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 Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 9:24 pm
Here I am with a patient, and it’s starting to sound like my session… Maybe I’m in the wrong profession. Or I’ve already lost it… She hesitated in answer initially. “... Yes, I was holding something that reminded me of a fishing pole with some kind of glass bauble at the end. There weren’t any cats that I can remember.” It didn’t feel much like a hallucination, but the early years of psychology showed how accurate self-evaluation stands.
“How was he involved, and in what sense?” Finally she turned wholly toward Quenton again from her computer chair, and soon returned to her seat at the bench with avid interest apparent. “You must know something about it. What can you tell me? All previous scientific knowledge points toward impossibility - people don’t suddenly change clothes in a flash, and materialize some trinket at hand - so to me, it sounds no different than symptoms of insanity.”
“And the dreams…” A hand raised to her chest again. “I suppose renovation is a poor cover for nightmare-based insomnia.”
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Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 9:25 pm
“Is this session being recorded in any audio/visual format? If it isn’t then you should be safe. If it is, you should turn it off. “
He waited a moment to allow this if it needed to happen before continuing. “You’re most likely what they call a ‘knight’, a member of an ancient order of descendants to various ‘Wonders’. The fishing pole is the fetish that connects you to the ‘magic’ of the wonder which you bear the name of. If you don’t like ‘magic’, there are other terms you can substitute - ley, chi, or mana. If you focus on it, I think you should be able to summon it to hand from the Nowhere people involved can send things to on a whim. Unless you’ve left it at home or in a desk drawer somewhere. “
“I would suggest you try to do so, bring it here. If you focus on it, meditate on the feel of it and the power of it, you should be able to ‘transform’ into that gown again. “
“It is incredibly dangerous to reveal the magical identity to another on the off-chance they’re one of the enemy faction. Or allied with the enemy. As I said, it is a war. People die. If you’re not comfortable showing me, there are other Knights out there. “ He ran his hand in mock petting of the blanket in sad missing of Faust’s presence all over again. “If you were a Negaverse Agent, I’ve gotten the impression that it takes the presence of another agent to activate magic in another. For the Sailor Scouts, its related to the presence of talking cats. Like a fairy tale. But all quite real. “
“There’s some pacifists out there who would rather talk to each other. Who make themselves available on regular schedules- also incredibly dangerous. If I know which you are, I can try to suggest the where and when of a contact. In trying to help my boyfriend stop being a mangled creature, I’ve been trying to talk to a bunch of them. Trying to find a cure. “
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Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 9:28 pm
Avalon said much of the same. These could all be hallucinations, I know… I’ll have to see someone professionally if I want answers for that. “It vanished afterward. I don’t know where, or why.”
Annaliese pressed her thumbnail against her lower lip a moment before pursuing a different line of questioning. “If you know all of this, am I right to assume you’ve encountered something similar yourself? If it’s so dangerous to reveal who you are, in this war… I suppose you would’ve already arrange to have me killed, or attacked me, or have plans to do so later. You said I’m a Knight, so I’ve already given you that much information. I don’t think that trying this ‘transformation’ now will affect either of us much.”
Concentrating on the object reminded her of childish attempts to deduce the symbol on the back of a card to prove telepathy, or rudimentary exercises in astral projection. The whole of the event sounded fantastic to the scientific mind, a fancy so overblown that it had to qualify for a hallucination, yet she’d caught herself thinking of the strange bauble almost naturally. To do so in this instance required no great taxation on her mind, and she found little reason to avoid it. Drawing a breath, she straightened up and closed her eyes momentarily, while she remembered the feel of the rough olive wood in her hands and the thin, yet durable, line to the glass bauble. She remembered its weight, how it felt surprisingly hefty for such a small and unusual item.
And she remembered that strange phrase: Stara Maslina
As she opened her eyes, she recognized a familiar weight resting in her lap along with the sweeping brilliance of the white mermaid dress. She endured a pang of dread afterward, striking and fleeting as it was, which gave her pause before she raised her gaze to meet fire. “I’m afraid it’s not much of a fairytale.”
