♨ 1 (video)

[fiteclub]

[For those of you still wondering what those fancy hand mirrors were for, well, it looks like there's no need to wonder that much longer.]

A mirror will let me see... Mon, what's that even supposed to mean?

[The comment itself is half muttered, not quite fully voiced aloud, but still readily audible as the visuals change, swerving from half tilted to the sky before it is aimed in the direction of the face of a black teenager, who upon getting a look at herself immediately tries to carefully comb a few leaves and twigs out of the curling mass of hair held off her shoulders in a ponytail, before giving up.]

I guess it'll come in use later.

Comments

[awfulcer]

[Dixon hasn't spent much time with the ornate mirror. It isn't immediately interesting like the shield, nor does it appear to have much value besides reminding him how half his face is covered in burn scars. So he has it tucked in his back pocket and has all but forgotten about it as he tries to hack up some wood with the sharp edge of his shield for their campfire. He isn't doing it with any sense of technique, more just working out some frustrations into a bunch of woodchips that were once a felled tree.

The sound of someone speaking from directly behind (and a little bit below) him makes him startle, and he takes a second to realize where the sound came from and whip the mirror out.]

What the hell is this? Who the hell are you? How'd you get this... [number?]...thing to turn on?

[He's never seen this girl before in his life, and, through no fault of her own, he's immediately set to dislike her for interrupting his breaking-shit-therapy-hour.]

[fiteclub]

[Welp, wasn't expecting that kinda close-up.]

Some kinda magic mirror? I mean, it can't be anything else. [Not with what she's been able to see of it, and with landing in some woods like she has. Plus, she has a decent instinct for the mystical, at least.] I just kinda started talking in front of it, I didn't expect it to actually do anything.

I'm Anita.

You?

[awfulcer]

Sure, why not. Why not a magic fucking mirror. [Dixon doesn't say that so much to Anita as to whatever powers that be, and he throws his hands up a bit, which probably makes the view into the mirror a bit disorienting before he looks at it in his palm again.]

Dixon. And if these things are voice-activated that's not great. [God, what kind of things might end up accidentally broadcast? He tries to squint past her to see what the background is.] Where are you? Are you in the temple?

[fiteclub]

The what? No, I'm in some kind of woods. [She holds the mirror back so he can get a better look at the particular grouping of cedar trees shes found herself near.]

Even if it's some kind of voice activation, it's probably not the only thing doing it.

[Hopefully.]

[awfulcer]

Oh. There's a temple around here where we're staying at. [If it should have occurred to Dixon to not advertise their location, it hasn't!

He's in the woods too, and he holds the mirror so she can see as well. At the same time, he tries to suss out what sort of trees those are behind her, in case he's seen a grove of them. May as well figure out if they're even in the same forest.]

I'd hope not. Otherwise you'd be listening in on a bunch of people who ain't thinking you're listening on them.

[fiteclub]

I'm sure it's got its own rules it follows, we just gotta learn what they are, first. [It's said with the confidence of someone who's spent enough time with magic, or even just non Earth-tech in general. A magic mirror has to be basic, if it's supposed to pretty much act like a replacement phone.]

What's this temple look like? Are there any landmarks nearby?

[awfulcer]

You can test them. Once we're done here I'm throwing this thing in the lake. [Dixon doesn't reflect any of Anita's confidence, but there is a certain determination in his voice when it comes to the idea of just not investing any energy in this magical shit anymore.]

I don't know. It's in the woods and it looks like a temple. [He's not great at this. After a moment of rooting around in his thoughts (which is accompanied by a facial expression), he comes up with] Can you hear singing? Kind of quiet and creepy? There are a bunch of statues making that noise in the temple. Follow that.

[fiteclub]

[Dixon, that's a real awful way of putting it.]

Mon, you know that's exactly what you're not supposed to do in horror movies, right?

[She does pause for a bit, closing her eyes to check to see if she hears any singing, creepy or otherwise. After a half minute or so:]

Huh, I think I do hear something.

[awfulcer]

Does this look like a horror movie? It looks more like some dumb fantasy bullshit to me.

[He's already kind of ambling and looking around when she speaks again, having lost interest in the conversation while she's listening. He looks almost surprised to hear her say something again.]

I can let them know you're on your way so we don't think you're some kind of enemy or something.

[Granted, if she is some kind of enemy, Dixon has absolutely not done any sort of screening of her whatsoever. He's just assuming everyone who shows up is in the same dumb boat as the rest of the group is.]

[fiteclub]

Thanks. I promise I'm not an enemy.

[Not that that would be worth anything if it was, but still.]

And it might seem like 'dumb fantasy', but trust me when I say the line isn't always that clear cut between the two. [Even if something about these woods is... different from what she's used to. A whole lot different. You can bet she'll be treading lightly.]

[awfulcer]

[Checks out!]

Great, so you're from some magic place too. I swear I'm the only person from anywhere normal. ['Normal' being relative is neither something that's really occurred to Dixon or that would stick if someone tried to argue it. He's pretty stubbornly committed to believing everyone else is weird and that he's very put upon as a result.]

You wouldn't happen to be a smoker, would you?

[Priorities.]

[fiteclub]

[She raises an eyebrow at the request.]

For the record, I'm fifteen.

[And both her dad and current adult guardian are feds. Definitely no smokes.]

And I hate to break it to you, but the bayou and then some suburbs probably don't count as magic places.

[awfulcer]

So?

[As if Dixon didn't start smoking when he was too young to drive or hold a bass note.]

Don't they practice voodoo in the bayou? That's more magic than I know. Might do you some use out here, they got all kinds of weird shit. Monsters with big pizza cutters on their arms and all. Fucking bullshit.

[He absentmindedly drums his fingertips against his lower lip, really clearly nicfitting and cranky about it.]

[fiteclub]

[Oh yeah, that would have turned out so well for her.]

Well, mon, when I was younger there was supposed to be an old voodoo witch who lived nearby, but I don't think that sort of thing would've worked on the sorta horror movie monster's you're describing.

[Should she be leading him on like this? Well....]

[awfulcer]

Well, I don't really know the limitations of voodoo witches now, do I? [He scowls.] For all I know they can enchant kitchen tools into things that attack people. For all I know a witch is doing this whole thing. It's not like we got a lot of explanations.

[fiteclub]

I doubt a witch has enough power to drag people away from their worlds like this.

The whole whisper in your ear thing before you woke up here, you didn't you get that? It was at least something.

[Even if it wasn't much.]

[awfulcer]

I don't know, how well do you know witches? I'm just going to say it's witches. [Dixon's just about willing to pin this on anything at this point - not because he's terribly curious about the answer but just so people can stop spending their waking days theorizing about it. He's about had it to here with theorizing. A lot of thinking hard for not much by now.]

Nah, I definitely got it. Would have been nice if it explained shit a bit more thorough.

[fiteclub]

Things like that don't really go for a lot of explaining, I guess. [At least they have an idea of what they're supposed to be doing?

Honestly, we're lucky we even got that much. As vague as it is. [Especially with the mirrors.]

[awfulcer]

Guess we got to just do it. [Dixon harrumphs, but the truth is that he's adapting to the saving-the-world part of this much better than he could have expected. It's everything else that's falling down around his ears.]

This Green better be worth saving, is all I'll say.