plate of these,” Emma said, pouting over the (mostly empty by now) cookie tray. “It’s fine, I can make more. And yeah, I was thinking about it, once I get the chance to focus on a major. This semester’s all catch up work. Readin’ writin’ and ‘rithmatic.” She sighed softly. “I’ve been enjoying literature class the most, Professor Rosa’s great. Hmmm...” She peered at him, taking in his hat, his face, and his general demeanor. “You’re a student too, right? Have I seen you there before? You look familiar.” Gorden thought of his misadventures with Chesterfield’s light-bending dreamcatchers and tried not to frown. “Yeah, I’m a grad student in astrophysics. Maybe you saw me helping out with one of the science lectures? Kind of a different part of campus compared to the performing arts.” “No, I don’t think that was it…” Suddenly she snapped her fingers. “Wait, I know! That was you! The pants that ran across campus by themselves!” He nearly choked on a piece of cookie as she shouted about his pants. “I--that--that was a one time thing, I’m not some kind of illusionist!” It wasn’t much of a denial, and he sighed. “But...yeah, that was me. I hope that’s not the only thing you’ve heard about me.” She laughed. “I didn’t know it was you until just now. You’ve become something of a mystery figure around campus. There’s been a bunch of copycats trying to pull off more magic pants sightings. But sorry, I really haven’t spent any time in the science halls. Maybe I should look into it next semester if it’s so exciting.” “You should!” Gorden immediately perked up. “The secrets of the earliest universe are the most fascinating ones!” He glanced at Junior and stopped himself before he started going through the full “sign up for our major!” spiel. “What did you mean by ‘this mess’, just now?” “I mean gettin’ a job’s gotten a lot more complicated than it was in our day,” Junior said, gesturing to himself and Emma. “Used to be you either walked into a place that had a ‘help wanted’ sign on the door or you checked the papers, and then walked into a place that had a ‘help wanted’ ad in the papers. Now all it says is ‘apply online, apply online’. Even the sign on the door says it! So I went on the line, but you have to answer so many questions and even to do something as simple as liftin’ bricks you need a whole darned resume. How’m I supposed to explain that anyone who could vouch for me is dead’n buried twenty years now…” He shook his head, baffled. “Then there’s some devil’s contract, where they ask you a whole heap of personal questions like if you’re a ‘team player’ or if you consider yerself ‘independently-minded’ and it looks like a school exam but what are the right answers?” “Woof, I see,” said Gorden as he scratched his head. He’d done a CV and an interview to get into the grad program, of course, but that was a couple years back. And it suddenly struck him that he’d been in academia his entire working life...still, he had to do what he could. “Well, for the latter part...one thing I can say is that job people love to include a big sprinkling of positive stuff at the end of the opening. So, say, for my student teaching position, along with ‘must have a relevant degree’ and ‘must have some working knowledge of the kludge of a computer system we use’, you might see ‘must have a patient personality’ and ‘must be willing to teach and learn in equal measure.’ It’ll always be framed in the positive--they’re never going to say ‘must not be an rear end in a top hat’--so for anything like that, just say ‘oh, yeah, I’m totally independent minded, I’m totally a team player’, so on, and BS some life experience that you can connect to that.” He suddenly beamed. “It worked for me! And, no, I don’t know why they do that. As for the former...yeah, it sucks even without the...time thing. I had to get references I could barely remember from my high school years. But at least, you know, there are fewer signs in the window that say...eh, nevermind.” Junior gave Gorden a thoughtful side-eye, before nodding in acknowledgement. “So what yer tellin me is I’ve got to write a whole paper full o’ lies, then feed it to the demons on the line, and hope they like ‘em enough to ask me to come in for an interview?” “Maybe you should just ask Ruby-” Emma started, but Junior waved a hand and she cut herself off. “No, no, and no again. That’s thrice and done. A grown man ought to be able to find himself some work in this town without relyin’ on his daughters to do all the liftin’ for him.” “Not without our government papers, and we ain’t got any,” Emma said, dipping further into her father’s accent now that she was riled up. “Ruby had to jump through a bunch of hoops for me with the college. You know she wouldn’t mind doing the same for you.” Junior sighed heavily. “Twenty-five years I provided for this household,” he said, looking to Gorden for sympathy. “But without my tools, I can’t do anythin’, and we had to let ‘em all burn up to throw that mad faerie off our trail. It’s a damned shame.” Why are you looking at me?! I’m barely older than your daughter! Gorden thought to himself. “This...does seem like the sort of thing where the whole family needs to pull together…” Gorden started out loud. “Hmm...tell you what. Let me see what you got for your resume stuff right now. I probably know better what sort of lies the ‘demons’ are looking for.” He thought for a moment. “To be honest, Tulane might be looking for dorm fixer people, installing shelves and desks and stuff for incoming students. It...might not be the most demanding job for someone who can make this--” he rapped his fingers on the table. “--but if you want to apply for that I can put in a character reference for you.” He leaned over to look more closely at the newspaper ads. “And, hey, it sounds like Emma and Ruby are trying to help, yeah? Not everything has to be...like the trade we’ve got going.” “You’d do that fer me?” Junior asked, a little surprised. “I can’t guarantee anything, but I’m willing to try,” answered Gorden with a nod. “And...I’m sure Emma and Ruby are willing to try for your sake as well. So, how about that resume?” --- They’d been working on it for about half an hour when Gorden’s phone rang. A familiar voice greeted him when he picked up. “Hey Gorden. I’ve got a little science project in my basement to stick one to the greek gods and prove human ingenuity can get one over them. You interested?” “Now one weird thing about resume readers is that they love--” Gorden was going over Junior’s resume with a provided fountain pen when his phone rang in his pocket. “Oh, that’s mine! Hang on…” He pulled his phone out and looked at Ada’s caller ID, then decided that it’d be good for everyone to hear her voice and put her on speaker. “Hey, Ada, it’s Gorden, I’m at--oh. Huh. Sounds like--” he paused for a moment, and looked from Junior to Emma and back to the phone. “Uh, just to confirm, what do we mean by ‘human ingenuity’ here? It sounds cool, but...kinda vague, you know?” “Some magical work, some engineering and a little bit of souls lore, with a bit of animal handling sprinkled on top for good measure. Right now, the goal is to keep an ancient curse from cutting its target off from the flow of time. Wanna take a look at it and see if we can’t find a workaround?” “Sounds fascinating…” Gorden’s voice trailed off as he tried to imagine how all those aspects fit together. Another look at Junior, and he continued. “I’m...kind of in the middle of something at the moment; when did you want to meet up?” “Soon as you got time. Elbridge is here working on a solution too, and so’s Grace. The more minds we can throw at this the better, right?” “You’ve got everybody working on this problem, don’t you? Must be something really important. Alright, tell me where you’re all meeting up, and I’ll head over as soon as I’m done with Junior.” “We’re at my place. Drop by any time, I’ll keep the doors open.” “Got it. See ya later,” Gorden confirmed. He turned off his phone, put it away, and picked up the fountain pen again. “I did say I’d be over as soon as I was done. Let’s make sure this is done right, yeah?” Junior’s face was worried, but Emma put a hand on his. “If she needed him right this moment she’d have said so,” she said gently. “Thank ya, Gorden. It means a lot,” Junior said plainly. “No problem. Now where were we…?”
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Oct 3, 2021 00:19
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Gebelein Style, With Everything On It Scene: The Chateau Whatever Elbridge had expected to see when he opened the door that Roy had indicated was Rick’s guest room… it wasn’t this. Rick was fourteen years old, kicking his feet in a chair slightly too tall for him, a spectral slice of pizza in one hand and his sword raised up in the other. There were several pieces of real pizza, if you could call it that, impaled on the blade, and when he shoved one ghost-slice into his mouth, the corresponding slice just sort of vanished into the sword. It was more than a little unsettling to watch, and that was before El realized the ‘pizza’ was mummified. “Hrr Erbrgg,” Rick said happily, mouth still full of extra grey cheese. “Nrd rmthng?” Elbridge took it all in. The sword, the pizza, the ammoniac stench - good Lord, it smelled as if a drunken goat had fallen into a latrine and drowned - the juvenile Richter Cole, the vanishing act. “...some context, perhaps,” he said at last, covering his mouth and nose with his arm. It did little to help. “Payment for services rendered,” Rick said, grinning like he was getting away with something. “But how are you a teenager again? How are you eating that? Why are you eating that?!” “Hm? Oh, gimme a sec.” He closed his eyes and focused. A moment later he was back to his normal age and outfit. The pizza was still just as horrifying, though. “There. I was remembering what it felt like to… well… nevermind. This body is just a projection, El. I’m in here.” He shook the sword gently, dislodging what was probably a scarab from one of the slices. Probably. It didn’t crawl away at least. Elbridge walked out of the room without a word, returning over a minute later with a wet hand towel covering the lower half of his face. “Rick, I’m glad that you’ve found a way to enjoy mortal comforts again, but I do wish it smelled less like chemical warfare.” “It smells great to me,” Rick said, sighing contentedly. It was the first thing he’d been able to smell at all since he’d died, and the taste could only be described as invigorating. “I know it looks weird, but the ancient Egyptians really knew how to treat dead people. What did Claudia call it… ‘Gebeleinian grave goods’? I’m gonna have to ask for the recipe. Maybe Nicholas can do this to pizza rolls.” Carefully, he set the sword down on the small table in front of him and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Alright. Given what I went through to eat food again, Roy wouldn’t have let you interrupt me unless there was something urgent going on. What’s wrong?” “We’re performing some very complicated magics in the cellar,” Elbridge said, eyes still watering. “It occurs to me that your particular skills may be of use. You see, Ada’s made an arrangement with Midas…” And so he explained the particulars, as best he knew them, and the details of the ritual. “Hm. Guess that explains the golden mittens,” Rick said, frowning. “Alisa dropped by the Stitch the other day, wanting to get a dress made. On timeshare with Ada’s body,” he added, before El could ask what the hell that meant. There were a lot of questions he wanted to ask, but the answers would have to come from Ada, not El, so he had to sit on them for now. “Ah. So she’s adapting as well,” Elbridge said. “That’s reassuring. Ada doesn’t want her involved in this, and I’m loath to trouble you as well, but if you’re up for a bit of, er, landscaping, it might help to put the poor dog at ease. It appears that I underestimated how disconcerting he’d find this.” “It’s probably a good idea to let Alisa save her strength for now,” Rick said, rubbing the back of his neck. “So… you need an astral dog-park? Shouldn’t be too hard. I’ve been doing a lot of dream weaving lately.” “Something like that, yes - ideally, in a way that encourages Eriol to try out his new body, rather than simply vacating it.” Elbridge puzzled through the logistics in his head. “If he can move in it without difficulty, we’ll know exactly how to treat his own body once it’s turned to gold…if. But we’ll never know unless he co-operates.” “Alright, but…” Rick faltered as he realized another potential problem. “Losing a flesh and blood body means losing all the senses that go with having one. Part of the reason it took me so long to come back was having to relearn how to hear, how to see…” He trailed off, shivering for a moment. “Well, puppies don’t have as many preconceptions as people, and they learn fast. It might be easier for Eriol than it was for me. At least, I hope so, or you’re going to need to take a few more shots at this ritual.” “The golem has its own senses, after a fashion,” Elbridge said, “but I take your point. It would certainly be an adjustment, but if we can make this work...think about it, Rick. There’s so much we could learn.” He sighed sadly. “When I first realised your present situation, I sought out every text in Edinburgh pertaining to soul vessels. D’you know how many there were on record?” “Not very many,” Rick said, shaking his head. “Nicholas has been digging but…” “Reputed or rumoured, forty. Confirmed, six. And one of those was my own account of that box that Mel was after. We might actually be the leading authorities on this subject, Rick,” El said. “And we barely know anything at all.” “We know more than you think, and what we don’t know, we can test.” Rick stood up, wiping the last few ashen crumbs clinging to the blade on a small towel Roy had left on the table for that purpose. He sheathed it and slung the strap over his shoulder. “Okay. I just had a nice long nap and my first actual meal in six months. I’m ready. Let’s do this.” “Well!” Elbridge cracked his knuckles. “I must say, you seem to have improved considerably since our previous conversations.” “Hm?” “You’re in better spirits, there’s more colour in your face, and you didn’t flinch even a little when I said Ada’s name.” Rick’s cheeks heated up, but he kept smiling, and even laughed softly to himself. “Yeah, a lot’s happened. I’ll tell you all about it after we’re done with the puppy. There’s not really a short version that would make any sense.” “I’ll buy the drinks,” Elbridge said. “Won’t even have to do that -” he gestured at the remains of the biohazard on the table “- for you to enjoy them.” “As long as we don’t bring the pirate along this time,” Rick grumbled. “Seems like offerings only go to one spirit. I turned the fake buzz off about twenty minutes after I left his ship.” “Oh, I daresay we’ll need to speak with him again, and soon,” Elbridge said, his expression darkening. “Mr. Ivarson’s handling of his mission...left much to be desired.” “...Is he okay?” Rick asked, worried. He was about to add ‘Are you okay?’, but the look on El’s face said it all. “Better than he has any right to be, after a failure like that.” Elbridge clenched his hands hard enough that his nails left grooves in his palms. “loving CIA. Think they can just wash their hands of any mess and…” He took a deep breath and slowly relaxed, just enough to avoid drawing blood. “Frisk’s still held captive. We’ll need a new plan of rescue.” “drat. Did he tip them off?” “He asked some rather unsubtle questions of a rather unsavoury character, then did everything in his power to make a bloody great scene,” Elbridge said, fuming. “If Medusa’s not on to us by now, then she’s not paying attention.” Rick grimaced. “Oof. Not much point in trying again, then. If she’s onto you, approaching her directly might make more sense. Have you made any offers?” “What might we have that she values more than torturing her husband, who is literally Midas and yet still cannot afford her ransom?” “That’s the question, yeah,” Rick said, nodding seriously. “Maybe Ada can give some advice on that front, since she’s spoken with her. But if you can’t negotiate a release… Ugh. How long do you have?” “Forty-eight hours.” Elbridge put his face in his palms. After that, Frisk would be declared missing, and his physical person would become a loose end. “If only we had some other leverage...on...her.” He looked up again, dawning realisation writ upon his face. “Rick. We have her other victims...and enough True Moly to reverse a petrification or two without dipping into the seed crop.” “Sounds like something she might value,” Rick said, grinning. I missed this. “But if she knows you want him then she’ll bargain hard.” “We’ll just have to bargain harder,” Elbridge said, smiling nastily. “But first, let’s see to Mr. Goldman’s problem.” “After you,” Rick said, gesturing to the door. “Oh, and please just say you told me to come over to help with the ritual. Ada finding out I was already here would be a real problem.” “You know, Rick, it’s customary to lie to the parents about where you were with their daughter last night.” “Funny how customary never gets over the threshold in this house,” Rick said, in a kinder voice than his words might suggest. “They’re good people, El. And no, I’m not just saying that because of the pizza.” “Oh, very well.” Elbridge threw his hands up. “Just be sure that you all get your stories straight.”
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Oct 3, 2021 00:34
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Eriol’s Obedience Training Scene: Back in the Basement Facing down demons, navigating paradoxes, and negotiating with kings were all things Ada had done without hesitation. Getting through to a scared puppy was, by comparison, a much harder task. As she paced around the edges of the room, keeping her footsteps measured and rhythmic to keep Grace from being jostled awake, she wondered where to start. Humans had many different interests and devotions, and that gave many angles of attack when you wanted to get them to do something. Animals were simpler than people, in a lot of ways, and that made them much harder to reach. How did you get through to a little fuzzy ball of woofs and whines when he didn’t want to pay attention? She glanced back at the dog-golem, frowning, and covered the distance that separated them in a few quick strides. Kneeling beside it, she put a hand to the back of its head. “Eriol? Eriol, can you hear me?” She began, unsure if this was the right track. The closest thing humans had to animals among their ranks was children. Maybe that kind of strategy would work? “It’s me, Ada. Are you alright? I’m alright,” she said, modulating her voice so it’d be soothing, and only just slightly curious. What she said didn’t matter so much as how she said it, probably. If she could hit Eriol with memories of voices he fondly remembered, maybe he’d try to respond. “We’re going to give you back a body,” she said, stroking the dog-golem as she spoke. “Don’t worry about it. Remember how you hopped on me earlier? If we get this right, you’ll be able to do it again. This time I’m gonna be ready though,” she said, chuckling. “You better not think you’re gonna take me down again so easy!” Would it work? She felt a little silly, talking to an inanimate statue. But there was no harm in trying, right? ((Ada rolls Rapport to try and get Eriol in a more responsive mood for later. Difficulty is 5, but she gets a 6 and makes it!  She creates the aspect A Gentle Voice, A Soft Hand with one free invoke!))The statue didn’t give any indication that her words had reached its occupant, but the lingering sense of fear in the room seemed to lessen, somewhat. Maybe. A few minutes later, she heard footsteps on the stairs and Elbridge re-entered the room... with Rick right behind him. Rick took a moment to apprise the situation at the doorway, but he didn’t avoid her gaze this time. He met it, head on. “Hey,” he said, smiling playfully. “I heard you were having trouble with your new pet.” Ada just stared at him. “Rick? What are you doing here?” she asked, at length. “Getting over myself,” he said, but then his smile straightened into something more serious. “Can we talk after this?” This didn’t make sense. At all. Outwardly, however, Ada just nodded. “...Yeah. Sure. You said you wanted to lend a hand?” He took a step closer. His heart was pounding so loudly that he was afraid she would hear it, even from across the room. “Yeah. There’s a few things I can try. If that’s okay with you, I mean.” He was so tense she could practically see him vibrating in place. Not that I’m doing much better, she thought, making sure to keep her breathing steady and smooth. “Don’t see why not. So what’s the angle now?” Ada said, as she turned towards Elbridge with an inscrutable look on her face. “I do believe that our pooch would prove more amenable to a change of scenery,” he said, having watched the entire exchange with some amusement. “Rick has some experience in this area.” “Something like the cabin,” Rick said. He gave the covered mirror a side-eye as he walked up to the concentric magic circles containing Grace, a sleeping puppy, and a statue. “Is there a reason we’re doing loose-soul work next to the extremely dangerous spirit prison, El?” “If the circles should fail… we know how to retrieve a soul from that mirror, Rick,” El said soberly. “How to retrieve one that’s lost in the deep astral, less-so. Besides which, this is the sort of magic that can draw unwanted attention. Anything that might come looking for a snack should be susceptible to entrapment.” “So a life preserver and a bug zapper all in one. Fine. It still gives me the creeps.” He raised an eyebrow at Grace. “Is she okay?” Grace didn’t open her eyes as she responded to Rick. “I’m great, Rick, except you’re really bringing down the mood in here.” “Hey, what’s that supposed to mean?” Grace snorted. “You got bad energy today. Just enjoy the weird basement and the puppy. Once you put him back in his body." “I guess…” He sighed and slipped the sheath strap off his shoulder. “Well, someone put me in there and I’ll get started. I can’t cross magic circles on my own.” Elbridge carefully took the sword from Rick (or took Rick from Rick; present circumstances made the distinction rather abstract) and very carefully unsheathed the blade in the circle directly next to Eriol. “Immediate environs first,” he told Rick. “If he proves receptive, then we can expand into Grace’s circle.” Once inside the circle, Rick slipped through the veil to the astral, and suddenly had a much better idea of what was going on. There was a silvery tether leading from the puppy’s limp body to the statue, and he could almost make out a quivering ball of fur somewhere inside of it. He glanced back at Grace, and had to blink a few times. She was… not a human, not an alligator… Almost like both of them superimposed over each other on bad film. Two distinct creatures at once. Now who’s got the bad energy. Poor doggie. He knew pretty much immediately that what Elbridge had asked of him wasn’t going to work. Eriol was already inside the statue, he didn’t need to be more comfortable in the astral. Grace must have bypassed that part. The real problem was that he was blind and scared and had no idea how to make his body move. He touched the statue. It was warm, and he heard Eriol whining very softly. “Hey little guy,” he said soothingly, pushing his hand into the statue’s side just a bit. “You like pets? Can you feel this?” The moment his fingers slipped through the surface, a torrent of confused (but excited) barks followed, resonating around the inside like an echo. Clearly Eriol was still there...but lonely, and unsure of what to do. Moments later, Rick felt something wet and clumsy brush against his hand. A tentative lick, most likely. “Alright! Good boy. Now let’s just…” Slowly, with several setbacks, he pushed the puppy’s legs into the statue’s legs and guided his head and tail into position. It was like stuffing a pillow into a pillowcase, except the pillow was a puppy, and was busily wriggling and licking him. “There, that’s better isn’t it? Fits like a glove. So I think you’ve figured out touch, can you hear me buddy?” He snapped his fingers in front of the statue a few times, trying to see if Eriol could track it. The statue shuddered slightly. Then, its tail drooped, spun around, and ended up at a rather unnatural downward angle, before...scrunching up? It took a moment for the realization to sink in. That wasn’t Eriol’s tail, it was his tongue. Somehow, someway, he’d ended up exactly backwards. Rick facepalmed. “Well, that’s still progress. Good try, buddy. Let’s get you turned around…” It took a little coaxing and a lot of wrangling but he managed to turn the dog right way round. “Okay, round two,” Rick said. He stood up and backed a step away from the statue. “Eriol! Come here boy! Come on!” He whistled and patted his thighs. “Does dog taming always look this silly…?” Ada asked Elbridge, sotto voce, as Rick tried to coax the puppy out. “No shredded toys, no chased tails, no licked nether regions.” Elbridge shrugged. “If anything I’d say we’re ahead of the curve here.” This time, the statue’s mouth opened, and though it didn’t have lungs to sound out with, Rick was pretty sure it was panting. After a few moments, Eriol took a couple clumsy, tentative steps forward. “There you go! You’re doing it!” Rick grabbed the bag of dog treats that had been left in the circle and stuffed one into the statue’s open mouth. It clanked all the way down into the hollow center. “You want another one? Yes you do!” He started walking backwards in a circle, holding out a second treat. Though the feeling of food in his stomach felt disquietingly heavy and distant, Eriol was a smart little cookie, and knew how to recognize the promise of tasty food. He enthusiastically followed Rick around, and though he fell down a few times, he picked himself back up again quickly, and soon turned a complete circle. “You know you’re doing a lot better at this than I did,” Rick said. “Maybe it’s easier when you have legs. And eyes. And a cute little nosey-wosey.” He booped the statue on the nose. “Yes you do, yes you do!” He’d always wanted a dog, but his Mom was scared of them and he’d never had the time or space for one as an adult. Playing with Eriol was almost too much fun. Just then, a pointed cough from Ada interrupted them. Rick looked back at her, his smile turning pensive. “Are you sure that’s enough? He’s still a little wobbly…” Elbridge smiled. “There is, alas, the risk of little Eriol becoming too accustomed to his temporary body, or forming connections that will prove difficult to break. Once we’ve the means to restore the flow of time to a gilded subject, his next outing should be in his own body. His permanent one.” “You heard him, boy,” Rick said, reaching into the statue again, with both hands this time. He lifted the puppy’s spirit out, with a little more effort than he’d thought it would take, and held him to his chest as he walked back to the fuzzy yellow body breathing shallowly in front of Grace. “Man, look at the size of those paws, you’re going to be such a big…” His voice caught and he looked down at Eriol’s soul. Even if the magic worked, he would never be a big dog. He’d be exactly what he was now, forever, cast in gold. Rick sighed and for a moment he just held him. “Sorry, buddy. I really am.” Though Eriol didn’t really understand Rick’s words, he could sense the sadness within them. With a comforting whine, he leaned upward a little, and gave him a couple licks of commiseration on the side of his neck. “Oh keep making it harder, why don’t you,” Rick muttered, squeezing the puppy just a little. He ruffled Eriol’s ears and then knelt down and laid him in his body like he was putting a kid to bed. Then he left the astral, manifesting again inside of the circle. With a little yawn and a shake of his head, Eriol woke up. He looked around a little, as though he wasn’t sure of where he was supposed to be or if everything had been a dream, but then he saw the nice man who’d just given him delicious treats (which were still in his belly, even though he felt mysteriously light). With a cheerful bark, he rushed forward to greet him, only to dissolve into confusion as he slipped right past him and tumbled to the ground. “Somebody call him, please,” Rick said, looking away. “He’s not going to understand.” “The things I do sometimes...” Ada murmured, then raised her fingers to her mouth and whistled. “Eriol! Come on over! It’s time for pets and scritches!” Moments later, Ada found herself nearly thrown off her feet again, as Eriol jumped into her hands, slobbering happily all over her face. Rick stood up and hid a smile. It was impossible to be too sad watching Eriol completely overpower Ada. “Did we just find your secret weakness?” he asked, using the tip of his sword to break the magic circles and let himself out. “What—” Ada tried to say, avoiding Eriol’s attention as she did so, even as she stroked his head. “Cute little pets—? Stop it, Eriol, I’m trying to talk!” In spite of herself, she couldn’t help but let out an exasperated chuckle as scritches in the back of the neck made the little doggy twist around with bliss. “In your dreams, steelface. Now, are we gonna get to work on finding a way to keep him from getting his clock stopped or are you just gonna sit there gawking instead?” Rick stood there gawking for just long enough that she’d know it was on purpose. Then he held up his hands. “Hey, I did my bit. Time stuff is all Gorden.” “Yeah, well, Gorden’s not here. You want me to speeddial him and see if we can get the whole gang together?“ Why did wizards all have to be so narrowly specialized, anyway? Elbridge didn’t dignify that last question with an answer. He just gave her A Look. So did Rick. So did Grace. “Yeah, yeah, I get it. Gimme a moment.” Muttering, she headed for the door, cellphone at the ready to rope even more people into what was turning out to be a herculean effort...to begin the actual herculean effort they were supposed to be taking on.
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Oct 3, 2021 00:37
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Meltdown Scene: Château Hallway Rick waited in the hall while Ada made her phone call. He’d followed her upstairs, not trying to spy, just to catch her before she went back down to where Grace and Elbridge were waiting with Eriol. The portraits on the walls glared down at him like always, but their disapproval didn’t carry as much weight as it used to. Ada, I just want to tell you… I need to tell you… I wanted to let you know… I know things didn’t… He could have worn holes in the rug with his pacing. When the door finally opened he didn’t even notice until he almost walked straight into her. “Watch out,” Ada took a step back. “You’re gonna poke someone’s eye out if you run around with that thing without looking,” she said, pointing at the sword. Rick glanced down at the sheath on his hip. “You’re not that short,” he said without thinking. “And you’re not that clueless,” she shot back, crossing her arms. “Rick, what are you doing here? You said to give you space. That doesn’t jive with showing up to my home uninvited.” I was invited, just not by you. But he couldn’t say that. “Look, I know what I said, and I meant it, but… A lot’s happened in the last few days. I’ve had to take a long hard look at myself, at the decisions I’ve made, and what happened because of them…” He trailed off, not sure how to explain without giving everything away. “There is no space, Ada. It’s not your fault, but there isn’t, and I don’t want there to be anymore. It didn’t help. It was just me running away from everything that hurt again, and I’m done running.” I can’t handle this right now, Rick, she thought. I know this is probably important, but there’s too much riding on getting this ritual right today. Why couldn’t you wait like two minutes before dropping this hot mess on me? It never rained, only poured, and right now, she wasn’t feeling like grabbing the bucket to drain the water before it sank the ship. So instead, she quirked an eyebrow, and let him keep going. ((Ada really doesn’t feel like doing this, but hey, that’s what new Aspects are for…Queen of Hearts is compelled to lend Rick a listening ear and let him air all of this out.)) He’d prepared himself for an interrogation, not silence. A flash of panic ran through him, but her expression wasn’t dead, like the one she’d given JR after he lost her trust. It was just expectant. You always did know how to throw me off balance… His muscles tensed up. “Your revolution… I finally get why you want it so badly. You’re right. The way the world works now, everyone who cares about it ends up dead by thirty-five, or bitter and jaded because holding the line is so exhausting and it never stops. I thought…” He paused, infuriated for a moment by his own blindness. She’d tried to warn him, but he hadn’t wanted to hear it. “I thought if I just did the job, if I was a good enough Warden… But I was just the latest in a long line of suckers who couldn’t admit the system is broken. I can’t stand by and let all of this continue, not when you’re out there doing the work. I know I’m late...” He reached out to her, his hand was shaking. “But I do want to change New Orleans, Ada. If you’ll still have me.” Knew it, Ada thought, tiredly. Of course it’s a whole-rear end production, with all the bells, the whistles and the backup dancers. A few seconds passed as she resigned herself before replying. “What about what you need?” she asked. “I know you said there’s no space, but even then, even if you think what I’m trying to do here is the right thing, isn’t working closely with each other just gonna make...it...worse?” She blew her hands out as she spoke, struggling to define whatever it was that had driven him away in the first place. Rick shook his head. He’d pulled away from her so many times now, and it had always felt wrong. With a sudden burst of motion, he unhooked the sheathe from his belt and offered her the hilt. Let’s find out. She didn’t reach out for it. “I’m not gonna hang you from my belt, if that’s what this is about,” she said, firmly. “When I said you needed to find your own path, I meant it. I’m not—” That was when a flash of silver at the wrong place caught her eyes. “Your hand. It’s not flesh and blood anymore.” Her eyes, previously indolent and distant, shot up sharply to lock with his, now fully alert. “Rick, what happened to you?” He pulled the sword back to his chest and straightened up. “Had a run in with a kindly old lady who dragged me all the way out to the edge of the world. There’s nothing out there but heat and light, and all those lies I told myself just… burned away. If I’d held onto them for even a moment longer I’d have been burned up with them.” He pulled his sleeve up, revealing the uneven metallic stain that went all the way to his elbow, and gazed down at his silver fingers. They were a perfect match for the crossguard they were touching. “I’m not human anymore, Ada. None of me is flesh and blood. This is a reminder of what I really am.” He’s changed, she thought as she looked at him, trying to find as much distance as she could manage so she wouldn’t get a distorted view. It’s not even the silvering, that doesn’t really matter. It’s his posture, the way he talks, the words he picks. He’s more...composed. Like a jello that’s suddenly turned to iron. It wasn’t even a couple days since I last saw him, too...Rick, where did you find the time to go on this kind of journey? There was only one way to find out. Without another thought, she reached forward, clasping her hand around the hilt, and pulled him closer towards her face, so she could stare at the blade’s surface. For a moment all she saw was her own reflection in the mirror sheen, but then it rippled away as if disturbed on water. She caught a glimpse of waves and black sand, obscured by misty haze. He leaned into her touch, sending a tsunami of emotions through the bond. Fear, doubt, anxiety, terror, everything he’d been through since he last saw her. Everything. All of the lust, possessiveness, loneliness- She closed her eyes on reflex, shutting out the waves rolling through her. It wasn’t enough to separate from them, but it was just barely sufficient as a defense to keep his emotions from mingling with her own. It was too much...like the time she’d allowed Reese to feed on her, but in reverse. Her breathing hitched and she took a half-step forward, pressing her forehead against the flat of the blade. “Stop,” she whispered. Then, her voice grew to a shout. “Rick, stop already!” The sword wrenched itself out of her grip so quickly that her fingers stung. For a moment, all she could do was pant and try to push away the overload. “What the hell is your problem?” she muttered through gritted teeth. “You think it’s fun to toss all your bullshit at me, like I don’t have any baggage of my own? You should’ve told me you were going to grab me by the throat and stick my face into an emotional furnace. What were you even loving thinking?!” He backed up a step, stunned, feeling as raw and naked as the blade in his hand. “You’re the one who grabbed me! Don’t expect me to keep it all under control without a warning!” She scoffed. Was he for real? “Like you wouldn’t have blown up on me if I’d taken the hilt when you offered it anyway. Don’t tell me you were planning on just sitting there and letting me handle you for a while.” Maybe he hadn’t been planning on it, but there was no way he would’ve been able to keep all of that in check, she was sure of it. He flushed rose gold and for a moment he teetered on the edge of being too flustered to continue. Maybe she’s right. Maybe I would have. But so what? He squared his shoulders. “All I wanted was to see if I could handle working with you again. My feelings aren’t going away, Ada. They’re a part of me, just like you are.” “That’s not the point! You...” She bit down on her lower lip, hard. Getting mad at him over thinking they were still joined at the hip wouldn’t solve anything. He needed to understand first. “Rick, what you just did might as well have been a soulgaze in terms of impact. You just vomited your feelings all over me and now I’m soaked, stinky, and covered in lingering fears and worries.” Spreading her fingers out as if they were covered in some kind of fluid, Ada then shook her hands to wipe it away. “Why didn’t you just try saying something? My ears are wide open. If you wanted to see if you could handle being in close quarters with me, maybe spreading your trenchcoat to flash me wasn’t the best way to put that to the test.” If he’d turned slightly pink before, he was all the way to bright copper now. “...I didn’t know it’d be that strong! Last time… I mean, it’s never been like that before. You’ve felt it, it wasn’t…” “Wasn’t nearly as strong, yeah,” she agreed. “But when was the last time you really tried to let someone know how you felt through the blade?” “I don’t… wait. The parking lot, after you jerked me off in front of Gorden. I haven’t let anyone touch me like that since. You were covered in slime that night too,” he added, testily. “You came across loud and clear back then,” Ada nodded, refusing to engage. This was no time to play the ‘what about’ game. “And that was just one thing. How do you imagine it feels to get hit by ten or twenty different emotions at once?” Goddamnit Ada, I didn’t come here for a lecture. “I’m sorry, okay? I hosed up. I barely know anything about what I can do, and I didn’t mean to… I just...” “...Lost control, yeah. I know what it’s-” The uncertainty was suffocating, and he couldn’t hold his breath any longer. You want me to speak up? Fine, let’s see how open your ears are. “I love you!” he shouted, interrupting her. He braced for the pain of rejection, of helplessness, of inadequacy, but for the first time in a long time it didn’t come. That wasn’t so bad, he thought, sheepishly, almost basking in the absence of hurt. She took a step back, taken aback. Guess I did just ask him why he didn’t try words, was the thought that crossed her mind, absurd and unbidden. Why was he saying so? It had always been obvious, in the coral forest and even when she’d visited the Stitch. “...Yeah. I still know.” It stung, but only a little. She’d never said it back right. “No, you don’t get it. It’s not about you knowing, it’s about me being able to say it without hating myself for it.” Ada blinked. “...What do you mean?” He clutched at his chest with one hand. “I loved Rachel too. When she died, I didn't even try to get over her. I let the Council seal my memories of her away so I wouldn’t have to grieve, then I poured everything I had into the Wardens, trying to lead a life she’d have approved of instead of leading my own. When you broke up with me, I wanted to do better than that, than just dancing on the strings you'd cut like a haunted puppet. So I told myself I was stupid for still loving you, that I was weak for not severing.” Every word he spat was loaded with enough venom to kill an elephant. “Every time I saw you, I reached out to you because I still wanted to be with you, and every time after you left, I tore myself to pieces over being so pathetic. No matter what I did, I couldn't win. It was a downward spiral of self-loathing with no bottom. I still don't know what to do with all these feelings, but I know I have to do better than that. I don't want to cut you out of my life or hate myself for still having you in it.” For a few moments, there was nothing but silence in the wake of his words. Inside Ada’s head, the gears turned with blinding speed. So every time we talked to each other, it was like sticking his hand into an open flame. For a moment, a pang of guilt wracked her, like a jolt through her insides. It made sense, but how could she have known? “...You said you don’t wanna hate yourself over your feelings anymore,” she said, after a few more seconds passed. “Can you do it?” Can I? He could recognize it now, the little whisper in his mind that told him how worthless and pathetic he was. It had gotten louder and more vicious after Ada dumped him than any other time he could remember, but it had been there years before he’d ever met her. He’d have to listen carefully, to hunt it down wherever else it had burrowed into his consciousness, if he wanted to get rid of it for good. “...Yeah,” he said, straightening up. “Yeah. I can.” A slight smile pulled up the corners of Ada’s lips. “You’ve always found ways to rise up to the occasion. It just sometimes takes you a while to get there.” “A while and the right motivation,” Rick added, cheeks heating up despite his best efforts. “I’ve still got a lot of work to do. I’m not even close to being happy with who I am yet, or even knowing what that looks like. But… this really helped. Thank you.” “Don’t even mention it.” For a moment, she raised her arms to hug him, but then she held herself back. Maybe not yet. Don’t want him to slip back into bad old habits again. He froze up at the offer, wanting it and knowing at the same time he was in no state to accept it. When she put her arms down he let out a sigh of relief. Such a strong reaction to such a little thing, but he wasn’t spiralling out of control this time. He smiled, gaining a sudden boost of confidence. “So… are we friends again?” She nodded. “Yeah. I don’t mind being friends. You know any board games that might be good for killing an hour or two? I figure we got some time before Gorden shows up and I don’t wanna sit on my rear end waiting for him. I had enough of that while you, El and Grace worked your magic down in the basement.” “I just played with the dog,” Rick said, a little embarrassed. He’d expected to have to do more after Elbridge had talked it up so much. “Board games though… Do you have any for more than two people? Or maybe we could play cards. Er, if you can with those gloves on.” “Yeah, shouldn’t be an issue. Barely feels like I’m wearing anything anymore...well, when I’m not touching skin, anyway.” On a whim, she raised her hands up and rested her face against them, positioning her fingers so as to frame her cheeks and eyes. “How do they look on me? I think the red and gold go together pretty nicely.” “I’m more of a silver man myself,” he said, barely holding a straight face. “But yeah, they’re gorgeous. Planning on keeping up the look even after you bring Midas down?” “Nah, too ostentatious. The higher up the ladder you climb, the more important looking casually good is. If you show your wealth off too obviously, it comes off tacky. Maybe I could try a couple earrings or something, if I can find a way to keep the holes from closing and popping them out every two seconds. What do you think?” “You know I think you look good in anything,” Rick said matter-of-factly. “If you want fashion advice you’ll have to ask Nicholas. I’m lucky if I can tie my own tie half the time. That said… since when do you shop at Hot Topic? I don’t think I’ve seen that spiked collar or the mini skirt before.” “I got mauled by a cherub and a bestie on my way to the forum and dragged into it,” she said, dead serious. “They only agreed to let me go when I pointed out we were starting to rack up costs into the high hundreds. Be thankful this is all they asked of me yesterday,” she said pointing at the top with ‘I HATE YOU’ in bold white letters. “If I hadn’t managed to pacify them a little, I wouldn’t even be recognizable right now.” Rick stared openly at the lettering, then slapped his forehead. He hadn’t even noticed. “drat, I sure picked the wrong day, didn’t I?” “You were about as timely as a fart right after the final crescendo at the opera house,” Ada chirped. “Now come on, let’s go see if we can find something that can handle four players. We don’t wanna tell Elbridge and Grace to just sit out when they finally catch us playing.” “Three players,” Rick said quickly, remembering the darts game. “El cheats.” “Four players,” Ada said, firmly. “He’s gonna lose his poo poo when he ends up losing anyway.”
