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The strains of Rachmaninoff piano concerto No 2 streams pleasantly out of the gun closet, accompanied by Vasha's pleasant baritone humming along to the music as he works diligently at the machining table.
There's a semi-automatic low caliber Beretta disassembled on the table which he is carefully customizing in a manner that implies this is intended to be a special gun. On the table behind him is more kit. A slim bulletproof vest, some spare magazines and a few different boxes of ammo. There's a tactical radio, a reverse peephole, a bug scanner, a semi-automatic shotgun, and just a general pile of surplus field gear and espionage equipment, all carefully sized and sorted and tested and tuned up.
After he drops the new receiver into the piece, he begins to assemble the sidearm piece by little piece with all the practiced speed and ease of someone who's been around guns for most of his adult life. He then grabs his engraver and carefully lays a stencil against the side of the piece, transferring the sketch of a rabbit being chased by a fox onto the side of the barrel. Once the sketch is transferred, the high pitched buzzing of his etcher and the chirping of flaking paint and metal carry out of his workshop.
Oontz-Oontz is in there with him, in human form, his feet kicked up on a table, playing his Nintendo Switch.
Fox usually sleeps late into the day, with foxes being nocturnal and all, and she wanders out of the bedroom she shares with Vasha, buck-ass naked. Having showered last night, she's quite clean still. She stands there for a moment, yawning big like a tired fox, all sharp teeth and tattoos. Disoriented, Fox has been apparently summoned by the Rachmaninoff. Rubbing her eyes, she suddenly blinks rapidly as the events of the previous day come back to her.
"Oh, shit. Right," she mumbles under her breath, and then steps back into their room, closing the door. Guess she's gotta put on pants.
A good night's sleep and cuddling with her sibling had done wonders for Simone. She's still got some shadows under her eyes, but--one gets the feeling she usually looks like that. She's out of PJs, wearing.... real clothes... mostly. Which consists of a sweater and pants that are one tiny step above sweatpants. They have pockets! That's all you need for adult clothes, right? She definitely favors comfort over style.
The sound of machinery draws her interest, and she slowly moves from the kitchen towards the workroom, cradling a mug full of coffee against her chest. Thankfully, she just barely misses seeing her sister naked.
She comes up to the door, leaning against the frame as she watches Vasha work silently, taking a slow sip of coffee. It's definitely a I'm trying to figure you out look, but nothing aggressive. Though after a beat she looks over the sprawling table of gear bewilderedly.
Mei comes in from the elevator lobby around the same time as people start emerging from their rooms. As is so often the case she's wearing a leather jacket, black jeans, and boots, and there's a backpack slung over one of her shoulders. She makes her way into the absurd penthouse in search of anyone else who might happen to be up and about, moving with a kind of confident swagger, like she's thinks she's really cool. And is at least right in the eyes of some of the people she knows, so there is that.
When she finds nobody in the kitchen she goes wandering around, searching elsewhere, which is how she comes upon Simone leaning against the door, looking into the workshop where Vasha's gunning. "Hey, mornin'," she says with a smile and a nod as she approaches.
Oh, there's much to be bewildered by in there. There are racks upon racks of firearms. Twenty Mossburg Shotgons, Twenty Heavy and Light Pistols in differing models. Cases of grenades. Sniper rifles in various lengths and calibers. Two goddamn flame throwers. Two RPGs. A mortar. Coatracks filled with body armor, topped with helmets. A single cabinet simply marked 'Ballistic Plating'. They guy's arsenal could topple a central american government in an afternoon.
Oontz-Oontz, who looks like a strung out raver kid as interpreted by a turn of the century cautionary tale about the perils of CyberSpace, looks up from his game and chirps happily at Simone, then offers what sounds like audio playback from a movie clip, "Well, well, well, look what the cat dragged in." Sounds a bit like Hugh Jackman from a Wolverine role, that.
Vasha reaches out with his left hand and blindly thwaps Oontz's shoulder, "Be nice."
Oontz-Oontz swaps to Forrest Gump instead, "It's nice to meet you."
Vasha nods his approval, watches Simone for a moment as she watches him, offers her a faint smile, and then he returns to his etching.(edited)
A moment later Fox emerges again, wearing sleep pants with a pattern of foxes frolicking on a green background and a black t-shirt which reads YOU ARE ENOUGH in rainbow-edged white. She stretches again and pap pap pap down the hallway toward the cluster of people. First, she embraces her sister, because there's so much hug debt to be repaid. "Hey, Baby Girl. Get some sleep? Next, a smooch on the cheek for Mei, and a "Hiii." Fox leans her head against Mei's shoulder for a moment and then pap pap pap into the room like it's ... normal.
"She's my sister, Oontz Oontz. Always polite, please." The Honorary Rank 5 Spirit doesn't often stand on rank, but by the brief squint, she's willing to make an exception. She passes him and then slips her arms around Vasha's shoulders from behind very gently, kissing the side of his head and murmuring,
"Come talk to her, My Heart," in Ukranian before straightening up and turning her attention back to her sister now that the Greeting Of The Skulk has been completed.
There is definitely an uptick in anxiety as she tries to process the full extent of....... the collection. She doesn't know shit about guns, but holy shit. "You know," she says, nerves translating once again into sarcasm, "This is not helping the My sister is marrying a Bond villain' conspiracy."
She takes another sip of coffee, eyeing Oontz-Oontz, again with a bewildered expression, before laughing. "That's... actually really good, holy shit. Uh, nice to meet you too."
She slides out of the doorway so Mei can walk past her if she wants, giving the other woman a nod. "Morning. ...You look familiar. You were there yesterday, right? It's all kinda... blurry..."
Fox's hug is returned, and she smiles. "Yeah, fair amount."
Mei turns her head to make the cheek-smooch easier and gives Fox a smile, then reaches out to swat her butt when she starts to pap pap away from Mei, into the room.
"It's more like your sister is marrying Ukrainian Bond," Mei points out with a casual little shrug. "After he has gone rogue because he's tired of his agency's shit. Or something. I don't know. I never really liked those movies that much. Anyway, yeah. I was there. I'm Mei. Don't worry, things will start making a bit more sense soon. I went through something a lot like what you just did not that long ago. I get it."
