Players:
Summary: Echo is curious, Mikhail is hungry, and Fiona is insane. None of these facts appear to be in dispute.
Date: April 28, 2012
Log Title: Define Sanity
Rating: G
NYC - Hell's Kitchen
The rough neighborhood in Midtown West New York known as Hell's Kitchen almost has a darker tone to it. Once you step into this neighborhood the city takes on a different feel, the buildings are shorter but everything feels darker. There is real grit to this part of town where many of the New York City criminals see to make their home.
Normally, on the steps of the New Haven apartment complex, there exists assorted riff raff - gang bangers, drug addicts, and the like. This afternoon though… they're not there. No, Fiona the creepy goth girl has the steps all to herself, while she sits and carves away at some pieces of pine. Practicing, of course. With a little knife and assorted other files and such sitting next to her. The usual garbage seem to be sitting off to the side, eyeing her rather warily occasionally while they pretend that it was their plan all along to move their perch to the alleyway. They're not stupid. Donna and Fiona are not exactly open about what goes on in their apartment, but the unusual flashes of light, yelling, and the rooftop martial arts training do not entirely go unnoticed. They are Weird(tm) and gangers with brains leave them the heck alone.
Someone apparently not smart enough to leave the Weird(tm) girl alone is a dark-haired, stone-faced woman who comes strolling down the sidewalk like she owns the place. Her hair is loose, falling like a short curtain on either side of her face, and the three-quarter length black coat and wraparound black sunglasses make her either look like a vampire wannabe or a reject from The Matrix. Either way, walking around like that in the Kitchen is a good way for a woman not to find her way home again. This one doesn't seem worried, though. She stops, past the alley and at the foot of the steps, her black sneakers making a gritty noise as she draws sharply to a halt, hands in the pockets of her coat. "Hello Fiona," says Echo, inclining her head slightly in something not entirely like a nod.
Fiona looks up, still shaving bits and pieces off of what apparently is trying to become some sort of ring. Yeah, one of these days, she'll get it right! "Oh, hi! Um… Echo, right?" she searches her head, coming up with that name after a little bit. "What's up? Funny running into you again."
"Reconnaissance," Echo replies, and as if to make her point she turns her head to look up and down the street briefly. Her gaze lingers on the alley for a moment before falling back on the girl. "Getting to know the neighborhood," she clarifies. "I'm staying with someone nearby. It'd be good to know the layout. What are *you* doing here?"
Fiona shrugs, purple eyes looking back down to her carving, which she fiddles with. It has the proper shape of a ring, but it's a little rough still and not exactly smooth or round… "I /live/ here," nods the girl, jutting her thumb back behind her at the apartment complex, "And I'm just enjoying the nice weather before it gets nasty again… inevitably…" she trails off, giving the ring a slide onto one of her fingers to see how it fits. Okay, but needs a bit more work. She grabs the file, smoothing out and rounding the inside slightly.
Echo cranes her neck to look up at the building, then the sky. Cloudy but not raining at the moment, thought it likely will before tomorrow morning. It's odd, then, that she's wearing sunglasses at all. When the woman looks back down, one eyebrow is arched. "And what's that you're doing?" she asks pointedly.
"Mmm, I'm carving myself a ring! Sort of," Fiona holds up the ring, looking through the center of it after filing and sliding it on and off her right hand. It seems to go much easier this time. "Perrrfect," she nods, then begins working at the outside of the ring; first making sure it's smooth, and then going at it with a small sharp instrument and carving what appear to be some kinda runes into it. "This one is the best one yet." She seems happy with it.
The older woman's head cocks slightly to one side, peering curiously at the ring. She leans in closer but doesn't take off her glasses. "Why?"
"Um, well, it's complicated! But I like rings." The sorceress sidesteps the question a little bit. "They have symbolic value. It's important to get the symbols right, you see."
This reply makes Echo lean in *even closer*. If someone pushed her from behind, she'd surely fall over. Her left hand slips from the pocket and she holds it out to Fiona for the ring. "I don't understand these symbols. What do they mean?"
Fiona shakes her head, keeping the ring firmly in hand. "It's not something that can be just given away to people. They're special symbols. They have… religious importance," she explains, lying but only slightly. "Think of them like amplifiers. Or meditation beads. They help me focus."
