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It's a small, private airport on the outskirts of town, the sort that houses private planes and helicopters for the filthy rich in the city. There's security, but for people of the supernatural, is that really much of an issue? The area is fenced in, with a guard at the entrance, who by this point is likely busy playing on his phone.
Simon is by a small private helicopter, the sort small enough to house only a few people at a time. The door is open, with Simon half sitting in the seat while he gets things ready for a flight. A time to relax and enjoy some peace and quiet in the night sky. His car is parked nearby, with his driver/bodyguard lounging in the driver's seat, looking bored out of his mind. He's dressed in that asshole-rich casual way, a sweater and slacks combo that look comfortable and laid back, while actually costing more than most people's whole wardrobes.
It's a beautiful night. That's one of those things that a person remembers, sort of oddly, later on, images bubbling up from deeper memory, and sometimes, people have these Feelings beforehand, too. Maybe it's the fact that there's an Acanthus lurking somewhere nearby which has Simon experiencing a weird sort of pre-deja-vu about the whole thing.
The evening gathers herself in; it's warm tonight, and a few stars begin to peek out through the twilight. One of those old songs that Simon heard on the radio when he was young drifts through his mind as he runs through his pre-flight checklist:
There's a warm wind blowing the stars around and I'd really love to see you tonight.
Why did he remember that? Why does the moment briefly feel -- strange? -- like the universe doesn't quite fit his body, like the air is shaped just a little bit oddly around him?
Just a moment, and then the moment is gone.
Simon pauses mid-fiddling with the controls, looking out the front windshield of the helicopter at the dark airfield. He frowns to himself, unnerved, and waits... but when nothing immediately happens, he shakes his head and exhales a sigh. He leans over to make sure the gun he keeps hidden under the seat is still there--but then goes back to going through the checklist. Under his breath, starting to hum the tune of that song under his breath.
Being an Acanthus is a misery. People think it's great, being able to conjure money out of thin air with a spare lottery ticket. But if you have one small shred of humanity, you realize knowing things before they go down comes with a great deal of responsibility. It means no sunny days. It means no lazy afternoons. It means you run around cashing cheques and calling in favors for the benefit of people who may never see your face.
It means you're atop a hill several hundred meters overlooking the blind the seers are going to use to do their business. It means carrying a rifle instead of a carrying on a conversation. It means planting bombs, laying traps, preparing surprises, and elaborate hoaxes and then lying on your belly in the dirt for hours, obsessively tasting the waters you've chummed to make sure the lure is still baited.
He doesn't even know the name of the guy he's here to save. Should have saved a question for that one, genius. Had to show off with the pronouns. Vasya's too well trained to roll his eye at himself when staring down a scope. So he just frowns a bit more.
There's another weird feeling for Simon, the sort of feeling he gets when magic occurs, but it feels distant, the way that one hears the crackling edge of an announcement from a faraway loudspeaker across an empty fairground. Enough to hear a consonant or a vowel, but not a whole word.
Of course, that's the moment when Vasya's patience begins to bear a certain amount of fruit. The universe sort of ... inverts its fabric and disgorges two individuals onto the top of the building he predicted, some distance from the helicopter but with a straight line of sight. There's one not much bigger than the big fucking rifle xie's carrying, and another one who looks like he's the stretched-out version of the sniper -- close on to seven feet tall, skinny as a rail. They're both dressed in muddy charcoal grey, their figures concealed by armor, and they begin wordlessly, swiftly, to set up the rifle, to prepare.
The tall one crouches, facing away from Simon, and begins scanning the horizon. A moment later, the pair fade from Vasya's ability to sense them.
Thirty seconds pass.
Next to Vasya, Oontz Oontz buzzes, in Rose Nylund's voice, "He had a theory, "Even a trip to the bank can be exciting if you wear a ski mask." ye ye ye."
Time passes, and the pre-flight work is almost done. About time to close the door and get going, and then?
Simon's bodyguard slumps down in the car, sliding down in his seat, and literally half a second after this occurs to him, the windshield of the helicopter explodes in a shower of round pieces of glass, pelting his face like sharp snow at exactly the same moment as he feels a heavy weight hit his chest.
All of a sudden, he just can't catch his breath.
It's a myth that people just collapse the moment that they're shot, or that they generally even know they've been shot, the first time it happens to them. At first, it's just heaviness. Weight, slamming into the center of his chest. There isn't pain, not really. Just weight. Weight and the inability to catch his breath.
This is because, if he looks down, a rather significant portion of his chest is simply... gone. There isn't supposed to be this big fucking hole?? Actually?
The feeling of magic made his eyes narrow, head lifting again to scan the airfield a second time. He even leaned over to pull the gun free from it's hiding place, keeping it hidden under the dashboard. The safety clicked off, and the mouth in the back of his head let out a soft, annoyed groan. "Shh," he hisses under his breath to himself.
His hand lifted to signal to the bodyguard, but a second too late. He slumps, and just as Simon's brain is registering that he should duck down and hide, its again too late. He slumps back against the seat, pistol toppling to the floor, coughing up blood as his hands lift to cup over the hole. As if he could somehow hold in the remains of his lungs, even as blood pours out from under his fingers.
It won't matter. Because in a moment, their pants will be utterly and completely down. No shields. No cloaks. No temporal whatsamawhosits. Nope. Just Vasya, his rifle, and that unfortunate person's center mass.
The chatter of Oontz Oontz over the mental wire is background noise to him, amusing background noise, but background noise all the same. Instead he concentrates on ordering his familiar to be ready to materialize to check to make sure the bodyguard is okay, and to move him if that becomes necessary.
Simon's already been seen to. And so Vasya just holds his scope where he believes a chest is going to appear in several seconds. It's the faith of a zealot at this point, that tenuous futures can be maintained.
But they either can or they can't. So it will appear there or it won't. (edited)
buzz buzz pop! "It's just that masks are terribly comfortable -- I think everyone will be wearing them in the future, ye ye man look man wow hey baby hey baby." It's weird hearing the voice of Cary Elwes say 'hey baby hey baby' while also buzzing in Vasya's ear, but that is in fact what he hears. He answers ye ye ye when Vasya gives him instructions, but the spirit is mildly distracted by something. "You be careful! People in masks cannot be trusted," he continues, but this time in Fezzik's voice. "oooh baby anTIQUE yeyeye"
Simon grabs onto his chest, trying to hold in his lungs -- he will forever remember that his lungs look like a pink sponge cake, soaked with blood. For some reason, it reminds him of strawberry syrup. Probably because he thought about the sponge cake.
He grabs, and he holds on, and darkness folds over him. Maybe he thought it was a joke that your vision gets dark, or that books and movies take particular liberty, but he can't breathe. He's drowning.
All the light drains out of the world, and Simon is in the dark. Alone. Hanging on to... what? To something, which seems to be slipping away between his fingers as his blood pours over them. He could be comforted by the fact that there's a him separate from his body to be aware of this, but that comfort is undoubtedly undone by the fact that this him seems to be slipping away.
It feels like lying on the floor. Or falling? Falling. Maybe falling. Or being upside down? Whatever it is, all the physical sensations don't make any sense. They contradict each other. Is he falling? Is he drowning? The world is a velvet darkness through which he can see nothing.
Silence. Nothing. The void. Death holds Simon in its palm, and Death is -- he will recall later -- merely oblivion. There is nothing.
