Never Even

Mountain Road, Midday

"Doing that does not make one see further, Unmesi."

"Ya wouldn' know, ya ain' got hands!"

A a patter of light rain streams down on a grey day, drumming a beat against a wide pink umbrella that is jammed between two stones and a fence post that lines the edge of the Mountain Road. A rainbow ribboned, rust red egalrin woman sits with her feet dangling precariously off the edge of the cliff underneath the makeshift shelter, hands shaped into pantomimed binoculars and peering through at the city below.

Besides her rests an oversized walking staff made of some kind of metal, with a loop at one end and a dull point at the other.

"What are you even looking for?" the tinny voice of her tiny familiar on her shoulder chirps.

Slixvah shrugs, making Fiadh bob. "Stuff! I dunno! Not every moment's gotta be busy!"

There is a sound of hooves on the road sounds long before Rune emerges around one of the bends, riding atop her horse. It isn't often that she acts as a messenger these days, with more dangerous work usually looming at hand. However, there is a package tied to the horse's saddle and the rogue looks distinctly put out to be sent out in the rain.

Spotting Slixvah, however, seems to brighten her day, at least a little. The serious expression shifting to a soft smile as she raises her hand in greeting. After closing the distance with a small trot of horse hooves, Rune swings down and lands with a tiny splash of her feet through a nearby puddle.

"Well, there's a face I didn't expect to see on the road today." Rune chuckles, tugging her hood forward to keep the rain off of her face. "Don't birds usually avoid sitting out in the rain? Usually they end up all poofed up." Maybe it's offensive to equate Eglarin to regular birds, but the tone is kept light and teasing. "What has you all the way out here?"

"Anywho, I spy... two mages playing ro-sham-bo, and-"

"A horse."

"No you goober, horses aren't in the Uni-" The rhythmic clop catches her words as Slix doffs her 'seeing apparatus', turning. Her expression lights up. "Ruru! We totes do. Ya should see me after da bathhouse, I'm a big ol' fluff ball!" she laughs, beckoning Rune forth and patting a dry patch of earth next to her. "Ya kno', sight seein', like hangin' out in high places, contemplation of my very existence within' th' grand fabric of reality, the usual! Get unda here, I'll dry ya off!"

"Hey Feathers." Rune offers warmly, turning to unstrap the package from her horse and carry it under one arm, the horse's reins in the other. The horse is left to nibble at some nearby grass, not seeming to mind the rain at all, but Rune tucks in next to Slixvah, setting the tarp-covered package down so it stays dry. "Well, better a fluff ball than the one time you nearly had all your feathers singed off." She chuckles.

As she takes the offered seat, Rune pulls her hood back and shakes a little bit of water off of her cloak. "Contemplating your existance?" Rune asks, her head cocking to the side slightly in curiousity. "I mean, after everything we've gone through lately with time loops and strange Fey shenanigans, I can certainly understand that."

Running a hand through her hair, Rune adds, "My mom's been struggling with that, herself. I don't think she ever expected to survive breaking the curse."

Slixvah makes scoots a little to make space underneath the pink umbrella as she nudges the metal walking stick out of the way. A hand waves, fingers waggle, and a wobble wafts through the air as water suddenly finds the half-sil hydrophobic, and sloughs off and away. "Bah. Gettin' burned is neva fun li' that. At least they grow back fast!"

A warm wing and an feathered arm wrap around Rune. "Mmm. Yuh. Goldie apparently noted all the little shenanigans I do. Jus' thinkin' 'bout the esoterica of it all. And what Fiadh may be holding from me."

"You have been given all that is needed to know," the familiar quips.

Slix rolls her eyes. "Obtuse lil' bugger. Anywho- I feel fo' ya momma. How she doin'? Holdin' up alright? She need anythin'?" she inquires, turning to look at Rune. "Same goes for ya."

The flicker of Slixvah's magic usually has odd effects on Rune, but this time it seems to only cause a little flicker of shadow around the rogue's ankles, as if it were simply acknowledging the presence of other magic. "I just try to stay out of the fire, where I can help it." Being quick on her feet helps, there.

