Logs:Of Fathers and Faerie (Or, Wild Hunt)

Of Fathers and Faerie (Or, Wild Hunt)
Dramatis Personae Damien, Joshua, Kavalam, Lucien, Scott
In Absentia Sera	2024-07-27 "... why do you have wings." (after some adventures, followed by some rest.)
Location <NYC> Le Carrefour, Le Bonne Entente - Astoria, Queens & Otherworld
Above the bustle of the clerestory restaurant, tucked at the base of the bell tower, this indoor garden and library is out of the way and easily overlooked, sure to become a favored "hidden gem" of travel guides. Low bookshelves full of mythology, fairy tales, and folklore ring the central elevator shaft and the stairway spiraling around it like an easily navigable labyrinth. Beyond these are plants in a variety of tastefully whimsical containers, each with its own engraved plaque giving the common name, the scientific name, and their significance to various traditional stories and practices. The walls have been done away with so that the room extends beyond the doric columns into a surreal rooftop garden enclosed with glass stretching between the tower's massive buttresses. The arrangement of plantlife becomes less formal as one moves out into the four arms of the conservatory, visible containers giving way to beds and terraces and eventually landscapes carefully cultivated to look wild. There is plentiful seating scattered along the paths and just off of them, from proper benches to picturesque logs to surprisingly comfortable boulders. By day, myriad butterflies dance amongst the enchanted vegetation, and likewise moths by night. A shallow stream weaves throughout, feeding ponds that host plants of their own alongside fish, frogs, and turtles. Wandering the outer edges of the conservatory, one could almost feel lost in a mystical forest but for the stunning views of the cityscape beyond the glass. In these enchanting, picturesque surroundings, Scott's black leather and sleek visor seem like a bit of a genre clash, though he is delicately inspecting a shrubby rowan tree with an (amateurish) gardener's eye, rubbing a glossy red berry between two fingers, his brow creasing (again) as he turns a grimace back at Kavalam. "I'm about to start looking under rocks," he says (it's anybody's guess whether this is serious) as he gets to his feet again. "You're sure it was right here?" "I have a deadly good memory," Kavalam answers firmly, and not without a trace of irony. He's very Ordinary Person right now, somewhere in between the conservatory's aggressive whimsy and Scott's Superhero But Serious vibe -- just jeans, a summerweight button down (it does at least have flower-and-vine embroidery running up and down the panels.) "It was here but -- not here." He is nodding just past the rowan tree, where tucked behind more greenery and rocks the actual conservatory walls are hidden, a door leading to a side office nestled in a corner and the outside walls stretching beyond. "It had grown some extra bits. They are gone but here is where it happened." There's not much fanfare when Joshua appears in the conservatory, still in his deep blue uniform with its FDNY and PARAMEDIC patches. Standing nearby, framed by an archway of honeysuckle in deeper reds and oranges, he looks deeply unimpressed to be here. Maybe this has very little to do with the beautiful surroundings and everything to do with his cargo, who he's releasing into the wild with a small grimace. "Fff," he's biting down on his lip, breath huffed out through this thin gap as his eyes cut to Kavalam and Scott. "What'd you lose." Joshua's cargo is striding forward with very little heed paid to the rest of the conservatory. Damien, at least, looks very much like he belongs in this place. Or feels like it, anyway; what he actually looks like might be a matter of interpretation. He's definitely wearing...clothes, which are unusual and eye-catching and suit him perfectly, but it's difficult to discern specific details about either the outfit overall or any specific element of it--not color, nor fabric, nor cut. The strangeness fades the moment one looks away, leaving behind only an impression of some manner of semi-formal clothing with an exotic twist. He carries an elegant walking stick of some fine dark wood topped with a brass armillary sphere encased in glass in such a way that must surely render it nonfunctional. There's a deep frown on his severe features as he examines the earth around them intently, and between that and his brisk pace the contrast to his clear agitation makes it seem even more anachronistically formal when he pauses by Scott and Kavalam and the rowan tree to ask, with a small and courteous bow, "-- might I ask you to step aside, good --" a hesitation, a quick but not at all surreptitious check