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Oct 3, 2021 00:38
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UNO Scene: The Chateau The games room in the mansion hadn’t seen much use over the last decade, but all it took was the removal of a clean white sheet or two and Seline’s lightning speed with a duster to get it back in working order. The walls were wainscotted, and there was a large fireplace with a severe-faced portrait of an older man with mutton chops above it. One wall’s windows overlooked the back gardens and let in plenty of natural light, (though the heavy burgundy curtains had been partially drawn for Rick’s benefit.) The card table was solid walnut with a forest green inlay, perfectly square, with matching high-backed chairs right out of a mobster movie. How’ve the games been going? Rick rolls 1, Elbridge rolls -1, Grace rolls -2, and Ada… gets a -4. We are clearly very good at cards. “Uno,” Rick called, waving the lone spectral card in his hand. The game had gone on for quite some time now, and several of the others had gone down to a single card only to have to draw 2 or 4 immediately after, so he wasn’t really expecting much. (It had taken them a moment to agree on how best to let him play, but they’d finally settled on letting Grace draw for him, then show him the card, so he could copy it into his hand as a constructed object before setting it aside in his own discard pile.) “Your turn, El.” “Must I?” Elbridge asked, looking glumly at the tower of cards he’d already played, and the miniscule stack remaining in the draw pile. Rick looked at the Blue Reverse he’d just played and nodded solemnly. “Thou must.” “Victory is mathematically-impossible for the rest of us at this point,” Elbridge said, drawing another card despite his protestations. “There is no combination of plays remaining that would forestall your victory.” From the very beginning, Elbridge had fought fiercely, turning every round of play into a grueling, protracted struggle that more resembled trench warfare than a parlour game. “You don’t know that,” Rick said. “You don’t know what my last card is.” Elbridge had indeed refrained, at great personal difficulty, from divining the exact order of cards in the shuffled deck, but he had counted all that had been played so far, and knew every card either in hand or waiting to be drawn. He also had, through inference and observation, excluded a fair number of cards that were definitely not in each player’s hand through the latest round. Rick’s victory could be postponed for another two draws at most, at which point the only way he could lose would be self-inflicted, unforced error. “Hope springs eternal,” Elbridge said with a shrug, and nodded for Grace to take her turn. Grace giggled a little at El’s resignation. She had a smart move here, or a jerk move. If he was right about Rick’s last card, nothing she did would ultimately matter. And so the Blue Draw 2 went to Ada. “Enjoy!” Imperturbably, Ada reached forward and drew two more cards. Her luck had been horrendous, and her play even moreso. No matter how much she’d tried, she just hadn’t been able to get her head in the game with the ritual’s outcome still in question. “He’s right, you know. There’s nothing I can do to keep you out from winning here. Nothing...except one thing. Rick claims Uno. Before he can resolve it, though...” Standing up, she spread the cards in her hand like a fan. “I claim red twenty-five!” she said, and slammed a draw 4 card onto the table so hard it shook. “Whew. I needed that,” she said, sitting back down with an explosive huff. “I’m good now. The win’s all yours.” “Only if I have a blue,” Rick said cheekily, balancing his card’s corner on the tip of his index finger. “Challenge on that. Twenty-five and no blues? C’mon, you’ve got the whole rainbow in there.” “Whoops, caught me fibbing,” Ada said, placing her cards on the table, face up -- only to reveal that almost half of them were blues. “If I’m gonna lose, I might as well see just how spectacular of a loss I can pull off,” she said, as she reached forward and scooped up the entire rest of the deck. “Well, someone give our resident seer a quarter,” Rick said, flipping his card over. It was a blue 7. He set it daintily on the pile and dusted his hands off. “One more round?” “Sure. Maybe this time I can get a decent—” It was at that moment that Roy knocked twice on the game room door, opened it and cleared his throat. “Mister Maxwell has arrived,” he said. “Shall I bring him here, madame?” Ada shook her head. “No need. The explanations will make more sense if he has the golden rat to look at. Bring him to the ritual chamber. Let’s head downstairs, shall we?” she said, glancing at the others as she stood back up.
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Oct 26, 2021 01:51
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Hypothetically-Speaking Scene: Mirror Ritual Chamber Roy met Gorden at the door and after the formal invitation led him swiftly down two flights of stairs to what was clearly a haunted basement right out of a horror movie. Strangely shaped piles of unknown things were covered by dusty white sheets, there was a giant chalk circle with arcane runes all through it on the stone floor, and what had to be a magic mirror, tall enough to walk through, overseeing the whole procedure. It might have been terrifying if the golden retriever puppy in the dog kennel hadn’t been barking cheerfully when he walked in, but then he realized the kennel was in the middle of the circle, which had some implications. Ada, Elbridge, and Grace were already there, and he knew Rick’s sword when he saw it, even if the ghost-man wasn’t currently visible. “...so this is what you meant by ‘animal handling’,” said Gorden at first to himself. Then, louder, “Hey, Ada, El, Grace! Uh, quick question! Is this a statue that you’ve gotten barking like a dog or…?” “Only when inhabited by the spirit of the dog, and then only briefly,” Elbridge said, standing and stretching with a series of brittle *pops!* from his joints. He twisted left, then right, then strode over to a workbench where a second, smaller cage awaited. “Hello, Mr. Maxwell. Come have a look at this, and I believe you’ll understand why your particular skills are in demand.” “Oh, good, for a second I thought he was gonna say ‘Edward…’,” sighed Gorden in relief as he moved to where Elbridge was indicating. “A dog, a dog statue that the dog sometimes transmigrates to, rat statue...guessing there’s a rat spirit--” his train of thought suddenly sputtered as he looked up from the rat cage, then at the gathered group. “Wait. Waaaaaaitwaitwaitwaitwaitwait. You want me to--?!” He made a motion rotating his finger counterclockwise, then dropped it into a swing approximating a rat’s tail. “No,” Elbridge said firmly. “That might risk fraying the fabric of reality, and could constitute a breach of the Sixth Law - ‘Thou shalt not swim against the currents of time’. Take a closer look. Do you notice anything peculiar about this creature?” “Hmm…” Gorden took another look at the rat statue, examining the luster of it as he craned his head. “Uh...erm...I, uh...it’s awfully lifelike, but I guess that’s to be expected…?” “Not with your mundane senses,” Elbridge clarified. “Or...have you ever utilised The Sight?” He said it in a way that Gorden could almost hear the capitalisation. “I guess that’s another magic thing that you have to grow up with to know?” responded Gorden as he continued to examine the rat statue from all angles. “Do I close my eyes and focus really hard or what?” “That is one way of doing it,” Elbridge said, entirely-serious. “Tell me, what do you perceive when you use your OWN magics?” Gorden turned to look at Elbridge to take a break from the glare of the rat statue. “Possibility spaces. Modelling things. Numbers--LOTS of numbers. If I look at the rat long enough, is he going to turn into the Matrix?” “You certainly might perceive it as a matrix,” Elbridge said, “although there’s no way to be certain until you see for yourself. Your first thought was a good one: Close your eyes, and look.” “Okay…” said Gorden with a nod as he turned back to the rat statue and closed his eyes. “From Matrix to Star Wars, I guess…” He tried not to get distracted by the thought of the rat statue suddenly taking off and zapping him with a laser, instead trying to imagine the possibilities of the rat’s larger universe of garbage, other rats, and the odd cat...or, well, what would be its larger universe if it wasn’t a statue. Possibilities of rat life swirled around...a lot of ones where the rat got eaten, some where he got crushed or run over, a few where he lived a long life for a rat and eventually helped birth the next generation of rats. Meeting someone who could turn him into gold, and who decided to use that power on a rat--or maybe just by chance ended up doing so--that was a rare thing. Where was that possibility, and where did it lead going forward? He opened his eyes and realized he wasn’t staring at a rat statue anymore. There was an abstract yellowish blob in front of him, and nothing else. But his breathing was easy and he felt...strangely serene. A little more focus on the blob showed the rat statue, but distorted, as if looking at it through the lens of an observatory telescope. A handful of lines projected from it behind him, to other blobs which had much larger numbers of little lines projecting from them to other blobs, some terminating into black ones that lead nowhere else. And a handful of little lines projected forward from the yellow, but suddenly ended in mid air. Gorden had no idea what was happening, but since every other line ended at a blob, these definitely stuck out. He craned his “head” to look closer at their terminations. Rolled a +2, with Notice +5, leads to a result of +7. Gorden reveals “Threads of Fate, Pulled Taut.” There was something strange about the ends of those particular lines. They hadn’t ended at all. They were pulled taut, and wrapped around something that looked like a needle made of dark wood. Or perhaps a tiny spindle? He could, not quite, but almost, hear the sound of metal shears opening. The sudden intervention of man made objects in his abstract visualization nearly made Gorden fall over, but here it was, blatantly obvious. Something hadn’t so much “cut” the “threads” (although did that sound like a pair of scissors? He couldn’t tell) as stretched and wound them so far out that they wouldn’t fall into place. Once the object was taken out, the “threads” would snap back to wherever they were going--or just snap, if the pointed bit cut something on the way out, he supposed. This was...actually kinda exciting! But best to get back to what Elbridge and Ada and Grace wanted to do. He shook his head to try to clear the visualization. Will +5, rolled +3, leads to +8 to end the Sight And just like that, he was looking at the rat statue again. No lines, no pointy object, just a little lustrous thing. “It’s like...the rat’s existence can’t go forward. It’s been leashed to something and it needs to be untied.” “How do we do that, then?” Ada asked. “Do we know what that something is?” “Uh...I don’t know if this visualization is consistent but...it looked like a needle? A spindle?” “You’re kidding me. Like Sleeping Beauty’s old poisoned spindle?” Ada shook her head. If this was where that actually came from… “So we have to remove it, and then probably administer an antidote. What do you think will do the trick? I bet it’s not a true love’s kiss.” “Does Sleeping Beauty involve something cutty?” Gorden scratched his head. “I think I heard something like an old pair of scissors, too.” “Oh,” Elbridge said softly, his look of approval fading to one of anxiety. “Oh dear. If they’re involved in this curse, then that complicates matters considerably. DON’T say their names,” he held up his hand. “It’s...inadvisable to draw their attention. But I do believe what you’re describing is a distaff, and a pair of shears.” “What’s a distaff, again?” asked Gorden as he stepped away uncertainly from the rat statue. “Sorry, I just...I don’t suppose there’s a coffee maker available? Whoo boy…” “Roy should be outside. Ask him about it, he should have some Joe ready.” Ada’s brow furrowed. This definitely sounded familiar. Where had she heard it before? And what could make Elbridge nervous enough to invoke the Macbeth Rule? Distaff, shears, ‘they’...wait a minute. “You’re thinking of the CAL, aren’t you?” she asked. Clotho, Atropos and Lachesis. The Greek Fates. “Just so,” he said, nodding. “So this isn’t a stopped clock, then,” Ada said, shooting the rat a sideways glance. “It’s a thread that’s been tangled into knots, and what we need to do is unravel it. The easiest way to do that is to slip something underneath it, so we can pull it up and stick our fingers in. But what would that ‘something’ be? El, any ideas?” “My staff would certainly work,” Elbridge said. “It’s of the same nature as their tools. Frankly, I’m more concerned that they might take issue with our intervention. Even the gods were hesitant to meddle with their designs. It would be better to ask permission here - they don’t really do ‘forgiveness’.” “We’ve broken someone’s fate and screwed around with time. Frankly speaking, I think it’s too late to ask for permission at this point, and we don’t have a way of contacting them anyway.” A smirk pulled up the corners of Ada’s lips. “And besides that, look on the plus side — since this is my project, I’m pretty sure any punishments for hubris will land on me.” “I can cite a few thousand years’ worth of precedent saying otherwise,” Elbridge said flatly. “Besides which, while we may not have a way of contacting them directly, I do have the next-best thing.” So saying, he brought out his staff, opened a shielded compartment in his steamer trunk, and carefully withdrew his cellular phone. He brought up the number for a contact that simply said ‘Ms. P.’ --- Three minutes later, he came back with a look of relief on his face. “Off the record, they’re probably fine with this, on the condition that it remain off the record. If we went around boasting that we’d undone their work, well...Arachne. Niobe. Bellerophon. No shortage of object lessons there.” Ada nodded. “Don’t kiss and tell, gotcha. In that case, I think the floor’s all yours.” “Hey, hang on, hang on a sec!” Gorden suddenly exclaimed as he rubbed a hand through his hair in thought. “I’ve mentioned a bunch that biological processes are complex, right? Taking a whole whole lot of biological processes, hitting pause, transferring them to a...simpler but completely different medium, and then hitting unpause again...woof…” He started pacing around the magic circle on the ground. “Pausing and unpausing the same process is theoretically doable, the problem is these aren’t the same processes, you’re taking a tractor factory over the mountains and not even converting it to produce tanks, you’re producing rocket parts with a whole different interaction setup with themselves and the world--” He looked up from his wandering at the barking dog, then at the statue. “But you’ve already solved the translation problem. At least for dogs. Don’t know if rats are wired differently...or if people are wired differently...and nobody’s actively pushing against the dog…” A look at his grimoire, then back to the dog, then to the statue, then to the rat. “So, the time stop part, we’ve got some ideas about who’s pushing it, and how to fix that. The tricky part would be what happened after. The sudden change in circumstances, I mean. That happens often enough for regular folks--people getting knocked unconscious, stopping their relative perception of time, waking up later to find they’ve lost a limb. I suspect it’d have to be a very gradual, controlled process. If you just un-time-stopped them back to normal one-to-one perception the shock would not be good!” “You mean finding itself temporally displaced could kill the rat as it realizes how different its circumstances are? Like stepping off a plane after landing on a mountain and getting hit by oxygen loss?” Ada ventured. “Yeah, that’s a good way to put it,” Gorden affirmed. “You have to introduce the pressure change slowly or you get the bends or your blood spontaneously boils or--” he stopped himself before he got even more gruesome. “Not that slowing down someone’s time perception to something that isn’t used to it wouldn’t be a shock of its own!” “Hold on a minute,” Rick said, flickering into view near the cage. “Isn’t the rat already dead? It’s a hunk of metal now, after all. The curse just stopped it from figuring that out yet.” To his enormous credit, El kept a straight face at that and didn’t even cough. “You know, I got a friend who did a summer break as a medic at a ski resort in the southern hemisphere, and they had a saying,” Gorden rolled his shoulders and affected an Australian accent. “‘They’re not dead until they’re warm and dead.’ I mean, she was talking about hypothermia, but still.” “That is rather what we hope to learn here, via Schroëdinger’s Rat,” Elbridge said. “We won’t know for certain until we open the box and find out.” “Mmm. Hold up a little,” Ada interjected. “Gorden’s right. If we just change everything at once the shock will wipe the rat out. We don’t have to, though. If we can acclimate the body first, then the mind won’t have nearly as much trouble. If we start by uncursing it from the inside and expand outwards...” she said, tapping her chest, right where her heart would be. “Grace, you’re the shapeshifting expert. What do you think about letting the body’s processes reacquaint themselves with existing first?” Grace played with her toothy necklace while she thought. “Uhhh… So, you know like… dream logic? So, when we would do our first change, the merge, one of the most important things is to be asleep. Deep sleep. Not knocked out, but dreaming. Dream logic helps make connections that your waking mind has problems with. Like how you can be in a car chase, and turn around, and then you’re at a dinner table. There’s no transition scene, you’re just at a dinner table and in that dreamstate you’re just… okay with it? Like it’s totally normal and fine?” “Kinda,” Ada said, nodding slowly. “How do we replicate that when it comes to a body-induced shock?” “Well, traditionally there’s a lot of herbs that can cause that… but also Ambien? I’m not sure how that’d work with a rat… But there’s kind of a check you can do. Before the merge, the person leading the ceremony would check on their spirit and lead them into the dream space if they needed to. I haven’t actually done that part, though. I guess I can try, unless somebody else has more experience dreamwalking?” Ada didn’t answer immediately. Instead, her eyes drifted towards the spirit in the corner. “Hmm,” said Rick, peering a little closer into the cage. “This might have been easier if we drugged the rat before we turned it to gold.” He glanced up at Grace. “I can set up the dream space however you like but as far as playing pied piper I think you’d be better at that than me. What do you think would be the most relaxing, comfortable thing for a rat to wake up to?” Again she stopped, playing with her necklace. “A nest, dark, but not too small. Filled with food. Fruit. Berries. Maybe some kibble.” “Alas, I think that our rat will have to remain in durance,” Elbridge interjected. “We’ve only enough material for one animation, and I doubt that any of the parts would fit in a rat’s body regardless.” “Ah… back to the dog park idea then,” Rick said, giving the rat a pat through the cage wire. “So, let me just make sure I have this all straight. The plan is to golemize the golden statue, then slowly push the subject into a dreaming state to help it adjust, then-” Rick snapped his fingers, “-wake up time?” “In so many words, yes,” Elbridge said. “I can manage the gross physical transformations, and the direct manipulation of the threads, but the transition from one underlying paradigm of reality to another…” He paused. “We’re not just removing them from their spindle, we’re weaving them into something else entirely.” “I guess that’s where I come in,” Gorden chirped with a brandish of his grimoire, being very careful not to spill his coffee cup on it. “I wish we could set up a camcorder or something for this; we could turn it into a full thesis. ‘The Maxwell-Hardley Transmutation’, man, imagine it…” “That’s not even alphabetical!” Elbridge protested. “And a few names short, isn’t it?” Rick said, raising an eyebrow. “Shall I list you as a contributor in my report to the Council, then?” Elbridge might have been joking, except that he had pencil and paper out and was indeed making rapid notes as the discussion progressed. Rick could actually see where the lead had stopped on a line of credited authors. “Posthumously,” Rick said, dead serious. He wasn’t ready to come out to the Council yet, but academic credentials were too rare to pass up on when you’d earned them. “Let them make whatever they want out of that.” “Of course,” Elbridge said, and made another note. “Your work on the Ways and Demesnes is certainly a plausible basis.” “A-HEM,” Ada coughed, pointedly. “Boys, please. Conducting an obscenely complicated ritual no one’s ever managed to pull off first, academic dickwaving later, hmm? Let’s not take credit for the kill before we’ve hunted down our prey.” There was an edge in her voice that stood at odds with her usual calmness. The thing they’d been working towards was right there, taunting them with its proximity. Just how long would she have to wait before she finally knew if all her efforts would succeed or fail? “We only get one attempt at this,” Elbridge chided. “Haste makes waste, and worse.”
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Oct 26, 2021 01:56
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Threading the Loophole Grumbling, Elbridge set about drawing the last few diagrams needed for the final ritual, infusing them with his power with painstaking care to get every last rune, sigil, and diacritical mark just so. Three times, he paced the bounds of the space, winding a threefold loop of flax yarn using the branches of his staff as a loom. With seven stones from seven rivers, he anchored the cat’s cradle at its ends, lacing them about the circle containing Eriol himself. His fate would be guided along the thread, from himself to himself, spliced together like a magician’s trick cord. <I consecrate this space>, Elbridge said in a language that had been dead when Latin was alive, <to the weaving of portions, to the preservation of living things, to the perseverance of unliving things, to the bridging of the boundary.> Each curtain in the room drew shut in turn, that the changing of hours, of day to night, would not break the spell. <I state my intent, upon my Staff and my Name and my Power, to preserve the life within this circle, and to bring forth the greatest virtues of metals as are evinced in flesh. Let hungry spirits look elsewhere for their food; let the netherworlds take none here for their due.> Candle wicks sputtered to life, untouched by any flame, burning with an eerie, colourless light to be found on no natural spectrum. <By this magic may the silver cord be tethered, may the golden bowl endure. By this magic shall ERIOL remain ERIOL. By this magic may his body remain his body, fashioned anew.> Elbridge took one of the candles and set it in a basin of brackish water, submerging it all the way to the wick. It burned nonetheless. “We have until this candle expires,” he told Ada, in English. “Begin.” With a nod, Ada took a step forward, pulling off her right glove as she did so. “Sleep tight, Eriol,” she whispered to him, as she knelt down beside him. “It’ll be a bright new you when you wake.” She scratched the back of his head, and the gold spread quickly, granting unto him the gift of endless, dreamless sleep. One by one, Elbridge inscribed more circles about Eriol’s golden limbs, matching the engraving on the golem and preparing his body to receive the transplants of crystal, silver, and clay. Each sat suspended above the workspace, caught in the cords, and as Elbridge completed each binding, they vanished, merged with his golden flesh. He’d modified them exactly as directed by Wizard Cantor and Brother William. If all went as he hoped, they would be bound to Eriol in truth, as much a part of him as if he’d been born with them. And then he touched his staff to the threads again, and things began to go awry. Candles sputtered out. The cords raveled and snarled of their own volition. In the room and in the household above, mirrors warped and cracked - the enchanted one in the ritual space itself held, but with an ominous, crystalline keening. A horseshoe above the hearth flipped upside-down, and every black-furred cat in the neighbourhood began to meander toward the Châteaux duSang, drawn by curiosity and uncanny intuition. Elbridge steadied himself with deep, level breaths and checked the submerged flame in the basin. It burned still, but the threads above the diagram were twisting and braiding into increasingly-tangled knots. He had to unravel the mess before it was too late, but he didn’t dare take his attention off of Eriol. “Mr. Maxwell,” he said, as calmly as he could manage. “If you would stabilise the currents of probability?” Elbridge rolls Divination, spending a FP to act outside the skill’s normal parameters, with +2 from assistance from Rick and Gorden: /--- +7 = 4, ick. Gotta boost up to 22 or bad things will happen, so El Invokes his High Concept for another attempt and: /--- +7 = 4. Evidently the Fates DO have something to say here. He also pays the first of ten Costs here: Minor Consequence (Mystical Overexertion). Elbridge FP 5->3. Gorden had watched the bizarre phenomena with rapt interest, noting the cracking and flipping and twisting in his grimoire, but looked up at Elbridge’s strained question. “Oh, uh, right, I got this,” he answered as he flipped to another page. “They were separate lines when you started, and they didn’t get untied at either end, so separating them should be as easy as an untwist here, and an unbraid there...” As he spoke the threads began to uncoil themselves back into the way they were supposed to. “Man, it’s like topology, pure math, but...applied.” “Welcome to magic,” Elbridge said, sighing in relief. “Where we eff the ineffable on a daily basis.” He resumed his incantation, and the engravings in Eriol’s body began to gleam softly despite the gloomy lighting. It looked impressively-eerie. It was also not at all a good sign. As Elbridge watched, the flame in the basin sputtered and dimmed, fading further as the binding magics took. They were drawing too much from Eriol - the power required to sustain a golem body was evidently a good deal more than even a vital young creature such as himself had to give. If it went on, the result would be a golem, alright - ONLY a golem, mindless and obedient, with Eriol himself reduced to an animating force with no control over his own body. Elbridge changed course, and the engravings dimmed. The candle flame burned steadily once more… too steadily. It ceased to flicker and dance, holding perfectly-still like a photograph. “Too far...wrong direction,” he grunted. “Frozen...one shape...need a catalyst...for change…” Grace moved towards Elbridge as soon as she realized what he was saying. She took off her necklace, quietly speaking as she placed it over the top of his staff and let it rest on his hand. “A tooth from me, from my love, teeth from our family and from our clan. From both halves of all of us.” It was a symbol of change, as he asked for, but also of death and rebirth and memories. It seemed fitting. She was also going to have words with him if it was permanently damaged. “That...should do…” he gritted out. “Thank you…” Elbridge felt the power drain from the talisman, flowing through his staff and into the spell. All at once, the teeth shivered, then fell to the floor, the thread of the necklace itself vanishing into thin air. No, not thin air...its fibres came apart, frayed at the end, splicing themselves into the lines woven for the spell. Eriol’s form went limp. Not like a marionette or an articulated doll - like a living dog, slouching as he napped. It was working. If all went as planned, Eriol would subsume the cords, or the cords would subsume Eriol - either way, he would be back into the normal flow of cause and effect, his being not held in check by an outside force. If. If was such stuff as the Fates made their playthings. With a sudden, jarring *twang!* of vibrating strings, the cables ceased to spin and pulled taut. “Oh, balls,” Elbridge swore, in the sort of tone that might have been used on the Titanic just as the crew realised they were about to hit the iceberg. There was no time for prudence nor caution. In another instant, the thread would snap, and all would be lost. Elbridge lunged and grabbed it with a bare hand. It was like touching a live electrical wire, if the wire was made of past, present, and future and the current was made of questions and answers, events and outcomes. So, perhaps, not at all like touching a live wire, except in that it made his hand go numb and the rest of him really hurt. “Clip…” he gasped out. “Something...binding...Rick...cut it…” Rick had been standing next to Ada, wringing his hands as one near disaster after another almost ended the ritual. He couldn’t help feeling like he should be in there, pulling threads together, taking some of the tremendous load off of El. Having the knowledge, the training, and not the ability made spectating an excruciating sport. He was already looking for the snag when Elbridge called his name, and had been since he heard the *twang!* But he couldn’t find it anywhere in the visible spell matrix, and he couldn’t see beyond what was visible anymore. He didn’t have the Sight, or any wizard’s senses. But he did have something else. Ever since El had begun chanting he’d felt energized, in the same way he had when he was poking around the Standing Stones in deep Winter. Magic seemed to have that effect on him now, his sword’s forged-in counterspell taking notice, taking measure, whenever he was exposed to it. Could he use that? The cord in Elbridge’s hand thrummed again, and he choked back a cry of pain. “RICK. PLEASE.” “Working on it!” Rick said, closing his eyes and straining until the blade itself started to hum with a subtle vibration. There was so much magic in the air that it was like looking for a snowball in a blizzard, but he could just make out something like… like a kink in the hose, a blockage… if he had more time… “Damnit, this isn’t- Gorden! I need your eyes!” “Huh?! Uh, alright!” Gorden gingerly stepped around the ritual to Rick and looked at the taut cables. “Uh...I think I see it! It’s…” he realized that it was highly likely that if Rick couldn’t see the snag, guiding him onto it was going to take forever. “What do I do, just pick up the sword and cut it?!” His hand instinctively came to rest on the handle, as if indicating permission. For a second Rick almost said yes, but the idea of letting Gorden swing him wildly at the snag when there was a very delicate thread underneath it… “No, just relax.” <I’ve got it,> he finished, a voice in Gorden’s mind as he grabbed hold. To Gorden, it felt like having someone squish in next to him on a much too small bus seat, except the bus seat was his own body. “Geez--” Gorden managed before the feeling of getting slammed inside his own head nearly made him fall over. He was about to say something when he felt himself drawing the sword with much more grace than he could ever manage on his own. Which made sense--the closest thing to a sword fight he’d seen was Star Wars. <All yours, Rick!> he thought to “himself”. <You don’t want to see me flailing this thing.> <Where?> Rick asked, trying not to go any deeper than he had to. Gorden’s magic was much stronger than his had ever been, and it was almost intoxicating being this close to it. <Show me, hurry!> <Right there!> Gorden pointed with the end of the sheath. And there it was, a bright red ribbon knotted around the nearly-empty distaff, floating right where he’d thought it would be. He took two steps and thrust forwards, the blade sliding snugly beneath the ribbon, then twisted it in his hand and cut upwards. The ribbon was made of something much stronger and stranger than cloth, and he had to bring the full strength of the counterspell to bear, the blade keening as one by one the threads parted, until it gave way altogether. “Got it!” he shouted, in Gorden’s voice, a sense of hot satisfaction leaking through the blade to his host. The tension gone, the yarn began to move again, passed from its unseen spindle by an unseen shuttle. Unseen before now, at any rate. Gorden, and Rick through him, could clearly see the skeins of possibility and probability, carried along by something luminous and fluttery that moved in time with Elbridge’s voice, threading weft through warp and anchoring Eriol to causality. They could also see how other things caught and snagged, dragged along as they were snared by the threads, until the motions of the spell gently freed them to pursue their own fates. It was pretty easy to see how if the wrong butterfly flapped its wings at exactly the wrong moment, the result could be a real mess. Gently, gingerly, Elbridge released his hold of the thread. His hand looked mildly rope-burned. The other threads, coming from his person and visible only to Rick and Gorden, looked like someone’s hair after a nasty static shock. Like someone had put wool fabric through a full wash-and-dry cycle, in brazen defiance of a “DRY CLEAN ONLY” tag. Rick renders his share of the assistance, and Elbridge takes a Moderate Consequence: “Frayed Fate”. “Now…” Elbridge said, leaning on his staff for support. “...now he just needs energy. Enough to replace what the spell took from him. Not sure...how much more...I can give…” Grace patted at her pockets. “I’m all out of teeth over here. Unless you want a fresh one.” She was pretty sure her joke was going to fall flat. “It...may do,” he replied. He shuddered as he spoke, as though each breath cost him dearly. “Vital forces...into the cardinal points...until the flame in the bowl...burns above water…” There were indeed four smaller circles within the greater one, arranged at the compass points, only the northern of which overlapped with the pentacle. “Whatever you can spare…” “Oh. OH! Oh poo poo.” Grace fumbled for her leatherman, flipping out a little pair of pliers. “Don’t worry, they grow back, this is just going to, well, here goes nothing.” She put the pliers into her mouth, and started to twist and pull. Anyone paying attention would have seen her arm briefly become scaly before she pulled a tooth out with a squelch. “God drat!” she slurred, “Just, put it in here?” She held it over the north point with the leatherman as a drop of blood fell from the tooth into the circle. Elbridge gave a curt nod and Grace released the tooth. “Need another?” The offering hissed and sizzled like it’d been touched to a flame, and the candle burned a little brighter. Its motion was wan and sluggish, however, and the taper itself began to soften and sag. “No,” Elbridge said, shaking his head as he noted the change. “Something to...balance your essence…” "What's wrong with my essence?" Grace lifted up the collar of her t-shirt and wiped some blood from her lips. Elbridge took several seconds to catch his breath, during which Grace continued to bleed profusely. “It’s changing his own too much. Rendering him torpid. There seems to be a slight issue of compatibility.” “Too much gator, not enough golden retriever,” Ada murmured, watching the situation unfold. Without thinking twice, she stepped forward, the obsidian knife in her hand seeming to absorb light like a black hole. “Let me stabilize it. I’m a universal donor.” She slashed at the wrist, not waiting for confirmation, and held it over the flame. Blood welled up at the bottom, without even a single drop falling, and then something like a rushing wind coursed through her body, passing on the same sluggishness the candle had shown moments before to her as a steady trickle of blood fell upon the flame, energizing it. “Dammit…” she murmured, as blood continued to pour down. “This stuff takes a hell of a lot out of you, doesn’t it...?” Grace slumped against the wall, breathing deeply. "Yeah, it does Ada. I've lost teeth before, but this was… oof." The ritual threatens to go awry, so Ada and Grace offer up a Mild Consequence to cover up some costs. Ada takes a Major Blood Donation Mild Consequence, and Grace takes a X Mild consequence in turn. <Rick, do all of these rituals have bits that came out of a frat initiation?!> Gorden thought “out loud” switching back and forth between Grace and Ada. <Who do you think those initiations are imitating?> Rick answered, though he wasn’t any happier about it than Gorden. <But no, not usually. This thing is guzzling power like a full-size truck with a gas leak.> It seemed like Ada’s donation had done what was needed. <Thus...it is done,> Elbridge spoke. <The thread is woven. The die is cast.> He took the collar that Eriol had worn and with a simple gesture made an engraving on the tag: Εριολ. Every other remaining candle flared bright as a flashbulb, then snuffed out. Dozens of ribbons of smoke drifted from the extinguished wicks, twisting lazily about the woven flax, which sagged under its weight now that the magic was gone from it.
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Oct 26, 2021 02:05
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A Lost Dog And with that, Elbridge stumbled out of the ritual circle and collapsed into an antique chair that was probably even older than he was. “There’s that over and done with. Now, all that should remain is to awaken him - slowly, mind you. Undo the spell holding his mind in stasis, and bring him back to consciousness. Mr. Maxwell, I believe that you had some hypotheses on how best to accomplish this?” <Hypo-- > Gorden shook his head to clear the blurriness from being slightly possessed. “Hypotheses? Try ‘analogy I pulled out of my butt’! But, yeah, I think I can…one sec.” He cautiously but inelegantly returned the sword to its sheath. <Uh, Rick, you sticking around to watch, or…Actually, you know what, Rick, if you’re still there, why not watch? A witness would be good.> <Sure, if you don’t mind,> Rick said. <I can’t stay without physical contact though so don’t let go.> <Gotcha.> Gorden approached the now-very-literal golden retriever and rubbed a hand along the metal jowls. “I haven’t done this with living flesh before but...just...maybe…” From what he remembered of high school biology, a dog and a rat were...at least both mammals with a taste for meat. So while the processes for Eriol were more complex, they weren’t anything close to that of a human. He closed his eyes, and reached out for the thoughts of a dog’s mind. ...and found absolutely nothing. He started rubbing his hands along Eriol's back as if petting the pooch would help. "Er...slight problem here... where's the drat…?" He turned to Elbridge with an apologetic half smile. "I can't seem to find the consciousness to get unstuck…maybe I should..." He closed his eyes to try to repeat his trick with the rat, but then nearly fell over, only barely catching himself before he collapsed on top of Eriol. "Crap!" <Don’t overdo it,> Rick said gently. <I don’t think the Sight is the answer here anyways, there’s too much noise.> “Eriol,” he said, using Gorden’s voice to do it. The dream-scape was ready and waiting, he just had to invite the spirit. “Eriol, Eriol, come on boy, just like earlier.” He waited, one minute, two, five. No response to a thrice-called Name had a chilling effect on everyone present. “Did we mess up somewhere?” Rick-as-Gorden asked, extremely worried. “It’s possible,” Elbridge admitted. “This was always a risky experiment - but if he were truly lost to us, his candle would have gone out. No, he’s still in there, I think. We’re missing something. Ms. Wagner, for reference, and if it’s not prying unduly: How did you feel after your first change?” Grace was still slurring a little bit from her missing tooth. “It was different for me, I think. It was like having a roommate move in with my body, there was someone else there fighting for their own space. We were both figuring out where we had to push, and where we had to give. Maybe he just needs somebody to push, so he pushes back?” <So it’s like...this?> Gorden thought to Rick. <Do I need to keep a guest bed in here for you now?> For a moment, Rick didn’t answer. Gorden was… comfy, in a way no one else he’d ‘borrowed’ had been before. They were similar in age, body type, and even temperament, a little bit. Rick sighed. He should have let go by now but he didn’t really want to, which made it all the more important that he did. <No, don’t,> he said. <You don’t want anyone else trying to crash in it, and I shouldn’t be getting this familiar. Sorry.> He started to leave. <Aw, I actually felt pretty cool there,> answered Gorden. <So do I need to set the sword down somewhere special, or…?> <Just pass it back in a second,> Rick said. He took one last real breath, and then left Gorden alone in his own head, slipping down into the sword. He stayed there in the darkness for a moment, reacclimating. Having weight and mass and all the rest and then losing it again was massively disorienting every time. But he was getting better at recovering, and it didn’t take long for him to re-manifest next to Gorden. He held a hand out, smiling. “Thanks, that was… good teamwork.” “Yeah, that was pretty cool,” Gorden returned the smile as he completed the handshake, being careful not to accidentally go through Rick’s hand. “If the HEMA club opens up for applications again I’ll know who to get,” he cracked. “I was thinking about offering some basic lessons, if anyone was interested…” Rick said, but then he shook his head. “Ask me later. For now we’ve got to figure out how to get Eriol out of the doghouse.” “He’s not responding to his Name,” Elbridge muttered. “Perhaps one of the treats? But if we can’t get him out of stasis until we get his attention, and we can’t get his attention until we get him out of stasis...that is a dilemma.” Still, he took one of the jerky strips and waved it in front of Eriol’s nose. There was no motion, but Elbridge thought he could almost detect a response. It was distant and faint, but it was there. “He may be a bit...lost in there, somewhere. If we could only coax him out...” Grace slowly stood up. “Wanna try to go in there and get him, Rick? Make him fight for his place?” “I can’t,” Rick said, shaking his head. “I’ve tried taking control of objects and animals before- it doesn’t work. I think it’s… basically something to do with how hard I have to fight to hold onto my human ‘shape’ since it doesn’t match my physical body. I can pop into other humans, but that’s as malleable as I get.” “I take it you’re reluctant to try yourself?” Elbridge asked Grace. She leaned back against the wall. “Seems like a bad idea. Fitting two souls is tight, a third… It’s such a bad idea, I don’t think there’s even a story about how poorly that would go.” While everyone else threw out solutions, Ada had been quiet, thinking. This was an eerily familiar problem. Though the tenor of it wasn’t exactly the same, it reminded her of the conversation she’d had with Ruby about her masks. Maybe what Eriol needed was help finding the real him. I can’t help him with this, though, she thought, gnashing her teeth in frustration. If only she was better with animals…but she’d never had a chance or reason to learn how they worked. ...Learned… Suddenly she stood upright from her position leaning against the wall. “I’ve got someone I can call in to troubleshoot this,” she announced. “Rick, you might wanna leave before she gets here.” “What? Why would I-” Rick started, and then the lights left his eyes as he realized who she meant. “Oh no,” he said, taking a step backwards, holding his hands in front of him to ward off evil. “Yeah. I know it’s not gonna be fun for you, but we’re out of options.” It wasn’t a ‘sorry’, exactly, but even so, Ada’s voice lacked much of its usual firmness. “If anyone can sort it out, it’s her.” Grace just quietly studied both Ada and Rick’s facial expressions. This is going to be good. “Who’s ‘her’?” asked Gorden with obvious confusion. “Mama Laveau?” “No. Circe, the Witch of Aeaea,” Ada explained. “She’s my gardener.” “Oh.” As if that explained everything. “The Odyssey lady?” “Yes, but don’t call her that to her face if you value your teeth.” Ada squared up. “We can’t waste time. I’d better get going. I’ll be back in a minute.” She slipped out of the ritual chamber like a shadow, and the door let out a gravelly thud behind it as it closed. Elbridge was left with his hand up, trying in vain to voice his protest, but then she was gone. Grace was the first to break the silence. “That’s the one with the pigs, right?” “Yeah, that’s the one,” Rick said, his voice several octaves higher than normal. “The pigs and the drugged wine and the blood sacrifice… oh right, they don’t mention that part in the poems, do they?” He laughed and scratched nervously at his throat. “She is...a hopeless romantic,” Elbridge said, finally regaining his voice. “By which I mean that she is drawn to hopeless romances, without regard for such things as ‘compatibility’ or ‘the wishes of the other party’.” “That’s a really diplomatic way to put kidnapping, imprisonment, coercion, and attempted r-” Rick cut himself off with a harsh gasp of air. “Look, Ada’s right. I should leave before this gets ugly.” But it would mean missing out on the ritual’s success, and not being there if he was needed. It would mean running away again, letting his fears control his actions. He didn’t move, frozen to the spot with indecision. “Mama LeBlanc always said the best revenge was watching someone grovel on their stomach before breaking their neck and giving them a good week to get ripe before eating them. Not sure how applicable that is to your situation though.” Grace shrugged, apologetic, but serious. For a second, Rick pictured it, but then he was back in the Grue’s cave. He’d beaten her there, fang against claw, and afterward... “Tried that once, didn’t work,” he muttered. “Didn’t wait a week though. Maybe that’s important.” His eyes were lowered but Grace could see an amber glint to them for just a moment. Then he shook his head, and it went all the way down his shoulders in an almost canine motion. He crossed his arms and looked up. “gently caress it, I’m staying. I’ve had to face every other skeleton in my closet this week, why not her too?” --- The hard knocks on the door to the gardener’s shack announced Ada’s presence. Each one boomed like thunder, much louder than they should’ve been, and she couldn’t help but drop into a fighting stance on reflex before slowly forcing herself to unwind. Something had happened to the world ever since she’d left the ritual chamber. Maybe it was just the pressure of trying to make the spell succeed, colouring her perceptions, but the shadows had grown longer, the midday sunlight had become greyer and more indistinct, and the trees and leaves of the garden had inclined themselves towards her as she made her way to Circe’s place. Almost as if they were watching her. Nah, she thought, shaking her head. That’s nonsense. This place is sealed up tighter than Fort Knox. There’s no way anyone’s keeping an eye on me. And besides, I’ve got grandmother’s blessing in my corner. It seemed like an irrational suspicion, when she put it that way...and yet, she couldn’t shake off the feeling of unease, deep within her gut. Something was wrong, and it was far past the point of fixing. All she could do was brace for impact and hope she and the others could scrape by. The door creaked open slowly, and only partway. “Matron,” Circe said by way of greeting. She peered to the left and right, and over Ada’s head, her nostrils flared as if scenting the wind, and did not invite her inside. “I’m not here for a lesson this time, Teacher,” Ada began. “Not too long ago, I took upon the task of proving to King Midas that the curse the gods placed upon him could be defeated. Me and my allies managed to break the curse’s effects, but we can’t get the dog I gilded to respond to our voices and rise. We…I need an animal expert to determine what we can do to reach him, someone who understands the curse’s workings.” She paused for a moment, to let the words sink in, and then continued, her expression deadly serious. “Midas told me you once tried to save his daughter at his bidding. This is our chance to lay down the groundwork for that duty. I can’t think of anyone better to assist us. Are you in?” “Ah…” Circe said, her eyes still scanning back and forth behind Ada, like a wary predator. “You claim to have solved a riddle I myself could not. I am certainly intrigued, my Student, and there are few as well-versed in the lore of beasts as I. But…” “But?” Circe’s eyes hardened, and she finally looked down to Ada’s face. “Something stalks you with ill intent, and I would find out what, and why, before we pass the threshold, lest it lie in ambush for you when I am not here to give it pause.” Even though it was a confirmation of bad news, Ada quietly let out a long breath. “...Yeah, I had a feeling. It’s pretty new, too. I only noticed it once I left the ritual chamber. Think the ritual might’ve backfired on us, somehow?” Circe shook her head. “No, we are being watched. Even as a child I was always able to sense it. What part did you play in the ritual? It has drawn unwelcome eyes.” “Others did all the casting. I just organized it and provided materials. The subject, the place, some of the tools...and some blood to stabilize the ritual when it threatened to get away from us,” she said, raising her left hand, which had a bloodstained bandage wrapped around the left wrist. “As well as shake your rear end to the heavens,” Circe said, with a rough sigh. “But Pan does not hide his displeasure in this way. If you had offended him, you would know. So who else…” “The curse had two halves,” Ada mused, turning sideways to look up to the sky and think. “The first one was turning Eriol’s body to gold, but I can’t imagine anyone might’ve gotten pissed over that. He’s still gilded. The other half froze him in time by entangling his fate. Elbridge said that the...I mean, that a certain trio’d done the work.” She shot Circe a look. “You think it might be them?” Circe growled low in the back of her throat. “That, I can believe. If it is, they will not show themselves directly. But breaking a single dog’s fate should not have attracted their ire. I have done so myself, and it took much more effort than signing my name to a half-unraveled curse.” “Which makes this interest an enigma.” Ada clicked her tongue. “Of course it’s not enough that I had to bust my rear end to make this happen, I just had to catch the trio on a bad day.” No matter how she looked at it, it didn’t make any sense. If the ritual wasn’t enough to anger them (and it shouldn’t have, considering Elbridge had made sure to get clearance), then what else could it be? She’d never so much as glanced the Fates’ way before. “Alright,” she said, after a moment. “So the trio’s after me now. What can we do about it?” “We continue to defy them until they become vexed enough to send an agent or make themselves known. Then we can either fight them, placate them, or bargain with them.” A wry smirk pulled up the corners of Ada’s lips. “I don’t know how well the last two’ll go if we keep pissing them off on purpose, but I’m not interested in living my life afraid of what might happen anyway.” With a shrug, she cracked her neck and squared her shoulders. “Wanna go see how Eriol’s holding up then? The sooner we’re done here, the sooner I can tell Midas we both did what we promised we’d do.” “Go and I will follow,” Circe said, smiling viciously. “But let me change out of this smock first. I would not enter my Matron’s home and have her introduce me to her allies dressed as a common laborer.” “Wouldn’t dream of it,” Ada said, nodding in agreement. “We’ve all got reputations to uphold.”
