9394/Legendary Relations

Legendary Relations
Date of Scene:	01 January 2022
Location:	Location
Synopsis:	No description
Cast of Characters:	Meggan Puceanu, Atrun Rai

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Meggan Puceanu has posed:
When she isn't hidden away in an extradimensional house currently owned by a Laughing Magician, Meggan Puceanu occupies several roles: bartender at the Empire Club, student at Columbia, keeper of the light off Cape Carmine in Gotham, environmental activist.

The third is her most enduring role, guarding the seas off the wave-thrashed shipping lanes of the Atlantic. Cape Carmine Lighthouse is a juggernaut fit for purpose, occupying an island beyond the harbour, attached by the thinnest breakwater of jumbled, huge boulders. Many feature eye anchors and long, flexible rope to help sailors succumbing to the currents or vagaries of the sea to find shelter, though these days, it's more likely someone falls off the breakwater itself.

Fresnel lenses flash that powerful beam out into the dark from the pinnacle of the neo-baroque building guarded by a faerie goddess and water-witch of the Atlantean Court. Regular flicker-flashes give way to an explosive burst, cutting through the grey hazes commonly found along the Eastern Seaboard on winter nights. Meggan herself sits on the railing, her legs dangling over the sides, ground many feet below. Wind streams through loose hair far longer than she is tall, dark as a starless night, while she listens to the sonnets spun by unseen sylphs and the gurgling lamentations of the sea. Earth murmurs through the carefully placed stones, and the fire at her shoulder streaks hope in troubled times.

The unveering light in the sky, as bright as the full moon -- absent presently -- is the only insult to a pretty perspective of someone living up to her bargain with a university in guarding the place. Until she can't.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    The sea, ever shifting, would not seem to be a medium through which entropy would transmit - save for its constant chewing, constant worrying at the land, ever seeking to gnaw it down. To drag all upon the surface into darkness, jealous and hungry. And it is here from which the pleasant, smiling shape of Atrun-Rai emerges, dry and glossy, awreath in a faint fog of frost that even salt watter cannoy quite deny.

    And there she is, Meggan Puceanu. He stands at the shoreline, just beyond the lapping tide, in his almost-clerical vestments. All black, outlined in the flashing of the tower's beams. Atrun-Rai looks up at her, smiling, teeth bright even in the dark. "And to think," he calls up to her in his warm, booming voice with it indeterminate accent. "The sirens are not usually meant to call the sailors home. You are remiss, I think."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The sea abides entropy and jettisons all notions of destruction for its own sake, reshaping continents and reworking the whole of a planet. The universal solvent best suited for wearing down mountains and shepherding whole coastlines to new configurations after their fiery birth sings plenty sweet to Meggan, her bare feet swinging slightly to the moaning waves, the crashing death on the precipice of an earthen hook braving the liquescent depths. How often people presume negative things of the sea, calling it fickle, demanding, jealous, cruel. They forget it is the birthplace to life, the cradle, giving and nurturing as much as it is protective and veiling as the night itself.

He bears his midnight halo as an inversion of hers, something made from the darkest of stuff whereas her own is simpler, easier to espy as a creation natural to the world around her. How not? He walks on her mother, as surely as she does. At least in spirit, if not in fact, for Gaea isn't so simply confined to the lithosphere. His smile all the way down there attracts the Tuath's attention, the chattery sylphs banished to silence by a warranted smirk. Up, up on high, she doesn't so much loom above Atrun-Rai as act the friendlier gargoyle for an unusual spire.

"There are lives to save. My watch continues, else it would all be remiss." Watching for bright lights in the sky or Michael dancing over the sea, who is to say? "In these times, night is day and day is night. Holding to the expected norms seems a folly and dreadful dull. Why?"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    Friendlier, comelier - is this how all things are in Faerie? Hands tucked behind his back, the sorceror in black stands still outlined in in the flashing beams, head cocked curiously as he watches her there on her perch. "I seek an audience," he calls to her, head canting now the other way. "Will you give me a moment from your watch, O Lady?"