Mikhail has come to the city this afternoon for something of a test, he's dressed in dark grey jeans, a dark blue shirt, sunglasses and his usually unkempt hair has been cut to a short tidy length. Why is he in Hell's kitchen for his test? well it's close to mutant town and isn't too too public. Turning a corner he picks up on a scent he recognizes.
Echo's hand withdraws and she straightens, putting her head above the girl sitting on the steps of the apartment building once again. At least she doesn't seem offended. But then she adds, "If carved symbols help you in any way, I can't understand how." Well, it seems somebody's a skeptic.
Fiona seems okay with that - Donna has been trying to teach her not to let all her secrets out of the bag so quick. Even if magic is such an awesome secret that sometimes she just can't help it! "Well, the symbols themselves, they don't do anything. It's all about focus. If you can harness your willpower and spiritual energy, you can accomplish literally anything."
Mikhail follows his nose towards the familiar scent until he spots Fiona and… the woman that freaked out Theo and his senses the other day, stopping himself from growling Mik continues forward towards them.
"Spiritual energy?" Echo repeats skeptically. "What do you mean by that?" She pauses, turning her sunglass-shielded eyes toward the approaching figure, shifting her feet with a quiet scrape on the concrete sidewalk. After a moment she looks away again, evidently unconcerned, though her other hand slips from her pocket to hang loosely by her side. The android resumes her thoughts where she left off. "What can you do with this energy? How much of it can you… harness?"
"You know. Like, your soul. The energy that exists within you, your spirit. Your willpower. Your sense of self," Fiona nods, leaning over a bit and catching a glimpse of Mik, whom she gives a little wave at. "I dunno. I mean, you can do /anything/ with it. Think of something you would want to do, and it's possible to do it, with enough willpower, practice and skill. As for me. I can't harness very much of it yet. Only a little. Very basic things!"
Mikhail nods at Fiona as he reaches the two, he's gonna give Echo the benefit of the doubt, his reason? Mike. "Heya Fiona, woman from coffee shop", he frowns at Fiona, "You can do things with your soul?", his knowledge of the soul is fairly limited, he's not even heard of things like chi.
"Well, yeah, kinda, I mean." Fiona's getting awful close to the truth of matters here, which… she doesn't really want to be. Though Mikhail probably has /some idea./ "It's sorta tough to explain and it takes a lot of practice to do it right… Not everyone has the affinity for it! Heck, I guess some people don't technically have souls either…"
The woman from the coffee shop looks at Mikhail for a moment, eyes hidden behind her wraparound sunglasses. Then Echo turns back to Fiona as if the boy weren't even there. "I've never heard of such a thing. Show me." So much for Fiona couching her answers in new-age meditation, crystals, incense, and positive thinking lingo. She's being put on the spot now. "Do something."
Mikhail's own eyes are hidden by sunglasses so other than when he opens his mouth he almost looks like a normal teen, albeit with blue hair. "How do you tell if someone has the affinity for it? I’m pretty sure I have a soul, I haven’t seen it or anything but I was told I have one".
"Well… it's more than just having a soul…" Fiona murmurs, "It's really difficult to explain. I suppose anybody could be taught to do it, but it's like… I don't know. Some people are just naturally better at it, to the point where they have to learn how to use and harness it or else they become a danger to themselves and those around them. And vulnerable to all sorts of nasty evil spirits and whatnot." The girl explains to Mikhail, "You would know, if you were, 'cause people that are… they're drawn to that sort of thing and…" she shrugs, closing her eyes and looking at Echo. "I'm not supposed to just go around showing off. Besides, I can't do that much anyway."
Echo folds her arms across her chest, expressionless. "I see," is all she says. She turns to look sidelong at Mikhail with a raised eyebrow, as if to ask 'Are you buying any of this?'. She doesn't say as much, however.
Mikhail doesn't say it but as far as his senses can tell Fiona is telling the truth, "Even if you could it probably wouldn't be a good idea, we're in a pretty human neighbourhood", though mutant town isn't too far away.
