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This is the last place Lindon wants to be. He made polite with the Sorcerer Supreme, but he really wants nothing to do with sorcerers, sorcery, forbidden knowledge or, let's face it, 99% of the population. But here he is, a book bag over his shoulder, and he raps on the door of the Sanctum Sanctorum, bracing for a billion kinds of unpleasantness. Because that's what life is: it's unpleasant.
*
The Sanctum Sanctorum is an impressive Victorian mansion buried in the midst of Greenwich Village where only one sizeable building of equal antiquity and grace sprawls across the lawns. Those are slowly vanishing into new communal gardens, the brick facade testament to an old purpose since faded out of public use to private hands. But 177A Bleecker Street belongs only to a private owner, and his scarred hands are but the latest inheritors.
Wards shrouding the place murmur truths in unspoken tongues to the young woman concealed within, arbitrarily seeking her in the absence of their master. Good enough; the semi-sentient silvery wisps collect against her hands and tease up her arms, imparting to the Sanctum mistress their urgent message. A visitor. And not one they know overly. Good enough. Wanda abandons the task of preparing herbs, rinsing her hands off in a bowl of standing water grounded by salt for that purpose. A flick sends beads scattering to the floor rather than the worktable, where another ward evaporates the liquid seconds later. Her strides convey a particular keenness of a predator's piqued interest, rolling off the floor almost soundlessly, and she does not bother to take the stairs down to the foyer. Leaping over the edge allows for the simplest of spells to buoy her up, telekinetic force displacing her as a bubble.
The next step she takes brings her to the door. Her hair still settles around her shoulders in a mahogany veil, held back by a fate's skein of blood dark threads and garnets. Cracking the portal open a fraction, she stares out, golden-eyed and unamused as those of eastern Europe tend not to be. Anyone encountering her biological father surely knows the force of a flinty glare delivered with panache. Lindon receives the same.
*
Lindon is a lanky fellow, all long arms and legs. A little too thin, underfed, his features possessed of a sallow cast. He could be handsome, perhaps, if life were a little kinder. The way he stands, though, the weight of it all settles heavily on his slumped shoulders and hangdog head. He receives the flinty glare with a small frown. Small, but etching itself through repeated performances into lines on otherwise youthful features. That stitch in his brow will surely age him before his time.
"I'm looking for Doctor Strange," he says, his stance preemptively defensive. He unshoulders the book bag and clutches it to his chest with crossed arms. "Is he here." He glances around, like the search might cause the Sorcerer Supreme to manifest. That would be convenient, and he knows well that nothing ever is.
*
Life has not been kind to Wanda. It whittles her down to the absolute foundation stone and then occasionally plies a few tricks to lay down strata so often stripped away, and renewed in the next glacial epoch of adventure. At the present, nature deals her a kinder hand than elsewhere in her tormented past, the hollows of her cheeks filling in and the gauntness of frame restored to robust good health by standards of a girl with a metabolism on par with the average hummingbird. Were the hummingbird divine and eating mana honey all day long.
Measured regard flashes through her antique gold eyes, a lion's gaze peering out of the face imagined by Romantic poets in their opium delusions of eastern bazaars. She nary blinks when the man on the doorstep levels his inquiry. "You have expected?" Not perfect English, no, least-wise when delivered in an accent muddled by copious amounts of alcohol and terroir.
*
Lindon recognizes the language from the accent. It's not one he knows fluently, but the words he's looking for appear in his mind like a mirage between himself and her. His focus shifts, back and forth as he reads them. <No, I didn't call ahead. If you tell him Lindon Mills is here, he'll know who you're talking about.> The accent is imperfect the words stilted, without a natural conversational flow. But he knows them. He blinks a few times as his focus returns and settles upon her once again. His torment is his present, a man standing in the nadir of his existence. One would hope. Pray to God there's no further down than this.
*
Her accent comes from no singular source, no more than a river owes its origins to a single icefield or spring welling up through a cleft in bedrock. Not by the time it reaches the lower course, or the estuary cut into the coastline. Moving too fast or slipping too slow, daughters pay tribute to their mother, their indelible influence cast around every consonant and plunging around cracks into the core of her vowels. A pastiche of half a dozen tongues lap against the lyrical mezzosoprano greeting him, and their influences come not even from the same general basin: European, Eurasian, Dravidian, isolates.
"No," Wanda says. Not even a need to shake her head as Transian hovers on the forefront of her thoughts and the rest line up in chaotic queues behind. "You want for a different minister."
*
"I'm pretty sure I don't," Lindon says. It's easier to convey annoyance in English. Besides, focusing so hard on a tongue that obscure to him invites a headache. He exhales sharply through his nose. Could one thing - just one - go easily for him? "I have something for him." He hugs the book bag a little closer. "If he's not here, I'll come back. Whatever's in that bag, he doesn't want her having it. Or looking at it. Or being in its proximity."
*
Transian is the crossroads of Europe in a bottle, as much a child of Slavic regions as Roman settlers, the Romance mingled with ancient Celtic invasions and Ottoman influences. The Balkans lie in the shadow of greater Teutonic ambitions, too, and it carries hints of that.
Wanda delivers a simple, plain blink. "Later," she says plainly, giving agreement in terse, barbed points for whatever the stranger may want. "It is a wait. An hour, a month, a minute." The presented wobble of her hand makes clear the indecision isn't likely a lack of understanding on her part. If he knows anything, Lindon probably understands the consequences of a man's mantle carrying him off to grand activities. "A great need, this?"
*
Lindon has a wild guess at the very least. He sighs quietly. "I don't want to make another trip to Greenwich Village," he says with a look of profound weariness. He considers Wanda for a long moment. Who is she? Nothing in his brain offers any insight. "And I don't need this stuff cluttering up my apartment." His gaze darts off, evasive.