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The Fae Realms extend beyond the stories of pixies and deadly meals that enchant the unfortunate. Just a toehold where their greatest expression embodies ever more than that. Meggan doesn't much present herself for what she is, though the slanted incline of her tapering ears and the structure of her countenance define her as more than a pretty English rose out here. What point then to hide from Atrun-Rai when he himself reflects more and less than the light has reached.

"Verily. The stone bench in the garden is quite cleared off, though we may seek shelter if the elements vex you." His request thus granted to a kind, she drops off the tower without a second thought. For even some of superhuman abilities, the collision with the earth would be agonizing, an orchestral movement of snapped bones and ruptured flesh, if not outright fatal. For her, a thoughtless effort that brings her to an immediate halt about six inches off the ground, floating in place until sinking down in another modest course correction. "Upon what matter, and have you a wish for tea, coffee or the like?"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "I am of the elements." He is about to ascend when - surprising, but perhaps it should not be - she hurtles toward the ground before him, taking a step back lest she explode. But of course, she does not. "As are you!" He laughs, nodding in appreciation of the woman's grace. "And tea, please. Your hospitaity, it is most appreciated."

    A look around the lighthouse follows this, his expression one of interest. "I am reminded of home," he muses. "The northern coast of the continent was dotted with these - though of course, it was a different mechanism. Do you live here, my lady? I hear that watchers still do."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"After a fashion," she agrees in a manner as amiable as it is slightly arch, if only as a result of being in the cold wearing a simple t-shirt over black, almost glistening pants that could be made of leather except that compound is too supple by half. Gambling on not colliding with a wall or her guest, she nods to Atrun-Rai at his request. A short distance from the tower lies the cottage of the keeper of the light, her home-away-from-House of Mystery. The sturdy stone has held up against the decades of battering by sea and the sky's vigorous rages and quietude. Thick oak reinforced by metal gives the door weight and presence, unsealed by a light push. "Do you fancy any particular kind?"

Getting the requisite particulars out won't take long. A tray set with a sugar bowl, cubes within, a spot of honey, cream in a pitcher taken from the fridge, assembled in a proper arch over a pot, spoons, and cups. "Most such buildings were mechanized at the turn of the last century, though a few escaped. This light was preserved for historical purposes, and it has me instead of a computer or radio manned by someone leagues away. My responsibility, aye, and a fine spot. But I'm not sure that is what brought you."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    He enters after her, hands tucked behind his back, his expression thoughtful as he walks along. "Any tea will do, thank you," he says in reply as they enter the cottage, and he smiles in his ever-amiably way as he goes to sit wherever she might direct him. "Lovely place," he offers, too. Hospitality apparently means quite a lot to the gentleman in the ringleted beard. "Thank you, truly."

    At her other question, Atrun-Rai clears his throat. "Well it seems to me," he begins, "That we were not properly introduced at the meeting; perhaps it will make things more clear." Rising again he bows his head but slightly, making that same, formal gesture before him, the complicated mudra-sign. "I am Atrun-Rai of Lantala, formerly of the Amatakoi and Mestales orders, formerly court magician to His Towering Majesty, Estuan of Lantala, Fourth Of His Name." A beat. "Lantala was one of the Seven Kingdoms of the Atlantean League, befoe the League became the Empire of Atlantis and the city its capital. I knew of your guardian, Merlynos, when he was still but young. Young and powerful, of course. He remains the greatest sorceror in all the history of our land."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
The tea in this case will be a matcha green bag, another set aside a smart Scottish breakfast with a kick to it. Meggan brings the tray out to the equivalent of Arthur's round table, a vast oaken hexagon that might well stand up against the end of the world. Appropriate to use as a shield against Michael's sword, that. A war council, then, might sit there.

