Ever Onward

[Balsamic Crescent] First things first:

This is a one-shot. I do not intend for it to become a larger SL. I do not have time to support a larger SL. Hopefully we can wrap any loose ends such that follow up is not required.

I do not intend this to go to combat; in the event that it does, combat will be slow. It's not my strongest dice-pool suit.

If you have questions, please ping me on IMs (myrinai).

Most importantly: Have Fun.

If you're okay with this, please PM me Molly current Temp WP, Wound level (and any applicable dice penalty), and Quint.

Thanks!
*Syll

[Molly Quincannon] [[Temp WP 3, wound level Hurt (-1)]]
to Balsamic Crescent

[Molly Quincannon] [[Oh, and Quint 2]]
to Balsamic Crescent

[Molly Quincannon] It's difficult to tell whether Molly is walking for exercise, scouting for potential trouble, or actually out looking for something to poke with a stick at the moment. She's annoyed. Potential cabal-mate has wandered off somewhere and left her best friend broken-hearted, sulky and blundering around the woods somewhere with Lara, Thomas, a lot of beer ... and no contact with her, the supposed 'best friend', beyond "Gone camping. Back in a couple of days". These are generally the moods in which Molly goes out somewhere and does something perennially stupid. Which is why she's wandering around mostly unconsidered parts of the city, looking for the disused underground passages and walkways and things that inspired one Jim Butcher to write about a supernatural-riddled 'Undertown'. You never know what might be lurking down there, even if it's not really a closed-off network of caverns and nasty, and it's good to be informed.

No, she hasn't got backup. Her backup's too deeply asleep to answer his phone or out in the woods somewhere. Surely she won't get into any trouble...

[Balsamic Crescent] This is a rainy day, a rain-falls-down day, a day into the gutters day, a down, down, down and swept under the streets and away day. The Summer is fading, and the last dregs of it wash down the streets, slick with the oil of tire-tread and passings-by, they swirl in the over-full gutter sieves, they all end up in the stand-in sea. The sea which is a lake, a lake which through a creative set of locks and interconnections might one day aspire to touch the ocean. But these are distant thoughts, far removed from the wet that assails her, hails down from up above, from the grey place where the firmament is not holding. Not holding.

Down comes the rain. It seeps into clothing. It gets warm from the proximity to skin and body heat; it cloys. The damp sticks to her, and it captures all the little injustices and holds them close: grime, now best friends, inseparable with her trouser legs; city-smell, riddle through her hair, yes, will take time to wash that out.

But there's an occasional brilliance, here and there, the gilt and crimson of fast-turning leaves, the promise of autumn. The Undercity rises up in tendrils of steam that escape the sewer drains. That rustle the leaf-and-people litter there. Wrappers, broken things, brightly-coloured-and-fading things. If you listen carefully, Molly, you might even hear the city exhale, one slow putrid breath. Unbrushed teeth and halitosis. Sighing, sighing, sighing its way out of Summer.

But there's an occasional brilliance, and an occasional oddity too. An old wooden door, on the side of a brickwork building, where there are no stairs to mount to level one's feet to the threshold. It hangs there, suspended above street-level. Otherwise normal. Aged but sturdy. The planks have deep whorls, visible knots, places where they've bowed and pulled away. There is no light seeping out around the sashing. There is something carved, against the grain, into its face.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly can quote poetry, if she's troubled herself to memorise it, but she's not a poetical person herself. For her, the cloying sticky rain juxtaposed with the brilliant flashes of autumn are not mosaic brilliance and Chicago exhaling, but memories, none overly pleasant. Back-to-school in Prescott, Washington, with its promise of bullying and stagnation, is the best of these. Leaves on pavement turning to blood on an iPod screen ... that's the worst.

But there's something else to focus on, now. There's a door. There's something carved into the door's face, and it warrants investigation. So she looks it over, studies it, analyses it to determine what this might mean. Of course the next step is trying to open it, but Molly's curious about the carving first.

[[Perc + Investigation, Analysis speciality]]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Balsamic Crescent] The hinges are old, they're ferrous-coloured but holding. The wood is old and has seen many a season. It's swelled and contracted; bloated and dried; frozen and thawed. It has weathered, in the truest sense of the word. If wood could talk, well, then it might sing the song of the city. It might divulge secrets. It might, it might not. Who knows the mind of an old wood door?

