An Awe-Inspiring View of the World

[Ryn]

On the way back, once again drenched in salt-water, Ryn had recounted to Katarina what she'd done while she investigated the portal. She'd been brief, which is hardly out of character but she mainly did not want her friend to know the extent of her 'sparring' with the Morrigan. Or that she'd specifically asked about fashion, just the details of Samantha's retinue and the eerily familiar Wyldclay Mirror. She did actually write a report as well, though there'd probably been some room for improvement from Katarina since it was even more sparse than what she'd told her. Still she'd made some effort.

Then she'd withdrawn through one of the Ghost Paths to the wooded cliffside overlooking a valley deep within Yellowstone. Not that Ryn knows that name. To her it's a vast caldera, mostly untouched by human hands and now also the spot she'd shown Katarina when trying to share with her a glimpse of what 'home' is to her. She knows the mortal had only seen a glimpse of what is spread out before Ryn's eyes. She's well aware the way she sees the world is vastly different. Especially here, far from human machinations, she can see so much. The myriad shades of green and brown, the sparkle of minerals in the stone and the droplets of water dancing above the river far below. The teeming life everywhere, insects and small mammals, dozens of birds with their own brilliant spread of colors to their differently textured feathers, fish glimmering with scales from silver to faded grey. Calls that echo and vibrate with subtle notes, almost shimmering in the air. An aura of miniscule stratified currents around each tree where microscopic lungs draw in carbon dioxide and breathe out fresh oxygen. The constant slow movement of water through gnarled roots and creaking wood. Even the stars above, washed out as they are by the sunlight.

This is what she wishes she could show Katarina. That even here she finds herself rather looking at her friend than the spectacle of life. But all she knows to express is blood and pain. She doesn't hate it. Far from it; even now the thought of tearing open the rib-cage of a rotten soul and feeling a vile heart cease to beat in her hand tantalizes. But it's not how she wants Katarina to see her, is it? Somehow she's managed not to scare her off and that gives her hope. She's brave and clever, unaware of how much so, it feels. And she smiled at Ryn again, including her eyes. If only Ryn could figure out what she'd done right...

[Katarina Kane]

"I thought I might find you here," Katarina's voice came from the direction of the door to the Ghost Path.

[Ryn]

"I like this place." she nods without turning her head. "Not many places left where one could just disappear."

[Katarina Kane]

"Is that what you're trying to do out here? Disappear?"

[Ryn]

"Only a little. But I don't mind company if it's you." she says, turning around to look up at Katarina.

[Katarina Kane]

"It is quieter out here, isn't it?" Katarina said, after a moment. "Then over there, at the very least. What a...strange world that was."

[Ryn]

"The air tasted burned. Mortal gods. A machine with a soul. Things that shouldn't be." she nods.

[Katarina Kane]

"The water flowed wrong...I don't know how else to explain it," Katarina said, with a half-frustrated shrug. "I don't have the words for it. And the people there; they seemed very...eager? Maybe that's not the right word, either."

[Ryn]

"Sometimes things are just wrong." she nods. This she understands perfectly. Human-wrought things don't feel right. Some are worse than others and Ryn doesn't really know why or how. "You don't have to explain. It just is."

"That's something I never understood before, but humans want there to be reasons. And logic. And if there isn't they get weird and eager and they try to put everything into temples or paper-words to demand meaning."

[Katarina Kane]

"Well, the world is a terrifying place when you just let it happen to you. I suppose it's human nature to try to grasp control where you can, just so you're holding on to something when the world spins around you."

[Ryn]

Ryn looks contemplative for a moment before finally nodding.

"If you're ever terrified, you can always hold on to me. I never... I rarely spin." she corrects herself after recalling her getting dressed up by a mirror.

[Katarina Kane]

"I'm not sure you make for the best anchor," Katarina said, with a small half-smile. "Your view of the world, is...well, it's different in and of itself. Not different bad! Just...different."

[Ryn]

"In places like this it might even be different-good." she says with a small smile. "And I think you can see it a little. In the water."

[Katarina Kane]

"And what I see in the water is frightening," Katarina sighed. "Maybe I should have let them poke and prod me at the university, see if there is a cure. I am just so tired of being treated as an experiment..."

[Ryn]

"Because what you see in the water is yourself. Because humans are always... changing and evolving, and things like me are absolute." In some ways, there's no turning back from taking that dive for better or for worse and Katarina isn't wrong that it's usually the later. Then why does she want her to take that plunge?

"I don't know about cures, but I think you would enjoy to swim. And I will never let you slip too far beneath the waves." No 'would' or 'promise', just a simple statement of fact.

[Katarina Kane]

"You say you're an absolute. But you've changed since I've gotten to know you, Ryn. You wouldn't have tried...fashion...six months ago," Katarina pointed out.

[Ryn]

"And I still don't understand it." she quickly points out. After a moment she amends "But maybe I never had reason to try before."

[Katarina Kane]

"Well," Katarina said, with a smile that reached her eyes. "If I'm helping you break out of your shell, then at least something positive has come out of this whole experience."

[Ryn]

"I wish I knew how to help you too. Be less... wrinkle-worried." she says and moving overly slow boops Katarina right between the eyebrows with her fingertip.

[Katarina Kane]

Katrina laughed a little as Ryn poked her.

"Well, you might start by answering your paperwork. You have 17 memos from the Wyldclay. I think 12 of them are on parchment? Only eight of them rhyme, though, so he must be getting a little impatient."

