Wednesday in the Cemetary with a Paperclip
{{ | date=05/31/2018 | time=10:00 EST | summary=Catching up with Wednesday | cast=
| place_name=Trinity Cemetery | log=It's midmorning and a cemetery is a relaxing place, especially one that is away from all the noise of the city. Alma loves being immersed in that, but sometimes it's nice to get away from the rapids bouncing over all of those rocks and just hang out in a nice lake or something. Maybe today is a lake. She's sitting on the ground crosslegged style, back against a headstone. Next to her is a collaposable grabber, and a bag of trash. She's tidied up the place but hasn't strapped the grabber to her bike yet. Note is having fun. Right now she's dropping detritus in Alma's lap. Sometimes a piece of grass falls in the notebook Alma is currently working in and she laughs with a "hey". It's not a scolding "hey", it's affection. Everynow and then a twig gets handed back to Note so Note can drop it again.
Whistling comes from far down the row of memorials - it sounds like a very high-pitched version of Metallica's "Enter Sandman." Approaching Alma, Wednesday digs into an interior pocket of his coat for a moment before producing a large, unfolded paperclip, which he instead tucks into his upper outside coat pocket so that it peeks out invitingly. He considers Alma, head tilting, hat brim bobbing a bit, and stops well short. The song cuts out, and he smiles. "Hope I'm not interrupting."
That's some dope whistling, and Alma looks up to see Wednesday with his badass self and a trenchoat trenchcoat flaring out behind him because that is how trenchcoats work here. Trenchoats are also fucking dope. [Alma player is a bit punchy today so you get some broken wall here, dudes. We apologize for the inconvience. - Ed.] "Not at all," Alma says, still looking at her notebook. If she was busy she'd just give a "hey" and keep writing, But she looks up to see the head bobbing and checks for earbuds. Maybe the dude has a career in whistling karoake? Note has a hat to land on, so many places to land. Land on the brim and flap balance? that's a fun game. No, maybe she'll start on the tip top. Wednesday has a visitor.
Earbudless, Wednesday grins at Note's choice of perch, before carefully lowering himself to sit on the ground. "Met Mr. Gomez - Jim - again, yesterday. It went more smoothly, then." Digging in a lower pocket, "And I have those maps I told you about, she gave me copies." Probably referring to Alexandra Van Der Rohe.
"Ooooooh! Maps!" She bounces excitedly waiting for the maps to come out (from the very sensible pocket of which she approves). "Glad you got to meet Jim with things going smoothly. I think the chanting might have discombobulated him. Normally he jokes around a lot more. Did he explain the White Zone thing? I finally remember where I heard about it before. I was talking with Zach a while back and he mentioned it. I'll try to remembre to ask him about it. Maybe it's a different name for something I know about?"
Wednesday pulls his smartphone from the pocket, looking apologetic for the lack of physical maps. Explaining, "I was going to sketch them, but then I figured I wanted to talk to her about who she wanted to have access to them, so I just asked for digital copies." He starts tapping at the phone, and looks up. "I can send you what I have." More taps, and the phone drops back into the pocket. "Yeah - he thought I was claiming the chanting was actually raven!" He beams, seeming to find this -really- amusing. "I explained what I was doing - I don't know if he got it, but I might seem less batty to him, now. I'm not sure about that Zone he was talking aobut - we didn't get to it, sadly."
"That makes a lot of sense. I don't want to give just anyone my data right now." Her phone buzzes and she takes it out to look at the maps. She's pinching and zooming and panning. While staring at her phone she asks, "What am I looking at exactly, before and after?"
"The one labeled 'The Woodward Plan' is an old map of the plan for Detroit. She thinks he was a Hermetic or member of the Society of Ether, and built the city to funnel magical power into...something. You can compare that to the modern city map - where city renovations and expansion seems to ruin that 'plan.' And then the sketched one is her illustration of how the changes to the city recently seem to be a return to that Woodward Plan. There's another map that shows the renovations around the 50s'."
