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Having been out for a good, thoughtful fly over the last couple of hours, Fox comes fluttering back to the house just after dark; the crow form she's taken on expands like a reverse full-body sneeze, and her bare feet pap pap pap across the floor of the huge apartment that the Firebirds live in together. She pauses, sending a text to the cadre announcing that she's home and has Stuff To Talk About, then goes to grab a cider from the fridge and wanders out to her spot on the couch, flopping down.
Tanya walks out in short order, with a checkerboard hoodie and a pair of black athletics shorts, along with a pink t-shirt featuring colorful designs, "GENDER IS A SOCIAL CONSTRUCT" in block print, and a picture of a small bird. "Welcome back, Master...?" she says, not sounding too sure about the mode of address.
A little flip of one hand as Fox uses the other to raise her cider to her mouth. "In formal settings only," he answers Tanya. "I'm only Master Revontulet when it comes to, like, big formal events. Call me Fox otherwise, please, Tanya." A flash of a smile toward her, though Fox looks thoughtful or tired, and pats the couch next to her. "Tell me about your day."
"Boop!" Leta exits Incogneto Presence by sitting in Fox's lap. Hello. She is very, very skinny so it's probably fine even tho Fox is an smol. "Yes. Tell us about your day."
The Mastigos is currently dressed in a black skirt with pink and baby blue mushrooms along the hem in various phases of psychedelic distortion, and a black blouse with heels. There's also a laptop bag on her lap, so probably she just got home from work.
Tanya nods, and then blinks, doing a somewhat comical double-take at Leta's 'appearance'. "Oh shit," they blurt out, then laugh lightly, before sitting down next to both of them. "My day was...uh, like the last few days. I woke up an hour ago, I've just been reading wikipedia and getting frustrated." They wave a hand. "Everything is just half-baked nonsense or obfuscation. And I know I shouldn't hang around here, I've been out for walks and stuff, but uh..." They look sheepish for a moment. "Just going for a stroll is still overwhelming, the way everything looks now. It's wonderful, it's amazing, but I'm not going to try and step anywhere far away yet. I WANT to, but what if something goes wrong, or I can't get back, you know?"
Fox is an smol but Leta is so skinny, and it works. She splutters a little, and sets down the cider on the end table to wrap her arms around Leta's waist and tug her in close, smooching her cheek noisily. "You too," she prompts Leta. "Tell me about your day." A patpat for Leta's butt as she turns her attention to Tanya, leaning her head on Leta's shoulder. "That's a very reasonable reaction, and a very logical thing to do, to stick close."
The door to the weapon closet opens and out walks Vasha, wiping down his hands with a gun rag, no doubt having done this month's maintenance on his personal arsenal. He disappears down the hallway and returns a short time later with a glass of cognac and a lit cigar, which he carries back into the living room to have a seat in his giant leather recliner. The Good Chair. Vasha sits in The Good Chair, crosses his legs, sets his silver plated pistol aside, and settles in to drink and smoke and relax as is his rite and custom once he's decided to exist in everyone's perceptions again. He offers Tanya a toast with his cognac, "Na zadrovie."
"Oh, my day was just the usual fare." Leta wiggles as she settles in, and then kicks off her shoes so she can draw her legs up onto the couch beside them. "Class was interesting, but that's because I'm the teacher and I'm a delightful treat." She wiggles an eyebrow at Tanya. "So I'm more interested in hearing about the adventures of Baby-"
Leta wiggles her fingers at Vasha in greeting as he enters the room and sinks into his chair. "Did you bring enough to share with the class?" A tongue blep.(edited)
"No," Vasha answers as he dips the end of his cigar into his cognac before resuming smoking.
Tanya sits up straight as Vasha joins them, trying their best to look impressive. "Greetings," they say, and the look of tense embarassment afterwards is only enhanced by Leta naming them Baby. "I finally get to meet you," they explain, before glancing back to Leta. "Baby hasn't been going on any adventures because they know what happens to Babies that wander off on their own or put funny things in their mouth," they retort, and stick their tongue out at Leta.
