2022-04-13 - Swing States

It's been a wonderfully quiet couple of days and Ava's greenhouse has finally been completed. Which means that she can finally get to work with helping to blend it into the rest of the backyard. That seems to be what the little would-be druid is doing at the moment. She's barefoot in the backyard, which is lit up with all sorts of night lighting, faerie lighting they called it, and she felt it was all too appropriate. There's lanterns as well, and cute, glowing mushroom stones. All in theme for an enchanted garden.

It's always summer back here, so Ava is dressed accordingly in a lacey, white tank top and a pair of khaki shorts. Her hands flow like a conductor's might, though it isn't music she guides, but ferns and vines as they wrap themselves around the greenhouse to blend it into the greenhouse as though it's been a part of the scenery for years. It will also help reinforce it should an animal try to break free from inside once those fruits are planted.

Light music plays from her phone, and there's a glass of wine next to a small table near a set of swing chairs. Outdoor therapy.

Maybe it's the lights through windows, maybe some of the music's flowed through the air, or maybe Aidan's just been feeling the flow and thrum of all that Spirit work going on over there, but apparently Ava's presence there is expected when the back door of #3 opens and the magician steps out. He's currently wearing fluffy dragon slippers, burgundy faux-leather skinny jeans that probably weren't originally envisioned on a dude body but seem to be working okay, a t-shirt that declares that Sprinkles Are For Winners, and a sparkly tiara because today is a good day for glitter.

Possibly there are no winners present, because the large plate he's bearing does not contain any sprinkles. What it does contain is, apparently, kind of a bunch of chicken parmesan. "Hey!" he calls over as he pads in #1's general direction, "Did you eat yet? 'cause I got distracted and made, like... a lot." It smells good, though. Apparently he can still cook that distracted. "That's looking kinda awesome over there."

At an hour like this, Ravn Abildgaard ought to be on his boat. Or be somewhere else, doing something -- whatever it is he does with most of his time, it tends to be a solitary affair. He could even be in the house on Oak Three because he lives there, his shower is there, and so is his laundry machine.

He's not. And where he was a moment ago is anyone's question because presently, he's stepping out of -- nothing, and then nearly falling over an unexpected swing chair. He flails and manages to not trip over the wicker board and then not spill Ava's wine. He finds his footing and looks around and then says, brightly, "Oh, nice!"

And then, "Not where I expected to go, but it works. Hi."

Ava glances over towards Aidan as something bright and shiny that isn't her lighting enters her visual range. "Hey there!" That expression is warm and calm as she hooks her chin in a gesture of invitation. "I haven't eaten since lunch since I was far too excited to do this. Haven't stopped since I got started. It's going too well." She grins at the plate and then back up. "Though, I suppose I can pause and trade you some wine for some food. Deal?"

Pride splashes across her features when he says it's looking good. "Thanks. I'm pretty proud of it so fa--" Then Ravn is suddenly appearing and Ava is pivoting on the balls of her bare feet to turn in that direction. Her hands are still up, but they aren't in a defensive gesture, still lifted like a composer. "Hi." She offers with wide eyes. "Working on your doors?" The vines and ferns are all pointed in Ravn's direction at the moment, having stopped winding around the greenhouse. They look like they were ready to -go-.

"Deal!" Aidan agrees, and whatever else he'd have been inclined to say can wait, because two have just become three. He blinks, should one be watching there, but one'd be forgiven for thinking he might have somehow expected the arrival from the conversational delivery of, "Oh, hey, Ravn. I made dinner. Want some?"

He approaches the privet hedge that separates 3 Oak from 1 Oak -- big and glossy and thick, exactly the right height for reasonable privacy without actually cutting off neighbourly interaction, and due to summerlands, currently bursting with little white blooms -- and makes a little gesture, addressing it with a polite, "'scuse me." The hedge parts like the red (green?) sea, twigs and branches and leaves disentangling from each other and bending up and away to create a tidy archway through to the other side. It almost looks balletic, branches sweeping up and over like dancers' arms, nearly a bow. He walks through, into the other yard, and the process reverses, leaving the hedge fully intact again.

"I was gonna say, those chairs look awesome. I should put up a swing or something." There's a probably suitable tree in #3's garden; this is likely to happen, now. It may have been inevitable anyway. Odds of a treehouse at some point might be worth taking too. "Where'd you expect to go?" he asks the Dane, "And where from?"

Ravn glances at vines and branches and raises his gloved hands, palms up, as if to signal that he is not a threat -- unarmed, not as much as a sharp stick, and also, definitely not a Veil monster.

Then he shakes his head. "I was Dreaming. I decided that I did not want to be. It worked before -- shattering the Dream. I figure that if I can learn to control it, that's the first step towards learning to open and close doors, yes. I thought I'd be back in my bed. But this is close enough -- at least I didn't wake up in the middle of Puget Sound."

Ava laughs at Ravn's hands up gesture and realizes that she's still got the vines and stuff still all pointed at him. "Sorry!" Guiltily they all sort of droop back down into lifelessness for the moment. This way she can focus. An oooh of excitement swiftly shifts to an oh of disappointment as the arch turns back to hedge. "That looked so cute. We should put a door there with a cute hedge arch over it, with flowers. Also, yes! Swing or a hammock. Something to relax in."

