Logs:Little Miracles And The Meteor

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Content Warning

Meteors crashing, discussion of murder

Cast

Vasily Tometchko and Little Fox

Setting

Somewhere dusty outside of Austin, TX

Log

Vasha hopped into a pick up truck loaded with guns and ammo and drove out into the countryside to engage in that most Texan of behaviors: shooting stuff.

He's embraced with perhaps a sarcastic amount of gusto the Texan penchant for big hats, big boots, big belt buckles, and a fear of the almighty. He's set up some targets a good ways off and has taken out his favorite sniper rifle to have a go at it. The targets have randomized timers and will pop up now and then without him knowing when. Good training to keep one's focus up for when he might have to do this sort of thing for realsies.

He's lying face down in the dirt, a burlap ghilly over his back to shield him from the sun and keep him largely out of view of casual glances. Just the glint of his gun sight in the sunlight is likely to give him away from down range. After a few moments, one of the targets pops up for about a second and a half, and during that span of moments, Vasha squeezes off a round and plinks the target back down again with a puff of splintered round and paint. He works the action of the rifle, sends the casing spitting out, and sets it upright like an empty beer bottle in front of his position.

_pap pap pap_

When in Philly, be a fox (it is, after all, one of their natural forms). When in Texas? Be a coyote, of course. Fox knows where Vasha is and comes pap pap papping out to the range. They're well behind him, because they're also well aware of how deadly Vasha is with a gun in his hand. She sidles up alongside the ghilly-covered figure and slowly leans her weight against him, like a cat.

Because, as we know, foxes are just cats running on dog hardware, even when they're currently in coyote form.

"Howdy, pardner," Vasha drawls like the guy in Hunt For Red October pretending to be from the American west. He puts his focus back down the sight and keeps his left eye open to watch for movement outside of the sight's field of view. "I got something to show you, so I'm glad you turned up. Hopefully there's no satellites up there watching us, or the like. That would be inconvenient." Vasha tilts his head a bit and peers up at the vast blue sky, squinting a bit. "Anyway. It's something you should know about, even if not everyone does."

Coyotes laugh, very distinctly, and no less so when they're actually foxes. The dusty creature throws her head back and laughs wildly at the 'howdy, pardner.' There's a soft wash of Fox's Nimbus -- a strange thing in the dusty West -- and then their words take form out of the strange warbling of their vocalizations. "I suppose I am, at that," Fox answers, leaning in and then carefully nosing under the ghilly cloth, so they can lick his ear. Because of course she does. Silly.

"It would be strange if they were, because who lets coyotes get this close? We are very wild, you know." She flips her tail absently. "What is this thing I should be shown and know?"

"I will show you. And then you'll know." Vasha answers with a grin. He throws off his cover and pushes up to his feet, dusting off his chest and knees once he's upright, the field plaid of his twin pocketed rancher shirt setting off the silver and amber glint of his bola tie. He's gone whole hog, he has. He leaves the rifle in place, walks a few paces off to the side, and shuts his eyes.

It's subtle at first. Because Guardian. But then it gets progressively less so. His nimbus begins to reveal itself, the stuttering and jerking of a dozen possible presents playing out around him as he slowly lifts his hands upwards towards the sky.

A short moment later streaks of smoke and light begin to appear overhead, first one by one and then more and more. They pop and crackle high up in the atmosphere, though some of the larger streaks persist, streaking lower and brighter than the others. This rain of celestial fire continues as more and more debris enters the atmosphere and flares out overhead until there's a pitter patter of raining stone and fused metals peppering into the dust all around them.

Eventually his nimbus settles on a single present, and a single large meteor streaks down and lands atop one of the targets just as it pops up, leaving a rising cloud of smoke, dust, and debris.

The drama all dies out eventually amid the quiet pattering of the last of the kicked up debris.(edited)

She sits down on the ground, curling her tail around herself and covering her nose with said tail. Fox's eyes peek over her tail, wide and green, and she goes perfectly still, as if becoming a rock, or looking like one, is the best defense for a Fox in this instance. (It is. Maybe?)

