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rainbowfic2014-06-17 03:00 am
greenling) wrote in rainbowfic2014-06-17 03:00 am
Entry tags:
Daffodil #4
Name: Greenling
Story: All Great Things
Colors: Daffodil #4 (planting)
Supplies and Styles: Sculpture taking from Landslide and Flip-Flops/Sealed Orders/Representative.
Word Count: 2,734
Rating: PG-13ish, really just some swearing.
Warnings: None
Summary: Lance and Diana talk logistics, Kevin tells Peace what he knows. Dmitry has a weird... dream? There will be more action soon, I promise.
Comments, criticism, and questions are all appreciated.
"Yes, ma'am."
"No fucking clue. My plan is to capture one and do science to it."
"Yes. Magic science. Figure out where they came from, make Walker and the kid he found look at it."
Lance had given up wandering around and stood politely at the door to the police chief's office, waiting for Diana to finish her call. She seemed in her element, laying back in a chair far too old for the angle she was leaning it into, her feet propped up on the desk next to a small pile of chocolate bars and a dark, unlabeled bottle of something she probably found in a drawer. It nearly made him feel better. She went silent for a minute or two, waving Lance in and pointing him at a chair.
Then her face went... weird.
"You want him in the squads."
Lance sat down and frowned, folding his hands in his lap.
"We mentioned the magic fucking sword?" Diana said calmly. She stopped smiling and sat up a little in her chair. There was another moment's pause, then she sighed.
"Yes, ma'am. I hope this doesn't get anybody I like killed."
She took her feet off the desk and leaned forward to open up a candy bar, holding the receiver to her ear with her shoulder. "All right. Bluebird or me'll have some kind of report by midnight, so long as the landlines still work." Lance pursed his lips, but Diana didn't react. She paused to listen again, nodding reflexively. "Yeah. You too."
Diana stuffed the candy bar in her mouth and hung up, sliding back down in her chair. Irritation was slowly wearing away to exhaustion on her face, and Lance thought he could see sadness below that. He let her have another moment's peace before clearing his throat.
"Hi. You want a Butterfinger?"
"No thanks." He gave her a small smile. "So we've got two more to take care of, huh?"
Diana pressed her eyes closed, and the smile dropped off his face again. He hadn't wanted to make her feel worse. "Please tell me that's not going to cause a problem."
"No, no no." Lance held his hands up. "The squads have been getting along- actually better than expected, especially with your help, and we have plenty of supplies. If we needed to, God forbid, we could last a week just on what's been gathered from the quarantine area. I just- we do need to talk, though."
"Vampires?" she snapped between bites. Lance repressed a sigh.
"No. Last I checked, they were behaving. Look... it's nearly 1800 hours, day two. The squads have been running since this morning, neither of us have slept much, we need to presume we're going through the night. It won't be hard to secure a place with beds, and the sooner we make up a rotation, the more people we can keep going. Uh... that includes our "command structure"."
Diana sat staring at him for a moment, then averted her eyes. He tried to keep calm.
"We have things to do." He must have had a look on his face, because her eyebrows both went up and she kept talking. "We will sleep. For one thing you're getting all paranoid." That made him grimace. "You're also the only other person I trust to run things, so when we figure out this rotation, you need to go first. I... I have things to do, and I will not be able to sleep until I know what the hell is going on here."
"Wh-" Paranoid. Okay, maybe. Jittery nerves, and something under the surface; hoping it was just adrenaline- Lance licked his lips and tried to focus. "Uhm. You don't trust the guy you invited?"
She shook her head and shrugged. "I trust Kevin just fine. I didn't call him up just because he's the only sidhe I know within a day's drive- he is, but I mean, he has no training. Like none, sidhe or Society or anything. Fuckin' turned us down. Nice guy though. Competent."
Lance blinked. "Huh. What's he do?"
