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 Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2014 2:48 pm
Laney was relieved when Kent didn't seem to be freaking out at her or attempting to defenstrate her or otherwise eject her from the apartment. Maybe he was in shock. Maybe it just didn't matter, so long as Tara was alive. She gave him enough credit that she decided it was probably the last one. "Thanks." Uncapping the pen, Laney tore off two sheets of paper. On each one, she wrote: To:
I miss you.
Hvergelmir Squire of the CosmosThe first one she labeled to Tara Kavanaugh. For the second one, she looked up. "Give me the name of someone in your family who's dead. A grandparent, a great grandparent." DivineSaturn there was nary a goof to be seen <3
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Posted: Tue Aug 05, 2014 3:54 pm
Kent wasn't sure what he was expecting Laney to do with paper and a pen. If she'd put it all in a hat and pulled out a live rabbit, he didn't think he'd even blink. Compared to the great illusion he'd already seen her do, that kind of magic was nothing. But proving that Tara was okay would be an even greater trick, if she could pull it off.
Apparently, that involved writing notes. At this stage, he wasn't about to question it. But when Laney asked for the name of a deceased family member, it wasn't a grandparent or great-grandparent who sprung to mind. The former were mostly still alive, while he couldn't remember the names of their parents.
Instead, he thought back to a phone call his mother had gotten some ten years ago. The expression on her face as she dropped the phone and began to sob. His father's concern, which gave way to solemnity when he picked up the receiver and exchanged words with the man on the other end. Tara's confusion, and his own anger, which culminated in a sickening crunching sound when his car hit a tree. He had almost given his family someone else to grieve that day.
And now, ten years older and supposedly wiser, he'd been doing practically the same thing. So much for learning from his mistakes.
"Katelyn Caffrey. My- our- aunt. Our mom's sister. She was a police officer." Laney had asked for a name, not a life story, but once he started talking, he felt he needed to explain, more for his sake than for hers. "Katelyn with a K, Caffrey with a C. I can write it out for you if that'd help."
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Posted: Mon Aug 11, 2014 10:22 am
"If you wouldn't mind," Laney said, then slid the paper over to Kent for him to address it. She didn't remember Tara talking about her aunt much. Tara didn't like talking about things that were unpleasant with Laney. Laney supposed she was an inexpert listener. She ran the head of the felt-tipped pen over her signet ring, letting it pick up some of the ink. She showed Kent what she was doing, then turned to press it to the paper addressed to Tara. "This is what normally happens when you send a letter." With a slight smearing of the paper in the air, it disappeared entirely. "Now here's what happens when you try to send a letter to someone who's no longer alive." She repeated the same treatment, letting Kent see what she was doing at each point, then pressed the seal to paper. This time, nothing. It sat there. Laney took the pen, crossed out their aunt's name, and wrote Kent's in instead. She pressed her ring to the same spot as before -- then waited while the paper disappeared, to reappear in the air before Kent as soon as he acknowledged awareness of a waiting message.
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Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2014 3:59 pm
It was strange, addressing something to Aunt Kate. Which Kent supposed was part of whatever point Laney was trying to make. He handed the pen and paper back to her and sat back in the chair, feeling like he needed a drink. Or at least a gigantic dessert of some sort. Maybe a brownie.
Chasing away visions of baked goods that were trying to distract him, he watched as Laney rubbed ink on her ring. Nice ring, too, with engraving on it that became a bit more distinct when it picked up the color from the pen. But he still couldn't see the point. At least, not until the paper she stamped her ring on disappeared. That made him sit up in the chair again. He looked around, to see if it had flown somewhere, but couldn't find it. That made him miss part of the preparation for the next bit, but he looked back in time to see her mark the other paper with her ring. This time, nothing unusual happened.
There was a moment of silence then, which Kent felt was appropriate. For a while after Aunt Kate's passing, Tara insisted that she had actually faked her death and become a spy. Which, he'd suspected, was one of the reasons behind her arguments with Evie. Of course, he hadn't believed it at the time, and he didn't now. There had been a body left behind and everything. Even so, seeing the letter just sit there put to rest any fragments of hope that the whole thing was some sort of deception, and that she was still alive, somewhere.
Rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand- bad allergies, that day- he made a note never to share this particular demonstration with Tara.