"In Saint Petersburg? We leave our new mages out overnight on the first day of December. If they still alive in the morning, we teach them Initiate Life. Weed out the weak." Vasha delivers this news with a perfectly straight face, too, expression dour. "Yes. I am Pavlichenko. No doubt you will be having many questions for me. Which suits me fine. Just realize I lie very well and enjoy practical jokes. So at some point I am going to teach you a harmless and embarrassing untruth which you will pass along at an unfortunate moment. And I will be the only one laughing. And you will know the day has finally come. It will not feel like freedom." Vasha sips his cognac and concludes, "Is very good to meet you."(edited)
Kisses get blown at Vasha when he appears -- she can't get up and fling herself at him like she normally does, because she's got Leta on her lap. "Hello, My Heart. Are the guns all happy now?" She reaches for her cider, taking a swallow of it and offering the bottle to Leta when Vasha says no about his cognac. "You are a delight," she agrees with the Mastigos. Fox flicks her gaze back to Tanya, offering a small smile there.
"Vasha," Fox chides gently when the Acanthus starts hazing their apprentice. "Maybe we should start by talking about what we found yesterday, and maybe skip the exposure jokes." The Thyrsus who was found nearly dead, wandering the streets of Saint Petersburg naked in January after her Awakening, goes a little flat around the corners of her mouth.(edited)
Tanya stares at Vasha...stares, their expression flickering briefly from clueless Baby to something more willfull and intent. Their brows flatten down for a moment. "It's...good to meet you too," they say cautiously. "I hope th--" A blaring ringtone interrupts them, and they look at the screen of their phone. "Oh fuck, it's my program coordinator. I gotta take this. I'll be right back." They hop to their feet and politely walk into the next room, already chatting. "Yes? Yes, hi! No, I'm fine, I was going to call you but..."
"Nice monologue, Yackov." Leta snorts at Vasha's ridiculous comment as she slides off Fox's lap. She takes a sip of the cider, and bends down for her heels so she can drop them off by the door on her way into the kitchen.
"Since we're waiting for Phone Calls, and Vasha didn't bring any tobacco to share, I'm going to go to the kitchen and fetch my Tupperware container with the good shit in it." She offers a little courtesy before tossing her shoes down the hall. Very dainty, yes. "Since I'm not a heathen, would anyone like anything while I'm up?" A beat. "Also I would definitely laugh at that. For the record."(edited)
"What?" Vasha prompts with a gesture of his arms, wide and innocent. "Now Tanya will question everything I teach her. Verify it. Not just trust it because it's coming out of my mouth and I am the great and mighty Pavlichenko. And also won't like me. That's easily two favors I just did your apprentice. If anything? You owe me." He's trying not to grin and succeeding, but only just.
"Fine. Yes. I will stop prodding your apprentice." He doesn't even trail off into mumbled Ukrainian, either! He does call after Leta, "We should order food. Your question reminded me that I haven't eaten since..." Vasha scratches his nose with his thumbnail and mutters, "I should definitely eat."
"Let's order food," agrees Fox, and when Leta gets up to go get the good shit, Fox gets up to move to the lap of Vasha, bringing her cider with her. "I want food." Fox always wants food. "I was flying around being a crow earlier, and so I'm very hungry. I don't really care -what_ we get as long as there's a lot of it." She flops into his lap, leans in against him. "Another cider, please?" she calls after Leta, and then sticks her tongue out at Vasha. "I don't really care if you prod them so much. I just -- "
"I dunno, usually it doesn't bother me to think about that January. It did just now, and I'm not sure why. Let's move on. I love you." Her head flops against his shoulder.
Leta re-enters the room with her little blue box, a fresh cider for Fox, and a glass bong shaped like an emerald dragon. The drink is delivered, and she -- because her seat moved, and this chair isn't crowded enough already -- seats herself on the arm of the chair like a gremlin.