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Dec 14, 2021 20:55
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Limits of Tolerance Scene: Mirror Ritual Chamber Circe of Aeaea strode into the ritual chamber like it was her own. Whatever Grace and Gorden had thought she might look like, the reality was something else entirely. Nearly seven feet tall, bronze-skinned, with tawny hair cut messily just above her shoulders, she cut an imposing figure. She wasn’t beautiful, her face was too severe for that, and she walked like a hunting lioness, her shoulders shifting as she placed one foot directly in front of the other, her woven reed sandals making no noise on the stone floor. She wore a plain, hand-knit dress of undyed cream, cinched at the waist, that went to her ankles, and a wide shawl over her shoulders in her favorite robin’s egg blue. Her eyes flicked from Elbridge, to Grace, to Gorden, pausing briefly on each one. They lingered for a moment longer on Rick, but then she turned her head and her gaze settled on the motionless golden puppy in the magic circle. What, not even a nod? Rick thought, arms still crossed as he leaned against one of the sheet-covered piles of boxes. He didn’t bother hiding his glare, but she didn’t seem to notice. Not that he’d expected her to. Circe was a selfish, self-centered monster who couldn’t care less about the trail of destruction she left in her wake. He probably hadn’t crossed her mind since the moment he left her line of sight. His hand drifted down towards the hilt of his sword, just to check that it was loose in the sheath. He didn’t trust her to behave, not for five minutes. If she tried anything, he’d be ready for it. That’s Circe? Gorden thought with obvious wide eyes as he watched her entrance. He was still too surprised by her imposing figure to blink, look away, or otherwise break contact when she looked in his direction. ...wait, what the hell does Ada have on her that she’s her gardener?! Holy crap! The hackles on the back of Grace’s neck stood up before Circe even entered the room. She returned Circe's gaze, to figure out where she stood compared to the witch. Circe was… something else. Outside of the natural order. A predator, for sure, but like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park. Or King Kong in shackles. Not a danger at the moment, but provoking her would be incredibly unwise. Grace broke eye contact before Circe might consider it a challenge. “Witch of Aeaea.” Elbridge greeted her formally, with neither warmth nor hostility. He did not seek eye contact, nor did he break it when made. Yes, she was a monster, and yes, he absolutely detested her for what she’d done to Rick, but he’d put aside his personal feelings for now. They’d be of no help here, and she certainly wasn’t entitled to them. Ada came in after her gardener. The click of the door softly shutting behind her was her cue to speak. “These are my associates,” she began. “Gorden Maxwell, pedagogue and expert in temporal entropy. Elbridge Hardley, White Council wizard, diviner, and warden. Grace Wagner, jack-of-all-trades shamaness, shapeshifter and courier. And over there— ” “Yes, Matron, I know him well,” Circe interrupted. “Truly an unusual gathering of talents, but such is to be expected when one means to circumvent the Gods themselves. Wizard, explain to me the methods you employed here, and I will do what is within my power to assist you.” “We coached the dog into a session of astral projection to habituate him within this golem frame,” Elbridge said, dry and clinical. Responding to Circe’s obvious provocation would only have meant spending more time around her, and Rick had asked him to keep that to a minimum. “The result was a resounding success, at which point your Matron enacted the gilding curse upon his own body, which we then laboured to convert into a golem frame.” Elbridge pointed to the makeshift warp-weighted loom, his staff replaced with an ordinary wooden dowel now that the magic was spent. “The flax twine you see here served as a causal bridge, to splice the dog’s past to his future while we spun his present anew. This required us to cut the clip on a certain distaff, after which rekindling the flame of Eriol’s life was a fairly standard matter of blood sacrifice. If you have further questions -” He held up several spiral notebooks, each filled to the margins with dense scribblings “- I have taken notes, although if you wish to read them in your native language, I’m afraid that the best I can do is Linear B.” “Do not think me so ignorant as to be illiterate in the common tongue of this age,” Circe said, her mouth creasing as she held a hand out for the notebooks. “It appears as though you’ve completed your working with great success. What then is the problem?” “I’m not sure,” Elbridge admitted grudgingly. “He’s still in there -” he gestured at Eriol “- but unresponsive. I cannot tell if he’s merely exhausted, or in further peril.” “Hmm,” she stepped carefully over the circle and knelt at the dog’s side, then set the last notebook down and paged through it. “You called him by Eriol,” she asked, looking up at Rick. “A foundling name, given long after his birth, by caretakers who knew him for only a short time. It is not his True Name.” “He answers to it when he’s awake,” Rick said grudgingly. “But we don’t have any way of knowing what his True Name is.” “That is the problem, then. He is neither sleeping nor in danger, he simply cannot find the way back. His home is unrecognizable, after all that you’ve done to it.” Her tone was matter-of-fact, without judgement. “Then is there yet a way to learn his Name, and thus call him by it?” Elbridge asked, adjusting his spectacles with one hand and making ready to take even more notes with the other. “There are ways, but they’re unnecessary when you have me,” Circe said. She lifted the puppy’s head in one well-callused hand and leaned over to whisper into his ear. Those listening closely might have heard a few muffled words, followed by a yip and a whine. Almost immediately, the tip of Eriol’s tail began to wag. Circe smiled like a mother hen and picked him up, cradling his still-limp body in her arms. His paws began to twitch autonomically. She glanced up at Ada briefly. “It was a good decision to use a child for this. They are less fearful and more curious. It makes them resilient, and thus better able to acclimate to complete transformations.” Can’t imagine why more people don’t use kids as test subjects, Ada mused darkly, but didn’t give voice to the thought. Carefully, she reached out to stroke Eriol’s gilded head. “It’s hard to believe we really did it,” she whispered, her eyes burning with gradually mounting excitement. “A curse laid down by the Greek gods, undone in the span of a day. All thanks to us.” There was more she wanted to say, but for a moment, she paused and looked around. It’s her work too, she thought. The fruit of many lifetimes of effort. She deserves to share it. But are the others going to see it the same way? She didn’t look at Rick, not even for a moment. They’d been through a lot lately. What if this was the straw to break the camel’s back? ...If it is, then you’d still want to hear it anyways. Every time someone’s needed me, I’ve been there for them, just like I was there for you. If I lied to you about it, all it’d do is hurt you further when you found out. And if you can’t take it... ...I’m not sorry, Rick. I’ll never, ever look away. She looked up, and locked eyes with the witch. “...All thanks to us, and you, Teacher,” she said, and in spite of her misgivings, a small smile dawned upon her face. “Thank you.” Circe nodded graciously as the puppy began to wriggle in her arms. “Dogs are pliant creatures. They live to please their masters. This one needed only to be told what was wanted of him in a tongue he knew.” --- Rick listened to it all silently from his corner. The fondness in Ada’s voice, and in Circe’s, were like twin knives in his chest. Ada had shown her enemy mercy, a kindness Circe didn’t understand or deserve, and now the witch had her claws in, had made herself valuable, and had started teaching. He glared at Circe with open hatred, a low, animal growl in the back of his throat. His eyes flicked to Ada. She didn’t waste her time on people who wouldn’t learn or change, but Circe was a calcified tree stump. He’d been subjected to all of her whims, her cruelty, what she thought passed for ‘kindness’ and love. Ada didn’t know even half of what had happened while she held him prisoner. He’d been too ashamed to tell her, or anyone else. She thinks there’s something in Circe worth saving. She’s wrong. The sword rang softly as he drew it, like a serpent’s hiss. Why should Ada get to decide Circe’s fate? It was his life she’d ruined. His pride and self-respect she’d mangled and shredded. He’d avoided her ever since, unable to even look at the wounds she’d inflicted on him. But here she was now, unarmed, helpless and gift-wrapped. Just like he’d been when she had a piece of his soul in her spidery fingers. Circe met his eyes, over Ada’s shoulder. She raised her chin slightly, and her brows furrowed, questioning. But before she could open her mouth and say one more humiliating thing to him, he charged, sword raised. Rick takes a compel on Nobody’s Tool to take matters into his own hands when he hears what Circe’s been up to lately. And in turn... If he hadn’t been all the way across the ritual chamber from her, it would have happened too fast to stop him. But the distance left a gap, just wide enough. Elbridge gets a compel on The Grayest Warden to intervene in an enforcing capacity. “Araksa.” Power suffused the circle once more, and it became as impassable to Rick as an iron barricade...and somewhat-less impassable, but still quite a barrier, to Circe. The silver blade made a horrible shrieking noise as it hit the magic field, like nails on a chalkboard. Eriol let out a series of panicked whimpers. Elbridge slumped against his staff again. So soon, after he’d already done so much...the exertion had cost him. There was blood coming from his nose, and his limbs shook with every breath. “Rick,” he said, attempting to sound calm, although the calm was clearly forced. “I won’t deny your right of vendetta, but I must insist that you pursue it properly.” Rick’s head snapped towards Elbridge, his expression furious and betrayed. He didn’t say anything, but the blade still pushed against the barrier. He could go through it, if he wanted to. That was what Warden swords were made to do. “...properly?” he growled. Elbridge turned to regard Circe in the circle, dissecting her with his gaze as though she were more a laboratory animal than the actual laboratory animals in the room. “Her assistance here, however vital, does not undo the wrongs she did. I will not ask you to forgive her, let alone presume to do so on your behalf, but to take your revenge under present circumstances would breach hospitality and the terms of her surrender. That would be a very foolish thing to do while the Eumenides or their kin may be watching.” Rick turned back to Circe, who was regarding him coolly, one eyebrow raised. As he watched, the corners of her lips were very slowly turning upwards. She thinks she’s safe. A fresh wave of hate crested through him and he brought the blade down against the circle like a hammer. Purple-green sparks flew and something cracked audibly, like ice floes breaking on a frozen lake, but the barrier still held, if only barely. One more hit was all it would take. For once, Ada’s nerves of steel failed her. This didn’t make any sense. Rick, what are you doing? This isn’t like you. She’d known unveiling her relationship with Circe would piss him off...but homicidal impulses were another story. A chill crept down her spine. Is it really him? Earlier, he was different. Too different. And clumsy, too, in a way I haven’t seen him act before. If something happened to him while he was gone... She shoved the thought away. Paranoia took hold too easily, and right now, she couldn’t afford to spend that kind of time thinking anyway. “Rick.” Her voice cut through the crackling, firm and steady. “Step back. It’s over.” “No,” he snapped back, raising the sword for the last hit. But it’s about to be. “Remember what you did for Bree!” Elbridge shouted. The blade came down and the barrier shattered and dissipated. There was nothing but air between him and Circe now. But Rick didn’t move from his spot. “Are you saying you’ll kill her for me, El?” “If I must,” Elbridge said. He raised one trembling hand and a wisp of silver energy appeared, congealing like molten wax into those shimmering needles Rick had seen him use to such deadly effect. More red stained the silver, running from his nose and the corner of his lip now in a dark, steady trickle. “I’d be courting disaster, but I doubt I’d have many regrets over it. Not like you would...much as you might wish otherwise.” I won’t let anyone else kill her, she’s mine. Rick turned towards Elbridge, but before he could say it out loud he finally registered the steady bleeding, the shaking, the exhaustion... You keep drawing on your power like that and you’re gonna kill yourself. What are you thinking? He glanced back at Ada. If El kills Circe then Ada can’t save face unless she takes on the whole Council. She can’t survive that, her whole revolution dies before it even starts. Back to Elbridge. He could lose his badge, his position, everything he’s worked for… He settled back on Circe, smiling Circe, her face piqued with interest. And YOU. You’d love it, wouldn’t you, if I threw everything away just for you. Nothing would make you happier… Gorden had finally managed to look away with the sudden sound of Rick’s sword slamming into what looked like empty space until he hit it, but now he was staring back at the standoff, eyes wide as dinner plates. At some point he’d backed away from Circe, and now he noticed his hands were feeling along the wall towards the doorway. “Uh, can we just--!” Grace was up moments after Rick started to move, holding position behind him, teeth bared and the Leatherman she had used on herself not long ago had a blade out. She didn’t know exactly what was happening here, and wasn’t enthusiastic about going against Circe, or the Warden for that matter, but Rick had been a friend, and pain like his sometimes required action to move past. “Gordon, maybe you should take Eriol and go wait upstairs while the adults talk.” “I’m an--” Gorden started, but then he heard Eriol whine again at Rick and Circe. “Uh...maybe that’s a good idea. Here, Eriol, I’m sure there’s lots of dog treats upstairs…” He took a deep breath and stepped forward to the circle, edging carefully around the four-way standoff. “There’s nothing to talk about,” Ada said, moving to stand before the sword. “You want to kill her like this, you’re going through me.” Her eyes were still, her pupils narrow, like a cat about to pounce. “You’re not killing someone on a whim, Richter. If you want to commit murder, I want you to have the stones to say it coldly. If that’s the kind of person you want to be, I want you to choose it.” She paused for a moment. “Is that who you are?” Slowly, the blade lowered, until it was pointed at the floor. “What if it is?” “Then I won’t stop you.” Ada’s voice was still sharp, but some of the heft behind it was gone now. “But it’ll be who you are from there on out, and you’ll have to live with knowing that’s who you chose to be.” She breathed out, slowly. “There’s a lot of people out there who can go insane and kill someone in a fit of passion. Not a lot who can decide someone else deserves to die in advance and still look at themselves in the mirror. I want you to make sure you’re one of the latter before you do something you can’t take back.” “Who are you trying to protect?” Rick asked quietly. “Who do you think?” she answered, testily, before continuing, quietly enough that no one else could hear. “Where do you want to be in ten years, Rick? Do you really wanna see where this road takes you?” Ten years was too long to think about. Trying just made Rick’s head hurt. He didn’t know where he wanted to be in ten hours, ten days, ten weeks. The anger and humiliation he’d felt when he drew his weapon and charged hadn’t gone away, just ebbed into background noise, like a ringing in his ears. He’d never dealt with those emotions, with Circe, or anything she’d done to him. There had been a leak here or there, like with the Grue, but he’d plugged them up tight and done his best to forget them. Was killing her the only way to quiet the noise for good? Or would it take him down a road he didn’t want to see the end of? Elbridge and Ada both thought so, but he wasn’t so sure. “Ask me later,” he said to Ada under his breath. He was too wound up to answer her. “Can somebody give El a towel already, he needs some help,” he added, louder. He sheathed the sword in a smooth motion and turned away from Ada. It was only then that he saw Grace, standing behind him, knife out and ready to go. He blinked at her, and then gave her a small nod. She’d backed her earlier words up after all. Even if it hadn’t come to blood, it still meant a lot. Grace sharply returned Rick’s nod, then went to her messenger bag and pulled out a rolled up t-shirt from a side pocket. “Was gonna change into this before going home, but, looks like you need it more.” She handed it to the Warden with a bit of a sad smile. “Ah! I’m sure there are proper towels about…” Elbridge stopped himself, recognising the gesture, and took the garment with gratitude. He wiped his face and looked with some alarm at the sheer volume of red staining Grace’s shirt. “Thank you,” he said. “I’ll be sure to clean it properly before I return it.” Pressing it to his face to staunch the flow, he stumbled toward the stairs. “Privy...yes, there ought to be a first aid kit in there,” he mumbled. “Er… ah.” One hand to lean on his staff for support, one to hold the cloth...that left none for the bannister. “I may need...some more assistance,” he said sheepishly.
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Jan 2, 2022 00:51
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Fate’s Intercession "C'mon, old man." Grace came up behind Elbridge and inserted herself under his arm, taking most of his weight. Truth be told she was happy to have an excuse to get away from the tense drama. “How pitifully dull an ending. I haven’t seen my sister so excited to cut a thread in ages. But once again you escape us, witch of Aeaea.” A woman had appeared in the center of the ritual chamber as if she’d been there all along. Her dark robes concealed her figure, and her hood hid all but the bottom of her face, showing only youthful lips and a strong chin. Large beads of pearls were strung around her neck and cinched around her waist in lieu of a belt. Her fingers were much too long, aged and gnarled from millenia of work. She rolled a thick piece of red string between them, the ends of it disappearing up both of her sleeves. “Only by the grace of my Matron,” Circe said, smirking. She didn’t seem upset at all by what had just occurred, if anything, she was energized. “I caught the scent of one of Nyx’s get, but I didn’t expect you to come yourself, Lachesis. Was Nemesis too busy to do your dirty work today?” “My cousin would make time if I needed her to dole out punishments,” said the hooded woman. “I am here for another reason entirely. To look upon the mortals who unspun my handiwork so neatly. To commit their threads to memory.” She paused, looping the string around one wrinkled finger and pointing at Ada. “Especially that one.” Had it not been for Circe’s warning, Ada’s first instinct would’ve been to bare her fangs like a tigress. As it was, being singled out by one of the three Fates was ‘only’ rather disorienting. “Pleasure to meet you, Lachesis the measurer,” she replied, keeping her tone as polite as she could manage while dealing with the renewed exhaustion from the ritual’s sacrifice taking this chance to strike now that the adrenaline of intercepting Rick was starting to fade. “What brings you here? I thought the fates could look upon mortals from anywhere.” It wasn’t a demand for explanations, but it was close — this sort of interruption violated the laws of hospitality in a flagrant way. “True, but we cannot speak to them from anywhere, which is why we have oracles and seers do it most of the time. Most, I say, but sometimes mortals stumble onto little secrets and it’s better to handle things more personally. Fear not. If I meant you harm, I could not have entered your home.” She raised her head very slightly, revealing that her eyes were bound in strips of dark cloth, but she seemed perfectly capable of sight anyways. “Such a gathering I have not seen before. A seer, a breaker, a twinning, an unraveler, and a dear little snarl. How DID you come into such strange company, Circe?” She said the name in the old way, with hard C’s. “I lost a contest of wills over the snarl,” Circe said easily, her eyes flicking to Rick. “Of the rest I know only of the seer,” and she gestured to Elbridge, still a mess of blood and leaning on Grace. They hadn’t quite made it to the stairs. “Still trying to escape your doom?” Lachesis shook her head slowly. “You never learn. But that is of little matter.” She walked to the circle, passing over the black scorch marks where Rick had broken the barrier, and leaned down to pick something up. It had not been visible to all of them before, but now, the broken distaff was plain for everyone to see. “I am a patient woman. I can forgive small mistakes, earnest accidents. No great tapestry is without a few such marks. They are inconsequential to the greater picture. But when a happy accident gives rise to repeated attempts to tamper with the loom… To change that which must be… That I cannot ignore.” Even through the blindfold, Ada could feel the weight of her gaze. But Lachesis’ words didn’t make sense. “It wasn’t our plan to do a repeat of the events at the Superdome,” Ada pointed out, diplomatically. “We asked for permission before taking action. Unless you wish to revoke it after seeing the outcome of our efforts?” Even as she uttered those words, she realized how nonsensical they sounded...and yet, why else act like this, instead of simply saying no out the gate? “Who granted this permission?” Lachesis asked innocently. “It was not I, nor my sisters.” “‘Permission’ may be too strong a word,” Elbridge admitted. With Grace’s assistance, he turned around and seated himself on the bottom step. “Although if it may be asked now, I would ask your leave for one of us to retrieve the first aid kit. Otherwise I may end up in no condition to answer your questions, and I would hate to so offend.” “You will last a while yet,” Lachesis said, shaking her head. “Longer than I plan to stay. Answer the question, my disciple.” “I...made an informal inquiry,” Elbridge said. He chose each word as if the wrong one would cost him more blood. “Another oracle in your service. She suggested, with no guarantee, that personal discretion might be less presumptuous than to demand an answer of you.” “Under normal circumstances she would have been correct,” Lachesis said. “But as wise mortals say, once is an accident, twice a coincidence, and thrice… a pattern.” She turned back to Ada. “This is your third time breaking fate, Ada duSang.” “Third? What do you mean?” Ada asked, a note of confusion in her voice. “I’ve only broken fate once before.” “Do not test me, girl. Two of these broken fates stand in this very room,” Lachesis said. “Though it was not solely your hand that broke either of them. The third however… A choice was meant to be made. A tangled skein indeed, that one. It’s little wonder she cannot discern her place in the world now. She traded it away to her other self.” ‘Her other self’? That could only mean one person, but that had been time travel, not fighting against fate. Unless...if changing someone’s will meant changing their future, then… Suddenly, Ada felt a burning urge to go lie down. “You mean Ruby,” she answered. “Changing her past broke her fate, didn’t it?” “Indeed it did. Her elder self did not have a future, and now she does. A loose end, and one that will persist. Troublesome, don’t you think?” “But worthwhile anyways.” Ruby deserved to exist just as much as anyone else did, and to hell with whoever thought otherwise. “A paradox was going to happen no matter what. I just changed it so it’d be more than just another failed attempt at time travel.” Lachesis said nothing at all for a long moment. Then… she smiled. Her teeth were quite sharp. “Correct.” Ada blinked. She’d been ready to launch into a defence of her friend. Unconditional acceptance was not something she’d been prepared for. Why did you come here if what I’ve been doing isn’t a problem to you? she thought, her eyes narrowing as she stared at the woman before her. Her actions had been ‘troublesome’, but also correct. Troublesome and correct… People never admit you did something right when you’re making trouble for them, not even the gods. Not unless they think what you did was interesting. Valuable. Which means... “...This isn’t a formal declaration of punishment, is it?” she ventured, as the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. Just let my gut guesses be wrong for once. Please. “I have other people for that,” Lachesis said, still smiling. Circe snorted. There was only one meaningful question to ask, and Ada would’ve given anything to be spared from asking it. It was this or war, however, and she was in no position to pick fights at this moment. “You said you couldn’t ignore this transgression, and yet this isn’t about punishment. Is there something else that brings you here, then?” she asked, doing her level best to keep her tone and face polite. “Soon now, you will cross paths with a person whose fate has been carved in stone since the day of their birth. I would like you to avert it.” She turned her head from side to side, taking in each and every person in the room. “All of you.” Even in his present, enervated state, almost without the energy to muster a reaction, Elbridge couldn’t conceal his surprise. A Fate, asking them all to tamper with fate. It was preposterous, absurd, like… ...like the Summer Queen turning against her office and her nature. Like an angel answering a mortal summons. Like a Warden turning to a motley assortment of Lawbreakers for help. It drew unwelcome comparisons, and made him entertain unsettling notions, one of which he even dared to voice. “...Do your sisters know that you are here?” “What one Fate sees, so see we all,” said Lachesis. Grace immediately interjected. “You see everything, don’t you? So you saw El ask the oracle, saw us plan this, bleed for it, and then you come in like we owe you? If you want a favor, we will happily trade you for a favor.” Lachesis’ smile soured instantly. She put her sleeves together, the broken distaff vanishing inside them, and when she pulled them apart again the thread she held was red, but another was entwined with it, a deep scaley green. “Grace Wagner. You think you are in a position to demand a trade of Fate? That I have come here to swap favors? Close your jaws before you bite off your own tongue. The slayers of your Clan approach by the hour, and if you would not join them, hooked and skinned, you would be wise to do as I say.” “---” Grace’s open mouth snapped shut. Woulda been great if it had worked, but, clearly Lachesis was not a fan of the haggle. “Ms. Wagner,” Elbridge said softly, “I must ask that you kindly refrain from further antagonising cosmic entities - at least, while you are on the clock. Gracious Lady,” he said, addressing Lachesis once more, “while it would be crass to negotiate, or to dissect your answers, what we truly must know is this: Is this a secret mission, and if so, from whom is it to be kept secret?” Even drained as he was of stamina and blood, he managed to keep up his façade of formality. Some might have called that dedication. Elbridge, if pressed, would have called it a survival skill. “There are more of you here than I can expect to hold your tongues, so I cannot divulge all the particulars at this moment. Suffice it to say that you each have a small, but no less important role to play in this undertaking. I will not burden you with secrets, though if you are foolish enough to go about shouting that you are doing my bidding, I will not protect you from the consequences of your own actions. That is not my way.” Circe made another rude noise and dropped the now-wriggling puppy, who landed with an unceremonious THUNK that could have been heard upstairs. Eriol took the opportunity to run straight for Gorden. “How soon is this supposed to happen?” Rick asked, uncrossing his arms. “Or is that something you can’t divulge too?” “The date is not yet final,” said Lachesis. “But no later than the turn of the moon.” Gorden suddenly noticed that the second magic lady in as many minutes had shown up in their basement--and this one was not a gardener!--and had now turned from Grace to El to Rick to him. He straightened up as best he could, struggling and then giving up on carrying the literally golden dog, suddenly feeling like he’d been caught breaking the world’s biggest telescope. Technically, that had been Rick, but he somehow doubted that was going to protect him. “Ah...hi,” he managed to mumble. What had El called it? “Sorry about your distaff.” He leaned over and ran a petting hand over Eriol, as if to try to point out that slashing it had been for the cause of a cute puppy, and therefore was totally forgivable, right? Lachesis pulled a new red thread out of her sleeves, this one seemed a bit frazzled, and shot through with a thin white band. “Gorden Maxwell… or at least...” Her fingers rubbed over a piece that seemed oddly trimmed. “Interesting. I hope your apology extends to offering Ada duSang your aid when she asks for it. Of everyone here, you are… the most capable of inflicting change.” “I wouldn’t be here if she didn’t ask,” Gordon noted when Ada came up. “And I’m willing to stick with her.” That sounded more...forthright in his head. “What do you mean, ‘inflicting? That wouldn’t be my first choice of verb.” “No? But you felt the effects yourself just today.” She stroked the thread near one end, where a small snag had formed. “It’s never pleasant, undoing what-was-then for what-is-now. It leaves little scars behind, little falsities and anomalies. Things look like they go back together, but do you really think your eraser leaves a fresh page behind? I thought you were a man of science.” Now that’s just rude, was Gorden’s first thought. “No, and no eraser is perfect,” he answered aloud. The trick would be keeping the page from getting written in the first place, he thought again. “So, that thread you’re holding, that’s...Eriol? Or his story, I guess?” She paused and her head tilted just a fraction, as if she were unsure if he were joking. “...It’s yours.” El or Rick or Ada would have had a lot more practice keeping a straight face. Gorden at least managed to keep it to raising his eyebrows. “Eriol’s the one whose fate we just changed. What makes my thread so interesting?” “Do you really want me to answer that question in this company?” she asked serenely. Her fingers tightened around the thread. There was something underneath them, something she was concealing for him. Nope! gently caress that! “Fair enough.” Elbridge put his palm across his face and audibly sighed. “So for this...fate aversion thing...you just need me to keep helping Ada? I’d have done that even if you didn’t ask.” She smiled at him. “That’s a strong possibility, but this is something too important to leave to chance. A special request, you might say.” She turned slightly away from him. “Are there any other questions?” “Many,” Elbridge said, “some of which I would prefer to ask in private. But for now: why? Why ask us to do something that would seem to go against your very office?” Lachesis seemed to think about that for a moment. “I suspect you will not be satisfied with the real answer, Elbridge Hardley. For now, suffice it to say that what I do here is on behalf of another, and that this is an opportunity so golden that not even a Fate could ignore it.” Elbridge took several moments longer to process her response, that he would find her answer unsatisfactory, that she did not know how he would react, that any party could hold such influence over a Fate, and (last but certainly not least) that one of the authors of cosmic law had just made a Dad Joke. “...and the nature of this opportunity?” he asked at last, unable to form a cogent response to anything else she’d said. Lachesis tucked her hands into her sleeves again, and this time they stayed there. “Why, no less than the birth of a star. But that is all I will say on the matter directly for now. Further instructions will be provided as soon as the time is ripe.” “And when will that be?” Ada chimed in. “If this is gonna be anything like the last time I tried breaking fate, it’s not gonna be as easy as showing up with high hopes and a dream. Unless you specifically want us to break somebody’s fate by taking the black van and ski masks approach and sending them to another country, we’re gonna need time. The sooner we know what we’re supposed to do, the easier it’ll be and the better it’ll go.” “Just so. How about... tomorrow? I should have all the loose ends tied up and ready by then.” “Good enough for me. Gives me time to sort out some other business first.” Like delivering the dog to Midas, for example. As she shot Eriol a glance, she couldn’t help but wonder what the king’s reaction would be when she showed up at his doorstep with it. Dare Gorden try it? It was way too on the nose to simply be an odd analogy, and yet...his curiosity won out. “Are we talking about a metaphorical star here, or…?” Lachesis sighed. “Please don’t make me explain the joke, Gorden Maxwell. I hate it when comedy turns into tragedy.” “I find Melpomene much less insufferable, myself,” said Circe. You would, thought Ada. “You would,” said Lachesis. Rick rubbed at his temple, wondering if the headache he had coming on was a result of breaking down the circle’s barrier or being forced to listen to two ancient Greeks getting catty with each other. “I’ve got a question,” he said. “You named all of us earlier, Lachesis. Seer, breaker, twinning, unraveler, and snarl. My fate was the first one broken, and that started off this whole chain of events. And then I died and also didn’t. Am I still a snarl with a broken fate? What does it even look like?” “A mess, Richter Cole,” said Lachesis. She spread her hands once more and showed the red string between them. At some point around halfway it grew very thin, and turned into a tangle that could only be compared to a string of christmas lights left too long in a plastic bag. But there was a whole string poking out of the horrible knot, no longer red but silver. “You seem to have found the end of it somehow. I would say… mending. Not mended, mind… But escaping my sister’s shears…” She tilted her head. “A man with a broken fate cannot save himself. You did. Take that for what it's worth.” “I will,” Rick said, though he couldn’t help grimacing at the state of his string. Everyone else’s she’d shown had at least been straight. There was hope for that small bit of silver on the end though. The longer that bit got… well, the less the mess at the start would matter. Probably. “Good. If that’s everything…?” Lachesis said, though it was more of a statement than a question. “As I said, there is more I would discuss in private,” Elbridge said. His skin was taking on an ashen cast, and his extremities felt mildly-numb. “Your patience - and my health - permitting.” “I am a busy woman...” said Lachesis, but she trailed off into a light sigh. “But for one who has kept the faith for so long, I can make a little time. Over dinner, perhaps? Or something more intimate?” Somehow the implied flirtation unsettled Elbridge more than anything else Lachesis had said or done there. “As best suits your needs, Gracious Lady,” he said stiffly. “Although my melia beloved might take exception to certain venues.” “Truly, it would be a pity to sour such a union,” she said, with the tone of someone loathe to spoil the next episode of their favorite soap opera. “Your former home then, once you are well enough. Quiet, isolated, close enough to the melia that she will know I am not trespassing on what is hers. Perhaps you will give me the tour?” “A fine choice,” Elbridge said. “And now, I truly do require medical attention, or else your elder sister may abridge our meeting.” “My dear disciple, if you were truly dying I would know. It only feels like it. But yes, it is time to see to those wounds. What ones that you can, at least.” She gave each person in the room a final glance and then she turned and walked away, and was gone by her third step. Eriol started barking in Gorden’s arms. His woofs had a metallic echo to them. “What the--OOOMPH!” Gorden shouted as a few hundred pounds of golden dog tried to lick his face. “Good doggy, uh...why does he sound like a trumpet now?” “The curse is pretty thorough,” Ada answered. “It’s not just skin deep, it reaches down deeper than—” Abruptly, Eriol’s body stiffened up. He ceased to make any noises at all and his eyes went glassy and dark. For a couple seconds, you could hear a pin drop. “Don’t tell me I just jinxed it,” Ada said, in the sort of tranquil voice that preceded an absolute meltdown. “No promises,” Elbridge said. “We need to inspect him-” “After we get you upstairs, old man.” Grace offered him an arm. “...as I must, I suppose.” Elbridge took her arm and sighed again. “Gorden, please take a look while we’re away - just make sure that the spell hasn’t broken.” “I can do that…” Gorden grunted as he set down Eriol as gently as he could. “The flame’s still lit,” Rick said, walking over to the bowl. “So it can’t have failed completely. We’ll troubleshoot, it’s probably something simple.” “Oh, now it’s not gonna be simple…” Gorden muttered as he dragged himself over to the candle.
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Jan 2, 2022 01:12
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Magical Ministrations Scene: Upstairs, Chateau The way out of the second basement was long and arduous. Grace’s mouth hurt like a bitch, and as far as Elbridge was concerned, ‘faded’ was perhaps the best possible description of his physical health, albeit still an amazing understatement. When they emerged out into the Château’s foyer, the glare coming through the windows all but blinded them. As their eyes got accustomed to natural sunlight, they noticed someone was seated by the window, sipping tea as she stared at them. “I take it the ritual was a success, then?” Claudia duSang asked, her expression as imperturbably cold as ever. “It was,” Elbridge said. “A costly success at that, but a success nonetheless.” Grace grinned, showing off her bloody smile, mostly just to see if she could get a rise out of Claudia. “Touch and go for a minute, but it all worked out.” If the sight of blood spoiled Claudia’s teatime, she didn’t let it show. As she sipped from her cup, she stared at Grace and Elbridge intently. “I see medical assistance was not on standby to deal with the ritual’s aftermath.” A grimace of distaste briefly twisted her lips. “Amateurish. I will have to speak with Ada about proper ritual protocols. At a glance, I see a lost tooth, persistent oral bleeding, epistaxis and severe exhaustion. Are you sporting any other injuries?” Elbridge turned over his hand and looked at his palm where he’d grabbed the thread of fate to keep it from breaking. It appeared rope-burned, after a fashion. Ordinary ropes left straight lines across the abraded skin. This one had instead scorched every crease and crinkle of his palm. “There is this,” he said, showing it to Claudia. “Ah.” The faintest spark of curiosity danced within Claudia’s cold green eyes. “An abrasive burn, but nothing like a normal one. The lingering traces of magic are thick upon the wound, still.” She stared at it, and though a normal person wouldn’t have been able to tell, Elbridge’s trained senses told him he was being scrutinized by arcane methods, in a way not unlike an X-ray. Then, Claudia leaned back into her chair. A hint of a smile pulled up the corners of her lips. “Better than I expected. If that is all, then it is easily dealt with. Stand still, and do not struggle.” “Hypnos, sfingos, kompos, kalliergos,” Claudia recited, enunciating each syllable so clearly and with such a strong singsong rhythm that they almost threatened to split into words of their own. Almost immediately, a pleasant numbness spread across Grace’s mouth and Elbridge’s body, but particularly his hand and nose. An instant later, the coppery scent and taste of blood assaulted their senses, as an unmistakable liquid erupted within their bodies, pulling together tiny open wounds where the pain they’d previously felt lingered most strongly. A rushing sound filled their ears, and something shifted within them in a disquietingly rapid way, before settling down, leaving a burning hunger in the pit of their stomachs and a clear, albeit confusing sense of wellness behind. “That will do,” said Claudia, the trademark note of satisfaction unique to craftsmen satisfied with their work clear on her voice. “I suggest you consume a full-course meal as soon as you are able. Ideally, two or perhaps even three, with plenty of carbohydrates,” she said, in the same tone a doctor would prescribe bed rest, before fixing the weight of her eyes upon Elbridge. “And in your case, I also suggest making a big decision, and quickly. It will expedite the healing process.” Grace and Elbridge may mark their physical consequences as ‘healing’ due to Claudia’s intervention. “I think a big meal was already on the menu, but thanks for the help. Much faster than my usual wait.” Grace nodded to Claudia. “I don’t know if Ada has filled you in, but I’ve got a little side gig going, doing special deliveries in the area, even out to the far reaches of the bayou. Let me know if I can help at all.” Grace pulled out a plain little business card and extended it to her. "Good couriers are always in short supply," Claudia said, acknowledging Grace's offer with a nod. "We may speak again sooner than you might expect." “You’re familiar with such...esoteric injuries?” Elbridge asked, quirking an eyebrow. The spellwork was novel and intriguing. The sensations it had produced were not, and having a strange spell cast on him without permission was...difficult to read as anything but a provocation. It had him immediately on edge. "And more besides," Claudia said, nodding in affirmation as she continued speaking. "Contrary to what the orthodox willworking tradition teaches its initiates to believe, the body is the seat of magic and power, and the part that is mostly ravaged when the immaterial fractions of the self are tampered with. Bodily healing is spiritual healing, as I'm sure the relief you are currently experiencing helps to attest. I do not know how or why you incurred animistic traumatism, but the symptoms are clear. It is not such a difficult thing to heal, if given proper attention and care." “Well, I thank you for your care and concern,” Elbridge said, a chill creeping into his tone. “Next time, however, you will ask before presuming to cast a spell upon me.” “I will keep that under consideration,” Claudia said, nodding slowly. “You must understand, however. A doctor does not ask a patient if they wish to heal,” Claudia said, picking up a biscuit. “We treat them first, and let them ruin themselves later if they like. If you wish to unmend what has been mended, all you need to do is step out into the courtyard and throw a fireball up into the skies large enough to serve as a firework. The prerogative to strain your health further is yours, as taking care of our guests’ health and wellbeing is mine.” With that, she gave the biscuit a tiny bite, followed by the slightest nod of approval as its flavor spread across her palate. “Christ, Elbridge. Take the favor and run with it. This is way better than waiting 2 weeks to start feeling better.” Grace shook her head at him before turning to Claudia. “I think he’s just cranky because he’s got a date tonight, and not with his girlfriend. Mellie, you said?” ’Cranky’? Is that all I am? Some doddering old fool who oughtn’t have a say, even when my rank demands otherwise? El kept his expression steady. It was a practised, forced composure. Yes. ‘Better’ counts for everything, doesn’t it? Certainly more than such trifling things as ‘dignity’ or ‘consent’. I can’t even bleed out in peace without this harridan second-guessing me. A sense of great exhaustion came over him. Why even argue the point? Nothing I could say would make her listen. Nothing I can say will ever change anything. He sighed. “Her name is Ash, and she is a Melia. A dryad of antiquity. Older than even the modern faerie courts, I believe.” “I was unaware you preferred older women, Mr. Hardley,” Claudia remarked, as she set aside her finished cup. “It is an unusual trait in men beyond a certain age. She must be an excellent conversationalist,” she added, a hint of humour buried in her voice as she stared at them. “Would you care for a few butter cookies? They won’t do much for your condition, I’m afraid, but their quality is second to none.” “I would, if I could avail myself of a cuppa as well.” He sniffed the steam issuing from the tea service. “Twinings Green?” “None other,” Claudia said, nodding her approval. “If you’ll join me, I will have some prepared in a moment.” At the press of a button, one of the doors opened, and in came Selene. “Bring us a tin of Royal Dansk and see to it that infusions are prepared for our guests, Selene,” she ordered, with the precision and confidence of one who knew exactly how to handle this sort of situation. As soon as the family’s chief maid had departed, she gestured at the empty seat opposite her. “Miss Wagner, if you could help Mister Hardley onto this chair, I am sure he will be grateful for the respite. You can take any of the other seats about the foyer afterward.” “Ummmm. Sure.” Grace offered Elbridge her arm once again. Elbridge seated himself with Grace’s assistance and a nod of gratitude. “So.” He poured the tea, unsweetened. The little biscuits would provide sugar enough, and then some. “As I said, the spell was a success. It was not without consequences, however, some of which will be felt sooner than others.” He took a sip and relaxed at the familiar taste. “We had a visitor. I will be meeting her again to discuss...an arrangement. But owing to the particulars of the magic, she was not deterred by your home’s Threshold.” For a few moments, Claudia remained silent. Then, she jerked her head downward slowly, and it was reminiscent of nothing so much as the fall of a guillotine, ready to sever whatever stood in its way. “I see.” Gone was whatever warmth had existed in her voice before, replaced by pure ice — though its chill was not aimed at them. “Tell me more about this visitor.” “She is one of the Moiraie.” Elbridge stirred his tea with the end of an oblong biscuit. “Our actions during the ritual - and, evidently, some of them prior - have drawn their attention.” He held up a hand to forestall her response. “I would not call this necessarily a bad development, but it calls for due discretion - and I suspect that you and your household are bound for interesting times, regardless.” Claudia closed her eyes. “As always, ever since my daughter decided to start making a name for herself...” She inhaled deeply, and shook her head. “This is much, much too soon for this kind of attention, however. What has Ada gotten up to, to draw the attention of the Fates even now…?” “The spell itself altered the destiny of its subject.” Elbridge considered Claudia’s question over another sip of tea, letting the tannins soothe his nerves before continuing. “As for the other events in question, I suggest that you speak with your daughter directly.” “Perhaps I will...if she can find the time for it,” she sighed. “She has her duties. The worst I can do for her is to get in the way of them.” She looked just as icy and imperious as ever, and yet, in that moment, Claudia duSang also seemed older, and more tired. Grace had been quiet, mostly watching Claudia but definitely interested in how Elbridge described Lachesis’ visit. Not that she had a relationship with her mother, but that was a different sort of dysfunction. It was interesting, a bit terrifying, and mostly sad. (Empathy Roll /++/ +2 = 4 to read Claudia a bit) “Is there anything I-” she paused and glanced at Elbridge “- or we, could do to help, Claudia?” “There might be,” Claudia began slowly. “Allow me to hazard a guess. Neither of you has spoken to Ada about your concerns, have you?” Grace tilted her head. “Concerns…? I mean, yeah, we’ve been busy, between the puppy and the theater, that’s for sure...” She trailed off. “And if the past is any indication, you will remain busy going forwards,” Claudia agreed. “But you will also remain in close contact with Ada. I urge you, if you believe she is underestimating the scope of what you’ve done today, or is failing to take the appropriate measures to protect herself and you from their fallout, speak with her. She may not have time for me, but if you reach out to her yourselves, she will listen.” Her words ended on an incomplete note, the ‘please’ that should have gone at the end of them nowhere to be found. Even so, the intent behind Claudia’s words was clear from the look in her eyes and the way she’d leaned in towards them while speaking. “Oh, don’t worry about that, Claudia. I have no intention of letting her get in over her head, at least while I’m around. We still have work to do.” Grace knew her confidence was, at best, unwarranted. But she was serious. Ada had proven to be a friend, and one with the Midas Touch no less. “I have, of late, been doing little but to voice my concerns to her.” Elbridge sighed into his emptied cup. “Getting her to listen...well, often it’s simpler to just work a miracle.” “I can imagine,” Claudia said, nodding slowly as the tea and cookies arrived. Once Selene had once again departed, she continued. “Particularly if you have only utilized a singular method that can only lead to a singular outcome.” Elbridge tilted his head. “If you’ve any better options, I’m all ears.”
