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Zoya has been quiet on the text chain since the series of texts she sent out yesterday afternoon. She reacted with emojis to some of the other messages that followed but didn't say anything.
Now she's pacing back and forth across the living room, stopping occasionally to look out the floor to ceiling windows and over the city, lost in her thoughts. Her phone is constantly in her hand, and occasionally she holds it up to check for messages even though she has clearly not had any new ones come in. She would have heard it if she did.
In twilight, a spirit bird flies nearer and nearer to the window in front of which Zoya is standing. Normally a bird flying at a window is bad news for the bird, but this one flies right through the glass and lands on the coffee table, next to the crystal vase filled with pearls or whatever other ridiculous centerpiece might decorate it.
"Hello," it tweets cheerfully. A pause before the bird tweets anew, "Wait, do you even speak bird? I wonder if she can see me. Zoya!" The bird begins fanning its wings excitedly, hopping about, and tweeting more. "Zoyaaaaaa! Hey! Zoya!"
When mages are involved, especially Acanthus, people all converging at once by coincidence starts to feel like it might not be coincidence, even when it is.
It probably is, when Mei wanders in having just arrived up the elevator, carrying bags full of chinese take-out. Real chinese, not american chinese. There's pretty much always new stuff showing up in the fridge here because of her.
"Hey Zoya. Any luck? Anything we can do to help?" Since her own senses are going off on her about something in Twilight, a Spirit, she adjusts her senses to be able to perceive and then addresses Lyuda, too. "How long have you been there? Talking to yourself?" Meanwhile, she wanders over to put the Chinese down on the counter in the kitchen. Thank goodness for open floor plans sometimes, right?
No sooner has she sensed a nearby spirit than Zoya is already forming the imago for a spell to communicate with it. There's enough going on in her world that she doesn't feel like she can ignore anything, just in case it's connected.
A tiny bird screaming her name isn't what she expected to find, but it also isn't far off.
"That's my name," she confirms as she smiles her amusement. "Don't wear it out." She looks at her phone again, then at the bird. "Can I help you?" Who can blame her for being tired? Who can blame her for not just realizing this spirit is Lyuda?
The bird looks indignantly up at Mei, then over to Zoya again. Shocked. Shocked! "Can I help you?" Such an uptight little tweet, that. Tweeeeet? "It's me, Zoya! Lyuda!" The wings sort of flutter in a 'look at me' manner which must be what her brain does with the urge to gesture at herself right now. "I am being a small bird spirit so I can avoid the elevator. That was intended to save time, but now it's become a whole thing. So you discovered a new reality?" A lot of chirping, there. The birb flaps and hops across the counter to begin pecking at some toast crumbs. She's a bird, okay? Sue her.
"I figured next to you, I'm probably the one with the most experience in other emenations. I think? If not, I think I am, anyway. So I thought I could come ... help. And I know what you're thinking, but here me out. Actual help."
Mei proceeds to empty bags full of takeout onto the counter, then to select what she wants from among them after opening to check contents. She also gets some plates out, and some chopsticks, and puts things out on the counter, having declined the cheap wooden disposables from the restaurant to avoid being wasteful.
"Has Zoya seen you being a spirit before, Lyuda? I don't exactly show up in front of people as an angel who have no idea I can do that, then just expect them to know who I am. I only expect them to not be afraid."
She gestures to food. "Help yourselves. Both to lunch and to whatever support you need figuring this stuff out. Want to tell me more about what happened? Or are you getting super tired of repeating the entire conversation by now?" Food tossed on plate, plate brought over toward the living room, ready to listen.
Worried as she is, Zoya still manages a smile at the antics of Lyudabird and a little more of one for Mei's efforts. "You know I love to make things a whole thing," she lies, an acceptable lie because everyone knows it for what it is. "And Mei, how often does that actually work? Be not afraid, or whatever? I feel like that wouldn't help with people who are going to be afraid and isn't necessary for everyone else."
A glance at the phone. No messages.
Lunch is a good idea.
Zoya takes a deep breath, shakes her hands to try to make herself relax, then goes to get the take out so kindly provided for her. "Did I discover a new reality?" she asks. "I don't know the answer to that question, but I found myself in a reality that I've never heard of, so it's possible. Maybe other people knew about it already, so maybe I didn't discover it. In fact, my biggest worry is that the Seers did and we're a step behind."
Some technically impossible things happen, and then Lyuda is sitting on the counter where the bird was, in a crouch. She kicks her feet out from under herself and plops down onto her rump, hands folding up on her knees. Zoya will never have seen Lyuda en femme before, but she's pretty recognizable. The same tartar nose. The same sandy blond hair. The same slavic chin. Younger looking, softer looking. The sort of woman who looks equally comfortable with a toddler on the hip and a rifle at port arms. Which isn't an uncommon sort of woman where she's from, sadly.
"How do you know? Is it Panopticon?" Joking with Mei takes a back seat to Lyuda's lifelong obsession with his nemeses.
Mei finds somewhere to lean and eat, letting this be Zoya's story hour. Having everyone interrogate you at once means it starts being hard to keep up with all the questions and make sure everything comes out coherently, right?
"What a positively Children of the Tree appropriate answer," she does remark, though. "You went to a place you'd never heard of. You might very well be the first person who ever visited it. Yet... you don't claim to be the one to discover it, like that means you own it now. I approve."
"Probably." What Zoya is currently in the mood for is crispy fried things, so those are what she searches out in the spread. Egg rolls? Breaded anything? Yes please.
"There was a vast eye devouring minds in little jewel-toned cases, so. Probably." She has her own bones to pick with the Seers of the Throne for her own reasons. "There were craft flying around, a lot like the ones the astral constructs that were described to me, many of them being knocked out of the sky by massive iron hands."
"There was a place where the edge of this Emanation and the borders of what looked like another realm met each other, full of thorny briars, and the magic I sensed from it was most like the magic of the Changelings, which is why I'm also trying to talk to them. Maybe they know where this place is. Maybe they know how to get to it. I don't, and I've been trying to work out a good way to find an Iris or a Thura all morning."
Lyuda's going to need a minute after that vision is relayed to her. She just going to stare right through Zoya for a while, here. Sometimes Acanthus, and particularly this Acanthus just need to take a while to be well and truly out of their gourd over something. And this vision seems to be it for her.
And so Oontz-Oontz, her familiar, materializes in a ball of crackling energy.
heyhey zoya babe hotcha hotcha good to ssssszzzzzzzzzzt-- see you
It bobs in the air a bit and wobbles closer.
