Ruby Glimpses

[Ruby]

The payphone takes a moment to start ringing, and the dry heat of early afternoon sweeps lazily down the avenue.

Ring two. Few walk outside. It's a weekday and past lunch-hour, people who aren't at work are like to seek out what a/c they can. A car passes by in no great hurry and its thickset passenger looks half asleep as his radio spits out a "Whitesnake" ballad. Ring three.

-click- "This is Buford speaking. Howdy doody," A man's voice answers.

"Buford, it's Betty." The woman responds, phone tucked between her chin and shoulder as she looks out over the empty street.

"Betty? Shiiiiiiiit, baby-girl how you doin'? I ain't heard from you in months!" The cheerful voice crackles through poor reception.

"Now Bu, Momma taught you better than to swear for no good reason at all." She chides, and then her voice drops just a little bit. "How's everybody holdin' up?"

"Well, Pa's still not feelin' too well. Doctors say he took to his surgery best can be expected, but he's just not young no more and he doesn't set still long 'nuff to get the rest he needs. Momma's doin' fine, takin' care of him and givin' piano lessons on the side... I'm doin' OK too, you know. I've got Ricky this week, probably gonna take him to Applebees since he likes the place so much. And work's not so bad, landed a new account last Thursday, so. What 'bout you?"

"Well, I got a thing through the University. They got me moved out to Sacramento, in California. Which is a gorgeous drive in Autumn... really is. So anyway now I'm workin' with an Art museum down here, and it's taking so much of my time these days I can scarce get work done on my own stuff." She sighs, knowing that she can't give more away, and wondering how she turned out to be such a secretive person. "Did Ricky get the toy I sent?"

"Yup, thank you for that. It was beautiful... you know kids though, these days they can't play with nothin's that ain't a videogame..." The conversation slows into growing stretches of quiet.

"You heard from Sybil?" Betty asks.

"She sent some Christmas cards. We sent yours to your place in Dallas." Buford practically whispers.

"Yea." Nobody knows how Sybil's doing then. "Bu, I got to go. You make sure to give everyone my love. Maybe I can come home for Easter."

"Pa and Momma'd love that. Heck, wouldn't mind much myself either."

"You take care Bu..."

"You too ruby-cheeks."

-click-

[Ruby]

Gossamer threads snake through the air, and her fingers reach out delicately to them. They tangle too easily, they require constant attention to weave tightly enough.
Ruby had never done this before. A lock of hair damp with sweat releases a single bead to roll down her face. Ruby had never cast any one of a dozen spells that have been necessary now, necessary here.

Sacramento takes a toll on a woman, she muses. Her hand cups gently about a curled thread of power, nudging it into shape. Then something occurs to her, nags at the back of her mind with a needful curiosity.

What if I were to...? Her foot scuffs back a half inch to strengthen her stance, and draws her arm across her body and then down. This time, a dozen threads follow her hand in concert, behaved and untangled.

Pleased and amused at herself, Ruby finishes the last few touches on her spell. "Well that's much easier!"

Ruby's Gnosis has leveled up!
Congratulations!

[Ruby]

Ruby practically explodes at him without thinking, regretting the violence of her outburst immediately.

This was so... unlike her. But on the other hand, darn it, she is tired of being scryed, scrutinized, and telepathed. Ruby had always thought people should cherish their personal privacy, and have the good sense to respect the privacy of their friends and colleagues. Sacramento had no such reservations apparently, and every John, Dick, and Harry seemed to oggle her aura the second she saw fit to give them her name.

Ruby wasn't going to put up with it anymore, strangers trying to peel away her skin and stare at her soul just to sate their perversely overreaching curiosity. Who do they think they are, some kind of conflammed Guardian inquisition squad?

[Ruby]

Bulbous shadows cavort against tapioca walls, silent mimicry of nightmares and legends without the dimension of depth or the luxury of color. In no mood to constrain themselves to the empty wells that light casts for them, they spin mischievously in a fruitless game to distract the room's only living occupant from her research.

"One of these days, Mr. Fillmore. I do declare, I won't hesitate to bring someone down here to banish you to haunt the bathrooms 'till the end of time." She threatens offhandedly without losing her place. She smiles wryly as she says it though, resigned that the hooligan specter will call her bluff.

