tempest

[K. R. Jakes] [am I good today?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Shangri La] We raise and raze our city like the strangest house of cards, a ghost-breath mist of snow;
A ghost-breath mist of snow where no snow falls

Fire. It flickers, licks and warms but does not burn . . . does not burn here, but over there, away, out of the corner of one's eye. Somewhere, a house of cards falls, and in Chicago it snows in that wet, just barely frozen sort of way that clings to the eyelashes, cheeks, shoulders, throat. Little kisses, damp and cold, that brush and trickle across skin and hair and somewhere [a city] burns. Somewhere cards tumble and there's no Alice anywhere 'round. There is Kage, and she is cold and wet and licked warm but not burning

For we are Atlantis, and the town of Prester John.
Three weeks apart from never, we dance and do not fall.
We are Shangri-La

wet, hot. Something is wrong. Something is wrong [...burn it down...], Spidey-senses are tingling, the Bat signal is lighting up the night. This is not how it goes, this is not what belongs here (I don't belong here), this is strange even for Him, even for when he first came into her life those years ago. This is [building up our city just to watch it burn] . . . not out of the ordinary, because that's a difficult definition to apply when everything is out of the ordinary
topsy-turvy
inside out
upside down
strange. This is foreign. This is strange and smells of incense and (peppermints) exoticism, of faith and transcendence. Sound does not process, not yet, but for a smooth ripple on the edges of perception. Or maybe that's the sound that should be, the sound of fire cracklingconsuming, the sound of notquitesnowbutcertainlynotrain falling on windows, on sidewalks. It's curious, this feeling-not, this

History has dreamed of us,
building up our city just to watch it burn.

loss, this feeling of being apart but not a part, some separate, distinct whole, alone.

Come, says the night, woozy and full, sweet and crystalline. Come and we will call you sister.

Burn it down

[K. R. Jakes] No. Wait. What?
Disconcerted.

K. R. Jakes is disconcerted (what). K. R. Jakes is also (in)cautious. This is why, when less than a block from her apartment, she felt (throb) something unusual this way comes, she pauses in the center of the sidewalk and considers the street and her place on the street. It wasn't a sudden oh my god what pause. It wasn't a back-up, ready to fight-or-flee pause; it was just a pause, and she, quintessentially cool (poised [won't make me blink]), lifted a hand to the collar of her coat, snapped it up sharp when she turned, drawn, knowing she was drawn just the way the moon is drawn by the sea that a way. This is why, this (in)cautious nature, she does not instantly go toward the fire that isn't fire. After her collar is adjusted, she glances up at the starless sky, at the heavy clouds, and she holds out a hand; it's just snow. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe it's [silent film (silent movie)] ash that crosses her palm, coin for thoughts, coin for wishes, coin for disasters yet to be told.

It'd disconcerting. She feels for a second as if she were in two places, one of them soundless, one of them not. This is how that wrongness works on her. This is how it tastes, on her tongue, when she licks her lips, and this is how she reacts: a moment's mundane reconaissance before anything else. She stays still.

[Shangri La] She stays still

(a dim welcome hum, the thrum of a heartbeat)

is disconcerted [little.girl.lost] on a street familiar. She knows this spot, has passed overbythrough it many times, on her way too and from many places. But still it's different (wrong) and the air tastes of ice and ash, of fire and water.

A moment's mundane reconaissance garners her this: she is where she thinks she is, but there is inferno here, lingering. The wrong is not necessarily bad aside from that - its cause, which is not (or was not, at some point) necessarily bad, either. Madness is a different thing entirely, and (we're all mad, here) she of all people knows that. It also garners her an accute knowledge of something Other. Something watchinglisteningstill, and echoing her mundane reconnaissance, so careful. So quiet. Or maybe she is echoing it.

Choices are made and casualties counted
(air can make me meaningless)
Falling like pages
when a book hits the wall

At any rate, there is something watching. Something has taken note, and is weighing and measuring - something secret and quiet, something dark and deep. And somehow, the night forgets to breathe.

(air can make me meaningless)

There are hints, clues - a ruffle of pages.
The smell of sweet pipe smoke (and ash and fire and oh).

