Players:
Summary: Ethan meets the last of the Elemental Spirits in Chinatown.
Date: December 07, 2010.
Log Title Tea For Two
Rating: PG.
NYC - Ten Ren Tea
This little Asian teashop sells loose tea by the pound and boxes of tea in many varieties. Various scents of tea flow through the store giving it a serene feel. Besides just selling tea, there are two tables and a bar where people can sit and enjoy hot tea, cold tea, and even bubble tea. Tea cakes are also sold here individually or in packages to go.
The Ten Ren Tea shop is one of Xane's favorite places for the chef to purchase tea adequate to smoke meats, yes, smoking meats with tea. One of the secrets he learned in his time abroad. "A full pound of the Sencha please, and a pot of the Jasmine Pearls, I want to take some time for tea." He says, before taking a seat in a plush couch and table. A quiet old man brings him a hot pot, placing it down on the table, giving a bow, which Xane returns with pleasure.
Ethan comes in off the street and stops a moment just inside the door, taking in the scents, sounds and sights of the place. He's dressed for winter, in an expensive and well-cut coat over jeans and casual oxfords with a button down under that, all in shades of blue and gray. For Ethan, that's the equivalent of beachwear. Very relaxed and casual. He takes off his coat and looks at the menu of brewed teas, wishing that he'd spent less time figuring out phonetic Sumerian (to the tiny degree he has at) and more time on one of the dialects of Chinese. He stares at the choices pensively.
The Spirit watches the mage come in, and immediately, his eyes turn white, looking at him, it was if something had made him see in the aural perspective. He looks a bit discerned as he doesn't understand, but he can see that there is something about this customer that is different than most. He's dressed in a black turtleneck, and dark blue jeans. He shakes his head, trying to stave off his power. He does so successfully, revealing his green eye and blue eye.
Ethan finally orders something at random and turns to the cafe area. His own eyes go wide as he sees a veritable court of plant elementals surrounding a single figure with an aura unlike anything anything Ethan's seen before. It isn't quite the same as what he thinks of as 'life' but something touching upon it and more profound. His eyes quirk up and the clerk has to clear his throat twice before Ethan turns back and hands the man a credit card. He's outright staring at Xane, expression perplexed, excited and a bit joyous, as though seeing something new and wonderful. After getting the card back he crosses the room to stand near the stranger's table and speaks. "Ah, pardon me? May I join you for a moment. I think we have something in common."
Xane looks at the young mage, quite interested in him as well. He doesn't speak, but merely waves his hand at an empty seat on the couch. "Sure thing. Though unless you're a graduate of the CIA, I don't know what you're talking about."
Ethan takes a seat and looks momentarily confused. "Ah, no. I don't even particularly care for spy novels." He nods his thanks when his own pot of tea arrives and cautiously pours a bit. The smell is earthy, spicy and even a little hot smelling. He savors the scent for a moment and then takes a sip, eyes narrowing in pleasure. He gestures at the elementals that Xane probably can't see, a sort of salute with the tea cup in his hand. He's cautious about actually interfering with one of the elemental spirit's powers given the reaction he earned from Kaden and he frowns slightly, trying to work his way through it. "I /think/ you are a certain type of person. A type of person I've only met four times before. All in the last week or two. I, on the other hand, am another type of person. One with some skills that touch upon your …spheres of influence."
The chef laughs quite heartily at the blunder at the initial. "No, no, the CIA, the Culinary Institute of America." Xane is a bit more confused now, this guy is talking about four others. "Four others, spheres of influence, I certainly hope you mean Eric Rippert and the like." He says, denying exactly what he knows Ethan is talking about. He's denying himself, but it's almost necessary for not many others to not know about the Spirits of the elements.
Ethan blinks at the laugh and then says, "Ah!" He grins and says, "Oh good, neither one of us are spies." He sounds quite a bit younger and less stuffy on that sentence and then he frowns faintly, adopting that more portentous tone again as he says, "I suppose it is only fair that I prove I am fit to have this conversation with you." He looks towards the small potted plants, tea herbs most likely, hanging in baskets in the windows. Saying, "Watch the plants." He nods towards them and then asks the plant spirits in the room to go animate the tendrils and shoots, causing them to braid together with a faint rustle. It's probably the most subtle display of power he's capable of, all things considered, and in the relative shade and bustle of the shop, it goes unremarked.