"In the spirit of moving on, I am also very hungry -- and after I smoke, that will progress to fucking ravenous -- so what are we eating?" She flashes a shit-eating grin, and tips her little sunglasses down the bridge of her nose. "I vote pizza." Which. Of course she does. Leta always votes for pizza.(edited)
"Pizza is fine. Or whatever it is that you pretend is pizza here in your capitalist hellscape." Vasha is back on his shit, apparently. Moving on, indeed. "I love you, too." He then peers up at Leta with a small grin which he proceeds to hide in his cognac glass. "Mmm. We played twenty questions with the Factotum General and prodded at the Mysterium Archives a bit. You missed it. I read books." He waits for her to be suitably astonished.
Setting the new bottle aside on the end table, Fox leans over to kiss Leta's shoulder in thanks, taking another swallow from the half-drunk cider in her hand. "Pizza is good. I like pizza. The pelmeni place is also on GrubHub now." As if this is truly relevant to everyone and not just Fox. "We did. And knowing about animals was relevant. An artist made fun of Gaveston and ... got erased from the official history. I think probably those two facts are tied together." A little shift of her shoulders. "It was kind of awkward to be in Archives again."
"I can buy that your knowledge of animals was helpful, but I refuse to believe that Vasha can read." Leta offers a reedy little cackle, and sticks her pierced tongue out at Pavlichenko. She, of course, wiggles it. As is her MO.
"I could go for Pelmeni," Leta blows a kiss at Fox and then reaches for her pipe. "Or we could live like the decadent capitalist pigs we are, and get both." She looks up from packing a bowl to quirk a brow at Fox. "Why was it so awkward to be in the Archives?"(edited)
"In three languages," Vasha boasts of his reading ability, "and two alphabets. Get on my level, woman." Vasha has a new cat toy, and it is Leta. Let the verbal sexy spanking commence. "You should have seen my official portrait in Saint Petersburg. Right in front of a bookshelf and everything. You would have been so proud." Vasha gives his cigar a few grinning puffs.
"There's an Archive?" The words reach them first, and Tanya appears second, already looking wide-eyed. They make their way over to the couch, looking very excited. The nascent mage's attention pings between Fox, Leta, Vasha, and the bowlful of weed. "I've been dying to get to read something...real. The truth."
"It's true, he can. I've witnessed it happening," Fox answers mildly, and then she takes another swallow of her drink. "There is. The Mysterium has their own Archive, and being there is uh... " She pauses for a moment. "It's a little bit like visiting your ex's house, or running into an ex at a party when you weren't expecting it really." A beat, and she blinks a few times. "Leta, did you not know I used to be a Mystagogue?"
"Oh yes," Leta wiggles an eyebrow. The game is afoot. "On your level, right-- though, seeing as this bookshelf was in Russia, I can't imagine there was anything worth reading after Putin's censors had their way with the thing. Did you enjoy spending your downtime attempting to decipher the meaning behind those black boxes? In all three of your languages?"
Leta ceases trading verbal jabs with Vasha, and turns to Fox mid-eyebrow wiggle. "I did not know that, but I understand your analogy perfectly -- and I know now."
"Tolstoy. Dostoyevsky. Pushkin. Nabokov. Bulgakov. Gorky. Lermontov. Turgenev. I could go on, but you stopped knowing who those authors were after Dostoyevsky." Vasha takes another lazy puff of his cigar at the conclusion of his little list and exhales his smoke up towards Leta, though not actually at her, as that wouldn't be very nice of him. "Comparing Russian and American culture is like comparing a pile of money and a work of art. American culture is crass and materialistic. Self-involved. Tawdry. Oh, yes. The oligarchs and Putin run Russia now. That much is true. The oligarchs run this country, too. You just all carry on protesting the fact that they in fact do not."
"As much fun as it is listening to the two of you flirt," Fox offers drily in the wake of Vasha's opinions regarding American vs Russian culture, "we should probably tell Leta about the things that we found, and then you can continue pretending you're not flirting." She gently bonks her forehead against the Acanthus' affectionately, and turns sort of a half-hearted smile to Leta. "Yeah. I was a Mystagogue when I didn't know there were other choices, kind of like how I was a boy before I knew there were other choices."
