Difference between revisions of "Log:A Chance Encounter"

15 October, 2017

Three Changelings happen upon each other one early Sunday morning in the hollow of Fate's Harvest.

The Broken Hearth

The hedge had been fairly warm this afternoon, and things were a bit more active in the freehold's hollow as a result. While many of the Lost and hobs meandering about were busy with this and that Echkhard was lazing about near the Autumn court's hollow. He leaned back in his chair, and propped his legs up a crate as he singed some new wave tune very much off key. The Elemental was dressed well enough for the weather in a black sweater stitched with varying emblems of Halloween, blue jeans, and a pair of dirtied up tennis shoes. In his lap he held a small gathering of blushberries, and in his hands he was fidgeting with some odd manner of puzzlebox while his crooning annoyed a group of nearby hobs to their wits' end. <posebreak> On (before only) <posebreak> On (before & after) <posebreak> All posebreak texts cleared

In strides Rowan, who perpetually enters a room with an expectant air, as if assuming there will be fanfair and applause. Lacking this, the off-key singing catches her attention and she heads that way, asking in her thick Irish accent, "Hello, friend. What's that you're working on?"

Calm's attire is as peculiar as it is simple as she drifts into the Freehold hollow, a large piece of scarlet cloth, the color of fresh blood, worn like a long cloak and pinned tightly around her face. With the face that peers out from it being nothing but an empty void with nebulae for eyes, and the bare legs and feet below the cloak being more of the same, it gives her the appearance of some bloody apparition. The aura of almost transcendent power that radiates from her, with her profound tie to the Wyrd, is almost palpable, and might give the impression to some that one of the lesser Fae themselves may just have wandered in. It helps, perhaps, that there's a powerful Spring mantle around her, and everywhere shadows fall in her proximity small, dark flowers blossom. She enters, spots Rowan and Eckhart, and approaches with a smile on her face. A smile not really visible on an empty face, except in profiled silhouette against the light.

Eckhart's attention leaves the box as he gazes up at Rowan, frowning briefly. He keeps his fingers on it, and tries to move pieces of it while not completely looking at it. It appears similar to a rubik's cube save that every time a line changes the colors shift to a different hue. "A thing I picked up on the way here," he responds with a raspy tone, and accent not quite from here. "I was told that it'll help me see what I usually can't, but I'm not 100% sure what that even means." Then his gaze shifts to Calm, narrowing upon the other Lost. "Far nerevara?"

Rowan does a double-take when she glances over at Calm, eyeing the dark woman long and hard before offering tentative smile and a nod, "Morning," she offers the woman before slowly turning the bulk of her attention back to Eckhart, "Oh yeah? That's interesting. Could end up being a bit mad, but I bet it'll be worth it. I've just arrived myself. Where are you here from?"

"Good morning," Calm says to the two when she gets close enough to engage in conversation. Her head turns as her nebulous gaze moves from one of them to the other. Her regard settles finally on Eckhart and her head tilts just slightly. "Pardon me?" she asks. "I didn't catch that. In any case, I'm Calm of the Office of the Vizieral Counsel, of the Spring Court, and of the motley Adventure Time!" She adds a sense of excitement to the motley's name with her ethereal voice, dark and rich and seeming to come from nowhere in particular within her hollow form.

"Nothing of it," Eckhart says to Calm. "I thought you were somebody else, and it-" He shakes his head, and steals a glance at the puzzle for just a moment. "Eckhart," he states simply. "Autumn and just a Sage, thankfully. Been a few places before coming here, but last was New York City before V-T. I did stop by Essex before coming back here, but that was me looking for something I lost a while back."

Rowan arches an eyebrow at Calm, considering her again in a slightly new light, "Ah, with, uh..." She pauses, trying to remember who else she knows that is in the same motley, "Uh, giant lady?" She doesn't seem certain, but shrugs, "None of you quite seem to fit what I would expect of a motley named after a weird kid's show, but nice to meetcha anyway. I'm Rowan. New to town, no fancy titles or court to speak of." She turns back to Eckhart and nods, "Ah nice. New York is grand." She holds out a hand and asks, as if it were a plain old puzzle toy and not a token, "Can I give it a go?"

"I have been somebody else, but probably not whoever it was that you were expecting," Calm says, emanating laughter along with her words. They almost seem to be separate things, woven together, like she has two voices at once. Almost. "You must have met Regina," she then tells Rowan, and then her voice grows heavy with remembered pleasure. "Did you have a chance to try any of her cooking?" The ecstatic undercurrents in her voice suggest this is something not to be missed. "New York. Now there's a marvelous place. So many people feeling so many things."