*
"Give it. Or accept cigarette for it." Maybe Lindon requires a bargain to satisfy the itch in his ethical sphere, and maybe not. Wanda's youth is not on her side, likely, though gauging whether she is closer to eighteen or thirty proves a difficult task. The trick lies beneath kohl-dark lashes shielding her eyes, those portals too ancient to be anything remotely warm or naive. Naivete is a casualty of protection sparing a child from adulthood. From reality itself. Never, for her.
"'It'. You say nothing of it."
*
Lindon's brows lift. "Trade a… what?" There's laughter in his voice, mirthless, as he says, "I don't want a cigarette. I want to make sure this gets to Doctor Strange, and I don't want anyone else looking at it." Different schools of etiquette whisper their secrets in his mind. Ways to handle this that are less caustic. But, damn it, caustic is him and it hasn't been obliterated yet.
He shouldn't give her the journals. She could look at them, learn things things young women shouldn't know. Then again, she doesn't look all that innocent, and she's here at Strange's house, so maybe she's not normal. And he really, really doesn't want to make another trip to Greenwich Village from Queens. "If I give you these, don't look at them."
*
"I do not read it. His mail. His things." The very notion might offend her, the marginal narrowing of her eyes a marked drop of the temperature from cool to outright frosty. Wanda's mouth does not lose any of its fullness but the pressure of keeping fangs thoroughly in check, as it were. "We have an understanding." Is it her and him? Her and the doctor? Fate and the witch? Lindon will have to suss out that one himself.
Queens, hardly the longest jaunt in the world. Sixth dimension, that's a horrible journey to blunder through. Her hands are held out.
*
Lindon takes note of that slight narrowing, and he sighs. He knows he's been curt. He knows she's done nothing to provoke it. "I didn't mean to imply anything," he admits. Still, he hesitates before he grudgingly opens the book bag and hands over a pair of journals, their pages filled. "Just tell him… don't tell him anything, I don't care. I just want to get rid of all this stuff."
There was never a time he was good with people, but there was a time he wasn't actively an asshole. He looks down. "Yeah, anyway. Sorry. It's just one of those days."
*
The apology is accepted as is, at least as much as one can expect from someone as socially edged and barbed as Wanda can be. Two journals are weighed up and then clasped to her chest like every English schoolgirl ever imagined on the silver screen and the smaller screen, as it would happen. "He will have them. I tell him that you delivered them. Danger to them?"
The nearest conversation point she can offer is whether they might blow up in her face.
*
Lindon can't help but draw the comparison, so at odds with the woman's demeanor; even he can tell she's no school girl. With a slow shake of his head, and a mental wrenching of his mind out of the gutter, he says, "Not anymore. I think that's the last of them, but it's hard to tell. I've got them all over the place." He rubs the back of his neck, and he feels the need to point out, "I don't have any, uh, use. For these things. I just happen to have them. Oh, and tell him I painted over the wall."
*
She totally might be. In the school of hard knocks, Wanda is an apt pupil and a troublemaker against all the lessons they dole out. It isn't terribly fun. "I will. Does the paint color matter? The design? These may be things he asks." It is wiser then for Wanda to direct the erstwhile man back to the source, an archive bumbling around like a particularly grumbly bee who only eats ragweed and wishes the world to sneeze.
*
Lindon shakes his head. But. The knowledge is in his head, and it wants out, so he says, "Eggshell, lot four fifty-seven. It's not an exact match." He shakes his head. He tried to find an exact match. He really did. Now that'll bug him every time he sees it. His gaze goes distant as more facts unfurl before him. "I don't think they make the original color anymore. The plant closed after the war, a lot of formulas were lost. In a fire." He pinches the bridge of his nose. Why does he have to know this crap? He catches flashes in his mind of the sigils he painted over. Thank God he no longer knows what they're for. "He won't care what color."
*
Eggshell from an unknown brand slathered on a wall in a place not entirely certain: factoids to stitch together for a scavenger hunt, the likes of which will titillate the Sorcerer Supreme or annoy him incessantly for reasons unclear. It won't be the prerogative of Wanda's to screen his visits or information to determine their usefulness, particularly given the consequences of an error are considerable. "Maybe." Terse answer, books held tightly. Nothing implies she has a burning desire to punt Lindon off the porch and tear into the contents, a literary cookie jar teasing her. Not much of one, anyways. It's Pietro who would be the danger. "No more words he needs?"
*
Lindon thinks. There are so many words, more than Lindon has voice to speak. Picking through which may or may not be relevant takes a little introspection. In the meantime, he stands there, his gaze unfocused, darting back and forth like he were reading from a page. "No," he says slowly, "Nothing secret or mystical. If he were willing to part with more tea, I would be willing to part with money. That's all."
*
Behind the Witch, the air in the Sanctum shifts in the manner of an incoming storm. No draft of sheer wind knocks anything askew, but a noted barometric drop that she should sense — that most definitely occurs along with the low-key shivering of the mansion itself. Silvery ward spells swish away and up through the ceiling, heading towards the Loft.
Not a half-minute later, one might catch the quick thudthudthud of booted footsteps leading down and then…a sudden blurring drop. Of course the man vaults over the railing on the second floor landing and, of course, the crimson Cloak is there to mitigate any splat that might befall one of Mundane ilk. It riffles, acting in eerie sync with his movements, and he seems to land in perfect time of rolling step towards the front door.
"Lindon." Strange's voice carries before him, baritone fluid with a note of curiosity. "«Beloved»," he murmurs as he steps up behind Wanda, giving her a wisp of a fond smile, quick and true as a flash of sunlight on water's surface. "What brings you here?" He remains within threshold of the doorway, in the shadow of the short entry hall. After all, his aura is still settling around him and he's going to have one hell of a shiner shortly if he doesn't get a healing spell up and going. Clearly, he won whatever spat occurred in whatever dimension he was in. Maybe they should see the other guy…?
