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Did anybody have 'Fox picked up another Adepthood' on their bingo card for this week? Well. Guess what.
The minute that the imminent threat was contained, and the cameras dealt with by Vasya's RF meddling, Fox's voice murmurs, "Hold for Odessa," near to Vorpal, and then Philadelphia simply disappears from around her, replaced by the farm. Fox looks... annoyed, more than anything else, wearing her usual clothes, though her skin evidences some of the thickness of her hide. "Sit down, Jackie," she instructs. Usually, she's a chipper cheerful free-for-all. Right now, her face is all calmness and exhaustion, wrapped up together.
Out in the fallow fields, winds stir and the quiet ground trembles. In twilight, a battle raged. And when it was over, the ground stilled and the wind quieted down. And slowly, information began to pour across the ground, dribbling over field and furrow, up and over the wall and through the window. Until Myrne rises up out of the ground like a gauny and hungry wraith.
You may have to be paying a bit of attention, but the subtitles on the TV now read: JACKIE DREXEL ARE YOU OKAY DON'T HIT ME WITH THAT KNIFE IM A FRIENDLY MONSTER
The world shifts, and V is still standing, patched together by shadows and stolen strength, and she does not sit down.
She screams.
It's a dozen different emotions tangled together at once. Fury and terror and hate and triumph and defiance and sheer, unadulterated relief. She howls, and then-
"God FUCKING DAMMIT."
She doesn't strike the TV. Subtitles received.
But she does sit down.
"Do I have your consent to tend to your wounds?" Fox asks up front. Has Vorpal ever seen Fox in full Business Mode? She doesn't have a suit or anything of the like -- no tie for the Business Fox -- but they're calm, completely self-possessed. Her hands come up to pull her stringy black hair out of her face, and she pulls the necklace she always wears off of her throat, using the carved leather thong from which her carved-wood fox pendant with the sapphire eyes and copper detailing hangs to tie her hair back in a loose, quickly-tied braid.
"Vasya, darling, can you please make certain that the perimeter is secure, then return to me and report?"
After Vasya does mumblemumbleTalkToPatchIKnewIForgotSomething to the Mark IIs in Philadelphia, the colocation is dropped and the quiet little village in Ukraine resumes its quiet slumber. When instructed to be off about a task, the translucent form of the grouchy Ukrainian fades from view and into shadow, where he's best able to not only watch but enforce said perimeter. Oontz-Oontz remains hovering in the air, however. A little buzzing intercom, more or less.
Vorpal takes a moment to respond. A long one. It might even be the likely inhale before asking a second time that reminds her she needs to respond. "... yeah. I'd appreciate it, Fox. Can you-" Another moment. "I want the wounds to scar. I want proof they tried and failed to kill me. Can you let them scar if you heal them?"
God, her tone's flat as the world. It's hurting and tired and she's still finding places to put her metaphorical feet to move forward.
"Sorry about this."
"Thank you for staying with us, Ooontz Oontz. Don't let him stay out there too long," she instructs the little buzzing intercom. Everybody should be in the same place. Fox heads over to the kitchen-in-progress, picking up the water jug and basin, digging a fresh washcloth out of the drawer, and brings the whole works out to the living room.
Crouching in front of Vorpal, her butt resting on the backs of her heels, she pours water into the basin, wets the rag, and reaches out slowly to push Jackie's hair back from her face, to wipe her cheeks with the damp rag. It does nothing for the wounds in her side, and isn't meant to; this is grounding, is stabilization. "The healing which is best for me to use, the one which I know like muscle memory and breathing, does not normally leave scars." She pauses, considering. "I suppose I could sterilize some ash, and heal it inside the wound. But normally, no, it does not leave scars."
"You have nothing to be sorry for."
Oontz-Oontz begins to grow and shrink in size in time with the speaking coming out of his buzzing little belly. Like a little graphic equalizer for Vasya's voice.
"The perimiter is secure river to road. Airspace is clear as well, though there will be some satellite transits in the next hour we'll want to be indoors for. The black sea is clear. I don't see any sign we've been followed. I'll tap the wires and listen for official traffic, but that only works if news travels through to Odessya. Or from it. So long as the damage isn't terrible, I can heal with scarring if it has to be done. I'll need to come back in for that, however." (edited)
V's mental state is... fragile. She's entirely unsure how to respond. Everything feels like it could be her next mistake. She doesn't flinch from the cool rag, but her eyes are evasive, as if avoiding contact will buy her time to figure things out, to puzzle some not-failure to wring from this before she's put on the spot.