There's very little that she can do once the onslaught starts except for sit very very still, her eyes getting wider and wider until she's basically an anime coyote fox. She's not afraid, because of all the people in this world who she's afraid might hurt her, Vasha is just not on that list, but she's certainly quite freaked out, as one should be by certain events, including sudden meteor showers.

But, of course, Fox's peripheral mage sight is -- keener -- better -- than some people's, so as it progresses, she realizes what she's looking at.

And she laughs, again, this, brighter and more brilliant, an animal chatter that becomes Fox's human laughter as the Orphan rolls on the dusty ground. "You can snipe with space!" she cackles, folding her hands over her tank-top-clad belly.

"Yes. Among other technically highly improbable things. It's not something I'm likely ever to do where people are watching. But at this point, barring the intercession of an Archmaster, my will be done. I was avoiding this step forward, as it carries with it a great deal of responsibility within my order. And I am not likely to advertise it outside of our cadre, regardless. But it's there. Also, I thought you might like to make wedding rings out of space gold or similar. Use your matter skills and track down the metals you like. Might even be some gemstones out there, who knows?" Vasha continues dusting himself off as he begins walking over towards the modest crater he just created. "And we should probably be rather quick about it. Meteor strikes tend to draw people."

Once she's done laughing out her delight -- because there's nothing better than just feeling all of your feelings really big, the way a Fox does -- she rolls up to her feet and runs to fling her arms around his neck, peppering his face with kisses. "Barring the intercession of an Archmaster," Fox laughs wryly, offering another smooch to him and hanging happily off of the Guardian until he explains. Then her green eyes only get all the starrier.

"Yes! I... that is... adorable, and I should... yes." One more smooch, a big loud one, and she lets go of him to run -- barefoot -- across the dusty earth toward the meteor. "Any preferences, darling of my heart?"

"Nothing emitting gamma radiation," Vasha opines once the kiss peppering is endured. He's so longsuffering. Still, he's grinning very faintly as he lopes along after her, "Gold is traditional. But probably hard to come by in space rocks, I think. You'll find plenty of iron, though. Pick. I trust you." As Vasha reaches the crater he crouches down to hold his hand over the smoking earth. Pretty fucking cool, that. One of his rare schoolboy smiles breaks across his face as he examines his handiwork.

"Cool."

"Hmm," agrees Fox thoughtfully, padding over to crouch down by the meteorite, reaching out to touch it like she's about to lay her hand on a skittish animal. Her fingers stretch out, and she hums happily to herself, singing a little song under her voice about diamonds and gold and iron. "Actually, not that hard to come by." There's a wild flaring of her Nimbus, and then she sticks her hand into the meteorite, like it's made of clay. Her hand comes back out with chunks of diamond in it. "Meteorites are usually somewhere close to ten percent gold! That's where most of the gold in the Earth's crust comes from." The filthy little Epicurean of a Thyrsus makes a little pile of multiple little chunks of Stuff. Something that looks a little oily, definitely diamonds, and a chunk of something dark that's about the size of a softball. She picks up all three of those things, and smooshes her hands together with another flare of her Nimbus until whatever it is? Is small enough to fit in her pocket.

"It's super cool. We can figure out what we want to do with it when we're, you know. Not where the meteorite just fell down." Fox turns back toward him, gracing him with a big, brilliant smile. "I love you, you know."

"I've made it my life's work to figure out why, but barring that I'll accept the situation as one of mutual understanding." Vasha offers an airy sort of nod before giving the slightest grin down her way, then giving her a little nudge with his boot toe. "Come. Help me gather up the remaining targets and let's move out. The truck's not far. I'd prefer not to be here when the locals arrive." Vasha offers down a hand to help her up when she makes to rise and begins ambling to collect the remaining pop-up targets.

"I enjoy this state. I can carry more or less my whole arsenal and people just nod appreciatively. It's very strange. Until I start speaking. Then they get very nervous."