*
"The master is in," the words are spoken as soon as the minute ripples disturb the wards, colouring them differently in the girl's sight and then casting different pitches through the celestial resonance of her aura. Tipping lines of paint-stained C4 and A6 resonate in twinned tandem, overwhelming the sonnet strung on variable stars and shivering in the cores of a pulsar wobbling on its cosmic path through a starry hippodrome. Every sigh and howl in the vagaries contained within the castle-like realm behind those Victorian walls sings to her, and she answers in muted kind.
Let it be said they both vaulted over the edge and neither landed in the doubled dent where an unfortunate apprentice or Mordo in ages past probably came down on the floorboards too hard. It's as bad as a mark for any photo call.
"Books," she says, and pivots to the man in question by a quarter turn, handing him the two requested volumes. "He will give you money for tea. He repainted the wall."
*
Lindon sucks in a breath. Strange is home. There's a tic at the corner of the man's dark eyes. He relaxes when Wanda addresses the Sorcerer Supreme with an answer. This is all more than Lindon wants to be part of. He'd rather be the human equivalent of a paper weight.
The 'beloved' catches his attention. He tilts his head and considers Wanda anew. It's easy enough to shove budding feelings aside, too easy, and he sizes them up as a couple. How unlikely, yet logical in its way. Still. Wanda's curtness. He sighs quietly. She's remarkable.
"That tea really helped," he says. "I've been getting headaches again. And those I found in a desk drawer. Just take them."
*
He takes the offered journals. Thin as they are, they likely contain secrets that the general public has no right to know. He looks up from them to Wanda, and then to Lindon. "You don't need to repay me for the tea. These are more than enough." It's a surprise gone well, for once, at least in terms of events outside of the Sanctum. "You're welcome to more tea. I have no difficulty acquiring more of it. I understand the headaches, believe me." Lindon just might. He's seen magic done before, though perhaps not on the scale that leaves Strange rubbing his temples and considering hiding beneath the master bed.
"If you wish to come in, you can. If you do, the wards will visit you briefly. They won't hurt you." He half-turns and then pauses; it leaves the Cloak swirling about his tall frame, hiding the storm-blue battle leathers for all of a second. "If you're not comfortable, you can also wait on the porch. Your Fate in is your hands." Was that a faint snort of a laugh at his own pun as he walks away into the Sanctum, headed for the living room where he entertains guests? Terrible.
*
Strange is home, indeed. The man holds his position, after all, and to any glimmer of aura-sight, her soul resonance kicks up several degrees of activity. Stars blossom where none existed, and melodies entwined forge a particularly difficult sound that swells upon a labyrinthine chain of details. Terseness takes on a mental exclamation point as the heart overrules the mind for an instant, thrusting a shaft of heliotrope light straight through the middle of her chakras and throwing a thread of energy back at the man. That is, Stephen Strange.
She steps back from the door to permit Lindon admission, gesturing only to push her coat back. A ruffle of burgundy against the widening gyre of the cloak's crimson measure, though one of these days, she's going to obtain herself a sapphire one and be done with it. Maybe for Beltane. Imagine the look on their faces then.
*
Lindon's Fate is now in his pockets, because that's where Lindon shoves his hands, head hung low as he steps into the manor. "It's really not," he says with a hollow laugh. Then the wards are checking him out. It's the Archive! A relic. Also some normal Joe for whom this should all be merely fairy tales and nightmare fuel.
"Your, ah, your girlfriend was very helpful," he says, and he gives Wanda a lightning quick, weak smile." He looks around like he's afraid to touch anything. It could be a house of triggers for all he knows. "No one's given me any grief lately. Maybe they've all lost interest."
*
"No?" A laconic reply as to the location of Lindon's Fate is thrown over his shoulder before Strange enters the living room. Another knowing flash of a closed-lipped smile and then the hem of the Cloak too is disappearing through the doorway. "I'm glad to hear that you've been left alone. One needs quiet to recover from migraines brought on by too much magic." His voice issues from the room.
"And please, don't touch anything." The good Doctor probably doesn't need to say it, but the standing rule is worth mentioning in the face of natural human curiosity. To the Sight, there issues a slip of amarantine-blended-spring-sky aural light into the short entry hall and it swirls about the Witch, ringing with the mellow ring of cello strings before dissipating. One might catch the ghost of sandalwood and petrichor lingering in its absence.
*
Walking through the Sanctum Sanctorum is second nature to the witch. Tugging in her aura is a reflexive exercise similar to breathing carefully in a steamy conservatory. Don't touch anything means on all levels of touch, and while unable to really reach out in a few of those manners, this much is essential.
She waits until Lindon is fully in the house before following him, flanking him in a comfortable gesture perhaps intended to give him assurances of this phantasmagoric castle not doing much intentional harm. Maybe it makes him feel like a prisoner. She looks puzzled after his words, but explaining herself takes a moment or two.
*
Lindon does indeed not touch a damn thing. This pace could be made out of razor blades for all that he doesn't touch. It's hard to say if he can sense those auras. Hell, ask him and he wouldn't know. Most of the stuff he suspects of people, it's because somewhere in his mind, he Knows.
Her presence is something of a comfort. She's not touching him, not speaking to him with sentiments he'd have to find some way to respond to. Sure, he can sense power, but that's the thing with being powerless: everything reads like it could crush you.
"This is a nice place you've got," he says. "It's big. You could put a lot of bookshelves in here." That thought relaxes him. A house that could contain so many bookshelves can't be all bad.
