|
Fox called ahead, of course. The way she talks to Balm is familiar and friendly, the same way she'd talk to her grandmother. Rather precisely so, really. She doesn't bother dressing up for going to see the Dreamspeaker, because Balm has seen her in her rattiest clothes, her favorite fur, and all other varieties of Fox as do exist. Tank top, ratty cut-off jean shorts, bare feet. That is how a Fox do.
"It'll be fine," she offers quietly as she moves in to the main room of the Lodge, which has been closed off for the visit, since she asked for privacy. Her hand laces its fingers through Vasha's, and she pulls in a breath, as if she's possibly reassuring herself.
The elder Thyrsus sits comfortably in her favorite chair, leaned back with her feet up on an ottoman and reading a book in the meanwhile. Nothing serious -- it appears to be a Lord Peter Wimsy novel, Busman's Honeymoon. Her tea sits on a side table, and Agoston snoozes, asleep at her feet.
Mei dressed up by putting on her nicer leather jacket, and wearing a pair of sharp black shoes instead of her boots, but it's still decidedly her, and decidedly not formal. She hasn't seen Balm as many times as Fox has, but she's pretty confident that Balm will appreciate the self-being, but she still feels the need to do something a little nicer anyway.
"It will," she agrees. "I don't think I've ever had a conversation with Balm that wasn't fine. Sometimes not in the ways you expect, though." She doesn't actually look worried. Like, at all. There's some hint of mischief to her, something that suggests an eager anticipation that she's keeping a lid on. Possibly because there are other, more important things to take care of first.
Vasha isn't a stranger here, by any means. He's come to events now and again, helped shlep things this way and that during feasts and such. For all of his dedication to his order and the Diamond, he's never once spoken against Fox's decision to join the Children. So it's not that he's coming into this blind or with no reference of experience. But that's part of the problem. He knows exactly what to expect, and any deviation from that expectation is likely going to send his anxiety through the roof. But he turns up all the same.
He's had a shower and a shave, but he still looks like he needs about three solid days of sleep. It's difficult to rest when your pulse is racing and your heart is in your throat. But he rather admirably advances one step at a time in the wake of the other two, letting them lead the way deeper into the lodge in search of Balm. He's wearing his old, beaten down army jacket. The one he was wearing when he first arrived in town, and the same olive tank top and black BDU pants that he'd been wearing prior. The boots are back, too.
He remains very much on his guard, though he's trained well enough to conceal that fact from untrained eyes.
"Why wouldn't it be okay?" The older of the two people here who signed their name to the Stone Book closes her much less impressive book, laying aside the battered paperback on the end table. "Not that you don't come to see me when there's nothing amiss, Little Fox," one of the few people who actually uses Naika's full sobriquet, "because you do. But." Her sharp, dark eyes flick from one to the other of the Firebirds trio, and she winks at Mei, as if to say: I see that mischief face.
Fox chews her lower lip, leading Vasha by the hand and coming to settle down on the couch next to Balm. It's a nice comfy little arrangement of seats, this. "There's a lot that's already not okay, Mom-mom." That she's adopted the form of address that Balm's actual grandkids use probably isn't surprising. "But we're hoping you can give us some advice, help us fix it, or at least get going in the right direction." A beat. "I saw your announcement, too. Which is, you know. Happy-sad."
"Hi Balm," Mei says cheerfully at the sight of the Elder. "Always a pleasure to see you. How are you doing? What are you reading?" She asks like she's actually curious. Actually wants to know what the older Thyrsus has been doing to keep busy. Because she is actually curious. She laughs and gives Fox a glance, then nods and agrees, "definitely happy-sad. More happy than sad, though. Quite a bit more, I think," she adds, after actually pausing to give it a brief think. She stops to offer Balm a hug before heading to a seat of her own, still looking just a bit impish, and definitely winking back at Balm when nobody is looking.
"Elder," Vasha greets politely, with his usual deference for his elders that he typically evidences as a very good boy raised by very strict parents. He glances aside at Fox, then aside at Mei, trying to gauge their genuine emotional states at coming face to face with parting from someone so influential to both of their lives. His lips briefly part, then close, then part again, then close again, as a question he wants to ask repeatedly fails the sniff test as being appropriate to ask. Or worth asking, perhaps. So instead he shuffles around a bit, looking for a place to sit, then sinks down into the seat with his hands stuffed into his jacket pockets.