"That's a very very smart idea. I'm kind of jealous that you can go in and out like that, to be honest. That's pretty awesome. Though Itz said he'd take me in to explore some time." Ava gestures for them to sit. "I was about to get some wine for Aidan, did you want some as well?"

"I can do that," Aidan agrees, glancing back at the hedge, as if checking whether it agrees. Well, it doesn't appear to be registering any specific complaint, at least. "I know where there's a good door, I was thinking about what to do with it and that'd work." A pause, and then a nod. This is a thing he's pretty sure he can accomplish. "...and I was kinda thinking about a swing swing but now I kinda want a hammock too."

He looks over the hedge at his own(ish) yard, pondering possibilities, but only for a moment before he's suddenly staring at Ravn. Appearing out of nowhere? Sure, no biggie. On the other hand, "...shattering the Dream? You found a way out that's not through?" Yeah, now his eyes are wide. He doesn't sit, but he might have missed the gesture. At least he doesn't drop the platter. "What? How? I mean. I've seen a bunch of people open and close doors; I've never seen someone break a Dream."

"I panicked," Ravn murmurs and pockets his gloved hands in his blazer pockets. "It was an anglerfish kind of Dream. You know them -- the deep sea fish that use light to lure prey. Rosencrantz and I were on stage, playing to an audience of Greek myth things. Naiads, nymphs, satyrs, that kind of creatures. And then it became obvious that the stage had teeth -- that we were the light being used to lure in those creatures. And I panicked and I -- broke it, like glass. I don't know that I can do it again because I don't understand how I did it."

He glances about and then plonks himself down in one of those swing chairs. "Please, I'd very much like a glass of wine. This is a lot harder than it looks like. Mostly because the risk of waking up in Puget Sound isn't as much of a joke as I make it out to be -- if I don't know what I'm doing, there's a lot of potential for things going wrong. How's your greenhouse project going?"

"That sounds like something that would happen in a panic. But if you can figure out how to recreate it, that'd be a damn fine weapon." Ava pauses. "I wondering if shattering it hurts the one creating it. I bet it might have. Backlash or something, maybe?" Her head shakes as she breaks herself out of the thoughts and nods to Ravn. "Right! I'll be right back. Aidan, you can put that plate down on the table if you want. I'll grab more plates and stuff."

Bare feet shuffle across the grass and through the garden as Ava heads into the house. There's a little mat at the back door that she meticulously cleans her feet at before going in. Then she's out of view for a bit.

Plate. Table. Right. Aidan glances down at one, over at the other, and then heads over to do as suggested. "I mean. I don't even remember a time I didn't know the only way out was through," he says as he sets it down, "...and I mean, I tried. A lot. Just in case and 'cause sometimes through really, really sucked. I figured out through doesn't hafta be the obvious way through pretty quick. But it's always gotta be through. But you broke one." He stares at Ravn for a couple seconds, and then moves over to sit in one of the chair swings, pulling his feet up, knees to his chest, arms wrapped around them.

The chair swings, just a bit. Nothing too strenuous, but like someone's giving it a gentle push when it needs it.

"Shitloads of people've panicked in Dreams. Like. All of us pretty much. I've never seen someone break one."

"I don't think I can do it again." Ravn looks at his hands. "I think maybe it was the way out. It was a Dream about terror and fear and death. Maybe that fear was what it wanted. And that's why it worked. Because that's what was meant to happen -- freak out and lash out, or die. It felt very primal. Like it wanted to push me over the edge so hard -- putting me on a stage with an audience, in a ridiculous costume, surrounded by mythical things that end up fucking and eating each other in the revelries of Greek myth. It wanted me to break, or to be broken. But it's still the only time I've opened a door of a sorts before, and if I can do it once..."

He shakes his head and looks after Ava. "Anyhow. Not like a number of us aren't fucking or getting fucked with lately. She's in some kind of heated post-it exchange argument with someone on the Other Side, has she told you?"

Ava returns shortly with a small basket containing plates, utensils, glasses and a fresh bottle of wine. "Tada! Stress relief," she offers with a brilliant smile. While they talk, she goes about playing happy homemaker and setting everything up for everyone. Plates, drinks, everything is doled out perfectly. Then each man is handed a glass and their food. "But you weren't broken. Because you're stronger than that by far. So instead, you broke it. That's our Ravn."

Her jaw sets for a moment as she looks defensively towards Aidan. "He says exchange. But that suggests return post-its. More like I'm being plagued by pink post-its! I was right, though. Our powers are being messed with. We're not being allowed to use the upper limits of our healing any longer. But we're allowed to send in a complaint at City Hall.

Aidan considers this theory. He considers it for a good handful of seconds, in fact, and then nods. "That could be. That'd make sense, that kinda thing does happen. Like--" Whatever it's like, it makes his tawny complexion go about a shade lighter for a moment, and his jaw shift, and he shakes his head, dropping that sentence. "Only it could be a change. I mean. Stuff changes, sometimes. Mostly I wanna change it back but if that changed..." He chews his bottom lip.