But just there! A shop. It's late evening, heading into night, and the shops are beginning to close. But this shop is lit with a yellow sort of glow - lamplight and incandescent bulbs, none of that LED nonsense that keeps showing up, shouting about energy efficiency and such. This is a homey sort of shop, though its purpose is difficult to ascertain. The closest, easiest descriptor is junk shop.

And above the door, quite simply: Oddities, in gilt script.

[K. R. Jakes] [How curious. Why are you suddenly there like some magick shop of curiousities or spirit-y time slippy doom.

Let us have a combined Prime(hark:quintessence?)/Corr(areyoureallythere)/Entropy(what'syourfate)/Spirit(orareyoughost) 1 sight thing going on, plz, to poke it. Practiced Rote -1! Taking time -1! Coincidental 3 + 1. ]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 8 (Success x 3 at target 3) [WP]

[Shangri La] How curious. Why are you suddenly there?

I was always here. Pressing gets pressed back in a strange sort of way - it's not words, but impressions like old, strongly resonant buildings and places have. Why are you suddenly here, you fey thing, you Demon-lover's child? Like some arrogant two year old, prodding, always poking.

The place does have a glow, a shine, but it's difficult to place it to the shop itself of something within. It is strangely, oddly lacking in anything resembling fate, but it is truly there, and not a ghost.

[K. R. Jakes] The Orphan stared at the shop and said a word. Said three words, and another for good measure, low and steady, careful, and she opened her eyes the way they were supposed to be opened (this is my first superpower), and she closed her eyes for a second, while she undid the locks, and then cast a glance up and down the street, before she focused her attention (ardor [ardent]) on the building, half-hearing the way its resonance sang, a note to define its quintessence, pensive. And ...

It replied! It reacted! What! It isn't words. It's just the impression of a response. It's just the impression of demon lover's child of fey and arrogant. Kage's dark eyes widen [what are you seeing (normal)] and she takes a cold breath of air, sucks winter down, and then releases it. She's still shaking off the strange doublesight [it will last (she can move)] when she strides down the sidewalk and

no I'm not

reaches the door, opens it and walks inside.


[Shangri La] I will tell you all my secrets
softly in your ear

Kage moves, enters, and a bell rings cheerily over her head. There's a feeling of having passed through a gate, of having gone from Here to There (no shadow or ghost, but real - still, there are other options [more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy] one must consider) or perhaps Somewhere Else entirely, a land of half truths and nothing-is-what-it-seems, and of seeking and Seeking, of Questions, but not necessarily of Answers.

There are books inside, and Books.
There are things of wonder and mystery.

This is the sort of place one reads of in fairytales, the sort of place that is bigger and smaller than it seems. Perhaps Rip Van Winkle's cousin came here, and reads still. Perhaps this is where Baba Yaga learned how to put her house on chicken feet. Inside, time telescopes, shifts. Inside is magic. Here, one expects to find some fae or fey or not quite human thing tending shop. It's the store where The Neverending Story began, where darling Bastian Balthazar Bux found a book full of luck dragons and things. It's the store where some kids in California found a [Forbidden] game. Which is to say, this is an archetype.

But for the very human thing behind the counter looking at her now.

be careful what you wish for
you may not wish to hear

"Hey," he says. "I can only help you if you know what you're looking for."

Or . . . maybe not just human.

[K. R. Jakes] K. R. pauses inside and, yes, looks around. Looks at the books, looks at the aisles, dusty and dark, looks at the boxes, full of oddments and baubles, looks at the cases, glass, in which wonders never cease, looks at the light fixtures, looks at the floor, carpet or wood or neither, and yes, the man behind the counter says something, and she looks at him too. By now, she is only looking, she isn't seeing fate, she isn't watching [hearing] resonance, she isn't glancing at the spiritual reflection of the place: only looking.

Askance. At the guy behind the counter. She doesn't approach yet. Just: "Are you the owner?"

[Shangri La] "That depends on if you have a complaint. If so, he'll be in on the Thursday after next, if the rain at 2:30 makes a rainbow." There's a grin, charming, teasing [come in, little girl, it's safe and warm here], and he sets aside the book he'd had in hand when she came in, the better to study her. It's curious, this look, as if she's a particularly interesting breed of . . . something.

