This is for adding a Search Category to the thread.
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Striking Looks
Presence
Fame
Gnosis
Eyes narrow at the old guy, trying to figure him out. It seemed obvious he knew Avis, though how he knew her she had no clue. Though, they were back in Time, he very well could be someone from her past.
And she'd love some coffee right now anyways.
"Yeah, coffee defiantly sounds great." the caffeine would help her brain work a little better. This whole going back in time was weird.
"Huh?" she asks to Strix, eyes shifting to where he might have been looking.
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Before Strix could tell them if he'd spotted their quarry or not, before the Distinguished Old Man could talk about where they were going next, Avis was off, sprinting after the kid. He was fast, darting around people, ducking down another alley, clearly used to having to run to survive. But a kid could only be so fast, and soon Avis' hand was closing around his arm, pulling him back into a bear hug. The kid struggled, kicking her shins, scratching her arms, wriggling like an eel, but Avis didn't let go. Instead she held him tight, and spoke into his ear, uttering the words that she hoped would help him, somehow, find a better life. She knew he wouldn't hear them know, but he would remember them later. She would make sure of it. Her Will acting like a brand, she burned the words into his mind.
"Conflict will not break me. Conflict helps me learn. Conflict helps me grow. Always, I grow. And I will not be fooled by lies. I will ask questions. I will find the Truth. Because I have value. I have love. I have compassion. I will make the world better."
She wanted to give him more than just this. She wanted to help this child find safety, find love, find a better life. She wanted to do so much more, but she couldn't. She wasn't from this time, she couldn't stay in this time. She couldn't waste time. All she could do was try to give the child this message, and hope that he'd learn from it. Hope that it would nourish him, and help protect him.
Years later, she would check on him. Years later, she would see if her message was worth it...
Years later, she'd see the cost of leaving such a message stuck in a child's mind, the cost of burning words into another's memory, the cost of what she had done...
For now, she let the child go. Her message sent, she let the child run on, to whatever was in store for him.
Then, she returned to where she was supposed to be, returned to the others, and whatever fate had in store for them...
...and Cunanan.
2 successes, Pefect Mnemonic
On resisting targets, Perfect mnemonic subtracts resolve (and comp with house rules). Also, it talks about giving mortals the fixation derangement, but Avis don't know that. Yay Hubris.
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Avis already knew what happened to the boy.
And she suddenly knew she knew when she released him and he turned back to look at her while running. Yellow streetlights silhouetted a chin just a little too long. They lit up eyes that were as dark as night in the shadows but seemed to scintillate between blues and greens in the light.
Eyes that would look for and See Truths.
Eyes that had snuck peeks at her across theater rooms and restaurant tables and Consilium halls and had seen...
...and still saw...
...the love of his life.
Rules Note
Last edited by West; Feb 21st, 2017 at 10:10 AM.
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Presence
Distinctive Voice
Status
Allies | | With the Sybil's icy rain, and salty sea taste spattering across her face Tuesday held zero surprise for Avis bolting after Not-Actually-My-Little-Bro-Tommy.
The Unicorn rocks on her heels and clicks her tongue. Avis will be back. Whenever Her and NotTommy finished up with whatever icy rain and salty sea was. Tuesday would smile at the old dude and not move. Well nothing other them the rocking and the tongue clicking. Tuesday knew Avis would be able to get to where the Unicorn was. Probably. Since. Christmas Pressy. But. When she didn't have to?
So waiting. And rocking. And tongue clicking.
Then Avis. With a Look upon her face. Tuesday really wanted to poke at it. Metaphorically. With words and not a finger. Since Look. But. On The Job. So instead of poking hazels turn to the old dude.
"Coffee?" a promise was a promise, and they'd probably already lost that oil slicked chameleon in the crowd. The needed to regroup, and figure out where the fuck he went. Which she might be able to Time. But if all else fails they could head to where wikipedia says that he 'died'.
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Strix' eyes can't seem to catch a hold of the face. It's a face in a crowd, across a street filled with moving cars and people. But it might have been.
"I can't believe it. Never thought..."
The salt chill doesn't fade with Avis' departure. But if Tuesday looks down the alley, she might see whatever it was trying to form and collapsing turn into silvery lattice-work. The old man is smiling, grinning, with a chuckle. He might even have given Faye a speculative look.
"Never thought I'd see you again. Any of you. You don't know, do you? A while back I took the name Peter Cartright."
He paused, like a master raconteur delivering a punchline.
"But in about twenty years, you'll call me Arthur."
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"I saw someone that might be him." He clarified, letting a scowl get onto his face when he couldn't actually find the man again in the crowd. "If it was him he was staring at—"
Strix stopped speaking when the older man's words sunk in, making his eyes snap away from the crowd on the other side of the street and onto Peter Cartright. Or, as he knew him for a short while, Arthur. The Arthur that disappeared on the Titanic, no one of the group back then knowing just what happened to him. Now, it seemed like, they did.
Absentmindedly, he finished his previous sentence. "—him." Him being Cartright. Arthur.
Which shouldn't surprise anyone, seeing as Cunanan had gone and edged the name into the wall of his lair. Very subtle.
This was one of those moments where he could understand just why people in tv shows always called time traveling headache inducing. While he didn't have one, it probably was only a matter of time to properly form. He resisted the urge to rub his forehead.