And then, a soundbite from Pi plays. A man's voice calmly reciting:
11:15, restate my assumptions: 1. Mathematics is the language of nature. 2. Everything around us can be represented and understood through numbers. 3. If you graph these numbers, patterns emerge. Therefore: There are patterns everywhere in nature.
The spirit wobbles about and crackles emphatically.
Mei stops shoveling food in her mouth to watch Lyuda. "Zoya, you broke her." Unfortunately, she said all that with her mouth full, which she realizes quickly and resolves. Chew, chew, swallow. "What does all of that mean to you specifically, Lyuda? I wasn't involved in all that Astral stuff, and you're much more of an expert on the Seers, so I think you're going to be more help than I am here."
"EXACTLY!" Zoya cries at the reaction she got. She puts everything down, her plate and her phone and everything, and takes a moment to just stand there and flail her hands around. "I've been like this ever since I woke up with my head down in a puddle of drool on my desk. Omigod-omigod-omigod."
Deep breaths. No panic attacks.
"There are so many people I need to tell so many things."
The first thing to leave Lyuda's mouth is the word, "No." Though to whom and about what isn't immediately clear, because Acanthus brainfog is no joke. But then she starts to explain things a little more.
"Sorry. Eh. Mei. You know, with all the timeline nonsense I have a hard time keeping track of who knows what when. And--" Lyuda's hand waves the whole explanation away as beside the point.
"What I was saying was-- uh. No. No, don't go telling everyone." And before everyone can start shouting at her she lifts her hands and says, "Yet! Yet!"
"Right now the Fate interconnections between dreamers who had that vision are going to be potent. We could fan out over this-- I mean, I guess city if we wanted to. I can scan a few blocks at a go as Myrne and just creep the whole city in a day. It should get us a pretty thorough list of people who received the dream. There are other ways, too, I'm sure. I was just thinking of how to do it with attainments, mostly-- but! But! My point! Ha ha! Is that if we have a list of everyone who received the vision we'll have a much more thorough understanding of just who this emenation is talking to. If we take maybe fifteen or twenty of those and time walk them to the the exact moment the dream started, we can then examine where their dreams were at the time-- dreaming roads, oneiros, temenos --and possibly, possibly! Possibly! Make a sort of ehm. Map. A sort of diagram. Of where the. Ehm. Dream. Was. Ehm. Pushing out from? And it will be one of two very interesting and empirically fascinating locations, I think. Your Thura? Or our Tree. Bet you-- oh, I don't know. Kevin. Or a footrub. You're so rich betting things with you is silly. But I am very sure and enjoy being rewarded later for lazy foreshadowing."
Mei shrugs. All good. "I know full well how repeating the same spiel over and over makes it start to blend together, and which conversation you had with who starts to become a jumble." She keeps eating, keeps listening, soaking up information. "Don't bet things, bet experiences. Much more fun anyway, most of the time."
"It would be useful to do some information gathering," she agrees. "I'm not going to tell you not to let the people know who you feel like you need to, though. I had dreams, by the way. So point one if you want to start tracing interconnections."
Zoya looks rather confused, actually. "Dreamers? I don't know what you're talking about, Lyuda. I think we might be relating two different things to each other at the moment."
Deep breath. "I wasn't dreaming, I wasn't in the Astral. As far as I can tell the Mother took me to the emanation personally, and spoke to me. She showed me the sprouts of the tree trying to grow there. There were shoots coming out of me. All the magic I could see around me was Forces, which suggests I was actually there."
Next step, "what's this about a dream?" (edited)
"Dreamers. People who-- ehm. Dream." Lyuda looks confused now, too. As though she's not quite certain that's quite right. She moves past it, never quite resolving that look of uncertainty.
She sighs, her lips pursing in a small frown. "It's only that. These things have followed a pattern up to now. A major event is coming, or has come, and we receive-- some of us --potent visions of one sort or another. And everyone else that's able, sort of... Receives an echo? Like ... explosions in the Temenos. All of those people. Mei, myself. Others. We'll all have received more or less the exact same dream. Which means we'll all share that connection. It's one we can see, it's one we can strengthen, and it's one we can explore and annotate and quantify and, as Oontz Oontz hopefully implied, find patterns in. It's likely to give us more information on where, for certain, these visions are coming from. And may also provide us common sympathy to the Thura you're searching for. It's a lot of may, I realize. But may is where we can act without tripping anyone's peripheral sight. Like dropping a rock into a still pond to learn where the ducks are. The ducks don't mind a whit." (edited)
There's a sudden uneven fluttering outside the apartment, over the balcony, along with a string of what can only be complaining in crow. As birds go, short of scrub jays, nothing complains quite like a crow. Corvids in general complain very loudly and vociferously, and at great length.
The crow's left wing wobbles unsteadily and it comes in for a splat landing on the balcony, followed by it dramatically dragging itself towards the door. Presuming it's Fox, she'll literally be healed from whatever this is in something like a minute, but that doesn't stop the black bird from complaining at the top of its lungs and dragging its left wing around while it caws and croaks and whines. Oh, I am the most injured, my wing is broken, it's so terrible, wahhhh, comfort me.
Mei points the back ends of her chopsticks toward Lyuda when she starts filling in details about the dream stuff. "That does sound like a good place to start doing some looking." She stops leaning around eating lunch and heads toward the door of the balcony. When she gets there she opens the door and says, "keep it down, we're having a meeting in here." Under her breath she mutters, "some birds' fledglings... I'm telling you."
"I know what a dreamer is, smartass." Zoya's eyes roll widely but the tone is friendly. "What I mean is I didn't know other people were having dreams about this, so I couldn't start making plans based on that information. All I was going on was what I saw, what I've been able to puzzle out since, and the knowledge that I was told..."
The hitch is the result of training. So many times being told that you don't talk about these things if you want them to happen. This is too big, though. What's her potential Archmastery compared to an entirely realm? Or all of reality?
"I was told this is my role to play, and that I'm almost ready to step out on the stage. I don't disagree with the steps you want to take, but I have things I have to do as well." She calls to the balcony, "Is that you, Fox? If it is, I could really use a hug."
"It's. It's what I would d-- would have. Done. Before. That's how we do it, we draw sensory circles around targets. Learn everything something isn't, everywhere something's not, and you pretty much. Pretty much rule their life. If you want." Lyuda worries at her lip for a moment or two and looks down at her hands. She ends up folding up her arms and leaning onto her knees.
