Log:Second Steps Along A Pilgrimage

Second Steps Along A Pilgrimage
"The issue is not that your faith is a weakness, the issue is that your dependence upon your faith is a weakness."
Participants Gisa and Alonso	11 May, 2017 Gisa and Alonso have salmon and talk more about her Pilgrimage.
Location MT03 - Tamarack Falls Jewish Bookstore
The bookstore closes, and there's dinner to be had. Gisa went upstairs a little before before the bookstore closed and put tonight's dinner in the oven: baked salmon, with cilantro rice in the rice cooker and steamed asparagus. Once the store is closed up, which honestly doesn't take very long -- they sell one or two things every so often, and mostly on credit cards, so it doesn't take long to settle up -- she offers, turning out the lights in the main store, "Dinner is upstairs." The invitation is inherent in the statement, but she doesn't wait to see if he follows as she heads up the spiral staircase to her loft. Alonso nods his agreement, but says nothing, just watching her go. He tends to be fairly quiet when not given a good reason to talk. He goes to trade out his work day attire for his usual lounging attire. Dons his saber, at the least, so that he can defend himself if they're attacked. (It could happen.) And then he trudges up the stairs to her apartment, carrying his blade and its baldric wrapped about his hand. He does set it down when he reaches the upstairs, along with removing his hat and unwinding the scarf from around his head. Literally letting his hair down. Once he's had a chance to scratch at his scalp, he inquires, "Do you need any help with dinner?" She's in the middle of dishing out the dinner -- a healthy portion of salmon with butter, horseradish and lemon -- onto milchig plates, the buttery asparagus, the cilatro rice fluffy from the rice cooker, and then picks out forks, butter knives. "Would you get some white wine and glasses, please, and pour? There is an open bottle of white pinot noir in the rack, it's the one with the blue label." They are all labeled in Hebrew, after all, and it's not like she expects him to read Hebrew, especially not the kind of stylized script that's used in marketing, on labels. A glance over her shoulder. "I thought we would eat on the roof. It is nice tonight." The flames in her eyepits follow him as he moves. Did they do that before? Alonso follows her instructions and seeks out the bottle chosen for the meal. He examine the label, trying to sort out the words he's seeing to connect what he knows of the bottle with the text. In the end he shrugs and grabs two glasses, carrying them over to the window. Rather than agree with her suggestion, he just ducks out onto the rooftop without comment, finds a place to seat himself, and commences to pour the wine. One glass is set down, then the next, before the cork is replaced and the bottle set safely aside. He leans back onto his palms and peers up at the sky, perhaps searching for a star. "It would appear you are already starting down the road, eh?" "Thank you," comes when he does as she asks, and once the dishing is done, she follows him to the window. "Hmm?" Gisa asks; once he's got the wine poured, she hands him his dinner -- a shallow, wide bowl, fork and knife carefully balanced in it, and the napkin tucked underneath it -- out the window before clambering out with her own. The sun has set, the stars are coming out two and three at a time. Once she settles down next to him on the roof, she pauses, her eyeflames winking out in a pair, and says hamotzi for dinner, as easy as breathing. "What do you mean?" "You have evolved," Alonso observes with a glance her way, lifting a hand up to point at his own eye which sparks with electric light. "This is a step on the endless road of self-perfection, or so we believe. I have walked it many times. For most, it leaves no marks. For you, it has. Each step along the road that I have taken has left its mark upon me, perfected me in some way. Sanded off some rough edge I had." Alonso reaches for his glass and lifts it to his lips, taking a long slow sip from it, then sets it back down again. "But there is more to self-improvement than evolutions. We must prove to ourselves what we are capable of. Find our limitations and work around them or through them to get past them." And then the light -- proverbially -- goes on. "Ah. Yes. I did. I made a choice, and it wasn't about The Desert. It was about me." There's a small tug upward of her lips' corners, and she offers a quiet "L'chaim," before taking the first swallow of her wine. She carefully sets the wineglass down on the flat roof over the back room, balancing her bowl on her knees, napkin settled across her lap. A small bite of salmon, a bit of rice, as she listens to him talk. She is, apparently, pleased with her work, as she nods at her plate like it gave her an answer she wanted. When he finishes talking, she fishes a bit of paper out of her pocket, a scratched-on piece of receipt that she had scribbled a note on during the day. Her palm is turned upward, the crumpled paper on her palm, and then? It lights on fire, curling upward into the darkness, all of its own volition. No. A lie. Of her volition. And there is delight on her face, a brief, joyful flash that matches the flames; it slides back out of view like the moon ducking behind a cloud, and she closes her hand around the ash once the receipt paper has burnt out, scattering the ash away from him, so it doesn't fall into his dinner. Yes, she was showing off, just then. Gisa ducks her head, looks away for a moment. "I am sure there is," she agrees with him. "What did you need to work past?" Well, if he's going to talk about how she's changed... He is impressed by the parlor trick, or at least puts on a show of behaving as though he is. Which may be about the same when dealing with an Elemental. "Very good." Another sip of the wine is taken before he explains himself, "In my particular case, I was... 