The modified beetle chirps in her hand. Its carapace pulses orange and its head sways from side to side, seeking magic. It is a Circuitbreaker bug and it searches for the largest source of magic in an area to eat it, and that Should be a moving bookstore.
She is wearing her paint stained academy robes and her hair in one thick, long ponytail, and a grey cloak bought with the pay she got this morning. The back streets of the district are tight and close together, and the heat dispersing off the organic walls has the tight alleys warm and oppressive, given the early autumn of it all.
The sounds of insects come from everywhere, including in her hand, as Thalia hears the forest and city enjoy the humidity still left from last night's rain, and she has to strain to concentrate to work out which way the Circuitbreaker is taking her. She wiggles her body past a group of boxes that take up much of the lane, feeling the packed soil beneath her bare feet shift as she gets her footing.
She can hear someone moving in the building beside her and she hopes they do not think she is skulking, she does not want the risk of a public service time cluttering up her day should they think her a nuisance.
Eventually the beetle starts to go rabid, and Thalia returns the creature to the box in her backpack, turning the corner to see Decadencey, pushing forwards with grit and determination to confront the witch.
The membrane lay open, waiting and she steps inside the the cramped and dark walls and shelves, eyes adjusting from bright light as she keeps moving, hand outstretched to stop her bumping into something in her refusal to be kept out.
"Hello?" She calls, finally accustomed to the dark of the shop, even as small devices spring to light with the barest of light. Her toe bumps a binding bound in animal skin, and she stops, looking down to see the small stack wobble, which she stops with a press of her hand.
"Hello?" She says again after a pause, looking up and around for the witch. Her eyes rest briefly on a corvid, and it opens one blind white eye to watch her lazily, before closing it again like she is a pain it is not ready to deal with yet. Its beak sparkles with speckles of glittery texture, as it lazes a tongue out to sweep over a beak to make sure it is clean. She keeps watching it even as a voice says. "You have caution, little mage, which is unique in one of your craft. But you still have the ambition that sweeps your academy."
"Is it ambition to want to be treated better? To be better?" Thalia impulsively retorts even as she's cut off with a
"That is by nature of words, the very definition."
"And witches do not want more for themselves?" Thalia decides to try to be bold, this woman had given a warning and so had opened the dialogue.
"Oh some witches have ambition, but mostly we just wish for the freedom to be what we are."
She spins to meet the eyes of the witch and is forced to look down into them. "And you don't think I wish the same? You must know a little about me to give me the warning, or do you only know me as the techno-mage who is working on the communications case?"
The dark haired, sandalwood skinned witch watches Thalia with a dark smile. "I do not need to know you to know the danger of the path you walk. You would bring connection between the realms all for a touch of respect from people who would abandon you the moment you stop bringing Them glory. The realms were severed so they could heal, and bringing them back will just rip open fresh wounds."
"I just need to see this through to the end, to find a way to salvage my life before it becomes yet another footnote in someone else's story." Thalia says through gritted teeth. "I now know of the rot-filled desires of the human realm, I know to be careful."
"And what of the rot within Infernus? Or the rot within Parnathum? There are more than one realm and you do not even know what you risk just to taste being on the page of the binding." The woman's face is hawkish with anger, tight ringlets bouncing as she draws the shadows around her.
Thalia pushes the sleeve up her arm and reveals a circuit layered there. She presses her palm to it, casting a light spell as her own face contorts with anger. "You would suggest stopping, as if the existence of the human means that anyone can stop? WOULD stop."
Spells of light and shadow battle inside the store, while outside is a constantly shifting penumbra casting confusion and fear among the neighbours. The walls of the shop grow heavy in response, rooting the witch's shop to the spot, even as Thalia can see her considering casting herself away and leaving Thalia behind with her warning, anger and confusion.
"The denizens of the academy do not understand the concept of Do Not Enter. Go to the Gnarled Grove - see what dangers letting the realms back has already wrought on ours. You'll see what me and my kind are trying to protect this realm from." The witch's face has softened into regret, mixed with fear. "Not all the wild women were there when we trusted humans the first time - but I was, and I did not speak up then, I will not be so silent now."
"Guide me then, show me how You would do this safely." Thalia says with a sigh, lowering the light to let the darkness take her over. "There is always going to be someone wanting to bring a link between realms now that we know it can be done." The darkness eases, and the witch steps towards her. "Go to the grove and prove to me that you know the stakes, prove you know what we must keep safe from, then I will consider it."
Thalia is across the bridge in Natare now, hunting down one of two renowned apothecaries, for the sleeping. She wanted a dreamless sleep - at least for the next few days, and being knocked out cold was looking pretty appealing. Especially after the fights she has gone through, and where she is headed forwards.
