1021/Reunions a Chez Strange

Reunions a Chez Strange
Date of Scene:	07 April 2020
Location:	Sanctum Santorum
Synopsis:	Zatanna meets her aunt. Does Clea know?
Cast of Characters:	Clea, Zatanna Zatara

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Clea has posed:
The Sanctum in New York is, naturally, one of those places bigger on the inside than without. Of course, the mansion is the second largest building in Greenwich Village after another mansion now turned to a national landmark. Its master or mistress commands guardianship of the Western Hemisphere from arcane threats, but as he isn't present due to wizardly business, that leaves Clea more or less in charge.

Which means a fine time to practice flower arranging with a pot of tea floating in midair, brewing itself. The service of stacked little cakes isn't English. Not entirely. Not with ladyfingers and bao buns, Austrian cake slices and French macarons of dizzying varieties. Jam, too, of a Swedish bent to go with Malva pudding. None of these are being consumed by the statuesque, pale blonde. Not while she is busy fiddling with a straight iris lapped in violet flame around a selection of tulips and daffodils, something worth fussing with.

In the corner, a pair of far too wise snakes watch with interest, hissing out their opinions. Most of them aren't very flattering or kind, but she chooses to ignore them while spiking a moist green block of dense moss with the stiff stem of a tulip. "Hmm." She stands back, appraising. "Maybe not quite..."

A wave of her hand straightens it a smidge. Better. The white-haired Faltine smiles, and a cascade of arcane sparks settle into place. Who says it can't be beautiful and functional around here?

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna would know all about places being bigger on the inside. After all, Shadowcrest is it's own little pocket place. And the Sanctum and Shadowcrest do share a lot of the same decorative touches. But decorating tips aside, it was time for Zatanna to pay a visit to the sanctum.

With a small basket that holds a variety of petite fors and macaroons, the young sorcress teleported herself with walking distance of Belcheer street before finishing the rest of the walk herself. She's dressed casually for the visit, a black turtleneck matched with skinny denim jeans and heeled boots. Her raven black hair held back with a white hairband.

She approaches the door and gives a polite knock on the door, grabbing the large brass ring and rapping it briskly against the door... once... twice... three times... "A lady..." Zatanna hums to herself, hands gripping the basket as she waits for she presumes Doctor Strange to open.

Clea has posed:
Functional elegance and a heap of treats on a neat ceramic tower bring a smile from Clea as she turns back to pick up another spear of greenery, maidenleaf fern barely uncurled. Another bit of adjusting around the display she already has going on adds to the arrangement. This by no means is professional. Most florists could do far better. A bride wouldn't care for it as her centerpiece, but adding camellias to the springtime appearance and a few scattered blossoms entertains the Sorceress Supreme of the Dark Dimension in a way that would mortify her uncle. Too bad for him, flaming pumpkinhead of misery.

Bleecher Street is as it usually is: active and bustling with life. Narrow sidewalks meet the bubble of serenity from another age. Within nothing is entirely off, though the powerful wards wrapped around the building give her a good idea of anyone approaching. Any looking too deep and long. Any registering as arcane, as a threat. A host of possibilities that she's none too worried about; the place takes care of itself more than anything else.

When Zatanna knocks, the doors open of their own accord. Clea is busy humming some elegant melody that sounds an awful lot like water flowing rather than a human voice, but she pokes the fern into place and wraps it around a long twig of camellia blossoms set with saucer-sized paper petals and glossy leaves that look exquisite but not perfect. The small blemishes are like those of the variegated tulips, the slightly crooked blossoms. Everything is just so, together harmonious but individually prone to a few issues. "Welcome!" she says warmly. The room picks up the sound and conveys it. "Won't you come in?"

Doctor Strange it is not, not even with the red coat. Instead, that tall woman wearing a pale lilac cape dress, the sort of thing usually required for more intimate and highbrow events. So? She blithely twirls a leaf of the camellia to straighten it up, and then briskly smiles.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Something about Clea's voice rings a bell inside the young sorceress. Not that she ever got to hear her mother's voice. Not for long. But there's a sudden shiver that goes down her spine, that hint of deja'vu that suggests that she's heard the woman's voice before. Stepping into the foyer to let the doors close behind her, Zatanna looks around and smiles at the decoration of the house.

Clearly a woman's touch to the place. Drawing in her breath, she steps forward finally, sapphire eyes glancing about her, as if expecting that everpresent vermillion cloak to come jumping from the shadows or a side hall at any moment. However, only seeing the woman here, the younger sorceress sighs, blowing a breath out of the side of her mouth.