"So, what are you looking for?"

[K. R. Jakes] "I don't have a complaint. What does that get me?" Not waiting for a rainbow at 2:30 to tell her whether or not to come back on Thursday. "I'm looking for an interesting answer," Kage says, with a smile that touches on wry; she's a cool character, Kage, not aloof, but composed (thoughtful [pensive]). She wears composure like it's style, style like it's elegance, elegance like it's beside the point, something anybody can have. "For something I haven't seen before. Can you help me?"

[Perc + Awareness: Mrr? What's shining here abouts?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Shangri La] "That gets you a smile, minus the wry - not that I ever display much of that. And an answer for something you haven't seen before is quite the tall order, isn't it? I mean, I'd have to know what you've seen and what you haven't, and just guessing at that is kind of . . . I don't know, arrogant. I've seen a lot."

The last is with a shrug, and lacking in either modesty or pride - it's simply the way things are.

"Tell me, She-Who-Wants-an-Answer-to-Something-Unseen: Where water flows upwards I there reside; behind humans creation is where I do hide While inside I dream of how up I could fly and rising outside I see all under the sky Where am I?"

[K. R. Jakes] He is still behind the counter. Kage decides not to continue this (odd) conversation just three steps from the door. She knows where it is. She trusts she can find it again. She walks over the counter, and he is telling her a riddle, and she is half-smiling, although it isn't the sort of smile that touches her with gorgeousness. It's just a smile; a really, this, sort've smile; something twinned with inquisition.

"I don't think so," that it's a tall order. "There's a lot I haven't seen. There's a lot I haven't done. A lot I want to see and a lot I want to do." Kage rests her elbows on the counter, eyebrows still lifted. "You're in the stone-cup, the deep-well; you're underneath the city, in the water-pumps; you're where there is no lake, but water, when the sky has fallen and there aren't stars. I have two piles of books I added to five piles of books and one pile of letters. How many piles of words do I have? Are you the owner?"

[K. R. Jakes] [oh! please witness this.]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
to†Shangri La

[Shangri La] [witnessed]
to†K. R. Jakes

[Shangri La] "I could be, was, have been, will be. Maybe. Owning a thing is difficult, don't you think? There may be a piece of paper somewhere with my name and signature and this address on it," he says, dismissive. "And you've one."

He settles back, leans against the counter behind him (which is covered with more books and oddities - glyphs that are runes that are ancient and old and new and strange, dancing in some corner of her brain, instruments, leadgoldcoppersilver, hematitesoapstoneagatelapis, sage for purity, rosemary for remembrance) as he watches her, assessing.

"Who is so clever and quick-witted
as to guess who goads me on my journey
when I get up, angry, at times awesome;
when I roar loudly and rampage over the land,
sometimes causing havoc; when I burn houses
and ransack palaces? Smoke rises,
ashen over roofs. There is a din on earth,
me die sudden deaths when I shake the forest,
the flourishing trees, and fell timber -
I with my roof of water, an avenger
driven far and wide by the powers above;
I carry on my back what once covered
every man, body and soul submerged
together in the water. Say what conceals me
or what I, who bear this burden, am called."

[K. R. Jakes] And you've one.

"Well, that was as easy as falling when you're rain. What did I win?" And there, right there. That's when the (cool [composed]) Orphan smiles, and the smile touches her eyes, transforms her face, makes her briefly lovely; lends gorgeousness to the darkness in her eyes. "Besides another riddle."

Another riddle, which sounds familiar, but she doesn't know the answer to, so considers more gravely than she might otherwise have. She is cold, and wet, and outside, it felt like fire, like ashes, and inside, it's warm, not warm enough to unbutton her coat yet, but warm, and the f'ing building doesn't have a fate, and now she's playing wordgames with a dreamy looking shopboy who's seen a lot, according to him, and who's got a crapload of interesting things behind the counter.

"You're called storm," she says, "and tempest, and you'll always be concealed by the same."

[Shangri La] "I am, indeed," he says, and there's more gravity to it than should be in any dreamy looking shopboy's voice when he's talking about such things. "A storm landed, a tempest in the proverbial teapot."

Outside feels like fire, like not-snow-not-rain that could be ash, and the wind picks up as he acknowledges what she's called him.

