2020-05-03 - The Hart and the Phoenix

So, the sailor is sitting at a table in the coffeeshop, tablet propped up before him, frowning at something on the screen. He's got an iced caramel whatever on the table, too, but it's mostly being neglected in favor of the tablet. In t-shirt and jeans, but the most immediately notable things about the former aviator are that A. the left side of his face and jaw are a mess of purple bruising, and B. his Glimmer is almost entirely gone. He was never a bright light like Ruiz or Itzhak, but even his old decently respectable glow has vanished down to mere threads. He looks, in short, like twenty miles of bad road, both physically and psychically.

August is on break between clambering in and out of trees. The backlog from the winter weather is big this year due to the crazy plant problem, and it's all hands on deck for Out on a Limb, including him. Fortunately--in a manner of speaking--it was August that a brich decided to smack around while he was trimming it, so the result is just a few scrapes and scratches and a torn shirt.

He's just come from Eleanor's house, so the scratch going from his jaw to his hairline is freshly washed and he's in a clean, dark red, Henley, denim jeans, white and black flannel, and heavy hikers. He steps in, sees Joe, and pulls up short. The injuries are disorienting enough; the change in his Glimmer is just fuel to the fire.

"Afternoon Mr. Roen," one of the barista's says, and that brings August back to himself. "The usual?"

He blinks, nods at her, and starts towards Joe's table. She gets to work on the drink.

Joe's got those ridiculous browline glasses that he favors on...and as August approaches, he looks up, blinking. "Oh, hi, Roen," he says, with a little smile. "Been meanin' to talk to you, 's matter of fact. Was gonna text you later, but there you are." At least his mood seems even enough. "How's it goin'?" A look of concern for that scratch.

August stares at Joe, still trying to sort out what he's seeing between his injuries and his Art looking...well, like that. After a second he stops, licks his lips. "Not too bad. Plants are still full of piss and vinegar, though. Birch tried to toss me on the ground earlier." He coughs a laugh that's part nervous relief, part bitterness. "Fortunately it was me and not Jen or Cy."

The barista calls out for his coffee, and he glances over his shoulder. "Yeah, here I am. Let me just grab that and I'll join you." He eyes Joe one more time, assuming the injuries are the reason for wanting to contact him, goes to get his coffee. He makes a stop at the tip jar to drop in what would have been the price of his coffee, comes back to Joe's table with a ludicrously-sized cappuccino. "So. You talk shit about the Seahawks on game night in the Pourhouse or something?"

He lifts a long hand, waves it negligently. "Nah, that's not it. That's just a mundane disagreement. But I know what you're really lookin' at. That....that is courtesy of a young lady named Megan Keene. Someone made me a little deal where I gave up some of my shine, presumably not permanently, in trade for bein' able to remember everything that happened to me in the Asylum, including arrival and departure."

And now, in the blue eyes, there's that sense of fracture, of looking at shifting edges. He's seen eyes like that in combat veterans and refugees, the sense of a mind where at least a good fraction of the processing power is devoted to dealing with that trauma.

August settles at the table, eyes on Joe the whole time. The 'mundane disagreement' gets an arched eyebrow out of him. He's carefully making no assumptions, to go by his expression. Joe's newish in town; any number of townies might take exception to him for some reason or another, especially once the booze is flowing.

"Megan Keene." The way he says the name it's not familiar to him. It takes him a second, and a sip of his coffee, to start to process all of that. By then he's noticing Joe's deeper reaction, and it tempers August's in turn. He settles back in his chair. "Did you have to...lose a bunch of other things for that?" No judgment in his tone for such a decision, just concern.

And Joe, in turn, dismisses it. He's had worse, and it doesn't rate, to his mind. "I was hoping you'd know that name. Another name I remembered was a Doctor Marshall. Turns out he's the uncle of Easton Marshall. No, that's the thing. I traded power for memories, not memories for memories. That thing where trying to recall the Asylum makes you lose other things - doesn't apply to me, at least for now."

