Participants:
| Scene Title | Witch in the Wood |
|---|---|
| Synopsis | Beware the witch…. |
| Date | April 8, 2020 |
Pine Barrens
Night has not approached the woods of the Pine Barrens but the sun had started it's slow descent to slumber a little bit ago, the approaching twilight washes the trees in a eerie light made all the more eerie by the sight of a crimson mist that hangs in the air almost draped over the trees like some bloody shroud. A chill breeze ripples through the cloud and it stretches outwards before balling in on itself and settling on a high tree branch. With a shift the woman known as Eve Mas now lays on the branch, feet dangling out into the air, toes wiggling.
Her dark red dress is tattered at the ends and her dark mane of hair is messy and stopping at the middle of her back. Deep red lipstick and gold eyeshadow with hints of rogue adorn her face. Eve hums like she doesn't have a care in the world and opens her mouth to sing:
The stars fell down, people scurry
And my lives I count, in a hurry
When the sands fall down, will you hurry
But the sands ran out, sands ran out
Tumble down, the sands ran out
Rapping her knuckles on the side of the tree with a loud cackle of laughter, she repeats the verse in her rasp and closes red eyes to sway dangerously up on the high tree branch.
Walks through the Pine Barrens are good for two things:
1) Getting lost
2) Clearing one’s head
Rue Lancaster will take either or this evening. Normally, she’s solitary - just her and her pistol - but tonight she wanders toward the sound of a voice — a song — rather than away from it. As though drawn toward the old tree by a siren.
The sound floating through the wood did not disturb Semej from his path, but it did disturb his rider. Kara Prince heard the notes drifting through the budding branches and like a siren's song, it had pulled her from thoughts of patrol, instead instilling with her a dread-filled profile of wonder.
Because… could it be?
No. No, they'd told her Eve was dead. A calamity befell her, and she'd died.
But this was the woman whose body could tear itself apart in a red-hazed scream only to cackle its way back together again an untold amount of time later, if left to her own devices. And yet: if the woman who never let go of living came back, was she herself?
Or was she something else now?
The rifle slung to her back slips down off her shoulder and into her hand while she directs the stubborn amber bay champagne from his accustomed trail with a tug of both reins held in her offhand. Kara listens intently as she ventures into the wood, taking it nice and easy in her pace. It helps soften Semej's noisy steps on the scattered branches and remnants of long-dead leaves, but doesn't entirely quiet them.
"Hark! Who goes there?"
Eve barks and grins madly up at the sky. Soon the young woman drawn like a moth to an irresistible and dangerous flame becomes known to the seer. The familiar redhead makes Eve's eyes widen a touch and she smiles warmly, "Cherry Cherry, the goddess blesses me tonight, oh if only I had a flask of the finest tequila or a fresh joint. Maybe I'm cursed actually! Curses!" Eve doesn't move from her perch yet but she does wave her arms out wildly to the woman below.
"Long way from home aren't we?" The both of them though it could be seen as a question for Rue. Long pale fingers traced idly on the dark tree bark, her nails were dirty from the day of laying in nature. Eve truly looked like a denizen of the wood. "The last time a Cherry wandered through the wood, the crows were set to feast." It felt like so long ago but trauma had a way of making it feel like it had only just happened. "Luckily a Cherry was more robust than the fates or the island would give credit."
Tapping the sides of the branch for a moment longer the tall woman begins to come to a crouching position, trying to balance and chuckling as she does so. "You and me?" Eve peers over at Rue and winks, "Eat death for breakfast!"
Of course the voice was familiar. How many times has she listened to Eve Mas sing? Her voice is breathtaking. To hear it like this, out here… It’s otherworldly. Rue slows to a stop, letting her wide blue eyes settle on Eve’s dusk-bathed form. Something about the way Eve addresses her — Cherry — brings a shiver down her spine. It’s been a while since someone’s called her that.
“Miss Mas,” Rue greets, slightly breathless. Her mouth twists into a wry smirk. “I think it might be the other way around. I believe that I am the breakfast, and Death is playing with her food.” Reaching into her back pocket, Rue procures a flask and holds it out toward the songstress.
“I’m sorry it’s not tequila. But it’s not half bad bourbon?” If Rue is going to meet a witch in the wood, she ought to be prepared with an offering.
The sound of a chambering round in a rifle announces Kara first, and when she draws the stock of it back against her chest, it's pointed in Eve's direction. "Get back from her," she commands, none of the trickster fun to be found in her. She's grim and serious, nudging Semej a step closer to look at the woman who looks like Eve. She waits to see what color awaits in the eyes that'll undoubtedly turn toward her.