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Jan 2, 2022 01:38
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Coming To Terms “Earlier in this conversation, when you told me not to treat you without your consent, you did not request my restraint. You demanded it, as a guest in my own home, as though it were yours. If that is how you have been speaking to her, then it is no surprise Ada has not deigned to listen to you. She will not accept anyone but herself as her own master. To her ears, orders are only so much wind. If you want her to listen to you, don’t tell her what she must do. Instead, talk to her about the risks and consequences of her actions, and tell her what you, personally, believe may happen. Not as a mentor or master, but as a comrade instead.” Lifting up the opened cookie tin, she offered it to Elbridge, gravely. “Let her make her own decisions. Ada is confident in herself, but not unreasonable. If you share what you know with her, she may surprise you.” “I do not treat her as a subordinate, but I stand firm in my counsel and in upholding my office,” Elbridge said, taking the biscuit nonetheless. He meant it, at that, in his own, pedantic way. A subordinate was someone beneath him in an organisational hierarchy. Ada was no part of the Council - that, in fact, was why it so grated upon him when she interfered in what were, to Elbridge’s mind, Council affairs. “Some boundaries are—” “Nonsense,” Claudia cut in, muttering under her breath. The biscuit snapped in half between Elbridge’s fingers. “I beg your pardon?” he said in a tone that did not sound particularly like begging. “I said nonsense,” Claudia said, now speaking more clearly. “You treat my daughter as I treat the hired help when I am not particularly pleased with their haphazard performance. I will not ask you to treat her otherwise if you insist on staying this course, Mr. Hardley, but I’ll thank you not to insult my intelligence by pretending otherwise.” There was a hint of protectiveness in her voice, but even that was contingent to the irritation obvious in each and everyone of her words. In spite of her politesse, clearly the Lady of the House was sometimes unwilling to mince her words. “I treat her,” Elbridge said, crushing the halves of the biscuit into a sugary powder, “as a student who has fallen behind in her schoolwork, yet proclaims herself qualified to teach.” “Then we agree that condescension is the basis of your approach to her. Is it any surprise that she does not make a point of listening to you more often? No one is too keen to be talked down to, particularly someone who feels the need to take the weight of the world upon her shoulders.” There was a pause, and then Claudia tapped his plate. “You must do something about this condescension, this anger. It may be cathartic to treat her this way, but it is not effective. You can do better than that.” “I - cathartic?” Elbridge hesitated. There was a notable change to his demeanour: Less prickly, more wary. “It seems like the most reasonable explanation for why you persist on a course of action that has proven to yield poor results,” Claudia explained, patiently. “I do not believe in truly irrational actions. A learned man such as yourself must be getting something out of these interactions to justify not achieving his stated goals.” “My goal is not to sway her opinion, least of all on Council affairs when she refuses to join the bloody Council,” Elbridge said acidly. “I have taken great pains not to infringe upon House du Sang’s business save by express invitation. If she doesn’t even respect me enough to extend the same courtesy, how could I possibly change her mind?” “Hmm.” For a few moments, Claudia did not speak, instead focusing on turning her tea with a spoon. “You say she does not respect you, but it is my understanding you were her first choice for a difficult task, which she had ample confidence you could handle more-or-less alone. Have any of her actions specifically given you cause to believe she does not believe you are worthy of respect?” “She has undercut my recruiting efforts, handled sensitive assets without due care, treated my allies and apprentices as if they were her own hirelings, and made a great deal of additional work for me without regard for my official duties or recompense.” Elbridge glared, fuming. “I have incurred debts assisting her in this present matter. I have spent time away from a task of similar urgency. I may realise some benefit if Midas’ gratitude extends to me as well - or he may decide to reward me as Minos did Daedalus.” He sat back, crossing his arms. “If you must know, the principal reason I did help with this scheme was to keep anyone else from coming to harm. And then she had to involve Circe.” “The gardener?” Claudia asked, a note of mild curiosity in her voice that anyone could tell was a mask for her true feelings. “Interesting. Did her aid prove useful?” “That it did,” Elbridge said, “right up until Ada decided to thank her. In front of Richter.” At this, Claudia let rise an eyebrow. “Careless. Entirely too careless...and sloppy. It isn’t like her to make such a basic mistake. Which means she chose to make it, with full knowledge of the consequences. I take it Mister Cole reacted poorly?” Grace went from quietly nibbling on a cookie to choking for a moment and coughing into her napkin. “Um, yeah. You could say that. It’s a shame he’s dead, because he really needs someone to take him out for a drink or four right now.” “I take care not to add to her problems,” Elbridge said, slumping forward and feeling more exhausted than ever. “I do not feel that she shows me - or anyone else - the same consideration.” Claudia let out a quiet chuckle. “Of course you wouldn’t;” she said. “Adding to someone else’s problems would be a sign of weakness. And showing weakness — frailty — humanity in front of others is unacceptable. What would a haughty brat like her do if she saw that you are weak, if not take advantage of it to burden you further?” That you are weak. Almost imperceptibly, Elbridge stiffened at that. He was quiet for several seconds thereafter. “Madame,” he said at last, “I am afraid that I do not quite take your meaning.” “What I am trying to say, Mr. Hardley, is that not everyone sees the world as you do. In your eyes, a request for aid is a demonstration of incompetence. Every time Ada has asked you for help has only made her seem more stupid and unprepared— no, don’t say anything yet, allow me to finish,” she said, raising a hand to forestall objections. “As I was saying...to admit you are not self-sufficient is tantamount to inviting mockery. It is a mindset I understand well. But Ada is not so afraid of ridicule. If there is something she does not feel qualified to do, or that she thinks could be done better by another, she will seek that other person and leave the task to them as an informed expert. From her perspective, sharing your burdens with another is not a sign of weakness. It is a demonstration of trust. It is akin to an animal baring its neck to another. The fact you have been given countless opportunities to sink your fangs into her and opted not to do so tells her she was right to confide in you. Instead of betraying her expectations, you’ve taken steps at every turn to protect her.” Her eyes drifted to one of the paintings in the foyer, of a severe woman with a familiar shade of red hair and green eyes sat on an ornate chair, with an unpleasant-looking man standing behind her, his hand on her shoulder, a golden pocket watch adorning his waistcoat. ”In her eyes, that makes you comrades — and though this is nothing more than speculation, I imagine she is still waiting for you to do likewise and present her with an opportunity to aid you. After all, it is only right for allies to cover each other’s backs.” Elbridge took in her words, his breathing unsteady in a way that wasn’t entirely to do with his fatigue, following Claudia’s gaze as she looked over the portraits. There was...something to her words, something that had the unpleasant ring of truth. He had taken Ada’s every solicitation of help as a glaring fault. In his world, a leader took pains not to owe more debts than they were owed, and to honour each and every one. One who could not balance these obligations was manifestly-unfit to lead, while true leaders were…perilous to count as friends. El...ain’t we friends? His hand wobbled, and tea slopped over the edge of his cup. “I have...certain tasks...I may be inclined to entrust to Ada in the future,” Elbridge said. Each word was strained and laboured. His discomfort couldn’t have been any more evident if his chair had been covered in thumbtacks. “I may discuss them with her, as you have advised. In the longer term, however, I have strategic interests in New Orleans. If we are truly to be comrades, I must know that these will be respected.” “As long as your designs do not entail turning the city into your personal fiefdom, I am sure Ada will be willing to listen.” There was a hint of mirth in Claudia’s voice now, and also of satisfaction. “Are you at liberty to discuss these interests of yours? Or would you rather keep the matter private until the time is right?” “One of them I can divulge now, if you haven’t already surmised it.” Elbridge set his cup on the tea service and mopped up his spill with a napkin before it could leave a stain. “Our order sustained overwhelming losses in the Vampire War. We have dire need of new blood. I acknowledge the neglect the Council has previously shown New Orleans, but I am in a position to change that…if I can train and induct new Wizards in some degree of safety.” “Are there prospective candidates to be found?” Claudia said, raising an eyebrow. “I thought the White Council’s standards for wizardship were highly selective.” “At least one,” Elbridge affirmed. “Even before the war, however, Nerissa made it clear that we were unwelcome in ‘her’ city. Richter’s predecessor as Warden did not help matters much with his own conduct.” Claudia nodded. “He met a swift end, as I recall. Mandatory retirement by way of car bomb, I believe?” “Accounts of the matter were incomplete and contradictory,” Elbridge said. “An autopsy might have told us more, but there wasn’t enough left for one of those.” “Indeed. Nerissa was thorough when dealing with nuisances.” For a moment, Claudia fell silent, as she considered Elbridge’s words. “Allow me to ask you something, Mr. Hardley, as I believe that when the time comes, Ada will likely have similar questions. Assuming that she succeeds in her goals of rebuilding supernatural society in the city, what is the purpose of refilling the ranks of the White Council? I am given to understand a Wizard of the White Council is first and foremost beholden to the institution, with their homelands a distant second. Is there some desperately necessary project that would require the participation of any able-bodied magical practitioners to carry to fruition?” “We are beholden to the preservation of magic as a practice,” Elbridge countered, waving a finger, “and to its advancement as a body of knowledge. Both within the Laws, of course. I will grant that it has…strayed from that purpose, of late. Our casualties have certainly not helped, but I believe that the graduation of new talents to our ranks would help to remind us of that cause...and to strengthen our ties to communities who have been done a disservice under the present state of affairs.” Grace quietly sipped her tea and attempted to remain unnoticed. I know I was warned about the Council, and Elbridge, but they hardly seemed a threat, the way he was talking. Midas and the Theater and Ada’s plans aside, the Fomor were still the biggest problem. They needed to band together, all hands on deck, and DO something, not get mired down in these political machinations. If she weren’t so tired and hungry, she might have even said some of that outloud. “I doubt Ada would object to you requesting to train a singular talent and induct them into the Council,” Claudia said, nodding slowly. “But I do not see how a single new Wizard will change how the Council does business. Its reputation for self-centeredness is fairly well-established, and for good reason.” “If ever there was a time to make change, it is now,” Elbridge said forcefully. Too forcefully, after his prior exertions; his nosebleed started up again at a slow drip. “The Council has endured some twenty-five centuries. I expect we shall endure a while longer, in some form or another, but I doubt there will soon come again such a moment for…reflection. Make no mistake, although recruitment is a priority, it is not the sole scope of my mission here. I would see the Council revitalised with an eye toward its future, and the future of all practitioners, full Wizards or not.” “My, my...” Claudia murmured. “And you would give these lesser practitioners a voice in the Council, as well?” “I would,” Elbridge said. “My superiors would need to be persuaded. My new office confers upon me the power to bring this petition before them, however. Favourable evidence would certainly help this argument.” He drained what was left in his cup and set it down. “A functional model, perhaps?” For a few moments, Claudia didn’t say anything. Her spoon idly tapped the edge of her teacup, delivering an irregular rhythm as her expression became thoughtful. Eventually, she spoke up. “It is certainly a necessary reform. The Council has always struck me as hidebound, and more effective in its isolationism than in its governance of its chosen people. I worry, however...Ada will certainly see the value in modernizing an old and outdated governing body, but I can’t help but imagine she will be leery of putting some of her cohorts under Council jurisdiction, given its timidity in addressing the grievances of its own members with other supernatural communities, much less those of outsiders. What you wish for her to do for you is clear. What will you do if she requests you to arrange for material support from the Council in turn? Not in the form of your own assistance, but rather the collaboration of other wizards with whatever endeavors she has in mind.” “That,” Elbridge said, refilling his cup from the pot, “will depend upon whichever Wizards are drawn to my cause.” He took his first sip of the new cup. “And upon her ability to convince them of the rightness of her own. She has her gifts for persuasion, and while I may be a crusty old fossil, seniority does count for a great deal in establishing credibility.” “I see quite a few conditionals in that statement, Mr. Hardley,” Claudia noted, imperturbably. “And significant risks and costs, all for the sake of a possibility of reform and reciprocity.” “No more, certainly, than are entailed in her pursuit of a free New Orleans.” “I would even say less, truly, were it not for the fact its success is contingent on a personnel loan, so to speak. I am not privy to Ada’s plans, but I will be shocked if she has not based her own scheme on the hard-won loyalty of each and every single follower she amasses.” A smile dawned on Claudia’s face. On a less severe woman, it may have qualified as mischievous. On hers, it could only be described as downright wicked. “If she does not extract grievous costs from you in exchange for her aid, I will consider it a mark of shame upon our bloodline. It will be exceedingly interesting to see the contract you will draft together.” Elbridge held up his blistered palm. “Has she not already?” he asked, his eyebrow at maximum arch. Claudia let out a short, sharp laugh. “Just think of Mr. Cole, Mr. Hardley. It can always be much worse.”
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Jan 2, 2022 01:48
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Low Battery Scene: Ritual Chamber The candle’s flame was holding as still and steady as a painting. “So why’d he stop moving?” Rick muttered, walking over to kneel at the dog’s side. “I wonder… he’s technically been converted to a golem, right? Golems aren’t always active. This IS what it looks like when they aren’t.” Gorden was snapping his fingers over the candle flame, paused like a still shot in a video. “I dunno. Maybe his entropy’s gotten caught on something, like a rock rolling downhill getting stuck on a pile of other rocks.” He held his hand a little bit closer than advisable to the flame, feeling for heat. It was still just as warm as it should be. “The heat output’s fine here, it’s just not...actually burning.” “So it’s like his entropy circuit is blocked or scuffed? How do we get it unstuck?” Ada asked, her voice harsher than she actually wanted it to be. More delays, more problems…how the hell are there so many obstacles still in the way with even the Fates looking the other way? Rick’s face twisted in confusion. “We broke the distaff, what the heck could it have gotten caught on? I’m not sure I understand you.” “I have no idea, I’m spitballing based on observations,” Gorden admitted as he looked back at Eriol. “Don’t suppose we can try some more dog treats? See if he’s just ‘hungry’ or ‘sleeping’? If not, maybe I can do that thing again to see if he’s gotten stuck on something else.” He felt tired just talking about it, but if it had to be done, well. "We won't use the Sight again if we can help it," Ada reassured him, before turning her attention to Eriol. "This has to be something linked to the ritual. Something isn't working out." Her eyes flickered to the candle, briefly, then back to Eriol...and then, an unexplainable feeling of alarm kicked in. She glanced at the candle once more, trying to see what was wrong with it, but it seemed quite still. And yet… She looked away, and that sense of wrongness returned. It was only when she stared fixedly at the flame for the third time that Ada finally saw it. "Hold up. Look at the candle for a couple seconds and then look away and back again. Do you see it? It's not moving, but…it's still fading." “Huh? Are you telling me we’ve somehow turned these things into Boos?” Gorden seemed confused, but followed Ada’s instructions, looking at the candle, then turning away and counting out loud. “One...two...three...four...five.” He turned back and-- “Okay, hang on, that wasn’t where it was before. It looks...dimmer. That’s bad, right?” “Maybe,” Rick said, brows furrowed. “Maybe he’s just gone into power-saving mode.” “A puppet cannot dance on its own, no matter how lifelike it may seem,” said Circe, smoothing her dress. “What power gives the golden beast life? Is it sufficient for the task?” "Elbridge prepped Eriol's body with precious metals and jewels, but I don't think he used anything as a core. It was just a direct magic infusion. You think it's starting to run out?" Ada asked, shooting Gorden and Circe a look. “Guessing is a fool’s game,” Circe said dismissively. “Consult someone who knows better or wait for the wizard’s return.” "So we need a golem expert." She thought about it for a moment, then looked at Rick. "Nicky?" She asked, thoughtfully. “Worth a shot,” said Rick. “Let him know I’m here while you’re at it.” --- “Stitch in Time, alterations, restorations, and commissions, how can I help you?” Nicky’s voice on the phone had that sing-song quality that all customer service people develop after having said the same phrase a thousand times. "Nicky, it's Ada. I've got a golemancy problem I need some guidance with," she said, cutting straight to the chase. "You got a minute to go over it?" “Oh…” The sound of cloth rustling in the background crackled through the phone for a moment. “I take it that something went wrong with the highly unethical animal-spirit inanimate body conversion?” He gave an exasperated sigh. “Tell me everything.” She did so, as quickly as she could. "Best guess we got is we're missing a power source, but that's all we got right now. Any ideas?” “I was afraid of this,” Nicky said. “It’s not Elbridge’s fault, it sounds like he followed the instructions to the letter. But without a proper shem… Er, to keep it very simple, your hypothesis is correct. The puppy’s soul isn’t strong enough to power his body. You’ll need to link something else to it. Usually in these cases that would be the caster’s soul, for whatever length of time the creature is required to stay animate.” "So we need to have someone use their soul as kindling and set it on fire to keep the candle burning? Elbridge isn't gonna be an option then. He was pretty much tapped out by the time the ritual finished. Would someone else's soul work for a replacement?" “Any mage can do it, really. Think of it like an umbilical cord rather than kindling. It’s a steady drain of energy. Just have them er, wipe some blood on one of the gems and sincerely offer themselves to it. If that doesn’t work, call me back.” "Gotcha, will do." Cutting off the line, Ada looked up. "Aight, we've got a solution sorted out. Who wants to be a gold dog's mommy?" she asked, before adding, "Or man-mommy, taking present company into account." “‘Man-mommy’?” Gorden repeated with credulity. “Er, um, so is it just pricking a finger and petting him? I really want to keep him, but the dorm at Tulane isn’t super into dogs, even golden ones that don’t poop.” “Are you not gifting the creature to Midas?” Circe asked Ada. “I am. He won’t accept a dormant dog, though, that was part of the terms of this wager.” “Oh, hang on,” Gorden suddenly perked up. “The way Nicky said it it sounded like the, uh, ‘donor’, for lack of a better word had to be physically close to the dog for the thing to work. If Midas is going to be holding onto him anyway…” he thought about it. “Yeah, you’ve done enough, Ada. I’ve already put some sweat into this--” he glanced at Rick. “--might as well put some blood in as well.” “It’s not gonna be a one-time payment,” Ada warned him. “You might feel under the weather for a while. You still sure you wanna go for it?” “Grace threw in a tooth already,” noted Gorden. “Compared to that, this’ll be fiiiine.” “Alright. Gimme a finger then,” Ada said, drawing the obsidian knife. Gorden held out a finger with a little trepidation. “How come we can’t use a needle or a lancet--” The slice caught him off-guard, a bright, but brief flash of pain as his fingertip was split open. “There. Go for it, we’ve got band-aids up above for when you’re done,” Ada said, taking a step aside to clear the way. “Ack!” he yelped, nearly recoiling his finger back into a fist before remembering what he’d volunteered for. “Right...here, Eriol...good doggy…” He ran his hand over the golden snout, leaving a thin blood trail to the various nearby gems. For a moment nothing happened, but then… a feeling like someone was tugging lightly on his arm. If it was similar to anything he’d experienced before it was the pressure of crossing a threshold uninvited, only much lighter. Eriol’s body creaked and rocked suddenly, like it needed oiling, and the pressure on Gorden’s soul increased a little more, until finally the dog leaned forward and stretched, and his movements smoothed out again until he was a perfect facsimile of a living animal. “Woof, magic is tiring,” Gorden joked. “I need to do more cardio.” He watched Eriol stretch out and sit with heavy breaths. “Guess it was an initial energy problem, not an entropy problem. He look good, Rick, Ada?” “I think so?” Rick said. “Maybe you should run him around outside for a few minutes just to be sure.” “Not a bad idea. You can get started on that cardio while he’s at it, too,” Ada joked, as the weight on her chest finally began to lift. This was it, the final obstacle. Now, there was nothing left standing between her and the completion of Midas’ wager. “Sounds like a plan,” nodded Gorden as he tried to shake off the feeling of drowsiness again, “though I don’t know what I’m gonna do if he gets somewhere he shouldn’t. Even those giant mastiffs don’t weigh as much as this guy.” “You’re a master of time and space. If anyone can come up with a way to keep an overexcited doggy on a leash, it’ll be you,” Ada said, and she meant it.
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Jan 2, 2022 02:17
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Private Time Once Gorden had taken Eriol out of the chamber, Ada’s expression changed once again to one of worry. “Alright. Now that we got a minute...Circe, give us some room. Wait outside.” Circe inclined her head very slightly “May I return home, matron? My task here is completed.” Ada nodded. “You have my permission. Go.” Once the witch was out of the chamber, she turned her attention to the last man remaining. “You still wanna kill her?” she asked, quietly. Rick had watched their final exchange in silence. It still didn’t make any sense to him. Circe taking orders, Ada giving them. The easy way they spoke to each other. It stirred the ashes in his chest but there were no embers left to reignite. “Not today,” he said at length. “No promises about tomorrow.” A heavy sigh escaped Ada’s lips. “That’s enough for me. I’ve got so much poo poo on my plate I don’t know if I can make time to go over this the way it deserves right now. I don’t want you to do something you’re gonna regret just because it seemed right in the heat of the moment.” “Why do you think I’d regret it? I’ve killed plenty of monsters, Ada. One more isn’t gonna stop me from sleeping at night.” His voice was cold and distant. “You respect her. Circe. After everything she did to us. To me. Why? Or should I go get a ticket and wait in line since I’m just another problem that needs your attention?” Closing her eyes, Ada leaned against the door, letting its cold metal order her thoughts. “You want me to tell you why I don’t want you to kill her like that first, or why I brought her here?” Both questions seemed to have obvious answers. “I want you to tell me why you let her in,” he said. Ada shrugged. “Because as far as I knew, she was a dime-a-dozen sociopath, jumped-up on her own power, who’d gimme a good perspective on what a remorseless monster might say or do, all on a leash she couldn’t break out of. You couldn’t get a better test case for managing her kind if you tried. If I couldn’t work around her and get some value out of her, I wasn’t cut out for the life I wanted in the first place anyways.” “And then what?” he asked, undeterred. He pointed at the door. “That wasn’t ‘managing’, Ada. That wasn’t ‘getting value’ out of her. She got to you.” “Turns out there was more to her than I realized. Remember the day you first woke up again, after you died? I was mourning you, and she offered to cut my hair.” Carefully, she stroked one of her gilded locks through the gloves. “She didn’t have to do that. She could’ve mocked me, laughed at me, rejoiced in my weakness from knowing you were gone. Instead, she shared her old customs with me, because in a way she’d lost something too, and she respected that bond of grief. I didn’t forgive her then, but from that point on, she never stopped treating me differently. She was always rude, cruel and harsh, but she took me seriously when I went to ask her questions instead of giving me the useless answers I was expecting out of her. She never tried to deceive me or misguide me. She simply told me what she thought I should do, and let me do with that what I will.” “She didn’t give one single poo poo about me, Ada. She was only sad that she lost a selfish opportunity.” He sighed, suddenly feeling like they were a thousand miles apart and he was yelling over a vast distance. “They’ve all got a sob story, Ada. They can all be a little bit human. But you haven’t seen Circe at her worst. You haven’t seen what she’ll do to get what she wants, and how little she cares about who gets in her way. Do you even know what she was going to do to you if she won the race?” “Use me as a plaything for whatever designs she had,” Ada said, shrugging. “I’m pretty sure the end result would be the end of me.” “She was going to lock you up until…” he choked on it and had to stop for a breath. “Until she broke me down enough that I would kill you when she asked. You weren’t even a plaything for her, you were just a prop.” “Yeah,” Ada said, nodding. “Sounds about right.” “Well I’m glad you’re loving fine with that, Ada, but I’m not. And I don’t know how I’m supposed to just pretend it’s okay that you’re seeking advice from her and she’s influencing your decisions.” “Because she hurt you, yeah,” Ada said, nodding wearily. Hurt? She tortured me for a loving week. She half-drowned me, tried to rape me, fed me to her loving goddess. I couldn’t even close my eyes without her saying so. And all I could do was wait for it to end, for someone else to save me, because I sure as hell couldn’t save myself. You were the one who pulled me out of that nightmare. And now none of it matters to you? He’d tried so hard not to numb out his pain lately, but this was too much. His fists unclenched. “Was it worth it?” he asked quietly, turning his gaze on the empty ritual circle. “Getting what you wanted.” “I don’t know. I’ll tell you when I get there.” Once more, Ada closed her eyes, her breathing slowing down to a peaceful rhythm. “Hey, Rick. You’re wondering why I’m not throwing her away now that I know how much it hurts you, aren’t you? Why I don’t care.” He shrugged. “Do you think explaining will help? You knew she hurt me before the first time you spoke to her.” “Yeah, I do. Because I think it’s not about what she does or the danger she poses. I know you trust me enough to know when she’s feeding me a line of bullshit or telling me to do something stupid and cruel that’ll only blow up in my face. It’s because you want to hurt her. You want her to lose everything she cares for, to be isolated, to be scorned, to suffer every waking moment of her life until she dies a horrible death. You don’t care that she’s influencing my decisions. You just care that you’re hurting, and no one’s making sure she is too for the way she hurt you, so that maybe her suffering can make your hurting go away.” Her green eyes fluttered open slowly, and they were still and gentle as she stared at him. “Am I wrong?” He lowered his eyes. “I just want her to stop. I want to be the last person she ever hurts like that. I want YOU to-” he bit the rest of the sentence off. “I’ve tried not to think about her at all because I hate her so much. She’s like barbed wire wrapped around my brain. I can’t get it out. Do you know what you’re asking me to accept?” She nodded. “It’s not gonna be easy. There’s no other way to heal, though.” “Of course not, why would there be…” He felt utterly lost. Healing? The wounds were still a bloody mess. Too fresh even to have scarred over. “What am I supposed to do? No, don’t try to tell me. This is my problem. I just...” he sighed and waved a hand around. “I wish you hadn’t been so you with her.” In spite of herself, a little smile pulled up Ada’s lips, along with a slight blush. Rick had never acted so jealous about how she spent her time with anyone else before. The closest thing had been when she’d pretended to be under Narcissus’ spell. Hidden beneath his words was an implied desire of I’d rather you be you with me, and in spite of the circumstances, it felt good to hear that. “I didn’t know you were that possessive. You know there’s enough of me to share, right?” Rick glared at her. “Ask Circe what she did before you ask me to share anything with her. Especially something as precious as you.” Ada’s expression grew serious again. “If you think it’s important, I will. I’m serious about you too, though. Jealousy won’t help, Rick. And she’s not gonna hurt anyone as long as I’m still here.” “I really hope you’re right about that,” he said, not touching the rest of it with a ten foot pole. “I will be,” she said, confidently. “Talking to her and Midas so much has taught me a couple things. No one’s born a monster, it’s their traumas that make them so. Immortals have so much to unpack that they look like they can’t change...but that’s if you’re just hoping to pump and dump them for value. If you’re willing to put effort into people, they’ll never stop surprising you with how far they can go.” “Do they really deserve it?” Rick asked quietly. “After everyone else they left broken along their paths?” “No one deserves anything. People don’t have value out of the box, Rick. We care because we choose to care. When we think someone isn’t worth our effort, it says more about us than them. It means we thought it was too hard, too painful to help them pull themselves together,” Ada shook her head. “It’s not wrong to feel that way...but I don’t want to stop caring if I can help it. Not now, not ever.” He hadn’t expected her to say anything different, but something squirmed a little in his chest. He didn’t want Circe to surprise him, or to learn how to be a better person. He wanted her gone, and it made him feel small and petty in the face of Ada’s conviction. But… that was okay. He didn’t need to make peace with Circe. He just had to make peace with Ada trying to help her, which was going to be hard enough. “I don’t want you to stop caring, either. Just… give me some time to work through this. I don’t want to let it fester any more than I already have.” “Yeah,” she said, nodding in agreement. “No pressure. If you think she can’t be forgiven, I won’t stop you from seeking justice either. I just want you to know it’s going to take something from you, you know? When you look at yourself in the mirror, you’ll see someone whose eyes say ‘what I wanted was worth someone else’s life’.” She breathed in, deeply. What she had to say next hurt, but he deserved to hear it from her. “...It’s like that for me, you know. A man died because I decided I cared more for you and for my freedom than him. When you watch the light in someone’s eyes go out in slow motion, when you can feel their breath on your skin fade away and never come back, you can’t make excuses and say they had it coming. You have to own up to what you’ve done, and if you can’t be proud enough of it to tell someone else you did it, then it’s better to not do it at all.” “What I almost did today had nothing to do with justice,” Rick said, slowly crossing the room to her side. It was so unfair that he couldn’t touch her, couldn’t give her even a single moment of human comfort. “If I tried it again tomorrow it still wouldn’t, and Circe’s already taken enough from me.” He looked troubled for a moment, then quietly slipped his hand through one of hers. “I’m not as clean as you think I am, Ada. There was a soldier in the other timeline… One of the other Wardens had been bitten, she was going to kill him and turn right then and there. So I killed him first. That’s what El was yelling about earlier. What I did for Bree. It’s not the same, I know, but...” “But you still made a decision to take a life so you wouldn’t have to take someone else’s,” she finished for him. “Yeah. I get what you mean.” Reaching out, she stroked the sword’s hilt for a moment. “That trip you took to the future...it took a lot out of you, didn’t it? Much more than just your body.” “I tried to go back for you,” he said, his voice shaking. “I was so close. They dragged me away, all of them, kicking and screaming…” “They took your choice away from you?” she asked, her eyebrows shooting up in surprise. “Hell. With friends like that, who needs enemies?” “Sixth law violation,” he muttered. “But they were all going to help me break it right up until Bellworth showed up. I fought her in the mud. She messed my shield arm up pretty bad. But after a few rounds El couldn’t take it anymore and sided with her. The others backed him up, and I couldn’t fight all of them.” He let out a long, weary sigh. “The rest was just one long slide into the ice block.” You did what?! “Did you ever tell them how you felt? I don’t know why they did it, but there’s no way they wanted to hurt you like they did.” “I got into a huge fight with El over it, later. The whole world was riding on our shoulders, and it was just too heavy. I cracked under the weight of it all.” He shook his head. “Everyone did, really. Some of them were just a little better at hiding it.” They needed someone who could absorb the pressure, but I wasn’t there for them, she thought. Just once, she’d made a choice to care for a person over something bigger, and it’d had consequences. A pang of guilt stung her, but she quickly swept it away. Saving Ruby had been worth the world. If it couldn’t treat its other protectors nicely enough the one time she had other appointments, then it didn’t deserve that extra effort in the first place. “Would you do things the same way, if you knew then what you do now?” she asked, curiously. How deep did his regrets run, really?
