It's a pretty simple thing. A quick text.
Can I come see you? Or are you Private right now?
The implication being simply that Fox might be in one of those places where it's Safe as opposed to anywhere else in the world.
The text comes a few minutes later: I'm home now, be out in 10.
Eleven minutes later: You can come see me.
Fox flew out to the woods where they so often meet, swooping down as an owl to settle in a tree and text with her brain.
Jackie was already there waiting, an unseasonal pile of dead leaves with a cell phone buried in them piled around the base of a tree that rose up only once Fox responded. She rose out of the leaves in a liquid, melting stretch, murring in a sort of distantly pleased groan. "Good evening, sweet."
The owl unfolds in some sort of spectacular fractal geometry into a tiny woman, tank top and shorts, bare feet. The usual Fox uniform. "Hello!" she chirrups, stretching her arms up over her head and resituating herself in a bipedal, wingless body. "Is everything okay?"
"Yes, no, maybe so? All three at once, but you know most of it via our mutual surly acquaintance, I think. Dreams are a strange thing. I'm presuming he shared what he offered to everyone else? I can't imagine he'd do otherwise. He's far too clever to post up a public notice about something he's keeping from his closest." Jackie notes. "I've been trying to make some sense of them with the context he added, though honestly, compared to his methods, all I have is outright guesswork, and most of what I had figured out, he nailed. He's a thorough man, he is," she says, moving to sit and lean against the base of Fox's tree.
"We haven't really had much opportunity to talk about it," admits Fox, "but I know the basics." The way their eyes focus in on her, Fox probably knows at least a bit more than the basics, but she doesn't elaborate further. "He's... good at divination." A soft puff of laughter. "It comes with the territory for a Fate Master. And by nature, he is thorough."
"Indeed! I can only imagine the doors to new knowledge, wisdom, and truths such powers allow. And here I thought I was clever for remembering that you had an engagement ring made from a coin!" Jackie laughs- sincerely, not a real dig at herself. "What worries me most is the realization that for this effect to propagate to not just multiple people, but multiple people across different mystical origins suggests the existence of an existential impact generating the dreams."
Pause.
"Or someone deliberately sending them out as a spread net, I suppose."
"The trouble with having access to those doors is that sometimes you forget simple things, like that someone has an engagement ring made out of a coin." Fox sits down on the ground, and one can almost see her curl her tail around herself. "Which do you think it is? Or even, which do you hope it might be?"
Jackie shifts nearer if Fox doesn't appear to mind, and settles scarred limbs around her form. Gentle, elegant- too much so, but they know why. "I HOPE the latter. I suspect the former. What really puzzles me, if I'm honest, is the surprising number of connections between the Children of the Tree, Autumn, and death. Massacres, past ones. It leaves me feeling like I'm missing parts of the story. I can guess how it relates to the Children- there's a strong native presence in the area, and if I'm correct, the Children are tied into that, and our fine nation has a proud and storied history of genocidal treatment of the ancestral residents of land they want to own. But I don't know why it repeatedly ties to the Autumn Court."
Fox leans into the arms wrapped around her, and goes silent for a long while. "Well," she hazards, thoughtfully. "Hmm." A long silence. "Tell me about the Autumn Court. What makes it different from the other seasonal courts?"
It's a comfortable silence. Full of shifting limbs to eliminate distance. Nuzzling closer. Soft, slow breathing.
"Well. This is a primer, so I may retread what you already know."
Jackie tilts her head back and stares up quietly. "All courts- the seasonal ones, anyway- revolve around a pivotal emotion. The lynchpin of how they make power in powerlessness, in how they turn loss into triumph. Spring wields desire- you know, a life well lived is the best revenge. Summer wields wrath like a hammer and a shield all at once. Winter wraps itself in sorrow and uses what it knows of loss to insulate themselves and others from more of the same.
Autumn wields fear."
She squeezes gently. "It's not all terror campaigns, though that is used sometimes- whether to instill in mortals unknowing avoidance of the tricks of Fae and their servants, or to ward them off from our places or dangerous ones. The best way to fight your own fear, after all, is to learn about what scares you- and when you learn enough, you can often use that knowledge against your fear itself. So Autumn tend to be the ones amassing wide occult knowledge, delving into abandoned hollows, or scaring mortals away from dangers to themselves or our own kind."
She's tired, she's thinking, and she leans in against Vorpal, thinking. "Okay. So the last bit is the thing that I think maybe... I don't know. Hmm." Fox goes quiet again. "There's something there, maybe. Something in what you do which explains... or might begin to give an idea... as to what the tie is, you know? Because... all of the other things seem to be tied to what people ... have done? Might have done? Maybe?"