"I am not a Bond Villain. I hunt Bond Villains for sport." Vasha says this with the understated manner-of-factness that is so very common to the slavic bravado. He leans back against Fox when she comes to give him a hug and a kiss, tilting his head back to offer a smooch back, and then he's back to his etching.
"I am member of secret society within secret society within secret society, kind of. I am assassin, spy, espionage artist, one-person-strike-squad. I am force multiplier? You understand? One of me behind the enemy's lines causing division sized problems." Vasha considers his arsenal briefly, then shrugs his shoulders and casts his focus back to his work.
"That is all for you," he says dismissively of the pile of gear on the table. "I know you don't know how to use or what it is. I will teach you. And if you do not want to learn, it will remain in here with your name on it in case you change mind." He holds his current piece of the light and blows on it, rubbing a thumb over it before smiling his approval again. He slaps a magazine in, double-checks the safety, and turns on his stool to offer the black metal death-dealer out towards Simone on a slightly oily gun rag.
"I saw inside. When you were waking up. I saw you chasing." He gestures with the offered weapon, nodding down at the etching. "There are two times I feel most alive. When I see Arcadia, and when I have to use one of these to protect it." Another little gesture with the rag, "Please. For you. My gift to you."
"What Mei said. I'm marrying Ukranian Bond. He protects people. Our society. The world, honestly."
"The people who were there yesterday were Vasha, who basically took care of an entire Abyssal by himself, which is, I assure you, very impressive, me, who did a lot of the cleanup and fixed your door and Vasha's favorite silver pistol which the Abyssal blew up, Mei, who figured out a lot of stuff we needed to know while you were out of it so we could protect you and ... our secrecy, and Tanya, who I think is still asleep. She's my apprentice." Fox gently pets Vasha's shoulder much the same way he sometimes rubs her furry belly, and then steps away from him in order to return to her sister's side in the doorway and insinuate herself into a snuggle.
There's nothing else for her to say right now because Vasha is saying important things. Her job is hugs.
"...Huh," she murmurs, looking from Mei to Vasha. She hesitates a moment, eyes flickering briefly to her sister--then just nods, accepting. There seems to be a moment of she trusts you, so I will too behind her eyes.
Then she balks as Vasha says its all for her. She looks over the gear on the table again, blinking. "Do I--really need all of this? I'm just... an artist..."
Being offered the gun makes her shrink back a hint instinctively. She frowns as she listens, the weight of the words sinking in. She sets her coffee mug on the edge of the table, then slowly reaches out to take the gun from him. It's very clear she's never held a gun in her life--but a small smile breaks through as she stares down at the etching. "Thanks," she says finally, looking back up at him. "For saving me. And--this, though I don't... know how to use any of this stuff, yeah."
Vasha demures the thanks and the praise, holding up his hands and shaking his head a little, "No no no. You did the hard part. You crossed the Abyss and wrote your name on our Tower. I just do my job. This is not about me. This is not the time we put me in the center of things." Because Guardians just love the attention, right? "This is your time. And I am grateful that I get to share it with you. You understand?"
Vasha's head tilts just a touch to the side as she claims the weapon. He wipes his hands off with the oily rag, then turns on his stool to begin packing up the collected gear into a mission bag for her. Packing it the way he'd pack it. Tight. Efficient.
"And you are not just anything any longer. You are a Scion of the Watchtower of the Lunargent Thorn on the Path of Arcadia. You are Acanthus. And that means you are whatever you imagination desires for you to be. You are blessed. You are touched by the silver threads. You have the power to give and to take away. You have the power to decide. You are the butcher's thumb on the scale of fate. So you must be a good and moral person. You must learn ethics. You must find the line you will never cross and hold it with everything that you are. You can grow gardens around your feet wherever you go, or you can leave deserts behind you."
"Knowing how to use your conscience is most important tool in your considerable arsenal." He taps his temple twice. "I am a bad man. I know that. But I am bad for the very best reasons."
"I mean, I don't think I need all of that and I'm a Private Investigator," Mei says with a shrug of her shoulders. "I actually get into fights once in a while in my line of work, just because someone gets mad that I'm poking around or something. But even if you don't need it, it's better to have it and know how to use it in case you do end up needing it, at some point."
She looks at Vasha and then at Simone. "But this is Vasha's way of expressing that he cares about people. Doing everything he can to make sure that not only are they protected, but that they can protect themselves. I think he's trying to take you under his wing. It's just that his feathers are pretty much all guns and ammunition. I'm going to get some coffee, anyone else need something from the kitchen?" She starts turning away, but doesn't start moving yet.
"I don't agree with this," answers Fox to Vasha, clarifying for her sister, apparently. "You are a good man, but sometimes you must ask yourself 'what would a bad man do' in order to do your job. You pretend you are a bad man because it's easier than accepting that you can be inherently good and loving and also do the things you must do. It's your armor."
She leans against her sister and tips her head toward Mei when she speaks. "What she said." A beat. "Ooooh, coffee! Be right back!" Gentle pap pap pap away which (not coincidentally) gives Vasha a short time alone with his new apprentice. Small draughts of Vasha at first.
"Wouldn't say no to a top off," she says to Mei, with a nod to her mug. Because focusing on coffee is easier than focusing on the Ukranian Bond wanting to turn you into a femme fatale with a honor code.
She swallows, looking at the gun, then back at Vasha. "I just... wanted my sister back. I didn't--I don't know if I'm cut out for... all that." Welp, Simone, it's a bit too late for that.
"This is what having her back means." Vasha says with the a subtle sadness to his voice. "I not miss her for as long as you, because she come into my life when you lose her. But I lost her too, once. This is what having her back is. This is the price we have to pay to be around her." His shoulders shrug very slightly as his packing pauses, but he resumes his work in short order.
"You can't meet someone that can be anything-- truly meet them --until you are willing to change yourself, too." He glances back to where Fox has just disappeared to, and then looks back to Simone, "It is hard at first. Scared me, I know. You just saw yourself as you truly are. As the universe wants you to be. All of your potential unleashed like that? When all you wanted is one of the most amazing things the world ever dreamed up? Your sister?"