before he hedges his bets with, "sir-and-madam." There is a definite sense, from behind the opaque visor, that Scott is blinking, though as he dusts off his hands he returns this greeting with a casual upward nod. He doesn't answer at once, tilting his head with a perplexed, "You lose something?" When the visor's gaze fixes on Damien it stays there for a moment too long after this request before Scott takes a small step back, glancing sidelong at Kavalam, then back at Joshua -- "Friend of yours?" "Lucien-uncle was here with Sera. This whole part of this garden here --" Kavalam is indicating the wall in question, the young rowan tree, the honeysuckle archway, "it got very much bigger and then. Gone. He has told me many stories here of how plants are magic, if it were Halloween-time I would think he's doing one big troll." With the X-Men here investigating Kavalam seems considerably less frazzled about the situation than he'd been back at the school, though he is giving Damien a second look when Scott asks about him -- clearly he had just Assumed this was some previously unknown City X-Man. With that assumption shunted aside he is frowning, critical now, at the man's clothes -- then at his own, then Scott's, then back at his own. This leads to some mild and mildly unfavorable conclusions as to which of them is the sir and which is the madam; he's plucking slightly self-consciously at the intricate floral Chikankari embroidery on his shirt and then crossing his arms over his chest. "Why is everyone you know so weird." "No." Joshua is immediate with this answer, but at least it doesn't have quite the vehemence it has when people have asked him that question in weeks past. He's looking to Damien with a lift of his brows and a straightening of his posture, more keenly attentive once Kavalam has explained. "... they in danger?" This is clearly directed to Damien, and not the others. He's moving a little closer -- but only a little, because after a very brief and scrutinizing frown at the rowan tree he's come to the conclusion he has no idea what the fuck he could be doing to help this situation, after which he just rocks back on his heels with his thumb hooked into a pocket. "New York," is the answer he give to Kavalam's judgment question observation. "Thank you." Damien stoops, very much in the spot Scott had just been examining. One hand is clutching the head of his walking stick tight, possibly just out of nerves because it certainly isn't doing much to support him where he's crouched on his heels. He studies the base of the tree for a long time, and then reaches out to pluck a rock from the soil there. "Oh, very probably. Did you say his human sister was with him?" It's hard to tell whether his deeper frown is worried or thoughtful, or even if it's directed at this information or at the pitted grey rock in his hand. Scott frowns, neck craned down at Damien, trying to see what he's doing that Scott didn't think to do; he slips his own hands into his jacket pockets with unease. "He was with Sera," he kind-of-agrees. Kavalam's arms tense across his chest. "He is also the human." He's looking between the two adults like they might know better how serious Damien is or isn't, but already the stress is creeping back into his shoulders, his fingers where they squeeze at his arms. "How do you know what danger? He cannot -- are you getting them," he's demanding of Joshua and Scott. "Who is this person. He does not," this is said very accusatorily, "sound like he is from New York." Joshua's shifting a little more uneasily, too, and looking down at where Damien is crouching. His mouth presses thinner at human sister, and his eyes reflexively shift in the direction of Manhattan, though there's no window here immediately to look out at the skyline still all bristling with its growth of scaffolding. "... s'not aliens again, is it?" "I am not from New York. And I know because he needs my help. Probably the sister, too, some people will be very keen to add a human to their -- ah, perfect." Damien has been turning the rock over in his hand, then putting it down in favor of another. He holds it up, peering through the center where one of its pitted formations has made a hole straight through. He nods with satisfaction before holding the stone up to his mouth. What he whispers to it cannot be heard -- but when he moves his hand back away the stone itself seems to be echoing? Maybe not with his whispering, but there is -- very, very faintly -- some sort of musical sound coming from his hand where he has palmed it. His breath has caught for just a moment of hesitation, before he flings the stone straight up in the air. It doesn't fall to the ground again. At least, it doesn't appear to -- it's