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The trees are budding, the grass is green, the smell of spring is in the air, and the ground lets out a soft thud as Guy slams into it feet first. He stands up, looking about, his eyes sharp instead of his usual cool gaze. Sniffing the air, he starts walking out of the thicker part of the trees, towards the bridge he often finds certain people at. “Thank you for coming,” he says as a certain vampire arrives suddenly as well.(edited)
When Rena needs to get somewhere, she gets there. Sure she's no fancy Space Mage, but she can move damn fast. And sure enough, the flickery running form of Rena comes to a halt as she skids next to Guy. She's not saying anything just yet, waiting for her boss to handle the pleasantries, but worry is written all over her face and her hands are fidgeting in her jeans' pockets.
It may not be a fruitless venture. Even from a distance, the scattered, brilliant Autumnal leaves on the bridge suggest something out of the ordinary, even if there's not much to see just now.
The autumn leaves scatter around a sleepy-looking fox, curled up on the bridge. Its eyes aren't fully closed, but it looks pretty chill right now.
He glances over his shoulder at Rena, down at her hands and then back up to her worried face. “It’ll be alright...”
He walks out onto the bridge, picking up a leaf and twirling it before letting it fall. “Jackie?”
He looks over at the sleeping fox, and sniffs the air again. “And another friend...”
This Fox might be a secret wizard, but she's still a fox and a fox is still pretty dog looking. Rena's anxiety spikes higher upon seeing her and she does a thing that she will never admit to doing. She hides behind Guy. "It better be alright," she mutters, her words a little too shaky to sound flippant
A hand halfway through the process of reforming out of nothing plucks the leaf out of the air. "It's not polite to lay hands on a lady's delicates, you know." Johnnie doesn't sound displeased, though, just like she thinks she's clever for calling a leaf delicate. "Evening, Guy. Evening- ah... Rena, was it?" Johnnie presents ever more like the Elders- her composure unbreakable, her movements impossibly fluid, her disposition suggesting she's aware of everything around them.
"Whatever it is, if you have the time to come find me, I'm sure it -will- be alright, even if. Perhaps. It isn't now." Johnnie crouches to bury a hand in the fox's ruff, behind it's ears, and give it a good rubbing. "How bad is she?"
Maybe she was aware of everything.
Or maybe it's easy for a girl suffering her own clarity damage to recognize that others might not have been so lucky.
The vulpine secret wizard halfway asleep on the bridge cracks one golden eye when Guy sniffs the air -- the little sound standing out from the normal forest sounds -- and when Rena hides behind him, its other eye opens. She blinks slowly, like a contented cat, and then begins a yawn as she rouses herself. The mouth stays mostly the same while the body around it changes; those sharp fox teeth simply relocating into a humanoid mouth. One hand rises to rub her eyes. "Hmmpgh?"
Guy takes a slow breath, and nods to both Jackie and Fox. “This is my protégée, Rena. Rena, this is Jackie, who you might have met around, and this is Fox, a more recent acquaintance.”
Then his attention dials in on Jackie. “She’s comatose. I need to speak to the other healers of your people, or...whoever can help her.”
Rena would exhale deeply if she breathed. But she doesn't so she just kinda centers herself. Stands up straighter. Takes her hands out of her pockets. "I actually know both of them. Saw, um, Jackie there in the ghost world and Fox in the park."
"But yeah, I'm here to help out anyway I can. If there's anything you need me for, anything at all, I'm here."
Jackie winces. It's barely visible, but it is, and that's about as loud a reaction as swearing from her. "I see. That's... difficult." Johnnie takes a deep breath, offering Fox a hand if she'd like to stand. "If she's so damaged, she needs help. Not- mending, exactly. She needs -rescued.- From herself."