"You were told." Oh. Her head nods twice. "Right. Right." Slavic face journeys are usually just a sidestep towards sullen, and so it is.
The door gets opened, and the crow caws up at Mei in some form of mild rebuke for her teasing about some bird's fledglings. She drags her black feathered butt into the apartment and then -- without the slightest hint of magic, her soul unfolding and refolding, rearranging itself and her meat suit -- flows upward into a little grubby woman wearing cut-off jean shorts, a tank top, and her usual wood-and-sapphire necklace and masterwork wedding ring. Her arm really does seem broken, hanging limp at her side, until she grabs hold of it and straightens it with a sickening crunch that seems to bother her very little. The wounds simply shed off of her body like passing seconds as Fox mutters, "... fucking kids and their fucking drones, do you have any idea how much those fucking things hurt? They're just plastic ... "
And then her nose wrinkles up as she sniffs at the air, first noticing the smell of Mei's Chinese food, but then there's Zoya and Lyuda's expressions, and it all kind of sinks in that this is perhaps not a normal Firebirds conversation. Or maybe it is a normal Firebirds conversation. "Whahappen?" she asks, flexing the fingers on her healed arm before she pap pap pap across the wooden floor with her bare feet to fling her grubby stinky I've-been-being-lots-of-animals-today self at Zoya for a hug. The Guardian may wish she'd sent Fox for a shower first.
"I swear they go looking for birds to hit, too. How much empty sky is there around, just being empty, and they still manage to be a constant menace?" Mei joins in complaining with Fox. She gets around birdy-style sometimes too, she understands.
When Fox is inside again she closes the door and follows back to the group, eating from her plate and watching Fox's butt while they go. "Some of us had some dreams, we're talking about how to make use of the interconnections between us dreamers."
Oh yeah, another thing. "Zoya... Pheme had the Mother come by and pick her up for a road trip to a new Emanation" It feels like this is a Shadow Name kind of moment, "where some shoots of a new tree were literally growing out of her fingers, the Mother told her that this is her greater role to play, and she's just about ready to go out on stage. Is that an accurate summary? I feel like I should actually be super fucking jealous, but I'm finding I'm only a little bit."
"Yes. I was told." Zoya's solemn tone acknowledges the gravity of it.
Never has she really cared very much what Fox smells like when Fox smells like the things Fox does. That doesn't change today. If she needs to she can turn her olfactory senses down or something. The Russian woman leans into it and spends a few seconds just acting like Little Fox is a life raft on a stormy sea. She only needs a few seconds, but she takes them.
"You forgot that it seems like the Panopticon got there first, so we're behind in trying to stop them from keeping the Martyr's Tree out, as well as that it seems to butt up against some kind of briars full of Changeling magic. Changeling-ish magic, anyway. Lyuda, can I help somehow with the plan you were just talking about? I'll contribute as I'm able."
Lyuda looks, more than anything, just genuinely lost and uncertain and possibly more than slightly frightened somewhere in the middle of all of that. "I don't want you to go, Zoya. Tell her no. Tell her to use someone else. Pease don't go where I can't follow you." There reaches a point where saying what you have to say, and could never forgive yourself for not saying nears the point of making an already tense situation worse.
"But if you must, let me help you. This stopped being about me and the Panopticon before I was ever involved. In that it never was about me and the Panopticon."
"The dream where there's lighting and then gold ghosts and then someone says a line from Serial Experiments: Lain?" Fox asks, very seriously. "I figured it was just that I'd been watching too much anime." That is not the truth, she knew it was more than that, but she was hoping, hoping, it might just be too much fried food and falling asleep watching classic anime.
She wraps her arms around Zoya for a moment, peppering her face with kisses, before pulling back when Mei fills her in, staring at Zoya with open jealousy that she tries hard -- and utterly fails -- to hide. There's wonder and envy tracing all around that intense, sharp face with its bright golden eyes (once, they were green, fifteen years ago, but the fox's eyes have replaced the woman's, just like her little sharp teeth aren't human anymore, either). "... she spoke to you?" Fox breathes. She'll catch up on the rest in a minute.
Mei laughs. "Oh, right, I knew I must be forgetting something. Forgive me, this is a lot." As if Zoya needs Mei to tell her that. Did you know, Zoya? That this is a lot? Had you figured that out?
She slides an empty plate onto the counter and gives Lyuda a look she's never given her before. It's a reanalysis, then an accepting nod, and then a smile like she understands. She does something else she's never done before too, which is to come over to stand next to Lyuda and put an arm around her shoulders. "I think helping each other is what all of us are here to do. There's shit to get done. We'll talk about it, we'll coordinate, and everyone will help everyone else."
Lyuda is one of the people Zoya has known longer than most of the other people in her life. Almost all the older relationships she has are soured or cut off from her because of her affiliation with the Pentacle. She meets Lyuda's eyes with hers and the uncertainty and fear with a smile. "I don't think I can do that, Lyuda. That doesn't mean I'll want to go if the time comes. Just don't be sure our paths won't cross again if "if" happens."
Fox gets pulled into another hug. "Yes," she says. What is she supposed to do? Lie? "I believe so. I could be wrong, or I could have been deceived, but I don't think so. I don't think she chose me, either. I think it's more that there's a puzzle being put together and I'm the piece that goes in this spot. It doesn't mean the other pieces don't belong somewhere else."
If there's one thing Lyuda is good at, it's not crying. And she is not crying like a motherfucker. She leans into the arm around her shoulders and rests her cheek against Mei's chest. This is, similarly, something the old Vasya never would have been caught doing in a room full of people. Times and people really do change, it seems.
"If always happens sometime," Lyuda mutters with gallows clarity. Finally she takes in a quick sharp breath and straightens up a bit from leaning against Mei. "Let me just say? Zoya? That I'm really happy for you. And I know this means so much to you. I'm feeling our needs here? Are in conflict? And that the reason for that is me? So if it's okay, I'd like to step out of this and process some stuff so I can-- so I can do this for you. The stuff. That'll need me to do." That isn't whatever tantrum she is doubtless about to throw somewhere in private, though possibly with Kevin nearby for support hugs.