Fiona shrugs a little as her eyes start glowing purple. "I don't care," she murmurs, "I DON'T CARE SHUT UP!" she growls tersely, at something, "You're shutting up NOW I'm blocking you out!" she shuts her eyes, going deadly still. The air around her seems to calm, and then suddenly pulse and kick up a little bit of dust before settling back down again. When she opens her eyes they're normal, that is to say, not glowing, again. "Sorry about that," she says in an eerily calm, even-toned voice, "I have a little passenger that sometimes likes to make trouble."
The corners of the android's mouth turn downwards in a frown. She again looks briefly at Mikhail, then back to Fiona. Echo asks, admirably forthright if severely lacking in tact, "Are you insane?" It's an apparently serious question, not asked with scorn or derision.
"Well I suppose that would depend on the definition of sanity, now, wouldn't it? I'm sure any clinical psychologist would indeed agree with your assertion. But," Fiona breathes heavily. Remaining in a meditative state while carrying on a conversation - it's something that she can do, but it's a bit like leaving the headlights of your car on. You can't do it indefinitely. "But, they have no solid knowledge of the occult. Their drugs would certainly do more harm than good."
"I think you're mistaken," begins Echo after a long pause where she seems to be staring into space. "A psychologist can't prescribe drugs. A psychiatrist can. Sanity is soundness of mind and judgment. And by its definition, solid knowledge of the occult is impossible, being that occult means beyond the range of ordinary knowledge or understanding, and therefore cannot be known solidly." Her head dips down to regard Fiona a little more seriously. "Are you sure you're not insane? You aren't making very much sense."
Mikhail has no idea really what either Fiona or Echo are talking about but suddenly he's hungry, and with nothing really to add to the conversation that’s what he's going with, "I'm hungry".
Fiona mutters something, "I never said that I wasn't insane," the sorceress rolls her eyes, "I just said that the problems that I have go far beyond anything that modern medicine could help with." Frankly, Echo's constant inquisitiveness (like a child) is starting to annoy her. That's probably why she had to lock Norg away at least temporarily. She's been doing that quite a lot lately, actually. "Look, whatever. Just forget about it. I'm gonna have a soda. Do you want a soda?" she asks Echo idly, then without answering grasps the keys on the gold chain around her neck and a purple portal rips open in midair. She pulls out a few sodas and casually closes the portal. "Choices are coke, coke, or coke. Deal with it," as she tosses a can at each of them.
The android catches the soda can with her left hand, not even having the decency to act surprised or impressed at the sudden appearance and disappearance of a glowing otherworldly portal into some kind of nether-fridge. "Thank you," Echo says kindly, but doesn't open the can. "I won't actually forget it, but I gather you don't want to talk about it anymore. Consider the subject dropped." She turns to Mikhail without missing a beat. "So you know each other?" Seems she was serious about letting the whole thing go without protest.
Mikhail catches the soda and frowns at it for a second, that’s not food. But not being rude he smiles at Fiona, "Thanks", to Echo's question the Romanian mutant shrugs, "Vaguely, we've met a few times but don't know each other well", he looks at the can again, he really is hungry now.
"Yeah, we kinda do, I guess. He's my friend Mike's friend. Though I haven't really seen Mike in a little while… he must be kinda busy," the sorceress shrugs, popping the can open and gulping the soda down quite quickly. She wipes her mouth on the back of her sleeve, obviously not really valuing the particular shirt that she's wearing all /that/ much. "You still hungry? There's a pretty awesome deli down the block. I go there all the time."
Slipping the unopened Coke can into her coat pocket, Echo lifts her head to look up at the sky. The cloud cover has thickened, white turning to darker shades of grey, heavy with moisture and the promise of a shower, if only a light one. "If you're going, you'd best hurry. It's going to rain soon. I should be going too." The android nods a farewell first to Mikhail, then to Fiona, adding to her, "Now that I know you live nearby, we might see each other again. And not by accident this time." She takes a few steps before turning, giving the others time to make their goodbyes.
Mikhail shakes his head at Fiona, "No I’m good, I’ve gotta go anyway", he nods to Echo, "It was nice meeting you, woman from coffee shop, see ya Fiona", with that he heads off in the direction of Mutant Town, he's been meaning to visit where Robyn lives for a while now and maybe he can convince him to give him some foods.
Fiona continues sitting on the step, watching the other two walk off, "You both take it easy, neh?" she nods, going back to carving at her ring. It's gotta be perfect, before she can use the real wood…