"Let me guess, the good Doctor's off on some adventure and can't be bothered at the moment?" Zatanna asks and she chuckles. "And here I was all ready to give him a rather sizable piece of my mind, and instead, he can't even be here to for it." A touch of exasperation shows in her voice as she holds onto the basket with both hands. "And it's not fair to take out my anger at him on you."

Clea has posed:
Clea does have an accent lightly coloring her words. It wells up softly around the consonants in particular, a rounded slant suggestive of Queen's English but not quite that. Her artwork in sculptural floral motifs is left behind and ikebana will be Strange's matter to consider. With a wave of her hand behind her, a light nudge commits the vase to another table denuded of its habitual stack of disorderly books. Possibly these ended up back in one of the many, many bookcases dotting the vicinity. She plucks one of the macarons from a dish and plops it onto a saucer of no particular elegance, only the overtones of raku pottery glaze. Clearly it's meant to appeal to the senses.

A woman's touch to a place definitively influenced by diverse traditions, Nepalese and Tibetan alongside Victorian English and neo-Gothic. She fits to none of these elements but stands on her own as she approaches into the fain foyer. Young: no one would ever call her old. Not with that fair face uncreased by so much as a line, undarkened by so much as a spot. The mere notion of age is a laughable consequence. Never mind she commands a millennium and more.

"That would be telling," she replies with merry humour to Zatanna's inquiry. Assessment comes with open interest. Laughing eyes tinted like gemstones, too warm for so cold a mineral, lock to the sorceress. Any hint of magical sight is bound to be overwhelmed here without some kind of suppression. But Clea is a beacon, like staring full into the sun. "Work, I fear, though I might be able to help in some capacity?" Her hands clasp together, fingers fitted together like clockwork. A practiced smoothness. "You could turn it upon me with no harm done to either of us. Granted, I'm a poor facsimile of the Doctor. However, I might stroke my chin or give you looks down my nose to achieve the same effect?"

Alas, her nose is a bit too snubbed for the effect to be as imperious. At least on the surface. She breaks into a smile for Zatanna's offerings. "Tea is freshly done, a very good Imperial Bai Mudan. Discreet but light on the tongue, the very finest supplement for something sweet." She takes hospitality seriously, this one.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Oh god, please, no looks down the nose, I get enough of that from him." Zatanna glances skywards with those sapphire eyes as she shakes her head. "No no, not fair to hit you with my righteous indignations." she says with a sigh as she sets the basket down and her hands mirror Clea's own movement. "It seems that the Doctor can't bring it upon himself to ask me about things I've done and instead pecks at the curiosity of my friends, forcing me to explain things twice." she explains as she shakes head head.

"I'm Zatanna." she finally offers in way of introduction. "Zatanna Zatara. Anyway, after helping with a exorcism the other day, the Doctor saw fit to question one of my dear friends in the field about some magic I had used recently and I thought I would come down her and voice my displeasure that he could not come to me directly."

"Is he always so squirrely, or does he just have an issue when it comes to discussing these things with peers of the opposite sex?" she asks, a brief tone of amusement touching her features, but she's still just more than a little annoyed by it all. "He seems to only make an appearance when it comes to complain at me about the things I do and prattles on about rules and such."

Clea has posed:
Having height is truly an advantage there, though Clea carries herself with an inherent ease through the cavernous room. Its elegance cannot quite dwarf her and she rises to the occasion without the benevolent folds of a massive full-circle cape with a collar tending to stand taller than one's head by a good foot as the matter occasionally comes to pass. Walking gives a nearly silent impression. She gestures lightly for the tea, allowing Zatanna to go help herself. Not that she has much to doctor it with, only a pot of honey on a setting of different jams. "Clea. Clea of Kamar-Taj."

"Zatanna Zatarra," she repeats the name, rolling it over her tongue like that self-same honeydrop off a spoon. Sweet to the taste. Alliteration is often like that. "You could smack me with your basket, though I would be so sad if it broke anything. Perhaps just wring your hands at me or have it out while I stay stonily silent?" There is a tease there if one mines deep enough, but it's perhaps best not to brave the depths and awaken a balrog. Hazards of socializing. "I fear sometimes the good Doctor hesitates to show much of his hand. A hazard of the profession, for aren't physicians a bit too mum?"

A question Zatanna can answer or not. She isn't rushed. She lightly pulls a white curl over her hair, the light catching it oddly. White. Not platinum blonde, not white gold. Pearly radiance suffused by itself surrounds the top of her head in a dusty aureole. A nimbus, like a saint, almost imagined. "However it grieves me to hear you are both at cross purposes. His approach has given offense." A moment's pause to see this is so. "I am afraid 'squirrelly' isn't an adverb I am familiar with. Is he..."