Nothing to be sorry for? "I- maybe. It doesn't feel that way. You had to put yourselves at risk, get involved, I can't even imagine how much of your own energy you two put into stopping those- fucking abominations from bringing down the whole of the cops and their supplier-" She doesn't say the names, just in case. "-down on us at once. I played that whole mess all wrong. I shoulda fucking melted out of existence the moment they spoke to me."
"You should come back in anyway," Fox tosses over her shoulder towards Oontz Oontz. "We should talk this all out. Figure out who needs to be called. I think it would be helpful for Jackie if she could see faces that she knows and understands, and feels certain about what is going on around her." This is not Fox's first rodeo with Changelings who have been Through It (tm), and until she can fully assess Vorpal's mental and physical state.
She pauses, then, and sets the rag back on the edge of the bowl, placing her hands on top of Vorpal's. "That is our job, Jackie Drexel. The reason why we were there in the first place is because Vasya looks for potential disruptions to the timeline. And beyond that, you and your people are the allies of our people. Could you look me in the eyes and tell me that if our positions were reversed, that you would not come running, knives out?"
"Hindsight is always 20/20. You have no idea how hard a lesson that is to learn when you can actually rewind time itself. Which, fuck, maybe we should have done, you know?" Gentle pats on the Elemental's scarred hands.
"Understood. Let me finish walking the widdershins. It will get us a little more privacy and security. Be in when I'm done."
Oontz Oontz hovers in the air hesitantly for a bit, then slowly bobs over through the air. A lick of cool plasma energy crackles out of the spirit, walking up Jackie's head from her brow line to the back of her head. With a snap the arcing light repeats its pattern, walking back to front. (edited)
As Fox speaks to Vasya, Vorpal finally seems to remember she' s left her Blades unsheathed. A slow roll of her fingers, and the blades melt away, leaving normal ol' scarred fingers. Much better for company. It's well timed, too- her author wrote that before realizing Fox took those hands in hers moments later.
"I guess. It's Winter's job to clean up messes and keep us safe, too, but I don't relish making them do their job, either." It's the latter that makes her reconsider, though, about whether she would help them. "... I suppose you're right. I wouldn't have hesitated. If they'd come for you, I'd have-" She freezes, and her head hangs, about the time Oontz Oontz comes in to pet her head.
"God. There's people in there. Like the other ones we found, just... bound into metal for war instead of wrappings for surveillance." Her voice is faint. She's sincerely horrified. "They're just materials. I felt the magics in the skull and spine and I recognized it was aligned with the Crown Regalia but I just assumed it was controlling the metal, it didn't even occur to me it was policing the person inside."
V considers the idea of rewinding the clock- and then slowly, slowly shakes her head. "No. Maybe it's best we didn't. That was- that was bad. It was terrifying, it was within a hair's breadth or a missed step of being my neck, but- it could have been someone else."
Someone who couldn't dance between lasers.
"Thank you, My Heart." This to Vasya, over her shoulder again, and then Fox looks up at Oontz Oontz's approach, giving him a small and approving smile, mouthing 'thank you' up at her beloved's familiar.
"Yes. They're people in there. I've met some of them, those people. They're prisoners of war." Fox's reframing of it is careful, and she presses her hands around Jackie's again. "But they are also, in that moment, enemy soldiers. And unfortunately, sometimes your job is to make the other poor bastard die for his side. I'm working on ways to free them, ways to deflect. Clearly not fast enough," she frowns.
"I am going to perform some magic on you now. Some to help your mental stability, and some to heal your body, Jackie. I cannot sit here and let you bleed, okay? Once you're not bleeding on my chair anymore, we can talk through everybody's feelings."
Her voice is low and throaty, animal sounds curling up from her chest as she leans forward to sniff at Vorpal's hands, sniffing up her arms and pressing the side of her face against the side of Jackie's. Those animalistic yantras resolve in a sudden feeling of centeredness, as if she's curled up in her room, laying on her bed and listening to music. Fox is exactly as Real as Jackie feels in those moments -- the feral sweat-smell of her, the press of her cheek against the Elemental's, the dirt along her collarbone. There is no doubt that the Thyrsus is not an illusion, not a trick, not a Fae construct. She is Real. Jackie is Real because Fox is Real.
Shortly after the conclusion of Fox's speech a spirit pours in through a window, down the wall, and across the floor towards Fox. It rises up out of the floor again, similar to how it had done at the car park. It's still bent over, hungry looking and gaunt. Its face is still clearly the face of war. But it's also just here vibing, too.
