RP Time? You betcha!

[shipwreck_light]

"Lucien? What did I tell you about running off on your own?"

Somewhat unsurprisingly, his son didn't answer him with more than a grin. And a splash, once Claude had drawn closer.

Leave it to any child of his to throw off his nice new boots just to stick his feet in the first likely looking stream that came along.

It wasn't even as if they'd gone that far out of town, but away from the roads, from the other sorcer-sorts and Aethies, even the breeze felt calmer, though it had hardly caught to much all the while they'd been walking. Claude being glad they had any at all, as hot as it had been the past few days.

The storm the night before had left lacy scatters of twigs and leaves and knocked down spider webs. Clean and still damp, the leaves overhead and tangled in the grass, they looked pieces of stained glass. And the trees, when they nodded, they sounded clear as harp strings with nothing else to cut the sound.

Out of farmland use and the whiles of any humans at all, the stream had been left so clear, so delicious looking. Just begging for some little blond imp of a boy to come along and kick his heels in it.

Well, one already had. Claude didn't bother with another sigh. He pulled his shoes off and laid them in the stones at his side, stretching lazy as he reached his own toes towards the glittering surface.

And promptly jerked back with a yelp. "Child of mine? That's /cold/."

"I know," said Lucien. "I think it feels nice."

"Maybe if you're part bear. I've always halfway figured, you know."

They had some teasing hums between them and Claude crossed his legs, feet now on the warm pebbles along the bank where they damnwell belonged.

"I think I got that from your side of the family," his son suggested after a while. "Anyway, why do you think it's like that? I don't hear anybody around."

"That wasn't tagging along?"

"Well..." The boy knitted his fingers in his hair, tugging himself a wingtip curl along his temple. "I think I'd only notice Nene if she was /gone/."

"And as for our new friends?"

"They couldn't have gone far. They know we have candy." To which, he nodded. Ever so sure of himself.

Ah, children. Children had gotten him this far with their self-assured beings. And children had found him what was really a rather strange clearing on closer inspection. The stream wore deeper through some places in the grass than others, showing shifts of rock, glints of moss and tree roots sneaking by. It divided the clearing just about cleanly in half.

Besides, on the edge of the forest easing back into being, a great, old ash stood.

Covered in tiny flowers. Pink and violet and hints of white. All of them, growing in streaks as if the bark had long ago turned to soil, though the tree seemed healthy and strong otherwise.

Besides.

"Papa," said Lucian, voice hushed. "There aren't any birds here, are there?"

"No," Claude answered after a moment. "It's just you and I and /a bunch of stinkers who ran off from us/."

"Oh, so that doesn't include me?"

"Child of mine."

They had a few more hums, there in the quiet of the clearing.

There, before something very strange and very faint began to creep along Claude's Aether lines.

It felt like being tickled almost. Anyway, it made him smile. Lucien too.

And next, there his son darted off again, racing over the grass and into the middle of the clearing, where he stood staring into the sky and whistling. Expecting a giant Gust to come sailing down in the form of a giant bird? It might just be that.



Welcome!

Note that anything your characters do in the clearing may result in posts back of things happening around them, even if these aren't exactly invited. Something's lurking around here, and it wants a snack!

Feel free to bring your own fairies, ghosts, mages and seriously confused regular people.

Comments

[johnny_corlioni]

Johnny had only gone to the great room to take a bottle of red wine from the wine cabinet. That was all. He had not gone far from the kitchen, where he was cooking dinner and where some of the wine was supposed to be added to the newly-browned chunks of stew beef. That was it.

It sure as fuck wasn't a whole fucking forest apart from his kitchen, but apparently one had appeared while he'd been crouched down checking labels.

By his foot, Ripley yipped at him. When he looked down, it was to see her stepping so fucking daintily that he had to try not to laugh. Fucking spoiled dog.

"C'mon, girl," he said to her as he started walking. He wouldn't figure out where he was by just standing in one spot.

[sarcasticsra]

Her brother looked far younger than he should. Somehow, after the talking cat, this didn't much compare. Still, it was intriguing.