Another headshake. "Regrettably, no, I don't know. You may need to explain that for me to answer yea or nay."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Evasive, unable to confront directly. You know, like a squirrel." Zatanna starts to explain, making a little face as she holds onto the basket, the dark hair of the sorceress a sharp contrast to Clea's own. "Again, you are not the object of my frustration, so no, I won't be hitting you..." she starts to say as she prepares to carry over the basket to set with the tea so that the pair can enjoy a moment's repaste.

That is until Clear introduces herself, and Zatanna freezes in her tracks. The small basket that she carries drops from her hands, spilling pastries as she stares down at the basket -- as if she was just affected by the touch of a basilisk and turned into stone. Her heart catches in her throat, and the young woman lifts her her gaze to the white haired woman.

"...Kamar-Taj." she repeats. "In Nepal, the birthplace of..." she pauses, shaking her head, choking down her words and she shakily stoops down to start to collect the pastries. "It really is something that can wait for another time." she starts to say, her voice quiet, suddenly no longer carrying that confidence she held a few seconds ago.

"Just wanted to tell the Doctor that it's none of his business if I use an artifact to try to fix something, and you know... didn't turn out exactly as thought, but there's no complaints on the result." Now who's being squirrely?

Clea has posed:
The inner dictionary consulted, and Clea puckers her lips in a thoughtful circle. "Squirrels are the furry animals in the trees? I see them going for the bird feeders, and they are quite fearless in their pursuit of climbing down the ropes and over the little spikes people place on their balconies." She tries not to let too much of a smile come through. "The grey and dark ones have a bit of similarity to his hair, I reckon."

She returns to the table and helps herself to a saucer and cup. Zatanna can choose from the goodies and pour tea first by guest-right. The tall, pale-haired woman has no trouble waiting with all the patience in the world. That is, until the basket tumble. Alarm strikes her face. Worry colors widening eyes. "Oh! Let me help with that." She drops to a knee, catching the basket and whisking over a linen napkin at the ready to pick up anything spread over the floor. Dust and crumbs hardly bother her so much as the loss of Zatanna's belongings, and they cannot be allowed to roll under the table.

Surprise isn't lost on the kneeling woman, however. Her guest's tone suggests some things. "You know of it?" The basket is nudged to Zatanna, an offering that they might together collect the fallen petits-fours. "I studied the Mystic Arts there." This ought to be rock solid credentials for her purpose in lingering around a Sanctum Sanctorum, if -the- Sanctum Sanctorum. No sense of bragging, a matter-of-fact way about it. Nonetheless, she turns her face up with a smile. "Be certain, Miss Zatara, you are more than welcome here. Why, everyone can hold an opinion or be dissatisfied by their treatment."

She tucks her pale hair behind her ear. "You're not afraid of him, are you? Or -me-? Sweet Oshtur, I hope I haven't put you on the back foot."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"No no, not you!" Zatanna manages and she holds her breath for several seconds. "My father used to speak of the place... and a woman from there." she explains as she works on collecting the spilled pastries. She's trying to recover from her initial shock, sapphire eyes are still wide with trepedation and something else. Something on the edge of hope and fear as she squeezes her hands together in worry.

"My mother." she explains finally. "She passed away shortly after I was born, but my father used to tell me stories of the land that she had come from. I always assumed it was the talk of the magic and... fairy tales." she explains, her eyes cast to the floor.

"I never imagined that there was such a place." Because she had never thought of the idea of reseaching her mother. It was always about her father, and the magic she learned from him. And never imagined that otherwise.

"I got the crumbs..." she's quick to wave her hand. "Nib eht ni meht fo esopsid dna sbmurc eht tcelloc." With that, the crumbs move, rolling and moving and making themselves into a little ball golem of crumbs that marches itself to the bin and 'jumps' right on in. "There, tidy..."

Clea has posed:
Clea straightens up the fallen pastries and hands over another of the neatly folded napkins to Zatanna. She pulls down a saucer to help the collecting of crumbs, though the wards will take care of dustbunnies and fallen spots of crumble cake or crust without too much time. "Kamar-Taj is a centre for study and research. The reputation it holds is no mean achievement. Though it is not the only place of learning. I assure you, many traditions hold respect." The kind of smile on her lips means to ease and soothe with an established talent for making social wrinkles vanish, though she is acutely poised to note the other woman's discomfort and deeper emotions.