Fox -- thankfully -- doesn't forget anything, so it's pretty easy for her to catch up once she's over her moment of extreme and rampant jealousy. She resolves said jealousy by pressing her mouth against Zoya's cheek and zerberting loudly. Nothing interrupts a Feelings Loop like a zerbert. It's a fact. The fact that this may also be her clowning for the benefit of others? Well, that's just Fox Hearthmastering for ya. "So... Pheme is the means by which the Tree gets to the new Emanation, is the going theory?" She frowns, chews her lower lip. "Well, that can mean a lot of things. And I mean, I've hijacked an Astral spaceship and gone to Mars more than once, so all kinds of things are possible."
Her sharp little teeth chew on her lower lip, and she peers across at Lyuda. "Do you need me?" she asks, though she's not letting go of Zoya for the moment. All of the pieces are clicking into place for her, and she already had to let go of Balm within the last year, after all. One of the familiars which follows her around is a constant reminder of that, no matter how happy she is to have Agoston with her.
Mei's happy to let Lyuda lean against her for a while, but she also loosens her grip when she straightens back up, ready to let her go. "I think that's about it. With the usual acknowledgement that there's probably a huge heaping pile of things we don't know for sure yet, so theories are just theories."
She hasn't known Zoya as long as the other two have, she doesn't have the history. If this is what's going to happen and Zoya ends up out of their lives it will have an impact on her, but it will definitely not be an impact of the same magnitude. It's easier for her to be chill about it all. Easier, but not easy. "Let me know if there's anything at all you need me to do. This stuff always ends up being bigger than any of us alone, but you're not alone."
"Thank you? I guess. I don't really know what else to say, but it's not you that's the problem here." Zoya's expression was growing more and more pained, but the zerberting against her cheek breaks her out of that loop a bit. "I feel like I might have just had the literal fate of a literal entire world put on my shoulders, personally," she says. "I don't think my needs really matter in the face of that, do they? Whatever you have to do, though, do it. You did your time putting everything else before yourself. You deserve to be able to take the time you need to process things."
Her arms grip Fox a little tighter before they let go. It's her silent way of saying that if Fox has to go too? She understands that as well.
"Okay." There's a flare of her nimbus and a shimmer of Time magic. It lasts only a moment and Lyuda's right back where she was looking clear eyed and not cheerful, necessarily. But ready to deal with this stuff. "Turns out I was just afraid you were going to leave before I really understood who I am so that you'd never really get the chance to know me. So we need to hang out a lot more, okay? Sorry about that, I would have done it earlier, but it's rude."
She then gestures back over her shoulder, implying there's something there. "If you want to meet my fear of my unknowable self, it's hanging around back here." She adds a moment later. "They say hi." Attention back on Zoya. "No! No! You're right! The needs of the many and all that, I'm just. I love you so much, Zoya. I don't know how to be happy in a world where I can't talk to you. That's all." She claps her hands together, then, and rubs them vigorously.
"Do you have an idea of how to find the Thura?"
There's a moment where Fox's fingers work the air, forming a yantra as she creates the imago that goes with a shimmer of Mind magic, as she puts all of her emotions into a separate part of her brain where they can have their own space to do their own thing while she is Capable and Present. It's a common Fox tactic; everyone here has seen her do it before, just shunt all of her own feelings into their own second thought where they can run free without interfering.
"Well, that does seem to happen to us a lot," Fox points out about the literal fate of an entire literal world put on their shoulders. "We've done this before, just... differently." She doesn't let go of Zoya, though, once Lyuda shimmers out and back in again. "Your needs do matter, because we can't actually sort all of this out without all of us being at our best." She climbs into Zoya's lap, wiggling her toes, and noses at her cheek. "Everybody's needs matter."
And there, she looks at Mei, and then at Lyuda, who gets an approving look for her manner of handling things. "Look. Both of you. There is a person in this cadre whose whole job it is to make sure that people's needs are met. Emotionally, physically, spiritually." A flash of her sharp teeth. "Sexually, even, in some cases!" She presses the flat of her palm against her breastbone. "It's me."
"So please, let me do my job. Don't tell me that your needs don't matter, because they do. If you want to handle things on your own," and a little flutter of her fingers here towards Lyuda and her Time/Mind shenanigans, "that's okay. But don't say you don't matter. Even if you are the piece that has to go in a certain place?" Her slim shoulders lift and fall. "You're not gonna fit if you're all chewed up."
"So we're gonna set up meetings and we're going to take notes and also no one's going to be saying things like 'I don't matter' or 'my feelings aren't important.' Or I'm going to come and sit on you until you stop doing that."
"Too fast for me to conjure up a supernal whoopie cushion where you were sitting," Mei complains after Lyuda vanishes and then comes back. "Couldn't you have taken a few more seconds?"
There are a lot of serious feelings being discussed, though. She doesn't actually want to distract from all that too much with jokes, so she stops joking for the moment. "I've been looking forward to getting to you know you, too," she tells Lyuda. "I know things have been changing a lot for you, and I've been enjoying the chance to see even what little I've been privy to as you go through that journey. I'm proud of you, and I'm glad you're getting a chance to figure things out."
Apparently she had serious feelings to discuss, too.
"Fox is right, though, Zoya. Your needs do matter here. Not just because of how they contribute to fixing this situation, but because you matter."
"Oh Lyuda." Zoya's hand over her heart is an echo of Fox's, similar in gesture and different in meaning. It's treasuring of the words that were just shared with her. "I hope neither of us has to go anywhere before I get to know who you really are, for whatever reason will eventually take us away. I love you too, we're going to have to take whatever time we can find to talk going forward."
She wraps Fox in her arms and pulls the Thyrsus tight to her while she listens to the words everone else has for her. At some point a switch seems to flip in her and she resolves herself to something new.
To not trying to be the strong one, the serious one, the one who is so often all business and so often a more distant part of the lives of the other members of her cadre, working in the background. When she takes in a long, deep breath it's steady and when it comes out it's ragged and stuttering. She leans her head forward against Fox and a dam breaks.
One minute she's strong, ready to bear the weight of whatever burdens get put on her, and the next she lets her cadre see the truth of how she's feeling.
How overwhelming the nearly incomprehensible event she went through was for her. How terrified she is.
For the first time any of them has ever seen she breaks down into a hopeless sobbing mess, with her frightened, anguished sobbing echoing through the cavernous space of her expensive flat. Off the marbled floors and high ceilings and floor-to-ceiling glass windows.