"Nothing, last I checked. He's a park ranger." Diana grinned, prodding another candy bar in consideration. "So you and me are the only ones who know how to run an op. You're also someone they'll all listen to, whether they like it or not. Anyhow, there's a supply run coming up soon, so we can send out the new orders then, then when we secure a hotel I'll capture a demon in the area, bunch of birds one stone. You think we should move, or just get a place nearby?"
Lance pursed his lips again at the "whether they like it or not" comment, but let it pass. "I think this place is a lot more useful and defensible than a hotel, or whatever we end up getting. And either way, we're going to have to pull some people out of the search groups to guard the place- we'll be asleep and nobody else can be spared. If your plans work, we might not need a general search anyway. Uhm, you want to capture a demon? Like... how?"
"Kevin said they're still just fangs and claws. We might be able to find a little one and keep it tied up and real-ish for a while. We can stash it in a cell, borrow some rope and handcuffs or something."
"Hm." Lance sat the caramel bar back on the desk and crossed his arms. "That's weird. Maybe that means whatever's making them, maybe it's just got a wide reach? Maybe it doesn't have the power to make serious demons?"
She shook her head again. "I don't know. Can you feel it out there?"
"Ah..." He hadn't thought about it. The thought made him shiver. "I... I don't think so. Have you... asked other people?"
"Not directly, but I trust intuition better than logic right now. No offense. I hope you're right."
"Right." He shrugged one shoulder uncomfortably. "Uhm. So sleep rotation and supply run."
"Yeah."
"...Do I really have to go by "Bluebird"?" Lance gave Diana his best plaintive look.
"Think up your own damn codename and you can go by anything you like." She smirked at him as she stood up to grab a map.
*
"...And the spirit of the Earth tossed and turned in her sleep, and then usually there's a story about dreams she had and things she did trying to get it off her mind, and eventually she gives in and Luna gets dominion over the souls of the sleeping and the dreaming dead. Whatever those are. And then she grants a little of her power to people she likes or thinks are deserving. And that's it."
"Is that what happened?"
Peace and Kevin were lying in the grass on a small divider hill between the police station's parking lot and the road. There was a small ring of trees around the whole thing, willows and such, fluffy enough to give the station the impression of being seperate from the rest of the city, though plenty of buildings dwarfed the trees. Far off ahead in the sky, to the south between two bright glass buildings, there was a spot that looked like a line of smudge on a monitor. Thin clouds blew through the sky, passing behind the smudge.
Kevin shrugged. He was barefoot, digging his toes into the soil. "Like, literally? I don't know. It's an old story. But I know we're guardians, that part is real. You could ask her if you wanted."
Peace was staring at Kevin, not quite intentionally, eyes wide. His hair was tangled with grass and sweat, but the knots would get worse fixing it, so he just picked a twig out and ignored it otherwise. "Have you asked?"
"Nah. "Ask me no secrets, I'll tell you no lies." We don't have that kind of relationship. People are different, though." Kevin, meanwhile, just watched the clouds. "We should get to the practical. That was a nice ward earlier. Ever done that before?"
"Heh, nope. Most of the stuff I do is wolfy: smelling, running, hunting things, howling. I haven't figured out how to turn into a wolf, but I can do a great imitation." Peace rolled his head around front. "It's real enough to claw things in the face, usually."
"I've never heard of someone who can turn into a wolf so other people can see it. Though if you can, this might be the place. Shatter makes reality all blurry. That's how those shadow-demon things get through, and why everybody's powers get easier to use. Except psychics and vampires, and nobody knows how those work- well, vampires might know how vampires work, but they don't tell us."
"Vampires? Psychics?" Peace said, half incredulous and half excited. "What all is out there that I didn't know about?"
"Uh... start at the beginning. Werewolves, sidhe, kitsune, nahualli, shapeshifters-" Kevin paused as Peace's eyes bugged out, raising a finger. "-are all us. Different traditions or groups, sometimes maybe things we actually inspired. Werewolves have been around a long time. But sometimes a legend or story inspires us, and we make it real. Like, you thought "werewolf", and now you do wolf stuff."
