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A quiet morning at Maddy's, and the eponymous waffleteer is behind the bar bustling, as she is sometimes wont to do when she's chipping in for the day's activities. At the moment that means brewing coffee.
Harmony enters, fresh as daisies. It helps that you can use magic to shirk the requirement of a night's rest, but it might her shouted at if certain parties knew. Still, dressed in a blue dress and slipping her shoes off at the door she approaches with a wave and warm smile. "Maddy! Good morning to you1"
"Harmony!" Maddy answers back with the same enthusiasm she receives, and she hustles out from behind the counter to offer Harmony a hug. Maybe that's why she's not behind it so often. She just has to keep running around it to hug people. "Good morning. Tea? Can I get something else started for you?"
A warm, tight hug, toned arms catching up the Acanthus as she nods. "Mm, green tea please? Or, well, anything mellow. I need to let my thoughts circulate. How goes it all for you?"
"I have a new white tea in? It's delicate, and I wish I had Forces to make it easier to get the water temperature just right, but it's delicious," Maddy says as she gestures around. "Sit wherever you like, I'll bring a cup out and we can catch up. If you prefer green, then I have a light green tea, too."
"I'd love to try your new blend." She nods keenly. "I'm gonna make a run at seeing how my babies turn out when I've chance, but, we've been kinda busy. And please, you know me and catching up."
"I'll get it started!" Maddy says. She hurries off to the kitchen and comes back shortly, with a pot of water, a cup with a tea leaf strainer, and some loose leaf tea, and brings them to wherever Harmony sat down. "Let me know what you think. It's a very, very mild tea, but I think it's delicious."
She pauses, then gives Maddy a thoughtful look. "Would you agree to a spell here? One to boost, well, all your perceptions, including taste." A sly smile. "The hope being it makes the tea taste all the better."
"If the spell is only being worked on you, then go ahead," Maddy says as she takes a seat, joining Harmony. "Just don't create any paradoxes, please. I suppose I should add that to the rules, but it's kind of part of the general rules over all, isn't it?" Pause. "Have you heard anything new about what happened with the three the Tree pointed us at?"
"You don't want it for yourself?" Harmony asks, producing her tools of the trade, but waiting on Maddy's decision. In the meantime, she takes a first sip, savouring with a smile. "I'd hope we all do our best to avoid them, except when we've no choice, and boosting senses of taste isn't that, after all." She nods. "Two of them, not as much I'm afraid. One, yes. It's not a secret, but it's not something we're saying too openly either. My cadre's been observing, without interference, the third of them. I, are we okay to talk more about this later, after events have progressed some?"
"Oh, for my taste?" Maddy thinks. "Sure, why not. What Practice does that use, anyway? Maybe you'd be willing to talk about it briefly as you're doing it, so that it's also partly a short lesson in Life? I'd like to learn more anyway." She relaxes, at ease in her diner, chatting with a friend. "Sure," she says about talking about it later. "I was there for the conversation that happened in the Consilium Hall afterward, remember. I know what you all were asked to do, and urged not to do. It hasn't happened yet, then?"
"Not yet, no." Harmony nods. "We've been working in pairs, doing our best to keep a full watch. It helps that I can keep us from needing sleep, though I prefer to not do that unless it's needed." She smiles warmly to her friend. "And the practice is unveiling, as it's about deepening your perception of the world. And, by all means." She raises her tools, starting to chant in High Speech as she weaves the casting, moving slowly and carefully and speaking clearly to aid Maddy's observation.
Maddy waits while Harmony willworks, and when her senses heighten she blinks a couple of times and then smiles. "I could see this getting really annoying until I get used to it. I'm pretty sure I can hear people talking over at the next house that way," she points out the window. "And that's like half a mile away." She stops talking to explore the sensations and look at things with her Sight before asking.