It looks over to Fox, then over to Jackie, then over to Fox, then over to Jackie. Two gumby stumps are lifted at the end of its arms. "Healing? No healing?"
It's still coming out of Oontz-Oontz, though the little guy is now hovering more around Vasya than Jackie. Probably for the best, the ozone smell is getting pretty intense over there.
"I knew it." V's voice is bitter, hateful. "They could make them work without the people. Couldn't they. If they wanted. But it'd be easier to justify slaughtering robots. Harder when they all have people crammed inside. Harder to justify or endure a Hunt when every knife must pass through a prisoner's heart to reach an enemy." Disgusted barely covers the depths of Jackie's feelings for weaving human shields into these monsters.
"Before the one screamed, I was just... going to tear them to pieces. All of them, every one I could find." She sounds... almost guilty she can't bring herself to do that. Not with people on the inside.
"Okay, Fox. Do what you need to."
She didn't expect "magic" to include crawling up her chest or nuzzling at her cheek. Didn't really imagine it involving wrapping her arms around Fox and just... being in the moment with someone there for her for a little.
The spirit throws things off a touch. Not... an angry touch, just... strange. Oontz's form, Vasya's voice, matched to this third thing. "Uh... healing. Please. I'd like to relax my magic. I'm tired.
Thank you. Thank you both."
The Spirit floats closer, stumpy arms starting to glow at the ends. They begin to hover and gesture over and around Jackie. It feels something like being under a heat lamp. Save it unbinds tense muscle and suffuses electrolytes into tired muscle. Build up of lactic acids diminish. Little wheat chutes are now budding out of the creature's corpus in places, but the essence continues to pour. When it's done, the stump hands dim to darkness and the spirit slumps away with a crackle of wind in wires.
"Don't mention it," comes his voice out of Oontz-Oontz.
"Seriously, it could get us all killed."
"Healing," agrees Fox quietly, and she leans in against Vorpal's chest, reaching a hand out toward the shape which is her lover of a decade and a half without seeing what that shape is. Please, hold my hand, the unspoken request. She lets Vorpal hang on to her while she presses kisses against the Elemental's cheek like some sort of primordial benediction. This is the wise woman of a nomadic group, following the mammoth and gathering around the same fire together. This is how old the type of magic she holds is, and it feels that old in that moment. An unbroken chain of tribal guardians going back to shepherds along the banks of ancient rivers, on the edge of old deserts, building homes along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea, and back, further, further.
"I don't think that they could do what they wanted to do without the humans inside." A beat. "But what they want to do is monstrous. What they are doing is monstrous."
"I know. I know. I'm proud of you. You did beautifully." And as she speaks, a sort of copper-colored warmth -- Vorpal can't see it, but somehow she knows it's copper-colored -- creeps along her veins, follows her nerves. It literally mends her body, rewriting the code of it so that all of the lines become once more whole. She keeps her old scars, yes, but the ease of it leaves no new ones. Every ache, every pain save the ones in her heart and her soul, all washed away. "As did you, My Heart." (edited)
"Our secret," V acknowledges. "I will let them wonder what happened to their death machines. And if they figure out it was me they encountered? I will do you the favor of letting them think I did all that myself," V offers with the sort of distant tongue-in-cheek tone that says, "don't worry, comrade, I will bite the bullet and take all the credit myself. I will do this for you because we are such good friends."
V lets herself drift into the magic. She can feel the age to it, and she lets herself soak in it, feeling, for a moment, like a child in a desert with the night sky overhead and her people all around. Lost, and struggling, but free.
Just one ancient moment among many.
"I apologize I wasn't more prepared. I don't know what else to say. Tonight shouldn't have happened." It seems that mostly what the brain inside that spirit is taking from this? Is notes. Eventually the spirit just sort of droops down onto the ground like a gumdrop, the face of war drooping down one side as it watches the goings on.
"Thanks." Vibing with the gumdrop spirit. Yep. Just another normal day.
"I don't know you real well, Jackie Drexel. I don't really know what you need. So I'm going to just sit here with you and be present. Let me know if you need me." Dissociation: Not just the other thing from datsociation.
Once upon a time there was a Hearthmaster who really fucking earned that title. Fox loosens her arms from Vorpal, still holding on to one of her hands, and then reaches out for the ... spirit's... gumdrop hand. And she sits there for a minute between the dissociating spirit of Myrne and the former God of the Hunt, holding one of each of their hands.