*
The Sorcerer at his tea stand looks up from preparing the third cup of tea as they enter the living room. The act, very domestic, might clash with the leathers and crimson Cloak to anyone unfamiliar with his routines. At his neck, the Eye of Agamotto remains silent, devoid of citrine spark…for the moment. Clearly, he expects Lindon to accept one of the demi-tasses. All three steam, wafting up scents that call to each person's palate.
"Maybe one day you can explore the library upstairs…though I doubt you would benefit from it." Not an insult, at least in accordance of what he knows of Lindon in the moment. "Rows upon rows of shelving there." A silver spoon stirs honey into his personal tisane.
In Tibetan, out of habit: "«Beloved, would you mind gathering at least ten satchets of the recovery tea from the stand in the Loft while I entertain our guest? They would be in the drawer with the red stitching on front.»" He gives her a fond look over Lindon's shoulder. The expression is crimped for the growing bruise about the lower socket of his eye, blood pooling from the earlier impact, whatever that entailed. Still, he manages to remain dignified.
*
That the library ensconced in the sanctum would help not a whit this stranger in their presence could be cause for many questions. The slightest arch to her eyebrows asks all the questions she dares to inquire of. It may be a passing sweep of her expression in profile that warns Strange of Wanda's thoughts, private and usually darkly knotted up they may tend to be. Only once they have entered the living room and partaken of its wider confines will she leave the archival master to stand on his own two feet, while she acts as the very agent.
"The Doctor may say it is bigger on the inside," his companion helpfully notes.
She heads for the stairwell, never quite halting in her paces. What comments they might hold on tea, she has every last brew and prospective one indexed, and her own collection takes up a dimension unto itself. Though it will be a few minutes of privacy for the gentlemen while she acquires the needed satchets.
*
Lindon slips his hands from his pockets so that he can accept the demi-tasse, after a beat where he just stares at it. "Oh, thanks," he says. He half-smiles at Strange and says, "Just looking at books is beneficial. We all have things that make us happy by virtue of existing." The look he gives Wanda makes him drop his gaze. He can't help but be maudlin. Will he last long enough for anyone to look at him like that? When would he forget them?
He watches Wanda go. It would be hard to mistake the interest in his eyes, but there's nothing prurient about it. In a world of distractions, she's a person. "The library took me back," he mentions as he stands there, so awkward. He looks back to Strange. "They're making me work the desk, but I still have a job." Talking to the public. Kill him now.
*
"Absolutely. Books are enlightening as well as a way to escape reality for a time. It's good to hear that they've brought you in again, Lindon," and Strange means it as he straightens, his own cup of tea within grasp. Wanda's brew remains on the stand, kept hot per the charm instilled upon the metal and activated when said implements rest upon it. "The library will keep you busy when things get difficult." He means the after-effects of an Archival moment, of course.
On a completely separate and utterly private wavelength, connected in diamond-strands of that stone's strength blazing hues of blended spring-sky and scarlet alike, he sends the message upstairs: "This is an Archive, Beloved. Perhaps //The Archive, a repository of knowledge unknown and known alike to mankind. He suffers for it; his mind cannot hold the vastness of it. What aid I can give him I choose to offer. The tea is helpful."//
*
Lindon takes a drink of his tea. He relaxes visibly. "Thank you," he says, and there's hints of a person in the subtleties of his tone. "I know you said I could overdose on this, so I'll be careful. I don't want to die." He laughs a little, given what he asked Strange to do when he got too far gone.
Unaware of the thoughts communicated between paramours, he remains an oblivious living relic, more or less, possessed of magic yet unable to possess it. "She's remarkable," he says out of the blue.
*
"Yes, don't overdose, please. It would be a challenge convincing Lady Death to surrender your soul." Is he joking? …maybe not, given the flattening of light behind his eyes, a rippling pond's surface going still and calm. "Remarkable?" Strange's eyes stray towards the Loft. About the centers of his pupils, lilac floods to threaten total dominion of his irises. "That's the least of it."
Preen, he does, and adds as he wanders over to the small work desk with journals in tow, "Keats is the only poet who does her justice in the English language. I'm sure there might be other languages that come close, but…" And in the manner of the truly-besotted, his voice fades off in mental distraction over the Witch.
*
Lindon arches a brow. "You'd do that?" he says, more dubious about that aspect than whether Strange could pull it off. His gaze follows Strange's, and it's impossible to mask the admiration there, even if it is as thin and fragile as a plane of morning mist over wintry ground. There is such loss in his eyes. That last bout of visions didn't take much in their wake, but they're a poignant reminder of the inevitable and warning not to invest in what one's only going to lose.
Still, he musters up a little laugh. "You got it bad," he says. "That's good. I like seeing a human side to you. Makes you less scary."
*
"Hmm?" Clearly distracted by whatever waltzes through his mind at the moment, it takes Strange a moment to catch up on Lindon's thoughts. The journals are then placed next to the stack of notes kept from movement by a heavy paper weight on the desk. "Less scary? On the contrary, it might make me more scary. Consider if anyone chose to do anything to her."
The Sorcerer Supreme needn't expand. Imagination can do the rest with gusto.
A faint huff of a laugh, little flash of teeth in a passing grim smile, and he meanders back to the fireplace. His tea needs one more spoonful of honey. "On the topic of your soul, why wouldn't I do this?" He looks up to the Archive-in-human-form, taking on an air not far from that of his past mentor, the Ancient One. "All lives are equally important, your own included. What marks it as being not worth retrieving from Lady Death?"
*
"Yeah, but I wouldn't be the guy doing it," Lindon points out. He finally, tentatively, makes his way toward a chair. "Can I sit?" he asks. He's not going to assume anything in this place. "People die every day," he says. "You don't save them all."
