[Arete, looking through to the other side, by the Node so diff 3? 2 successes please.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (2, 9) ( success x 1 )
Alexander[Extending, +1 diff, -1 for personal instrument]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (4, 6) ( success x 2 )
Alexander[Oh, and Awareness? (Pleasedontbotch)]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
AlexanderEarly evening brings us to the Chantry. There has been a restless mood through the city today, something not helped by the weather. Sun gives way to storm, replaced by an overcast haze that promises nothing but has the possibility to return the city to snow or disperse into clear skies. The balance of that coin toss is slowly tilting to the side of clear skies, just in time for the sun to begin its slide towards the horizon as day heads into night.
It’s not night yet, though, and there is still plenty of light for someone to see their way around the Chantry house. It’s quiet inside – its current-possibly-soon-departing residents not currently home – but the back door is unlocked. By the steaming pool at the rear, though, there is a sign of life. More life, that is, than the lawn and flower beds returning to life after their winter slumber. By a pair of bike boots sits Alexander, his trousers rolled up and his legs drifting in the warm water. A tray sits nearby, bearing a tea pot and a mostly-drunk cup of some kind of tea. Alexander’s attention, though, is elsewhere. Somewhere not a million miles away but somewhere that most couldn’t dream of reaching. Somewhere out there is a bear – Callisto – and it’s this spirit that his gaze tracks. She sleeps at the moment, somewhere nearby. Somewhere relatively uninteresting that keeps his gaze.
Pen[Yes, sure, Awareness. -1]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
PenThe back door is opened from the inside. The sound it makes is a tarnishing brightness. That descriptor means one thing when it is a sound hinges are making, and another thing when applied to the sky: it can be applied to the sky, cumulous clouds along the edge of the horizon rising palaces of blue-tinted and lilac-tinted glory, limned in liquid gold (barbaric gold: Germanic treasure, Visigoth treasure), pink where the ruby and garnet have lost their bloodied lustre; also cirrostatus clouds, transparent veils, finest silk, and look how these give the Sun a halo going down will crown the Moon too when it sees fit to rise. Tarnished brightness: all of these clouds, all of this luminous gray and hazy blue, as if the sky were ground glass, unreflective but brightening (what a lie. The sun is going down).
The back door is opened. Passive voice: fuck that. Unsuitable!
Pen opens the back door and shuts it behind her and it makes that sound as she closes it and the crickets call to one another (sing! love, raises its glittering knives) and the birds do, too, and Pen approaches the Spring (Fount) directly. Her hair is up, and tarnished brightness too: a burning coal, with shadow a-plenty, until what light gets through the cloud cover washes her in haze, takes the shadows from her eyes and leaves them like smokey quartz held up to the light [catching], and she does not look like Mars is a name she would choose for herself.
She is taking a leaf from a Verbena's book and a something's bottle neck is sticking out of the bag hanging from her shoulder and she is wearing a very flowy and semi-diaphanous dress, something that looks like it was taken out of time. It might've been found at an artist's studio and used on a model who was trying for Elaine of Astolat, see, or Medea, medievalized, or it might've been found in some grandmother's trunk full of music festival memories and grass on bare feet and it might've been worn by a surrealist paintrix in Mexico open at the chest because it's hot work painting, and she's already shoeless.
There is an Alex.
An initiate whose sorcery is boundless, is flowing. The first thaw, the beginning of a flood and the middle of a flood and its end. A complete movement.
There is a Bear without flesh on the Other Side, who she will never see. A starry thing, star-bright, star-light. Sleeping, and undisturbed.
Alex has a look in his eye not unfamiliar to her. Alex is not unfamiliar to her, although he is at the same time new, although they weren't familiar. But now: He's no longer a January man, cryptic and sharp-witted. Pen slips her thumb under the strap of her bag, begins to test its weight but doesn't take it off her shoulder quite yet. She slows her approach once she is within hailing distance, and hails him.
"Hey. It is you." But that's all; he might be Working.
AlexanderThe world can be a beautiful place, at times. Sunrise and sunset bring a spectacular display that has inspired art and artists through the ages. Mountains, plains, oceans: all things prone to inspire, in those prone to inspiration. Those who seek to set a moment or a concept in words or music or the stroke of a brush. There are people, too, who might be something to be trapped in stone or paint, something of the mythic that lives through the ages. Such a person steps out from the back of the house.
Alexander is not one of those people. If anything, he is more liable to be forgotten about than immortalised forever. There’s the spark of something mundane in him, something that just slides from notice as unimportant when he’s not there. He dresses for comfort and practicality: a leather jacket wrapped around a chair, nestled under a garden table close to the house. Sturdy trousers, rolled up but still getting a little wet from the movement of the gently steaming water. Red but unmarked tshirt. Nothing there to stick in the mind.
The wash of something immaterial, though, does distinguish him from the crowd. It’s something that marks him out as more than a mere Sleeper. Something flowing, without boundary: no beginning, no end. Something that might mark him as Chakravanti, if he were more that way inclined. But that was never in his fate, because fate is not something in which he believes.