He reaches for his sugary whatever, takes a sip. "Easton suggested I talk to Reede and Clayton about it. Turns out there's a door to the Asylum under Two If By Sea - there are twelve others in town, but which are usable at a given time varies according to some pattern, or so Easton said. That's the one Doctor Marshall took me through." His expression has gone....weirdly still, giving nothing away.

August tenses. "Art, not memories." He grips the cup in his hands a little too tightly, and a hairline crack forms. He curses, runs his finger along it, and it disappears in an instant.

"I..." He falls quiet a time, staring into the distance. His eyes widen slightly, and he sits up. Then, "I do know someone named Megan." He meets Joe's gaze again; he's worried on top of being tense. He has more cappuccino, maybe to fortify himself. Next comes a long, slow breath. "She--Alexander said she was bad news. That she was part of a group who came here trying to sacrifice people to Them." His brows pull together in a puzzled frown. "And that Alice, Violet's sister, was tied up with her." He bites his lip. "So why she'd be offering you back your memories without losing good ones I don't know."

He shakes his head, moves on tot he rest. "Yeah, Dr. Marshall. I met him when we exorcised Gohl." He grimaces. "Guy was basically a walking corpse. And the moving around--Isabella and I were working on trying to sort that, with a woman named Ruby Cavendish. Isabella was able to remember a clock she saw when we went there. It had locations on it. And Ruby said the hospital has thirteen locations it can travel to. She and a guy named Carver had worked out the pattern, but apparently only Marshall--Doc Marshall, I mean--has a map of some."

"She seemed like she was crazy as a shithouse rat, frankly," Joe's voice is blunt. "No denyin'. I asked her why this deal, and she basically implied it was to fuck over the Asylum. Which, you know, I am not unbiased about."

He's laid his hands on the table, set aside the tablet in its case. "Yeah, Easton mentioned the Doc was basically a smart zombie. I wonder if it moves in regular pattern, on a certain timetable. Lunar months was my first thought, really. But then.....biased there, too. Why would They need humans sacrificed? Don't They just....take whom They want? And if the Asylum is purely Theirs, how does anyone ever leave alive, let alone sane?"

Then he pauses, and by his expression, something's occurred to him....and that something unpleasant. "Unless Asylum patients are intended as plague rats or Trojan horses, or somethin'. Or even just like tagged caribou - watch where we go, see if we find others like ourselves, or other thin spots."

"Yeah, I bet," August says, mouth flattening. And hell, he's not unbiased either; he went there, and now there's a hole in his mind. It's not the same sort of hole Joe or the other patients have, of course, yet it's a hole just the same. A part of him held hostage.

"The way Ruby described it was," and here August pauses to put it together in his mind before continuing, "'three on thirteen to the left, not the right'. So if you make it as a circle with thirteen points, moving counter-clockwise, it moves three spaces every thirteen days." He thinks about that, nods.

On the topic of Them, he grunts. "It's not quite like that. See, if you do things They like--sell out people to Them, use your power to hurt people and cause strife and pain--They'll let you go in favor of the finer meal. So that's what this group was doing; sacrificing people like us to Them, and in return they don't get preyed on." He ducks his head, sighs. "I have to admit, I've been figuring something like that might be what's going on. Hard to know, though, with it being so hard to remember fuck all about the place."

Joe listens to that, intently. "I see," he says. "So it is a regular pattern, then, interesting. And I see what you're sayin'. You make a deal with the Devil in earnest - propitiation, distraction. I was wonderin' what anyone'd get that'd make them wanna deal with the Dark Side at all, but....makes sense."

His hands slip beneath the table again. "Which....I still wonder why she would do that for me. Unless she assumes I'll go chargin' back there, or lure others to come with me. I wonder how we could take advantage of my bein' able to remember wholly, if we can."

