Difference between revisions of "1-27-2015: Counsel"

Home. Shower. Yoga.

The familiar ritual soothes her, calms her, until she feels ready enough to face tonight's task. Taking the messenger bag, she heads for one of the two spots she's scoped out so far. In a little clear spot, surrounded by stunted trees and dried, tangled bracken. She sits down, sets out the smudge and the little pottery bowl, and lights the bundle of dried cedar. "Hawk, Eagle, Owl, lend me your sight," she says in Salish. "Hawk, Eagle, Owl, I seek to see beyond." The soft chant continues for a time, as she sinks into a light trance; eventually, she calls out to her totem, speaking his Salish name. "Red Feather, guide and ally..."

She focuses on the mandala at her wrist, using it to deepen that trance further, to strengthen the call.

<<DICE>> Maya rolls arete, difficulty 3 
<<DICE>> 3 successes (3 7 7, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)
<<DICE>> Maya rolls arete, difficulty 3 
<<DICE>> 1 successes (1 5 7, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)
<<DICE>> Maya rolls arete, difficulty 3 
<<DICE>> 2 successes (2 7 10, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)
<<DICE>> Maya rolls arete, difficulty 3 
<<DICE>> 1 successes (1 5 10, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)
<<DICE>> Maya rolls arete, difficulty 3 
<<DICE>> 3 successes (5 5 7, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)

The Gauntlet, no so thick out here in the ruins of Detroit's suburbs as it once was, yields to Maya's efforts and the mists are parted to reveal Red Feather there, at her call. <<I am here, stormchild. You wished to see?>>

Maya murmurs a brief, ritual phrase of thanks before packing up her things. "I thought maybe I could walk the edges. Map it, as best I can. And maybe look into some of the buildings, if you think there might be any-- valuable information there?" One hand rumples the back of her hair. "I need your guidance, if you can give it. I don't think I should go back to that cave alone, but... You said someone... found an ancient thing, unearthed it. That's what-- unleashed all this? The Wyrm and Weaver, combining as they have?" She starts heading for the street, trusting him to accompany her.

He does, of course, tag along, soaring in lazy figure 8's above her head. His voice reaches her all the same. <<That is all any who listen to the Tapestry know. This evil is ancient beyond even my years. If indeed it is but one evil. The boundary you wish to map, you think again like your lessers. Maps are for things unchanging, but the tumor here grows with every breath, every beat of your heart. You will spend many breaths going back over and over.>>

"No," Maya murmurs. "I was kind of afraid of that." She walks with her attention on her surroundings, taking in threats on the one side, details from the other. She takes a deep breath. "Hell. I don't know where to start. I know there's a person in it, though. Someone with the power to blend stasis and entropy. And maybe it's Damien." Yes, she's a crazy pretty girl, walking down the street talking to herself in some foreign language. "Do you know about these... skinchangers-who-dance?" It's the closest term she's been able to find, with her limited fluency in Salish.

<<DICE>> The Supremes rolls 4 dice, difficulty 6 
<<DICE>> 2 successes (2 3 6 7, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)

<<The Fallen?>> Red Feather doesn't sound ultra-certain, himself. <<Not as much as some others might. But they are like all Fallen: pawns to a greater threat. They are the face, but not the mind.>>

<<DICE>> Maya rolls wits + cosmology, difficulty 7 
<<DICE>> 1 successes (4 4 6 10, Specialty: No, Willpower: No)

"But I'm too small to fight the mind," Maya says quietly. "I don't know how. If I was-- someone like Graham, I would hunt in librar--" She halts abruptly, standing still in the middle of a city block. "Maybe-- I need to talk to Hedge. Because medicine-singers have knowledge of the past, too. The books don't look the same, but it is still knowledge..." She rumples her hair again, something she often does when frustrated. "When you said older than you. Do you mean... older than the Great Totems? Or just older than you, my guide, Red-Feather?"

<<You would have to ask them,>> Red Feather says, about the Great Totems. <<None can speak their memory but they. You give yourself too little credit, though humility is a strength to you here. One lesser than you wielded this secret to bring this disease. One - or many - may yet shatter it's hold, or bring its power to heel.>>

"One of those-fallen-down?" she asks. "Or someone ...human? Okay, wielded, though..." She scrubs at her hair again. "Knowledge. Puzzles. Just attacking the damn thing isn't going to help. Shattering its hold will take a lot. It's got a pretty strong hold." She takes a deep breath. "Is there a pattern? Will you fly over the center, with me, or will the... its birds take us down?"

