[PRP] Tetraktys Spread (Leila & Horace)

[The Semblance of Unity]

While he'd certainly seen the tea house before (how could he not with it's location next to the bookshop he loved?), Horace had never set foot inside. It had always been a haven for people who were magical and, until recently, he'd shown no signs of magic himself. He hadn't been about to invade a magical safe space with his non-magical self. But now, it was a little different. Not only was he more-or-less magically inclined, but he could finally find out what the talk he'd heard about Equinox meant. Fortunes told? Sign him the ******** up.

He poked his head in tentatively. There were people around, in seats, heads in books or teas. Horace wondered if they sold coffee. Feeling silly, he made his way to the counter.

"Um. I heard... uh, can I get a tea? And I heard someone tells fortunes and stuff..." He trailed off, feeling horribly awkward and jittery. Horace swore he could feel the static electricity rise on his skin.

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[cibarium]

"For once I actually understand the cryptic crap, wow," said Leila, wincing as if someone was shining a spotlight into her eyes. "You need to check for bedbugs next time you're at a hotel. I used to be an entomologist, so I can tell you how. Or you can Google it." With that out of the way, she took a deep breath and waved for someone to bring her a glass of water, after which her expression became a whole lot more friendly.

"Looks like you're today's lucky customer, kid. I'm the seer you were looking for, but it's mostly mundane crap like that." She offered menu. "As for tea, you'll need to be more specific. We have a lot, and I can't tell you the difference between most of them."

the semblance of unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"W-what?" Horace was beyond puzzled. Bed bugs and hotels? He looked at Leila oddly. "Um, black tea? Oh just give me anything...." Horace had zero clue about tea, but it was all just hot leaf water anyway. He preferred hot bean water.

"You mean you can't like, uh, predict stuff like tarot cards or anything?"

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"Nope," answered Leila, with all the careless charm of a diner waitress. Horace's indecisiveness had her tapping the cap-end of her pen on her notepad. She wasn't writing anything down just yet. Instead, she smiled a bit wider at her customer. "Y'know, Eve says I can kick people out 'with great vengeance' if you're just here to find the resident psychic or start trouble with magic users. Or if you're a coffee person."

the semblance of unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

Horace grinned, hiding his nervous behind it - as he so often did. "Damn, that sucks, a kid told me to check this place out for that reason. Though I'm not here for just that." He raised an eyebrow. No one would ever know exactly how many hours he'd spent just to perfect the move.

"I was told I could come her to chill with other magic types without worry." His fingers tapped the counter, subconsciously mimicking Leila's tap tap tap. "Can say I only know black, green, and chai about tea though." He shrugged.

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[cibarium]

How do you do, fellow magic user was about as undercover cop as someone could get, but since the chief of police in Ashdown was a magic user Leila wasn't concerned. "I can sign you up for a chai, then," she offered. "Which traditionally has black tea in it, but if you like things sweet there's one with all the spices in chamomile."

the semblance of unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"Traditional chai sounds alright. I'll drink anything once. Except maybe bleach." He didn't want to die right now, so Horace had some standards.

"So is it mostly just the random things you see?"

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[cibarium]

"Uhh... no... I also have the regular sight lots of people have," Leila answered. "But I'm guessing you still have questions about being magic." So she sat down across from him. "Your drink will be out here in a few minutes. Go ahead and ask."

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[The Semblance of Unity]

"I kinda figured that." He huffed out a breath that might have been a laugh. "I guess, I meant from the bits I heard that I expected a sort of tarot-y feel. Does that make sense?" Horace's mouth twisted wryly. "Well I mean it's magic so I guess none of it makes sense."

He paused. "So.... are you like... from an alternate universe, too?"

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[cibarium]

Leila slowly raised an eyebrow as Horace spoke, indicating that the tarot-y business did not in fact make much sense. She didn't do tarot at all. However, she was pretty experienced in magic and how it didn't make any sense at this point in her life, pod person or not.

"I guess you could put it that way?" she answered. "From our perspective it's more like we reset the universe and got dropped back into it after we were done." This was said way too casually, like she was answering a student's question, not like she'd accidentally wound up playing God without realizing that's what was happening until way after the fact.

"Not an experience I'd recommend. It was kind of terrifying."

the semblance of unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

He was sorely disappointed about the whole no tarot cards thing. Horace had played with them some as a pre-teen until his grandmother found his deck and burned it rather spectacularly, muttering about witchcraft. Good times. And he actually preferred thinking of them all as aliens; for some reason, it was just highly amusing.

"Like soft-resetting Pokemon to spawn a shiny." He paused. "So does that make this the shiny?" Horace thought it was alright, but alternate universes meant there were worlds that were far better, surely.

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[cibarium]

An employee appeared briefly to bring Horace his chai, along with some cream and sugar, which anywhere else might have been a little strange considering Leila had never actually sent an order in any visible fashion. Telepathic communication was proving to have a lot of perks. She already liked it more than text messaging. Sometimes she replied to texts from Jeremiah or Eve with a psychic response.

Leila had played some Pokemon in her life, but hadn't followed the franchise long enough to know what a shiny was. Thankfully, Julian did, and his past references to it enabled her to almost understand what Horace was talking about. She nodded, slowly and uncertainly. "Could be? There's less random chance involved here, I think. Come to think of it, I could probably show the differences to people who don't remember."

the semblance of unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

"But... is this the most ideal outcome?" he persisted. Horace knew Oliver wasn't entirely happy, and he wondered how many others were upset. However, he kind of both wanted his instance to be the best one, and... not.

"Or will there be another alternate universe shift or something?" Did they hop universes until they found one where everything was perfect? Horace took the chai with a distracted thanks.

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[cibarium]

"I don't know..." Leila admitted, visibly troubled at the thought. Doing it once was exhausting, and had involved accumulating a decade's worth of stress and trauma in less than a year. What would having to do it more than once do to everyone? She shook her head anxiously, deciding she didn't want to imagine. "I think it's the first time in a long time things have happened this way. There's a sigil, this magical construct made with symbols, and... okay, I need a lesson plan for this s**t. It'd a wild story."

the semblance of unity

 

[The Semblance of Unity]

He idly turned his cup around. "Well, I mean... if you happen to have time, I'd love to hear? Most people don't go into a lot of detail about it." Like it would break his brain. Pfft.

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