Reaching out, the woman's steady hand pulls a book from across the table, paperback, fairly new actually. She dares not turn the page since the soft, thick manual is open to page one hundred thirty eight and one third. If her place was lost, she would be unable to find it again. The elusive page had been hidden through a clever, but infuriating application of the Arcana of Connections, inspired rather ironically by a contemporary children's book about wizards. Now unveiled, the text on the paradoxically dimensional page is entitled "The phenomenon of homologue transformations in deepstructure morphology as a result of common Alchemical Transmutations". Its author has similarly effected the great majority of his works since he came upon the idea.

The woman has learned to hate this man, even more deeply so since she has discovered that he is the eminent scholar in his field.

[Ruby]

A stack of standard sized yellow notepad pages are pressed lightly beneath one resting hand, and idle fingers balance a wobbling ballpoint pen. The pages themselves are covered in a tight, neat script, heavily annotated and painfully technical. This is the first paper she's written in over a year.

"Residual Microstructures in Physical Mediums Contain Fingerprint of Magickal Traditions?" Author Ruby, Daduchos of the Mysterium. It's a mouthful to be sure, but the professionalism of a title is critical when you need to get the attention an ancient order of bookish fuddy-duddies. The thesis of her paper, she had decided, would assert that the molecular structure of a substance altered by magic could be studied to reveal the school of magical theory the transmutation was derived from. Furthermore, she hoped to develop and outline new techniques to do it.

Ruby was fairly proud of the idea, she stumbled on it while studying a famous collection of mystic-crafted pre-columbian ceramics. Honestly, she was far more impressed by the ancient pots' beautiful decorative lithography than with their microstructures, but she'd rather be published.

Snaking pain works its way into Ruby's head, caused entirely by the disregardful incoherence of the volume before her. "Aw, you incorrigible hack, now you're just makin' up words! Why can't you just say stuff plain, just once, like you're not a crazy person?" Then, nearly to the point of crying, she plants her face down in her arms and groans.

This wasn't even the worst example, nearly every study she'd gotten her hands on was just as dense, just as arcane, and just as grammatically convoluted. Ruby couldn't imagine being so cruel to her readers. In fact, a great deal of the positive reception Ruby's first two papers received stemmed wholly from their incomparable readability and the intricate clarity of attached figures. Her mentor emphatically maintains it is the best use of punctuation he'd ever seen in a thesis.

Ruby rightfully considered this a dubious honor.

[Ruby]

Hours drag by and the ghost of Millard Fillmore evaporates to some other corner of the museum, bored and in search for a less focused victim. Now completely alone in the small office, Ruby begins to wind down. Her coffee, the last weapon she had against lethargy was down to the bitter dregs. She eyes the thick black liquid ruefully as she slumps over the table.

"Euuuuwauuughh..." she moans incoherently, unwilling and unable to construct another six syllable word. She can't stand to read either, the scattered books around her are now the enemy, jailers and tyrants and torturers.

This is not the way magic was supposed to be, choked and stifled and co-written by an egomaniac who rarely cites his sources. Magic was supposed to be freedom, supposed to be a gift from God. This labor certainly was not the "Path to Truth" Ruby expected when she signed on.

She takes a moment to recover, her fingers running themselves over the smooth surface of the cheap table. The room itself is serenely silent. Little more than a closet tucked away in an isolated corner of the Museum, Ruby has made it her own since she arrived in the city. The bland walls carry a nice poster of the Texas landscape, some wood framed photos of flowering cacti, and those cute Mexican dish plates she absolutely adores. Of course, Tyria did offer Ruby a bigger office once, but she stubbornly refused to move. You grow attached to things.

[Ruby]

The phone rings twice before Ruby's hand crawls across the table to pick up the receiver. Her face is squooshed atop a thick stack of papers into a shape Ruby might refer to as 'fish kisses'.

She drags the phone to her ear without even attempting up upright herself. "How can I help you ~ ~ ~ ?" She murmurs with a hefty helping of groan.

"Ruby?" A woman's voice asks hesitantly.

