Opinions and Violins

[Kage] [?]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 7, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Declan] [Nightmares]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 9, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Declan] He hadn't slept well last night. The demons that haunted his dreams were a blur to him now (faded from memory, as dreams so often did), but the residual effects had been with him all day, lingering like a bad cold that wouldn't quite go away. He felt tired and anxious, but with no particular cause. This had been occurring with more commonality since the afternoon that Declan had played Kage's violin. Moreso since Ashley had given him a new one of his own. It was a mixed blessing, that violin. It made him feel happier than he could remember feeling in a very long time. But it also brought on the dreams. (Perhaps happiness itself was what brought them on.)

It didn't matter. He wasn't going to stop playing.

Declan had been out walking through Lake View after acquiring dinner for himself at the soup kitchen, and at some point it had occurred to him that Kage lived nearby, and he hadn't seen Kage in a few weeks now. Perhaps he'd always been thinking of her, and just didn't realize it. Either way, there was a point where he made the conscious decision to turn a corner and walk to her apartment. Eventually he reached the building. It was starting to get late. She might be asleep, or at least working toward that goal. For a moment, Declan just stared at the door and contemplated whether or not he should leave and come back another time.

Just then, the door opened of its own accord, and a face he did not recognize appeared. Declan smiled shyly at the stranger, and as the two of them stepped around each other, he grabbed the door and slipped inside the building. It was only a short way to Kage's own door, and when he got there, Declan reached out and knocked on it gently.

[Kage] [Do I know who it is? Awareness action!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kage] The redhaired (solitary [disparate]) woman wasn't asleep when Declan knocked on her door. Nope. Kage was awake, one leg tucked beneath herself, her right shoulder against the high back of her study's couch, her left arm tucked behind her head, pillowing her head, like a wing, like the uncomfortable position (unusual, really; she wasn't uncomfortable) would help the blood flow and sing answers to the riddle she was trying to unravel that much more clearly.

There is a furrow between her eyebrows, when Declan knocks on her door, and it is a shadow, the mark of some earlier irritation, some story she didn't much care for, which she was dwelling on without realizing she was dwelling on it. She wasn't still awake because she was irritated. That wasn't a thorn she was using to force herself onward. She was awake because it was the time of night for wakefulness, because it was getting on toward the quietest hours, which were her favourite, and it was early yet.

Kage was (Anchoress [beloved: whisper to me a true thing]) just staring at a heavy, falling-apart-at-the-seams book aquired from some library market, as if by staring the elusive (illusive, she began to believe) piece of information, key, fragment, would jump right out at her, whisper to her the name of the page, the book, the name of the person who contained the knowledge, where they were to be found.

And then there was his knock on the door.

Now, Kage is concentrating, and such a gentle knock as Declan's is could easily have gone missed, were it not also kissed by the unmistakable brand of his presence. His magical signature: Tam Lin, before he has escaped paying the tiend to Hell, before he belongs to mortal things; protean, Mutability, faint, glimmer, one of those stars whose milk is so watered down that it almost disappears into the night. Declan, and she feels him when he's in the hallway, just before he lifts his fist, is half-listening for some noise outside her apartment when he knocks, feels him staying there, so

Kage exhales, unfolds, and pads out of her study, pausing to slip her feet into her blue dragon slippers, and she shuffles down the hall, down the stair, up the stair, to the door. Which she opens, saying, "Declan, hi. What are you doing here? Come on in."

[Declan] She was awake. This was a blessing, since he would have felt foolish had she not been. Just as Kage had felt him before ever she heard him knock, so too did Declan both feel and hear the delicate creak of floorboards as she stood up and walked to the door. That was the thing about old buildings. When you moved, they gave you away. So he was ready when she opened the door, but still his smile was a little shy and hesitant, as if he wasn't certain if he might not be welcome.