'gifted' with sight beyond sight by my Keeper. But of what use is foretelling disaster if you cannot prevent it? So now? Now I am lightning quick. I move like wind. I strike like thunder. As you saw with the centipedes, I can defend those who might meet their end otherwise. When I am fully engaged in battle, few can track my movements. Outpace me. Outrun me. Reach me. Strike me. I am everywhere and nowhere at the same time. But! There were many other weaknesses. Many. You find them. One by one you overcome them." Her shoulders roll back slightly, and her chin tips up a little bit. Look, he showed off with the centipedes, and she just showed off a little more blatantly than he did. "Mmm," she noises as he talks, in agreement with the sentiment of 'what good is it?' Gisa takes small bites of her salmon, her diamond teeth briefly visible as she rather delicately eats. Look, when your teeth and lips make weird squeaky noises on the fork if you're not careful, you learn to eat very carefully. "I did see that," she agrees. "It was ... very impressive," she admits after a moment, her head ducking down a little. One hand reaches for her wineglass, and then she takes a sip of her wine. "How do you find them?" she asks. Nothing like talking about your weaknesses over dinner, but, well. Pilgrims. "As were you," he assures her with regards to being impressive, "your fists were quite... pointy, as I recall." Alonso is grinning as he says this, as though he finds it particularly amusing for some reason. "Finding them is easy enough. My sponsor within the Pilgrims simply gave me challenges. Everything from running a marathon to passing the LSATs. It wasn't necessary to succeed in all cases, though of course that was always the goal. The point was to learn more about your world and about yourself. The obvious shortcomings were attacked first. Some of them made no sense to me at first. But I trusted in the process and emerged the better for it. I went from being a radical anarcho socialist bent on perpetual war against the bourgeoisie to someone who kills only when necessary. I was worried it would blunt my edge, but in truth it has made me more thoughtful and more effective." Alonso ticks his head back her way, "Which is why, if you are serious about this course, you must prove to yourself that you can go a full week without your prayers. Succeed, and I will join you for erev Shabbat and you can resume prayer at your leisure." "Ah. Yes. They do that. Fortunately not all the time." She holds up her free hand again, turning it palm up and then palm down. See? No spikes! "They retract. Someone I knew at Old City called me 'the Jewish Wolverine' once. I am told it is a comic book character who is short and has spikes on his hands. Or blades. But I am not Canadian and I do not say 'bub'." Obviously. Gisa listens, finishes her dinner, wipes her mouth, and sets the bowl aside, picking up her wine, the better to focus on that and the conversation. The napkin's easily draped over the top of the empty bowl. And then she draws her head back, as if he'd suggested that she start eating pork on a daily basis in order to prove she was ready. "... what?" It is not, of course, as easy as he thinks it is. "My prayers help me to know what is real and what is not real. They are a link to the mortal world. I was -- I was lost in the Hedge for a long time, trying to find someone who had been Taken, and." She shakes her head. "It is not that I am not serious. But it is not that simple. Even if I were not ... somewhat concerned by the implication that perfection is needing to leave behind my faith." "What if you had to be silent for a long time. On a mission behind enemy lines. What if those lines were drawn by Daesh? What if your mission were leading refugees to safety, such that more than your life depended on the silence? The issue is not that your faith is a weakness, the issue is that your dependence upon your faith is a weakness. I am a very able swordsman. But I know how to use a bow and a gun and my bare hands. Because sometimes my sword is in the other room. I have a good memory because sometimes I don't have my phone. Or a pen. Or paper. God will always be there for you, it is simply that you may not always be able to call upon him." Alonso finishes off his wine and reaches for the bottle, biting the cork out and finishing off the remainder of the bottle with his glass. He spits the cork away and places the empty bottle down with a clunk. "Find another link to the mortal world. One week, that is all. God will be there for you after." Her forehead wrinkles up slightly. "One can pray silently," Gisa answers in confusion, but she listens, and looks... well, troubled. "I just use my hands." That could be taken so many ways, but Gisa doesn't even seem to notice it. She will probably notice that she said it later and obsess over it endlessly. "It -- " She doesn't try to argue it with him; he's got it fixed in his mind. "All right," she agrees finally. "I will do as you ask." She doesn't like it, and she isn't really okay with it, and if this were any other situation she'd probably start arguing in earnest here. But he's the one with the keys to the path, and it's only a week. How bad can it be? "The intent is to learn about ourselves. I noted your dependence upon prayer. It is important that we learn how deep that dependence runs. That is all." Alonso plucks up his glass of wine and rolls up to his feet. "We can begin after this weekend's shabbos, since you have plans already. Give you time to prepare for the task ahead and so on." His head ticks to the side slightly, "Don't look like that. I am going to be hard on you because I care, not because I do not care. And you are under no obligation to walk the road, either. Nobody will think less of you if you choose another path. Least of all me. In any case, take your time." And now she laughs, softly enough. "You sound like me, talking to a ger who sought to convert." Gisa crunches her shoulders up slightly. Perhaps that makes it easier for her, framing it that way. "All right. After Shabbos." She already feels uncertain about it, nervous -- most people wouldn't be able to see it, but he's been working with her every day since he arrived. She has a collection of small tells, the way the corners of her eyes crunch up. The rest of what he says flows into and through her, and she slowly nods her head. "I appreciate that you are going to be hard on me because you care. I understand that. It is -- " It is simply that this is such a deeply-rooted part of her, and she hasn't gone a morning without praying in probably fifty years. It's literally incomprehensible to her. And yet now it must become comprehensible.