Logs:Silver Threads: Jadetsugi In Action

From From Dusk till Jawn
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Content Warning

Clarity damage, the Hedge doing a shenanigans, Escape, flashbacks

Cast

June Desrochers, Sigrun Ljosdottir, Vorpal, Arthur Phoenix, Snowy and Spider as ST

Setting

The Hedge near Lincoln Financial Field. Part of Silver Threads & The Eyes Of The Mask

Log

A strange assignment given to the owl by The Naturalist has occupied her exploration in the Hedge these past few -- days? weeks? it's hard to keep track of time when you're a bird who has remembered you're a person. -- However long it's been, Snowy has been sent out and pulled back over and over again. Rewarded with treats when she brings back any scrap of information, shut alone in a confining cage when she's pulled back by her leash without anything.

Later, she may remember the cloth placed over her cage, and the subtle, sickly green glow which lit up The Naturalist's library for a short time before the assignments were given. The garbled Voice whose speech she cannot remember, only the weight of it, words which landed like lead type, heavily in her brain. Sickly green, shifting to blue, to yellow. Unnatural colors, and so bright. After that Voice, and those colors left, her new assignment.

The Naturalist gently stroked her feathers earlier today (as much as time has any meaning in Arcadia), whispering instructions -- to seek information on the missing library and the bleeding heart -- and, as always, any information on any of his own Treasures, those who belong in the empty cages.

Procyon lotor. Panthera uncia. Ailurus fulgens. Neat cards hang on vacant enclosures, waiting for their -- in the mind of The Naturalist -- inevitable return.

But this brings her here, along one of the narrow, twisting paths which goblins follow. It goes past a huge, empty round construct where Hedge Ghosts are common; last time The Naturalist let her out, she had to run from one of the pale, shuddering things, a tall, thin man wearing a shirt with a giant number on the front and back. That seems ... important, somehow, but Snowy can't remember why.

Maybe if she can find those goblins, follow them to their market, she'll be able to bring back something useful. She knows it can't be long until The Naturalist yanks on the Silver Thread around her ankle, dragging her back painfully through the Thorns to demand what she's found. She's running out of time, and she wants to eat today.

She never liked the darkness of the cage beneath the blanket but her senses told her it was a mere moment of peace she needed. Hesitantly, she listens to his instructions. Snowy, as she liked to call herself, had seen her old life torn asunder. She needed to break free and find a new life. It was the right thing to do.

Adorning herself in discarded garb for warmth and attire suited for the market, she stalks her way towards the goblins hole. "Thy will be done..." She tells the Keeper. "You posh prick." With the wisdom of the owl, she finishes that last part in her head. Begging to the stars above that **IT** could not read minds.

Using her senses, she follows the twisting maze of stone and mortar towards her goal. Using her owlish eyes she begins to track and follow the goblins she saw.

"Well, we're making good progress." Jackie strode through the developing Trod, Sigknifr spinning in her hand as she glanced about, checking on June and Artie to be sure they hadn't been separated. "Y'all ever wish we could just, like. FLEX Trods into being permanently? Like, I know you can sorta cheese it for a bit to make things easier, but like... Hm. Maybe it's better we can't. It's good to have projects," she muses. "Everyone holding up okay?" (edited)

June and Jackie have been on enough patrols together that there's not much about June's ability set that's likely to be a surprise, from how fast she is even in her plate armor to her ability to keep them from leaving trails for others. The fact that she's on fire is new, though, with her flaming fortifications and fiery fists of fury.

"You've been watching too much Doom Patrol, Flex Mentallo," she says to Jackie. "Although I would actually love to see you trying to go around flexing to make things happen."

Artie felt a little anxious today on their tromp. No real reason. Perhaps he was actually feeling more antsy than anxious. He was finding it hard not to hum a little tune as they moved along but well he was excited! A project with friends! How else was he supposed to be?

"Mmh only sometimes honestly. Because if we could just spam out trods, we wouldn't stay hidden as well, " the smith pointed out.

" And yeah. No problems over here. Just hoping we don't find anyone new stuck in here."

Sigrun rides on the back of her horse, her bow across her lap, an arrow nocked on the string as a matter of principle rather than present caution. Her winter saddle dress is sueded leather on the outside, and fluffy fur on the inside. The cowl covers her head to keep the cold at bay.

