Pryde and Wisdom's House - School House Road The front door opens into a large pale-green living room, in which there is quite possibly more furniture than there was in Pryde and Wisdom's entire last apartment. On the left-hand wall from the door, a couch covered with a plain white sheet is grouped with an armchair and a low table and a bookcase, all by a stone fireplace. Off to the right, more bookcases flank a computer table that looks slightly forlorn with just Kitty's laptop and a printer set up on it. The bookcases are mostly empty, though a scattering of paperbacks and an entire shelf of battered textbooks occupy one, and a few videotapes and a brass sextant keep another from looking entirely abandoned. The pirate flag from their last place is missing from the walls. Neither has the usual state of mild chaos quite reasserted itself - the stack of newspapers on the low table is orderly, and the ashtray at the far end of it is kept, if not empty, not overflowing either. Directly opposite the door, a staircase spirals up to the second floor; by it are a small hallway and the doorway into the brightly-lit kitchen. ****************************************************************************** Today's Weather: A snowstorm rages through the downtown streets of Beacon Harbor today, blanketting the ground in endless layers of blinding snow. Smoke rises from the rooftops of nearby homes, while shops are closing early to avoid the horrible road conditions sure to follow. ****************************************************************************** There has at least been an attempt made at keeping the front walk clear, today, despite the pointlessness of it. That is to say, there's only an inch or so of cold white crunchy stuff on the pavement, and thanks to the house interrupting the winds, the steps in front of the door are almost clear. The place is, however, shut tight as usual. About the only way it could appear less inviting, from the outside, is by putting a 'GO AWAY OR DIE' sign in the front yard. What is it with Kitty and snowstorms? Every time Liam needs a word with the woman, there's a blizzard. And it was so /nice/ out yesterday. Why couldn't it be yesterday? Now it's morning, and it should be bright and sunny but instead the angel can't see anything in the blinding snow. He didn't sleep last night, he's freezing cold, and his mood is distinctly off as he banks and carefully descends, just managing to avoid clipping the corner of the roof. At least he didn't have to walk here. Floundering through the drifts -- stupid things are taller every time he comes -- he is quite grateful when he reaches the cleared walk. He knocks on the door. Hi, there's a snowstorm, it must be Liam. It's not Kitty! No, really. More likely it's the lingering effects of the considerable distaste, distrust, and disapproval between Pete and a certain weather goddess back where he came from. Maybe the mother-in-law from hell can inflict horrible weather across universes. It undoubtedly wouldn't surprise Pete any. The door's opened, and Kitty takes a moment to stare even as she's getting out of the way. "You. Inside. Sit. I'll get hot chocolate. Or Guinness. I'd say 'both' except that that's probably some kind of new and innovative form of sacrilege." There is a painting that Liam ought darned well to recognize currently leaned carefully against one of the bookshelves, well out of walkways, /very/ far away from anywhere snow might get shed on it. Apparently a little bird brought it. "Good mornin'," greets Liam, in a tone of weary resignation that implies it really isn't. He does his best to shed most of the snow from his coat before he steps inside. "Sorry to disturb. You know, I'd like to need a word, just once, an' not have it be in a storm. Didn't that used to happen?" Navy eyes glance over Kitty, carefully, just to make sure everything's OK. Kitty seems okay, all right - the house is, actually, a little warmer than usual. Somebody turned up the thermostat a few degrees. "That was before it turned December," she replies. "It'll get better once the southern hemisphere stops hogging all the most direct sunlight again. Word of warning; Pete picked up another stray. Fortunately, the two of them seem to keep the same hours, he's still out cold upstairs and should be for a while. Sit down? Or at least let me get you something to drink while you unfreeze? What's up?" "Stray?" enquires the angel, leaning down to take off his boots. He looks for somewhere to shed his coat, as well -- it's not as wet as it could be, he came here straight from Caritas, instead of from his much lengthier rounds. He will sit down. No sleep sucks. "More of the usual, I'm afraid. Once again, everyone's alright." His eyes light on the painting and he looks approving. Oh good. Kess is so sweet. "Teenager from New Orleans - well, /some/ New Orleans, anyway," Kitty replies. "A portal dropped him in front of the ice rink downtown a couple of days ago." She follows his gaze, and - well, her own eyes light, and that's not a transitive verb