Timeless, Stars Align In Darkness

[Ryn]

After dodging the Wyldclay for about a day after their return from another world, Ryn decides it's not worth eyeing every piece of furniture or item with increasing suspicion and makes her way to their office.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

The Wyldclay was behind their desk, stacks of paper and books arranged in such a way that it was clear it was intentional, though the system involved was not readily apparenty.

"Ryunosuke! Come come come come come come come come come," Wyll said, grinning when he saw the deva walk through his door. "Yes, you must come and sit and tell me all about it. Refreshment? Glass of water, little mint?"

[Ryn]

"No." she turns down their offer. While the Wyldclay probably couldn't claim this office as theirs in the sense of hospitality, it's still not the best idea to accept offered food from the Fae. It's bad enough she owes them one favor already. She does sit down though and picks up one of the books to flip through and put back down somewhere else purely to aggravate.

"There's a passage beneath the waves. It leads to a world where you are mortal and much less obnoxious." she says, though mortal is probably a relative term.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

The book Ryn picked up was a copy of Scríbhinní Béaloidis from the '50s; something surprisingly modern for the Wyldclay. Printed on paper with a spine and everything!

"Yes, yes, so I gathered from the report which you definitely wrote and I am not reporting on to the Powers That Be," the Wyldclay said, dismissively, grabbing the book and replacing it atop the correct pile. "But paper-words are so limiting. I need to know everything. I need to know more than everything. Give me more."

[Ryn]

"The Veil is shattered, if it ever existed. Their gods are so weak, I bested their Morrigan. There's many of you, bound in a mirror, serving the Phantom Queen and her consort." she says, assuming this will rankle the Fae.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

If anything, Wyll's grin grew wider, as they leaned over the table, elbows down, hands propping up their chin.

"Fascinating! A mirror, you say? They are a reflection, in their true form? Like the shadow stitched to Pan's foot?"

[Ryn]

"No. More like a legion in mirror shards. If you're one who is many, they are many who are one."

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"And thus, they are the one who are nothing," Wyll practically squealed, applauding in amusement. "That settles it, and it is decided. I must have some."

[Ryn]

"We don't need two of you." she says, crossing her arms and frowning at the Wyldclay's delight.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Well, that's quite the rude thing to say, don't you think? A travesty of a sham of a mockery," Wyll said, clicking their tongue. "Besides, you said so yourself -- they are less. And at the same time, more. I must know more, I simply must. And so it has been decided!"

[Ryn]

"I've been called many things. Polite has never been one of them. If you want them you should hurry before they find a way to close the gate." she grins. Hunting Wyldclay through an estuary to keep them from their goals does seem appealing.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Oh, I'm not the sort for that sort of thing. I much prefer working under my own conditions.

Which is why you're going to get some for me."

[Ryn]

"I'm not doing a thing for you." she says. She's not an idiot, she can tell where this is heading but she's certainly not going to agree without the favor she owes being explicitly invoked. That's how you get tricked into giving them two. Or more if you're particularly dense.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Ah, but you are. No questions asked, I believe. No harm to Katarina through deed or inaction. A cross across thine heart, pledging your death if left unfulfilled," the Wyldclay said, grinning a grin full of far too many teeth.

[Ryn]

"So I did." she grinds out between her teeth. "If this is your favor called then so be it. I will bring you one of the mirror-clay."

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"At a bare minimum," the Wildclay nodded. "Now, come come come, we must get you equipped" Wyll said gesturing towards the locked door to the vaults.

[Ryn]

"You want to give me your trinkets?" Ryn asks as she gets up to follow. She doesn't really need any tools but she's not going to turn down pieces of the Fae's collection.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"I am going to make sure you are outfitted properly," Wyll said, reaching into one of the recesses on the wall and grasping the handle. With a metallic scraping sound and a wet squelch, the hidden blade severed Wyll's arm at the shoulder, and the door to the vault unlocked.

"I don't fully doubt your ability to temporarily incapacitate a weaker one of my ilk. Restraining and transporting is another matter entirely. "

[Ryn]

Ryn has to begrudgingly admit that the Wyldclay has a point. They're slippery for sure.