"I prefer singing. The thorns never know quite what to do when you're nice to them." She rides more or less in the middle of the group, letting her higher vantage stand in for walking point. "Though I can jiggle my butt and make things happen, I've noticed." She stands up in her stirrups and shifts her hips for comfort, and for humor.

"Ya know, I've never tried dancing ny way through the thorns but maybe I should. Kinda hard without a beat though..." The wizened spoke up curiously, twisting to look back at his own butt a bit.

"Where was it you wanted the trod to lead again, Sigrun?"

There are wagon tracks which Snowy can follow -- they're recent enough, maybe earlier today? -- and a set of three or four footprints alongside it, as if the wagon rolled along and there were three smaller individuals walking next to it, with a fourth sometimes walking and sometimes perhaps being carried. She is so focused that she does not notice the sounds of the horse, the people, the...

June, however, immediately spots the owl, swooping and following the maze of stone and mortar. Artie sees it a split-second later. (edited)

That cart, that cart, will hold the secrets she seeks. Desperate for a scrap of anything, the owl focuses its head forward and keeps moving with its wings tucked behind its back and a jacket of ragged white in its steps. For now, it hops along the road and its talons join the footprints at the side.

Those in the distance would see a beautiful owl marching along the side of the dusted tracks, blissfully unaware of their presence despite the yellow bulbous eyes on that satellite dish it calls a face. Listening for the tracks source in the far distance.

The instant she spots the owl June's hand comes up, a signal that there's something of interest going on, and she says in a calm voice, doing her best not to give away that she spotted something coming to anybody but her companies, "there's an owl coming our way," she says. "Ten o'clock."

"An owl? A Buidhe-owl, or a stranger-danger owl? We know at least one owl," Jackie asks.

"She seems to be... Tracking something." Artie adds, his golden gaze scanning for companions. "And nah. It's a snowy Hedwig type." (edited)

Unfortunately, at this distance, Sigrun can only tell that it's an owl, and it's white.

"Punch it right into the nose, if we can. Take it to the front doors of each of the stadiums. Put in a ring trod around the whole complex. Catch anyone and everyone that makes it in through the stadium doors on accident and comes staggering out the front door." Sigrun points towards the visible structure looming up in the distance. Indicating 'that-away'.

When the call is given, Sigrun swings up her bow and pulls back on the string, turning her horse with the knees to face perpendicular to her ten o'clock. And then she goes searching for a target at the end of her aim. Finding it on the ground was unexpected. She begins walking her horse sideways to get herself a little closer. Mostly, she just holds her aim.

"Hob?" It's a question. "I could try to get its attention. Those things love me." At least when she doesn't shoot them in the butt with an arrow.

"ARE there owl hobs that just look like owls?" Jackie asks, consulting her understanding of magics. "Coulda sworn that was the province of owls, and us with the right Contracts signed. And I don't know anyone flies around as owls." Pause. "In the Hedge." Pause. "That isn't Buidhe." (edited)

"Then let's assume stranger owl for now. Do we wanna spook it or try and chat? It's smart enough to spot tracks. See 'em?" The tailor asks, keeping his spear low so the gleam of the metla doesn't give the squad away.

The owl's head suddenly turns to look at the group of gathered changelings. It eyes up the fae looking one, then turns to the woman on the horse with the bow and arrow aimed at her and their gathered courtier.

Shit! She ran into another Keeper's hunting party... keep calm little bird. Don't give yourself away... She begins to hop some more. Trying to discreetly find cover that avoids the wrath of the steel tipped arrow pointing at her.

"Normally I'm all for a certain level of paranoia in the hedge," June says with a look around, trying to see if they're about to get Clever GIrled by a bunch of veloci-raptors, but when she doesn't see anything but the owl she continues. "But in this case it looks like just one owl, and us. Caution, sure, but I don't see a reason to shoot first and ask questions later, just yet."

"Perhaps, if we're going to diplomacize, someone who doesn't look like me should go? I do that job MUCH better looking less than... well. Looking Less," Jackie offers drily.

Just after she speaks, both Artie and Vorpal spot a subtle silver glimmer on the ground. It's just the tiniest little flash of metallic light. Might have been a trick of the light -- you never can tell, here in the Hedge.

