14301/Surf, Wind, Skyfire

Surf, Wind, Skyfire
Date of Scene:	02 March 2023
Location:	Cape Carmine Lighthouse
Synopsis:	Friends catch up!
Cast of Characters:	Meggan Puceanu, Zatanna Zatara

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Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Much of Gotham rests at the confluence of warm weather pushing up the Atlantic Seaboard and the large snowstorm headed down from New York. As with so much, the colliding weather patterns contribute to the consistently seasonable dance of fog. Mist that seeps through the city gives its neighbourhoods their eerie tang, while regular showers leave damp puddles and darkness deeper than the hour would allow.

It also endangers the main shipping lane into the port, which gives Cape Carmine's lighthouse relevance even in this day and age. For all the remarkable jumps in technology to help the average freighter or amateur skipper bypass shoals, skerries, and rocks, radar and digitized maps still don't make up for trouble. Like deep sea monsters, Gotham gangsters, or Mother Nature.

Hence, Meggan floating above the stone blocks bathed by the pounding waves, her hands extended far to her sides. Here the cape gathers more wind than the rest of the city, otherwise the fog wouldn't be here, and it's partly lashed into a moaning breeze rising heavenward. That regular bright beam shot out deep into the Atlantic strobes above her, though the glow isn't fully the product of the lenses. Her part comes in messing about with the radiance, bending it and forking it, though manipulating light is a lot harder than it looks.

"You can go shroud someone else's beach. This one's /mine./" She tips her head, listening. "No, not that one right there! Go north!"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
The mage's house exists in another dimension for many reasons, and yet its present owner has anchored part of the house into the real world. As a result, it can create havoc with the rest of the mansion. The library's balcony has been tied to Gotham for the last ten years. The stone balustrade weathering at a different pace than the rest of the house, stone expanding and contracting with summer heat and winter cold.

It faces east, toward the coastline that rests out of sight, yet the winds still bring her news of the sea, and the occasional gull reminds Zatanna that over just two miles away, the vast expanse of the Atlantic restlessly rolls under moon and stars. Tonight a fog creeps inland, a product of a contrary jet stream dipping low over the region - a scent of salt air eddies on the night breeze. On pure instinct, Zatanna draws a luminous line in the air and steps from her balcony to another overlooking the Atlantic.

She smiles at the wind whipping her hair; the smile waxing larger when she hears Meggan ordering the wind.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
From her position several meters up, Meggan could be rightly called a variation of the lighthouse beacon. A passing ship far enough out might mistake her for an oblong window in the tower, warm light passing through the washed stone. She most certainly isn't in contact with her mother earth, running her hands through her glowing hair as she stretches out. A gesture of irritation for her, if someone knows her well, since negotiations with atmospheric water cannot be said to go well. Ororo has it so much easier.

The fog hangs mostly in place over the folded sea that aims to destroy New Jersey nibble by nibble, small amounts chewing away at the coastline until the seas once more reunite as one. Wait until the Atlantic learns about the Rockies!

Still, some of it starts to part around the lighthouse, squeezed back out to sea or hugging the shore, scurrying away like particularly vexed lambs fit to gambol whenever they want. Their moisture-sheared coats hug close together, bunched irregularly, and she bobs higher to make a hopeless shooing motion. The breeze dies down, and she screws her mouth up. Wrong season to play naughty.

A more significant thrust pulls up the energy of the air, shoving again. Louder, as one might hear, but she's a crap shepherd.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
The wind steals Meggan's voice but not her magic. It was the magic that pulled Zatanna here. That and a distortion in the order of things, subtle as the fog fingering the rocks below.

Zatanna leans into the wind then looks up just as the moon uncloaks her light and limns Gaia's child in silver. Puzzled, she watches the contrary waves, disobedient, set on a new course by the cold dipping low out of the north.

Rising into the air, she joins Meggan. "How do you do on this cold night, fair sister?"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The tug of magic has none of the sheer infernal stain known to John's arts, though the fragment of his soul bound into her being remains an apparent note for any seasoned sorcerer. That could well helpfully identify Meggan as the real deal up there instead of some other woman with glowing blonde hair also wearing a t-shirt and no socks or shoes. Her jeans are two steps from being turned into cutoffs at this rate.

