strangetrip | Winter's Crest Snow Day [GP]

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Winter's Crest Snow Day [GP]

The Inn was decorated in, if possible, an even more outlandish style than usual. Garlands of evergreens and bright berries competed with gold angels and cheerful small grinning creatures with pointed ears and shoes. A large fir tree had appeared seemingly from nowhere and was now draped with lights and hung with colored glass balls. At the top perched a figure in white robes with wings.

It was, Percy mused, probably for whatever the local holiday was, but it was also close enough to Winter's Crest decorations for him to feel a bit homesick for Whitestone. After all, it was only a year ago that he'd been able to celebrate Winter's Crest in his home city for the first time in years.

Something was still missing - or rather, many things were missing but one thing that he could solve for. Winter's Crest called for snow, and better snow in abundance. To solve for that last problem, he turned to a gnome of exceptional talent. While he didn't know how Sarenrae's power worked, he did have complete faith in her cleric. And thus, together, they concocted a plan: to turn the weather to a more appropriate clime.

The morning of December 20th dawned as it often did in this place - heavy with clouds that would burn off before noon. The clouds were important. They would make the spell casting easier, and Pike knew that she needed all the help she could get. Weather magic was not her forte. Like all clerics with powers as advanced as hers, she knew the right spell but when you had a druid around, there hadn't been much need for her to use it.

Dressed in a warm coat and a big floppy, knit cap, she sat on the ground with her legs crossed. Holding her holy symbol in both hands, she concentrated on the sky. As the Celestial incantation took root, golden rays of light encircled her and rose into the air. With each heartbeat, she could feel Sarenrae's power drawing warmth from the clouds above and into her body.

It took ten minutes to cast the spell and another twenty minutes for it to take effect. The spell would fade if she didn't maintain concentration all day, but it was a small price to pay.

And that's how, before the sun had completely finished rising, it was snowing on the Madonna Inn.

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Less than three weeks here, Emma still didn't go to magic first as an explanation for unusual things people could do. But when Lillith used the word illusion, Emma put the carousel, and Lillith's abilities, into the magic category, which of course sparked more questions, but she owed an answer first. "Not exactly?" She would've sounded more certain, but she didn't know what Lillith's illusions might be able to do. "Technically it's psionic energy, my will given shape and substance."

She could have projected the pegasus again, but without that deck – it wasn't one she'd had with her when she arrived – that meant tugging up the layers of sleeves she'd bundled in against the weather. Instead she pulled a single card from the deck in her pocket, glancing down at it to help hide the way her eyes went over all white as in front of them appeared a fairy who, Emma realized belatedly, looked a lot like Lillith, carrying a basket from which flew butterflies in a rainbow of colors. With a thought, Emma directed the butterflies in a spiral around Lillith. "Hold out your hand?"

Lillith listened to the words psionic energy and thought of the stories she had heard of mystics with such powers. She had never met such a person. Would she now?

And then Emma's eyes turned white. A fairy appeared and butterflies and Lillith smiled in delight. Of course she held out her hand as Emma asked. Why would she not? "How beautiful!"

A large blue butterfly landed on Lillith's upturned palm, joined by others on her fingers and up her arm. A single butterfly weighed next to nothing, but the feather-light touches of tiny feet combined was noticeable. "You can touch them, if you want. They can't be hurt as easily as real butterflies."

Lillith did not touch it at first, but instead concentrated on the feel of the butterflies on her hand and arm. If it were an illusion, she would be able to penetrate it and then the sensations would fade. But she could not, no matter how she tried, and that brought a smile to her lips.

She stroked her finger lightly against the butterfly's wing, and then she lifted her hand to encourage it to fly to see if it would act like a normal butterfly.

"Your eyes are white. Is that part of the power?" she asked matter-of-factly. Zahra's eyes were white. It did not strike her as at all peculiar.

The butterfly flapped its wings and flew off her hand, the others following as Emma sent them into the first Askani meditation pattern. "When I project something, yeah. It's part of my mutation, but nobody really knows why it works that way. It freaks some people out, though, if they aren't used to mutants."

"My cousin, her eyes are white," Lillith replied, gaze following the butterflies and then returning to Emma. "To me, it is normal. My own eyes are..." She bit her lip and sighed. "My own eyes are reddish pink."

She released her concentration on the carousel she had shaped and stood, glancing at her own clasped hands. "This face you see is an illusion only. This shape, also. I am...other."

Other. It could mean so many things. But Lillith felt comfortable telling Emma this much, and Emma liked Lillith. She wanted to assure her it wouldn't make a difference. She offered a small smile she hoped was encouraging. "The village I live in, it's a sanctuary for mutants. I can pass for a baseline human, a non-mutant, unless I'm projecting, and even then, sunglasses can hide my eyes, but not everyone can. I have friends who look very other." She thought of TJ and Cessily, of Clarice. Of others she knew in the castle or around the village.

"Who people are and what they do, that matters a lot more to me than what they look like. But I understand wanting to hide. People can be dangerous or cruel when someone is different."

