8895/Sun King Ascendant: Water Signs

Sun King Ascendant: Water Signs
Date of Scene:	01 December 2021
Location:	The Midnight Mission
Synopsis:	Jon and Lydia check on Agnes. They talk about vampires and magic. Jon demonstrates some fairly impressive water magic... and then accuses Agnes of being in a cult. Oops. (He's right, of course. And the cult's going to mean Bad News for the Heliopolitans.)
Cast of Characters:	Lydia Dietrich, Jonathan Sims

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Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia had managed to soothe Agnes enough to get her down to her quarters so she can change out of her soggy clothes and take a shower. In the meantime, she's back up at the temple, cleaning up the spill with a towel, the bread and thermos next to her. She'll bring those down once she's done. Unfortunately, the temple is going to smell of barley and mushroom soup for a while.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    When Moon Knight couldn't find Jubilee, he called Jon, as both a psychiatrist and someone who actually had a teenaged daughter once upon a time. And while Jon's been busy, training and researching and arranging trips to the Underworld, he really /can't/ just ignore the call of 'come help this kid.'

    Besides. Half the reason he's been spending so much time at the gun range lately is his anger at Agnes' situation.

    He sniffs the air when he comes in, and blinks at Lydia cleaning up the spill. "...Mr. Knight said you needed help with Agnes?" He looks around, as if half-expecting her to pop out from behind one of the statues.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"Hello, Jon," Lydia says pleasantly enough, as she finishes mopping up. Once she's sure she's got it all she folds the towel up and gets to her feet. Motes of shadow ectoplasm congregate around the bread and thermos and lifts them up to hover at around arm level.

"I could, yes," she answers. "Zatanna took a look at her astrally and wigged out for a bit. She addressed Agnes... or something /in/ Agnes as Sekhmet which caused the poor girl to panic, spilling the soup that I made her." She looks at the towel and frowns. "I don't suppose you know where the laundry room is?"

"Anyway," she says, turning to head towards the door that leads to the basement. "She was sure that Sekhmet was /here/ and about to smite us. It took some doing to calm her down, but I was able to get her into the shower and laid out a fresh pair of clothes for her. She should be out soon."

"This is bad, Jon," she says as she makes her way down the stairs. "I figure she's either the avatar of Sekhmet or, God forbid, the goddess herself stuffed into a human child's body. I don't know. I may be overreacting to this."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    At 'Sekhmet' Jon blinks rapidly, expression turning confused and then wary. He overtakes Lydia with his longer stride, and goes to a door in the basement, near the one that leads to Moon Knight's ready room. "Laundry's in here," he says. He's frowning thoughtfully.

    The laundry room has a couple of smaller washer/dryer sets and a very large industrial one, as well as chairs and a couple of tables for folding. Fairly standard brownstone laundry room, if small. Jon goes to lean against the wall, staying out of Lydia's way.

    "What do you make of her?" he asks, curious, and also clearly collecting data.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"Posh," is the first word that comes to Lydia's mind when describing Agnes. She throws the towel into the wash and will gather other various laundry that needs to be done later. "She's obviously come from money. She also knows more than what she's telling us."

She turns and heads out of the laundry to lead Jon to where Agnes is staying. "She said she comes from a long line magi and that her father is, and I quote, 'complicated.'" She looks over at her friend, "It all gives me Alistair Crowley vibes, if I'm to be honest."

She stops in front of Agnes' door. Gently knocking on it, she calls out, "Agnes? It's Lydia. I brought the soup if you want to finish it. I've got Jon here with me."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Not Banister Frolly?" Jon murmurs, smiling faintly. "Sorry, ahh... Jubilation." By way of explanation. "I... agree, though. There are things I've... experienced, that..." He huffs out a breath. "It's /familiar/ enough, let's say that." He's clenching and unclenching a hand at his side. Whatever he thinks might be going on, it upsets him.

    Lydia's vampiric hearing can surely hear the sobbing before she even knocks on the door--and detect the faint scent of burned fabric. /What/ was the girl doing in there? There's a yelp of surprise and a scramble and then Agnes comes to open the door, not quite having managed to scrub the tears from her face. She's dressed in the clothes Lydia laid out, a knee-length green skirt and black leggings, another of those button-down shirts, bare feet. Moon Knight had mostly bought her variations on the clothing she'd had when they found her.

    "Sorry!" she says. It sounds almost reflexive. "Hello, Dr. Sims. Thank you, Lydia. I'd appreciate the soup, yes." She pads back into the dorm room and over to the little kitchenette. The shirt she'd been wearing, and the tights, are neatly folded on the couch, but the skirt's nowhere to be seen, though the scent of burned fabric is coming from under a couch cushion.