There is a five-lobed flower inscribed in deep and crude slashings on the door. As if drawn with a sharp knife, little skill. It is not delicate, but the rudimentary lines hash out something intelligible. Five-petals, this flower. Like an apple might have.

[Molly Quincannon] Hmm. A flower. Crude, but there. Doesn't look threatening, but certainly looks interesting...

One more thing, before she tries to open the door. She's studied the door; now she opens her senses, to see if anything uncanny or otherwise supernatural is involved with this door.

[[Perc + Awareness]]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 7, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Balsamic Crescent] This is an old door, its secrets buried deep. This is an old door in a not-as-old building. In a place where there are no steps to level the standings. Its bottom hangs to her knees, its top well above her head. It looms, with its innocent flower, unthreatening.

It looms, and her other senses pick up the pattern threaded deep within the door. There is a resonant laughter a merriment an invitation, but there is a darkness, too. This door is a beginning, not an ending. It leads in without leading back out.

It does not belong here, entirely; it has been here forever. An invitation, a choice. To go in, or keep out.

[Molly Quincannon] This is Molly we're talking about; there is no question whether to 'go in' or 'keep out'. Not this time, at least. She's refused a more ... shall we say forceful invitation before, and in a case such as this; where there is merriment and actual invitation rather than torture and coersion and pain, she's going to see what's on the other side of that door. Perhaps this door leads in without leading back out, but surely there's a way out somewhere within. And in case there's not, there's a text sent out, just letting her 'best friend' - the one who's run off to the woods - know that she's found something interesting and intends to investigate.

Then she reaches out and, whether by handle or by just pushing it, she opens the door and looks in.

[Balsamic Crescent] This door opens outward, requires her to scrabble her knuckles against the brickwork to gain purchase on the lower edge of the door, requires her to wrest it open -- to leave an offering of skin and blood (just a taste [just a little]) on the threshold before she steps across. It opens outward and once freed, swings wide on the hinges and clatters against the wall with a slam-bang, with a little rebound, and another, gentler, knock. Then, only, it is still. The flower-face pressed against the brickwork, now.

And it will require her to clamber, to climb, to ease herself over the threshold with Hurt arms and a tired body. But there is a flat floor just within, wood like the door. The same hue, the same age, but better cared for. Smoothed with varnish, worn with time. The wedge of overcast-day light cuts into the darkness, shows the floor for awhile, shows just the margin where it begins to blend into stone-floor. Smooth but not entirely even. Where it begins to slant downward, gently.

The air inside is moist and warm. It smells faintly of cinnamon. Or is that nutmeg. It crackles, like there is a fire somewhere burning, like it is crisp enough, within, somewhere for a fire to be burning.

[Molly Quincannon] Probably it's not wise to go in unprepared. Probably she ought to scan the place first, get a sense of the layout ... but that's what eyes are for. Not everything's about magic, even the things that are - after all, experiencing things is a magic in and of itself, and spoiling the surprise ... well, that lessens the experience.

So, after the clamber (and ow, because there's a certain amount of burn tissue on her upper left arm and a bit across her back; payment for services performed), she pulls out her miniature Mag-Lite (what self-respecting geek hasn't got a Mag-Lite somewhere on his or her person?), switches it on and steps across the varnished wood floor, past the light filtering in from the open door. She doesn't shut it behind her, of course. That's a little bit beyond Molly's usual level of overconfidence.

She is, however, overconfident enough to call out, "...Hello?" as she passes.

[Balsamic Crescent] A room must be a certain size before it will throw an echo. Your average bedroom? Not large enough. A banquet hall? That's more like it. Her voice comes back to her here: Hello... ello... lo... o. But that is the only answer.

Her MagLite is bright than the wedge of light that creeps in through the doorway, and as she scans the room she can tell it is something of a foyer. There is a path, downward sloping and stone sided, that creeps out of a corner of the room and onward. Otherwise this is a place to come in, a place to wait, a place to stamp dirt from your shoes. Not so much as a coat rack. From this angle she cannot see down the path. She can see out the door and back into the rainstorm, though, and it shows no signs of lessening.

