17397/A Common Root

A Common Root
Date of Scene:	10 March 2024
Location:	Grand Library - Themysciran Arts Center
Synopsis:	Old Atlantean shares his observation of the common threads of his culture winding through the ages into the epic cultures of the modern day. Also goes back home through a toilet cubicle.
Cast of Characters:	Atrun Rai, Zatanna Zatara

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Atrun Rai has posed:
    One would expect an agent of the Old Ones, the ancient monsters nibbling at the veil between dimensions in the hopes of eventually devouring it all, to go through ornate and arcane means to summon a fellow practitioner of the sorcerous arts to his location for a social call. But that would be wasteful, because telephones exist. So it is the telephone which is employed to call Zatanna Zatara, Mistress of Magic, to come to the Themysciran Arts Center for, one assumes, some subject of great weight and cosmic interest.

    Which may come as something of a surprise when the lady does eventually arrive to find Atrun-Rai, himself a scion of a vastly faraway age, stands squinting at the shelves of artifacts that line the second floor balcony. Are there people here? Not many. Nobody in this part of the library to notice how dark the shadows are he casts. How they flicker around their edges. The extragalactic wrongness of his existence there at odds with the civility that his besuited figure exudes. He's even smiling.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
A comical search ensued when "Magic Carpet Ride" started to play someplace in the library at Shadowcrest. After overturning a pile of books and circling the shelves, Zee found her phone under a cushion of the settee in front of the fireplace. When she saw Unknown Caller on the screen, she nearly thumbed the phone off. Intuition intervened. She answered.

A shimmering purple line announces the Mistress of Magic's arrival into the narrow corridor of another Library. Someone who knew her well would see the tightness in the beautiful line of her jaw, the faint pinch compressing her full lips as she steps out of the portal. Scion of a Lord of Order, she always feels the world is askew when a Lord of Chaos is in the vicinity.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    Alas, not everyone chooses to be a harbinger of the eventual endtimes, but it helps when one's yin is in proximity. "Ah hello," he calls, turning only after a few passing moments more to look in the direction of the arch-sorceress; smiling as always, a beneficent destroyer. "I appreciate your coming so quickly. I trust I haven't disturbed you terribly?" Does he really care if he did? Who knows? He wears that smile like a cultist might a ritual mask, hiding anything behind it.

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Not terribly," she matches his smile, caching her discomfort with all the artistry of a stage performer. "You caught me at a good moment, synchronicity at work." She veils her interest in his reaction to the word synchronicity.

"I can only imagine it is something urgent. More of those black grapes infiltrating reality?"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "Opposing energies," he muses with a nod, looking back to the various objects within their cases. "Working in time. I must admit myself feeling a bit guilty, however, as the matter is not urgent. It is...social, after a fashion. Educational. Something that I've discovered."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna's large blue eyes widen slightly in surprise at the notion that opposing energies might balance one another, then tilts her head to the side and shrugs, conceding the distant possibility.

"Well, who would deny the wonders of educating oneself? Go on, don't leave me hanging. What have you discovered?"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "Well." The agent of (literal) chaos gestures to a glass case, in which a figure resides. It's a simple thing, really: a maternal figure, sculpted in soapstone, an ancient copy of an even more ancient Themyscrian ritual object. An 'Icon of The Just Matron', a cultural symbol of the matriarchal tribal societies that would eventually form the Amazon people. A lawgiver, of sorts. An arbiter-figure. Though simplistic of design, it is (as all Amazonian arts tend to be) fluid and glorious, a departure from the militaristic aesthetic one might expect of the peerless soldiery of the modern day. Fluid. /Soft/. Another example of opposing forces, much like the flesh that inhabits the armor of Themyscira's armies. "Tell me, Magus. What does that say to you?"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna gives the mage a wide berth and approaches the case from another angle to stare at the figure. No labeling can be seen from her side, so she doesn't have any information beyond her ample grounding in art and occult history. An unconscious smile softens her lips as the figurine's simple beauty performs its magic.

"It's a maternal figure. A fertility symbol or a symbol of the wholeness embodied in women." She nods to herself, entranced by the artifact.