Nothing at all.
Vasya, on the other hand, waits. And waits. It takes about half a minute, a good ten seconds after Simon stops thrashing and quite literally gives up the ghost, dead in the front seat of the helicopter, before anything else happens. "Oooh, babye! ye ye ye" mutters Oontz Oontz next to him. "Scary scary baby, hotza."
Then two things happen in quick succession: one, a slender, armored chest appears in front of his scope, and two, Simon's bodyguard begins to stir in the front seat of Simon's car. He's not quite with it yet, but he is -- at least -- alive, and despite concentrating through his scope, Vasya catches that movement just a bit.
Standing on the roof, sniper rifle in one hand, Squid smacks xir chest with the flat of one palm and whispers, "Shit."
Simon tries to scream, but there's only silence. Only floating in the nothingness. Perhaps, for a second, he also feels that sliver of The Abyss that had been locked inside his body the past few years, falling with him in the dark. Whether or not Death claims it too, or that sliver is released back into the world? Who knows. Simon sure doesn't know. He's just struggling to hold onto... anything. Anything that makes him Simon, makes him a person. But even those precious memories start to fade away into the dark.
Vasya's rifle barely makes a noise. It might sound like a backfire a ways off, or maybe a baseball bat. But it certainly doesn't invoke sniper rifle. The round, on the other hand, sounds like a buzzard being chased by wasps and it slams home true, right at the breast bone. Vasya tried to thread the needle between lethality and not just killing xer outright. It seems he may have not put enough english on the round, because he mutters quietly under his breath and racks the slide. In bullet time, of course.
Simon reaches into the void... and as his mind closes in on itself like an old tube television narrowing down to a single point of light, just as that last little dot threatens to disappear?
A hand closes around that dot of light. It steadies. It does not disappear entirely.
The wooden floor underneath his feet is the color of a crow's wing, and a hundred swishing skirts circle around him. Masked dancers in tight breeches or neatly-laced corsets, hems brushing the floor or heels clicking sharply and yet somehow mutedly against the laquered surface. Simon -- the sense he has of himself -- stands in the dance floor's center. It isn't properly a dance floor, though -- it is a repurposed rooom, he somehow knows this. Perhaps a dining room, or a meeting room. The uneven wood of the floor bubbles and shifts like a tree's roots, as if it's not certain whether it was meant to be a floor at all, either.
The crowd lines up on the floor, parting in to parallel lines, men on one side, women on the other, with Simon standing at one end of the lines, facing toward the other end, as if the dancers line up to form a passageway for him. At the other end stands a woman -- tall, stately, self-possessed -- wearing a Venetian mask which obscures her face entirely, and a beautiful, cream-colored dress with a broad skirt and a square neckline.
She stares at him from across the room as the candles flicker in their wall sconces; each flame seems to individually dance, as if battered by its own private breeze. The woman turns her palms up, her elbows tucked in against her waist, and brings her hands up such that the backs of her hands are parallel to the floor. A gesture of offering. A request.
Her voice does not come from across the room, but intimately close, whispered into his ear.
"Will you ask me to dance?"
Vasya racks the slide. Squid, knocked backwards by the bullet's impact, attempts to sit up, spitting blood and barely conscious.
Oontz Oontz buzzes loudly next to Vasha like a morning alarm going off. "We do not discharge our weapons in view of the public! ye ye ye ye ye boy ooooh." Tommy Lee Jones' voice played through a shitty kid's tape recorder, that.
Simon was so relieved to be anywhere, to still be present, that he doesn't even think to question his surroundings. He'll take anywhere over fading away into that dark nothingness. Hell, he didn't even like dancing, and was pretty mediocre at it, but he would willingly dance for the rest of eternity if it meant holding back death.
His first step is slow and unsteady, feeling the floorboard move under him. Relief comes when he has feet to move, and quickly closes the distance with broad strides, reaching out to take the offered hand.
"May I have this dance?" It was another relief to be able to breath enough to get the words out.
Now, as his spell begins to fall on xer. Now, as his location becoms xer location becomes some other location, becomes two other locations, now that's when it nearly all comes crashing down around him. It's all been going to plan. Everyone doing what they were supposed to be doing in precisely the way they were meant to be doing it. So much so that Vasya forgot everyone else still gets a say in what happens here and now.
The past is certain, the future is fungible, and that Seer is trying to counterspell him.
He hadn't even noticed, because no Yantras were involved. It was pure thought Imago, nothing flashy at all. But that motherfucker sat up. And that motherfucker met his eyes from the several hundred meters that is suddenly also about twelve. It's like he's not even cloaked any longer.
He is.
And so he redoubles his efforts, and forces that imago of the lunargent cage closing its doors to xer at last. And then xie is simply not there any longer. Or. Not now, in any case. And Vasya pushes up from his blind and dusts his spirit form off. "Legolas, I don't care what your elf eyes see. But stay with Simon. Let me know the second he comes out of it. I'll gate in. But I need to put some distance between the capture and the end point. And I need to make a few phone calls."
As he's talking, he's breaking down his rifle. And as he's breaking down his rifle, he's starting to co-locate a second time. Using the breaking down of his kit as a techne and yantra both. "Second jump in 3, kid." (edited)
Perhaps at some point in the future, he will notice that she takes the leading part of the dance, or perhaps he won't. It's not like Simon is well-versed -- yet -- in dances centuries old. He has the feeling, very briefly, that he's seen a dance like this in a movie, once, but he can't remember the movie or place it.
Her hands rest over his, and there's something like a sigh as her fingers dip into and through the palms of his hands. For one disorienting moment, he watches himself through her eyes, and sees her at the same time, the mirrored and overlapping images enough to make him want to vomit, if he had a stomach. The room spins because he can't keep track of whose eyes he's looking out of, and then because she's pulled him into a lively dance. They form lines with the other dancers, they break off into groups of four which form squares and bow to each other, but even as other dancers change partners, Simon and the masked woman remain paired with one another.
She doesn't actually say anything else. When the first song draws to an end, the music distant and tinny, she simply tips her head to the side, a silent question: does he wish to continue dancing?
The question, he knows, has nothing and everything to do with actually dancing.
On the rooftop, Oontz Oontz buzzes, "Heyyyyy sexy ladyyyy ope ope ope ye ye ye," shivering in place, his digital eyes fixed on the helicopter. "I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse," the voice of Don Corleone pops out next to Vasya. "ye ye ye boy, Toto, I have a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore, oooh." And then Vasya instructs him, and he sighs, "I see dead people, boy ye boy ye boy," but there's something akin to fright in his recounting of a little boy's problems with ghosts. Whatever he sees both attracts and disturbs the little spirit.
"It's up to Simon, if Simon wants to tell the bodyguard the truth. Not me. But Simon now knows that man will take a bullet for him. And that man know Simon's friends will make certain he never has to. That's the kind of relationship you let guard your daughter." Vasya explains to no one, to his familiar, to the universe, and to himself. This is all a strange species of kindness. Simon will see it that way one day, he's certain. Kit stowed, he slings it over his shoulder and steps into one of the three options presented, dropping the effect, but making mental note of the geocoordinates for later redaction. Once he lands, the process begins anew.
Upon arrival in this nondescript bit of the pine barrens, he begins tapping his arm rig and placing a call.