Then there was a weird sensation that Kent had never felt before. It reminded him, in a way, of the call waiting noise on his cell phone. "The hell?" he muttered, lightly knocking on the side of his head with his fist. He'd never been prone to tinnitus before. Glancing at the coffee table again, he saw that the note that had been there was gone. Did it have something to do with the message?
As soon as he thought that, the note reappeared on his lap, making him sit up even straighter. It was the same one, though- he could see where he'd written Aunt Kate's name, and Laney had crossed it out, and written his name just above it.
"Okay then." He swallowed a bundle of emotions he wasn't quite ready to deal with yet, and leaned forward in the chair, folding his hands over the note in his lap. "I feel like the next question you're waiting for is 'how did you do that?' Which I'm curious about, don't get me wrong. But I'd rather skip to the important part, if that's okay with you."
There was clearly a lot that Laney knew that he didn't. Kent suspected that they could spend the entire afternoon on tutorial stuff, if they felt like it. And there was no doubt that all of this was information that he needed to have, at some point. It was even possible that he couldn't be a proper knight, or whatever he was, without knowing these things.
None of them were the million-dollar question, though. "Where is she?"
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Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2014 7:18 pm
He was handling this... pretty well, Laney thought. Better than she'd been afraid he would. Kent was a good older brother. Tara was lucky to have him -- if she ever let herself rely on the people around her. If she ever came back. Of course he was going to ask where she was. He was always going to ask. "There's a big.... a big, like, a barrier out in space. It's called the Surrounding, and it has an outpost for each of the stations of the Zodiac. That's where she's gone. It's why you won't find her. She doesn't want to be found." Laney looked down, saying that last thing. Her eyes stung, admitting it.
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Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2014 11:13 pm
Even with everything that Kent had seen, he still didn't fully believe anything he had been told. He was willing to play along with it, if that got him closer to his goal, but there was always a part that felt he was just a victim of a colossal joke. Maybe Tara's disappearance was even part of that. Maybe there was no danger. It was unlikely, but so was the existence of superpowers.
As long as they seemed equally unlikely, he was able to go along with the ruse, suspending his disbelief through demonstrations of magical disguises and teleporting notes. But when Laney brought space into the picture, the superhero angle seemed a whole lot less possible. It was as though a switch flipped in his brain, changing his perspective of everything that had happened in the past few weeks. Or months, really; that mess with the evil twins had to be part of this too.
What on earth had Tara done, to get her friends believing in this fantasy so much? What could Laney, or Noah, or anyone else, gain by pulling the wool over his eyes like this? And where had they gotten the special effects, to make him think that he was, of all things, magical? No wonder teenage girls thought he was easy prey, when he was wandering around like an idiot, thinking he had some sort of power to change things.
It was hard for him to imagine that this was meant to embarrass him, though he was embarrassed all the same. More likely that it was some sort of coping mechanism. Like Tara insisting that Aunt Kate had become a spy. That explanation didn't account for what he thought he saw- what he felt- but it was still a lot more likely than him being a superhero and his sister having run off to space.
Or maybe it did account for it, he thought suddenly. Maybe he'd been buying into it for much the same reason, to keep him from feeling helpless again.
The real problem was that he had no idea how to handle this kind of situation. His clumsy attempt to talk to Tara when she was suffering was what had made her run off in the first place. If he made that kind of mistake again, he wasn't sure he'd be able to live with himself. At the same time, if he played along with this fantasy to the point of agreeing space travel was the answer, he'd lose the only lead he had.
The whole thing was giving him a monster headache. He massaged his temples lightly with his fingers, trying to think of what to say. Nothing he could come up with would give him the answers he needed while allowing Laney to continue the story she'd been telling him, and herself. And while he liked her well enough, he had to put Tara first.
"I'm sorry, but no. You can't honestly expect me to believe that she's in space. This whole thing is just- no. Nothing makes sense. I don't know how I didn't see that sooner, except that I must be more upset than I thought, but that's no reason to... I mean, what have I been doing?" He looked at Laney again, trying to size her up. "Have I been humoring you, or have you been humoring me? Or is this some sort of mass delusion?"
Not the most sensitive of questions. By that point he was shooting for cohesive rather than considerate, and missing both targets entirely.