    Jon raises his eyebrows. He has the parental sense of 'the kid's trying to hide something,' but she shies away from him almost as much as Moon Knight. So he merely says, "I hear you had a bit of a turn earlier?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"Who?" Lydia asks, confused. Then Jon explains it. "Oh. Right." She shakes her head. "I know what you mean. Her scent is... I just can't place it but I know I've smelled it before."

When Agnes opens the door she gives the girl a pleasant smile, and brings the thermos and bread, still being held aloft by shadow motes, around for her to take. "Hello, Agnes," she says. "Feeling any better?" She breezes her way in, nose twitching at the burnt fabric smell.

She walks over to the couch, and pulls up the cushion to reveal the burnt skirt. "Is there anything else that I can get you?" She doesn't make any comment about it, though. She just folds it neatly up and sets it aside to be disposed of later.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Agnes takes the soup and bread, puts them on the table in front of her, and sits to go ahead and finish eating it. Her shoulders slump as Lydia goes to uncover the skirt. "I'm sorry!" she blurts. "I was trying to clean it! My fire's supposed to be able to cleanse, maybe, if I can learn to /control/ it, but it's just the most /bloody/ useless--" She claps her hands over her mouth, eyes going wide. Her gaze darts between Lydia and Jon like she's expecting to be in trouble. Waiting for the hammer to fall any moment.

    Jon walks over, quite calmly, to examine the skirt. "Controlling fire seems like quite the feat," he murmurs. "I've been having trouble with that myself."

    When there's no immediate backlash, Agnes relaxes a bit, pulls her hands down from her mouth. "H-how... oh, you're a vampire, yes. You just seem too /nice/ to be a vampire," she murmurs, focusing on the thermos.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"It's okay," Lydia says, as she leans against the kitchen counter, to watch Agnes eat. "Usually when they say that fire cleanses, they mean more in a spiritual sense. Burning away evil and such." Amusement touches her lips, "My soup may be many things, but evil it is not."

She shrugs demurely. "I was nice before I became a vampire. Sure I have to fight some of my darker instincts, but turning didn't change who I fundamentally am." She shakes her head, "It also helps that I was reborn into a clan that prizes humanity over succumbing to the beast."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "You mentioned that," Agnes says. "Clan Valkkai. I... was curious. Life and humanity? I know the Uraeans think you're weak for that." She shakes her head; her hair's still drying, and frizzing, and crackles a bit as she moves it. "How do you prize life and humanity when you're... dead?"

    Jon chuckles softly as he picks up the skirt to examine the hole. It's neat, precise, a perfect circle that stops short of the edges of the soup stain. "I wondered that myself. But I begin to think, perhaps, vampires are not as 'dead' as we may think. Another form of life, perhaps." He says it thoughtfully.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"The way I see it is that /because/ we've died, we understand how precious life is," Lydia explains. "Most vampires just decide to jettison whatever humanity they have left and embrace the bad parts of what they've become." She shrugs, "There are good parts, though. I'm faster and stronger. It's hard to hurt me. These things I can use to help protect those who need it. I can even turn into a wolf!"

"Maybe," she says to Jon. "I think 'undead' is a perfectly good descriptor. I'm not entirely dead, and yet I'm not really alive either." She chuckles, "In my more depressive moments I joke that I'm a soul piloting a meat puppet animated by magic. But the important part is that I /have/ a soul. Other vampires do, too, but they like to pretend they don't."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "We are /all/ souls piloting meat puppets," Jon says to Lydia, quite deadpan. "Animated by magic, well... that's a philosophical sort of question. But I tend to think... well. I met someone today who went to Duat and was witness to the business of hearts being put on scales. If that is real, it implies perhaps some part of our beliefs about the soul are--which would imply to me, that you are /ba/, the personality and mental body, returned to /khet/, the physical body, with the /ib/, the heart... somewhere else." He frowns. "Well, I suppose it doesn't /entirely/ track, but my point is that it implies some form of life."

    Agnes frowns at Jon. "But without the /ib/, the body isn't... /alive/. The heart is absolutely central to the functioning of /h'w/. No heartbeat, no life. Not the way the ancestors would have understood it."

    Jon peers over at her. "Just so," he says after a moment, smiling. "I stand corrected. And at any rate, Lydia here is Jewish, so I don't think she'd have had her heart weighed on the scales of Ma'at anyhow."

    Agnes practically beams. "There we are, then. Lydia is undead, but still a good person. And the Uraeans are /not/."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Watches the two contemplate the state of her unliving or not with some amount of amusement. They're far more knowledgeable about Egyptian afterlife than she is. Her mood darkens a little bit when it's mentioned that she's Jewish. "Well," she says dismissively, "sooner or later I'll find out what happens to my soul once I go to my final death. Hopefully that's 'later' rather than 'sooner.'"