If they'll be gold, or…
"What do you want?" she calls out gruffly, patience present but thin. Kara knows what they said about what became of Eve, and what became of the thing that became her. Whatever she's doing here, the munitions chaplain is wary of it.
"Nonsense! It's simply a matter of whether the glass is half full or half empty. Life wants for you and so you stay in the realm of the living." Eve was not so lucky, though death felt more like a real old friend now, someone she could snap at and be annoyed with. You again? The flask offered brings a light to Eve's eyes and just as she's about to make her way down the sounds of a rifle being loaded and trained on her stops her movement. Eve's hands tap lightly on the bark and her eyes grow wide as Kara makes herself known.
"What a reunion." Clapping her hands together with a laugh and almost falling down to the ground, Eve's crimson eyes stare down at Kara with eyebrows arched. "It's bad form to attack the Ones with Gifts. Haven't you heard? People will think you're a racist." Eve just giving helpful tips out here and she hums as she considers the question: what did she want?
"To enjoy this lovely evening and to catch up with old friends of course. You are one of those, aren't you?" Eve's expression darkens, "Or has my recent stint with a golden eyed fiend made you think badly of me, hmm Lady?" Eve rolls off of the side of the branch she perches on and falls to the ground with a wild manic expression on her face.
Her body dissolves and unlike her previous gift where she exploded with a cackle and a scream, now she does so with a deep sigh that echoes out around her. A sigh of relief, of being content with what she is. Whatever that really was, she learned new things every day. The blood red fog that trickles down avoids the white lights of the two women below her and gathers instead a few feet away, nestling between two trees that lean against one another. The smoke curls in on itself and then the shadow of a woman can be seen within, her face peeks out first with white teeth bared.
Red eyes brimming with mischief, she twirls out of the remnants of the red cloud and winks at the two women. "You must have met It." Those eyes snake towards Kara and Eve puts her hands on her hips.
Rue halts in mid-step when she hears the telltale sounds of the firearm. She’s slow to turn her head at first, but relaxes when the voice of the gunner cuts through the sudden silence. “Kara?” Rue hasn’t been living under a rock, after all. She exchanges a look with her new friend, one that speaks to her wariness, then turns her attention to the woman in the tree.
When she falls to the ground and becomes that crimson fog, Rue sucks in a sharp gasp and staggers back one step, then a second. But she doesn’t run. Everything Eve knows about Cherry tells her that she’s made of sterner stuff than that. In reality, the spectacle of her, that insubstantiation and reconstitution, is too horrifyingly fascinating to turn away from.
“Wh— What?”
Eve's warning is met with a bracing of Kara's shoulders, a furrow of her brow. She remembers the last time she tried shooting the Entity, and yet, you reach to defend others with the weapons available to you. She tenses at the wording, at the accusation…
Only for Eve to move on, for Eve to begin behaving more like Eve. Impish, but herself. The red gleam in her eye isn't like what Kara remembers, but it's definitely not a glowing molten gold, which is enough to make her take pause. Being called Lady brings a look of surprise to her eyes, but then Eve falls straight from the tree.
"Marlene, get back!" she calls out as soon as she sees the swirling energy, knowing from previous experience it's nothing to be near. And oh, little does she know just how that's the same but changed, too. Kara lets out a tch of impatience when she doesn't move, nudging Semej forward and closer to Rue's side, for all that he does not like whatever it is Eve's turned into.
Kara prepares to have to grab her— drag her if necessary— away from a deadly cloud of energy, but Eve reforms and so too fades her urgency in positioning herself in a way she can corral Rue away. She only shakes her head at the question directed to her, reluctantly unsetting the rifle's round and letting it fall from the chamber to the damp ground with a muted thump.
Wouldn't want to look like a racist, after all. "Not when It was wearing your face, no— but you already knew that," she admits, failing to keep from that sounding entirely begrudging. She hadn't ever wanted to let Eve dig into that moment in her past, but these were different times. And now, she's on home turf. "But I heard about what you did. Killed some people, resurrected another…"
Her eyes narrow in a gesture of caution, but slowly, she shifts the rifle to begin pulling it back over her shoulder. "Are you really you, Eve?" Kara asks, despite the gesture of trust hoping that she is.
"Claire." Eve's expression is regretful, "The horrors my young friend has had to endure from people she was the closest to." Her father, grandfather and now an old friend. "She deserves an honest break from this life, a chance to sprout her wings fully." It's inferred that the trio assembled here don't have the same luxury of taking off. Not completely. "I did no such thing. But Mother and Father, It has its own designs. Its own plans. The eyes are a dead giveaway silly Lady!"
