Participants:
| Scene Title | Wind Blows |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | A meeting between the Fates. |
| Date | August 19, 2018 |
The burnt orange of the sun has begun to sink behind buildings and the wilderness that has grown back over New York City and the Safe Zone. The streets of the community filled with families, friends and loners milling about. Leaving work or just starting. Park Slope is a bit more quiet than the rest of the neighborhood this late afternoon and among the overgrown townhouses sits a woman.
Perched alone on a ruined, overgrown stoop that has veins snaking around the stairs and windows. The door all but invisible behind the greenery. Her own veins pop out against her pale skin as she taps the end of her almost finished joint, it would seem Eve Mas is back on the pot. The dark haired woman is wrapped in a long washed out gray sweater coat that sweeps the steps and the leaves that haven't been disturbed by her occupying the space. The hem of a light dark purple peeks out from underneath the coat and the oracle’s ever present messenger bag sits open next to her. Her scuffed combat boot nudges the collapsed metal bo staff laying on the last step of the stoop.
Whistling softly to herself she checks a watch on her wrist the minutes set just five minutes ahead. Eve taps the clear face of it as she watches the minute hand move. An long exhale of smoke and the woman grinds the end of the joint on the heel of her boot. The setting sun catching her doe brown eyes making her blink.
It isn’t often that Jim finds himself somewhere without really knowing why he’s ended up there, but it happens. Well, it’s bound to, right? And tonight is just one of those nights. The first night off in a while, and it seems he’s spending it wandering around Park Slope, looking for…something. However, there are far worse places to end up, and even if he isn’t really quite sure what exactly it is that’s brought him here, he can still enjoy it.
He’s looking around as he makes his way through the urban wilderness, his eyes lighting on a particularly wild-looking weed here, a likely bit of rubble there. Anything, really, that might help him make sense of whatever he’d seen. His steps aren’t hurried, though — it wasn’t really one of those visions. Not really more than a feeling, anyway, a few scattered images sticking out vibrantly among the more vague shapes of his own thoughts.
Precognition is not an exact science, as we know.
He nods to a few people as he passes them, and exchanges a word with one or two, but he doesn’t stop until he sees Eve. It’s not really a conscious thought that starts him toward her, either, just more of the same feeling, that maybe she’s part of the reason why he’s here.
“Got any more?” he asks when he gets close enough, a half-smile quirking up the corner of his mouth. “I’m good for it.”
The dog arrives first — fluffy, friendly, and off-leash, Misty rambles up the derelict street with every evidence of purpose in her actions, ears perked and tail held high. Sighting Eve and Jim, the dog pads directly for them, stopping at the bottom of the steps. She gives a quiet whuff in greeting, all exhale and no voice; then she leans in to twitch her nose at the invitingly open bag. One watchful eye remains on the bag's owner throughout: caaaan I check this out?
The dog's owner proves to be trailing about half a block behind, blue nylon leash coiled about her right forearm. Tamara closes the distance at a steady, unhurried pace, clearly unconcerned by Misty's roaming ahead — and by the fact of her gravitating towards people. She offers no called-ahead assurance of the dog's gentle nature, nor attempts to summon the dog back. Instead, she simply does some gravitating of her own, finally coming to a halt within easy conversational distance but not personal-space close.
"Is the sky blue?" Tamara asks Jim, patently rhetorical about it. Reaching up to tuck loose hair behind her ears, she offers both of the others a smile. She's dressed for a walk: shirt to match her question, cutoff shorts, sneakers, and the ever-present necklace and ring.
"And are we on time?" she asks of the woman on the stoop, brows arched and tone light; that's a rhetorical question, too, or maybe just facetious.
Shading her eyes from the sun with a hand she takes in Jim's form with a warm smile and her gaze flicks to the bag at her feet, there is more of course, it's Eve but her finger rises to wag at the man with a mischievous expression on her face, “A little later. She and smoke don't mix.” For their similarities there were also stark differences between the sibyls. Marijuana and sedatives worked for Eve but for her Sister Seer.. Eve was afraid of the effect. “I like your eyes,” a compliment for the tall man.