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Jan 2, 2022 03:29
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Rick closed his eyes, remembering the pulse and vibration of the magic between his fingers when he had his hands on the time vortex. He’d found them. Ada, Ruby, and JR… If he had only trusted his gut and his heart and pulled that rope, taken everyone with him, none of the misery that followed would have ever happened. He wouldn’t have died. El wouldn’t have lost all faith in humanity. Rupert wouldn’t have given up on himself. Hugues and Jenny wouldn’t have been scattered to the winds. “It was you, or the whole world,” he said softly. “I thought you’d be disappointed in me if I chose you. But I wish I had, Ada. The world didn't give a poo poo about me.” “It doesn’t give a poo poo about anyone,” Ada said, nodding in agreement. “That’s why I stopped giving a poo poo about what it wanted.” “Yeah.” He was quiet for a moment. “What about your little trip to the past? You came back with your mind made up about so many things, like you’d had time to work it all out. What did you find back there?” A little laugh escaped Ada’s lips. “Man. Where do I start?” It was a good question, and she went silent for a few moments thinking about it. So many people she’d met back then had turned out to be so important in the short time she’d spent with them...should she start with Ginger? Pontchartrain? Reese? ...Definitely not him, she decided, after a moment. He won’t be happy if he finds out I kissed another boy while we were still boyfriend and girlfriend, and when he hears it was a red court vampire, he’ll lose his poo poo. I’m gonna just keep that one in my pocket. “You know about Emerald already, right? Ruby’s ‘little sister’. It’s actually the Ruby from back then who traveled forward in time along with Mr and Mrs. Lytle. She was so confused when I first met her. To me, she was the Ruby I knew and remembered, but to her...I must’ve been the weirdest gal she’d ever met, acting like we were old friends, knowing things I shouldn’t have...I never asked her why she didn’t kick me out, actually. It must’ve been disorienting, putting up with me the way she did.” “I’ll bet,” Rick said. They’d never had this conversation in the few short weeks they’d spent together, before the breakup. He’d been in and out for a lot of it, dysphoric and exhausted, and far too ashamed of his failures to tell her about any of them even if he could have put it all together coherently. And Ada had never been one to volunteer stories about herself. He hadn’t asked, so she hadn’t said. He’d thought he had time. “It was like that for me too. I had a friend there who remembered a different me. She’d lost him, like I’d lost her. I wonder sometimes... if she ever found him again. Or if I just made her lose me twice.” “You think she didn’t appreciate getting to see you again more than losing you?” she asked, curiously. “I think I wish I could have said goodbye,” he said heavily. “We both appreciated seeing each other again, even though we knew it was temporary. It just ended up much more temporary than we’d wanted.” He traced his left arm with a silver finger and the black ink pattern showed on it for a moment before fading away. “Her name was Angie Montes. She was… my sponsor, in St. Giles. She did my tattoos, basically taught me how to keep living after I was infected. I needed someone in my corner after what happened at the time nexus, so I skipped Edinburgh for Rio. If there’s one thing I wouldn’t take back, it’s seeing her again.” “Was she the first person like that in your life after you started learning magic? Someone who was in your corner, I mean.” He shook his head. “No. But she was the only person who never left it. I wish you could have met her. You two would get along like a house on fire.” “I can imagine. She sounds like she was a hell of a lady.” For a moment, Ada didn’t say anything more, letting Angie have her space. Then, she kept going. “Back in the past, I met two ladies like that. I didn’t have them long, but I guess you could call them mentors. The first was Ginger, Ginger Chatelaine. She was the owner of the Gilded Lily, one of the old speakeasies back in the Prohibition era. Ruby used to sing there, way back when. It was the hottest place in town for supernatural gatherings, and it was all because of her. Far as I know, she was just a clued-in lady, but in spite of that she managed to keep the peace just fine and get everyone’s attention.” She breathed in deeply. “She was an inspiration. The way she ran a tight ship and still took care of everyone in her employ...I barely guested for a couple days and when I fainted in one of the bathrooms, I woke up to her tending to me like I was her own kid. She didn’t let it show much, but she had such a big soul, you know?” Fainted? There was something she wasn’t saying, but he didn’t press it. It probably had to do with her cravings getting worse, and this wasn’t the time to fuss over them. “Hard to forget someone like that, even if you only know them for a little while,” he agreed. He’d never heard Ada call anyone an inspiration before. She must have been very special to get praise like that. “I’ve been to the Gilded Lily. They don’t use half its space anymore. It must’ve really been something in its heyday.” “And it still can be,” Ada added, quickly. “But only if I act fast enough to save it. I never told you guys why I got into this whole mess with the golden dog and Midas, did I?” Rick shook his head. “I don’t know what you told the others, but it’s news to me. I didn’t even hear about the whole wager thing until a couple of hours ago.” “Yeah, it’s kind of hard to explain,” she said, nodding. “When I got Midas to help with making Christmas happen in June, I ended up owing him a favor. What he ended up wanting was for me to help him get his hands on the Lily, but I’d sooner chop my own head off than let him build a hotel on its grounds. Coaxing him into giving me an impossible task was a better alternative.” He remembered the favor, the gold in her hair sharp against his cheek. He’d been furious about it, but she’d only shown him the night before the ripple and there just hadn’t been time to do anything about it. It wasn’t surprising that the favor’d come due, but… “Huh. Why’d he want an old speakeasy? It’s not exactly in the best neighborhood for a hotel of his caliber.” “Because it’s not just a speakeasy. Ginger made a contract with the Svartalves to furnish it with fey food and drink. There’s still a portal in its basement, and all that’s needed to open it is the contract and someone who can read it to find out what its key is. Midas wants it, but I have other ideas.” A sly smile danced on Ada’s face. “I found the contract in her journals already. I just need to find a translator and then restoring the Lily to its former glory will be a cinch.” “drat, Ginger must really have rubbed off on you if you want to run her old bar that much,” Rick said, suddenly picturing an absurd mental image of Ada tossing tumblers like Tom Cruise. She’d need a stepstool to peek over the counter… “Or is this all for Ruby? It sounds like the place was important to her too.” “I think it’s a little bit of both, honestly,” Ada admitted. “And it’s also that I got to sing live on its stage and it’d kill me inside to lose a place with those kinds of memories attached to it.” “I missed your big debut? No wonder you left me.” The words tumbled out before he could think better of them, and he flushed red… but it didn’t hurt to say them, and after a moment he relaxed again. She couldn’t hold a laugh in. “Yeah, well, don’t get too torn up over it. Maybe you’ll get a chance to redeem yourself soon, we’re holding a fundraising concert soon if I can get Midas to agree to a meeting with these fairy guys from Oak Alley so they can hook me up with a record producer. I might sing a tune or two when the day comes.” “Now that I’ve got to see.” The whole puzzle surrounding Midas was finally starting to make sense. He hadn’t seen every piece yet, and he wasn’t quite sure how the missing mayor fit into it, but there was something just so… Ada about refusing to give up on a place that mattered to her, even if it meant having to pull off a spell no one had managed in a thousand years. “Do you want me to come with, when you drop off Eriol? If Gorden hasn’t lost him in the hedges yet.” “You got some kinda plan in mind? I don’t think giving Midas what he’s been waiting on for so long is gonna be dangerous, if that’s what you’re thinking of. He’s gonna owe me big time after this.” He rubbed the back of his head. “Oh, no I just… don’t really have any place to be? Sun’s out, so I’m kinda stuck here. But maybe showing up with a sword sends the wrong message. Hmm, yeah, that’s probably not what you want.” He shook his head again. “But don’t think I didn’t notice you said two ladies. I just don’t want to keep you any longer, after all the work everyone put in.” “It’s fine, I probably still have a couple minutes until Gorden’s done with Eriol. So...right. The second lady.” There was so much to say about her... “The second lady’s my great-grandmother. Her name was Sylvia duSang. She was the second to last house matriarch, and the last one to lead the family to greater heights.” That was the historical facts, which was a good start, but it didn’t say anything about who she really was. “She was...she was a little like mom, but not really. She was very dignified, like an empress, but not cold. Just distant, the way someone who’s living in a much bigger and more complex world than yours can be.” Someone who can still talk to the maids without sending them running home in tears, he thought. “When I showed up at the manor grounds looking to talk to her, she was tending to the plants, you know,” Ada said, lost in reminiscence. “I asked for her help, and she asked me what I was willing to do for it. When I said I was willing to do whatever, she chided me for leaving myself open to paying too much and told me to water the roses with my own blood. We hit it off from there.” “Did you?” Rick asked, actually curious. “So much so she had to tell me to stop before I bled out.” A sigh escaped her lips. “She didn’t really doubt me when I told her I’d come from the future. She just listened and nodded and took me in, because I was a duSang and she accepted me. You should’ve seen the manor back then, Rick. It wasn’t like now, all dark and gloomy. There were kids running around everywhere, and a full staff of servants and just, it was so different. So alive.” Her hands, which had been gesticulating up to that point, came down again as she took a moment before continuing. “I told her about my magic, and she said there was still a way to bring it back, even though I’d rejected it. Then she put me in a magic sleep and left me by the roadside to weave a ritual on my own so I could talk to the River King.” “Straight into the deep end, no life preserver,” Rick said, with a low whistle. “Did you sink or swim?” That bit about getting her magic back had sent a shiver of excitement up his spine but he knew that she’d been struggling with what her magic meant to her for a long time. If Great-grandma had the key, why hadn’t he seen her cast a single spell since he’d woken up? Even today, she’d only watched impatiently, adding nothing to the ritual but a simple blood offering that anyone could have done. “I stabbed and gouged a log until it was flayed like Buffalo Bill had had his fun with it, then I stabbed myself through the gut and used that to summon Old Man Pontchartrain for an audience.” The memory of it made her wince. “I can’t remember the last time I was so mad. I hated the way she’d betrayed me and left me to fend for myself...but it was all because she knew I could take it. We hadn’t spoken for long, and Great-Grandmother already knew exactly the kind of coaxing I needed. Plus, she’d left me a sandwich and some water, so I wouldn’t starve.” For just a moment he remembered the envelope of money in the drawer next to his scout knife. “She believed you could do it, and you didn’t disappoint her,” he said, talking to himself as much as her. “Was it a good sandwich?” “It was the angriest jam sandwich I ever had,” Ada said, baring her fangs in mock anger. “That bread was a fucker, it had it coming.” Rick laughed. He could just picture it. But the rest of it was more worrisome. She’s got so many scars now, she can’t even count them. He wondered what the new one looked like, but maybe he didn’t have the right to ask that anymore. “You’ve never had to do it before, have you?” he asked quietly instead. “Cut deeper than you could on your arms, I mean. It worked?” “Yeah. Maybe it was just the anger speaking, but I was electrified. I felt like I could set the world on fire, if I wanted to.” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that. It was easy enough to call the River King. Then I had an audience with him, I gave him something precious so he could link me up with Ruby, and I collapsed on the side of the road where the Lytles found me.” There’d be no point in getting upset over all the red flags in that chain of events, so Rick tried his best not to fuss. She had her reasons, and he trusted they were good ones. Besides, he hadn’t exactly been the king of good decision-making at the time either. “Do you think you could do it again? Or was Great-grandma’s jam sandwich a one-time deal?” “If I wanted something bad enough? Yeah, easily. She did that to teach me about doing magic with my heart, and not my mind. Turns out, when I shut off my magic, what I rejected was...” she fell silent for a second, and then made a face. “...Ugh, I don’t have a word for it. Bathrobe wizard magic, I guess? You know, the kind that’s all dusty old books and controlled experimentation and taking note after note and making minor adjustments until you finally get it right. Know what I mean? And just because I can’t do that anymore because it’s too tied to the things I did that I regret, doesn’t mean I can’t do magic that’s wild and free and just does what I want instead of what I train it to do. I haven’t found a way to awaken it enough to tap into it again, but that doesn’t mean it’s always gonna be out of my reach. I just have to find a reason to call upon that part of me again.” “Wild and free...” Rick muttered, his mind racing with sudden possibilities. At the end of the day, magic was an expression of one’s will. While bathrobes and books and rigid mental discipline were the traditional Western methods, and had a long and proven history of working, they absolutely weren’t the only way to do magic. He didn’t know much about the alternatives, not enough to give her any advice about it, but the idea of a different path, one based on emotional strength and fortitude, suited her so much better than the one he knew. “This is huge, Ada! Do you think there’s anything in the library-- well, maybe a diary or something instead of a manual-- no, forget it, no books right? But still, this is amazing!” He bounced on his heels and reached uselessly for her hands, too excited to stop himself. Seeing his enthusiasm, Ada couldn’t help but laugh. He’s just like a little kid at heart, she thought, unable to keep herself from grinning. And I just handed him a new toy. “Slow down, Gandhi, you’re gonna kill me,” she said, waving a hand at him. “I don’t think it’s that much of a discovery. I bet this is something you could find in lots of places, if you know where to look. And besides, I think the family mostly did things the old fashioned way, still. You know, with books and bathrobes.” “Not all of them, if Great-grandma knew about this,” Rick said. “I guess the real trick is figuring out how to do it without having to face a massive moment of personal crisis, though. That’s uh, kind of a limiting factor.” “It is. With all the balls I’m juggling right now, I’m kind of not in the mood for a personal crisis, you know?” Ada drew a deep breath. “Great-Grandmother taught me a lot of things, Rick. Honestly, teaching me about how I could release my magic was maybe even the smallest thing. And she told me…” For a moment, Ada fell silent. Then she shook her head. “...Nah. It’s not something that matters anyway, forget about it.” “What?” he pressed. He couldn’t even remember Ada pushing something aside that way before. That was one of his tricks, not hers. “It’s nothing, really. I’m serious.” What could she even say to him about it? Would he understand? Wouldn’t it just hurt his feelings? “You don’t have to tell me if it’s private,” he said. “But whatever it is, it’s weighing on you. That means it’s not nothing.” “Yeah…” She closed her eyes. With the ritual done, the wheels that had been stuck for so long would finally start turning again. From here, it’d be a straight shot towards getting the curse removed, and from there, becoming the family’s matriarch. And then, she’d have to start thinking about new responsibilities...and about the promise she’d made to her great-grandmother. “...When the time came to leave the past, I visited the manor one last time. Great-grandmother was waiting for me there. We talked, and she gave me tips on how to be a good leader. And...when it was time for me to leave, I asked her if she wanted anything from me when I went home. What she told me was...what she told me was that the house should not remain empty. She told me not to be the last of our name.” A little shiver ran down her spine, as the weight of her legacy settled down on her shoulders. “The house was so full of life then, Rick. There were kids everywhere, aunts, cousins, multiple whole families. It wasn’t anything like it is now. I can feel it, even now. The house remembers, and it’s lost its spark because it’s still grieving over what happened to us. And it’s up to me to change things. To regain our prestige, to seize the power we used to have, and to make the family grow again.” For a moment, she fell silent. “I’m not ready to be a mother yet. I’m not. But I still can’t shake off the feeling that I won't live much longer. I want to do right by my family, but I can’t even imagine bringing a child or ten into the world when I don’t even know if I won’t go insane tomorrow, or wind up dead.” She laughed, feebly, and shook her head. “It’s pathetic. I talk a big game, but then when it comes to the really important stuff, the best I can do is half-measures. I feel like I’m letting down the most amazing woman I ever knew, and I can’t even start to do better than that.” Ten?! Rick blinked. He couldn’t picture the aunts and uncles and cousins, but he could see kids, of various ages, with their mother’s red hair and bright green eyes. Or maybe brown ones, like… No. That door was well and truly closed, no matter what happened now. That’s why she wouldn’t tell me. She knew I always wanted kids. She never said she did, too. It was a deep, dull ache. He’d never get to hold a child of his own, to look down into that bright new face, full of possibilities, and see the echo of himself in their eyes. It wasn’t possible anymore, not with Ada or anyone else, and there was nothing he could do about it. He clenched a fist over his heart. Stop. That’s a pit I’ll never climb out of once I jump in. What’s done is done, and I won’t punish myself for it anymore. But what did she want him to say? He knew better than to try and tell her things would work out somehow. They’d been through too much hell together for comforting platitudes to hold any meaning. “Do you think she’d be happy if you rushed to have a child, and then didn’t have time to raise them? Or left them orphaned before they could walk? That can’t have been what your grandmother was asking of you,” he said finally. “No. It wasn’t. But I can’t just die without doing something about our family’s future, either.” She looked away, unable to hold his gaze. It’d taken him some time to answer. Just as she’d thought, he’d had to deal with confronting the things that he’d lost...but at least they hadn’t eaten him alive. She wouldn’t have been able to sleep that night if her selfishness had hurt him so badly. “I don’t know how to do it in the time I’ve got. I just don’t.” “What makes you think you haven’t got time, Ada? I thought you didn’t believe in fate.” “Fate’s got nothing to do with it. There’s only me and the beast inside me, and the things that it...that I want, even when I know they’ll hurt me. And I can’t change wanting them. No one can.” “But that’s-” -the whole point of the exsanguination ritual. The one I’m not supposed to know about. drat it. He made a frustrated noise. Even if he was willing to risk mentioning it, Claudia had told him basically nothing. He couldn’t ask Ada to pin her hopes on that when he didn’t even know how long the effect was supposed to last. “I’m sorry. I don’t have any answers. I wish I could at least give you a hug...” he reached for her cheek, and knew she couldn’t feel a thing. “All I can do is listen.” “Don’t worry,” Ada said, wrapping her hand around the spot where his hand should’ve been. “That’s enough. I just had to get this off my chest. No one knows, not even Mom. If they found out, it’d just hurt them. They’d go crazy trying to find an answer that doesn’t exist.” Her smile was resigned, its peacefulness frighteningly out of place on the face of someone so defiant. “Sometimes the best thing you can do is just be ready to let things go, you know?” “If I believed that, I wouldn’t be here now,” Rick said quietly. “You thought your magic was gone too, remember? But it’s not, you just didn’t know the way to reach it.” “I still don’t,” she pointed out, gently. “Yet,” he said, shaking his head. “I don’t know if the answer exists or not, Ada. But I believe in you, even if you don’t.” “That’s sweet of you,” she said, and for a while, she didn’t say anything more. One more set of expectations for me to live up to. How many is it already? I’ve lost count. But somehow, this one doesn’t seem so bad. “This place is too dreary for me,” she said, eventually. “I think it’s getting me down. You mind if we get out of here? You can stay over until it’s night out and you can get back home if you want, or I can call Roy and get him to ride you over to the Stitch while I go talk to Midas.” “El promised he’d take me out for drinks, but Lachesis might have jumped the line.” He sighed. “I’ll stay if it’s all the same to you. I kinda want to see your face after you get back from showing Midas what New Orleans can do.” “Sure. Tell Roy to get the camera while you’re at it. If I’m in a good mood, maybe I’ll even let you take some pictures.” There was some of her usual playful energy back in her voice now, even if the rest was still nowhere to be found. “I better get going now, though. The clock’s ticking and there’s only so much time in the day to spin my tangled web.”
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Jan 2, 2022 03:32
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Career Counsel Scene: Upstairs, Château du Sang Elbridge could hear Eriol coming up the stairwell all the way from the parlour. The flooring vibrated with every step, shaking dust from the fixtures and rattling El’s teacup on top of his saucer. When he actually entered the room, the overhead chandelier began to sway ominously. “Ah, Mr. Maxwell. I take it you managed to resolve that little complication?” he asked, keeping a wary eye on the wriggling puppy - the solid-metal, eighty-kilogram puppy, now with the requisite strength to move his new body. “He’s all good!” Gorden gasped between heavy breaths, kneeling down where Eriol sat and panted and running a hand over his snout, where a keen observer might notice a slight dried blood color around the gem inlays. “He might have cracked a paver or two, but as far as I can tell he’s lively, if...dense.” He took a deliberate, deep breath in and out. “And fast. Ha-ah...” “Excellent work,” Elbridge said. “Ah! But where are my manners? Gorden, this is Madame Claudia du Sang. Madame du Sang, Deputy Warden Gorden Maxwell.” Gorden pulled himself up to a standing, if still very casual, position off of Eriol’s leash. “Hi there--” he nearly said “Ada’s mom”, but he realized he’d seen enough to Ada to realize that their relationship...couldn’t be that great. “--Madame du Sang,” he finished. “Mr. Maxwell,” Claudia replied in turn, acknowledging him with a brief nod. “My thanks for assisting my daughter in her ritual. You were informed about it on short notice, and from everything I’ve been able to glean from it…” and at this, she gave Eriol a look. “You excelled.” “Oh, I just helped with the theory a bit, gave a little push at the end,” Gorden said self effacingly. “Rick, Grace, El, your daughter, they all did the hard parts.” “Nevertheless, your contribution made all the difference,” Elbridge said, absently reaching to pat Eriol’s head. He felt the crusted blood and paused, turning over his hand to inspect the red powder. “...aha. He requires assistance to remain animate?” “I did say ‘a little push at the end’,” answered Gorden, scratching under Eriol’s chin with his bandaged finger. “A minor inconvenience, for such a sophisticated project,” Elbridge said. “Still, I should search for a replacement source of power when there’s time. It wouldn’t do to overburden you.” “I’ll be fine, El, just a little--” Gorden’s answer was interrupted by a yawn and a stretch. “I’ll make sure not to skip meals tomorrow, alright?” Does he, ordinarily? Elbridge wondered. “Get plenty of iron and protein,” he suggested. “Not to mention a good night’s sleep. That fatigue you’re feeling is more than physical.” “Mr. Hardley has the right of it. He received similar medical instructions when I looked into his wounds,” Claudia said, as she finished her teacup and stood up. “I believe you have the house’s number. If you experience any unexplainable pain, discomfort or injury, don’t hesitate to call. We shall see to it that your wounds are tended to. Now, if you will excuse me, I have business to take care of.” And with that, she glided out of the foyer, like the manor’s head ghost. “A rousing success, then!” Elbridge said. “I daresay few Wizards of the Council have started their careers with such an ambitious project!” “Awesome!” cheered Gorden. “So how long do we have to watch Eriol before Ada gives him to Midas, and then do we write this up?” “No later than this Friday, and yes.” Elbridge pulled out his journal and made one final entry noting Gorden’s additional contribution. He was about to close it again when he hesitated. “‘Deputy Warden Maxwell’. Hmmm. Is that how you’d prefer to be credited?” Gorden opened his mouth to answer, then closed it again. “Huh. You know, I don’t know. If this were Tulane it’d just be, like, ‘Maxwell, Gorden, Dept. of Physics’, no fancy title or anything. You think anybody would look at you funny for pulling a ‘Deputy Warden’ out of nowhere?” “Formal deputisation is common practise,” Elbridge said. “Full Wizards are rare, and Wardens are drawn exclusively from our ranks. To be candid, there just aren’t enough Wardens to go around, especially not since…” He trailed off, grimacing. “...how much do you know about the Vampire War?” he asked. “I’ve read Dracula?” Gorden admitted, in a way that made it clear that that wasn’t sufficient. “They’re real too, huh? And I guess they kill wizards?” “There were three courts of them active in North America. Three…species, if you will. Dracula was of the Black Court - animate corpses with a thirst for blood. The eponymous novel was commissioned by his rivals to publicise their weaknesses. The White Court are the most-human of the three, but exist in symbiosis with malevolent spirits that feed on the life-force of others. And then there was the Red Court - shapeshifting, blood-drinking demons that began as parasitic infections within humans before killing them from the inside-out and wearing their skins.” Elbridge raised a finger on his hand for each, counting them off as he described them with the same look of clinical detachment he’d shown Circe earlier. “It was the Red Court that baited one of our own into an especially-egregious and stupid breach of protocol, using his blunder as a pretext for war.” “And now you need people to fight that war?” insinuated Gorden, suddenly feeling like a conscript under the eye of a medical examiner. “I have to admit, I thought of ‘fighting vampires’ as more of a...werewolf thing.” “Hm? Oh, oh no.” Elbridge shook his head. “The war is over. It ended last year. We sustained...terrible losses. Nearly-unbearable. But the man who started the war managed to redeem himself by ending it. To wit: The Red King in Chichen Itza meant to wipe out this Wizard’s entire bloodline with a curse. The spell was instead redirected to the King’s own. There is no Red Court, any more.” “Oh,” said Gorden with a very obvious sigh of relief. “So the war’s over, but the Wardens still aren’t back to full strength, which is why--” he waved his hand around to indicate roughly “all this poo poo is happening.” “I gotta admit, the kind of organization you’re talking about sounds like it’d be right up James’ alley. Why not ask him? Get his friends to help you out.” “The Council often works alongside the Venatori where our interests align,” Elbridge said, neatly eliding that James was in the proverbial doghouse at the moment. “But our primary concern is education. As I’ve said, full Wizards are rare. It takes a considerable degree of talent and drive to become one. Which, to return to the topic at hand, is why I asked you a question. Would you prefer to be credited as ‘Deputy Warden Maxwell’...or ‘Apprentice Wizard Maxwell’?” “‘Apprentice Wizard’?” Gorden repeated, his jaw going slack. For a moment he fantasized about introducing himself as “Dr. Maxwell, Astrophysicist and Wizard”, but caught himself. “Your apprentice, obviously, uh…” his face suddenly fell. “Given what just happened with, you know...you, Ada, Junior...are the rest of the Wardens going to be okay with you taking on as a protege someone specializing in timey wimey BS?” “So long as you take care not to violate the strict letter of the Sixth Law, I doubt that they’d worry overmuch,” Elbridge said. “‘Thou shalt not swim against the currents of time’. Going with them, moving at a more leisurely pace, diverting them, or fishing things from the stream are all acceptable to various degrees, although I wouldn’t make a habit of skirting the edge cases. ‘No ontological paradoxes’ is a safe heuristic.” “That makes sense,” replied Gorden, as if everybody dealt with ontological paradoxes on a regular basis. “Okay...yeah, ‘Apprentice Wizard’ would be pretty neat? Is there some formal thing you have to do, or do you just put my name down that way and anybody who asks gets a death glare?” “A distinction without a difference,” Elbridge explained. “Most forms of spoken oath are considered binding among Wizards and other supernatural entities, and such matters are taken extremely seriously by all involved. After the pledge is made...well, there’s a great bloody list of formalities and niceties we’re meant to observe, but the substance is that I provide training and protection, while you take my instruction to heart and try not to do anything too dreadfully-foolish on my watch.” “That oath sounds like it needs to be made in front of someone,” observed Gorden, “Unless I’m just supposed to say ‘I solemnly swear I will try to do good’ right here and now.” “Only at...well, it amounts to a graduation ceremony,” Elbridge said. “Other Wizards may be in attendance, but even at the best of times, it was difficult to get more than a few of us under the same roof, and these are not the best of times. Still, let’s not get ahead of ourselves. The full oath is only taken when you receive your stole. For now, let us discuss your education.” He spread his arms in as open a gesture as Gorden had ever seen him to make. “You must have questions. Ask, and I shall answer.” “I get a scarf, too?” Gorden said, suppressing a giggle. “Not going to need that much in New Orleans. How is this going to work, like...physically? I think you’ve mentioned Edinburgh before; do you need to go overseas in the middle of...all this? Or do I just need to keep Saturdays open?” “I may need to travel there for work, or to borrow texts for you to read,” Elbridge replied. “As for how to reach Edinburgh, there’s a perfectly-serviceable Waypoint in the public library. It turns what would otherwise be a trans-Atlantic voyage measured in weeks into a hike of a few hours.” I guess wizards can’t take planes; that has to suck, Gorden noted to himself at El’s addendum. “Am I going to come with you for any of this? I can’t say I’ve been to Edinburgh.” Elbridge took a moment to think on the question, his brow furrowed. “You may, if you wish. Eat a hearty meal in advance. Bringing your own food into Faerie is imprudent, while eating food from Faerie - unless freely-given, with an express guarantee of hospitality - is an excellent way to never return home again.” “‘Spirited Away’ rules, got it, I can work with that,” Gorden filled in the blanks. “Uh, not sure if you’ve seen that. It only came out, well...a decade ago. Have you done this ‘apprentice’ thing before? Formally, I mean, not just trying to tell Ada to slow her roll a bit.” “Not formally, no!” Elbridge admitted. “I’ve offered consultation regarding other apprenticeships, but never taken one on myself. Gave a few lectures and wrote a few books, though.” “First time for both of us, then,” cracked Gorden, “that’s good to know!” He smiled, but then his face fell a little. “Uh, last question, I think. We just saw a ton of magic get thrown around in there. I gotta assume we can multiply that across the city, and across how long you’ve lived. Across all that space and all that time, why pick me to be your first?” “Hrm.” Elbridge fell quiet at that, pondering the question. “Two reasons, I would say. Firstly, that now is the first time in a long while that I’ve been in a good position to make the offer. Early in my career, I lacked seniority; later on, I had...other concerns. Personal projects, subsistence, wars and so on. Secondly - try not to roll your eyes at this - you do remind me a bit of myself at your age: Talented, driven, and curious about the mysteries of the world.” He mopped his brow and polished his spectacles. “I had enough close calls of my own that it was a wonder I lived to fifty, let alone a hundred and fifty, and I thought you might benefit from some, er, hindsight.” Gorden might not have eye rolled, but if he’d been drinking coffee he’d probably have suddenly spat it out. “Flattering,” he managed. “So do I need to do anything to sign off the research we have as ‘Apprentice Wizard’ right this moment?” “Only to sign the report as such,” Elbridge said, turning the notepad around and handing it to Gorden along with a pencil. “I’ll handle the rest.” Gorden was almost going to say something about not using a century old fountain pen, but the thought passed as he picked up the pencil and looked at the blank spot where he obviously was supposed to sign. He rolled the pencil between his fingers in a practiced way before signing “Gorden Maxwell” in a simple cursive, printing the “Apprentice Wizard” part in subscript. “Definitely going to need to get used to that...and to make sure not to sign my physics papers that way.” “Not until after you’ve passed your thesis defense, at any rate.”
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Jan 2, 2022 03:58
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Let's Make A Deal Scene: Front garden, Chateau Grace was walking aimlessly near the front door of the Chateau, waiting to catch Ada when she came out. I’ve been trading favors with this whole group without having all the pieces. I still don’t have all the pieces. The Fomor are a big part of it, as is Midas, nevermind the Theater and whatever Rick is doing for the Fae. But, before that, if I’ve done my math correctly, this Jenga set is gonna be the best 10 bucks I’ve spent in a long time. Bike ride home will suck, and it’ll take a bit to get it all turned into cash… but a pure gold jenga block should be worth almost 10k. Each. Even if I lose 10% in fees… I’ll be out of that stupid motel forever by next week. The sound of determined footsteps announced the arrival of her mark. Ada looked tired and drained, but the spark in her eyes was as bright as ever. This was the day all the hard work she’d put in lately paid off. All she had to do was go find Eriol now. When she saw Grace, however, she stopped, raising an eyebrow. “Grace? What are you doing out here? It’s too cold to stick around in the open air right now. Is something wrong?” “Not wrong, not at all. And I’ll warm up plenty cycling home. Just wanted to ask a couple questions. About that golden touch of yours. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this, but I haven’t really… landed here. I’m still living out of a motel, and…” She pulled out the entire boxed Jenga game. “Wanna help a friend out?” It took a moment for the meaning behind Grace’s request to sink in. Until now, no one had really asked her for the kind of help the Golden Touch could provide. She’d used it to help Omar, but that had been her own decision. This was going to be different, particularly given what she knew about the curse now. Rather than answering immediately, Ada sat down beside Grace to think. “Mind if I take a look at the game inside for a sec?” she asked, gesturing at the Jenga set. “Oh, yeah, of course.” Grace opened the box, pulled two of the top blocks off and held them out for Ada. “I can tell you the math, if you want.” Carefully, Ada took the blocks in her hand and held them up, testing their weight. She didn’t even need to close her eyes to see Blaise’s face, twisted in agony as the curse went haywire, reflected on the gloves’ golden glint. “No need,” she said, after a few moments. “Grace, this is a ton of money. I don’t mind helping out, but the curse has catches we have to fulfill unless you want it to gild you along with the rest of the manor. It’s gonna make me gouge the hell out of you in exchange. You sure you still want this?” “Way I see it, you already owe me. At least a tooth, and an irreplaceable enchanted necklace. So, let’s start there. What’s the going rate for that?” “Good question. That tooth’s coming back, isn’t it?” “Yeah, in a couple weeks, but it still hurts like a summabitch. It’s less the actual tooth and more the act of ripping it out for your spell, I think?” Ada nodded, slowly. “You’re gonna have to get me something worth just as much as all this gold, or provide services equivalent to its cost, I think. We’ll say the necklace covers any interests or extras the curse might demand. Anything come to mind that you can offer to cover it?” “How does the curse feel about promises of services delivered? You’re sure to have more deliveries you need made, and perhaps some gator muscle if you’re going up against the Fomor. Or certain other factions in the city, from the way your mother was talking.” Ada considered it for a moment. “...That might do the trick. What’s the going rate for a top courier’s yearly salary? That plus bodyguard duty might be enough to pacify the curse.” Grace shook her head and smiled. “Not just a bodyguard. A were-gator bodyguard. Probably the only one for hire in the state, if not the country. There’s a certain prestige that comes with that. Who also does high risk deliveries to any number of parties, fae or otherwise. And who might need their own transportation. This stuff adds up, Ada.” Ada nodded, slowly. “It does. Reminds me of how Phileas Fogg hired Passepartout in Around the World in Eighty Days, and then dragged him along into the wildest adventures he could imagine. And that’s definitely worth something for sure.” She fell silent for a moment, eyeing the Jenga box thoughtfully. Using the curse to help out a friend was a dangerous game to play, but she was better prepared for it than before, now that she had an inkling of its workings, and Grace certainly was capable of working off the gold loan and then some. And this is a contract with no catches, made with someone I can trust, she thought, privately. I have to learn how to negotiate, the sooner the better, because someday the stakes will be much higher. That did the trick. She nodded, resolutely, and looked up at Grace. “This is what I’ve got in mind. Lend me your skills and your wits and your swiftness for a thousand and one days, and I’ll gild the blocks for you. But before we sign the deal there’s something I want to clarify, Grace,” she said, raising a hand to forestall her answer. “I don’t really need a bodyguard. What I need is someone I can trust to represent me and act as my agent. Someone who can enforce the peace I’m trying to create, and inspire people with their presence, and answer people’s worries when I can’t be there for them. I need someone who’ll fight for me, and my name, and my house’s name. What I need is a champion, and if you sign on with me, that’s what you’ll be.” Her wrist turned, and her gloved hand stretched outward, her face all brilliant green and red and gold on a canvas of white. “Do we have a deal?” And there it was. A cause. Not her cause, perhaps. But a reason to fight. “Champion Of House DuSang.” Grace held her hand out and grasped Ada’s, giving it a single, exaggerated pump up and back down. “Is that an official title, should I have more business cards printed?” Ada laughed. “Not any more than me being its matriarch just yet,” she said, her gilded hairtips tinkling as she shook her head. “Gimme some time, though, and I’ll set you up with a proper debut that will make people remember your name.” Still smiling, she placed the two Jenga blocks on her left hand and pulled her right glove off. Then, she grasped the blocks, turned them solid gold, and handed them back to Grace. “Hand me those blocks, will ya? I think it’s time I got to work.” Her grin was wide enough to show the missing tooth as Grace handed over the rest of the Jenga blocks.”We’ll come up with something. And you’ll have to let me know how much of this new position extends to helping out the rest of your family.” She dug in her pocket for a second, pulling out the teeth that once adorned her necklace. She felt each one in turn before holding one out. “This is less for payment, and more to commemorate the occasion. One of the first teeth I ever lost. Feels like it should have your mark on it, one way or another.” The gilding process went by quickly, and a little surprisingly, with no pushback from the curse. “We’ll have to play the family assistance by ear at first. I’ll let you know what the terms are ASAP though.” Halfway through, however, Ada stopped as Grace presented her with the teeth, and her expression twisted into a frown. “You sure about this? I thought this was an important memento. Just because you’ll be working for me doesn’t mean you have to give up all your life for this.” “That necklace… it was more than just a protection charm. It’s a story.” She held up another tooth.”This was Javier’s. Came out while we were eating the first wild boar I ever killed, not even a week after the change. He was the love of my life, I gave up everything I had, and found an entire family there.” She held up another. “This was his mom’s, from an old box of teeth she had. She never told me why this particular one, but it was important to her, and that’s enough.” Grace sorted through the others in her hand. “My tooth was the start of a new story. Putting away who I was, and becoming something new. Seems like it should be the start of this story, too.” For a moment, Ada didn’t say anything. This is what it’s all about, isn’t it? she thought, staring at the tooth like it was about to turn into a crystal ball. Giving people new chances, a clean break. Building a better world for them to live in. I didn’t think it’d start so early, but...it makes sense. Every tide is announced by its ripples first. Even if I can’t see the goal from here, it’s nice to have the signs close at hand. She smiled and nodded. “For the sake of a new story,” she said, and took the tooth. Maybe it was just a trick of the light, but compared to the Jenga blocks she’d just gilded, it seemed to shine brightest. “Make sure to exchange these as fast as you can,” Ada said, once the blocks were finally all gilded. “I don’t know what’s gonna happen when I go talk to Midas, but one of the things I’m aiming for is getting this curse off me. Wouldn’t want this set to lose its value before you’ve cashed out.” “Oh, we will DEFINITELY be renegotiating if that happens.” Grace pulled a heavy canvas bag out of the bottom of her pack and started carefully stacking the golden blocks. “I’ll get these sorted out quickly, for cash, if that’s the case. Might have to go outside the city for a day or two, depending, but we’ll see how it shakes out.” The tooth she took and it went right back into her pocket with the others. “You need an escort to keep our most valuable puppy safe?” “Heh. Nah, I don’t think I’m gonna have any trouble handling our MVP. The man with the golden touch lives right next door,” she said, jerking her head towards the house on her right. “See you at the Lily in a couple days then?” “Sure thing boss, whatever you need.” Grace was almost giddy. “And you let me know if anything else comes up. But, before you go…” she stopped, trying to figure out the best way to phrase it. “I have some pre-existing business with Rick, this doesn’t muddy those waters too much, I hope?” “Nah, I don’t think it does. We talked a while after everyone else left. It’s all good.“ How liberating it was to be able to say that, for a change. It’d been so painful, having to stay at arm’s length for his sake. Ada’s mouth split into a grin of her own. “The clock’s ticking, champ. Go strike it rich.”
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Jan 2, 2022 05:08
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The King and I Scene: The Goldman Estate Phil answered the door this time, took one look at Ada, another at the solid gold puppy on a leash, and broke into an absolutely wicked grin. “Aphrodite’s tits, you actually did it?” “Somebody was bound to find the solution sooner or later,” Ada said, modestly. “I just consulted the right sources and found the right people for the job.” “I dunno about that,” Phil said, shaking his head. “If it was that simple someone would have done it by now. But that said,” he chuckled under his breath. “Let’s get you to the boss, I need to go collect on a few bets.” Ada grinned back at him. “Level with me here, are they gonna be large enough to crash a couple markets?” “Not in this country,” Phil said, waving a hand. --- Phil led her past the gaudy marble statues one more time, back to the sitting room where she’d met Midas and Medusa the last time, and then excused himself. Midas wasn’t there yet, but as she waited she heard some muffled, yet clearly raised male voices from elsewhere in the house. Instead of getting up to look for the source of the noise, however, Ada closed her eyes. This was so much more than just the resolution of the favor she owed Midas. Depending on how she dealt with the King of Phrygia, it could be a chance to make a powerful ally...but if she chose her moves recklessly, she could end up forced to settle for just a pat on the back before he sent her on her merry way.. He’s gonna be anxious to see what I’m here for. Maybe he won’t show it at first, but gradually, he’ll get more and more nervous looking for the flaw that doesn’t exist. I’ll have to soothe him and make sure he allows himself to celebrate properly now that he finally has a proof of concept for how to save his daughter. And then....then I need to take things one step further beyond earning his gratitude and earn his respect. No pressure. Focusing on what was to come was one reason for Ada to shut her eyes, but not the only one. When one sense was shut out, the others sharpened. It was a good chance to see what she could hear without looking out of place. ((Ada rolls to Notice what the conversation is about. The difficult is 4, and a roll of 5 aces it.)) Ada couldn’t make out everything, but what she did hear… “-fair and patient. If she is here-”... “-altering the deal, after I-” “Patron-”...“-with your own eyes! Go to her-” “-better be worth-”...”-will be your head-” Ah. So he doesn’t know what’s coming. Phil just handed me a double edged sword. I’m glad he trusts me not to cut myself with it. --- He kept her waiting for another fifteen minutes, while Eriol did his doggy best to be a complete nuisance, first by trying to jump on the sofa, which gave off some alarming creaking noises at just the weight of his front paws, and then by wrapping the leash around an end table and vanishing behind said sofa. Midas chose just that moment to throw open the doors to the solar. He was wearing a light, sea-green tunic over tan pants and brown slippers. His hair and beard were still damp from an interrupted bath, and his brows held all the ferocity of an ancient warlord in the midst of battle. “Miss duSang,” he said gruffly, but before he could say anything more, Eriol managed to untangle himself from the end table and bounded towards the King, barking enthusiastically, until the leash pulled him up short. For a long moment Midas said nothing, and simply stared at the marvel before him. Then he recovered his composure, standing up straighter and relaxing his face. A flawless transition from warrior to courtier. “I see you haven’t been idle,” he said, unable to tear his eyes away from Eriol to regard her for even a second. He crossed the floor to his own chair and sat, leaning forwards. “Bring it to me, I would examine this miracle with my own hands.” Privately, Ada was deeply thankful for his arrival. Up to that point, she’d only just barely managed to keep Eriol from smashing the room to pieces. As she stood up from the sofa, she gripped the leash a little tighter. “Eriol!” she called out, and on a hunch, let out a loud whistle. “C’mon, let’s go see Mr. Midae now.” Eriol’s response was to come running back at her as she approached the king, and enthusiastically do his level best to try and entangle her legs with the leash so she’d take a fall. It was only by the grace of some higher power that she managed to extricate herself from it briefly and pick him up for a few moments so she could carry him the last few feet towards Midas, straining all the while under his weight as she did so. “Careful, he’s...real...heavy...” she grunted, as she put Eriol down besides the king. “But he’s the genuine article. We’re still working out a permanent solution to keep the curse at bay that doesn’t involve someone feeding him power 24/7 like a battery, but even what we have now is functional and sustainable.” Letting out a huff, Ada straightened herself out and smiled. “He’s as alive as any of us in spite of being stuck in a body of solid gold. And with the right preparations, anyone else suffering from the effects of the curse can be, too.” Midas nodded slowly as he examined the puppy, checking his paws, ears, tail, and everywhere else. His pace was methodical, as if he had done this sort of thing before. He was clearly expecting some trick he could easily discover, but the longer he went without finding one the more his frown deepened. By the time he looked back up at Ada it had turned into a full-blown scowl. “Explain the gemstones,” he said, pointing to one set into Eriol’s brow. “Part of the power-distributing system we used to animate his body. We based it on golemancy.” This had been more Elbridge and Nicky’s handiwork than anyone else’s. Thank goodness for the call she’d made to the latter, giving her all the ammo she needed to prepare a convincing explanation. “Unliving golems use an artificial core based on a word infused with power. We opted to use Eriol’s soul as the core’s base, and then tethered the circuitry to one of the practitioners who conducted the ritual for extra power, as I mentioned earlier. You can bring in experts to appraise the handiwork, if you’re worried I’m just trying to sell you a particularly lifelike golem, but you have my word Eriol’s alive and his soul is inside that body. If you’re uncertain, I can bring Circe over and have her vouch for the ritual’s thoroughness. She was the one who awoke him from his slumber once we finally managed to animate the body.” She spoke confidently, taking her time to elaborate each point. A huckster would’ve rushed to soothe Midas’ concerns, but the work she’d done, that her friends had done, was immaculate. Every pant from Eriol, every twitch as Midas explored his body, it all served as irrefutable proof of his liveliness. No construct could fake that kind of unconscious activity, and especially not a construct crafted in a matter of days. “You are not the first to attempt that solution, but you are the first to succeed,” he murmured. “Others spoke of a problem, something within the curse that could not be overcome…” “They thought it was just a gilding curse. I did too, at first, but it turns out Pan wasn’t the only one who had a hand in it. The real difficulty was overcoming the stasis curse laid down by the fates.” “The fates?” That was enough to get him to look up at her finally. “What do they have to do with any of this?” “They contributed to the curse. Pan must’ve wanted to make drat sure no one was going to break it. Probably cashed in a favor or two to get them to throw in. It’s why it’s taken so long for anyone to come up with a working proof of concept, I think.” “I see.” He ruffled the spikes of golden fur on Eriol’s head. “The sisters themselves held me to my punishment, and I never knew it. It explains the impossibility of the task I set to all those wise men and women. With all their combined knowledge and power, they could not fight fate itself.” Ada’s nod of agreement was solemn. “Neither knowledge nor power are capable of breaking fate. Only aligned wills can do it, and it’ll always take more than one. Changing the future isn’t a task for lone geniuses nor heroes.” For a moment, she didn’t say anything more. Then, she raised her voice again. “Freeing Zoë won’t be as easy as freeing Eriol was. We’ll need more time to prepare the ritual, and resources to acquire ingredients and reagents that won’t leave my team half-dead once they put in the effort. Can we count on your backing for this task, Mr. Goldman?” “Anything you require is yours. Spare no expense,” he said instantly. “But Miss duSang… If you press these stones into her body, if you tie her very soul to them, it will destroy all hope of returning her gold to flesh. She will remain as she is now, forever a child. She may hate me for it, and perhaps that is what I deserve. But I will not do this to her if it will drive her mad. Can you give me a reason to believe her mind will survive your reanimation?” Ada opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. It would be easy enough to feed Midas lines about why it would work, but it was an honest question, born from a deep, justified fear, and it deserved a deep, justified answer. Circe said children are more resilient to these kinds of changes, and they can adapt and grow. All the same, though, this is a lot like how I got Alisa back. Better in some ways, like having a proper body, worse in others with how hard gold skin will be to justify and how her body won’t grow. And Zoë doesn’t have anyone she can share a body with. It’ll just be her and the statue she inhabits, forever. Her eyes drifted down to Eriol, who seemed quite happy with all the attention he was getting. A cute little doggy, who would never grow...a perfect companion for a cute little girl who wouldn’t either. It’s worth it, she thought. I know it is. But eventually they’ll start wanting something more. If they come to me for it, will I be able to give it to them again? I don’t know. But what I do know is that anyone who waits until they can have everything they want is dreaming of a future that will never come. You have to go out and make it happen step by step, and stare at the work in progress until it’s finished if you ever want to see it to fruition. “The curse of the Fates is as much a punishment as it is a mercy,” she began. “Thanks to it, the mind does not suffer the shock of transformation, does not age and change. Zoë will be exactly as you remember her being. You’ll need her true name, the name you gave her when she was first born all those years ago, to call her back, and she’ll answer you in the same tongue when she comes to life again. I don’t know what will happen afterward, but all I’ve ever seen and done with souls tells me her spirit is still inside her body, awaiting the moment of her rebirth. If you want a 100% confident reassurance that everything will work out alright, that’s something I can’t give you. Maybe there’s something I don’t know, maybe something can go wrong. But it was a millionth of a millionth of a millionth of a percent’s chance that we met as we did and that I found out why you hired Circe and I knew just the right people to give you Eriol as he is now, and it still happened. Compared to that, taking a chance on being able to repeat the feat with better advantages, more resources and more time is nothing.” Inhaling deeply, Ada swallowed, and threw out her last shot. “I don’t know what it’s like to be a parent, Your Majesty. But if I could save one of my loved ones from a prison and see their smile once again, I’d toss the dice whenever, wherever. The most important things in our lives aren’t given to us, they’re taken. That is what I truly think.” Midas did not respond for some time, chewing on her response. “Your honesty is refreshing,” he said at length, standing up and reaching a hand for the leash. “I am convinced, Ada duSang. If you mean to save my daughter, you have my blessing to make the attempt. May you continue to impress me.” Success, in that moment, was not a thrill creeping up Ada’s spine. It was an expanding warmth, starting deep within her core and spreading out to the bottom of her feet, the top of her head, and the tip of her tongue. It was a reassurance that everything had worked out, and a reminder that nothing was impossible. And it was also a dare to reach for more, always more...right here, in this moment. “I will be back with a list including my associates’ requirements soon,” she said, nodding confidently as Midas rose. “Before we part, though, there’s one more thing I wish to discuss with you, if it’s not a problem.” “Oh?” He quirked a bushy eyebrow. “Earlier, you gave me this golden touch, to go with the golden tips on my hair that I’m working to pay off, and you told me to come back here when I understood the question I’d asked you. Why a ruler with the wisdom of ages might refuse to look back upon the road he’s walked.” Carefully, Ada slid her right glove off, and stared at her gilding hand for a moment. And then, she fell on her knees, her eyes still glued to her fingers and her palm. “It’s not because of pride or foolhardiness. It took me a while to see it, and I only really understood it once, I spoke with Circe about the moment you hired her. It’s because even in victory, anyone who lives long enough will leave behind a mountain of regrets. Every century, every year, every day will just add another. How’s anyone supposed to live when the next genius researcher or gifted physician fails to find a cure for their child? How do you even grieve for a friend you’ve just lost when thinking of them recalls another dead confidante, and then another…?” She shook her head. “When mortals look back, their lives are short enough that even their worst mistakes don’t add up to an unbearable burden. Someone who’s lived so many lifetimes doesn’t have that luxury. There’s too much damage and too many consequences, and I bet even the gods themselves have mistakes in their past that will destroy them if you force them to take a long hard look at them. The answer to my question, King Midas, is that immortals don’t look back because in their past, death awaits them. The only way to keep on living is to always look forward.” She didn’t look up, but she nodded, one last time. “This is the answer I’ve found while walking a mile in your shoes. What do you make of it?” He took a step forward and rested a hand on top of her head. Though it should have been terrifying, there was no threat at all in his touch or posture. “It’s a question with many answers, though the one you’ve chosen is one of the closest to the truth. But this answer could not have come solely from Circe. Tell me, what regrets do you yourself bear?” She was about to answer, but the words wouldn’t come to her lips, and her body tensed and went quite still. Danger, said the voice in her head that had guided her throughout the dinner with the Goldmans. What you give him, he will use against you. Not today, and not tomorrow, but someday for sure. He gave a light, soft laugh. “You’ve given me many glimpses into who you are, but I see some things are still beyond my reach. Good. Only a sad old fool leaves his heart unguarded. Would you have me lift the curse then? You need only ask.”
