Owner	Pose
Michael Hannigan	It is reasonably peaceful in the sitting room. There aren't any large gatherings going on at the moment and judging from the lively melody being played on the piano. Mike had at some point been left alone with Nameless. But now Mike is at the bar with a drink of something. He's not sure what. But it's something. And the cocktail napkin set under the glass seems to have a bit of a tally going on. The musician doesn't seem the repetition. Instead his head's bobing slighly as he spends time focusing upon an open sketchbook before him.
Jonathan Sims	The door to the Velvet Room glows and Jon comes through, looking frazzled. Hair frizzy, clothing looking like it's been slept in, face worn and drawn. He heads down toward the bar, and noting Mike, waves to him.     "Hello there." His voice is steady enough, despite how he looks. "How're you tonight?" He goes to reach behind the bar for the Hierophant bottle, to pour himself a couple fingers of Scotch.
Michael Hannigan	As the piano finishes up the song once more, Mike lifts the pencil from the sketchpad, turning his attention to the tally, marking off one more tick mark. There's a few moments of peace to allow for the musician to hear Jon's approach. Pale eyes glance up, setting upon the worn looking archivist. Now he could inquire to why Jon looked like that but he was already aware that Jon knew Mo too. It's only been a few days. "Already wishing this month was over." Mike finally allows. Nameless bursts once more into the energetic music. "Figured a few more lively tunes added to the list couldn't hurt." He comments, more or less admitting guilt for THIS particular cycle of chords. Mike looks to the sketch once more before setting the pencil down, focusing on Jon. "Similar feeling about the month?" He asks.
Jonathan Sims	"More the week. Or the year. I don't know." Jon sighs. "Just when things start to become good... everything falls apart again." He takes a long drink of the Scotch, and shrugs. "I need to leave a message for peope, warn them I'll be scarce for a while. This seemed the best place to put it."     He eyes Michael a moment. "I take it you're done with the month, hmm? Something bad happen?" A glance at the piano. "What's the song?" He raises his brows, curiously.
Michael Hannigan	Mike gives a low chuckle to the upgrade to the year. "Ok yes I'd upgrade the statement to 'year'." He admits, "Granted, June's hasn't been a happy month for me in decades but, watching kids or friends die is not something I recommend. The topic change is accepted as the musician glances to the piano. "It's called 'Miracle'." Mike answers. He reaches over to the glass, picking it up. '...We need a miracle to kill the pain inside; Something so beautiful, it keeps us both alive. We need a little hope, tell everybody in the world tonight; We need a miracle...' He stops murmuring the section of lyrics, twirling his finger in a circular motion, "...and it goes on and on again."
Jonathan Sims	Jon frowns for a moment, considering all of that, swirling the amber liquid around in his glass. Then he goes to perch on a stool and peers over at Michael. "What've you been dealing with? Watching kids and friends die?" His brows furrow. "That sounds... unpleasant, to say the least."     A pause, then, "I'm willing to listen, if you'd like to talk." Regardless of how he looks generally, his expression is compassionate. Sympathetic.
Michael Hannigan	Mike takes a sip of the drink in his hand before setting it down. He still hasn't placed what it is but like before, the mystery drink seems like the one he required at the time. Perhaps with behavior like this, it is no wonder that he got his powers in a bar. "Well, I was a chaperone on the trip wh-" He pauses, "The Egypt trip." Eyes set down upon the sketchbook, looking to the figure of a young girl staring back from the pages. "Well. The thing about dreams are that a lot of it is formed around memories. Maybe not in an easy to interpret order. But still memories." A finger rests upon the drawing, "Terry and I were investigating a dream in Wonderland and- I think we saw Alais die in it." He lifts up the glass once more to take a sip.
Jonathan Sims	"The Egypt trip...? Oh, the one where Dr. MacIntyre was killed? I didn't know you knew her. My condolences." By Jon's tone that's not a direct thing for him, but he does look sympathetic.     Then a nod. "Yes, one of the functions of dreams is to sort and process memories, particularly emotional ones. I often encouraged my clients to journal their dreams in order to better understand their emotional states."     He frowns and peers over at the drawing. "Alais? Is that... somehow connected to Alice?" He tilts his head. "I haven't been to Wonderland in a while. It... well... I think the Jabberwock wants to eat me."
