2022.11.12:Oh, Oysters, Come And Walk With US
| Oh, Oysters, Come And Walk With Us | |
|---|---|
| Lana stumbles on her friend Sark cavorting on the beach playing with the surf and existential conversations happen. | |
| IC Date | 2022.11.12 |
| Players | Sark and Lana |
| Location | Remote beach north of Prospect, but not quite as far as Windstorm Isle |
| Spheres | Bygone, Mage |
One thing that Prospect and the surrounding area has, is access to the ocean, and plenty of abandoned beach for people to walk, run, wander, and do nothing if they want to avoid the crowds. Its not PRECISELY way out of the city, but far enough that the blackberry vines, considered a nuisance in the city, are not cropped back here and run wild all the way down to the sand. The beach that's mostly abandoned at the moment save for one young man with a blond hair tail that's laughing his ass off as he runs into the oncoming surf and LEAPS into it with his arms spread wide, plunging into the water. He appears a few moments later and floats back up to get deposited on the sand, looking like he's having the time of his life.
For a time, Lana wandered hither and yon. But the gulls had interesting things to say, and there were water elementals having a dispute, and so the day carries Lana along the beach. Her sandals are held in one hand, a joint-- and one middle finger to anyone interfering with the simple pleasure of being high with warm sand beneath their feet.
It's also pleasantly secluded, which for Lana means a mental break. She hears the laughter clearly, simple laughter, and is drawn to where Sark is joy itself in the surf.
For the short while that Sark believes he has no audience, those leaps into the surf with his hands spread out wide, might strike someone as patently impossible. A teenager like that simply could not manage a gravity-defying arc like that and so perfectly plunge into the crest of the breaking surf wave, but its one of those things that would tend to nag at someone's perception, or set off a mage's Awareness that they are watching something non-mundane.
After about the 3rd or 4th jump, when he 'washes' back up on shore, he lays there for a moment longer, spreadeagled on his back in the sand, grinning like an idiot while he takes a break.
Politely timing her moment of approach so as to hide her own observation (and one hand pressed to her mouth to hide laughter), Lana peeks over the washed-ashore Sark.
"Darling?" She enquires, hands pressed to her thighs so she can lean. "Having fun?"
Sark perks up a bit at the sound of a familiar voice, but doesn't bother to sit up. Instead he twists around a bit to look up at Lana sorta upside down, grinning when he confirms who it is. One hand lifts up to wave furiously, slinging water and sand as he does, "LANA! Hihi!"
Lana's laughter shakes her shoulders and brightens her face, laughter that requires no outside expression. "What on earth are you doing here? It's not safe to swim so far away from where the coast guard can see. And they give tickets like dictators," she notes, one gesture with her joint.
Sark rumbles happily as he relaxes back into the wet sand, "This far out, the Coast Guard is too busy. I USUALLY just go swimming on one of the beaches of my island, but I was on my way back and the waves looked too fun to leave alone." He tilts his head to size her up a little more and waggles his brows, "YOU are a ways off of things, yourself. Things are good, yesyes?"
"Things are fabulous," Lana says, her smile truly driving the sentiment home. Her hair hangs around her face, her blond bob and flip maintained no matter the angle. "I think I wandered, but I was listening to the ocean. One day, I wonder if some giant will crawl from the depths, shadow our continent with its towering height, and dispatch doom.
"Or just chill out, maybe it's really into classic cinema." She looks at Sark, not exactly asking a question, just settling whatever imaginary thought flit through her mind
Sark closes his eyes as he listens, lazy shaking his head a bit in the negative, "I don't believe something that truly massive and corrupt exists here any longer. Someone messing with powers they do not completely understand could indeed bring something that dire from somewhere else....the worlds are many and varied and noone can claim to know them all much less understand most of them. I for one am mostly satisfied with this one, to avoid exploring further, but....as I get older, maybe."
With that said, he reopens his eyes and looks back at her, "Not as reassuring as I might want to be, but as close to the truth as I understand it. Likely there is no doom coming anytime soon."
Sitting down next to Sark, and wrapping her pants up like pedal-pushers around her knees, she crosses her legs in the sand. Joint all but forgotten for now.
"Aaah," She says. "No, not from the ocean. Its depths are vast, but I feel comfortable there. For a Scorpio, I suppose. I guess Pisces would be the deep-water dreamer." A lazy laugh at her own joke, while a single finger trails in the sand.
With both hands spread behind her, and her face lifted to enjoy what sun there is, the feeling of the world Sark spoke of... unravels a bit, as if the tightness of the hand holding reality taut had slipped.