in her case. /Liam/ is so sweet. "Kess brought it over yesterday," she says, as she steals his coat. Into the warm spot in the closet with you, where you can dry out. "I - Liam - it's gorgeous. Thank you." And then she gives in and laughs, quick, and adds, "T-shirt and combat boots and all." Pete is still going to be harassed about those things if he lives to be ninety. Then she holds up a finger and ducks into the kitchen. Guinness is returned with, /in/ a glass dammit, even if only on the grounds that it's quicker than heating anything. "Is this the creative value of 'alright' that doesn't stretch any further than 'not physically injured,' or is it more alright than that?" Breakfast Guinness. Kitty really knows how to treat a man. Liam limps his way over to a handy chair, and sits, not without a wary glance at the stairs. There's a stranger upstairs, and his wings are exposed; he has a hard time thinking of this house as being other than safe. "Welcome, lass," is his pleased response. "An' I thought about tidyin' him up, but then it wouldn't've been Pete, would it?" Amused affection in that. Pause. "Ah... more alright than last time, I think." Pause. "Somethin' possessed Lorne again." The chair does not attempt to bite him; that, at least, is safe. And there /are/ signs of Pete's general presence in the area, for a change - newspapers are not in a tidy stack at the end of the table, ashtrays are not empty. Either he's starting to relax, or somebody else is in his usual space. Kitty laughs at Liam's comment, though not as brightly - or as loudly - as she might have normally; no waking the sleepers. "Nope. Wouldn't have been at all." That's /their/ scruffy bastard. Ahem. 'More all right than last time' sobers her neatly, though - that's not saying a whole lot. And then Liam continues after the pause, and for the first instant all Kitty can think of to say is, "/Again/?" "Again," confirms the angel, who, having accepted the Guinness, sips at it. He rubs his fingers over the bridge of his nose, and leans back in the chair. "Don't know if it were the same thing as before. Felt like fire when I touched it, if that makes any sense. Lorne managed to throw it out at the end, so he's not as buggered as last time. An' it left a way back in, but I fixed that, so.... hell, I don't know." He sighs, quietly. "Didn't say much of interest. Seemed... angry, scared, childish. Taunted me a bit. Went on about puzzle pieces, an' a "walker" what sees everythin' an' commands the angels. But it's not as if we didn't know they were obeyin' somethin' else." "A walker." Kitty sits down on the arm of the couch, propping elbow on knee and chin on hand. "And Kess said something about a king in the tower. Wonder if they're the same person. Though she seemed to think the king couldn't leave, which wouldn't leave a lot of room for walking, I guess. The walker seeing everything explains how the angels /know/ so much -" She blinks, straightening a little. "And it might explain more of why Claire talks the way she does. If she doesn't want to be eavesdropped on..." "That's a thought," acknowledges Liam, who stays right where he is, in the comfy chair, with his Guinness. "An' Claire came by, after. Said, in essence, we were makin' too many assumptions, an' not seein' the truth for thinkin' it's somethin' else." He does his very best to keep the quiet frustration from his tone. "She implied that maybe those black angels aren't twisted." He absolutely hates saying that. He doesn't believe it. He sips his Guinness. Pause. "What's Kess to do with this?" Kitty shrugs quietly. "Guesses are all we've got to go by. We can either keep guessing at the rules, and trying to play by the best we can figure out, or we can wait for things to blow up. Unless we can get more context, we don't /have/ any other choices." She half frowns at Liam's addition. "Do you remember her exact words? ... Kess's been having dreams about the whole thing. And been talking to someone else - she got a ring off one of the crows, in some really horrific circumstances, and somebody came looking for it." Kitty's just not going to say 'it was Gollum,' because either that won't mean a thing to Liam and won't be helpful, or it /will/ mean something to him and she'll have to admit to taking 'my precious' seriously. Liam mutters something in Gaelic, and gazes at the far wall, eyes narrowed. He looks irritated. It is not a look that will be directed at Kitty, which is why the wall must suffer. "The one what matches Seishi's?" he asks, after a moment. And, "Claire said... 