kismet_loop | [profoundly backdated]

[The reply doesn't come right away - unless it's one of his fellow Guardians (especially Death, being the First) - he gets back to people, especially strangers, in his own time. But finally, Sam gets a ping back, with a massive, crimson-scaled head peering into the screen.]

Hm. Questions of an arcane nature, I'll wager. Do you wield or are you just curious? I have neither time nor patience for the merely-curious.

[Dragons, actual dragons, are one feature of her new day-to-day Sam will never be entirely over, but despite that, the adept does manage to maintain a polite sort of semi-professional attitude.]

They are, and I do have magic of my own, though it isn't elemental like most of the magic I've heard of in Haven.

Is that so? Magic does come in numerous and sundry forms. Who are you and what is it you wish to know?

[She nods slightly, thinking of the foci adepts find---skin, honey, cities.]

My name is Samantha Patchowski, and I'm hoping to learn how to put some sort of ward on my place. I've done what I know to do to make my apartment safe---mat doesn't say 'welcome,' the one mirror can be easily covered, smoke and CO detectors up and on---but the kid I've got staying with me doesn't seem to feel it's secure, so I said I'd try to find out how to set something up.

Hm…

[The dragon considers, head tilting ever so slightly to the left.]

These are reasonable precautions for most people, though they won’t keep out anything of a strong magical nature. What sort of threats does your companion anticipate?

To be totally honest, neither of us is entirely sure what we should be expecting, since this whole situation is sorta outside the scope of our experience. I'm hoping for something to hamper and/or announce any threats intruding, but I don't know what to expect or even ask regarding wards because you're the first reputable person I've been able to ask.

[Rathan smirks a bit at the last.]

I have found that most civilizations today have lost the knowledge to properly defend themselves from . . . the things that go bump in the night, as it were. Very well – come to my lair. It is in the ruins in the West Sector. Contact me again when you are on the edges. I will escort you inside.

[She is so glad he seems to be amused (at least a little!) instead of annoyed.]

Thank you---I really, really appreciate it, and I'll be hitting the road in a second, here, so I'll see you soon and sure. Thanks again.

[The feed cuts, but it isn't long before another incoming call pings the dragon's drone---from 'thanks again' on, Sam's been bookin' it.]

Hello?

Mn, eager. You have arrived already, then?

Rude to dawdle...? But I'll own up to being a bit eager, also. And yes.

Then I shall be out shortly.

[Hey, Sam, did you ever see Jurassic Park? Remember the massive size of the Brachiosauruses? Take that but fore- and hindlegs of equal length, a slightly shorter neck and far larger head, longer tail, and a pair of skinned wings that would stretch the length of an American football field fully extended. The beast comes lumbering up out of the steaming fissure. If she wondered where those deep red pieces of "horn armor" that can be found here and there around her came from, she's probably not wondering anymore. After all, they match the dragon before her perfectly.]

[Keen yellow eyes find her almost instantly.]

[GOOD GOD.]

[In spite of the time she's spent among Cybertronians, and in spite of believing herself accustomed to being about much bigger beings, Sam's unprepared---to see such a creature, titanic, in the flesh for the first time is something one cannot really prepare for. Sam marvels, momentarily mute (understandably awed by the pillars and planes of scaled hide before her, and by the blaze just near enough an adepts' aura flame to know) but lifts a hand in greeting upon being seen, rising from her Polaris.]

[A smirk tugs at reptilian lips, eyes narrowing faintly, at Sam's initial reaction. He may be more social than many of his kind, but he's still a dragon - proud, arrogant, powerful and knows it. Curved claws as long as she is tall dig into the ground as the behemoth pulls himself the rest of the way up out of fissure. The neck arches downward, head coming close enough that she can feel the hot breath from his nostrils.]

[Is he threatening her? No. Is he testing? …yes. Does this little human have mettle, or will she bow to fear in the mere presence of something so much greater.]

[He'll be disappointed, to be honest, if it's the latter.]

[Does this little human have mettle?]

