roadrunnermuses | meme } { open rp post

A second. A minute. An hour. Artemis wasn't entirely sure how long she was silent. But then she remembered to blink and her eyes focused on the reality at hand once more.

She could never really anticipate when it would happen. Nor did she exactly understand her behavior during such episodes. But she'd long ago given up trying. Fortunately, she was passed off as a madwoman by her enemies and casual acquaintances. Sometimes by her allies as well, but they knew better than to dismiss it when Artemis went away for a little while.

Her eyes fell back on the boy of letters. "Terrible things lie further down the road," she warned him. "The King of Hell will blot out some of the good you've done if you turn your back on him."

Sam doesn't really seem all that surprised by either statement. They both sound like the story of his life so far. But he bites back the sarcastic remark and just nods.

"Okay. I'll keep that in mind."

"The tapestry is being unraveled," she said. Although her voice remained tranquil, there was a glint of more emotion in her eyes. An urgency for him to understand. As she struggled with the reality that she couldn't translate what she saw into plain speech. That wasn't the way that Malkavian madness worked. "He will pull threads loose. And cut two of them."

If only she knew just who the King of Hell was. The phrase had no meaning, really.

Frustrated, she kicked the leg of her chair. Hoping to bury the sense of uselessness, she hid it as best she could by standing up, pretending to go look at the nearest bookshelf.

The fleeting connection to the madness network was gone, of course. That's why it was called 'fleeting.'

"I shall offer you benediction," she mumbled. "Before you go."

Tapestry. He files that word choice away to analyze later. For right now, he's going to just go with whatever she's saying and hope it'll make sense before someone wound up dead.

"Benediction." He pauses for a moment. "Sure."

He didn't understand. She could see it in his eyes and she didn't know how to fix it. Any of it. Such were Malkavian prophecies.

She turned around, kicking the bottom of one of the bookshelves in masked frustration. A deluge of words in Gaelic and Latin flowed under her breath. Every now and then, the stream was peppered with English, words like "art" and "history" and "forest."

Who she was ranting at was anyone's guess.

Once she finished, she glanced up at him, nodding her head to the door. "This way." And she was off, going down the hall and stairs.

Sam could tell she's frustrated, but all the same he doesn't know how to fix it. He can't suddenly understand what he doesn't. That's not the way the world works, even if he wishes it did.

He still gets up and follows her lead, looking around and taking stock of things as he goes.

She led him along the first floor, going past the doorway and deeper into the bowels of the building. As before, all of the young people who were going about their business turned to watch. The women, in particular, seemed highly interested in Sam. Fewer seemed at all concerned that Artemis was walking with a limp. An everyday event.

After a few turns, through large and open rooms of couches and books, she led him down a narrow set of stairs, into the basement.

Of course, it wasn't an ordinary basement.

The floor was covered in small, one inch tiles of alternating blue, white, and gray patterns. There was a heavy scent of chlorine in the air. Not surprising. In the middle of the wide, open space, there was a narrow pool of unnaturally blue water. Not big enough to be a swimming pool. It looked more like the tub of a mikva, half of the space taken up by a marble stair.

Sam takes in the details as he goes, mostly learning his way around more than anything else, and when they get down to the pool his eyes widen in surprise. He's curious as to what it's for, but sometimes asking automatically means it's something he doesn't want to know.

So he stops halfway down the stairs, and he waits.

She heard his footsteps falter and turned around, her movements flowing like the water itself. "Don't worry," she purred, "I'm not going to baptize you. Not until you decide to take me up on my offer."

Said with the certainty of someone who knew that he would. There was a cat-like quality to Artemis' smile. She knew a secret, but she wasn't telling it just yet.

There was a small closet beneath the stairs. She slid the door open and began rifling through. Inside were robes. Some of them blue, some of them gray. But the one she removed was white.

Sam still doesn't move from her position, watching her carefully from where she stood. The white robes get his attention, but considering he doesn't know what she's offering, he's just going to stay put for the time being, waiting to see what was on the table.

Artemis draped the robe over her arms, walking back to him. "Put your hands on this," she ordered the boy of letters.

There wasn't anything remarkable about the robe. It looked like something a high school would rent for a graduation ceremony. Or, perhaps, something a member of the clergy might wear. It smelled faintly of almond soap. It looked long enough to fit a woman.

A normal-sized, woman, anyway.

There was no telling what size of woman he was used to dealing with.

Sam nods, before doing as he's told, tentatively at least. He still isn't sure what's going to happen, but he's curious enough to try, which counts for something - at least he thinks it does. He places his hands there lightly, before waiting to see what will happen.

Not horrendously cautious for a hunter, she supposed. But as it happened, she wasn't planning on cursing him. Artemis didn't even know any curses, although Tima and some of the dhampir were quite excellent at it.