Leta makes an exaggerated show of rolling her eyes mid-rip, and then exhales a plume of smoke towards the ceiling. 'Cause even though she wants to blow smoke in Vasha's face, she's not a heathen. "That's fair. I'm glad you've found a more Fox-appropriate place to land,"Leta returns the smile. "So what have you found, then? Is this more in the Seer + Mark case, or have you both decided to pull something else onto your plates as well?"
She wiggles an eyebrow, setting her dragon aside on a nearby side table.
Sipping cognac is all well and good, but a cocktail is more drinkable, in the end. So Vasha finishes his present glass, clamps down on his cigar, and rises from his chair again to head over to the bar to mix himself a vodka and cranberry. Because he is, if nothing else, a creature of habit where liquor is concerned. Shaken over ice, and poured into a high ball, he carries it back to his chair again and slides into his seat. He's already aware of what's up, after all.
Noooooo, that means Fox's lap is going away! She gets up, sticks her tongue out at Vasha, and then reclaims said lap once Vasha returns, picking up her second cider and cracking it open. Because with Leta sitting on the arm of the Comfiest Chair and Fox on Vasha's lap, they are ridiculously compressed into the smallest area possible and the maximum snuggle. Kinda. "No, this was, uhm, a Scelestus who murdered -- " Then she pauses. "Murdered a Herald for another Consilium. I went along to help and research, which was, like I said, awkward. It seems like the Scelestus murdered this Herald in order to steal one of Gaveston's ... things." A small glance aside at Vasha, then. He can help explain!
"Herald Pegasus of Fecund Coin was murdered here in a moto lodge in Philadelphia while acting as a courier of an imbued item made for Gaveston. He was delivering it from Liberty, the Provost of Fecund Coin, to our own Factotum General, Bodhisattva. Stripped of all potentia and vitality and left as an empty, desiccated husk." Vasha settles an arm around Fox's waist and takes a sip of his drink before continuing, "He also did the same to the husband and wife who owned the place. An elderly couple. As well as their hired help. A young woman in her 20's. All sleepers. I was one of the first on scene. Timewalked the murders." Fun.(edited)
Tanya just sorts of sits off to the side and absorbs all of this with wide eyes and obvious interest. They don't interrupt, as this is big important business, but it's clear they're drinking in every word, making sure they have the details and pieces for later. As arcane jargon gives way to senseless murder, their expression shifts from childlike awe to one of uncomfortable disgust.
"Fuck," Leta mutters under her breath. She rocks back and forth on the arm of the chair, bobbing along with her head as she listens to Fox's explanation. "Is there anything in this city that isn't on fucking fire?" She gives up on balancing on her perch, and sliiiiiides off the arm of the car and against Fox. "Not that I'm saying you missed anything, but I'm happy to give the scene another set of eyes if you'd like. Even if we're just examining a copy of it."
She peeks up at Tanya, looking very unprofessional as she continues to slide into Fox and Vasha. "You good, kid? You don't have to be here for this part if you don't want to be."(edited)
When Vasha brings up that he timewalked the murders, Fox doesn't look surprised, but she curls in against him, smooches his cheekbone twice. "Unfortunately," Fox offers to her apprentice, "this is relatively routine in our lives. A Scelestus is what we call a left-handed Mage. Not left-handed as in, like, favors the left hand but like left-hand path. The sort of person who thinks it's okay to drain potentia from a living being, to make sacrifices of living beings for the purposes of magic. We have very few definitions of outright evil, but a Scelestus fits that definition handily."
"And if you need to take a breather, please do. It's not easy even when you're used to it."
"You're welcome to review my notes and the scene, but I'd prefer not to rekindle those memories if it's all the same to you. We're well on our way to catching him, at this point. He has an item we can identify. We even have pictures of it. Tracking the rod will be easy, and it will lead us to the Scelestus. Get me within a half mile of the scelestus with a decent rifle and our problem is resolved. The generous terms of engagement we've been given by the powers that be make such solutions the most sensible. To just kill it before it does more harm out there." Vasha's choice of pronouns is probably not accidental. He sets his cigar down in the ash tray and trades it for his cocktail glass, taking a rather bracing drink from it.