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Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 9:29 pm
As shimmering whites formed, replacing her workaday clothes with starlight and star-symbols, Quenton closed his eyes in brief, tired release of a tension that had been twisting tight as bow cord in his gut. She is a knight. “The members of order all seem to be dressed in predominant light colours, myriad designs. The members of chaos in dark colours- the negaverse in military themes. I haven’t seen enough of the chaos mirror senshi to know much of them. “
“You are definitely a Knight. What fairytale we are thrown into is dark like the originals gathered by the aptly named Grimms. Blood and murder, betrayal and violence. And poor heros leaving breadcrumbs and hoping not to be eaten alive. But there’s help and people who can guide you. You will want to speak with Hvergelmir, another knight. Her dress is similar to yours. At the North End Park, on a bench, after sundown on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays she’s there to talk to anyone willing. Mostly to enemies, I expect, she tries to convince them of the sickness Chaos makes. She’s a good person, gentle-hearted.”
“You can trust her. “
“You can trust me, too. As much as I have dissembled my knowledge to secondary involvement through my lover, which is truth, I too have a uniform. I cannot show it to you, not having my pen in the hospital. I’m a Sailor Scout. We transform with pens. The cats give them to us to unlock our mana flow from our homeworlds, as far as I’ve been able to reason. Likewise...as far as I can tell, the night terrors of the stone people, the pillar, the death of the city, and then strange and jumbled worse images, are happening to anyone involved in the war. “
“If you’ve had any that seemed ‘prophetic’, of some future days that loom in life, a Sailor Ida spoke to me of much the same. I haven’t slept in a manner to allow experimentation myself. Or maybe there’s some other reason I’ve not had the like. It is still new. “ He shifted on the chair, switching from hip to fold-legged. “It’s a lot to take in. “
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Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 9:30 pm
“I’ve spoken with someone else before - someone by the name of Avalon, who has mentioned much of the same to me. She said she was ‘sick with Chaos’, or something similar… I thought she might be suffering delusions at the time, but… She mentioned some kind of Wonder, and Negaverse agents, and the existence of knights and sailor senshi. That I was probably a knight of the cosmos, and that she was a knight of earth. At the time, I wasn’t sure if I was hallucinating…”
Her gaze dropped to the bauble in her lap while she listened, and an object not far from her reach caught her attention when he spoke of himself being a sailor scout. Soon afterward she seized the pen at her side and held it out to him in an offering gesture - “Here. If it helps you transform…”
“As for the dreams, I haven’t had any I would consider prophetic. Different, certainly, but there’s no evidence to suggest their future quality - no technology advances, but more… A different set of circumstances. For me, at least. More experience at this… Knight thing, and later becoming a… General? It felt like, I imagine, what a long nightmare after binge drinking might be like.” Her gaze returned to the trinket, taking the olive branch in her hands to examine more closely.
“I received my master’s in social work long before anything of this nature ever happened. I’ve always been committed to science, even as the science of the mind evolved so rapidly. So you can imagine how hard all of this is to believe - that magic exists in a world so closely founded on fact.” With a breath, she returned to thoughts of her work clothes and everyday life, before soon finding herself greeted by the same weathered grey cardigan hiding her white blouse.
“Your body doesn’t need the sleep - your mind does, however. Like I said, I can state my findings and put in a suggestion of prescription sleep aids. They typically only allow for the four stages absent REM, but it should buy a little more time to find a solution. And if the cause isn’t physical or mental… Then maybe it has something to do with, well, everything you just told me.”
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Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 9:31 pm
He took the offered pen and looked at it long and hard as she spoke. There was something so incredibly innocent, something so wholly faith-having in exactly fairy tales that would thing the base logic that any pen would do to serve the magic. Avalon. Sick with Chaos. A purification. And your dreams of becoming a General yourself? Ominous. But what to do with it all at the start. We must walk before we can run. “I wish any pen would do. I don’t actually know if knights can transform without their item to hand or not. I just guessed that it must be a part of it for you. I must have my pen, one that is somehow connected to my asteroid and my mana. It looks like a Claire’s Boutique bargain bin thing for middle schoolers. The cats, Mauvians, manufacture them somehow. If you want to see me transform, I can try to get a hold of my cat. My pet cat. Its his cover story. But he could break into my office and get my pen. My cell phone is at home, since I could call that from the office if I needed something. But there’s no guarantee he’s home. “
“And you’d have to smuggle him into the office up the elevator. But if it puts you at ease, and you have a phone, I’m willing to try.”