just seemingly vanished into the not-particularly-impressive foliage of the shrubby small rowan. Or, maybe it did fall, and people just missed it, because when Damien pushes fluidly back to his feet the stone is back where he picked it up from. There have always been several other stones there, as there might be lying around any patch of garden, but a number of them now -- including the one he'd talked to -- are forming a circle that they definitely were not forming before. Though the stones themselves don't seem to be actually moving, the circle itself is somehow expanding, and as it does the sound of singing is growing. Lucien's voice is in there somewhere, clear and strong, but there is, also, a strange and otherworldly chorus joining him, song echoed now by rustling and creaking, by the ripple of water, the conservatory itself seeming somehow to pick up the song. "Come, now." He's saying this a bit imperiously, a bit impatiently to Joshua, as the circle starts to expand towards him. And -- well, everyone else there, too. "What are you --" Scott drops this question off, his head tipped down at the ground, backing away with strange urgency given that the ground isn't actually moving under his feet; with instinctive protectiveness he steps in front of Kavalam, one arm outstretched, hands curling loosely (not quite into fists). He's addressing Joshua too, now -- "Who is this guy?" "What people? What are they doing to Sera? Who is --" Kavalam's agitated questions cut off with an undignified yelp when he notices the expanding circle. He's happy enough for Scott's instincts because he's kind of shrunk behind the bigger man, his eyes gone huuuge and wide. Joshua is staring, hard, at Damien. Not for long; this truncated comment about Sera does not have time to quite sink in before he's registering the shifting scenery. His teeth grit, and he presses the heel of his hand into his eye. He is heeding Damien's summons, though, stepping closer to the other man. He looks at Scott. Looks down at the strangely morphing circle. Maybe he's considering giving some kind of warning, but all that he finally says, a little weary, is: "... Lucien's dad. Maybe." As the circle expands, the part of the conservatory it encompasses is changing. There's a prairie spreading out well past where the wall ought to have bounded the building. The rowan tree they were standing behind, once just a young shrub, is now a gnarled ancient tree. When it ripples over Damien he's changed as well -- at first it's most striking in his clothing, which are suddenly, in this newer, warmer, more alive sunlight, easier to distinctly make out. His outfit does not map perfectly onto the garb of any human culture, past or present, but is distantly reminiscent of the European Renaissance. His green cloak consists of myriad leaves without a single visible stitch or seam, alive with shifting sylvan shadows; his jerkin is cut from a supple crystal--currently blue, though it shifts at variable speed through more colors than can be named; the white shirt beneath is spun from the finest of cirrus clouds; his smooth gray breeches are unquestionably grown from the bark of a tree that is still alive, and his tall black riding boots are deep, flawlessly polished shadows. The whole of it fits him perfectly, and as he moves it's apparent that his outfit isn't just moving on him but shifting with him as though conscious of his needs and desires. He's turned his head slightly, listening to the echoing music that is now fading away in the meadow. When he turns back to face the others he looks at once like the same person he'd been and nothing alike -- the shade of his skin doesn't quite map to any human skintones; there are curling hefty horns sweeping ramlike around the side of his head and around his (definitely long and pointed) ears, his eyes deeper and darker than they have any right to be and within them his uncanny pupils resemble some strange nebula moreso than regular eyes. In some lights his dark hair seems like hair and in others it seems like feathers, raven-black; when he lifts a hand to shade his eyes, meanwhile, it becomes apparent that his cloak itself is not quite a cloak but wings ("feathered" not in the raven feathers of his head but in a number of many-hued leaves.) "I did sire him," Damien is replying in a voice that no longer sounds human at all in the strange musical depth of its reverberations, "but I have a lot of work to go on the -- dad." The next step Scott takes back is a little jerkier at the rippling sweep of transformation around them, his stance bracing, his mouth open wordlessly, one of his hands reaching for the wizened rowan and then pulling sharply back before he can touch it. He's spurred back into