She continues to rub her eyes. "I know Rena. She's very grumpy about being a vampire and probably needs more hugs." Fox says this so simply, as if it's just A Fact Everyone Knows. She doesn't look surprised at the words that Guy speaks, either. "So that's what the dream was about," she murmurs. Hopefully Fox doesn't mean the one where she missed the invitation to an orgy. He takes the proffered hand up and rolls themself up to her feet, stretching lazily, though her gold-green eyes flick sharply from one person to the next. "Vasha had a vision," she clarifies.
Guy doesn’t shift his weight so much as ripple slightly, before running his fingers through his short hair. “How can I help her? I know that...it’s probably something she needs help from others of her kind, but...I can’t just sit on the sidelines. I at least want to be there.”
He looks to Fox. “He the one who left the note in Maddy’s? The letters thing was cute.”
"I don't need a hug," Rena mumbles, grumpily. It's only a little bit of a lie.
"Would getting someone from our side of the fence who can fuck with brains help?"
"Ah.. well?" Johnnie took a deep breath. "There's... theoretically... ways to bring other sorts of folx in on the rescue mission, but it involves a lot of... dubiously wise decisions. Taking people places they shouldn't be. And then to places past those. I've never even talked to anyone who went through the trouble to try to drag someone else all that way. And that's all just to get to wherever she is. I can't hazard so much as a guess as to what it's like in her head. And from what I understand, your sort of mindplay has a lot more to do with instructions than Fantastic Voyage-style internal repairs. Am I right about that?"
"Mmm," agrees Fox. "He's the one of us who was there when the thing that didn't happen, didn't happen." Her gaze flicks to Rena, then to Guy, and she plows onward. "The one who made it so that ... the attack didn't happen." Then he goes quiet, turning her attention to Vorpal, listening.
“She...explained that part, how it didn’t happen after it did.”
He thinks for a moment, then nods to Vorpal. “And alter memories. There are some who can read minds as well. Get someone who can do both, and they can be...surgical. But that’s something you do for someone who wants something traumatic removed, or the like. Not good for pulling people out of their own heads. Besides, I’m not sure we have someone who could, anyway. Maybe just reach her in there, if they can work deep enough, I don’t know...” He lets out a little sigh. “Not my area of expertise.”
"Well, fuck, that was my theory." Rena pauses for a second, kicking a pebble on the bridge far away from it. "Wait, hold on, how the fuck does something happen and not happen. Is this some magic bullshit?"
"It is some -mighty- magic bullshit. It did good work, and I'm grateful, but you're very right," Jackie offers Rena. "And those aren't the sort of things that would help, no. I won't say none of your sort could help, but I will say I don't know any tricks you have that can. Though that may say more about how vocal you all are than my own expertise or the chances of that existing."
Fox opens her mouth as if to explain, then reconsiders, and just closes her mouth again once Jackie offers the short version entirely. She scuffs one foot absently on the bridge. Her gaze turns upward and outward toward the park in general, as if looking for something, or someone, or maybe just thinking about stuff.
Nearby, a slavic man in a track suit is crouching. Not so nearby as to make his sudden arrival without notice improbable. Not so far as to imply coincidence either. He is squinting at the small gathering and smoking a particularly awful cigarette. And while he does not speak a word, his body language definitely talks with its hands and listens to Kazka.
Guy grunts softly. “The basics are pretty simple, no need to be quiet about them. You watch a movie with someone in black on the cover, you have a solid grasp of what we can do. It’s the special things that people are more quiet about, generally speaking. Anyway. Whatever journey to the center of the mind needs to be done...” He curses softly. “If I can’t go, I’ll live. But I’ll definitely be with her while it happens, I’m not negotiating on that.”
The arrival of the Slav gets a whip crack of Guy’s head, and it definitely gets too far around before his shoulders catch up in their turn. “Someone tell me they know him, please.”
Jackie wrinkles her nose and sniffs. Sniffs again, her face screwing up, lifting a hand to rub at her nostrils and quietly making note not to sniff like that for the time being. "It's not "can you." It's should you. And my gut instinct says probably not. But also admits it might not hurt. I think she'd be happier to wake up to you there and safe than to find out you were put in danger, if I had to guess."
