Four paths: four choices

Alexander[Stam+Meditation]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 6 )
Alexander[Er, +2 successes because I forgot to tick the box for his Stamina spec.]
veritas[Buddha, somewhere: Dayum, son.]
veritasOne day is much like the next. Something has to break. He knows his cell with an intimacy he knows nothing else at all except perhaps his own body. How well does he know his own body? He knows how many paces it takes to compass its confines. He knows how the light will fall on his tray of food before it falls or as it falls no matter where it is slid. He knows how long it will take them to clean up his blood or bandage his knuckles should he punch the wall so hard. Be silent, be secret, be safe; Keller is on your side; this must look as though it is working. He knows how his voice will echo and he knows the dampening Effect of the walls. He knows the Sessions by now, the ambient wash of noise. He knows his own heart, perhaps, a little better; it is all he has to comfort him, and to keep him, and to see him through to the other side of -
This. This interminable imprisonment.
He has been meditating. He has been meditating for hours. He is gaunter, perhaps, Alexander Brandt; he is winnowed down to a harder man, and he has been for hours and hours and hours and hours boundless and flowing and not here and not there and his mind has been balanced perfectly and he has been at rest and he is open his mind is open he should be hungry he should be tired he should be distracted his body should want him but none of these things weigh on him or if they do he is boundless he is flowing he surpasses he is meditating and has been, very well, for a long, long, long time, what time? There is no time; come unhinged from time; let this be peace; let this be the moment of turning inward and
Here is Alexander.
He is inside his own head; perhaps meditation has gone over to dream, to sleep; perhaps he has trespassed on his own myth. He is inside his own head, but he seems to actually be:
in some wild grove, ringed by tall oak trees, their uppermost branches scorched and blackened; their leaves gold, rattling; their roots twisted, gaunt, reaching toward the center of the circle he stands in. Some wild grove; as he stands, one fat rain drop plops, and then another, and he knows he has something to Do -
knows also that he does not need to give in to this impulse, this feeling, this need; it is transitory, it is part of this place he has come willingly and with open eyes, and he can be whatever it is he wants to be here.
Maybe.
AlexanderTime, it flows. Second after minute, after hour, after day, after week, after... If flows but, here, it seems unchanging. Not Frozen any longer, but still Static. Trapped in a repeating cycle of: waking, washing, eating and drinking enough to take away the pain of hunger and the grip of thirst; the sessions with Keller, only to be returned to the cell again and left until the next meal is delivered.
The only alteration in the pattern is when Alexander gets to shower, and then only when he behaves. Every couple of days he was taken out of his cell and allowed a short time in an empty shower block. There was no sign of anyone else having been there. There was no sign of anything that he had tried to leave before: writing in the steam on a mirror, a message written on the wall in soap. There had, however, been freedom from the metal panelling in the cell and its ability to such any kind of dynamism from the air. It had been a brief opportunity to try to Work. It had been something simple, a small effect to work out how long he had been there.
He had been caught.
So now there wasn’t even that break in the endless repetition, and Alexander had lost track of how many meals and how many sessions and how many days he’d been here since then. There had been talk of getting the privilege back at some point, but he’d lost track of when that was too. Some day.
There had been days when Alexander had tried to at least do something – try to get some sort of exercise or movement in the cell, but its limited size made that difficult. He had even flicked through some of the books, although that hadn’t lasted long. Pages had been torn out and made into paper air planes, something to stave off boredom for a little while.
Alexander still made an occasional attempt at defiance. Some days he would refuse to walk from his cell to the white room where Keller would meet him. He was dragged. Once or twice he had tried to fight again. That had led to more guards and his being cuffed while out of the cell until he settled down again and the conditioning seemed to be taking effect again. He had punched and kicked and screamed at the walls, leaving bloody marks on the metal. He had drawn and written on them in his blood. He had tried to dig away at the corners of the panels with his fingers and with the plastic utensils that came with the food. There wasn’t a scratch in them, and the walls were always clean again after his daily counselling.