"Thank you. I am only the latest of the watchers," she explains, demurring a bit from it. "Please, help yourself." Fresh scones are set to the side on a plate before she sits, her legs crossed as she sinks into a seat. Those narrowed eyes hold a pale green hue, though much closer to grey, difficult to name their shade as they regard Atrun-Rai. He probably /could/ be speaking a foreign tongue. Likely is. Something brings her to straightening a little, back ramrod and shoulders squaring off. "A great sorcerer he remains, though bit of a right bastard on the surface and under. Part of the job, I ken. I know of Atlantis now, but not the Atlantis-Which-Was that he came from." A line mars her brow, but it has no staying power; her alabaster skin resists age unless demanded to show it, a superficial illusion as neatly as the divide in courts that are in essence one and the same. "Not nearly old enough."

That calls for one other thing forgotten, and she clears her throat. "My manners." Oof. Roma is going to smack her from afar. "I'm Meggan, sometimes called Gloriana."

It's not much to go by.

But then, she's literally told the architect of the Presence's purpose that she is but kelp in the current of the sea. A woman holding another's soul bound to her by the greatest sorcerer of their age, no less.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "I am from the Atlantis-That-Was," he replies, smiling faintly as he olds his hands upon the table. "My time, before I died, was two thousand years after the founding of Atlantis and the establishment of the kingdoms. Some forty-four thousand years ago, I believe." Politely he takes a seat, and looks at the spread she does so wonderfully offer. "My thanks to you, Mistress Gloriana, truly." Instinctively he reaches for the most formal title, etiquette ingrained. He lets the tea steep, and produces for himself a scone, of which he inhales deeply before letting out a sigh of appreciation. "You are too kind."

    That said, he cants his head very slightly. "I am, of course, always happy to answer any questions that you may have of my time. I will answer them, as best as I am able."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"Meggan will do, or Meg." That bite-sized piece diminished even further to its smallest fragment, short perhaps of 'You!' in an accusatory form, sinks into the proto-Indo-European language family. It fits for one so diminutive in form and history compared to her infinitely more famous kin, among the man. Perhaps that -- and that alone -- stops her from tipping her head with a quizzical lost look when Atrun-Rai's age comes tumbling out with the ease of spring floods puncturing the snowpack. So too they sort of ice over everything else, that fact of death washed to the backdrop for a moment.

What questions /should/ there be?

"Was it nice living there?" she asks, eyes rounding a fraction. Their vertical slits are barely impressions, hidden by those frosty, opalescent lashes.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "Meggan, then." He considers, then, how to answer her question. "It was," says Atrin-Rai, smiling faintly at memory that comes springing to mind. "But it was not, for all its magic, very different than life anywhere else - I realize that the legends are incredible, and many are not without merit, but..." His dark eyes sparkle as he reaches for his cup, clasping it in both hands to let the warmth fill them. "I find that my favorite memories were not of the magic, but of the cointryside. The hills, olive trees - or their forebears, anyway. The flocks of sheep that stood like clouds in the sin. Drinking wine in the shade on a sinny afternoon." A shrug rolls through his bearlike shoulders. "But it was beautiful."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"People have the same general concerns. Food, shelter, family, friends, and a purpose," Meggan says softly. She swipes her dark hair off her shoulder and pours herself some tea after Atrun-Rai has already seen to it. "Don't imagine that changes so much, whether you live in America or Russia or ancient Egypt or earlier than that. Was it warm like it seems to be? I don't know if you ever had winter there. Merlin was awful cagey sometime, but then he spent all night talking about the green dells undivided from the swaying grass under the sun."

What is truth and what is merely the vestiges of memory? Is there such a thing as a living, fresh memory from a time so far forgotten?

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "Warm, yes," he replies with a nod. "Some areas warmer than the other - I came from Lantala, which was the northwestern part of the continet - a few thousand miles due east south-east from here, I should imagine. Cooler than other parts, but still lovely. Like the north of France." A sip of tea, then, and Atrun-Rai smiles. "This is good. Thank you."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Meggan has a rather developed sense of geography in a nebulous sense, easy considering her harboured connections to a landscape. "It must have quite brimmed with life. Straight down the middle of the sea, sounds like much of it would've been very sunny." Holidays in the Azores, Mallorca or the Canaries all harbour remnant memories, perhaps, but she hasn't even had those in her own lifetime, let alone conceived of what might have been aeons ago.