Somewhere in Philadelphia, Ethos is going to be really, really annoyed to be getting a phonecall from a contact that is inexplicably a beaming Ukrainian in a Luigi hat. Charleville got in his phone again.
Simon stumbles along, trying to keep up with the steps. His brows knit with focus, which doesn't make the most graceful of steps. But he's just happy to be able to dance. His hand rests against her's and on her waist, happy to let her lead. Or him lead? The more they blurred together, the more he wasn't sure who was making which steps.
He inhales sharply as the song starts to end, fear creeping into him. Afraid of the nothingness reclaiming him if the music should end. He grips harder onto her hand, desperate to not let go. "Please," he whispers.
Ethos answers the phone, and then makes a face briefly at Vasha before glancing over his shoulder toward the vague general direction of Charleville's last known location. He doesn't say anything, just raises his eyebrows at Vasya in a prompting sort of gesture.
Simon, on the other hand, finds himself looking more closely at the woman he dances with as the moment comes to a close. In the lull before the dance begins again, she reaches to adjust her mask, and it is in that split second that he realizes that the black moretti mask covers... nothing. There is no face that he can see beneath the crow's wing mask, the same total blackness as the floor itself, only two pale, wide eyes, unnerving and somehow intensely knowing, as if she has already seen to the core of him. All his secrets, all his falsehoods, all of the charming little lies he tells himself so that he can live with himself? They fall away under that stare. Everyone has those little lies that they tell themselves, but in death, and beneath her stare, he finds himself disarmed. Stripped bare.
Unmasked.
She lays her hand on his wrist, and a memory overtakes him.
A cold wind whips through her hair as she looks down over the edge of a balcony. Flickering candlelight, glimmering off of golden chandeliers. Masked figures dancing around and around elegantly to the sound of stringed music. Soft footsteps behind her, nearly unheard over the cacophony of the crowd below. A hand brushes her shoulder, the touch familiar and intimate, that fills her belly with cold dread.
He feels himself draw one long, desperate, gasping breath at exactly the same moment as the dance floor fades away, hears the distant sound of his bodyguard saying shit shit shit! fuck! shit as if those words are coming down a very long hallway from a very, very long way away, and someone else's voice -- not her voice, not the woman's voice, not any one of the dancers, but some voice he somehow knows and has never heard before -- says, in an absent, careless tone:
"They are still waiting."
His field of vision fills with shattered glass and blood. His body is whole.
The helicopter? The Veil? Not so much.
"I need Mind and Life adepts ready near the Lodge to help me put the finishing touches on Squid, the Seer I just apprehended. Xie is pretty badly wounded, but conscious. Spells stripped, but still with potentia. If we accelerate our local temporality, we can easily get the drop on xer and put xer under without having to kill xer. If I have to do this the sure fire way alone, that's another bullet. Xie won't survive that, so it's your call." Vasya then finishes the preparations of his Yantra on the app and begins casting again. And as his hands begin to move through the air, he is certain to tack on the most perfunctory and 'I was shooting tanks when you were in diapers' 'Sir' ever issued in the history of warfare. (edited)
His hand presses to his chest, expecting to feel that pressure still, but there's... no hole? He fumbles as his mind comes back to living and starts processing again, sluggish and confused. He inhales sharply and goes stumbling off of the seat, scraping his hands against the shattered glass, but ignoring the little cuts as he fumbles to pick up the gun off of the floor, ducking down behind the dashboard. His hands shake around the gun, eyes wide, looking down at the blood covering the inside of the cockpit, realizing it is his blood. "What the fuck," he hisses under his breath.
The Mastigos doesn't pause, doesn't even blink. "Aight," he agrees, following that and then pausing, sort of squinting, not at what Vasya is asking, nor at the 'sir,' but at something which just occurred to him. "Three minutes." The corner of Ethos' mouth curls up a little bit as he catches the tone of that 'sir,' and he just shakes his head and chuckles, reiterating, "Three minutes. We'll be there." If he feels insulted by that perfunctory 'sir' and the tone in which it's delivered, he doesn't let it show.
What, like this is the first time he's had an older white dude take that particular tone while addressing him? Nah. It's probably not even the first time today. It rolls off of Ethos like water off a whassname... something. Like a thing that water rolls off very easily -- a duck.
The call ends.
Simon's bodyguard finishes crossing the distance to the helicopter, and -- despite his professionalism -- he finds himself standing stock still, pistol in one hand, staring at Simon. Most of Simon's shirt is missing -- totally blown away -- the windshield is blasted to pieces, the round 'shatter resistant' pieces in his shoes, on his pants, but he doesn't even have a scratch on him. Just a circle of bared chest.
What appears to be a slightly-translucent little raver kid -- kind of like Quicksilver from the Fox X-Men movies -- with silvery goggles pulled down over his eyes -- flies toward Simon. Just, literally, like a superhero, flying through the air. He seems to fade away about two-thirds of the way to the newly-minted Sin-Eater, while Vasya hears in his ear: "GOOOOOOOOOOOOD MORNING VIETNAAAAAAM" in a precise Robin Williams, followed by a muttered, "yeyeye ooh boy wakeybakey, up and at em!"
"Three minutes," Vasya agrees. He's too busy being offended for not being trusted to be racist for having to say sir. But America is not a country for such distinctions. It's a fucked up place. He ends the call as five branches open before him, one not too far distant from where Simon's car has come to rest. When Vasya steps out from the shadows, there's no reason to suspect he's anything other than what he looks like. A black ops security guy! Fortunately, he comes out unarmed and hands up.
"Friendly! Friendly! I got your shooter! I have your shooter! I'm coming in!" He is pretty brazen in his advance. He can be, having the benefit of his magics and equipment between him and eternity. Assuming he's allowed to close, he gets in near to the pilot's side door and "gets small" as they say in the infantry.
"I'm Captain Tometchko, Ukrainian special forces. You'll remember me, I hope. If you and your man consent to come with me now, I promise you both will be safe. Your car and chopper are a loss and will be destroyed and replaced. Grab anything important. Do it now. You have two and a half minutes. Use as little of that as you can. I'm your overwatch."
And with that, Vasya begins to set his rifle back up again. Three minutes. Might as well have given the Seers three days. Arrogant prick. (edited)
"What the fuck," he hisses again, more urgently, as he stares at Oontz-oontz as he flies over. The gun is raised and aimed at the spirit--not that it's going to do anything while the spirit is in Twilight. "Back the fuck up." He's still crouched down, using the helicopter as cover.
Then he glances at the bodyguard, who is likely growing increasingly distressed and confused. His brows crease with annoyance. No, he didn't know what the fuck is going on, but he knows it's one hell of a mess. He reaches out to grab the guard and pull him down beside him so he's behind cover too.
Then the gun gets swung towards Vasya. It's obvious this guy knows how to use a gun, the aim on point but definitely not as gifted with lead as Vasya himself is. Simon stares at him with utter bewilderment as he announces himself as Ukrainian special forces, but... well, Vasya doesn't end up shot! That's a plus! He doesn't completely lower the gun, but the barrel dips enough that it's not aimed at any vital areas, at least.
Simon didn't bother grabbing anything--everything in the helicopter or the car could be replaced, so he just stares incredulously at Vasya, gun still in hand, the other hand gripping his body guard's arm. "...Fine. Just get us the fuck out of here."