[Molly Quincannon] So this is a place to stamp dirt from your shoes. That is, in fact, what Molly does - she's tromping on someone else's territory (probably) and it's rude to do so with leaves and detritus on one's big stompy boots. That done, she looks out at the rainy-day blech, and then moves over to the path creeping out of the corner of the room. She stops at the mouth of the passageway, shines her flashlight down it, and calls again: "Hello? I'm in ur base, but I promise not to kill yoor dudez..."

[Balsamic Crescent] It is a long and mostly straight sided path. It is the sort of path best taken in the dark, where midway through one might set aside the trappings of an active mind and wonder only whether one is still going in or starting to come out. To emerge. Like a thing changed: butterfly. Molly will not undertake that journey with her torch burning bright.

Perhaps that is not Molly's journey to take.

The path progress straight and somewhat downward, far beyond the physical boundaries of the brick-walled building she entered. Her rational mind knows the disconnect; analytical as it is may worry about it.

Your dudez... udez...uezz...

No answer.

But the air in the pathway is cooler, walled in by stone as it is. It's crisp like an Autumn morning, and it's damp-sweet. There spice is there, as an undertone, and that invitation is stronger here.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly frowns at the passageway - speculative, not frustrated - and then shrugs and switches off the Mag-Lite. If it comes down to it, she can see in the dark, and she's probably not going to get eaten by a Grue. She doesn't think. This feels more like hide-and-go-seek (which she played a lot later in life than most of her contemporaries) than anything else. And she's Curious, as always.

There's a disconnect, and one to be explored. This isn't the Cauls. She doesn't think. She's not worried. She's just curious. Which of course, is the problem with Molly.

So with one hand on the stone of the passageway to feel her way along and a careful tread in case of sudden drops or stairs, she follows that undertone of spice, and the sense of invitation. "I guess something knows I'm here and doesn't seem to mind," she says, but it's to herself, murmured as an undertone.

[Balsamic Crescent] Molly can see in the dark. Most magical things have that ability, somehow. To borrow on the strength of another sense. To place oneself absolutely in space-time. To overcome. To reach beyond. The passageway is wide enough for one (we each go in alone) and with her fingertips outreached and her arms spread just so, she can trail her touch along the walls, keep herself to the middle of the path.

The stone below her feet is dry, but her boots are still damp. There are slippery stretches, but not so much as to make her falter. And the road slants downward for awhile. Long enough for her to wonder how far below street level she has dropped.

In the darkness, the shape of the stone against her fingertips is truer. She can feel the flats that run up against each other; know this place was hewn from the earth, not drilled out or burrowed. These are tool marks, flat places not claw-scratches. She is not heading into some Thing's den; or rather it is a Thing that is enlightened enough to engineer something better for itself, to lower the burden of digging through rock.

The path goes down, until, naturally, it begins to slant back up. This is about the point where distance stops making absolute sense. She has gone in, and there is shift, bone-deep, where she knows that she is now starting to go out. Perhaps its the incrementally brightening darkness (imagined? or real?), or the drying dampness, or the deepening scent of something...

Baking. Those are baking spices. There is also the scent of apple, now. Unmistakable if she grew up in Washington. As she ascends, the path begins to widen away from her fingertips.

[Molly Quincannon] Baking. And the passageway is widening. She lets the wall drift away from her fingertips, not thinking she needs the security of the touch of a wall. She stops and smells the scent of pie baking, but while there is nostalgia, it's not the warm fuzzy kind. There are reasons Molly has avoided the entire idea of cooking like the plague (except where Chuck is concerned, and even then, it's baby steps). Not wanting to be too rude, she moves on more slowly, and calls again. "Hello? Your pie smells awesome."

[Balsamic Crescent] Three times, now, Molly has called out. Three times now, and the first two with no reply. There is a soft sound from the path before her, gentled by the distance as it emanates from some place still a ways away. It is a shuffling. A gathering. Perhaps a making ready.

... hello?

The long-belated echo of her first query comes back to her. It is a mumble-voice, tumbled like water over stone. Clear enough to be heard, but whisper-light against her ears when it reaches the Cultist along the path.