"The things we do are essential. Why wouldn't the things we have done also be?"
Jackie nods along. "That's what I was suspecting. Though it makes me worry. Only a little, though. I'm worried I'll find out the Autumn Court participated in whatever horribleness was inflicted on the local population that- well. I could be misreading my research, but the tree fed by blood seems very, very likely to be. Well." She leaned back to tap Fox's back, roughly over their tattoo. "In context, it suggests the Children were founded- rooted- in recovering from an atrocity. And I worry we had a hand in that. I want to know either way- but I'll definitely be sad if my court did something that awful."
She stops, then, and her head tips forward, hair curtaining her sharp-eyed face. "We are rooted in... so many atrocities," Fox offers back quietly. "My mother -- Balm -- before she left us, I saw a lot of what she did. Where she went. Who she tried to help." A small, thin smile slides across her face. "Every square inch of this planet is made of bones upon bones, and the Children have at least tried to ... acknowledge that bone meal makes plants grow, if that makes sense."
"I can't say you did or didn't. We don't know. Are you afraid to look, is that what's stopping you? You think we'll think differently of you if it turns out some member of your Court had some... something to do with whatever tragedy these images reference?"
"It does make sense. In a wholistic, and philosophical sense. Revolutions begin when it becomes more costly to try to lie to yourself that everything's fine than to try to change them. First one through the wall always gets bloodied, you know? And usually a lot worse. So it makes perfect sense."
She squeezes Fox quietly. Firm but not too hard. She's still not all that strong. "And no. I'm not afraid about what you and yours will think of me and us. I'm worried it'll change how I see my own court. I'd be- disappointed. Hurt. That people like me could do awful things like that. But I need to know anyway. I'm just- not expecting to like the answer."
She shivers a bit. "So I'll try to find that answer, for sure. There's other stuff. Like the book that shifts from charcoal scribbles to precise writing that can't be read. It says it affects every person, but primarily spring and summer. I think that's the assassination attempt. Rewriting the world in our own- well. Sorta more your own handwriting, we're more like." A chuckle. "Credited contributors." She shakes her head. "Another one's rose petals scattered over huge thorns. Related to - theft by..."
"Deception." Johnnie's still for a moment. Heartbeats tick past. (edited)
Cuddled in against Johnnie, Fox listens as she talks. "Everyone's family has people who can do awful things. Maybe I'm just fatalistic in that sense, I don't know. Maybe it's just the family history speaking." A soft laugh, there, and she bumps her head against the Torrent's.
"Hmm. Have you... " She pauses. "So ... " And then her train of thought, whatever it was, gets tossed off its tracks by Vorpal's sudden stillness. "What is it?"
Jackie flexes her Wyrd- once, then again- and she settles back down. "... mrm. One of the dreams made me think about my friend Rosalyn. Rose petals strewn across massive thorns. Related to theft by deception. I panicked for a moment. Wondered if she'd been replaced. But no, I sense the precise same direction to the person I know as Rosalyn now, and the person I knew as Rosalyn two years ago. So... that's probably not it."
Dark hands slide under their tank top. Contact. Comfort. Maybe more. "What were you going to ask me?"
She holds very, very still when Jackie thinks about things, and explains, as if she's holding quite still in an underground den, waiting for a wolf to pass by her door. "Oh, I know Rosalyn Solfrig. I think her horse ate a corpse when we caught the Seer who had the Grigori. It made Vasya terribly cross. Why did you think of her?" A little shake of her head, then, as if to say it's not important.
"... oh. Right. You can't see them. I forget sometimes." Jackie clears her throat, embarrassed. "To us, her name is more than coincidental. Her hair is spun gold, and filled with blooming roses. And Yours-" Vasya. "-identified that one as relating to our shared Court."
A little nod, and Fox grunts. "You're still the only one of you I've ever seen, like -- what you look like to each other." Fox does not say how you really look or anything like that, because who's to say which way is the real way? Not Fox. She bumps her head against Vorpal's head again, gently, and brings one stubby-fingered hand up to scratch at her cheek thoughtfully. "Are there any other -- ones of those images -- that could maybe apply to one of you like that?"
The discretion is noted, and Jackie smiles gently. The question, though? Her expression slips solemn. "A few, yeah. The fourth is almost definitely about Lux. That neon outline is exactly how they look to us. The fifth is- well, actually. That's not one of us, but it reminds me of- Diamond? I think that's what they're going by now. The one that's made friends with mushrooms? They spend a lot of time in Twilight, it's where I usually see them, so. That might track. There's the rose petals. There's one with an owl that's probably our old Autumn Crown. And there's one where charcoal scribbles shift to precise writing, but illegible- the writing sounds like Jack, but the premise feels like it's related to the assassination attempt on Peter and Doll. Which is one of the other mysteries I'm puzzling on. Or, well. On an aftereffect of it."