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Jan 3, 2022 06:17
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The hint of bitterness in his words did not go unnoticed. Was it just the years of grief and waiting that had opened up a chance for Ada to peer into his heart? Or was it part of a calculated stratagem, to earn her trust? It was hard to say, with a rival as skilled as him. But it was interesting regardless, and though she knew the risks, a part of her yearned to keep this line of communication open. And maybe there’s something I can use to do it, she thought, as inspiration struck. My teacher doesn’t know it, but she armed me with a weapon I can use now, against her former master. “I would like that very much,” Ada nodded. “And if I must speak of regrets, there’s one that’s been on my mind lately. I regret...that I cannot not be like Alexander,” she said, tensing up again as she did so, not bothering to force herself to relax. It’d be too obvious, too dangerous to pretend this was easy in front of the King of Phrygia. “I can’t win loyalties like he did. What it’s like to inspire people to fight for you, to die for you...I don’t even know where to begin,” she said with a laugh of her own, hesitant and brittle. “It’s something I wish I understood, even now.” “You really have been talking to Circe,” Midas rumbled. He laughed again, this time much deeper, and with more fondness than bitterness, though that was still there too. “For good or ill,” Ada murmured ruefully, the image of betrayal on Rick’s face still fresh on her mind. “It’s been confusing and difficult, but that’s to be expected with the Witch of Aeaea, isn’t it?” “She is a romantic,” he said, as if that explained everything. His hand on top of her her head warmed, then her own palms did in response, to an almost painful degree. But a moment later they cooled as if quenched in ice water, and Ada felt something powerful leave her body in almost the exact same way she’d felt it when Circe sucked the dragon tree’s parasite out from under her skin. So many divinities all around us, she thought, looking down upon her palms for a moment. And all of them are handing out their power without a second thought. If I didn’t know better, I’d say they were trying to secure ownership of a new piece before it enters the board. One more useful pawn for the collection. She stood up, and took a step back, and stared at Midas straight in the eyes. “Have you ever caught her reciting poetry?” she asked, unable to contain her curiosity. It was a stereotype, of course, but stereotypes didn’t come into existence out of thin air. “Gods forbid, yes,” Midas said, grimacing. “She also sings like a cat in heat, and would sooner eat a lyre than play one. She had no one around to hear her attempts at any of the arts for a thousand years, and it shows. But she is both a master weaver and cook, and in those fields her talents are second to few.” “As to Alexander…” His face darkened. “My country was peaceful during my reign, and wealthy enough to deter invasion. I had no need to inspire men to die for me. After I passed the crown to my son and became an architect, it was men like Alexander who sacked and burned my beautiful cities. Circe remembers him as she does because she marched with him, but if there was one man in all the world who never once looked back at his path, it was Alexander. For all he left behind him was ashes and ruin.” “Was it because he died young?” asked Ada, curiously. “Or do you think his legacy would still have been the same if he’d lived to old age?” “He didn’t know how to replant the olive groves, let alone manage them,” Midas said viciously. “Another two decades and he’d have had to prove that he could hold the lands he’d taken and do more than just plunder their wealth. His reputation was only saved because he didn’t live long enough to destroy it with his own mediocrity.” A lesser woman would’ve had to fight back the urge to smile at the king’s ranting. Ada found it all too interesting to laugh, though. So Alexander was very flawed as a ruler, and we just think he wasn’t because we only really got to see him be a warlord before he died. But if that’s the case, then who am I supposed to look up to? “Was there someone who managed to thread the needle?” she asked, unable to hold herself back. “Someone who was a master of war, and then a good administrator in times of peace?” “If you’re looking for a worthy example to follow, Caliph Harun al-Rashid is hard to outmatch,” Midas said thoughtfully. “You may not have heard of him because America has no sense of history, but he was an adept administrator who also sent the Roman dogs home with their tails between their legs.” The jab stung, and all the moreso because she couldn’t place the name, which proved him right. “I’ll have to read up on him,” accepting the reprimand with as much grace as she could muster. “Did you meet him when he was alive?” “Twice,” Midas said. “The first time at a party in Raqqa and the second after I finished the library he commissioned later. We didn’t spend much time together, only enough to go over the plans and have drinks, but I remember him clearly even now.” “Why? Was it the way he spoke?” asked Ada. It was a question with a known answer. If she knew Midas even a little, then how charismatic a king was would have no meaning to him. But his response would say a lot about what he valued in one. “It was the questions he asked,” Midas said, with a slow smile as he looked down at his guest. “But I respect him too much to share stories with someone who doesn’t even know his name.” It was a harsh response, and yet, entirely fair. And of course, she couldn’t ask him for sources — finding them was part of learning to ask the right questions. “Then I’ll make sure I know of his deeds by the time I come back with the list of my associates’ requests for Zoë’s ritual,” she said, nodding firmly. Finding the time for it would be an adventure in itself, but now that Eriol had been taken care of, she could at last see the light at the end of the tunnel. “Oh, by the way. While I was out doing my research, Mr. Hob of Oak Alley told me he wanted to meet with you. I think he figured that, since I bore signs of your favor…” and at this, she shook her head, causing her hairtips to jingle, “...I’d be willing to intercede in his favor. Judging by how he insisted he was in no rush, I’m pretty sure he’s primed to have some beautiful concessions wrung out of him. Should I tell him to keep waiting next time I see him?” “Ah, Hob’s lot has taken the plantation, then.” Midas shook his head. “Disappointing, but not unsurprising. Did he say why he wanted to meet?” “It was about ‘certain matters he’s kept himself removed from’. He seemed to think there was a connection between them and your mark.” “Ah, nothing’s changed then.” The king’s face shifted subtly, taking on a more otherworldly air. His eyes were brighter, and even his beard seemed a bit wilder than it had been just a moment ago. Ada couldn’t help but realize she had summoned Lord Midae to her presence. “You’ve spoken to them more recently than I. Tell me, Ada duSang, what is your opinion of Narcissus’ former courtiers? Would it be worth it to hear them out or only encourage a group of sycophants looking for a new master?” The memories of what had transpired at the plantation flashed through Ada’s mind. Certainly, Midas had the courtiers pegged, and his words had served to shed some light on their motives, in spite of how little Hob had actually said. Pontchartrain had no need for ‘civil’ servants like them, as his response had attested. Maybe they’d been looking to Midas as a possible source of relief, someone who could shelter them from the consequences of defying their current master. That would explain why he’d been so insistent on securing a meeting with Midas at all costs. They’re desperate. And someone who’s desperate can be manipulated. She nodded. “I think your analysis of them is spot-on, Your Majesty. They seek a new patron, and the king with the golden touch makes an obvious choice.” Gradually, Ada allowed her expression to turn pensive. “Turning them away won’t make them give up the chase, though. They recently received an ultimatum from the Old Man of the Lake. If anything, it’ll make them try harder. Desperate men will cling to a burning nail before they are willing to let go, and they’ll make nuisances of themselves if that’s what it takes to secure a meeting.” “They’ll make nuisances of themselves either way,” Midae said irritably. “What I need is an alternative to aim them at or they’ll just keep coming back.” “I think I can provide one,” Ada said, resolutely. “I just need them at the end of their rope first. That’s precisely why a brief meeting to declare in no uncertain terms that they should look for support elsewhere is necessary.” “A mutually beneficial arrangement?” Midae asked, quirking an eyebrow. “Having to wrangle a bunch of failsons so they don’t bother people who have work to do doesn’t really count as a beneficial arrangement,” Ada said, but she broke into a grin nonetheless. “But they’re in my way too, and if I can make sure they won’t bother anyone else, that’s two birds with one stone. They’ll think I’m trustworthy if I can set them up with a meeting in the first place. From there, it’ll just take a hop, skip and a jump to point them somewhere they can’t cause any harm.” “My Lady Wife can soothe her temper threatening to turn them into statuary,” Midae said, with a grin at least as wide as Ada’s. “But I would like to know where this arrow is aimed before I approve its firing.” “Me too,” Ada admitted, with all sincerity. “As soon as I have one, I’ll let you know.” “Ah, now she begins to sound like Alexander,” he replied. “Be careful of selling that which you do not yet possess, my neighbor. You have gotten away with it so far, but Fortune has a habit of forsaking those who depend upon her overmuch.” “I’ll try not to,” Ada promised. “I was taught not to take bad risks by one of my mentors, but old habits die hard. It’s hard to learn patience when every chance you get asks you to rush, but at least I have a new perspective to look into now.” Taking a step back, she took a deep bow. “Thank you for hearing me out, Your Majesty. I’ll make sure your time isn’t wasted.” “After all you have done so far I have every faith in you,” Midas said, inclining his head ever-so-slightly. “Until next time, Miss duSang.”
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Jan 3, 2022 06:21
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Pouring One Out Scene: A Bar in Sedona Elbridge and Rick both felt the need for a change of pace from their usual venue. The Gato was a fine establishment, but it had come to have the feel of a second workplace. So had the entire city, for that matter. So it was that they headed somewhere different; somewhere slightly more upscale, where the drink menu was several times longer than the one for foods. There was a bar in Sedona, Arizona where they’d shared drinks during the war. There’d been a solid Way between there and the Rockies, and it was a popular vacation spot for humans and supernatural beings alike - enough so that the establishments catering to the latter took a dim view of anyone who’d break the peace. Off the paved roads and mule trails, nestled in the forested valley between two mesas, there was a house of respite, there to be found only by those who were meant to find it.The sign above the door read Tremble Rock Spirits. --- The fresh air on the walk over had done Rick some good, though he was still lost enough in thought that he didn’t bother trying to make small talk. He hadn’t put the ectoplasm body together while they were in the Nevernever either, it would have been wasted effort for this short jaunt and he wasn’t feeling particularly solid anyways. It wasn’t even all about Ada, though of course she was part of it. But the worries and troubles she’d shared were a bit beyond him, and he had his own to occupy his mind. Circe first and foremost, but also Alisa and what he’d promised Julian, and lurking beneath it all that dark, deep hole that Ada had reminded him of, the ruined dream he didn’t dare put a name to. If he had ever needed a drink or three, it was right now. For his part, Elbridge had enough occupying his own mind. The ritual had taken a lot from him, yet he had only more work to look forward to, and was no closer to completing any of it than he had been this morning. Loathe though he was to admit it, he needed help. Perhaps Claudia had been right - perhaps he could put some of that on Ada. But not all of it, surely. He’d thought that he could count on Ivarson, but Ivarson had failed him badly. Marcine had shown promise, but then her mother had fallen ill - it couldn’t have been helped. That left Gorden, who still had so much to learn, and Grace, whom Elbridge still needed to repay before asking any more of her. And Rick. He’d thought he could count on Rick for support, but as time wore on, Elbridge had come to suspect that this wasn’t a phase, or a sulk. Rick truly wanted nothing more to do with the Council. Elbridge had some sympathy for that position, but it wasn’t as if his own support for Rick’s work had been easy or painless. It left him to wonder just what it was he was meant to do in his official capacity. A commander without a command. ---- The server was a young woman with bright pink eyes and a complexion so pale you could see the thin blue lines beneath her skin. “Two then?” she asked, her eyes flitting from Elbridge to Rick without a hint of surprise. “We’ve got souvenir shrines if you’d like to take it home or you can use one of the house ones.” “House is fine,” Rick said, trying to be as nonchalant about it as she was. He wasn’t used to being catered to as a spirit. “Sure, sure, booth or table?” “A booth, please,” Elbridge said quietly. Rick half-smiled. He’d always wanted to sit at the bar but El liked the privacy a booth afforded, preferably one with his back to a wall and a view of the door. Some things would never change. “Yes sir, just follow me then. I’m Clarice by the way. If you need anything I haven’t offered for accessibility don’t be afraid to ask.” She gave them a bright, recently-hired smile and turned on her heel to take them to their booth. When they got there she spread two menus out so Rick could read both sides and handed one to Elbridge, then disappeared to let them look it over. “This is a lot nicer than I remember it,” Rick said, looking around. The log cabin aesthetic hadn’t changed a bit but the furniture had been upgraded recently and there were a lot more customers. He’d caught a few stares on the way to his seat but mostly the curious kind, not surprised or afraid. It felt good to be visible without sticking out. “They have more business,” Elbridge noted, flipping straight to the beverage menu. Offhandedly, he lit a half-melted, lily-scented candle, set on a jade candlestick engraved with the words Please Ignite For Privacy. In an instant, the booth was shrouded with an unearthly gloom, and not even the loudest sound carried more than a few paces away. “Now that the war’s over, people feel free to travel again.” “Yeah, I guess things are finally getting back to normal,” Rick said, wistfully. Clarice got back just then with the ‘shrine’, which was a decently-sized wooden stand with a clip for a picture and a tin bucket underneath, for pouring shots or whatever else the dead fancied into it as an offering. She set it between them, in front of the ketchup and pepper. “There you go. Ready for orders?” “The tapas selection,” Elbridge said, pointing to the combination on the menu, “and mezcal to drink.” He took out a heavily-creased photograph of Rick from a few years back and set it in the offering frame. Rick stared at it for almost a minute. “Feels like my birthday, all of a sudden,” he muttered, then shook his head and looked down at the menu. His usual go-to’s were sugary and light, he didn’t often try to get more than buzzed, but that wasn’t where he was at today. “Pick for me,” he said, looking up at Elbridge. “Shots.” “Schnapps,” Elbridge said without hesitation, because Schnapps was at roughly the halfway point between a sugary cocktail and hard liquor. Clarice nodded and disappeared again, fast enough to raise an eyebrow. “Hrm.” Elbridge took off his glasses and rubbed at his temples. “This feels like an occasion for a toast, but I’m…” He yawned. “...too bloody tired, is what. Got any ideas?” “To one more broken fate?” Rick suggested, tilting his head slightly and drumming his fingers on the table. “Or… new perspectives, if you don’t like that one.” “The second one, I think,” Elbridge muttered. “I’m not yet certain the first is cause for celebration.” “It was for me, at least until a certain witch found out about it.” Rick paused, examining Elbridge for a moment. “You look a lot better than you did on the stairs. Grace know a trick or two…?” “That would be the result of Lady Claudia’s...tender mercies,” Elbridge said. “She is capable, I will give her that; she’s simply…” “A lot?” Rick asked. He hadn’t seen Claudia use her magic yet, but he could only imagine it was as precise and distant as the woman herself. “Quite.” Drinks arrived, right on time. Two shot glasses of clear liquid that for all the world looked exactly the same to Rick, although Elbridge seemed to know exactly which was which. “To broken fates and/or fresh perspectives,” he said, raising both glasses at once before taking a drink from his own at the same moment he poured a few millilitres of Rick’s into the tin. Rick had never had Schnapps before, and didn’t have the benefit of scent to prepare himself for the sweet-tang of peaches that was quickly followed by a sort of hot, burning aftertaste. He’d meant to at least mime the toast, but El had gone too quick. A fuzzy, good feeling was already settling not in his stomach but in his chest. Like finding out someone remembered his name after a long absence. He closed his eyes and just sank into it for a moment. “That’s… wow. That’s a warm hug and a kiss on the cheek. Wow...” “Er...perhaps we’ll take it a bit slower from here,” Elbridge said. “Wait for the tapas, at least.” He wasn’t sure if the wisdom about not drinking on an empty stomach applied to someone who no longer technically had a stomach, but he figured that it couldn’t hurt. In short order, there was an assortment of small, open-faced sandwiches at their table, topped with cheeses and charcuteries and the occasional olive. The little shelf next to his picture soon held a couple tapas, each one sending Rick a flash of deliciousness and more of that strong, unshakable feeling of remembrance. It had nothing at all in common with the pizza that the duSangs had fed him earlier. He’d actually been able to eat that and he wasn’t eating anything here. But it was a sharing of food and drink nonetheless. “Maybe we should get the souvenir one after all,” Rick said pleasantly. “If I have to sit and spectate while everyone eats one more time I don’t know what I’ll do.” “It can’t be a pleasant experience,” Elbridge granted. “But it’s good to have you, well… around more.” “Hmm?” “You’ve seemed unfocused of late,” Elbridge said quietly, pondering his next shot of mezcal. “And, dare I say, a touch distant.” “Ah…” Rick laced his fingers on the table. Elbridge saying he’d been ‘a touch distant’ was like anyone else shouting ‘where the hell have you been?’ through a loudspeaker. He felt like he was supposed to apologize and say that he’d make himself more available, but he wasn’t sorry, and he had no idea if he’d BE available anytime soon. “I’ve had a lot to think about, especially this last week… And some new obligations have come up too. I said I’d tell you what I was up to, if you still want to hear about it.” Elbridge splayed his palms. “By all means.” He was curious, although curiosity was locked in a tense stand-off with aggravation. “Claudia duSang asked to meet with Nicky and me the other day, remember?” he started. “I do recall that, yes,” Elbridge said. Rick took a breath. He hadn’t shared this with anyone else yet, and it felt dangerous even letting it out to one more person. But if anyone could keep a secret safe, it was Elbridge. “It was about Alisa. She’s going to come untethered from Ada, sometime in the next couple weeks. Her mother was looking for an alternative to losing her again.” “I see.” Elbridge thought on that in silence for nearly a full minute, not even touching his drink. “I can understand why she would ask for your help in that matter, but Cantor’s? Why would… oh. Oh, Rick, please tell me that’s not what it sounds like.” “I’m not sure what you mean? Nicholas has at least six of those eight books you mentioned on soul vessels and transference, and has been spending all his free time poring over them, trying to figure out what happened to me,” Rick said. “I’ve got the experience, but up until a couple days ago just thinking about it threatened to put me into a repeating death loop.” “Ah, that’s...much better than what I suspected, given his area of study,” Elbridge said, sighing in relief. “If she’d meant to strike Alisa’s death from history...never again, Rick. I mean that.” “Oh no…” Rick blinked at that. “We discussed a lot of options but that one never even came up. Honestly I don’t think Nicholas would be capable of it. He’s… not the lawbreaking type. And Alisa herself was explicit about ‘no necromancy’ before you get worried about that one. Basically it came down to needing a new body of some kind or an alteration to her existing state so that her life isn’t dependent on Ada’s.” “Have you found any leads?” Elbridge asked. Rick nodded. “I chased a few of them into dead ends but I kept coming back to Winter. It just seemed like their MO, the whole body swapping, transformation thing. I was in a bit of a time crunch, so I er, I went looking for Breenfjell, to see if he knew anyone who might be willing to barter. He didn’t know who I was, but I thought I could take him in a fight if he wouldn’t help without one. I still think I could’ve, but he had a guest over who decided she wanted first dibs.” He stopped for a moment, sighed, and took a long, calming breath. “Ever heard of the Trempulcahue?” “The four cetacean psychopomps of the Mapuche?” Elbridge said. They would talk about the relative wisdom (or lack thereof) of challenging Breenfjell Stonebones to a fight, but that was a conversation for another time. “One was enough, thanks,” Rick said darkly. “I do wonder what business Breenfjell had with them,” Elbridge said. “But you say that the one present challenged you?” “She bullied me into a duel,” he said. “I knew she wasn’t the little old lady she was pretending to be, but she wouldn’t give her name and by the time I found out she was a whale I was already underwater. It was… not one of my best moments. She had my ticket punched for Charon’s ferry ride and I had to convince her I didn’t belong on it. It was… close.” He held up his silver hand and his voice dropped to a whisper. “Really close.” Elbridge furrowed his brow. “Rick, I say this as a friend: Have you considered not making impulsive bargains with death gods?”
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Jan 3, 2022 07:12
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Rick sighed. It would have been easy to quip back, to make a joke of it. That’s how he’d always done it before. Suffering was reduced to a punchline because it was too horrible to face otherwise. But not this time. “I had twelve hours, no backup, and no other options. If I’d walked away from her challenge I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself. I don’t regret my decision.” “If it was a judgment call, then it was a judgment call,” Elbridge said, holding his hands up defensively. “But why the strict deadline?” Because it was that or Mel. But Rick wasn’t drunk enough to blurt that out yet. “Claudia had settled on an option I didn’t like, and I had one day to present an alternative,” he said quietly. “I’d tried everything else I could think of. It was my last shot. It should have been my first one, but I didn’t trust my instincts enough to take it.” “And?” Elbridge said simply. “Will it work?” He could tell that Rick was hiding something, protecting someone, but this wasn’t the place to press the matter. “For now,” Rick said. He’d left holes in his story wide enough to drive the Dragon Van through. Being asked to push past them was an appreciated kindness. “After I won… or at least impressed her enough to call it off, the Trempulcahue took me to see the Shadow People. They’re… basically a soul-stealing hive mind of deep Winter faeries. I brokered a potential deal where Alisa can accept a transformation into one without being bound to their clan. The particulars are up to the parents, with me acting as a neutral third party. So… yeah. That’s why it's been hard to get a hold of me for the past few days.” “I’ve heard of various ‘shadow peoples’,” Elbridge said, raising an eyebrow, “but none that match that description.” “They were prickly and secretive,” Rick said, shivering as he thought of the red-eyed one that had mimicked him momentarily. “Shapechangers, too. Definitely an under-the-bed type of folks, though I don’t know how much of that was aimed at us because we were outsiders. I only just got back from meeting with them last night so I haven’t had a chance to go looking for more information on them yet, if there is any.” “Why can’t anyone discover a tribe of friendly, welcoming people?” Elbridge wondered aloud. “Why is it always something that goes bump in the night and finds some portion or another of the human body to be delicious?” “I don’t know,” Rick said, sinking slightly into his seat. “I’m not sure how much I can complain though, given that I went looking for them with hat in hand. They were willing to barter for something that seemed like a pretty big taboo and they didn’t have to do that, so it’s something.” “Wait until you find out what they want in return before you go giving them any credit,” Elbridge warned him. “And for Alisa to become one of them…” Elbridge paused, making the connection. “...that’s why Claudia took such an interest in our ritual, wasn’t it? She wants to keep her options open.” “She does,” Rick said. He thought about coming clean about the blank check he’d written in Alisa’s name but until things were settled… Maybe it was better to keep that close. “This deal isn’t a long-term solution, but it keeps Alisa safe for the time being. I wanted to ask you about that, actually. Long-term solutions. For her, and for me, too.” He glanced at the creased photo El had brought with him and sighed. “I don’t know how long it’s going to take to find one, but there’s gotta be something better for us out there than these sunless, intangible half-lives.” “I’ll keep looking until I’ve found something, but Rick…” Elbridge sighed. “How far would you be willing to go? As far as Turner did?” “I’ve arguably gone farther already,” Rick pointed out. “I don’t think I’d get a trial this time, mock or otherwise, if I showed back up at Edinburgh like this.” “A shame,” Elbridge said. “There are some fascinating legal arguments to be made in your case - for example, how could they claim the right to execute you without first conceding that you are, in some respect, alive?” “Melting down a cursed tool isn’t an execution, Hadley,” Rick said, in a passable impression of Bellworth. “‘The destruction of such a tool when a life depends upon it, however, is tantamount to murder, and must be conducted through mortal means, or else it shall constitute a violation of the First Law’,” Elbridge recited back. “I made that very case against Stout, and the Council accepted it.” He hesitated. “...granted, they did resort to mundane methods in the end, but an enchanted sword is a good deal less-fragile than a papyrus contract.” Rick waited a moment to let him think about it and then pointed at his Schnapps glass. “Two more of those, please.” “Well,” Elbridge sighed, waving down their waitress, “when you say ‘long-term solutions’, what do you have in mind?” “I’m not sure yet. Something physical though, that isn’t bound by sunlight. I think those are the two most important things. The cost of flesh and blood is so high…” Rick paused for a moment, shaking his head. “I don’t know if that’s possible. Maybe there’s a way that doesn’t involve selling your soul but I’ve never heard of one. As far as Hugues’ solution, that involved a pound of flesh, and mine’s in an icebox in another timeline. So even if I wanted to wait for a home-grown body, that’s not going to work.” He rubbed at one temple with a thumb. “Another thing… Ada doesn’t know about any of this, and she can’t until Alisa is separated from her. It would jeopardize both of them. I trust you can keep this all between us.” Clarice interrupted them then, just long enough to drop off the refills and vanish. Mine’s in an icebox in another timeline. Elbridge thought of the knife that Murrazonoth had given him, and the care with which he’d preserved it with his own spellwork. If the blood on the blade could help...there would only be enough for one attempt. He elected not to mention it until he had a more-tangible lead to pursue. “I’ll hold my tongue, then,” he said. Another long silence. “So...are we going to talk about what occurred earlier?” “Ah…” Rick found himself studying the grain on the table suddenly. “Well, a lot of things happened. Which part?” “The part where you claimed that you could tolerate Circe until you suddenly and spectacularly couldn’t,” Elbridge said. “Oh. That part,” Rick said quietly. “I don’t have any excuses. It was hard enough just being in the same room with her, but when I realized Ada had made friends I just… Everything went red. I talked it over with her after you left. It won’t happen again.” He drew tight, nervous circles around a coffee stain with one finger. “Thank you... for stopping me back there.” “You’re welcome,” Elbridge said tensely. “Not to belabour the point, but in your present state, any violence you do might risk breaking the First Law. It’s spiritually-injurious enough when you have a body; I don’t care to find out what it does to your soul when you are a soul.” Rick sighed. “I’m not just a soul, El. I’m a sword with a soul. I have a body, it’s right here.” Gently, Rick set the sheathed blade on the table, from where it’d been laying on the bench. “I didn’t want to face it for a long time, and you don’t either, but I’m not human anymore. I’m a weapon. Violence isn’t going to hurt me, it’s as natural as breathing.” He rolled his sleeve up, revealing how far the silver stain had spread up his arm. “This isn’t just an affectation, it’s a reminder. When I fought her, the Trempulcahue forced me to take a long hard look at myself. To see myself as I truly was, without all the lies I’d wrapped myself in to stay comfortable and safe. It hurt… so much… but it’s better to be honest about it than try to pretend that dying didn’t change anything. If I hadn’t been able to see myself clearly I couldn’t have decided that I wanted my life to be more than this.” He paused, the first hints of a smile on his face. “Well...good that you’re finding some answers, I suppose,” Elbridge said in a tone that still sounded more than a little dejected. He had more to say, but it took him another few moments (and another shot of mezcal) before he could put it into words. “I am glad that you’re learning - truly, I am - but I can’t yet tell what it means. For you, or for me.” “Things are still up in the air, yeah,” Rick said, taking his meaning. “I think I’m finally in a place where I can help out again. But I can’t be Warden Cole anymore, El, even if I wanted to be. And… truth is, I don’t.” “I’m not asking you to be Warden Cole again,” Elbridge said, shaking his head sadly. “But I’d hoped that I could at least count on your support as Warden Hardley.” Ouch. “Shot,” Rick muttered. El poured it out on request, and if the first drink had been sweet and light, the second was thick and bittersweet. It felt somber, like the drink they’d shared after sealing Kurevanixx and failing to save Father Lauden, way back when this had all started. Not quite the liquid courage Rick had been hoping for. “Why’d you do it?” he muttered at length. “Take my job, after I... You know better than anyone how much of a noose it was.” He shook his head, struggling. “Tell me you didn’t convince yourself it’s what I would have wanted.” “No,” Elbridge said. “Believe me, my first thought was that you’d be appalled. But there were - are - still too many threats at large, and too little that I could do about them as a private citizen. As a Warden with the official backing of the Council, however, I have more options.” “What kinds of options?” Rick probed. “Bellworth sent you my way, but it wasn’t in any official capacity and that’s all the backup I ever got.” “That was less than a month out from the end of the war, and her task force was still tied up re-stabilising the Grand Cross,” Elbridge said. “Now, crucially, I have the authority to make binding agreements on behalf of the Council - in fact, I already have.” He went on to explain the truce he’d officiated with Clan Delacroix, and the ghouls’ connection to Frisk. Authority, Rick thought. It was something that for all his years of service, Elbridge had never had before. There was pride in his voice when he spoke about how he’d used it so far, and Rick couldn’t deny that he’d made some important first steps, both with the ghouls (an alliance he’d never dreamed of making,) and by organizing the local practitioners. But was it really the cloak that let him do it? “And…more than that.” Elbridge took off his glasses and mopped his brow. Without even realising, he’d worked up a sweat just from excitement. “Rick, the Regional Commander has extraordinary latitude to not only enforce, but enact policy within their jurisdiction. This isn’t just more soldiering - this is a guarantee that the Council at large will defer to my judgment on…well, most nearly everything. Training new talents, establishing terms with other powers, punishing - or rehabilitating - warlocks…this is an opportunity, and I intend to make the most of it.” “They’ve agreed to rehabilitation?” Rick asked curtly. Latitude was one thing, but he couldn’t believe they’d let Elbridge openly flaunt the Wardens’ primary mission. “Without the Doom of Damocles?” “They’ve…well, they implied it wouldn’t work, and that I shouldn’t expect a rescue when some crazed sorcerer comes for my blood, but also gave no indication that they’d try to stop me,” Elbridge admitted. “It wasn’t agreement, but it wasn’t denial either.” “Some backing,” Rick said, crossing his arms, but he was busy thinking about the implications. “Regional command doesn’t just mean New Orleans anymore, does it? And that was a full time job in itself…” “It doesn’t,” Elbridge said. “Everything under Santiago’s former jurisdiction is now under mine, although Louisiana remains the most…critical case.” “That means the next time the Grand Cross goes up it’s on you,” Rick said. “And so is whatever those desperate idiots did off the coast of Florida.” “The consequences of both of which were always going to wash up in my swamp,” Elbridge sighed, trying not to dwell on all the Fomor inbound from the Atlantic. “I’m tired, Rick. Tired of waiting for all the little problems to become big ones before I realise that nobody else is going to deal with them.” Rick nodded, not saying anything for a long moment. He’s been just as busy as Ada since I left. They’ve both come a long way. “It seems like supporting Regional Commander Hardley is also going to be a full time job,” he said at last. “...it might be,” Elbridge conceded. “It needn’t be your full-time job, but…” “It can’t be,” Rick said firmly. “That doesn’t mean I won’t help. If there’s something you need done that’s within my power I’ll be there for you, but if I’m really honest…” He sighed, frustrated. “I don’t think the Wardens have the manpower or the resources to deal with all the little problems in time. They never have. That’s why the mission has always been to catch the worst ones when they become too big to ignore anymore. It’s triage, El. It’s always been triage. I’m just worried they’re going to use you up the same way they used me, and when they’re done…” His shoulders sagged. “Don’t let them spread you too thin. If you need support, it should come from home. If they can’t even provide that much, then they don’t deserve you.” “I don’t fault you for believing that,” Elbridge said, tossing back another shot himself before continuing. “And I’m not blindly-optimistic to think everything will improve overnight. I’ll tell you what, though.” He leaned forward, and Rick could see that his eyes were less bloodshot than he could recall in some time (whether from the drinking or the not-drinking, he couldn’t say). “I’ll put in a request for reinforcement, and then…well, one way or another, we’ll both have an answer to your question. About what their support even means.” “I’ll drink to that,” Rick said. “Cheers,” Elbridge said, and poured a final glass apiece for each of them. When he made the offering, its chill was bracing but not brisk. Neither sweet nor bitter, it was strong, and heady, and dizzying. Perhaps even a little frightening. It felt like hope.
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Jan 3, 2022 07:13
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Not All That Glitters Stays Gold Scene: The Gilded Lily There was a bustle of activity at the Gilded Lily when Grace arrived. Maybe half a dozen people were busily working on sets and setting up the swag tables while someone upstairs fiddled with spotlight settings. No musicians in evidence yet, of course, but the sound of hammers, saws, and the bustle of the backstage folks going about their business was a music all it’s own. Maksim Raith was sitting at the point of the T portion of the stage with a large yellow notepad in hand, gesturing and calling for things to be placed and otherwise supervising, though Grace could tell that the stage crew was competent enough that it was mostly for his own benefit. She cleared her throat, loudly, hoping to catch his attention from a distance. She was gonna have to eat some crow in order to make this happen, but if anybody could point her in the direction of some folks who deserved to get screwed with golden Jenga bricks, it was probably Maksim. And maybe a small cut would help heal their relationship, if it could be healed. Maks looked up, saw Grace, and grimaced. “Oh no… Now? Now is such a bad time! Maybe tomorrow? Or next week? Or never?” Grace held her hands up in surrender. “I know, Maksim, I know. I screwed up, and you don’t owe me any favors, but this is time sensitive and could help us both out in a couple of ways. Maybe even end up with enough funding that Ethan will forget how mad he is. 10 minutes of your time, tops. I promise.” “...ok, you’ve got ten minutes,” Maksim said, hopping off the stage. He walked over, clinging to his notepad like a drowning man to a life preserver. “Come on up to my office.” As soon as the office door closed, Grace began pulling gold bricks out of various pockets and stacked them 3 by 3 into a tower, each brick making a purposeful clink as it landed. “I am in a bit of a pickle. I have this lovely Jenga set… but I suspect they are going to be significantly less impressive come dawn tomorrow. You’re people who knows people. People who might want to buy some gold. People who might deserve to have their pretty new toy turn back into wood tomorrow. And you’ll get your cut.” She smiled at him, while silently praying he could help. CA with Rapport vs Diff 3: -+-+ plus 4= 4. Success! Advantage Created: Money Might Buy Happiness “That’s a lot of stipulations for dumping fool’s gold…” Maksim said, but his eyes were all on the bricks. He licked his lips nervously and reached for one, tossing it lightly in his palm as he felt the weight of it. “How real are they now? Solid through and through? Good enough to fool a jeweler?” She grabbed a couple and hit them together, and let the sound ring through the room before replying. “They’re real gold, Maksim. For now. Midas style. They won’t fool a jeweler because there’s no lie. Hell, they’re probably purer than most gold out there. His curse ain’t turning something halfway into gold, ya know? But moving this many, this quickly… I’m at a loss. I can probably flip some at one of those Cash4Gold places in the strip mall, but not all of it.” “Yeah, there’s no way they have this much cash on hand, not at the little shops. You’re gonna have to go to… hm. Okay, I’ll give you an address.” He scribbled something onto his notepad, tore it off and handed it to her. “They look like all the other shops but they aren’t. Not even close. You might not be able to get the best rate, but they’ll take the lot, I bet. Run by… well, regular folks. No one in the magic community, far as I know.” “Who should I say sent me, if they ask? And any hints as to what kind of blowback I should expect here?” “Well I’m not sending you to rip off any friends so don’t say it was me,” Maksim said quickly. “Um, they’re not good people. My family’s done some deals with them… Uh, using the Raith name might get you a better deal but it’d be risky. If word got back, you’d have a whole lot of pissed off vampires on your doorstep in addition to the pissed off money launderers. I wouldn’t suggest using your own name either, and maybe keep an eye out um, generally, at least for a little while afterwards.” “I figured, just making sure. Nobody you want thrown under the bus? Not even an ex?” For a second he considered it, but then shook his head. “No, no, that’s a bad idea. That could blow back on me, or the Lily... I’m too public right now to risk it. Cash with no strings is all I want out of this.” “All good. Push comes to shove there’s this law firm I sometimes deliver to that tips like, 2 bucks on a good day. That should throw them off the scent. All goes well and I’ll be back tonight with some cash for you.” Grace started to pocket the gold bricks again. “Looks like I still got 2 minutes, anything else going on?” “Just the concert prep, we’re pretty much set up and ready as long as Ada comes through with those record execs. You haven’t heard um, anything about that have you? Oh, and I guess I was going to go talk to Ethan but… well, if you’ve got the cash maybe we could do that tomorrow?” Grace frowned at Ada’s name. “Ada is pretty busy at the moment. That’s actually why I’ve probably only got tonight to get these bricks swapped out. She’s hoping to be more free tomorrow. And, assuming this deal goes through, yeah, I should be free tomorrow. Want me to pick anything up for him while I’m out? Favorite chocolate or champagne or anything like that?” He flushed. “Actually, I’ve got something special in mind already. Just didn’t have the cash on hand. We’ll need to make a quick stop after you get here, but it shouldn’t take long.” “It’s a date, then. And, again, really sorry about the whole…” She gestured at herself and then at him. “I’ve been learning a lot the last couple weeks.” “Look,” Maks said, sighing. “We already went through this. I get it, you get it… So could you stop bringing it up? I just want to do my thing without all the baggage, man.” Grace’s eyes dropped to the floor. “Yeah, sorry, I’m just not good at… any of this part of it. I went from not really having a family to being part of a big messy one, to being alone again. I haven’t really had a ‘friend’ in a long time and it’s… I’m not very good at it. I’ll be in touch, hopefully. And you’re doing good. The Lily is really starting to look like her old self again.” “Thanks,” Maksim said. “I mean it. I’m not… I’m not used to having friends that stick around for long. People just come over when they want something. You… Not sure if you’re like that or not, yet. Guess we’ll find out.” “I’m trying not to be. Still figuring that part out. Thanks for the help, Maksim. I mean it.” —————— Later, across town… “I can give you…” the aged woman sitting behind the steel bar -reinforced bulletproof glass looked down at the digital scale and the small golden brick sitting on it. The sign on the building said CA$H 4 GOLD NOW!!! (Best exchange rates in town! Will match anyone!) and yet, Grace couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something shady going on here beyond the obvious price gouging she was about to endure. Maybe it was the fact that the rest of this particular ancient strip mall had blacked out windows and missing signs, but there were at least a dozen cars parked out front. Or the several too-new looking, completely unmarked cube trucks out back. “...this much.” The woman finished writing a number on a slip of paper and slipped it through the metal pocket under the glass. Grace caught herself from rolling her eyes, and instead leaned forward just enough to get a clean look at the woman’s name tag. “Marilyn, I know the gold market is a little saturated here, but we also both know your bosses are just gonna move it out of the country or sit on it until the price spikes over 1600 an ounce again. I was told you were the best in the whole state, no bullshit. You can't get just a little closer to the national rate?” Rapport vs Marilyn: - / + + = You got a Superb(+5) result! Success, with a cost, means Marilyn probably won’t keep her mouth shut about the mysterious tiny gold bars… “I do that and I can kiss my job goodbye,” Marilyn said, with the long patience of someone who said that to absolutely everyone. “Tell ya what, national rate on thirty percent, and my rate on the next seventy. That’s as much as I can do with the market like it is, and these being bulk and unmarked…” Her face soured as if she’d smelled something rotten. “Not a dealbreaker but extra work for us.” Grace gave a little sigh. She knew how this was going to play out, but it didn't make it any more fun. "You drive a hard bargain, but it's a deal." Marilyn squinted at Grace, eyeballing her bag. “Do you want a receipt?” she asked, as if she already knew the answer. “Oh, uh… yeah. Sure. For my taxes. That my accountant does.” Grace replied, smiling just a little too much. “Your accountant.” Marilyn gave a long, wheezy sigh. “Alright, by the book then. Give me a moment.” She fished a pair of bifocals out of her shirt pocket and started rifling around for the proper forms. “Where should I say this gold was ‘acquired’?” “So, I’ve got this cousin, won the lottery a few years back, does stupid poo poo like get Jenga sets made out of solid gold… and also forgets to pay his gambling debts.” “So, ‘family member’,” said Marilyn, checking a box on the form. “That right?” “Yep.” “Name and address?” She glanced up over the top of her glasses. “Yours, not his.” “Grace LeBlanc.” She matter-of-factly responded before rattling off the address of the cash-only motel she was living in, but leaving off the room number. She’d be out of there soon enough, anyway. Marilyn penciled all of that in, never once asking for any kind of confirmation or identification. She picked up an ancient receiver and started muttering into it, too garbled behind the glass for Grace to make out. “Alright, your money’s on the way up. Send the goods in. I have to confirm the authenticity of each bar.” A small steel door popped open next to the window. “You wouldn’t believe the poo poo people try to pull sometimes.” “Oh, no problem. Take your time.” She carefully stacked the gold bricks in little rows before pushing them through the door to Marilyn. “So, what’s the worst story you’ve been told?” “The worst?” She paused. “Had a guy come in once with a baggie. He’d swallowed two diamond rings and a gold chain and didn’t even bother to wash ‘em on the other end. Mighta just got out of prison? I forget.” Grace’s jaw dropped. “Ew. Ew ew ew. I can guarantee that’s not a problem with mine. I thought you were gonna have a story about bars of Nazi gold, not… that.” That actually made her grin. “Oh that’s every other Joe. All those Nazi-killing grandpas, hiding war spoils under their beds. Some of them even got the stamps proving they’re telling the truth, but most of them… well, it’s all stolen one way or another.” “I’m surprised you don’t get more treasure hunters. I actually have an uncle who did that, off the coast of Florida. But he also never found poo poo, so, that could be part of it.” “Most of what could be found already has been. Wouldn’t want to have to deal with that anyways. No one wants old coins as they are and the corrosion after a couple centuries underwater… God. Go blind just trying to clean the stupid things. And then haggle for a month over their value. No thank you ma’am.” “See, that’s the good gossip right there. Don’t get involved in pirate treasure, stick to nazi gold. Maybe you’ll tell the next guy about this dumb gold Jenga set!” Grace pushed the last of the gold through the tiny door. “Okay, that should be it if I’m counting correctly.” “Leave the counting to me,” Marilyn said amicably as she started sorting the bricks onto her scale. “I would have called bullshit on your story, but there’s fake wood grain on them, and the brand mark too.” She shook her head. “Somebody paid an awful lot of money for these silly things, almost a shame to melt them down. Ah well.” “Yeah, except for the part where they’re useless. Way too heavy to actually play a game with.” Grace grinned at Marilyn as she spun a story. “I think one of them is a tiny bit bent from falling, too. Turns out whoever designed Jenga actually put some thought into it, you can’t just go around making it from whatever you have laying around.” “Wouldn’t want to drop one on my toe either,” Marilyn agreed. Around then a young man built like a refrigerator wearing a black turtleneck and combat boots opened the steel-reinforced door next to Marilyn’s booth, a silver case in one hand straight out of a Bond movie. “Here you go ma’am,” he said, offering it to Grace. “If you want to keep the case it’s extra,” Marilyn said. “Those things don’t grow on trees.” Grace very carefully took the case. “And I’m guessing you won’t just let me promise to return it, either, huh. I’ll take the whole thing, then. What do I owe you?” Marilyn spat out a number that was at least twice what it was worth. Grace popped open the case and counted out a couple of bills before handing them over. “Really, Marilyn? Really?” In retrospect, she probably should have thought about where she was going to put this volume of cash, but she also wasn’t expecting Maksim to provide her with someone who would liquidate all of it in a single transaction. Marilyn smiled a smile that would have been more at home on an alligator. “Pleasure doing business with you, Ms. LeBlanc. Do stop in again if your cousin ever needs to pay off more of his debts.” “The pleasure is all mine. And I’ll try to keep him out of trouble.”
