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Sitting up on the balcony at the Firebirds home, Fox curls up inside a blanket. They have a Forces bubble around them to keep them warm, but the blanket is for comfort. Staring at the phone in their hands, she chews on her lower lip, and then dials in the number for the gallery and presses the green phone icon.
The Sun Sets on Fox as the phone rings, birds flutter by and winds swirls a little, all of it rebuffed by the force bubbles woven around the Thyrsus. One ring, two rings, a slight break in the normal rhythm of the electronic sound and finally a third ring, interrupted by someone picking up the phone.
"Good evening, Elyse here, how may I help you?" a sing song voice comes, background noise indicates other phone calls incoming and distant conversations.
There's a few seconds of silence as Fox attempts to fire up a spell. Possibly just about long enough that she almost gets hung up on, because she has to try twice. "I... sorry, I had my phone on mute accidentally. Um -- I saw the thing about the ... project. And I wanted to talk to the artist, if I could? I lost family too, and I might -- want to get involved with the project." Purposeful babbling is go.
The Spell returns a verdict of No Shenanigans Detected on the line that Fox and Elyse are talking on, the little blip she heard, likely just the result of a line transfer in the Gallery's system, so no one is spying unduly on the call.
Elyse responds with a softer, much less 'customer service' voice on and more of a warm tone. "Actually, participation in the gallery is through the gallery owner, I'll connect you to them right this instant, can I have your name and pronouns?" the clickety sounds of finger on keyboard is heard following that.
There's another moment of silence, and then Fox frowns, looking at the free-floating signals curling through the air around her, and just silently disconnects the call. There's already enough exposure for her cadre, she doesn't need to involve some gallery owner she doesn't know in her family nonsense.
The Sun has set over the Sanctum of the Firebirds, the phone call has been closed by Little Fox and silence reigns beyond the whistling wind of the evening.
Fox is sitting out on the balcony in a bubble of Forces warmth and also a blanket. She attempted to make a phone call and sort of stumbled on her lack of ability to extemporanize (or, shall we say, lie). Rubbing her hands over her face, she flares her ability to tap into the transmissions floating around her and sends a text message to Vasha with her brain. (And not the phone in her hands. Why would she do that? She got Forces so she could text message with her brain.) I'm on the balcony. Come here please?
And then there's a Vasha on the balcony in a wool long coat, olive green and drab but for the yellow and blue flag on the shoulder. He's even sporting an ushanka, because of course he is. It's fucking cold. He lights up a cigarette and ticks his chin towards where Fox is curled up in her little forces ball. "What is big hurry, okay?"
"I suck at lying," Fox offers, tipping their head up toward him, and laughing softly at the sight of Vasha all bundled up properly. The affection in her expression is clear, and it briefly distracts her from being fussy about the fact that she isn't good at the thing she wanted to try to do on her own. "I tried to call and get my baby sister's phone number from the gallery but then ... I had to lie and knew I couldn't so I hung up."
"I didn't say it was me obviously."
"Well. I can do this two ways. One. I be all slick and beguiling and get it that way. Or I wiggle my nose and maybe do it that way. If I do the nose wiggle, then maybe I am calling the pay phone near where she is sitting. You know? But I will for sure be calling the nearest phone to her. Do it when she's likely to be home and it will likely be her home phone, you know? Anyway." Vasha taps some ash over the balcony railing and takes another terse drag from his smoke. The cold doesn't really make it a pleasant experience, inasmuch as smoking Russian cigarettes is at all pleasant. "Up to you."
Fox chews on her lower lip with her sharp little teeth. "You are the Guardian," Fox answers. "I defer to your greater knowledge of being sneaky which is the better way to do it. This is ... nothing I am good at, at all. I ... don't. Know?" She gets up from her seat and pads quietly over to Vasha, bringing with her the phone in her hands, and also, her bubble of pleasant temperature. This may only make him grumpy, of course. Sometimes Vashas like to suffer.
Vasha snubs out his cigarette when Fox comes closer, flicking the butt into the butt can for purposes of keeping sympathy manageable. "My answer would depend somewhat on what you plan to do once you get her on the phone. If your plan is to say 'hi, it's me, it's your sister', I'm not entirely sure why you can't just leave your number at the gallery and ask them to pass it on to her. If you're planning some form of subterfuge, then... I'd need to know what you've got in mind, here." Vasha wraps his coat around Fox once she's close enough. It's heavy and warm. Quite pleasant, actually.
"I don't want to involve a lot of other people in this conversation. I don't want to give a phone number to the gallery or announce my presence. I've been on the news once already. And what is to say that the gallery owner wouldn't call Action News and be like 'hey guess what, that missing woman apparently left her phone number for her sister,' and then it's on the news and I don't want that. I've already brought enough attention to this cadre. Mei just got her name off the news. You didn't even want to be near people because you were worried that someone was tracking you from the Ukraine. I'm trying to be ... careful. And that's not natural to me. Not this kind of careful." For all that she apparently has no clue how to accomplish the thing that she wants, Fox has thought through why she's trying to do what she's trying to do in the way she's trying to do it. Sort of.
She snuggles in close against him, burying her face in his chest. "I'm just an idiot who didn't think through that I wasn't protecting them. And she thought I was dead. And I don't need... a third-party audience. A non-us audience. I mean she might hate me if she finds out I've been tromping around Europe for a decade." And we've hit maximum Foxbabble.
"I can choose an optimum time to call her. When she'd be alone, when the phone would be her cell phone, and when she is likely to have time to listen to you rather than simply react to you. I could even make the conversation go more easily for you. But I think if what you're after is a genuine connection with your sister again... it might be best to limit how much of my fixing the odds I undertake." Vasha seems to be speaking from experience on this score. He gives her hair a few scritches with his fingers and then inquires, "Is that what you'd like? Just a chance to talk with your sister with the best chance to be heard?"
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