"Why do you do that?" Xane looks to the plant and watches it braid. "Oh, son of a bitch. You've got to be kidding me, there's a plant one of us too." He says, looking back to the mage, now he's thinking Ethan is a Spirit. "So, that's how you met the rest, but no one else said anything." He admits, taking a drink of the tea in his hand.
Ethan shakes his head and takes another sip of his tea. "No. As I said, I'm something else, entirely. Not that I wouldn't be honored to be one of you. The dryads and such, though, respond to you so I must assume that my ability to quicken them has something to do with your sphere. Or I thought it did. Many of my theories and cosmological 'certainties' aren't all that certain now." He grins widely, suddenly. "Which is /terribly/ exciting. And I'd thought I'd made more of an impression." He clears his throat and takes another drink to hide a smile at that last.
"Oh don't worry, they see me on a less than frequent basis. Hell, I've basically been living at the restaurant these last weeks. "Dryads?" He asks, not sure what Ethan is talking about. Xane is a bit more older than the rest of the Spirits. "My sphere…"
Ethan nods and says, "You can't see them. None of you can, I guess. Actually, from what I understand most other sorcerers can't either." He pauses and lowers his voice a little as he explains, "Everything exists in spirit before it becomes material. Physical. There are minor, well, fragments, shards, whatever you want to call them of the spiritual and Platonic essence of the elements. They generally take the forms that we, human, impose on them by trying to perceive a fundamentally ungraspable construct of elemental forces. Now, since the life spirits respond to you, I had rather assumed that would be your portfolio. But your aura suggests something related but greater. I'm at a loss." He shrugs and then brightens up. "Also, I'm Ethan. Hello." He holds out a hand belatedly, halting the cheerful metaphysical babble for a moment.
The chef continues to look to the mage, a look on his face as if he doesn't believe the mage. "Hey, you're not making any sense, ditch the bookworm talk." He says, he's a chef in a michelin rated restaurant, he isn't a man of a giant lexicon. "I'm Xane." He says, before looking to the young mage. "Life spirits? Sounds like a Spirit spirit." He offers before he shakes Ethan's hand.
Ethan sighs, grimaces and rolls his eyes, going from would-be sage of mystical matters to teenager instantly. "Nobody ever tells Dr. Strange to tone it down, I bet." He pauses at the 'Spirit spirit' line and then blinks, brain racing ahead for a moment before he remembers to complete the gesture. His handshake is firm but his hands are uncalloused. Apparently he doesn't have to do much with them other than turn pages. Finally he nods, "That makes sense. And given that it's your, um, specialty, I'm thinking you're right. Cool. Totally blows both the Western and Eastern classical concepts of the elementals to bits. Which rocks."
If there is anything that Gabriel loves, it's to defy the long held norms. "Well, you're not him, are you? But if it's not you, why do it? Doesn't really make a whole lotta sense." Xane admits before pouring himself another cup of tea. "But as 'they' say, I am the glue that holds the others together." He offers before looking over to the door now.
Ethan takes a sip of his own tea and says, "Because people expect mystical types to be all about the arcano-babble. Nobody takes you seriously unless sound like a tenured professor of folklore at Oxford." He pauses and adds ruefully, "Don't try to pull off the accent though. Nobody likes that." He shakes his head once, shaking off that memory and then smiles at Xane. "That's interesting. And cool. And challenging! They're all so different, from what I saw. Must be a hard job."
"I think it's more something about me keeps them together, or something, you'd be surprised how much the past information is all cryptic." Xane admits, he himself desn't fully understand his power, though he does understand that it is something more than just putting emotion into food. Something way more than that. "But we're all connected, at least that I know." He admits, when it comes to knowing about yourself, he has only scratched the surface.
Ethan nods. "At the risk of sounding stuffy again or claiming to know you, which I obviously don't, that would make sense. If you're the, um, personifications of the elements and the elements are bound together, the people would be as well." He grins and says, "Of course, to use a parlance …er … to put it in a way a chef might like, you are probably the bread that holds all the fruit and nuts together in that particular banana loaf. Given your element."
"Yeah, I know that." He says, looking to Ethan, his dual colored eyes looking to the mage, not really sure what to make of him right now, at first, Ethan is a teen, just like Kaden and Drew, but there's a big difference between the three. "Banana loaf? Hmm, let's try this one, the beef stock in the bouillabaisse." He says while laughing. "So, what are you doing here, I mean, you got any folks? I wouldn't think you'd be just on your own at your age." He offers.