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Mar 18, 2022 01:07
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Agency and Astrophysics Scene: El’s Swamp Shack One last round of drinks later, Rick and El put their checks on a running tab, plus a little extra for a travel-sized version of the ofrenda so that Rick could enjoy such meals in the future without resorting to antediluvian chemical warfare. They said farewell to Clarice and left as generous a tip as either of them could afford before heading back to New Orleans with a little less haste and a little more caution than on the trip out. They parted ways in the Nevernever, just before the portals that led into the city proper. For Rick, it was short enough from there to the Stitch in Time, while Elbridge had walked the leylines to the swamp so many times that he could manage the feat blind-drunk in the dark. Which he had. More than once. But tonight was different, and he’d limited his drinking to the point that he could have legally driven. Although Elbridge and driving would have been a risky combination even when he was stone-cold sober. Three months after Elbridge had moved into Hydrangea Place, his old home still had the look of a place lived-in. He still hadn’t sold it - not that he could, until the last of the things in his basement had been relocated or destroyed - but the place looked well-used and well-maintained even though he’d not slept there in months. The windows were clean, the walls were dry, and the weeds had yet to overgrow the garden beds. When he walked down the stone pathway and set his hand on the doorknob, the lock opened before he could even retrieve his key. The Threshold was firmly-intact. It would take more than a few months’ absence to erode what had been laid down over more than half a century. Elbridge walked inside as though he’d never left, pulled up a second chair, and put a kettle of water on to boil while he rummaged through the house’s remaining assortment of teas. No sooner had the first cups finished steeping than he heard the knock on his door. Lachesis was waiting for him on the porch, this time dressed in a smart creme pantsuit. She still wore the pearls at her neck and on her belt, and her eyes were bound with a light pink silk scarf that disappeared into her updone hair. There was a silver Mercedes parked behind her, and she was tapping one toe impatiently while giving the shack a once-over when he opened the door. A smile spread over her face when she saw him, the sort of smile one gives a subordinate who has done a particularly good job today. “A good evening to you,” she said expectantly. “And to you as well, gracious lady,” Elbridge said, waving her inside. He’d made the place as hospitable as was possible on such short notice, although even under the best of circumstances it would have lacked the grandeur of the Châteaux du Sang. “Cuppa?” he asked, indicating the steaming cups of jasmine tea. “Please,” she said, without moving a step. “Ah.” Elbridge paused, noting her reticence. Evidently, her appearance in Ada’s basement had been a special case. Perhaps she could only ignore a Threshold under the right circumstances, or perhaps it was simply a power she used sparingly. “Do come in,” he added. She stepped past him and he caught the scent of yarn, very faintly, though no threads were currently in evidence. “Now then,” she said, sitting and motioning for him to pour the tea. “I cannot stay for long, but you have my full attention for the moment. A rare thing, for any mortal, at any point in history.” She smiled as she said it, lifting a sugar cube with her strangely aged, spindly fingers and rolling it between them in anticipation. “So. What would you ask of Fate, Mr. Hardley?” “Elucidation,” Elbridge said. There were a great many more subjects he would have liked to broach, but he was already pushing his luck simply by having this meeting. “The details of my portion of your assignment, at your convenience, but also…” He poured the tea, struggling to keep his hands steady. It wasn’t sobriety troubling him by now, but nerves. “…well, it is a most-unusual request you’ve made of us, and while we may not have time to compare the accounts of Hesiod, Plato, and Pindar…” His hand shook, and tea slopped over the rim of his own cup, and he had to bite his lip to keep from cursing at the mild scalding. So much for dignity and composure. “To be blunt,” Elbridge said, exasperated, “I can’t recall any version of events where a mortal went against your designs and it ended at all well for them. So - why now? Why me?” “Because I trust you not to go blabbing to the nearest poet, or news outlet in this day and age, and spread the tale of how you bested the Fates and got away with it. Bad for business to let that kind of thing go, yes?” Her stare was piercing, even through the blindfold. “I did warn you that this had better stay between us. That was no idle threat.” “...I see.” “Ah, but you do not.” She dropped the sugar cube into the tea with a soft plop. “You know how the sausage is made, Mr. Hardley, which is why I can appear to you like this and don’t need to break out the veils and the black sackcloth as I did this morning. The truth of the matter is very simple. I owe a debt to a dear friend, a muse, who has asked me to bend the rules a bit when it comes to a favorite mortal, one whose destiny has ever been tragic. That was when I noticed someone's been gnawing at the threads in the same lovely city, and what do I find but a nest of useful little mice. Now, I could put up a fuss, set out traps, poison, etcetera, etcetera…” she paused to take a tentative sip of her tea. “...or I could take it as a rather obvious sign.” As above, so below. The thought came to Elbridge unbidden, and somewhat unwelcome. If the Moirae made their sausage much as mortal leaders did, then that implied a degree of fallibility. ”Some time ago” posted:“They’re not meant to be…people, Rick!” Elbridge sputtered. “If Faerie Queens can break their oaths and the Senior Council are a pack of doddering arsewipes and the Angels of the bleeding Lord can gently caress off from their jobs without consequence then WHY AM I STILL DOING MINE?!?” He was wide-eyed by now, hyperventilating, his face red as beef and a violent spasm going through his left cheek. “Why should I be bound... to uphold an order… that clearly does not care to uphold itself?” A spasm went through his left cheek. He fought it back. For now. “Then, if we may dispense with the theatrics…you put me in a difficult position. As a seer, I have an obligation to the grand design, yes, but I also have an obligation to those who seek my counsel. I believed my foretellings ironclad - if not my interpretation, of which I duly caution my clients. And now - ha ha - you inform me that this may not be the case.” The little laugh sounded hideously-forced, meant to mask something even less-pleasant. “So: What does it take to confound destiny itself?” “Outside influence, mostly,” said Lachesis. “But to better explain, permit me to ask you this first: What do you believe destiny is?” “Extremely complicated,” Elbridge answered. “In my years of practise, I’ve discerned at least three different phenomena that might be fairly called ‘destiny’, though all of them interact to some extent. First, there is semantic predestination - that Oedipus was doomed to kill his father and marry his mother despite his best efforts, or that Odysseus’ death would ‘come from the sea’ and when he gave up sailing, a spear made from a stingray’s tail did the trick. In short: a foretelling is put to words, and whatever happens shall prove those words true.” “Ah. The ‘gotcha’ foretelling. Always a hit at parties.” She waited for him to continue. “I…er…” Elbridge paused, somewhat wrong-footed by Lachesis of the Fates’ casual use of modern slang. “Right, that is…well. The second form is possibility.” He pulled out his pocket Tarot deck for visual reference. “An individual may or may not become wealthy, or fall ill, or achieve their ambitions.” For each outcome he named he drew a card, and spread them out in a hand. “But there are constraints. A man with the wrong sort of illness won’t live past fifty. No amount of money will spare him this fate, and if his ambition is to make it to one hundred, he’s apt to be disappointed.” Elbridge laid the cards face-up on the table for emphasis. “He can do all manner of other things with what time he has…but if it’s not in the cards, then it’s not in the cards.” Lachesis touched her chin with two fingers, thinking it over. “Perhaps not without the aid of something beyond an ordinary mortal’s means. There are plenty of ways to subvert such things, for those willing to pay the costs.” “There are,” Elbridge said, “which brings me to the third phenomenon: providence. What has been willed, where what is willed must be. A multifarious force which shares an…uneasy relationship with mortal free will.” “What difference is there between this and the party trick?” Lachesis asked. “The ‘party trick’, as far as I can tell, can be either descriptive or prescriptive,” Elbridge said. “This is purely prescriptive, and can be far more comprehensive. Rather than setting conditions on an outcome, it can simply dictate the outcome.” He shrugged uneasily. “Or perhaps it’s only a difference of degree, not kind. I had hoped that you could tell me.” “Hmm,” she said, tapping her long fingers on the table. They rattled a bit like bones. “I find this to be an interesting topic of conversation… but your answer to ‘what is destiny?’ seems to be ‘that which is destined,’ which is circular.” “I can only vouch for the ‘what’,” Elbridge said, “not the ‘why’. If I must speculate… by most accounts, if the world’s a stage and all of us are actors, then destiny is the writer, or the director, or the producer - or perhaps all three, by turns.” He frowned slightly and took a sip of his now stone-cold tea. “Of course, almost all of the people who gave such accounts were, in fact, playwrights. That may have coloured their outlooks.” “Unavoidable, perhaps. I am a weaver myself, and see many things through the lens of my profession.” Lachesis agreed. “I would say that your first and third examples are more matters of degree than difference. ‘Possibility’ is simply not destiny. Even setting aside mystical cheats, advances in mortal medicine would have derailed over a billion destinies. Penicillin, the eradication of smallpox, insulin… even basic germ theory and washing one’s hands frequently have saved billions of people from seemingly inevitable early deaths. And the same applies to wealth, achievements, and all the rest.” “I see,” Elbridge said, pondering the ramifications. If possibility had no bearing on destiny, then did the reverse hold as well? His work on Eriol had certainly turned the impossible into the possible, so probably not. Many times over the years, he’d had cause to wonder just what it is that his own gifts detected, although with every other pressing matter at hand, he’d never really found an answer. His methods worked. To understand why… well, more than a few seers had driven themselves mad thinking about it. “Then this task you’ve set for us - you want us to overturn the will of a higher power?” “That is… a personification,” Lachesis said. “I believe you know that Fate is not my will, nor the will of my sisters. Whose then?” “You don’t know either?” Elbridge asked rhetorically, and then he caught sight of her expression. *Clink!* The teaspoon fell out of Elbridge’s hand and his jaw dropped in an unsightly gape as the epiphany finally struck him. “...don’t you know?” he asked again, far quieter and deadly-serious this time. “I will be very clear about one thing,” Lachesis said, wrinkling her nose. “Providence is not the will of the White God. It does not belong to any singular being. It is… more than that. A collective of all wills, all choices. It is what becomes inevitable as a result of free will. Or so my sisters and I believe.” That…that was… …but then how could… …why? “...why?” he asked aloud. His hands were trembling softly and his mouth was dry despite the tea. “If destiny emerges from free will, then why is the world like this?!” “Like what?” Lachesis asked, quirking an eyebrow. He sputtered for a few seconds more, struggling to put to words what he’d long felt but seldom permitted himself to know for any great duration. “This… this awful mess… ruled over by tyrants and monsters!” “It is what we have all made of it,” Lachesis said, folding her hands in her lap. “You cannot place the blame for this on a single actor, though there are many who would love to claim credit. Nor can you place it on multifarious forces beyond understanding. At least, not if you believe as I do. You are free to form your own opinions, of course.” Not ALL on multifarious forces beyond understanding, Elbridge thought to himself, recalling his book deal and grimacing. Still… What Lachesis had told Elbridge was markedly at odds with the doctrines he had learned as a boy. Catholic theology had never fully reconciled its belief in divine infallibility with free will. Its best attempts tended to result in heterodoxy, schism, and varying degrees of violence; pondering the matter too deeply was thus rather discouraged. Yet, even as the future was said to be unknowable to mere mortals, Elbridge had always been able to see something of it, as clearly as he did anything before his own eyes (which was to say, quite well, provided it wasn’t too distant and he wore his glasses). It had seemed a plain contradiction to him even then, but he hadn’t exactly had anyone he could confide in for guidance. Other than his parents, who had themselves quarreled fiercely on the topic. His mother had been adamant that the Lord had a plan, and while not ALL of it was knowable (for surely He, in His infinite wisdom, knew better than to trust certain people with the details), it was all for the best - even the uglier bits, such as His only son getting nailed to a cross. Who were mere humans to argue? His father, by contrast, had felt that good works were more important, and that Elbridge’s abilities came with a moral obligation to pursue the best of all possible worlds. He’d learned more of theological argument from their rows alone than from any number of sermons in St. Giles’, but they’d brought him no closer to an answer. He’d wanted to agree with his father, but there were only so many horrors he could foresee and fail to prevent despite his utmost efforts before he’d ultimately decided that his mother was closer to the truth of it. ‘As above, so below’ - or, to put it more prosaically: ‘poo poo flows downhill’. Where mortal will ran up against that of the supernatural, the supernatural got its way, unless something even higher on the food chain disagreed. All of this, by ineffable design. “If it’s not by design,” Elbridge asked, speaking carefully and deliberately to keep his voice from growing hoarse with emotion, “then why can I not change it?” She had not moved during his silence, only watched him intently, through the blindfold. “Do you expect one will to easily alter the course of hundreds, if not thousands of others? Do you think their wills bear less weight, all together, than yours?” “Well, you’ve tasked me with doing exactly this, so why not?” he asked bitterly. “Is there one simple trick to changing the inevitable, and I’ve somehow missed the memo?” “No.” The word had a sense of finality to it. “Then…” his voice broke at last. “...what good am I? If I cannot speak with any authority… even in my own field, after more than a century of study…” Lachesis exhaled softly. “Ah… Why do you doubt your prescience now? Understanding the origin of destiny’s tides does not change their ebb and flow. It only gives you more insight than you had before.” Her tone was gentle, calming. If El had been in a state to notice he might have realized she’d dealt with this kind of crisis before. “And while there is no simple trick, you have seen destiny altered in front of your own eyes several times now. If you have been unable to affect change yourself, why have others you know been able to?” “...I don’t know,” Elbridge answered between ragged exhalations. “It’s not… it can’t just be determination, or persuasiveness. So many others… I saw them try and they just died. Murdered. Erased. Struck from memory. The ones who fared better… the common thread escapes me.” “Is it such a surprise you have not succeeded, then? You don’t know why others do.” Elbridge took in her answer and reflected on it. What was it that he was missing? What ineffable quality let one tear up the script, where anyone else would be unceremoniously dragged offstage? Consider this, James had said to him earlier, what if the very act of observing a possible future inadvertently sets you upon the path to that future? But then, they’d managed to surprise Lachesis, and she was here, tasking them with meddling yet again; by inference, the quality of prescience didn’t preclude going against what had been foreseen. “So…” he considered aloud, calming down slightly, “if predestination is a sort of… gravity well formed by the aggregate will of all beings with agency… “ He thought back to what he’d studied of rocketry and physics (secondhand, since his presence on any launch pad was absolutely out of the question). “... one would need a way to achieve ‘escape velocity’, so to speak.” “One would,” Lachesis agreed. She smiled, as if remembering a joke. “That is perhaps an even more apt comparison than you realize.” “What,” he said, quivering with quiet laughter, “destiny can’t reach outer space?” “Oh it can,” she said. “Anywhere people have been, destiny has traveled with them. I was thinking in terms of… degrees. To use space traversal as a metaphor, any given fate has its course, its orbit. To change it, there are many conditions one must meet, and even if one manages to meet them, there are wildly different outcomes for the fate in question. Being knocked spinning into the sun, or carefully being adjusted to a lower orbit, as two opposite examples.” “I take it that hurling someone into the sun is not your desired outcome in this case?” Elbridge asked, completely deadpan. “It is not,” Lachesis said, growing serious for a moment. “That would be destroying their fate irreparably, creating a snarl. One of those in an area is more than enough, even a recovering one.” “A recovering…?” Elbridge blinked. “...ah. You refer to Richter. Hopefully not the same fate as he had before.” He frowned, and his nostrils flared slightly. Even at the time, it had struck him as odd that the grand design could accommodate a time paradox that nearly undid the world, but not one man surviving when he’d been meant to die. Unjust, even. “He’s been through enough.” “His original fate is long destroyed, there’s no fear of that,” Lachesis said, waving a hand. “What he makes of the nascent one will be up to him. I will be watching with interest, as it’s very rare for a snarl to untangle itself, let alone to weave itself back into the pattern as a healthy thread. What he’s been through was necessary, it remains to be seen if it was ‘enough’.” “As long as it remains up to him,” Elbridge said levelly. “So, to continue with this metaphor, and to assume that the vicissitudes of fate are at least as complex as actual rocket science: Each problem is distinct, and demands its own solution, yes? That is, in addition to sufficient impetus.” “Indeed. Parameters vary and shift, as well. A ‘launch window’ is always a moving target. So, I ask: what else does an astronaut need to achieve escape velocity?” “Hrm… a moment, if you please.” Elbridge thought about it while he refreshed their tea, wracking his brain for all that he could remember of the space race. “Thrusters for lift, a pad to lift off of, a vehicle that can withstand the forces involved, a ground crew for support, the funds to pay for all of this… am I overlooking something important?” “I think that covers it, but can you map it to the metaphor?” Lachesis asked, lifting her cup to her nose and inhaling the fresh scent. That was a tougher question, and Elbridge puzzled over it for some time. “So…it is necessarily a group effort, a costly and dangerous undertaking, and… ah!” he exclaimed. “That’s what you meant when you said an outside influence, wasn’t it? You were speaking in a Newtonian sense?” “‘An object in motion will not change its motion unless an outside force acts upon it,’” quoted Lachesis. “Yes, to all three. No astronaut reaches space without ground control, or many calculated risks. It’s why no single one of you was given the task, but all of you together. It may not take all of you, admittedly, but I don’t like to put all my eggs in a single basket when it comes to something this difficult.” The existential implications of her words were daunting, even terrifying. If there was no plan, no grand design, no hand at the helm, then any rules - even the very Laws of Magic - were fundamentally… arbitrary. And if that was so, then what of the Council’s very purpose? All that Elbridge had tormented himself over his failure, all that he’d striven to do better since then… for what? Terrifying, and yet… liberating. If there was no plan, then what else might be possible? What might be made of the Council and the very practise of magic? What lives might be saved or spared, if it could be proven that there were alternatives to death or the Doom? These thoughts came to him quickly, almost unbidden and far too rapidly to have felt like a wholly-logical process. No…not quickly at all, it struck him. Even with all that he’d seen to persuade him otherwise - the folly of challenging destiny, the gruesome madness that awaited persistent Lawbreakers - they’d been waiting at the back of his mind for a very long time. Months. Years. Decades. It was only with the counsel of Lachesis herself that he’d found himself able to put them into words. It wasn’t until he took a sip of very tepid tea that he realised he’d been silent for several minutes in response to her last answer. “I, er… forgive me,” he said sheepishly. “It’s… rather a lot for me to process.” “Quite alright,” Lachesis said graciously. “I often have that effect on people.” “So… this task you’ve set for us,” Elbridge said, re-orienting himself. “With all that you’ve explained here, it does seem achievable, if difficult and time-consuming. And while I don’t wish to seem crass…” He sighed and rubbed his temples again. “...I cannot at present afford not to inquire about payment.” “Inquire then, but I will hope you will not make me repeat what I said to Ms. Wagner.” “I’m not so foolish as to demand anything of you,” Elbridge said, “but I am growing very tired of working for free. Not only is it quite expensive, but it’s…” he struggled for a bit to find the word “... draining, to think that my talents are worth so little.” He sat up a little straighter, a little less timid. “So: What do you offer for our labour?” “I’m not hiring you to do a job, Mr. Hardley. This is community service. The lot of you were responsible for mussing the pattern up, and since you cannot repair the damage you’ve done, I’ve asked you to do something else instead.” She drummed her long fingers on the table for a moment, thinking. “That said, recompense of some kind is warranted, if the work is done well, in secret, and in a timely manner. What sort is difficult to say without seeing the results. Your ‘talents’ may be entirely unnecessary, depending on the approach Ms. duSang chooses. Aside from that, the purpose of having you do this for me at all is to repay a debt, so incurring several others in the process gains me nothing, and may leave me in an even less desirable position. And all of this must be done completely under the table, so I cannot give out gifts that would betray my involvement.” It was fortunate, at that moment, that she was wearing a blindfold. Elbridge’s expression would have done Stanley Kubrick proud. “As you say, it’s unwise to incur a debt to repay one.” He held out his hands in an exaggerated shrug. “What sort of seer would I be, to ignore the counsel of the Fates?” “Counsel which was given freely, without haggling over the price of every word,” Lachesis said, amused. “I will say this then: For each of you who participates freely in the service I requested, a twist of fate will set you on the right path when things seem bleak. You will know it when you see it, and it will happen sometime before the turn of the year. I cannot force you to walk that path without giving up the game though, so you must take it with your own two feet.” It was as much as he could have dared hope for out of the arrangement. Elbridge gave a slight nod of agreement, trying not to betray any excess enthusiasm that might suggest to Lachesis that she was being unduly-generous. “That is satisfactory,” he said. “I’ll heed your advice, as soon as this present mess is sorted out. How soon can we expect the details of your assignment for us?” “Tomorrow, and unfortunately, the later you keep me here the later it will be. Not even I can be everywhere at once.” “Then I thank you for your time, and your counsel.” Elbridge stood and held the door for Lachesis once she’d finished her last cup. “Enjoy your stay in New Orleans.” “You are welcome, and I shall, but if you don’t mind I’ve a bag of thrice-blessed fertilizer in the trunk that I’d rather not ruin my blouse unloading. For the Melia,” she added. “Just in case… well, that’s between you two.” Elbridge flushed softly at that. “Er…yes,” he said stiffly, moving to the unlocked trunk. “She’ll like…I mean to say that we’ll…I’ll give her your regards.” “I would appreciate that, thank you.” She got in her car but then rolled the window down. “Do you still doubt the veracity of your prophecies, Mr. Elbridge?” “Should I?” he asked, grunting and straining as he wrestled the fetid, goat-smelling sack toward the garden shed. She grinned at him, and slipped a pair of aviators over the top of the blindfold. “Ask yourself that again after you’ve tried to cheat destiny tomorrow.” As she rolled away and Elbridge readied himself for a much-needed shower, he found himself recalling his own words to James, with the benefit of some hindsight. “We are not the sole authors of our destinies,” he had said. “But we do have a say.” Yet if Lachesis was correct - if fate was subject to its own subjects - then what was the difference in this game, between piece and player? He shivered as the first icy droplets hit his skin, and it wasn’t from the cold. Thesaurasaurus fucked around with this message at 04:58 on Sep 28, 2022 |
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Mar 18, 2022 01:38
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Pot and Kettle Scene: Stitch in Time “I’m back!” Rick called as he opened the door. The Stitch was empty and quiet, having closed an hour earlier. It wasn’t late yet, but the fall sunlight had faded enough for him to make his own way home, and though he’d walked most of the offering alcohol off, the lingering impressions of warmth and hope had kept a spring in his step all the way back from Sedona. For a moment he leaned his back against the door, eyes taking in the gentle light of the tiffany lamp on the counter next to the cash register as it cast long shadows on the racks of dresses, suits, and scarves. Everything was exactly where it’d been when he left for the Chateau two nights ago. He let out a long, exhausted sigh of relief. God, it’s good to be home. “Richter? I’m downstairs!” Nicky’s voice echoed up through the floor, slightly muffled. Rick smiled. His roommate had requested they use full first-names a few days into their arrangement, and Rick hadn’t minded. It was kinda nice to hear someone say it without a tone of parental disappointment. He headed downstairs and found Nicky sitting at one of the long crafting tables, wrangling with a thin paper pattern pinned to the blue fabric that Alisa had picked out a few days ago. “It came in early?” he asked. “Yes, and I’ve gotten a good portion of the prep done already,” Nicky said, picking up his shears. He pointed them at Rick accusingly. “But don’t think you’re going to distract me with dress-talk. Where have you been?” He’d known the question was coming but all the answers he’d floated in his head seemed to miss the point. “It’s a long story,” he said, finally. “Do you want to hear it?” Nicholas stared him right in the eyes, steeling himself as though he were about to enter a lion’s den. “Yes, actually, I think I do.” That was unexpectedly brave. Nicky never wanted to know the whole truth, no matter how much he fussed. Two long days without any word must have had him climbing the walls. Rick shrugged, maybe it would help him get his own thoughts in order to tell it in full. He glossed over the private conversations, but went into detail about summoning Murray, the trip to Winter, and especially his fight with the Trempulcahue and the following negotiation with the Shadow People. Nicky kept working on the dress while he listened, though there were a few points where he had to stop and either pepper Rick with questions or just stare in mute horror at what had happened. Rick found himself sharing things he hadn’t when he talked to Ada or Elbridge. Things like how worried he was that he’d written a blank check for the Shadow People on Alisa’s behalf, but also how good it felt that he’d finally found a way to pay Ada back for the maze. Nicky understood those feelings perfectly. He prickled over it, but he couldn’t argue that Rick had made a bad trade, at least not yet. After that, Rick showed him the spirit whale’s gift and his jaw hit the floor. “I was hoping you’d have some ideas on how to use it,” Rick asked sheepishly. “I’ve tinkered with metal work but I’ve never used whalebone before.” “Well, I assume you don’t need a corset,” Nicky said, taking the baleen into his hands with no small amount of reverence. He closed his eyes and extended his magical senses, taking it in with a crafter’s intuition. “The neat thing about whalebone is that it’s both strong and flexible, which was a much bigger deal before the invention of plastic. Of course, nowadays it sees practically no use at all outside of the historical… so we’ll have to be inventive.” It began floating slightly above his palms, which had taken on a soft golden glow. “This piece has strong attunements to both life and death. It’s… it’s a bridge, in a sense? That property alone makes it priceless.” He opened one eye to peek at Rick. “She must have really liked you.” Rick rubbed the back of his neck and smiled without saying a word. He would never forget the Trempulcahue, or the things she’d taught him. They were etched into his soul like letters on a stone tablet. “Anyways…” Nicky said, as the glow on his hands faded and the thick hair dropped back into them. “Give me time to do some research but you know… it’s also something you could save for a rainy day. And I mean that literally. They used to make umbrellas out of it.” “I don’t think corsets or umbrellas are going to do me much good,” Rick said. “...what about an imbuement?” “With?” Nicky asked, tilting his head. Rick rested a hand on his hilt. He’d been thinking about the whalebone most of the way home from Sedona. Leaving it on the shelf to deal with a future crisis felt wrong in every way possible. That wasn’t why it had been given to him. “O-oh…” Nicky stammered, staring at the sword. “Oh dear. That’s… hm. I mean, Warden-spelled silver won’t take any other enchantments, but that would technically be… possible? Yes, I don’t see why it wouldn’t… but… It would have to be forged into the silver, and I don’t think that would be very pleasant.” “I had a mostly-demon melt down a quarter made of my soul with Hellfire once, I’m pretty pain tolerant,” Rick said, but Nicky instantly went so pale that he had to hold both hands up to calm him down. “It was just an idea, I’m not even sure what that would do yet.” “T-turn you into some variation of psychopomp, most likely,” Nicky squeaked, offering the baleen back to him as if it was suddenly too hot to hold onto. “Not the 9 to 5 for Charon, but… you might be able to interact with or destroy spirits with your sword. T-that kind of thing.” “Hm,” Rick said, remembering the underwater duel. “Then they’d be able to ‘interact’ with me, too.” “That’s usually how it works.” It would be just like her to try and get me more in touch with that side of myself, Rick thought. He eyed the baleen for a long minute. “Putting a pin in it for now, but let's make that a priority pin,” he said finally. “I guess after that I passed out on the duSang’s front porch. I was so exhausted I barely remember getting there.” “Good thing I’ve got pins to spare,” Nicky said, nudging the overused tomato-shaped pincushion on the table. He started looking for anything to change the subject. “So, um, after all that, you stuck around for the golem experiment the next morning? How’d that go?” “Sort of,” Rick said. He skipped over his conversation with Claudia entirely, and instead they had a long, calming digression over if it would be possible to make cursed Egyptian pizza rolls, which Nicky promised to at least consider, and only then shifted into the discussion of Eriol, which touched on some topics that Nicky knew a lot more about than Rick and suddenly he was the one asking questions and listening with rapt attention. Golemancy was a topic he had never seriously looked into and the magical theory was extremely fascinating. “Everything should have worked fine,” Rick said. “But the puppy wasn’t recognizing the statue as his body anymore, and he wasn’t responding to his name. Since we couldn’t figure out what was going wrong, Ada went and got Circe…” Rick trailed off, face souring like he’d bitten a lemon. Nicky abhorred violence. How could he explain that he would have killed her, defenseless and under guest right, if Elbridge and Ada hadn’t held him back? Even saying her name sent a fresh wave of hate running through him, and deep down a part of him still wished he’d gone through with it. Nicky was a friend, but telling him about this… Even Ada didn’t understand… “Rick?” Nicky asked gently. He looked up, only now realizing how quiet the room had become. “Oh, sorry. I just…” He faltered again, then clenched his fists and straightened up. “Anyways. She called Eriol’s soul back by the primordial Name of dogs or something like that, and then it almost worked out but we ended up having to supplement the magic by linking him up to Gorden’s soul.” Nicky grimaced. Not just because of the soul link, which was a band-aid fix at best, but also because whatever had just caused Rick to shut down so completely was important. Maybe not to the ritual’s success, but to him personally. “Well, you can’t leave him that way indefinitely, you know,” he said, looking down at the dress pattern again. “Gorden, I mean. Eriol will need his own power source, and I’d suggest finding one sooner rather than later. Sharing your soul like that can have knock-on effects.” Rick nodded. He’d been too distracted by everything else to give it much thought but Nicky was right about that. “If you think of something you can let Elbridge know, I’m not sure what other options there even are at this point.” “I will, but… Rick?” He paused, setting the sewing down and folding his hands together. “I meant it when I said I wanted to hear it. Whatever you’re not saying… it’s ok. You can tell me.” “No, I can’t.” The response was out of his mouth before he could think better of it, but it was something Rick felt in his bones. Nicky didn’t understand violence, and had never hated someone so badly he’d had to lunge at them, teeth first. He understood helplessness and fear, but in an entirely different way, as something to run from, and never look back. Nicky’s face pinched. “Why not? If you’d just TELL me, then maybe-” “You wouldn’t understand, and I don’t want to talk about it. Drop it, okay?” But Nicky was on a mission now, ignoring all the warning signs. “Bottling it all up is just going to make it hurt worse, Richter. You have to-” “Just stop! You’re always trying to fix things, even when there’s nothing wrong with them. This isn’t like the doorknobs or the lightswitches or the cupboards, Nicholas! You can’t fix me!” Nicky pushed up from the table, the chair squealing on the tile floor. “I’m trying to HELP you, you hard-headed arsewipe!” “Well I didn’t ASK for your help, or to need to check in with you every five loving minutes whenever I leave the house, or to have to sit down and explain where I was so you don’t have a panic attack because you can’t stop seeing the rope snap the day you got left behind. I’m not your little goddamn brother either-” Nicky gasped angrily and that was when Rick realized he’d crossed a line. “Fine. I’m sorry for giving a rat’s arse when no one else does,” Nicky snapped. “Stew in it then, if it makes you happy. loving prick.” He strode straight through Rick as if he wasn’t there and started stomping up the stairs. “Nicholas… wait, I didn’t mean…” But it was too late. He was alone in the silent room. A flash of fury, aimed only at himself this time, had him draw the blade and slam it into the nearby training dummy hard enough to lodge there. Then he collapsed onto the couch and dropped his head in his hands. He felt so stuck. Completely unable to stop hurting himself, or anyone around him. I really do need to talk to someone. But he’d done nothing but talk to people today and it hadn’t helped much. Ada and Elbridge had their own problems to take care of, and Nicholas… I don’t want someone who can only listen. I need advice… A direction… Something…! If Angie were still alive it would have been easy. He could have called her, or taken the Ways down to Rio and there’d have been more pancakes and good counsel than he could have ever wanted. But Angie was gone, and he hadn’t kept in touch with the other survivors of the Fellowship. His family was still a severed limb, badly in need of repair, and no one he’d respected in the Council even knew he was still alive except for Elbridge and… Ah. …he did say to give him a couple of days and call back. It would be a lot to ask of Kwame after he’d cut ties for so long. Maybe too much. But his old teacher had never refused to help him work through his troubles before. If there was anyone left who could help him cut away the barbed wire that was Circe, it was him. Upstairs the kettle whistled. Rick waited a few minutes, replaying the argument in his head. Leaving things like that… No, that’d be a huge mistake. He couldn’t let it fester or he’d lose Nicky’s friendship for good, and deserve it too. Well, you dished it, time to go take it. Nicky was sitting in his plush purple chair, staring down into a full cup of tea. There was no second cup set aside this time, Rick noticed. He cleared his throat. “I’ll talk to someone,” he said, sitting stiffly in his own high-backed chair. Nicky didn’t look at him. “Someone,” he repeated. “Does ‘someone’ have a name? A posting address?” Rick let him be mad and kept his own tone neutral. “Yeah, Kwame. He’s my teacher, back from my apprenticeship. He might be able to help me figure out what to do with… Circe.” The name was still bitter as black coffee on his tongue but he forced it out anyways. Nicky huffed. “And I can’t do that, why?” “Because she turned me into her stuffed toy,” Rick spat. “You have no idea what that’s like, and you can’t help me with it. And I don’t want you to know what she did to me. For that to be something you think about when you look at me.” “Richter…” It was softer, but still pretty pissed. Rick sighed, and let the silence stretch for a mile, while Nicky rewound the fight with what he’d said in mind. “I’m sorry,” Rick said, breaking the un-peace. He rubbed the back of his neck and looked down. “For bringing Benjamin into it. I didn’t have that right.” “Yeah, you didn’t.” Nicky glared at him over the top of the teacup, weighing the apology. Another silent mile went by, and another, and Rick rode them out nervously. “You’re not like he was at all, you know,” Nicky said bitterly. “He never stayed out until dawn while I paced the floor. Even before he got sick. But…” He sighed. “I suppose I have been mothering you too much. After what happened with the team… Losing even one more friend is inconceivable. And everything you do is so drat dangerous! All the worst things I imagined when you vanished were children’s bedtime stories compared to what you actually got up to. And now you’re deliberately not telling me something because you think it’s even worse. How am I supposed to ever sleep again?” “Believe me, I know,” Rick said, slumping into his chair. The worst was over, now he just had to make it up to him somehow. “That’s not going to change though, it’s just who I am. Is there anything I can do to make that easier for you?” “Maybe. Maybe we can… I don’t know… I-I can give you a bauble. Something tiny, and if you break it, then I’ll know you’re really in trouble. A spelled bauble, so it can’t be broken by accident. You can keep it on your sheath, like a keychain, or one of those toys the kids hang on their phones.” “You’ve been thinking about it for a while, haven’t you?” Rick asked, raising an eyebrow. “Only since yesterday,” Nicky admitted. “I know calling isn’t really feasible, and you can’t always have someone do it for you. Um, what would you want it to look like?” Rick thought of his Warden pin at first, the sword-on-shield symbol that he still wore, even after all the other trappings of his old job had been discarded. But this was something that was meant to be broken in a time of need, and that didn’t sit right with him. What then? He’d never carried another symbol that meant anything to him. But then something came to him, spurred by today’s stirred up memories, clear and true and right. quote:“Like White Fang, who fought so fiercely and got so badly wounded for the sake of protecting his new home.” Raising Rick’s hands up together, Ada smiled and gave them a kiss. “That’s you. Blessed wolf.” “...how about a wolf? Sitting up, howling.” Nicky tilted his head. “Ah, like it’s calling for help? That’s appropriate, I suppose. Yes. I like it! I’ll make it tomorrow.” “I’ll keep it close,” Rick promised, looking around the room at the home they’d only just started to make their own when he’d so badly needed one. He’d been taking Nicky for granted for a while now. That had to change. “I’d better get back to work,” Nicky said sheepishly, setting his now empty cup down. “Yeah, don’t keep Alisa waiting,” Rick said, idly wondering if Shadow People could even wear normal clothes. Probably, he thought. I hope, at least. Or I’m gonna get it. “I saw the ofrenda, by the way,” Nicky mentioned. “Great idea. Maybe next time we can actually share a cuppa.” “That’d be fantastic,” Rick said. Alcohol was nice, but he missed his morning tea fiercely. As Nicky vanished back downstairs Rick let himself sink through the chair, the floor, and back down into the sword, which was still wedged (somewhat uncomfortably) in the training dummy. Might as well nap a bit. Six hour time difference meant Kwame wouldn’t be up and about until around 5am New Orleans time. He could already tell that tomorrow was going to be another long day.