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Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2014 6:08 am
Here, at last, Laney cringed away. This was one of the things you had to fear, when telling people what you were. It was one of the reasons Laney hadn't ever considered telling her parents. Sure, even if they did believe her, they'd probably try to prevent her from ever going outside again, convinced of her grand ineptitude where superheroics were concerned -- but she'd always known this was the more likely response. Laney was 'a fanciful child.' Laney had been in a coma for a year, and she just hadn't been the same afterwards. Laney was already in therapy. She'd known better than to tell her parents a thing. It was trouble enough, not being able to hide the bruises sometimes. But... she didn't understand. Kent wasn't an outsider. He was a Mercury knight. Laney had transformed for him just now, and so had he -- and she'd shown him magic, let him clearly see everything she was doing. What wasn't there to believe? What would happen if a person who discovered they were a knight simply refused to accept reality? Once you started to go down that road -- thinking you were schizophrenic, or something along those lines, and rejecting the reality around you -- was there any digging your way out? It was a dangerous, terrifying thought. And Kent wasn't her brother. She didn't have siblings, didn't know how to talk to him. Instead, Laney quailed. "Please believe me," she whispered, lacing and unlacing her fingers nervously. "Tara's my best friend, and she's not crazy. And I-i'm not crazy. And... and neither are you." Laney frowned. "It's real, I promise."
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Posted: Sat Aug 23, 2014 9:43 pm
Why, Kent wondered, were those the only two explanations that people considered? Someone was either right, or they were crazy, with no gray area in the middle. It made no sense. Because, apparently, nothing about this was allowed to make sense.
"I don't think you're crazy," he told Laney honestly. He couldn't comment on his own sanity, not when he was willing to grasp at any straw given to him. "It was a bad choice of words, sorry. But I don't think you're crazy. Just upset. Which is a natural, valid response to a bad situation, nothing crazy about it."
Unless you were so upset that you started seeing and feeling things that weren't there. That was probably a different story.
Tara, he was sure, was upset too. If she hadn't been before, she was now. "I don't think Tara's crazy either. I never have." Even when she spouted off something about UFOs or conspiracy theories. "But it's obvious that she's not okay. And I- I made it worse." That was the first time Kent had admitted that out loud, and it was to someone he barely knew. For some reason, he'd felt like he had to, like explaining his lapses in judgement would somehow make his point. His clumsy attempts at helping had only driven her away. She'd all but told him so. That was a stupid thing to do, and it made him do more stupid things. If that encounter really happened, and wasn't just some sort of hallucination brought on by stress.
Even if it was, that didn't make him crazy. Just stressed. And who wouldn't be stressed, with everything that was going on?
"I want to believe what you're telling me." At least that way, he'd know what to think. "But the world doesn't work that way. I lost track of that for a while. Doesn't make me crazy." But other things might. "It wouldn't make you crazy, either, to think that there's something fantastical at work. It even makes a certain amount of sense. I'm sure wherever Tara is, she'd love to be in space."
He attempted a smile, trying to convince Laney that he wasn't about to institutionalize anyone. Trying to convince himself that this was the truth, because it was. Even though his mind was still terribly conflicted and the disparities between what he remembered and what was possible were giving him a migraine. The smile was probably more of a grimace.
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Posted: Sun Aug 24, 2014 4:30 pm
I will seek no refuge in convention, but strive always to move forward with honor.Whatever Kent said about it, it was obvious he thought this whole thing and the people involved in it were crazy -- or else just naive. Even I'm not that naive. I'm sorry.It was like reading a children's book -- he was one of those adults who categorically wouldn't believe anything the children told him because children were unreliable and the things they alleged were unprecedented. And this after she'd shown him proof. He claimed he'd made things worse for Tara, somehow. Laney wondered if this kind of thing was how. "It doesn't just make a certain amount of sense," she hung on stubbornly. It was easy to; she knew he was incorrect here. And this was about Tara. It was so incredibly important. "It makes the only sense at all. It makes more sense than any other answer -- there isn't one. Please don't reject all the overwhelming evidence in front of you just because you've decided the world 'doesn't work that way.' You just didn't know it could work that way before."
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Posted: Tue Aug 26, 2014 3:37 pm
What followed was a noise that sounded like a cross between a wheeze and a snort, the result of Kent being simultaneously amused and offended. Amused that Laney sounded so much like Tara, saying so many of the same things. Offended that Laney thought he was being dismissive of her claims.