The bodyguard stares at Vasya for a second -- his gun comes up reflexively, too -- but he follows Simon's lead on this. He's here to support Simon and make sure that he stays -- well. Alive? Again? Something? He turns his head to scan, watching the horizon, not that it does much now. "Fuck," he breathes, and then nods when Simon gives instructions.
Oontz Oontz buzzes wordlessly at this point, staying back from Simon (not that Simon can see him anymore, but the Geist can) and just making a sound rather like a cross between a very annoyed wasp and a fluorescent lightbulb about to pop.
"If you saw where I came out from, nod your head once, call to your man, and withdraw. You cover him to here, and I'll cover you both to there and pull back to join you. Once you're back in the tree line, get low and get quiet and do not come out until you hear me call to you. That call will be, 'In the grand scheme of things, I know I'm nothing.' There's no way the people that shot you will shout that in mixed company." Truth.
With that, Vasya finishes tugging out his stock and puts it to his shoulder, starting to check the tops of buildings while letting his spider senses do the guiding. "See you shortly, Simon."
Simon glances past Vasya towards the treeline behind the airfield, then nods his head. "Come on," he says to the bodyguard, then starts heading that way, letting the guard do his job of covering him, while he ducks behind the car, then a building, trying to stay out of sight from any stray bullets until he can finally take cover behind the trees.
Then he waits, as his heart races and his mind catches up on what had happened. That he had... died?
And the fact that that woman is still there, at the edge of his vision, her wide eyes staring out from the shadows.
Once the pair he'd come to rescue* are some reasonable facsimile of safe that means 'in the trees and hiding', Vasya lays incognito presence over both the car and the helicopter, dropping geolocation pins for future reference so the redactors will know where to come and mop up. Nothing but thorough, a Red Guard.
With nothing left to tell the tale of their being here, Vasya withdraws back to the trees, already tapping at his arm panel to begin conjuring up a new set of portals. "Mister Bodyguard, sir? I never did ask your name. I know your pronouns are he-him, but I forgot to ask your name. That was an oversight on my part. I'm Vasya. Captain Tometchko." He offers a hand, across his weapon. "Oh. Heh. In the grand scheme of things, I know I'm nothing. Anyway. We're going to walk through the forest here for a bit, and then we should come out to a safe place."
Hopefully the techne will be enough to keep the bodyguard from noticing the forests keep being different forests now and then. It's a lot of bread and not much butter to spread, but he's a new man.
The fact that Vasya is speaking more to the bodyguard is likely not a coincidence. The fact that he keeps checking in on Simon with sidelong glances? Likewise also not a coincidence.
Footnote*: Or, in one instance, watch die spectacularly. :f
"Wayne," the bodyguard replies, looking very overwhelmed. Not much of an outdoorsman either, it seems, so remains oblivious to the different trees they walk through--more focused on making sure they're not followed through them.
Simon glances about, his face still scrunched up in an expression of irritability and confusion. Even after dying, almost all of his emotions default to grumpiness. Granted, he'd just died, so being angry isn't unreasonable. But he's biting his tongue and not demanding answers... Yet. Not while the guard is still around.
Wayne will be gratified to see that their tracks are nigh impossible to track! His every effort to conceal their passing, why it's as though in short order they were never there! He is going to leave this experience with unearned confidence in his skills as a master evader of wilderness trackers because one Acanthus learned space.
It doesn't take long for them to reach their destination. A bit less than three minutes! Who would have thought! They walk out of a low gully, up a rise, towards the back of a vast wooden building with a tall rear facade of balconies and suspended walk ways. It's part tree city, part cliff city, part high rise technical wonder.
And if this isn't about to be an execution, there's going to be a welcome wagon. So Vasya announces as much and suggests he take point, just in case the welcome wagon isn't so welcoming after all. So it ought to be him they spot first, once they can see past his camo and recognize the motion for what it is. He's strapped with his rifle, but it's at rest. He waves an arm, "Three friendlies and the prisoner coming in."
Considering the circumstances, Simon gives no complaint about letting Vasya take point. He very reluctantly turns the gun's safety on and tucks it into his belt at his back, under his shirt.
His eyes narrow at the mention of a prisoner, a flicker of blood-thirsty intent in his eyes. Someone is going to fucking pay.
Spider (he/they) — Today at 5:43 PM
One of the side rooms of the Lodge has been cleared for this purpose, and when they approach, Ethos meets them at the door and -- silently -- leads them to the cleared side room. It's a 10 x 10 room with a wood floor, the furniture pulled (or portaled) out, and Charleville leaned against the wall, waiting for the other Free Councilor to return. Yoshitsune kneels on the bare floor, his hands resting on his knees, and his eyes open, gaze flicking from Ethos to Simon to Wayne. Then he raises one hand and pats the heavy orange fur stole hanging around his neck.
It is not a stole. It is a fox, which was pretending to sleep. The fox yawns broadly, and hops down to the floor, stretching.
"... sure. Why the fuck not," Wayne mutters. Because really, why the fuck not?
At long last, events have reached the point where it's no longer really Vasya's call. This has officially become a problem bigger than his ability to control its outcome. And the look the Ukrainian sends Simon the moment that becomes obvious is apologetic. But there's also a hint of promised advocacy in that look. He begins speaking while still staring at the man.
"Before I let the prisoner out-- Simon. I want to be certain you understand what I intend to do with xer. Xie has in their mind information pertinent to the operational intentions of our enemies in our ongoing war. A war in which you have been a casualty. Of sorts. If you don't interfere here and let me do my job, xie will be thoroughly interrogated. Perhaps offered a single chance to evade execution, and then..." Vasya considers leaving the rest unsaid, but instead goes forward with it.
"And then, what is most likely to happen, is they will be stabbed in the neck, down into the heart. It's quick and lethal. Either way, there is no scenario where xie does this again to anyone. Ever. Not if you let me have a say."
He hasn't turned over the prisoner just yet. It does bear noting.
Simon takes in the room and the figures inside, relaxing juuuust a tiny hint. No one seems particularly concerned about Wayne's presence yet, and at this point he's seen enough that if they are, they'll just scramble his memories anyway.
Which unfortunately means he stops holding his tongue.
"What the fuck is going on?" He snaps to the others, fingers curling into fists. His eyes settle on Vasya as he speaks, narrowed and burning with anger, but after rocking his jaw for a moment, he mutters out a reply, "More humane than I'd suggest... But so long as I get to see it done."
"That's a good question," yawns Fox, as she finishes that elaborate, full-body, catlike stretch, and sort of unfolds upward from her vulpine form into her standard humanoid one, a little grubby black-haired woman with gold eyes, wearing a ratty tank top and cutoff jeans. Her bare feet pap pap across the floor and then she flings herself bodily at Vasya, as is her rite and custom.
"Hi," she greets Wayne, who just repeats, "Sure, why not," and finally holsters his pistol. Now, whether that's because he feels safe or because he just gave the fuck up? That's the question.
"That's also a good question," Fox answers, attempting to hang like a limpet on Vasya as the others form a sort of loose circle, standing and waiting, all except for Charleville, who stays leaning against the wall.
"You were always destined for something, Simon. I don't know what it is, precisely. But I imagine this is whatever it is begining to come to pass." Vasya is pulling a pack of smokes from his hip bag and shaking one out as he tries to answer Simon as sincerely as he can, now he's able. God fears nothing, but he checks behind the curtains for an ex Guardian with a truth fetish.