Tanya looks at Leta first, expression almost confused. It settles as their gaze slides over to Fox and the explanation. "Left-handed, eh," they murmur. "Sinister." There's tension on her face, but it's not quite fear or stress. The look they fix on Leta is quite intense. "I don't have to be anywhere I don't want to be, now. But...yes, thank you, I'm good. I'm not going to be driven off by sins or wickedness." Their expression softens just as quickly, glancing between the three sprawled on the couch. "But, uh, if you three would like some privacy," they say in their more normal tone, awkward once more.(edited)
"No, there's no real need for that. I trust your work -- and if I didn't, I'd just revisit the scene and make a recreation of my own." If Leta is in any way put off by Vasha's statement, it doesn't show on her face. "If the investigation is already that far along, I can't imagine you'll do anything other than make short work of the fucker, and be done with it."
Leta returns Tanya's intense gaze from her slouching position, quirking an eyebrow at the decision to use sins and wickeness, but otherwise says nothing. She offers a shrug, and makes a vague gesture of "carry on, then" with the hand that isn't holding onto a box of weed. She wiggles her brow, and sticks out her tongue. "Privacy for what? Talking about murder and assassinations?"(edited)
"Because we're snuggling," Fox clarifies drily toward Leta, curled up on Vasha's lap contentedly. It's not like the Mastigos doesn't know, and Fox knows that she knows, after all. There's an absent swat of her hand toward Leta's arm "No, Tanya. If we decide that we want to have privacy, we'll have privacy later, after we're done talking about murder."
"The rod is interesting," she continues, "in part because I think that Gaveston ... basically erased the artist from history. And I think that the artist was probably an enslaved African. It was definitely someone who had seen a lion with their own eyes, and ... the art itself was not the ... noble image that it looks like at first glance. You know, like how Michaelangelo's David looks different if you look at him on a level, rather than from beneath. Or if you know that there's a dick joke in it, basically."
"I yearn for privacy," Vasha admits, "but that is only because we live in a world without any. But, no. No plans to fuck in an immediate sense." Vasha plucks up his cigar and takes another puff, tilting his head back to billow a plume of smoke up and away from those occupying his The Good Chair with him. "Of practical concern is the fact that the rod is capable of creating new hallows. While a Scelestus with a stable source of potentia means fewer ritual murders, it also means the Scelestus will be capable of greater and more dangerous feats. There's far too much care and intention to all of this for this to be a happenstance or an act of convenience. There's a purpose behind all of this. The scelestus needs power, and there's an end game to gathering it that we must interrupt.*
Tanya nods again, but is more quiet this time, despite a bit of obvious blushiness at Fox and Vasha's cavalier comments. In the meantime the young mage leans towards Leta and the box of weed and such. "Can I have some?" they ask politely, not really able to contribute to the talk of Murder and Scelesti.
"Go forth, young Psychonaut." Leta pulls her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose and flashes a wink as she hands over the box. Now that her hands are empty, she lounges back against Fox, sinking further into Vasha's Good Chair. "You're probably right. That's not ideal." There's a momentary pause and she looks up. "So where can I ply my talents? I've been handling Background Work for the past few weeks while I gather up my shit and put it back into my shit-holding compartments -- y'know, so all my shit is together -- but I'm not going to lay around the house and do drugs all day when I can do drugs in the field with you instead."
"Yes, of practical concern. We can deal with the history later." Former Mystagogue habits raise their head, apparently. Fox thunks her head against Leta's shoulder thoughtfully, and doesn't speak up on where Leta can best use her talents, apparently deferring to Vasha on that. This is a Guardian plot, after all!
"It's not my investigation. Technically. It's Gardener's. Hearth was involved in it, as well. You might reach out to her, likewise. She's proven quite able in the field, her protests to the contrary notwithstanding. If you can help track him down sympathetically, that would be a good place to start. We'll not have long to get him after we start scrying him, however. He's likely to notice. So we'll want to be ready to act the moment we have his location." Vasha sets his cigar back down and once more trades it for his cocktail, which he sips while eyeing Leta's sink into his The Good Chair. "If you two make me spill my drink I will become cross. Er. Than usual."