There was something different here: a nylon strap that hugged his chest and looped around a shoulder. It held a weather-proof bag roughly the size of a violin case (a little larger, of course, to accommodate padding) against his back. He took this with him everywhere, lately. Perhaps he was too afraid to leave it behind, lest it disappear in his absence. Aside from this notable addition, he looked much the same as the last time that Kage had encountered him. Well, perhaps a bit more filled-out. His ribs didn't show so much. He was starting to approach a healthy (if still slim) weight. His hair was getting a little longer, too, and pieces of blond hung over his forehead. He brushed them out of the way.

She asked him to come in, and he did so, looking around as he did. "I'm sorry to bother you, if it's too late. I was just walking by and thought... it would be nice to see you. We haven't talked in awhile." He turned back around to look at her straight-on. "I don't remember if I thanked you for what you did for me, last time, but... thanks. It meant a lot to me." And then, because like most people, Declan didn't necessarily like to speak about his own vulnerabilities, he quickly asked: "How are you?"

[Kage] The apartment looks much the same as it did when Kage brought Declan by before, except the window to the kitchen is open, cracked ajar to let the cool night air in. There is a cricket in the corner of the kitchen, singing. The singing ceases when Declan comes inside, but it was there. He didn't imagine it. It's clear that Kage wasn't expecting visitors, and wasn't expecting to go outside again. She is dressed, if not for bed, for the hours immediately preceding it. Her shorts are silk, the colour of a blush [if the Moon were of a mind to do so, if water were to catch the sight of that blush and give it shadow, make it ripple, make it silk - see?], and her shirt is old, bears the legend of some obscure band, has a neckline so tugged out of shape, so gaping, that if Kage were a siamese twin she'd probably be able to fit both of her heads through it. And, of course, there are the dragon slippers, because hardwood floors, they get cold.

Even with this, even with the dragon slippers (the dragons have tongues; they also have eyes; big, goofy cartoon eyes; ears, crests: one looks mean and mad, the other looks very, very, happy), Kage is poised when she studies Declan, studies him while he looks around, studies him when he turns to face her directly, to deliver his thanks. Briefly she glances to the side, then back; it's possible she isn't comfortable being thanked. It's possible she is wondering where the cricket song went, or that she is uncomfortable bearing the weight of attention (no; that's probably not it).

Still. He doesn't dwell on that. Neither does she. Kage, impulse sparks a smile; draws it out of the righthand corner of her mouth. "It's never too late. Sometimes too early, but never too late. And if it's never too late, then I suppose it can't ever really be too early, can it? Because where does one draw the line?" A beat. "I'm glad you came by. I was just going to rest my eyes." Another beat, and, "I see you acquired an instrument." Curiousity, and also a touch of mischief. Behind this, something wistful. "What's the story behind it?"

The cricket starts to sing again. Tentatively.

"Do you want something to drink or eat?"


[Declan] Those slippers ought to have caught his eye first, but they were actually the fourth place that his olive gaze traveled to when he looked at Kage. The first was her face (her eyes), because naturally that was always the first place one looked. The second was her collar bones, where the stretched shirt lay bare the skin around her neck and shoulders. The third place was her hips, covered in blushing silk. His eyes lingered there for just a moment before finally dropping down to her feet.

An amused smile touched his lips.

Then Kage asked about the violin, and Declan brought his eyes back to her own. "I'm fine, thanks." (In regards to the offer of sustenance.) "It's Ashley's, actually. She just gave it to me, out of the blue. I'm trying to think of some way to repay her, but... I don't know. How do you repay someone for a gift like that?" The truth was, he couldn't. Because he had nothing to give Ashley that would equal the gift that she had given him: the return of something that gave his life meaning. Declan pulled the strap over his head and set the violin down carefully against the wall.

"I've been playing a lot. It's a nice instrument. Better than I ever could have afforded on my own." He ran a hand through his hair, ruffling it slightly, then moved to sit down on the sofa. When he sat down, he leaned over and rested his elbows on his knees. "Those are cute slippers," he finally admitted.