Hadn't he been the one who'd listened to Tara whenever she'd come up with a new theory? Their parents certainly hadn't, instead trying to guide her energy, with limited success, into other, 'more productive' channels. He was the one who stayed up all night with her, waiting for alien communications that never came. Who bought extra tinfoil at the supermarket, so she wouldn't get in trouble for using it all up. Maybe it hadn't always been that way- they'd fought a lot when they were younger, when he'd resented her intrusion and she'd envied the ten years of attention he'd gotten- but he'd made up for it, hadn't he? Comforted her when the aliens didn't show up? Told her to keep trying, even if nothing ever came of it?
Had he ever expected anything to come of it?
That was a terrifying thought, one that chased away whatever remnants of amusement were on his face. What if he'd just been humoring her for all these years? If the pep talks and pats on the back were a smokescreen, meant to hide the fact that he didn't believe in what she was talking about any more than their parents did? What did that say about their relationship?
Perhaps he was taking matters to extremes. That his actions weren't quite as bad as all that. But when faced with two options, rather than dare to believe that there was something he didn't know, he'd thought himself unbalanced instead. Because it was easier for him to accept that there was something wrong with him, rather than something new and scary about the world as he knew it. Personal problems could be worked out. The same was not necessarily true of problems on a global, or even universal level. Assuming they were problems, and not features that he just couldn't wrap his head around.
Kent pressed the heels of his hand against his forehead as he thought back to the speech he'd made to Noah, before taking the book. If- no, when- that had happened. His statements about changing the world felt empty and fake now. At his first opportunity, he'd tried to ditch the whole thing because it made him uncomfortable. It still made him uncomfortable. And Laney hadn't given him any irrefutable proof of her claims. Because if he was willing to close his eyes to what he couldn't understand, then there could be no such proof. He was the only one who could decide how to proceed.
"I always thought I was the open-minded one. Compared to most people, anyway. I told her that if she found what she was looking for, I'd be the first one to congratulate her. If. Not when." He dropped his hands, wincing a little as he moved. Coming to a decision had done nothing to ease his headache. "I thought I was being supportive, but now I'm not so sure. But if what you've told me is true, it's not too late to change that. So, uh, keep going. I promise I won't interrupt this time."
This time, if he had to choose between two impossibilities, he was going to bet on Tara. Being there for her was more important than being right. And maybe, just maybe, he'd end up being both.
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Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 5:52 am
Laney sighed with evident relief. Kent seemed to have come around, whether it had been something she'd said, or some evident revelation of his own. No matter the cause, that meant the worst was at least temporarily past. There weren't enough people in the world who believed in Tara. There weren't enough people who thought she'd hung the moon. Laney didn't want to lose her brother from that little group, and was glad to see that she hadn't. But worst of all, Tara didn't even believe in Tara anymore. And wasn't that the real problem? Laney still believed in Tara. She still believed that if there was anyone who could be given a lever with which to move the world, Tara would be the one who could find a place to stand in order to do it. But she couldn't make Tara believe in it herself. "Tara's been doing this for a few years more than I have," she explained. "Since all the Barren Pines stuff, at least. I don't really know -- I can't remember anything from then." Laney tucked a loose thread back inside the sleeve of her hoodie. "I think she's lost a lot of people. And she thinks she's some kind of a..." Laney floundered for words. "She thinks she's cursed. She thinks she is the curse. She thinks she's a failure as a hero and that's why everyone she cares about is in danger. That's... that's more or less what she told me, anyway. That's why she says she left the planet and she's not coming back."
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Posted: Sat Aug 30, 2014 7:42 pm
After coming to terms, in his own way, with the theoretical possibility of magical space travel, Kent felt like he was ready for anything. No matter what Laney told him, he was going to believe it. That was his first real step towards making things right.
But what she said didn't challenge his newly-made promise. It was painfully easy to believe, to the point that he could practically hear Tara's voice behind her words. "That... sounds about right," he sighed, burying his head in his hands. "I mean, it fits with the way she's been acting. Cutting off ties with a lot of her friends, shutting herself up in her room." When it was put that way, he could even see her hiding in space as an extension of that. What he couldn't see was a way to convince her that she was wrong.