Uncertain, curious, quizzical.

The path is definitely brightening now, and there's enough half-light to see by. There's a brightness up ahead, around one last gentle bend. Long fingers of bright light stretch in, reach toward her. It is not overcast and grey wherever the path dumps out.

[Molly Quincannon] There's a response. Not an echo - a response. She stops just short of that gentle bend in the passageway, listening to make absolutely sure that that mumble-voice wasn't an echo of her own, but ... no. No, she knows how sound moves; she knows the difference. "Hi," she says, encouraged now that there's a voice to speak back to her, quiet though it be. "I ... saw your door and smelled the cinnamon and nutmeg and things and ... well, I was curious. May I come in? I'd like to introduce myself properly, but I don't want to intrude on your space any further without permission. I'm Molly, by the way. What's your name?"

[Balsamic Crescent] There is a shambling sound, once more. The sweep-scatter of footsteps on stone; slow-coming but coming nonetheless. And a mumble reply, tumbling reply, words that roll into one another, muttered, just this side of sensical. The voice is mid-toned, male, elderly or just confused.

"Saw your door and smelled the cinnamon. Yes. Well. Don't linger in doorways. Yes. Well. Never know what will snatch you up in doorways. No. Not here, not there, not a safe place to be. Come in, if you're coming. Come in. Yes. In, says Cricket."

Who peers around the the bend, his features aged and sagging and difficult to discern in the bright that creeps around behind him. He's shorter than Molly; shorter even than Nat, and beyond that he's bent. Crooked. Wears a mantle of fallen leaves; has a crown of brambles; wears them proudly. Knobbley staff, clutched in one hand, clinks out an irreverently rhythmic pattern as he shuffle-steps into view. Beckons with a gnarled hand. Disappears back out into the brightness.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly can't help but smile. She has never seen anything like this; only read about things like this. "Thank you," she says - she does have some manners, after all - and steps around the bend to follow ... 'Cricket'. "It's a pleasure to meet you."

"I ... guess I don't know what will snatch me up in doorways," she admits, looking around at her new surroundings. "I do know a lot about ... being between 'here' and 'there', though, I guess. And things snatch you up there, that's for sure. Um ... what kinds of things snatch you up in doorways?" Curious, of course.

[Balsamic Crescent] [Cricket: Hitting things with sticks.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Balsamic Crescent] The pathway opens out into an orchard, ringed by a low stone fence. The trees here are innumerable. A few stand in full Fall regalia, the others are staunchly Summer-shod. There is a low stone stoop, with a low stone oven beside it, and from this is where the scent of apples and baking emanates. The air is crisp, clean, and there is no people-litter on the grounds. The grass is mostly bright-green still, but there are patches of gold seeping outward from the turned trees.

"Y'rwelcome," mumbles Cricket with a wave of his hand. It's dismissive. His knuckles are knobbled and his nails long and yellowed. His teeth are yellowed too. When she says she does not know what things might snatch her out of doorways, he stops shambling and bends his neck to look all the way up at her.

"So tall." He says this like it should mean something. "So tall, and you don't know what takes you out of doorways. Not here, not there, not safe. Maybe you were born tall. Born tall, that's it, yes? Always tall, not grew tall. What kind of things, bother. Bother. All sorts of this, Tall. Things that are not here, and are not there. In-between is dangerous. Neither here nor there. Not safe, says Cricket. Not safe, should say Molly. Molly is tall. Molly should know."

The muttering continues as he shambles over to an unturned tree, sidles up beside it, plants his feet firmly and chokes up on the staff. He swings, and the staff clatters against the tree trunk with a resounding thwack!.

Cricket shambles back a few steps, cranes his neck just so, and looks upward expectantly.

A few apples fall down. One hits him in the shoulder. He shakes a fist at the tree, but the leaves are already beginning to turn.

"Ahah! That's a good one. Cricket old, but he still has it. Hah!" He looks to Molly, triumphantly, pride dancing in those beady dark eyes.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly enjoys riddles very much; games with numbers are her favourites, but games with words are good too. That's why she's so fond of Atlas, at least in part. So it's not a surprise that Molly is charmed by this Cricket-man as he speaks, even as he talks about the things she should know but doesn't, the shortcoming there. "I should know, you're right. Since I don't know, I ask. The only way to grow - tall of body or broad of mind - is to nourish what's there. The mind is nourished by knowledge, and the only way to get that knowledge is to ask questions ... or experience it yourself." That gets a shudder, even in this pretty orchard-place.

