Beyond The Burning Skies

[Ryn]

Ryn is abysmal at apologizing. She knows this and that's why thinking about doing so makes her angry. At herself, at the world. It makes a snarl rise in her throat and her teeth itch. It makes her want to go and find something more deserving of her wrath than a sweaty man in a house of mating dances. But she also knows that she wants to be seen by Katarina and for that she has to figure this out. Drag this fish-hooked snarl of words from her throat. She did go and find something 'luxurious' in the hopes that maybe if she finds something good enough it can take the place of the words, but she does not have a lot of faith in what she found and she (carefully) curls her fingers over the small package wrapped in colorful paper sitting in her palm.

For once she is sitting at her desk and is about to stash the gift in one of the drawers when someone enters the room with an intent Ryn can feel search for her even before the man's attention fully settle son her. On instinct she shoves the present into her pocket and waits for the man to approach with a manila folder of paper-words in hand. He has a name, but Ryn cannot be bothered to memorize the face of every identically dressed drone in this hive of concrete and paper. He drops the folder on her desk but she catches it before it hits the surface and has a chance to meld into the scattered papers and files on her desk. She briefly wishes she'd paid more attention to it, not for the sake of staying on top of this, it's fairly obvious she will not, but to be able to tell if Katarina has stopped helping her keep it in check or not.

"Mission brief. Already dropped one off with your partner. No imminent danger, but it got flagged as urgent by the Analytics and Artifacts departments, so ch--" The 'chop-chop' dies on his lips at Ryn looking up at him from the file.

"I will go." she simply says. Maybe if there is something to tear apart she'll feel good enough afterwards to apologize. Flipping through the file on her way to the briefing room to wait for Katarina her hopefulness turns back to grumbling annoyance. No disappearances or sightings of 'cryptids', just reports of inexplicable items showing up in some town. The few pictures don't tell Ryn anything, just more human-wrought things she can't immediately discern the purpose of.

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina herself was only a few moments later, flipping through the file herself with a frown. Occasionally, she'd stop to examine a photo a little closer, pulling it out and squinting, puzzled.

She did not immediately acknowledge Ryn, as she continued going through the information given to them.

[Ryn]

Ryn is used to being overlooked, it is after all her preferred state of being most of the time.

"Hello." she simply says to alert Katarina to her presence. "What's unusual about these items?"

[Katarina Kane]

"They shouldn't exist," Katarina said, simply, still looking through the folder. "Some of them have dates from the future -- see this penny? 1997. Others are...they cracked some of these things open, and found, like, tiny computers inside. Something out of science-fiction; we don't have anything even close to this small."

She frowned again, flipping through the folders. "I can't even imagine what some of these things are. A little black box with a glass front of some kind, but it's not a mirror."

[Ryn]

"Most things are like that to me." she says, though at least in her case she'd been aware of the existence of the expanding human world, while this is clearly not normal.

"But they're mundane." she concludes. "Only as dangerous as what people do with them. And not appearing on their own." Some relics and cursed objects have a tendency to have a mind of their own in terms of when or where they're found, after all.

[Katarina Kane]

"Yeah. They shouldn't exist. Maybe they should exist sometime, but not now, and not here. And people are going to start asking questions."

For the first time, she looked up at Ryn, frowning slightly. "Are you up for this, Ryn? If you need more time to heal..."

[Ryn]

"I'm fine." she says and she actually can't tell if Katarina is talking about her ankle or if someone had told her of the deva dragging herself through the front door and collapsing. She'd probably heard. But if so, what did she think happened?

She rolls her shoulders to demonstrate. She's sore and some of her bones still ache but she's ignored much worse. "It's just strange boxes and trinkets. Do you not want me to go with you?" She has no idea if her attempt to listen for unspoken-words are at all right, but injury doesn't stop Ryn and Katarina has every reason to fear her.

[Katarina Kane]

"I wouldn't want you to push yourself too hard," Katarina said, hesitantly. "If you're actually not fine, you don't have to say you're fine. As you said, it's just...boxes and trinkets. I'll ask a few questions, take a few notes, come back in no time. You don't have to suffer on my account."

[Ryn]

"I'm fine!" she bites back a growl, one hand disappearing into her pocket and clenching around the small gift, managing to stop short of crumpling it. "I'm fine. And I'm.... sorry." she manages to press out between tight lips and her eyes briefly dart up at Katarina before slipping back down to the file and the creases where she's gripping it too tightly.