"Yeah. Or, it was--I assume it still is, it's not like the place is under threat." August scratches at his beard. "Though, Easton's got a key. That's why we wound up going the last time. Someone who used to work there gave it to him, and the Asylum contacted us, said they wanted it back." He tilts his head. "Not sure they got it, though."

A slow sigh about Megan, then, "We have to assume that her motives are selfish. Maybe they align with things which are conveniently helpful for us, but given what she was part of before..." He lets it go unsaid, that they have to assume Megan is still in league with Them. "There's no doubt she picked you because you don't know her. She can count on you to let her speak her piece." Unlike, say, Alexander, who might stab first and ask questions later. Though, who can blame him.

"I know Alice wants the place to burn," he continues. "Megan...is involved with Alice somehow. Maybe she was there too?" He shrugs. That could go either way.

He clicks his tongue at that. "Yeah. Get the new rube in town 'fore he knows enough to be wary." Less and less happy about it, more and more uneasy. Joe puts his elbows on the table, rubs his face with his hands, like someone trying to scrub away sleep.

"It's done though, foolish or not. Headache's gotten better, I've gotten more used to carryin' around the memories. 's like when I came to after the wreck, I had TBI so bad I wasn't lucid, couldn't remember things, not for a long chalk. Got better as I went," He still sounds sheepish. "I don't have any way of findin' her again. Guess....I think she implied she was a patient, but I don't remember her. My stay wasn't long, though, less'n a year. Who's Alice?"

August holds up a hand. "Don't blame yourself," he says. "I can't say for sure I'd have told her no, if I didn't know her history. And you had no way to know that. That's not your fault." He eyes Joe, clearly taking in the diminished level of his Art. A complicated expression flits over his features as he weighs the benefits of being weaker. Or just Artless entirely.

He has some coffee to dispel the idea, nods at Joe's talk of recovery. "Yeah, same for me, after Bosnia. I had a head injury," he taps his left ear, "that fucked up my hearing for a spell. Memories came back pretty quick, but I didn't trust them for a long time, due to," he pauses, glances down into his coffee, "how the Art was involved. Not sure I totally remember it all clearly, even now."

He dismisses that with a shrug. "Alice was a patient there. So was her sister, Violet. There was some kind of situation the two were in that got them committed." He starts to say more, stops. There's a sense all of this is a vast oversimplification. Presently he settles for, "Violet was killed. Alice wants revenge. If you come across her--blue eyes, blonde, sweet face, small mouth--steer clear. Don't get up in her business. She's powerful and way off the deep end."

A moment there where he's clearly consulting his own memories. Then Joe shakes his head. "Don't remembe-" A pause, and there's kind of a dull, growing horror in his face. "No, no, I do remember Alice," he says, slowly. "She was there while I was there. And a girl who spoke in some kinna backwards rhymes." A glance around, at the door, like even now he expects someone to come for him. "Guy named Steve...."

He shudders, once, looking positively nauseated. "Honestly, bein' able to remember's worse'n not."

August watches Joe remember in real time, winces. He takes to eyeing the door as well. His posture's a little different, though; not wary, more challenging. Come and fucking get some, he's plainly thinking. He's not like Itzhak, to put himself between people and danger, but he's not going to sit around and watch bad things happen to other people.

Oh, how easy it would have been for his family to decide to commit him. (And Eleanor, how close had she come? The mug trembles in his hand at the thought, and he deliberately stops thinking about it.)

He fingers his mug. "Kind of why I didn't bother to try to...force it. I don't know that I want to remember. What I found when I read that book of Alice's was bad enough."

Itzhak would be ramping and roaring, were They so foolish enough as to come for anyone in his presence. What a fight that'd be, if They can be fought at all. Joe, for his part, goes more and more still. The sense of him withdrawing, somehow, even as he finally lifts a hand to take a deliberate sip of his drink again.

"I....wouldn't undo it, though. Bein' able to know the worst, to face it...." He's squared his shoulders, lifted his head. "But Jesus." Is he strong enough to carry the whole burden? Or will he crack under the strain?