"You have questions of your own, I imagine. Know I'm not like Ms. Zatara or the others, not quite," she straight up drops the warning without much consideration for how it reflects. But then with someone who claims to be from Atlantis-That-Was, maybe this is par for the course.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    He waves a hand, chuckling. "You may offer to me as you wish," says the sorceror. "But in general I don't like to probe. But yes, clearly, you aren't a magician." A beat. "And obviously not entirely human, if at all." This is just calling the sky blue, of course. Atrun-Rai, being a creature of heroic antiquity, is hardly going to judge. Certainly not with his current state of existence, too.

    "Interesting meeting the other night, speaking of Mistress Zatara." A pause. "I seem to have kicked over a hornet's nest for a moment."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Eyes sharpening in their alert aspect track after Atrun-Rai's gestures and expressions, her empathy honed to a laser point on him in lieu of considering what several offshore fishes come up to the surface to eat, and an octopus roaming around the breakwater have to feel. Quite an active littoral community lingers nearby, due in no small part to the absence of unfriendly pollutants and other influences with rudders, churning screws, and great big teeth.

"An enchantress called me like her, but I'm not so certain." Meggan swishes her finger back and forth, idle gesture creating a pattern of sparks tracing after it, fireworks suitable for the last hours of the year. "I'm not the magician that Ms. Zatara is or the Laughing Magician, either, but that's to be expected. So you are right and not quite. I'm me, whatever that is." A beat. "Or needs to be." The balance of the blood is one that can shift on an instant, instinct or necessity flinging her genetic code into a constantly altered array, and for the moment it behooves her to be at the baseline form. "What's to make you think it all went pear-shaped? We bounced after a time, might've missed a bit."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "For a moment, I said," he corrects, smiling faintly as she speaks - his emotions are pleasant, at least on the surface. He seems quite pleased with the company, perhaps a bit sad at the recollections of home. But beyond that? A wall. A black, solid wall. "As you said, we bounced."

    Another sip of tea. "So," offers Atrun-Rai. "Merlynos. Are you on...terms with him? I would like to speak with him, if it is possible. About our 'end of reality' problem."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Meggan's sharp enough to a point or two, and there may be a guarded moment when the walls go up, sharp to a potential exchange that holds a certain measure of power or danger. The cup held in her long fingers steams, its contents not given a chance to cool much though she drinks of it freely. Little benefits, the resistance to burning her mouth after the first sting.

"Do you worry you've made her upset? She doesn't seem the sort to hide her opinions or the way to fix them," she says. Atrun-Rai remains framed by those wide, frosty eyes, their rim of opalescent lashes practically hoarfrost and not a little like the patterns worked up her left arm. "Merlynos, we call him Merlyn or Merlin. I already had a thought to chat. I can get word."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    He notes the duality, or what appears to be duality. Curious. He shakes his head. "She would tell me, I think," replies Atrun-Rai, putting aside his teacup. "And I would apologize if I did so. And who are you, then?" Merlyn is left aside, for the moment.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"Meggan?" repeats the girl, blowing over the rim of the cup. It's good tea, if a touch on the strong side, but sleeping at night or at all isn't really in the cards with the days counting down so swiftly to ruin. "I'm a student. And I call out individuals and companies that treat the environment shabbily?"