Right on cue it seems, Misty comes forward and Eve lets out a small laugh at the curious pet. Leaning over she scratching her ears, “Well you are just delightful each time I see you ol girl.” Her free hand goes to her open messenger bag to pull out a bag of treats, store bought. “May she?” A smile towards Tamara as she shakes the bag gently.
The watch on Eve’s wrist ticks by silently and she gives Tamara a wide grin, “And I like your eyes too.” Eve feels giddy at the sight of the two but she calms herself, her loose hand tightening and untightening from a fist. The pages of her sketchbook sit closed just peeking out of her messenger bag. Eve’s dreams and these new waking hallucinations causing an effect on the woman she had thought she outgrew. The sleep alluding her, or the illusion of losing such evident in the dark circles around her eyes. It's been two days since she last truly slept.
Maybe this evening will be the one.
Whatever had been in Jim’s mind is momentarily blocked out by the dog. Maybe that’s what he was waiting for! But no, on closer inspection, she is just a dog. A cute dog, and Jim squats down, reaching a hand out to steady himself against what might have once been a railing as he offers the opposite toward the dog slowly in a loose fist to sniff. It’s an absent gesture, though, more from habit than that he’s trying to compete with whatever’s in Eve’s bag. Not that he could, unless there’s magically some bacon in his hand (there is not).
Tamara’s arrival distracts him yet again, and he looks over at her, his eyes sliding up to her face with that same sort of vague recognition he’d gotten with Eve. Not knowing, yet knowing. Close, but just out of reach, and flitting further away if he tries to grasp it. It’s the kind of thing that needs to be examined peripherally, with caution. No sudden movements. He returns her smile, though, inclining his head in greeting before he looks up at the sky like he’s going to check. Is it? Well, generally.
He doesn’t answer that rhetorical, though — instead he says, “Hey.” His gaze moves back to Eve then, and her first words get another nod, before his smile widens slightly at the compliment. “Thanks.”
Misty gives Jim's reach a brief glance of the kind that confirms who he is and what he's doing, and does him the courtesy of touching her nose to his hand in greeting — though it's true that he just doesn't hold a candle to Eve right now in her regard.
Tamara waves a permissive hand in Eve's direction as the treats are revealed. To do otherwise would be to disappoint Misty, who has sat herself down and cocked her head expectantly. Dark brown eyes alternately look between the hand holding the bag and the woman it belongs to, communicating the weight of the dog's expectant anticipation with nothing more demanding than expression alone.
Polite is clearly an accurate descriptor of the dog.
In contrast, Tamara's attention continues to rest on Jim, her head tilted in unintentional echo of Misty's, although with completely different tenor. Her regard is thoughtful, considering rather than anticipatory. "You're looking for something," she observes, "the right piece in the right place." Her words aren't a question, nor quite an offer either; they owe more to recognition, a sense of sympathy.
Given permission to spoil Misty and Eve does so offering her a treat and a scratch of the ears afterwards, she is a polite girl. One more is fed to the dog before the tall woman is leaning back against the stoop to observe Tamara and Jim, her hand going to pick at a leaf next to her thigh expression whimsical at Tamara’s words. “I use to try to mash the piece in, brute force. Doesn't work so much.” Doesn't work at all the older woman would admit but there's a light shrug that follows, “I've been learning.” Over the past few years that is.
The former terrorist’s eyes cloud as she thinks about the multiple times she's just missed the pieces never to find their rightful place. The lives lost and the ones ruined beyond repair. Eve had found that you just couldn't attend to it all but she still held an argument in: why see if not to stop or to help along? Not an question that Eve felt was going to be answered in her lifetime and she was coming to grips with that but as the line between vision and reality continually blurs she can't help but wonder where the anchor point is.