His gaze is elsewhere but there are other senses than sight. The feel of some daring warrior, resplendent in armour and ardent in devotion, comes from some other sense, another set of eyes. The feeling is something familiar but not familiar: something previously encountered, but nothing that comes with a name attached.
He hears the words, but he doesn’t look round. If the presense is here, then he assumes that they should be here. That they have been introduced to the local community, are trusted to come here. He may have doubts about its safety – others less trusted know of its existence – but there had been no sign, no word, that its safety had been compromised.
“It is me. Who were you expecting?”
PenAlex is famous now, at least within the small circle that is Awakened Denver. He never gave Pen his name; she knows it now, and can pin it to him like a paper crown on a paper boy, and thinking about famous Alexander Brandt red shirt maybe (no. There are no red shirts, nameless people. Everybody has a name).
Pen circles the Spring and sets her bag down on the stones. Gravity drags the bottle down; Pen fists her skirt (it is fluid; it is water) up over her calves and climbs down into the water, climbs on a stair of natural rocks, descends until the water is up at her knees. Then she perches on the edge, and see:
Alexander is looking at the Other Side; Penelope is looking at Alexander, and curiously, and she is always intense. She is one of those people. The light is changing and her eyes are no longer luminous and clear; they are only clear, more tarnish than brightness.
"I can't call you January man or make Wintering jokes any longer. Won't you introduce yourself?" There is a narrow pause, and then: solemnity, overlying essential good nature. "Let me keep you company since we're both here, or tell me you came for the quiet."
AlexanderThat Alexander is known wouldn’t come as any great surprise. Their kind are rare, and have an almost Magickal ability to draw like to like. There are always exceptions to the rule, those who seek to be left alone and live their lives as unnoticed as possible, but Alex isn’t one of them. He had always been ready to stand with the others in a fight. It remained to be seen if that would continue.
Pen’s motion is felt, the soft steps on the stone heard, the ripples in the water that she creates as her legs slide down into the water lapping against his own. Still, he watches the other side. The slumbering bear, the minor spirits – almost moth-like – that haunt the areas where the walls between worlds are thinner. The forest nearby something darker, taller, greener – spirit and concept not restrained by space and food and light. Somewhere inside there are others, spirits of predator and prey that dance through the trees. Above, temperamental and fickle spirits of the weather that pay no attention to what lies below them and simply do as they please regardless of the consequences.
“Maybe more April than January these days. The name’s Alexander.” He finally looks towards her, to where she perches on the edge of the whirlpool of energy that springs from the Node, and sees that part of her: the shining knight. “No, not the quiet.” There’s a brief smile here, with his eyes – almost mirrored – looking elsewhere. Almost through her. “Just to look, and see how a friend is doing.”
“I never caught your name.”
Pen"Well. We were both being very clever and riddling. What's a name, to a first meeting and a riddle?" Pen says, with a gentle crook of her mouth. Easy lines around the eyes; at the corners of her lips.
The water (water is her element [lake-light, dripping from a sword; one almost expects it: the blade]) is refreshing in a way even a good massage and a full night's sleep can't quite match because this is a thing one feels while one is awake. This: rejuvenation; this: replenishment of reserves. People come to the Spring with shadows around their eyes, the skin thin from sleeplessness or too much trouble or too much work; Pen has come to the Spring after pushing herself hard. People leave it with a radiance to them, leave it more themselves.
She points her toe; her eyes are still fast on Alexander's face, his dreamy and distant spirit-mage's eyes. She considers letting herself slide in sword to its sheath, Boho-dress a casualty of courtesy. Doesn't yet; leans forward and draws on the Spring's surface with her fingertips. Rings on every finger today, even her thumb. Only the middle finger of her right hand is unadorned.
"April is the cruelest month, poetically speaking; are you sure you want to be April, not August?"
There's a bit of rueful consciousness. April. Beat. The cadence to this is natural: "I go by Pen, but the proper introduction is Penelope Sylvia Katabasis Hilde Nyneve Mercury Mars, bani Flambeau, ordo Hermes. Who's the friend you've come to see?"
AlexanderThere’s a nod at the comment about them being clever, the smile already faded. “Maybe not clever enough, in the end.” Alexander turns his gaze back away from the house, reaching round with a hand to find the unseen cup to take a drink. Not nearly clever enough, but then it had already been too late when he worked out just how deep the hole he had been standing in had sunk…
Distracted, the reply. “March, then? Or whatever you think works, you wouldn’t be the first to come up with a nickname for me. Can’t say I ever really got that interested in poetry, you know?” The meaning of April truly is lost to him, beyond the obvious change of seasons.
Pen introduces herself fully, and it’s that point that the sensation of something flowing and running around and over and through them fades away into the background. Alexander’s vision changes, returning to the world that they both sat in, and his eyes seem to be more of the brown that they normally are. He looks back to Pen, seeing her fully for the first time in a long time. He takes in her look, her dress, and blinks a couple of times to clear what lingers of the other world. “Alexander Brandt.” A hand is held out in greeting, warm and slightly damp from the steam rising from the water. “Bani Disparate?” He hadn’t seen much in the way of formal greetings – certainly not when an Orphan was involved – so he wasn’t quite sure of the wording. “I’ve met your husband. Interesting guy.”