That question prompts an unusual reaction from Eve and she squints at Kara. "But… let me check!"
Scurrying backwards the woman grabs at her messenger bag of fun nestled at the base of the tree she was previously occupying and she begins rifling through it. Three things are brought out, a lighter, joint and a compact mirror. Silver with an ornate back of a woman and tree curled around each other. Lighting the joint with one hand she whips around and stalks back towards the other ladies in the clearing. "Alright… just one second…" Eve takes two puffs from the joint and passes it to Rue nonchalantly as if they were at Cat's having a drink and sharing a joint over juicy gossip.
Opening the mirror Eve takes a look and really stares for a second. Squinting hard into the reflective surface. Are you really you? One way to find out.
If she's in the glass this time you should say hello.
And you're sorry. What a betrayer.
Disloyal.
Murderer.
The voices in her head distract her from the goal at hand, seeing if the reflection in the mirror is her own. Thankfully, it is. No traces of blonde hair, a face more defined and pointed than hers. With a sigh Eve looks up at the women and grins in relief, "Whew I am indeed me."
Whether that's a good thing or a bad thing remains to be seen.
"Sooo come onnnn, let's hug it out already!"
Eve barrels forward to drag Rue into a hug. "Don't make me cloud up there Lady."
Rue is certain that the correct thing to do here is not accept the drugs from the crazy lady. But would accepting the drugs from the crazy lady really make her situation that much worse? She takes only a half-step back, then takes the joint, offering an apologetic shrug in Kara’s direction as she sticks it between her lips for a puff.
She’s just finished her second draw when Eve is circling back and dragging her in for a hug. “Wh- oof!” Rue holds the joint between the vee of two fingers on her right hand, careful to hold the smoldering end away from Eve as she half-reciprocates the hug.
It's grudgingly that Kara sinks to the ground, one hand still holding Semej's reins, who is still less than pleased to be anywhere near Eve. He's a smart cookie. He knows the woman is the cloud and the cloud is the woman. She ties off his rein to a low-hanging branch before coming forward.
Not for a hug, or at least to be an initiator in one, but to question: "What the fuck happened in Detroit, Eve?"
She doesn't usually swear, but this particular emphasis feels appropriate.
After the Rue hug and Kara coming down and closer Eve cries out in excitement and marches over to grab Kara and give her a tight hug. "Mmmm, it's real isn't it." As if the more people she meets that she knows the more she feels anchored to this reality no matter the circumstances of her survival. "You mean," Taking the joint from Rue to pull from it before holding it out to Kara expectedly. Reunions call for celebration whatever the form!
"What happened on the boat!" Whether Kara takes the joint or not Eve is slowly backing up, eyeing the horse and then the sky. "Knew I had Adam, an insider tip from the Source of my kind." That distinction being made is something that Eve isn't typically like, united was message: everyone.
Usually.
"When we got there, it was like they never expected anyone to find them. So unguarded, defenses low but the cutest dog ever. We sneak in and then It showed up." Eve pauses there and closes her eyes, she tries to remember what comes next after the boat, the gun raised by Silas.
"It merged with me, we… it… went to Detroit. W-It found something, something it needed." What Eve didn't know.
"Then I woke up in a morgue," said the same way that people say they got a new puppy. "Those people there were nice and said the strangest things." Eve is contemplative and taps the trunk of the tree behind her.
Stepping back from the hug and relinquishing the joint, Rue’s eyes dart between Kara and Eve with uncertainty. Her tongue is held while the imp explains her circumstances, culminating in waking up in the morgue.
“You died?” The redhead gapes in shock. “How are you—” Everything she knows about Eve Mas informs her that her ability is not something that allows for resurrection. Her brows furrow and Rue turns again to Kara for some kind of explanation. Some insight. Is this normal around here?
No. It's not.
But it's also Eve.
Kara accepts the hug that's thrown her way with a bit of an oof for the force behind it, brow furrowing and patting her back anyway. "Easy," she suggests to the woman's excitement as much as to the disturbed horse by her side, finding her hand instead holding a joint a moment later for her trouble.
Like many times Eve offers her a joint, she does the courtesy of holding it, even gesticulating with it, but she doesn't toke from it. God, she sighs. "Death just doesn't stick for you, does it?" she asks with a wearied sort of resignation, shaking her head with a smile at the corner of her mouth. She shares a momentary look with Rue, brushing off her shock with a small shake of her head.
It's only then that she pauses to really absorb what it is that Eve's said about what happened. It had been months since they'd seen each other before that event happened, months since she'd walked out of Cat's on Christmas Eve after heading out back to make a trash run; months since she'd stormed away after the Dreamers Round because of—
Oh right. She was still mad at Eve.