"It is not cruelty I fear," Lillith began, grateful for the understanding. She let out a breath, nerves and uncertainty all but overtaking her tongue. "From you, I do not. My sisters, they are..." Lillith shook her head and sent the pale golden length of her hair cascading over her shoulders, shimmering as her own white hair never truly did.

"I begin again. In your world, there are angels and demons, yes?"

"There are demons, and stories of angels." Stories she'd been raised on, but Emma knew demons were real. She'd fought them, and Seen as they killed people she called family. She didn't have that kind of proof of angels.

"And then there are people who aren't demons, but people think they are, just because of the way they look." Again, TJ came to mind, when anybody who met her would know she couldn't be anything evil.

Lillith nodded, the gesture taking the place of words she did not have. She did not think of herself as a monster or a demon. She was Tiefling from proud and noble lineage. Her paleness was...unusual, yes, but it was not as Emma suggested.

She passed a hand through the golden strands of her hair and sighed. "There are demons in my world. My ancestors, they made deals with them. For their magic. Their children were the price of that deal. And I am doubly marked. For I am also albino and what is called Tiefling."

Of course Emma thought of Illyana, and how she still hadn't tried to meet the one here. "If my world has tieflings, I've never met one before. That I know of." It was possible she had, but they hid like Lillith. "But I did meet someone who was marked because of a deal his ancestor made with a demon. I didn't blame him, and it won't change what I think about you."

"I did not think you would," Lillith said with a small, genuine smile. Emma was too kind to judge her for what her family had done centuries before her own birth. "My true form, it is demonic. I do not wish to alarm you or others. And it is safer for me to remain as you see me."

"Staying safe is good. You should do what you need to be safe." Emma wondered what it might take to be alarmed at someone simply for their appearance, sure it probably could happen, but not as easily as it might have before she had gone to Muir.

"Thank you," she added quietly. "For telling me."

"You showed me who you are. I did not like to lie to you about myself," Lillith told her, voice also quiet. "My friends, they are few. But I recall--" Her lips curved up into a little, hopeful smile. "That honesty is important, if one wishes to make a friend, yes?"

"Honesty helps, yes." So did new friends, especially ones without the... expectations Emma felt Sunny had to hold. Whether Sunny actually did or not, Emma didn't know, but it was hard to believe she wouldn't.

She shrugged again. "I hide in lots of ways." They'd talked about that, right, the day they met, how they were more comfortable not being noticed. Something that made even more sense with what Lillith had just told her. "But I don't like hiding what I am. We shouldn't have to." And yes, she was including Lillith in that. Having to hide and choosing to hide weren't the same thing.

"No, we should not," Lillith agreed and moved toward her new friend. She turned her head to look into Emma's eyes, somewhat more intensely than was either normal or comfortable for most people, not that Lillith was aware of that.

"I am sorry you have been made to feel as though you must hide. But please know you need not hide anything from me."

Emma wasn't always the best at making or holding eye contact – one of the nice things about Dani had been not having to – but when it mattered, when there was a point being made that needed to be emphasized, she did, and she recognized that in Lillith now. So she held her gaze longer than she would've otherwise, and then nodded. "As long as you know that too. You don't have to hide from me."

Lillith nodded her agreement. "I will show you my true form another time. I must conserve my spells and spell energy now. I do not often use magic in my room, so if you wish to visit later or another time, I will be my full self."

"I'd like that." Emma smiled, not as shyly as she might have with someone else. "And to hear more about your magic. If you want to. The only person I really knew with magic was... very different, I think. She was a lot closer to my cousin."

"Certainly," Lillith replied happily. "I tell you anything you want to know. My cousin and dear Kash are only people with whom I talk magic in very long time. Until I come here. It is much pleasure to talk with--" This time, she caught herself and gave a quiet laugh. "My form, it is not only thing I change. My voice, too. I make different. Is better disguise than face only."

Emma laughed, then looked down not sure if she was embarrassed or simply sly as she slipped into her native French accent. "It is a good disguise when you can't change your face too. Until sometimes it feels more like your real voice. At least for me."

Lillith laughed also, somehow not surprised to learn this about Emma. "For me, also. It has been long since I have heard my language spoken." Even cousin Zahra rarely used it since Kashaw came to her life.

Emma and Sabine had spent time in France, and Sabine spoke fluent French, so she hadn't missed that so much since she was young, but she understood. "We moved when I was young, just starting school. Little girls can be mean when someone is different. And since then, when I've been speaking English, it's mostly been with Americans, so I've kept the accent I learned to blend in."

"I do not know this word, Americans. English, though, this what we call Common. What we speak now, yes?" Little girls, Lillith did not know any. Had not known any, but Beatrycze, but she did not doubt their cruelty.

Right. She should have thought about that. "What we speak now, yes," she agreed.

"If we weren't in this... bubble, the land where we are would be in a large country called the United State of America, and its citizens are called Americans. I was born in France, which is east, all the way across America, and then across an ocean. I can probably find a map sometime, if you're interested. Or draw a quick, not super accurate one."

Re: OTA

st_rangepalette - 2018-01-22 00:19 (UTC) - Expand

Re: OTA

st_ackeddeck - 2018-01-22 22:08 (UTC) - Expand

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