"They came to kill you to keep it from coming to pass, Simon. But they're so twisted in their own heads they got it wrong. This is your turning point. This is when you get together whatever it is you need to get together in a cosmic or perhaps existential or lifestyle sense-- I'm not here to pry and judge --but the point is that from here on out the good things begin." He does not tack on any of the necessary provisions that make this statement one akin to, 'I believe God is watching out for you.'
"So. They came here to stop you from becoming what they have ensured you will now become. And I used it as a chance to apprehend one of them. And save Wayne's life. I thought you could use a man you could trust, and that he could use an employer who has friends that will pull not only your but his ass out of the fire without qualification. And also ask for a substantial raise." Vasya nods to Wayne, lights his smoke, and then looks back to Simon.
"I succeeded with Ethos's bitchy preachy assistance. And now, with your consent, we'll either take xer into custody or you'll get to see xer brains paint the ground." And with that, Vasya addresses the big wigs. "Thank you for indulging us for that. Simon had a right to weigh in, I feel. On the count of three, I'll drop the effect holding xer in stasis. Xie will need to be knocked unconscious, healed, and have their potentia stripped. If we can't get her unconscious, I'll pull the trigger. We would have tried our best."
And with that, he draws his pistol, levels it at xer head height, and starts counting. "One. Two. Three..." (edited)
Having a fox woman hanging off of one while a cigarette dangles from your mouth and you train a pistol on empty air is the Duke Nukemest shit that ever happened in Vasya's life, and he nods approvingly. Life is pretty good for this exact precise moment.
Simon's lips purse as he listens to Vasya's speech. He looks... uncertain. His gaze flickers to the faceless woman still hovering in the peripheral of his vision, then his hand lifts to cup the back of his head. His fingers broad at his scalp, and he freezes when he feels... nothing. Just his own skull. His curse was... gone.
His mouth opens--then closes, choosing instead to focus on the prisoner as it appears. It clearly takes physical restraint for him not to draw his pistol again, lips twisting into a scowl. But he stays where he is, and watches with violent intent.
Squid materializes in the middle of the room, half-sitting up with a huge fucking hole in xir chest. Xie is... young, now that Vasya gets to see xir in some way other than 'through a scope.' Xie is probably barely eighteen -- it's not like the Seers have any compunctions about using whoever they need to -- and weighs about a hundred pounds soaking wet. A thin, delicate face, sharp cheekbones, tawny skin and a scalp shaved perfectly smooth, xie manages only to shriek in 'I'm fucking dying' pain before the combined Awakened magic of multiple Masters puts Squid literally to sleep.
Blood stops pouring out of xir body a few seconds later, and xir flesh knits back together as Fox and Yoshitsune work together on mending xir body as Charleville and Ethos drain xir potentia. At the end of it, Squid sleeps on the floor as peacefully as if xie had just passed out there after a long day. You know, except for the hole in the front of xir body armor, and all the blood.
Once it's all done, Fox lets go of Vasya's neck and offers to Simon, "We'll give you a minute, okay? We can figure out what's going on with you once everyone has had a chance to breathe. Someone will grab you a t-shirt and all."
Simon finds himself with just Wayne, a few seconds later, as the other Awakened carry the slumbering Squid off to the gaol.
Simon was fully prepared to put a gun to the Seer's head and pull the trigger at the slightest provocation, but seeing how young the shooter is makes Simon's lips twist with... Not quite guilt, but... hesitation. Displeasure. His hand moves away from his back as the mages all cart the Seer out, taking a deep breath.
He nods to Fox, then looks towards Wayne. "I guess they're not planning on scrambling your brains after all."
Wayne stares for a beat, uncertain. "Sir?"
"Don't worry about it. I'll explain everything better later. Basically, pretty much everyone here is a mage. Wizard. Sorcerer. Whatever lets your mind process it better. Including me now, it seems."
"I definitely want a raise," the guard replies.
He should have been able to save him. He knew something was wrong, could feel it without even thinking about it, left an evening lecture without so much as an explanation. Sliding out of his human form, into cat, slinking across the city to find his lover.
He doeesn't stop to think, not even when the trail changes - something changes but he's too focused on finding the man. They'd figure everything else out, later. Even as he reaches the treeline, knows he's close, his form turning back to human as he finds walls, a window - the Lodge.
There's pounding on the window, Simon, a pale and familiar face staring into the room, taking in the blood, and the two men still there.
Wayne and Simon both suddenly have their weapons drawn, pointed at the window after the first pounding. Both very much on edge.
Simon blinks in surprise as he recognizes the face, shocked to the point of suspiciousness. How could Cian find them all the way out... where ever the hell they are. He lowers the gun slowly as he walks over, eyeing the kindred through the pane of glass, then cautiously moves to undo the lock and pushes it open. "I don't think you're supposed to be here."
Boy was he covered in a lot of blood. Far, far too much blood to be walking around, let alone alive. Yet the hole in his shirt reveals healed skin, and his heart is beating steadily.
Cian barely flinches at the sight of the guns drawn on him, and his eyes narrow as Simon draws closer, giving him a thorough once-over. "You were in danger." As if that answered the question of how he found Simon. He's dressed for an Event, that much Simon can tell from his tweed suit and shined shoes, but there are sticks in his hair and his accent is slipping, and there's a dangerous, hungry glimmer in his eyes. "Whose blood is this? It can't be all yours - it smells like -" he belatedly pauses, remembering they're not quite alone enough for him to make comments like that. (edited)
"I'm fine," he replies, rather than giving a proper answer. He glances in the direction the mages had gone, then looks back to Cian. "You might as well come in, though I don't know how they'll react." He reaches through the window to grab Cian's jacket, to help haul him through and inside.
"I'm fine," he says again, less snappishly, once Cian is inside, slipping the pistol away again.
there's more than a little bit of flailing, but Cian manages not to sprawl out on the floor, and he even takes the time to dust himself off for a moment before reaching out to grip Simon's shoulders. It's a hard, possessive grip, and his gaze is just as hard as he slowly pans over the man.
"This can't be all yours. What happened?" It's a demand for an answer.
He frowns down at the mess on his skin and shirt. "...I was shot. But I... healed." His gaze slips off Cian, looking past him over his shoulder at the feminine shadow that Cian couldn't see. Just for a second or two, before looking back to Cian.
"You..." Cian's gaze drifts down to the hole in Simon's shirt, and his grip on the man tightens for a moment before he seems to finally remember himself and let him go. "How? You...that's not something you've told me you can do."
"I'm... not quite sure," he admits, his frown growing deeper, more distracted. His thoughts drifting back to what happened rather than just focused on getting vengeance.
"Returning from the dead isn't an ability I knew I had," he says dryly. Reverting to sarcasm rather than getting vulnerable. "I'd never died before, so you'll have to forgive me for not being better informed." (edited)
Cian's not Blushed, no blood can leave his face, but his expression slips into one of shock. "You...what? That's...you...that doesn't...who?" His hands slide down Simon's arms and back up again, uncaring of the slowly drying blood.
"Seers. Asshole mages who wish to bend the world to their tyrannical aims. And who apparently wanted to stop me from awakening, but my death appears to have... triggered it instead." He rests his hands on Cian's arms in return, squeezing reassuringly.