"Halt in the name of Her Majesty, the Queen of Winter! Identify yourself! I am Sentinel Ljosdottir of Shackamaxon. Stand, friend, and speak with us!" Sigrun lowers her aim, but only so much. And she steers her horse's orientation back to front facing, just in case it comes time to go. She canters forward what might be the first bit of a furlong with a little bit of a spur, but it comes with a hopeful smile.

Artie's brow furrows a little and he begins to circle around to the side of the owl focusing at her feet behind her.

"... no," Jackie utters, in that tone of excited disbelief that's far more astonishment than denial. Then her tone turns as she realizes how precarious this situation is for the potential Diver. "We need to keep them here. Not for long but we can't let them get pulled away. Do whatever it takes to keep her here until I can confirm if I saw what I think I did." She's starting to move, looking notably not at the owl, but the space behind her.

The owl would squint if it could. Focusing, its ears on the group to hear them talk about their plans for her. Upon hearing the declaration, however, it begins to flutter back and take a defensive stance in the pathway.

"Hoot in the bleeding blazes, are ya first?! Making declarations towards owls you just met... you're gonna have enough trouble getting laid without screaming your demands at people and aiming arrows at em!"

It hops backwards trying to push itself away from the aggressive group.

Artie glances to Vorpal as if asking if she saw it too.

A nod. Firm. Nervous. "Also, honey, that is the last person on the planet liable to have any sort of trouble getting laid," Jackie calls over.

Good thing June is covered in fur or she might be blushing. Just a little. "Yes, hi, hello there!" She calls out. "We're just trying to make sure that you aren't a danger to us. Consider it a sign of our respect that we take you seriously!"

"I just said I was Sentinel Ljosdottir," Sigrun points out over her aim. She then shrugs and adds on the heels of Jackie, "Also, I do okay. But, yes. Sentinel Ljosdottir. Shackamaxon Freehold. Serving the Queen of Winter under the banner of Summer. Now I'm asking for a second time: Identify yourself, please." The or else is in her eyes, in the lapis carved into her skin, in the trefoil painted on the shield hanging from her horse's flanks. This woman does things two ways, and she's growing impatient with the first one.

"Would it make you feel better to get a few more names?" Jackie asks, still circling closer and trying to get a GOOD look at the snow behind her. She KNOWS what she's looking for. She used to have one.

"Well here's the big fucking problem with what you want." The owl states. "I don't got a name... at least... I don't remember one... and why would I give my name if I did know it?!"

The owl ruffles it's feathers. "I have no time for his, I need information before IT drags me back..."

Artie is absolutely certain as he tries to circle around the owl that he sees a very slim Silver Thread winding back away from her, into the Thorns on the side of this narrow track. Vorpal and June think they see it, and can't be one hundred percent certain, while Snowy spots Artie trying to get around behind her, and might even notice that he doesn't seem to be looking directly at her, but at the ground.

"How about we stop that from happening for you?" Sigrun suggests, lowering her aim fully now. Paradoxically. Now that she knows it's a loyalist, she doesn't want to fire. "Just so happens we have a way of cutting cords, if you happen to be on one. It's going to mean trusting one of us to get close to you with a knife, but I'll give you my word we only mean to cut your silver thread with it."

"Be a lot easier than me having to shout at you and spook you and then charge over there and tackle you and everything? It'd become a whole thing, and this sounds like a lot less work, if I'm being honest. Plus we have snacks? What do you like to eat, I'm a heckuva cook. Got a roast and potatoes going. You like cider? Plenty of cider. Whole polebarn full of mice, too, come to that..." Sigrun keeps trotting her horse closer, though she's putting her arrow back into her riding sheaf, as though the owl has already said yes. She even loosens one foot from its stirrup to prep a dismount.

"Don't predators usually not even taste good, if we were inclined to eat random people?" June asks of nobody in particular, definitely not called out across the space between them. She seems pretty relaxed at the moment, but she's definitely ready to break into a sprint. And she's probably not much slower than the horse. Or possibly even faster than it.

"Well for one, I don't have to touch you. Just the cord." Jackie is moving quickly, concerned at the possibility of time running out, moving to find the cord as far behind Snowy as she can. "And, uh. June? Sig? Can you... I'm... probably gonna need you guys after this."