She frowns to herself at that, offering the joint back out to its owner. "Do you think it got what it wanted out of everything that happened? The sky opened up. A shockwave went out across the world." Kara lifts her brow. "Do you think that's the end of it, or will it come back for what it didn't get?"
"Oh darling I've died plenty of times now! It's really fine." Eve takes to her now universal sign of 'I'm fine I promise,' with a wiggle of all her fingers held to her pale face, "See!" Nothing weird! Perhaps it was all weird to Rue though and Kara. "It sure doesn't!" Answering Kara brightly and then studying her own fingers, yes they were all hers. She was Eve okay, Eve. "Mas women can't be kept down." Whispering as if it's an urban legend associated with her family.
As to if The Entity got what it wanted, "Mmm nope! It sure did not get everything it wanted and more." She was still processing all the information from her friends about the events of that day, of the things said. There is one thing that Eve knows though, the true desire of the interdimensional being. "It wants the world reduced to stardust, the energy and materials in our foundation." Eve's grin is gone and she puffs on the joint and walks away a few steps from the women.
"Used to think it was only people like you both who were in trouble and maybe someone… something was here to finally see that my people were treated right, but The Dragon with those pretty gold eyes is a bad Mother and Father." She pauses and lifts the joint to her lips but doesn't yet pull from it, "I bargained, for what I thought was your lives. Don't destroy my friends, some of my chosen family." Begged and pleaded many times she did, but to beg and plead with what is now considered an alien intelligence can seem futile at best.
A laugh erupts from Eve rocketing upwards from her belly, "Little did I know, stupid Eve. The plan was never to watch over its children, never to heal the world. It just wants it to end." Eve waves her free hand in front of her face and puffs on the joint but coughs up the smoke from laughing too hard, because this is obviously very hilarious. "Stardust. Stardust."
Rue’s lips part in an attempt to put words to thoughts that are barely formed. Stardust. People like them. Mother and Father. Death doesn’t stick.
“What the fuck?”
That pretty well encapsulates the redhead’s thoughts.
"Oh." Kara lets out a hollow, shocked breath of laughter at the news of what it is the Entity wants. Her eyes tic a touch wider.
"That's…"
A fucking issue.
One most of humanity seems uniquely incapable of helping solve.
"Precisely," Eve replies to both women and smiles weakly, throwing herself against the tree and banging the back of her head against the dark bark. "There. Are. No. Rest. Stops. Only the path going forward, ground quakes and moves as you stand still. There is no escaping."
A pause and there's an effort made to think of other things, things that seem not as important as the world exploding. Everyone's advice to Eve for years had been to slow down.
But if anything she feels like she's just getting started.
Rue edges her way closer to Kara finally, leaning in to ask, “Is she always like this?” She has no idea. This is a far cry from what she expects from Eve Mas, but… her last experience was so long ago, and clearly she’s been through a lot in that time.
“Is there someone we can call for you, Miss Mas? I feel like you maybe shouldn’t be out here all by yourself.” Rue shifts uncomfortably, uncertain of what all Eve’s ramblings actually mean, but she’s starting to put two and two together, and it’s somehow adding up to zero in a way that means nothing good for anyone living.
Kara doesn't have an answer for Rue at first. Always, no. Sometimes she'd get a fire in her, like this. But neither does she know if there's a baseline to even work from at the moment.
Eve might be herself again, but it's clear to Kara she's changed.
"You can't just stay out here in the woods, Eve," she echoes the redhead's concerns in a different way. "You need a ride back to town?"
"No no no, that won't do." Eve dances out of reach of her two friends as if they were making to grab her. She hums and stands on tip toes, "I live here! For now, the smallest trailer with the murder tapes. Can't hear the screams though, already passed."
"Come have tea! Maybe I can read the ol' tarot cards for old times sake." Her hands twitch, a random tic when she thinks of her former gift.
Looking over her shoulder the dark haired woman waves to someone that isn't even there. "Just a minute!" Turning back towards the others. "Gotta rocket, be safe! Be, an ally. If you find yourself in a sticky situation with someone like me and they need help. Do it!"
There's no or else, but she thinks it. Wills that they get that from her. "The worlds are at the tipping point, racing up fast with nowhere to go but into each other." Eve's eyes blaze a touch brighter as crimson mist begins to roll off of her.
"Don't be a stranger!" Heh.
Her body poofs into thin air and the roiling cloud of fog sits there examining them, the pull and hunger she feels for their light makes her queasy, though she has no physical body presently. The whole of her shudders as if there's an invisible leash holding her from flying forward and laying over her friends.
Eventually, she rises until she can be seen no more.