A fight it would be, even more so for someone like August to back the surly mechanic up. But that's not how They work, and to an extent it's not even how the Asylum works. They know it's less energy to come at them sideways, get them apart, wear them down. Subject them to the ugliness that cuts them open and leaves them unable to function in their mundane lives.

August nods in agreement. "No point to undoing it. Now that you've done through it, maybe you can find something useful from it. Even if..." Even if it cost him some of his Art.

He sighs. "Maybe trying to use it'll wake it back up some. Exercise it." He raises his eyebrows. "We owe you a walk over there, don't we? Something safe and not a fucking mess."

They've already had him in Their hands, body and mind broken - to nadir from zenith, a literal fall to Earth. What's picked itself up and limped on from then, much easier prey. God knows he's vulnerable, with his determination to go it alone, to do it himself.

A wry twist of his lip for that. "People keep tryin'a tell me that there is beauty there, and not just things that are fearful or sick or wrong. Ain't seen it yet."

August huffs a voiceless laugh, nods in sympathy. "Yeah, I can understand. If someone told me Sarajevo was a lovely city I'd tell them to get fucked. Even though I'm sure it is." His mouth twists in a wry smile, and he has a bit more coffee. "We can find a bit of something, I think. Maybe something out by my place, or the shop."

He leans back in his chair. "But, also? We don't have to. There's people who avoid it all-together. The Other Side, their Art. That's fine. Even understandable." He pauses there, maybe to see if Joe's considering that.

The pilot shakes his head, mutely. There's that gleam of obsession there, the fanatic's light in his eyes. He understands what that pause is meant to imply, to give room for. The Big Fuck No. "Exactly. I'd like it. Even if I've been permanently scoured and cut down....I'm not leavin' it alone. I'm in it, for whatever 'it' proves to be." Then that rueful look. "'sides, it don't matter if I never grow back. I'm hangin' with two of the brightest lights in this town, an' that what comes lookin' for those who shine is hardly gonna avoid them, is it?"

"Yeah...leaving it alone's not really in your nature." August laughs, has the last of his coffee. "Not in mine, either. I tried--went and hid in the woods for a decade. Got me nowhere."

Of hanging around people like Itzhak or Ruiz, or August himself, he says, "That's kind of my thinking. Even if Ellie and I stopped cold turkey tonight, the only real way to avoid Them and Their bullshit would be to leave town and just," he lifts a hand, opens it as if to suggest dispersing something, "forget. Never come here again, leave everyone behind. And," he gives Joe a sidelong look, "we've been over why forgetting's not an option. Neither is leaving everyone behind. So."

Now, despite himself, Joe laughs. "Yeah, fuck no, it's sure not." That rusty chuckle. "I'm more like the kinna asshole who has to go poke it with a stick until it bites." A bob of his head. "Right? And They came an' got me once. Nothin' to say They can't just do it again. Did it in my hometown. Might as well save everyone the airfare. So, yeah. So, what's your advice, then? I'm still intendin' to talk to Reede and Clayton, when I can catch 'em."

"Definitely talk to them," August agrees. "Alexander knows the most about Megan and Alice and...everythign going on with them, among people who've not been in the Asylum. Let us know if you do see Megan again." He licks his lips, thinks. "Alexander's one of the most powerful people around here with the," he taps a temple, "mind Art. You might have him take a look at you, if you're comfortable with that." He's trying real hard not to think of it as 'making sure Megan didn't fuck around with anything' but that's what he means, and there's not much use hiding that.

As to the rest... "Of course using your power's dangerous, since They're always on the look out. But I would. Sort of like PT for an injury? Don't let it atrophy." He sighs. "And if you run across Megan or Alice...try to get in touch with one of us." One brow goes up. "You know how to call out with your mind? I think you're strong enough for that, last I checked."

"I won't mind him takin' a look," Joe affirms. Apparently he got the gist of it. Got to make sure he genuinely isn't a Trojan horse. "And I most definitely will yell out if I run into her again."

