2022-05-11 - ??!!!

It's as the 'door' shuts that Mikaere grabs back on to the doorframe, as if he needs it to hold himself up. "Fuck," he says. "Fuck, fuck, fuck."

Della's grabbing onto the oven handle to help herself up; it only creaks a little. "What the hell was that?!" Still not all the way to her feet, she stares narrow-eyed at Mikaere as though this were his idea.

"Fuck," says Mikaere to Della, as if that explained everything-- as if that were _enough.

He relents, exhaling an unhappy, nigh-on miserable, breath. "It's the statue her grandmother gave her. It tried to possess me when I touched it on Saturday, and now it has possessed her. Is he strong enough to get her back?"

"What statue her grandmother gave her -- fuck. Fuck." Apparently that's catching, and not in any good way.

Straightening, Della rubs her shoulder -- it's always that shoulder -- and stalks across the kitchen, worry burring her expression, her voice. "Why don't you start from the beginning," isn't anything like a suggestion. "Unless you know anything about getting her back that we should try right now."

Mikaere looks somewhat uncomfortably guilty in stepping across the threshold and into the kitchen, this kitchen he's never been in before-- not for the usual food that gets served in here, and not for any other reason. But Della's not-a-suggestion is an invitation in its own way, and taken as such, coming as it does with a quick shake of his head.

He pulls out a chair from the table and sits in it, hands in his lap for a moment as he considers the table, the box, the cookies and computer and everything else.

"I wish I did. She's not powerful enough to make proper doors. I think-- Ravn must do, though. In and out. I don't think there's anything we can do but wait. It's--"

He breaks off, glancing back at the box in particular. "Her grandmother gave it to her on Saturday. It contains-- contained-- a carving. It belonged to her grandmother's grandfather, I think? A shaman. I touched it, when she opened it, and it was-- powerful. It showed me, and then it tried to take me over too. It didn't succeed with me. Today-- I think Ravn played his violin, and then it started drumming; I don't know, I arrived not long before you did. And now... it's controlling her."

Not so much with the making this sound better, huh, Mikaere.

The table. The box. The cookies. The computer. The box.

It's before Mikaere mentions would-be possession that Della reaches out to sweep that box up from the table, but let's be frank, she probably would have anyway. It's not the carving itself, but it's something. Slow-breathed, "The actual fuck."

"The actual fuck," agrees Mikaere, heavily.

It's instinct that drives his hand to pick up a cookie: something to do with his hands, as he sits here, utterly powerless, in someone else's kitchen, waiting for his girlfriend? lover? friend? to be saved by someone else.

And Della isn't even looking at him. She stares at the box in her hands, eyes dilated, holding it as though it were precious.

It is.

She rotates the box, looking at it, seeing it, seeing it. All the sides. Breathily, "Why the violin? Why the drums? I thought it was an earthquake." Yes, she had yelled that.

Mikaere hesitates over his answer, probably as much as anything because he's got his eyes on the box, and what Della's doing with it; his nod acknowledges what he must, presumably, guess she's picking up. So much history.

"You'd have to ask them," he supposes, finally, with a glance away from the box and towards that bit of kitchen where, just seconds ago, there was a window into another world. "I don't know. It's powerful, whatever it is. I could hear it across the lawn. They really... stirred it up, I guess. And tried to communicate? But now it is communicating too much, because it's got a hold of her."

He exhales. He stares at his cookie, still untouched. A reject-- but it still looks fine. "There's no point trying to send anyone after them; they'd never find them. We have to trust." Trust... trust don't come easy though.

That supposition gets a look from Della, sharp for all her box-lent calmness; she settles when he explains, petting an edge of the box, following it to one corner and then to the next. "'Trust.'"

"Well."

"I'm going to reach inside the box, now, and see if it feels different there." So if there's reason to interject, now's a fine time.

"Well," agrees Mikaere. It's not a conclusion he's particularly happy with; that much is written in the lines of his face, the lines of his shoulders, the lines, even, of his hands, holding so tightly to the cookie.

"I didn't pay any attention to the box," he admits. "In the beginning. Just what it contained. But-- it can't hurt. There were trees, where they went, weren't there?"

"Trees and bushes and things," Della agrees without looking up. "Not the fae kind, but -- green."

She tastes the inside of the box with her fingertips; she smooths the outside with the backs of her fingers, no cross-contamination here. Her dark eyes are intent. Then she shakes the box with her other hand, lightly -- "Hand me a paper towel?" -- and careful with the hinges, in case anything might fall out: any dust, any anything from another time.