Alexander was trapped. Physically trapped, at least. He still had doubts as to whether he was still the same man who was brought here... some time ago. Keller still told him that the conditioning was a show, but it seemed to have been going on for so long that minor change after minor change could have been slipped into his mind: into who he was. He had no way to escape that: he just didn’t recognise the threads of Magick that were being used, he couldn't block or deflect or, even, understand if there was anything more going on.
Mentally, though? Alexander had found some small freedom there. He was left alone, for as long as he didn’t appear to be in any danger of seriously hurting himself. That left a lot of time. Time to look inwards, rather than outwards. Time to meditate and daydream and lose himself in the flow of thought. Sometimes he’d recall old memories, trying to run through them and pick out small details. Sometimes, he would just let his imagination go and see where his stream of consciousness would end up.
And so Alexander has been lying there, seemingly asleep, on his bed for what must be hours now. Since returning from Keller, however long ago that had been. A meal had been dropped off and taken away again, untouched. His body had barely moved, barring an occasional unconscious movement to remove pressure from some part or another. Time just continued to flow around him, and he just drifted along with it.
It is that drifting of his consciousness that settles in this grove. It’s not from memory, although certain aspects seem familiar: the blackened trees with their golden foliage. The sky above is aflame with the light of dusk: dark enough that the shadows of the trees stretch long into the grove, but still bright enough that the stars are not yet showing. Dark clouds break up the sky, glowing softly in the light as they bear the promise of oncoming darkness.
The grove is where his consciousness settles, and it is where it remains for now. That sensation of something to Do pulls against him, promises a chance to further break the bounds of his confinement and perhaps make a change to something. Alexander appears how he would have been before his interminable incarceration. Hearty and health and ready for the outdoors. Ready to explore.
Alexander[Per+Alertness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 5, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
veritasExercise to stay sharp, fighting just to fight, paper airplanes when reading pales. He could make paper cranes. Isn't there a legend about folding a thousand and one paper cranes, and getting your wish? There's a slim children's book which is taught in most first grade classes about that particular legend. Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr. It's a sad book, as many children's books taught in the American public school system seem to be, about dreams deferred and loyalty.
Here in the grove - the circle grove, the oak grove, the oaks crowned by blackened (lightning struck) branches but still thriving, still flourishing, here in that particular grove - where the sky is aflame, is molten behind the dark sketch of branch-work, where the shadows begin to grow long, and Alexander gives in to the quest this place has for him, the urgent need to -
He has something to do. He is ready to explore. The knowing what the thing to do is doesn't just come to him; he'll have to go forth, find it. But here are places he might go: to the east there seems to be a dense clot of brambles, of thorns and low-lying plants and there is a crooked path through it but the way there will be very hard. He might go to the west, where there is again a faint thread of path, on what seems to be a hill going down and down again - this grove is atop a hill, or mountain, and while the thorny bramble-y side makes the descent difficult to pick out, the fairer side does not. If Alexander goes to look down that-a-way, he'll see - very distant - a fire. It looks man-made; it strikes at him, a bronze bell swinging in his heart. If he looks toward the thorns, he'll see tufts of pale fur, caught here and there, and drops of blood - maybe that will strike him in a different way.
To the North, there is another hill; a small, narrow bridge swinging from one hill to a cliff face, sheer, which drops down and down again, and there seem to be clouds there glinting gold with the dying sun's last rays.
And to the South, there are more woods, more oak-trees interlaced, and a subtle change in the season - a lightening of the air.

Alexander[Wassat fur? If a bear went that way, I ain't]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
veritasThat fur belongs to no normal animal, no animal in the whole wide world that he has ever come across; he thinks - because this is a dream - that he remembers hearing about a fabulous beast the tears of which might cure any ailment, and this fur matches the story. Of course the story was dark; it probably had a German sensibility to it, and the fur is as soft as fresh-fallen snow, and also as glittersome.