"What makes magical power grow? I've been wondering about the magical ecosystem, and what type of," She makes quotes with her fingers, "biodiversity is needed for healthy magical growth." She pauses and consideres it for a moment. "And is there some sort agribusiness factory farm kinda thing? So lke, whoever this is, is it there goal to get a lot all the time?"
Wednesday's brow furrows a bit, his grin lightens. "Big questions - I don't know that I understand where how it's generated, but I know it's here, and it can move along natural lines - rivers are great. There are locations where that power sort of...pools. They have lots of names, Caerns, Nodes, whatever. But I haven't felt any in the whole area around Detroit, and VDR said something about there not being any. And that plan seems to prevent it from pooling here. The 50s renovations, too, actually, she said the Order recorded the Caerns fading away." He sighs. "So someone is to, yeah - get a lot, all the time - so whatever they are doing with it has to be huge."
"The mapping I'm doing... ecosystems are complicated, you know? There's this concept called patch dynamics, and you have edge effects..." Alma continues slightly more so that Wednesday can get a vague enough idea for what she means so that she can make the upcoming analogy work for him. "And I see what you are saying about rivers and things. Well, the mapping I'm doing? I'm trying to wrap my head around how this new ecology works. It's all related. I'm mapping different patches... and terrains... and it's like, you know that people think and it affects things? Or, we feel? and there are images of us that are spirits... that's all it. And I don't know how it grows." "And why would someone want to rezone things... development... and in Chicago, TIFs... well, I don't know Detroit. and I don't know what makes power. Money... it might make all kinds of power. Does *it* flow like a river. Or, city ordinances... do *they* route power around? YOu know? Like that?" "So I'm mapping these things out. Not just for places where I can see through the shroud." She points over away from Trinicy Cemeter. "I did it! Over there. Have you met someone named Rei?"
"Rei?" Wednesday shakes his head, planting his hands behind him and leaning back. "Can...they look through the, the shroud, too?" He's grinning, but watching Alma carefully. "I think that under-essence of magick -can- be routed on purpose - think of highways, and how many people are focused on their commutes, and how they -feel- there." He nods, sort of to himself. "I haven't worked out the right charms for messing with that sort of power - well," eyebrows waggling, "...not really."
"Noooo? I don't think so." She says, about Rei. "They just noticed it happening and came out to check on Kai. They're friends. She seems a bit reserved and cautious about people, but I think she really is interested in meeting other people like us. Do you want to meet? She's interesting. Maybe I'll go to Arthur's place and invite her to go with me. Hey do you know bats and other insectovores? Like, they are often crepuscular. Maybe she's crepuscular. Watching over Kai in dawn and dusk." Note has been walking around on the top of Wednesday's hat. It's a nice hat. Now she starts a little flap flutter on the edge of it.
Wednesday keeps his head as still as he can, for the crowfriend. "I know -of- bats, and a few other things, but no personal friends among them, sorry."
"Me either, but they're so cool. And people can sometimes click with their tongues and sort of get a feel for their surroundings? I read about that. I don't know if I can do it. I can see things sometimes? you know? But I haven't seen vibrations. DID YOU KNOW BEES CAN PERCEIVE CHARGE! And people can too!" This has been blowing her mind and her mind was even more blown when she found out people can do it to. "I never even thought about it. Can you feel trees? Kai can do that. So, just think if you linked in to a bee? It would be cool as shit. Bats might be tricky... Hey did you know Donald Griffin?"
Wednesday grins more widely. "Bees?" His eyes widen slightly. "Oh, is that was that feeling is? I have a charm that lets me feel the living things around me, and one that lets me...'ride' an animal's senses. I haven't done it that often with bees, so I wasn't sure - they're senses are so different, it's hard to know what is what..."
"Holy fucking shit, Wednesday, that is so cool!"
The reaction seems to hit his funnybone, and Wednesday pulls his arms out from behind him, falling backwards, laughing, careless of the bird on his hat. "It -is- pretty cool. Losing youself for an afternoon and just...flying, searching for food. It's not just visual, it's everything. It's perspective."