Alexander nods out into the gardens. “Callisto. Although friend is probably stretching it. I don’t think she’s ever really noticed that I’m here.”
PenMaybe not clever enough, in the end. The redhead raises her eyebrows; they disappear into her bangs, and the precise mood of their arches is lost. She does not argue with him; only continues to study him, lofting her chin thoughtfully. The water brings an added shine to the metal of her rings, changes the color of the wooden ring around her left thumb. All of it is gleaming.
He holds out a hand. Pen takes her hands from the water, dripping, and smack! braces them against the spring's rock ledge, tensing her muscles; and then just slips into the water. Up to her waist; her rib cage. She crosses the Spring to take his hand. Of course her grip is firm. Of course her fingers are callused. Maybe there's a burn mark on her palm, semi-fresh. The steam gets into her hair, will make fly aways curl; that tendril unbound just behind her ear, see, it's already curling under her ear.
His formal introduction seems to have done the trick.
He's met her husband. Pen: even the mention of Nicholas, sans name; she is a Romantic creature and an Eloquent one and the mention of Nick always does something to her. Brightens her, maybe: the quick flash of a smile; it's a swashbuckler's smile, but there's a dreaming edge to it; she has a lot of sentiment.
"I heard. I heard you nearly shot him. I'm glad you didn't."
"Who's Callisto?"
AlexanderThe comment about being clever passes without comment, and Alexander has no inclination to steer the conversation further in that direction. Things had happened, some random fluke of chance throwing him into a room with a Union agent. That’s all it had been. If it happens again, things would work out a lot different. For one thing, it wouldn’t be the floor he shot at.
There’s a shake of Alexander’s head, something to clear the train of thought before it carried on into places that he didn’t want to go right now. Pen is pushing herself into the pool, the shortest line between them, to take his hand. There’s some surprise in the raise of his eyebrows, but it goes otherwise uncommented. She isn’t the first to jump in – although maybe the dressiest person to do so – and wouldn’t be the last. Hell, at least she’s dressed. The burn to her palm, though, gets a second glance. “What happened there?”
I heard you nearly shot him. “Nearly shot him? I hadn’t even pointed my gun at him.” No denial at all about having a gun, no comment about having the thing drawn and hidden behind him until he became happier that Nick hadn’t been a threat. There had been nothing threatening at the time, only… preparedness.
“Nobody’s told you about her? She guards the Node. I’ve never known her to actually manifest, but I’ve heard that she has shown herself a couple of times over the past few years.” There’s a nod towards the patch where she was still lying, along with a glance with unenhanced sight.
Pen"Oh." Pen runs her finger around the mark on her palm. "I have a forge for metal-working, and I made a careless mistake. My specialty is Ars Vis, but alack, it happened too quick. Do you do any sort of physical hands-on craft?"
Alex hadn't even pointed his gun. Pen doesn't seem to disbelieve him; lets her chin rise and fall, an acknowledging nod. Her eyebrows are no longer raised, and she moves to one of the convenient seat-rocks, albeit this time one near Alexander. Not directly next to; she wants to be able to look at him while they are speaking.
Pen seems: intensely (ardently [avidly]) interested when Alex explains about Callisto, sitting up and following his nod, although she can't see anything there and doesn't have the wherewithal to change that. "What does she look like?" Beat. "Do you think she was licked into shape? In some old stories that was the belief: that a she-bear had to lick her cub into a bear's shape, or it wouldn't be a bear. Have you been in Denver very long?"
It isn't a rhetorical question; her attention plunks from the patch of empty grass where a star-bright spirit Bear might be curled.
Alexander“Ars Vis?” For all of Alex’s time hanging around Kalen, the Hermetic terms for the forces had never really come up. Maybe this showed up some of the differences between Kalen and Pen’s backgrounds? Kalen had always been very open to Orphans and Disparates and other ways of Working, presumably because of his indirect way of coming to the Order. Maybe Pen took a less varied route in?
“Hands-on, yes. Crafts, not so much. I can change the oil in my bike, but no – I’m no craftsman.” It takes a moment to drain the last of the tea in the cup and set it back on the tray. A hand rests on the pot for a moment, feeling the cold ceramic. A shame, but possibly one that can be rectified... One hand remains on the pot, the other moves to hang just over the warm water.
Alex takes another look at Pen, cocking his head, when she asks what Callisto looks like. “A question for you before I answer. Have you seen any of the Umbra before? I’m assuming you don’t have much skill with Spirit, otherwise you’d probably have looked across and seen her before now. It’s just that something Nick said makes me curious.”
“A little over two years. I moved here from Seattle.”
