Participants:
| Scene Title | Messages and Metaphors |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Tamara and Ygraine go for a walk and some conversation, in which Ygraine relays messages. |
| Date | November 21, 2011 |
Jaiden's Lakeside Resort, Kabetogama, MN
A great stride forward can take the form of a rather small step. A few minutes ago, Ygraine was loitering just outside the front door of the cabin as she awaited her patient’s emergence into the outside world. Standing ready to offer a supportive hand or a pair of arms to fall into, she nonetheless did her best to suppress the urge to fret.
Instead, she focused upon the progress made, and her pleasure at seeing the blonde up, active, and happy. Those sentiments were only reinforced as the pair progressed from setting foot beyond the door to strolling through sunshine down the slope towards the rich, deep blue of the lake. Still, she forces herself to fight off the temptation to simply revel in the present: instead, she thoughtfully considers Tamara, trying to work out whether to broach the topic of some small parts of the period in which her friend was elswhere.
There are no stumbles as Tamara emerges from the cabin, though she does link arms with Ygraine as they venture down towards the lake. It's a bright and pretty day, and the younger woman tips her head back as they walk, closing her eyes and drawing in a deep breath of unconfined air. She doesn't consciously recall her near-year of sequestration… but an intuitive awareness persists, the memory of taste and touch and smell, the residues of habituation and adaptation. There is difference here, change, and the change is welcome.
So too is the company.
As they turn to walk along the shoreline, Tamara casts a sidelong glance at her companion. Smiles with affection, with a wry twist. "It wasn't a day for fishing. Wasn't a week for fishing," she amends. "But your ghosts were always welcome, if you wanted to bring them out."
“Ghosts, hrmmm?” Ygraine offers Tamara an amused and interested look, thoughts dancing over a few possible meanings for that. She’s confused more than one friend with talk of darkness and demons lurking behind the fractures in her own mind, but ghosts tend not to be part of her personal pantheon of horrors. Instead, her thoughts skitter away to Pepper’s Ghost, and images cast onto invisible mirrors….
Then she manages to haul her attention back to her companion, offering her an apologetic grin and a self-conscious laugh. “Sorry. You sent my thoughts miles away,” She leans into Tamara for a moment, squeezing the blonde’s arm. “Stagecraft and illusions. Mirrors that most cannot see, so when they are shown an image they are confounded by it - and miss the underlying reality behind it.”
Tamara smiles indulgently as Ygraine's thoughts meander, entirely unbothered by the drift of her attention. "Walks are for wandering," she says in response to the apology given, shaking her head to dismiss it. No apology needed. Echoing Ygraine's lean in kind, the younger woman remains quiet for a few paces, watching a pair of geese paddle away in the shallows, wary of even landbound passers-by. "No one saw everything," Tamara observes at last. "Everyone works with what they have."
“Oh, but I tend to find myself attempting to worry about everything,” Ygraine counters - albeit with an amiable grin accompanying her words. “I wound up with Pepper’s Ghost because I wondered quite what ‘ghosts’ of mine you would welcome. Then… off on a tangent I went, to reflections and differing perceptions, and….”
She shrugs, smiling again, her own gaze drifting to the geese for a few moments. “Are there any of my ghosts whom I should be trying to bring forth, do you think? Any that you would be interested in?”
Stepping forward and pivoting to face Ygraine, Tamara proceeds to walk backwards, without any concern whatsoever for anything she might collide with. She won't, of course. She does take up both of her companion's hands, swaying them from side to side in time with their steps. "They're your ghosts," the seer replies, as though that should be sufficient answer of itself.
A few steps later, Tamara smiles at Ygraine, then releases one hand and falls in at her other side. "We talked about whatever you wanted," she says. "I think you had other things to say, too."
Instinctively, Ygraine spares a moment or two to check the path behind Tamara… then succeeds in letting herself relax that portion of her mind so that she can instead return the smile, cooperating with the hand-sway.
“There are… too many. Always too many ghosts. Maybe there always were too many in here with me, but these past few years…” A sigh, then another smile, flashed sidelong at the young woman now once again by her side. “At least I lose myself to them less often than I did, for a time. But you’re quite right. There are things that I have been asked to tell you. That I want to.”
In spite of those words, she falls silent for a few strides, gaze fixed upon a distant speck moving above the tree-line. When she looks back to Tamara, she nods slightly. “People have been pleased to hear that you survived the Ark. And that I was endeavouring to look after you. I have not attempted to spread word that you are awake, as yet. But… people want you to be alive and well, and were happy that I could tell them that the first part, at least, was true.”
She gives Tamara’s hand a quick, fond squeeze. “Robyn Quinn particularly asked me to pass on her good wishes. I admit that I don’t know how well you got to know her at Gun Hill - or anywhere else - but she wanted you to know that she was thinking of you, and hoped for your recovery.”
Tamara looks up as Ygraine does, but the distant bird holds little interest for her. She simply waits, and regards her companion attentively when the woman finally does speak, head canted slightly. The statements are taken in, considered, figuratively turned over and their core significances weighed. "You could tell if you wanted," Tamara remarks at last, dipping her head in a slight nod. "It didn't bother."