"Your answers get you seeing, as you wish. Close your eyes, if you please." He waits, watches, to see what she does - doesn't move until she's done as he suggested, and when he does there's not a sound so much as the feeling of air resettling, of currents shifting, and she can feel the potential for lightning, the heavy air that comes before a roll of thunder.

[K. R. Jakes] "Are you honorable? Will you shake hands and agree not to kill or maim, first?" K. R. slides one hand out across the counter, offering a handshake; she's regarding the shopboy seriously.

[Shangri La] "I am as honorable as the wind and rain, and as dangerous as the thunder and lightning. I can only shake on my intentions, Miss - not all things are in my control." He is honest; there's no thought of deceit to him. He's honorable as the wind and rain, and as honest as it is, too.

[K. R. Jakes] "Then take my hand," she says, mouth crooking. "And I'll shake to intentions, as long as they're of the 'not kill' and 'not maim' variety, Mister Wind's Honor and Rain's."

[Shangri La] And take her hand he does - movement is a little rush of wind, and even watching him it's difficult to tell when he moved around the counter to be by her side. "Close your eyes," he whispers in her ear, close, and there's a crackle - outside, amongst the fire-that-isn't, the ash-snow, lightning flashes.

[K. R. Jakes] [do I startle?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] Kage, wary Kage, has a certain self-possession in the face of strangeness; it does not abandon her now. He moves, and it's a blurr, plays tricks with her mind; takes her hand, whispers in her ear, and the air's all fraught with [potential] possibility, all fraught with that snapcrack feeling, precedes disaster or illumination [hurt]. She straightens, turns her head to regard him for a steady moment. She blinks, once. And then, watchfully, warily, she takes a quiet breath and closes her eyes.

[Shangri La] Around her, all is noise, all is violence and destruction, all is nature, all is bruise-yellow tornado-light, all is hail and rain and gusts of wind and percussive thunder and lightning close enough to raise the hair on her arms, to scent the air with electricity. This is a very different sort of sensuality than that brought by her demon lover, but no less there - this is a prickling of something in the bottom of her brain, some primitive part that needs to find cover and safety despite his promise.

"Don't open them," he whispers, and it's the sound of a cyclone, the feeling of hail. He is still at her ear, whispering, his breath warm and cold over her skin, his breath bearing life and death at the hands of a typhoon, a hurricane, a blizzard [his hands, all his, the watering of the earth, the freezing of the air]. "Listen. Think. Feel. And tell me what you see."

[K. R. Jakes] [lalala]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] "I - " a moment's pause. No cool lines. No calm, collected avoidances. No riddles. A word, and a hitch to her breath: tension, whispering against her bones, against her neck, where his breath tickles (if she's even aware of that [too much else]). It's not that different from Him and she wonders for a moment whether the shopboy is even a boy at all. Whether or not he's another shard of godhood, of divinity. Not hers, but someone's mystery, flesh and blood and rain.

"I," uncertain, her eyelids flutter: restraint. "See wind," and a sense of irony touches her mouth, curves it, sweet. "Air, all in calamity and uproar. Violence, movement, falling, that's what I see, cacophony, a confusion, frisson, rising."


[Shangri La] "What do you smell?"

Someone's bit of divinity, maybe, so very different from Him but not, whispering, just there, and yes, even amongst the violencemovementfallingcacaphonyconfusionfrissonrising, the shopboy is capable of making himself felt, of providing some some, uncertain sense of anchor [eye.of.the.storm] where there might not be any otherwise. There is more, of course. There is always more. Strange shopboys with very interesting things on their counters do not turn into wind, into riddles, into air and divinity to bring one to they eye of Storm every day.

[K. R. Jakes] "Smoke and snow," she replies, turning. Her eyes are still closed. Perhaps Kage is actually trusting, and she's learned lessons about trust. The Orphan pivots, in the dusty shop, the shop that is wrong, the shop that pushed back at her testing mind, and reaches to -- catch the shop boy's wrist, catch his shirt, catch his side, catch him, touch him, make that a real anchor, stop reeling, no, don't reel. She licks her lips. "Spring and metal."