All these things show a multitude of expressions on Eve’s face before she's leaning forward to inspect Jim’s eyes closer it would seem, “You have been looking huh?” Echoing Tamara’s earlier statement.
Jim nods to Misty at the little nose tap, and once she focuses on the bag again, he withdraws his hand again, sitting back on his heels. He looks up to Tamara again, his head tipping fractionally to the side in a mirror of hers as he studies her right back.
“Something like that,” he admits with a little amused huff after a moment’s pause, without much surprise that she’s asked that. He doesn’t consciously realize why he’s not surprised; it’s another one of those things that you could think too hard about, or just accept, and this time he opts for the latter. It fits with the rest.
“Looking,” he continues with a shrug as he looks back to Eve, “yeah. For what, I’m not sure.” With that he rolls even further back until he’s just sitting on the sidewalk, or whatever remains of it, and he pulls a knee up to rest his elbow on it. “Maybe some good company.” If that’s the case, he seems to feel that he’s found it, since he doesn’t seem about to get up and continue on his way.
Misty waits hopefully for a third treat — hopefully, and in vain. Once she's accepted it won't be forthcoming, the dog turns to Jim and gives him a more thorough scrutiny with curious eyes and attentive ears and cool, damp nose to catch the scents of everywhere he's recently been.
Meanwhile, Tamara smiles down at Eve, affectionate and approving. "Force has its places," she allows, "but pieces can be sensitive things." Fragile. Delicate. Or maybe just persnickety and particular. The blonde drops to join the others on the ground, seating herself on time-etched blacktop with knees drawn up and arms draped over them.
She looks on with a slight smile as Misty moves from examining to attempting to cajole scratches from Jim with nothing more than the gravitas of dignified expectation. Of course you will pet me, it's what people do. A lesson born of lifelong canine experience, that one.
"What would you like to be looking for?" Tamara asks curiously, reflection of Jim's remark but directed equally towards both of her companions.
“What better company than us hmm?” A Cheshire. Cat smile lights up Eve’s face as she answers Jim, “What a trio we make, I’d say.” The older woman pats herself down but apparently doesn't find what she's looking for, “Next time,” she comments absently and returns her gaze to Tamara and she looks sheepish, “Boy are you telling me.”
Sensitive indeed.
The oracle was learning a new approach to dealing with the pieces, or she is finally taking notice of the approach after years of ignoring it. “Rivers and ripples and dark skies.” A wave of her hand. “Sister Seer has a point ya know,” her question? “What do those fine eyes want?”
That is a question. The question, maybe. And the question requires a very thoughtful answer, or at least one that is going to make any sense. Of course, in this crowd things make sense that might not to most people, and also the other way around. It’s the way of things.
In any case, Jim doesn’t answer immediately, though he studies Tamara for several seconds even as his hand moves to pay the tribute expected to Misty. It’s automatic — no question, Misty must have proper greetings. He looks from Tamara to Eve, then, and the latter gets the same scrutinizing gaze, though with a very slight widening of the smile.
“What do I want,” he repeats, another moment’s thought given, before he continues. “Some clarity, maybe. Help picking through metaphors.” So, you know. The usual. “I saw fire…or maybe it was water. Maybe something else. Tried to make sense of it but I haven’t yet. Even less how to stop it.” His mouth twists then, wryly. It isn’t the first time he’d be too late, and it won’t be the last — if he let it get to him every time it happened he wouldn’t be walking around and living life in the more or less functional state that he is. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt, though.
The blonde regards Jim with expectant patience, clearly indifferent to being an object of scrutiny. Meanwhile, Misty is completely oblivious to all scrutiny and weighty conversation, reveling in the uncomplicated joy of friendly attention. When Jim finally proffers a response, Tamara's lips thin in a rueful moue, and she shakes her head, hair sliding across her shoulders with the motion.
"Not a question I can answer," she says with evident regret. "Symbols don't explain well." Not hers to others, and not others' to her. But in the wake of that statement, the tilt of her head shades thoughtful, her regard of Jim contemplative.