She watches as the little man hits the tree with the knobbly stick to get apples. Which gets her thinking: "What is this place? Is it an in-between place too? What...?" Then she decides to rephrase the question. "Do you need any help?"

[Balsamic Crescent] "Yes, yes yes," he says, nodding in agreement to something she's said. Even as he starts to sidle toward her. All gremlin-smile-ish. Cajoling. "Only way to learn, sometimes, by doing. Yes."

This? Calls to mind memories of Tom Sawyer and a particular white-washed fence.

"This place is between. Needs to be Autumn, still stuck in Summer. Cricket turn trees as fast as he can. Trees hit Cricket, hit him with Apples. Apples make tasty things, treats, yum. Apples hurt. Hard things they are. Cricket turn trees, trees hit him with apples. Tall want to turn trees? Help Cricket? Eat apples?"

Adorable. Somehow the crooked and gnarled thing beside her comes off as adorable in his entreating moments. He offers the staff toward her, like an olive branch, like a precious thing --

-- then pulls it back for a moment.

"Tall not hit Cricket though. Cricket already hit once. Been turned. Cricket was loverly once. Cricket was beeeea-u-ti-ful once. Got hit with changing stick. Turned. Turned ugly. Stupid stick. No hitting Cricket, no hitting tall. Stick for trees not people. TREES not people."

He emphasizes this rule loudly, and his voice turns raspy at the end. He coughs. Offers the stick back to her, if she wants it.

[Molly Quincannon] "I don't hit people. Usually. Unless they're threatening me," is Molly's response - first and foremost, that's the response. "But ... um ... how did you get hit with the changing stick? I mean, who hit you with the changing stick?" A thought occurs, and she voices it in tones that are more or less apologetic, but ... sometimes, learning by doing is not exactly advisable, and she stays just that little ways out of reach of the stick for now. "Is ... this one of those things where I take the stick and I get the job of turning the trees until such time as I can find someone to take my place ... which might involve having to hit you with the stuck because while I bet it'd be an awesome job, turning trees? I don't really have time to do it for, like, eternities or even years or months or days. I think my friends would freak out. So ... yeah, I'm not usually a very careful person? But I ought to ask things like what happens if I take the stick, and what happens if apples hit me. Just so I know, y'know? Learning by doing is one thing, but there's lessons and lessons."

[Balsamic Crescent] He eyes her, like he is very much considering hitting her with the stick. Just for a moment. But it's there, the darkness, the fleeting moment of threatening, of something timeless and powerful peering out at her from behind those guileful dark eyes.

"Apples hit you, it hurts. THUMP!" He shouts, jumps a little. "Then you eat them."

And that's that, as far as the apples go. Tall was very tall, but perhaps a little slow, thought Cricket. Still, turning trees was more about hitting than thinking. The magic was in the stick. It would still work well. This could still work well for Cricket.

"E-ter-ni-ties? No. Cricket -- no. Cricket like Cricket's job. Good job. Pays well. Pays in Apples. Lots, and lots of apples. Then when done? Nothing to do for months. Good job. Like job. Offering to shaaaaaare job, and apples, with Tall. NOT GIVE. Not give to Tall. Job not Cricket's to give like that. Share. Learn. Eat apples, yes. Give job away? No. No no, Cricket -- no."

Then he looks down, scuffs toe, looks back up again.

Wife hit Cricket with changing stick. Big fight. Steal stick. Hit Cricket. Run away. Wanted Cricket's job, see, didn't like her own. Now gone. And Cricket lonely. And old. AND UGLY."

...

"Wench."

[Molly Quincannon] Can Cricket lie?

...Eh, hell with it. She's not going to piss Cricket off any further. There's a sympathetic look about the bit with the wife, though. "Yeah, she sounds nasty. Also? You're not ugly. You're maybe not beautiful in the ways that butterflies and orchids and fashion models are beautiful, but you're beautiful in the way of ... bonsai trees and rock formations. There's lots of different kinds of beauty." Which gives Molly furiously to think, to be honest - she's had much the same issue about her own looks. She wonders what her own beauty is, what it's like.