The idea of calling out with his mind. "No," he says. "Never have tried that. I suppose I've kinna neglected some of the learnin' of technique, especially in favor of the physical stuff, and the electricity." Eyes wide and wondering.

August nods, glances around them. He's checking for anyone else who might Glimmer that they don't know; Ellie doesn't hire people who do, so there's that. Satisfied, he says, "I can show you, real quick. You could practice with..." He hesitates. "Maybe just Itzhak and de la Vega," he says after some thought. "But, de la Vega's touchy about it." He gives Joe a brief look which suggests he need not explain why, because Joe will certainly be privy to details August isn't.

"Please," Joe says, simply. "I'd be grateful. And....I should ask them for more help. I will. We'll see if this really is permanent, or if careful therapy will undo it." Then he pulls a face, like a kid confronted with Brussel sprouts. "Goddamn. More therapy. I spent so fuckin' long in therapy after I got wrecked."

"Oh I sympathize," August says, tired by the memories alone. "Learning how to exist with all the implants, walking again, getting used to the pain..." He sighs, shakes his head. "But this should be a little less tedious, maybe."

He nods in response to the confirmation, focuses on the empty coffee mug. For a few seconds nothing seems to be happening, just August contemplating the dregs of a cappuccino. His brows gather and he narrows his eyes. Gradually a slow sensation comes over Joe, a sound he might not realize he's hearing at first: a river flowing somewhere in the forest, wind sighing through trees. The gentlest of knocks on the barriers around Joe's mind, both greeting and request for a chat.

Joe's lips thin out. "Exactly," he says. "Hardest thing I ever did was learn to walk again, because you get so goddamn tired and angry with yourself that you don't know it. I would rather have to learn again from scratch how to land an orbiter, and that shit is Nintendo hard, let me tell you."

Then....quiet. Attention. A flinch or two, but the sensation of welcome. Still holding himself with the tenderness of a man favoring a wound, but willing.

"I was twenty-two and so mad at everyone, especially myself," August murmurs. He separates the verbal conversation from the mental interaction like a waiter memorizing a huge table of orders while busing another. "Fortunately...I had my family to get me through it."

Ths space that opens before Joe's mind is a broad expanse: a forest, not unlike those along the north Pacific coast, with a river flowing through it and a large stratovolcano crater looming in the distance. The trees spill out of that crater. Overhead, a dark sky for seeing what there is to see. A large, dark shape picks its way through the trees, keeping to cover.

<<It takes practice. But once you've got the hang of it, you can reach someone from almost anywhere, if you're both strong enough.>> His voice is the river, the wind, the dust on the volcano's barren slopes. In the sky overhead, a vision of him chatting to Itzhak from his cabin while Itzhak is in Gray Harbor in his little apartment. It's a sweltering summer; this is almost a year ago, now. So long, and yet just the other day.

"Yeah, I was mad as hell," Joe agrees, voice rough. "Still fuckin' am. I'd'a been in line for some of the earliest of the Artemis missions, possibly." The image of Earthrise, over the pale plains of the moon, there and gone again.

Then, in the mindscape, an amorphous dark form. A heap of charcoal and ash, slowly resolving into something avian, laced with sparks and fire. Too tired to take to the air, too broken,but looking around alertly.

<<Jesus,>> he says, startled. <<Never done this at anything but close range. What's the farthest distance you've heard it spanning?>>

August makes a low sound of agreement for that lingering anger. Who, or what, would he be now, if not for Bosnia? It's hard to say. The landscape pauses to watch the Earthrise, marveling at the sight of that beautiful blue and white shape, so much easier to look on than the sun.

<<I spoke to Itzhak when he was in Seattle from here, once.>> That memory dredges up something painful, a red sort of shadow. A weight on August, pressing him down, driving Itzhak north, to where he could be feral and angry. <<I figure it can go further. Not sure how far.>> He should have tried to reach Itzhak when he was in New York, chides himself for not thinking of it at the time.