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Mar 18, 2022 01:44
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A Cat Where It Shouldn’t Be Scene: El Gato Negro “Rough day?” Maria asked, stopping by Gorden’s table with a basket of chips and a cup of salsa. “Long day,” Gorden specified with a heavy sigh, vaguely wondering if his “free El Gato Negro food” coupon was good for multiple entrees off the menu. He remembered Eriol wagging his tail and managed a smile. “But a good one, in the end. Uh, I know it says ‘for two’, but you think one hungry college student can polish off the combo platter?” “It won’t be easy, but you can always take the rest home if you can’t,” she said with an understanding smile. As she walked away he heard the clip of a cane on tile and looked over to see Danny walking towards the bar. Gorden looked up from the menu at the sound of the cane and waved. His table was closer than the bar, and he’d probably get less dirty looks from ordering the combo platter with someone else at the table. “Danny, hey! Over here!” Danny’s head turned at hearing his name and a wide smile broke out on his face. “Hey! How ya doin Gorden?” he said, shuffling over to the table. He plopped into the opposing chair and started going to town on the chips and salsa. “There’s nothing like fresh made corn chips man,” he said happily. “You up to anything crazy or just taking a break?” “Taking a break from something crazy,” answered Gorden between his own bites of tomato and peppers and corn. “And exhausting. It’s why I’m here stuffing my face.” He took a drink of water and a deep breath. “But it all worked out in the end, or I’d probably be hiding in my room.” “Wanna talk about it?” Danny asked, concerned. “Wizards can get kinda… intense. I don’t even think it’s on purpose, that’s just how they are. And the ones that live ‘round here more than most.” “It was intense, but…kinda…I dunno,” Gorden murmured, lowering his voice. “My name’s on a paper and Elbridge says I’m his apprentice and I walked a golden dog and right now I’m just really, really hungry.” He looked at a waitress bringing over another basket of chips and salsa with relief. “Whoa, really? Congrats!” Danny clapped his hands together softly. “That’s just… drat. That was fast. I don’t think old Wizard Hardley’s ever taken an apprentice before. You need someone to celebrate with? Couple cervezas?” “I did drive here,” said Gorden, thinking it over. “So…maybe just the one? With lots of food. I got a voucher here and everything!” “Alcohol is not included with a meal,” Maria said, dropping off Gorden’s combo platter. “I shouldn’t even be letting you get away with a platter, it’s supposed to be a single entree.” “A saint, this woman,” Danny said with a cheeky smile. “Get me the usual and dos house lagers.” He turned back to Gorden. “I’m buying, don’t worry. And we can always call a cab if we need to. Wouldn’t be my first time.” He leaned back and let Gorden have at it for a few minutes. No one wanted to talk when there was good food hot on a plate in front of them. “Ah, sorry, but thanks,” Gorden apologized sheepishly. “I’ll make sure to order an extra next time, then.” As soon as Maria turned back to the kitchen he dug in hungrily. Several large bites and an enchilada disappeared from the plate. “You know,” he managed after a sip of water, “I can feel this stuff landing in my stomach, but my brain’s telling me ‘order another, another!’, like they aren’t talking to each other. I can eat a lot, but not that much!” “Any reason that might be the case?” Danny asked, concerned. “You do look a little under the weather.” “I did have to rub some blood on the doggy to get him moving,” Gorden admitted. “I know blood and magic and power and all that, but…whew, it was only a few drops. El and company weren’t kidding when they said it’d take a lot out.” “...get him moving?” Danny asked, tilting his head. “Wait a second, did you… link yourself to some kind of automaton? A dog made of actual gold?” “He used to be a normal dog,” said Gorden, as if that made any difference. “But, yeah, that’s the short version. The dog got turned into gold and…he’s still gold but now he’s moving and barking and all that.” “...huh.” Danny looked like he was about to say something else, but nothing came out. That was when Maria came back with two beers, two tall glasses, and a wind-up cat, all of which she set automatically on the table before picking up the cat again with a confused expression. “Oh my, how did this get here?” It was a black cat, the bar’s namesake, but Gorden had seen one just like it before. Suspiciously so, it even had the chipped ear from when it had fallen off the table during one of his early experiments… “Oh, thank you–” started Gorden as he automatically moved one bottle and glass over to Danny, before he noticed the toy cat just as Maria picked it up. “...wait…oh…” It took him a moment to notice the chipped ear, but once he did he had to resist the urge to reach up and snatch the cat from Maria’s hand. Instead he twisted open one of the beer bottles to keep his hands occupied. “I think I might know where that cat came from. May I see it?” “Sure,” she offered it to him. “I think I’ve had it on my shelf for a few weeks, but… I can’t remember who gave it to me.” She gestured towards the bar where one shelf was dedicated to a hundred different statues, toys, and trinkets of black cats. Gorden gave a little smile at the shelf of toy cats (with more than one waving black cat with gold coin) as he took the toy. “Yeah, the Black Cat. Makes sense.” He gave the winding peg a small twist before setting it down on the tabletop–it set off slowly in its familiar canted circle. “And you’ve had this for a few weeks, you say?” Because he was drat sure he hadn’t brought the toy to the bar. “I think so?” She looked a bit distant suddenly, as if she wasn’t sure. “It must not have been a regular, ‘cause I just can’t think of their face. I’m usually pretty good about faces, too. Oh well, maybe it was a tourist?” “Maybe it was,” lied Gorden noncommittally. Without looking he moved his hand to catch the cat as its circle nearly took it off the tabletop. “Did someone else assemble the beer order? Maybe knock the cat onto the tray by mistake?” Maria shook her head. “Must’ve been me, there’s only two other-” The bell over the door jangled, but when Maria paused to glance over, there was no one coming in or out. “Maybe you got a ghost?” Danny suggested. “Dios mio, not again,” Maria cursed under her breath. “I have two more tables, just bring it back up when you pay your tab, okay?” And off she went, too busy to pay the whole thing any more attention. “What’s wrong?” Danny asked, brow furrowed. “You’re looking at that toy like it’s a rattlesnake.” With Maria gone Gorden went back to leaning in, even more conspiratorially if possible. “There’s only supposed to be one of these toys with the chipped ear and the canted wheel, and I know there’s only supposed to be one because it’s sitting in my apartment right now. And I’m pretty sure I’d have remembered if I brought it to the Gato Negro, especially several weeks ago.” Now Danny started giving the cat the live-cobra stare. “Wait, then how is it here? Did someone steal it? That doesn’t make any sense. It couldn’t just get up and walk over, right?” “It’s a perfectly normal cat toy,” Gorden hissed. “I might have used it a few times to figure out the whole–” he waved his fingers over the cat as if he were a conjurer on stage, “but I couldn’t make it move without input if you paid me.” “Okay so then… did you…” Danny waved his hands around in a similarly stage magician fashion. “Go back a few weeks and drop it off? Like, maybe not yet, but eventually? But, wait a second. I’ve seen Maria remember people’s names when they come in on a second holiday two years after the first one. She never forgets a face. And not to be mean or anything but you stick out a little bit with the hair. There’s no way…” “I keep telling people it’s mad science chic,” started Gorden, as if that were the most important thing right now. “And I don’t exactly want to get my head cut off; what would be so vital that I go back in time to drop off this one specific thing in one specific public place and risk, you know–” a brief throat cutting motion sufficed. “--and not even bother to leave a note?” “You must have been pretty desperate, yeah,” Danny agreed. “It’s hard to guess about something that hasn’t happened though. But we’re having this conversation now because of it, and that’s probably not coincidental. Er, maybe?” He took a long gulp of his beer, straight out of the bottle. “Time travel is hard, man.” “You’re telling me,” Gorden sighed as he opened his own bottle and poured it out into the glass. “Unless I left a note in the gear-work of this little toy,” he mused as the beer fizzed ominously. “If you were desperate to get a message of great importance out at risk of your own life, wouldn’t you want to be a bit more forthright about the message?” He idly popped open a section of the cat toy he’d opened many times to examine the gearing closely under magic, as if actually expecting a fortune cookie paper slip to fall out. And then one did. And another one. And a third. “Wha–?!” Gorden’s eyes snapped between the paper slips, Danny, and the toy cat in rapid succession as he tried to gather himself. Had he–future him, rather–actually defied getting his head cut off to deliver notes in a toy cat? He finally managed to collect himself enough to flip the cat over and see if a fourth note or a thousand dollar bill or some other piece of paper had gotten caught in the plastic gears with one hand, while sorting and opening the paper slips with the other. The cat was (sadly?) devoid of further tampering. The notes were exactly what they looked like. Fortune cookie slips. White paper with pink letters, a quote, and some lucky numbers and ‘how to say’ phrases in chinese on the back. The quotes read: Keep your eye out for someone special. Life isn’t about holding the good cards, it’s about playing the cards you hold well. You must try, or hate yourself for not trying. “I never imagined myself to be so annoyingly cryptic,” Gorden moaned, resting his head in his hands. It flew in the face of all the ways he was taught to communicate. Maybe the magic stuff would start getting to him in the future. “Danny, are there any Laws about leaving messages to yourself? Or is being this nonspecific my future self’s way of trying to keep his head?” “Let me see those,” Danny said, tugging them out from under Gorden’s hand. “Hm, it’s not that cryptic, is it? Look out for someone special, and then a caution to do something… okay that bit’s pretty vague, but whatever it is you’ve got to do it or you’ll regret it.” He glanced at the door thoughtfully. “Whoever left this was pretty specific about making sure it got delivered at this exact moment too, so that’s probably important. How’d they get in and out without being seen? You got some invisibility powers I don’t know about?” “If I got invisibility powers I’d be as surprised as you,” Gorden managed, still holding his head down. “Closest thing to that was some light-bending trickery that wasn’t even my own magic. Unless time magic includes some kind of, I dunno, Stephen King-Langoliers type bullshit if you specialize in it hard enough, existing outside of normal temporal perception or…something.” He finally lifted his head up to take a sip of beer, then picked up the last slip of paper. “Maybe the guy who just left is still outside. You wanna…” he made a motion pointing at the beer and the bar that said “pay for this” “...while I…?” Another motion, indicating the exit that had caught Maria’s eye when she brought the beers. “Yeah, sure, but be careful, okay? Something’s not right about all this and I haven’t figured out what yet.” Danny reached for his wallet, letting Gorden go ahead if he wanted. It wouldn’t have taken long to pay, but if that guy was still outside he was probably too skittish to show if both of them went out together. “Thanks, Danny,” Gorden said gratefully as he got up. “And don’t forget the to-go boxes.” It was as much a true statement about how he planned to finish up his food as a promise that he would try not to do anything stupid. Forcing himself to be calm, he headed out the door, hoping whoever had left was still around, or at least left something to follow.
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May 3, 2022 02:50
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Missing Time Scene: Outside the Gato Gorden looked around outside but he didn’t see anyone immediately. Maybe whoever it was had already left? But then he thought he saw a shadow on the right side of the building and- “Gorden?” Danny called, poking his head out of the restaurant. “It’s been like fifteen minutes, everything okay?” Gorden’s train of thought–which at the moment mostly consisted of “where the hell are they?!”--was suddenly interrupted by Danny calling from the door. “Fifteen minutes?!” he answered, a little angry but mostly confused. “It’s barely been fifteen–!” Danny’s expression was clear on his face; he wasn’t joking. “How–” Gorden managed as he reached for his phone. He just managed to see the time on the face, which was a good fifteen minutes after he’d left the bar, when he noticed that his hand also had something else underneath his phone. “A multimeter?” he asked no one, automatically reacting to the “volts” and “milliamps” reading on the dial like a first year “science of electricity” student. A very old fashioned multimeter. “Wait a minute. Junior?” he asked the empty air as he delicately checked his pocket, trying not to fray or break the wire. There was no answer. As he gently tugged on it, a round red crystal about the size of a golf ball emerged from his pocket. Shadows seemed to swirl inside it, and tiny sparks. Gorden rotated the crystal in his hand delicately. It almost reminded him of his little bit of stellar iron, but this one was definitely still active even without his input. If his bit of star acted like this he'd have a whole lot of explaining to do about nuclear fusion on campus. He glanced between the crystal and the parking lot as he moved to where he'd saw the fleeting shadow, hoping against all odds that someone or something would still be there, and that he wasn't going nuts even by magical standards. Danny set the takeout bags down next to the door and walked over to Gorden, trying to see where he was looking. As far as he could tell there was nothing in the alley. “You okay buddy? Not seeing ghosts of Christmas’ past are you?” He rested a hand on Gorden’s shoulder, trying to shake him out of whatever had spooked him, but the second his palm touched Gorden there was a flash of red light and a sharp CRACK! and suddenly Danny wasn’t a scruffy middle-aged man who needed a shave anymore. He was a scruffy middle-aged demon who needed a shave. Blue-skinned, yellow-eyed, and with a pair of curved horns sweeping back from his brow. “poo poo!” Danny gasped, shaking his hand like he’d been shocked. He grabbed for his pendant but the blue crystal that held his human disguise had been shattered into pieces. “poo poo!” he repeated, hunching his shoulders and turning his collar up. There were cars driving past but luckily no one on the sidewalk. “Alley. Now. Hurry.” He grabbed the takeout bags, tucked his cane under one arm, and ran between the buildings like his suddenly-visible tail was on fire. The red crystal in Gorden’s hand was pulsing now, and the energy level on the multimeter was spiking significantly higher than it had been before. “I’m not seeing anything, that’s the…GAH!” Gorden started before feeling a sudden static discharge from both the crystal and where Danny touched his shoulder. He turned back towards Danny and caught a glimpse of blue skin before the other man looked down at his shattered necklace and pulled up his collar. “Holy crap,” he managed to hiss before instinct made him reach down to grab at whatever shattered crystal bits he could before following Danny away from the street. “poo poo, poo poo, I didn’t know it would do that!” he choked out as he looked over Danny and his broken blue necklace. The multimeter was going crazy now–it must have been a proxy method of measuring absorbed magical power, which would have been a good thing to learn in controlled conditions! “Are you alright? I can try putting this thing back together if you want.” “I’m fine, it was just a shock,” Danny said, waving off the concern. He was still breathing heavily and leaning on his cane, though that seemed to be because of the sprinting, not the static. “I’ve got a spare in my glove box, but if you can fix it, that’d be great, ‘cause I just finished filling it. Would be a week’s worth of effort down the toilet.” He grimaced, and Gorden caught sight of a fang at the corner of his mouth. “Though… before you do that maybe I should take a look at that thing you found? Or at least put it down somewhere so it doesn’t cause a chain reaction.” “That’s…probably a good idea!” Gorden admitted. He took out a handkerchief and set the crystal and multimeter down on it delicately. “It looks like someone set up the old multimeter as a way to measure magical energy. Older electromechanical setup. Would be cool if I didn’t learn it like this!” He snatched up the broken remaining part of Danny’s necklace and focused–he might not have known exactly what magic Danny put into his crystal, but reshaping the geometry would hopefully help rebuild it. “Tell me any special details you can about the crystal–where you got it from, any imperfections. It’ll help narrow down the original space.” “Er, those are kinda trade secrets…” Danny muttered, scratching his cheek, but then he sighed. “Alright, alright. Just, don’t go telling people about this, okay? The raw crystals are made of glass from the Ninth Circle. They’re the solidified tears of con-artists, frauds, liars, those types. The magic is a build up of… personal residue. It doesn’t hurt, or take anything from whoever wears it... You can think of it like a sweat collector, but for your soul and body instead of just one of ‘em. Does that help?” “Solidified tears…so high salinity…that would shape the crystal like…poo poo!” Gorden raised his hand to shield his eyes as a piece of the necklace shattered into even more pieces. “Sorry. I was, uh, raised Catholic.” It didn’t make any sense, but “I tried to put it back together using the same way I use magic, and of course that’s not how you would do it” was too long. “Of course it wouldn’t work the same way as…two different world views, two different setups, but…let’s try…” Gorden shook out his jacket and his grimoire fell to the pavement on its spine with an unhealthy sounding *whump*. Somehow the pages held together. He continued to work, switching back and forth between the crystal pieces and the grimoire, having produced a pen from somewhere to scratch notes in it. “Midway upon the journey of my life–no, no, dammit, skip to the end!” he muttered as he continued. “I…gotta admit I’ve not actually done anything with demon magic before, but dammit if I won’t give it my best–!” The next few minutes were filled with speaking in not-quite-tongues, as Gorden crossed jargons that were definitely never meant to be mixed, unless your name was Laplace or…well, Maxwell. At last Gorden ran a finger along the final crack in the crystal, and it seemed to seal itself back together. Physically at least. “Okay, I think that’s the best I got. Give that a try.” Rolling CEK at +4 starts at -3 for +1. Signature Aspect free invoke makes +5, then invoking New Age Anti Retro Millennial to help a buddy and Time Lord Most Curious for a whole new school of magic to reach +9, beating the difficulty of 8! Danny took it and held it cupped in his palm for a moment, turning it over and examining it. “Looks about like it should,” he said. It had some similarities to the red crystal, but there was light inside of it instead of shadows, and something more akin to a glimmer than sparks. After a few more seconds of fussing, Danny sighed and closed his eyes, clenching his hand into a fist around the blue crystal. He said something under his breath that Gorden couldn’t make out, and then… He was just Danny again, same as he’d always been. There was no transition, no transformation, it was almost hard to remember what he’d looked like a moment ago, as the mind slid off the demonic features and replaced them with human ones. “Phew,” Danny said, wiping his brow. “Thanks. Not a big fan of showing my face in public without my makeup on.” “Glad it works. I might have done a lot of…improvisation there,” Gorden admitted. “You want me to get you home so you can make sure the fix is good? I had, like, one sip of beer.” “Naw. Frankly I just got scared sober anyways, but I appreciate it.” He looked over at the multimeter and the round red crystal, sitting there on the handkerchief. “I’d like to know what that is more than anything, right now… and, er…” He scratched at his cheek again, embarrassed. “You’re not weirded out by the blue thing, are you? A lot of people say they’re fine with it until they see it for more than a second or two…” “Magic detector, I’m guessing,” said Gorden, easing up the multimeter so Danny could get a better look. “The crystal acts like an adapter for the multimeter to read. And the multimeter is an older analog model so it doesn’t fry before giving a reading. I wonder if I should…” He fingered his own necklace for a moment before shaking his head. “Should start smaller. More controlled settings first. As for the, uh, blue thing?” Gorden shrugged. “Kinda looked like an X-Men thing to me. Or maybe Gargoyles? Could be a lot weirder, is what I’m saying. Like a bunch of eyeballs with wings.” “That’s angels, mostly,” Danny said, with a bit of a smirk. “Mostly.” He peered at the red crystal, then held up his own blue crystal. “You’re seeing the similarities here right? Like, that thing probably came from somewhere near where I’m from, if I had to guess. Not sure what exactly it’s made of, or for what purpose... But whatever it is, it's valuable. Not something to just give away casually.” “Your stuff is tears…this isn’t blood, is it?” Gorden moved his head to try to catch the light better on the red crystal. “I thought dried blood was darker.” “Dried tears aren’t blue either,” Danny pointed out. “It could be blood, or something more metaphorical like rage or lust too. Hard to say without touching it, and I don’t want to do that again. Based on the reaction, whatever it is isn’t friendly with liars.” “That’s very true,” Gorden admitted as he handled the crystal and multimeter through the handkerchief. “Rage might cause your necklace to explode like that…but why would you need to measure that, specifically?” He closed his eyes. “Converting an old multimeter to measure magic. This is the kind of improvised scientific bullshit I’d do.” His eyes shot open again. “Is this…a gift from me to me?” “You really don’t remember?” Danny asked, concerned. “That whole fifteen minutes just, poof, gone?” “Gone.” echoed Gorden with a shake of his head. “Like being engrossed in a movie, except not only can’t I remember what I was watching, I don’t even remember coming to the theater.” “Not just invisibility then,” Danny muttered. “Other-you, if that’s who it was, has picked up some really fancy tricks. Erasing your memory just to leave you with a gadget that you obviously made yourself though… why? That’s what I don’t get. Wouldn’t it have been easier to tell you what you were supposed to do with it than leave cryptic messages in a toy cat?” “Yes, it would!” Gorden answered vigorously. “Or leave proper documentation on the multimeter or in the cat or in a flash drive or a grimoire page…something!” He drooped a bit from his animation and looked at the improvised device again. “What the hell happened in the future that turned me into some kind of furtive, paranoid…magic-concealing jerk?” “Well, maybe you became a wizard,” Danny said, without a hint of sarcasm. “Oh, ha ha.”
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What We Make Of Ourselves Scene: duSang House Grounds “Hnnnoahhhh…” The grunt that escaped Ada’s lips mingled tiredness and satisfaction in equal measure. It’d been a long day, and a tricky one besides. First all that business with the ritual, then the conference with Midas, and after that, a long session of catch-up with Hob and his gaggle of fairies at Oak Alley, trying to persuade them on the merits of waiting until tomorrow to speak with Midas. It had taken a lot of cajoling, but they’d seen reason eventually, spurred by the hope that Midas would finally prove to be the answer to their prayers. Now, as she stretched out in the pale moonlight and the solemn, silvered grass, she couldn’t help but smile. One more little thing to take care of, and she’d be able to put this long and eventful day in the books — and better yet, pencil it down as a complete victory. I wonder what insults she’ll throw my way this time, she thought, treading through the grounds, before she arrived at a familiar door and rapped at the wood with three confident knocks. She’d answer, as she always did. After all, the events of today probably still weighed heavily on her mind. Old enemies popping up always were cause for concern, even for someone as carefree as Circe. “Matron,” Circe said simply, looking over and past her, and scenting the air as she had earlier. After a tense moment she snorted, satisfied. “Gone for now then, good. Come in, my Student. I thought you might stop by. Milk and honey?” The single room shack was as cozy as usual, the fire burning in the hearth keeping it warm. Ada noticed a book she hadn’t seen before on the bedside table, with a muscular man on the cover looking longingly into the sunset as the wind blew his long blonde hair back over his shoulders. Not touching that one with a ten foot pole, Ada thought, studiously keeping her eyes off it. Romance novels falling into her hands are not a catastrophe until I let her out into the world beyond the Château’s grounds. We’ll cross that bridge if and when we get there. “Please,” she said, closing the door behind her. “I could go for a little sweetness right now. We’re not being watched by the F— the three then?” she asked, curiously. How did Circe know if they were lurking around, anyway? “Only insofar as everyone always is,” Circe said, shrugging. She passed a teacup to Ada. It was warm to the touch. “That’s a relief. My life’s interesting enough without having the living incarnations of destiny breathing down my neck.” She blew on the tea for a little while, focusing on getting it into a state where she could drink it. A tentative sip suggested it needed a little more work. The next attempt, however, was to her satisfaction. “You know the three better than I do,” she said, as she finished her first proper sip. “What’s your take on Lachesis’ request?” “Rubbish,” Circe said simply. “She means to test your worth as a catspaw, no more. If you prove amenable to fulfilling one task she will set you another, all the while pretending that you are the one who owes her favors rather than the other way ‘round.” “And at the same time, failing isn’t much of an option, because she’ll make sure to dispose of useless tools,” Ada guessed, trying to follow her teacher’s train of thought. “So how do I get her off my back then?” “Do what she asks, but just poorly enough that she finds no further use for you.” Circe sipped from her own cup. “Or find some other way to make your service costly enough that she won’t come knocking every other night as though you have nothing better to do than entertain her.” “Go for a C grade? Mmm.” It was an obvious solution, and one that would, presumably, take care of the problem, but the thought of underachieving on purpose rankled her. Would it even work, given how Lachesis knew she’d thrice defied fate already? “Won’t it just offend her if I half-rear end and try to pretend I can’t do better than that?” she asked, consciously ignoring Circe’s pointed remark about her constant visits. “Even if she leaves me alone now, that’ll just encourage her to put obstacles in my way going forwards.” “She is far too busy to waste her time punishing mediocrity,” Circe said, shaking her head. “I have spit at the feet of the Fates since I was a child, and have no qualms with continuing to offend them until the sun darkens. If that is not your aim, my counsel in this matter is of little worth. The seer may have better advice on the placation of his goddess.” “No, it’s good advice. Even if I decide not to do that in the end, it still gives me insight into how they think.” For a moment, Ada fell silent, staring at the steaming depths of her cup. Then, she laughed. “Look at me, weighing the consequences of making an enemy of the Fates even though I’ve gone against them thrice already and won. I probably look like a coward, thinking about how to make as few enemies as possible while still getting what I want. Not even an established leader yet, and I already can’t just freely do what I’d truly want to do. So much looking ahead, planning, thinking…” “How else are you to learn? Leadership is a craft like any other.” Circe’s lip curled, as if the honey in her tea had suddenly turned bitter. “Bravery does not mean you should make enemies without thinking, nor does acknowledging your own limits make you a coward. Your instincts have served you well thus far. Trust them, and develop them while you still can. Many lives will soon depend upon them.” They were harsh words, and blunt as well, but not unkind, which was very unusual coming from Circe. For a moment, Ada felt tempted to raise her eyes in surprise, but bringing attention to the fact would just put Circe on the defensive. There was no reason to make her uncomfortable, when she might not even be truly aware of how much softer her critique had been than what Ada’d been expecting. So instead, she closed her eyes, picked up her teacup and drank from it. The heated liquid splashed past her mouth and fell towards her stomach, its sweetness clinging to the back of her throat. Good metaphor for achievement, she thought. The moment comes and goes, but the aftertaste of victory remains. “I’ll do what I can,” she said, her eyelids fluttering open. “We made headway towards settling debts today. How do you feel about the path we’ve found towards restoring Zoë?” “It showed much promise, but I would caution you to temper your expectations. The little princess has been lost to us for much longer than an hour. And unlike your puppy, her body has already been subject to all kinds of magicks, potions, and alchemy in the vain hope of restoring her to life.” Circe frowned, swirling the dregs in her cup. “Pray that Lachesis’ distaff remains intact. If it does not…” “...Then the thread of her life won’t ever be spun again, no matter what we try.” It was a sobering thought, particularly when remembering what else was at stake based on this. Her life, her future…and it all came down to luck. But it’s always that way, she thought. There’s always a chance things go wrong, same as there’s a chance things go better than you could’ve ever imagined. Fear of chance is a soul killer. I won’t let it take mine. “We’ll do what we can. And if there’s any way to make a miracle happen, we’ll be ready.” She reached out with one hand towards the hearth, feeling its heat. Out the corner of her eye, the flame flickered, and Ada couldn’t help but wonder if that was what the candles of their lives looked like to the Fates. They might have to seize a flame to bring Zoë back to her father. And if so, management skills and steely determination wouldn’t cut it. She’d need something more to save the day. “...Teacher,” she began, her voice very serious. “There’s something I want to know, but you don’t have to answer if it’s too private. What was learning magic like for you? How did you find your power?” Circe did not answer right away, following Ada’s gaze towards the firelight instead. She stared deeply into the flames, and they danced for a moment in her dark, unblinking eyes. “At my mother’s knee, when I was very, very young. She was a sea nymph, wilder even than me. She showed me the truths of growing things… That was how I was taught. Not spells or incantations but simple truths, that when invoked could not be denied.” She paused and her eyes settled on Ada, twin pools of blackest ink. “My natural gifts lie in an understanding of trees and beasts, and in the bounty of my garden. Such wealth is built slowly, with much time and effort. But once properly established, a true place of power returns any sacrifices you give into it tenfold, sometimes even more. You tasted but one of many forbidden fruits when you visited there.” Truths? It was an interesting way of thinking about magic. Coming from anyone else, Ada would’ve just dismissed it as common wizardly arrogance, but the way Circe explained it, her power had come from someone who had an intimate understanding of the world. “One more reason you wish to return to your garden, then,” Ada remarked, nodding thoughtfully. “It’s like being apart from a piece of yourself in more ways than one, isn’t it? Even beyond mementoes and memories, it’s like a part of you is missing.” Circe grunted an assertion and set her cup on the bedside table. “In the cold of winter, seeds sleep and wait for spring. So too do I sleep and wait, knowing that there will be a time for growing again if I am patient. Such hibernation is needful, from time to time. Have I answered your question?” “Only by giving me even more questions, but yes.” For a moment, Ada let silence fall between them, knowing that rushing into things would only make her seem desperate. Above all things, she couldn’t let her teacher get the wrong idea from this. “Teacher, do you think I should…or could learn that kind of magic, if I wanted my power back?” She did not seem surprised by the question, but considered it carefully, crossing her arms and thinking for a long moment. “To what ends would you use it?” she asked finally. My ends, was the first thought that crossed her mind, but that wasn’t helpful. It was a good question, and worth thinking it over carefully. Was it fighting? No…though she couldn’t deny that a part of her she’d rather forget had rushed to answer yes. This ran deeper than that. She’d felt so powerless today, in spite of being responsible for bringing together every wizard who’d participated in the ritual and marshaling all the resources needed to break the curse’s hold over Eriol. She hated the feeling of sitting around doing nothing when things were going wrong, of looking at people’s injuries and knowing all she could do was see them to a doctor, of knowing her magic had never, not once in her life, helped her do something she could’ve been proud of. So what kind of power do I really want? “...I want to bind others to me,” she began, the glazed look in her eyes clearing up as she spoke. “I want to know what’s happened to them, what they feel, what their needs are. I want to claw their lives back from death’s door. I want to capture people’s hearts in ways they won’t admit to anyone, maybe not even themselves. I want to push my body beyond its limits, as far as I need it to go. Better than human, stronger, faster, as smooth and perfect as an animal’s body but with a conscious design. I want magic where I can’t tell where it starts and I begin, instead of a system of old rules made for people with tiny imaginations and even smaller souls. I want magic that is life, and not some dead thing I dust off when it’s convenient and put back on a shelf when I’m done.” She hadn’t noticed her voice getting heated until the last few words rose in volume, and she realized she was out of breath. She breathed in, deeply, feeling the heat and the smoke and the wooden tones in the air, and then released. “That’s what I want…I think.” “You are mortal,” Circe said. “To learn the magic I was taught as a babe would take decades of study and practice, if you devoted yourself wholly to it. It is not impossible… but you do not have the time or the patience for it, I think. I could brew potions that would change you into what you seek, but that would not be your magic, and you would lose much of yourself in the changing.” “Then that’s not the path I should choose.” It was a shame, with how fascinating Circe’d made it sound, but she hadn’t gone through so much to find out what she wanted, only to cast her very self away. “Do you know of something else I could do then, Teacher?” “There are many paths to power,” Circe said. “My mother taught me one, and my goddess another. Hecate asked little of me, and offered much that I desired.” “Did she? I thought priests and priestesses led busy lives in the name of their gods.” The note of wariness in Ada’s voice was palpable. Extra obligations were not burdens to be taken on lightly. “Hm… that is true, but the rites and sacrifices were always pleasurable. I lived by her laws long before we made formal arrangements, so perhaps it was simply a natural fit. She is not a goddess who demands proselytizing or congregations, most of her faithful come to her singly and worship alone or in pairs.” She put her hands together, palms curled as if holding an invisible object between them. “Strive. Survive. Thrive. These are the three commands.” It was such an easy set of instructions Ada kept waiting for Circe to keep going after she’d finished speaking. When she realized the witch had said her piece, her face twisted into a frown. “Doesn’t that mean I’ve been following her commandments for a while, then? I can’t think of a better summary of what these last few months have been like.” Circe laughed softly. “In some ways, yes. In others, not at all. A beast lives in the moment, thinking nothing of her future. She seeks a full belly, a warm cave, a mate to rut with and children to nurture. A pack leader may seek these things for her pack, but what you seek is to build a nation. That is a different thing entirely.” She stopped and stretched, rolling her shoulders in an almost feline manner. “I quite enjoyed living for the present, each day fresh and new and full of possibilities. Doing what I pleased without thought of consequence.” “‘He who makes a beast of himself, gets rid of the pain of being a man.’,” she quoted. “But being human doesn’t pain me at all. And besides, if I started worshiping Hecate, it’d ruin the faith.” “Ruin?” Circe snorted. “Without a doubt,” Ada nodded. “I want to be a leader. If I succeed, people will start looking up to me, wanting to learn from my example, as they always do. And when the word gets out that I worship Hecate, others will try to do the same, without understanding what it’s like. It’ll become something popular, communal. A cult, not a private faith, and one missing the point besides. It’d be disrespectful to let that come to pass.” “I said most, not all. There have been many cults over the centuries. Some of them were as you said, worthless in all ways, but also some in which the leaders kept faith. If you worshiped honestly, and your followers did not, then you could correct them. If you could not worship honestly then you have no business saying you do.” “Then I won’t,” Ada nodded, more confident in her decision than before. “I think there’s room for carefree beasts in the world I want to build, but I can’t be one myself if I want to make sure they and the human order can coexist. This leaves that question still hanging, though. What…or who…do I need to unlock the kind of magic I want to have?” Circe’s brows went up at the mention of carefree beasts having a place, and then furrowed again as the question was repeated. “Unlocking is not finding,” she said. “Mortal magic takes many forms. Do you believe these gifts are already to be found in your bloodline?” Ada took a few moments to consider the question. “...I don’t think so,” she said, after a while. “Or at least, if it existed, it’s not what was passed down to the present day. My mother and Great-Grandmother had powerful gifts, but nothing I’ve seen from them seems as…natural as what I’m looking for, for lack of a better word.” She pondered what she’d seen for a moment. Yuric didn’t seem like he’d fit the bill of what she was looking for, either, and while the duSang family crypt had a palpable emotional charge, that was only one piece of the greater whole she was seeking. “There was nothing of it in the family records either. I think, if something like this existed, it wouldn’t have survived because it would’ve been found amongst the family’s failures. The people who succumbed to bloodlust, the ones who did things that couldn’t be covered up…they would’ve walked into it by mistake, and not by choice like me.” Circe stroked her chin gently with a finger. “Perhaps records of failure are not kept where any child seeking answers can find them… Or if they were destroyed by the family, others may have preserved knowledge in part or in whole. Servants have long memories, and pass their stories to their children in order to better prepare them for their role. Old allies… or enemies… may remember surprising things.” “We don’t have any old allies. But…hmm.” There was that one guy, Bruneau, wasn’t it? He seemed to have beef with the family. Maybe it was worth looking into him, seeing if she couldn’t get some answers out of him. “I can consult with Roy. He’s been with us for such a long time that maybe he’ll know something. I’ll follow up on any leads I can find, but what if there isn’t anything in the family’s history?” “If the past is empty, then you must look to the future,” Circe said, leaning over to poke her in the chest. “Mortal magic comes from here, and for your kind all things are both possible and impossible at once. If you would forsake the magic of words and tomes, then you must drown yourself in the unspoken magic of life. You must be able to control it, instead of simply letting yourself be cradled by it. If your magic allows you to sleep less than others, then do not sleep for two weeks. If your magic allows you to produce blood, then bleed until you can no longer replace it. If your magic allows you to go without food or water, then starve and thirst until you cannot bear it any longer. Run until your legs will no longer carry you, and then crawl until even your knees give out. Once your body can do nothing, once your life is sustained only by your magic, you will either learn control, or die.” She’d never heard that kind of advise before, but it seemed familiar, somehow…and then, Circe’s words struck a chord. “Teacher,” Ada began, a funny look on her face. “Are you familiar with the Old Man of the Lake?” She nodded. “Of course. One does not build a shrine in another’s home without first gaining permission.” “Once upon a time, I needed to speak with him, but didn’t know how to find him. So my Great-Grandmother drugged me and left me by the side of the road, trusting that I’d either find a way to reach him or be tough enough to make my way back home when I woke up. I didn’t have magic anymore by that point, but I was so furious it didn’t matter. I just stabbed myself through the gut and used my lifeblood to call upon him.” For a moment, she could feel an echo of that rage, burning red and bright. “It worked, too. His boat arrived, and I got to meet with him and cut a deal.” She looked up. “I think you’re right. If I’m going to get my magic back, I’ll have to cross some boundaries I wouldn’t dare to otherwise. There’s no other way.” She swallowed. “I think I’ll have to do this alone, though. I can’t ask you to find ways to push me any further. When it starts to look like things are going wrong, my family and the others will think you were just planning to backstab me and go after you, and I won’t be in position to talk them down before they make a mistake.” “Inward journeys can only be made alone,” Circe said. “That’s why the risks are many, but so are the rewards. Even failure comes with self-insight…” She trailed off, her lips pursing. “Is that what happened today, matron? A mistake?” “No, but it almost was. Richter doesn’t know that you’re more than just a snarling ball of teeth, but I know better and I’m not in the business of letting people make bad decisions just because they don’t care to learn what others truly are like.” For a moment, she stared at the witch thoughtfully, a strangely piercing look in her eyes. “Being an animal’s nicer and easier, but an animal couldn’t have given me what I’ve gotten out of our conversations. You’re one of the most interesting and honest people I know, Teacher — with others and with yourself.” “It’s not my teeth that he fears,” she said softly. “We wear many faces, my student. The one I showed to Richter was no less true, no less honest, than the one I show you now. You seek magic to bind others to you, but what use would that be when you can already do so with only words and actions? Today you came to me not to order my assistance, but to gift me a chance to redeem my past failure, and then stood as my shield against the rightful vendetta of the man you dueled me to save.” She shook her head, as if she still didn’t quite believe it. “Both of these things could be explained by you acting as my matron, but I am not stupid. That’s not why you did them. If I am interesting, Ada, then what are you?” Ada blinked. “What do you mean? I’m…” But then she fell silent, the ‘I’m just me’ she was about to utter dying upon her tongue. What was she, really? Who was she, to make these calls? Most people would never even consider gambling with the life of a mentor and the mental health of a very close friend just for the chance to do right by both. Most people would’ve taken an easy side, and refused to forgive. But I’m not most people. I’m something else. I’m… “...I’m reckless, foolish, impertinent and hopelessly idealistic. I’m years, maybe decades too young to get anything I set my mind to achieve. I promise I’m going to do impossible things and then I go out and do them and I get people to believe in something that’s way too good to be true. Something that’s scary to believe in, because it’s going to hurt so bad when you wake up and you find out the dream’s ended, except it never does, and how do you even live with the realization that you get to live out your happy ending? I’m…I don’t know, Teacher. Am I just Icarus, trying to fly to the sun? Is everyone just stopping and staring at me so they can see if the wax in my wings melts?” There was a bewildered note in her voice now, like a child raised from birth to think herself blind who’d just found out she could actually see. “Teacher…the person inside you that’s so interesting to talk to…was she always there? Or did I make her?” Circe’s face split into a sudden, fierce grin. “You made me your gardener to start, and then your advisor, whether I willed it or not. My words hold value to you. For a long time I’ve kept them close and used them only as weapons. But now I have better uses for them, and for the memories and experiences of my life. It is new, and I find myself taking to the role like a fish to a river. It is… unexpected, and few things are at my age.” “Do you resent me for it? For all I’ve done to you?” “Perhaps I should. I was not unhappy before.” It was very weak wording, particularly for someone like Circe who never garnished her truths. “Not as an animal,” she agreed. “But you weren’t born one, Teacher. Didn’t you choose to become one to forget what it was like to lead a woman’s life?” “A story for another evening,” she said dismissively. “I don’t resent you, girl. In fact, I would inflict you upon my brute of a son. Perhaps you are just what he needs and would never think to look for, as you are for so many people.” She glanced at the single high window, the one she’d watched Agrius fly home through. “I don’t… but be careful. One day you may meet someone who does.” “I was thinking of paying him a visit already,” Ada said, a small smile brightening up her face, though it was short lived. “Teacher, you told me to push myself beyond my limits to find my magic. Do you think I can afford the mistakes I’ll make when I’m weak and tired and too addled to think straight?” Circe sighed. “Find time for weakness, or do not make the attempt. That is part of the cost, and you will pay it. Though they cannot walk with you, your allies can shoulder your burdens for a time. If they cannot, you have greater problems.” Yeah. I do. When it really mattered, when I had something more than pride to lose, people weren’t there for me. I still don’t know if there’ll be someone who’ll help me when I can’t make it on my own. I can’t believe that they’ll be there…but if I want to get anywhere, I’ll still have to trust them. I can’t just stay the same while everyone else around me changes. If I want to keep up with the new world I’m making, this is the only way I have. “I have a champion now,” Ada said, forcing herself to smile in spite of her worries. “And friends that I can count on. I’ll see if I can’t make do. And when I’ve found the magic that I’ve always wanted, Teacher, you’ll be among the first to see it.” Circe did not reply, but there was something new in her smile, something that looked a lot like pride.
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May 3, 2022 02:52
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