Then she smiles, apologetic. "Okay. Sorry, but I did have to ask. I ... like the way I am, more or less, and my journey ... well, I'm in-between places but I'm pretty sure my road doesn't involve bramble crowns or apple trees, in the long run. But I'm happy to help for the afternoon, if you're happy to let me."

[Balsamic Crescent] He looks at her slow for a moment. Slow like freezing ground at the first edging into Winter. Slow like Spring thaw. He looks at her, like that, and then entrusts the changing stick to her.

"Not all paths are our paths. Not all paths are your paths. But all paths are paths. Sometimes have to try a different path, for an afternoon, for a day, for a month or a year of a lifetime. Sometimes come right back home when you're done. Sometimes not. Tall change trees. Change five trees. Then come eat apples with Cricket. Then go home."

He shambles a couple steps away, so she can heft the staff (which is more like a bat to her height and dimensions) and take the weight of it.

"Maybe Tall same. Maybe Tall tall-er. Maybe Tall changed. Not Cricket's business. Turning trees Cricket's business. Turning people someone else's."

[Molly Quincannon] Molly hefts the bat. Molly was always really crap at sports involving bats. Still, the hefting is less about getting the feel of the physical stick as it is getting the feel of the weight of the words Cricket spoke. Same, changed ... taller? She wonders whose business turning people is...

Then she finds a likely tree, winds up and swings the stick.

[[Dex alone, diff 6]]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 4, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Molly Quincannon] Well, that didn't do anything, and so she swings again.

[[And again...]]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Balsamic Crescent] Cricket doesn't like the person whose job it is to turn people. She doesn't like the bone-staff and the cowl, the coldness or the bone-deep-ache. Cricket avoids the people-turner and sticks to trees. The people-turner goes by many names; She/He can be found in the between places between.

He moves back over to the oven, now. Cricket watches Molly out of the corner of one beady eye, but he does not interfere. She takes a first swing and connects. He eyes the tree. Nothing happens. Not even a glimmer of goldening. Not a single fallen apple.

"HARDER!"

It's meant to be encouraging, but that scrabbling undertone to his voice casts it squeaky and demanding instead. He flaps his arms at her, shaking the fallen-leaf mantle like storm-breeze. Shifting the bramble crown on his brown.

She swings again and the tree shudders. It drops three apples around her, which narrowly miss her. She is narrower than Cricket, and the apples always hit him on the shoulders, glancing blows. Except for that one time. He rubs at his head in remembrance.

"GOOD!"

Now he's wrapping layers of his mantle over his hands, reaching into into the oven as he calls after her. The tree above her is fast turning yellow-bright with Autumn. The leaves have begun to fall. They flutter down around her, delicately, leave bright splotches of color against the still-green grass. Puddles.

[Molly Quincannon] That felt good. A little stiff, a little complaint from burn tissue, but there's a lot of angry and hurt and ... well, and angry. It also feels good to have a visible effect on things, to see results. She smiles at Cricket, in thanks for the compliment, and moves to the next tree. She winds up and swings again.

[[And Dex]]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 5, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Molly Quincannon] She doesn't even wait for him to shout 'harder'; she knows, and she swings.

[[Hail Kasheeno?]]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 6 (Failure at target 6)

[Molly Quincannon] Molly stares at the tree. "Did this thing move?!?" She swings again without waiting for an answer.
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 5 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Balsamic Crescent] Molly goes about Tree Turning, which is not easy work. It is not a simple swing-and-you're-done task for the Cultist. It requires a bit of her focus, a lot of her physical energy; by the time she's done with it it may have even extracted from her some small part of her Will. There's a price to be paid, for this progress, for the changing, for the growing -- though Autumn is not often seen as a season of growth.

What takes Cricket one solid thump (and an apple to the shoulder [head]) takes Molly two, or sometimes three. Once it took four, but who's counting? When she's done, there's a cluster of newly-turned apple trees and a puddle of yellowed-grass seeping out from each of them. The air is a little crisper, the sky above a slightly darker hue of blue. Leaf-litter crunches under her feet as she walks back to the stone hearth, the stone stoop. It has a decidedly different sound-feel than people-litter.