His attention drifts, then, but not to any one thing in particular. Rather, it drifts onto nothing in particular. Alex closes his eyes and his breathing slows and deepens, as he feels the flow of heat up from the water into the cooler air. This is something new, untried, but it’s not something so different to moving a flame from a lighter to a camp fire. This, though, is something smoother rather than the stuttering steps that moving the flame had been. The sense of flow strengthens, some unseen river washing through Alex and Pen as he concentrates on that flow of heat. It’s surely something within his reach to redirect it through his will and into the pot...
As Ophelia among the lilies attended by rosemary for remembrance, here's rue for you, the Spring tugs Pen's skirt and the fabric billows around her, clouds gracefully a vibrant scrape of color just beneath the water's glassy now-transparent now-opaque churning, and all she needs are flowers hanging from her hair, braided by sap and scalp, twining that burnished hair that dying ember hair, but she has no flowers, and the resemblance there ends. Pen has an interesting face. Perhaps it could be a model for tragedy, but tragedy seems very far from her now: clear-eyed with a certain poise (if she were a star, she would not be falling. She would know the name of her own constellation [but of course one cannot be a constellation; only many can]).
Ars Vis? he asks. Her answer is plainly spoken: common-day. "A term for Ars Essentiae. The Essential Art. The Art of Natural and Elemental Forces."
He has a question for her before he answers, and Pen is still leaning forward, the water up to her ribs skimming the curve of her chest just above her elbows and her hands are clasped her rings gleaming silver and luminous where they just break the water and see how easily and how loosely her hands are folded? And her elbows are on her thighs, and she looks comfortable even with wildness of the Spring, the steam curling up, the flush beginning to steal across her skin which is too fair to take much heat without reaction.
"I have never seen the Umbra by my own Will, though I have seen places within it before, and I have no skill at all with that Art." It's not quite a shrug; Pen would like to be proficient in all things. "I've studied cosmology of the other worlds and some of the denizens which occupy it, but: well. "Is that where your interests lie; the spirit world?" Beat. "What did Nick say?" Because something Nick saying making Alex curious makes her curious, of course.
Alex has a hand over the Spring and the other on the ceramic tea pot and his attention drifts, he breathes in, deepens the breathing, finds a rhythm, stokes a rhythm, and Penelope does not interrupt what is clearly a Working, but only observes it.
AlexanderCompared to the wonders she may already have worked, the Working that Alexander pushes his will behind is a simple thing. There is heat in the water, rising gently as steam. It’s a small thing to pull some of that heat and push it into the tea pot, gently warming the tepid liquid into something more easily drunk. It doesn’t take long before a faint wisp of steam can be seen drifting out from the spout of the pot. Alex pulls his hands back from where they had been, rubbing them together to disperse the moisture from the pool and the heat from the pot.
“Is that your focus, then? Forces? I seem to recall that it tends to be of interest to most in the Order.” He lifts the pot, refilling the small cup sat on the tray. There’s a glance in Pen’s direction as he asks, “I can get another cup if you would like some?” If she does, it’s a short pause to fetch another cup from the kitchen, leaving her with a cup of green tea.
“He said that a lot of what we see, especially in the spirit world, is shaped by our expectations. I wasn’t convinced by that – my first sight of the other side was before I knew that there was one. So I’m curious what you would see if I were to try to show you her now. Would it be what you expect, I expect, or something based on the expectations of everyone who has already looked?
“Would you like to try?”
Penelope"Hmm. I'd say that it has been a focus. Most of my focus has been on the material world. This side. The physical aspect of it." When he asks if Forces are her focus.
"Thank you, yes." When he offers her tea. Pen would like some tea: it is an old courtesy, and even if Alex mayn't mean it as an old courtesy, there is something reassuring about it. The pause to fetch another cup is brief. In that brief span of time Penelope becomes more water-witchy and when Alex returns her hair is streaming, molten glass and bright shadow, an undine's twisting fall and water dripping from her earlobes and her nose, light-brimming water see how water conducts (resplendence), and the sleeve of her top folds against her arms with the drama of an oil painting, transparent and opaque at once, and she wipes her face with the palm of her hand and sniffles, opening her mouth on an exhale. She takes the cup he does not drink from when he has returned, and holds it in the palm of her hand, fingers cupped around. There is a whisper of steam rising from her shoulders, so hot is the Spring, from her hair, and a stronger ribbon of steam from the fresh-poured tea, and this one fragrant.
And see, the quickening of her attention when he answers her question. Says what he says. Pen parts her lips to make some reply, and then the coup de grace: Would she like to try?
Pen: she cants her head to the side, a quick bright thing; a drop of water which yet lingered at her earlobe trembles, gathers itself into a shape. There is a dark curl against her throat like a hook. Her resonance is one of Daring, and Daring is in her bones, in her blood, in her magick, in the way she regards the world, and after the span of a heart beat just one half ba- the bum is coming she says, "Yes I would." Here: flash of a swashbuckler's grin, it dredges a dimple from one cheek. "Though I have thoughts on perception and the spirit worlds. But yes, let's try! How can I help you?"
Alexander“Are there many of the Order who take an interest in spirits?” This is something of curiosity, seeking another point of view. Talking with Kalen had shown that attitudes towards the subject ranged from arrogant dismissal through to a rare passion. “It doesn’t seem like a subject that people with a primary interest in the material world would spend much time on.”