The area around here is a lot more tight packed apartment buildings skewered by green space public gardens, a lot of community style projects for people not directly connected to the treadmill of academy life. It is also alot noisier, with open chatting and people getting much more in each other's space than she is used to.
She has not travelled that often south of the bridge, indeed her interactions with many spaces outside of upper Natare is limited if you don't count the forests as a significant location. She still vaguely recalls her childhood trip to Brambleberry to learn about the creature-kin, but most interactions have been outside cultures coming to her - like Marcus.
So when she comes across the shop, and young children are milling all around her, playing their games and not caring that she is in their way, or they are in hers, Thalia feels just a touch claustrophobic, pulling her shoulders into her self to take up less space.
She breathes deep again, drawing herself up and rolling her shoulders before striding through the eclectic mix of children (including a young troll with mushrooms across her shoulders), towards the shop. It is a set of tables pushing out from a building with a door that rolls up and out of the way, like a leaf curling in on itself. A badly cast circuit causes a holo to flicker the words "Agava Treats".
The tables are laden with candied and dried fruits and vegetables, with a selection of small vials made from hollowed peppers with liquids floating inside.
One of the city's flightless wrens hops around the tables, simple and red, its head watching the goings on on the street. It sees someone inside the building and hops to the edge of the table and up a delicate hand. The person behind the hand is an older woman, with open age lines and chestnut locks streaked with grey, wound into a bun at the back of her head. Purple eyes watch Thalia from beneath many layers of hanging cloth and pendants and bracelets and bangles. She almost jingles as she moves, with an energy that is at odds with her chaotic community.
"Ah, hello dearest. What brings you to mah shop?" She watches Thalia fret with her cloak, as the wren tilts its head from the woman - Agava's shoulder.
"Dearest be, come closer, you'll have to shout from all the way over there. And then you'll just wake up your ancestors and mine." Agava gives a big grin and picks up a dried apricot and pops it into her mouth. She'd seen one such tree on the way in over the bridge, and her mouth does water as they do look delicious, but she only brought enough to trade for a potion.
"Take one," Agava says grinning, "you can pay me back next time you visit, you see. I don't have many one time customers - not because I don't solve your problems, but because if it was a one time thing, you'd go to one of those academy types." She sucks on her upper as she fixes at her display, waiting for Thalia to speak or act.
Still gathering her nerve, now that she is confronted with a person, Thalia takes a dried apricot, nibbling on it mouse-like in an effort to not have to speak. Soon however the fruit is gone, and her problem, and miss Agava, are still here.
"I'm having nightmares, and I need a potion to help me into a deeper sleep. I know the healers could diagnose my life away until they had what they needed to try and magic this away, but it doesn't feel...."
"Like magic will end your problems, hm?" She pushes another apricot over to Thalia. "Eat. You'll worry your cloak into an early grave if you keep fussing that thing. I have heard your plight, I have seen your heart-tree, and I will make you your draught. I hope you weren't silly enough to expect Br1n to help you pay down here. The digital mother visits, but she holds no sway here. Trade is the currency we choose."
"I brought some bindings, a couple of rings, and a squash I just grew. If any of those are to your liking. I can also do some magic circuits, like fixing your sign."
Agava grins wide, "Hard work will get you points around here, dear. Though seeds beat fruit, mk?"
Thalia relaxes and smiles back. "But if I bring seeds, what do I bring next time? Can't pay you in the same seeds twice. Not if you're as good of a gardener as you are a potion maker."
Agava moves to leave to start the potions, before turning and narrowing her eyes. "Show me those rings. Just for curiosity."
Thalia reaches into her pack to bring out the stone rings that she usually kept in her private stash. She offers them palm out to Agava. The old woman squints at them, thinking for a second before snatching one up and slapping it against the corner of the table. Thalia winces, expecting it to crumble away, before watching as the layer of stone flakes off, revealing more of that metal she keeps finding beneath.
Agava hands it back to Thalia with a wink. "There was something magical clinging to you. Play with those, they sing with a song quite sweet - surprised your little bug friend didn't try to go for them."
Thalia stops, realising she can hear the bug chittering under the sounds of everything, and gives a guilty smile. "I was seeking..."
"You were hunting magic, you're a mage, it's what you do and you shouldn't be ashamed of being yourself. Just long as yourself hurts noone. Mk? Mk."
And off she goes, to make the potion. Thalia watches the street, rolling all the knowledge and advice she seems to be collecting, because of the sources and sometimes in spite of them. It frustrates because everyone seems to know what THEY are and then seem to want to imply that she should know too. She thought she did, fragile, easily breakable, easily mouldable - but now?
A ball rolls past her and under one of the tables, far back enough that it is deep enough you need to crawl. Thalia does not stop to think, just getting under there, squeezing her form to get the children's ball and slowly and carefully wiggle out so she doesn't damage whatever is atop the table.