Rune leans in a bit to the embrace of the feathered wing, slipping her own arm around Slixvah in return. "If all of this has taught me anything, it's that while supernatural beings may be pulling the threads of fate, our choices and actions still matter." She reaches up and touches the necklace at her throat, which is once again just a strange little puzzle pendant. "And that those threads can be broken."

She seems to be consider that, and how it works with Slixvah's magic. "Seems to me, you have more connection to that, than most?"

As for her mother, Rune catches her lower lip between her teeth pensively, "She's ... as good as can be expected." It's an answer she's given a few times now. "She sometimes forgets when or where she is, which timeline she is in. It helps when she's around someone who only exists here, in this timeline, like me." As for how she is doing, well, Rune reaches under her cloak and rubs at her arm absently, "Things are... different. Good different, I think."

"Hear hear," Slixvah agrees, idly watching the fidgeting of the necklace. "Das why I do what I do, hon." She grinds her beak idly- her own way of fidgeting- as she matches lean for lean. "You would be seemin' correctly, sugar. It took a long while afta tha' lil' trip ta get my noggin' back inta reality. Been sleepwalkin', thinkin' th' dreams were reality and reality was a dream. When ya got a lotta weirdness in a head, sometimes th' weird gets out. Least it's sorted mostly now up there."

She watches the rogue for a moment before softly sighing and shaking her head with a chuckle. "Catharsis ain' always a breath of relief and soothe," she hums with a squinty smile. A hand raises to brush a stray blue-black lock out of the way. "Usually it's mo' like fallin' flat onto a bed afta goin' up a hundred flights of stairs, and th' burnin' pain that it was slowly dissipates over th' days. Good different fo' sho'."

"I'm sorry you had to go through that." Rune's voice is soft as she leans a little against her friend, brushing her cheek along the Eglarin's shoulder. "I knew going in there was going to be hell on everyone, but... I guess I didn't understand just how bad." When she lifts her head, a sigh follows, "Fucking Charneth magic." Rune believes, perhaps rightly so, that the strangeness of her dreamscape is largely the result of whatever dark magic killed her the first time.

Then, Rune listens, her pointed ears twitching downward ever so slightly at the metaphor that Slixvah lays out before her. "Mmm." The soft sound of affirmation seems to confirm that she understands that, all too well. "I wouldn't trade having her back, not for the world. I just wish I could make things easier, but the world she's found herself back in is... not the one she left."

Then, with a self-deprecating laugh, Rune adds, "As for me, I think sometimes I wonder if I'm following the right path, or if I'm just too stupid to learn from other people's mistakes." This is more than a little vague. Rather than explaining, she shifts her cloak and reveals her tattooed arm. Slixvah would be able to easily pick up that something is different about it. Rune offers it out for her friend to see.

GAME: Slixvah rolls spellcraft: (8)+18: 26

Slixvah giggles, squeezing Rune in the hold with arm and wing a little. "It's alright, honey. I've been thru otha trials that bend and twist th' mind jus' a muc as that. Shoo', I prefer ta do tha' if it means th' peoples I care 'bout get out betta in th' end." She smiles. "Fuckin' Charneth magic."

The witch looks down at the space before them, her reaching forth and placing two fingers on the air. Two ethereal strands bow under the tension. "Yo momma jus' hopped story books is all," she observes, letting one string go to vanish into nothingness, as the first finger joins the second with the strand. "Dumped right into th' middle of the story. She'll figure it out. Jus' needs time."

The shifting gets her to let the fate-strands go, blue eyes flicking down at what's presented. Eyes squint in appraisal, her holding the arm with her free hand as a thumb runs along the tattoos. Her eyes close. There's a subtly sharp inhale of breath- realization. "Mmmm. Mhmm. Mhmm. Yep. A conduit." The arm is released. "Well, depends on how ya define stupid. I've a similar agreement wit' somethin', but its less personal than this. Lemme guess, Blue?" she theorizes, a feathered brow quirked up in amusement.

The reassurance lifts a bit of the weight off of Rune's shoulders, shown in the ease of a bit of tension in her form. "Yeah, well... if you ever need anything. You know I'll be there, right?" After everything her friends went through for her, Rune certainly feels she owes them that much.