"But the universe let you have it. And all it cost you was the comfort of a lifelong lie. You will see it as a bargain soon, I hope." Vasha glances aside to Mei and gives her a small little chin up, "Not so long ago it was you waking up. Maybe you have better advice for her than me. I don't think I am being very good at making sense."
"Coffee for the foxy lady," Mei says with finger guns at Fox, then she reaches out to take Simone's mug too. "And a top-off for her sister. Can do. And Simone? If you decide that you want to be cut out for something, I'm confident that you're cut out for it. One thing you'll start to find now that your eyes are opened to this new reality is that most of the limitations put on you are put on you by yourself, and only you can decide to shed them."
She starts heading off toward the kitchen and says over her shoulder, "I'll have more advice to offer when I come back, and have had a few moments to figure out how to sound more clever."
She starts to pap pap pap away, then realizes that Mei had offered to go get the coffee, so she makes a sort of comical u-turn in the hallway and trots back past Mei, swatting the Obrimos' butt as she goes. This makes her arrive back in the room around the time Vasha starts talking, and she just ... stands there in the doorway next to her sister, looking like she's about to melt from all of the Big Feelings that her tiny body is being asked to contain. That's one Big Feelings face.
That is.... a lot to take in. Simone stands in stunned silence, fingers curling a little tighter around the gun. A few tears streak down her cheeks--but when she notices Fox returning, she lifts her arm to quickly wipe her cheeks off on her sleeve.
She looks down at the gun in her hand, clearly trying to keep her own Big Feels off of her face. "Okay," she says, softly at first. Then more clearly, "Where do we start?"
Mei only laughs when her ass is smacked and keeps walking. She disappears to the kitchen for a little bit to fix up coffee for herself and others.
"We start by making it official. I offer you Hospitality under the Great Rites of the Diamond Orders. I offer you Sanctuary under the same. I offer you my knowledge and teaching and protection. I offer to claim your missteps as my own, and raise your successes up as triumphs of your own doing. If others come after you because they are angry, I will bear the brunt of it. I will pay your debts. All you need to do in return is learn and grow."
Vasha finishes packing up the gear, leaving only the weapons and armor on the table, and turns to carry the pack towards Simone, extending it out towards her with a small nod of the head. Here. "The first lesson is this, little rabbit. Everything you do from now on comes with a price tag attached. The more favors you ask of the universe, the more you owe it in return. And the house always wins, khadozhnik. It always, always wins."
"The Diamond Orders are the Big Four of the good Mage Secret Societies," Fox asides to her sister, clearing her throat and stashing the rest of those Big Feelings somewhere to deal with later. She leans over to kiss her sister on the cheek, a supportive gesture. There's nothing more she feels like she can really say when Vasha just spent like ... whole minutes praising her existence and basically making her sister's Awakening conditional upon her being like, the best thing ever, better even than baby birds and dark chocolate.
No pressure, though. She just drinks her coffee quietly thereafter.
"Am I supposed to... kneel or something?" she asks with a little twist-quirk to one side of her lips as Vasha makes his offer Official. A little nod as Fox explains. "Yeah... okay." She hesitantly accepts the bag, sliding it onto her shoulder--the weight making her sag slightly to one side. She lifts her hand to her forehead for a mock-formal salute. "I... accept."
Her face scrunches up as she listens to the rest. "Sounds like a shitty deal. But I guess if you can do anything, maybe it's worth it."
"Kneel?" Vasha looks incredulous at the question, looking to Fox briefly before looking back to Simone. She mentioned he's a raging commie, right? He ends up chuckling warmly and shaking his head in the negative. "No, no, no. No kneeling. You just do what you did. You say okay. You take the bag. We'll go over its contents in the time to come. Important to know how the tools work in case you need them, as Mei said. Me, I am good with the magic of the mind, too. So sometimes I just teach myself how to do things I don't know how to do." Because that's a thing you can do, apparently. "And sometimes that's a good way to learn, actually. I let your body experience what it's like to do the thing, then when the knowledge is gone, you know you have it in you to get done the thing you thought you couldn't do. I learn many things this way!"
"I know. It's like drinking from a firehose right now. We have covered everything I wanted to make sure we got out of the way to start with. So I'd like to do you the mercy nobody ever did me and ask you what you'd like to know. You have questions, and they're all important, and they all deserve answers, and I'm sure you have a list and a priority order. So let's start at the top. I will tell you only truths, even if the truth I tell you is that I am not allowed to answer. I will never lie to you if you ask me questions or for help. That is my promise to you."
"...I can just... teach myself shit?" She blinks slowly. "Like--I could just make myself fucking Mozart? For funsies?"
She shakes her head, then frowns. "I don't even know where to start. I don't understand about... half of what's been said to me the past couple of days." She puffs out a breath. "Okay, lets... start with the Abyss. You killed something from it? And I crossed it?"
"I don't... really remember crossing anything--I just--was following the fox."
A slow shrug from Fox, there. "We didn't get to the 'raging Ukranian nationalist and also Karl Marx's biggest fan," she drolls toward her fiance, reading the expression with the ease of a dozen years of partnership. But mostly, she hugs her sister and stays out of the way. This isn't her moment.
"You have the ability to learn how to do so, if you lack the ability to do so now. Here. Let me show you." Vasha reaches out a hand and rests it gently on Simone's shoulder. The lightest possible touch so as not to be invasive, and it withdraws once the deed is done.
Her head is suddenly infused with his rather encyclopedic knowledge of the weapon she'd been gifted. She knows its ins and its outs, how to operate it, all the tips and tricks he might spend years imparting to her? She's got it. She could probably win a marksmanship event at an Open tournament. Easily. And while the firearm still may hold mystique as a tool of destruction, it is at the least no longer a mysterious tool of destruction but a fully understood one.
And then, after a moment or two of dawning realization, he drops the effect and it all washes out again.