"Thor strike me dead if I am not true to my word. One of us. One knife. Your thread. Seal the words, if you like. I ask you to trust nothing, and I am telling you to accept my pledge and see sense. If we wanted ill for you, bird, we would have fired before you ever saw us. For a symbol of wisdom, you prove more the chicken, I am sad to say." Sigrun's little insult is spoken good-naturedly, of all things, and with a laugh that might as well be self-aimed as anything. She swings leg over her saddle and drops to the ground when about ten meters off, her bow on the horn of her saddle and hands empty.

"We always give choices, don't we? My sort?" She nods her head, encouraging the Owl to trust its knowledge. "So choose freedom. Say yes. Simple. You need to decide, or you won't have the chance any longer." Her smile remains, but it's wearing at the edges.

The owl looks between the groups and sighs. "I got no choice either way." She sighs, noting that she was surronded. "Fine! But if you fail I'll haunt your ass... then you'll never get laid when you have an owl throwing up it's lunch on your date!"

As if underlining the possibilities, the slack in the Silver Thread slowly diminishes.

"You're strangely concerned with my sex life," Sigrun observes. "Tick. Tock." Her hands remain raised.

"Probably the only one who is..." The owl flies at Sig with the grace of snow and the hurried pace of blizzard's wind.

"Definitely not true," June mutters with a soft laugh, still ready to break into motion. Then Jackie is moving already, and she's prepare for whatever chaos might follow.

The knife is ... beautiful. There is no doubt of that, even in the briefest glimpses. It catches the light in a way that draws attention, especially when held in the hand of a woman made entirely out of Shadow. The contrast between the black-ink-self of Vorpal and The Knife? Stunning, actually. Breathtaking, and in a very literal way.

For those who have not gotten to see or examine it before -- in this case, only Snowy -- there is something deeply Right and also deeply Wrong about Jadetsugi. It is the kind of Knife that deserves capital letters, and a name. It looks like someone once carved a perfectly-balanced, delicate and yet sturdy knife out of smooth green jade, then shattered it and returned its pieces one to the other by fusing it together with not just gold but somehow the platonic ideal of gold. It looked perfect before, and now, in her hand, pumped with Glamour for the first time? It is...

Perfect.

One might even call it Perfected, if one were inclined to use such words with such capitalization.

Seeing it in motion makes the heart flutter and sing. It is somehow more Real and more a Story at the same time than anything any of them have ever seen before. It is Mjolnir, it is Excalibur, it is Gilgamesh's spear with its handle of lapis lazuli and gold inset. It is Beowulf's Hrunting and Captain America's shield, it is Kusanagi in the hands of Amaterasu, and yet it is Carrot's sword, so plain and so Real, with its edge which is made for one thing and one thing only: to cut.

It slices the air apart on its way down to the Silver Thread, and the world seems

       to

        stop

and hold its breath

(as they all hold their breath without realizing they are holding their breath)

and the Thread parts like the Red Sea before a man holding up a staff in a last-ditch effort to escape the distant hoofbeats, the rumble of chariot wheels he can hear coming, please, please, just one more favor, let me out of this, I won't ask anything else

and the Thread pulls back into the Thorns, but Snowy -- for the first time -- doesn't go with it.

Her head aches, her heart aches, the owl feels like she's been shot, like some part of her has been pulled out and back into the Thorns with the thread, but she's not, she's not, she's not going back.

The air, cut apart, closes together with a thunderclap, with a sound like a cage door closing, empty, nothing in the cage anymore, and time seems to start again. And the Hedge?

The Hedge itself seems to howl.

Sigrun catches Snowy up before she can fully collapse to the ground, mostly to prevent her from hurting herself unduly. Once she's got Snowy rolled over and made certain her airway is clear, she checks for a pulse and gives an easy thumbs up to the onlookers. She stays on her knees for now, though, waiting for June to give the all clear to get her hoisted. "Say the word, I'll get her on Frygg, and out of here."

As his breath leaves his body, Artie letcs his brain reexamine that bit of conpressed time. And then he is catching up again...

"Ok. We need to move from here now. Perhaps yo the Ironside. Yeah that'd be best. The Hedge is hungry and we're the hankering snack it wants right now. We can tend to everyone there. Anyone know the closest Door and where it leads?"

June stands there looking a little shell shocked for a moment, a bit like the sound of the cage door closing was it closing on her. Then she shakes it off, mostly, with a physical shake of her head. She'd look white as a ghost if she wasn't covered by fur that doesn't change color based on her emotions, but if red pandas can bristle, she's doing it. "We need to get out of here," she says in a panicky way that not even her Motley has ever heard from her. "Now."