The tea, when it is taken, is not bitter as green tea tends to turn when left to stew. The remains of its brewing still sat in the kitchen, waiting on a small plate near the stove to be cleaned and cleared. The cup it comes in is a match for Alex’s; small, cracked-jade patterned, but uncracked in itself. It takes a short while longer than might be expected for simply fetching a cup from the kitchen. The cup, though, comes accompanied by a couple of towels retrieved from elsewhere in the house. The warmth of the Node will keep most of any night chill away, but that chill would return quickly when the moved away from the steaming water. And given Pen’s immersion in the water, she’s likely to need some way to dry off. Or perhaps it will turn out that she doesn’t. Call Alex old fashioned, or maybe just still learning the ways that Magick can be used.
There’s a snort of amusement which accompanies a curling of the corner of Alex’s mouth. “You make it sound like I’ve put any kind of effort into planning this. I think…” A pause, here, as he does contemplate what they’re going to try. “Tell me about what you’ve seen before? Where was it? In the city? Near the Gauntlet? I’m curious how it compares to what I’ve seen so far.” He pours a little more tea into his cup, but sets the cup aside for the moment. He does offer Pen a little more, if she would like.
Penelope"I've known a number of Spirit mages in the Order, and I don't... Hmm. I don't mean to say that, well. As far as I go, my focus on the material world doesn't indicate a lack of interest in the immaterial world, only a curriculum which begins here, where I am already standing, and will move on to compass everything else later on. And it isn't a narrow focus. I don't think there's much to be gained from a narrow focus, not when you might find yourself needing to be sufficient in and of yourself at any moment in time."
He'll learn, perhaps, that Pen is direct -- tries for frankness when she can be frank. Her thumb finds the edge of the cup, following the river-bed cracked pattern in the porcelain, the faint and almost missable texture.
"What I've seen before, hmm...?"
"It was me through a shallowing with someone who knew what she was doing, and how to bring someone like myself across. I should say I had no idea what was happening at first; it was in the city, and we went through and there was a white road, and the walls of the library we were in were still there and standing, but in places they shone, in other places they crumbled and it was more - it was this haphazard house; it had rooms, I think, that the library on this side did not have, and there were guardians all over. I remember colors being particularly bright, but I remember everything being washed out too - as if it was under a spell."
"How does it compare to what you've seen before? Tell me one of your stories."
Alexander“That sounds reasonable. My… experience, I suppose, hasn’t been quite as directed. I found there were certain things that I woke up with an awareness of. I’ve started getting a deeper understanding of them – like moving heat around – but I guess that my focus is still a little narrow. Not so much by choice, more… through not having quite figured things out with the other spheres. I’ve got an idea about Correspondence, but I just need to work on it some more.”
This time, rather than a snort, there’s a laugh. “Oh, I absolutely agree with never knowing what’s coming along next.” Had they been drinking something more toast-worthy – and had he had something in hand – he would have toasted to that. “The first time I crossed into the Umbra, I had no idea what was happening. A Sending dragged a few of us across to help its creator. It was…” There’s a wince as he remembers the sensation of crossing through the storm – relatively mild for him, so much worse for Sera. Alex’s gaze is still towards Pen, but he’s seeing somewhere else as he recounts the experience. “I’m pretty sure where we ended up didn’t match up with anywhere in this world. Definitely not where we started, at least. It was mountainous, with a cave system. The sky was red, where it could be seen through the clouds. Not like a sunset red, though. Blood red, maybe. There were things flying in the clouds, but nothing like birds. We were on the side of a deep valley. There were… things below. Difficult to see, just glimpses through the wilderness.”
He returns to the present again. “I can’t say I had any expectations of what should have been there, so maybe it was what the others expected to see? Or the creator of the Sending? Hell, maybe even the Sending itself? Maybe when it gained its sentience it also gained the ability to shape its world?”
This last sentence is punctuated by a shrug. Maybe Pen has her own theories on what shaped the place where they had found a long-dead Mage. There’s something to try, here and now. Grabbing his cup, Alex stands and moves closer to Pen before sitting down again, legs drifting in the water. “I think I just need to touch you to get this to work?” One hands still holds onto the cup, the other extends out – open-palmed – towards Pen.
PenelopePen sips from the tea cup as Alex tells his story, and the gloam-gray of her eyes is darkened by reflection but glints - see - with this shining suggestion of warmth because she is a responsive creature and his snort became a laugh and humans respond to other humans so. Maybe it's his air of a toastmaster without any toast; she inclines her head over the cup, and then her own expression becomes more solemn as his gaze goes dreaming again and he winces.
"How fascinating," she says, of the Sending, of the glimpses he had. "But I think you might be interpreting the idea of 'expectations' narrowly. When we dream, would you say our dreams are shaped by our expectations? I mean, we might have expectations, but not know them ourselves. Does that make sense?"