She holds the ball victoriously as she sees the children approaching, kneeling down to hand them their ball without being too imposing - being a stranger and all. She sees one of Br1n's town-guides nod to her, ready to help the community and be Br1n's hands, but not needed here and now.
She sets her pack down and gets out her circuit paint, and some solvent, and starts to find handholds to make her way up to where the circuit for the sign is set. She finds the glowing markings and traces the circuit out with her fingertip, checking intent and execution. It is a wily little thing and she finds the problem in the third phrase, wiping the solvent across the phrase and waiting for it to dry before dipping a hand into the plant matter/soil mixture and tracing out the replacement phrase. Once this is done she presses a clean palm to the source of the circuit, watching the sign flare to life beside her.
She wipes her hand clean, packs up her supplies and makes her way down to put everything back in her backpack. When she finally looks up, Agava is looking at her, appraising her. "You have a smudge of your mage paint on your forehead, dear." The apothecary makes her way off and wipes off the smudge. "Hard work suits you dear. Have you ever considered something more practical?"
Thoughts and images of her working basic spells throughout the city and surrounds instead of being caught in the back room of a laboratory fills her mind and she feels both a warmth and a dread. The idea is nice as a potential escape from this cycle and spiral she is on, but she would be giving up her last few years and she would be admitting that she has nothing more to give.
"Your effort can be enough if you give it to people who accept it for what it is, you do not need to push for an approval that will never be satisfied." Agava hands over the pot of potion and a vial. "One of these before bed. When the vial darkens, eat it, and come back for another, we will talk then."
And then it is time for Thalia to depart.
His back is to her, and he speaks to a shadow of a shadow in the shape of a jackal like creature, clad in shining rich yellow jewellery.
<Oh course I would rather be direct. 'Bring me through or banish me, but save me and my lieutenants from this half place'. But I am stuck haunting the dreams of those who Want because whatever chose to drag us here keeps picking me to be our voice. Ask the universe dear, let her pick you to torment someone's dream for once so I feel less hopeless when they look at all this and resist.>
<Direct would have someone just banish us, but they also could get in their heads that they could destroy us. Do you want them to think it is just easier to have us gone rather than have us silent?>
More words are said that Thalia cannot hear, and the mage looks around in this white void for something to hide behind. She is definitely intruding but to know that Xylos is not the only being that would come through should she listen to him is interesting.
She sees gold eyes on her, and the jackal head moves through the white void. It grows independent of the shadowy figure talking with Xylos as it takes her in. <Do you think you are so well hidden?> The jackal head booms, causing Xylos to turn and look at Thalia with disappointment.
<If you wished to listen in, at least be bold about it.> Xylos says, standing back as the jackal head gets too large. Too close.
Thalia starts into a run, moving and stumbling as she tries to make her way away from the looming head. Her body is stiff in this dreamscape, and pushing through is taking every effort she has. Finally, beneath her she feels solid ground, something to push off against as she is somewhere in the Forbidden Forest, just south of her dig location, the limestone path sure beneath her feet.
When she thinks she has lost her pursuer, Thalia hides behind a forest tree to 'breathe'.
<I don't think you thought this through.> The demon of her dream teases, walking out from the shadows. <I know you heard that I have options, that We have options, and that scares you - makes you think we wish harm on you and yours. But we just want an out from this in-between place, and unlike what your mind shows me, we come from a place where we will do a lot more to survive. Including threatening like my lieutenant suggested.>
Thalia tiredly watches him. <And what happens when you are let out with your companions? When I become your right hand?>
<Oh darling Moondance, then I form my court in this world or my home and I get back to making the land around Me safe for Me. I survive and then I thrive. Would it not be easier if you thrived, instead of this half-living state?> Xylos stalks towards her, pulling one and then the other ponytail out, letting her hair fan out behind her, wild and in those splotches of pink, black and green, even as the green fades away in her dream, color staining right down to the roots, robbing her of the excuse of an accident in this transitionary place.
She sees herself in a conjured membrane, sees the muscles of her face fill out, as the muscles of her arms do the same as she imagines herself free of the Academy - indulging in practical magic in the surface of this mirror.
<Does that not feel like someone who is no longer under the thumb of a system that drags you down, makes you soft and pliable? All you have to do is help me escape and I can guide you there.>
Thalia stares into that mirror, reminded time and again of possibilities and choices and taking her own path and she then turns to look at him. <No. Not now, and I suspect not ever. You are not dangerous to me, but I suspect you might be dangerous to those I love, should they get in the way of your thriving - so I will learn of you Xylos, and I will learn of this place in between, and should we meet again, I will make a choice again, with more knowledge.>