"Oh, him? Judging by the... particular brand of cigarette, our proximity to Fox, and what I am going to guess is a track suit judging by the amount of synthetic?" She nods. "We know him. Some better than others," she murrs, smiling at Fox.
Fox is looking up at the stars around the time that Vasha presumably slips out from underneath Incognito Presence, and then when Guy's head snaps toward the shape in the trees, the Thyrsus' gold eyes light up like a child who just woke up on Christmas morning and found everything she ever wanted underneath the tree. Safe to say: she knows who it is. And if that weren't enough, she turns on her heels, flings her arms wide and runs headlong toward the Slav Squatting man, squealing: "Vashaaaaaaaaaa!"
Well, that does answer a question or two.
The wiry crouching slav stretches up to his full height and flicks the silver chains around his neck, flashing the paradoxically blingy hammer and sickle around his neck. "Yes. It would be a shame if loose talk enjoyed a consequence." He taps a little ash from his cigarette, then a deeper drag. "But your secrets are safe with me, for whatever that is worth these days." He tosses a chin up towards Fox, opening his arms to receive her, "Fox."
Guy’s knuckles pop like dry gravel, crack-crack-crack-crack, before he looks down at his hand accusingly and forces it to relax. “What secrets?”
He forces an unnecessary breath, and shakes his head once. It doesn’t seem to help. “I would like to know what happened at the event that was...circumvented. Or at least some insight into why my girlfriend is in a coma.”
The tiny Orphan climbs him like a tree, flinging her arms around his neck, and smooches him heartily, as is her rite (and right) and custom. "Well, I wasn't going to go dragging everyone into my secret hiding places, I guess. And we're out in the middle of nowhere. I could, though." Because everyone wants to sit around in a Mage's secret otherworldly hiding places, right?
"The events aren't the greater part of what happened to her," Johnnie explains, watching Fox bolt off like lightning. The comment of secrets bothers her little. She's said little that couldn't be repeated at a lucid dreaming conference, and it's hardly her responsibility to police the chatter of others. "There was an attack, and while the attack was on someone she cared for, the worst of it was the rest. As it happens, those like us don't do well with discovering our recollection of events is not- or is no longer- accurate. Nor do we react particularly well to outside powers acting upon us that cause such to happen. That's going to have done most of the work. The important part is that her coma is correctable, and the precluded event would have been far less so. As much as it's undesirable, this situation has far more potential for a good outcome than the other. Trust me on that."
She lifts a hand towards Vasha, offering a delicate smile. "Good evening, friend. I'd ask if it treats you well, but you have good treatment climbing your throat like someone's favorite oak. I suspect you're just fine tonight."
Vasha is silent, just staring across at the vampire in a manner that suggests he's no entirely on board about trusting said vampire. But, after regaining his composure and dignity in the wake of being snogged by Fox and clearing his throat politely, he finds himself nodding his head in slow agreement. "Yes. Yes, I suppose you have that right. You care for her, and she cares for you." The 'for some reason' is very much implied by his tone of voice, but he at least seems inclined to do right by the guy. He gives Johnnie a little chin up of her own, "It's fine, he deserves a true accounting. Or as true as can be managed, given that it no longer happened."
He looks back to Guy and explains, "One of my kind-- one of the bad guys, he broke one of our ancient and sacred clubhouse rules and attacked two of your own. Very badly. With a sword. In front of cameras. It was going viral all across social media, the attack. The ... unusual aspects of the crime. It wasn't just to spare the young woman a brutal attack, though it absolutely was that. It was to prevent a greater crime against our secrecy and her own. And I gave her and her friends the much deserved opportunity to put the hurt on the one that came to kill them. I let them spill our blood as a gesture of good faith, and they did not disappoint."
"I could not have anticipated the results being so catastrophic. For my part in that, I am sorry. And I am seeking to help make amends."
