The Stage Is Set

Nighttime over Alexandria, and the moon is high and full. The day has been balmy and clear, and the night has become just on the comfortable side of cool. In short, it has been the kind of weather that most people love, and poets despise; a calm, idyllic spring day, free of blemish or drama.

In the tavern below, the night's merriment has rambled to a close, the evening's cleaning finished, and the doors locked until the morrow. Quiet has descended over the TaRaCe, as the tavern hunkers down for the night.

But in Sabina's room, a lamp remains lit, for sleep is difficult to find.

The room is as tiny as she remembered. Just enough space for a cot, a chair and a small desk. Her pack tucked under the cot for the time being. Having been so long on the road the idea of unpacking it seems far more strange then it should and so she's left it.

Memmories of helping to make the TarRaCe and then her time running it are all too easy to summon up here. Thoughts with inevitably lead to the reasons she left.

She makes her lips curl into a smile dispite those memmories and hums softly to herself, trying to find something else to think about.

It's the kind of thing that philosophers and arcanists can talk about endlessly; why is it, that the more one tries not to think of something, that think looms ever larger in the thoughts?

The connection has remained, active and persistent, and over the months Sabina has felt a thrumming of emotion now and again, as if hearing a familiar voice over a distant hill. But little more than that, and one gets the feeling that it's deliberate.

That, after having upended Sabina's life, Rupi is trying to have as little impact as possible as she tries to sort out her own place in this new, hostile world.

For her part, Sabina has shared her emotions to the link. Not that she would know how to shield herself from it. They hadn't had the time to learn. And that thought causes a pang of sorrow to well up strongly. She pushes it back down and keeps her smile in place. One must always smile, Sabina. Always.

She reaches up to touch the upper portion of her face, almost expecting to find her missing mask there. The feel of digits touching cheek startles her still. She finds herself wondering if Rupi has sold it off to make her way or if she's wearing it and masquerading as Sabina. It wouldn't be the first time. They both agreed that Rupi should stop that particular action. But that was while she was in the city here. There are all sorts of needs and situations out there in the world beyond the walls.

Still humming she draws her knees up to her chest on the cot, eyes checking on the sleeping form of Emp not but a arms length away.

She blinks slowly. Has her link been open all this time? It is perhaps like the link of a mage and a familiar? That link she knows well.

Reaching out mentally she touches the connection, or tries too. Sending a questioning thought. "?"

GAME: Sabina rolls know/planes: (6)+know/planes: 6

GAME: Sabina rolls knowledge/planes: (18)+knowledge/planes: 18

GAME: Sabina rolls knowledge/the planes: (9)+8: 17

It's not... quite... the same. Rather, the link is similar in some ways, but in the way that perhaps the familiar might experience such a link; a tether to a being greater in scope, power, and imprint than one would reasonably be able to achieve in one's lifetime.

In other ways, however, it's quite a different thing. Being on the 'small' end of the tether, a simple, unformed question is not nearly a thought powerful enough to catch the 'currents' and reach the other side. THere's simply too much interference, mental, mystical, and otherwise, in the waking world.

As Eluna hangs silvery bright, visible through the small room's one window, standing watch over the dreaming minds, a thought bubbles to the surface of Sabina's mind.

If the waking world is too loud, busy, and crowded... What of the dreaming lands?

Sabina has had her share of dreams, both real waking world and while asleep. She ponders this new line of thinking. It's a suject she knows little about. There are spells, of course, to put one to sleep or to send someone dreams. But she's not learned much about the dream lands themselves. Where all dreams come from and end.

Her toes wriggle into the covers on the bed and she tries to recall what exactly she does know. If it were as easy as falling asleep then she'd likely have made contact in the past already. Her thoughts never stray too far from Rupi for long. Never more then a ten day for certain. Her desire to speak with Rupi would likely influence her dreams but real conversation is not something she's had in the past. That she remembers anyway.

It's a pretty puzzle, to be sure.

How does one influence a dream, when one's conscious mind is set adrift in the first place? How does one give direction to a drifting mind?

The lamplight flickers as a passing breeze curls into Sabina's apartment, carrying with it the scents of the city. Nearby flowers, the last vestiges of cooked food, a sour thread of spilled beer--

--and for just a moment, a faint curl of pipe tobacco.

Scent has always, ever, been deeply linked to memory.

And thus do memories begin to surface of the Temple, and Sabina's time as an acolyte. Of just beginning to learn Tairen's mysteries.