"Do you normally... catch things, from things?" Not just splinters.

And all the while, Mikaere watches. This is a scientific approach; it's very unlike the one he might take. He sets down his cookie and stands up, stepping around the pot that's fallen onto the floor and towards the paper towel roll hanging between cupboard and counter. The paper towel is brought back, handed to Della, all in silence.

It's only then, still standing just behind and to the side of the other woman that he confirms, "Resonances, yes. Whakamaumahara: little pieces of the past, trapped in space and time, forever commemorating the most powerful of moments. Not everything, but often enough, if there's something to catch."

She accepts it; she sets the box down, still close to her, and scours her hands in turn with the paper towel: not over the box, just over the table. It doesn't mean any residue can't still cling, necessarily, but it's what feels right.

"I like that," she says further, to the box. "Flies in amber, only better." Her approach may seem incongruous with the floppy ponytails, the ragged shorts, nothing she wears in public; with the sound of her words. "Touch this? The outside? I find it soothing. Better than. Not in stasis." Della holds up the box enough that Mikaere may reach over her shoulder, if he chooses; she doesn't let go.

"Flies in amber," is a musing repetition: not deliberate, but the natural outcome for a man who tends to think out loud (whose head is, after all, often used for projecting outwards as well, not private at all). "It's like they're still living," he agrees. "Still going on with their lives, these little moments of something so intense and important, or so consistent, that they've been left behind."

He's good at taking suggestions, though, and reaches out now with gentle fingertips to press them to the surface of the box, lingering only a moment.

"Worlds in amber," she rephrases. "World-lets." -- "'Reruns.' ...No." Too prosaic, too something.

She twists to look up, searching out his reaction.

His reaction's a laugh.

Well, no: not a laugh. Not a real laugh. It might, some other time, when there's no one missing who ought to be in the room; when the big question mark of concern isn't still hanging over them. It's more of a huff of air: half a snort.

His fingers withdraw from the box. It's not like what was inside it. Not uninteresting, but not the same.

"They could be hours," he says. He doesn't say: they could be stuck there forever and never come back.

Della's more used to tinkering with metal; her experience with wood isn't as strong. But now... now, she just sighs as the sensory knowledge... fills... where breath had been. She's the one who's been holding the box; she's the one taking hit after hit, not of violence, but of resilience: floating within the waves, secure.

"Inside is different," she says. "Not bad," but still she'll shut the lid on it.

"It could be. In portal fantasies... do you read? what do you read? ...sometimes people reappear right where and when they'd been, no matter what's elapsed. Which clearly hasn't happened yet, but." It could.

"Ravn's good at a lot of things." She hasn't been there when he hasn't.

Mikaere's looming, and he needs to stop that: he does so, moving back around the table to his previously-abandoned chair (and previously-abandoned cookie, too), reclaiming both. "Not fantasy," is an answer to the question about reading, if not a full one. "I don't know that's always the case here, with this kind of thing. Sometimes yes. Sometimes no.

He's quite still, now, the way he's sitting. Not calm, because there's probably still some adrenaline cruising through him, but more apprehensive than agitated. Still: "I should have stopped her from going through."

For what it's worth, Della hadn't shrunk away, hadn't tightened up, even, and now she doesn't seem to need to fill up more space; it's as though he had never left. She pets the box one more time -- if she could shrink it, could wear it as a necklace, she just might -- and rises in turn. "How do you like your coffee?" she asks.

And while she's at it, "If it happens again, what will you try to do, that you didn't?"

The age of communication means texts fly as fast as a blink.

It also means one learns how their friends and significant other either reply quickly or in their own good time.

It's been too long since Ravn was supposed to get back to her about plans for the next week. Maybe he's napping? A check at the house down the way on Oak proves this to be wrong -- and this was after a quick drive-by of the boat. Just Kitty Pryde there, giving her a hairy green eyeballing.

Una's porch has been a congregating point, so logically, it's the next place Ariadne shows up. Knock-knock. "Una? Della? Jules? It's Ariadne," she calls out just loudly enough to be heard through the wood. Rolling a step or two back, the barista in her sneakers, cargo pants (nobody tell Dita), and t-shirt beneath a light sweatshirt tucks hair behind her ear. It's starting to slip free of her messy bun. Another check of her phone and grimace.