AlexanderFour paths: four choices. Well, five; the choice to do nothing and stay here is already discarded. Alexander walks the edge of the grove for a few minutes, scanning the various views for what they have to offer. It’s almost something elemental: travelling towards the air, into the earth or towards the fire. He pauses by the brambles, crouching down to study the fur caught on the thorns. It isn’t from a living animal, if one considers the animals known to the mortal, material world. But this place isn’t the mortal world, and it probably isn’t material either. Not considering how he got here, anyway. This is a place of dreams and ideas and concepts, maybe with something of the spirit world combined.
Alexander doesn’t really know. This is all new ground to him, the exploration of dreams and guided meditations. Nobody had explained where the mind goes when the body sleeps; there had always been more pressing matters to worry about. Monsters and Nephandi and the Union. There had always been a promise of Wonder, but it had been an elusive promise to bring to reality for Alexander. Maybe now he’s starting to find his own.
But it is the path through the brambles that pulls him. The blood, there, doesn’t seem as if it was torn from the creature by the brambles there. The tuft of fur left behind could be something left in a panic to get away. The path looks hard, twisting and dark and edged with thorns. It’s the direction he wants to go, but then... this place isn’t exactly real. Alexander knows how easily Awakened are able to twist the material world to their wills. Surely it should be easier here. Hell, he’d already done it once by calling a Ferryman to look after little Alex. It doesn’t need to be much. Maybe the path just needs to be a little wider, or just a little less packed with brambles and thorns and plants that would try to grasp at his boots as he pushed through them.
Alexander[Per+Lucid Dreaming
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
veritasThere is no wind rakes through those brambles, the dense thicket of thorn and whip-slender branch; all which might catch, all which might keep, all which might make a way impassable, difficult to pick over, but Alexander decides to (through the path of righteousness go) concentrate and change the world around him just like he'd done when he was Seeking (does he feel closer, here, to his Avatar - whatever, whomever, it is? Could he summon it again, too?), and this is what happens:
The difficult way becomes less difficult. The path widens, and how difficult it is to catch; blink, and he will miss the subtle ballet of thorny vines diminishing, drawing back, ebbing, as a tide that leaves behind a gleaming lacery of foam a witch-way a walk-way and they draw up, too, draw above, so there is more of a tunnel for Alexander to go down should he still wish to follow this way, and the dirt beneath his boots will be packed. The path is more clear; the path after the animal is less, for the thorns and vines where there were blood-drops have changed their configuration, but he can still find the animal's way if he looks: some drops there, and some fur there, and it will darken the further he goes (those thorns have packed him in above, the path still wide and gracious for him now), and the ground is so rough-hewn it almost seems as though it might be stairs he walks down.
They were never stairs; the ground only holds that impression.
AlexanderIt’s different, here. Before, Working with the tools that Alexander had started to call his own, forcing his Will on the world seemed harder. The world fought back and resisted, the threat of Paradox always hanging overhead like some legendary sword waiting to fall on the unwary. Here, change seemed easier. He had nowhere near the ability to make these kinds of changes while awake, so it’s surprising when he pushes against the fabric of this reality and it shifts further than he expected. Where he had hoped for something smaller, a way through that was a little easier, this small part of the world changed as the plant life flowed back; separating like the biblical sea and curling up and around to create a clear path.
“Wow.” Alexander stands motionless for some seconds, stunned by the transformation. He looks around the rest of the clearing, checking the rest of the grove for change, before turning back to his path. Alex crouches down, pulling a tuft of fur away from where it had become caught, before stepping onto the path. The fur and the drops of blood lead the way: he simply follows where it leads.
Alexander[Wits+Survival]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 3 )
Alexander[Dex+Athletics]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
veritasThe tuft of fur is so much gloaming in his hand; it has a nap to it, a weight; but it feels slinky-soft, there's a smoke-kink at the end where the pale fades away to a yellowing cream - truly it is beautiful fur; the animal's pelt must be lovely; the animal itself must be hunt-worthy, and maybe that is what happened. Maybe the beast was injured in a hunt, which would mean there are hunters besides Alexander; wouldn't it? And could he join them? And would he want to? Maybe he must find the beast before they do. Maybe he needs its tears. Maybe: there's something to the sheer fun of exploring.
He follows the blood trail. That's to the good. He doesn't lose it.
