milliways_bar | (no subject)

[My AIM still hates you *sighs*]

There is a shell that drifts dowmn, gentle as a feather, to land near his breakfast plate. It's star shaped, and seems to shade from blood red at the tips to a pale, gentle pink in the center...

[OOC:better than my openning]

Even for a man born on an ocean world, this is curiously unusual. Shells normally drift only below the waves. It draws his attention up to where Rachel sits on the ceiling. Does she have an allergy to the ground?

"Rachel, my lady, what are you doing?"

[*pokes AIM* what version do you run?]

She glances down at him, certainly not disoriented by the fact that she looks up to do so, braid coiling down near past the rafters. She actually doesn't smile at first, her eyes are too withdrawn and distant to do so...

But, eventually, she focuses on the present, a single card left in her hand. "Paul" she indentified, or perhaps greeted.

"I'm...checking things...making sure I didn't miss anything important"

[i use trillian-will try aim]

Paul, in his classic devil-may-care style, climbs upon the barstool, then Bar (please don't kill him!), deftly leaps to catch on a rafter, and swings to a sitting position on another beside her. Certainly not disoriented by the fact that their chins are aimed in opposite directions.

"I would think building your cunstuction on the floor or a table would be important, but you don't seem to be having any problems with gravity."

Bar has certainly survived worse in her Time, and she is dormant now at any rate. Paul's feet may be no more than a moment in a passing dream for her now...

She shrugged slightly, continuing to defygravity in interesting ways "I'd get in people's way down there" she admitted softly. And perhaps the cards show things that may be disturbing to most. For a tarot deck, it seems rather focused on darkness and pain...

"I didn't bother you did I?"

"A welcome distraction, believe me. I take it, you've made peace with 'Bar'?"

Not having the benefit of twenty-first century Earth-style pub crawling, he doesn't know the etymology of the word, only that it refers to the entity that takes care of the patrons' requests.

"Bar and I get along, always have..." she noted absently "She mothers me,and feeds me broth...it was more the people in here that I worried about. There's few people about now though, so it's not hard to handle..."

Ah, look, a warm, upside down smile, oddly empty though. Mask-like perhaps.

"You're sober, head feeling alright?" she inquired with a touch of worry. She remembers morning afters, and she doesn't really know how time flows for him.

The drinking was some twenty-four hours ago by his clock, moreover his metabolism is keenly susceptable to suggestion. His emotions, however, aren't.

"I'm quite well. You had some hand in that, I think. It's a welcome gift, if that's true."

He notices her distance, but thinks it concentration on her task, which he finds oddly childish. Stacking cards?

"I help where I can" she waved it off. It's what she does...and there is always room for the darker emotions, a stolen drop in an ocean.

The cards are a tool, just like most other things. A window, a way to see a whole picture instead of drowning within the details. She's done the same with a handfdul of sand, and with seeds...

"I'm kinda glad you were in the mood to talk though, else I'd of offered to spar as stress relief, and then I'd have lost..." the tone is slightly teasing. She's seen him move...

"You'd have lost?" He laughs ferociously. "My lady, when I learn to fly, maybe I can win that fight."

The cards she's playing with aren't the normal variety for games. Archetypal fortune telling? The Gene Gesserit would be happy their superstitions had made it this far.

That comment gets her direct attention, a hint of an indignant spark in her eyes "That would have been cheating. It's no good to you if all I'm doing is flitting where you can't follow" she pointed out.

No, far from the normal type. Closer to story cards, most seeming to feature someone remarkably close to Rachel...Bar liked to be subtle sometimes. Other times, well...

"Cheating? There are rules in combat?" The raised brow says sarcasm.

"Tell me, what are you building?" He hasn't toyed with anything but peoples' lives in many years.

"If I'd offered to spar, Paul, it would have been for you. When you do something for another, you play by their rules, such as gravity..." When it comes to true combat though? She's cheated. Grossly.

"Just a picture, an image of what my mind is now...helps me see the cracks"

"If you sparred by the rules you think I use, that would be when you'd do me a wrong, because I need to learn, not to win. Not being held to the ground would be a great advantage, yes, but it would be instructive for both of us to find out that there were viable defenses against it, no?"

"So, the cards are a meditation tool? Should I let you concentrate?"

"You actually use very few rules, I can tell that just by talking t oyou...so maybe I'd give you a run for your money" she admitted. "But the sheer fact being I couldn't hold up physically yet would be the deciding factor." she'd be able to teach him a thing or two without flying, truth told, and there's really no limit on what she'd end up learning either...

"More a way of rising above the morass...company isalways welcome"

Morass is apt for this room. The buzz below carries with it rumors of war and romance, both.

"What do you see, then, if I may ask? Are there places inside you find it difficult to confront?" He has gazed into the Place One Must Not Go, but there are always corners that remain hidden.

She eyed the towering edifice once more, tilting her head to the side thoughtfully "Have you ever been broken, Paul?" she asked curiously.

She knows every aspect of her mind. She knows herself, she has to...but when there are pieces instead of a whole, sometimes it is hard to know when they are properly aligned and healed...