"Hello, Johnny," Maria said, smiling. It was closer to her real one, but still not quite; only Little David and her victims ever saw her real one. "You're looking well, considering I think you should be roughly fifteen years older than you are right now."

[johnny_corlioni]

Johnny's dog hid behind his legs. He could never tell if she'd be friendly or timid; it didn't seem to matter what the person was like.

He didn't recognize the woman, though she did look something like Lea and Mina. More like Adri though, really, and Cecilia. All that aside, he still didn't know her, or he thought he didn't.

"Do I know ya?" he asked.

[sarcasticsra]

"Yes, although not like this. I think, for you, I should be roughly eight. It's hard to tell," she said. "Maria. Your sister."

She noticed the dog hide behind Johnny, but wasn't surprised. Dogs occasionally had that reaction to her; animals were often so much more intuitive than people.

[johnny_corlioni]

Johnny stared at her. That was... pretty much the sum of his reaction until he could start thinking again.

At which point he said, "Ya know my sister's name. Doesn' mean you're here." Also, she was nearly six, not eight, but he wasn't adding that part aloud.

[sarcasticsra]

Maria smiled. "You gave Nicoletta a knife for her seventeenth birthday. She named it Charlemagne. It's still one of her favorites in 2030."

[johnny_corlioni]

And he'd thought this shit was weird before.

"So'm, righ' now, only 'bout ten years older'n ya." Given the usual difference of twenty-nine years, he felt justified in his shock.

Shock he shouldn't have, given this was probably his mind fucking with him because of something David had dosed him with, but shock all the same.

[sarcasticsra]

"You're thirty-four, thirty-five?" she asked, considering. "That places you--oh, I misjudged. 2010 or 2011 puts me at about five." She shook her head, studying him further, and realized there was something else off about him--he wasn't radiating the kind of magical ability he should be. "Are you cloaking your magical signature?" she asked. They generally only used that for meetings with new Skilled contacts, as it made it difficult for rivals to get a read on their magic, but it didn't make sense otherwise.

[johnny_corlioni]

"Thirty-five," he said automatically. Mostly, though, he stared disbelievingly at her. "Magic? The fuck're ya talkin' 'bout?"

[sarcasticsra]

She tilted her head at him. Talking cats, time travel, unexplained teleportation--could she add dimensional rifts to that list as well? "Magic," she said slowly, waving her hand and briefly turning translucent, just shy of invisible. Another wave and she was back entirely. "What else would I be talking about?"

[johnny_corlioni]

Johnny's eyes narrowed. She couldn't possibly have faked that. "There's no magic where I'm from."

Then, she was also five where he was from, so that didn't necessarily mean anything.

[sarcasticsra]

Maria blinked. "No magic?" she asked. A world without magic. She wondered what that was like. "Apparently, there is a multiverse," she muttered absently. "I should tell Torey."

[johnny_corlioni]

Johnny grinned. "Guessin' the science fiction an' comics things're the same?" His grin faded. "No, no magic." Too bad. Magic might have made life easier for Matt.

[sarcasticsra]

"There is a reason I have a cat named Spock," she said dryly, and wondered about that faded grin. She could press; he was, after all, technically unSkilled. She wouldn't even need to be touching him.

A moment's thought, and she did so--Johnny's natural barriers, even without magic, weren't bad, but were no match for a telepath of her Skill. Matt. Flashes of growing up.

Interesting. It certainly lent credence to the multiverse theory.

[johnny_corlioni]

"What, 'm not your favorite?" Johnny teased. Not that he actually had a problem with it; Torey was his favorite brother, after all. He had to wonder about it more when Torey wasn't someone's favorite.

[sarcasticsra]

"You rank very highly," Maria said, amused. "But it helps that I moved in with him and his family when I was thirteen."

[shipwreck_light]

Ripley though might have had the right idea about the forest. Oh, it was fluffy and nice and flowery enough for photographs of it to cause hay fever, but not apparently the safest place in all of any worlds to be.

