[Orb]/[Action] - 20th of Rebirth's Decline

[consultmybooks]

[It's on the home from the market that it happens.

Giles is not unfamiliar with prophecy. Memorizing and interpreting them had been one of his most important tasks as a Watcher more or less right up until the moments surrounding his death.

For all his latent and untrained magic power, it's not a gift he's ever been "blessed" with.

Until Schwanheim, that is.

And so now Giles can safely say that visions are, quite simply, awful. It's like being a radio when someone suddenly switches the dial to a station that's not in range, so that everything is static and nothing makes sense and he, Giles, is blind and deaf and helpless, surrounded by a swirl of colors and impressions and sounds he can't quite recognize, until it passes and he can push himself up off the ground.

The Sage stares blankly up at the orb, wondering what he'd even been intending to say before all of that had seized him. Details of the vision are still floating hazily through his head, like a particularly persistent, yet nonscensical dream. It takes him several seconds to realize that anyone might even be looking back at him but, when it does, he visibly tries to regain his composure, struggling back to his feet and pick himself up from the street.]

Well, then. That was, um...a bit alarming.

[Still obviously a bit dizzied, Giles realizes that his glasses are askew, and takes a few seconds to fuss with them and gather his thoughts about him.

What had he even been planning to say, before that happened?

Oh. Yes.]

About the, um...the recent rash of thefts...I, I just wanted to say that, um, that that should be over with. If you've lost anything of particular value, um, it should be returned to you in a day or so. But if you'd like to tell us, what you lost, we'll...well, um, we'll get it back to you, as soon as w can.

Th-Thank you.

And, um, on that note...I, I'm going to be at the library, today. [Anxiously, Giles glances up towards the castle.] Most of today. It seems I suddenly find myself in need of a map...

Comments

[shadedsunlight]

It's never been like that before, has it? What did you see?

[consultmybooks]

No, not like this. I mean, um...the occasional flicker, or flash, but nothing I could identify. Really, um, nothing that I would have called a vision at all.

[...Giles takes a deep breath, and closes his eyes. In one hand, he holds the mirror tightly, but he doesn't even notice the points of it digging into his palm.

When he speaks, he sounds very far away.]

Fire. Ice. A tower. A river. A forest. A fight.

[shadedsunlight]

[Ginia taps her fingers together as she thinks on his vision. He has much more experience interpreting such things, but it seems easy enough, doesn't it? Find a forest near a river and a tower somewhere that, be prepared. Fire and ice could be literal or metaphorical.

She stands and begins to move about the room, packing up a few more books and some paper for notes, voice trailing after her.]

I'll meet you at the library. Or maybe a point in between? It won't take me very long to find you.

[consultmybooks]

[Fire and ice could be literal or metaphorical...but, Giles is finding himself with the nagging, impossible-to-dispel sense that the fire, at least, is quite literal.]

By the bulletin board?

[Bakura had mentioned asking around, and the central hive of the town rumormill seemed like a reasonably painless place to start with that.]

[shadedsunlight]

By the bulletin board. [Her voice sounds muffled as she changes her clothes out of view of the orb. After one wardrobe malfunction across the journals in Luceti, she's not eager to repeat it in Schwanheim. Ginia returns in view wearing a simple linen dress in blue, necklace standing out on her neck.]

I'll see you shortly. I love you.

[consultmybooks]

...see you there shortly.

And, um...I love you.

[It's not that he's not used to hearing her say those three small words. It's that it was a long, rough, bloody road even to get back to this point, and so hearing them now is just...something special.

And, after he shuts off the orb, Giles will head straight to the bulletin board. Despite himself, he indulges in a use of the invisibility clasp while he waits. After all...there's only one person that he wants to let see him today, and it's none of the people milling about.

But he'll bring himself back into visibility when he notices Ginia drawing near.]

[shadedsunlight]

[Ginia smiles before she returns the orb to its pendant-form. It's been a long difficult road to where they are now, so the words mean quite a lot. Why he still loves her after all this time is a bit of a mystery to her, but they love each other and she won't press more. She packs everything into a satchel, slips it over her shoulder, and leaves the house.

The bag and dress make it a little difficult to stealth around and she's not so inclined to shadow jump after her little adventure, so Ginia walks and endures the whispering as people see her on the street. At the very least, she'll look much more presentable in Giles' company even if everyone knows she's a rogue.

When Giles appears, she laughs and steps to his side.]

Getting good use out of the cloak, I see.