Her eyes get really, really big, then. "... oh." There's a moment where Fox clearly gets a little distracted, thinking about Lux being shiny and glowy. "... oh! That explains... a lot, actually." But she doesn't explain, a flutter of pink passing across her cheeks and then dissipating. "Yes, I thought of Diamond there, too. Sometimes she grows very lovely little mushrooms along one eyebrow, it's very fetching." Of course Fox would think that. "But there's more to Diamond than just... Diamond." A little flutter of her fingers. "Hmm. Why do you think it's related to the assassination attempt? and... oh?"
"I have seen! Though- there is more to Diamond than Diamond? I'm not sure I follow. May I ask?"
"So I believe it may be the attempt because of its impact on every single other person. Plus the shift from haphazard scribbles to determined, cultivated script that leads to uncertainty- illegible, you see. That's my thought. It could be wrong, b-"
She stops again, frowning. "... then again. It could be simpler. One of Mine, Teagan- they can't read. And they're involved with Jack. Who looks like charcoal scribbles. So it may simply relate to them somehow? I'm not sure how, though. I thought it was the assassination because it was related to the spring and summer courts, but Jack and Teagan are- you guessed it- Spring and Summer, respectively."
"... wait, Doll is Summer, too, so that's MORE points in Jack and Teagan's direction."
"... wait, no, that doesn't track either. They've been working really hard to get better at reading. So the illegibility might not be Teagan's ex-illiteracy. Hrm."
"Oh, I mean, Diamond's mushroomness is like my foxness. It comes from something that is of us but also larger than us. Our Legacies. Diamond is an Emissary of Renewal, and that's all... tied in with the mushrooms, I think? So... it's possible that there's something to that, maybe. I dunno. Just kind of thinking out loud." Fox stretches her legs out, flexes her toes, just keeping the blood moving through her limbs. She can be fussy when she's thinking her way through things. "Hmm. Those are both good theories. Does it have to be just one thing? My dreams are usually messy and overlapping."
"No, it doesn't have to be JUST one thing- but it's sort of... implied? By the research Vasya did. It's tied to specific things. Though nothing stops it from being blended answers, I don't think." Jackie huffs a breath of frustration. "Silly ephemeral things, why won't you get in my little labeled boxes so I can understand you. It's like you don't WANT to," she quipped wryly.
"Well, I mean, you're telling me things that could possibly be tied to more than one thing without it being a contradiction, right? So you see the roses tied to the Autumn Court, and you think Rosalyn, but it could also be... I don't know. Maybe there was someone a hundred years ago that was tied to roses in the Autumn Court, and they were the one who ... did something important. Or maybe it's something to do with Teagan and Jack and the attack on Doll and Peter?" Fox wiggles her toes again. "Or maybe I'm talking out my butt. I have no idea. I'm just saying, like, one of the things that I have had to learn, as Vasya taught me divination as a means of learning more about Fate, is that very often things just refuse to get into labeled boxes, like you said. And challenging my immediate presumptions."
"Hm. That's fair. I AM trying to "solve" these like riddles. And that's not at all necessarily how it is. Like you said, dreams don't do Linear. Don't do Defined." She huffs out a sigh. "Which... leaves me with my hands full of mysteries I'm still not making headway with."
She gently pats Vorpal's knee, turning her head to look at her. "You think you're not making headway because you don't have the answer to a, what, twelve, thirteen-part riddle that launched itself into the brains of -- at minimum -- dozens of people over the span of a major metropolitan area within a week or two?" Fox's eyes -- now mostly-gold, when Vorpal met her, they were mostly green still -- glitter with sharp amusement. "What do you know now that you didn't when you texted me?"
"Yes. Exactly that. Do you have any idea how much my ego hates this?" Jackie drolled. "I'll have you know, I'm used to my big, scary opponents being things I can stab which very helpfully stop moving once stabbed sufficiently. This is- maddening in comparison!" A huff, before she attended to Fox's question. "Well, KNOW is a frustratingly strong word. Though I suppose I do KNOW now that the Children of the Tree were, indeed, built upon a foundation of committed atrocities, which- like you said, is not that uncommon, but does fit the themes at hand. I have some new angles to consider some of the dreams by. And I know I have a question about something nearly completely unrelated!"
The Thyrsus gently patpatpat Vorpal's arm when she gets all dramatic about it, even in a joking fashion. "Do you want to fuck about it?" Fox deadpans right back. "That usually makes you feel better." A beat, and she asks, "Wait, what question about something nearly unrelated?"
