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March 4, 2003
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Senses Arboretum - Dark Kew Gardens
(#15322RFJ)...
Nash is slumped in a deckchair outside a
greenhouse, tea steaming in his hands. His posture is that of the
slightly unwell.
Jazmin slides her trump away, glancing
around, "Evening."
Yosannah meanders into the greenhouse.
She regards her surroundings.
A large, tall building, glass
and open skylights contained by a steel framework painted white. The
only illumination is orange ambient light from the street behind the
brick wall that runs along one side of the aboretum outside - foxes
flitting past it's base occasionally on their quest for quality
rubbish bins to raid.
The interior of the arboretum is cloaked
in greenery. Trees ranging from slender, smooth barked silver birches
to broad, rough oak trees - small trees with tiny copper leaves,
cedars spicing the air and weeping willows rustling to the tune of a
rock water feature in the far corner. Fruit trees are also dotted
about inabundance, the scents of oranges, apples and plums mingling
with the deeper smells of moss and earth.
Amongst all of this are the tactile
sculptures. Corpses, some preserved with plastics technology and
frozen in poses, flayed with some bones and organs feathered out that
they might be touched and explored. Skeletal frameworks made from
many bodies and arranged in sweeping curves to support grapevines.
Some fresh bodies are hanging whole and naked from supports in tree
branches, or on low benchesas if they had just seated themselves to
take a rest. Adults and children alike- dogs, cats and even a horse,
propped up securely so that the hide and hooves can all be felt and
appreciated without danger of being fallen on. It would seem that
once bodies begin to decay past a certain point, they are plowed into
the ground to fertilise the trees - moss covered bones as prolific in
the lush grass as stones.
Nash snaps his head up and squints. "Meh.
Hello ..." he looks around, squining even harder towards Yosannah and
asking Jazmin, "Who's that? We're closed."
Jazmin shrugs to Nash, heading closer,
"Dunno, was going to ask you."
Yosannah regards both Jazmin and Nash
cooly. She moves from the entry way into the light, "Hello, Nash."
She regards him intently.
Nash looks Yosannah up and down, his eyes
a trifle vague and misty. "Sounds like Yosannah." he sniffs. "Smells
like ... actually I can't smell a damn thing over the
mint."
Yosannah looks about the area as she
moves toward Nash, "I'd say you look well, but that would be a
lie."
Nash takes a sip of his tea. "Actually,
I'm a bloody marvel. How are you? Have you seen my garden
before?"
Anubis appears admist swirling sands that
lightly fall to the ground with his entry.
Yosannah looks down at Nash from his
place in the chair and then considers before answering, "No. I have
not. What is this place?" Yosannah notes Anubis as he arrives. She
squints lightly at him as if in faint recognition.
Nash is in a deckchair, sipping tea and
viewing Yosannah myopically. At Anubis' arrival, he tilts his head to
the sound of the sand, squinting off that way. His reply to Yosannah
is therefore somewhat distracted. "Blind people touching things, you
know?"
Jazmin flops into a deckchair not to far
from Nash's, glancing over to Anubis as he arrives.
Anubis looks at Yosannah in return and
speaks, dry tone familiar beneath his mask, "Pestilence."
Yosannah crosses her arms over her chest
and nods, "In a manner of speaking."
A grin lights Nash's thin face. "Anubis!"
Anubis gives Jazmin a nod before saying
to Nash, "I came to check upon our mummification ritual." He then
says to Yosannah, "I am the Walking face of Death."
Nash ah's, "Well, he hit the appointed
hour and I put him back in stasis so that he'd keep for when you and
/the boy/ could get back together." some emphasis put on the mention
of the child. "How's my head? It's fine, thanks for asking. Bit
muggy, eyeballs a bit crapped out - headaches gone,
though."
Yosannah squints at Anubis, not
commenting. To the careful observer, she grinds her teeth.
Jazmin notes to Nash, "You sound better
than when last I saw you."
Anubis says to Nash, "I had no doubt as
to your ability to recover."
Nash raises his tea slightly at Jazmin's
words, "Most efficacious. That and me being a marvel and all." and to
Anubis, "Gotcha. Noted. Filed."
Jazmin snickers softly, "I'm saving up my
wisdom." she informs Nash.
Yosannah waits quietly.
Anubis then says to Yosannah, "You have
something to say?" grip on his pole tightening a bit.
Yosannah says, "Tell me about this
place."
Nash seems to assume that's directed at
Anubis, since he sips his tea again with out comment.