Something's wrong. Something's funny. She used to ignore this feeling when she was younger, but here in Grey Harbor? There's no more reason to ignore it.

There's no indication from Mikaere that he's picked up on Della's lack of reaction; no suggestion he's even remotely aware of it. Instead, he leans back in his chair, tipping his chin back too watch as she stands. "White," he says. "Flat white, by preference, but I'll take any coffee that's not instant except by necessity, with any milk-like substance that's available... white coffee. Please."

He (finally!) takes a bite of the cookie, and makes an appreciative noise. Chewing. Then: "Tackle her? I played rugby, I know how to do that. I don't know. Something would have been more effective than the absolute nothing I managed to do."

That is when there comes a knock on the door, though the tall Kiwi? He's not going to be the one to answer it. He shoots a gaze in that direction, though; abruptly watchful, wary all over again.

"White coffee. Check."

"Rugby? Volleyball, here." Then, "It's... difficult, when someone isn't in their right mind."

She turns towards him at the knock; she decides, "Watch the box."

When she gets to the door, her attire much more casual than the redhead's ever seen it even in brief to-and-fros through the house, her expression quite calm -- "Ariadne," she calls back. To Ariadne herself, "Who are you looking for? Kitchen."

When the door opens, it's Della. Ariadne blinks in mild surprise; she had been expecting Una, mind, but it's also the nonchalant of Della's own fashion in turn. Her brows meet. Why is Della calling back into the house?

"Uh, Ravn, actually. I texted him an hour or two ago confirming our plans for next week and he hasn't gotten back to me. That's not like him." These days, at least; newly-dating and all. "He's not at the boat or with Aidan down the way. He always ends up here," she explains as she steps into the house. At the entrance to the kitchen, she pauses again. A twiddly-fingered wave at the Kiwi. "Oh, hey. You're...Mikaere, right? I'm sorry if I got it wrong." Della is given a curious look despite herself.

Why is he here? She hasn't noticed the box...yet.

Watch the box? Mikaere can do that. He's still doing that when Della returns, even though Ariadne's name is one he at least vaguely recognises (maybe more her face than her name, let's be honest). He looks-- a little awkward, then, glancing up to greet the returning Della, the arriving Ariadne.

It's maybe for the best that he doesn't seem to have heard the redhead's explanation for her presence, and only, now, reacts to the greeting on offer. "Mikaere, right," he agrees. "And you're Ariadne."

It's perfectly normal for random Kiwis to be sitting at people's kitchen tables, right? Especially in not-fit-for-public-consumption ratty clothes, with no shoes. Fine. Perfectly fine.

The kitchen is fine: a fallen pot, not yet picked up, but that's about it.

"Ravn's girlfriend," Della explains. "She's looking for him." And there's his laptop, and his violin case.

As she moves on to, yes, picking up that pot, and then making coffee -- she uses pods, but the milk's frothed as usual -- "Ravn and Jules left. We're not sure when they'll be back. Jules was possessed and Ravn followed her into the... do you still call it a Dream when it's right there like that?" It all sounds so intentional, put that way.

"The plan is that he'll bring her back."

...

"Sugar, Mikaere?"

"Yes, hi." Confirmation: indeed, she's Ariadne, barista and erstwhile...companion to Ravn, thank you, Della, forthright as always. It wasn't that much of a secret anyhow, the barista reflects as she glances over at the table.

Wait a second. She knows that laptop, she's seen it dozens of times over at the coffee shop. That's a violin case.

Sharp golden-hazel eyes flick to Mikaere again. Those aren't the finest clothes for public and she's been at her job as barista long enough to know discomfit when she sees it in body language. Now Della's under scrutiny while the redhead rests a hand on the back of a kitchen chair tucked up near to the instrument case and the laptop.

Her heart skips a beat. Not sure when they'll be back. Her eyes widen. Followed Jules into a not-Dream. "Bring her back," she echoes dumbly. Her mouth works a second before she brings her other hand up over her mouth. Eyes close, jaw sets, and she rubs this hand's palm down the outside line of her cargo pants while Della asks after sugar. Ahem. A centering round of breathing. Do not freak out. Do not freak out. Do not think about all the times Ravn's warned her against doing this very thing and then even mentioned just walking through it one day and potentially never coming back.

"The Veil. You're saying he went through the Veil. Jules was possessed?" She's lost some color now, enough to show color at her cheeks in turn.

