[Sandra] :: LOG :: Something and Nothingness

[gmlogbox]

Characters: Sandra, Yael
Location: Edgewood - Garage
Time: 7/29/2017 - Morning - Waxing Crescent

Summary: Sandra and Yael briefly discuss the Alpha situation, Sandra's non-Ooze-related nightmares, and lunch.

Anyone approaching the Garage at this time of day will be assured there's someone there. The sound of clanking metal is the first giveaway, signs of the exercise equipment being put to use and, indeed, the occasional, familiar grunt of a Shadow Lord that's apparently keen on fitting in a good workout between patrols. In this case, it looks to be along the lines of standard weight training, with a moderate to this-could-kill-me-if-I-drop-it barbell being lifted in careful reps. She's, of course, dressed down for it; a tank top, loose drawstring pants, and little else. Based on the accumulated sweat, she's been at it for a while.

At least the door isn't really that silent. It helps with warning that someone's coming into the garage from the outside, and that someone in this case happens to be the Strider. She's carrying three dead, moderately sized rabbits, but aside from that she is dressed much as she usually is. There's a bright grin offered to the other philodox, and a wave of greeting, before she goes to set the rabbits in the area most often used for storing killed game.

Sandra's careful to place the barbell back on its rack once she hears the sound of the door, head lifting off the bench to see who it is. "Good timing," she remarks once she's gotten herself into a more upright position, breathing still not entirely steadied, but it hardly sounds like she's anywhere close to winding herself. "I was just starting to wonder what I was going to do for lunch."

Yael grins. "I've been wanting food from home," she says, with a bit of a shrug. "Two of these are for dinner tonight. The third..." The tone is teasing and light, though. "I found a grocery store in town last night and some of what I need, and they even had ras el hanout, I'm going to make rabbit tagine. I think. It's been a long time since I've done so. How's it going?"

"Better than it was, at least," Sandra replies, grabbing a handtowel off the edge of the bench to wipe off her face and neck. "Speaking frankly, I think I do better with the occasional break from thinking about Alphas, mage nonsense, or Something and Nothingness. Though at least that last part made me wonder if, perhaps, I wouldn't be best served by brushing up on my Sartre again." She cants her head. "You?"

There's another shrug. "I went looking for magpies," Yael says, and shakes her head. "Didn't find any until I was almost in Canada." She purses her lips, and goes over to wash her hands in the sink. "In the mean time, I'm learning a gift from Slug."

Sandra pauses somewhat during her attempts to dry off, her brow furrowing slightly. She rubs at the back of her neck with the towel, and stoops to pick up a small spray bottle from the floor, the contents spritzed onto the bench before it, too, gets a wipedown. It's only polite, really.
"I had a dream about that," she says, after a moment. "About magpies. Had another one, too, around the beginning of the week, but..." She shakes her head. "The magecat says they're messages, from another Mage - calls him the Black Mage." Another frown. "So that makes two warpers seeing it fit to mess with our heads, as opposed to just the one," she notes, sounding none too pleased about it.

"What do you think of Slug, anyway?" she asks, as if that topic wasn't a bombshell of information all its own.

"He's a ragabash," Yael says, with the hint that it should be self-explanatory after that. "But he's interesting. Knows his own mind, has reasons behind everything he does." The topic, however, shifts back to the first part. "Dreams? About magpies?" The adren's brow furrows. "Different than the rest of the dreams you have?"

For her part, it may well be the self-explanatory 'he's a Ragabash' that gives way to a look of distaste on Sandra's face, for reasons that should, themselves, be fairly straightforward. Whatever it is she has to say about it, however, she sets aside-- nodding loosely to the question that's posed. "Very," she says. "In this case, it was-- disjointed. Being told, over and over, that I'd forgotten something. Something simple. Keep being asked if I remember." A pause. "I turn my head, see a bird nearby. See one *on* me. And I keep hearing this-- voice, that I can't identify. 'Do you remember. We remember,'" she recites, in a fashion that sounds memorized. "'Where are the magpies? There are no magpies.'" A pause. "I woke up, not long after that. If there was any more to it, it's been forgotten."