And he doesn't lose his footing, either; not even when the path suddenly plunges down, becomes almost vertical, or at least seems to. Those rocky not-stairs are carved into the hillside and he might be part mountain goat, for how well he follows. The thorns are still tangled around him and it might be tempting to reach out to them for purchase, something to hold on while he is making his descent, but Alexander knows better.
Up ahead, he can see a massive tree, with a hole beneath it: a cave. Beyond the tree, it looks as though the world is suddenly inverted, and after a dizzying moment he'll realize it is not inverted at all:
There just happens to be a lake so still, so calm, that the blazing sky is perfectly reflected, and everything is sharp and crisp which lies on its surface, and mirrors only dream of such perfection. The blood trail leads to the hole beneath the tree, but there is something strange at the water's edge.
Rows of shoes. High spiked ridiculous heels, like he has seen Serafíne wear, ballet shoes like he might've known Lucy and Delilah wear, and then boots like Ian has worn, shoes that look like standard issue shoes suggested by the police force of Seattle, shoes that look like his mother's after a long day's work, shoes that look like they belong to children: bright poppy red. Shoes that belong to every Awakened person he has met and half-remembers, even Keller. Shoes that belong to his ex, the one who cheated on him. They're all facing the water.
AlexanderAlexander holds the tuft in the palm of one hand, stroking and flattening it with the fingers of the other. It gives no clue as to the size or the shape of the animal that it came from, only that it’s likely to be wonderful. A thing of wonder, in this place that he thinks came from somewhere in his mind. A thing of wonder that might be hurt (if its tears can heal, can’t it heal itself?). Hunted, maybe. He had hunted, with snare and trap, or gun, or, on rare occasions, with a bow. But this isn’t a hunt for him, at least not in that sense of the word. He has no desire to kill this beast, to steal its skin and feed on its flesh. He tracks it to see it. He follows the trail of its blood and fur because of that push to Do something. To protect it? Maybe even that. Its tears? They are its own. What he is comes from his past: he doesn’t seek any miracle to take that past away from him, not even the pain.
The trail turns and drops and drops, but Alexander is able to keep his footing. Reaching out would be risky; likely to leave a trail of his own blood on the brambles, a spotted trail of his own essence dotted over the ground behind him. He manages to stay upright and negotiate the descent, keeping his feet steady on the treacherous ground.
Alexander pauses, again, when he reaches the bottom of the descent. He takes in the tree, standing unsteadily as his gaze skims past the line of shoes and over the perfect reflection of the water. (Is it water? It seems too perfect. Like the idea of a mirror given form, without the imperfections than are part of its physical creation.) The trail heads into the cave, and there is still the urge to follow it. But he steps to the edge of the lake, careful not to accidentally disturb the shoes. He stops next to the shoes that he recognises as Sara’s, the ex he left (ran away from: coward) in Seattle, nudging them slightly straighter with one of his own booted feet. He looks up from the shoes and across the surface of the lake, reflecting the fire in the sky.
Alex intends it to be a short stop: he intends to return another time to spend more time here, or exploring the rest of this place. He assumes that will be possible.
Alexander[Perc+Alertness]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 2, 3, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )
veritasAlexander is getting better at meditating, at going inside his own head. Here, where he is imprisoned (and he is still imprisoned; he should never forget), that is good. Will it still be good if (when) he escapes?
Because he does not disturb the shoes, they stand silent and empty sentinels. When Alex straightens Sara's, nothing happens to disturb the perfect surface of the lake, but off across it a lightning bug flickers in the gathering dusk, erratic and unsteady weaving brightness which seems to come out across the water. Water on fire; sky on fire; little luminous insect.
And he notices, too, the cresting of a tree in the center of the lake, and in the tree a cage. Easy to miss at first, for it is a cage that seems coaxed into shape by the tree itself, the tangle of branches so; and inside the cage there is something, or someone. Can he tell from this distance?
He cannot.
