2020-10-25 Vibration and Creation
Vibration and Creation
Participants: Luu
Storyteller: Jinny
Location: Winters Retreat
Date and Time: October 25, 2020
Summary: Luu has the house to herself for the evening, or does she?
Mood Music: Paloma Faith - "Broken Doll"
With Halloween on the horizon and the city starting to feel the icy tendrils of late fall trickle in, things start moving towards thoughts of holidays coming up, potential parties to hold and to be invited to, and all sorts of other things. And as much as Jinny loved spending time with Luu, there often had to be some times that they needed to be apart. Today, for instance or, rather, this evening, Jinny had gone into the city proper on one of her painting excursions, promising pastries from La Tropézienne Bakery on LaBrea in the morning by way of apology for not being able to spend the evening with Luu. The opportunity to paint a mural when Banksy is in town doesn't come up, she explained, and truth be told Jinny's hoping to run into the guy while she's doing some mischief of her own. It probably won't happen, but she still headed out in her truck with a bed full of paint, stars in her eyes and the plans for a great work to be thrown up on the first wall that'll fit it that has a good audience passing by, leaving Luu alone in the Foreboding Jacobean.
Wishing Jinny wonderful coincidences out on the LA streets tonight, Luu takes the quiet night to do some work in her room. Her house turning into a Chantry has meant for less space, though she's pretty sure she's found the beginning of a solution there. It also means less alone time, which Luu doesn't particularly mind -- in fact, she's quite fond of the extra time she's been getting due to this change and arrangements -- but it had caused some of her research to pile up. Having recently come to a new understanding of her praxis thanks to some inspiration found at Glendale Tool Company and then hones at the Pinball Museum, Luu had been looking to reexamine some of the fundamentals. Waiting for her on her desk are several classic Hermetic texts, ones she's read through many times, but now with a new understanding of the five elements, she figures they might reveal new secrets to her. Barefooted, she walks across the hard wood floors of her room wearing a short black crepe couture Valentino dress. Taking a seat at her desk, she gently pushes some of her metallic red hair behind her ears, puts on her Celine frames, and grabs the top book from the stack. It's time to study.
And for the longest time, Luu is able to study without interruption. One of the advantages of living in a mansion in the middle of the Hollywood hills is the distinct lack of neighbors, noise, and potential interruption, so aside from the lone set of headlights that uses the driveway as a turnaround when they delivered Uber Eats to the next door neighbor - a neighbor a half mile away if driveway length was taken into consideration - she's relatively undisturbed.
In an out-of-the-way corner of the attic, something stirs. Sitting, slumped, staring at the figure that it's been building from accumulated bits and bobs from around the house, it's now come to a point that something additional is needed and it can't easily be found without digging into some things that the mothers would not like to be dug into and cut apart. Gripping the one sliver that was found loose on the floor, it heaves itself into the vent leading into the house proper and starts to scurry along, being quiet, but not too terribly quiet, allowing one to track its direction if they were paying attention.
Still holding on to her book, Luu lowers it slowly and fixes her attention on the window in front of her. Softly, she begins to speak precise words in an Angelic language and carefully observes the subtle vibrations of air, and their even fainter reflections off the glass. Again she speaks, beginning to make a mental map of her visualizations of her spoken language. Focusing intently, she begins to work out minute stresses and changes of tone and volume, watching the differences in those vibrations. Beginning to develop a precise understanding of the relationship between speech and vibration, she starts to work out small mantras that cause the vibrations and their reflections to take the shape of written Enochian letters. They're faint, and she still needs plenty more practice to make this useful to her, but she's beginning to see a whole new way that she can apply the Arts, using her heightened perceptions to begin to work out a system of subtle control. Her hyper-focus on the vibrations that she herself is creating, for now leaves her unaware of the fact that she isn't the only one in the house making noise.