Mikaere's reaction at the linkage between Ariadne and Ravn falls short of outright surprise and lingers, instead, amidst the general landscape of 'okay, that's interesting', and even that isn't destined to last for long. There's probably some part of him that admires the easiness of that descriptor: girlfriend, no modifiers, no question marks, no uncertainty. He's not admitting to anything regarding his presence here, and even if he were, what would he say? He's Jules' unconfirmed.

"Breathe," he advises Ariadne, quietly, as his gaze tracks her reaction, the faintest hint of a nod acknowledging the situation as a whole. "People wake up from Dreams, don't they? They'll come back. Now is not the time to panic. We're going to stay calm."

Surprisingly, he sounds significantly more calm now than he did before, as if the very act of trying to reassure Ariadne has brought his political acumen to the fore, and give him structure and focus. "We're going to have some coffee, and eat some of these biscuits," he means cookies, probably? "and wait for them to be back."

And now he glances back at Della. "No sugar - thanks."

Coffee for Mikaere, no sugar: Della delivers the double shot with its fine microfoam -- real milk in Una's kitchen, definitely -- and, in it, a zig-zaggy pattern that resembles the letter W. Or E, as she rotates it... no, M. Maybe.

After that, she walks past Ariadne to pick up said laptop and case -- with hot pads -- and Jules' gear, the better to deposit them, stacked, out of the way where no one will spill on them.

"Also," the dark-haired woman says conversationally, "Una is going to kill us. She's going to smother us." Speaking of staying calm. More to Mikaere, "I fully plan to throw all of... not you, but them, under the bus for not warning me when I was right here," in the house. "But," still calmly, I'm still going to go down in the nuclear fallout. Staggering. Glowing, and not in the fun way. My hair will fall out." Bad enough she'd had to crop it on one side already; bad enough that even now she adds emphasis.

"Ariadne, coffee?"

Mikaere gets a brief hard look for his advisement and only a flicker of one, there and gone, as a side-effect of her barista's sudden hike in blood pressure. He's not wrong. Panicking helps nobody. We're going to stay calm, Ariadne agrees in the confines of her own skull and ignores the very alluring part of her mental dialogue simply holding out one sustained note of shriek. It's probably a good idea to sit. She's not going to pass out, but her knees don't seem to agree with her at the moment regardless.

Plonk. The chair scoots on the floor by a half inch per the force of her landing. There's a sudden impulse she manages to contain about snatching the laptop back -- the case back -- that's his violin case, don't move it away from her. It means Della gets a vaguely fish-like look at first in response to her question. Ariadne. That's her name, right. Coffee. "Coffee," the barista repeats before giving her head a sharp little shake. "Uh, yes -- please, coffee, um. If you have any creamer, that please."

She leans an elbow on the table and smushes her palm across her face, its ending point briefly across her mouth. A hard huff of a sigh before she clears her throat and sits up straighter. "Okay, I'm late to this party and I know it. We're waiting, I get that. Jules was possessed, there was a door through the Veil, Ravn stepped through. I know he can play with those doors, he's told me about it. How did Jules end up possessed?"

"Your turn, Mikaere." This is apparently his designated assignment: more structure, more focus. All he has to do is take it.

Della finishes clearing the area of non-food-related items by way of scooping up the box two-handed, taking it away like all that gear (maybe Ariadne would like Ravn's abandoned mug? there's that plate of cast-off cookies, too), only the box gets its own spot nearish the coffee station: on a chopping block. (Which is clean, and dry, and now padded with a cloth towel just in case.) Nobody's going to chop it on Della's watch. She gives it a fond little pat before getting to work.

Mug of coffee for Ariadne, unflavored -- she's learned her lesson with Una -- and the milk carton to go with it, delivered with a murmured, "Hope this is close enough," before she works on her own.

"I was here literally a few minutes before you were," points out Mikaere, though he did already know about the object in question, and maybe that accounts for the ruefulness of his nod. Of Una-- the third housemate, the one he doesn't know, but knows of -- he has no comment, instead saying, "Thanks, Della."

Long fingers wrap around the mug as the tall Kiwi turns his attention back to Ariadne, the calm giving him a slow nod to start. "If you need some artificial calm," he offers, then, "I can help with that, but I expect I'd decline the offer myself, too. Uh. Let's see. Jules' grandmother gave her a carving, one passed down through the family from her grandfather, I think, who was a shaman. It's a powerful item, and... when I touched it, it tried to possess me too. Evidently it succeeded with Jules. I don't know where it would have wanted to take her."