The seer is briefly quiet again as she contemplates the name; its associations are… murky. "Robyn," she echoes, testing the word as one might a concept that is almost familiar. "She wasn't close. But…" Tamara squints into the distance, seeing something other than lake and woods and leaf-littered ground. "Yes," she pronounces a moment later, smiling at Ygraine with what seems a hint of satisfaction.
“She cares for Colette,” Ygraine tangentially explains, before her lips twitch in humour again. “Though she’s not one of us who tried actually taking care of her at any point, so far as I know. Colette… appointed herself a mentor, of sorts, in Rob-, in Quinn’s attempts to develop her photokinesis. Her approach was, ahh, quite literally horrific, at least for one evening. But it seemed to shock and scare developments in capability that my much more careful methods hadn’t come close to managing….”
A slight shake of her head, then she cracks a swift, bright grin. “Well, I suppose that night could constitute one of my ghosts,” she admits cheerfully. “But there’s another message for you: a rather more specific one. It’s either… very simple, or far too cryptic for me. Richard Cardinal would like you to know that he hopes it will be Spring soon, so that the cedars can end up where they belong.”
One brow arches, to see what Tamara might make of that. Evidently, it’s bewildered Ygraine in a way that even the seer’s pronouncements rarely do.
Tamara listens with patience as Ygraine expounds upon her tangent, smiling in reflection of her amusement. She herself, however, expresses no particular opinion on the secondhand story — not on the subject of mentorship nor of shock and horror. As Ygraine continues on, Tamara pats her arm briefly. "Of course it is," she says.
Another message elicits a tip of the seer's head, a sharpening of interest. A smile that broadens into a pleased grin — there is no uncertainty here, no hesitance, no lack of recognition. "Yes," Tamara replies, confident, assured. "You could tell the owl that, too. The mirror was there."
“The owl? Ygraine can’t immediately bring that to mind as a reference Tamara has used before, at least in her presence. Classical symbolism, of course - some rather dear to her heart, right up to a certain clockwork owl in a beloved old movie… but could the owl be Cardinal? He does employ at least some avian symbolism, and could certainly be considered an insightful creature of the night….
A slight shake of her head accompanies a chuckle. “Richard is the owl? Interesting choice. I suspect that he’d like the idea of ghosting through the world on silent wings. And I’ll pass it on, when next we talk. Which, I hope, will be soon. I… need to find some time when I can pass on to him a last gift from Liz.”
Ygraine grimaces slightly. Though Tamara was unconscious for the message-deliveries that the Briton has performed since acquiring those final kindnesses from Elisabeth, Ygraine is quite confident that the seer will be well aware of the burdens she still bears, and that still need to be brought to their intended recipients and destinations.
Then she finds another smile, leaning into Tamara a little. “Whether it’s literal or a metaphor, I’m glad that you see the cedars properly in place in Spring-time,” she says - quite honestly pleased, whether it’s symbolic or mundanely real. “We could all do with Spring, and things where they should be.”
Tamara pats Ygraine's hand sympathetically as she grimaces, offers the woman a gentle smile. "It was still there," she assures. "On a horizon."
Then she releases Ygraine, walks on ahead, turns and ventures down to the water's edge. Tamara inspects the shore for a few moments before scooping up a pebble and turning her contemplation to the water. She turns the stone around in her hand, then finally snaps her hand out and sends it skipping across the water: one, two, three, plunk.
"How many did you think you could get?" she asks of Ygraine over her shoulder, a friendly invitation, a mild challenge.
Ygraine grins. “Now, if my ability was what most people seem to assume it is, I could cheat like crazy. As it is… hrmmm. I’m usually pretty good at this. But trying it in gloves’ll be new.”
Moving to join Tamara, she turns her attention to the ground. Crouching down, she sifts through pebbles to find one that fits nicely into her hand, and has a good flattish side. Then she rises to her feet, eyeing the water. “My first one often just disappears beneath the surface immediately. But let’s see if I can get back into the hang of this on my first go. I used to always prefer this, to swimming in the sea off the British coast, during Summer holidays…. Still, let’s say… five? And hope that I don’t embarrass myself.”
She is out of practice, she does have a glove hindering her grip, and she’s unaccustomed to throwing in her heavy Winter coat. Still, there are certain intrinsic advantages that go with being an international-class sportswoman, and even a somewhat mishandled throw results in one, two, three, four, *plosh* - to be swiftly followed by a surprised grin.
Tamara watches Ygraine deliberate over pebbles, talk her way into making the pitch, and at last throw the stone. The seeress holds her brief applause until after the stone's fifth and final contact with the water's surface, casting Ygraine a pleased grin. "Exactly it!" She promptly snatches up another rock with seemingly no consideration of its qualities whatsoever, extending it out for the Brit to take. "How about this one?"
Apparently it's been deemed time to move on from serious conversation.
Laughing, Ygraine hesitates a moment… then accepts the stone, crouching down to collect a comparably round and misshapen one which she offers to Tamara in return. “Thank you,” is gravely intoned, before she flashes a grateful, happy, open grin at her companion. “Together, this time,” she suggests — trusting the seer to time her motion just right, so that the pair of them can generate synchronous ripples.