9316/Apologies and Bagels

From Heroes Assemble MUSH
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Apologies and Bagels
Date of Scene: 28 December 2021
Location: Harold's House of Oddities and Coffee House
Synopsis: Lydia meets up with Phoebe to apologize to her, and they end up doing a little bit of scrying for the missing Agnes. Results were inconclusive.
Cast of Characters: Lydia Dietrich, Phoebe Beacon




Lydia Dietrich has posed:
It took a while for Lydia to overcome her shame of losing control the night the Urean Brood kidnapped Agnes, but when she did she sent a text to Phoebe asking if they could meet up somewhere (her choice) so she can do a formal apology in person.

The sun had just set in Gotham and finds Lydia waiting for Phoebe inside the coffee house. She's got her purse and a paper bag filled with baked goods tucked underneath the table and already she's gotten a cup of tea steaming before her, though it doesn't look like she's touched it yet.

Tonight she's dressed casually. A comfortable pair of jeans tucked into boots good for walking in the snow, a black turtleneck sweater under a grey woolen poncho to keep her 'warm'.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe arrives, wearing a watchcap over her braids, her body tucked into her wool jacket. She was wearing thick leggings and her black boots, and has a bag over her shoulder that is full of really quite expensive looking leather-bound books. She tucks those in first, and then slips in across from Lydia.

    "... I want you to know that you're fine, first of all, you don't need to apologize. Stuff happens in fights."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia gives Phoebe a pained look. "Thank you but... I just need to do this. I lost control, and I shouldn't have. I put you in needless danger, when I could have been helping trying to keep Agnes from being kidnapped. I won't say that it's my fault that it happened but it sure as hell /feels/ like it. Soooooo..." She reaches under the table and sets the paper bag on it. Pushing it across the table to Phoebe she says, "It's zucchini bread. There's something about being Jewish that means you apologize with baked goods."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Nothing wrong with that. If it wasn't for the fact that Bart mysteriously shows up every time I'm baking, I'd probably do the same." Phoebe gives a gentle smile, and accepts the bag. And then she looks in it, takes a sniff, and then closes the bag again with a grin.

    "Agnes could have held on to Jon. Jon could have worked out and strengthened his muscles. The brood could have chosen not to kidnap her." Phoebe points out, and she gives a small shrug. "I'm happy I didn't hurt you. I've pretty closed to toasted Jubilee."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"I know," Lydia says. "Intellectually, that is. Feelings aren't always rational, though." She blinks, though, at something Phoebe said. "Wait. Agnes let go? Why did she do that?"

She scowls as she tries to piece some things together. "When I got home that night I found this in my pocket," she says, pulling out a ring. It's in the form of a dragon that would curl around the wearer's finger with what looks like rubies for eyes. "I gave her this when they were siphoning her energy. It obscures your blood to make it hard to trace back to you, and it helped in severing the connection that they were using." She turns the ring in her fingers thoughtfully. "I think she means for us to find her with this, because it's still connected to her blood."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "She..." Phoebe gets a deer in the headlight look. "... was afraid and might have launched a fireball, but none the less--" she trails off a moment, and she drops her eyes to the ring. She wrinkles her nose.

    "I have an extraordinarily huge amount of tracking with blood magic." she adds a 'thanks, Leksandra' underneath her breath. She stretches her fingers a moment, and she reaches into her backpack and pulls out her plain, leather-bound book. This she opens up, and begins to look through, looking to the ring and then checking her notes.

    "My cousin was a necromancer. She was tracking me first through my aura, which D- which got bound up with a spell circle tattoo. After that she was tracking me with a mixture of blood magic and divination. Thankfully some of my friends in Gotham were able to destroy all the bottles around the city that let me track her movements, but it would have been interesting to study them." she explains.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia nods and sets the ring down on the table, sliding it over to Phoebe. "I'll entrust you to this, then. I don't have much in the way of experience with blood magic," she says, reaching under the table and pulling out a journal. "I was more into wards and circles and artificing." She flips open the journal and scans through the pages until she finds the one she wants. Setting it down she slides it over to Phoebe, too. "Here are my notes on how I made the ring, if that'll help."

She gives the girl a curious tilt of the head. "Would you like some coffee? I'm buying."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Nng..." PHoebe makes a little bit of a face, and she accepts the ring, and she holds the object in her hand a moment.

    "Lydia. Everything I know of blood magic I learned from... you know." she states quietly, and her nose wrinkles, and as she holds the ring in one hand, she reaches to scratch at her sternum, below the hem of her shirt.

    "Are you sure you trust me with this and not that you feel guilty for trying to eat me?"

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia nods solemnly. "I know," she says. The less said of him the better. "But I think out of all of us you'd be the best bet for crafting a tracking spell." A scowl touches her lips, "Perhaps Nettie, but I don't know her as well as I do you."