Ahh pipe smoke. The memmory of Darden's pipe smoke makes her smile in truth though her face never changes outwardly. The handsome lucht who found her after the strangers came and murdered her parents. How calm he was as he coaxed her out from under the wagon and the concealed comparment. His smile warm and kind. How he tried to ensure she didn't look back at momma and poppa. 'Just look my way, lass. That's a fine a girl. Come walk with me, eh?'

She giggles, eyes going to the window where the smells come from.

How lucky she was to have met Darden. The Lucht a wonderer and a priest of Tarien. He'd helped her get what little things she had to take from the wagon and took her away. It was he who taught her to smile again and what a wonderful thing smiles could be. A few years later he left her at one of Tarien's more grand temples to recieve the last of her training. The formal parts. Ahh how she missed him. And truth be told the temple as well.

It was in those final days of learning that she started talking to Tarien's statue. No mater the temple she would stop and have a chat with him. Listening and making conversation with the icon that didn't answer back. Not audibly anyway. And oh the stares she would get! The memmory of some of those concerned faces causes her to laugh still. And warm her heart that folks still stop to care.

Laughter, merriment, have always been cherished by followers of Tairen. But behind the laughter, there was always the lessons. Ever has Tairen sought to couch truth in the absurd, to make lessons out of misfortune, for the trickster has always couched truth behind jokes.

Sometimes, those truths are sweet things, that laughter is needed only to sand away the burrs that keep them from fitting in the mind. Sometimes, though, the truth is a bitter pill, and a touch of the absurd is necessary to make it palatable at all.

And the truth is, for all that she may be back home... She cannot, is not allowed to, return to the Temple where she served so faithfully. And she cannot do this, because of the very link she just tested. Because of who Rupi *is,* not who she wanted to be.

But is it a bad joke, or is it simply one she does not get?

What would Darden have thought, of this quest to give humanity to the inhuman? Mortality to the immortal?

The memmory of her mentor that day. Not too long before he dropped her off at the temple. A fine Fall day. Warm with a chill breeze. Leaves falling around them where they had stopped on the road. Darden's face a mask of fright and worry with a touch of anger.

"You can't make everyone smile, Sabby! It's not possible! The other emotions of the soul won't allow for it. The true smile is that which leaks from the soul, girl. Shown to all the world around you and lifting up those in need. You can't make people smile through their pain or mental hurt. Or their anger for that matter!"

Oh how she's laughed. Laughed until tears streamed down her face. How she's leaned over and cupped his cheeks in both hands and kissed him and whispered, "I bet I can." And how he'd weeped then and fallen quiet as they continued on the road.

She can imagine his reaction would be close to that if heard of Rupi and their connection. But also perhaps he'd hold a bit of pride as well. That she'd even attempt to redeem a demon at all. The absurd notion so very worthy of a laugh.

And, Sabina would learn, Darden was right to be angry then. Sabina would learn of the balance that must be walked, of the pitfalls of forced laughter. Joy may be the ideal, but it could never, *can* never be permament in a mortal heart. Every light must cast a shadow, after all, and an unceasing light gives rise to unwavering darkness.

Another breeze finds its way through a seam in the lampglass, curling just right to snuff out the little flame in its heart. And as the flame dies, and the room now lit only by silvery moonlight, a final memory surfaces; of the day of Sabina's Pact.

She sighs and aknoeledges that making people smile is so very hard at times. But she still tries. Smiles are what saved her after all.

She statles as the light goes out and then chuckles at herself. She looks around the room. This very room where she farmed the pact with Rupi. The succubus so lost and in pain at having lost her connection to her planar place. How they'd talked about what the rules were going to be. How Sabina told Rupi she desired nothing from the succubus other then her smile and her not harming people in the city unless attacked first. Rupi's request was only to stay with Sabina and learn of the depths of the mortal world in things not involving sex and betrayal. How each had taken turn under the needle of the other intention becoming tattoo that formed the mark of their link.

The link seems to heat with that memmory. The sexual feelings that tried to flood through while Rupi marked her. How she staved them off with laughter. And Rupi's tears that she tried to hide as the human emotions were sent back to her as the link was finished.

They lay down together in the cot, still clothed, quite and calm. Each feeling the link. Rupi's first to a mortal. And of course Bina's first ever.