Guy nods along with Jackie and Vasha’s explanations, a mechanical motion as he processes everything. “I thank you for your efforts in protecting the Masquerade, then. And thank you for the apology. Since the bad guy has already been dealt with, I’m not looking to blame anyone. The gesture of making amends is appreciated, though, by me at the very least.”
He sticks his hands in the pockets of his jacket and starts to pace slowly and deliberately. Step-step-step-turn, again and again. “Just want to understand how it got to this, if I can’t fix it myself.”(edited)
"We can go somewhere for unguarded talk," Fox offers in a quiet interject. "I can do that." She continues to hang on Vasha like a particularly contented sloth on a tree, legs wrapped around his waist, arms around his neck.
Johnnie clears her throat delicately. "Some of us restrained ourselves very much during the putting of the hurt, actually." She nods towards Fox, agreeing with the plan and withholding further comments until that resolves.
"I have said what I needed to say, and imparted the reminder I wished to impart. If others want to go somewhere else for unguarded talk, that is fine. But I have said what I came to say." Which seems to be the end of it for him. It seems as though he's content to just faff off again and disappear into the darkness once more. He's good like that.
Guy looks at Vasha and Fox a moment, then nods. “I will trust you with this, Fox, thank you.”
"Yes, very well. But you haven't seen my house yet," Fox answers Vasha, and there's a sort of gentle glitter to her gold eyes. "I made some upgrades to it." She finally lets go of his neck, and their bare feet land on the Spring earth. She doesn't make an elaborate show of it all, as sometimes Fox might, but instead just curls her fingers on her right hand just so, calling a glimmering iris into being. "No one else can pass it but us." The glance she gives Vasha probably means 'well, us and your buddy.' Just beyond the iris glitters a room in shades of green, with grassy-mossy floors, bean bags, low couches, and a couple of hammocks.
Jackie strides in and makes herself comfortable in one of the hammocks with a mindbendingly fluid flop, waiting for the others before she gets chatty.
Guy steps inside, looking about, very deliberately not touching anything as he finds a good spot to stand.
Once Vasha has sidled into the spirit world, all subtle-like, it becomes immediately apparent that Vasha wasn't alone out there. A small ball of electric light and sound hovers just over his shoulder, crackling and popping in a manner that just sounds like noise to those who don't speak spirit. Or have a mystical connection to it. It's sure making a lot of noise at the moment, which is causing Vasha to give it the side eye. "We're not going to play Rockband, Double O." If it's possible for floating orbs to looks disappointed, this one does.
"I'll play Rockband with you later, Oontz-Oontz," Fox reassures, padding across the room like it's her home -- which it is, one of them -- and flopping into one of the other hammocks, keeping her own space. The iris closes after everyone's inside. "And you can sing and play guitar if you want." She takes in a deep breath. "Nothing here will bite you," she assures Guy. "You can sit down."
Outside the vague window shapes within this sort of spherical little house, the spirits of Wissahickon slip by. "They can't get in. And here, no one can hear us."
Jackie just melts into the hammock like everything's normal, peering out the window a moment before looking back at the others. "I really did play nice. I could have bisected her with that knife- with what I did to it, I could have dropped it tip down and it woulda melted before it stopped moving." She stares at the ceiling a moment. "Some of us forget that it takes a toll to take a life, or- get so enamoured in being "mighty" that they stop caring. Not sure which, really. It's not my job to teach them that, but I wish to god somebody would." It's easy for Vasha, at least, to remember the blunt end of a spear being put through the offending mage.
"Strong shouldn't mean 'in charge.'"
Vasha climbs into one of the hammocks, allowing his familiar spirit to float up and settle down in the crook of his arm like a cat might. Only this cat is staticky and buzzes a lot. "It is good you showed restraint when you did for the sake of others. You do not need to convince me you are dangerous in a fight. It was for that reason that I enlisted all of your help in defeating the attacker. Mage on Mage, that was probably the most even fight I have ever picked for myself. Flip a coin, that's the outcome. Without your help, things may have gone very differently." He flicks some ash away from his hammock and adds, "Force multiplication is a hobby of mine. Typically in destabilized regions of the near east."