The shape in the trees draws closer to the bird, becomes easier to distinguish from its surroundings: an enormous elk, its coat velvety gray to black and strewn with raven feathers, enormous antlers twined with vines, flowers, and thorns, roots dangling from them. <<No one can spy on you like this. Not without you knowing it. They can barge in, but won't see anything you don't choose to share.>>

The shape becomes more and more firmly delineated, going from an impressionistic smear of charcoal to a more dimensional shape. A bird, a raptor: hooked beak, a harpy's crested head, cruel claws....but its tail streams behind it like a peacock's. Black, but the edge of every feather glows like a dying campfire, and each feather of the tail has an 'eye' like an ember. Its eyes are the blue-white of a flame's heart, and it blinks at the hart as it approaches.

An impish flicker of humor - will it work two hundred or so miles straight up, let him snag a mind on the passing station? Someday, someday. <<Wow.>> he says, simply. <<And that's you? Like Javier is a wolf of fire, and Itzhak is a unicorn.>> Then he's craning his head to look back at himself. <<And I'm a smoke chicken,>> Yes, he's joking.

<<Sometimes. It was de la Vega that made me think maybe I should take a shape now and then.>> The ravenstag lowers its antlers to the phoenix, maybe in an offering for him to climb up. <<//Please. You're a smoke peacock, obviously.//>> The wind stirs the trees and the river splashes, chasing that comment with a mental laugh.

<<Not all of us do this. But many do. It's easier to be concrete in our minds together, I think. A core that's us, against the rest.>> There's an echo of violin music; a memory of Itzhak, who sometimes still is simply a strain of song. <<In here it's easy to forget how much of us is memories, things we heard, things we were told. It's easy to get lost in your own head.>>

The colors of his feathers flare and ripple at the thought of de la Vega, like a fire breathed on. <<I did it automatically, but I guess because he did. IF he was something, what was I?>> With ridiculous delicacy, he sidles over to clamber up into the stag's rack, balancing there- like watching a parakeet climb around on its cage with beak and claws. He weighs no more than the smoke he looks to be.

<<Isn't that true for anyone? I mean, even without the shine.>> A beat, and he adds, <<It's so stimulating, being your hat.>>

<<About the same for me.>> Once the phoenix is settled the ravenstag slowly lifts its head. It lets the bird get comfortable before beginning to walk along the river, towards the volcano crater, at a leisurely pace. There's a bright yellow, white, and black orb weaver among the plants; she crawls out and begins spinning her web between two prongs.

<<It is, but I think there's an aspect of...>> Silence, just the stag's hooves through the forest and the river next to them. <<Because we can see one another here, we can observe ourselves more closely. If that makes sense.>> One ear turns in amusement at the notion of a smoke peacock hat.

The Joebird is diverted by the spider, going nearly cross-eyed in his attempt to observe. Silent for a moment, with the distraction. Then he looks up and forward again. <<Yes. When you're an actual form, not an amorphous cloud of thoughts buzzing around behind the eyes.>> he agrees, riding at ease. Turning so his tail trails down over the stag's neck. <<Where are we going? And this is all you in here?>>

To any casual observer August and Joe are two men, sitting at a table, nursing their coffee in companionable silence. This is the gift, then, alongside the curse which is Glimmer; a secret in plain sight. A conversation no one else can see or hear.

<<More or less. The more I communicate with people like this, the more there is to see. And, nowhere in particular.>>

Gradually they come to the crater. It's filled with a lake over time, and on the small islands that mark the former caldera a grove of aspens has sprung up. Through those trees there's a glimpse of the side of the volcano that blew out in the eruption, but only a glimpse. Here the ravensag stops.

<<I always listen, for the people I know. Just in case. It's easier to text, obviously. Safer. But sometimes you don't have a choice.>> One ear shifts back towards the phoenix. <<I'm not entirely sure who I can reach like this. Just people I know well, maybe. I've never tried to use it casually.>> An implied warning lurks in that statement.