"So no one important will mourn them when they die." Cian grimaces and lets out a breath, and visibly tries to pull himself together. With another breath, his cool skin warms to the touch, his blue eyes gain their luster again. "You've...Awakened, then?" Even his accent is back under control, the slight Irish lilt that covers his true Southie upbringing. "That's cause for congratulations, mm?"
"One of them was caught. I was promised they will be killed once the interrogation is over. The other escaped." His lips curl into a scowl briefly, then it eases again. "I... think so? It wasn't... quite like I'd heard it described, but... I think so?"
His eyes stray again past Cian's shoulder, frowning uneasily.
Cian glances where Simon has, his frown deepening, too. "You have some sort of community to sort that all out, right? The Awakening, I mean. As for the other Seer..."they deserve worse than death. I'm sorry I didn't arrive in time to be of any help."
"Yes, the people here. I'm sure they'll get me all sorted out. I should be safe, here." He shakes his head. "It's not your fault. I don't know if you could have done much, anyway. Fucking snipers."
"I could have kept one from getting away, perhaps." His grimace deepens for a moment, becoming almost a snarl, before he composes himself again. "You said you're fine, but..." gentle hands trail up to run along Simon's jaw. "Are you? It's...dying is messy. As someone who's experienced it in a very different way." His laugh is bitter.
"This is not the time nor place to break down," is Simon's reply, his tone almost chiding. How very dare you try to get me vulnerable in public, Cian.
Wayne, meanwhile, very awkwardly stares at a wall.
He glances at Wayne and winces, and backs off, his hands returning to his sides. "No, I suppose it's not. Are you...can you leave here? Do you need...food, or..." A vague gesture to the back of Simon's head. "Not that I look forward to getting back in through the window, but needs must."
"I'm not leaving until I see the prisoner die," Simon says stubbornly. Then he hesitates, hand cupping the back of his head to rub again. It's going to take getting used to, not feeling the mouth there. "No, no... I don't need food. It's... gone."
"Mmm." The beginning of Simon's answer seems to satisfy him, though his eyebrow arches as he continues. "Gone?" His voice is quiet, and he casts a brief glance at poor Wayne. "You'll be able to sleep, and...not have to worry in general about being without food. I'd think that deserves as much congratulations as your awakening..."
"Wayne knew about the mouth," Simon says.
"Hard not to notice it," Wayne mutters, just under his breath.
"Sleep..." Simon echoes, trailing off. "That will be... good," he says slowly, as if not quite believing that its as simple as that. Too good to be true. "I'll have to see if the curse is gone, as well."
"May I...?" Cian reaches out again, waiting for Simon's okay before touching him. And huffs in quiet amusement at Wayne's resigned mutter.
"Is that something the...Mages can see? Whether your curse is gone? It was about your death, right? And you've died..."
"Technically the exact curse involved The Abyss devouring my soul... But yes, they should be able to... identify what all changes have happened." He glances back into that corner at the shadow, frowning for a moment. But he does lean into Cian's touch.
Cian follows Simon's eyes to that corner, frowning again. "Is...the answer to my question something for later?" His fingers brush against Simon's jaw again, before sliding up into his hair. Not something Cian's been able to do before, and he gently massages the back of his head.
"Which question?" Simon asks distractedly. His eyes eyelids droop as his scalp is massaged.
"What you're looking at in the corner over there." He continues the gentle touch, his voice just as gentle, though he glances at Wayne again with a slightly apologetic look. Yes, the two of them need to get a room.
"Ah... You can't see her, I assume?" he guesses. "I assumed not. No one else appears to have noticed her, either."
"...No, I can't." He stills, just a little too much to be entirely human. "Who is she? Has she said anything...?"
"I don't know," he admits. "She... helped to bring me back. We became... one person, for a moment." His brows knit. "...There is... some sort of bond lingering between us, still. I can feel her, even when I'm not looking at her. She is..." He's quiet for a moment. "Some embodiment of... death, maybe. Or a powerful ghost."
"Hm." Cian's brows knit thoughtfully. "That sort of thing...isn't my specialty, but...if you want me to ask around, do a little research...? I'd hate for her to drag you somewhere you don't want to be, if the two of you are connected in that way."
He stares off into space for a long moment, then shakes his head. "I don't think I have to be afraid of her. But it is a mystery to puzzle out, yes." He focuses back on Cian, considering him for a long moment.
Cian arches an eyebrow in response, the corners of his mouth twitching upward slightly. "Yes...?"
"Did you really run through the wilderness to track me down because you thought I was in trouble?"
"Yes. I knew you were in trouble." Cian's voice is soft, but confident, and the hand on the back of Simon's head puts a little more pressure into the massage. "If anything had...if you hadn't come back..." He trails off rather than finish the sentence.
"How did you know I was in trouble?" he asks. Curiosity is a far easier emotion to focus on than... other things.
"I sensed it. Because of the...mm. Things we've done." Another glance at Wayne, and Cian flushes slightly. "I know you, I...I don't really know how it works, though. It's never happened before, that I've been able to tell something like that. About anyone."
"Ah." Simon looks down to stare at Cian's chest, fingers curling at his bicep. "Perhaps Fate really was stringing it all together."
"Do you believe in such a thing as Fate? Or just mere coincidence?" Cian smiles, though it slips slightly after a moment. "Do you...want me here, when the interrogation is done? I can't promise just how I'll react to...well. Seeing who did this to you."
Vasya had some things to take care of. When you ask your higher ups for a 'favor' to capture a seer, and then actually come back with a seer in tow? They ask a lot of questions. He's back from all of that. Out of his BDUs and dressed instead in a track suit and a dingy T-Shirt. He's smoking a cigarette and is carrying a very tall pink cocktail in narrow flute glass. Fox is with him, likewise. And for all the remarkable events of the evening, he seems supremely unflustered. He does knock before re-introducing himself to the room, poking his head in with an attempt at not being a budinski.
"If I am intruding, I apologize. We have the prisoner in the Gaol, subdued and bereft of potentia. Xie can no longer hurt you, and likely will not be around too much longer. I'm sure you'll have a lot of questions circumstances didn't permit me to answer before." Vasya does glance to Cian, but it's not particularly judgmental. The look he returns to Simon makes it clear he's willing to keep talking, Vampire or no Vampire.
He turns his head towards the knock, hand dropping from Cian's arm. He pauses a beat, but when Vasya makes no complaint about Cian being there, he accepts it as well.
"No, not intruding. Yes, I do have questions. I would still like to be present for the interrogation and execution, but I assume that is going to be dealt with at a later date." His arms cross over his chest. "I appear to have... awakened. Moros? I seem to have a rather intimate relationship with death, now." (edited)
Cian freezes at the knock, his hand sliding down from Simon's head to the small of his back. His eyes narrow at the people entering, but his hackles lower as there's a little explanation. Even if it's riddled with words he probably doesn't understand.
Cian himself looks very much like a slightly out-of-time professor, in a vintage-looking tweed suit. The sticks and leaves in his hair are a little incongruous, and his bright blue eyes are guarded and calculating. But he doesn't speak yet, letting the other Mages say their piece. That Simon seems to know them, and understand them, clearly helps.