Anubis says to Yosannah, "It is a place
of rest." gesturing either at Nash, the corpses, or both, with his
pole as he speaks.
Yosannah says, "I'm not interested in
ambiguity." She turns to Nash, "You tell me then."
Nash raises an eyebrow, "It's a council
funded public service - a senses garden and educational facility for
the blind." He says this in the manner of one reciting a pitch. Then,
in a tone more appropriate for speaking of ones offspring, "I made
it, it's nice, isn't it?"
Yosannah offers simply, "No."
Anubis says to Yosannah, "An attempt was
made to meet in Hells Kitchen. But for unknown reasons, I cannot
travel there."
Yosannah turns her head to Anubis. She
asks, "Who did you intend to meet?"
Nash wrinkles his nose slightly at
Yosannah's response, "Those that can't, criticise?"
Yosannah flashes Nash a glare.
Jazmin gets out of her chair to make
herself a mug of tea, "Anyone else want tea?"
Nash offers his mug out to Jazmin for a
refill, either ignoring or oblivious to the glare.
Anubis pauses before speaking. He raises
his nose slightly, sniffing in Yosannah's direction. He does not
answer the tea question.
Yosannah regards Anubis
intently.
Nash laces his fingers together across
his stomach. He doesn't look as relaxed as he did, although the air
of someone with an ailment still lingers about him.
Anubis says to Yosannah, "Are you here as
Pestilence or no?" finally.
Yosannah seems doubtful now, "Can't you
tell?" She tilts her head.
Nash notes quietly, "She done lost her
collar, Snoops and that wrought changes someplace, somehow."
Anubis says to Yosannah, "I wish to be
sure." He then says to Nash, "Explain."
Nash takes the tea without hesitation.
"Thanks." and then says to Anubis. "She wore a silver collar. It was
a point of contention for some reason I never discovered. It's gone
now and last time I got a good look at her it looked like it was
removed by force. She's been friendly to me also, which is ... eh,
unusual."
Yosannah regards nash with cool eyes.
Anubis ahs and says, "I am unsure how
much it matters. We have not been the Horsemen for many a
season."
Nash sips his tea, "Well, I was just
passing on observations ... you seemed interested."
Yosannay says, "You are what you are.
Whether you think it matters or not."
Anubis says to Yosannah, "Unless one is
anything one can imagine. Then it matters a great deal."
Nash frowns slightly over his tea,
"Yosannah, why don't you just let things be? Things have been
trucking along very fine and smooth as far as I can tell. Doesn't
need anyone to grit the grease. You seem to be looking for fault
today - or looking to make some."
Yosannah turns to regard Nash, "I'm not
sure what it is that's going on here, Nash. I seem to recall that
you stalked me for several months so as to fill in some empty pages
of a ridiculous investigation you were conducting. And I told *you*
to let things be regarding the horsemen, for your own good." She
huhs, "And here you are, dancing with the devil."
Jazmin asks, "But is it in the pale
moonlight?"
Anubis says, "This is not the form of the
devil, though no doubt those lay within as well."
Yosannah ignores Anubis statement.
Nash turns his vagueness towards Anubis,
"You could lay your fur down further too, you know." And in response
to Yosannah, you were half right when you told me to let things be. I
should never have rattled Dalt's chain. Now? I stick with my buddy -
devil or no. Serpent knows some evil bastards have had their hands on
me time to time. I'm happy, Yo. You can fault that all you want, but
I've smiled more this year than all the years before - if I die
tomorrow, it's been worth it."
Yosannah scawfs, "And you just might get
your wish, stupid fool." She motions at Anubis, "This is not your
friend." She urges, "And the next time the Serpant calls pestilence
from me, I won't be your friend either." She shakes her head, "Damn
stupid fool."
Anubis nods to Nash and then says to
Yosannah, "Who are you to speak for me." a low growl sounding within
his mask.
Nash sips his tea, "I know you're not my
friend, Yosannah - we are aquaintances at our best. I know my friends
and they are with me. Trust is better than power, or gold or trumps.
And I have untold riches."
Yosannah flashes a stare at Anubis, as she does the color drains from her eyes and they begin to fill like dark pools, "You know of what I speak. Death is an indiscriminate killer. And the next time the Serpent calls, or whatever it is that directs our hands , a label of *friendship* won't save him." She motions at Nash and spats, "You *know* this. As doI. You do Nash a disservice by lingering here."
Anubis retorts, "Unlike you, I have well
come to terms with what and who I am. Shattered, I am still more
whole than you." he snarls.