[Katarina Kane]

"Alright! Alright, alright," Katarina said, putting her hands up. "You're fine. I'm fine. We're...we're fine. There's no need to apologize, it was...just something. A stressful moment, I'm sure. It's alright. I understand."

"You don't....you don't need to...no, it's all good," she added, clearing her throat. "Everything's....everything's OK."

"So. Have you ever been to..." she said, squinting at the folder, very interested in looking at it and not Ryn. "'Maldon'? There's not much about it in the files; some vague reference to a Captain Owemuch and a floating island named Scoti Moria, but nothing that would seem to be relevant to this. It seems like a boring little seaside town, honestly."

[Ryn]

The names tell Ryn little, but that much she is used to and it has yet to spur her to try and memorize a whole history's worth of names for places that keep changing anyway. Fortunately someone somewhere has taken note of that and added a map excerpt from an Atlas, showing the eastern shore of Britannia. She furrows her brow. The places and histories she knows are scattered and and often belong to times that have fallen away under the human ordering of the world, but there are places where they are very dense, even now. And she recognizes this one.

"There's old magic there. Many Gods made the world, all in their own way, but all leaving a mark. This is one of them." she says, putting her finger where river meets ocean. "Too many mortal men have placed binding stones and ruled with cold-iron swords for it to be remembered."

[Katarina Kane]

"Anything related to....anything remotely like this, then? Or are we going in blind?"

The work. The work would be a good distraction from...everything.

[Ryn]

Ryn had never paid much mind to these things but oddly finds herself wishing she had.

"Water can move between places. Like the doors of the House. Like that island. Scoti Moria?" she says, having to flip through the files to find the name. "Something may have come and gone and left these behind."

[Katarina Kane]

"Well, if it's gone, it means we're just going to be glorified janitors, picking up whatever is left behind. I suppose that would be easier, though.

Are you ready?"

[Ryn]

"Always." she nods and drops the folder on a table to make for the door to the winding corridors of the ghost-paths.

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina, who still hadn't quite gotten the paths down here figured out -- if, indeed, they were all able to be figured out -- walked behind Ryn in a quiet, not-entirely-comfortable silence, staying a few steps behind her as they wove their way towards a wooden door, rather unassuming to say the least.

"After you, Ryn," Katarina nodded, taking a deep breath Ryn would have come to recognize as Katarina putting on her public face, as it were.

[Ryn]

She's apologized. Katarina has said it's fine. Repeatedly. Then why does Ryn not feel fine at all? The strange feeling follows her all the way to the door she leads them to. There are clipboards affixed next to each door, tracking where this particular door has led to in the past with corresponding dates.. While Ryn glances at some of them as they pass, she mostly lets her gut lead them. She can't really explain it well, but the doors all feel different and they cluster together in ways that shift as much as the paths themselves do. She does occasionally open one to check it, twice sticking her head through to smell the air on the other side.

Finally they get to one that stands out from it's neighbors by the large stone bricks that make up it's frame and the rough, slightly uneven planks of the door itself. It creaks open to reveal a short gravel path leading to a road running past a row of two-story houses. Ryn steps through and out of the side of a small church, something she notes with a vague frown of disapproval. Having been invited into civilization by humans does not mean their gods look particularly favorably on Ryn. Stepping through the door of one of their holy places, even one that currently does not connect to the actual interior, repulses her in the physical sense.

She glances back through at Katarina and gives her a slight nod. None of the people walking or driving past on the road are looking their way.

[Katarina Kane]

With Ryn having gone through the door first, Katarina followed her outside, shivering a little bit from the sudden change in temperature and air pressure, rubbing her arms a little to get circulation into them.

"Well, if there's anything afoot here, they are keeping it very quiet," Katarina noted, looking around. She stared down over the North Sea, as the road led the way down from the side of a cliff down to the Estuary below. "Not a lot of immediate people to question. I think we need to head down towards the seaside; they keep finding these things coming out of the mud."

She looked around a little bit, squinting her eyes. "We can use that lighthouse over there as a marker, in case we forget where the Door is."

[Ryn]

Ryn looks over towards the lighthouse sitting atop a cliff overlooking the ocean. It's just a simple beacon, something old enough even Ryn recognizes it's purpose, but something about it feels off. She blinks and she could swear for a moment it's a roughly hewn stone, a flame crackling at it's peak, driving her back as much as the church at her back. She was right, this place is old old.