"CLARICE!" Ruby shoots up in her chair as she squeals out her friend's name in joy. "How are you doing, I haven't heard from you in so long!" Although she immediately realizes this is more her fault than Clarice's doing.

"Weeeell, I'm doing fiiiine. Arthur got tenure at the University, and I'm finishing two Summer classes now. Are you working now, or what have you been doing?"

"I'm actually workin' at the Fillmore museum as a research assistant," Ruby answers, to Clarice's audible excitement.

"Really? So you're a regular expert then! Ruby, I was wondering if you might be free to do a lecture at the University... it would do my students well to hear from an artist with an academic background, and it's always a huge trouble to bring in a big name..." She pauses and reconsiders her words, "you know what I mean, famous anyway."

Ruby laughs to set her friend at ease. "Not a problem dear, I'll be delighted to present somethin' for you. Just give me some time to throw something together."

"Oh! Thank you Ruby, I'll be in touch to hash out all the details later this week?"

"Sounds wonderful, darlin'."

They say their goodbyes, and Ruby begins to meditate on what she might present. A growing pulse of excitement fills her chest at the prospect of finally being able to talk about her love of Art for once.

[Ruby]

Comin' round to carry me home

The empty space seemed to sparkle. Motes of dusk hung thick through the air, and bright streaming sunlight illuminated them like fireflies. The great window was framed in bare wood, as were the beams, the walls, the floor of the attic. Cloth covered antiques were pushed against the walls, leaving an aisle facing the Sun. Like a little Cathedral.

Ruby laid down a folded cloth and a satchel, and then sets carefully down one knee. -Ouph- placing herself on top of the cloth, she kneels and turns to the bag, reaching. Her hands are becoming veiny, sometimes they shake. So many worries. She withdraws a tin cup, some crackers, and a half empty bottle of wine.

"Lord, I've been strugglin'," she says suddenly to the heavy stillness, to the ephemeral sanctity of the place, to nothingness. "Strugglin' hard."

Ambient Mana saturates every breath, sparkling rods twinkling beyond natural sight as if refracted from the pane of glass.

"Folks, good folks, are dyin'. They ain't deserved it... there's so much Sin here Lord. Sometimes I can't take it, the meanness, the selfishness. Not a one of them seems to know you... feel like I'm carryin' a torch all by my lonesome."

"I know I'm not supposed to ask you for stuff, it's selfish of me. But... could you keep my friends safe for me? Could you protect them please? I don't think I can handle losing any more of the people I care for. It hurts... too deep, Lord."

In that quiet, Ruby reaches out to the cup. As if a layer of grime was washed away, impure tin becomes pure gold, radiant and burnished and bright. She splashes just a touch of wine into the cup, and its red deepens, sparkles, glows.

"When Paradise got taken from us Lord, you gave everything to leave us a ray of hope. We didn't deserve it, but you left us a Lighthouse from across that deep ocean. Even though we abandoned you, abandoned your love and fled so far from your grace, you still tend the light. I want to find you Lord, I want to follow that light. I want to bring good hearts into your grace, lead people out of this darkness, out of this ugliness."

She places the cup to her lips, drinking and ounce of liquid fire.

"It's such a narrow road though, and I feel like I'm right about to slip off. Please help me walk it."

The cracker transubstantiates to something impossible, realer than real, and Ruby places her teeth and lips on the precious bread in holy mastication.

"Sin's made your creation unwholesome, help me make pure what was pure. Help me sanctify what's gone unsanctified, help me bring the light back."

Ruby curls up, forehead nearly to the floor, speaking feverishly and her whole body shuddering as she lets the power of the place enter her.

Mana answers her call. God remains silent.

[Ruby]

Sully waits at the bus depot. Despite the convenient "map of downtown" that he's staring at, he feels lost and confused for some reason. So he goes to the nearby park, to settle himself down with some Tai Chi.
As he takes off his jacket and begins his stretching, he looks about. A nice city, lots of trees and such.
And then he starts working. Most Tai Chi practitioners take a long time to complete one move. He learned the combat style of Tai Chi, and this is reflected in his much more swift, although still extremely deliberate movements. This attracts a few heads, but most keep walking on.