Zatanna, though, is merely another lighthouse beam to the elemental who turns her head in that direction only for a moment. Can she really trust the mist to not go running back onto the low-lying neighbourhoods? Well, she shall have to. Being properly hospitable matters more!

"Zee! Careful, the rocks are rather slick!" That probably proves unnecessary but given how often certain sailors, blue-collar warlocks, and others fall spontaneously into the sea now and then, you never can be too careful. "Is everything a'right?"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
It amuses Zee to address Meggan with fairy tale language and her response does a lot to lift her mood. Malekith and his ilk seeking to injure the world have darkened her days, and not just hers. It is only the beginning and he has already robbed many people of their lives.

She looks down at the perilous waves that could sweep an unsuspecting magician out into deep. Perhaps, Namor would save her? With an imperious gesture, Zee rises to the same height.

"What has you out here trying to tame the waves, Meggan?"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The wide blink of those pale eyes hold a diminutive echo of the lighthouse's immense beam, cast in a winter lens. Even here she carries the memory of February, another three weeks to go before the soil breaks and the flowering season begins its slow, coursing pace to reach the surface. "Duty I promised to Columbia I'd do. They manage the whole bit there." She waves idly at the island, or what amounts to an island connected by the thinnest necklace of stones to the mainland.

"The sea is never tamed. An ally, a sister to make requests of. Her moods are more temperamental than John aft'r a night getting sauced in Liverpool. Make of it what you will, 'course." Her smirk widens a fraction as she stretches her hand out, and then opts to drop back onto solid ground again. "Be welcome. Fancy a cuppa or something harder? I still keep a good cellar 'ere, otherwise Ceci would be into it all for her games, I'm sure."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna nods and makes a graceful spin, lighting next to Meggan. "You brew the best and don't mind if I do."

She winks, "Likely I'll add something harder to my cup while you bring me up to date on all of Ceci's doings as well as John's. And Columbia? You don't mean the Lady Columbia, do you? Gift me with some lighter news than what has been transpiring to the South, please."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"I'd not go that far. Make a passable cup with what I've got, but I don't run a teashop." The certain hint of a smirk could conceal thorns, or it's just the nature of a winter-aspected Tuath smiling. Meggan's edges be jagged at times, after all. She carelessly flicks her hair off her shoulder, looking back to Zatanna as she approaches the lighthouse keeper's cottage.

"His? Bein' a proper da to her. Gettin' blitzed at this dodgy spot in Belfast... or was it Dublin? He's been poking about after his infernal reflection and finally getting about to doing something after that tosspot wanker." Her teeth make the sibilant consonants that much sharper, snapping off certain words with a blithe, wicked ease. "Were it strictly up to me, the thing wearing my husband's face would reach an end before the night is out, but the choice is not mine to make. His patience is at an end, though."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Were someone able to harness the sparks flying off Meggan when she is in this kind of mood, they could power several small villages just on a phrase bitten off between her teeth. Zatanna has witnessed her moods before and lets them slide off her like the waves wetting the lighthouse's promontory rocks at its foundation.

That last bit she tossed off is grist for Zatanna to chew on. "Out of your hands is it? Well," she says, eyes widened innocently as a lamb, "when has he ever been long on patience? What does he propose doing?"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
This coming from a woman who could light up Gotham with a smile! Zatanna earns a graceful arch of an eyebrow and little more, the shiver of ease marking her movements as Meggan heads for the door into the kitchen. The table inside is large enough for all of Arthur's knights and a few ladies to boot, probably a gargantuan tree that gave it up. "Columbia Uni. Where I aim for a degree, though hard to stay on track when life throws up more interesting avenues. Keeps me in New York often enough."

She pulls her hair back and goes for the electric kettle. "Mm, what do you think? Is it right I go stalk the demon and take the choice away from John? Seems awfully dodgy to me, rather let him pick and if he drags his feet, ask why. Could be as much as making the bastard suffer, and am I one to judge that?"