"Why do you never ask me to join you in bed, Bina?" Sabina smiles at the moonlight and rembers her answer as if she'd just spoken it. "Because that's what they wanted you to do. Perhaps forced you to do. I just want you to be free. Truely free. And make your own choices about what you wish to do."

It's interesting, isn't it? The concept of freedom. When a person is free of all bonds, duties, obligations, the first thing they *do* is find something to bond them to. In that, at least, perhaps Rupi isn't *much* different from a mortal; cut off from her home, she seeks a means of binding herself to this plane. That it's *necessary* to continue living...? Doesn't make it any less of a fetter.

All beings, in the end, are slaves to survival.

And with this thought, those memories, swirling in her head, the night claims victory over consciousness...

And between one slow breath and the next, Sabina finds herself standing, on a vast plain lit only by an impossible number of stars. The air smells heavy with burgeoning rain, and the distant grumble of thunder wars with the more present creaks and buzzes of night-time insect life.

Then, from no particular direction, a series of yips swirl out of the starlit air.

Laughing?

Mocking?

Mourning?

Warning?

Welcoming?

Within the dream Sabina closes her eyes and breathes in deeply of the night air, tasting it on her tongue. The yips and sounds scare her at first. Humans being afraid of that they can't see and don't understand. But as they continue she settles down her heart and trieds to call forth a simple light spell. One shielded in her hands.

"Hello?" She says into the night. "Where am I?"

The dreaming world has its own laws of reality, it seems. When Sabina reaches for the power to fuel her spell, be it ever so simple, the mana just--

--isn't there. It's like reaching for your keys in the dark, and bumping your hand on the wall.

And the yips come faster, and now *definitely* sound like laughter. A rapid-fire

YIP YIP

YIP YIP YIP

YIP YIP YIP YIP YIP

that eventually just devolves into a wild cackle.

A brisk wind sweeps around the plain, bending the grasses in a skirling, swirling motion, picking up leaves and errant twigs and blades of grass as it leaps and frolics over the dreaming plain.

<< A light in the darkness, >> mutters a voice, << when all other lights fade? >>

The laughter returns, sweeping around and behind and above Sabina, carried on the wind.

<< Oh little dreamer, how can you hope to spark light with such frail tinder? >>

Sabina smiles as she does for almost every occasion. "How can you spark a light without hope?" She asks the voice in the dream, her sleeping mind still not understanding what is real and what is not.

"And frail tinder is better and then no tinder at all?" She stands still and does not try to reach for another spell.

"My I ask who you are? Where I am? Without the light to see I am forced to use senses other then sight. And humans are limited in that reguard. And so many others."

<< She may! >> cackles the voice. << She may open and close her mouth, and push air into words! Even in this dreaming plain, there are no muzzles to bind her actions! >>

With a merry hoot, the wind leaps upward, clattering and rustling and full of debris...

And the stars begin to follow in its wake. Tugged along in the wake of such a sprightly breeze, the glittering jewels that lit the sky tug, and pull, and clump. It's as if the heavens are a massive, dense thicket of burr-weed, and the laughing wind a dog gamboling through it.

And, indeed, the shape the stars begin to describe is canine... after a fashion. But long and sinuous, as much weasel as dog...

And the being continues to sweep and dance and roll among the stars, eventually picking out the shape of long, long limbs, ending in ridiculously tiny paws.

<< A light without hope? Ask the lightning! Ask old Storm-Crow what he hopes for! But ask him from under very thick stone! >>

Sabina's smile widens as the night comes to life as something other and yet seemingly familiar. She settles down to the ground and sits on her heels. A laugh escapes her as the being dances. "With all due respect I think I'll decline from asking him. I'm sure I won't like the answer very much." ,she giggles.

"Are you perhaps Tarien or one sent by him? Or maybe you are in disguise and seek to lead me astray. But then I'd just likely be dead instead of watching you dance, I'd think."

<< Tairen! >> laughs the starlit wind. << A name to conjure by! The Bard King! The Trickster, the Singer, the Oat-Meal Flinger! But this breeze would never presume to puff so mightily! No, little dreamer, insects as you or I are too fine to partake of the gods' notice. But what a fine disguise it would be, yes? >>

Enough stars stick to the creature's head, to pick out details, and--

--well--

--it's *like* a coyote, in the same way that a cloud is *like* a teddy bear. Ears that come to points, twice as tall as the head that holds them, a muzzle nearly as long as the ears are tall, and streaked by stars and nebulae, split by a grin that could be nothing more than an enthusiastic smear of jewelled paint.