The thing in the vents, whatever it is, isn't trying to be stealthy. In the time that it's been known to the residents of the house it's tried to stay on its side of the house while they stay on their side, like various animals surrounding a lonely, lone watering hole that each one needs to stay afloat and exist. Fighting isn't necessary and since they're not messing with it, it's not going to mess with them as much as it could. The shotgun blast in the ceiling? They may have noticed a tube of toothpaste went missing and the contents were liberally applied to the peppering. While that normally would have concealed the damage rather well, white toothpaste on white ceiling blending in the shadows, the electric blue toothpaste used didn't so much match as stick out like a sore thumb. "Well, at least it's trying." Jinny said when the repair was discovered a few days later.
Finally, it finds itself in a spot where it can see Ama at her desk, speaking in words that make it feel funny, surrounded by books. These weren't the books on sewing - the ones Ama chose today were big and dusty and probably had too many words for it to understand but desperate times call for desperate measures. IT watches for a long, long time, black eyes glimmering in the faint light put off by Luu's desk lamp and then, finally? It acts. The screws in the grate on the floor start to be unscrewed from beneath, falling into the metal duct with a clink, the grate lifting and something crawling out...
Into the same room Luu is in.
Strange words spoken vibrate the air into the shapes of words, only perceptible to those with the right eyes, but Luu can definitely see it working. Those same vibrations reflect off the window, and as they do so the glass also vibrates. Most wouldn't even count this minute movement of matter as anything, but it's enough to effect the light reflecting off of it, and that is something Luu can work with. From her mouth the spoken words form into new words in the vibrating air, and as Luu keeps up her Angelic mantra, making incredibly fine adjustments, she starts to get close to creating a third set of words through light. It's an incredibly delicate operation, and right as it looks like a third form is taking shape, it all shifts. Her focus is so zoomed in that alterations caused by the sudden intrusion completely startle her, causing her to jump back in her chair, sending it wheeling backwards across the room. Did she do that? It's possible, and if so she's going to need to be a bit more careful with these excercises, but just to be sure she starts to look around the room.
The words almost become visible in its gaze, dancing around the room like smoke forming thoughts and memories and paradigms to be explored, and it pauses, momentarily, to reach out from safety for one of them with a three-fingered claw when suddenly, Ama moves. It's beneath a credenza against a wall and jerks its hand back, peering out from behind an ornately carved leg amidst the dust bunnies when Luu rockets backwards on wheels. It freezes in place, its head moving behind so its eyes do not gleam, so it's not in sight or light or anything like that. It didn't close the grate, didn't hide its path, or anything, but it did choose an out-of-the-way spot, so hopefully Ama won't notice where it came from or know where it is. It looks to it's bit, then to Ama, then to its bit and then quickly skitters out from beneath the credenza and dashes towards the desk where Luu was working, lifting itself to lay a bit of cloth on the corner, smoothing it flat with both hands, and then back to the darkness beneath the credenza to watch. It's movement that takes only a few seconds, but it was out in the open. It could have been seen.
Startled, Luu's head swims as she zooms from micro to macro, almost feeling like she's in a completely different world than where she was a moment ago. Puffing her cheeks, she exhales slowly, taking a moment to compose herself. She's just getting her head together when she catches sight of something dashing across the room. Whatever it is, it was too quick and Luu was too distracted to get a good look, but the glimpse she got didn't seem to be of a furry creature, and this is new information. Lightly slapping her palms against her thighs, Luu leans far forward in her chair, trying to see if she can get a better look, but try as she might she seems unable to locate where it went. As she sits back up in the chair, she pauses, noticing a small piece of cloth on her desk. Normally, this wouldn't be unusual, but earlier Luu had specifically cleared her desk of various fashion detritus, in order to better focus on her studies.
"Huh."