<<He was Fallen too,>> Red Feather confirms mid-wingover. <<You will impress me if you are capable of such flight today. But I would expect the Enemy's Eyes to pursue. This is their territory, and they will see any who they do not recognize as an encroachment. It is dangerous just for us to speak like this, but I am keeping my voice down.>> Not that Maya can tell the difference, as his speech is all but directly piped into her mind.

Maya takes a deep, slow breath. "I should have considered your danger. And with no source of Gaia's strength to aid you, I can't help to make you stronger. At least not the fast way." She chews on her lower lip, and keeps walking--scanning for brighter or darker places in the ugly, barren landscape at the edge. "When the white place... grows, does your world change to become--like the rest? The clean..." Searching for a word, she fails to find one and drops into English. "Stasis? The historic buildings?"

He follows her English just as well as her Salish. <<The webs are part of 'my world'.>> The sarcastic emphasis on the term suggests he disagrees with the attribution. <<It changes what is below to bring it into line with the weaver's Plan.>> Small-w 'weaver,' there.

Reprimanded, she murmurs an apology and adds, "How would you have me say it? No matter how much we wish it gone, there is a barrier between us."

<<On this side, it is still 'our world.' Only your side has forgotten.>>

Taking a breath, Maya says, "Can we outrun the enemy's eyes? Or fly higher still? I... don't think I can reach the realms of thought, yet, can I?" Losing her mortal teacher has forced her to rely more heavily on her guide, and it is sometimes... taxing.

<<I cannot speak to your talents until I have seen them. I can outfly the Eyes. They choose to appear as songbirds - nimble, but useless where the air thins. Soaring is... complex. There are nuances to the air that your senses cannot perceive. My sight is useless to you in this, and you would need wings again.>>

"I will learn," Maya says fiercely. "I must learn to fly." She is speaking Salish again, a small whisper. "Will you send to Hedge for me? I have to see him. I'm flailing, here." She takes a moment to look around, reading both worlds for a long moment.

<<You sent for him once already,>> Red Feather reminds her. <<I will go to him, if you really wish this, but if he would respond to your missive, should he not have done so already?>>

"Yeah, I guess desperately calling him would seem... desperate," she murmurs. "Which I am." She's silent for a time, keeping her eyes on alleys, shadows, anything that moves. "What can you tell me of Falcon, and those who follow him?"

<<Falcon? He was once king on your side. Many still respect him as if he were. His is the domain of far seeing, apprehension beyond what my eyes can show you. He soars high, roams wherever he wishes, and pursues his goals intensely.>> Red Feather slows in his circular soaring, <<Those who follow him are,>> and here, Red Feather uses English as well: <<Go-Getters.>>

Maya laughs a little, ruefully. "Definitely," she murmurs. Lifting her head, then, she looks up to seek his silhouette. "How can I protect you, brother? How can I make you strong?" The questions might be rhetorical.

<<The stormchild should worry about her own strength. As she grows, I grow. Her sentiment is touching, but we are here to aid her, not she to aid us. We do this because her path is our path, because her path brings back the world where we thrive.>>

Maya stand still again, looking at a burned-out theater, its ticket window a gaping darkness of shattered glass. "I sang to strangers about hope, tonight," she whispers. "You think there's hope? You-- believe in the path?"

<<Believe is not a word I can dance. But I know that so long as Stormchild and other spirit-talkers walk the world, the sun has not yet set.>>

Suddenly, in the middle of nowhere at the north end of Detroit, she is blinking back tears. "Thank you, Red," she whispers. "I needed that." Taking a slow, deep breath, she starts walking again, heading for the edge, watching the movements of the automata. "Does it-- use them to expand? These." She doesn't stay that close for long, and turns to head toward Hamtramck with faster steps.

<<They play their role, like any other. Like I do. They prepare the ground, mend the web, move material around. Optimize.>> The way he says it, it's an alien concept to him. <<They are pawns too. Like the Fallen.>>

"Fly free and hunt well," Maya says, a ritual phrase she's used often. "I will... go further out, when we need to speak again. I can't lose you."