'you say you've decided the angels are twisted, an' need to be put right'. When she were goin' on about assumptions. An' she kept goin' back to talkin' about a paintin'. Sounded like it were of a man. New eyes, new smile." "It might be," Kitty answers. Absently, her thumb runs over the new ring on her own left hand. Lots of plain platinum bands going around these days. New eyes, new - Suspiciously, she glances toward Liam's own painting, where it leans against the shelves. No, that's only one new eye. "Well. They're definitely twisted in the purely non-technical sense of the word. They went after Lindsey the other day." Which reminds her, and with a slight frown, she adds, "Deimos knows something about the tower. I should've pressed him harder on it, but Lindsey needed a break, and ... well. Deimos looked like he needed one, too. He said something - 'the ka's all twisted, wrong.'" She pauses; there's a faint squint. "I wonder if maybe Claire meant the black-winged angels aren't twisted from /their/ perspective. Or if she thinks they're necessary for something." Saying that last doesn't leave a good taste in her mouth. There's tension running all through Liam, and he covers his expression by lifting the glass to his lips for slightly longer than is strictly necessary. "Is Lindsey alright?" That's a fairly safe question, and necessary. "Physically, he's fine. Otherwise, he's pretty stressed, but it looks like Deimos is managing to help him out." Which feels almost as weird for Kitty to be saying as talking about Gollum would. "Blind leadin' the fuckin' blind," comments Liam, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees. The glass goes on a table. The words, for him, are uncharacteristic, quietly bitter, and he rubs his hands through his hair. "Sorry. Alright. I asked Deimos about the angels, he didn't know anythin'. Didn't think to ask about a tower." Kitty glances toward the stairs absently at that first comment. "I can't argue. On the other hand - sometimes bootstrapping works." The mental image of what she and Pete would be like right now if they hadn't run into each other isn't a pretty one. "Yeah. I almost didn't say anything at all. /He/ didn't say much, come to think of it. Something about needing ..." A quick face is made. "More or less, a particular kind of hero. Ever feel like you're living inside a David Eddings novel?" "No, but I might if I knew who the bloke were." Liam stays where he is, leaning forward now, crossing his arms over his knees. The black wings are folded close to his back, feathers cascading down either side of the chair. "Oh..." No, he has to move after all, rising to limp toward the closet. "Claire left a drawin'. S'in my coat." Kitty half laughs, rueful. "Sorry. Fantasy writer. Obsessed with prophecies and archetypes and people having specific roles... never mind. Me being a geek, not important." It's chatter, very much so, as she comes to her feet to follow. Closet? Drawing? "She said ... they were supposed to leave something behind, if they took whatever it was they were here for. But she's never said - if we were supposed to play along." It's intended for something. But for /what/. "I don't know. She said we could just ride it out, that it wouldn't last. But she also said if we didn't...see... fast enough, there'd be losses. Unnecessary damage." Liam sighs, opening the closet and digging into a pocket. He retrieves his sketchbook and the paper folded carefully therein, before replacing the book. "You know I don't put much stock in...hell, lass, I don't know." Unfolding the paper, he holds it out. ((It looks like a child's think, in crayon and pen and pencil, scribbles and stick figures, symbols and tiny pieces of this and that, all put together, sometimes flowing, sometimes jumbled. There are roses, a tower, stick-figure angels, some with black wings, some with their wings painstakingly outlined, to try and show the white. There are eyes, separated from the rest, drawn to look like Claire's, dark and glittering, done in ink. There are strange and flowing sigils, and some of it looks like cave drawings, and some of it looks like Van Gogh. An infinite landscape of things that could be answers, if one knew the right questions.)) Kitty nods slightly, wordlessly - yes. She knows. Or she doesn't know, which comes to much the same thing. She tips her head to one side to study the paper with him. "The eyes," she says quietly after a moment. "Like Claire's, and Sera's, and one of the ghosts in Japan - one of the ones Seishi met, with the ring. Claire said the black-wings were looking for roses. The tower grows in a field of roses. Heart's blood. Heart of an angel, and it comes back full circle. The shattered world she showed me and Jack - people doing the same things, suffering the same things, over and over again without ever being able to learn better." Kitty hesitates, glancing up at him. "That's what she's seeing, isn't it? This?" She gestures to the drawing. "You're askin' me?" Liam's response is distinctly dry; he offers Kitty half a smile, not /entirely/ devoid of humour. "When she showed it to us, she were tryin' to make her point about assumptions -- it looked like a forest, but if you looked a different way, it were a city. It weren't this until she left. An' I thought the black wings," he uses the term with a trace of irony, considering the feathers on his own back, "were after what's in you? But then again, have you seen 'em since?" "The full and direct quote, and trust me, I have this one /very/ memorized, is, 'Roses, red as heart's blood, and the heart of an angel, bruised.'" Kitty makes yet another mental note to find a better word for the malice-angels. Other than 'ringwraiths,' which would just make her laugh. She glances down at the paper again. "Forest," she murmurs, "city, everything. 