(( OOC: Jim, do you know anything about places / times / people that would help in interpreting what he saw? It's possible for Tam to point him in a direction that provides illumination, if so. ))
“Metaphors,” throwing a hand in the air with a widen of her eyes, the three of them were pelted with them often and they weren't able to decipher or to translate to others, this another a bit of common ground they share. Eve frowns at the notion of a flame or water washing over them, “Maybe water.. I was drowning in something I experienced, though there were.. hands. Lots of them. Covering me.” Shaking her head to rid herself of the hallucination that she didn't just see but experienced as a whole, at least her body playing tricks on her.
Crossing her legs lightly mindful of the one that's on the mend her eyes are on Tamara’s form before saying, “Enlighten us further Brother Seer.”
Jim looks from Eve to Tamara, and back again, sitting just a little bit further back as he considers. He doesn’t seem reluctant, just as though he’s trying to put it into the right words, words that might actually help. Eve’s admission gets raised eyebrows, and he studies her for a moment or two, before he takes a breath, letting it out slowly.
“At first, I was standing in a forest,” he begins. “The smoke choked me, and I could see the fire coming toward me. A wave of animals started coming out of it over me, small ones first, then bigger. It was so hot I thought I was going to burn up. Then suddenly I was in a boat, a small one. A rowboat. Another bigger boat nearly runs me over, and there’s still the wall of fire, but now it’s coming toward a pier, and it’s filled with people jumping off because they’re trying to get away. Then I fell into the water, but it wasn’t water, it was just hot smoke and ash.” He shakes his head, “That’s all I got. Nothing more specific.” It’s clear that he wishes there was, but we all know what they say about wishes.
((OOC: Sorry for the delay, guys! The last few days really ate up my time. ))
Tamara grins at Eve's dramatic expression of frustration, then turns expectant attention to Jim. Her fingers reach out to tweak the dog's tail, without so much as a glance to accompany the action; Misty gives a sharp look her way, then pads over to flop down on the pavement in a sprawl that offers zero recognition of anyone else's personal space.
"The mirror is water all the way down," she remarks to Eve after, a seeming non-sequitur. "Metaphors, too." Blue eyes flick back to Jim, then past him, a pensive cant to her head, pupils dilating in the gathering twilight — perhaps not just for that reason.
After a while, she shakes her head, loose hair gleaming in the fading light. "Let it sleep a while," Tamara says, giving Jim a sympathetic, rueful smile. "If there's clarity, it isn't soon — and it doesn't need to be, either."
“The river runs,” Is her answer to Tamara and Eve agrees, “All the way down.” A whimsical expression on her face as she settles back on her elbows again, regarding Tamara and Jim’s exchange with a interested look, eyebrows raise at their words. It sounds like.. “Cataclysm.” Shuddering at the thought but Tamara’s words of advice are dead on, more clarity will come. Not soon though. “Listen to sweet Tamara, she knows. We know,” indicating all three of them. “We help, each other. A trio!” Eve’s smile is warm and wide and she revels in the thought, though people with abilities she can relate too. It’s something even more special, bonding with the other precognitives. Her brother and sister Seer.
Eve looks up the sky with a frown as a thought crosses her mind, “It’s coming you know,” briefly she stops speaking to blow a breath at a loose strand of hair, “The Entity, Golden Eyed Demon.” This is breaking the rules of not speaking in order to not spread but these two out of anyone should know everything. “It spreads as we speak of it like a vile virus but.. I wanted you to be on the lookout and know. It’s coming.” Her encounters with the Entity are fresh in her mind and she gives pause quickly followed by another shudder running through her pale body, “Be careful please. It can see us..”
It knew them already.
Whether Jim understands what Tamara says to Eve or not, he doesn’t comment on it — he lets it be for now, maybe another thing to let sleep, that may become clear eventually. It’s a learned skill that takes a lot of practice, putting aside the need to understand everything all the time immediately. It helps when your life is the opposite of that, though; as the other two know.