When he responds in his typical Vasha fashion -- that is, not actually saying 'I love you, too,' but in befuddlement that she does, and with a wordy, sidelong, 'yeah, you too,' Fox laughs aloud, stuffing all of the things into her pocket and leaving the rest of the rock, gamma rays and all, on the ground. Taking the proffered hand, she leans up to kiss his shoulder.

"The fact that you put up with me is first and highest on the list of reasons," they answer wryly, and then scamper off toward the targets. "I can make them little!" she calls over her shoulder. "That would make it faster!"

She stops next to one of the targets, adding, "Well, don't you like making people nervous? Or is this the kind of nervous you don't care to make people? I can't always keep track."

"Not particularly. On a vocational level, I prefer being ignored. Which is why I go out of my way to be absurd and seen most of the time. It makes it easier to not be when I want to be. That, and magic. But. Yes. Worrying people is only pleasant when you want them worried. In which case I do enjoy it, yes." Vasha is a social pragmatist. Who knew.

"You wouldn't go away! So of course I put up with you! Plus, you are very cute. And quite good in bed. And very funny. You're also talented, empathic, and insightful. Your feet are gross, admittedly, but nobody's perfect." Vasha's grin cracks a little wider as he begins carrying his targets back towards the truck.

She isn't going to carry all of the targets at their proper size, so Fox, making little gestures like she's conducting music, (or perhaps bibbidi-bobbity-boo, because Foxes are silly things), makes the targets all pop down into playing-card sizes, so she can scamper and pick up the rest of them very quickly. "Oh, that makes sense," Fox agrees thoughtfully, catching up with Vasha and pap pap papping along barefoot next to him. "I don't usually like to worry people, and I've kind of given up on not being seen unless I'm really trying hard to not be seen. The more I become who I am, the less human I am, the more people notice me, so... " A vague gesture with one hand. "I kind of avoid people." She grimaces, or shows off her teeth, same thing.

"I mean, unless they're not-normal. Like Lux, and Jack, and ... you know." Another vague gesture.

She wrinkles up her nose in amusement at the pronouncement that she wouldn't go away. "Well, I mean, you kept feeding me, so I assumed you wanted me around. And then you kept kissing me and having sex with me, so I assumed it even more." Her shoulder bumps against his, and Fox throws her head back, laughing aloud. "My feet are gross. I have hobbit feet, because I run around barefoot forever. I hate shoes."

"You slept in the alley outside of my office. In a dumpster. And were giving blowjobs for Pelmeni. Yes, I fed you." Vasha lets out a chuff of subdued amusement that anyone on the planet wouldn't feed her, given the option. "But, yes. I suppose I might have called things off before you moved your toothbrush in, but alas. I am a creature of habits, especially self-destructive ones." Vasha bumps her with his hip and lets out a quiet laugh in earnest at this joke.

"You will be the death of me, one day. I will die laughing, no doubt."

"I was not giving blowjobs for Pelmeni!" Fox huffs, more amused than offended by his depiction of events. "But I did sleep in the dumpster. It was warm, and I was a baby fox, and learning to spend time as a fox. You don't learn to be urban wildlife if you don't live as urban wildlife." Fox leans to the side, keeping pace with Vasha, three steps to his every two, and play-bites his shoulder. "Hmph!" she scoffs. "You bought me the toothbrush," she mumbles. "Which I guess ... you know. I'd been living in a dumpster."

"Funny, I think the same thing some days," she answers, laughing. "As long as we go together."

"Yes. On account of I wanted to enjoy kissing you, you see. Garbage in the canines is not the eu du parfum you might imagine it to be." Vasha chucks the targets into the truck then heads back to collect his rifle and cover from his sniper nest. This he hauls back, breaking the weapon down a bit so that it will fit in its rifle case. Then he secures that on the rack inside the truck. Because of course the truck has a rifle rack. Once he's all packed up, he opens the passenger door to help Fox up into the cab. Because of course there's a rise kit on this thing.

"In any case. Everything worked out for the best, in this the best of all possible worlds." There's a joke in there somewhere.

