eswareinmal | [Log] West Haven

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[Log] West Haven

Characters: All on the road to West Haven
Open? Yep
Where: Starting at the gate of Schwanheim, on the way to and in West Haven
When: The 5th of Rebirth's Height

It was a clear morning, a touch warmer than the previous days, a sign that Rebirth was progressing along. For the more superstitious of Schwanheim's residents, it seemed a good omen for the heroes' journey to the unfortunate town of West Haven. Of course with how the weather of Rebirth ran, it might be pouring rain by the time they left the gates but that was Rebirth for ya.

[[OoC: this log will be split into 3 parts/sub threads. You don't have to tag the preparations or travel threads to arrive at West Haven.]]

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"I was talking to the lady, smartass," he snapped back, effectively ignoring everyone else in the circle and not particularly caring that he was.

"And the lady was listening," pointed out Loki, delicately, "to me."

"Balance is a fragile thing," Anya answered, looking far too amused at the bickering. "Both sides try to build more and more power, thinking they will overcome the other without any regard for it."

Dark ignored Loki with a broad, charming smile. He didn't even glance in his direction as he addressed Anya.

"And you're here to balance the equation, is that it?"

"What do you think?" she returned with a hint of a sly smile, looking almost the way a cat toying with a mouse might.

"And how is order responding to chaos' intrusion?" asked Loki. "And where do I find them?" -- an arch of his eyebrow. "Or have I already?"

Was she part of order?

Balance. Chaos.

Darkness.

Her words brought up miserable memories, the shadow of a misinterpretation gone horribly wrong, and when he glanced directly at her there was fire behind his eyes.

"Something has changed." His voice was sharp, commanding. "Conditions are different now, else you wouldn't need to be here."

He kept his Force sense held back from her presence, not quite daring to test her lest he find an echo of Anakin's darkness. But he looked at her without fear and without gentleness.

"There's a prophecy, isn't there."

"Prophecies always exist for any situation you care to look for," Anya returned with a bored tone before looking back at Loki. "And you should know what Order's counter was."

Now, there was something about Obi-Wan, wasn't there? A quiet calm, a surety, and the raging tempest of Loki's heart longed for it. He shifted closer to the Knight, not even entirely sure why.

Loki exhaled, slowly.

"Then you should know that they could have done ever-so-much better than me."

Such a bald-faced admission! Loki had wanted to believe he was the hero they'd been looking for ever since they arrived, and he still did, he still wanted to believe.

So not only were they supposed to be the solution, now they were supposedly the cause? This balance crap was a bunch of nonsense, but it told him one thing.

"You can't send us back."

Which made her actually pretty useless, despite the huge stores of power he could sense within her.

"But there's something specifically about this time, this place, that called you forth."

In retrospect, there had been so much the Jedi Order had missed about the Force, about the webs of tiny coincidences that told just how right the time was for what had happened. His own long-ago words to his mentor rang in his ears, mocking him now in the echoing voices of King and stable-boy and ordinary villager.

They all sense it. Why can't you?

He would not allow a second world to be destroyed if he had any kind of forewarning. And he intended to decipher that warning this time.

"You aren't the main event," he said slowly. "You're only the messenger. And you wouldn't be here unless you had something to tell us."

"Order chooses its own champions. Who is more or less suited is of no consequence," Anya dismissed. "And to send you back would be to deal a blow to the party that is losing this round of battle."

She cocked her head slightly to look at Obi-Wan. "Tell me, Knight twice removed from your homeland, what do you think you see? What are you expecting to be told?"

"The rules of the game."

He was not intimidated by her knowledge, nor particularly startled--but then again he had always been fairly good at keeping his cool under most kinds of pressure.

"If you do in fact care about balance, then you know this has to be a fair fight. There is something our side has not yet been told." A brief, mirthless smile tugged at his lips but died before it could reach his eyes. "The endgame is for us to decipher. But we're at the beginning now, and unless we have some sort of message, the scales remain unbalanced."

"And starting us off with advisors such as King Erasmus is hardly fair," Loki pointed out, archly, in agreement with Obi-Wan.

"If you think of it as a game with rules that never change, than you've already lost," came the airy reply before Anya took another slow drag of smoke into her lungs, holding it for a long moment before letting it go again. "And there no such thing as a fair fight. If it were fair, there would be no need for any of this as both sides would be civil enough to not try and backstab the other at the first hint of weakness," she continued, tone very dry.