"Yeah? Really? Cool! I'm usually really scared about asking for those sorts of conversations or saying I need that sort of stuff, so it's kind of-- oh, right. The Fear Construct In My Head. Right." She gestures at her head and rolls her eyes. Such a knucklehead. "And honestly, it's really no trouble. Now. I mean it was a little trouble but not a lottle trouble, which Fox always assures me is a fine amount of trouble to be in so I wasn't too worried." Beat. Wait, that's crying! I know that. "Shit. We should hug!"
Lyuda ambles over like a magically self-medicated person that she is and slips in along one side of Zoya so that there's plenty of room for the rest of the Cadre in the group hug she is orchestrating. "I know it's a lot and it's hard. And I know it can feel like too much. And more than you can possibly take. And everywhere you look you see people you're letting down every second you're not pushing towards the goal. I also know nothing we say is going to change how you feel about that right now. I'm just here to make what you feel about it okay to feel."
Not that she's any expert on what that looks like or anything, but she's got that principles down, here. "I'm scared, too. We can be scared together."
Conveniently already located in Zoya's lap, Fox just wraps her sturdy arms around the Obrimos. She's little, but she's stronger than she looks, even without Life magic to reinforce her. Fox doesn't try to calm her or to tell her not to cry; she lets Lyuda do whatever talking needs to be done. The Hearthmaster just -- holds her cadremate, nuzzling at her cheek in a particularly vulpine way that comes instinctively now. She has to think to not be a fox as much as she's a person.
"I love you, Z." Her arms tighten a little bit, and loosen, but never actually let go. "We're not going anywhere. We're here. All of us." There. That's all she has to say, right now.
Good thing Mei had already put down her plate because she basically flings herself across the room when Zoya breaks down into tears. "Awww, Zoya," she says as she comes in from another angle to pull the other Obrimos into the hug. "We've got your back, okay? We're all in this together. These stakes are on all of us, not just you. I know it might not feel like it sometimes, but it's true, and I'm so grateful to you for letting us know you're struggling."
Zoya's whole body shakes with her sobs and she's a snotty, red-faced mess in a matter of minutes, grasping on to her cadre like they're all that stops her from being swept away. She's not even entirely sure whose arm's are around her where or who she's hanging onto at what given point, lost like she is in letting everything out of her.
For all the time they've known her, even the other old-school Firebirds have almost certainly never seen her cry like this. All have them have changed a lot over the years in one way or another, haven't they?
Her release only goes on a few minutes, but it's so intense that there's no space for words until it washes past her. She doesn't fight it off or push it down, she lets it run its course, which it does soon enough.
"Oh god," she finally gasps, when she can breathe properly again, even if the tears haven't stopped completely. "Can someone get me a tissue?" (edited)
"Fox could become some tissue if you wanted. And I can conjure some if I become a blob of spirit essence again. Or I can go get some. I coulda also teleport some, but that seems excessive. I could also co-locate us to be nearer to tissues, which might seem a reasonable compromise." Lyuda's rambling is soothing and sweet, or intended to be. Her chin settles atop Zoya's head as her hug loosens up just a touch. There's some more petting of the hair, a kiss to the top of the head. Present, and supportive, and not leaving for tissues herself. "You can use my shirt, I don't mind. I got another around here somewhere."
And while Lyuda is rambling, Fox unwraps one arm from around Zoya's neck, reaches her hand off in what seems like a random direction, and a portal opens; she reaches her hand through it, rummages around in the darkness on the other side of the portal for a second. Down the hallway, the rummaging sound echoes, and then Fox's hand comes back out with a fresh box of tissues from the linen closet.
When she hands over the box, she offers to Zoya, "I met future me. And future Weaver. And future Lyuda." A small frown, and she wrinkles up her forehead. "I think actually it was future Vasya, but maybe the future spouse was putting on a form that she was capable of understanding." She scratches her cheek. "I haven't really figured that all out yet. Especially the twins part." A beat, and she adds, "This is all supposed to be me saying that, like, hi, I'm a time criminal. Which I guess you knew, it's not like I hide anything from you, but like, I'm definitely a time criminal. So we're all like... dealing with shit."
"I could make some out of Potentia, but I'm pretty sure you can do that too, so if you're asking you're probably hoping for real ones," Mei says with a gentle laugh. "So that you don't eventually end up with the tissue disappearing and a bunch of snot everywhere." There are already tissues coming, but humor often helps rights. "I had a friend in high school who used to say that you couldn't call someone your best friend if you'd never seen each other cry. It's not far from the truth."
"That's gross." Zoya can't help a quiet laugh. "You're both gross. Fox, people give you a hard time sometimes, but you're the person trying to comfort me who isn't being gross. Write it down for future evidence."
She takes some tissues from the box and blows her nose, wipes her eyes, and tries to clean herself up a little bit. Her makeup is completely ruined, but she didn't need it right now, did she? She's not on camera, and has time to fix it if she's going to leave the house.
"The whose-future question is an interesting one. A question for another time, for me, but I have so many questions about what you just said. I guess we wouldn't be Firebirds if we weren't getting wrapped up in everything. Right in the middle of it."
"I thought you blowing your nose on my shirt and me not caring was sweet, but I'm married to Fox who is not gross, just the kind of sweet that blows her nose on your shirt as a love language gesture." Lyuda eases back from Zoya at the grossness discussion. A little space is given, and her hands fold up in her lap with a brief attempt at a supportive grin.
"And yes. That is the way of it, I am afraid. We really should change our name to the Firehose. It's more accurate." Her expression is deadpan and tired. More like the old Vasya than the new Lyuda.
"How do you feel now? Having had that time."
"Okay, but you always make disgusted noises when I blow my nose on your shirt," Fox points out rather precisely, putting her head back on Zoya's shoulder, less "holding someone who is falling apart" and more "comfortable snuggles." She absently wiggles her left foot's toes, dirty and with their broken nails which are starting to look a little more like claws than nails, if everybody's being honest about these things. "There was a firebird in my dream," she points out with a yawn. "Or some sort of phoenix thing. So I'm not surprised that it's probably about you. Or maybe if there's somebody with a phoenix name it's about them, but probably it's about you."
Who can say.
She waits for Zoya's answer, reaching out to pat Mei on the arm, just a physical connection. Hi, we're all here, it's important.
"It's possible to be gross and sweet. Sometimes Fox is gross," Mei has to say with a little shrug. "That's part of her charm, though. Gross things are an experience just like everything else, right? They're important, too."