"Are you familiar with the Allegory of the Cave? Plato, I think? Maybe Aristotle. I forget which. Anyway. A man chained inside a cave sees shadows of objects cast on the cave wall by a fire at the cave mouth, lit by an observer of the object being illuminated. The person at the entrance of the cave knows the truth of the object. The object knows the truth of itself. But the man in the cave, all he sees is the shadow. He can only know the object by the shadow. He might intuit a shape. But the size, the color, the texture, the contents or emptiness, the weight, the quality of the craftsmanship-- all the qualities that we use to assign value and worth to a thing --are denied you."
"Being asleep is like being in the cave. Being awake is being the one at the fire, casting the shadows. And the abyss is the distance between the light and the wall. The Supernal is outside the cave shining in. The wall is our world."
"It can be just that allegorical, or it can be very literal. Sometimes we awaken in little mystery plays similar to the one you experienced. Sometimes our souls do travel to the Supernal realms directly. There's no real understanding of why some do and some don't. But there are as many paths to the Supernal, it seems, as there are ways to be alive. And we constantly discover new ones, and try to understand them. Each awakening is a gift, a chance to understand a little more about our universe.
And here Vasha pauses, pulling down his white board presently covered with tactical diagrams of a recent outing of his. He erases it casually and begins mapping out the universe for her in dry erase marker.
"Here is the Realms Supernal. The pinnacle of reality. All that truly is, was, or ever will be comes from these realms. All truth, all goodness, all light in the world comes from there. And there is where our souls must reach to awaken. Each realm-- five in all --has a watch tower. A ... monolith of some sort that harnesses the realm's power and directs it. When we sign our names there-- figuratively or literally, as when you hung your portrait --that is when we awaken. Our true names tied forever to that tower."
A little diagram of five cirled, each vaguely touching, with little towers drawn in each. Each is labeled. Pandemonium, Aether, Primal Wild, Arcadia, Stygia.
He goes on to diagram it all. The Abyss. The Omphalos. The Sidereal Wastes. The Ood. The Kem. The Spire Perilous. All of it. Down to the Astral realm of world dreams, of beast dreams, of human dreams. Down, down, down to the fallen world. Like being extruded through reality.
"The Abyss is the antithesis of the Supernal. If the Supernal is all that is possible, all that is good, all that is bright and hopeful? The Abyss is chaos and destruction. It seeks to eradicate, erase, destroy. Tear down. Ruin. Corrupt. Pollute. Twist. Its touch can be deadly. Dip a toe in it and you will simply cease to be. Its taint, its corruption is what keeps this world asleep and quiet. When a human looks up at what I do with ease and says 'That's impossible' it is the Abyss moving their lips."
"But it is also... conscious. Alive, in some sense. Filled with horrible twisted spirits. Like the one that came to your Awakening and that we defeated. The abyss doesn't want us to Awaken. It is the force behind the Great Lie. But it is not ... there is no agenda to it, that I have ever found. It is the scorpion on the frog. It simply is what it is. There are entities who use it, however, to enforce that Great Lie and keep humanity in chains. They are called the Exarchs. And they are my sworn enemy."
"Plato," Fox offers in an interjectory fashion, inserting another little bit of commentary as she eventually unwinds herself from around Simone, one last squeeze before she lets go and pap pap pap in her little bare feet over to Vasha. "Plato's Allegory of the Cave." Fine, ya nerd.
She drops onto her butt on the floor next to him and leans her head against his knee while he talks. When he says 'Primal Wild,' Fox picks up her head and does a little butt-wiggling dance on the floor, arms briefly in the air Kermit-style, as if to say that's mine! without interrupting his very thorough explanation.
Horror, then awe flashes over her face. She seems to go between the two a couple of times as she shifts her grip on the gun, holding it more safely. Her mind wars between holy shit I could actually murder someone effortlessly with this... and HOLY SHIT I COULD FUCKING MURDER SOMEONE EFFORTLESSLY WITH THIS!!.
Then it's gone, and she's left feeling a little dizzy. She swallows, reaching out to rest the gun on the table, barrel aimed towards the wall away from any of them. "Holy fucking shit," she mutters under her breath, taking a few deep breaths.
She looks back towards Vasha, wracking fingers through her hair. Her brows scrunch as she listens to.... all that, focus shifting to staring at the diagram. It seems to help, some. She reads some of the names he's written out loud under her breath, but she seems to give up trying to memorize all of this right away by the time he gets to the Astral realms. She takes another deep breath, rubbing idly at one cheek, while one eye keeps squinting at the board. "...Okay," she finally says. "So did an Exarch send that thing to kill me, so I wouldn't wake up?"
"That is a nuanced question," Vasha admits as he slides down a different white board with a different diagram on it which he likewise erases. Apparently he does lectures with visual aids. It definitely seems to help him with his vocabulary limitations in English.
"I want to explain about the Exarchs in a bit. Because that story will involve the alleged origin of the Orders and the rise of present day mage society. That will be important to helping you understand how all of this ties together. So. We'll get there, when you want to get there. But to answer your question."
Vasha looks back to the blank board, then back to Simone. "The Exarchs are responsible, in a manner of speaking, for the existence of the Abyss. And, as it happens, so are we. And by we, I mean the Awakened in general and the Diamond orders in specific. The tale we tell about it I will relate when I teach you about the Exarchs, but what's important to understand is that it was the hubris of humanity that wedged the Supernal and the fallen world apart. And it was Hubris that gave rise to the Abyss. And hubris that empowers it still." Spoken like a Guardian, that.
"The creation of the Abyss and its use by the Exarchs was exploitative. I don't for a moment imagine that the Exarchs control the Abyss beyond ensuring that its focus is on devouring the shadows of creation rather than the supernal truth, which they covet for themselves. They've cut off the Supernal from the Fallen World. From here. From this. And the ugly parts of the Abyss, they can only come here. They can only cloud our minds and our visions, typically. So in a sense, yes, the Exarchs sent that thing to stop you from awakening. And in another sense, they have no concern for you at all because you are so far beneath their notice that you may as well be an ant."