"I didn't say it was wrong!" Fox laughs. "I was just admitting that at the time, I really went pretty far into the whole 'being a fox' thing, in the way that newbies do." She flings the little targets into the back of the truck and then snaps her fingers -- making a show of it -- releasing the spell so that the targets in the back are all full-size again. "You met me when I had only really been an adult Mystagogue for ... maybe a year? Barely an Orphan? No! Actually. I became an Orphan after I met you, but not ... long after we met. A couple of weeks. I was working hard to impress Medved."

The door opened, she takes the hand offered and hops up onto the step of the cab, turning around to fling her arms around his neck. In all sincerity, she looks down at him, and, after kissing his nose, answers, "The world where I am with you is the best of all possible worlds, Vasha. Whatever else it may be, that makes this the best of all possible worlds."

Ruffling his hair, she slides into the cab before he can gainsay her, or grumble too much, and sticks her tongue at him.

"Yes. I remember. You smelled like bear for weeks." Vasha starts the truck and performs a three point turn to start riding out of the range, heading in the direction of the city again. There's a bit of bouncing about, what with the trail being washboarded from rain, sun, and use. But once they're back on asphalt, he turns on the radio and squints at it a bit until it plays music he likes. Apparently Vasha has a thing for Waylon Jennings.

"Then you will be happy to know that most possible worlds are pretty great, then. Though getting fewer and fewer, by and by." Which has to be weird, being able to perceive the window of your own ubiquity slowly closing in by chance, age, and enemy intention. "Fortunately, I am a clever fox in the company of a clever fox. And the enemy is surprisingly stupid for all of its tremendous power. They like to keep their agents at each other's necks for some absurd reason."

"She was the best of all teachers, at least for me," Fox answers, and once the truck starts, she leans back and puts her feet up on the dash, like the song says, folding her hands on her stomach contentedly. She bounces along with the truck, her head bumping against the back of the seat. Badump bump bump. "Bear smells comforting to me, now. Even if I did stink to you."

She sticks her tongue out at him again, the way a Fox does, but briefly, because who wants to accidentally bite off the tip of their own tongue on a bumpy road? Not Fox. Even if she could heal it very quickly. "I am actually happy to know that," Fox agrees, thoughtfully. "And honestly, that part doesn't bother me, either. Choices get fewer as we get older, and so many of the choices left to me involve you, and Leta, and Mei, and Zoya. And that's what I want, anyway." She reaches her hand across the vastness of the truck's cab and rests it on his knee. "Fortunately, you are a clever fox with a clever fox's aid, and together it's a lot more fun to outwit ... the less-than-intelligent power plays of our adversaries." A pause. "I dunno. Maybe they subscribe to some sort of ridiculous 'survival of the fittest' thing. Which, you know, that's not how evolution works, but fascists don't think smart about evolution, they just use it to, you know, justify their cruelty."

"The cruelty is the point, after all, with them."

"The manner in which they came to power tends to engender fear of others doing the same. If the stories we tell are to be believed, of course, they cast down the spire. Pulled the proverbial ladder up after themselves and slaughtered all those who tried to fight their way inside. Subsumed control of the Supernal realms. Or at least their little domains within them. They may grant their followers wealth and power here, but they are cautious in permitting any particular individual to grow too power-- or to conspire against their rule with others. For fear of another spire rising up, and a challenge to their rule coming to pass. Not as we would have it; but as their followers would have it. Replacing them, not doing away with them entirely." Vasha shifts into fifth gear and settles in for the lazy drive back to civilization, such as it is.

"At least, that's what we're taught. Who knows if it's true."

"They really are the capitalists of magic, aren't they?" Fox sighs wearily, rubbing a hand over her face. "I don't... I don't get it, really. And not just because, like, I don't get not helping people? Like I genuinely do not understand the impulse to succeed at someone else's cost?" She lets her eyes lapse half-closed, rather thoughtfully, content to be in Vasha's company and just... talking about things. "I don't know if it's true or not, but it certainly seems true, and it holds true in the behavior that we see from them. I mean... look at what they did to Mark, you know? It's worth it to them to do such horrible things to another human being if it advances their ends just a little bit."