"Then what do you suggest to restrain one of your ilk?" she asks as she follows the Fae into the vault. The idea of intentionally failing her task never even warrants consideration.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

The vault was chaotic, to say the least. Boxes and crates and loose baubles and beads of all shapes and sizes littered shelves -- presumably, there was some method to the madness, as Wyll seemed to know exactly where they were going as they winded their way through the maze of rare and dangerous bric-a-brac agents had collected through the...years? Decades? It was hard to tell.

"Well, there is no guarantee," Wyll said, putting on what appeared to be a pair of yellow dishwashing gloves. "We do not know the rules of this other universe; they may operate entirely differently to our own."

They picked up a long pair of iron tongs, and carefully reached past Ryn, concentrating as they grasped what appeared to be a glass jam jar with a blank label, focusing as they brought it down carefully.

[Ryn]

Ryn glances around at the myriad of items, few to none of which she can deduce the purpose of. How the Wyldclay keeps track of any of it is beyond her.

"And this will keep you and yours?" she asks as she eyes the plain jar dubiously.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"If left undamaged and intact, yes. Do not break the jar. Do not remove the band imprinted on the inside; even a scratch through the circle could create an opening for it to exploit," Wyll said, notably keeping his distance from the apparently innocuous jar as they held it out for Ryn to take.

[Ryn]

"Don't insinuate me to be clumsy as mortals." she says and slaps the jar up out of the tongs and snatches it out of the air.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Also don't take you as one to read the instructions," Wyldclay said, still leaving a respectful distance between themselves and the jar. "Nor do I think you care for the long and detailed backstory or the many and varied uses such a device might have."

[Ryn]

"Is it human-wrought magic to trap and extort spirits?"

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Personally, I do not believe there was much human in the man, but that is neither here nor there -- nor is he," Wyll said. "He had a knowledge of materials and sigils that proved...beyond his control, shall we say?"

[Ryn]

"He tried to trap you and you killed him for it." Ryn nods. Not a lot of metaphor or clever subtlety in this one. Or as Katarina had put it, she's 'a lot'. It's not that she doesn't know what the Siren meant by that, but how to be anything less than her totality... that eludes her. As if to interrupt her line of thought with intent, she catches the glimmer in the corner of her eye. Sat in the corner of a shelf with a tome leaning against it to keep it pinned is the ephemeral sphere of want they liberated from the waning artists. One that could bend reality even around the Deva.

With the binding vessel in hand, Ryn wanders past the stacks of magical detritus, occasionally picking up items that - as far as she can tell - are harmless to touch. She eyes them briefly but the real point is to place them back just wrong enough to make the Fae want to fix their impenetrable sorting system.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Nothing so simple and mundane. A fascinating story of wit and courage and cleverness on my part, I assure you; that would be wasted on someone of your lesser DON"T TOUCH THAT."

Fuming, Wyll stormed over to the shelf Ryn had rearranged. "My goodness, Rynousuke; if you wanted to be atomized I could arrange that for you forthwith," they grumbled, carefully putting everything back in it's proper place, focusing on keeping things in a precise sense of disorder.

[Ryn]

"How dangerous can these trinkets be if they let you curate them." she says. And as Wyldclay is distracted she moves like the wind past the shimmering orb, slipping it into her hand and holding it so her body is always positioned between it and Wyll as she moves towards the exit.

"Is that all you wanted me to have?"

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"If you want to find out just how dangerous these trinkets are, fail to fulfill your favor. Or think, for even the slightest moment, about attempting to use that jar on me," the Wyldclay said, an uncharacteristic note of menace slipping into their voice. "Precautions have been made."

"And yes, I trust you have your own skills and abilities to achieve success without more equipment and tools," they added, bouncing back to their normal upbeat tone. "Do be careful."

[Ryn]

Ryn barks out a laugh. "I don't think I can. Because I am too much." she says, putting the wrong emphasis on what might otherwise almost pass as slang.

[Wyll Wyldclay]

"Well, if you end up trapped in an eternal mirror dimension or something, drop a postcard in from time to time. I'll make sure your Siren gets it," Wyll said, waving their hand at Ryn.

[Ryn]

Ryn says farewell by way of hissing at Wyll and slinking out of the room, cradling her ill-gotten gain as well as the jar.