[Kage] The violin was Ashley's, and although Declan doesn't qualify that with a story in truth, doesn't say,

Once upon a time there was a girl who was hungry for music, who could string the moon along, whenever she rosined up her bow. Once upon a time there was a girl who could play the salt from the sea on her violin, and she was born with this great gift, and she honed it, and it was her life, and then one day it was taken from her completely, and music was locked away in a box, and whenever she heard music thereafter, she did not hear music. She heard noise, and it hurt her, so she had to find something else to replace music.

Well -- Kage knows the story, and she raises both of her eyebrows. There is a thoughtless elegance, there, in her expression. She rakes her fingers through her hair, the gesture in direct opposition to elegance, and says, "I see." A beat. "Can I see it?" Because she is still curious. She knows that she won't touch the violin and know the last thing the human asleep who Ashley was, but still, she is curious. Not sentimental: it's a story.

Another beat. And then, quiet: "I don't think that's the kind of gift you repay, Declan. Not with another gift. Not with an object or a sign or some indication that you are repaying a treasure. Because you can't, because it's unneeded. Does that make sense? I think it's the kind of gift you repay by using to create."

Another beat, and Kage leans her hip against the side of her couch, half-seated, half-leaning against the couch's arm, the better to talk to Declan. When he compliments her slippers, she looks surprised, and then -- well. Kage doesn't blush. She glances down, and then offers Declan a brief (radiant [shining]) smile. "Thank you. My sister gave them to me because I played D&D once. She said she thought they were appropriate."

[Declan] Kage asked if she could see the violin, and Declan nodded, giving her permission to open up the bag and retrieve the instrument from inside. If she did, she'd find that inside of the first case (weatherproof nylon, zippered, padded) lay a second, more traditional one (leather, clasped), and inside of that lay a beautiful, well-maintained piece of craftsmanship. Before giving it to Declan, Ashley had seen that it had been repaired of any damage caused by years spent in storage, and now it was good as new. It even shimmered.

Kage knew the story behind this violin. Declan... did not. He never knew what had happened to Ashley, or why she'd given it to him. This was probably because Ashley didn't wish him to know. Someday, perhaps, she (or someone else) would tell him. For now, he could only speculate. But he still thought of the violin as Ashley's. He could play it until his fingers bled and the world stopped turning, and it would still belong to Ashley. This was not a detractor, for he loved it all the same.

The explanation about the slippers made him laugh gently.

"Speaking of Ashley... she told me some things the other day. About Traditions and finding a mentor. She made me realize just how little I know about all of this. Do you have a Tradition? Does everyone? What are they like?"

[Kage] [Okay. Caaaaaan I play worth crap tonight, or is violin horror to come? Roll not relevant yet.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Kage] He has questions. Kage listens to them, after she takes Ashley's violin out of the bag, unzips the protected instrument case, touches the wood, strokes its neck, lightly touches her fingers to the strings [hard moonlight, and it could make you bleed, practice enough to beat the Devil, why yes it could], and touches the chingard beneath her chin, tilting her head to the side, just so.

This isn't to say that she is ignoring Declan in favor of the instrument, that she is enraptured by it; no. Kage likes music, and Kage likes the violin especially, because it moves something in her, because it drowns out the voice of Him, because He likes it, because it can be tooled to country music and rock ballads and folk and classical, all with the greatest of ease. Because it sounds like a voice. But associates no tragedy with the violin; to her, it is just an instrument. Well-made, and lovely, and once Ashley's, and now Declan's.

So she is listening, seriously, a touch of wry (amusement) when Declan says that Ashley told him things about Traditions and finding a mentor, because that sounds like Ashley.

"No. I don't. And no, everybody does not. I've been told that it is becoming more common for Awakened people to stay without -- " and she can mean it both ways, here: without, as in, containing an absence; without, as in, standing outside of " -- a tradition. But I'm also generally given the impression that it isn't usually done; it certainly isn't something most people who belong to a Tradition desire to see." A pause, and, "I'll try to answer your questions more in depth, but it would help if I knew what you already know. What names have been dropped? What do you want?"

The word -- want, it always comes, with Kage, with something cool and wanting behind it, a hint of adrency, of belief. She doesn't seem to mind the questions, though.