[Ryn]

The smile tugging at Ryn's lips at Katarina's laughter falters. "I saw. I am avoiding him because I owe him a favor."

[Katarina Kane]

"Well, there's nothing wrong with keeping him waiting. Teach him a thing or two about the virtues of patience," Katarina smiled. "You're...otherwise disposed."

[Ryn]

"Otherwise disposed..." she repeats almost like some mystical incantation and nods to herself. Humans wouldn't call it magic, but what else would she call words that, when spoken, make people go away or open doors. It's just... human-magic and it's just as arcane to Ryn.

"Clever-words... How do they work if humans know your words are not your bond?"

[Katarina Kane]

"You can tell the truth without telling the whole truth," Katarina said, thinking for a moment. "Share a part, and protect the whole?"

"I'm sorry; it's just hard for me sometimes to see things from your point of view," Katarina admitted. "You're...direct, and that can be frightening, sometimes."

Ah. So they were talking about it, were they?

[Ryn]

"I don't know how to be less." she says and for a moment it might seem like she's looking for the right word, but no, she's ended her sentence.

"And I am frightening. I will never not be." she says and for once she catches on that Katarina will probably not quite get the extend of what she's trying to say. "That's not a part-truth, it just is. I cannot apologize for that, but I am sorry it frightened you."

[Katarina Kane]

"You are just... a lot, Ryn," Katarina sighed. "You pour yourself into things, 100%, and I just...overflow slightly? You're not..."

She bit her lower lip.

"You're not unwelcome. But I am...small. And fragile."

[Ryn]

For a while Ryn has no idea what to say, turning her head to look over the landscape when she feels heat creep onto her cheeks. Katarina is right and at the same time couldn't be more wrong. If only Ryn had the words to explain that for all her strength, Katarina can make the ground fall away beneath her with a word. Without words, even. She's like the river that has carved it's mark into the land that is Ryn.

"I could not hurt you. My strength... all of me, it..." Can't touch her? That's not true and yet her very nature would never have her lay a finger on the innocent or undeserving. But how can she explains this to Katarina? She lives in a world where words can be broken like twigs underfoot. "A river swells in the storm but cannot be drowned."

[Katarina Kane]

"But a river overflows it's banks, yes? And causes damage to everyone around if it cannot contain the storm."

Katarina, too, looked out over the landscape, not trusting herself to look Ryn in the eyes. "Just...slowly, Ryn. I need something in my life to be normal; I can only handle so much....change at one time."

[Ryn]

To say that Ryn is bad at 'normal' is the understatement of the eon. What's new is that she cares about that. And she's once sat and watched the sun move across the sky not throughout the day but seasons, so how could slow bother her...

"I will also never be normal. But I will not jump on you again. Unless you ask me to."

[Katarina Kane]

"Maybe less jumping," Katarina said, suppressing a laugh. "But if you'd like to watch more television at some point..."

[Ryn]

Ryn nods. Maybe Katarina does know how watching that show and especially that song had made her feel. And despite being scared of Ryn she wants to do it again. For a moment Ryn looks concerned at the strange hiccupping in her heart that thought seems to bring, but it's not unpleasant. Not at all. It's a little like the thrill of falling through the air but softer somehow.

"I would. Like that. I would like that a lot."

[Katarina Kane]

"Good. Then it's a..." Katarina said, her voice trailing off for a minute.

"It's a...plan," she settled on, after a moment's thought.

[Ryn]

Mercifully Ryn is blissfully unaware of the linguistic stumble at play, so the ensuing silence is not that awkward. In some ways the near-complete lack of social norms and directness can be almost refreshing. Ryn says what she means and she means what she says and on the other side of the conversation she doesn't really have any expectations beyond, well, enjoying watching TV with Katarina. And so she simply plops down on the forest floor and looks up at the sky and the errant clouds lazily drifting through the endless blue. It's silly and probably just the stark difference between the city and untouched wilderness, but framing Ryn the sky looks so much larger, stretching wide like wild-cat that's been curled up before. Even the air feels like even a shallow breath fills her chest with life and a deeper one might just lighten her like a leaf on the wind.

"I do like stories." she seems to decide. "They're a good use of lies."

[Katarina Kane]

"I'm not particularly good at them," Katarina admitted. "They...my agent, that is...just got me into some of these nonsense things just to boost my reputation and sell more albums. And I don't even really think it worked. The TV just wanted some eye candy with some foreign appeal, so I guess they were happy enough."

[Ryn]

"I liked it." Though admittedly, Ryn's frame of reference for what is good TV is, well, one episode of a quickly cancelled show. "If you didn't want to do it, why did you? Were they forcing you?"

[Katarina Kane]

"It's not that I didn't want to. It's just that it was sort of decided for me. A way to promote the album, get more people to know who I am," Katarina explained. "Cross-promotion."

[Ryn]

"Be seen and heard." she nods. "And that agent finds the places for it?" That seems incredibly at odds with the definition of the word Ryn is familiar with. Of course stupid humans can't just have one word for one thing.

[Katarina Kane]

"Yes. He's sort of...my handler, in the strange and wild world of the West," Katarina said, chuckling to herself a little at a private joke. "Out there selling the product."

[Ryn]

"But you get to decide if you want what he finds."

[Katarina Kane]

"Within reason. If I turn down everything, he'll stop finding me things, you know?"