She doesn't mention that doubt has been creeping in as to whether or not she actually has a soul. Sure if she had one, she'd have retained the magic that was fueled by faith? How would she even be able to tell if she didn't have one? She desperately wanted to talk to somebody about this but coming out to the Rabbi probably isn't the smartest idea.

She nods at Agnes assessment. "Undead but still a good person," she agrees. "Uraeans are not. I'll call my sire to find out what she knows of them. They aren't the same ones that killed me, which I'm kind of both relieved and disappointed at. Relieved because the Irappu are /really/ bad news, but disappointed that I won't be able to exact some kind of revenge."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "My father says the best revenge is merely outliving one's enemies," Agnes says, quite calmly, still eating the soup and bread. "But if one /must/ seek revenge, to do it once the initial rage has died down. You should take your time to plan and enact revenge on these Irrapu." Sekhmet /is/ a goddess of vengeance, after all. Maybe it just comes naturally.

    While Lydia and Agnes speak, Jon is pondering the skirt. "Your father sounds like a piece of work," he mutters, too low for Agnes to hear, but Lydia's hearing can pick it up. He shakes his head, as if dispelling the thoughts, and murmurs, even more softly. "Mercy. Mercy, not..." He presses his lips together a moment, then holds out his hand over the skirt. Murmurs something in ancient Egyptian, a far older dialect than Agnes was speaking before. Words of healing, and cleansing.

    A globe of water appears beneath Jon's hand, and slowly--achingly slowly--the fabric at the edges of the hole begins to re-grow itself, threads appearing and weaving back together.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia chuckles at Agnes. "The problem with outliving them is that none of us will die of old age. We're doomed to a violent death." She shrugs, "But you're right. Whatever plans I may come up with to strike against the Irappu will need to be carefully thought out. I've got all the time in the world to plot it." She doesn't sound particularly attached to the notion of seeking revenge. After all, she /is/ a good vampire.

Jon's activity catches her attention, though. She stares in wonder as he manages to start healing the skirt. "Jon that's...." kind of amazing. She's seen magic do some amazing things before, but if you really sat down and thought about it, repairing burnt cloth out of thin air is quite a feat.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Very, very difficult, is what it is," Jon says through clenched teeth. "But I thought... perhaps if I /slowly/ pull the idea of the original fabric out of the Astral Plane..." The globe of water shrinks as the fabric 'regrows,' until it's entirely gone. The singed edges and the soup stain are gone, too, for good measure.

    Jon staggers a bit and quite nearly falls onto the couch. "Good lord," he gasps, setting his head on the back of the couch. "I /really/ hope healing living tissue is easier. But now... well." He tilts his head over to look at Lydia. "Now we see if it /stays/ that way. And if it does... I /think/ I might have just figured out how to use my magic to heal."

    Agnes stares at all of this with very wide eyes, and then gets up to go examine the skirt. She runs a hand over the spot where she'd burned the thing. "I can't even feel a break," she says softly. She peers around at Jon. "That's... how did you...?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia crowds around Agnes to look at the skirt once she's done with it. "This is amazing, Jon," she says, awe in her voice. "I'm pretty sure healing people is going to be easier. Flesh and bone /wants/ to heal. It's part of the natural process and all you need to do is hurry it along. But this..." she shakes her head. "This is more akin to literally pulling a rabbit out of a hat."

She neatly folds the skirt and walks over to where the other garments are stacked and lays it there. "Even if I had my magic, never in a million years would I be able to pull something like that off."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "I just... pulled the idea of the whole skirt from the Astral Plane," Jon says. "That's why the question is if it will /stay/ that way. Things I conjure usually disappear after a time, but... maybe this is different. I'm not trying to... destroy anything."

    Agnes is frowning. "That's not... magic doesn't... that's not how magic /works/." She folds her arms across her chest. "Lydia's right, you can't just... you don't... summon things from the Astral Plane and... how does that even... that makes no /sense/!"

    Jon chuckles, tiredly. "It's not how magic works for most people, no," he agrees. "But I suspect your father is a... ritualist, hmm? Words of power, complex diagrams, things of that nature?" He glances at Lydia. The question hovers--how did /her/ magic work?--but he knows it's a painful subject.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia picks up on the silent question. "Kabbalistic magic works a lot like ritualist magic. In fact, most ritualist magic is an offshoot of kabbalistic magic, with any hint of Jewish mysticism scrubbed away." No matter where you turn, there's always antisemitism. "My take was a little different. I'd calculate a shem... one of God's names... as it pertained to what I wanted it to do and breath the power of creation into it, giving it form."