"Selfishly sad, unselfishly happy," Fox offers after a moment of thoughtful self-assessment. She nods her head once. "Yes." Her hand comes to rest reassuringly on Vasha's knee, and she curls up a little bit on the couch, all fox-like. And Fox-like.
Those sharp dark eyes flick from Mei, to Fox, and then settle on Vasha. "Oh, well enough," she agrees. "My old bones are old bones, my grandchildren don't call me as often as I might like, let alone my children, and I'm unable to explain to them why they should do that now. But they are brilliant and sweet, each a perfect universe unto themselves." She lifts the book. "An old favorite. Busman's Honeymoon, one of the Lord Peter Wimsy books. He finally marries Harriet Vane in this one. It never gets old. Both the relationship between Harriet and Lord Peter and the ethical questions it raises. The guilt he feels over having condemned a man to hang, even if rightly so, and the return of his shell-shock, what we would now call PTSD. He is a complex character, and one with whom I feel deeply at home."
"But enough about me."
"As if there aren't so many reasons for them to visit you that can be explained," Mei says with a soft sigh and a smile. "Unfortunately, sometimes it takes losing a treasure for people to realize what it was they had. I wish I had more time to take in the wisdom you have to share." She glances at the book and laughs. "I've never even heard of Lord Peter Wimsy, but it sounds interestingly complicated. Maybe some day I'll get around to reading it."
She turns to looks at Vasha.
"They say when you cross the Golden Road you are confronted with every sin you have done against the Supernal. Every Paradox you let wrack the world or your body. And that if you cannot keep walking, you fall into the great black sea and are gone." Vasha's accent is thick, and its thickness and his demeanor make the words sound harsh and accusatory. That constant humping lilt of the male slav holding forth. He looks down at his boots and scuffs them across the hardwood slightly, shifting his weight in the seat, but not lifting his eyes. "I dabble in the dream roads. It is calm out there, above the ..." He gestures at his head, making a jagged shape with his hands at the side of his head, pursing his lips tightly. She's been there. She'll know how loud humanity is when you can see its dreams and terrors. "But I was always too frightened to look. In case it was true."
Another wink for Mei, and Balm offers, "You should. Make sure to take time for yourself, and all the like." But then Vasha's talking, and rather than continue to chat about her favorite book, she focuses in on him. The husky at her feet, who has fallen asleep, chuffs softly in his dreams.
"Like death, we cannot know, or should not know, what the process is, and what lays on the other side of it," answers Balm, her voice still conversational and thoughtful; her eyes focus on him with that grandmotherly way she has. As if she both knows him without question and has seen men like him a million times before, and is far too old to be upset about it all. "I believe the answer is yes, but I will not know until I walk it, nor will I know whether I can withstand it until I try. Either way, once I leave, I can't come back, and once I make that choice, I'll have to just... see whether I can face up to what I've done and make it to the other side. I think I can, but I won't know until then. Do you understand?"
Fox shifts uncomfortably in her seat, but since Vasha is talking to Balm directly? She doesn't interject.
"That's always harder than it seems like it should be, po po," Mei says, using the Cantonese for maternal grandmother. "I manage to find enough, at least. Or at least almost enough."
She listens to what Balm shares about her thoughts on the topic at hand, and then shrugs slightly and points out, "we approach a lot of things where we can't know how it will turn out until we do it. For most of us, Awakening was like that. But that's also just life. At least for a lot of us, who don't deal constantly in prophecy and divination," she adds with a soft laugh.
Vasha lifts his gaze from his boot laces, unable to disrespect anyone's babushka by not giving her the respect of his attention. That prompting question wins her a deadpan stare for several seconds, then a small affirmative nod. "Yes, ma'am." Then his gaze falls again, a furtive glance sent to Fox, then back to staring at his boots. "People count on you. Depend on you for. Security. For safety. They sleep better at night knowing you are here, even if they don't know precisely what you do for them." He lifts a hand to scratch awkwardly at the side of his neck, then flops his hand back into its pocket, which helps keep his shoulders hunched. "What gives you the right to leave for something better when you leave so much left unfinished here?" They both can not talk about what they're actually talking about, it seems. He glances up at Mei's proclamation, and gives her a wry little smile at the caveat she adds. He denotes his amused agreement by arching an eyebrow at her before he looks back to his boots.