She relaxes against the rest of the group, in a position she's never found herself in with the rest of the cadre. It's kind of nice, the negative emotions that caused it aside. "When everyone cares, it's hard not to care when bad things are happening, right? It's no surprise we get involved."
Zoya agrees, "it was also sweet and caring, Lyuda. Thank you." She pulls out another tissue and dabs the inner corners of her eyes again. "I feel better, thank you. Apparently I really needed to get that out. I feel like I... I just went through something more life changing than anything else I've experienced since my Awakening. It fees like it might be bigger than my Awakening, if only because it's not so personal."
While she crumples the tissues up in her hand she sniffles again. "Is this another dream, or the same one? So many dreams. Maybe I should be letting myself sleep more, if I might be missing important messages."
She puts the tissues down and tries to hug everyone at the same time. "Caring has never been a problem around here, that is true."
"I have spent my entire awakened life carefully unraveling all the little knots of faith that had anything to do with making me involved with anything like a child of destiny. All of my instincts are telling me this is wrong, which is why I am pretty sure whatever course you've set for yourself is correct, Zoya. I still don't want you to go. I still think this is unfair. To both of us. To all of us. But I don't want to get shit on my tie, so." She bucks up and sucks in a breath that straightens up her shoulders and back.
"Same dream. Pretty sure. I think I remember that, too."
"It's true, it's part of my charm." The Thyrsus punctuates this by leaning her head back and belching loudly, then patting her belly. "We go through a lot. We always have. I mean, look at everything we've been through over the last decade and a half, and we're still going. So of course we have to like... purge our feelings now and again." So says the woman currently funneling all of her actual feelings into a second thread of her mind so that she can take care of other people.
"I think if you want people to understand your references, Lyuda, you have to tell people your terrible old KGB jokes," Fox offers mildly, reaching out one hand to gently pet at the Acanthus' cheek. "I think it's the same dream. It happens now and again, and I think that Lyuda had a theory -- Lyuda and Lux had a theory -- about why people keep having the same dreams. Like, as each other."
"I don't anybody to go, but let's not borrow trouble yet, either." Mei gives squeezes to everyone. "It may very well be that Zoya is destined for Archmastery, and that it even involves this, but that doesn't have to mean it's happening any time soon. But if we think it's coming, it's probably also good to make sure we say we love each other before we might not have another chance, right?"
"But yeah. A lot goes on around us. We're tough as hell, and I wish that we didn't have to be tough, that would be fantastic. But we are, and I'm glad for that. We just don't have to be tough all the time."
"I find it impossible to even imagine myself as a child of destiny." Zoya's easy laugh makes the idea sound absurd. "That sounds terrible, for one thing, and if I had a big important destiny I don't want to think of how my father might have twisted that kind of thing before I had any way of even knowing it."
"It also seems ridiculous to think of myself as a possible Archmaster. I don't know why."
She gives Mei a lopsided little smile. "Why do you think that I don't let any of you leave the room without telling you that I love you? You never know what's about to happen, and you might not be able to turn it back." Fox rests her head on Zoya's shoulder, absently kicking her little feet. "It would be so nice if we didn't have to be strong. If I could just... " she wiggles her fingers. "I remember the first time someone gave me opioids, back in high school, when I didn't have any real responsibilities. The edges of the world just went... soft."
"It would be nice if the world were just like that sometimes." A shrug. "If nothing hurt, and nothing was scary. Like MDMA, but without the teeth-grinding." She laughs a little, picks up her head, and zerberts Zoya's cheek. "But it isn't. And some of us have big destinies, which could be very scary."
"Don't any of you start looking at me. Aaron already started trying to put that idea in my head," Mei grouses. "I am definitely not some chosen one. Someone else can have the destiny." Most of it sounds like a joke, but her not wanting that responsibility is definitely not a joke. Nor is the fact that Aaron made her think about it.
"Zoya, it might be because while you are rightfully proud of the things you accomplish, you're also not arrogant about them? I'm pretty sure none of the rest of us would be surprised to find that potential in you."
Did someone say child of destiny? Someone who, perhaps, stumbles into terrible and wonderful narrative potential by simply minding her own business? Well Leta doesn't stumble into the room. She never stumbles anywhere. She's a dignified stoner. She full-on trips onto the scene (punintended) catching herself on the arm of the couch.
With a laugh, she removes her sunglasses. Which were definitely on indoors... "Sorry, I didn't realize we were having a chat. I'm awake now."
She looks at the clock for the time, and then back at Zoya.
"I mean. I have definitely been awake this whole time. Hello-- actually, are you doing okay? How can I help."
Everyone is standing around hugging everyone else. Zoya is kind of in the middle of it, with Fox on her and everyone else around her. Zoya also looks like kind of a mess, with tissues next to her both used and in the box, and her makeup is an absolutely trainwreck from crying. Something was definitely up for sure.
"Hi Leta, I'm doing better. It's been a long day, and I've had some pent up emotions that needed release. They decided that since I didn't take care of that myself, they were going to take care of it for me, and picked their own time." She sniffles again. That will probably be going on a while if she doesn't use magic to fix it.
"I just finished filling everyone in on the new Emanation that the Mother decided to show me, and then tell me I was personally responsible for, somehow. Like I said. Long day."
Fox doesn't say 'hey look it's the cadre's child of destiny!' because saying that kind of thing out loud is rude, but ... as with most things with Fox, it's pretty obvious what she's thinking most of the time; she has extremely expressive facial expressions. A pause, and she lets go of Zoya long enough to scramble over and make sure Leta doesn't go fully ass-over-teakettle. Someone is mother-henning quite a bit today. Hearthmastering. You know. "Yeah, it wasn't, like, a planned chat, it was just -- you know." And then she wraps her arms around Leta just below her skinny butt, picks her up, and spins her around. "Ha, yeah, we're in the middle of the shit again, Letabutt. Welcome to Monday."
"Maybe you're a chosen one like Pokemon, Mei. Angel-chu, I choose YOU!"
"I mean, I planned on running into people and having some conversation, but those plans didn't contain any particular who's or what's. There's Chinese food, too." Mei finally lets Zoya go, but finds a spot to lean nearby.
The Chinese food is actual Chinese food, not Americanized. Hong Konger food, specifically. There is plenty of it.
Mei gives Fox a look up and down and says, in her best sultry tone. "Angel-chu uses seduce."