Her gaze remains focused on him, again a brief line appearing. "What are you then, if no longer a sorcerer in Atlantis? Is that the question I'm missing?"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "I am a sorceror in this time," he offers as an answer. "I died, and I returned. Reality must be preserved, and so I am here." A shrug; Atrun-Rai is pleased with the taste, the strong flavor penetrating the dulled senses of the void-flesh from which he is made. "I misunderstood. You referred to Mistress Zatara - for a moment, it sounded as if there were two of you inside of that body." He smiles, then, broad and toothy. "I was an exorcist once, you see. Possession would not be unusual to me."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"Oh. No, possession isn't a very good thing. I'd rather not share my body with anyone," Meggan replies, rubbing at the back of her neck. Though that blazing volcano of various arcane and life energies wrapped up into a feminine frame might well be a danger in and of itself if claimed, isn't that true of any potential mystic? "I don't think Constantine would care for me letting anything in and I'm happy to be myself. Bit different if somewhere were endangered, I suppose. Like a certain soul bumped out and needs a place to stay until we get its body back? That happened with a god having a fit, and there were a whole bunch of them like that."

Loquacity cuts off as she ruefully grins. "Sorry."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    Sensibly put, if wordy; Atrun-Rai nods along as he takes a bite of his scone, smiling, then sighing softly at the taste. "Mmm." A moment or two longer befoe he's chewed, swallowed, picked up his cup and had a sip of tea. Finally he does speak. "When I was an exorcist, we had a great deal of issues with possession, you see. A different time, and magic was /everywhere/. Magic was used by anyone - which meant, of course, many people misused it, more often by accident than anything else."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"Bit like mucking about with chemicals and radioactive bits, by the sounds of it. Or social media." Hopefully ancient Atlanteans haven't figured out that problem yet. "But all this," Meggan waves, "distracts from the main issue. What do you think the graybeard knows about Michael or needs to know? I've meant to ask him somewhat myself."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "Something like that." He smiles a tad at the idea of magical toxic waste - and it is, indeed, verysimilar to him. Different elements, perhaps, but similar. He finishes his tea, now, and puts it and the scone down before considering the answer to her question. Great deal of deliberation in that still-young face; he can't be much older, externally, than his early thirties. Rumination Station.

    "In my day," Atrun-Rai explains then, "We spoke to the angels. Called upon them, drew enormous amounts of knowledge. It was meant to be a partnership, you see - now myself, I did not, but the elder wizards did. We spoke to gods, spirits, angels, whatever we could. Your parent, Merlynos, he was the finest among us, even during my time. I want to see what insights he has into the matter."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Meggan breathes out a sound between an oh and an uh, but not quite either. "Just everyday high celestial summoning, nothing entirely odd there. I'm sure it was the sort of thing that happened everyday in Camelot." Wry of tone and pale of eyes, she gives him that answer that could be flippant but probably isn't, in any respect. She is as she appears on the tin, with very few excuses. "I'm a bit miffed he didn't think to talk to me about it earlier but maybe he expects us to come to him himself. I don't know."

Who can, with anyone that ancient?

"I can go bother him. He sometimes gets plucky with people who ring him up, but it's been long enough," she adds. "Expect he'll closet himself up with you or go giving you a funny eye because."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "Possibly," he replies with a nod. "Possibly. I could do it, perhaps, if you like - we have common history, common magical systems. I hardly want to cause a problem between the two of you. In your name, eh?" Polite, that's him.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"I'm not worried about what he thinks of me. Were I, we'd have parted company long ago. Not quite how it works when you're raised partly by him and partly by the web and telly." Meggan gives a generous roll of her eyes, catching her chin against her palm and planting her elbow on the table. "His daughter he lords over, not like he can do any less with me."

The very amusement sparkles.

Atrun Rai has posed:
    More and more family drama draw in, his eyes watching hers with that same birdlike curiosity. Amusement, perhaps. The world is a funny thing. "It will be interesting to see if he even remembers those days. Certainly he would not remember me - but he might remember the orders to which I belonged. Such as they were." Atrun-Rai spreads his hands in a mock-hopeless gesture. "The Amatakoi, I suspect, persisted for some time. The Mestales died with me."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Has he /met/ Merlyn? Then he knows the family drama exists for any Atlantean, surely, especially one who hates Morgan and loves as passionately, painfully, as the magician did once upon a time. Let's not mention Nimue. His daughter, Roma, is what she is.