Rune's gaze is easily captured by the movement of Slixvah's fingers, following those strands as they are held in the air. Some tension is visible in the set of her brows, and perhaps some guilt. "I think the hardest thing, for both of us, is reconciling who we are to one another." It's hard for her to explain, but she tries, "She has all my mother's memories, but physically, she isn't the same person." It all sounds very strange.

Then, as Slixvah investigates the change in the tattoo, Rune shifts her arm slightly. If one were to look, there is a subtle swirling of the lines that looks almost like butterfly wings. "Mmm." Rune makes a sound in the affirmative. "After everything my mother went through for a Fey, you'd think I wouldn't make that choice, right?" She looks up towards Slixvah, "But Blue... she was with us the whole time. She saved us, guided our way. I wouldn't have been able to break that curse without her."

Rune still looks pensive, "She's one of the good ones. Fey, that is." It's as if she were trying to head off concerns, "It... sort of ties up all the loose ends. I... always wondered why I had this connection to the Sky-singer. Blue ... she's a handmaiden of Tanith." How much this makes sense, depends on just what Slixvah knows about the little fish-fiending dragon, and just what goddess she represents.

"'course hon," Slix smiles, bumping the side of her head against Rune's. "I'll let ya kno'. An' I prolly will, I jus' don' kno' what it is yet!"

She looks back out to the vista. Thankfully, strange is Slix's forte. "I get it. She gotta figure out what she is now 'stead of what she was. That's gonna take time. And thankfully you both now have all th' time ya'll need." A cheeky glance is thrown Rune's way. "I can regale her wit' embarassing Ruru stories if it helps."

A shoulder lifts and drops, watching the swirls in the artwork shift. "Fey have they own things, some benevolent, some not. Their actions tho' speak volumes of what they are, so too we must judge them based on that rather than any preconceptions," she smiles at Rune.

The ever present chipper and happy attitude subtly changes to have a shade of pensive, the egalrin's gaze unfocused in thought. "... the... little golden scaled goober tha' ate all th' fish at the marketplace?" she asks, scratching the side of her beak. As smart as she is, there must be a dot missing that connects the two. "Wuz da gotta do wit' 'luna?"

"Oh dear gods." The prospect of Slixvah telling her mother some of her more embarrassing stories over the past year, is met with a face-palm. "And I'm sure she'd tell you the worst ones from when I was a kid, too." Rune is doomed.

Of all of her friends, Slixvah, Telamon, and Ravenstongue are the ones Rune has the least worries about accepting her choice. Others had far more negative experiences with certain Fey beings, which obviously worries her, some. "Blue's focus is stories, songs, fantastical tales. Just the sort of thing I'm already knee-deep in most of the time." Her lip quirks.

There is, perhaps, a little quirk of the head at the witch not knowing the connection. Then again, Rune hadn't really understood it until it was laid out before her. "That's the one. Apparently, she's an avatar of the goddess. So... my task for Blue, is to bring mortal tales and stories back so that she can regale Tanith with them."

Slixvah positively beams at the idea of getting even more embarrassing tales. "Tha' is /fantastic/. I /have/ ta chat her up!" she happily chirps. Getting stories for the rumor-mill-churning egalrin? The half-sil is truly doomed.

She bobs her head, giving a lingering gaze at the tattoos before returning to look out at the city. A chuckle escapes her. "Sounds li' its right up ya alley then. As long as it's good for ya, I'm happy," she smiles before mentioning aside, "I've had my fair share of fumbles wit' fey. I'm jus' glad ya got the good end of th' stick."

There's a blink. She looks back at Rune, both brows high on her forehead. "... /huh/." The lines are drawn to the dot. Other, unknown dots are connected and looped around. "That's... pretty cool, not gonna lie. Perhaps a teeny bit jealous," she prods Rune in the side teasingly. "Sometimes I get a lil' feelin' fro' Dana every now and then, but /nothin'/ as direct as that!"