As for why he's not worth retrieving, he says, "I'm just not feeling like myself these days. I kind of feel like I'm halfway there sometimes, and I know it's depression. I've been trying to get more sun lately to counter it."
*
The spoon clinks a few times as the good Doctor stirs. He glances up again and nods towards the chair on the left. "The guest chair is always available. It won't bite you," he adds, giving a boyish grin. Sipping at his tea, he deems it correctly sweetened now and the spoon is tucked away to be cleaned later. Scouring spells are so nifty.
Touching carefully at the corner of his eye, Strange winces. "Hmph. I'm well aware that people die, Lindon. I am a Doctor." A thread of steel hums in his statement. A brief inhale as if to correct himself and then…it seems that he lets the statement be. Once a Doctor, always a Doctor. "Sun does anyone good. Between that and working at the library, you can expect to feel a bit better, I'd think."
*
Lindon smiles at the boyish grin, if only fleetingly. The more human Strange seems, the more relaxed Lindon becomes. He sits down with his tea, taking another drink. His long legs stretch out before him. He nods as he says, "I don't like working the desk, but I still get to shelve books sometimes."
He studies the contents of his cup, like he could read his future in his tea. "I know that isolation isn't helping. It's getting harder to relate to people who aren't in the know. I'm not sure what to do about that."
*
The good Doctor seems to echo his own spoken feelings on the matter of desk work even as he begins to pace nonchalantly before the fireplace, Cloak and all. "Yes, and desk work is isolation in itself. I could never be kept at a desk. Not nearly as much excitement as my current mantle." Understatement of the century. "We have a community of Mystical types through the Village here. Other places as well. You're not alone, even if it feels like it. We tend to be…cautious sorts."
*
"Yeah, I can understand the caution," Lindon says. "Mystical types make me paranoid, but normal people make me feel like a weirdo." He half-smiles as he says, "If you know anyone who won't kidnap me and try to make me do their bidding…" That might be the crux of it, right there. The relic in search of a master. How that must be messing up his psyche.
His gaze strays toward the Loft. He knows better than to even dream, but the thoughts are there. How could they not be?
*
"Are you looking for a babysitter…or a master?"
Ah, there's the scalpel-sharp glint of attention back on Lindon. Strange pauses before the fireplace, eyeing the Archive with machinations clearly running through that squirrely brain of his. "If your psyche is reflecting the potential requirements of a relic, you might be seeking something that runs inherently counter to every fiber of your being. If so, I can imagine the difficulty of feeling so torn." A fingertip draws back and forth along the edge of his held cup with indolent speed, like too unlike the slow swing of a lounging cat's tail. "The choice, of course, remains entirely within your hands, Lindon." He touches upon his past statement regarding Fate in this. "Have you felt a draw towards anyone within the Mystical community?"
*
Lindon shoots Strange a dire look. While something in the words hit home with one part of him, the other is dubious. Highly. "I don't know what you think I'm into…"
But he hears out the rest, and the words keep finding their marks, leaving him shifting a bit where he sits and looking away from the good doctor. "I don't know anyone in the Mystical community," he says. "Except for you and the people who've so for proven to be colossal asses." He takes a deep breath, then says, "I kind of met one. Who isn't the absolute worst of the lot."
*
Ah yes, the old 'master' humor. The apprentices at Kamar-Taj perpetually cracked jokes in the vein of mastering relics. Strange remembers one in particular and whilst Lindon averts his eyes and sounds markedly uncomfortable, the Sorcerer fails to keep a grin from curling the corners of his mouth. Realizing it might insult the Archive, he quickly assumes the professional mein as of before.
"You've met Wanda," he corrects without malice, adding the Witch's name to the short list of folk don't qualify as massive sphincters. "You'll meet more as time goes by. Care to share who isn't the absolute worst? I should be in contact with them, if so. I appreciate those within the community who are kind to newcomers."
*
Lindon misses the grin. Thankfully. The Archive's ego is brittle these days and his everpresent fear looking for something to lash out at. "I wasn't sure what her situation was," he says, "but yeah, I've met Wanda. She's all right." Which, in his books, is a glowing recommendation.
He shrugs a skinny shoulder then and gestures with a long-fingered hand. "I don't know, Lamont-something. I don't think he's actively being a sorcerer or anything like that. We had a few drinks at a bar. I guess when I went nutso last time, I left my apartment and he got me back there in one piece. I didn't recognize him, but he knew me."
*
'All right' will do, in the case of the Witch. She's the bee's knees to the master of the mansion, but that goes without saying in his mind.
"This Lamont knew you? Hmph." Another thing added to his to-do list. Hunt down this other practitioner with prior knowledge of the Archive. "If he's not active within the community, it would explain how he's remained out of Sight." Subtle capitalization there defines it as the Mystical view on the world.
*
"Just from me going crazy," Lindon says. "He called me a cab. He was asking too many questions to have known anything about what I am, and none of the tells on his face shows a lack of sincerity." He shrugs. It's possible he could be wrong, but he's overthought this to his satisfaction.
"He just heard me saying mystical gibberish and got me off the street." He takes another drink of his tea, pacing himself. He's not sure at what point it becomes toxic, and why risk it? "He's only just getting back in town from being away. He seems innocuous, Doctor." He almost smiles. Almost. "I think he wants to help me."
*
Strange nods slowly. He's not necessarily dubious of the circumstances in which this inactive practitioner and Archive met, but…Fate is an odd duck.
"I hope he truly does wish to help you, Lindon. A network of familiar faces is an excellent thing to have in times of stress. I'd hate to find him on your list of 'colossal assholes'." He takes another long sip of his tea and licks excess from his lips. "You've felt an Archival draw to him?"