[Yes. Mettle, and the bloody-mindedness to move from her awe onto business. Rathan is an imposing figure, but she came to see him for something, and being so dwarfed will delay but not deter her.]

I have a---actually, a lot of questions to ask you, but one especially important.

[Rathan's head moves to the side, one eye studying her a moment longer. Then he pulls back. Approval colors his tone as he speaks.]

You seem to have some fortitude to you. Good.

[He settles his great body on the ground, tail looping around lazily to form a perimeter of sorts, a space for them to converse.]

Ask your questions.

[She does as she does and would say 'just,' but she smiles a little at both the approval and the opening to ask what she will.]

Thanks. First of all, I need to know; what would you ask, or be expecting, in exchange for your help with a ward? I could trade you a ritual, maybe. If that's agreeable.

Hmm . . . a ritual could be interesting. How do they work in your world, and what one would you be willing to trade?

[As a Guardian, he'd had it impressed upon him - yes, he's a dragon, but Death's even scarier when he wants to be - that his help should be freely given when asked for by a Havener and within reason. But hey, if she was going to offer…]

Works... vary from ritual to ritual, though I'm aware some can only be utilized by people who have a magic of their own to put in, while others can be used by anyone at all 'cause they don't have that cost. I'm sorry to say I don't have a huge base of comparison.

[For an adept, rituals aren't easy to come by; they're few, and far between, and most often expensive---in one way, or another. The simplest way to approximate an equivalent value is offering to trade one ritual for another, and Sam's accepted that---easily, since it seems straight-forward: square.]

A communication ritual? You might find it interesting, since you don't need to know the real name of the addressee.

Mnnn, perhaps. But why use magic when a comm drone is so easily available?

[Not that he'd normally NOT choose magic over technology as a matter of course, but he's interested in what her take is.]

Here? I'll be honest---there's no standing reason to use the ritual over a drone, when the drones are easier and don't cost anything, but it's one way to get information to someone who's not taking calls in case of an emergency. To an extent, it also indicates if someone is alive and on-planet. Probably small potatoes stacked against the alternatives at your disposal [DRAGONS] but if you're interested anyway... If you aren't, I have another ritual to put up which is just weird.

[The tip of the dragon's tail thumps lazily against the ground a few times, much like a cat's, as he considers.]

There are some potential uses to it, I can see. What is this other ritual? I'll make my choice then.

'Mechanical Ipecac.' [A little grin creeps across Sam's face as she says it, and she shrugs.] Involves treating a handful of pocket change so that a machine---specifically, vending---jettisons whatever's in it. Since vending machines haven't been around too terribly long in the history I am acquainted with, most everyone I know who knows of the preparation really wonders about its origin.

Hmm…

[Wisps of smoke curled from massive nostrils. The ancient red really had no use for either ritual, for various reasons. Still, he'd have accepted the first, to be fair, but she'd offered, and the second one intrigued him for the sheer . . . silly novelty of it.]

That one. Teach me "Mechanical Ipecac," and I will help you design a magical system for your needs.

[This should prove entertaining, if nothing else.]

[There's a lot to be said for the sheer silly novelty of Mechanical Ipecac, as suggested by the little laugh which escapes Sam as she nods acknowledgement---it's the sort of laugh that says 'so it's come to this, god help me,' but she braces herself with the next breath: back to business.]

Okay. Okay, great. I just want you to know, though, before I begin, that no matter how absurd the set-up sounds, it's worked when I've tried it---I'm not just messing with you. I have more sense in my skull than that.

[Rathan quirked a brow at that, a grin tugging at reptilian lips.]

You have my attention, little spellcaster.

Okay. [More serious, but she's still smiling, because this whole situation is sort of funny---in a really weird way---as is the ritual itself.] Thank you.

First thing, you gotta get something from a vending machine. It can be any kind of vending machine, and any sort of 'something,' so long as the thing can be burnt at least in part. Probably not a problem for you.