"Now. There are mages who channel the power of the Abyss. We call them Scelesti. They're... vile. Mad. Twisted. The murder, rape, torture, and destroy. They will harness the Abyss against you. They will absolutely send creatures from the Abyss to attack us and stymie our Awakenings. But they don't hold any loyalty to the Exarchs. Cut off from Supernal Truth, maybe because they can't process what's happened, they just... they become sick. At the point one has fallen that far, death is a mercy."
As he's been speaking, Vasha scribbles the terms and definitions on the white board for Simone. Exarch: Ruler of a Throne of the Supernal. Scelesti: Magus whose power derives from the Abyss. Etc.
"Should I be writing this down?" Simone jokes. "Like, is there a pop quiz later?" She continues rubbing her cheek for a moment, reading over the words and definitions that he's writing. At being referenced to as an ant, she nods, arms crossing over her chest.
"Well, they sound like shitheads," she mutters, arms crossing tighter at the thought of Scelesti. Something instinctual now inside her crawling at the idea of them. "This is... a lot. But I think I'm following, so far."
Mei returns in time to hear the question about the pop quiz, having gone to offload pictures from her camera to her computer and now returning without the backpack or her leather jacket, meaning she's just in the white tank top she'd been wearing under it. And pants, of course.
"This is your life now, so the rest of it's going to feel like a pop quiz sometimes," she comments, taking a lean against the wall and hooking her thumbs in belt loops. "It is a lot, and some of it will take a while to stick. That's normal. You're not trying to learn all this handcuffed to a hospital bed. Guess that doesn't mean it's really all that much easier, in the end."
Bzzzt.
Someone's ringing up from the entrance. Whoever could that be?
Fox says quickly, "I'll be right back," and scampers off to answer the door. Once she discovers it's Liezel, she buzzes her up. "It's Liezel!" she calls over her shoulder. "She wants to join us, like join us join us, so she wants to like spend time."
"There are always tests, khadozhnik. Few of them are written." Vasha moves right past that and pulls down the third white board in the row, moving over to it to sketch out a single line which he begins marking with hashes and dates. Most of the dates are estimated. Before the Time of Man, ~10,000 BCE, ~5,000 BCE, etc. So on up to the present day. He begins writing in events along the timeline.
"Fox can tell you about all the time before Man. She can tell you about the time before the Fall. Before the rise of the Diamond. They are articles of faith for her the way the history of the Diamond is for me, so those teachings I will leave to her. Out of respect. Suffice, that her people and those like her gifted to humanity a world in balance. Where flesh and spirit knit together as one. Where mind and body existed without seeming contradiction. Where kinetic force and fate were felt in equal measure. All the natural oppositions and dualities of our present, shattered world? Were ... smooth. Were even." He knits his fingers together, trying to impress the point.
"Mages were Gods walking the earth, and their power was absolute. We built kingdoms, lead nations, and grew drunk with our power. In our hubris, we created a city of the Awakened. We likened it to a dragon, whose Astral emanation we fought and slew, and whose blood poured fourth to create the Abyss. We did it, because we wished to climb the Spire Perilous in the Astral Realm, reach the Supernal Realms, and claim their power for ourselves. And the Dragon? Well. It was in the way."(edited)
"The Exarchs, once kings of that city, once the rulers of humanity, they ascended. And they pulled the ladder up after themselves. Literally. They cast down the Spire, left it shattered and broken. Left the bodies of those climbing it shattered, too. Broken on the plains below. They made this world a prison for us, with a moat of corruption between us and the only true shining city on a hill that matters: the Supernal Realms."
"That is why we must never entertain a false throne ever again. Why all presumptions to Godhood are false. Why all Hierarchies are false. Why I am no better than you for simply being further along the path than you are. And why you are no better than the sleeper whose eyes are closed. Humility will keep you righteous. Seek comradeship with all life and all things. Accept all ways of being. Be open to new ideas. To new beliefs. To new experiences."
He pauses, then continues. Adding more modern dates to the timeline.
"The city our history tells is was Atlantis. Whether that is true or not? I do not know. But that is the legend. And I serve one of the Atlantean Orders. The Visus Draconis, the Eyes of the Dragon. The Guardians of the Veil between the fallen world and the Supernal one. We tend to the secrets of our society, keep our dealings out of the papers, away from cameras, out of view of sleepers whose exposure to it would damage them and damage magic itself."
"There are others. The Claws of the Dragon. The Adamantine Arrows, quivers of people dedicated to conflict and growth through opposition. The Voice of the Dragon. The Silver Ladder. Born leaders, philosopher kings, the enlightened great and the good. At their best, they are scions of a bright future. At their worst, they are tyrants little better than the Exarchs. And the Mysterium. The Wings of the Dragon. The Alae Draconis. Keepers of the mysteries of the Supernal. Bookish scientists, or priggish academics. But a good lot, for the most part. The Diamond Orders carry forward the legacy of Atlantis, and the responsibility for atoning for its chiefest shame."
"There are other Orders. Many, many other orders. And I will ensure you meet with members of them before you decide what you want to be." He adds the final date to the timeline. In the 19th century. 'Free Council joins the Diamond. Pentacle Orders established.' Then he caps the marker and turns back about to his pupil.
"If this all feels circular, like a snake eating its tail, that is ... the case. You will find references to Oroborous throughout our mysticism. Cycles and circles, all things turning back in on themselves in perpetuity. Which is why even for the Acanthus who control fate and time, all things come back around again. The good you put into the world will come back to you three fold. The bad, seven."
"Yo," Mei says, slipping one thumb out of a belt loop and raising the hand to give a little wave, before returning to the previous position. "Here representing one of those many other orders. Little Fox, too." She turns to look off after Fox when she runs off to, and then comes back to say it's Liezel. "Oh, cool, glad she dropped by. I haven't seen her in a bit!"
It doesn't take too terribly long for Liezel to make it to the penthouse after being buzzed in. She knocks again, on door or- if there's an elevator leading straight into the penthouse proper- on the wall beside it. "Hello, it's me. Is it still alright if I come in?" The collected number more than just Fox. She can't be sure, so she has to check.