And Meggan, all those years later, the second adoptive ward.

The face of the question remains. She dips her head. "You think he forgets? I doubt it. He's got a mind like Wikipedia half the time." This may not be useful. "Or Britannica. Probably both. What does Amatakoi mean? Mestales sounds like Spanish but I don't know."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "I have never met him." Atrun-Rai smiles at her, lifting his empty cup - and, gesturing, fills it anew with the stuff that had only just left it. Replicated, perhaps, from what dregs remained. Steam coils about his face as he goes to take another sip. "Only from his towering reputation. All sorcerors knew of Merlynos. Ever has he been a celebrity among will-workers."

    He tears off a piece from the scone, then, and pops it into his mouth. "Amatakoi," he says after a moment's chewing and swallowing. "It means 'Senders of Beloved Ghosts'. When it was founded, ages before my time, the order mostly dealt with the restless spirits of loved ones. As for the other?" A bittersweet smile lines his lips for list a moment before returning to something brighter. "Mestales means 'Salt Brotherhood'. Which is a complicated meaning, culturally speaking, but generally means we watched for things that would destroy us all, and destroy them first."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Meggan's eyes round again, too wide, all ice and moss mixed into a jade wintry melange. "Oh." Her lips turn to a smirk. "Yes, sometimes. Not many people /here/ are all that impressed, but they'd not admit to being impressed by anything. How blase they all get to be."

Merriment and laughter rendered beautiful in the cold trappings of winter skirl higher, singing higher, upward and dancing on the edges of dreams. It's a sound that has elegies and etchings of the other great fae menace: Morgan. They are what they are. "Senders of beloved ghosts. They became something else? Hunters?"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "Exorcists." He takes another sip of tea. All the sips. All the time. Swirls it about in it cup. "We dispatched evil spirits from people. Well, it didn't /start/ that way, but as time passed, things took a consistently darker turn - I became court magician by banishing a particularly horrific creature that took control of Princess Jalusa."

    At the sounds of her laughter, Atrun-Rai falls silent, listening to the sound, considering. She is, of course, not remotely human. But beyond his initial experience. He has an inquisitive mind, and a scientific one. He considers her anew.

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
"Odd, how those who haven't seen so much so easily fall back to it not being magnificent. The world and all it contains. Isn't it funny?" Meggan asks, untroubled by the cadence of the questions or the staring. She gets enough of it, rarely friendly or anything less than calculating. It doesn't seem to bother her, that Atrun-Rai stares at her or pries where he will, though she's hardly a pearl-bearing oyster.

"Pretty names," she adds. "Why did things go so dark that you were banishing spirits all the time? Did they start taking up demon summoning, or something?"

Atrun Rai has posed:
    He does not /pry/ so much as observe. Atrun-Rai is a creature of observation, of deduction. "Well I had mentioned," he says, "That in those days, magic was everywhere - everyone had the capacity. There was no 'homo magi' or tiny sliver of magically capable humans. Everyone had the capacity, and everyone used it. Which made it, of course, prone to abuse in the way that a civilian might have with a spear if not trained with it. Or a hachyos." Whatever that is. "People stumbled into things. Made bargains with creatures that wore pleasant faces. It was a problem that we attended to."

Meggan Puceanu has posed:
Observation and deduction might give away more than anyone knows. What can he read of that spindrift woman driven by the starlight and the whispers of the waves, essentially bound to the same reality that once bore him and cast further from that. "It's odd to thing anyone could do it. Is that saying no one now has the spark, but has to be something special?"

Her nose wrinkles little by little. "Bargains. Oh, they still do /that/. Unfortunately."

Atrun Rai has posed:
    "So I've heard." He smiles at her from over the edge of his cup, amused still. "It is as fortune wills it, I suppose. Fortune and necessity. And pride, of course. Bad judgement. A hundred other reasons." Then, he adds, "The spark exists, of course. But it is...well. Far rarer than it once was. Surely you know these things."