"But only take it if you're comfortable with doing it," she says. "I've got another angle that I'm working on to try to find them, so it's not like it's all on you. But my angle is far from a sure thing and it involves a lot of mutant politics."

She gives the girl a chuckle. "The zucchini bread was for the guilt. This is because I don't want to see Agnes harmed."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe takes a look at Lydia's notes. She purses her lips a moment as she reads over it, then takes her phone out, snaps a picture, and moves the journal back over to Lydia.

    She pulls out some paper. Her first circle is drawn as perfect as human hands can make it. She draws a secondary circle within, and then with a meditative air, she begins to fill in the geometry. She mumbles a moment in Liverpuddlian-stained Latin, and gives a soft snort.

    "Let's try to keep mutant politicking out of our vampire hunts. Things are complex enough with everything else going on. Winter holidays ruined. Homeless again. Jobless. Peh."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia watches Phoebe work with some amount of fascination. She's never really seen anybody else work on creating a circle. She's usually just seen the end results, and it's interesting to see how Phoebe does it differently than she does. She silently pulls her journal back, and places it in her purse.

"If you need a place to say," Lydia begins, "I have a perfectly good apartment in Brooklyn that you can crash at until you find something more permanent. I mostly live up on the Asteroid nowadays so it's become more like my personal library and workshop than an apartment."

She shakes her head. "I don't keep any food in it, but there's a grocery store within walking distance, and you're welcome to read any of the books you find there." She shrugs. "It's not much, but once you turn the heat on it'll be warm and the bed is comfortable."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "... I'm staying with Tim, at the moment." Phoebe states quietly "He had a spare room." -- it's not the entire truth, but it's not a lie. It's carefully balanced. "Zatanna has also offered me space at her place. I'm tired of having space in other people's places, though. The loft, 3A, even having a room at J-- Constantine's house. I suppose along with going through parents like tissue paper I tend to wear out places to live, since the whole 'under eighteen' thing. At least for the next two months."

    Phoebe's mostly sticking to a disjointed collection of topics that she's used at length as she re-constructs parts of the circle, drawing different parts, expanding them out. She draws her fingers across it, giving another quiet mutter, and she tilts her head back and forth.

    "Sorry. Two of the last five months I spent literally making circles for everything and combining them. Set my jacket on fire once." she explains to Lydia.

     -- and then someone sets a coffee on the table. It's huge.

    "Bath tub sized four shots espresso in regular coffee three pumps caramel and coconut milk."

    Phoebe looks across to Lydia, and gives an embarrassed smile. "... I come here a lot."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia nods as Phoebe explains her housing situation. "Understandable. Having a place of your own is... necessary, I think. It's why I don't get rid of my apartment. Well," she confesses with a grin, "that and I'd have nowhere to put all my books on the Asteroid. I go there when I need some space away from the Brotherhood, or if I'm doing any kind of magic work, or if I just want a cozy place to write." She shoots the girl a grin, "I know you've got people wanting to help you coming out of your ears, but you can add me to the list if you need help finding your own place come February.

Lydia stares at the soup bowl full of coffee that's been placed before Phoebe. "Where do you /fit/ all of that inside you?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Teenager Magic." Phoebe replies regarding the coffee.

    "People always want to help, but there's an order of operations. I'm fine, I have a roof over my head and Tim sends me reminders to eat the same way I send him reminders to eat."

    The ring is set in the middle of the circle. Phoebe glances up at the staff, and she then takes out a couple stubs of candles.

    "Chas is stuck in Heaven guarding the gates to the silver city, angels are going to be invading next week, Agnes is missing, Moonknight is fuck-where," she scratches her sternum again "Zee's balancing two students with WILDLY different capabilities, and Tim is going to be rightly pissed when he learns what I moved to his place, so--" she gives a short incantation and lights the stubs of candles. The candles light. "Here goes solving for Agnes."

    She whispers a few harsh-sounding words, in her mother's tongue, and the circle gives a dull, rose-gold glow, bleeding inwards until it connects with the ring.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia just shivers at the memory of Chas being melded with the gates of Heaven. Nobody deserves that kind of fate, least of all, Chas. "It's a lot and it never ends," she agrees.

She sits back and watches Phoebe intently, taking her cup of cooling tea and giving it the daintiest of sips. Just enough to catch the flavor, but not really enough to drink.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "It never ends." Phoebe confirms, "Because everything sucks forever, and those that do get up and fight are just a special sort of masochist."

    The rose gold hits the ting, and there's a sound like striking a gong, but in reverse, and silent. The waves of a gong's vibrations passing through Phoebe's fingers, making little rings in Lydia's tea. Probably vibrating Phoebe's ridiculously large coffee drink.