Definitely not furry, whatever it was that Luu saw. The cloth left there is a simple woven cloth in black with little inclusions of gold thread every ten threads, giving it a shimmering pattern and a texture that's interesting to the touch if it's picked up. It might have come off of a couch or could have been part of a dress from the 80's in a previous life, but it's not something that looks immediately familiar to Luu. It watches from the shadows as Ama speaks in words that do not cause the walls to shimmer and shift, that do not dance in the light like motes of dust as she breathes each syllable. It shifts slightly, claws on wooden floors clicking rhythmically.
Having noticed an out-of-place piece of cloth on her desk, Luu uses her barefoot to pull her rolling chair forward in order to get a closer look. At first, she does not pick it up, but rather leans in slightly for a visual inspection. While she doesn't know what the cloth is, and actually does need to inspect it, the assumption that it came from the little guest she almost saw, has her being slightly more performative in her actions. After taking a moment to visual inspect it, she reaches to pick it up, her motions just slightly exaggerated, projecting her actions for the audience. Carefully taking the edges of the cloth, she holds it up in front of her, letting her eyes slowly trace over the fabric as she examines the craftwork. There's no rush to her actions, as she wants to indicate that she's actually putting some thought into this analysis, but beyond that there's a part of her that feels a need to provide some dramatic tension for the Chantry's stowaway. If she appreciates it, great, but if she's going to react poorly? Better to find that out sooner than later.
"Not bad."
If it breathed, it would be holding its breath. Right now, though, it watches Luu, leaning slightly forward, as one might watch a pivotal football play that would determine whether or not the team moved on to the playoffs or the world series or something like that. It spent so long on that little bit of cloth, gathering threads from anywhere it could find it, combing it with discarded brushes and then somehow finding a makeshift loom that allowed it make that single, solitary bit of cloth. It fits a pattern, too, that repeats no matter which way the cloth is turned. Ten threads of pale, with one golden thread crossing. Ten and one, Ten and one, over and over and over again until it ran out of raw materials. The size of a handkerchief. Something to make Ama happy.
Two somethings roll out from beneath the credenza across the floor, one gently resting against Luu's bare foot, the other against the chair's wheel. Spools of thread, empty.
While Luu's attention is on the cloth, the empty spools of thread being rolled towards her feet don't have quite the jarring effect as the interruption of her Angelic vibrations. Still holding the cloth in front of her, she looks down to see what is going on, scrunching her forehead for a moment as she takes in the situation. It doesn't take long for her to realize what's being asked of her. Placing the cloth back down on the desk, Luu opens one of the drawers on her side cabinet, going through the various sewing supplies she has handy. There's a lot she could offer the lil one, but best not to spoil it. Selecting three spools of thread to replace the two, Luu places them on the desk, and then stands up. She takes a few steps away from the desk, turning her back to where she things the creature might be hiding, and telegraphs herself searching the exact opposite direction. There's probably ways Luu could catch it right now, or try to force an interaction, but instead she decides to go with a slow building of trust, figuring it will be better in the long run. Plus, if there's a problem, it's probably best that she doesn't end up facing it alone.
The phrase 'embarrassment of riches' could certainly be applied to the plethora of supplies in Luu's sewing cabinet on hand, and given any amount of leeway, whatever cloth, thread, embroidery, or pattern one could possibly need - up to and including ones that do not exist or haven't existed for a while - could be delivered at almost a moment's notice. And sure, it knew that things were there but that was Ama's place. Not a box full of things to discover and change. Not the box that held her until she woke, that she had to claw herself free from. That was Ama's box. And now she is sharing.
There's a hesitant skittering sound as the empty thread spools are taken and replaced with three, the sound of claws on wood moving to the rug as it peers out from beneath the furniture, taking a few steps out into the open, watching Luu like a cat, ready to dart into the darkness again if this is a trap. She shouldn't be out. She shouldn't be here but the thread is right there and it's being given to her freely. Hesitantly she emerges, slower than a snail leaving its shell, and reaches for the spools, lifting them and tucking them away inside her broken body. And she pauses, studying Luu with her black, glimmering eyes, tapping the desk three times and then slinking back into the dark, into the vent, back into the attic to create again and again.