“As far as magic goes, the hyper-rationalist framework that relies on materialist, purely scientific views and a process of elimination is a way to start. The rule of thumb for that was established long ago, as well as the process of elimination from a list of possible diagnosis. ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’ Physicians used to believe in bleeding humors to cure sickness- consider ‘magic’ and its terminology the beginning pseudoscience. The alchemy to a later, formal chemistry, if you will. “
“The surety is that it will not go away. The tiger in the forest doesn’t need us to believe its there to still eat us. “
“As for medications, I just really….really want to sleep. Without dreams. To sleep at some length. “ Quenton brought hand up to cover mouth, rubbing over the skin of chin, lips, cheeks, and back down to jaw and away in some expression of exhaustion. “If it buys time, and I can focus again for more than a couple hours at a time on anything, I can be more useful. “
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Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 9:31 pm
Annaliese laughed at the notion of smuggling a cat into the office, hoping that no dander dislodges to set off allergies, or that the cat doesn’t wriggle terribly in her purse. The whole of the idea sounded positively asinine, despite the ties to magic, and even with Quenton’s information, she couldn’t imagine a talking cat. It sounded… Much like a sleep-deprived fancy, now that she thought about it. “That’s not going to be necessary. I’ve got a busy schedule for the rest of my day, and I can’t spare the time to bring your cat here, sorry.” She tried not to laugh, but the smile showed easily enough. It was cute to think about, at least.
“I’ve managed transformations without this… Thing,” she responded, gesticulating the general size and shape of her weapon. “As you saw earlier. It just… Happens, I guess.” She yawned deeply, mumbling apologies afterward. “If you’re so involved in the war, it seems to me that the enemy should be looking for these pens first and foremost, or the cats that make them. You must keep it - and him - safe, then. Did he make your pen?”
Years from now, a scientist will look back at this point in time and consider one school of science or another to have completely missed the mark - much like using asbestos or cinnabar for treatments. Maybe I’ll look back on this moment years from now and have a laugh at my own skepticism.
“I’ll see what I can do for sleep. Dr. Greenleaf is a good friend of mine, and usually receptive to my suggestions. I’ll show him your case and see if he won’t see you to prescribe a sleep aid - even if it takes a cocktail of them.”
“Thank you for your help today, Quenton. And I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help to you.” She leaned forward as she spoke to emphasize her seriousness on the matter. “And if the medications don’t help, you might consider finding a magical means of helping you sleep.”
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Posted: Sun Nov 16, 2014 9:33 pm
A point of difference interest and information that was helpful about knights- they could transform at will. Or at something. Senshi should be so lucky. The hows and whens of the magic should have been more of a point of interest, but he couldn’t manage more than adding a mental post it to the idea in hopes of later being able to come up with more than just ‘huh, that’s interesting’ on the subject. “No, a different Mauvian called ********* provided my pen. She belongs to a team, or they to her, of senshi. In my experience, yes, going after the Mauvians would be a more efficient way to curb the scouts. Our enemies have not seemed to come to that conclusion. Maybe none of them are deer hunters. “
He switched the pen from its hold in right hand to left to offer it back to her, “Thank you, Ms. Gibson. For your trust, and your open mind in listening. Please feel free to contact me in the future if you need, and please do look up Hvergelmir. She is a Squire of Cosmos, one of your specific order. “
Which was an end to it, really. He set the blanket aside again and folded. Stood. Another blessed walk and dour wait being constrained to the wheelchair for a while. To the Bed. To the damnable hospital in general while they toyed with possible meds, no doubt. There was a phone in his room. Maybe he could at least just call Faust on his own to just hear the grumpy a*****e complain at the receiver. I wish someone could bring him. Smuggle him in in a duffle like just a delivery of different clothes. I just want my cat. I want to sleep and I want my cat.
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