“If it would be preferred, I can sit, but it makes no difference to me. I tend to be cautious with furniture, though.”
He shrugs.
“And if the altercation was that public, it’s for the best I wasn’t there, even if Petra and I would have liked me to have been.” He nods to Jackie. “And there’s that toll, of course.”
Oop. Look, it's a Fox! Once Vasha chooses his own hammock, Fox insinuates herself into his, because that is how a Fox do. She flops on her back, puts her head on his stomach, and contentedly listens, for the most part. When Vasha says that was the most even fight he's ever been in? For the first time, she blinks rapidly and looks -- a little concerned. Yeah, he told her the stats of the Seer in question, yes. But somehow... she was never a moment concerned about how the whole thing would come out, until just now.
"Well, whatever makes you happy and comfortable, then, Guy. Or as happy as you can be." A little sigh. "So this rescuing her from herself. You lot can do it? Can we help you in any way?"
Something about what Vasha says strikes Jackie as immediately funny, and leaves her tittering behind a lifted hand. "Oh, goodness. You know, I only just realized it was more important that I be understood as "precise" than that I present as "dangerous"? I'm not sure at what point I decided I didn't need to convince anyone else I was lethal, but. Apparently that's come and gone. Interesting- but it's good to feel needed. It was... deeply gratifying to hear that bitch shriek in impotent rage when her sword forgot it had a future and stopped moving."
"Mm. Like I said, a toll that I get concerned about when it seems forgotten or disregarded. What was it that fellow keeps repeating in the wizard movie? "The bill comes due.
Always.""
She glances to Fox and nods. "We can. It's relatively... simple. I'm hesitant to involve myself. The last time I stepped into a dream, I came out thinking I was-"
She stops mid-sentence.
"... someone I am not any longer."
"I do dreams. But considering I am sort of responsible for why we need to be doing a brain heist in the first place, I am perhaps not the ideal choice for people to go heisting her brain. You know? Probably just make it worst somehow. It's a gift I have. I back horses, and they break legs." Vasha scooches over a bit in the hammock to make room for Fox, which causes him to jostle his familiar, who complains by loudly buzzing and playing a sound bit of an angry man from New York saying, 'I'm walkin' here!'
"Everything about her kind is like looking through a mirror at what I know of magic. The rules are backwards and upside and the paths in lead you out again. Makes one wonder."
Guy is quiet for a moment. “I don’t have a lot to offer about the situation magically speaking. Not my thing. Just...have to be doing something. Figured Jackie could point me in the right direction, who to contact and that sort of thing. It’s, ah...yes. Out of my depth. I can’t protect her from this sort of thing.”
"We do what we can with what we have, and hope others can make up the difference," Vasha mumbles, commiserating with a vampire like a normal person with healthy habits.
"Oh, Oontz Oontz, come sit by me," Fox offers mildly over her shoulder, like she isn't the equivalent of a rank 5 spirit these days. "Don't fuss." She listens to everyone talk. "Mom-mom knows about dreams. She could probably tell me something. But I went one way and she'd long ago gone another." Her nose wrinkles thoughtfully.
"What does it make you wonder, My Heart?"
"To be fair, your backed horse did a lot of work making sure there were legs left to break," Jackie points out gently. "As you say. Others can make up the difference."
"You can't protect her from this. But you can likely help her recover from it. And almost surely make her feel better just by being there when she wakes," she offers.
"The rules make sense to us, I think. Agreements are made. Things stick to their agreements. Need there be more than that? Beyond such, there are few limits."
He sighs softly. “It still feels a little strange, relying on others. Maybe it feels a little more strange because I’ve been...” He shakes his head a little. “Been remembering things.” Because that wasn’t weird and vague or anything. “But I can be there to help her. She will be happy I’m there when she wakes up, I do know that much.”