[Declan] That was an interesting question: what did he want? Declan considered it for a long moment as Kage experimented with his(Ashley's) violin. He didn't seem bothered by her handling of it, and wouldn't be bothered if she started to play. Violin music didn't hurt him the way that it once did, when it symbolized loss so acutely. Now it stirred things in him. It inspired. It made him hungry to create, as if creation itself were a foodstuff from which he received nourishment.

What did he want?

"I want to create," he said. "Beyond that... I don't know. I just want to learn, and to make beautiful things, and I don't want anyone to tell me what to believe and how I'm supposed to go about doing things. But I know there are things that I should know that I don't, and I don't like that. I'm tired of always circling on the edge of the world and never being a part of it."

There was a pause as he tried to remember what names he'd heard before. There weren't many. "Ashley said she was in the Order of Hermes. And she told me I might be interested in the Cult of Ecstasy and... Dreamspeakers? I don't remember if she told me anything else. She didn't really say much about any of them."

[Kage] Paradox: Kage has a reputation for being (private) secretive; she also has a reputation for (belief) honesty. These things don't often go holy palmer's palm a lover's mouth to another lover's hand in hand. "Have you tried to create anything with music?" Kage asks, of Declan; "Not just music, but -- have you tried to spin a thing out've music?" Kage can feel, has felt, how potent Declan is; how forceful his Protean nature. And it isn't, very. She doubts that he could spin an object out complete, but that isn't what she's talking about, precisely. "You want to create. Have you tried to unlock that wanting, yet?" And see, she takes up the bow, draws it across a string, across another, something sweet and quavering, the beginning of a gypsy melody, of a key. "You and I are awake. We don't need to use our hands. We can be forces of Creation - see?"

Kage remembers being a newly Awakened kid. Kage remembers figuring everything out for herself, just her and Him, with occasional guest appearances by other mages. She remembers putting it together, piecemeal, who was helpful and who wasn't, the kinds of questions she asked herself. She remembers all of that. It really wasn't that long ago. She also remembers almost becoming an Initiate of a Tradition, of choosing to step away, to go this road instead.

"Okay. Did she say anything about the conventionalists? The men with mirrors in their shadows? Mirrorshades? Marauders?" Music, a mellow counterpoint -- background, insistent, repetitive, baroque. There's space for Declan to answer; Kage pauses, doesn't really play yet. Instead, she draws her feet up onto the couch, and one of her slippers tries to make a break for it [Draconic freedoooooooooooom!], and she curls her toes. Her back is straight; her posture good, a musician's, except for something of a slouch about her shoulders, irreverent.

"Let's see. We can start with 'the Nine.' That's easy."

[Declan] Forces of Creation. He'd been a force of creation, once: brimming and overflowing with seemingly limitless potential. Declan at eighteen had been a person balanced on the line that separated past from future; ordinary from extraordinary, and if he looked out across that line, he could see glimpses of a universe that opened up like the petals of a flower. And always, there had been music. Always, there had been the relentless need to express. Then a woman had found him, and she'd said that he was special. She'd said he had a destiny. The woman wanted him to make music that the whole world would hear. She wanted him to spread the message.

But that message was hate and lies and destruction and the end of everything. And he couldn't. He wouldn't. And the song inside of him had screamed No! so loudly that its voice broke, and now it was just the tiniest whisper.

But it had been strong, once. Inspiration to make artists swoon and poets weep. And it would be - will be - is becoming - strong again.

So Kage asked if he'd tried to spin creation from music, and Declan's eyes lit up with something like understanding, and he said: "It always comes from music. Every dream, every insight... it comes as a song. I've tried, yes. I've wanted... and it's there, but not quite. I can't get to it yet."

Then she talked of things he knew nothing about - Mirrorshades and Marauders, and something called The Nine. To all this, he simply shook his head, and waited for her to elaborate.