"Yes." she says after taking a half step back that she turns into a swivel towards Katarina. "I feel we'll be able to see it from anywhere in this place."

With that said they set out towards the coast. The harbor sits nestled between the cliffs on either side of the town and from there towards the sea proper the estuary with it's flat and regularly flooded islands stretches out. It's an odd layout, almost as if the sea gnawed at the land long enough to unearth the cliffs and then settled back into the expanse of marsh flats. It doesn't take them long to find a route that snakes past the harbor and along the water, signs indicating nature trails and reminding people to mind the tides as to not get trapped when the flood turns marsh into a series of islands. It's not wild, Ryn can see the town behind them and to the north more buildings cluster along the shore, but it's close enough it's making her want to take off her shoes and go running through the sharp dune weeds that reach almost waist-high in places. Even the smell of civilization is driven back by the salt-fresh ocean air.

"I like this place. The sea is keeping it from too much human touch." In Ryn's mind, any place that has to warn people away even a little bit automatically gains some approval.

[Katarina Kane]

"I didn't used to like the sea," Katarina said, as the two walked down alongside the side of the estuary. "But there is something calming about this. It might just be the salt air -- Maldon's famous for it's salt, did you know?"

"A shame about all the mud, honestly. It's probably a bit nicer a further out to sea."

[Ryn]

She shakes her head no. "I didn't." she says with a glance at Katarina.

"None of this would be here without the mud." she says before she can think better of it. Why is she defending the ground? She kneels down and pushes her hand deep into the dark mixture of sand and muck, almost to the elbow. When she pulls her arm back out the wet ground clings to her enough it raises to an almost foot-high mound before relinquishing it's grip on Ryn's arm and sinks back down. Ryn uncurls her fingers and in her palm, covered in mud is a sleek black mussel. It looks drab until Ryn holds her hand into a shallow pool of water and wipes the mud off of it and lifts it up. With the sunlight hitting the shell it shimmers with almost golden speckles and a dull rainbow sheen.

"And it's not just mud. Look." she says, resisting the urge to force open the shell and offer it to Katarina. She knows the yellowish muscle inside tastes great, but she's not sure she could convince her to try it.

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina pursed her lips and nodded. "Yes, that is quite...it's quite something, when the light catches it just right," she acknowledged. "Takes some work to get it that way though, yes?"

As if they were skirting too close to the metaphor, Katarina continued. "I don't suppose that is from the quote-unquote future too, is it?"

[Ryn]

"It could be." Ryn points out. "But probably not." She kneels down and puts the mussel back into a spot of water she uses to rinse the remaining muck off her arm.

"We should split up. Cover more ground."

[Katarina Kane]

"You'll be alright?" Katarina asked, squinting into the distance over the mud.

[Ryn]

"Yes. We can meet back here." she says, taking her shoes off and setting them down on an elevated patch of grass before rolling her pants up above her knees.

"If you find something, shout, I'll come to you." she says and walks out onto the mud. Katarina could swear the woman, small and lithe as she is, should dive further into the mud but she never sinks deeper than her ankles. Somehow her feet find the perfect places to step and she manages to look graceful walking and occasionally jumping slightly across the mud. All the while her eyes dart across the landscape, looking for human-wrought things that don't belong.

[Narrator]

At first, there's nothing there -- just the mud and the muck and nature, the salt wind in her face and the gunk between her toes. Not quite her element, perhaps, but not far from it.

As she gets out, though, signs of human habitation begin to pop up here and there. Some of it's hard to immediately identify -- a piece of wood, some crumpled plastic. Ryn wasn't exactly up to date on what the detritus of humankind normally looks like, so whether or not this was from The Future or just Some Garbage may not be immediately clear to her. But it was becoming more and more frequent as Ryn approached a spot somewhere in the center of the estuary.

[Ryn]

As the frequency of items increases she starts picking up smaller pieces she can easily hold on to and once she has a handful of things she finds a more solid and elevated spot from which to look across the estuary in search for Katarina. She'll have to let her take a look at these things because as far as Ryn can tell humans are not above just throwing piles of their regular trash into the sea.

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina, herself, had walked a little further down the estuary, a bit out towards the coast alongside the river itself. She squinted into the distance and then, gingerly, took off her own shoes, headed for the water's edge.

[Ryn]

Ryn stays where she is for a moment. She doesn't want to spy on Katarina again but this feels important. She's well aware that she's brought a siren to the ocean, but Katarina can't keep running from this. Stave it off, yes, fight it? Ryn can't fault her for that. But she feels like she does have to confront it. And not in the sterile-smelling, paper-word laden way humans have thrown at her so far. If something should happen she's not that far away and Ryn can be as swift as the wind if need be.