"I knew something was wrong, you know," he added defensively, looking over the tops of his laced fingers. "I knew something was eating at her, and it didn't start overnight. But she refused to talk about it when I asked, and she never came to me on her own." He'd waited for years for Tara to open up and talk to him. Yet another mistake on his part. "So I tried to find out for myself, and when she found out what I was doing... but what was I supposed to do? Let her fight her demons by herself?" He sighed again. Just because none of his options were good didn't mean he hadn't totally screwed up. "I knew she had run off on her own. But I didn't know why."
And now he did. Sort of. He still didn't know why Tara felt the way she did, but at least he finally had an explanation for her actions.
How could he use this information to help her? At this point, Kent wasn't sure he was even qualified to decide. Beyond the fact that he'd been an idiot about all of this from the beginning, it sounded like Tara needed more help than he could provide on his own. Assuming he could provide any. It wasn't like she wanted to talk to him about any of this.
But she might feel differently about talking to Nazca.
"How do you get to this barrier place? Can you take me there?" The cogs were turning, the plan was forming, but it wasn't quite there yet.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 9:42 am
Laney shook her head. "The only place I can take other people to is my own homeworld -- it's the only place I have a direct connection to. To get to the Surrounding, you'd need..." She shifted over to Hvergelmir Squire's white dress again, then negotiated one of the stiff bangle bracelets off her wrist. Looped through the filigree, attached with delicate coppery wire, was the jade disc that Aquarius had given her. "One of these. Tara had a bunch of them up at her Outpost. She gave me this one -- but it automatically kind of -- attunes itself to your energy so you can use it. Once it's yours, it won't work for anyone else. I can get there once a week with it, though, which is actually about twice as often as I can get to my own homeworld right now. The connection these things have to the Surrounding's actually really strong." Hvergelmir passed the bracelet with the Zodiac charm on it over to Kent for his inspection. "They call them Zodiac Passports. I guess that fits as well as anything."
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 3:09 pm
The mention of homeworlds nearly sent Kent spiraling into self-doubt again. It was all too Close Encounters to be real, this was a mistake- but he'd made a promise, and this time, he was going to keep it. He bit his tongue to keep from blurting out anything accusatory, and aside from a jolt of surprise as Laney changed again, sat still while she explained.
Much as he wanted to ask how a tiny thing like that could get someone into space, he felt like bringing it up would violate his promise. If this was some kind of test, then surely he'd burned through his second chances already. All he could do was hope this was all on the level. That this decision wouldn't prove as disastrous as the others he'd made of late.
"Passports." He snorted as he examined the bracelet, clamping down on the urge to sarcastically ask if there were customs procedures in space. "So if she's not planning to come back, I can't get one the way you got yours." Not that Tara would want to give him one anyway, if she knew the truth. She'd run off to the moon, or somewhere thereabouts, to avoid talking to him about all of this. There was no guarantee she wouldn't do something more drastic if she was pushed to it.
Which meant that she couldn't know. Not until he'd assessed the situation for himself. Kent passed the bracelet back to Laney, the cogs in his brain still going around. "If you're going to see Tara again, please don't tell her about any of this. Not until I figure out how to talk to her about it myself. I mean, it feels wrong, going behind her back to find out what she's been hiding. I wanted her feel like she could tell me, but I guess that was never going to happen."
Because of the whole 'magic superhero' thing. And because he was questioning his own dependability, now that it seemed he'd been humoring her all along. No wonder she didn't want to get him involved.
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Posted: Mon Sep 01, 2014 5:42 pm
Hvergelmir slipped the bracelet back on and powered down into Laney's everyday clothes again. The whole thing hadn't made her feel any better, but she was relieved to find she didn't necessarily feel worse, either. She'd expected to -- but then, Kent was Tara's brother. He was capable of putting Tara first, at least for now. If he was going to be cross with Laney for hiding so much from him, it would at least wait till the current crisis was past. And he was a knight now. That was enough of an adjustment to have to make on its own. "Tara doesn't know I told you any of this," she affirmed. "She doesn't want my help, either. I won't mention it to her . . . if I even see her again. I've been going up on Wednesdays, just to the outside gate. I asked her to meet me there if she ever decides she's ready to come home, but . . . nothing yet. I'll keep checking." She got to her feet. "Hvergelmir Squire of the Cosmos, by the way -- if we run into each other out there and you can't use my real name. Or just Hver -- like 'hover' without the O. Was there, um -- is there anything else I can help out with?"
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