[Kage] He says that he's tried. Kage is going to come back to that, to the understanding that sparked in Declan's eyes. First, Mage Society 101, as lectured by staunch Disparate (iconoclast [fuck you guys]) Kage R. Jakes.

"Keep in mind," Kage says, a preface and a prologue. A pause; she doesn't quite know how to say it, so finally: "These aren't my people." By which she means: she is biased, and not always favorably; by which she means, she will try for justice and fairness, but she may not achieve it.

"Ask questions. I'll elaborate when I can; I won't always be able to." And now, the beginning. She rests the violin on the couch between them, and there are shadows, in the blush-silk of her shorts, they're like water-shadows, oracular; shift, silk. She takes her feet out of her dragon slippers, and rests them (demure [chaste]) between, so she is bordered by two cartoon dragons, and her hands are clasped in her lap, her knees together, silk running like water off've her thighs, her back still relatively straight, and her gaze direct and cool and thoughtful.

"Okay. You wanted to know what the Traditions are like. Short answer. The Traditions are like a bunch of cats who've all chosen to live in this one guy's house because he's the sole purveyor of fish and the asshole street coyotes might want some of the fish, too, but these cats, they really want that fish, so they keep the asshole street coyotes out, so sometimes they don't fight each other as much." Kage's mouth curves (mischief [burning]), slow, subtle.

"The Nine," she says. "When you hear someone say the Nine, they're talking about 'the' Nine traditions who've historically managed to grab themselves some cachet in the mystical world. They've defined themselves against Science in the past -- no. Against unrelenting Science, I guess I should say: against the quantification of the modern world as a magicless place. They're loosely -- heh, see the cat versus coyote metaphor -- allied against the Conventions of the Technocracy. They're mystical Traditions, all of them, even the Virtual Adepts. They're magick," she says, and these two words are bare-bone: are lovely, like sea-glass held up to the light; they hold light, but also cast shadows. "And they're faith. Belief, and the formulae for belief. They're visions of how the world might work, see? They're better than the alternative. Maybe."

Damning with faint praise: a specialty.

"There is the Celestial Chorus, which Emily is going to join, the Cult of Ecstasy, the Order of Hermes, which has a number of sub-houses -- most of these Traditions, as far as I can tell, have a secret societies within, factions that sometimes tug them apart, political, the Virtual Adepts, the Sons of Ether -- Atlas is one, and Henri; I've always called them the Gentlemen Inventors or the Machine Poets. There's also," and she is listing these off on her fingertips, see, "the Euthanatoi, and the Verbena, the Spiritsayers - uh, Dreamspeakers is what you'll hear them Named, most of the time, and the Akashic Brotherhood."

"The mages who don't fit in any of those Traditions are called Orphans, usually. Or Disparates. Or a lot of bad names. I've heard Fence Humpers and Easy Prey and Strays. There are also the Hollow Ones -- they've got T. S. Eliot in their name, and they can probably quote from at least one of his poems, and they've got Society like most other, uh, nontraditionalists don't. They come together. Put out the word. That's really the only difference I can take from the Hollow Ones I've met. That, and they overwhelmingly seem to prefer black. Line of ragged crows, or glossy crows, but crows with candleflames, sitting on the cradle. See?"

[Declan] It was a lot to take in, all of this. And it was a lot to explain. Kage did her best, considering her biases, and yes, those biases were evident in her speech. Declan listened to this the way he listened to everything - with keen attention, but also with discrimination. Because, as she'd said, these were not her people. Declan listened, and he took these things at face value - as vision from another's point of view. Insight, but not gospel. Like Kage, he was so far a disparate. Like Kage, he was so far self-taught. And also like Kage, he had his opinions. One might not guess at that. Declan was the quicksilver boy, and perhaps to some that meant a kind of directionless fluidity (and perhaps sometimes that was precisely what he embodied), but he was not without a sense of self. (The center did hold.)

A contradiction, maybe. Life was full of those.