*
Lindon shrugs. "I don't know," he says. He doesn't have the luxury of thinking about things like help or hope. To keep building himself up like that only to be torn down would be torture. Perhaps the sorcerer would understand him not being so willing to engage.
Lindon laughs, though, a quiet sound, and he says with a shake of his head, "No, I don't think he's a colossal asshole. He seems nice." He glances sidelong at Strange. "An Archival draw? I don't know. I felt like killing a bottle of whiskey with him in a bar. That's not something I usually do."
*
"I imagine not. You don't have the habits of an alcoholic." Truth delivered from sterile medical experience. "I presume an Archival draw would be a compulsion to follow someone around, to offer them aid they didn't know they needd in time of duress. Part of that sounds an awful lot like stalking, actually, now that I consider it…"
There's a new facet of relic ownership for the Sorcerer to mull over in his downtime.
"Still…you came to the right place to drop off the journals. Tea will be down shortly. Wanda can aid you in my absence, as she did earlier." The implication is of a growing web of support within the Mystical network.
*
Lindon strokes his chin, his thumb idly going against the grain of five o'clock shadow. "I suppose I was sorry to see him go," he admits. "He was all right to talk to. It's funny, I can converse on most topics, just not usually well, because I've got the knowledge but less personality than I used to." Something he's able to say with a certain degree of detachment. It's a fact; it has no emotions in this.
Though it might not be entirely accurate. Artifacts have personalities. This one's is in some ways still being born. His gaze goes unfocused, lost in thoughts, but it snaps too when Strange mentions the journals. "Right," he says. "I read them, some of them, and I just don't think the stuff in them ought to be getting out." The Rule of Shade is more like a lifestyle with this one.
*
Procuring tea properly takes more than a New York minute. The locating of the proper supplies, remedying a dust bunny in the tea stand, preparing the water to a near boil but not full all require a little work. Then the rinsing of mugs, the capture of necessary paraphernalia for someone who may not share her predilection to honey over cream and sugar, a mindful slice of lemon, even a sprinkling of sugared violets obtained from a tin marked in faded French letters. It is an art. It is an art that, given proper due, has cemented civilisations from Egypt to China to the British Empire. Only Americans are an anomaly hurling things out into the ocean, monsters they are.
Everything placed on a tray can follow the Witch out. It floats behind her. In the sanctum, such shows of power are not gratuitous so much as essential to avoid any of the residents other than the obvious ones from springing out and stabbing at her with a branch, horn or segmented tentacle.
*
"Absolutely not," agrees the Sorcerer, even as he looks up towards the living room doors. "Ah, «Beloved»." The nickname in Tibetan rolls so easily from his tongue. "Thank you." He eyes the obedient tray following in her wake like a calm barge behind a tugboat and a small smile threatens the corners of his mouth. Ever the pragmatist in terms of keeping the testing powers of the Sanctum at bay.
Strange steps to her side, wherever she stops, and gestures to the contents of the tray while speaking to Lindon. "The loose satchets are for you to take, in the case of the headaches. Don't take anything else beside the tea if you choose to drink it — no aspirin, anti-inflammatories, alcohol — nothing. It blends well with the body and nothing else."
*
Lindon rises to come over to the tray, which he eyes with distrust. It's softened by a somewhat uncertain smile for Wanda. "It's all right, Doctor" he says, "I won't take medicine, and I'm not much of a drinker." He utters a nervous laugh and adds, "Last time I got drunk, I woke up the next day feeling like I'd been pulled backwards through an Edsel."
He doesn't touch the sachets though. Or the tray. Sorcerous shenanigans. After a moment of profound awkwardness, he finally, gingerly, picks takes them off the tray and holds them like he's forgotten what hands are for. "Thank you. I'm trying not to be a pest," or have any interaction whatsoever, "but I don't want those journals laying around any more than you do."
*
The floating tray might have an invisible butler attending it, though nothing on the tray itself floats or spins around to a musical revue while he watches, begging he imbibe the food or drink. Do not be our guest and put the service to the test, because any errant guest dare not question they get other than the best. The house will probably oust anyone who speaks out against it in a glamorous shudder of anger.
Wanda leaves the tea; three cups are there, but she is not pouring for herself until the others go first and take what they desire. "They are safe in this place. No one but he will have them," she explains without any preamble, nodding to Strange.
*
Maybe they should show Lindon the dancing, talking candelabra. Or maybe not. He might throw his tea at it.
As a show of faith in the very stores that Wanda speaks of, the Sorcerer gathers a cup into his hands before spooning in some honey. "Indeed, nothing can get through the wards of the Sanctum. You won't end up poisoned, cursed…disemboweled…" He glances up from swirling the silver utensil through the brew, smiling faintly. "Not even subject to the parallel realities of your very self. You're safe."
*
Lindon says, "…I wasn't worried about any of those things," Lindon says. "But now I am." He looks around, a bit wild-eyed. Is he going to get out of this place alive? He knew he shouldn't hang out with sorcerers! He seems to have forgotten what feet are for, too, so when he goes to pour himself tea, there's an interesting dance of finding a pocket for the sachets, taking up the teapot and being overly careful in pouring.
He's too shy to do anything to it, so no sugar and milk for him. He retreats to his seat, holding the cup as the liquid cools. "Uh, so…" He gives Wanda another smile. She's so curt and devoid of pleasantries. Her presence makes his heart sing, even if his relationship with romance is so pushed down so hard it's becoming a diamond. "So, uh. Awful lot of weather we're having." So smooth."
*
The narrowing of her eyes alone indicates a certain measured response to someone else invading the space subconsciously called 'hers.' Theirs, actually, but theirs is a feminine in her mind, even if she has no concept whatsoever regarding it. Something changed, something is new, and the incarnation of chaos has an opinion about that.