But where its eye should be, is naught but a hollow void. No stars light those depths, and finally its sinuous windings end in a spiral that pours it back down onto the grass, that impossible head looming *uncomfortably* close.

<< But why would this one lead a little dreamer astray, I wonder? What could be gained from such a morsel? >>

Sabina leans back, likely to gain some space and to get a better look at this creature. "All sorts of creatures and beings lead one astray. To hunt and feed. To gain a secondary goal. For fun and sport. To teach. As for why you would want to do any of those things to me I can not guess. But I seem to be at your mercy." She grins again, "That said, I do like your smile. It reminds me of something..someoen. I just can't seem to remember."

She settles down and back from her heels to her rump before speaking again. "If you aren't Tarien then you must have another name that you are called. Unless you can't tell me because you are Fae of some sort? I am guessing you already know mine."

<< Names, >> the creature laughs. << Names! Fae jester I am not, but they *do* teach mortalkind a valuable lesson! >> Rearing back, the creature spreads its front paws, reaching up to the dark-smudged sky. << Never offer your name, or something greater than you *might take it.* >>

Falling back, it rolls around in giggles for a moment. << But mortals need names! They name every leaf and bug and cloud, for without names, is a thing a thing? I am! I am a thing! >>

Twisting up to its feet, the creature winds around Sabina, somehow stretching far enough to coil itself twice, and yet leave Sabina standing in a ten-foot circle of brightly lit grass. << I am a thing, and if a name you need... I would be very pleased if you call me He-Who-Knows-What-He-Did. Because I do, oh, I do know what I did! >>

Bina finches back and then forward as the creature wraps around her space, cutting her off from escape. At least now there is some light, though.

"He-Who-Knows-What-He-Did. A pleasure to meet you. And you're right. Humans and other races tend to name everything. Afix it or try to afix it in some sort of catagory. To understand what they're interacting with. A strength and a weakness both." She cants her head to one side and looks at where the creature's eyes should be. "What is it exactly that you did?"

<< NOTHING! >> the creature shrieks, falling into gales of laughter, its sinuous body rippling all along the coils that light the grass. When it finally recovers its mirth, it raises and twists its head, staring at Sabina upside-down.

Which makes it very, very difficult to tell if its upturned, toothy mouth is a grin, or a frown.

<< Or did I? She thinks perhaps I lie, so... maybe? Do I? Am I a liar, little dreamer? Will you spin a new existence for me, also? Knowing nothing of what came before? >>

Bina startles and blinks at He-Who-Knows when the roaring laughter takes place. She waits for him to settle down and gets wide eyed as he presents his head upside down. She has to fight the urge to try and turn her head to the side to make the sight more normal.

"Everyone has done /something/ unless you were nothing until I met you just now. And since you met me you've confused me, startled me, made me laugh and worry about my safety." She coughs and looks him in the eyes again.. "Would you explain what you mean by spin a new exhistance?"

<< You are mortal, little dreamer, >> the creature says with almost patronizing fondness. << There is no greater humor under the stars, than to watch a mortal try to think like a spirit. Your eyes cross so adorably, >> he snickers. << But... yes. Yes perhaps I shall. Perhaps I must. But explaining is *boring,* so boring. Ah! I shall tell you a story! Mortals *adore* stories, and you are mortal! Perfect! A story of stories! >>

As he draws his head, his front legs are suddenly a much more reasonable distance down his neck, and he crosses them with a cat's dignity.

<< There once was a man. ...There once were *many* men, it's true, but also there was *this* man. And there was no joy in his heart, for the story he had told himself was, all other men sought only to trick him, deceive him, steal from him. This man had much that mortals value, it's true! So the story of his world, of all that he could see, was that the things that he claimed as his, he could trust. And the things he did not claim, oh... those were the *worst* things, for if he allowed them to, they would rob him, hurt him, call him such names! This was the story he told himself, and he told it to himself for years upon years! Every other mortal he met, he would be sour to, and miserly, and *small.* >>

He-Who-Knows-What-He-Did lowers his head, hunching his shoulders as he casts an exaggeratedly worried look to Sabina.