He has not been idle. She has turned trees and he has scurry-scampered to collect the fallen apples. He has set out a small repast. Two wood cups of apple wine. Two wood plates with cheese, and spiced apple bread (somehow still warm from the oven), with hard boiled eggs and a few slices of apple. It is inviting, this simple spread. There's an echo of merriment to it, the twinkle of lights-on-a-dark-night is all caught up in the tiny bubbles in the wine.

One gnarled and knobby hand reaches for the changing stick when she comes back, and Cricket offers her the only stool: a three-legged affair with a five-petalled flower carved roughly into its seat as decoration.

[Molly Quincannon] Molly passes him back the stick with no qualms but does not take the stool; she is, in fact, happier cross-legged on the ground, at least in part because it puts her on a level with him - in fact, maybe an inch or two shorter, as a few inches of her height is platform-soled boot. "Thank you," she says. She has read Tom Sawyer, it must be said, but there's a difference between fence-painting and turning trees. That latter is Time (something she knows well) and Life (which she doesn't, but one day...) and a little bit of miracle. "It was a privilege. And an education."

Then, because she has to ask, "Do you turn the trees only once a year, or four times a year? And what do you do when you're not turning the trees?"

[Balsamic Crescent] He waits for her to eat. If she does not eat, then he stares at her, and then the food, and then back to her. It seems he is hospitality bound, somehow, to let her have first go at things. But Cricket is also hungry. So he will only be so patient with Tall.

If staring fails, then he will nudge her plate toward her. Look up with those cajoling eyes. Lift one of the cups and offer it to her, go so far as to place it in her hand and use his rough-skinned fingers to clasp hers around the grain of the cup.

Everything is Cricket-sized, so it's small to Molly. Somewhere between a child's tea-set and regular sized tableware. The cup is more of a demi-tasse. The plates the size of salad plates. Maybe bread plates, even.

"Turn trees four times. Four seasons. Busy job. Start early finish late, every year, every season. So very ma-ny trees." He laments. But it's partly for show. Turning trees is an important job, see, and Cricket is proud to have it. To have had it for this long.

"When not turning trees, build house. Fix house. Go fishing. Have parties -- Cricket like parties. Parties with daaaaancing." He shimmies his shoulders a bit, it's laughable, this, and it causes his leaf-mantle to rustle like a wind blowing through. "Lots and lots of apple wine. Then dancing. Then more wine. Yes."

If she's eaten, by now, then he'll lift a slice of apple to his lips. Break a mouthful of cheese off. Chew thoroughly, swallow.

"Want give you something. First you choose. Red. Orange. Yellow or... purrr-pllle."

[Molly Quincannon] The staring works, at least insofar as she raises her demi-tasse to him with something that an old friend of hers said once to serve as a toast: "May the saddest day of your future be no worse than the happiest day of your past."

Then she sips, and listens, and munches an apple slice as she listens to Cricket talk about how he spends his time when he is not turning the seasons. She imagines him reclining on a riverbank, snoozing, with a fishing stuck on the bank, line in the water; she pictures him dancing at parties - laughable, but in the kind way, the way of grandparents still full of life dancing at their grandchildren's weddings. These are good images to have.

Then, the question, the colour, and this gets thought. It's a tough decision, but in the end... "Thank you," is the first thing, and then, "Red, please." She chooses it because Chuck likes red, really.

[Balsamic Crescent] In truth, Cricket sleeps more than he fishes. And more fish get away than get caught on his line, but he doesn't seem to care. There are times in the year when he is not gnarled like this, not so old, when the thought of his dancing would not be so adorable-strange. But this is the Cricket that Molly has known, that conjures up thoughts of grandparents dancing at weddings. It is good thing to carry home with her. It is not at all remiss.

She says red, and he shifts around the leaf-cloak looking for something red. The apple wine is sweet, with a strong bite, and it could easily make her weary. To gentle away the anger, soothe the sting of tired and heated muscles. It's easy to see why enough Apple Wine leads to dancing, and that dancing inevitably back to more wine.