"For bigger, less on-the-fly things, I would use circles of power with different, smaller shem inscribed within it, along with other sigils of power that might be needed." She bobs her head in the vague direction of Bushwick, "That's how I created my Golem." Whatever sadness she might be feeling about the loss of her magic she's boxed up right now. No use in getting all melancholy on them.

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "That sounds... /fascinating/," Agnes says, eyes shining. "And... yes, much like what my father does. He uses Egyptian, though, mostly Ptolemaic, and hieroglyphs. Hardly an offshoot of kabbalistic magic, I would think." She sounds vaguely defensive.

    "Oh, I'm /certain/ it's an offshoot of kabbalistic magic," Jon says, rolling his eyes. "Just as Lydia said, most of those in the 'Western Magical' tradition are. Egypt didn't /have/ that sort of magic, not the 'circles of power' sort. At some point in the 19th century all the rich white men who wanted power got together in their little cults and..." He snaps his mouth shut, shakes his head. Puts a hand over his eyes.

    The damage, however, is done. "My father is not in a /cult/!" Agnes snaps, "And neither am I! I know that's what you're all thinking! 'Poor Agnes, she's in a cult, she doesn't know /anything/ about the world,' but it's not /like/ that!"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"Nobody's saying you're in a cult," Lydia says gently. "Least of all us. I mean, look at where you're staying. To any outsider they'd be convinced that we were in some sort of cult together, but we all know better."

She turns and goes back to leaning on the edge of the kitchen counter. "Perhaps if you tell us more about your father we could understand better?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "/You/ may not be, but /he/ is. I know that's what he's thinking." Agnes glares at Jon. "But he's /wrong/."

    Jon sighs, still covering his eyes. "No, Agnes, that's not what I--"

    "'The Eye of Ra is a cult, and I want no part of it any longer,'" Agnes says, voice taking on a deeper tone briefly. "That's what you /said/, to my father, years and years ago before you left his service. It took me a while to remember, but it's /you/, I'm sure it is. Jonathan Sims, Priest Legatee of Ra."

    Jon lifts the hand from his eyes and /stares/ at the girl in shock, evidently unable to formulate a reply.

    Agnes has started sobbing. "And... and you couldn't just... leave well enough alone, could you? My father's going to come here and he's going to /kill/ you all, because you won't just let me /leave/. And you're... you're /nice/! Why do you have to be /nice/?! All of you, why can't you just... just... be /awful/ like Father /said/ you were?!" She's /right/ on the verge of running off to the bedroom, clearly.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia gives Jon a puzzled look, a silent 'what the fuck is going on?' "Agnes," she says in a gentle, even tone meant to calm the girl. "Nobody's going to die, not if I can help it." She means it too. If there's some way to resolve all of this peacefully, Lydia will work her best to find it.

"It's okay. It'll be okay. I promise," she says, thoughtlessly making promises she probably can't keep. "We'll find a way."

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    Agnes stares at Lydia and shakes her head, like she can't find the words. Then she turns and flees into the bedroom, slamming the door shut behind her. Lydia can hear what's probably a dramatic flop onto the bed and then the sounds of sobbing.

    Jon's staring after the girl, eyes wide. His heartbeat's sped up /rapidly/, like he's terrified. "She might be right," he says softly. "My husband and I are the only ones that survived trying to get out of that cult. If that's Elias Bouchard's daughter..."

    He shudders, and stands, hands clenched into fists at his side. "I... I need to go home." His voice shakes. "K-keep an eye on Agnes, please? And tell... tell M--Mr. Knight that... that I need to speak with him as soon as possible."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia makes her way across the room to lay a comforting hand on Jon. "Okay," she says softly, "but you'll eventually need to tell us what this is about."

She looks over her shoulders to where she hears Agnes sobbing and sighs. "I'm going to let her cry herself out," she says, turning back to Jon. "In the meantime I'm going to pop over to Tesco and pick up some Jammy Dodgers for her and grab my tea set so she can make herself some decent tea." She gives him a wan smile, "Is there anything you'd like me to pick up while I'm there?"

Jonathan Sims has posed:
    "Jammie Dodgers?" Jon blinks at Lydia. "I... would appreciate some myself, actually. I haven't had those in /years/." He says it wistfully. "They're really quite good with tea."

    Then he sighs. "I'll explain, Lydia. I swear. Just... just not when I'm on the edge of a panic attack, alright? But you all deserve to know." He shakes his head.

    "Good /lord/. Raised in the Eye of Ra. That poor girl." He looks toward the door, then his shoulders slump and he turns to leave.