"I thought... you said "we're all wolves", didn't you? Was that a metaphor?"
"No. Luna likes wolves, for some reason. Sometimes you're something else, too, or it's considered a liminal state, but... I don't know. Maybe she likes stories, too." He grinned to himself. "Other than us, there are fey-touched. They have even more names than we do, because they're just anybody who's been touched by things outside reality enough to leave a mark. Sometimes they learn how to do magic themselves, sometimes they turn into monsters, sometimes it's just some weird scar. Sometimes it makes sense. Then there are magicians, who- no offense- are either stupid or assholes. They make pacts with things for power."
"No offense?"
"Isn't that guy you like one?" Kevin inclined his head back towards the police station.
"He-" Peace thought for a second, then flushed. "Dmitry? I- no, Dmitry, Dmitry isn't- I mean, I don't know but- and... well it... Hold up." He covered his eyes with his hands and tried to sort his thoughts. "...Is it that obvious?"
Kevin wasn't laughing, but his eyes were crinkly like he wanted to be. "That he's a magician or that you like him?"
"Uhm." Just answer the original question, Joey. "I don't think he made a pact with anything. I know I'm new to this, but he's not stupid or an asshole, and he has no idea what's happening to him. Is that a thing that happens to magicians?"
"Mm, don't think so. Diana knows more than I do, and she says he's a magician, but she's also... not always right. Anyway, he's clearly into you, and vampires are not undead, but they are immortal blood-drinkers with a creepy, aristocratic society and weird curses- or one curse, maybe- and they don't trust anybody else because no one trusts them. They also haven't been around as long as everyone else, and I don't remember how long or why."
"And everything just hides? I guess because bad stuff would happen if people knew we existed?"
"Most people can't see things from outside reality, including dream stuff, unless we make them. Magic isn't made of physics, so your mind just sort of elides over it or doesn't pick it up or something. Which should, of course, mean it doesn't affect physical reality at all, but it's not that hard to make it do that and people still, usually, ignore it." Kevin flung his arms up above his head. "Unless they don't, or you're a vampire. And nobody I can find knows exactly how it works, either way, even Diana's people, and they really want to know."
"Who are they?"
"The Society. They have a longer name, I think, that they don't use anymore. They're an international... everything organization." Kevin frowned. "They keep track of things, and people, so when some magician tries to become King of Miami, they know and they do something about it. Or an Outsider that gets loose, vampire bloodlines go to war, somebody does something they don't like... but they're not just a self-appointed police force. They do research and diplomacy and other things that don't all fit together. They're either gonna try to recruit you or let the sidhe do it. I won't tell you it's a bad deal, but you seem a little Anti-Flag for their whole magical NSA thing."
Peace grinned. "Well thank you. I'll... I'll think about that if they do, I guess. So what are psychics?"
"Psychics... are rare. Diana's a psychic, her powers don't come from Outside and she's not a vampire, so now there's a new category she basically made up. I don't know- I haven't met any others. She basically collects them. Last I heard she'd found maybe twenty and met... half? Which is not a lot."
Peace tilted his head. Kevin kept mentioning her, and getting a weird look on his face when he did. "Is she your friend? Or..."
"More or less."
Kevin was silent for a long moment, staring into the distance; Peace couldn't think of anything else to say. They both just lay there for a minute or so, then Peace puffed.
"Okay. So how do I learn to do something that'll help with this?"
"Mm. Relax. Close your eyes," Kevin said in a soft voice. "More talking today than I've done in a month..."
*
Floating, suspended; one of a million motes of light moving around a central glow, tiny in comparison, each immense as a sun. Speaking in silence, reflecting each other.
"Wake up."
In one area of sight, a landscape was shown, reflected immense layers, incomprehensibly large, superimposed on itself. Through an endless linear dimension they were created, changed, became static, broke apart. Something else at the edge of awareness: another dimension-layer, coming nearer at an angle. Back and forth fuzz, changing, blurring and fracturing what it touches. Corrosion. Something is added; cause and effect breaks down, replaced with a different pattern.