Michael Hannigan	"I think it was the Jabberwock that tried ripping Terry in half." Mike comments with a frown, "Gar was the Cheshire last time we went in. Terry was covered in so much Glitter that I'm still finding pieces on me." Mike looks down, setting the glass back upon the napkin, "It's another variation of the name." He confirms, "Maybe even the original. I don't know how long it's been going on but there was so much stuff built up in that dream to prevent the story from completing- Kind of reminds me of the battle dreams where they cut off midway through. Either way when the backfire hit her, the sensation- the presence that popped up was-" Mike pauses, "What attacked Terry later gave me the same feeling."
Jonathan Sims	Jon frowns. "The backfire...?" He shifts a bit, to more fully face Michael. "Alright, so, you ran into a dream in Wonderland, which Terry says was dreamed up by a human sorceror, and something in the dream gave you the same feeling as the Jabberwock?"     He has a /very/ intent expression on his face. "Can you tell me about it? What happened in Wonderland, the dream you found?" There's an odd, subtle power in his words, an encouragement to go ahead and tell the story.
Michael Hannigan	Mike nods. The piano comes to the end of the song to which the musician picks up the pencil to make another tic mark before setting the pencil down. Elbows set upon the bartop, allowing for Mike to position his hands to where the left hand cups over the balled up right. The thumbs jut out to provide sufficient perch for his chin. His eyes close as he focuses back to earlier in the month. "The dream Terry and I went into. We had to first go into Wonderland to access it. The other way was blocked. It had the makings of a collective dream. But a dream within a dream, maybe it still belonged to just the one. There was this sensation of grief...old. Words, puns floating around. We followed a path and when it forked, we took the right because the path we were leaving would be the left path. The path got muddied so I showed Terry how he could get the dream to move us to the right one. After he used the mallet I pulled from his pocket we fell down a hole and landed in a half drawn kitchen. When the milk was spilled we followed the cries and that's where we met Alais. She mentioned her father starting a project after her mom died. Also he was visited by a talking wise owl a lot. Female. She was upset about a pot she broke that was her mother's but something of her father's could fix it. But she needed our help to distract the guards." Mike's eyes open, glance still downwards, "We agreed to help. But, part of the dream recognized Terry. So we had to make him look less like himself. But...we did distract the guards. I could see into the house. She got a wand, used it to fix the pot. And then the wand went off again, hitting her. Bleeding and then there was the unheard scream. And that's when the running started. At some point we must've crossed into a dream outside of Wonderland because we ended up exiting out at a children's bithday party. "
Jonathan Sims	Jon listens to all of this, still with that very intent expression, drinking it all in, kind of. When Mike's done, he blinks a little and takes a sip of his Scotch, then chews on his lip for a moment, thoughtfully.     "I have to wonder... the Jabberwock was coming for Terry. Is the Jabberwock tied to this dream? It sensed /me/ somehow, I stand out like a damn beacon there. And Wonderland is the dream of this Red King..." He frowns deeply, thoughtfully.     "I've been digging into Wonderland a lot, researching its origins, analyses of both books, and so on. It actually existing explains why it caught on like wildfire in the popular imagination. But it cannot have been created in the time of Lewis Carroll; I have to presume that, rather than him telling Alice Liddell a story, /she/ told the story to /him/. I have /specifically/, though, been trying to figure out why the Jabberwock came after /me/. Is it a creature of deepest Chaos, drawn to me as a beacon of Order? Or is it that, given how Wonderland reacts to it, that the Jabberwock is a creature of /Order/ that was drawn to me as the same?"     He drums his fingers on the bar. "I think," he says finally, "I'm going to have to go back there, and bait it out. This dream out found only underscores my conviction that whatever is at the heart of the truth of Wonderland will be found through the Jabberwock."
Michael Hannigan	Mike considers Jon's feedback. The hands unclasp, freeing up one of them to reach for the glass. "There were guards put there to keep Alais out of the house. Alais sought our help to get in. And the reaction to it was bad. That dreamer does not want that ending." He lifts the glass, "Perhaps it's less about you representing order and more about representing truth. This wizard doesn't want the curtain pulled." YES YES. SORCEROR. He knows, he knows.