In fact, she's already starting to back up, one step at a time, in the direction they came from.

Sigrun points to the sports center. You know. Where the Eagles have just clinched the NFC championship. "Lincoln Financial Field. There's gonna be about a hundred thousand drunk as funk Philadelphians throwing shit and flipping over cop cars, but that sounds fun to me. So." Sigrun hoists Snowy up in a fireman carry, nodding to June. It's a concession to the fact that nobody is going to want her leading the way out again.

"Frygg is a dream horse," which is to say she can walk away and Frygg will be there again no matter what. "Grab my shield, June." Apparently she's ready to do some following for once.

Jackie cuts, and her form immediately spasms, hurling her down to brace against her free hand, feet slipping in the snow. Her head falls as her feet kick out, dropping to her knees as her forehead digs into the snowfall beneath her, making a choked sound, somewhere between laughter and sobbing. "GyahauUGH! "FFFFFfffuck me..! I juss... ehahaha, it worked, it- GYAH!" One leg jerks beneath her to force her unnaturally, liquidly upright as she hears the Hedge, both hands full of knives now. "Oh, this? You want this? You greedy motherfucker I'LL CUT THE HUNGER OUT OF-"

June. June sounds wrong. "We're leaving? Oh. Shouldn't- does someone have the flutter? The feather, the-" She has to stop and fight for words. "The girl?"

"Yep. Sig has her, Jackie. It's alright. We're all gonna go home. So knives down and eyes up ok?" Artie says quietly. He has an eye on Vorpal but also a watchful glance at the world around them. He won't let them get snuck up on.

"Oh. Right. Yeah." Jackie lowers her hands, moving to stick with the others, head down. Her filters are gone. It's much, MUCH easier to clock just how unnatural she is at the moment. Not even an attempt to hide her twitching, supernatural responses to things almost nobody on earth would be picking up. That unsettling flat delivery despite being clearly unsettled and unbalanced beneath the surface. Movements that hardly resemble human anymore.

It's probably a good thing Snowy's out cold.

June blinks at Sigrun for a second before registering the words. "Right," she says, bursting into motion to grab the shield. Holy smokes is she fast, too. She scoops the shield up, holding it on one arm like it was made for her, and then moves toward Jackie's side. "I think there's an exit... over that way," June suggests, not having an exact destination in mind. "Anyone more sure than that?"

Keeping his head on a swivel, Artie considers their predicament as he takes in their route.

"Ok... Jackie in front of me. Sig, you and June stay in front and I'll take up the butt. Who's the least Wyrd here to open the door? That way we risk the least on anyone pushing into the hedge when we come out."

Sigrun bounces the girl up and over her shoulder and then plucks the hand ax from her hip and slaps Frygg's haunch with the flat of the bit. "Fly, Frygg!" The horse kicks away and heads back up the trod, first at a trot, then a canter, and finally to a full gallop until she's back out of view. Sigrun spins her axe up, braces Snowy on her shoulder, and prepares to follow after June.

"Noooooot meeee~" Jackie sing-songed as she took the lead, putting away Jadetsugi- or. well. Trying. It took a few tries to convince her hand to let go- and offered a thumbs-up to Artie. "Can confirm. That's what the Wyrd's telling me~ let's us get moving, shall we~?"

June takes off once there's a plan, setting a speed that is designed to match whoever is slowest in the group, making sure nobody is getting left behind. There's a lot of looking back over her shoulder, and she's definitely not half expecting someone there to personally haul her back to Arcadia. Nope. Not half convinced of that at all.

"Alright then. Hmm... June I think it's you since the owl is KO'd." He points with his spear. "See right there where the thorns seem thick and the trail twists? That's the door it's trying to hide. So you open the door. We file out and I'll lock it in time on the other side for a bit. Hopefully it's like a closet and not a bathroom. Hopefully that'll make it so no one accidentally pushes past and gets in. "

Sigrun isn't arguing once there's a plan, holding ground for a few seconds is something she's done endless numbers of times in her life. Just give her a shield and a stop watch. "If you need time and room, I can get you both easily enough. We'll need to trade burdens for a bit, June. But. It might be best, when we get there." Sigrun with a shield can hold off quite a bit, it's true. She whistles a tune at the thorns, attempting to spin them back and reveal the door.