Having found his prize, Cricket gentle wrests it from his cloak. Lays it in the palm of his hand. Delicately positions the stem of the crimson maple leaf so that it forms a little loop and holds it there while he blows across the leaf.

There is a tinkle like bell-chime, like glass-laughter, falling, falling down like the rain on the day that Molly left behind. It sweeps in like an Autumn wind. It resonates; it is powerful, stronger than most resonances she has felt. The leaf trembles, resistant at first, and then begins to shrink down. It keeps all verity, every vein line, every little blemish burr. Down down down until it is a charm that fits in his palm, enamelled with red on one side (with purple and orange flecks and highlights), and backed with gold on the other. There's a loop, in precisely the manner of the stem he'd held folded, and Cricket rummages in a pocket to pull out a brown ribbon. He threads this ribbon through the loop.

This, he offers to Molly. Holds it up by the ribbon, lets the leaf hang down like a pendulum. It pushes hither and thither, as if on some unseen wind.

"May you back whence you came, but not to who you were before, Tall." There is no mumble-clutter to his tone, just now. It is clear, crisp, proficient. "Ever onward." He says, as he sets the trinket into her palm, makes it hers to carry with her from here on out.

[Molly Quincannon] "...Ever onward," she murmurs as she closes her hand around the little treasure - gently, not too tight to start with. Then, after a moment of holding it (hefting it, in a gentler way than she had the stick) and another in which she opens her hand to look at it again, and then she reaches up to tie it around her neck (or, if ribbon length does not allow it, to the simple velvet choker-collar she wears around her neck, where it can dangle like a charm). As she does so, she says, "Thank you. I'll treasure it ... as I'll treasure this afternoon."

Tired - but in a way that speaks of contentment rather than simply being spent, for the first time in some while - she stretches and says, "I should probably leave you to the rest of your day. Ever onward doesn't really stop, I guess. But ... is it alright to say that I'll think of you? When I see a tree whose leaves are on the turn? Think of you and thank you, quietly, for all your hard work." She looks bashful, as though she thinks it's a silly thing to say, and think, but she's going to say it anyway, because it's true. She wants those she likes and respect to have truth, because it's the most precious thing she can really give anybody.

[Balsamic Crescent] Cricket's job is changing trees. He's told her he has no truck with people changing, but that's not entirely true. Ever Onward, she echoes, and his ancient features creep into an ever-broadening smile. He claps his hands together, once, twice, then watches as she ties the ribbon around her neck. It is just long enough. A happy coincidence.

"It is alright to think, yes. Is alright too to hit trees, soften them up for cricket. Hit trees with baseball-bat, make 'em ready, yes." That grin is mirthful, teasing now. Or perhaps not teasing, who really could tell? But he reaches up with one hand to place his thumb in the middle of her forehead. He smells of fertile dirt. He smells of apples. But it's a clean dirt smell, a good and honest dirt smell. He smells nothing of cities.

"Go well, Tall...." He says, and it's the last thing that she will hear here, in the apple orchard between place, where the trees are spreading puddles of Autumn out from their roots. His thumbprint presses into her forehead and her eyelashes are heavy, they take on a gravity, they pull down her eyelids. The contentment rushes in on the heels of that sleepiness and everything is warm -- wrapped in a soft blanket before a burning hearth, warm.


*** *** ***

When she wakes, Molly will find herself on a bench in Grant Park, beneath the broad auspices of an already Fall-yellowed tree. It shelters her, somewhat, from the rain that falls down. She is not pelted by it, but rather takes on the dampness of the world around her by proxy. She wakes as if from a restful sleep and many hours have past since she opened that door -- eight, her time sense tells her. There is a baset of apples beside her, all golden and perfectly crisp. Better than any she'll find here for weeks.

There are five. One each for the trees than she turned.

And she's weary, yes, there is always a price to be paid. Some part of her will was used in the turning of seasons (It isn't easy work, you know) but some part of herself was returned as well. She feels better, a little more hale, perhaps a little uplifted.

And yet drenched through to the quick. Damned storms.

[Balsamic Crescent] Stats for Molly! +1 health level. -1 WP.
to Molly Quincannon