[Shangri La] Are they still in the shop? It's hard to tell, but she grips a shirt (some polycotton blend, just what one might expect a nearly hipster looking shopboy to wear, but it flutters, odd, a breeze inside) and finds . . .

. . . the opposite of what she seeks.

Shopboy is not the eye of the storm, no, but he can provide it. Touching him makes the roar rise, brings tornadoes and tsunamis, brings downpour and blizzard, brings dizziness and flyingfallingfreedomdestructioncreationchaoswildwyld. He leans in, whispers [roars], and lips brush her earlobe, the bit of skin just belowbehind it with a flash of lightning, a spark.

"What do you taste?"

[K. R. Jakes] A shirt. Fine: she'll grip the shirt; press her knuckles in (person [flesh] right?). Not hard, not mean, not sharp; just steady, just questioning. Her eyes are still closed. Her eyes are still closed even when lightning strikes, when lips write a spark against her skin, although they flutter again. Quiet. A long spell of quiet, and then, "Nothing," she says. What does a storm taste like? What is a tempest really like?

[Shangri La] Person, flesh. There is solid, there, but it does nothing to take away from the rest, knowing that. There's disappointment in his voice, when he speaks, and he draws back

(no don't do that [oh gods yes, please do])

to shake his head, tsking like the fall of golfball sized hail.

"No." Sharp, disapproving. "Try harder. What do you taste?"

[K. R. Jakes] It's reassuring, somehow, that he should be solid, underneath all the noise, all the din and clamor, all the movement. Her forehead scrunches. "Ice," she says, "And cold. Ash," she says, "And metal. I taste -- I don't know what that is; nothing; it's something blank as paper. Don't 'no' me like that."

[Shangri La] "I taste electricity," he says, crackly, and so does she.
"I taste ice," he says, cold, and so does she.
"I taste dry," he says, and so does she.
"I taste life," he says, and so does she, "and I taste death."

There's a pause. "Open. There's no point if you don't. What do you hear?"

[K. R. Jakes] "The silence before," she answers, simply. "And the roar. I hear the drumming, and I hear the -- break; the hiss? The rise and fall of sussurations. I hear breath. That's what I hear. I can't hear myself. I don't know how I hear you."

[Shangri La] There's approval, and he leans closer to murmur again. "You hear me because I am. What do you feel?"

[K. R. Jakes] "Pressure," she says, her mouth crooked (sweet). "And ... cool, prickle, delicate, burning, pulling. A lot of verbs. I feel pressure," she repeats, still half-smiling. "A rush."

[Shangri La] "What am I?" Such a small question, that.

[K. R. Jakes] The Orphan half-laughs, something soft, tangled, ash and moonlight on water: a gesture, delicate, husked. And then, silence, while her eyebrows draw together, fine features going grave with consideration, going still. Most people aren't completely silent, and Kage isn't. People breathe, you see, even if they don't speak, even if they don't breathe loudly, still, they breathe. So her silence isn't complete, doesn't hope to be, but she stays in it for a little while, shaping an answer that isn't that glimmer of laughter [static (electricity)].

"What are you? I don't know," and she sounds fervent, for a second. Copper and ice, ivy and thorn. The air she tastes is crystalline, is so clear. Not stuffy, not shop-air. "Mysterious," she says, wry, but meaning it, "Mystery," she says, more seriously, "A force of nature."

[Shangri La] Another small question - but it isn't, not any more than the last had been. "What are you?"

[K. R. Jakes] "Opening my eyes," she says, or warns, or tests: whichever.

[Shangri La]
"But first," he says, and a hand comes to rest over those eyes [flash of lightning, afterburn] briefly before pulling away. "What are you? You need to know this." It's slightly disappointed, but not like the earlier no-ing and hailstone tsking. "You need to know so it can become something else."

Like wind and rain.
Like bruise-light.
Like the center of it all.

"Enjoy your night," he says. "Miss Jakes. It's colder than when you came in - bundle up."

[K. R. Jakes] His palm is against her eyes when she opens them. He can feel the movement of her eyelashes, and she sees only the dark he cups there before he pulls away, and it's just the shop again: extra/ordinary. She contemplates the shopboy for a long, steady moment.

"I didn't give you my name. What name should I use for you?"