Lana loses one Willpower
With the Gauntlet reduced even further, it might be easier to glimse across it and see how Sark's presence in the umbra is So Very Much Not That of a human. Gafflings and minor spirits avoid his presence like a bug zapper light. He pauses for a long moment as he feels the weakening in the area and slowly lumbers to his feet. Not bothering to shake off the water and the sand, he takes in a slow, deep breath and murmurs, "Careful. Weaken things too much and undesirables decide they want to come over, and harrass those who have no way of defending themselves. Makes it more difficult for all of us, sooner or later."
The wind blowing through her hair moves its heavy volume with greater ease than its namesake color. With her hands propped behind her, and her feet crossed at her ankles in front of her, Lana need only turn her head slightly to meet Sark's gaze. "Oh, I know," She says, her tone heavier than its usual sleepy, yawning drawl.
"In fact, I'm counting on it. Sometimes you have to lower the water level to see where the rocks are. Then, you strike."
Sark tilts his head a little to give Lana another slow sizing up, and again softly rumbles, this time in contemplation, "I see. You are hunting." He slowly clasps his hands behind his back and eases back a few steps, offering in the same low voice, "My presence might impede your ability to draw something out unless it is truly dangerous, but I will do my best to be, ah, subtle?"
Lana waves a hand, and she laughs, but it seems to be at her own expense. "No," She says. "I am not hunting. Out here, it is simply easier to be myself. Without having to filter so much, or pay attention? If you squint, the layers can combine. I'm not really a hunter. I..." She pauses. "The noble spider," She begins with a wide grin. "A hunter? Many of its type, yes. But most weave beautiful webs, in places and in designs meant to lure specific types of prey. If you let the malicious little bastards fester, then they get the attention of someone higher up the chain. It's the surest way to guarantee that something wicked this way comes."
He seems to think about that for a moment, before slowly nodding, "Perhaps that explains why the pretty spiders seem drawn to you when you linger long enough in a space. But you are not their kin, I do not think...yes? The energy around you seems to pool from another source rather than a link from blood or ancestry. I have not seen a kin of Ananasa in some time, but I do recall they did not look like you."
"You know Her name?" Lana asks, not feigning shock. "Queen Ananasa is my, well, I do not have a word for it. Totemic might is the sort of phrasing I have heard used, but imagine if being adopted actually changed your genetics," She finally settles upon a suitable metaphor. "That's I guess how I would put it. I know of fewer than five of my kind who serve Her; and thank you for calling our spiders pretty," She says, smiling with pleasure.
He DOES smile a little more at that and nods slightly, "A pledge or a bond to a totem is understandable and respectable. A bond of blood does not always indicate loyalty or even amity, but the act of bonding does usually imply loyalty and support, so I would consider it better than the other. We are rarely compelled to extend such connections, because...not to offer any sort of offense, but humans can be very untrustworthy and often will lie to immense ends for even the slightest amount of power."
"Ain't that the god's meow," Lana quips after a long drag of her joint. She wordlessly extends it to Sark. "I have been told, we have all been told, that there was a time before. And that time was good." Settling in, Lana draws her knees close to herself and rests her arms atop them. "You know how it goes. It is difficult to even find evidence now that other societies, other ways of life existed, and they were not the minority. They simply lived a different life, and maybe it was better. Even if no one had antiperspirant."
Lana gains one Willpower
His smile spreads more into a grin as he listens to her recounting, and slowly rolls both shoulders, "I am...too young to have any connection to that. This is my first time around the Wheel and I cannot recall or sense what I was before. So instead I will use this time to learn everything I can without making too many waves, and find as many sympathetic individuals as I can. Only the very strangely connected can seem to offer any hint of what will be coming, so it is better to be prepared for a variety of things and have a backup plan. I had to learn that lesson the hard way when I first arrived in California a long time ago."
"I do not know from where you come," Lana says, smoothing any possible crease in the pattern of conversation with social grace, "But you cannot be more than, what? Twenty two? You look like one of those supermodels from Australia who are all abs and pecs and spend their days surfing. How on earth did you come across Ananasa?" Lana asks, again as amused as she is bemused.
Sark lightly shakes his head at the question, keeping his hands clasped behind his back, "You've allowed me to see many of your special things and spoken openly with me about it...do you really still believe me to be a teenage human boy?" He pauses to smile a little longer at that, then adds, "Would you believe me if I said I was born a little over four hundred years ago?"
Lana exhales, and her posture is one of weary confidence. "It isn't that I wouldn't believe you, it is that my upper boundary on belief is broken. The city sings to me. Spirits in the street talk, demand attention, yell. The restless dead ask for help and haunt. There are other, stranger things. Beauty and horror in equal measure," Lana says. "And today a powerful spirit calling itself the Trash Lady of Toronto successfully sold me vintage Halston heels for two bucks. Then she thanked me by name-- I never introduced myself-- and went on her way."