"But I don't know its provenance. Maybe the Mediterranean basin. They sculpted figures like this in Crete and Macedonia."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "Indeed it does," replies Atrun-Rai, laughing softly to himself as he bends to squint a bit more at the shape. "Indeed it does. You will imagine my surprise, then, to see it here. Considering I saw such things at roadside shrines when I was a young man. Very similar."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
The mage nods once, lidding her eyes to acknowledge his words. "It doesn't surprise me. People from those times who really saw the world knew how to distill its essence. This was probably on an altar somewhere, too."

She gazes at him intently, "Does it bring back memories? Is this what you wanted to show me? It is a powerful image."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    The question elicits a soft sound from deep in his throat. "Perhaps I thought you would appreciate it best," he replies then. "For we are all related, in some way, we workers of wills. It all came from Atlantis, did it not?"

    Atrun-Rai takes a step back from the case, mindful in the moment what his presence does to matter - he would not want to advance the decline of such an ancient relic just by standing near it. "It always brings back memories, being in this place. Just as it does being near the modern-day incarnation of our people. Does it not call to you? The common thread of these cultures, hearkening ever after into the ancient days?"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"Of course, it does. Both my mother's and father's lines come from Atlantis and later their descendants from around the Mediterranean."

Staring at the figure, "Even if that were not the case, its beauty is powerful and speaks to me."

One corner of her mouth pulls back wryly as she looks up, "Should I call you Grandfather, then?"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    /Now/ she gets a snort. "If it pleases you," replies the ancient Atlantean, a brow arched as in amusement. "But there would be a long line of 'great' before that, and I try and cleave to humility." The man gestures now to the figure once more. "This is not, of course, the only example. I can see it from time to time. Snatches of it. In the architecture. The turn of the weapons. Aspects of ancient Greece are like that. The Mediterranean, Asia. I see the traces of my homeland everywhere. Not so much modern Atlantis, or that which is called Atlantis now. We did not live below the waves. The sea has changed their way of seeing things, of living. Of design. An interesting method of adaptation, and yet...even there, in the trident wielded by their King, that most ancient of treasures, you see the tracks of the days in which I lived."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Laughing under her breath, she shares a smile with the ancient magus, "Very humble of you not to call yourself 'great'." Zatanna's eyes grow distant, "How many greats, I wonder? Were you on hand to see Homo Sapiens court and then destroy the Neanderthals?"

She adds after a pause, "There is a whole field of anthropology devoted to studying the effect of the environment on culture and physiognomy. Still, even their trident?"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    A laugh, then. "No, no," he replies with a shake of his head; Atrun-Rai's eyes, dark as his suit, glitter like polished stones. "At least, I don't /believe/ so. My time was..." A pause. "What is the year, now? By the modern calendar. Sometimes these things slip past."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna bites her bottom lip, giving him an odd look, "Well, that depends on whose modern calendar. The Hebrew year is 5284. The Gregorian year is 2024. Let's see...the Aztecs and the Maya would say, um, 2022, if I'm not mistaken."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    There's a moment where one can almost see the gears turn in the wizard's head; he considers, then says, "I would say, then, that the year from which I come is approximately what by the modern calendar would be forty-one thousand, five hundred BCE. Atlantis was not unified, then, you know. Not that I had long to live -- I was thirty-five when I died, after all." A sigh, then, and he looks back to the figure in its case.

    "I said that it reminded me of the shrines when I was young. They were shrines to the Wise Maidens, the choosers of sorcerors in my time. Families would put them out at the borders of their property along the road, perhaps to entice the Maidens on their travels to take any child that had some spark of magical ability off to the academies in the cities. Everyone could use magic then."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Nodding slowly several times, she murmurs, "Pre-history, then." But does not comment on his death.