Alma is laughing at that point too, a lot. She settles down a little, "Yeah, and consciousness, maybe, is like how all this comes together and integrates. It's so amazing. Before I studied corvid intelligence, I was focused on human cognition... but I read some of the stuff Donald Griffin worked on. He did early work in bat echolocation... but what really got me was him being willing to talk about animal intelligence... animal sapience. This was when there was still a lot of hesitation to talk about that stuff." She looks a little more serious and points at Note who has finally gotten around to investigating Wednesday's pocket. "I don't hear Tradition people thinking about them. It's all about humans. It's that way in society in general. It's the same. I thought maybe people like us would be more englightened."
Still on his back, watching the sky, Wednesday replies, "They certainly think, feel. But their thoughts and feelings don't seem to change the world like human people do - but yeah, that doesn't mean we shouldn't pay attention." He reaches his hand up to the sky, maybe stretching, maybe imagining himself touching the dome of the world. "I mean, I still eat meat, but maybe less than I did. I'm not sure how much more 'enlightened' we are."
"I'm going with maybe the society of the Traditions is about the same. just humans, like other groups. I got a little gobsmacked when all this started... everyone was wonderful. It was like all of existence? people? were all just out to help me. each other. that ever happen to you?" She looks up at the sky too. "I don't know how to tell, how to really know, that they don't change things around htem. Maybe they change something you can't detect." She looks down over where Note is pulling a paperclip out. She laughs and says, I don't know about that guage, Wednesday. You might have a grumpy crow in a second."
"I think that with all the people since the Wyck who knew charms of the mind and of magickal power, we'd know if they could - but maybe we don't. Perspective." He lets his arm fall with a thump. "I had a couple sort of adopt me into their circle shortly after I was visited by High, Highest, and the Third. They were great...for a long while...but it was just us three. I don't have a lot of first hand experience with other Traditions until I came here."
"People didn't really have ways for a long time to understand how other animals think. It's still extremely difficult to get at. I'm thinking it will be just as hard to understand magical power in other animals. Just keep that in mind, ok?" She's picked up her notebook again and is doodling in it. She looks up now and again and smiles at Note, who has pulled out the paperclip and is stepping on one end of it and attempting to flex it. "You'd say I woke up here. For a while the only person I knew who was part of a tradition was None, my mentor. I haven't even met many other of us. There's a guy named Ezekiel around here. Have you met?"
"I'm keeping an open mind, and I don't want to be -that- charm-bearer who claims that his Tradition is superior, but the Verbena have run with birds and beasts since before we wrote things down. We've been blind to things before, though, so it's possible. I can't travel to the Astral, yet, but when I can, I'll keep an eye out, I swear." He sits up again, slowly, so as to not add to Note's frustrations. "Ezekiel, of the Euthanatos." He nods. "He and Kai were the first charm-bearers I met in town. He seemed uncomfortable, and I haven't seen him since. Is he alright?"
"I don't know. I haven't seen him around either. I should start looking harder. Is the Astral like the Shroud? I've been looking across it. I don't know how to go there yet. My mentor said to consider what the dead are talking about, and I haven't really heard anything. It's not normal for things to be so quiet? What does it look like to you?"
Wednesday frowns a bit at the news that she hadn't seen Ezekiel. "The Astral Realms are...places of concepts, ideas, thoughts. I reach into it with some of my charms. I don't have any real experience with the Shroud, or the lands beyond it, but I've read a bit, talked to my old circle about it. But I can't see it, or past it, yet."
"I'm thinking Ezekiel might know more. Maya--maybe I could ask her." Alma looks at where the sun is in hte sky. "I should get going. Do you want to meet Rei? I could introduce you."
Wednesday rolls to his feet, careful to allow Note to hop away. "That would be great, Alma. I want to know more about the other Traditions, besides what I was taught by mine." He dusts off his coat, and straightens his hat. }}