Sometimes it's easier for Lyuda to just let other people do the hard talking. So she does. And with Zoya mostly set to rights, she extricates herself bit by bit and heads over to her humidor to raid her old life's stock of hand rolleds. She snips it, lights it with a match, and then hops up onto the little bar to observe the proceedings, smoke, and Think Thoughts. Which is what Acanthus often do when not sleeping in until 8pm on a Monday.
This seems to be Lyuda's lot lately, sitting around, thinking about her feelings in silence a lot. This time with a cigar, though often it's a cocktail. Sighing she notes, "Be right back." Her form warbles and fades briefly, then warbles back into place with a mid-sized mutt of a pup in her lap. One turned down blotchy ear, and a curious happy face.
The rescuedest of puppies always makes things better. "Here. Hug my puppy. His name is Pupyat. He wants to play a game with you. Literally anything you do while smiling at him is a game. Including talk about Archmastery."
Leta cracks into a scratchy giggle. Whether that's at the silly Pokemon reference, or at being bodily hefted off her feet and spun around, nobody can say for sure. One thing is for certain, though. You should not look at Leta with your fate sight, or else you'll see how dazzlingly Important™️ she is.
"Well then it would appear that I chose a good time to arrive. I'm not great at this sort of thing, but I am great at arriving on time exactly when I'm needed. For some reason."
She plops down onto the couch, and proceeds to pick at someone else's food. No, she doesn't want her own. Sorry.
She returns to her spot by Zoya, because she's got a purpose now, and leans against the Obrimos again. Fox was about to say something, but then Mei did that, and Fox turns six shades of red in quick succession before bringing up her hands to push her hair down over her face, giggling. "It's super effective," the Thyrsus splutters, and so she misses the arrival of the puppy at first. Then she scampers off, still blushing, to get Pupyat and bring him over to Zoya. (edited)
Mei laughs at the way Fox reacts, then flashes a bright smile at Pupyat's arrival. "Hi, Pup!" she says cheerfully. "Good to see you again. Have you been a good boy? How are you and Kevin getting along?"
"Needed to help finish all our Chinese food, apparently," Mei comments to Leta. "You know there's plenty of stuff someone else hasn't picked through. Or are everyone's cooties your favorite seasoning?"
Emotional whiplash time! She was sobbing not long ago but now Zoya's eyes get huge at the sight of the puppy, and she starts clambering to her feet. "Oh my god you have a puppy," she squeals in delight. For people who only know her in Mage settings it might be a new thing to see her that way, but for people who know her well or just watch her YouTube channel it's pretty much expected. "Pupyat? Like... Pripyat? Hello, Pupyat! Want to come play a game with Auntie Zoya?"
Leta is probably eating her food right now, but she doesn't seem to be care if so. Why would she care about that if there's a puppy?
She sits back down when Fox races off to grab the puppy for her, but she eagerly reaches for snuggles when Pupyat comes close.
Passing off the puppy, Fox scrambles up onto one of the couches and grabs a blanket for herself. It's time for Zoya to have some more comforting emotional catharsis with a puppy. Lyuda gets a blown kiss and a big thumbs-up. Good job! Then Fox stands up on the couch cushions, throws the blanket into the air, and jumps up into the air, too. Her body twists and contorts into a fox, smoothly, and she snatches the corner of the blanket out of the air, spinning herself in a circle on the way down to the couch so that she lands as a little fox burrito.
A moment later, there's a flare of Forces, for those whose keen peripheral mage sight spots things, and Fox's voice rolls out from where she is now wrapped up in blankies. "Warm now."
"Thatsh my schecret, Mei." Leta offers with a mouthful of food. "I love other people'sh cootiesh. That'sh why I schpend sho much time kisshing people."
She audibly swallows a mouthful of Zoya's food, and then leans over to steal a kiss from Fox's cheek. Easy life.
"Yes! Exact! He's a recue from the exclusion zone around the old Chernobyl reactor. Mei found him for me, though he looked like he could cheer me up some. It's sort of working, mostly. Better when I hand him to my friends and they act like this about him." Lyuda does, indeed, sit back with a much more contented look on her face now that her pup is getting attention and Zoya has her mood righted. (edited)
Zoya takes the puppy with sheer delight all over her face. "Aaaaaa" is the most articulate thing she can say at first. "You're so cute! I bet you have no idea how much more of the world you've already seen than most other dogs, do you? It's all just interesting new smells and fun things to chew on and nothing really matters except your friends and what's close enough for your senses to notice it." Her tone is cutesy and happy and the kind of thing that makes dogs think everything is great, no matter what the words are. "What a life!"
She lets herself be briefly distracted to look at Lyuda and Mei. "Where did you even get the idea to find out there were rescues to be had? I guess of course there are, but I never really thought about it myself. That seems like such a thoughtful thing."
Finally she has to address Leta's comments. "What about dog cooties? I'm sure Pupyat would be glad to get those all over our food."
The little vulpine burrito is smooched, and then, fifteen seconds later, in the classic way of Fox, the blanket burrito starts gently snoring. Tiny little dainty fox snores. With the Forces effect she put up to allow her to continue talking, it's even got a little reverb to it.
Mei grins and shrugs at everyone when her role in the presence of this puppy gets described. "I got a tip. From a video I saw," she admits. "I decided to look into it, and apparently there was some kismet involved or something. I don't know, I'm not an Acanthus, I might have the technical terminology wrong."
"I cried about him. I still cry about him sometimes. Sometimes we just sit alone and I cry at him. I love him very much. I find I like crying, too. If you haven't in a while, you all should try it." She looks over the faces in the room, then at her puppy, then back down at her hands and her cigar. She taps the ash clean in the tray carefully and resumes puffing on it in relative quiet, otherwise. Nobody does pensive silence quite like Lyuda in a mood.
"I would like to try my theory. I've never conceived of dream sounding before. I don't know if it's actually possible. I may be doing that thing where I have ideas that Archmasters would squint at me about and are wildly impractical. But. It would be nice to know the entry point of the dreams into the temenos. I don't care much for divine intervention, and I like to see who is really pulling the strings. Every dream has an origin. Every one. Right?"
She looks to Mei, "Right?"
Zoya finds herself required to look away from the cuteness of the puppy to stare at Fox and shake her head. "How does she do that?" she asks. "Not just fall asleep anywhere, but end up being adorable when she does?"
She kisses the top of Pupyat's head. "How does she do it? I bet you do it, too, don't you? Dogs always seem to. Is that the trick? Be canine?"
Time for rubbing puppybelly, then.