He stands; he moves closer. Pen drifts, too; sinking down in the water so it laps at her shoulders, at her pale collar bone: but no, she is flushed; the water is hot. Dramatic coloring; she drifts nearer, finds solid footing and perches on a rocky seat (still beneath the water; it rejuvenates; wellspring enchantment) by Alex's calf. He holds out his hand; Pen takes it, so curious, and consciously alert.
AlexanderDreams. A subject that he’d put some thought into himself. The place where he could find himself if he chose to direct his mind in a particular direction, was that a dream or something more conscious? It had always seemed that when he’d dreamt – assuming he remembered them – that it was either something related to events at the time, or something completely random that he couldn’t make sense of. “You mean expecting something unconsciously? Or subconsciously. Whichever. I accept that dreams can be shaped by the thoughts that we’re not aware of. But… Before I woke up, I would never have believed in any of this stuff. Hell, I didn’t believe in ghosts, spirits, magic. Religion was always just some way for the charlatans to get hold of your cash while thanking them for taking it. So I’m not sure how you can expect something when you outright disbelieve it in the first place.”
Hand offered and taken, Alexander lets the flow of conversation fade as his attention turns back to the cup in his other hand. Or, rather, his attention returns to the liquid inside it. It’s still – much stiller than the water of the pool, especially with Pen moving and disturbing the surface – and the lack of ripples leaves a smooth surface. He sees himself in the surface, and it’s something that allows his will to focus and change the world. Once again, the unseen river they stand in becomes noticeable as it flows on without beginning or end. Alex’s breathing slows again as his eyes start to seem somehow mirrored themselves.
[Ugh, bit rusty with this. Arete, Spirit Sight. 1 succ for the effect, 1 to affect Pen, 1 for threshold, chuck an extra one in to make it last more than a round. Diff is the Gauntlet, so 3. Right?]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (3, 9) ( success x 2 )
Alexander[Extending +1. Near the node, -1]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (1, 5) ( success x 1 )
Alexander[Extending, same diff]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (4, 5) ( success x 2 )
PenelopeThe flow of conversation ebbs because Alexander is about to do his Will. His attention turns back to the cup in his other hand; the mirror-flat surface of it; chalice, cup, grail; threshold. Pen watches Alexander do it. His Will flows, unbounded, over her; it is a veil, or it pulls aside a veil, and for a moment - even a moment more - Pen glimpses the spirit world as he Alexander sees it. Expectations: a bear, sleeping over there; that is where she looks; that nebulous there Alexander indicated at the beginning of their conversation. Her hand tightens on his. Reaction. Response.
AlexanderIt takes moments for the effect to build, for the wash of the felt-but-unseen river to wash over them both and pull them in its wake. The shift from one world to the other, though, happens in the blink of an eye. Before the closing of the eye, they’re by the Node pool near the Chantry house, surrounded by garden and pasture and forest. In the distance, perhaps some view of Denver itself; the city turning to a shape mostly defined by the yellow-and-white streetlights dotted through it.
After, though. Things aren’t so different, the two of them hadn’t fallen into some far-and-deep realm of the Umbra where there is little reflection of the material world. The basics are the same: the pool, the house, the forest. They’re all different in some way, though. Moth-like motes of spirit flit and fly and rest close to the water – some in the water – attracted to the thinning of the veil as if it were a source of light. Somewhere in the water – seen but untouched, as Alex’s affect only brings their sight across the veil – something ephemeral and eel-like in shape swims, the concept of dynamism of water given shape.
The house is there, darker than it was before. There are fewer moths gathering around it, as if wary of getting trapped in it somehow. To the perceptive, the iridescent light of cobwebs can just be seen in some of the darker corners; under the eaves, tucked away where the elements won’t reach them. The distant city rather than becoming darker, seems almost crystal-like. Huge, unchanging shards taking the shapes of the larger buildings, strung through with more of the web-like strands that glisten in the light.
The forest seems darker than before, dangerous. Not malevolent, as such. More primal. Hunter seeks prey, which seeks its own prey in turn. The spirits of animals, of the forest, of the hunt care less for good and evil than they do for survival. Life and death. An occasional glimpse of some undefined spirit can be caught in the fringes, before disappearing back into the dense, curling undergrowth.
The sky becomes more intense than before. Before the blink, the sky was beginning its turn from bright blue to the shades orange and red that lead into the dark of night. Now, those colours are there but so much more that they were. To someone with a more poetic soul than Alex, the day could be burning away in flames to be left with the shade of night. In the blazing colours, there’s movement. Zephyrs and djinn dance with the curling shapes that bring cloud to mind. In the fire, specks of light begin to appear.
And still slumbering in the direction that Alex had waved in earlier, stardust-coat shimmering as if alight, slumbers the shape of a bear. A very large, powerful bear. But, like the forest, there’s no sense of dangerous or malign intent. More… indifference. She stirs briefly, rheum-crystalled eyelids lifting for a moment to gaze at its two observers, before she returns to her dozing.
“I wonder if what you see if shaped by what I expected to see here, or if you see what you want to see. Either way, I do sometimes think this is where I find the most wonder.” Alex’s voice is quiet, almost reverent, for what he sees.