"With him" is a nice way of saying that Fox is hanging from Vasya's neck like a limpet. You get used to it after a couple of decades. She lets go once they're back in the room and squints at Simon, then at Cian. She takes a backpack off of her back (so it was sort of like Vasya's metabackpack?) and opens it. "I went to the emergency closet and got you some clothes," she informs Simon, dealing with the practicalities firstly.
A plain white t-shirt, jeans, boxers and briefs in case she guessed wrong, socks, and sneakers. All of them fit, because Life means reflexively knowing people's dimensions. It's not that weird, right? "Hi," she adds toward Cian. "You... are... I don't know you."
"I understand that you feel that way now, and if you still feel that way in a day or so, Simon, I don't think that will be a problem in theory. It may be impractical for you to be at every interrogation if the prisoner proves productive and useful. We've had some luck working to deprogram some of their operatives. It's ... probably not going to happen in this case. But it could. So I need you to consider what you'd be willing to inflict on that person if they suddenly decide they want to try living a new way." Vasya takes his cigarette from the corner of his mouth and ashes it into the air with the nervous habit of someone not used to being indoors, nevermind smoking in them.
"It will start at a later date. I may or may not be involved in those interrogations. Despite being the best operative they have against the threat they all face here, few people trust me. Politics," he explains to the Vampire, because he is certain that much will make sense.
And with Fox off his neck, literally, he finds himself a place to sit and takes leave to do so, gesturing with his drink. "Ask away."
Simon accepts the offered clothes with a muttered thanks, then sets them aside on a table. He unbuttons the ruined remains of his shirt to peel it off, nose wrinkling at the drying gore still on his skin.
He looks at Vasya with a frown, clearly having Some Thoughts about that, but... he keeps them to himself, and only nods in reply.
"This is Cian. He's my... partner. Somehow, he could sense that I was in trouble and was able to find me." He looks between the mages. "...Can either of you see the masked woman?"
"I'm...yes." Cian nods absently at Simon's introduction. "I cannot see the masked woman, for what it's worth. And I understand approximately a third of what you're all talking about - it's probably for the best...?" His accent is softly Irish.
"My familiar saw her, yes. And I'm guessing that's what I'm seeing, there." Vasya ticks his head towards what might be the entity being discussed. There's probably not another entity Simon's speaking of. "I can't really make her out," he admits, "but I can see her." The distinction probably doesn't make a lot of sense to anyone unfamiliar with mage sight, but there you go.
"Sorry," Vasya offers to the Irish vampire, "if it's any consolation this is a first for me, too." But he toasts with his glass and has a gulp, and that seems to make things better.*
"If you'd prefer to be clean, I can take care of that." Fox pauses, and adds, "I mean, like, from over here. I don't need to touch you or anything." She stays out of the whole business with the interrogation, though her gaze mostly stays on Vasya when they talk about that.
"I can see her," and then she clears her throat. "Fun fact: she has a mask." She scratches her cheek absently, and her gaze flicks back to Vasya once more at that. "Well, I'm trusting that Simon wouldn't tell you anything if you shouldn't know ... some things?" She bites her lower lip absently. (edited)
"Would you mind?" he asks Fox. "It would be... a relief."
He also looks relieved that the others can see her. So he's not gone insane! This is a good thing!
"Cian isn't human," he replies, at this point not really giving a shit about secrecy anymore. "He's a vampire, if that effects anything regarding him being here."
Poor Wayne continues staring blankly at a wall, probably wishing he could steal Vasya's drink.
"Nobody's perfect," is Vasya's answer to the news of Cian's absent humanity. There's a second glance over the young man, but Vasya's expression and bearing don't change. There's just a new nod, now that he's reappraised the other in light of this fact.
"It doesn't, really. We have treaties with most of the things that go bump in the night around this city. And since you're a member of the Consilium and duty bound not to compromise it to unsafe parties, I can assume Cian belongs to one of them." He then raises his voice and adds, "Because I trust you, Simon, on account of your track record of not ever once having been a fascist."
Vasya's not actually talking to or about Simon, clearly. But he returns to doing so promptly. "In any case. I have never really been good at delivering bad news. So. Here's some bad news! You didn't awaken." He's smiling, as though the bad news weren't. He's very bad at this.
Simon's bluntness makes Cian bristle just a little, his fingertips digging into the small of the man's back just a little now, but he composes himself after a moment and nods slowly. "I believe that's what helped lead me here. Though I'm not entirely sure where 'here' is. I have questions, but they aren't as important as Simon's by any means."
The admission that the others can see the woman gets them intensely curious looks from the Kindred - and Vasya's 'bad news' makes his eyebrows snap together in concern.
She watches the interplay between Cian and Simon for a moment when Simon updates them on who Cian is, and so on. "Here is a safe place for wizards," she begins her responses, offering Cian a lopsided little smile which briefly flashes her sharp little vulpine teeth. Her fingers curl in the air as if she's briefly conducting the tiniest orchestra. An orchestra for ants, perhaps. As her hand describes a brief mudra, the blood, lung bits, bone fragments, bile, and general effluvia currently drying on Simon?
They just sort of... cease existing. It's a little like a Thanos Snap as the material sort of drifts into nothingness, leaving Simon with clothes that just have big holes in them, rather than lots of gunk on them, and in his hair, and all that gross. "There."
A pause, and when Vasya speaks, she blinks rapidly, and then looks at Simon again -- and at the woman -- and back at Simon, and then her eyebrows rise and she says softly, "Ohhh. You died," Fox says, as though that makes it all make sense. "Right. Not a Moros, a Sin-Eater." She blinks. "Oh shit, no wonder they couldn't see it."
He frowns, turning to face Vasya directly. "What?" Then he looks incredulously at Fox. "What?"
Vasya's grin broadens at the question he receives. Then he gestures over to Fox indicatively. "Yes, I think this is so. I didn't really understand what I was seeing in my visions, you understand, because I am not a death mage. Goetia. Spirits. That's more my speed. But hindsight being 20/20, I must admit I feel a little silly not seeing this coming. I knew there would be a transformation, Simon. And that you would survive it. Changed. I knew they wanted to kill you, and I knew that I could save Wayne's life if I intervened. That you'd be fine. More than fine. Better. That was my understanding."
Vasya gestures to Wayne, off vaguely into the distance, perhaps indicating the prisoner. All the things he meant to happen, that he had the capacity to comprehend happening? Those all worked out. This, it seems, may be a result of Vasya not knowing how to read the data.
"I did my best, Simon. I'm sorry."
She gives Vasya another look at the fascist comment, though she clearly doesn't have the full context on that one yet. That is Fox visibly making a note of something she needs to cover with her husband later. Fox waits out the explanation of what Vasya knew, and then offers Wayne a vague half-smile. "Listen," she adds to the bodyguard, "you've had like -- a day? And Simon could not be safer here than if he were in Fort Knox. Actually, he's much safer than if he were in Fort Knox, honestly. If you take a right out of here and follow the hall to the end, there's a kitchen there and a lounge. There's chili and soup and fresh bread. Please go eat something and sit down for a minute. We'll come find you soon."
"You've got a ghost riding shotgun in your brain," she informs Simon, once the bodyguard is out of earshot. Hearing this shit about your boss can be A Thing, and Wayne has had quite the day. "I knew a bunch of them in Maine, Sin-Eaters. I know ... one, here, that I know of. The ghost brought you back, and you're tied together now. Like, uh... like Trill, from Star Trek, kinda, but ghost, instead of interstellar worm."
