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Time moves on. Life carries on as it must. Hearts are heavier, but that burden is lessened the more it's shared. And death is always a two part affair. The death that comes with the stopping of the brain, and the death that comes with the forgetting of a name. And for Elder Balm, it will be a long time yet, indeed, before that ever happens.
Cherry blossoms have been blooming, something Esther and Yoshitsune swear foretells good things. Of course, the First Buds of Spring would say such a thing, when the winter claimed one of their own in Balm.
Vasha is present is ways he's never been present in decades. Letting time experience him. Letting cameras record him, and people's minds perceive him. He suffers being known for the first time in years. Not in the bits and pieces of the masques he wears, but in all the broken down defeated hopelessness of him. The him that forgets to shave and sometimes puts gunpowder in his vodka before he remembers where he is.
Presently, he's having modern computing explained to him by an earnest young ten year old. One of Ethos's students, judging by the khakis and little polo he wears.
Fox, on the other hand, must exist more carefully these days. A human whose eyes catches light like hers do these days has to be careful around the surveillance cameras of the modern world. She spends a lot more time in the wild places of the world and covering her true appearance with Life magic in the times she has to go out and about.
Today, though, it's a good day to just... be a fox. At least at first, right? Here she can be comfortable. Here she needs to be much less careful. She trots into the lodge's computer lab, pauses when she sees Vasha looking so ragged and weary, having things explained to him by a kid.
She slowly sidles around to behind Vasily (as if that will matter, but perhaps he will pretend he doesn't notice her) and crouches down to the floor. Her vulpine butt wiggles just a bit as she calibrates for a jump.
Mei has never really been the sort to eschew the public eye, even if she wasn't the sort to pursue it either, so she's pretty much just still herself when she visits the Lodge, even if herself has changed in dramatic ways in the last couple of years. She's a frequent visitor, and today's no except when she strolls in wearing her leather jacket, black jeans, and stompy boots, much as is typical for her.
She also has a backpack slung over her shoulder, which her cadre probably knows usually contains things that she wants on hand when she's doing her job, at times. Things like a nice camera, her laptop, and other tools of her trade. Almost immediately upon entering she spots Vasha and Fox, and she heads right toward the currently human of the pair, while doing a good job of making it seem like she never even noticed the fox currently preparing to do what the fox does.
It becomes evident after some observation that Vasha, while tired and run down, is as much helping the kid as he is learning from the kid. "No, no, you are doing a good job. I am learning. It is not your fault I am slow. They taught me to not do this. I was taught to think this is bad and you're going to teach me? That does sound hard."
Vasha is temporizing as his fingers do some backspacing and some re-typing of a function the pair of them had been working on. "Does that look right to you?" Vasha consults his teacher with a sideways glance. The kid squints behind his glasses, looks it over, and nods twice, "Uh-huh."
Vasha then says, "Okay. Here's one for mother." And he hits enter.
On the screen, a little sprite does a little walk animation. In front of the computer, in the open air, a little spirit manifests rather like the sprite, does the animation, then disappears. A peal of laughter escapes the kid, and Vasily looks more than pleased himself, not bothering to hide the fact as Mei approaches. "Hello. I am leaning into my heresies."
Will Oontz Oontz warn Vasha? Is he just pretending? Well. Let's find out what happens.
She wiggles. She wiggles more. She leap.
She leaps like she's about to pounce on a mouse in the snow, when in fact she is about to jump right up onto Vasha's head, because This Is How A Fox Do.
It's a pretty good leap, as leaps go. It might even work. She might even stick the landing and end up perched on top of the Acanthus' head.
Mei continues to pretend that she's not seeing any of this as she comes wandering up with her unique brand of strutting walk. "Sup, kids?" she asks, cracking a grin at the actual kid. "Computer tutorial time? I'd probably be needing a lot more help with that stuff myself, if not for the tech support I have at home. What're you working on?" She seems to be waiting to find out what the result of the pouncing plays out as before she has any real reaction to it.
You never really sneak up on an Acanthus past a certain point. You just surprise a prior version of them. So maybe it's his shield, or maybe it's more direct intercession, but amid a bit of a stutter in his form, his head is angled just so and his chair turning at just the right moment and angle to perfectly intercept Fox's paws. He continues to turn at roughly the rate she would circle to settle down atop his head, and ends his spin, facing Mei, with Fox perfectly curled up atop his noggin. He flips up his hood over Fox until just her snout is poking out over his widow's peak. He does all of this straight faced.
The kid is loving it all, of course. "I'm teaching Poff-- Poffliv-- Povlifche--"
"And he's doing a good job," Pavlichenko rescues the kid with a fond pat-pat. "Dustin, this is Mei. Mei, this is Dustin. This is my foxwife." His eyes roll up to indicate his head.
She flails her little feet in the air when Vasha starts to turn, but then tightens up to try to stick the landing. And, of course, he helps, which is delightful.
Once she's been settled by the Acanthus being exactly who he is, from underneath the hood comes a little snickering sound, far too human. hehehehehe
There's a sort of green crinkling of peripheral Mage Sight, and a voice softly chirrs, "It is me, I am the foxwife. Hi, Dustin. Mei should kiss my nose." (edited)
"Of course he is," Mei affirms with a smile at the youngster, then she shifts her backpack's weight so it stays in place as she reaches out to offer Dustin a fistbump. "Nice to meet you, Dustin," she says. "What are you teaching him, exactly? She steps in closer to Vasha and rises on her tiptoes to give the fox's nose a kiss, which is a little awkward just because of positing and relative heights, but she's not particularly hesitant about that kind of thing, etiher.