'Worlds within worlds, wheels within wheels.' This is going to drive us all completely bonkers before it's over." She swallows. "When they came visiting last time - they said they wouldn't cause trouble if we turned it over. And that there were ways of showing us how compromise was best." It's a distinctly unhappy expression that she's wearing when she lifts her head again. Not actually /guilty/ - there's none of that at all - but less than happy. "Which, as I'm a stubborn bastard, would be all the more reason for not lettin' them have it." Liam raises the fingers of one hand, if permitted, to brush them under Kitty's chin. Little hints of peace. "There's no good in them, as they are. They're great suckin' voids. What's in you... it has a purpose, though blasted if I know what it is. Only that it's meant for somethin'. An' it /isn't/ evil. The other... she died to protect it, didn't she?" "Yeah. But now Claire has me wondering," Kitty makes a wry face, and if not for that brush of Liam's fingers she'd've been swearing again and possibly throwing things, "if /that's/ the mistaken assumption. If it's somehow /necessary/ they get it. Here's hoping it's not, because though I might ask her, I'm /not/ going experimenting. Keeping it safe. Until we figure out what it /is/ meant for." "That," murmurs Liam, "an' the angels, an' the rings, an' the tower. Claire. Roses. Both of them kept goin' on about puzzle pieces, an' how we weren't fittin' them together." So frustrated, himself, and so terribly worried, but his fingers spill comfort he doesn't feel himself. He can take a little from Kitty, from the familiar feel of her, and the light somewhere inside her. He sighs. "I don't understand why any of 'em keep botherin' Lorne." Bothering. Yeah. "It's not our fault," Kitty says dryly, "if they decided to leave the /edge/ pieces out. And make us put the pieces together blindfolded." No context, not for people who can't see everything. At Liam's addition, her eyes drop for a moment. "I don't know. Back on the twenty-fourth ... they said something that sounded like a not-so-veiled threat against people we cared about." There are innocents you love drawing breath as they sleep. Would you care to know when they stop? "Lorne qualifies. So does Lindsey. So does Kess, for that matter." And Liam. And how many other people were at that wedding... "Might be that. Might be something about Lorne, or what he /does/, or ... too many possibilities. I don't know." Liam withdraws his hand, scrubbing it over the back of his neck. "Aye," he replies, in agreement or acknowledgement, or maybe just for something to say. With a shake of his head, he reaches for his coat. "Well... that's all I had, anyway, for whatever good it does you. I should get out of your way before your guest comes wanderin' down." At least the coat is warmer by now. Kitty glances up at him, trying to think back. Kess, Lindsey, Deimos. "At least we're just about at critical mass," she says. "If we can figure /any/ single thing out, for sure - the rest ought to start coming together." Unless the whole situation just keeps getting weirder. She leans, quick and impulsive, and kisses Liam briefly on the cheek. Indeed. Unless. Liam is never without hope, but his general mood has definitely been better. Shrugging into his coat, he does look pleased as Kitty kisses him. That, too, brings drifting peace. He can't help it. "Aye, well, there's that. If you need me an' I'm not home, I might be at Caritas. I've somewhat of an urge to keep an eye on." Sort of like the way he flies over the house every night. Leaning down for his boots, he adds, "You take care, alright?" Kitty'll put up with having her edge taken off, for the sake of that pleased look. Which might be considered a metaphor for most of her existence in Beacon Harbor, actually. "You, too," she replies firmly. "The both of you." Lorne's pretty good at that, but Liam ... well, a little shaky sometimes. "And - /oh/. I have something for the clinic." Quick dive for her desk, and she rummages briefly before coming up with a blank-but-sealed security envelope. "Think you could drop it off the next time you go by?" It's not that Liam doesn't have a sense of self-preservation. It's that the little voice of common sense is frequently drowned beneath the much louder screaming of the needs surrounding him. "Aye, sure." He takes the envelope and tucks it carefully into a pocket. "Give you good day, lass. An' tell Pete he's a lazy bastard what needs to come by for a beer." Half a smile, and he's gone, limping back into the snow and closing the door carefully, so as not to let the weather in. Kitty's laugh is quick and quiet, and "Will do," is called out behind him, before the door's closed and locked. It's all about the alcohol, really.