"I see a few more places that could use fixing, but at least it's whole"

Paul never knew how broken he was until he took the Water of Life and healed himself. So many times since then, he's become blinded. Now, only a small part of his mind is clear. Fortunately, it's the survivor.

"Oh, yes," flatly. "Many times, in many ways. I was born with the greater part of me hidden behind a veil. That part is hidden from me now."

"Then you know what it is like to fit the piece together" she offered softly.

"Would like to see once more?"

It is one thing, to force a mind unused to such things to see...but one who was gifted and now is not? It is healing of a sort...

What was only idle curiosity is suddenly serious (again, damn pup!). He tries to hide his instantaneous desire. Could she do what others won't?

"Lady, you don't know what you're asking."

The look she returns is sober and so seriously deep it's almost like drowning to meet her gaze. "I know what it is to be blind"

It is not cost she weighs, it is nothing in the face of helping.

Witch, the dark, distrustful side of him whispers, but he ignores it. Coming to Milliways, he was twice blind, of eyes and Prescience, but of both miraculously healed. Now she would give him back the more dangerous of the two?

"I would See again, if you can give me that." It is a master force of will that stops him from using the Voice to compell her to do it.

She has been called far, far worse than witch in her time.

He could try the voice. She may blink and feel compelled to thwap him upside the head...probably not an action the Emperor would quite believe, truth told.

"If you trust me to do so, I will do what I can."

He gives a moment to wonder what those sitting and eavesdropping below might think, and discards that as well. Let them wonder.

"If you are able, then, look inside me and find that Door that leads where none other has gone, then open it. Do not look through it, however."

If she values what sanity she holds.

Rachel knows sanity.

She knows insanity.

And in truth? She's never been the standard of sane...she cannot be, and be what she is.

At his words she simply nodded, flame blossoming along her skin in a slow wave, braid raising to dance up her back.

Then, because it helps her focus, helps her to remember that this is but a single, small life she will be washing through, she reaches out a single finger to touch his brow.

It's power sheer and engulfing. The hearts of a million stars swim in that single touch, and yet it is withheld, it does not stike his mind upon the rocky shores, but lets a single drop through to fizz along his memories and perceptions.

Like gentle fingers running along silken threads, so does she respect what ties him here...and view it. Seeing what he does not, will not, can not.

::There is a door::

There is spice

The voice is ageless and vast, a wash of eternity in a single, physical strain.

Twice now he has been touched by her, and twice, he pulled back. This time, however, there is no hesitation.

I will be free.

With that touch comes not the face and voice of Chani, for her memory and all others pale beside the need for what he once saw. What he sees now is the Door that is the beginning of all passages, all Paths. And he sees Rachel, clothed in the fire that reveals her as a being only held into one, small body by sheer will.

For him, because he asked, and because giving is her Purpose, she opens the Door.

No screams fly out, no base incriminations from the memory-lives held in check in the shadows. Only a long, unlit staircase with the faint but unmistakeable scent of cinamon.

Spice! His mind cries forth in triumph.

"There is Spice!"

From nearby, the voice of his grandfather, the bloody Baron, whispers, Yes, my boy, oce a Duke, once a Lord, do you know the myth of the Great Spice Hoard?

Then all is gone. On his brow, a tingling where Rachel's finger had been.

Where her finger had been. She is well used to people withdrawing from her, no matter their joy or sorrow. Her hand is now in her lap, her attention on the cards once more as her flame slowly slips back within.

By sheer will is an apt term...a will strong enough for even such a thing as this. Ignoring his mind now. Withdrawing. It is his and she'll not violate that.

"Yes, spice"

Such simple words; such repercussions.

A hand goes out to adjust a card in her tower, letting him settle himself...and not wanting to intrude.

He is shaken. At least, he hadn't had to relive the Spice Agony and turn the Water. Still, the deed wasn't accomplished yet.

But he knew what he had to do, and that it would be done. Of that much, at least, he was sure. So, the histories had been correct, even in the fears of his son.

"I... must get down. I must rest before..." She will know. He looks at the front Door. Now it resembles one from an empty warehouse, dusty and partly rusted, forgotten for centuries.

Tonight, he vows.

"I know"

She has never held on to anyone, for any length of time, who wished to leave. She'll not start now.

She'd wish him sweet dreams, but she knows it is a futile wish...she'd wish him peace, but sight does not allow such.

::Be careful::

It's all she can ask.

Perhaps, for a moment, out of the corner of his eye, he may see the cardsare gone, replaced by a structure of darkness and blood. Built with walls of agony and blades, of stripped skin and loss...

But he is distracted.

Slipping back down, he drops to the floor, and rights himself unsteadily.

"Thank you again," he sends back up, but is already moving for the door to the lake. A few hours of thought, maybe another short swim. There will be no sleep.

In passing, he glances at where the book and tea had been on the Bar. Both are gone, the Sanskrit epic forgotten. The wall behind shows that the cup of tea had finally emptied his tab of the deposit he had made on his first day here.

No matter. If what he saw is true, he will never have to worry about that again.