Faces. Actions. Places. Fractures. Dimly understood, dimly recalled. Mostly, uncertainty.
"Hey. Asshole. Come on."
The landscape unfolds, showing one layer in particular. Stretched along the fractures, a web, rubbery lines in a mirrored pattern. The pattern increases, the cracks recede; in the other direction, the pattern decreases, the fracture opens, shining, refracting like foil, then red and angry like a wound. The moon hangs inside it.
Motes flicker, the central glow extends; worry, duty, calm, anger. Chatter. Chatter-
"WAKE. UP."
Tugging, leaning on his chest? He opens his eyes-
*
"Can you hear me now?"
"I'm getting bit by mosquitoes. :(" Peace clenched his eyes shut and tried not to move any more than that; last time, he'd been so surprised he'd sat straight up and it'd taken them another fifteen minutes to get back to this point. He could hear Kevin snicker. "What?"
"You think with emoticons?"
He frowned. "No. I mean, not usually. Just, I don't know how this works."
"It works how you think it should. Your perception of the world is in your head, and you have total control over that. Then you have to make the world understand your perception is right."
"Oh. Yeah." His body was starting to feel fluttery, and it felt like he could feel something shimmery beside him. "So in the way that... I know I'm a wolf. I'm also a human being, but I know that I should be able to do wolf things, so it works because I know that?"
"Well, it works because you're a werewolf. I don't know that a wolf could smell one person streets away, or half the things I do- but knowing you can, I guess, probably helps you make it happen. And this is just how I think of it." Definitely something was beside him- he could hear Kevin's voice moving. It was... then something touched his left hand and he shivered. "Scientists make... not great occultists, usually. You feel that?"
"Sheesh. Yeah." He tried not to keep shivering. "It's really, really weird."
"All right. Next step is for you to focus on that and try to climb out of your body. I'll teach you how to see things, move around, then we can do warding."
"Okay."
Story: All Great Things
Colors: Daffodil #4 (planting)
Supplies and Styles: Sculpture taking from Landslide and Flip-Flops/Sealed Orders/Representative.
Word Count: 2,734
Rating: PG-13ish, really just some swearing.
Warnings: None
Summary: Lance and Diana talk logistics, Kevin tells Peace what he knows. Dmitry has a weird... dream? There will be more action soon, I promise.
Comments, criticism, and questions are all appreciated.
"Yes, ma'am."
"No fucking clue. My plan is to capture one and do science to it."
"Yes. Magic science. Figure out where they came from, make Walker and the kid he found look at it."
Lance had given up wandering around and stood politely at the door to the police chief's office, waiting for Diana to finish her call. She seemed in her element, laying back in a chair far too old for the angle she was leaning it into, her feet propped up on the desk next to a small pile of chocolate bars and a dark, unlabeled bottle of something she probably found in a drawer. It nearly made him feel better. She went silent for a minute or two, waving Lance in and pointing him at a chair.
Then her face went... weird.
"You want him in the squads."
Lance sat down and frowned, folding his hands in his lap.
"We mentioned the magic fucking sword?" Diana said calmly. She stopped smiling and sat up a little in her chair. There was another moment's pause, then she sighed.
"Yes, ma'am. I hope this doesn't get anybody I like killed."
She took her feet off the desk and leaned forward to open up a candy bar, holding the receiver to her ear with her shoulder. "All right. Bluebird or me'll have some kind of report by midnight, so long as the landlines still work." Lance pursed his lips, but Diana didn't react. She paused to listen again, nodding reflexively. "Yeah. You too."
Diana stuffed the candy bar in her mouth and hung up, sliding back down in her chair. Irritation was slowly wearing away to exhaustion on her face, and Lance thought he could see sadness below that. He let her have another moment's peace before clearing his throat.