"It is, it is. But all the same, I will feel better going forward if you tell me that you will take time for yourself when I am no longer here, Parhelion." For whatever reason, Balm addresses Mei by her Shadow Name, and not her given name. (Or her chosen name, as the case may -- Mei -- be.) Those dark eyes twinkle, but she keeps her gaze on Vasha, with a grandmother's unerring sense of Which Kid Needs The Attention. "And do not think I have not noticed your quiet." A quiet Fox is Suspicious, after all.
The younger Thyrsus wrinkles up her nose and sticks the tip of her tongue out at Balm, but stays quiet still, and the older Thyrsus chuckles softly.
Now Vasha speaks again, and Balm folds her knobby hands together in her lap, stretching one of her legs until her ankle makes a little cracking sound. "Well. That's certainly a question. But I can reverse it and ask: what gives them the right to hold me back when it is time for me to go? Is that a loving thing for them to do? Of course not. I have done my best to prepare them to look after themselves when it is time for me to go. That is my gift, and when it is time for me to go, it is time."
"Even more so, at some point I must get out of their way. I am old, Pavlichenko, and while that is often assumed for one whose job title is Elder, the incident at the Tree made it clear to me that I cannot be the person they depend on for certain things any longer. I should get out of the way now, while I still can, and allow Peacekeeper, Baldur and Weaver to decide which of them is ready to rise and lead. My leaving serves me, and it serves them. It places us both on better paths."
"But you may ask me what it is you mean to ask me, unless you really came here to talk about my responsibilities."
"I'll find the time, or make it," Mei says to Balm in reassurance. "That has been one of the advantages I've found in trying my best to observe Shabbat, except when it might be a risk to someone's safety not to. It makes one day that's easier to find time for myself. Don't worry too much about me."
Not that she hasn't proven herself more than capable of driving herself to poor health, physical and mental, when she thinks someone's safety is on the line. And capable of finding situations where that's the case.
"Obligations. Promises. Responsibilities." Vasha makes a gesture with his hand, as though these three items were monoliths in their own right. "I don't see how you can just--" Vasha opens his mouth, then closes it tightly, jaw clenching a little when Balm prods at him like that. He stares at her in taciturn, stubborn silence, and decidedly does not answer her. But neither does he get up and walk out the door, either, which Fox should probably take as a good sign.
Mei gets a grandmotherly-conspiratorial wink, then. "All right, then." And that's the end of that, for now. Balm trusts her to keep her word, apparently.
"I didn't just anything, nor will I just anything, Pavlichenko." She reaches for her tea, now, a sort of rote gesture, and picks it up to sip at it. "It is the difference between jumping to conclusions, and taking several logical steps until there conclusions are. This has been coming for me for a long time, and now it is time. Your fiance started spending a great deal of time with me after the time the Tree was destroyed and the destruction unmade by Anthelion. The writing was on the wall then, and she saw it. Weaver saw it. Baldur saw it. Peacekeeper has tried not to see it, but she has seen it too."
When he clams up, she cradles the cup between her hands and lets the warmth seep into her old joints. "I see."
Fox's hand on Vasha's knee squeezes gently, and the look aside that she gives him is reassuring and approving. He's still visible! He didn't get up and walk out! This is progress, and she knows it, and there will be smooches later.
Mei crosses her legs and leans back, just looking patient and quiet. It's a look that prompts things to go on, and it's pointed serenely at Vasha. For the moment she doesn't have anything else to say, so she just waits for Vasha to do the saying he needs to.