"I don't know where normal begins and strange ends."
Slowly he nods his head, "The spirit realm is not one I have too much experience in, but it is something I perhaps need to spend more time watching. I will admit my focus has always been on humans...they breed out of control and swarm the land like a plague of locusts at times...very concerning, as they drove the rest of us to extiction."
He sighs softly for a moment then murmurs, "I am one of those who used to be a thing humans feared in the dark and the unknown. The thing that made them write on their maps 'there be dragons here', and made them not want to explore. I fled the far coast because they began to invade, only to arrive here to find the Spanish had already taken over, and narrowly avoided them killing me as some 'unholy monster' their Church demanded they kill."
Lana listens without interruption, leaning her face against her arms, arms against her legs. Her expression, even while tilted, communicates some measure of inner depression.
"I'm so sorry," She says, softly, when Sark has finished speaking. "We, my particular subset of humans, talk about a great war for control over reality. Because if you have the bombs, well, everyone else feels like a target. It's the same cold war nonsense, truly, dressed up differently. But even they traded what was beautiful because it was terrifying and chaotic, only to discover... this," She says, gesturing languidly with a sweep of her arm at the beach. "Control increased, wonder died, but fear didn't go away. And they're still trying to kill you and me. I belong to another time entirely; we're dead, but our colleagues haven't yet figured it out."
His smile turns a little sad for a moment as he listens, taking another slow, deep breath, "The world has gotten colder and darker but it is is not frozen and black yet. Some of my older relatives are cynical about what can be done, but I will blame my outlook on my youth, that I feel I can find a way to make changes and improve the outlook, if I can find the right places to apply pressure indirectly. If you are interested in the same things, then I would be happy to offer you assistance where I can. I have other friends I have made this agreement with, whether or not they want to be introduced, I will have to leave up to them. But for now, I can at least tell you I have not lied to you. My name truly is Sarkesian....just more formally as Sarkesian the Gilded."
"That is not a part of my goal. That is my entire plan and purpose," Lana says without once blinking. The alien patience of Ananasa settles over her, and her shoulders relax into a more regal position. "Lana Sanford, Dreamspeaker, Spirit Smith," She says, extending a hand. "It's really lovely to meet you, Sarkesian the Gilded. You have been a bright spot in several of my days now. And in spite of this current gloom, I am wildly optimistic. People respond. It has never seemed easier to awaken the spirits of great things, which themselves police their own community. Bringing the spirit closer to this world, in fact, has never seemed easier. Work is work, but at least people are interested."
His smile persists for a little while longer, but when she introduces herself again, he takes a moment in the afternoon light to slowly turn around, checking up and down the beach and out to the ocean, perhaps just confirming a complete lack of life present anywhere within sight. When he turns back to her, "I am no good awakening spirits of any kind, but I have resources I can bring to bear that others will not be aware of, and I am working on making myself better able to act around humans and their kin. This is just a skin I wear to keep myself...subtle and usually overlooked by others who would look at me and write me off as a child. I have, other guises." When he says that, he stretches his neck a bit and sighs, letting things unravel. A bit of gold fog seems to leak out of his frame as he gains a bit of mass and height and size, the gold fog settling into a much larger, gold skinned creature, that takes a moment to shake his wings out and wring out his tail and neck, before sitting back down like a very large, very gold, cat.
Lana sits up straight, swallowing thickly. Lana Sanford, Dreamspeaker, perpetually on the cusp of the liminal border where finer and finer webs spin. Her green eyes, one of the many things like name changes and burying the past, speak to the California girl still standing on her tippy-toes in her heart of hearts, hoping
"Beyond hope," Lana says, finishing her own thought. "That this could be real." Her voice curls like her neck, and tears fall freely now. "You are so beautiful; I waited so long. Where did you go?" She asks Sark, her face a mess of tears, sorrow, and joy.
He shuffles a little on the sand, a movement of those muscled hindquarters that requires the tail to resituate itself around them. Keeping those leathery wings tucked in close against his back, he dips his head down a little to keep it closer to eye level with her, and somehow continues to speak fairly clear english despite the draconian snout and thin, purple, forked tongue, "There are not that many of us anymore, and we have to hide from mundane eyes or the hunting will begin again. The Spanish almost killed me because I was not careful, so now I maintain the young man to walk around them and watch them."
"Oh," Lana says, but the resignation is too familiar to carry water. "I suppose that makes sense. What was once common knowledge is priceless wisdom I have to hide. I think the world wants things this way, sometimes. There is so much talk amongst us about restoration, or at least tolerance, but they make the same mistake every generation makes." Lana raises a hand in one languid motion that gestures from sand to sea. "They forget that the next generation has their own vision for the future, and it will take them to a very different place. And I wonder how much longer the likes of you and I have to coast through them."