Vasha, Mei and Simone are in Vasha's Gun Room. Yes, he has a whole room for his guns. Of fucking course he does. Fox has come to meet Liezel at the elevator, and she flings her arms up around the taller woman's neck and kisses her soundly. "Yes! Yes it is! Elizabeth, come meet my sister. She... " And her voice bubbles up so happily, "I found her! And then she started talking weirdly and there were fox footprints so Vasha jumped off the balcony and I said 'oh shit' and ran after him and turned us into owls and we flew to the Bentley and I made us machine-invisible and stuff and he used Fate and we went SO FAST to her house and there was an Abyssal and Vasha shot it right in its face and I did too but not so great. ALSO I went SO SO FAST I have never run that fast, it was so good, I want to do that again but the point is -- "
The Foxbabble pauses for a moment as she sucks in a breath. " -- Simone Awakened and she's an Acanthus and now Vasha is teaching her and it's so great. I love watching him infodump, it's so great, come hang out! Vasha might let you look at his guns!" Then she stops hugging on Liezel, grabs her hand, and starts pulling her down the hall. This place is feckin' huge.
Elizabeth squeals with surprise at Fox's abrupt fling into her arms- she should be used to it but she never is and it's a startling delight every time for the girl- and curls arms under Fox to support him as they chatter and ramble. "I- wait. Sister? Should there not be fox footprints? There was an Abyssal?? Who is Simone??? Is she the sister? IS guns a euphemisOHwe'regoingnow," she squawks as she's grabbed and tugged and pulled, looking around in stark awe. "How... many apartments are on this floor again..?"
"I was... joking, mostly..." She smiles weakly at Mei and Vasha, then looks back at the Acanthus to focus on the next chunk of lecture.
"I don't... think I'll have much trouble with the humility thing," she says, brows knitting. Easy to say for someone who hasn't even experimented with their magic yet, granted. "I don't... want to be a God or anything." She rubs her hand along one bicep.
"Atlantis?" She can't help but laugh at first, a nervous overwhelmed sort of sound. "Huh." She tilts her head, trying to focus more on the Orders--since it's clearly going to be more directly relevant to her life.
She nods slowly, managing a small smile at the mention of 'the world will come back to you three fold.' "Well... I try to do good, most of the time. So that will hopefully be alright."
She looks towards the sound of approaching footsteps, and offers a weak, tired smile towards Liz and Fox. Her arms stay crossed, but she lifts a hand briefly for a little wave. "Hey."
Vasha takes the time to carefully write out the definitions of each of the esoteric terms he used on the second white board, such that the lecture his the brakes for quite a while. Once he's got each one sufficiently annotated to his satisfaction, he steps back from the list and nods his head a few times, seeming content with where they've reached so far.
"That's the basics. Tomorrow I will teach you about the Arcana, Paradox, Potentia, Gnosis, and we will experiment with magic together. I will walk you through various Mudras and ways of aiding forming the Imago for the spell you wish to create." And as he's speaking, he's adding these new terms to the definitions list. He'll circle back later for definitions.
"We can do it at your place, too, if you like. I'd like to show you the Hallow that opened in your home and teach you how to harness it. Sometimes the best way to learn is to do. Enh?" Vasha then turns to define each term briefly before capping the marker and setting it aside.
He is wearing, of all things, a look of pleasant satisfaction on his face. "And if you have questions after resting on all of this? We'll start with those. But I don't want to drown you in all of this all at once. There will be time."
With that, Vasha slaps his hips and declares, "It is Vodka o'clock."
"It's always vodka o'clock," Mei points out with a slight roll of her eyes, and then she pushes away from the wall and unhooks thumbs from belt loops to head over toward Liezel. "Heya!" she says with an upnod. "Good to see you again. Thanks again for the work you did on that ring for me. How have you been?"
Then she looks around and answers. "There's one."
"They were my fox footprints, the ... whatever that was, it was from Arcadia and it was taunting me. My sister is in here. There was an Abyssal. My sister. No, really guns. Yes going!" Fox pulls Liezel down the hall and stops in the doorway. Two things happen in the span of six seconds: first, Fox sort of slowly collapses inward on herself, a sort of reverse stretch, as if instead of pulling the kinks out of her spine her muscles are pulling her inward. It looks terribly organic and somehow... correct?
At the end of it, there's a very floofy, well-groomed and quite cute red fox standing where Fox's human form just was.
A heartbeat later, everyone in the room feels a wash of understanding. "It will become normal," says the fox, as she curls herself up and sits on one of Vasha's feet. "I can teach you to Speak with Beasts." It's sort of a belated thing, that. A thought she'd been holding since she ran off toward the door.
"Liezel, also known as Juno, this is my sister Simone." Don't think too hard about how the snarling translates names. It just fucking does. "Simone, this is Liezel, another one of my partners. She is very sweet. Elizabeth, look! So many guns!"
"A--what? A Hallow opened at my house?" She blinks, looking worried. "But uh--yeah, okay. Tomorrow sounds good. I think my brain is starting to leak out of my ears." She looks back to the white boards. "Is it... okay for me to make a copy of that? Or take pictures so I can reference it later?"
And then Fox turns into a fox and Simone briefly looses it--jumping back briefly like she'd just seen a mouse run by her feet. She blinks a few times at Fox-fox, then bursts out laughing, hand moving to her temple in an of course you're literally a FOX, duh! sort of gesture.
Vodka o'clock. "I think one of us is confused as to what the word vodka means in this context. And judging by Mei's response... I believe it might be me," Liezel murmurs, following along on Fox's lead, nodding towards Mei- and remembering very briefly afterwards that she'd meant to smile so she'd know she was happy to see her, and does so. It's sincere! Just late. "You're very welcome. I am glad I got it done before the repair work was needed." Pause. "Though come to think of it, it is not as though it would have been any trouble to simply have your ring sitting on top of the pile of other things I was Perfecting." Hm. Point. "Oh, well. I am still glad I got it to you before I got consumed by my work!" She smiles again at Mei. Do it enough and people will notice you! That's a Fox lesson right there.
"... one what? One-" Gawk. "One apartment? Y'all have the entire floor?"