No dancing candlesticks, yet, though the golden-eyed look painted across her guarded countenance is calculated by a fraction. She waits, and then when the moment is right, strikes to obtain her own little teacup. Into that go the loose-leaf combination of herbs and four — four! — helpings of honey. The woman apparently is one of the Melissidae and not, in act, strictly human. Or else Strange has caught one of the rare veela or rusalkas of the eastern realms, those dark nymphs known to reside in the dark forests, as perilous to man as the bomb. Tea poured atop that admixture melts into the golden drops, dissolving into a sweetened tonic worthy of a dyspeptic hummingbird. Unaware of the desire she induces, that deadly muse of black-bright stellar glory drinks her cup in the shadow of both men, their third arm of a triangle. Oh yes, a figure of great romance, La Belle Dame Sans Rire. Laughter, as it matters. "Is there rain and snow and fire outside? We did not note this?"
*
Note to self: do not tease the Archive about potential dangers, including incineration to piles of ash in his shoes, sprays of salt-acid to melt skin from bones, or even the possibility of ankle-sacking by an infamously-finicky Malk. Aralune occasionally puts the crimson Cloak to shame…though she might instead rub up upon the nervy man's shins and set about attempting to groom him through his clothing, chock-ful of bad luck as he is. Beware the Malk.
Strange files away the smile for another time as best he can, though it takes disappearing into his cup for a mouthful of lightly-sweetened tea to secure its absence. The drink would be considered most bland in taste to the sugar-glider in scarlet beside him. Give the Sorcerer a cookie for not snorting into his cup at Wanda's initial reply, delivered likely with the arid of the Saharan in tone.
"I don't believe I've seen any flaming rain lately, but the possibility exists. However, the cherry trees are beginning to blossom. Perhaps a walk in the gardens will be in order when…things settle." The last two words escape to be tailed by a short sigh. Strange's attention wanders beyond the walls when he angles his head off towards the distant Central Park.
*
Oh god, the kitten. If one wants to see what it looks like when a man jumps out of his skin. He blinks slowly at Wanda. Uh oh, he tried to small talk. What did he say? He can't remember. Everything is a susurrus of facts and figures he has to focus on containing. "There's a possibility of flaming rain?" The Archive is so unprepared for his life as a relic.
He peers at the pair of them, and he says delicately, "Are you talking about what happened yesterday? I almost went, but I had to work instead. Funny how little things change everything."
*
The Malk kitten is barely a kitten at eight kilos and counting, but neither is the silver-grey predator likely to stalk too noisily around. Especially as the blemished fruits and coins tossed at her are so thickly coated in bad luck that her latest dinner may take a day to dissolve and leave the fae beast lethargic with her pot-bellied tummy in the air. Pet not, doth thou deserve and seek thine fingers to come back intact.
Wanda sips her tea, rather quickly, taking down the sustenance needed to restore her inner reserves. A pinch of bitterness coats her palate and she nods slightly. "It may." The coalescing troubles proving adamantly resistant to normal behaviour justifies a certain depth of concern. "Nothing is stable."
A glimmer of her gaze ticks to Strange, and she gives the slightest shake of her head. Whatever that might mean. Probably 'No, Dad isn't walking around getting bored.'
*
The Witch's subtle look is returned after Strange glances to her, another tilt of his head, mild enough to be construed as simply realigning vertebrae in the moment.
"Central Park continues to be an issue. I don't recommend attempting a walk there anytime soon, Lindon. No doubt you've heard of the police cordons." The Sorcerer too looks rather bitter for a moment before taking a mouthful of tea. "As far as flaming rain goes, I doubt we'll deal with that any time soon. Just in case, have an umbrella with you." There's that dimpled grin, fleeting and wry.
*
Lindon glances between the two with a polite lack of (expressed) suspicion. "I avoid it at all cost," Lindon says. They had him at 'zombies.' He shudders at the mention of flaming rain in the sense that it could actually happen. "What kind of umbrella would make a difference?" There's a slight squeak in his voice. Unnerved. Everything about this is unnerving, but at the same time, this is his support network. The only people he knows he can rely upon.
Lindon drinks his tea quickly, now that it's cool enough to gulp down.
*
A blank look in response to that question. Umbrellas are not a word in Wanda's English lexicon. She possesses enough knowledge to estimate the context, though the frown appearing in the fine lines of her golden forehead and puckered lips is about as close as she tiptoes through the annals of 'What the hell are they talking about now.' Unfortunately, literalism is not at all the matter for her to engage.
The hummingbird finishes the rest of her tea, and then she eyes the pot of honey, shaking her head. Too obvious to just go chasing after the metal comb, and fingers are not optional. "Central Park is a target too much."
*
"An enchanted one," replies Strange with an air of factuality, as if this is the clear answer to such a question. "I think it's due to the ley lines," he adds, glancing over to Wanda again. "The greenery allows for a good measure of elemental magic to occur within the boundaries of the city with its concrete and steel as well. No small wonder the Fae target it. I should look into a ward that encompasses all of it." He scratches at one silvered temple even as he looks beyond the walls of the Sanctum again, in the direction of the beleaguered Park.
*
"Of course," Lindon says to Strange. He nods agreeably to Wanda who, let's face it, could say a lot of things and get agreement from Lindon on general principle. A lover of order, he's so clueless as to who and what she is. He glances down at his empty cup as if he could read something important in the dregs on the bottom. "There might be one in some of those journals," he offers lamely. "I'm sure if there is one, it's somewhere in my head."
*
"Ward would need a good energy source. Too hard a draw on the ley line." And you, it goes without saying, but she does not approach that. Her thumb skates along the line of her cheekbone. The sticky touch of the honey requires dabbing the pad against her tongue and lips, trying to remove that patch before something ends up gathering dust or worse. Such comes naturally to her before she returns to the conversation at hand, at least most of it. "Go around the park. Not through it. The paths are temptation and corruption."