Ethan laughs and nods. "Fair enough. But now I wish I'd ordered some cookies or something with the tea." He pauses a moment and says, "Boarding school. My parents travel. Academics. They decided I needed a proper American socialization rather than run around with them around the world." It's offhand, but there is a hint of bitterness there. "But my school isn't set up to cope with guys who can fly out of his window after curfew or just convince the stones of the walls to move aside and let him out." He arches his eyebrows, "So, best of both worlds. I'm pretty much on my own schedule, after classes and such but I don't have to be starving, dirty and homeless to achieve it. That would kind of cut down on the research time."
"I see, not a bad setup. I was a latchkey kid, the product of yuppies who were too busy to hang around the house. It wasn't bad, that's how I learned to love cooking." Speaking of cooking. "Well, I can't let you go hungry, that'd be cruel of me. So, have you eaten?" Xane asks, looking to the young mage. "Wouldn't moving the stones screw up the mortar?" He asks, took him a while to ask that.
Ethan grins and shakes his head. "I was out thinking. And trying to figure out why the spirits …ah, the /lesser/ spirits are so agitated and weirded out lately. You aren't supposed to any heavy arcane work on a full stomach. It ties you to your body. Like swimming. But with more migraines and less drowning." He says, "And you're really a professional chef? That's kind of cool. Artistic but you know, you're able to make a living." He pauses at the question about the mortar and then opens his mouth, holds up a finger as though he's about to make a point and then puts it down again, looking surprised. "Huh. You know, I never noticed. I guess it must be earth and stone based too. Pretty much all five kinds of the spirits listen to me, so some combination must work."
Xane laughs at the disbelief that was given to his profession. "Yes, Nolita on the Upper East Side, that's my restaurant." Xane scoffs and looks to Ethan. "How about metal, that included in your elements? Or is that a no-no for you?" Xane drinks another cup of tea before speaking again. "You know how often I get told no for food? Not very often." He says, with a laugh. "It's quite humbling." He admits.
Ethan grins and says, "I wasn't turning you down. I was just saying I couldn't earlier because of the magic stuff. Dude. Seventeen. Food is to me what free-floating stellar matter is to a singularity. But anyway, I'll have to stop by sometime and try it out. Sounds fun." He pauses on the metal question and bites his lip a little before answering, given that information on this could literally get him killed. On the other hand, Xane seems …trustworthy. He shakes his head and says quietly, "Metal doesn't listen at all. Or anything like plastic or dead wood. No spirits I can see. And the lesser spirits /hate/ iron and steel. I can just barely get them to kick stuff made out of it, more or less, but not really do anything lasting. And it kills my connection with them just like that."
"Oh, if you want, I've got plenty of stuff to cook up. Just say the word." Xane says proudly. "So, food is like star matter to your black hole of a stomach." What, he watched that Star Trek movie last year, they never called them black holes. "Hmm, weird. I think ours can use metal." He says, but shakes it off, he's all about the non-physical, not the tangible.
Ethan grins and says, "If you feed me, I'll be your friend forever." He really does seem less stuffy when he's not in 'Dr. Strange' mode. "And yea, that's what I said." He digests that information and then sighs. "So either I'm totally not understanding part of this or the lesser spirits have problems that the greater, like you, don't. Or you aren't really related at all. Or I'm slightly mad. That's the problem with having a magic teacher who is a psychopomp. I'm not quite sure /anything/ I learn is real."
Xane laughs heartily at the mention of Ethan's teacher. "I know how that feels, you shouldda seen my French culinary teacher, he would say, 'Theese eese crap! I make two of these dishes in toilet dis morning,' To us." The chef finishes the last cup of tea in his pot and moves over to the bar, picking up a parcel filled with more tea. "Well, if you're hungry, there's no time like the present." He says.
Ethan laughs and says, "Yea, that sounds like the Wizard alright. Now imagine that voice in your dreams, doing a bad Patrick Stewart impersonation. Every. Night." He stands, politely leaving a small bill folded under his teapot on the table and follows Xane. "Wow. Ok. I can honestly say that in five years in New York, I've never had anybody offer to cook for me. You guys are all interesting, in your own ways." He shakes his head at that, perhaps comparing different flavors of interesting. "Let's go."