"Okay. Let's feel our feelings about this, and acknowledge them," Fox instructs; her voice is gentle and patient, solid and sure. "We all feel like we needed to do a lot more than we did, it seems like, and we all feel horrified by the things we encountered tonight, because they are horrific. Are there other feelings that we need to acknowledge as Real so that we can work our way through them and bring our best selves to dealing with this problem?"
"You arrived within seconds of danger arising, prepared enough to turn the tide. That, in and of itself, was amazing. I am grateful for what you did do. I am unconcerned with what you could have." That's V's take, at least. Her thumb moves slowly over the back of Fox's.
"Other feelings... like the burning drive to bring those twisted beasts a war they won't believe? Or the sick twist in my stomach for feeling that way, even knowing what's been built into these abominations? " A long, pregnant pause. "Or how angry I am that this is all because of somebody else?"
The face of war sort of sliuces around the blob in the room until it's kinda sorta looking over at Jackie to watch her feel her feelings. One gumby limb suckles at Fox's offered hand, and it's like being held. Which is probably good enough.
"It can be overwhelming. It can feel like you know a terrible secret. Or worse, know a public fact that everyone's choosing to ignore. But you aren't feeling it alone any longer." He might be talking to more than just Jackie with that, but shh.
"Those are all very Real feelings, and rooted in very Real events, and yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about, the things we need to acknowledge and talk through, yes." Crouched in front of Jackie, Fox keeps her most calm face on, gently squeezing the Elemental's hand, and sort of... wiggling her fingers in the gumby limb in a way that's sort of like squeezing? "What do you need to say out loud about those feelings, here, on another continent from other people?" This, too, may be talking to more than just Jackie, as her golden eyes swing back to the face of war, sluicing around inside a blob of essence.
"Something like that, yeah. That's pretty much exactly it, Vasya," V mumbles, sighing. "This whole mess- at least, the excuse for the deployment of the Mark IIs- is all because of one person's unresolved mess, and they're still pretty new, so probably it doesn't get addressed, but fuck me, folx.
I thought it'd been taken care of, but it definitely hasn't, and I am struggling mightily that with all the nonsense I get up to and all the work I put in to making sure it doesn't come back to bite me or my family that... this all went down because of somebody else. Because I tried to tightrope walk between exposing myself as supernatural, and picking a fight outside someplace I didn't want to draw attention to at all. And what REALLY pisses me off is I actually talked my way out of it. I had one of them ready to walk off and pursue another lead, and it was the sniper taking a shot at me that started the whole fight. There's- so much fucked up here. A high-cal rifle shot? For not wanting to talk to the monster cops any more after they demanded I dox basically everyone I know? They didn't try to charge me with anything, didn't read me my rights, didn't try to arrest me, just demanded information, threatened me when I got the least bit resistant, and attacked me with extremely lethal force when I tried to walk away.
What are these things doing to the people that CAN'T stand up to them?"
"I never saw the sense in opposing the enemy's axis of advance directly. In principle and often in practice, striking perpendicular to the axis of advancement either metaphorically or literally catches the enemy least prepared to respond. Direct opposition always accepts the brunt of the enemy's power. You are opposing an enemy at its strongest."
"That power has always existed. It's existed in the state this entire time. It's just now it lives in that shell of a thing. The Seers want power, control, subjugation. Those units won't do anything to most people, because most people fall in line. If I had a guess, I'd say this was meant to scare us. To flush some of us out into the open. Maybe pick some of us off. Get us fighting amongst each other again. But I would encourage you to do what you do best, Jackie Drexel. And that is certainly not direct opposition, is it."
"So you are feeling anger because you have been trying really, really hard to make sure that you are not putting people in danger because you are extremely powerful, and you felt like someone else undid all of your hard work with their... unresolved mess? Okay. That's a very legitimate feeling, and one that I think you can address with that person, perhaps?" Fox is not necessarily here for tactics. Fox is here to make sure that Johnnie and the spirit who is sort of Myrne are both mentally stable. She squeezes Vorpal's hand again.
"No, it isn't direct opposition," agrees Fox gently. "And I think that tactics will work much better once we have all had some rest and cleaned up all of the blood. Let's make some phone calls to whoever you need to make phone calls to so that people know that you are alive, and safe, and that you were attacked, and then I'll get you some clean clothes, and you can clean yourself up, and we can all have a rest, and then we'll wake up and go back to Philadelphia and take care of tomorrow?"
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