At least she's trying to read them, listening for the deeper tells of emotion and expressiveness. The slow movements rearranging everything to neatness again give her time, buying that window little by little. "Ask the Doctor about it one day. He may be enthused to speak about it in his way." A small nod follows. "Your mother went there? It would be a small link, and possibly he knew of her." A special designation lingers there, a singular word that changes everything. 'Of.' Directions plunked to indirect ways, secondhand accounts instead of glittering images conveyed from warm memories and personal interactions.

When the spell rises, she sits back. Her tea comes to her hands, guided without much effort. It could be a matter of silent manipulation of force, but the sorceress sits cross-legged and hovers midair with no assistance from a cloak, no telling signs of a spell at all. It always burns with a bright radiance of power in the Sanctum. Some lights are different. With a charmed laugh for the golem, her salutation with the cup is light. "Many such places exist. I am sure the States have their own traditions. New Orleans must, or I shall be most disappointed. You were self-trained?"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Her name was Sindella. I am not sure he would have known of her. If he did, he'd been sure by now to have lorded that over me at somepoint." Zatanna is sure of that fact. The young woman shakes her head. "I was under the tutelage of my father for most of my life, Giovanni." she explains. "He passed away when I was just over eighteen years old, and I've had to train on my own for most of my life since then."

Finally pouring herself a cup of tea and adding a measure of honey and cream, she moves to settle into the lotus position and like Clea, floats slightly off the ground as she folds her hands around the fragile cup.

"To explain earlier, a young woman came to me to seek my aid. She had ended up in this world after being dimensionally displaced. I offered my assistance, and found a spell to use in concert with the Siege Perilous to send her back. Something happened with the spell, and instead of going home, the woman in question ended up becoming... part of this one. As if she was always part of it."

Clea has posed:
"Small and intimate classes will leave a mark on memory. Even in passing," Clea assures with the soft, validating approach. She wipes her fingers off on the soiled napkin, its collection of crumbs not yet gathered up by the little golem of spellwork and precious. She carefully lays it aside on the table and takes up the remaining saucer and cup. Her tea will be balanced on her knee, though the floating comes without a second thought for her. Not the hot beverage, but she hardly fears a spill.

For mention of the Siege Perilous, however, her body goes entirely still. Does she breathe? Yes but at levels so much reduced it's not right. "I see. You invoked something perilous and significant. It would reject most spells. The great Sorcerer Supreme of the age was not inclined to kindness or softness. Meddling, he was prone to say, invited sloppiness. Of course it sounded a great deal different being spat from a man mad as a hornet, through that beard and clenched teeth." Fingers curl around the handle of the cup. "Yes, I would bring it up with the Doctor. Know you where the Siege Perilous ended up? It should not wander too far..."

Trailing off with that soft note gives an opportunity to replenish the level of her tea. "The Doctor's apprenticeship lasted a shorter time than my own." Lesser spellcaster, then, let that be the implication. "I recall most of my peers. Sindella pre and postdated me, I regret to say."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"As per the agreement I made with the SHIELD agent that assisted me in finding it, the Siege is currently in possession of WAND and is for the most part, deactivated." Zatanna explauns as she looks down into her tea. Hearing that Clea does not know of her mother brings a small sigh from the young woman - but it was something she should have expected.

"It was a powerful artifact that was needed for a powerful spell. It served what it was supposed to. I am just unsure what caused it to... change what I wanted it to do." she shrugs her shoulders and lifts her sapphire eyes again. "It is not the first time that he has attempted to interrupt me in something however." she explains finally.

The tea is carefully sipped from as Zatanna tries to figure things through. "The first time was when I was attempting to use magic to find out where the Sentinels that attacked Genosha came from. He forbade me from doing so without much of an explanation. He eventually gave one, but it still set sour in my stomach." she admits with a sigh. "And now this. I am not sure if he feels that I am..." she waves her head. "...I don't know." she admits.

Clea has posed:
"For the most part," murmurs Clea. The note is made for later review. She has time; there is no urgency in her to go up against WAND, SHIELD, or SWORD for that matter. Whatever form they take on will be the purview of the man with the Vishanti backing him up. "More tea?" she asks politely though Zatanna is perfectly capable of pouring it for herself.

"Artifacts driven by desire unspoken, the soul's cry rather than the mind's call. A hazard in dealing with anything able to provide a second life." The sorceress is so becalmed in the sea of uncertainty. She radiates a positive hue of satisfaction over the discussion, amethyst eyes meeting sapphire. They have such life and fire.

Because she is literally living fire, the only one.

A gentle sound from her throat, then she asks her guest, "Are you bothered more by the dismissal of your concerns or the interruption? Or would you better understand the why of what he does?"