Nash sips his tea, "I'll cross the river
at his bidding, or by his side. Friends, always. A promise I have
complete faith in, even unto death."
Yosannah looks to Anubis,"Come to terms?
As if your will were your own. Or perhaps that's just your 'host'
speaking." She scawfs.
Anubis explains to Yosannah, "There are
many wills within. And perhaps you are correct. Perhaps Death lies
more dormant than I know. Or perhaps it has yet to fully enter. But I
have faith in Death. A faith you lack."
Nash says "You know, everyone said Famine
would eat me. Never did. The host clearly influences the spirit,
given that the current Famine probably would eat me if I was in her
way."
"That is certainly not the
point."
Jazmin sets her empty mug on the
floor.
Anubis looks thoughtful hearing Nash's
words and then asks Yosannah, "What is the point?"
Nash raises his eyebrows, "Isn't
it?"
Yosannah says, "No. And in all this time
of researching these beings you haven't figured this out? I'm
starting to think you deserve whatever torment you get."
Nash ah's, "Back to the 'Nash is an
idiot' tack. I haven't /been/ studying the spirits of the Horsemen as
anything more than attachments to my main interest. And I was
refering to /your/ point - since you're the one claiming my friend is
lacking in friendship - a status I believe I am in a better position
to judge than you."
"Nash, listen to what I'm going to say,
because I'm only going to say this one more time."
Anubis seems very attentive to Yosannah's
words now.
Nash tilts a hand, "Go ahead."
Yosannah crouches before Nash, she rests
her arms on her knees, "Look at me." The dark pools drain from her
eyes and the color begins to return, "I can be your friend. I can
chose to be your friend." She continues.
Nash squints briefly at Yosannah in her
proximity before turning this gaze onto Anubis, worry tripping across
his muddy eyes, though his comment is clearly directed at Yosannah.
"Move back. Speak your piece further away."
Yosannah nods, "But Pestilence cannot. No
matter how much I wish it were so, her will is not her own. It's not
even mine." She studies his face looking for some sort of
understanding, "And when she is manifest through me, it is through
the will of something greater then any of us that she is called and I
have no control of what she.. it does."
Yosannah sighs, "Nash... if she and the
others were called right now, maybe because this shadow's time had
come, there would be nothing I could do to protect the people here
that I care about." She remains where she is "You. Stone. Damen." She
smirks, "Even that damn Mr. Smith in Dover,.. there'd be nothing that
their friend, Yo, could do to save them."
Anubis hmms as he nods, "It is different
for each of us. Hank, for one, was no different than Famine. Perhaps
it was his simple mind. Perhaps it was a deeper understanding. He
would not think of his will and Famine's being different."
Yosannah regards Anubis and
nods.
The low centre of gravity of deckchairs
is the only thing that keeps Nash in his as he boots against the
ground to scoot it away from Yosannah, curls of grass and dirt
gouging up from the wooden rail. He spills his tea on his shirt,
though. "I said /further away!/"
Yosannah sighs and stands. She turns her
back to Nash as she moves to Anubis, "I don't know who you are. But
if you really do value your friendship with Nash, you'd do well to
leave this shadow and save him from yourself." She drops her head,
"Now if only I could follow my own advice." She hehs and shakes her
head, regarding Jazmin quietly.
Nash hurls his mug away to the side, one
set of fingers curling inwards tightly, "There's the difference right
there. You don't listen to anything but the yapping inside your own
head unless it's yelled at you." and to Anubis, "Get over here, will
you? Serpent, I'm freaking. I hate that."
Anubis looks at Yosannah and says, "If
you ask me if I would hestitate for one moment to do my duty should
the time arise, I would tell you 'no'. But I have faith in the
Serpent's wisdom. As do all who I befriend. Seperation from me
protects no one." He starts moving towards Nash, pole tapping on the
ground.
"I'd wish you all well, but Christ knows
we're all likely to go to hell." She adds for Anubis' benefit, "Know,
though, that I have sensed a lingering shadow in my mind. We'll all
be meeting again soon." She turns to make her way toward the
door.
Nash levers himself out of the deckchair,
flapping his soggy shirt with one hand and placing the other,
briefly, on Anubis' shoulder once he's close enough as if just to
reassure himself his vision isn't lying. "I don't need saving from
other people's fears. I have enough fears of my own. Him telling me
my time's up is an accepted fate sometime down the line."
Jazmin nods quietly to Yosannah,
maintaining her silence.
Anubis nods to Yosannah, "I shall look
forward to it." he replies ernestly. He stands, leaning on his pole.