"You see what I let you see." Vasha's response is sulky and barbed, and to his way of thinking anyway? The absolute god's honest truth. That felt good to say, and between that little jolt of good feeling and Mei's serene regard, he seems to gain just a shred of confidence. His shoulders unbunch briefly as he continues to make his protests known. To no one in particular and everyone at once. "You don't know me because nobody knows me. I don't even know myself." That, too, felt really good. And so he keeps going, tugging a hand from his jacket pocket and gesturing with it. "You think you can look at me and know my story. Because I am like every other burned out wastrel that's drug itself across your doorstep? Hmm?" He squints one eye and leans forward a bit. "Seen one of us, you've seen us all? Just tug my ear three times, count backwards from ten in Pashto, and off goes the programming? Hmm?"
Folks, this is really, really feeling good. Obviously. Because he's sitting up in his chair and smacks his chest a few times, "I am myself. I am unique. By God, if I want to be treated like something with a barcode, I will return to CENTRAL, and let you flip your coins over Oroborous."
There's no fanfare to Liezel arriving. There never is, unless it's A Violent Arrival and then there's usually a bit of pistol percussion. But this is not what this is, and she slips in quietly, delayed a bit on account of fixating on a project and losing track of time. She slips into the main Lodge room and brings herself to a chair behind the others. Whether it's a nod to not being an official part of anything, deference to someone, or a simple barrier between herself and someone outside her painfully small monkey sphere, she doesn't say, but she seems comfortable there, if a bit sheepish for being delayed.
Welcome to A Heavily Armed Slav Berating a Woman in a Wheelchair, already in progress.
"You assumed what I think I see, which tells me an awful lot more about what you want and what you need than you think. And perhaps this is on purpose, and you have shown me what I need to see, and done this on purpose also. I would not doubt it." Balm takes another sip of tea, and listens as Vasha talks, as he slaps his chest. And she smiles a little bit, as if this is good news, this posturing and protesting.
"And you don't want to return to CENTRAL," she offers thoughtfully, "or you wouldn't be protesting that you will." She sets down the tea. "Would you like to hear from me what I think I see, or would you like to tell me what you think I see?" Her eyes are gentle, now. "I am more than willing to admit that what I know of you is second-hand, but if you think she ever shuts up about you and how wonderful you are... " and here, one of her forefingers, crooked with age, points toward Fox. "... you don't know her."
Balm gives Liezel the briefest of glances, a bit apologetic that there's not more.
Liezel is a connoisseur of brief, meaningful interactions, and she beams a sincere smile back at Balm for taking even that short moment. It matters.
Mei smiles when Liezel comes in, and she raises a hand to offer a small wave to the other woman, and then scoots over and pats the seat beside her, an invitation. And then she goes to listening. With a laugh, when Balm talks about Fox never shutting up about Vasha.
It only takes a second to do the social calculations and decide it'd be ruder to decline than it would be less comfortable sitting beside Mei as invited. She shares another smile and moves to sit as invited, quietly taking in the back and forth. As ever with Vasha, she presumes there is A Reason he is howling at the Elderly Lady en Wheelchair, and waits to glean it from the discourse without intruding more than she can avoid.
"She sees the essential humanity in scelesti," Vasha points out a touch incredulously, "I love the woman but she is a terrible judge of character." He gestures to himself, thus completing the tautology he is implying here. "I was perfectly happy not talking about why I'm here. I was enjoying it very much, I relish moral and ethical conundrums. They keep me sharp." Morally and ethically sharp. A very important kind of sharp for a guy that can kill you with his thumb. "I came here to sit in a chair and to talk and to..." Vasha's slavic soul flees his body briefly as he is forced to employ the term common to American youths these days. "Vibe. I came to vibe and you are really riding me okay. So." He makes a little flicking gesture with his hand, indicating she should back off. And then he folds up his arms stubbornly and turns perpendicular to her. Problem solved.
Fox offers a similar wink to Liezel. "Hello, Elizabeth," she greets, and seems not at all bothered and in fact quite content when Liezel goes to sit next to Mei. She pulls a face at Vasha, then. "Okay, first of all, yes, I do see the essential humanity in everyone, even Scelesti. But that doesn't make me a terrible judge of character. I knew he couldn't be saved, and I mourned that, because he was a human being, and an Awakened one, and the loss of the potential of him is a terrible loss. I know the difference between 'this is a human being' and 'this human being can be saved.' And... I don't like when you do that." She mimics his gesture to himself, implying the whole self-deprecating thing. "It makes me sad."
