[Wendy Berber] *Wendy’d spent the day working on things for triarii outside, on her laptop. A slight sunburn on her shoulders and cheekbones, the closest she’ll likely ever get to a tan. Her hair shagged over her eyes, a few sheets hanging on the line, flapping in an idle wind. She’s got the back door propped open with a cinderblock, to let hot air out of the house, place getting stuffy with the roast she’s got in the oven. The place smells like roast beef and bread. The glasswalker kin listening attentively for the doorbell as she tries to cram in a few more minutes coding, cook for supper, and do laundry all at once.*
[Boy] Today they had guests. Today they had to prepare their home for invited guests, rather than their usual, wyrm tainted, window breaking, seizure causing, poison you just by killing them guests. These were nice guests. And it was, relatively, a nice day.
Probably a good thing they were in the back yard.
Boy was restlessly going from kitchen, to front door, the back yard.
[Joss Lehrer] Wendy waits patiently for the doorbell, while Boy paces and waits and paces some more. Joss doesn’t keep them waiting for long – preferring to be the on time type, rather than the fashionably late type. She swings down from the steps of the bus, a makes the quick walk down the block, two, and precisely 30 seconds after the time she said she’d arrive?
She rings the bell.
[Wendy Berber] Why are you, um, so nervous? *The kin says, looking up to Boy as he passes her on one of his nervous circuits around the house. The doorbell rings and the skinny kin rises from the picnic table and shuts her laptop. She moves to get lemonade and a plate of deli cuts, crackers and cheese for their guest, knowing Boy’ll want to answer the door himself, to make certain its not the wyrm calling. Then again. Seemed the wyrm preferred breaking and entry to ringing the doorbell. And the weaver liked laptops. *
[Boy] “The theurge elder’s coming to our house. Uh. Again. What about…Y’know. The gue–I’ll get it!”
And he’s off to answer the door, obviously eager to greet their guest. Joss might hear the sound of running, the pounding footsteps as a seventeen year old philodox beats it from the backyard straight to the front door, swinging it open and giving a quick, stiff wave.
“Hi! Come in!”
[Joss Lehrer] There’s the shine of mirth and good humor in the blue of her eyes as she hears the footsteps race to answer the door. Her smile when it opens is warm, and she lifts a hand to return the wave. “Hi. Thanks.”
Polite, and warm, and only a year older than the philodox that answers the door. They probably have more in common than most would think. “How’s things?” general chitchat, as she follows him into the house.
[Boy] “Uh…”
How were things? Boy seemed to think about it for a minute.
“My house is in one piece, and so is my mate. Things are good. Uh…Lets go to the back yard. I think Wendy’s bringing snacks in a minute.”
[Wendy Berber] She seems really nice… *Wendy begins from the kitchen, then Boy is at the door, and Wendy is quiet, bringing the snack out back where it wasn’t so warm, lemonade in one hand. She settles in at the table with a shy smile and dip of her head at joss.*
Um, H-hi.
*A wave of spindly fingers as she moves her laptop to the grass at her feet.*
[Joss Lehrer] “Sounds lovely.” she says, and likely she means both the house and mate, as well as the outside. She follows him through to the backyard, and her smile for Wendy is no less warm.
“Hi, Wendy. How’re you?”
Personable, Joss is. She’s not like some elder’s that insist on being called rhya, on being cowtowed too. She’s simply a Godi that happens to be good at her duty. That’s all. She’s really just an 18 year old teenager of the Nation, just like them.
She settles to sit at the table, and grins “Looks lovely – how’d you know I’d been desperate for a good lemonade?”
[Wendy Berber] Oh heh. Um.. Just guessed.
*She rubs the back of her neck sheepishly. A year older than Joss perhaps, but the spindly kin is no warrior of the nation, and few, with perhaps the exception of her Mate and his pack, would go so far as to say she was good at her duty. Not with the kin in Chicago bringing down the minions of the weaver and wyrm on their own with such alarming frequency.*
I’m good, um.. *She glances to boy from under a shag of hair.* I put in a roast? I didn’t know if you’d want to stay for supper or not.. so um. There’s enough, if you’re wanting to stay.
[Joss Lehrer] “Mama always said it was bad manners to turn down a meal. Especially if it involves roast!” She grins and takes a drink of lemonade, before she tips her head, glances between them, and then nods.
“So how about we get this business about the dreams out of the way first. There is no wrong answer, I just want to know what happened.”
[Boy] Boy sat quietly, and when Joss mentioned ‘this business about the dreams’ He nodded encouragingly to Wendy.
“That’d be her then.”
[Wendy Berber] *Wendy tucks her hair behind her ears to no avail, too thick a black mop to control, too wildly wiry and shaggy. Next her glasses are adjusted, and its down to business, her hands stilling around a cracker.*
Um.. I dreamt that i was downstairs, reading. The house rattled with a wind, and I went upstairs to close the window when there was a power outage. I kept on.. we keep a flashlight in the bedrrom? And suddenly the wind started saying things. Started saying “bloody mary.”
*She glances to Boy a moment, before looking to the theurge and inquiring with a slight frown.*
um.. do you know the bloody mary myth?
[Joss Lehrer] She has a way of listening that makes the person she’s listening too know that they have her whole attention. She leans forward, she watches Wendy speak, she absorbs everything said with a serene calm that’s hard not to notice, and appreciate. Just like when she smiles – it always reaches her eyes.
(…except when it doesn’t. Then? Run…)
“Bloody Mary – isn’t she the one that appears in the mirror if you say her name three times or some such?”
[Wendy Berber] Yes. Thats the one.