A beat's silence. "Gross."

"It's rather more awful than that, I'm afraid. Imagine you are living your life unawakened, meandering on the edge of a mystery play. And rather than whatever we experienced coming to pass, a godlike being begins filling their heads with propaganda. And fear. Something unfathomably powerful subsumes their senses and commands them to do the small sins first. Or else. The 'else' is left unspoken, typically. Allowing the subject's own fears to fill in the blanks. A theft, maybe. Or a threat. Betraying a friend's secret, perhaps. Something ultimately justifiable under the circumstances. And the reward comes. The dopamine rush of payoff. Money. That cute guy you wish would notice you on the train in the morning. That promotion at work. And that quid pro quo continues, only the sins and the payoffs increase. As do the penalties for saying no. And as you begin to undertake all the awfulness they require of you, you understand just what the penalties could be. Death, certainly. But worse than death. A cessation of power. A return to servile banality as another listless, unawakened cog in their great machine. Torture beyond imagining. Eventually your conscience can justify anything if it keeps you alive and in their good graces. And you learn their own methods. You learn how to disguise your motives and the horrors you undertake, masking them behind the will of the state, the promise of a paycheck and health care, wrapped in a promotion, in fame, in sensual pleasures."

"Until you have no conscience. Until, as you say, the cruelty is the point. The power is the purpose. And you are competing to be the fattest, most repugnant turd in the sewer, glinting in the eye of your all-knowing, all-seeing, all-powerful, all-punishing master on his great throne."

"Most of them are just... normal people in impossible situations."

It's not that she isn't listening. She is listening. And by the end of his speaking, her eyes have opened again, solemn green-gold things looking out the window as she absently pushes her dirty feet against the dash of the truck. Fox hasn't bothered to put on a seatbelt, because when you're a Life Master in a truck with a Fate Master, you can get a little reckless, sometimes.

Eventually, with a small, sad smile, she turns her head to look at Vasha, and points out quietly, "It's very much like capitalism, Vasha My Heart." She speaks those three words as if they're a benediction, a title whole and complete in itself. "Don't forget, it was working at an ad agency that pushed my brain until it broke open like a seed in the middle of a Saint Petersburg January. I was ready to die rather than go back to that... to that. To the things that they want you to accept, that you have to climb over the ... lives of others in order for just a little more. And the real drug is recognition, it's not even money. It's the feeling that maybe you're going to be a little bit more ... special."

"It's really ..." And then Fox stops. Shakes her head. Looks back out the window again. "If I hadn't Awakened, I would have died. And at that point, that would have been acceptable rather than -- "

Sometimes, the preparation of the soul is a scouring, after all.

"There's always a choice, in the end," Vasha concludes with a brief glance her way, his focus primarily on the road. "Knowing what we know, we would choose the only option available to us. Gladly, and with a happy heart. It's their fear that keeps them under the thumb of the enemy. They're cowards. All of them. Unwilling or unable to stop existing as they are. I've wondered, at times, if I couldn't turn one of them. Create a double agent, even rescue one from the enemy. But in all my years with the Red Guards-- and perhaps precisely because I am a Red Guard --I have never found one willing. It always ends the same way. In petulant defiance, insistence that whatever I might do to them, their punishment would be worse, and a muzzle flash."

Vasha glances down at the radio, then back to the road. "You almost pity them at the end. Almost."

She's quiet now, thoughtful, and the hand not resting on his leg reaches into her pocket to pull out a huge chunk of diamond (well, huge by DeBeers standards, anyway), rolling it in her fingers. "I think that I see the ways that I could have gone down that road, and so I ... am ... not sympathetic. Empathetic. In retrospect, I know I never could have, not really, I guess? Or maybe that's my vanity speaking. Maybe I want to believe that there's no way that I could have, in the worst of all universes... "

And then silence, as Fox stares out the window.