There's a suspicious look for Rowan at the requestion, but the Elemental eventually concedes. "Here. Just make sure you're not hotter than 90 degrees, but that you're not colder than 60. Things tend to get weird, and the last time it happened I could taste purple." He cautiously holds up the hedgespun puzzle to Rowan as he continues speaking. "It smelled awful the last I was there, and the magic of it all was just stranger. Although that may have had more to do with the guy that was leading me around the place."

Rowan takes the thing and looks at it, then gets a slightly weird look on her face, handing it back. "Ah, well. Maybe it's best to leave it alone if it's that particular." She gives everyone a nod and says, "Sorry, just remembered I've got to get going. See you around!"

For Calm, who is about as addicted as they come to glamour, sweet or bitter, New York definitely has its allure. None the less she agrees, "I could have done without the smell, or the almost constant background thrum of activity. I couldn't have dreamed of what New York would become, back in my youth." She turns her eyes on the trinket before lifting them to look at Eckhart again. "I don't think I've ever tasted purple before."

Eckhart shrugs when Rowan's curiosity leaves her, and happily returns to messing with while talking to Calm. "It all depends, really. Every major experiment has led to something changed about the senses, and it isn't always the most fun. I'd say it's like getting high, but you, mostly, know what you're getting into there. But- Wait." He stops cold, gaze narrowing on Calm once more. "Exactly how old are you?" he asks with all the etiquette befitting an Elemental.

"Permanently, or temporarily?" Calm asks, like it matters to her, and she tilts her head again as she considers Eckhart. "What kinds of experiments do you perform, and to what end?" She un-tilts her head when asked how old she is but sounds more amused than offended when she answers. "That's a difficult thing to judge for us, isn't it? Even when we know the day of our birth and what day it is now, can most of us measure how long we were There?" She pauses, but before he can respond she adds, "One hundred and seventy three years and about eight months. I know I was born in May of 1862, but I don't know what day. I doubt my mother even knew."

"Older than me," Eckhart mumbles with an tinge of doubt. "Maybe." A shrug follows, and he stops fidgeting with the puzzle while humming and trying to find that earlier tune. He stops, either because he can't quite catch the beat or the other Changeling has garnered more of his attention. "The problems from the box are temporary. If they are permanent I haven't discovered as much. As for why, I don't know. I do what I do because I do what I do. I never really think about it, but it's always to find something new. What about you?" The question comes with a slight tilt of his head as the box is set in his lap alongside the berries. "What do you do?"

"Maybe," Calm agrees, because it's not important to her whether one or the other is older. "Because you do what you do," she echoes shortly after, when he explains what he does. "Isn't that true for all of us? Even when there are other, deeper reasons." With a sweep of her arm she makes her crimson cloak billow out, and as it's fluttering back into place she sits on the ground with her legs crossed so that it falls around her and over her lap. "I do a few things. I'm a Vizier, so I offer my guidance to whoever wears the crown, regardless of who wears it. I also like to help people find what they desire, but not always the things people most often think about when they think of desire. Things like acceptance, or compassion, or comfort. But I also watch the threads of weaving fate and look for snags and snarls that need to be cut away."

"The deeper reason is knowledge, and as much as I wish it so I can't discover something by passing out drunk. Or learn how to fly. I forget that it's on my bucket list. I think it is, but I know I checked that list..." His prattling comes to a close with a shake of his head, and before he can continue rambling on. "Does all that insight and what not help with finding things. Tangible things. There a few artifacts and the like I'd been looking to acquire, and I've never been averse to getting a leg up when starting things."

"That... depends," Calm answers after giving the question some consideration. "On the object,on the reasons, how portentious the object or its finding might be. I've never really cared about tangible things, other than about people, so I've never given it much though. It's the people that usually concern me." She turns her head to look up at the ceiling of the chamber they're in, admiring it, and then looks at Eckhart agian. "Does all the knowledge that you gather give you what want in your life? What do you do with it once you have it?"

Eckhart's gaze follows hers to the ceiling, and he's left staring at it as he mulls over the question. "I've been around for a while, but I don't really think on it. I've my compulsions, and I'm happy with them. I think happy is the right word anyway." There's that bit of doubt creeping into his voice again, but it's gone with a shrug as he leans back in his chair. "I keep it. Trade it as needed. Fill in blanks for myself or other people. I sell or trade what I need at times, and give some of it away freely to people like us. I've been around for a good while, so I figure it's a good use of a few decades or more."

"That seems fair," Calm says with a smile that doesn't show on her shadowy face. "There aren't really wrong answers to this kind of question, are there? I just like to learn what things drive people." She rises gracefully to her feet. "I should go, but it was nice to meet you. I wish I had the time to stay." She bows ever so slightly, spins in a swirl of silken fabric, and starts to head away without any further delay.

Eckhart chukles in response as his eyes fall back to Calm, and then he nods. "Was a pleasure meeting you, um, Calm. I think I remembered that right." As Calm departs he tries to return to his earlier singing and focus on the puzzle once more.