PenAs the effect takes hold, Pen stands: quick, long-limbed, rising to stillness; as if she were unsheathed. The water line reaches just below the swell of her hips; the poetic billow of her skirt shifts, slow and languorous; a superfluous movement which trails, echoing, behind her. She squeezes Alexander's hand because they were holding hands and because she is ardent which is to say she feels this moment keenly, squeezes it like to say look look and anchor. Penelope's hair is dripping, Ariel, Ophelia, is slick and dark at her shoulder blades, in a loose tangle over her collar; it has all the shadow in it which brightness will give. And she is: attentive; that is how the ardence expresses itself. Attentive, wide-eyed, first when she is staring at the bear, and then when she is looking around, and tipping her head back lily-maid to stare at the sky, and then she sinks back into the pool moving away from the seat (though she keeps Alexander's hand) to get a better look. And then she says,
"Now that I see I don't know whether the experiment is a fair one. Because, after all, this is your sight lent to me; that must bear the imprint of your thoughts." Pen: she grins, suddenly, crookedly, a young sort of grin; she won't explain herself, because she is grinning at the terrible pun of 'bear the imprint of your thoughts' when the spirit sight was lent so she could see a bear. The grin goes diffuse; it lends her sweetness; she's still staring at the sky.
"But it is all the best of dark and bright now. The creature is crystal and glass and starlight. The world is unchanged, but more nuanced; it has a different texture." Pen: she smacks her lips. "Something you could taste, like an unspoken word -- do you know? When it's right there. That's what I'm seeing. Colors. Things moving. Activity which is more obvious -- maybe because it is new to me and I am looking. Why do you think it where you find the most wonder?"
Pen: she looks at Alex now, cocking her head. "Is it important to you to have wonder?" Her voice: a bit confessional.
Alexander[Dice! Arete, testing/sensing the gauntlet. So spirit 1, I believe? 1 succ for the effect, 1 to share. Diff 4, -1 for the node.]
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (1, 7) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
AlexanderAlexander’s grip of Pen’s hand is something gentle, easily pulled away from if she chose to. An attempt to show him something similar had once gone rather wrong when he’d instinctive reacted to another’s presence in his mind. It was something he couldn’t stand at the time, and after recent events was something that he intended to find a way to stop. So it’s important to him that Pen can end this at any time she chooses. He smiles, though, as he watches her reaction to the change in their surroundings.
“You know, that’s probably true. I’ve never exactly been one for the scientific method, and this wasn’t exactly thought out. But I am curious how this compares to your previous sight. Or, if you get someone else to share their sight here, what difference there are. Unless what I’ve shown you here affects what you expect to see, so it’s what you see next time?” There’s a slight pull of his hand as his shoulders rise, shrugging. “What can I say; Disparate making things up as he goes along.”
Alex’s legs come out of the water, crossing under him as he shifts position and thinks about his response to wonder. He’s still silent, contemplative, as he lifts the cup up again with his free hand. The grip is odd, leaving his index finger free. Looking down at the still surface, he dabs it once with the tip of the finger. All around them, it seems as if the surface of reality ripples slightly. A ripple of cracks, finer filigree around the node itself, becoming coarser and less mobile as the ripples move away.
“I guess I struggled a bit with the whole Magick thing to start with. All it seemed to drag along with it was a whole load of shit. It helped being reminded that there was still some beauty in the world, you know? That it didn’t all lead to death and destruction.”
PenPen fixes her gaze back on Alexander as he says I've never exactly been one for; her lashes are wet and black; they stick together momentarily when she blinks, and look, slants a glance back toward the guardian of the fountain. Her interest in the bear is brief; she feels more interest toward Alexander, see, and she is the kind of listener who is an expressive listener. This wasn't exactly thought out, he says, and she is unrepentent; without regret. He says he's curious and she is solicitous; she'd like to sate his curiosity, somehow, or at least respond to it; she is ready to respond to it; she is readied.
Perhaps Alexander has found how some things help his magick: sympathetic magick it is called; a lock of hair for a person; a key for a house; and so on. Disparate making things up as he goes along: the flash of a smile is witch's spell; lake-light, on beaten metal; the loveliness of it; and see - she feels sympathy for that statement. "We're all making things up as we go along, I think. Only some of us have chosen to study a body of work, so we have shoulders of giants to stand on, etcetera. I learn as much from fucking around by instinct as I do by book, and I learn a lot by book." Now: Pen; she notes Alexander growing pensive, as he thinks about wonder. Notes it: then, "What is that? That ripple -- did you see it?" As he touches the water, as reality shifts: cracks: filigree and hoarfrost.
Beat. "I'm glad you found your way to being reminded of beauty. I think a lot of us, when we're new, find ourselves suddenly assailed -- besieged by things darker, maybe not than we'd imagined, but darker and more fixed in nature than we'd hoped before; and it can be lonely. What helped you?"