"I need to remember to cry more often. I always forget how good it is. I think your idea is interesting, but how do you plan to do it? What can I do to help? I'm not an archmaster yet, so I'm not required to squint. Besides, if people didn't keep finding new ways to push the magical envelope we wouldn't get things like my legacy and our digital basilisks."
"If I could borrow your sympathies related to your vision, and compare them to the sympathies related to my dream, Fox's dream, and Mei's dream? We should begin to see pattern overlaps. Or, definitively, that they are not one and the same, or at least of the same origin. I'd like to start there. Until we have that answer, helping me on my personal little side project may be little more than a distraction to you from your work pursuing the Mother's wishes. If we are all responding to the same events, the same impetus? Then we can talk about doing the full sounding. If you give me permission and watch Pupyat for me, I'll get right on it."
"You're welcome to dig into my sympathies as it pleases you," Mei chimes in. "I'm not really big on keeping secrets from the people close to me. I'm kind of an open book. I appreciate the asking, but the answer will probably be yes every time."
She gets up to get another plate of chinese food. "I'm glad Pupyat is being a good therapy dog for you. I bet that if you taught him taking care of people was a fun game, he'd be a great one. I have no idea why you're looking at me about where dreams come from, though. You've done way more Astral shit than I have. Or are you asking about divine intervention? Better to act as if it's not coming, and try to take care of things yourself. If HaShem decides to lend a hand, well, great."
honk shoo, honk shoo
Sometimes it's nice to just be a bundle of blankets with a tiny lil nose poking out going honk shoo honk shoo
Zoya scoffs. "Of course you can. Yes. I'm hoping I'll be able to just the sympathy I have to that place as a way to find a Thura, even. Try looking for someone in this world that is also connected to that one, like I should be."
She kisses Pupyat's head again. "Of course I'll watch this cutie"
"I wonder what would happen if we expressed the data of the sympathies into a table and fed the information to our MTAIs as navigational data. They work off intent not actual grid coordinates. It might provide us with a navigational web through the astral to each dreamer. It might lead us to the dreams, to the dreams of the dreamers, to an entrance from the Astral, even. And could turn up nothing. That's the thing, I just. I try things. And sometimes they work, and sometimes I never tell you about them. I'm just now thinking I should tell you about them before trying them in case they're bad. That didn't use to occur to me. I'm sorry." Lyuda's not-smile twitches a bit guiltily at the tail end of that all.
She takes another puff of her cigar and looks off out the window at the night time city skyline.
"But, yeah. Mei. My thought was to see when the dreams reached each dreamer. Assuming the dream follows any sory of conventional travel rules-- even astral ones, especially astral ones --there should be a perceptible delay as the dream rippled out from its point of origin on whatever plane it originated from. If the map on the fallen world side is garbage, it wasn't there. If the map in the astral is legible, showing concentric pattern of expansion? We know both that it originated there, and where in the Astral it originated."
And then comes the two words that Lyuda always adds to these things to make everyone throw up their hands and groan, "In theory."
Leta appears to be just a bit too stoney baloney for this conversation at the moment. Which is all well and good, because she's finished polishing off Zoya's food, and rather than working on Mei's, she's eyeing Fox and the blankets with envy.
"They fly by intent, so once we're done with this project we can go team up with Lord Asriel and use them to fight the Authority," Mei says of the Intention Craft. "Look, trial and error is a valid scientific technique," she points out, while heaping more food onto her plate. "Only way to find out for sure is putting theory into practice. Let's give it a try."
The blanket burrito wiggles a little as Fox rolls over and farts far too loudly for such a small body. She opens one eye and her says, "What if it's on the Dreaming Roads?" and then closes her gold eyes again. Someone will give her the notes on the conversation later, surely.
Leta holds out her hands at Fox, enticing them into her lap. So that she can wrap them both in the blanket...
She wiggles her eyebrow. Surely that sweetens the pot.
"Are there a set of likely candidates you have in mind as sources? A point you might be able to try working back from, if this plan doesn't work?" Zoya doesn't seem to mind that her food got eaten, since she has a puppy on her lap who keeps trying to chew on her hair or her fingers, and there's more food there if she decides she wants it.
"For example, maybe they're coming from the tree? Are there other known possibilities? Yes, yes, of course, try this idea first. If it doesn't work we'll come up with others, that's my point. Ow! That's my pinky, you can't have it."
"If it's the tree here, the data should reflect it once mapped to the timing of the dream's travel from its point of origin. That was my hope with mapping it, was finding directions to a likely source whom we can show our data and request permission to inspect for sympathies and so on. Again, I'm sorry-- that's. That's my old training. Coming back up. I still think it's rude to just do that to people. And I don't want to? Is that cool? But I was thinking the Tree, yeah. Or possibly the seers, you never know. And there are multiple trees, too. And as Fox points out, the Dreaming Roads besides."
She answers Fox, "Now, we know our souls can reach the dreaming roads because I myself have been on them. But it was done with the aid and assistance of one of their own who is now grigori in service to the Throne. All that seems to suggest is that if I were to get in a seat and we put Mark's braincase in a second MTAI with Lux? Assuming the Nav data is to the Dreaming roads... Lux ought to be able to guide our craft in. And with Mark in as co-pilot, they'll be safe as houses. I can pull out my navigational and signals skills and make them my copilot so I don't lose focus if we get into a combat situation. It will be fine. Or one of you can take my seat. I don't care. I just want the data, and don't mind putting my neck out until I have it."
More uncertain shifting on the counter, "Is that okay?"
Mei's soft laugh is kind, not cruel. "I already said yes, Lyuda. I really do appreciate you asking, but I said yes. My sympathies are at your dis... oh, I probably shouldn't have cleared all my sympathies off when I got up this morning. Shit." She starts picking up noodles with her chopsticks and bringing them to her mouth, but has to stop and smile and say, "I'm kidding. Yes. Please, do your thing."
Zoya has to do a little bit of mental instant replay. "I thought I had said yes already too," she says. "If I didn't, I intended to. Yes. That's okay." She keeps scratching Pupyat. "I could actually really use a shower," she says. "Can I do that before we get started? I look like a mess."
Was Fox sleeping? Probably not. She was probably mostly awake and snuggling up in Leta's lap, listening to her cadre be ever so clever.
But now, she comes scrambling out from underneath the blanket and halfway between getting out from under the blanket and standing up she's in her woman shape again, chirping, "I'll help! I also need a shower!"
So selfless, our Fox.
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