"I would be happy to backstab whomever would present their back to me," said Loki. Breezed past her words: "I want to speak with these essences. Or their servants. And you did not answer when I asked if you were one or the other."

"Loki," Obi-Wan said sharply, finally turning his attention from Anya to the other man. "Let her speak her piece before things get any worse."

There was a glitter of dark amusement in Anya's smile. "You've already spoken to one... and I don't think talking to the other would do you much good."

Dark watched, quiet now, weighing his interest in the woman and what she might have to say with his complete and utter disinterest at the thought of being a pawn in a war between order and chaos.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad, being stuck here for a while, he thought. If he was okay without Daisuke, maybe Daisuke would be alright without him, and the kid could finally take a break. But if he wanted to stay, should he be fighting this battle or not?

"The rules may well change," Obi-Wan said, his focus swinging back to Anya. "But most of us--" and although he didn't look at Loki, it was clear that was who he meant-- "are interested in winning a battle on our own merits rather than deceit, if there is a battle to be won."

He paused a moment, then spoke again, his voice just a touch lower.

"If I lose on even ground, then so be it. But I have to know where I stand."

"This isn't the sort of fight where you win or lose," returned Loki, at Obi-Wan. "Not in terms of battles and treaties." Back to Anya. "You fight, and you fight, and sometimes you win, and sometimes you lose, and then it begins again. Such is the cycle of all living things.

"We are here to save the lives chewed up and ripped in war's jaws. That is why I was told I was called, and that is why I will fight. That, and none other. I am not interested in the cosmic cycle of forces in a world that is not mine, governed by rules that are not mine, and far away from any I could call my own."

Thor, he thinks with a hint of pain, Sif, Frigga. Odin.

"Help me," he said, softly, to Anya. He had his anger controlled, now. "If you wanted to see us, you wanted to learn something, or you wanted to teach something. Or you are a being of chaos yourself, with no order behind anything you have done or said. Help me, because I will fight to return balance, and then no further."

There was a moment of silence as Anya took yet another long drag from her cigarette, seeming to savor the smoke before slowly letting it go. Instead of dissipating, it curled outward, splitting into four parts and approaching the assembled four.

For Obi-Wan, the smoke curled around his wrist, solidifying into a leather band with a metal clasp etched with the symbol of an eye. For Bakura, it wrapped around his staff, replacing the red gem inlaid in it with a deep blue one. For Loki, it gathered around his hand, solidifying into a silver mirror. For Dark, it became a sizable gem, a pure and glittering dark purple.

With an almost mocking side bow of her head, she began to float upwards. "Until we meet again, servants of Order," she called before dissipating into smoke.

When it had cleared, all signs of West Haven had vanished, leaving just the worn road they had rode to reach it meandering through the wood and fields.

[[OoC: Items granted: Bracelet of Wisdom, Gem of Binding, Mirror of True Sight, Cursed Gem of Annoyance]]

Dark eyed the gem in his hand, shrugged, and shoved it in his pocket. It hadn't been worth coming back after all.

"Stupid waste of time," he muttered, marching off in the direction of the castle.

Nothing he did here was going to get him home, so why not walk for a while?

The mirror was just larger than his palm, and Loki glanced at it, into it, confused, curious -- and he froze, immediately.

It was reddened eyes that gazed back at him. With the hint of ice and storm, of fire and power and bright lines tracing the curves of Yggdrasil.

Brother-killer, he thought, and he flinched away, his breath sharp-inhaled. He buried the mirror deep, in a pocket, and held his hands tight in fists. Shaking. That she could confront him with the terrible truth, now, of all times --

Loki turned away. One breath, another, and then he had enough control to go.

If any seek him, they may find him with the horse that he has claimed as his. Forehead pressed against her neck, eyes closed tight.

Obi-Wan had only a few heartbeats to look at the thing on his wrist before the Force whispered to him that something was wrong very close by. With easy grace he moved to slip a supporting arm around Bakura, holding his foster son up as best he could.

"It's all right. I've got you. Breathe deeply."

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shiromadoushi - 2012-01-24 04:59 (UTC) - Expand

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