Case in point, something black and roughly bat-shaped zinged around a nearby sycamore and very deliberately stuffed itself into Johnny's shirt pocket.

A bat. In the middle of the day. Making a jet verses aircraft carrier landing. On Johnny.

And if that wasn't fucking weird enough, the bat happened to disclaim: "If some sorcer-lookin dude starts askin if you seen any Shades round here. Tell him noooooooo. OK? We cool? Oh man, this's the best pocket EVAR."

[johnny_corlioni]

A talking fucking bat. At least Ripley had started barking enough that he couldn't think through the shrillness and how loud she managed to get.

But if he let her keep it up, she'd give him a bitch of a headache, so he sharply said, "Ripley, enough."

She subsided, mostly. Kept growling and letting out soft, almost-to-herself barks, but mostly stayed quiet.

Then he looked down into his shirt pocket, pulling it open so he could see.

Yeah, there was a talking bat in his pocket.

"I'm gonna fuckin' kill David," he muttered. Not that he knew how David had drugged him, but it was the only reasonable explanation for all this shit.

[shipwreck_light]

"Aww, c'mon," protested the bat.

As talking bats were wont to do.

Apparently.

"Whatever else that fucker David did, he's the one gettin deprived of havin a real, live- anyways, I think 'm more'r'less alive -Shade hang out in his clothes. Kill im later over somethin' that'll make it worth your while, ammirite?"

It then stretched its wings in the particular manner which also made Johnny's shirt puff up rather comically, there before subsiding into an awfully human sort of repose, wings folded behind its head.

Now that it held still, now that Johnny got a good look at it.

This particular talking bat had rather a lot of tail for a bat. Little in the way of a body- its middle glowed softly green. And its face, that was almost more mouse-like, a suggestion of something cute and rodent-y.

[johnny_corlioni]

Despite how Johnny was still fairly certain he was hallucinating, he had to grin at the batlike creature. "Glad ya share my opinion a the fucker. 'm Johnny. Who're ya, an' what's a Shade?"

Maybe he wasn't hallucinating. He didn't think his mind could come up with something like the bat-Shade-thing. Of course, that would mean this shit was really happening, which led him back to hallucinating.

In about five minutes, the smoke detector--or lack of it--would confirm one way or the other.

[shipwreck_light]

"Ohh. Rightrightright. Jack only warned me bout that rounda million times," Not that the bat seemed terrible put off about anything right then. It had fairly melted into Johnny's pocket, and from there went on speaking in a blase drawl. "Kay, so 'm Nicholas. Notta name-name, but just go with it. Makes stuff easier. An a Shade's just like in books, man. Aethie of darkness, mastera shadow an human desires."

[johnny_corlioni]

"Yeah, don' think we have the same books where 'm from." At least, not that Johnny knew of. "What's a name-name?" How the hell was it different from a name? Unless it was like 'Giovanni' versus 'Johnny'.

[shipwreck_light]

"Mmm, guess not," mused Nicholas. "Justaswell, in this case. Me, I never bought into the 'it's only your name if we write it down in queen's book' business. 's my name is I say so, yknow? An mebbe..."

That followed on another long, lazy stretch. Something that sounded like a yawn besides, though there was no movement to match.

"I get to pick? Ammirite? Mebbe I dun want somethin half a league long."

[johnny_corlioni]

That got Johnny to grin at Nicholas. Which probably made him look crazy to anyone else who might be around, since he was grinning into his pocket, but fuck 'em. "My parents gave me a different name. I only answer ta it if it's one a 'em sayin' it, though. Anyone else can fuck off. My name's Johnny, end of the fuckin' discussion, ya know?"

[shipwreck_light]

"Now /that/'s what 'm talkin about!" said Nicholas, pointing a wing at Johnny. One which he did end up scratching along his nose. Once he'd had a hum about this, anyway. "'s like, if anybody called me anythin else, who's that? Got some understandin though, People mebbe usedta let each other pick their own once they got so old. Not true for you though, huh? Bummer."