He nods once when she turns back to him and makes the suggestion, and his smile returns, even though it’s a little bit wry. “True enough,” he concedes, looking from Tamara to Eve, and the smile becomes a little warmer as he lets go of that need to know, and instead lets that shared happiness of similarity — and understanding — wash over him.
It’s brief, though. Eve’s next words take care of that — his smile drops off like a stone down a well. There’s a shiver down his spine as well, not quite as obvious as Eve’s, but it’s there if you’re looking carefully. He doesn’t speak, but just looks between the two, and nods once, an acknowledgement — and a promise.
Blue eyes turn towards Eve as the older woman goes pensive; those eyes close, lips below them thinning, in the moment before Eve speaks. "White stones in the moonlight," Tamara states, and while her symbolism might be opaque, the rebuke of her tone is very, very clear. "And you spend them on those who know?"
Going silent, the seeress simply shakes her head slowly.
After, Tamara uncurls and rises to her feet. She gives no cue to Misty, but the dog doesn't need one; she scrambles up as well and, apparently unperturbed by the shadow that's fallen over the three humans, promptly sticks her head under Eve's arm and peers up at her in hopeful plea.
Meanwhile, Tamara steps over and turns to set her hands on the shoulders of the other two, taking advantage of the distraction Misty unwittingly provides to lean down and press a brief parting kiss to Eve's hair. Jim gets a ruffle of his a moment later. "Go," she says. "Enjoy the evening; there's a lot still left.
"Don't borrow trouble," she instructs them most sternly, "there's always more waiting, anyway."
“And if ya don't know now ya know..” quoting the famous rap lyric with a bop of her head before she slides her gaze over to Tamara and offers a raise of her eyebrows as she ruffles Misty’s ears, no more treats but affection will do. Eve sharing that infection with Jim and Tamara seemed to be necessary in Eve’s eyes. Even though they might soon have their own encounters if they hadn't already, “Ok fine we never speak of it. We just do what needs doing.”
A promise she gives to her fellow sibyls.
“All I've known is trouble on the road and my anger brings me souls.. of the damned.” The pale woman sings softly, her words almost lost on the wind. A look given to Jim as Eve pulls out the joint she saved from inside her cleavage, “Let’s toke and enjoy, come I'll show you there wild flowers. Not edible though. Never eat. Just peer.”
With that the pale woman stands to her feet and goes to grab for her messenger bag, nudging Misty one more time with a wink. “Off we go, no tripping please. The rabbit hole is far too large and too deep, draw you right in yep.” Whistling the woman pulls Jim along and looks over at Tamara, the younger woman always welcome to join but Eve knows how the smoke can get to her. “We can blow along the current.”
Jim accepts the ruffle from Tamara — in fact, he grins, some of that pensive concern lifting for a moment in favor of something a little bit lighter, springing from instant camaraderie. He stands up then, about ready to go, but he’s stopped by the appearance of the joint, and he’s happy to go that way, too.
“I’ll keep it in mind,” he says with just a hint of dryness, but with enough humor there to cut any edge that might have been there. He’s mellow to begin with, too — not too many edges on this one that can be seen. No, anything sharp is kept well-hidden, at least among friends. Which is clearly what they are, despite never having met before. He looks over his shoulder at Tamara with raised eyebrows to see if she’ll come, too.
Misty seems faintly disappointed when no treat proves forthcoming, but she accepts the simple physical affection with good grace. The dog casts a thoughtful-seeming glance towards Jim, then pads over to join her person, who's stepped away from the other two.
"We always did," Tamara assures Eve, nodding once.
Go, the seer said, and go she meant. Leaning down to clip Misty's leash into place, she casts a glance back to the other two, smiling and giving a shake of her head to their mutually unspoken question. Instead, the blonde waves jauntily and starts off in the opposite direction, heading for the cross-street that will take her home.