Strix glanced back over to the other side of the street, contemplating going to the other side but figuring that wouldn't really achieve all that much. Confronting Cunanan now wouldn't help much, what with all these Sleepers and cops around.
"I guess that explains where you vanished to," he said to him, then glanced at his fellow time travelers — wasn't Arthur one as well, technically? Sort of? Headache. Inducing. — giving a shrug. "I heard mentions of coffee, yes? Perhaps we should...get that. Catch up on old and new times?"
If Arthur/Peter Cartright was Cunanan's target, having found him by chance — or Fate's design, whatever — could only be to their advantage. They just had to keep him alive.
And not lose him.
Again.
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Striking Looks
Presence
Fame
Gnosis
And then Avis runs after the kid. She hated to admit it, but nothing the Warlock did surprised her anymore.
Wait?! Arthur?! Ladder Arthur? Just what the hell was going on here?
Her eyes did widen in surprise, "Well, doesn't really explain it." she points out. Not really understanding what was going on. Unless Arthur came back in Time on his own to try and fix...alter...do something. "But, yeah." looking around, "Maybe that coffee and like he said, get caught up."
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Even from before the moment Avis had stepped into the portal, the taste of long steeped rage and horror had clung to her throat like the taste of ash from her cigarettes, and everything had looked as bleak as if she'd been starting through a pall of smoke. But for a moment, in that alleyway, she'd seen something beautiful. More beautiful than she could ever describe.
It felt like she'd been washed by a warm, gentle rain, cleansed of the ash, and the pall of smoke. And, for a moment, all she wanted to do was to cry, to release that warm, insistent pressure that had suddenly bloomed inside her chest, and to linger in that moment of realization at what she'd done...
But she couldn't. She couldn't waste the time, not when the spider was still on the loose, and so she convulsively swallowed, and forced herself to walk back, struggling to balance the feeling of fragile awe, and the Will to fight.
She got back just in time to hear the revelation, to hear Cartright reveal his true identity...
"Arthur," Avis breathed, taking a step toward the older man.
"Arthur," she said again, stepping forward to place a hand on his arm, "there's a Scelesti trying to kill you."
Now it made sense. Now the circle had closed.
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Presence
Distinctive Voice
Status
Allies | | The revelation was like a sucker punch.
Tuesday stood there gaping.
She worried herself sick. Long nights spent wondering just why the Clock hadn't brought Arthur back. Her understanding of Time had grown and still she couldn't unravel the secrets of the Clock and just why it had left the Obrimos to drown as the Titanic sank...worried that as different souls joined the Away Team they'd be left to die, left to wander in the Time not their own...but standing right there was Arthur. Avis unusually soft and somber as she reaches for him and tells his the horrifying fate that, if they failed, awaited him.
"Not if we have anything to say about it." hazels locked onto the once member of Vee Tee. "And we have plenty to say about it."
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West liked this post
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"Time and Forces just don't mix."
Arthur smiled, but there was a flicker of memories in his eyes. Of being pulled, but anchored by the weave of the storm he'd conjured and held. The confused panic of realizing he was alone, and then wondering if he'd be one of the Titanic's victims. But he'd had the conviction of the Precept of the Star. His was not die that night.
"All right, this way," he pointed to a sleek Maybach parked in the VIP area. A token of knowing. Knowing that funny sounding names like Xerox or Eastman-Kodak or Dell or Microsoft or Apple would be worth investing in. "Avis?" He looked down at the hand. Someone's feeling awfully sentimental. He didn't remember the Arrow as touchy-feely. "Aren't they always?"
He laughed, and nodded to Tuesday as he led the way to his car. Plush.
"Is that why you're here?" he asked once they'd gotten inside. "I'm not one to complain but there were some pretty hairy moments during World War II that I could have used a hand."
It was a stark reminder that their once contemporary had lived through... everything. Brash swagger had aged like a fine port to a serene confidence that Cartright exuded like a warm blanket on a cold night.
"But it's not surprising. It took me a long time to work it out. What I knew of Sacramento from the Ladder's histories and then I realized what was happening. Or going to happen, or needed to happen." The car glided through the night as he spoke with a soft, rich voice. "Around 2008, West kills Niles Plotski, but not after Niles starts the Doomsday Clock. That's going to create a temporal... anomaly... in Sacramento. We'll use that anomaly to build our Clock. We, as in Tyria and West. Soooo, it's just a matter of time and getting everyone where they need to be. My two biggest problems are that I know names... but I have to wait until they Awaken and declare themselves. I don't know True Names."
Arthur paused.
"And I'm going to die before all of that happens. The Ladder listed it as a mystery, but I'm pretty sure the day I Awaken is the day I'll... disappear." Someone else might be terrified to know their fate. For Arthur, it was just part of his Purpose. Conviction shown in his eyes and animated him as he spoke. "So I can see how killing me now will keep all of that from happening."
For him, there was no question whether or not he would accomplish the monumental task he'd set himself.
"What's the plan for this Scelesti? And how have things been? Vee Tee still together? Have I missed anything fun?"
The car pulled up to the gates of a large, expensive looking home and entered.
Everyone give me a PER check -3 ! [wiki]Trained Observer/wiki] applies.
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