"Howdy, Foxy," she says after.
"He's teaching me the functional underpinnings of the techne Ethos has been showing me. So. He's got some game making software he's been showing me how to use, and I'm extrapolating on. Earlier, I programmed a turtle to operate in the real world, and then was able to use Oontz Oontz in place of the tutrtle. If you follow me. The potential applications for this are ... incredible. Piloting Oontz Oontz like a drone through Twilight, into a facility, and recording the feed digitally? That's all possible now-- or. Rather, it was possible all along, I just wasn't aware." Vasily doesn't seem at all concerned chatting and doing magic in front of the kid, which probably means he's one of the many, many young sleepwalkers that abound here? But who knows anymore. Vasha's gone a little around the corner lately.
"Dustin, why don't you go tell Ethos what you were able to teach me how to do. Tell Ethos I said you did an amazing job, but that I need a break now. Okay?" Dustin nods his understanding, waves to Fox and Mei, and grabs his bookbag before shuffling for the door to go running. "ETHOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooos!"
Someone else's noisy responsibility. Still, Vasily watches the kid go, sighs contently when he's gone, and turns back up to Mei with a Fox still perched atop his head. "The Guardians really sold me a line about these Free Councilors, I have to tell you. Their tricks are ... very cool." That term sounds very silly coming out his mouth with that accent.
"Howdy, Meimei." She gets a kiss on her nose, and her tongue comes out very quick to lick the tip of Mei's nose before she can pull back. Fox is very happy to be on top of Vasha's head, contentedly curled up. "I am a hat," she pronounces. Sometimes Fox is extra silly when she's been having Big Feelings, and the past few weeks have been an awful lot of Feelings, to put it mildly. So... extra silly.
"The Guardians have lines about everyone," she mutters from underneath the hood. There's a decade and a half, nearly, of bitterness sneaking into the edges of her voice, long-suppressed. Someday that ugly old scar will burst open and all the angry-bitter-sad will come out, but today? Just a little grumble.
"I am glad you are learning new things." And to Mei: "How is your day?"
"Of course they are. People wouldn't bother to devise new tricks and favor them over the old ones if there wasn't something to it, would they?" Mei responds to Vasha with a slight shrug. "There's value in tradition and all of that, but if we can't ever come up with new ways of doing things that give results and outcomes that nobody had worked out before, that would be kind of sad, wouldn't it? Or at least if not sad, definitely pretty boring." She gives him a smile. "I'm glad you're learning some new options."
"My day's been decent. I closed out a case, not that it was a particular big, troubling, or sensitive one. Just the usual kind of boring stuff that pays the bills for a PI. What about you, my dear?"
"The theory behind the Red Guard is that we be capable of any operation on our own. Need no tools, require no resources. The ultimate force multiplier, just enter the theater, assume a position within the population, and begin operation. Not requiring the crutch of the devices was the point." Vasily explains this to Mei so that she at least understands the wisdom behind the theory, even as he himself is conceding the limitations of that theory in practice.
"And those skills will no doubt serve me well again in the future. But the Free Council have devised a way to perform certain magic in the open, among the sleeping populace, and benefit from that fact. That has always been my concern about infiltrating their operations-- all the sleepers! But now?" Vasily just sort of gestures expansively to where his magic had recently been in evidence.
"Going in via twilight, space sounding the facility, generating a perfect map, perfect schematics, real time surveillance tapping, real time data monitoring-- all via spirits, all via twilight. Remote control spirits. Drone spirits. Weaponized drone spirits." Vasily lifts his hands to the side of his head and goes bwoosh, crossing his eyes.
"Learning stuff is also cool," he agrees, before looking upwards once again to consult the bit of Fox's nose he can see.
She listens to Mei and to Vasha talk, her tail draping down over Vasha's shoulder and sticking out of the hoodie as though he's acquired a fashionable new ponytail. Fancy! She absently licks at his hair right at the hairline as first he and then Mei speak, a little self-soothing gesture which only makes his blonde curls stick up ridiculously. (She probably thinks this is cute.)
"Oh, yes. Spirits are very helpful. Integrating them with technology might also be very helpful," muses the Orphan of Proteus mildly. It's just a passing musing from her tone, at least for the moment. She puffs out a little breath. "Learning things is always cool." Well. That is one of her central philosophies.
Which brings her around again to Mei's question. "I, uh." A pause. A huff.
"I guess you should come join us now," her voice, suddenly over near the doorway. It's easy to throw your voice when your voice is currently a Forces/Mind hybrid. A moment passes, and then another one, before a large, blue-eyed husky pads wearily in through the door. He's clearly kind of Over this reveal already, and crosses the room to brush against Mei's leg and then sit down by Vasha's feet and lean against him. Big 'yeah, yeah, whatever' energy, here.
"That's fair, I just think that the more tools that we put in our own arsenals, the more prepared we'll be to counter the same tactics from someone else, and if you can't really understand the tactics that an enemy is going to employ against you, do you really understand the enemy you're fighting? If you don't, then the battle you're fighting is a losing one," Mei remarks, not argumentatively, just having a relatively casual conversation about a topic that is not, in actuality, all that casual at all. A large topic with real-world consequences, just not, perhaps, in this room right now. "If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat, or so the saying goes."
"But," she says with a sudden smile. "You are learning some cool stuff, and I'm glad to see you actually excited about it. Seeing you look happy makes me happy. And probably Fox, too, if I had to guess." There's a brief surge of magic from her as she makes herself not allergic to dogs while the husky is approaching, and then she bends down to give some affectionate pats.
"Is that what was on your mind just now?" she asks Fox, nodding toward the dog.
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