*
Grumble-grumble. The frown isn't for the speaker reminding him of such a wild-rushing river of magic beneath the Park, but for the frustrating veracity of the matter. It took one hell of an effort last he tried — and succeeded — to tame the ley line, but it was also a matter of another Hell entirely. Kind of important, even if it steamrolled Strange near into the mud afterwards.
While she endeavors to clean fingertips, his own drum idly on the outer curve of his tea cup. He wanders away, towards one of the tall windows, and takes a moment to eye the street outside of the Sanctum. All clear, no sign of any undead shenanigannery.
"She speaks the truth," he says over his shoulder, back at them by the hovering tea tray. "Avoid it if you value your life." Back to the window and its wane light that silvers the steam rising from the remains of his drink.
*
"You don't have to worry about me," Lindon says. "I have no intention of going anywhere near the place. With the rare exception of me finding a book that's better off with you, I go out of my way to avoid all of this sort of magic, supernatural stuff. It's a minefield of triggers." He shakes his head. No, nope, nada. No thank you. He eyes Wanda sideways, then asks Strange, "Does she know what I am? Should she? I kinda hate to be so vague around her. Like people don't know when you're doing that."
*
There will be a moment in abject silence wherein the witch pours herself another cup of tea. The actions take very little effort on her part, rote by nature, allowing Strange the cover to immediately teleport away as far as he can, and start gating at rapid while the ghosts of Ancient Ones past berate him for allowing the stove to be left on and all the leylines to boil unattended.
No response to the side eye. None at all. Not even like she heard it.
*
Nothing like moments of abject silence. One can see the rise and fall of Strange's shoulders as he weighs options. Retreat is not likely, but weathering a grumpy Witch? Highly possible.
"Wanda. Meet the Archive, a living repository of all the possible knowledge known to mankind and beyond." The Sorcerer turns to face the two of them, looking dignified and absolutely certain that he's not in the wrong here.
Simply forgetful.
"I believe another sorcerer attempted to create a relic and Lindon happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time." He nods to the Archive as if encouraging him to speak further.
*
Lindon shrugs a shoulder and tells Wanda, so shyly, "That's more or less the situation. I got hit by the spell instead, hit by magical lightening." He fidgets with the cup in his hand. "And I was in a coma for eight days, and I woke up with all this stuff in my head." Hello, my name is Lindon and I'm a relic.
He looks at Wanda with speculation. Will she see him as a thing or a person? Did she see him as a person before? For all his knowledge, these are the things he can't figure out. "It's just the 'beyond' part of that knowledge tends to tear my mind in half and makes me go mad."
*
A living repository of all that is and was. For some the revelation a walking library might be a thrill. A wonder. It may be a just cause for celebration or black jealousy flowering in the belly. For Wanda, content with what she is at the best of times, she straightens three of her rings and nods. "You are Lindon."
Not the Archive, not the man with the plans of all plans, the Archive. A polite answer of acceptance more than anything. Then again, how would he react to 'Hello, I am the middle of all reality and my teacher were the supreme evil cultist's best friend and someone who remembers Atlantis in its heyday? Oh yes, and I live with Mr. Doctor Strange and his Mystics Three.'
*
The Sorcerer smiles to himself. There we go. Acknowledgment that the Archive is first, and foremost, a human being with a Name.
"Hence, the tea," he adds on the tail end of Lindon's thought about the burden of such near-limitless knowledge within his skull. "The headaches come after said 'beyonding'. They aren't too unlike overdrawing from Mystical reserves."
*
Lindon smiles at Wanda, and in the moment he looks so utterly human. Some things cut through the relentless knowledge. Those rare times of feeling like a person in the most uncomplicated way. "Thank you," he says to her. "I like to think so." Who knew it would be Wanda of all people to make him feel the most at ease?
He eyes Strange then. 'Beyonding. That's a word I hadn't thought about." He's not sure what he thinks of it. "I've called them visions. Spells sound a bit confusing. And I feel compelled to record what comes to me, hence the journals. But the stuff in them, in the wrong hands…"
*
Who knew that a girl like that can come up with a remotely human expression? Well, truth be told, that's just chance now and then, and eventually someone has to come up with sixes on the wheel of luck. Her expression is still limited in part, drawn, and caught in the vagaries of the teacup while she sips the hot brew. She nods to Lindon's declaration.
*
"The journals are in good hands, have no fear." Strange inclines his head towards the little stack on the desk. "I'll take others as they show up." He won't go about denying that it's likely that Lindon will experience more Archival moments. "They'll be safe. After all, you're still not poisoned or disemboweled. It extends to all within the confines of the Sanctum." A litle smile here.
*
Lindon's brow knits when Strange brings up poison and disemboweling. See, he's not worried about these things til they get mentioned. He looks toward a window, trying without much success not to look nervous. "What if another sorcerer wanted the information?" he asks, "And, for the sake of argument, let's say he wasn't the absolute worst person? I'm not really drawn to anyone, it's not my nature, but if that ever happened, do I still report to you, or?" Just to whom does the Archive belong when he isn't belonging to himself?
*
After a moment's consideration, Lindon decides he doesn't actually want to know the answer to that question. He doesn't want to know exactly how beholden to the Sorcerer Supreme he is, and he he really doesn't want to contemplate bonding with anyong. Period. "Actually, don't worry about it. I should get going." He gets to his feet, bobs his head at Wanda as he says, "It was good to meet you, Wanda. I'll just…" And, as he's done before, he takes his leave by simply wandering toward the door with an awkward, "Bye."