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina peered out into the waves, took a breath to steady herself, and waded into the river, picking up speed as she began to swim.

[Ryn]

Ryn slowly makes her way roughly in Katarina's direction. Keeping her clothes on to go swimming is an odd choice and she suspects she'll probably be quite cold once she leaves the water, but it's no cause for concern. Assuming she's headed somewhere particular and not just swimming out to sea. Maybe she shouldn't have let the siren alone by the ocean. Ryn's pace across the marshland quickens, falling short of an outright sprint but hurrying a little bit.

[Katarina Kane]

Katarina, too, was picking up speed. Ryn had seen humans swim before, sometimes in a panic for their lives. Katarina's stroke was more graceful, fluid -- and fast. She headed away from shore, picking up speed as she went.

[Ryn]

Ryn bursts into a sprint. She drops most of the strange items save for what she can stuff into her pockets. The mud and uneven terrain should slow her down but it doesn't. She moves like the wind across the marsh towards the water. Once upon a time and far away from humankind her feet once found purchase on the smallest of things. Branches and treetops, the thinnest of ice, even a gust of wind in a pinch. Here and now she only has once choice to reach Katarina. Her feet splash through the shallow water and she leaps; she may not walk on the wind any more but it still carries her twenty, thirty feet before her body folds forward and she dives headfirst into the water. This is not her element and though she'd probably still outpace most humans, she's not so sure about a siren.

She arcs back up towards the surface, hands and feet tearing at the water. "Katarina!" she shouts in what feels like the loudest noise she's ever made in her considerable existence, swimming after her friend.

[Katarina Kane]

Ryn was not catching up to Katarina on speed alone -- as fast as she was, the siren was in her element, and Ryn was not.

However, her shout, breaking the silence of a still morning on the estuary, snapped Katarina out of it. She stopped stroking, and slowly turned back upright, treading water and shaking her head. "W...Ryn? What was I..." she started, blinking.

[Ryn]

With Katarina treading water it takes Ryn only a couple moments to catch up to her.

"The sea." she says, as if that explains everything. And maybe it does. "It called you. Like a pull deep in your bones?" she hazards a guess.

[Katarina Kane]

"Y...yes. Yes, I suppose it did..." Katarina said, turning to look out into the distance. "I didn't even notice it. I saw something in the water, and I just...I just went,"

[Ryn]

For a moment Ryn doesn't understand. Why is Katarina confused by this? Even if she doesn't like that she's turning into a siren, this is what a Siren would do. Dive into the sea.

And then a sudden realization hits Ryn that makes her feel blind for never having seen it. Granted she never bothered to pay humans much mind but it all falls into place in front of her eyes so easily now. Why Katarina worries. About Ryn's ankle, about her transformation. Why she's scared and clumsy and all those other things. They don't simply act. They have to try. And struggle and fail and question. Their purpose, their fate, is their own. This is how they break oaths as if they were nothing. Why they question why the wind blows and the sea churns. To be human is to be... uncertain.

To Katarina this is as strange and inexplicable as tripping on roller-shoes had been to Ryn. Why it'd be strange to them that Ryn can sit underneath the stars and simply be for days, years, centuries. Why they write and write and write everything into paper-words trying to make sense of themselves.

"You felt what it is like. To be like me. To run - or swim - only because it is who you are." she says and then remembers something else. "Sometimes when you dance and sing. Do you feel like time does not matter and you could stay in that moment for as long as you please?"

[Katarina Kane]

"Well...yes," Katarina said, still treading water. "Often. On stage, everything else can kind of...fade away at times," she said, slowly, trying to digest this new piece of information.

[Ryn]

Ryn nods. "That's how it is when you..." she stops, struggling for the right words. "That's how it is." she finally settles on. "You just are and what you do is what you are. Nothing happened. You just went."

[Katarina Kane]

"That's...never happened quite like that before," Katarina said, a little shaken up. "But...good to note. That's what to watch out for. That's what's to try to avoid."

Avoiding it wasn't quite what Ryn had in mind, of course, but then, Katarina was only human.

She took a deep breath, and then cautiously took a few more strokes out. "But I still saw something..." she said, trying to put behind the incident behind her. "Something shimmering and wobbly. Did you not? Or is that more Siren-power?"