AlexanderWho knows what will happen if Alexander escapes his cage: nothing is Fated. Assuming Keller wasn’t lying, he might find a way to get Alexander out. Or he might run out time in his stall to protect Alex, and some other jailer might end his life. Weston, maybe. If Keller is lying and the daily sessions are slowly changing the man that Alexander is, then the question may well be moot when the person he becomes loses the need to find some way to break free. If some other breaks him out? Well, who would be insane enough to try to break him out of here. For now, and unless someone chooses to skim the probable or potential flows of time into the future, the future is uncertain. Fluid.
But for now, this is his escape. His way, in some form, to escape his cage. A thought crosses his mind, a question of whether he would be able to stay here. Leave his body behind to whatever the Union wanted to do with it while his mind continued to explore. Maybe even find some way of contacting the other Awakened who were still in Denver. But, then, would that just bring them here looking for him? A difficult question. One for another time.
Another tree, this one in the lake, pulls in his attention. This one with a cage; no, forming a cage, trapping something inside its branches. It’s not something he can make out from this distance, but it’s a sight that gets something burning inside Alexander. Fire in the water, in the air, and now in Alexander. There’s a temptation to try to tear it open from here, releasing what’s inside. But he isn’t reckless here, as this world of dreams is still mostly unknown to him. For all he knows, there could be something dangerous caught and held. A nightmare? He doesn’t know. But he’s never going to work that out from here. He needs to get closer, but the question is how.
Wings? Could he pull free from the bounds of gravity and fly there? Hell, one way to work that one out. And at least the water should be a forgiving surface if he should fall.
Alexander[Per+Dreaming, so doing the WP thing because it would be a shame to disturb the water]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 6, 9) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
veritasHe thinks he should have wings to aid him, pulling free from the bounds (be boundless) of gravity, and so with a push of effort, he has them. They unsheathe from his shoulder-blades, pinching the skin and tugging it taut it is not painful exactly but it feels strange that awareness of new appendages he has never had before or felt before certainly not in this life anyway and they are wings that an owl might have, but sized for his body, and somewhat cumbersome on land except that they sheath so neatly against his back and he can feel the muscles strain and ache when he opens them. He can flap to gain altitude but it would be easier to leap from some high thing, altitude already a grace-boon given. His wings will make no sound; they are an owl's wings.
AlexanderIt’s a strange thing that happens, but this has already proven itself to be a strange place. It seems right that he should be able to change himself – at least his ‘physical’ self – as much as the world, so it’s not entirely surprising when the wings sprout from his back. As the skin stretches out and bone and feather and cartilage push upwards and outwards, the shirt this embodiment wears tears and shreds as they pass through.
It’s a brief thing, this change that brings owl wings to his back. Alexander steps away from the shore, and its line of shoes, before working out how to stretch them out. It’s an experimental thing, but one which seems to be tying into memory quickly. He experiments a little more, flapping them to try to get some lift. It’s difficult, but he could fly from here. Less effort, maybe, to climb the tree a little first. He scans its surface, checking for hand and foot holds that would left him gain a little height before flinging himself into the air, with a route that wouldn’t catch at his new appendages.
Alexander[Str+Athletics]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7) ( success x 2 )
Alexander[Dex+Ath too]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
veritasHe is fleet-footed on land, traversing a steep path. He is fleet-footed leaving land, going nimble up a tree that has few handholds and is awkward to climb those wings dragging as they do but his body still human and this might be what Icarus found when he leapt from a cliff and flew toward the sun. Alexander is not flying just for the joy of flying, however. He is flying because he wants to check something out. He is caution-fueled, ready and readied, and in spite of the wings he makes it to a low branch, avoiding anything and everything that might cage him in the tree, might bump up against his wings: they aren't just some objects attached to him, that he must guess at how they relate to everything around him based on their weight, must remember the general shape of them. They are part of him and he can feel how close they are to branches.
And when he finds a high place, and launches himself from it, he glides and then he flies.
Out across the water, toward the tree which is also a cage, and whatever lies within it.
And it is work, carrying himself like that. Hard work, but good work.
--
And then Alex wakes up; he is woken. It is time for his next 'session' with Keller, and on this point, no matter what it is he is doing, the Technocratic Guards are very firm.