Rune rubs at the bridge of her nose, but she doesn't try to dissuade Slixvah from speaking to her mother. If nothing else, the woman out of time could use a few more friends. "She's off dealing with my father at the moment, but you're welcome to find her when she gets back." The same father Rune is very much estranged from.

Shifting, the rogue pulls her cloak back around her, if only to ward off the chill from the rain. It partially covers the tattoo again, but there doesn't seem to be any elusiveness to the gesture. "I guess I've seen it go well for people like Cor'lana, and I feel like this is the least I could do to repay Blue for everything she has done for us."

Her expression changes to a shy sort of look, tucking a strand of dyed hair behind her ear, "It's a little intimidating, honestly." She admits, "The Sky-singer has always felt like this... force of nature beyond my understanding. Now I just feel more indebted to her." She seems almost apologetic, knowing that perhaps her friend may not have ever had that sort of closeness to her patron deity.

Slix's grin turns to a grimace. "Mmm. Yep. I'll buy her a drink for that mess."

The egalrin retrieves her arm from around Rune, but the blanketing wing remains as she picks up her familiar gently with both hands. "It goes well fo' some, and, well, th' givin' and takin' part of th' fey, even in Blue, is an always perpetual cycle. But I get it. Wantin' ta put some good vibes inta th' realm wit' ya deal is a good way ta do it. I can commiserate."

The surprise at how close Rune is to Eluna- by just a couple of steps- fades as the witch gains that contemplative yet chipper look. "I mean, they is this force of nature beyond understandin'. They gods. But- look- I see it like this, honey-" One wing gestures out to the city of Alexandria below them, "-look out there. Can you see the people going about their day? Th' boats comin' from the docks? What about th' horse that got loose? If someone were gonna yell at us from down there, maybe we might notice. Maybe we won't. Maybe we give them a bread fo' yellin'. Maybe we drop a rock on 'em. There's a lot of maybes. But th' gods don't see all and know all, we can't see everything goin' on up here."

She looks to Rune with a warm smile. "Das why they got people like you ta tell 'em wha's happenin', and th' folks down in the temples ta carry out desires. And people like me ta yell up at 'em ta maybe get a pat on the head. There is no debt. It's simply th' way it is. Intimidating? Oh fo' sho'. But debt? Naw. Das jus' what they do."

She looks up at the sky. "Li' deciding ta rain on my sight seein', ain' tha' right, Ceiwen?" Slixvah chuckles. Thunder softly rolls in the distance.

The fact is, the scales of balance may never be fully even. "I know." Rune replies, acknowledging this fact. At the very least, she is not compelled to do anything that goes against her nature, at least for the time being.

Listening to Slixvah's way of viewing the gods, Rune seems to consider for a moment, before admitting, "You know... I never really gave much thought to the gods until I was brought back by the Elunites." Her hand reaches to thumb at her necklace again, "Now, I see them in everything. Even the little things."

With that same shy sort of quiet, Rune adds, "Always felt like I owed the Sky-singer for that. For the second chance. Fuck if I'm not going to make the most of it." She smirks.

"So... I have a package to deliver up to the temple. My horse can carry two?" Rune suggests. "Drop it off, then maybe find someplace to get warm and have a drink?"

Slixvah giggles, closing her eyes. "You're tellin' me. Ceiwen and Cernan may be my favs, but I dabble in a bunch of others when the time is appropriate. Right hard ta not see Reos's work in the artifice, Dana in th' mountains, and Eluna in th' stars. They's the ones tha spill the paint across th' realm. But we are th' ones to derive meanin' and purpose for it."

She looks back to Rune, snickers, and gives the half-sil a proper hug. "Totes understandable. I'd be livin' it up if I died and came back."

She pulls back, brows quirking up. "Oh? I'd love ta have a drink wit'cha. Been a minute since we've just hung out and me teasin' ya," she smiles, reaching out to poke Rune on the nose. "Alright! Ceiwen ruined my sightseen' so leggo!"

She rises, a stray feather animating and picking up the pink umbrella. A hand flares out, and a spectral hand appears under the strange metal walking stick to bunt it up towards her. Oh. It's... a large sewing needle?

Questions for later. "After you, shug."

-End Scene-