action only when Joshua moves to follow Damien, taking his own step after the other two. "Joshua," he says, his voice suddenly commanding (or, maybe, afraid.) Did he have a follow-up question? An order? A plea? Nothing else comes out. "What?" This shock is at first, a reply to the revelation about Lucien. Kavalam sounds offended by this news, his insistence: "Lucien-uncle has no father," reflexively defensive. But in Very Short Order he is transferring his shock yet again and starting to scramble back away from the expanding circle. It's not fast enough; he's suddenly looking around himself with a paling expression. He very nearly moves back closer to Scott again but then he is determinedly balling up his fists and setting his chin like he's totally not terrified at all. "Where did you take us. What did you do to him. Mr. Joshua who is this man." Joshua is looking around this strange new world with an expression that looks -- approximately just as mournful to be here as he is to be anywhere, but his own fear is evident all the same in the way he steps closer to Scott and Kavalam, in the determinedly slow breaths he's taking. He's doing a once-over of Scott and Kavalam -- quick with his eyes and a little bit more thorough with his healing sense. Once he is satisfied they aren't actually any more injured than they were a moment ago, he's looking at the sky, looking around the meadow, looking anywhere but at Damien. It doesn't stop him noticing the strange new outfit the rustling wings, and despite having answered that question just moments ago, this time, he's is coming up blank, a slow head shake and a low: "... no fucking clue," all he has to offer. "How do we find them?" There are hoofbeats, pounding nearer across the meadow. Whatever is coming towards them is moving way faster than any horse ever has. It does resemble a horse though, mostly, though it has more legs than it ought and its dark fur isn't just black but so strange and shadowy it seems to swallow the light entire, save for where its eyes glow bright like flames. Astride the púca is, at least, one of the people they came looking for -- alas that it is not the one younger and human-er and probably more critical to actually find. Lucien is dressed plainly, by Otherworld standards, in a loose-fitting green tunic of tessellated maple leaves, riding breeches of soft brown mushroom leather, and simple serviceable boots fashioned from tough-wearing maple bark. He has a matched set of archery paraphernalia -- gloves, arm guards, chest guard and quiver -- fashioned from spider silk in a color human eyes cannot interpret as anything other than the idea of swiftness. The bow itself is wrapped in and strung with the same silk, but the pure light inside shines through the tight weave even when it is only glowing softly at rest. "{They took Sera.}" It's the first thing he says, in stress-edged French, as he pulls up alongside the others. Did he expect Damien to have arrived with company? Did he expect Damien to arrive at all? Maybe his time here has fully worn out his supply of shock -- well, not fully. He's eying the rowan tree with more suspicion than any of the people here, and looks like he might have questions for it too but for the pressing need at hand: "The Hunt." The capital letters come through in his voice. "My friend here was swift, but --" Here he's stopped, though, sitting up straighter and, then, dropping down to stand on the ground as if this view will make more sense. "... why do you have wings." "Why don't you? They'll serve you well, here." Damien bows deep, to the púca, and whatever he says to the creature is not intelligible in any human tongue, but the bright fire in its eyes glows brighter. "I did try to warn him," he's saying this ostensibly as answer to Kavalam but that is the only modicum of restraint he manages with regards to his inevitable I told you so. Lucien's stressed announcement darkens his expression (and his shirt with it; where it had previously been a wisp of cirrus clouds now it gathers dark-grey and stormy). "No doubt you were both brave. But you need more than swiftness, or bravery, to outride the Wild Hunt." Damien is flourishing his walking stick -- the elegance of its craft has become more legible here, its fine dark wood inscribed with the faint music of stars; atop it, the rings of the brass armillary sphere are rotating to align with an entirely new set of stars than they had been displaying on Earth. Somewhere, in pinpoints overhead that shouldn't be visible with the bright sunny day, the stars are also shifting with the sphere. The stars in his sphere are twinkling through the glass, casting glittering pinpoints of light on the meadow around them and though it's not particularly