Poor Wayne looks relieved to be given the out. There's a quick glance to Simon, who nods, and the bodyguard dismisses himself to go... decompress and question where his life had taken him.
Simon frowns as he listens to Vasya and Fox, looking... uneasy, now. Awakened society was familiar. He'd always been on the outside looking in, but it was what he knew.
He looks over at the masked woman, meeting her knowing eyes that look through him so effortlessly.
"I... see. Mm. Thank you for saving Wayne."
There's a long silence as he tries to... process that. Probably going to take some time and privacy, as Simon tries to... push aside those feelings for now, taking a breath.
"Will you check and see if I'm still cursed?" he asks Vasya distractedly.
Once Wayne is out of hearing, Vasya leans over to Simon and says more quietly, "You're welcome. But you need to know that I haven't done anything to Wayne's mind. He passed out and slumped over before the bullet was going to take him out. And then he woke back up, you know? So he saw you. Die. And he saw you recover. He knows. And it changed him a little. You can trust him. Now more than ever. But if you want, I can take tonight out of his mind and give him that back. That wasn't a decision I wanted to make for you or him, though. And, honestly, not one I'm inclined to want to make regardless." Wayne's handling this remarkably well, frankly.
The question that follows was not one he was anticipating. His jaw works a little and he pauses to give Simon something a good deal more than a look. He's probably used to being looked at, even stared at by people trying to intimidate him. But scrutiny is another thing entirely. It can be a little offputting.
And because you can't prove a negative, he really spends some time staring trying to see if it's actually gone or if he's just not skilled enough to find the signs of it.
He'll take up every bit of three minutes at this if they let him before he seems to come back to the here and now and he sinks back into his seat, visibly drained. "Your fate is with her now, Simon. It would be a cruelty, I think I can recognize, to say that you are now 'free' of a 'curse'."
This moment is really between Vasya and Simon, so Fox makes herself busy. The furniture was cleared out earlier, so she goes and drags the chairs and couch back in. Well. Carries. When you can snap your fingers and soup up your strength past human norms, that makes moving furniture a breeze.
Once that's done, she flops down on the couch, looks over to the woman again, and then returns to watching Simon.
He glances at the door as Vasya talks about Wayne, but only takes a second or two to shake his head. "I trusted him before. I trust him now. I will speak to him, and if it is his choice to forget, I will let you know. But really this just... makes everything easier, honestly. If my life is going to become stranger, than odds are he will brush up against the supernatural again, anyway."
Simon has seen mages scrutiny before, so while it may be unnerving, he still suffers through it without complaint, standing still and waiting.
The now-dead man clearly has more Feelings about that reply. Something that makes him sway a little in place, before he quickly composes himself and takes a deep breath. "Thank you," he says softly, more earnestly than he has spoken so far, even to the man who saved one of his only friends employee.
He clears his throat and focuses on Fox. "Do you have the contact information of the... Sin-Eater you met, locally?"
When Simon says he's going to go ask Wayne what Wayne wants to do, it seems as though Simon has passed some essential test that he was unaware he was undertaking just then. Vasya looks relieved, first. And then a little proud. He smiles his approval and pats Simon's arm once in a comradely manner. "For what it's worth, I think that is the right decision, too." And with that, it's decided. And so they're moving on.
"Wait. Wait!" Vasya is laughing, quite suddenly, at the coincidcences that begin lining up. "We do have that contact information. Yes. Please let me make sure it's okay that I pass that information along to you first, and then we'd be happy to make the introduction, I'm certain." Vasya grins over to Fox, exhibiting some of that hope for the future everyone's been going on about all these years.
She curls herself up on the couch as if she were delicately curling her tail around herself; the mannerisms carry through more and more. Likewise, she smiles broadly when Simon says he's leaving it up to Wayne. "Yes, he will," she agrees. "Better that you both deal with it now." A little nod. "I do. So does Vasya. I can text him and ask. I think -- probably -- it will be okay." She stares off into space for a moment -- Vasya can feel the pulse of Forces -- and then blinks slowly. "Okay. I sent him a text message."
That grin from Vasya, though? It distracts the little Thyrsus. Well. Distracts may be an understatement. She just kind of -- stops -- for a moment, and the corners of her mouth pull slowly up, the corners of her eyes crinkling. Most of her feelings are Big and Splashy and Loud, but this one is... not as visible, no, but careful observation makes it possible to see the depth of that expression, and its power. It's a sort of riptide of feelings, really.
Simon nods gratefully, satisfied to wait for the contact information.
He looks between them as Fox clearly has her own Feelings. He clears his throat, clearly deciding that this is far too many emotions for one room. "Well... Yes, might as well handle it now. I'll go talk to Wayne. Afterwards, I think... I would like to go home. You'll update me regarding the Seer?" He turns away, picking up a t-shirt to pull on over his head. "I assume you can just wiggle your fingers and get my number?" he adds, pulling out his phone to just... hold it up to Fox.
But before he can exit the room, he pauses, lips pursing. "Do you think the Seers will come after me again, to try to finish the job?"
"I'm not an Archmaster of Time, and my understanding of the Imperial Masteries could best be described as laughably limited. But from everything I've been told and experienced, that shouldn't be a concern. Our timeline exists now as it is for that moment. They had a moment they were trying to prevent from occurring. For you, it has occurred. They may come back to try it again, but it won't be you that they're trying it on. It will be some other timeline's version of you." Vasya pauses here in the hope that everyone's read enough pop science to have some grasp on alternate timeline theories.
"Besides which," Fox adds on as Simon starts to excuse himself, "they think they succeeded. At least in the moment. Like... you did die. And they're arrogant fucks, you know?" Her shoulders roll lazily and she adds, "If one of them thinks 'I need to kill this guy,' they don't even consider that like... " A pause.
"One of the first things I learned when I started working with Fate is that you have to be careful to ask the right questions. If they were asking the right questions, they would have stayed. To make sure you stayed down. But like... they don't think about anybody but Awakened. Not really. Not except as pieces on a board." She shudders, as if saying the thought out loud will summon that ideal into reality. Then? She focuses on the phone for a moment, smiling lopsidedly, and a text message ping on Simon's phone follows -- a text showing from her that just says
butts
because Fox is still Fox.
The Orphan flashes her teeth in a cheeky grin.
Simon rubs a hand over his face, eyes closing a moment as if fighting off a headache. "Right. Okay. I assume they will find out I am alive eventually, if they are at all intelligent or perceptive--I'm a fairly public figure. But if they won't care anymore... Good. They'll be surprised when I see them slaughtered."
He stares down at the screen for a beat, then just... puts it back into his pocket.
He reaches to snag Cian's hand, then pulls him towards the door. "Thanks again. I'm sure I'll be speaking to you both soon."
"But, yes. You are, if it needs to be said, entirely free to go. I apologize for interrupting your evening." Vasya dips his head respectfully to Simon, glances aside to Fox, and then drags himself out of his chair to go in search of a refill to his glass and a fresh cigarette. It's been a long couple of days.
The phone pings again a moment later, but this text says: ERIK SAMUELSON, and a phone number.
"He said okay," Fox calls, as Simon is on his way out the door. "Please get some sleep when you can."
"I'll give him a call," he replies to Fox, and nods to Vasya. "Have a good evening." Then out he goes. (edited)
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