"Hi. You want a Butterfinger?"
"No thanks." He gave her a small smile. "So we've got two more to take care of, huh?"
Diana pressed her eyes closed, and the smile dropped off his face again. He hadn't wanted to make her feel worse. "Please tell me that's not going to cause a problem."
"No, no no." Lance held his hands up. "The squads have been getting along- actually better than expected, especially with your help, and we have plenty of supplies. If we needed to, God forbid, we could last a week just on what's been gathered from the quarantine area. I just- we do need to talk, though."
"Vampires?" she snapped between bites. Lance repressed a sigh.
"No. Last I checked, they were behaving. Look... it's nearly 1800 hours, day two. The squads have been running since this morning, neither of us have slept much, we need to presume we're going through the night. It won't be hard to secure a place with beds, and the sooner we make up a rotation, the more people we can keep going. Uh... that includes our "command structure"."
Diana sat staring at him for a moment, then averted her eyes. He tried to keep calm.
"We have things to do." He must have had a look on his face, because her eyebrows both went up and she kept talking. "We will sleep. For one thing you're getting all paranoid." That made him grimace. "You're also the only other person I trust to run things, so when we figure out this rotation, you need to go first. I... I have things to do, and I will not be able to sleep until I know what the hell is going on here."
"Wh-" Paranoid. Okay, maybe. Jittery nerves, and something under the surface; hoping it was just adrenaline- Lance licked his lips and tried to focus. "Uhm. You don't trust the guy you invited?"
She shook her head and shrugged. "I trust Kevin just fine. I didn't call him up just because he's the only sidhe I know within a day's drive- he is, but I mean, he has no training. Like none, sidhe or Society or anything. Fuckin' turned us down. Nice guy though. Competent."
Lance blinked. "Huh. What's he do?"
"Nothing, last I checked. He's a park ranger." Diana grinned, prodding another candy bar in consideration. "So you and me are the only ones who know how to run an op. You're also someone they'll all listen to, whether they like it or not. Anyhow, there's a supply run coming up soon, so we can send out the new orders then, then when we secure a hotel I'll capture a demon in the area, bunch of birds one stone. You think we should move, or just get a place nearby?"
Lance pursed his lips again at the "whether they like it or not" comment, but let it pass. "I think this place is a lot more useful and defensible than a hotel, or whatever we end up getting. And either way, we're going to have to pull some people out of the search groups to guard the place- we'll be asleep and nobody else can be spared. If your plans work, we might not need a general search anyway. Uhm, you want to capture a demon? Like... how?"
"Kevin said they're still just fangs and claws. We might be able to find a little one and keep it tied up and real-ish for a while. We can stash it in a cell, borrow some rope and handcuffs or something."
"Hm." Lance sat the caramel bar back on the desk and crossed his arms. "That's weird. Maybe that means whatever's making them, maybe it's just got a wide reach? Maybe it doesn't have the power to make serious demons?"
She shook her head again. "I don't know. Can you feel it out there?"
"Ah..." He hadn't thought about it. The thought made him shiver. "I... I don't think so. Have you... asked other people?"
"Not directly, but I trust intuition better than logic right now. No offense. I hope you're right."
"Right." He shrugged one shoulder uncomfortably. "Uhm. So sleep rotation and supply run."
"Yeah."
"...Do I really have to go by "Bluebird"?" Lance gave Diana his best plaintive look.
"Think up your own damn codename and you can go by anything you like." She smirked at him as she stood up to grab a map.
*
"...And the spirit of the Earth tossed and turned in her sleep, and then usually there's a story about dreams she had and things she did trying to get it off her mind, and eventually she gives in and Luna gets dominion over the souls of the sleeping and the dreaming dead. Whatever those are. And then she grants a little of her power to people she likes or thinks are deserving. And that's it."
"Is that what happened?"