"Oh. Just musing if their Arcadia and ours aren't simply a dog with two heads barking that they can't chase different balls. Even our experiences there greatly differ. So. Perhaps once this war is over I can take up theoretical studies."
Vasha passes Oontz-Oontz over to rest between the two mages. If it had a belly, it would be pointed up and wanting pets and also Xtasy.
"That would be lovely. Time for theoretical studies, and other such pursuits." She curls her fingers in the air as if toying with something there, or perhaps practicing a yantra. "Well, it's sort of the way of our folx to have to rely on others. Being alone is hard on us." A look over at Guy, and then to Vorpal. "I made Lux's knife better, when that bitch hurt them in their apartment."
"If we can help, let me know." And they pet Double-O's belly gently.
It doesn't have a belly really. She does it anyway.
Jackie nods slowly. "I can relate to feeling odd, relying on others. Had to learn. Took... years. Sounds like you've been working on it longer."
"I'd be deeply interested to learn what you and yours know of Arcadia. Mine tell one story a thousand times different. Perhaps the missing truths are in yours."
Jackie's lips narrow. "I wish I'd known more of the sort of threat we faced. Enough to save Lux that pain. I'll be trying to make sure I don't let anyone down like that again."
Guy shrugs. “More like...I didn’t for a very long time. And then everything that was my existence changed, and I realized I wanted to have others in my life. It’s only been a year, feels like...a lifetime, as it were. It’s not good for us to be alone either, I...used to walk a much simpler but tenuous path, in that regard.”
"Well. For starters, it is the source of my true liberty. And to your kind, a prison. We rule over fate, and like all sovereigns are ultimately accountable to our subject. You make deals with it, and clever bargains to gain power. And it's ironic, since Fate and Time-- that which Arcadia governs --are considered subtle and esoteric fields of study among our kind, whereas your ties to the fae and eldritch are so deft and studied as to make my command appear oafish and clumsy."
"As I say, it's like the Upside Down in Stranger Things. A show about a brave Comrade who brings the truth of evil capitalist research program to the proletarian peace officer of his small town."
Okay. He's not wrong but...
"Jackie," offers Fox with what -- for her -- is almost sternness, "I wasn't holding you responsible for anything there, I was saying that I don't have to be present to help. That wasn't about you."
She's about to say something more, before Vasha sums up Stranger Things in his very... Vasha way. "... that... is... technically... what that show is about... yes... "
"Ah! Well! That makes more sense why it feels like I've been working on it longer. I assumed it might just be a slower process!" Jackie seems pleased her instincts were not wrong.
"Ah... hm. I would not call them oafish or clumsy from what I see. We have an account with the App Store. You have the developer's kit. So much freedom, but your mistakes are your own. It is beyond us to take others back in time, for instance. Much less so many, so far, on so little notice."
She has to pause for a second. "... are... we the brave Comrades in this metaphor?"
Fox's tone draws her focus like a knife, and she takes a moment to process, apparently a touch confused. "Oh. OH, I apologize. I did not mean to imply you -did- assign responsibility. I was- commenting on a theme. There's a role with my people, one that takes on that burden I mentioned earlier. It's a role I'm pursuing, but... one that's proving challenging." She pulls her coat open to show off a magnificent old book, one Fox has seen before. "I've been reading it nightly, but so far, it hasn't had the answers on how to clip a Silver Thread. I'm hoping it will, sooner or later. Or at least somewhere to start."
“I’d say vampires don’t deal in time, but, well. I guess we do, just slowly.” A little sliver of a grin appears at that.
“I’m something not unlike that role myself, for my corner of the street. Don’t get any special perks for dealing with the toll, as you might say, just...gotta protect people and secrets when you can, and avenge when you can’t.” He closes his eyes for a moment. “I’m good at that part.”
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