So, he's enough bird, in his brain, to reach down and groom that ear companionably with his beak. Gently enough that it's only nibbles.....and then he realizes he's doing it and stops, with an embarrassed click of his beak. Since human brain just interpreted that as nibbling affectionately on August's ear.

<<Wow>> he says, straightening up again, looking like an eagle on a newel post. <<But yeah, trying this makes Them take notice too, huh? Still part of the Shine?>>

August's amusement at the gesture and then Joe's reaction manifests in a huffed breath from the stag and a rustling of the aspen grove. He's not put out by it, but then he's less inclined to read such things with a human mindset. All those years in the forest by himself, with the shaping Art quietly inflicting him with other instincts, took its toll.

<<It's part of it,>> August confirms. <<Not as strong as healing--that brings them on like nothing else.>> Another warning, and maybe an explanation as to why August is so often sporting wounds.

<<Alright. Your turn.>>

Just like that, the mindscape fades, darkening and melting away. They're two men in a coffee shop, one of them with an empty mug.

"I wasn't tryin'a flirt with you - even if you weren't engaged, my dancecard's full." Now there's an image. Back to the mundane world. "My turn to what, exactly? Show you the inner landscape. Just try an' reach out to you?"

Joe's got his hand around his cup, but the little expedition in the inner realm has calmed him. Closeness manifest in a way that's beyond physical.

"Even if I weren't engaged, I'm not poly anymore," August adds, bobbing his eyebrows. "You needed to catch me a good twelve or thirteen years ago for that."

He settles back in his chair, folds his arms. "The later. I mean, you can also do the former, if you want, but you're recovering from what she did to you, and we don't know each other so well and you're new to this. I understand if that's maybe not comfortable. You can try that with," one corner of his mouth curves up, "one of your dance partners, maybe."

Mirrored by the curl of Joe's own lip. Not a sneer, though. "Maybe," he agrees. A pause, as he looks down into his cup, brow furrowing.

There's a sensation, like the brush of dark feathers against his mind. Requesting contact - the lonely flash of a heliograph from mountaintop to valley. <<Check, check.>> As if this were literal radio contact.

August lets that attempt go on a bit, just so Joe can get the hang of it. After a couple of seconds, he picks up the other end, so to speak; the sound of the river down in that valley and the wind racing around the mountaintop is the response. <<Comms are go.>> The response comes naturally, even after a couple of decades.

Joe laughs that delighted, soundless laugh - the mute shaking of shoulders, eyes gone to blue crescents. Then he squints like a pirate, narrowing one eye, amused. Testing the feel of it, the way it resonates. <<Not as broken as I thought. Good.>> August can feel the strain of it, like newly healed muscle quivering with effort.

August chuckles, soft an low. Yet in response to the strain he only lets Joe maintain the link for another few seconds. It might not be a physical injury, but it's tweaking all the same spots in the back of his mind to feel that effort in the face of injury. He releases the link, arches an eyebrow.

"So. Now you've got the idea. You run into her? Don't hesitate to shout. But," he sighs, "I suspect she'll avoid you. She's gonna assume you'll talk to some of us eventually, at which point, coming near you is a bad idea. So I don't really think she'll come at you again. She's done what she wanted to."

The smile slides away, and he nods. "Yeah. She's got what she wanted," he says. Back to that somberness. "Thanks, though, you already done me a lot of good. Good to know I'm not as fucked up as I thought." A beat, and he concedes, "Well, not on that front, anyhow." A flicker of humor - yes, he's teasing.

"We're all fucked up," August assures Joe on a wry smile of his own. "Maybe some of us more than others, but don't worry. You're in good company here. And," his brows go up again, "you're welcome. I'm happy to make sure people know enough to keep themselves safe."

He eases out of the chair, taking his mug so he can drop it off at the busing station. "I should get going. Got another appointment in a few. Another chance for a tree to knock me on my ass. Take care, yeah?"