"Oh. But you weren't there, so- okay. I am following now. And good. I am not at all sure what to do when someone shows off muscles. Is that a clapping situation?" She sounds terribly unsure of her answer.
And then Fox is fox, and understanding is had, and Liezel is given permission to stare at guns in lieu of interaction and Liezel manages not to. She wants to, that's clear, but there is a new person, and there is Vasha, and she makes a point of giving them each their very own smile and waves at Simone in particular. "I wish there was a better phrase for greeting the recently awakened than Good Morning. It doesn't have the same impact when it's slant-purposed like that. Um." She tries to think of another phrase. "Glad to have you?" She grimaces. Nope. "Well, I am Liezel, like Fox said, and it is very nice to meet you, Simone."
"And you, Va-" She cuts off, frowning. She can remember Vasily & Vasha and can't recall whether one is too formal or the other too informal. "Am I supposed to call you Vasha or Vasily? I do not want to be rude. And may I look at your armory while we speak?"
"Vasha." Somehow the name comes out very naturally as a near-growl from the fox, even as she's coming to curl around her sister's ankles once Simone facepalms in that 'of course' sort of way. She glances at Liezel when she manages to restrain herself from immediately going and basically faceplanting in a big, comforting pile of mechanical things and instead interacts with people. There's a wink for her.
She leans against Simone's legs for a minute, and then steps away to shake herself out thoroughly. A little hop - hop - hop bit of cavorting. "Snuggle time!" Yes, this is a little bit of Fox dance. True shenanigans, this. How can people be sad and overwhelmed when Fox is so ding dang cute?
At least, that's kind of the premise she's working with, here.
"Yeah. I mean, Zoya has an entire floor, and lets us use it, technically," Mei answers with a half-bewildered shrug. "It's still more space than we need, by quite a margin. She had mentioned working on converting some of the space into temporary housing for people in dangerous situations, at one point. I'm not entirely sure what the status of all that is, right now. It's easy to forget half the penthouse even exists."
She turns to watch Fox frollic around and lets out a soft laugh. "Ugh, too cute," she pretends to complain.
"Vasha. Ivan. Pyotr. I have a hundred names. Pick the one that suits, enh?" Vasha chuckles quietly as he steps out of the double doors to the rest of the apartment, giving Simone's shoulder a gentle sock with his fist as he passes her by. He is making to his liquor cabinet, precisely as he stated he was going to do. He's shortly in possession of a Vodka and cranberry and one of his prized cigars, which he carries back near to the gaggle of others. Smoking and drinking by turns, a sad little smile on his face as he watches Fox cavorting and everyone generally getting along and enjoying themselves.
Relatively speaking. Compared to his frame of recent references.
"Yes, yes," he finally suggests to Liezel, "go tut-tut my collection and tell me how you would do it better." The grudging tone he employs has an edge of humor to it, subtle and easy to miss if you have poor social skills. Unfortunately.
"It is way too big of a space. It's kinda nuts. Never would have thought my sister would be loaded." A beat. "Or date loaded people, apparently. How many partners do you have, Av--Fox?"
She stops and stares at the prancing fox, lips quirking into a little grin, but it's definitely a this is so fucking weird but holy shit you're cute sort of grin.
"I think I need one of those," she says while eyeing Vasha's drink.
"He is not serious, he is being humorous, but you are welcome to look at his guns." Since one of Fox's main jobs is as as a Vasha translator, apparently. She continues to cavort, bouncing around the many people that she loves who are gathered. "Yes, I am the cutest," she agrees in Mei's direction.
And then Simone asks her question and Fox stops, sort of splaying her front feet and tilting her head to one side thoughtfull. Oh no, it's even more cute. "Vasha, Zoya, Mei, Leta, Liezel, and Lux. Everyone but Lux is a Mage, Lux is a Changeling, yes, there are Other Things out there, but no more lessons!" Now is the time on Sprockets when we dance, apparently, and Fox wanders over to Vasha and pokes his leg with her nose, looks up at him with big, plaintive eyes.(edited)
"Vasha, then," Liezel settles on with Fox's help, smiling gratefully as she's recognized for stepping out of her comfort zone to do people things instead, smiling back at Fox as her cheeks light up. "Too cute? I think you might need to recalibrate your adorabilometer, Mei," Liezel rattles off as if adora-bil-ometer was an actual word. "And as for safe housing, I can see a lot of benefits to housing the endangered here. Some few downsides, but it's not like most homes don't suffer from "a vulnerability to attack from the air" in some capacity."
The invitation to take a look and analyze is far more notable than the humor woven in, and a light gleams in her eyes that suggests she might literally offer critique.
"Did you mean to say you did not think she would find herself involved with people who were loaded, or would not find herself being a person loaded with dates? Both are accurate, I am simply curious which you meant, Simone," Liezel calls back without looking away from the mass of hardware. She seems to be hunting through, looking curiously for something or other. At last, she comes back, looking puzzled. "You have many high-end devices, Vasha, but none that seem particularly... personalized. You are carrying your own favorite, then?" She seems to find it incomprehensible he doesn't have truly tailored weaponry.
Liezel opens her mouth as changelings are mentioned, but it is No More Lessons time, and she shuts her mouth on thoughts of vampires and rat spirits.
"Like a fish needs a bicycle," Vasha agrees as he turns to go and mix Simone up a drink of her own without complaint. Along the way he stoops down to scoop up Fox and cradle her in his arm. He casually tosses her over his shoulder when he gets to the cabinet so he has both hands free to mix Simone's drink. Apparently wearing Fox like a stole is something he's accustomed to, because none of her twitching or squirming seems to bother him one little bit. Nor the fact that his fiancee is a fox at present.
He plops his cigar in his mouth so he can carry a glass in either hand back to Simone and pass it over. Then he finds himself a chair and settles into it, placing Fox into his lap once he's settled. On her back. So that he can tickle her tummy and ruffle her fur playfully, all with the most serious and deliberative expression ever worn in the history of Slavic maleness.
He imitates her little fox noises, too. All with grim seriousness and great sincerity. This shit is important and he takes fox playing seriously.