<< And then the people began to call him such names! His story was true all along! *All along!* They found ways to inflict small hurts, small indignities, and oh! Oh, how the man spoke true! *Even more* meanness he must visit upon the people, to keep them in line! So make the true story a *good* true!* And then... oh little dreamer, then things began to *vanish* from his keeping. Oh oh oh, how the story was true! How the story was *always* true! Because a mortal man spoke the story into being! And a mortal man *decided* it was true! >>

The priestess magi has to smile when she's given the sad patronizing look but listens intently to the story all the same. She nods at the correct parts and tsks as the protagonist is stolen from. She then shakes her head a few times before saying,

"That is an interesting story, sir. I have the feeling that it's told from only one viewpoint. And that were another to speak the story it would reviel new 'truths'. My first teacher told me to not jump to conclusions but instead think for myself. That's worked out fairly well for me despite myself being foolish and mortal. One of his favorite sayings is, 'The truth is like a slipery fish. Every time you think you have a hold of it it slips through your grasp.'"

Sabina looks at the spirit creature and shrugs, "Just because I speak a thing does not make it true. Nor just believeing it. It's when I have faith that it becomes real. But usually only to me. Others have their own truths. So I don't see how I can assist you."

<< Assist? Assist? >> Once more the creature's body ripples with mirth. << Oh little dreamer, you listen but do not hear! How delightful! The story has a *moral,* you see, and the moral is 'Be careful what stories you tell, for if you tell a story convincingly enough, it *becomes* truth. It was this very story that led me to you, after all! >>

Somehow, the grin grows wider, ever wider.

<< A thrum upon the ether do I sense, oh! I follow the direction it goes, and, oh, *oh!* There I spy a demon who makes play that she is mortal! She *tells herself this story,* of mortality! And so I must, I *must,* I must meet this teller of tales, this *writer of realities,* and I must see! And I do, I do! He-Who-Knows-What-He-Did *knows what you did!* >>

And the laughter returns, the creature's starry form practically *drumming* against the ground.

<< But do *you* know? Was it a-purpose, or a-meaning? Do *you* know what you did? >>

Sabina's smile fades into a frown for the first time as the being brings up Rupi into his conversation.

"I know what I /think/ I did. The outcome of my actions I don't yet know. I've been away from whom you are speaking of for a good span of time. A good span of time by mortal senses that is." She sighs and finds her smile again. "So. What is it that you know I did. Specificly."

And the mirth fades away, but the grin remains, and barely-concealed amusement quavers through the thing that serves as its voice. << When one tells a story that is not true, many things can happen, but two, yes, two are of the most immediate importance; will the story that is not true, be unmasked, and shown to be untrue? Or will the mask become the face, and the story be *made* true? >>

The creature leeeeans back down, head so large now that *one* of its empty eyes could swallow up the whole of the priestess. << The Bard King watches from on high, so high that he sees *all* shows, *all* stories, and cannot pay his heed to any one. He-Who-Knows-What-He-Did *likes* this story, little dreamer. He finds it *engrossing.* >>

There is a sense of motion without movement, and the stars zip past, the blank eye *swallowing* Sabina, and carrying her down into its depths.

There is an instant, half a heartbeat of time, where Sabina looks up, looks back, and sees a *seam* between the place where the stars end, and the eye begin.

Almost as if it were a mask, over an empty face.

<< And it is from the *close seats* that I shall watch. >>

• CRACK!*

Just above the TaRaCe, in the time that Sabina slept, rain-heavy clouds have gathered, and one singular, close snap of lightning heralds a sheeting downpour.

Bina startles awake, finding herself covered in a sheen of sweat from her near nightmare and dream. She sucks in a large breath and lets it out, sitting up from the bed and looking out the window to the storm.

She tries to play out the dream again in her mind. Fighting the fuzziness that often accompanies waking. She takes a moment to offer up a prayer to her God, asking for his guidance and mercy before getting to her feet and moving to the window to take in the air from the storm and cool off.

"The close seats. Does that mean I'm on the stage? Or that I'm in the cage?" She looks up into the storm again. "Where are you Rupi?"

Behind Sabina, there's a metallic *clink* of an object falling to the floor.

When Sabina turns to search out the source of that noise, a flash of lightning glints off of a curved, exquisitly-wrought plate of mythril.

...Well.

• Half* a plate of mythril. The mask seems to have been snapped down the middle, but there is no mistaking what it is, and who last it was given to.

And as Sabina is trying to make sense of the object being *here,* and *broken,* there is a voice in the back of her mind, distant and weak.

(( ...Sabina? ))

...

.....

...

(( I think I need your help... ))