Perhaps, in the end, their views were not all that different (though his were perhaps less embittered), because there were many moments during Kage's descriptions where flashes of wry amusement touched at his eyes and mouth. And he nodded, now and then, to show that he was listening, and that he understood. After awhile, he sat back and relaxed into the sofa cushions. He didn't often sit like there. Usually, he wasn't comfortable enough to completely unfold.

"So there's all of these groups, and each of them has a common belief system. Like the difference between Christianity and Buddhism. I can understand wanting to have the safety of numbers, and to find others with whom you share a commonality. But why must it all be so... structured? I mean, what if there really are no rules? I don't think think there's any right way to see the world."

[Declan] [...didn't often sit like that.]

[Kage] "I don't either," Kage says, after a moment's thought. "Not really. Not yet. I don't see any reason for one Tradition to be 'more' right than another. Even when they're in opposition: it's just another way of looking at the same picture. Denying yourself the ability to see all perspectives seems like a waste of vision to me. Everything's true if it's true." Her voice isn't hoarse yet. An academic; she is used to presentations, and to (muted flamboyance [diminished]) staying cool and composed in a number of different situations. A beat, and then a faint (mischief, again) smirk. "And if there are no rules, that's a rule."

Inhale.

"Honestly, it isn't necessarily as structured as all that. It could be. It's been. It might be again. But even within a Tradition you'll have people who practice but aren't fervent. You'll have people who don't hold to all the traditions of their Tradition." She doesn't name names. "In Chicago especially there's a lot of, uh, cross pollination, I suppose. The Traditions don't have influence as Traditions, it's just people who belong to them."

A pause, and it's clear if Declan has any perceptive abilities at all that Kage is thinking over what she said, and going back to an earlier point: "Has anybody explained paradox to you?"


[Declan] I there are no rules, that's a rule.

Declan laughed gently, and gave a little nod, as if to concede defeat on this point. In any case, he wasn't entirely correct. There were rules. Inescapable rules. Rules that could not be bypassed simply by refusing to believe in them. That isn't to say that the laws of reality were a universal constant (hardly), or that even something like paradox was necessarily the way that the world had to operate (it wasn't), but no single mind could re-write the Tellurian. It just didn't work that way.

Kage was about to explain to him one of those inescapable things, and it was probably a good thing that she thought to do so, because so far no one had. (And oh, wouldn't that be a fun thing to discover by mistake?) When she asked Declan if he knew what paradox was, he looked at her curiously and shook his head. "I know what the word means. But I suspect that's not what you're asking me."

[Kage] "No." Simple. Her mouth quirks, wry. "But it's a good place to start a once upon a time from." Kage does not fidget. Economy; knowing when to be still -- knowing how to be still. Kage is not still the way a trained warrior might be; she is still the way a book might be; an image, an illuminated manuscript -- the fulcrom of grace, balance not yet ready to tip one way or the other, but just about to. Kage is not still the way a monk might be, or an animal; it's all human, this poise -- all careless, all destined not to last.

"Paradox is what happens when you do something, make something happen, that is too -- outlandish; too -- impossible, according to what most people believe. Like putting a lock on a door, turning a key to lock it, unlocking it right after -- and opening the door into a room that wasn't there. That's impossible. Unbelievable. And unbelief can hurt. It's like ... You press against the weight of expectation, and expectation gets really jealous, and changes you back, snaps like a rubberband, spits in your eye."

"Sometimes it just hurts. But sometimes the price is much higher than a bruise or two. It can take you into Quiet, which is not a place you want to go. It can take away your eyesight or make it so everything," and here, wryness creeps back into her tone; falls like a shadow in the afternoon - clearly, this has happened to someone she knows: "you touch turns to food for a week. It can take your reflection or make it so you demagnetize computers when you walk on by or phones just start ringing, and it still hurts."

"One way I think of it is as a boundary that moves for a country which has no boundaries, if that makes sense."

[Declan] There was careful contemplation on his part, as he tried to picture this reality-boundary (paradox). He was a good listener, Declan was. So much of how he learned about the world happened through listening (only slightly less than feeling.) It would be the most sincere tragedy if he were ever rendered deaf.