Peace and Kevin were lying in the grass on a small divider hill between the police station's parking lot and the road. There was a small ring of trees around the whole thing, willows and such, fluffy enough to give the station the impression of being seperate from the rest of the city, though plenty of buildings dwarfed the trees. Far off ahead in the sky, to the south between two bright glass buildings, there was a spot that looked like a line of smudge on a monitor. Thin clouds blew through the sky, passing behind the smudge.
Kevin shrugged. He was barefoot, digging his toes into the soil. "Like, literally? I don't know. It's an old story. But I know we're guardians, that part is real. You could ask her if you wanted."
Peace was staring at Kevin, not quite intentionally, eyes wide. His hair was tangled with grass and sweat, but the knots would get worse fixing it, so he just picked a twig out and ignored it otherwise. "Have you asked?"
"Nah. "Ask me no secrets, I'll tell you no lies." We don't have that kind of relationship. People are different, though." Kevin, meanwhile, just watched the clouds. "We should get to the practical. That was a nice ward earlier. Ever done that before?"
"Heh, nope. Most of the stuff I do is wolfy: smelling, running, hunting things, howling. I haven't figured out how to turn into a wolf, but I can do a great imitation." Peace rolled his head around front. "It's real enough to claw things in the face, usually."
"I've never heard of someone who can turn into a wolf so other people can see it. Though if you can, this might be the place. Shatter makes reality all blurry. That's how those shadow-demon things get through, and why everybody's powers get easier to use. Except psychics and vampires, and nobody knows how those work- well, vampires might know how vampires work, but they don't tell us."
"Vampires? Psychics?" Peace said, half incredulous and half excited. "What all is out there that I didn't know about?"
"Uh... start at the beginning. Werewolves, sidhe, kitsune, nahualli, shapeshifters-" Kevin paused as Peace's eyes bugged out, raising a finger. "-are all us. Different traditions or groups, sometimes maybe things we actually inspired. Werewolves have been around a long time. But sometimes a legend or story inspires us, and we make it real. Like, you thought "werewolf", and now you do wolf stuff."
"I thought... you said "we're all wolves", didn't you? Was that a metaphor?"
"No. Luna likes wolves, for some reason. Sometimes you're something else, too, or it's considered a liminal state, but... I don't know. Maybe she likes stories, too." He grinned to himself. "Other than us, there are fey-touched. They have even more names than we do, because they're just anybody who's been touched by things outside reality enough to leave a mark. Sometimes they learn how to do magic themselves, sometimes they turn into monsters, sometimes it's just some weird scar. Sometimes it makes sense. Then there are magicians, who- no offense- are either stupid or assholes. They make pacts with things for power."
"No offense?"
"Isn't that guy you like one?" Kevin inclined his head back towards the police station.
"He-" Peace thought for a second, then flushed. "Dmitry? I- no, Dmitry, Dmitry isn't- I mean, I don't know but- and... well it... Hold up." He covered his eyes with his hands and tried to sort his thoughts. "...Is it that obvious?"
Kevin wasn't laughing, but his eyes were crinkly like he wanted to be. "That he's a magician or that you like him?"
"Uhm." Just answer the original question, Joey. "I don't think he made a pact with anything. I know I'm new to this, but he's not stupid or an asshole, and he has no idea what's happening to him. Is that a thing that happens to magicians?"
"Mm, don't think so. Diana knows more than I do, and she says he's a magician, but she's also... not always right. Anyway, he's clearly into you, and vampires are not undead, but they are immortal blood-drinkers with a creepy, aristocratic society and weird curses- or one curse, maybe- and they don't trust anybody else because no one trusts them. They also haven't been around as long as everyone else, and I don't remember how long or why."
"And everything just hides? I guess because bad stuff would happen if people knew we existed?"
"Most people can't see things from outside reality, including dream stuff, unless we make them. Magic isn't made of physics, so your mind just sort of elides over it or doesn't pick it up or something. Which should, of course, mean it doesn't affect physical reality at all, but it's not that hard to make it do that and people still, usually, ignore it." Kevin flung his arms up above his head. "Unless they don't, or you're a vampire. And nobody I can find knows exactly how it works, either way, even Diana's people, and they really want to know."