Ruby rarely travels alone anymore. Tyria won't have it with all the troubles the Book has been having. She glances over at the grim man in her passenger seat and notes how distrustful his eyes are of every passing car and pedestrian. He is terribly unfriendly company. In the backseat is her own charge, the Border Terrier she'd promised Phrym she'd walk.

Slowing now, Ruby hugs the right side of the street looking for a free meter. Her bodyguard proves his worth by pointing out a space, and Ruby pulls in her car.

Now finally warmed up, Sully slows down, focusing on the flows of energy, shaping them, redirecting them, focusing them inward, outward. He tells them where to go, and they do. His enjoyment is quite evident, the smile on his face is quite obvious. Taking a light break, he looks about at the people in the park. A few are doing dog walking, as well as others are just walking, enjoying the summer day.

YipyipyipYIPyip...
yipyipYIPYIPyipyipyipyip! The tiny animal bolts left, then bolts right, then unsatisfied with either direction, it runs in consecutive circles, tangling its leash about Ruby's legs until it chokes stupidly against her shin.

"You monstrous thing! I wish to Mercy that I lived in whatever province of Indochina gives me right to make you a dish 'stead of a pet." Ruby huffs, struggling to unspool herself. Her guard isn't much help, standing back confused how to respond to a situation without a firearm solution.

Tangled and a little frustrated, Ruby takes a look around to the other park-goers to determine who she happens to be humiliating herself in front of.

Naw... can't be.

"Sully?"

Sully hears his nickname called. But the voice isn't immediately familiar, he looks about, trying to find the voice. And then he sees her. At first, he doesn't recognize her, but something about her keeps his gaze from passing on. And then the gears in his head *click* *click* *click*. No way. *click* *click*. But it is.

"BETSY!" He shouts out, and runs towards her, a grin as big as the time they climbed up uncle Joseph's peach tree and got into those chin-drenchingly juicy peaches. His eyes are wide in surprise, and his arms are outstretched to give her the biggest hug she ever had.

Ruby flinches a bit to hear her real name, but it doesn't dull her excitement. Sully's bear hug is crushing, asphyxiating, and earnest, just like she remembers it.
-cough- -cough- "Sully, let go before I pop, y' musclehead!"

She steps back, "What are you doing here, I thought you were still in Texas?"

Sully smiles at his little sis"I left Texas a few months back, and the road led 'ere, after severul fun adventures i might add. But you know how it is. The road calls ta ya, takes ya where ya need to go. And I obviously needed to see my little sis!" Another hug, this one less crushing. He looks over her shoulder to the suit who looks pretty damn upset.
"Whose the fed? And whose the dog?" He bends down to the animal, doing a decent job of petting its oversized head.

Boyfriend, coworker, accountant, crochet enthusiast. Not one is a convincing deception.
"That's just Carl, and this little devil belongs to a friend." The puppy yips excitedly, attempting to establish pack dominance over this new human. Carl dies a little inside, realizing he'll always be 'just Carl' to Ruby.
"Sully... how'd you figure I was in Sacramento?" She asks hesitantly, having told everyone that she was in Santa Fe, Arizona. Even Ma and Pa didn't know Ruby was here.

Sully laughs, Betsy if I knew you was in sacramento i'd have bothered to find you, not just hang out in some stupid park. I told you, I followed the roads and my dreams." He smiles, and then a thought dawns on him. "Hey Betsy, i know i'm impossin' and i'm sorry 'bout it but, well, i'm gettin' kicked out of the hotel tommorow, so, could I, uhh, you know." Sully never did like asking for help, especially from Betsy.

"You've been having th' dreams again, then?" Ruby chews just a little on her lower lip, unsure of what it might mean. Well, they'll just have to figure it out.

"Well, I've got a studio. It's just a little place, but I cain't stand the thought of havin' a brother of mine out in the cold. You don't still have that old sleepin' bag with you? The one you used to truck around with everywhere? Cause I don't have much in the way of furniture yet."

"Yeah, i still got it. Its too beat up for outdoorsy stuff, but it'll do just fine in a studio. Thanks Betsy, i owe you a ton." Beat up was an understatement, the bag had been with him on the road for a dozen years. And then even more before then. It was more hole than plastic in some parts, but it was serviceable enough.