That's more than she's said the whole time that she's been here, and when he turns away from Balm, her hand kinda gets pulled away. "Mom-mom," Fox plows on. "Speaking of the Golden Road. Um. We -- I mean me and Vasha, separately, but also... Weaver... have met our future selves. Not in a metaphorical Astral journey dreaming kind of way but in a literal, Future Vasha appeared in our bedroom kind of way. Weaver and I met ourselves out in Wissahickon Creek Park, they uh, kind of appeared. And then uh... That was before the first Acamoth showed up. And I... think that... we are going to not have a choice but to listen, because -- if -- all these people -- decided to break Serious Bigtime Laws, there has to be a Reason. Because it was really me."
"I checked." She kissed herself. That's a good way of checking. "She knew things I hadn't told anyone yet."
Balm takes all of that in -- Vasha's castigation and Fox's confession -- with a sort of calm that might actually be disturbing, in the moment. "I see." That seems to either be her favorite filler sentence, or she really does see. "All right. Any other news? Out with it all. Then we'll sort ... all of this... out. Together." Like Scions do.
Mei doesn't even try to hide the fact that she's rolling her eyes. A lot. At Vasha, in particular. "When you're uncomfortable you're such a brat," she says with a soft laugh. "It's kind of an annoying deflection strategy, as such strategies go. I imagine it works pretty well on people who aren't prepared for patience, though." One of her particular strong suits. And probably one of Balm's, too.
She pauses and looks around and then says, "I mean, I have some news. But it's not pressing, just personal. I created a Legacy."
This is actually a big deal, but she says it like it's just Tuesday. Although that would be a big deal, since it's Monday.
"And I figured out Making and Unmaking with Prime." In other words, she's a Master. Baby Obrimos is growm up.
Vasha has done an admirable job of being present, considering being present is the last thing that Vasha wants to be right now. His frowning scowl persists, even as he fixes Mei with a dirty, dirty look that lingers after she's looked away. It can be hard to put one's finger on the precise moment it happens, because of course the magic makes him slip the mind entirely. But eventually, some span of time after the topic has moved away from him again, and everyone's focus is elsewhere, Vasha just stops registering in everyone's conscious minds.
He does that sometimes.
"It's important not to demonize your enemies," Liezel murmurs quietly, cheeks coloring notably with the introduction of one (1) Fox wink. "Hello, Fox." She glances at Vasha. "It's- easier to, but. It's bad if that gets easy. I think it's good that Fox values everyone. I know I struggle to. The more pain someone causes, the more it feels... efficient to subtract them from the equation. But that's the shortcut. That's the excuse. It's not good." Fox does a good job detailing their thoughts on it all in short order, and Liezel mostly defaults to absorbing what's being said.
Which proves shocking as she learns there's been temporal intrusions in violation of Big Rules. Her eyes widen, but, like Fox, she seems comfortable with the idea that There Must Be A Reason. So she stays quiet in hopes of learning it.
She also quietly murmurs to Mei. "I am the worst Obrimos and I am still working on that one. Could you help me learn what you've learned, Master Parhelion?"
The expression on Fox's face turns more sly when Liezel blushes the way that she does. That brings her mood up, even as realizing that Vasha has fled makes that smile fade a little, too. It comes and it goes, do the good things in life. Her stubby fingers absently scratch at her cheek, and then she blinks at Mei. "You did what now?" She presses her hands to her cheeks, and it's her turn to flush pink, but for different reasons. Her mostly-gold eyes glitter delightedly, tearing up at the corners with pride.
Balm smiles behind her cup of tea, and takes another sip. "Don't undersell your work," she gently chides.
"I'm not selling anything at all, po po," Mei says with a smile. "I'm just mentioning that those things happened. I'm fairly pleased with myself, but I also wasn't planning to have this discussion be about me, so I didn't want to make a big fuss and distract from the main point." She smiles at Balm and adds, "I'm glad you seem to be delighted by the news, though."
Mei also turns to look at Liezel and says, "I'd be happy to help you figure out more Prime, of course. It should come pretty easy to you, I'd bet, but sometimes a little guidance helps, for sure."