At some point, he pushed the shoes off of his feet and tucked his heels up against him on the couch, knees pointed. He didn't fidget, but neither was he perfectly still. He shifted, now and then. Flowing from one pose to another.

"So then, if I tried to do something like that. Something that most people would think was impossible? Paradox would push back and hurt me. Or worse. But then, isn't that awfully... limiting?"

Naturally he didn't much care for the idea. He'd spent the past couple of months believing that anything was possible, and that the only boundaries in the way of true freedom were of his own making. A classic mistake of anyone who was beginning a journey into a new life - they were too busy imagining the possibilities to look around and notice the dangers.

[Kage] "I suppose it depends on how you look at it. The possibilities haven't lessened; they've just become harder, on occasion, to make happen. And there are consequences. What do you want? You can have it. But there world isn't quite ready to devolve -- or evolve -- into chaos; into anarchy. Sometimes you don't even get hurt at all."

"But eventually, Paradox'll swagger by and pull your bra strap." A beat. Declan: not likely to have a bra-strap to pull. "Jock strap." A beat. "But Marauders are different." Kage takes a quiet breath, and drags her fingers through her hair, shifting out of stillness, leaning her knee against the back of her couch, stretching one leg out. Her toes are under the (elegant [graceful]) neck of Ashley's violin. "Paradox just ...wicks off of them, no matter what they do, and it seeks out whoever else is Awake and near, and punishes them instead."

[Declan] Marauders. Another thing he was ignorant of. Somewhat ironic, perhaps, considering how close he once came to becoming one. Kage had mentioned Quiet while talking about paradox, but if he'd had any familiarity with that once, it was in another life. Now, it was just a word. Like Marauder was just a word (and would be until he met one.) Marauder was not just a word for Kage. Not at all. Not by a long shot.

Declan made a face when she mentioned snapping jock-straps. He'd actually managed to get out of high school without ever having to wear one, but his imagination was plenty colorful enough to find the idea rather unpleasant. The expression melted away quickly though, to be replaced by something more sincere. (Something worried.)

"That sounds dangerous."

[Kage] "It should. Because it is dangerous. If you're thinking, but hey, can't I join the Marauders? Learn how to isolate myself from paradox; make reality once again liminal? Well: a Marauder isn't like a Traditionalist. They're not just dangerously immune. They've lost their," brief pause, right here; because it's true: Marauder isn't just a word to Kage, and it won't be just a word to Kage for a long, long time, if ever. "They've lost who they are. Who they were is changed into something different. Their nature is inverted. They've lost their minds, and they live where their minds used to be. Does that make sense? They're also -- infectious, I suppose you'd say. Spend a lot of time around a Marauder and you'll start to hear things, gibbering voices in the shadows, start to see things, too, develop habits, be unable to -- it is dangerous."

"But I'm told they're rare. I've only ever seen one." Kage rubs her hand along her thigh. If she were dressed in jeans, she'd have a pocket there, with an emegency cigarette. As it is, just silk: wavering shadows, water.

A beat. And, "What do you do, Declan? When you do things or Know things that most people wouldn't be able to? Wouldn't know? Do you have any rituals? Does anything help you?"

[Declan] [Per+Awareness - Was that a meaningful pause?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 4, 5, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Declan] [One more try?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Declan] Kage had always been more difficult for him to read than most people. There was a kind of inscrutability about her (perhaps intentional, perhaps not) that left her inner thoughts and motivations something of a puzzle. Nonetheless, he felt the weight of that pause hang in the air (detected some sadness in it), and for a moment he watched her more keenly as she spoke of Marauders and their dangers.

Madmen. Chaos. Fractured. Broken. (Too familiar, that.)

Declan reached out and grasped the violin gently, reclaiming it for a moment as he set it down on the makeshift coffee table. His legs moved, unfolding and sliding back to rest feet on the floor as he shifted again, coming to rest against Kage's outstretched foot. He glanced at it briefly, as if noting the proximity and deciding in his head that yes, he was ok with it being there.