"Can I hug you?" Lana asks without looking Sark int he eye.
At the mention of being unsure how much time remains, he rumbles softly and murmurs, "Some of the relatives think the time is approaching, that as each of us reach the end of the Wheel, coming back as another of our kind is going to be harder and harder, because this world no longer accepts our presence. That may happen, but I will see what I can do in the meantime to alter that balance without putting myself in...too much danger. Getting myself killed will help noone and only make me take my chances with the wheel again." He even smiles a little at that.
The question about hugging earns a soft chuckle from deep in his chest, "Of course you can." He tilts his head a little to keep an eye on her with some curiosity.
"Oh," Lana says softly, pure joy, as she leans forward to if not hug, then wrap her arms around Sark's neck. Resting her head and letting her tears dry in the warm breeze, her breathing slows. It is a while before she says anything.
"Thank you," She murmurs. "I feel like my heart just healed. These past few years have been so hard," She says, disengaging to check her makeup-- her particular form of regaining composure. "I don't know if it's bad. It just hurts my heart. When things are forgotten for so long, they don't come back. The path between here and there isn't even seen as a path to new generations. And these are children wandering forward without the stories, you know?" She asks Sark. "Granted, some of us do grow up and find magick. But generations to whom regular meals are so magical a concept they don't have the room for dragons and wizards? I mean, I can fight spirits and go to battle against ideas, and I have. But even the Union must be regretting itself. Who can dream of a future with better tech or magic in this climate?"
When she leans in and latches onto his neck, his weight shifts a little to lean forward, and draws one wing up and around to close around her back not unlike a large, warm, leathery cloak, pressing in for a few moments until she chooses to loosen her hold on his neck.
HIs voice rumbles softly at her regrets, something easily felt through his chest while she leans there, "I have no experience with the Union, and only know three magic workers in this city. I knew three other dragons but I have not seen any of them in some time now, which for one of us, is never a sign of alarm. Sometimes I may not see them again for a very long time, but humans are usually much more in touch." He takes in a slow, deep breath before adding, "Children that are brought up with stories of knights and dragons and the mythical are often brought up being told that such things are not real and they should not believe in them, so I understand how most will not truly believe, and it would be very hard to find the few that do truly believe with their heart and soul, without putting ourselves in danger to find them."
"And there's like, eight billion," Lana says, nodding in slow agreement. "God don't risk yourself. Please. The world needs something beautiful. And every child has at least /one/ story about something they could have sworn they saw. It's there, that magic. I worked very hard in Hollywood to promote that. People do want to believe, and I don't think you need to put yourself in danger. I don't know what the answer is, or if there is one. My own path will eventually go beyond this planet, and into the spirit realms. I certainly wouldn't be the first of my kind to walk into the mists; you're always welcome to join me," She offers Sark.
He gently withdraws his wing and straightens up a little, offering a bit of a smile, if that snout can be considered to be smiling despite the gleaming white fangs, "I have forms other than the boy when I am getting around, namely a red-tailed hawk, so if one becomes very friendly while you are out in the city, then just play along. I like to cast myself as things to be underestimated and eventually overlooked. People can understand a pet hawk, and when the novelty wears off, they will file it away and stop thinking about it."
He takes a moment before adding, "You are also welcome to visit when you would like to spend some time away from the scrutiny of the mundane. Go to the harbor, pier 31, at the end of the dock, and tell the harbor ferry there you are going to Windstorm Isle. I will make sure he has your name on his list. He will drop you off at the dock, just walk up the cliffside steps to the ranch...I will be around or Marcus will see you first and direct you to where I am."
"That is very sweet of you, darling," Lana purrs at the mention of the idea. "Like Catalina," She says, smiling broadly and gesturing with her fingertips. "Except actually magical and with zero homeowner's associations. That really is heaven, now that I think about it." Lana glances at Sark before laughing. "When I settle in the city, you will always have a safe place to just be. That's generally how my people do things. You don't have to ask permission, I don't care. My home is always open."
Again he rumbles softly and bends his head down, giving her cheek a lick...which probably isnt quite as messy as one thinks with how thin that tongue is, thankfully, "I appreciate the invitation. If I do come by, it will be either as the boy or the hawk so I can make sure I am not interrupting something...and so none of your neighbors wonder what kind of friends you are courting." He winks one big green eye at that and sounds amused, "You are settling well into your place then, I hope? Have no run into any problems? I am not sure what I might be able to help with, but I thought I would ask."