She closed her eyes, reciting the blessing form memory. At first, she spoke it. Then it changed to chanting. And at the very, very end, she was singing. Perhaps Artemis didn't have the most powerful voice in the family, but it was pretty enough. The York girls were all musical in their own ways.

"Baruch atah, Adonai Eloheinu
v’Elohei avoteinu v’imoteinu, Elohei
Avraham, Elohei Yitzchak v’Elohei Yaakov,
Elohei Sarah, Elohei Rivkah, Elohei
Rachel v’Elohei Leah. Ha-El hagadol
hagibor v’hanora, El elyon, gomeil
chasadim tovim, v’koneih hakol, v’zocheir
chasdei avot v’imahot, umeivi g’ulah
liv’nei v’neihem l’maan sh’mo b’ahavah."

She finished by opening her eyes. "And that, as they say, is that." Artemis ran a hand over the robe, stroking it lovingly. "Someday, this will be a powerful relic for all. When the world is very, very different from what it is now. But who knows? Perhaps we will both be there to witness it."

"Maybe," Sam agrees with a cautious nod. It's not that he doesn't want to see the world change, but from where he's standing, that kind of change is a long way away. It'll take time and energy that they don't really have yet.

"It's good to be working towards something."

"Much more productive than working against something," Artemis agreed, taking the robe back. "As any Don Quixote will tell you."

She hung it up in the closet again, shutting the door.

For a moment, she just stared at the door, shaking her head ever-so-slightly. "I don't know, Sam Winchester. I just have the oddest feeling about you."

His eyebrows climb a bit behind her back, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. "Is it a good feeling, or a bad feeling?" Because knowing his life, it could really go either way.

She smirked a little bit, still not turning around. "Must life be a binary? If so, by all rights, you should be putting a stake in my back right now."

Though she doubted he realized what that would do to her.

Or what the other members of the Order would do to him if he tried it.

"Actually I'd probably chop your head off first."

If that makes her feel any better.

"But I try not to hurt people who haven't hurt anyone else." It just seems easier that way, to not judge unless he has to - he gets enough of that in his life as it is.

"I'd like to see you try," she sang softly, just barely audibly.

But enough of that.

There was a small, wooden box, mounted on a stand beside the closet. She opened it. With the clanging of metal against metal, she removed a second pendant, identical to the one she'd give Sam earlier in the night. "This is for your brother," she said, turning around and holding it out to him at arm's length. "You will both be welcome here, when you have need of our library or of our services. I would offer one to your angel as well, but somehow, I suspect he won't have nearly as hard of a time getting past my guards as you, most assuredly, would."

Sam smirks ruefully about that, before reaching out to take the pendant from her, winding the cord around his hand before slipping it into his pocket so that he doesn't lose it.

"No, he'd ... probably be more comfortable sneaking his way in anyway." There's a beat. "I'm sorry if he does."

There's a few things that Cas still needs to learn about privacy and personal space.

That earned a bit of a laugh from Artemis. "Yes. Well. Just tell him to pester the wet Malkavian, not the dry one."

She nodded her head toward the stairs and started to walk back up to the main floor, squishing in her wet jeans.

"Do let us know what becomes of Perth," she added, glancing over her shoulder at him. "While I trust your faith in him, he does seem...easily confused."

"He's just ... strangely literal. When it comes to the supernatural, I wouldn't trust anyone else more."

He follows her back up to the main floor, cataloguing the last of the route to memory, before another awkward question comes to mind.

"Do you think I could get a ride back to my car?"

"Follow me."

She led him out the front door. Some of the dhampir were fighting over the rules of a game of horse out on the driveway, under neath the basketball net. They all turned to watch as Artemis took a sharp right, along a stone path that went in a long, loping circle around the mansion proper.

Behind it, as it turned out, were several smaller buildings; one looked like a converted stable, another was a guest house with a turret, a third was a long, squat building with several garage doors. She made a line for the last of the buildings, opening up a small door to one side.

Inside were about fifteen cars, ranging from a hummer to a violet VW bug. A woman in a white, plastic jacket was rooting around, under the hood of a mustang. She seemed decidedly disinterested in whatever Artemis was doing there.

Sam is just going to stare at the ... large fleet of vehicles they have at their disposal, wow. He almost doesn't even notice the woman in white until he turns around again, hanging back just behind Artemis and waiting for her to take the lead.

Artemis beckoned the woman over with two fingers. "Liza. Find Jonas. Our friend Mister Winchester is going to need a lift back to town."

It seemed that no one really questioned Artemis in this place. Immediately, Liza nodded and took off, out one of the side doors.

"Hummer or the corvette?"

meme } { open rp post

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