Whatever you've got that's going to get burnt has to be set on fire in a plugged bathroom sink, and be allowed to burn out instead of being put out. Once it's burned out, somebody's got to throw up on it, without getting any sick outside the sink. [Did she just manage to say that straight-faced? She did. This stuff may sound silly, but hell---it still gets results. She's seen it.] The original instructions said a drop of blood has to be added, also, but it works just as well without.

The mess in the sink is supposed to be stirred for three minutes, while the person stirring it says the names of diseases. After the three minutes are up, in go eight American pennies and thirteen Canadian quarters. I've been kind of wanting to test if this works with coins from other countries, but...

[It'd be a bit of a hassle.]

Anyways, once the coins are in the mess gets stirred three more times, counterclockwise. At this point, the sink can be unplugged and the coins can be rinsed clean---or at least as clean as they're going to get---with past-due gingerale. Once the pop dries and there's a handful of sticky change left, the coins are ready and will make whatever machine they're fed into expel whatever is in it.

[Rathan's brow quirks higher, but he listens in silence. The dragon has traveled enough to know that rituals can be strange . . . though even he has to admit that this is probably one of the weirder ones, especially if it actually does work (as opposed to being a haze inflicted on new guild or coven members, which he's seen or heard of some REALLY bizarre and sometimes absurdly demanding "rituals"). At the end, he just nods.]

Is the first stirring clockwise, then? Does the three minutes have to be taken with all different disease names, or can there be repetitions, and are they restricted to human-susceptible diseases? Lastly, must all the coins be used at once, or does this ritual then yield twenty-one uses, and are any single coins reusable without another ritual if the one using them can retrieve them from the machine?

[It might surprise Sam that he's taking it seriously, but hey - for one, again, for all he knows, it /is/ a serious, real ritual, and for two, not like he /needs/ it to return with what the human has requested.]

Of course. Where do you want to meet?

Anywhere's fine, but I guess if you wouldn't mind swinging by to pick me up that'd be good; we can go wherever after.

I’ll be there shortly.

Thanks. I'll be watching at the window.

[Sure enough, that's where she'll be, enjoying that it's always warm enough---at least, during the day---to have the window wide open, and that there's nothing necessitating a screen on it.]

[And so he'll step up to the window and offer his hand.]

So...talk as we walk or do you want to go somewhere in particular to talk?

[Although she does so carefully (since that is the best way to exit a window) Sam doesn't hesitate to climb out and onto that offered hand.]

Anywhere you wanna go, I'm good with going. Even if that's just around.

[Just around works for him. He’ll start to walk.]

[After a little bit...] So what was it you wanted to talk about?

[Sam settles comfortably, at ease in Wing's hands---or hand, as the case may be.]

How people don't always stay here. And, more than that, how sometimes when people who were here come back, they don't remember being here before, anything that had happened... anybody they met.

[He’s quite a long moment.]

There is...the very real possibility that those who leave aren’t the ones who return...just another version of the same person.

I know it sounds strange, but before coming to this Haven, I had actually been in the city before. In the past.

[He looks up.] The Lambda is gone now, but you can still see where it was, the debris that orbits the planet now. [He points out the belt of glowing stuff that looks like a nebulous slash across the sky.] Before the Miasma, it was the Lambda that dropped us here.

[He shakes his head.] Anyway, back in Haven’s past, we were under threat from Unicron, the Destroyer. The Lambda was his creation, and he was trying to use it to push his way into this reality. A month or so before he managed, two mechs returned from the Badlands, the area outside of the safety of the city, an area covered by the Miasma now. Those two....it was Drift, and...me.

Only Drift and I were already living at the Hub, we...literally met ourselves. I never did get to figure out where our timelines diverged, but what we did compare...matched. We were the same people as far as I could tell, right up until we came to Haven. Only our experiences here had been different.

...I don’t know if that’s comforting or not...

[Sam's quiet as Wing speaks, though she turns to face left and lean back to better look up at him, watching attentively aside from the glance she gives the Lambda's remnants. She considers Wing's words... and cracks a slanting smile.]