Yael grumbles under her breath, and sits down on one of the benches. "Well that's unsettling," she remarks, slightly drily. "I haven't had any dreams similar to that, though." She furrows her brows, and there's a glance at Sandra. "How's this Black Mage connected to all of this anyway, did the mage cat mention that at any point in time?"

"He thinks the Black Mage awakened the Nothing," Sandra replies. "Something to do with his research into atomic energy." No real need to underline how insane that is, of course; or how she feels about it.

This time, it's not grumbling. By now, Sandra can probably recognise most of the common Arabic cursewords Yael uses and maybe even a few of the less common ones. "And yet he wants /us/ to clean up /his/ mess," Yael says. "Typical." She shakes her head and pushes a stray strand of hair back underneath her headscarf. "The..." Pause, the adren considering how to phrase something or other, "rest of the dreams you have aren't exactly something to... be brushed off, though, even if they're not mage-sent omens." As always, she's leaving a way out or to shut the conversation down. Although odds are it would just lead to having it again, given the Strider's persistence in the matter thus far.

Judging by Sandra's expression, 'my thoughts exactly' is her only real response to the cussing, her brows lifting for a moment as she looks to the door. More as jus ta focal point than anything else as she considers, though Yael's pause-to-consider draws her attention back. The rest of what's said quickly drops that gaze to the floor for a moment.
There's still no attempts to dodge; just careful consideration in the Shadow Lord's expression. When she looks back up, it's difficult to get a read on her expression, save that her brow is still slightly furrowed. "I've never written them off," she says, in a manner that requires no use of Gifts to discern it as truth.

Yael points at the other half of the bench, and then gestures a little bit that the other philodox should sit down. "Mm," she offers. "Still. I've..." she pauses again, still considering. "I'm not going to judge you," she finally offers, "but I'd like to /know/. And know if there's anything I can do to help. Both as an elder, and as a friend."

It's not a hardening of Sandra's disposition that takes place, though there is a-- guarded look to her, as one might expect. No real indication as to the emotional reaction that comes with it, though that, too, probably comes as no surprise.
"There's not a great deal to be done for it," she says. "Nothing that I've seen, anyway. I've taken the steps I can, of course, but--" A pause. "But," she continues again, "that's not the kind of help you're talking about, I'm guessing."

Yael draws one knee up to her chest, drapes an arm around it, and uses her free hand to point towards the other side of the bench again, with a bit of a smile. But not quite insisting that the other philodox sit, merely suggesting significantly. "More or less," Yael acknowledges. "And well. There are often more options, or at least the potential for more options. But." A slight shrug. "What's the cause of all of it, anyway?"

Perhaps a bit hesitantly, Sandra seats herself on the open spot on the bench, the water bottle set down, the rag draped over the handle of the barbell. Again, she goes quiet to think on it for a time, not tense so much as-- Well. It's still not the easiest thing, getting a read on what that is, but the silence isn't quite the stonewall it could be.
"Ancient history," she says, finally. Again, it doesn't come off as a lie. Obtuse, maybe - maybe? - but not a lie. "You said the Striders have a past that follows them," she says, then, as if to tacitly clarify that the meaning is literal. "Shuts them out of their homeland. Away from their ancestors." She glances over at Yael. "There are nights that I'd kill for that kind of separation."

There is a nod, as the Strider listens. "Fair enough," she says. "There's... I don't know if it would help. But there's a rite that captures someone's dreams, lets them sleep peacefully." Yael shakes her head. "I don't know it, but I know of it, I know that it works most of the time unless-- well. The cause of the dreams is a mage or something." The circle of the conversation comes right back to the original topic. "If you have any more dreams about magpies, maybe try writing them down as soon as you wake up. Keep it from fading."

There's a slight tension in Sandra as the rite is mentioned, a slight furrowing in her brow-- but she nods, somewhat, seeming to at least take it into consideration. As to the last: "I've been putting ritual meditation to use upon waking," she says. "To keep the images as clear as possible, though they don't seem to diminish in the same way that dreams usually do. But, yes-- I've been writing them down, where possible." Another pause. "And I'll look into the Rite, myself," she says, then. "Where it comes to things of this nature, it's-- difficult to say what the reprecussions might be for shutting them down."

Yael nods. "Not suggesting it as something for every night, but just... to have available." She snorts a little. "Alright, come on and help me with these rabbits, so we can have lunch."