Oh, right, food. And wine. Wine sounds really good now, actually. He unwinds his arms to accept plate and glass, legs dropping down to settle in half-lotus. The swing keeps swinging, idly. "Thanks," he says, and takes a drink, head tilting at the mention of a heated argument. A faint wrinkle in his brow, one that deepens as they continue, and he stops with the glass halfway to his lips before the second drink. "Um. Are the post-its, like... signed? Or. Are there hearts on them?"

Ravn quirks an eyebrow at Aidan's inquiry; he hasn't actually seen any of those notes himself, even if he was technically there when the first one appeared -- taking a wall to the face, a man tends to not pay attention to a whole lot besides the splitting headache.

He accepts the wine glass with gloved fingers and then thinks aloud, "The mail box at City Hall. The Revisionist? I've written to her once. It went -- better than I dared hope for. Ridiculous is acceptable. This is where lobster fighting begins. She doesn't hate us, though. She just -- don't understand us very well, I think."

"Yeah, The Revisionist. She's not the one leaving the notes. The one leaving the notes is just suggesting that if we have a problem with things, we take it up with the Revisionist. I don't know whose leaving them. Just that they have an awful laugh. I hate it." Ava shudders. "It's like a horrible recording. She's just not right."

There's a pause at the mention of hearts. "Hearts? No. They're just the words. Denied, was the first one. I told you no, was the second one. You have the right to file a complaint at City Hall, was the third. All on pink post its. All with large displays of power after attempting to use the upper limits of healing. Who signs with hearts?"

"When you say a laugh. Like. A giggle?" Aidan prods at his chicken with the fork. He really does actually do this dish quite well. It's the first proper full-on cooking thing he learned. It's at its best still hot, but right now he's a little less hungry than he was when he came out into the yard. "'cause. Pink sticky notes and giggles...well, the note on the Bird Noodle Soup, she signed it The Vivisectionist."

He looks up again, the hand holding the wine resting the bottom of the glass against his leg. "She... um... the fall after I moved back here, so. I guess, three years ago? Well two and a half. There was this flu. And, I mean, it made you sick? Like, normal sick. But also, it messed with your magic. Everything got way harder, you had nightmares, like, normal nightmares first but then Nightmares, these Dreams where, they could be whatever, but you were still sick in them and you couldn't use your magic at all." And that's not a good memory on multiple levels.

"Then one night a bunch of us woke up in a Dream, at Safeway, and we had to fight these ooze-germ-things and... I mean the important thing is, there was this voice that kept talking to us over the PA, this lady, and she had this... giggle. Like every time she talked to us. And she thanked us for participating in her experiment, and for passing along the 'test virus' and said she was gonna give us a small token of her gratitude, and when we were awake, there was this Bird Noodle Soup and it had a sticky note saying thanks for participating, heart heart, the Vivisectionist." Another brief lip chew.

Ravn frowns; he's obviously taking mental notes. "I haven't had any kind of interaction with that one. Only the Revisionist and the Exorcist. But I've heard of the flu, though it happened before I turned up on this shore." A curious glance towards Ava; this is on her, after all -- are bells rung? She's the one who's been there (and awake).

"Vyv mentioned that soup to me before when we had lunch a little while back, but we didn't really get into it. Maybe I should prod him a bit for more details. Sticky notes and a terrible laugh, plus toying with powers? Sounds like it might be the same woman. Was it like someone made a recording of a laugh and kept playing it? The same one, over and over. Like they were trying to get it right, but it just wasn't?" Ava wonders. "If so, we're talking the same person. Maybe I just upset her so much that she left out the hearts this time. Would you recognize the handwriting?"

Pulling out her phone from her pocket, Ava scrolls to photos of the post-its and offers the phone towards Aidan and Ravn to look at.

"Um... I don't remember it being like that, just this... giggle. But I mean it was over the Safeway PA system while we were fighting multiplying acidy ooze germ things so..." Aidan's not willing to swear the laugh wasn't like that. "...she said she bet the Receptionist we'd have to fight hundreds of 'em before we switched to, like, disinfectant and stuff." Since Ravn's just mentioned that one.

He leans in when the picture's offered, careful of his plate and glass; the swing even stops swinging for the duration. "Yeah. I'm pretty sure," he says, then nods as if to underline it. "That looks like the same writing to me. I mean if Mr. Vydal had the soup you could maybe get a second opinion from him if you wanted? 'cause it prolly had a note too, I'd guess? But I'm pretty sure."

"Some day I want to create a bestiary of -ists," Ravn grouses. "Preferably before I join them as the Folklorist. At which point, at least there's going to be rules."

"Another excellent bestiary idea. I like that. Can we have a copy for the Historical Society?" Ava wonders. Since the guys are in the swings, she pulls up a chai for herself and settles into it finally so that she can sit to eat as well. Aidan's assurance that he thinks the handwriting is a match is enough to make Ava nod firmly. "I'll verify with Vyv, of course, but I think we found our -ist. Which, is something. Assuming we can find any information on her. Maybe someone around knows something about her. For now, let's just focus on food and wine." The three settling in with their makeshift garden dinner.