Tanya busies themselves with packing the pipe, sparking it up, and taking a big lungful hit without much fuss or confusion. Clearly, while the college student may be somewhat meek and sheltered, they're still...a college student. The little mage sits there holding their breath, watching and listening, until they finally let go after a ten count, rolling their head back to plume the smoke straight upwards. "Is there anything I can do to help?" they finally ask Vasha.
Leta tugs a little notepad and pen from the front pocket of her floral-print blouse, and scrawls a couple notes in shorthand. "Gardner and Hearth," she mutters aloud. "Don't spill Vasha's drink, or I'll be punished." She caps her pen, and makes a little pop sound with her lips. "Okay," at full volume this time. "Got it all." Just a little bit of Gremlinitude. As a treat.
She quirks a brow at Tanya's question, though, looking between Vasha and Fox for the answer.
"I don't think that's a threat to Leta. But if you spill your drink I can molecularly separate it from whatever it spills on and put it back into your glass," Fox drolls, curling in against Vasha all the more and giving him the big green-gold staring eyes. How can he possibly be mad at Fox? She is, in fact, so stinkin' cute. Look at her. So cute. "Do you know anything about tracking things by sympathy?" she asks her apprentice, in the tone of someone who is repeating something they just heard. Can Fox do that? Hell no.
The apprentice looks to Fox, face scrunching up in both uncertainty and determination. "The threads? I mean...no, I haven't tried, because I've been being good, I've been waiting. I didn't want to pull one and have...something pull back. But I see them everywhere, all over. I..." She glances to Vasha with a little smile. "I was just wondering if I could find which one of Vasha's leads back to St. Petersburg. But I'm guessing, if I tried, you'd all know, and I'd be in trouble."
"I had them severed shortly after I arrived as a precaution. I'm sure I'm building it back up what with all my jokes about it, but. Yes. Periodically destroying your sympathies-- or having it done for you by another who can --is a very good idea for that reason. A few salient facts about a person, and suddenly you can open a one-way scrying window and rain death on them from above. That's one reason why one of the best methods of staying safe is to just not exist. Be nowhere. Be no one. Lonely? After a fashion. But far safer than living life in the open." Vasha's just ignoring Leta at this point. He's very good at it. And Fox. That's some Mastigos level cold-blooded, right there. "You are Acanthus? Like me?"
"Mastigos," Leta corrects as she tucks the notepad into her pocket again. She scrunches up her face when Vasha refuses to play the game, and instead leans her head back onto Fox's shoulder. Does she also stick out her tongue at Vasha and wiggle it around? Yes, yes she does, but that's not really playing the game. That's just trying your best to get a reaction out of the Buckingham Palace guards.
Her eyes widen even more, and Fox's lower lip wobbles, but then she takes a deep breath in that shudders sharply and turns her attention toward her apprentice. "I meant because that's one of the things which is required, is looking at symapthetic threads," Fox explains, "And I actually can't do that, but if you can, then that's something you could help with." A small shift of her weight in Vasha's lap. "They're a Mastigos, like Leta said. And a recovering Catholic. Thus the references to good and evil and sin and all that."
Tanya nods to Fox. "I can. I see them all the time. Red strings. Billions, everywhere, touching everything." Their gaze turns back to Vasha. "I'm told I'm a Mastigos, and a Warlock. And I know that's True, somehow. I don't really know what it means. I keep mentioning evil and sin because since I had my breakthrough, that's what I keep seeing and hearing. Men turned into android slaves. Random bystanders murdered by things they don't even know exist. Newly Awakened people, confused and afraid, left to suffer and die in the snow."
Their gaze is settled calmly on Vasha now, but the shift is there again. Tanya sits straight up, eyebrows lowered, and their voice has momentarily shed its timid uncertainty. "I do not know very much right now. I don't know what's right, or good, or wise. But I know what's wrong. I could write an Encyclopedia on worldly atrocities at this rate."