"Would you mind if we just walked little miss princess a bit? I promised, and I'm sure the little monster's got to do it's business. Do you have much? Stuff that you're carryin' around I mean?"

Sully laughs again. It was all just so wonderful, to finally see little Betsy again. "Naw, just that bag there." He points under a nearby tree to a beat to hell blue backpack. "So, does ya friend have a name? I mean the owner, though the dog's name wouldn't hurt neither."

"Peaches, the dog's called Peaches," Ruby grumbles as they walk the main path. "Might even be a boy dog, I cain't even remember. But it belongs to someone from work."

Aw, Sully... what happened to you? Daddy busted his buns to get you a job, now you're here with naught anything but a bag to your name...

"What're your plans now that you're here Sully?"

"Well, i dunno. Nomrally i'd find some sort of job to do around here for a while, and then i'd travel on if the road calls." He gave his smile. "But I dunno. Somethin' 'bout this place seems familiar like. Like I'seen it bafore or somthin'. And heck, to run into you here, has to be Providence." Implicit in that statement was the blind question of "you wouldn't happen to have any work that needs doin?" "It shouldn't be too hard to find me some work. I got a resume longer than Rev Josua's sermons!" He laughs at his joke.

"You mean your resume, or your record?" Ruby ribs at him. "Naw, we'll find you somethin' I'm sure of it."

Peaches squats, and Ruby is compelled to stop. She withdraws a plastic baggie from her pocket.

"I think we might need a tour guide at the Museum. There are some other folks who sort of... might fit better for the part, but it can't hurt to ask."

Proper poop handling and disposal protocol is here performed.

Sully smiles as his sister cleans up dog doo-doo. Back home, I cleaned up the doo doo as she said "eww" she's really grown up.
"Yeah sure, that sounds great. I can also double as security if you need it, anything to help out." Family stuck together, more than friends and definitely more than co-workers, family stuck out their necks for each other, and he wasn't going to let her stick out her neck alone.

"You ready? We'll get you cleaned up, set Peaches in her crate, and grab some dinner. I know a great little noodle place."

Sully is grateful his stomach didn't make a rumbling sound at the mention of food. That would have made things...uncomfortable. "Sure thing Sis." He helps with Peaches and the rest of things.

Realizing that his very job might be in danger Carl holds the car doors for the siblings, hoping to engineer his place in the front seat. Foiled! Ruby delegates him to the back with Peaches. The car rumbles to life, then pulls out into traffic.

[Ruby]

The netbook chugs and whirs a moment, trying to remember where it placed the file. Ruby's finger taps absently against the surface of the shop counter while she waits for the PDF to pull up.

In her patience, her eyes glance to the door every few moments, half prepared to greet a customer warmly, half prepared for some kind of arcane death squad to introduce her to St. Peter. So far, her only visitors are an older couple that lingers between the shop's only two racks, gently fingering delicate porcelain and wire figurines.

The document loads with images, punctuated by snippets of explanatory text. Carved faces of pagan gods, devils, and far stranger things clutter the viewing window. No mortal museum displays these pieces, and no mortal textbook can claim their image. Unlike the abominations that have gallivanted through the imaginations of mythology's authors, these things were once real. Best if mankind never see, so that they might not worry themselves over that fact.

Ruby inspects each image individually, making illegible shorthand notes on a paper pad. Her constant enemy is the Zoom button. Click click click. How frustrating. Computers are stupid.

The wife has decided she must absolutely buy the china Lamb and the little fat Shepherd. Ruby is fairly sure she encoded that pair with numerology hidden in the book of Habbakuk, but doesn't quite remember. Something to do with the prophets revelations concerning the Time Arcana, which she found outside of the scope of her enlightenment but still spiritually satisfying.

A fairly insignificant Mystery to share. Perhaps God would bless them with the clarity to understand this tiny sliver of his Wisdom. More likely that the Lamb and his Shepherd will simply sit on a mantle. She closes the computer's lid as they approach.

The gentleman frowns as he realizes that he is parting with nearly thirty dollars for the trinkets. His wife smiles, knowing that her coffee table would be so very pretty with a cute little animal figurine.

Ruby cannot smile. The man who killed Peter Cartwright is still out there, and all she's doing is selling souvenirs to tourists.