AlexanderIt would be fair to say, and Alexander would be one of the first to admit, that he is not much for book learning. It has been done, and it will be done again. But, for him, it’s not the best way. The easiest way. Instead, it tends to be more trial and error. Something instinctual, even. Training instinct and response based on what goes right and, often more importantly, what goes wrong. Perhaps not the safest route, when a mistake can do unfortunate things to the fabric of reality, but it is simply what works for him. And that, which he’d also easily admit, is what put him off the Order when Kalen had asked him to consider joining. Fighting against the prejudice that he’d woken up unassisted and untrained, simply working out what worked for him when it wasn’t the Right Way according to centuries of doing what other people thought was the right way? Well, he hoped it wasn’t too painful when those who took that view needed to extract their wands.
His Magick, though, did often focus through instinct and sensation more than analysis and deliberation. Something touched or felt in some way; the elements, reflections, the meditative act of feeling nothing at all. Perhaps there’s a little of the Cultists in him somewhere.
It was interesting, though, to hear Pen say that everyone was making things up as they went along. “I thought that the Order had specific ways of doing things? A circle of something or other, with this wood and that jewel.” The comment isn’t intended to be insulting; it’s something of the little that he has picked up about the way that the Order tends to work. “Because that had always worked for everyone in the past, so it will work for everybody in the future?”
Alex smiles when reality seems to ripple – their perception of it, at least - perhaps feeling her hand tighten in his as the surprise. “Sorry, I should probably have warned you before I did that. That’s the Gauntlet. Well, maybe how I see it anyway. You saw how it was more cracked and fluid closer to the node? That’s why it’s easier for things to pass through here.”
What helped you? “I think seeing what we can do helping to put things right? Making things a little better, easing a little pain. Giving a little peace.” In the end, isn’t that all he’d ever really hoped for? “I think I’ve been luckier than a lot of people who Awaken away from the Traditions. I’ve always had people I can lean on.” Even the times when I pushed them away, they were still there.
PenHe apologizes and Pen shakes her head: don't worry about it. Even when she startles, even when she sharpens up, unsheathed, see, even then she is poised; careful rather than careless, careful even when some aspect of her is careless; and she draws some sigil in the water, some idle mark, some word, and it is just a word, and water does not hold it, and the water takes it away, and she flattens the palm of her hand just above the steam; looks for her hands reflection, ghostly, but the water is too much roiling.
"That's not exactly so." Her response to his supposition about the Order. She does not seem to have taken offense, but Pen is an open-hearted woman. "'Because that has always worked for everyone in the past' is a poor foundation for any Work; I think it would only leave you open to disappointment, especially given the current reality Consensus. My master taught me to improvise; I have sometimes thought that is why he accepted me as a student. Because I could improvise more readily than some of his other students. But when I began to practice as a Hermetic, I accepted certain universal truths, and I pull from symbols that - yes - men and women before me have poured over and experimented with. That does not keep me from experimenting; it only gives me a frame work. Does that make sense? It's like learning how to write. And then breaking rules, later on, or making up your own make believe language."
"I'm glad you have people. It's good to have them." Ardent: right? And maybe clear, see, how capable she is of love; it's in her voice; it's in the simplicity of the statement, the awareness of what the words mean as she says them; it's somehow an immediate thing. She tugs gently on Alex's hand.
"Won't you come in the water? I'll dry your clothing after. If you're concerned about it."
And: "Even what you just did: showing me how you see the Gauntlet. It is different from my past brushes with somebody else dragging me along on their adventure. With the other I didn't notice the passage, except for where it hurt; there was no sign of this world. Once I was given a glimpse of Shades - the restless dead - gathering close over a bowl of blood; but that's all of the sight I was afforded that time."
AlexanderThe symbol isn’t recognised as anything of significance, but Alex watches as Pen holds her hand above the water and looks for the reflection. It makes him wonder, would I see our world in a reflection? Something to try later, perhaps.
The conversation with Pen is what keeps his attention, a chance to learn a little more about the Order. He still has no illusions that he will join – become Kalen’s shining knight – but it’s still something of interest, something that perhaps corrects a few misperceptions. “I guess I see what you’re saying. Would you say that’s something more specific to your house? From what I understand, Flambeau are like the soldiers of the Order, so you’ve probably got the greater need for improvisation that someone who never sees outside of their library?”
Won’t you come in the water… Mirror-tinged eyes turn to look at Pen as she gently pulls on his hand. “Are you sure you weren’t a siren in a previous life, drawing men to their watery doom?” There’s a curling of a corner of his mouth as he adds, “Assuming you can carry a tune in a bucket. I think that’s a job requirement or something.” Alex does shift, though, to move the tray and its cup a little further away and to pull anything likely to be upset by immersion from his pockets before hopping down into the water.
“I guess it’ll likely be different when other people show you, too. But I’m curious, now, how you’ll see things when it’s your will behind it. You make it sound as if your first encounter wasn’t exactly willing, though.” There’s an unspoken question behind it, tell me?. “That pain, it sounds like passing through the Storm. I’ve heard its finally died away, but haven’t had the opportunity to see if that’s true yet. I’d guess you went somewhere deeper, if it didn’t look like it had any ties to this world. I think the further you go, the less the worlds mirror each other.”
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