"Try mixing that with a sense of every living thing nearby. It took me, ooh, a good while to get used to that sort of input, and sometimes I do let the spells fade if it gets too much." She grins, then pauses, watching Maddy explore her new senses happily. "Speaking of life sight, I need to ask other Thyrsus this too, well, mainly Fox." A wide smile. "But I came across someone with my life sense who was.. uh, not there. I talked to them, interacted with them, but they had no sense of life."
Maddy explores the senses for a little before responding. "I'm imagining this coupled with the ability to see in every direction at once and it's kind of nauseating to think about." Her attention comes back to the here and now. "Maybe they were using something to veil their presence? I imagine you could come up with something like that. Or they might have been dead. Vampires come in here sometimes. At night, obviously."
"..Vampires." She blinks, then sighs. "I'm so dumb sometimes, yes. And made it worse by staring when I was caught offguard. Wasn't one of my smoothest moments, that." A hand runs through her hair. "And, you can do that? Gawd, that'd take some practice to get used to."
Laughing, Maddy reaches out to touch Harmony's arm. "I can, by warping Space to make sure the light from every direction reaches my eyes. It's less disorienting than you might think. after a few seconds to get used to it, but it's definitely a lot of input." She leans back with a smile. "Hopefully you didn't offend anyone, but I'm sure it's fine." As an Acanthus, she tends to react this way to everything. Often enough it does work out just fine, after all.
"I think I might have done." She confesses. "I'm hoping I can make a better impression if I meet them again. And, thanks. I do enjoy finding your surety." A warm smile. "And that's kinda poetic, the light from everywhere. I like it."
"I think it gets less poetic when you know how it works." This gets another laugh from Madeleine. "If you run into the same person again, maybe just apologize? That fixes a lot of problems."
A nod. "I mean to, mm. And they seemed a good sort." She takes a slow sip of her tea, eyes widening as she processes the flavour in far deeper detail then before. "Wonderful..." Taking a moment she beams over the table. "So. Tell me how it felt to you to see the Tree blooming, maybe? It was so busy we had no time to talk."
Curious eyes watch Harmony as she takes a sip of the tea, and when it's enjoyed the owners of those eyes smiles in quiet delight. That delight gives way to wonder at the change of topic. "The Tree is a big part of why I put down roots in this city in the first place," she says, with a lazy turn of her wrist to gesture at the diner. "It was a holy moment for me." She lets out a soft breath through slightly pursed lips. "It's hard to even find the words."
"There aren't any, are there?" Harmony nods slowly. "I feel, well, just, connected when I'm near it, alive. In awe. And the blooming.. no words. But, it was a moment, an instant I'll never forget. And I think I'm different after seeing it then I was before."
"Being given the opportunity to scrutinize it during such a momentous event..." Madeleine's head shakes slowly. "I'll never forget that, for sure. I'm only driven deeper into my conviction that I'm in the right place, the right time, that I've made the right choices at some of my life's most important crossroads. I want to understand what I saw."
"Have you spent more time in the Mists?" Harmony asks quietly. "I know it might be tempting right now, with all the potential futures laid out in front of us. And, I think if I wrote down my thoughts, or danced them out, or anything to do with motion, it might help."
"Not recently, but maybe I should go see what the tree looks like there right now," Madeleine says, coming back to reality and making plans. "I wouldn't want to go alone, but it might be best to go with people who have skill with Fate and Time."
She nods to that, sipping more tea. "Grab some company if you can? I can't make it right now myself, but I'll be sure to later, even if it's just to stare some more." A slow grin. "And if I visit with you later, I'll offer those increased senses again, hoping they'd help."
"I could put word out asking for people who are interested in making the trip," Madeleine suggests. "Then try to do it some time in the next few days. I feel like the longer we wait, the more likely it is that we'll miss something important." As some new arrivals come in she slips out of her seat at the boot. "It was nice catching up with you, but I should get back to doing some work here. I can't be a layabout all the time."
"If you want to be a layabout together, or join one of my classes sometime, you know how to track me down." She smiles and stands to offer another hug. "You be safe. I'll catch up again soon for more tea and company."
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