"... I mean, I feel like if the day comes when I don't want to leave someone small, adorable, and willing with a dazed grin and cum down their thighs, my Motley is going to string me up as an impostor. So yes. But -also-." She paused for dramatic effect. "Have I ever told you what happened to the assassin's sword?"
Fox snorts and rolls her eyes in amusement at the overtly obscene response, and replies, "That's fair. I had no idea I fit a neatly-defined Type." Her forehead wrinkles up, then. "... no?"
"In as much as you also- currently- fit the "five fingers on each hand" type and "breathing oxygen for now" type. It's hardly a box capable of containing you- the label is more accurately on my personal weakness for small, adorable, and enthusiastic partners."
"Aha! Storytime, then." She slid her arms behind her back as she began. "So, after timelocking the sword to stop it being used to injure anyone, I took it with me. I discovered that it was made... of utterly unremarkable metal. Everything special about it had been invoked by spells. So, as it had previously been used to do grievous harm to me and mine... I broke it into pieces. And buried in. Under a stream. In the Hedge. And as it happens, after a few months of soaking in all that ambient Fae goodness..."
She pulls out... this.
"Smooth, Jackie. Very smooth indeed." But -- the flattery does seem to work, since the Thyrsus flushes brightly for a moment. It's true, the Untamed cannot be fit into a single box, unless it's a cardboard box and they're being a fox sitting in a box. That does happen sometimes.
Fox stares at the knife, and then holds up a hand, one forefinger raised. "Wait. Let me -- so. You mean the sword that the Seer who was imitating a Guardian of the Veil in order to attempt to murder Changelings and -- presumably -- drive a wedge between our communities had. That sword. The sword that the amoral wizard who reports to the extremely evil wizards who hold all of reality hostage, that wizard, used to try to murder two of your people specifically to have a massive psychological effect on both of our communities. You took that sword? That one? And you... put it in a psychoreactive magical environment... and left the sword shards unsupervised... and now it magically reassembled itself into this knife right here... which you're currently carrying around with you?"
"Is... is that what you're telling me, Jackie?"
Jackie grins at the flush, and then lets Fox speak. Taking in every word spoken, ensuring they get through precisely what they want their question to convey, and only then do they answer.
"Yes- although, a few caveats.
First, anything left in the Hedge long enough becomes a bit of our magic. We call them Tokens. So while the reconstruction is definitively magical, it is not mysterious. The Hedge claimed the pieces and made what it wanted out of them.
Second, I took it because it was a tool designed to sever things of magnitude. There is something specific I am desperately hoping this is able to do, and I wanted as many- sympathetic? Connections to severance, ending of relationships, all of that specifically- because there are those like me who are still bound to their Keepers by cords they cannot break.
I haven't used it yet, nor fed it what it needs to activate, because I don't yet know exactly how it works. But I am hoping. That the symbolic ties to severance were enough to make this into something capable of cutting the Silver Cords that tie Helldivers to their Keepers."
"Right but -- " Fox stops. "... did you -- do you have any way of checking... did you look to see if it was already magic, like, our magic, before you took it into the Hedge?" There's a creeping edge of something near panic crawling along the edges of her voice.
"What? Oh." Jackie nods. "Yes. Of course I did. There wasn't a scrap of magic on it. It was absolutely, completely mundane before I took it anywhere."
There's a long moment of silence where Fox's eyes go unfocused, and then they focus again. "Okay." That's all she has to say for a moment, and then she adds, "I didn't find any tampering with the timeline. It... matches. As far as I can tell." She rubs her face with a hand. "Okay." She doesn't apologize, just focuses back in on her. "Okay. So you have this knife. And you hope it's going to cut -- some sort of super-restraint made by your Keepers?"
There's no apology necessary. Jackie understands their concern, and she neglected to reassure them that she took precautions in the first place. In fact, there is one apology necessary. "That's relieving. You honestly had me second-guessing myself for a moment. Really, I apologize. I didn't lead with "and I checked it for magical traps, traces and tracks" before I explained everything else. You didn't need that stress and I'm sorry I put you through that."
"As for the question- yes, essentially. Everyone like me- the ones they designed to-"
She cuts short, grimaces, and glances away a moment- which, for her, is a monumental display of unscripted emotion- before she turns back, taking a deep breath and stating softly, "-the ones they designed to go Fetch people and things. We have Leashes. Silver Cords. They connect us to our Keeper, and one tug? And it won't matter how far and how long we've been running.
We'll be in their clutches instantly. So there is no escape for any Helldiver still bound by their Silver Cord. Not even the hope of it."