"Music," he said, and it was as simple as that. "I play, or I sing, or just... listen. It makes it easier, somehow."

[Kage] He's said this before: that Music is what helps him. That Music is what speaks to him, what makes him into one of the luminous people. Kage looks considering, for a moment. Or maybe just inscrutable; after all, she's good at that -- sometimes, she doesn't even need to try. Kage is also, essentially, honest. Declan'd given her a closer look while she spoke of Marauders, of their dangers. And he noticed that she detached herself from the topic; maybe he noticed a hint (glint [spark]) of something determined, or ardent, beneath. There's always something, beneath. Even water has things unseen on the surface.

"Has anybody ever shared their Knowing with you; have you ever shared your Knowing with anybody else?"

There's a method to her questioning. Kage doesn't want to go straight from Marauders: they're Doom to Nephandi: They're Different, Scarier Doom, Possibly the Doomiest of All. Kage doesn't regret being Awake; doesn't think it's just horror after horror after horror, although sometimes it feels that way, bcause there's just so much. Kage likes the world. She'd like to like the world. It's all about longing, see, and wanting, yearning.

"Would you share it with me? I'm really curious." Her smile is brief, a spark. Her toes curl reflexively when he rests there, glances down, but that's all. A brief beat, and (not really as if wild horses wrenched the words from her throat - ), "Ashley might be right; you may have a lot in common with the Cultists of Ecstasy, or the Celestial Chorus. The latter's not only about religious fervor and reverence plus pomp and ancient circumstance."

[Declan] [Let's go for... Spirit Sight, sure! Diff 4 -1(focus)]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9 (Success x 2 at target 3) [WP]

[Declan] [And while we're at it (I am so rolling all backwards) Cha+Expression]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Kage] [And while we're doing schtoff, I'ma turn on my Prime Sight to watch how you do this. Academic interest, see. -1 focus, yo, focus.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 3, 7 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[Declan] Kage asked him to share, and he thought about this for a moment before reaching out to pick up the violin and the bow. It settled into place beneath his chin, and he closed his eyes as he drew the bow across the strings. It was tentative at first. Something slow. Just putting notes together. He didn't need it to be complex, and it wasn't. This wasn't Paganini (not by a very wide margin.) But it sounded pleasant enough to the ear, for all that it was rudimentary. The improvised song had an eery lilt to it, something that felt vaguely of ghosts and moonlight.

And after a few moments of this, he opened his eyes again, and the world had become like a mirror of itself. The apartment was a shadow - a ghost world. There was little to see here, when compared with some of the other places he'd been (the forest, the graveyard - oh, that one had been interesting.) Kage would see it too, as he shared his senses with her. No one had ever told him that he could do this, but it seemed a natural thing to someone who understood the connections that everyone (and everything) shared. Of course, if he could see this, then so could she.

He stopped playing, then, and put the violin down, and after a few seconds, the mirror-world faded.

[Kage] The Orphan closes her eyes, briefly. When she opens them, she can see how Declan weaves his vision and how he manifests it on her; she can see the stars, burning inside those who're Awake, constellations, what shape might they make, all strung out like pearls across this globe? What sort've cage, what sort've lock? And she can hear them, too. Low hum. And his eerie melody, unlacing the world-that-is, 'til it's puddled in a heap of shadow, and it's the spiritual reflection of the place they're looking at instead. And it's not true, precisely, that there's nothing unusual to see here. There is, in Kage's living room, a very thin tear, damage, well-warded, no-longer as bad as it was once -- but still: a rent, between the mirror-world and the world-it-mirrors.

She's never thought of music as a way for her -- personally -- to open the way between the worlds. Kage uses blood. It's easiest, for her, but it's also more than easy for her to imagine this as a way instead.

When it fades, Kage grins. "Thank you. Very Orpheus. Don't look over your shoulder, huh?" And then, Kage stifles a yawn - says - "Let me tell you a bit about the Chorus and the Cult. And then I think I'm going to have to sleep. Exhaustion just suckerpunched me. You're welcome to stay, though."