More loudly, "You've said that before. But are you saying some were more gifted than others? No one evokes the Wise Maidens now. Not even people who style themselves as loremasters."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "All things fade from history," he points out with another chuckle. "In those days, of course, the Maidens were necessary - understand, Magus, that at that time the greatest of the orders were still in direct content with the divine! Angels, gods, they spoke to them directly in order to learn the secrets of creation that makes sorcery possible." A shrug rolls through his broad shoulders, and he tucks his hands behind his back. "They were necessary. Far more than what passes for sorcery now -- not that I mean to speak against your magic, Magus. You are, truly, the greatest wielder of such powers in these days that I have seen."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Her eyebrows draw together as she shakes her head no. "No, though I am flattered. Truly, there are mages more powerful than I am. Dr. Strange, Wanda Maximoff. The Elementals like Meggan and Amythest...they are not the only ones who possess and wield magic. The Asgardians, to name a few. And they commonly move between the Nine Realms and some call them Gods."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    A shake of his head, then, and Atrun-Rai steps away from the cases entirely, walking now to the railing of the balcony. "Asgardians," he mutters. "Powerful, indeed. But gods? I cannot agree with it. Cosmic forces are still only material. They are not divine."

    With this said, Atrun-Rai looks over his shoulder at her and smiles. "Well. I wanted you to see this. I find that at times I see you have a certain vulnerability, something that comes with youth. I, after all, was a young sorceror as well before I died. It is important, I think, to know that you are not simply one person, awash with power. That you are tied to a chain of blood all the way down to the ancient days, and for you to draw strength from that. You are stronger than you know."

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
Zatanna takes an audible breath, looking down while his back is turned to her. "Well, I am hardly divine," she replies quietly.

"And..." her sapphire eyes move to the figurine, "thank you. That was unexpected. You certainly have the long view."

She joins him at the balcony, "Did you have children before you died?"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "A very long view," he replies, looking away to the greater library now. "Remember, I fight to save reality. But I am no fool. One day, I may well become the harbinger of its end, when the stars are right. I hope that it is not you that must face me if that happens, that it will be many thousands of years in the future, but if so...perhaps you may be able to stave off the end if you consider such things, even though it will be at the destruction of this shadow of what I once was."

    Such a sober thing to say, and yet he says it with a smile upon his lips. He reaches into his jacket and withdraws a bronze krater, as he does on occasion; the dark liquid inside smells of wine and spices, but there's a slight metallic note amid the heady perfume. As though perhaps it were hovering at the edge of going off. A sip is taken, and he sighs. "As to your question, no. No children for me, I am afraid -- when I died it was in the defense of reality on the side of mortals, as a member of the Salt Brotherhood. And when I was not, of course, going about on monster-purges with them I was the court magician of the king. Oh, that would be Estuan the Fourth, you see, of the Seven Kingdoms which made up the land at the time. No time for family. Sorcerors made bad husbands back then."

    With that said, he takes another draught from the krater and tucks it away into his jacket once more, not a drop spilled as it vanishes into whatever beyond from which it came. "I think that I should go. My presence in this place...there are too many old things, and I am cancerous to reality should I stay in one location for too long. You will not mind if I take my leave of you, after bringing you here so soon ago?"

Zatanna Zatara has posed:
"How have you remained sane? That, in and of itself, is a great gift." Her knuckles whiten as she clenches the railing, saying, "Perhaps one of my line will meet you at the end. It won't be me. We are long-lived but..."

She stops speaking abruptly, her head snapping to look at him, "Unless you mean, I will become like you after my death."

Shaking her head in denial, she changes the subject, "So I understand from experience. John Constantine was my first lover. Thankfully we never married."

She straightens, and steps back, releasing the balustrade, "Thank you for a pleasant visit, Atraun-Rai. It's true about your effect on reality. Please, go ahead."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    He lifts a hand, then, chuckling once more - though this is, indeed, a colder sound than before. "No," he replies. "No. I was killed by the Old Ones, the Ones Beyond. By being consumed by them I became one with them - but my mind, preserved with what there is of my humanity, is useful to them. Thus I am of them, but I am not /entirely/ of them." A wink. "And you will not be the same, unless you are killed in the same way. It is my hope that you shall die old and happy surrounded by grandchildren."

    With a smile, then, he pushes away from the balustrade himself, and walks away toward a restroom where one of the cubicles will bear witness to the Void for half a second as he steps back into the blackness from which he was decanted.

    One doubts it will be the worst thing it's ever witnessed, though.