"Who are they?"
"The Society. They have a longer name, I think, that they don't use anymore. They're an international... everything organization." Kevin frowned. "They keep track of things, and people, so when some magician tries to become King of Miami, they know and they do something about it. Or an Outsider that gets loose, vampire bloodlines go to war, somebody does something they don't like... but they're not just a self-appointed police force. They do research and diplomacy and other things that don't all fit together. They're either gonna try to recruit you or let the sidhe do it. I won't tell you it's a bad deal, but you seem a little Anti-Flag for their whole magical NSA thing."
Peace grinned. "Well thank you. I'll... I'll think about that if they do, I guess. So what are psychics?"
"Psychics... are rare. Diana's a psychic, her powers don't come from Outside and she's not a vampire, so now there's a new category she basically made up. I don't know- I haven't met any others. She basically collects them. Last I heard she'd found maybe twenty and met... half? Which is not a lot."
Peace tilted his head. Kevin kept mentioning her, and getting a weird look on his face when he did. "Is she your friend? Or..."
"More or less."
Kevin was silent for a long moment, staring into the distance; Peace couldn't think of anything else to say. They both just lay there for a minute or so, then Peace puffed.
"Okay. So how do I learn to do something that'll help with this?"
"Mm. Relax. Close your eyes," Kevin said in a soft voice. "More talking today than I've done in a month..."
*
Floating, suspended; one of a million motes of light moving around a central glow, tiny in comparison, each immense as a sun. Speaking in silence, reflecting each other.
"Wake up."
In one area of sight, a landscape was shown, reflected immense layers, incomprehensibly large, superimposed on itself. Through an endless linear dimension they were created, changed, became static, broke apart. Something else at the edge of awareness: another dimension-layer, coming nearer at an angle. Back and forth fuzz, changing, blurring and fracturing what it touches. Corrosion. Something is added; cause and effect breaks down, replaced with a different pattern.
Faces. Actions. Places. Fractures. Dimly understood, dimly recalled. Mostly, uncertainty.
"Hey. Asshole. Come on."
The landscape unfolds, showing one layer in particular. Stretched along the fractures, a web, rubbery lines in a mirrored pattern. The pattern increases, the cracks recede; in the other direction, the pattern decreases, the fracture opens, shining, refracting like foil, then red and angry like a wound. The moon hangs inside it.
Motes flicker, the central glow extends; worry, duty, calm, anger. Chatter. Chatter-
"WAKE. UP."
Tugging, leaning on his chest? He opens his eyes-
*
"Can you hear me now?"
"I'm getting bit by mosquitoes. :(" Peace clenched his eyes shut and tried not to move any more than that; last time, he'd been so surprised he'd sat straight up and it'd taken them another fifteen minutes to get back to this point. He could hear Kevin snicker. "What?"
"You think with emoticons?"
He frowned. "No. I mean, not usually. Just, I don't know how this works."
"It works how you think it should. Your perception of the world is in your head, and you have total control over that. Then you have to make the world understand your perception is right."
"Oh. Yeah." His body was starting to feel fluttery, and it felt like he could feel something shimmery beside him. "So in the way that... I know I'm a wolf. I'm also a human being, but I know that I should be able to do wolf things, so it works because I know that?"
"Well, it works because you're a werewolf. I don't know that a wolf could smell one person streets away, or half the things I do- but knowing you can, I guess, probably helps you make it happen. And this is just how I think of it." Definitely something was beside him- he could hear Kevin's voice moving. It was... then something touched his left hand and he shivered. "Scientists make... not great occultists, usually. You feel that?"
"Sheesh. Yeah." He tried not to keep shivering. "It's really, really weird."
"All right. Next step is for you to focus on that and try to climb out of your body. I'll teach you how to see things, move around, then we can do warding."
"Okay."