*A relieved ghost of a smile, less explaining this way. She clears her throat, looks to her cracker and continues.*
When I entered the bedroom, there was a big mirror that isn’t usually there… and it was covered in a sheet. I got scared and I grabbed the flashlight and just ran away. Or I tried to run away. The sheet slipped off the mirror, and I looked back over my shoulder.. and then claws grabbed me and .. then they drug me through.
*A deep breath, shaking her head to clear the memory.*
And then I fell, into a labyrinth lit with green fire.. and.. made of sadness and bad things. And a male in a ..sort.. of warform.. but with mange, and missing..skin. He told me that his master would like that i was fearful, and that i should run. Or die. … So I ran. Through fire and through the maze and then into the little girl with a teddy bear.
[Joss Lehrer] She listens, and puts the pieces with other things she’s heard, automatically sliding things into some sort of order, never missing a word. She’ll decipher it at some later date.
“Little girl, blond, bout yay high?” she holds her hands up, to measure the little girl’s height. She nods, slightly, encouragingly. “Go on…”
[Wendy Berber] *Wendy nods her head. The cracker finally nibbled, then put back down.*
I tried to use theum, the kinfetch Marrick made for me? But it brought the wolf instead.
The ..wolf.. caught up to me. And said that the master thought I was worthless. And that it was time to die.
*She swallows hard, frowning. A hand coming to the pink scar visible on her skinny neck, lips chewed as she takes a deep breath through her nose. Ink blue eyes peer out behind a shag of hair and glasses as she looks from her mate to Joss.*
… and then he… t-tore out m-y throat. .. And i woke up. And I w-woke up Boy. And then.. I couldn’t look at um, at mirrors.. for awhile. Or sleep.
*A nod. Yup. The whole story.*
[Joss Lehrer] Through the tale, she’s listened and nibbled at the crackers, the snack Wendy had thoughtfully made for her visit. Part of it is because she’s often hungry, part of it too is that Wendy took the time, and she wants the kin to feel that it’s appreciated – because it is.
She nods, thoughtfully, after the telling of the dreams, and glances to Boy. “Afterwards, did you do check on the other side? Was there anything… clinging.. to her reflection?”
[Boy] He’s quiet throughout, having heard the story before. And at the end he nods with a sense of finality.
“It was a rough time. She broke the window in the bathroom as soon as she saw it. I think she was afraid they would come for her again. I did check. Right after she woke me up actually. But…nothing. I asked Wendy if she’d ever heard or seen the things she described before. I thought it was weird that she’d describe that kind of fire, and the fallen garou, and she’s never actually seen either.”
[Wendy Berber] *Wendy nods her head. That was true.*
Thats what a .. a spiral dancer looks like? I think, i mean.. I’ve heard of what they look like.. but.. I’d never dreamt one or seen one.. and I don’t think – *A slight frown there, she looks to Boy for confirmation.* I don’t think this was right Boy showed me his warform. So.. I don’t think I could have.. twisted it, in my imagination.. for a nightmare.
[Wendy Berber] (((this was right WHEN boy showed me his warform.))
[Joss Lehrer] She nods, thoughtfully. “The thing about spiral dancers is that they can look shockingly normal – normal for us, anyway – as well as twisted and mutated and of nightmares. The wyrm works in them the way Gaia does in us, and it results in something twisted and disgusting. It’s not surprising that they took that form in your nightmare. The things – the little girl, the wolf – they are real. We’re trying to find connections so that we can make it stop.”
A pause, and then again to Boy “Did you do a cleansing? And Wendy, have you dreamed again since of the same girl?”
[Wendy Berber] *The skinny kin goes wide eyed and shakes her head. She looks to Boy in worry*
um.. n-Nightmares, but..of spiders. Spiders came out of my laptop. No more of the same girl.
[Boy] He purses his lips and shakes his head. No.
“I was suspicious, but I still thought it was just a dream.”
[Joss Lehrer] There’s a warm smile. “You had no reason to think otherwise, until the others began dreaming to. The cleansing we did the other night likely took care of anything that might have been left in the reflection, so she’s fine. Don’t worry.”
She tips her head slightly. “Wendy, you study the Occult and things, right? Have you ran across anything that might resemble this little girl?”
[Wendy Berber] *A quirk of her lips as she snaps her cracker in two, fidgetting.*
I..have only um, done preliminary research. I didn’t know if my dream was personal, or if the theme was .. well.. consistant. I mean.. I researched Bloody Mary in depth but … are the other people dreaming of that specific Urban legend? or of Urban legends at all?
I can do more, if.. I have a little more detail on whats most consistent? If you’d like?
[Joss Lehrer] She nods, slightly. “There’s not been any other urban legends involved that I know of, so I think that it was tailored specifically for you. The main constant is the little girl, and the fact that she is called master. Sometimes she is seen with a blanket, instead of the teddybear. She’s certainly playing through our dreams.”
She pauses, and takes a drink. “There’s a place in the umbra, deep, where Wyrm breeds. There’s a dream realm there, of nightmares. We think that’s where the little girl is coming from. She’s the key, but we don’t know too much about her as of yet.”
[Boy] “Are you planning on going into the Umbra? Travelling to this realm or somehow keeping her from coming to us?”
Boy ran a hand through his own shaggy pate of hair.
“This one wanted Wendy’s fear. What did the master want in the other dreams?”
[Wendy Berber] I can do some research. But um. Maybe.. asking spirits directly.. might be… well.. more direct. heh.
*A sheepish quirk of her lips. She eats one half of her cracker.*
[Joss Lehrer] She shakes her head, slightly. “I plan to meet with all the Theurges of the city, and together with the Ahroun Elder create a battle plan. It is feeding on fear and pain.”
She smiles at Wendy and nods. “You’re right, and that’s actually part of the plan.”
[Joss Lehrer] lafade! :)
[Joss Lehrer] (thanks for the scene! :) )