You being here before doesn't sound strange; how strange is that? Nothing so far's topped the first I'd heard of Unicron. ...though you and Drift meeting you and Drift is up there for weirdness. Hearing about it, I can only imagine how it must've been for you two. Man...

I think, that I'll consider it comforting. Ties into something I've had on my mind, and all your experiences the same up until arriving? That, in a way, bodes well. Cause, okay. I've been thinking about the people I have here, the difference they've made, how lucky I've been for friends like you.

[She pauses, hands rising to meet at shoulder height.]

You have been so kind.

If I or, however it is, some other Sam Patchowski has to go through arriving again, I want me to know that you are trusted. That's a big part of this talk, main meat of it.

[He smiles.] Oh?

And how would I convince that other Sam that I’m a friend?

[If this was Breakdown he’s probably make a joking comment about his irresistible charm, but this is Wing, so there’s no such comment. Pity.]

My middle name's Jadzia. It's also my best-kept secret, so telling her I told you as insurance should suffice.

[Wing looks at her, just...studying her.]

Jadzia. [Tone is soft as he repeats the name, committing it to memory.] I'm honored that you would trust me with your name...your middle name? [Why do you have more than one name?]

Why is it a secret, if I may ask?

[She just looks back at him, a small smile playing about the corners of her mouth.]

No-one better trusted. [A few---a very few---people on-par, but none better. At the question in Wing's tone, she nods.] Last name---family name---is Patchowski. Middle names see next to no use, so they can be concealed with some success.

You can always ask. I keep it a secret as a kind of precaution. A person with their whole name out in the open is vulnerable, in a way, since knowing a person's name makes it easier to attach certain magics to them---a name can become something to aim at. I haven't made any enemies who'd know that, and it's not like I've made many in my life, but I'm still a small fish. Spell-wise.

I see. And finding yourself suddenly far from home, surrounded by oddities and odd people, finding one who knew your full name would be a comfort.

[He smiles at her again.] I do hope I never have to make use of this knowledge. But if I do, I am glad to know you trusted me with it.

Especially after hearing why that was. It'd convince me, and so should also other Sams.

I hope you never have to, too. [She looks thoughtful, gaze wandering across Haven as it's seen at 'held' height.] Worst case comes about, though? That other Sam'll be gladdest, fast. It's friends like you I have here that make being here as okay as it can be.

I imagine it must be really hard to be pulled so suddenly from your home. [It was hard for him too, and yet he’s let it go....he is, after all, dead back home. No point lamenting people he’d not see again anyway.]

...In ways.

[She quiets, considering, even as she repositions herself to more comfortably lean against Wing, shoulder pressed to his armour.]

I was getting ready to move cross-country, so there's that. Manitoba was meant to be a short stay, something like two years tops, just to see what things were like on the easterly end. I liked it, but I never got too attached since I knew from the start I wouldn't stay. The suddenness isn't an issue; I'm adaptable. The, the severance, though... yeah, that's the bad bit.

[Sam abruptly draws a deep breath and swallows hard, but otherwise manages to keep her composure. She has a handle on it now, and in that moment was just making sure.]

If I could just let someone know I'm okay, it would be a lot better. Got to see everybody not long before I arrived, which was good. Really good. We got all the goodbyes and 'I love you's and the 'be safe's in, so I got no regrets for the last things I said, but goddamn my parents have got to be sick over what might've become of me. That's what's kept me up nights, more than anything else.

I often wish the same. If only there was a way to let those back home know that we are well. [How shocked would they be to even know he’s still alive.]

At the least we can live our lives here knowing that those we saw last were safe when we last saw them.

Even if it doesn't get me anywhere, I'm gonna keep trying. Periodically. Seems like the least I can do, and what the hell; even if the odds are against it, there's the off chance the stars'll be right and I'll luck out. The odds of all of this, after all...

[Shaking her head, Sam looses a weak little laugh.]

Yeah. And yeah, there's that.

How's it been for you, adjusting?

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[i see what you did there I video to voice]

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[Action Forever]

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[private]

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