His lips draw together; a frown. "Ravn knows how to make doors out again, yes?"

"It'll do." It's a calming process in itself, pouring the milk and taste-testing until the coffee's acceptable. It's no sleight on Della. The barista is just used to playing with more flavors at hand. Ariadne looks up at Mikaere and shakes her head next.

"No, no extra calm, thank you." Goosebumps fleet across her body. None of that right now. It's like being offered a hit when she needs her brain unhampered by outside influence. She's still deciding about how she feels about a carving inhabited by an extra...dimensional? -- force. That one's for when she's cuddled up in a blanket on the couch while the TV's going and Sam's beside her. Or maybe inside Ravn's arms. Ravn. "Yes. He's told me he knows how to make doors out. Two ways, not just one way. It's getting through the damn door out that's the hard part." Coffee. Sip coffee and squeeze the emotion out of her tone as much as she can. We're all calm. Nothing's on fire. In theory.

"Mmhmm," from Della, dryly. That's for Mikaere, before her direct look when he brings up artificial calm; the mmhmm for Ariadne has ostensibly the same syllables, except hers is agreeable, moving on.

She adds his leftover foamy milk to her own mug, not bothering to taste before cleaning up; either she's not particularly picky or she knows what she likes. Or it's still that box's buoyant, protective calm. Or she's going for the whole 'waste not, want not' philosophy. So many possibilities, not unlike like the many possibilities of where Jules and Ravn are, of what they're doing, of how intact they may or may not be.

"Is there a way," is there a known way, do they know of a way, "to contact someone across the Veil?"

Mikaere has no hesitation in accepting the refusal of artificial calm: if anything, he seems relieved by it. It's one thing to rely on medicinal means to improve brain chemistry; it's another, again, to take up the option of artificial emotions, even in moments of crisis.

"Good," he says, carefully. "So he can get them out again. I'm pretty sure Jules can't, but-- that's why Ravn went. So they'll be okay. Even if it takes them a try or two, they'll be okay."

Della's question draws a pause, and then: a shake of his head. "Not that I'm aware of. I'm not the most powerful I've ever met, but... no. I doubt I could speak to someone across town, let alone in a different..." He waves his hand, gesturing vaguely. Different dimension? Different something.

Ariadne sighs as she looks between her hostess(?) and the Kiwi. At least they all have coffee to combat their woes. Her eyes inevitably wander towards the case and the laptop. A twinge in her chest. No. Everything will be fine, she insists it.

"I can do a little bit of this...mind-speaking stuff. Una helped me figure it out. I'm stuck at volume twelve right now because I don't really know how to turn down the volume, if that makes sense. I can always try...shouting into the void." Her laugh isn't a laugh except for pure reaction to the discomfort of the very idea. Still, the barista closes her eyes and knits her brows.

RAVN! JULES!

It's definitely like shouting into a canyon. God only knows if an echo's going to come back. In her cold bastion of logic? Ariadne knows she's not going to get anything back. After a minute, a shake of her head. "I tried," she mumbles into her coffee mug.

"In stories, the third time really is the charm." Which is to imply, even if only in the tone of Della's voice, that they'll indeed be all right.

(Or they won't.)

Watching Ariadne, finally lifting her own coffee to her lips... she winces. Rubs her ears. Takes a hasty swallow before anything else gets in the way.

Even so: "Trying is good," might seem simplistic, but Della's so direct about it, so -- not reassuring, precisely, but bolstering, perhaps. Matter-of-fact. Process matters.

"When you do that, do you get a sense of whether the person received it or not, like read receipts on a text? Wherever they are... who knows. It might have helped. We know. We care."

Quietly: "If you need guidance..." Mikaere doesn't finish the sentence, but... something about the twitch of his expression suggests something. Did he hear? "I've been doing this kind of thing for... a long time."

His own attempt to reach for the missing pair has no more success-- his range is inevitably further, but not that far, assuming they're not yet back within this plain of existence.

"I think we may just need to... wait. But it doesn't hurt to keep a mental ear out, right? Though as far as I'm aware, they're both... they're neither equipped to respond."

Mikaere rubs at his brow, those furrowed lines. His coffee is disappearing rapidly, his cookie too, but... "I don't suppose you have anything stronger?"

This could be a long wait.