"Personalized weapons are calling cards. Sympathy leads right back to the weapon and to you. I tend to use virgin firearms for assassinations, then dispose of them. Lyudmila is my dedicated tool. I paid to have her modified to my specifications. My customized arsenal? I lost it when I left Saint Petersburg. I have not had time or occasion to rebuild it. I would be interested in adding to this collection, but the stock weapons will remain stock weapons for the reasons I gave."(edited)
"Just to be clear, Simone," Mei says as she finds a seat and drapes one leg over the arm of the chair. "You are absolutely not required to date everyone you meet as a mage. I'm only dating one person, and I wasn't even dating one for quite a while until recently. This whole situation is just... us. Not a matter of wizarding culture."
She laughs as she turns to Liezel. "I don't think 'attack from the air' is usually a concern with the abusive boyfriends and stuff that I think she's looking at as the problem to be solved. If someone needs that kind of shelter, there might be better places to stash them."
Simone pauses a beat to consider that, then shrugs at Liezel. "Both, I guess? But I meant more... the first bit.
Her brows raise at Fox as the list of partners is laid out. "Whoa. Well... good for you! I need to meet all of them."
The drink is accepted with much gratitude, a full grin towards him as she lifts it to take... a sizeable sip from. She keeps her eyes on him as he plays with Fox, clearly finding this incredibly endearing. She smiles, Vasha ticking up the ladder in her mind a few notches from Creepy Ukrainian Bond at the bottom. Some day he'll get to the Beloved Brother-In-Law at the top!
She laughs towards Mei. "That's good to know. Dating hasn't been a sport I've mastered."
"Zoya is from very rich people. She has been part of us for a long time. She likes to spoil." And then Fox gets scooped up and lets out a ridiculous chattering high-pitched sound which... is... laughing? Yes, it's laughing. She squirms and flops and wriggles until she can cast herself around Vasha's shoulders comfortably. And tick up the ladder Fox will be happy to know. After all, Vasha is very used to all of her shenanigans, completely takes them in stride.
"Yes, you must." she agrees with Simone. "Today and yesterday you met three! Mei took me out for chicken feet and spicy food last week." But then she gets distracted by being flipped onto her back and having her belly rubbed. She makes happy noises, wriggles around, laughing, chattering. Generally being the cutest fucking thing on the planet. It's one of the ways Fox knows to Fix Things.
Liezel nods in open, potent satisfaction as Simone answers her question. She knew that.
The idea of repeatedly throwing away nearly unused firearms clearly pains Liezel, and she offers, in a pleading tone, "It seems to me if you want a truly disposable weapon, it would be ideal to be have one that only existed while you used it. I could save you the trouble of having to throw out a perfectly good device by simply creating one for you to specification and disposing of it after the fact. You can't beat the sort of clean that "ceased to exist when its spell ended" gives you." Pause. "Or- at least, it is a very good clean, indeed."
"Honestly, the collection is thorough and lovely, extremely reliable across the board. If I were considering improvements, it would not be trying to cram more guns into your locker, Vasha. It would be cramming them into each other," she explained simply, as if that sentence made perfect sense on its own and needed no further explanations.
"And it depends. I know one boyfriend right now who can fly and if he got mad enough, then that would be a concern. But he is very old and I do not suspect he is the "fly into an inappropriate jealous rage" type," Liezel concluded. Which - no, Guy does not seem the sort.
Vasha just shakes his head a little at Liezel's counter-offer. "Resonance. Nimbus. I mean. For kill normal bad guy? Probably your idea is fine. But I hunt, enh." He goes fishing for words again in that noggin of his, pausing even in his scritching of Fox's tumtum to find the right one. "I hunt apex predators. I hunt Scelesti and I hunt Pylons. You give them one opening, one little slip, and you are the one with your head exploding at six o'clock on a wednesday evening." He glances back Liezel's way as he says this, as though that happened to a guy he knew.
"Your idea is very good. Very smart. Very practical arrow idea. Good for arrows. Good for what you do and how you do it. And if you want to soup up a gun for when we go play the game your way? Happy to have it. Glad to have it in my collection. I will gesture to it and brag about it to people. But when I go to kill that trench coated piece of garbage that busted down our roof and put Elder Balm on the ground? I will do it with a Remmington I got at Walmart, because that's all that piece of shit deserves." Vasha then turns his head to both sides and spits twice in either direction.
"Hopefully any boyfriends you know who can fly also have the sense not to attack the home of a group of mages," Mei points out with a soft laugh. "That's the kind of thing that tends to cause someone a bit of trouble."
She slouches a bit and leans her head back, making herself comfortable. "How many guns can you fit into a single gun, Liezel?" she asks curiously.
But then she's paying attention to Simone again. "I was in no hurry to start dating after I Awakened. There's a lot of things to wrap your head around, and it can be a bad idea to mix major life changes and dating, right? So, you know... don't feel obligated to hurry and master that one, I guess? There's magic to learn, anyway!"
All of a sudden, Fox stops laughing and hisses when Vasha invokes the Seer asshole who hurt Elder Balm. She is being pet, however, and therefore she calms shortly. "She almost died. If I had not been standing right there, she would have died. It haunts my fucking nightmares and I will do great damage upon that man and then PEE ON HIS COAT." But Fox, how do you really feel?
She flops back onto her back. "And I asked Mei," she agrees, as if this is an important point.
"It is good that Liezel makes this gesture of friendship, to talk with you about guns," observes Fox, and then she does a big, big, sharp-toothed yawn. She doesn't care about guns, as evidenced by the fact that she's flopping sleepily across Vasha's lap now.
"No, you're right. That's kind of the least thing on my mind right now," she says to Mei with a smile, and follows up by taking a sip from the vodka mixture.
The talk of murder and near-murder and how to most efficiently murder leaves her looking overwhelmed again. She downs the rest of her drink and fidgets with the glass. "I'm gonna, uh... Take Mochi for a walk, I think. He's probably stressed with not being at home and I don't... want him to chew up the couch or something. It was nice seeing you all." She steps over to Fox and gives her a scritch-pet on the head. "I'll see you later."
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