scrutable to their eyes it has the distinct feeling of a map. "We could," he is offering matter-of-factly, "try bargaining away these other humans. But they can be quite jealous of their prizes." He is removing the sphere from its place at the head of his stick, handing the entire contraption to Lucien -- with it removed, the rest of the stick has become a telescope, through which Damien is examining not the stars overhead but the map spreading far and wide around them on the field. Amid the rustling of the meadow, Scott has moved even closer to Joshua and Kavalam; at the sound of hoofbeats he raised one hand to the side of his head, but at the sight of the rider it just ruffles through his hair in a wholly nonverbal well-I'll-be, his breath coming out in a quiet, astonished puff. At Damien's suggestion -- a little fiercer this time -- he steps in front of his ((ex?)-student?) again. "Excuse me?" is almost laughably mild and monotone in its delivery, but there is faint relief in his voice when he tilts his head at Lucien, brow knitting over his visor. "Where are we, Lucien?" Kavalam is eying Damien's wings with a very clear appreciation, though the (small!) flex of his own shoulders (maybe we all get wings, here?) ends only in disappointment. Alas. "He is your father he says. Why don't you have wings?" Where Damien is matter of fact about the pragmatism, here, Kavalam has switched almost immediately to judgmental. Whatever cool he thought was stored in Damien's new getup is evaporating swift in the harsh light of: "-- bargaining?" He is not peering out from behind Scott incredulously but mostly only because he's taken his glasses off to fussily wipe them, and so can't at this moment fix his incredulousness with the appropriate amount of glare. "Bargain something else. He has one very fine bow there. You are wearing a gemstone shirt. His horse is extremely fast." Joshua's brows hike way up. He's also moving within easy arm's reach of Kavalam and Scott. "... 317 days," is his first answer. He's studying the ground and its glittering waypoints as if he can make some sense of this magical map. "Where is she?" Lucien is eying the others with a vague consideration, for just a moment, like he's maaaybe considering the value of Damien's suggestion. It's Kavalam who snaps him out of this thought -- at his suggestion of what they could bargain Lucien's eyes are going wide. The black creature behind him is starting to shift in ways that are not very easy to wrap their minds around, but Lucien is putting himself quickly between the púca and the others. "Forgive them, they have come very fresh from a land with -- almost not manners at all," he's sounding only slightly pained as he casts this aspersion on the etiquette he practiced for so long. "They have come to help, but -- he did not know what he suggested." The creature is easing back into its more equine form with only a faint glimmer of flames licking out from its mouth, and Lucien lets out a slow breath. "-- Otherworld. They call it Otherworld, among other names it has had on Earth. I thought it full a thing of myth, until it dragged us here." He cups the sphere carefully in his palm, which seems like it should interfere with its shifting, seems like it should at least interfere with the way the glass is scattering its map of light across the world, but it does not. "... you did warn me." It's soft, and almost apologetic. "Perhaps if I had listened..." His head has tilted small and questioning as he looks at Damien. His own shoulders shift, too, just a little, testing, and maybe nothing changes here either. "We aren't bargaining away anyone who does not agree to be bargained." Whether he's reassuring the others or reprimanding Damien, his says this firmly. He's holding the sphere a little closer to his chest, and at first when he looks down at the map its also uncomprehending, but then -- "There," he finally says, and he's unfurling one wing from where it tucked against his tunic to point with one long (leafy, its hues strangely complementary to the ones feathering Damien's -- probably he will be mad about this later) pinion towards one glittering dot largely indistinguishable from the others. "How do we get there." Damien has started, also, to make a similar apology to the púca, but when Lucien beats him to it he's regarding the man with a small satisfaction. When Lucien's wing unfurls, his nod just seems like its confirming something to himself. "Getting there is easy enough." The stormy cloudstuff that has made up his shirt is lightening back to its whiter wispier cirrus. He lowers his telescope-walking stick back to the ground, though he leaves the sphere in Lucien's hands. "Getting us all back out may take some blood."