Vasha's deadpan acquires a slow grin of dawning understanding somewhere through Tanya's explanations. "Your faith in binaries is curious, given the givens. Or absolutes, I suppose, may be more accurate. No one can give me satisfactory definitions of good and evil but everyone seems to know it when they see it. Things get sticky if good and evil depend upon intention versus outcome. The road to hell and good intentions, and all of that. How much evil can a slightly larger bit of good justify? Morality is a fungeable thing, you'll find. Just like gender, or space, or time, or anything else, really. If it feels right? It usually is. External forms of ethics are just means of controlling you."
Leta stops wiggling her tongue, and her jaw goes a little slack as she blinks at Vasha. "Huh," she offers a little grunt after a few seconds of pause, and then closes her mouth. The game can wait. "That was refreshing. I don't even have something to add."
... though she does turn to Tanya with a little shrug. "On a strictly rhetorical level, you might want to curb your fiery evangelical speech. Even if you're not intending to, there are many people who might hear someone shout words like "Sin" and "Wickedness" and think you unsafe to be around." She flashes an earnest little smile. "Which I doubt you want. You may want to consider shedding that particular carapace now that you've outgrown it. So you don't give me a minor heart attack every time I hear it."(edited)
"No one actually left me to suffer and die in the snow, and Vasha was kidding about leaving the apprentices out in the snow. It's his form of hazing. I almost died, because I awakened in Saint Petersburg in January and ended up tearing off the skirt suit I was wearing and throwing it... somewhere. But my mentor found me, and she was a bear, so I did not die." The Thyrsus seems content, curled up in Vasha's lap, slowly blinking their gold-green eyes like a contented cat. She doesn't get into the conversation about good and evil and morality beyond that. What are such complex questions to a somewhat sleepy fox?
Tanya looks mollified by Fox's clarification. The intensity of their posture reduces somewhat. "Good. I was hoping that was the case. And trying to figure out how I could tell without messing with anyone else's head but my own." Leta's words get a small nod, though when she says "I doubt you want", their lips curl into a silent smile. "Does that word upset you?" they ask. "If you'd like me to not use it around you...I won't. You've been nothing but kind to me. My apologies."
They turn to Vasha next, and shakes their head. "Morality is...contextual. I don't know about feelings. I'm sure sucking the life out of a pack of unsuspecting, helpless people felt great to that... Scelestus. You're right about external ethics, but..." Their nostrils flare, and their fists curl up. "Arguing about morality when there's blatant suffering and death at hand isn't my style either. Angels on the head of a pin."(edited)
"I didn't say felt good, I said felt right. Shooting someone execution style in the back of the head? Wrong. Doing it to a serial rapist Seer of the Throne who murdered one of your cadre mates? That feels right. Obviously this presuppose you aren't a sociopath or the like. But you take my point. As you say; context matters. You need to get in the habit of listening to your gut. Developing a sense of inner strength and purpose that is your own. A guiding light. So that when people haze you about putting apprentices out into the winter night, or you have to make a split second decision between who lives and who dies, you have lived an examined life up to that point and whatever choice you make will be rooted not in esoterics, but in your own lived experiences. 'A book said it was right' doesn't sound nearly as righteous as 'the way I lived my life up to now taught me this was the correct choice'. Because it isn't." Vasha sets his drink aside and pats Fox on her leg affectionately. See? He's making nice with the apprentice and everything. "Trust yourself first before you go trusting other people. That's my little gift to your education."
"I won't make you course correct on my account, but I'm also not the only person in the world that might feel that way. Just food for thought in the event that you continue to travel in queer circles." Yeah. Psssh. In the event. Wipe that shit-eating grin off your face, Leta Abbott. She fixes Vasha with a long stare as he continues to speak, and is otherwise silent for the discussion -- though her expression is just kinda. Glittering.
"On the matter of sin, the concept of sin is not one that exists in the same way for me that it does for you," Fox points out, nuzzling into Vasha's neck comfortably while she talks to Tanya still. "I was raised as a Reform Jew, and now I'm still Jewish, but also a non-human animal probably thirty percent of the time these days. So what is sin to me? The Sages can fight me over what is forbidden to me, save what violates pikuach nefesh."