Jonathan Sims	Jon waggles a hand back and forth. "I could tell that I stand out in Wonderland as a beacon of Order. But in many ways, they are the same thing, at least insofar as Wonderland is concerned. Order and Truth, I mean."     He takes another sip of his Scotch. "Most people think of Order as being like the angels. Brittle and static, seeking perfection. But that is... mmm. I suppose that is a /kind/ of Order, but it's not what I am, nor what Ma'at is. We are the kind of Order that says that the sun will rise tomorrow, and the day after that, that drew a cloud of interstellar gas and dust together to make the sun and its planets in the first place. The kind of order that arises from overcoming chaos."     He gestures with his glass. "You have a spring in a lake somewhere in Africa, and the water flows out down to the sea, and carves out a trench, and becomes a mighty river. Small bands of people settle along that river, and use the silt left behind by the yearly floods to grow crops. They make villages that become cities, and trade, and fight with each other, and eventually the leaders of two of those groups become kings, and they fight, and the winner becomes king of the whole area. And they build larger cities and mighty tombs and a civilization whose remnants still stand today." He smiles. "If you were in Egypt, you saw it. The earliest triumph of /homo sapiens/ against millenia of disorder. /That/ is what Ma'at is, and I am. And the way they kept that civilization running was by recognizing certain truths. Everyone dies. Everyone is subject to the gods. Without the river's floods, there are no crops--so don't dam the river. Work around it. Things like that."     He sighs. "I look at Wonderland and I don't see Chaos, the way most people do. I see underlying /reasons/ for everything going on. I see a kind of logic that's based on puns and games. I see something delightful and joyous sprung from what I'm guessing might be some kind of personal tragedy. And... maybe Wonderland resists that. Because the thing that keeps striking me, over and over, in re-reading the books, is the way Alice defeats Wonderland's madness just by seeing it clearly and logically and saying things like 'you're nothing but a pack of cards.'"     A frown. "I think I'm saying that, yes, this wizard or whatever he is doesn't want anyone getting at the Truth--and maybe I'm particularly dangerous because I am experienced in seeing past the madness to the truth that underlies it all. That's all psychiatry really is, in the end."
Michael Hannigan	As the piano goes into its last interation of the song Mike taught, the musician exercises silence. For one reason Jon's still talking and he is most certain anything he says right now would be probably poorly phrased. It's a gift. A crappy one, but a gift. But on the bright side it does give him PLENTY of time to finish his drink. The empty glass is set down. "I'm not sure how I'd classify Wonderland." Mike admits, "It, just feels familiar. And I like some of the company."
Jonathan Sims	Jon /does/ go on at times, and he looks a little sheepish as he finishes up his speech. He's aware of his tendencies to ramble, but at this point there's not much to be done for it. It's just part of who he is.     "That's entirely fair. I like the place. I'm quite fond of Terry. He was the first visitor to our new apartment."     A sigh, and he peers at the napkin. "Should I make sure you come along when I bother Terry to go bait out the Jabberwock? Because... I'm thinking we ought to go and use me to bait out the Jabberwock and get to the bottom of this whole business."
Michael Hannigan	Mike considers the question. "I'm not fond of the baiting idea but if you're going to do it anyway, considering that the BOTH of you are apparently on the Jabberwock's attack list?" His head bobs up and down. "Yes. At the very least."
Jonathan Sims	Jon smirks. "I'm not terribly fond of it either. I get the distinct feeling the thing wants to /eat/ me. But..." He shrugs. "That's what we do, right? We're heroes. We fight supernatural threats. Wonderland is entirely supernatural, and it is threatened. So... we'll help."     He downs the last of his Scotch, and stands. "Elizabeth... or Igor, I guess? Could one of you provide pen and paper? I need to leave a note for the others." A pen and paper obliginly appears on the bar, and Jon grabs the pen--he's left-handed--and starts writing.     "I'm taking a bit of a break. Cael's... become a werewolf." He makes a face. "I need to do research to fix the problem. So I'll be telling everyone to, ahh, go to Rien for anything they need."
Michael Hannigan	The music stops. Mike's brow raises as Jon mentions what happened to Cael. "Well, shit Jon That's-" Use your words, Mike. "That really sucks." Pure poetry. "If there's any way you think I can help, let me know."