    Phoebe grabs out another piece of paper.

    She begins to draw what looks like the coast of the Great Lakes. She trails dotted and dashed lines, and plants an X on a location. Her eyes are staring into space, and she moves to a different part of the paper.

    She draws another couple of water bodies, and then another X.

    And then she draws what looks like a gate.

    Elsewhere on the paper, she narrows her eyes. She tilts her head back a moment, looking up at the white tiles of the ceiling.

    She mumbles something quietly, and then she focuses. Harder. Rose-gold kisses the tips of her fingers as she tries to force more magical nergy into the circle.

    "... two paths."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia scowls at Phoebe's sentiment. She'd argue the point, but not while she's in the middle of a casting. She tilts her head as she watches Phoebe draw, trying to orient herself so that the map makes more sense than it would upside down. Hazel eyes look up questioningly. "Two?"

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    It's the wisdom of someone who has spent a fifth of her life fighting and has had hope beaten out of her, literally, but still gets up to fight. Otherwise she wouldn't be doing this As Soon As Possible for Jon's sake.

    "Two paths. One leads North-North-Northwest. Upstate. New York. Lake effect snow. It feels Wrong. So wrong. Like, wrong seasoning used on a meal wrong. Wrong book pulled from the shelf wrong. I can't... really describe it. The other path leads over the Atlantic."

    Phoebe's head slowly tilts the other direction, as if she were trying to get fluid to go to the other ear. "The other one is blood, on a mirror. Blood reflected. Blocked. Sent back. It's... hard to see. Going. Echoing on the water to try and... it's..." Phoebe winces, her nose wrinkling, and she brings her head forward, her fingers curling against her temples, lifting off the paper, and she brings her head so... so... slowly... down to the table.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia quickly pulls out a second journal and starts scribbling notes down. "One of them could be the site where they were draining her energy," she muses, "and the other could be where they had taken her." She falls silent again when Phoebe tries to get a bead on that second ping.

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    Phoebe breathes out.

    "I'm pretty sure if I had anything in my stomach, I would be throwing up right now." she mutters from her place, face-down, on a table. "I am going to need to borrow the ring. Maybe overnight. Maybe two nights. I need an amplifier. I need refractors, mirros that I can snap to try and lessen the effect maybe? This would be. So much easier. If I could just ask..." she mumbles crossly, and one of her hands leaves her head to scratch again at her sternum.

    "Be a luv and let Jon know that one path is in upstate New York." I think I have the X's within a couple kilometers.

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
"Ooog," Lydia says in sympathy. "Take the ring. I can't do anything with it anyway. Let me know if there's anything you need me to pick up for you."

She nods, and takes a look at the map, replicating it in her own journal. "I'll do a bit of research to find out where that's at, and we'll go from there." Once copied, she folds the journal closed and stows it away in her purse.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asks, concern in her voice. "Do you need me to fly you anywhere? It'd be quicker than public transportation."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "No, no, I can... text Bart." she murmurs quietly. "I need the coffee. I'll be fine. Just... pushed too hard." she breathes out, and exhales.

    "Just need a minute. I'm going to have to find a good place to put a bigger circle 'cause my room is not warded enough for this shite and I don't want any of the dogs to wander into the circle and get teleported to Mars."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia nods and leans back into her chair. "Take all the time you need," she says. She considers offering up her apartment again since she used it for bigger circles and it's pretty well warded. She discards the thought, though. Phoebe probably already has a place and is probably getting annoyed at how helpful she's trying to be.

Instead she takes another sip of her tea. "All right. I'll get in contact with Jon and let him know what you're up to. Neither of these locations are where we suspect the nest of the Urean Brood is, so that's something. I'll keep working that angle since it's still unclear on where they fit in with all of this."

Phoebe Beacon has posed:
    "Sounds like a plan, Lydia." Phoebe says from her place on the table. She gives a weak thumbs up.

    And then she pushes herself up, reaching up to scratc at her chest again, and then rubs at her left shoulder. She breathes out, and gives a weak smile to the vampire author.

    "REally, I'll be fine. I'll send a text to Jon with the maps and explain the situation. You get back safe to the Asteroid."

Lydia Dietrich has posed:
Lydia watches as Phoebe scratches that spot on her chest... /again/. This makes, what, four times now? Plus the countless number of times she's seen it in the past. It's a tell of some kind, she muses with a scowl, but a tell for what? Better not press the girl.

She stands and nods, pulling out her wallet from her purse and extracting a twenty from it, and leaving it on the table. "Okay," she says and gives her a lopsided grin, "Enjoy your gallon of coffee and the subsequent bathroom breaks."

With that, she walks out of the cafe and disappears in a flash of purple.