Tanya doesn't seem to disagree with anything said from any of their teachers. They nod, and they smile to Vasha. "Thank you for the gift. They know that, I'm just trying to make them listen to me." The Mastigos's shoulders relax a bit, and they blink a few times. "I mean, make me listen to myself. You know what I mean. Anyway." They look to Leta with a far more sympathetic gaze than before. "I get it. I would only talk that way at all around other Awakened. It's...I know the very concept of 'sin' is a social construct, and it's one designed to control and repress people. It's a knife against the throat of anyone who isn't in the dominant culture. A way to heap shame on the receptive. I want...to point that knife back. Turn it against the shameless, soulless bastards who put it there, who pointed it at me. But yeah, if I'm in a..."
The neophyte trails off, looking between the three others piled together. "Wait, unless you mean... is the entire Council a queer circle? Does this only happen to us?"
"Life as a queer person probably does lend itself to Awakening. Awakening is the soul and mind coming into agreement and throwing off all the lies the mind has been taught. Queer people have already experienced one epiphany. Already cast off the shackles of at least one set of lies. But it's no guarantee, obviously, nor are the Awakened exclusively queer. Some of us become queer after we awaken. That was me. But queering up is all about casting off outmoded assumptions about gender, sexuality, masculinity, capitalism, and a whole host of other axes of oppression. Awakening certainly leads us all away from those outmoded assumptions. So. We all wind up queer in a sense. And if we don't, we're living in denial about the amorphous nature of all reality." Vasha ends that all with a puff of his cigar. Having one of those nights where he likes to hear himself talk, clearly. "Asserting a static identity is an act of defiance of reality, honestly. Transformative awakenings prove that time and again."
"I was queer before I awakened. I had to sit and think about if Awakening had accidentally made me cis. It didn't, and I ended up trans all over again in a different way after the fact. There are the occasional cishets in the Awakened community, but ... with very rare exceptions... I find them to be the most unbearable humans." She picks her head up from Vasha's shoulder and asks, "Do you remember -- did I ever tell you about -- the girl who wanted me to teach her to be an Orphan and spent twenty minutes yelling at me when I set a task for her to try spending time in a differently-configured body, and then I just got up and left? Like, she could have been a non-human of a different gender, or even a tree!" Fox sighs heavily. "What Vasha says is very true. Life as a queer person does likely lend oneself to Awakening. The sort of self-assessment required to come out as queer helps you prepare your soul, I think. But I would think that."
Leta tears her eyes away from the conversation, and crosses one leg over the other before sitting up properly. Well, as properly as she can possibly sit while still sitting sideways over the arm of a chair in someone's lap. Her fake nails clack against her phone screen as she fires off a text, and then reaches for the dragon bong. If this is where the night is taking her, may as well enjoy it.
"Indeed. Fascinatingly enough, in many cultures -- before European intervention occurred -- queer and trans people would occasionally fill positions of spiritual and social guidance within their communities. I'm not saying the two are connected, but I will say that even in Non-Awakened contexts, moving between those boundaries can lend one a unique perspective."(edited)
Fox's phone makes a subtle bubbling sound, and she fishes in her pocket for her phone, unlocks her screen. Oh no Vasha can probably see it too, especially when she looks over her shoulder at Leta and raises her eyebrow, smiling with lopsided affection.
Tanya looks fairly fascinated by these revelations. "You came out before, and you came out after. See, for me, it was all at once. When I saw the hole in the lie, when I saw the truth, I knew. Because who I am was the truth, you know?" They look to Leta and nod. "That's...I mean, it's been exoticized and tokenized, sure, but I've always thought it felt powerful. Even the cultures that feared people between "male" and "female" understood that, I think." They reach for the dragon bong after Leta's done to take a huge hit, hold it in until they get teary-eyed, and then exhale it, slumping against the couch. "It's liminal. That's the word. Between boundaries, between borders, transitory or connective."
"Awakening as the son of a party official and General into the Guardians of the Veil? In the 1990s? Let's just say I had a lot of unlearning to do. But there is a lot of utility in the espionage game to being able to swap sexes, genders, species, and the like. So. I got over it. Once I got over it, I got over a lot of other things, too." Vasha's shoulders hunch and fall again. "I've done a lot of growing since then."
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