"Guidance helps. I like learning. And I like to teach. So I thought letting someone teach me might be good to bond over," Liezel offered plainly. "I'm not very good at that, so I was looking for chances. I appreciate you being willing." Beat. "Master Parhelion." A quirk in the corner of her mouth. It's fun to say. She seems to catch that Vasha Vanish-a'd, and looks about a little, frowning faintly. Her eyes dart a little, a habitual check- "did I do something?" She seems... relatively sure she didn't this time, so she doesn't -stay- uncomfortable.
"I asked," she responds, that same grandmotherly voice, and a shake of her head, much the same tone as when Frodo tells Gandalf 'alright then, keep your secrets.' She sets down her tea, and waits out Mei's thoughts and discussions.
"All right." Her hands cradle in her lap again, resting loosely on her lap, and she clicks her tongue. The sleepy husky at her feet raises his head and blinks slowly. "Agoston, snacks, please." The canine whufts gently and then pap pap pap off toward the Lodge's kitchen.
"Oh, no, it wasn't you. Vasha does that when he feels too Seen," answers Fox mildly, offering Liezel a reassuring little smile. "Mom-mom got under his armor, and then Mei called him out on being a grumpy butthole when people get too close to the truth too quickly, so Vasha went 'aaaaaa' and ran off to where no one could see him, namely, within Incognito Presence. He might be here listening to us now, though he likely isn't." Still, she sticks her tongue out at a random empty place, in case Vasha is there.
A little shake of Balm's head, and she lets all that pass by. "So what do you intend to do about these future visitors?" she asks.
"Well I'm not going to go tell Penance," Fox mumbles.
"I recently met someone at the Arboretum who was here visiting, and she told me about her Legacy," Mei explains to Balm, since she's not reluctant to talk about this, she just wasn't trying to make herself the focus. "The Choir of Hashmallim. It interested me, but it wasn't quite right for me, so I took some lessons from it, did some thinking, and then forged my own path. One focused on repairing the world and the people in it, and on opposing the Abyss."
She makes a bit of a face when Liezel calls her "master" and says, "that term always makes me feel a little uncomfortable. Master, I mean. Especially when it's about me. It's accurate, of course, and I don't hate it, but I wish we had a better word."
Fox sulks back into the couch a bit, grabbing a pillow and tucking it across her stomach. She is not going to go act like the Pentacle has all the power here. Balm looks sidelong at her, her eyebrows rising briefly, and then turns her attention back to Mei.
"A noble goal," Balm agrees thoughtfully, querying, "Have you decided what to call yourself? Do you intend to open membership to others?"
Liezel glances sidelong at pouty Fox and breaks from the current organization to move her chair behind Fox's so she can sit in it and hug Fox from behind their own chair, without needing to interrupt by speaking up or vocally drawing attention. Just a gesture to express that his discomfort was noted, acknowledged, and that they were worth soothing.
"Sorry, then," Liezel offers. "Well... if we want a better term, we need to have one. Any better ones in mind? It will be difficult to find a word that expresses total experience like that, but finding one divorced of the connotations... might be worth hunting something down or making something up?"
"We're the 9th Sefira, although by 'we' I currently just mean 'me'," Mei says with a casual shrug and a soft laugh. "Which refers to Yesod on the Tree of Life, the foundation upon which God built the world. It's also the means of transmission between all the sefirot above and reality, the Fallen World, below." With a nod of her head she confirms, "I do plan to let other's join, if their philosophies fit and they want to join me on this path."
Balm's eyes glitter gently, and Agoston comes back with bags of chips, which he sets on the table, and then pap pap pap off to the corner of the room and grabs on the pull handle on Balm's folded closed wheelchair. "It sounds as though you have put all the thought into this which should go into it. I look forward to you demonstrating your work. However, I am being told that I ought to go and have a rest by Agoston, and he gets a little particular." She pushes herself slowly up to her feet. "Could I bother one of you to put my teapot and cup in the dishwasher for me?"
"I'd be happy to demonstrate," Mei says with a nod. "Some of what I can do now is more interesting to demonstrate than others parts of it are, but there are certainly some surprises." The impishness returns, briefly, before she gets up to start collecting teastuffs. "You should listen to Agoston, if he's starting to fuss. I'll take care of cleaning up. It was nice seeing you, po po."
|