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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sialia" data-source="post: 976492" data-attributes="member: 1025">[PLAIN]p[laceholder[/PLAIN]"Tel. There you are. Man, you are a tough guy to find. I've been looking all over. I found something for you--I wanted to show you. Here," Dylrath toseed Teliaz a small, pale green, glass globe. It looked rather like a fishing weight.Teliaz plucked it from the air like a throwing dagger and looked at it dubiously."Look at it. Look into it. You want to see this."Suspiciously, Teliaz peered into the glass globe. It was empty, except for a swirl of color. After a moment, the swirl of yellow and blue resolved itself into two horizontal bands, with a green stripe between them. A sky, the sea, a beach. Somewhere. Teliaz looked closer. There on the beach, skimming across the dunes. Dylrath? No, a girl.  A girl on a bright pink and orange outgrabe, wearing a very nearly obscene black leather outfit, skimming over the dunes and doing phenomenal turns at the crest of each hill. With a dancer's grace she pirouetted and made the board flip in mid air. Impossibly, the girl and the board reconnected and rode out the momentum down the other side of the slope. Teliaz leaned forward, peering into the globe wondering if she would come back. She did. From the crest of the dune she popped way up into the air, tumbling in a tuck position with one hand steadying the board and fringes flying in every direction. Her face was completely covered by a black mask, its ribbons fluttering in the air among the mass of her chestnut hair, but her figure and her grace, her daring, were heart stoppingly beautiful. Again, she drove down one side of a dune and then arced way up into the sky, spraying sand at the crest of the hill and then turning and  . . . and something caught, dragged where it shouldn't have, and the pink outgrabe skidded loose, flipping over and over from pink side to orange side, and the girl tumbled into a catastrophic flurry of sand and dust, vanishing from sight as the globe filled with a pale yellow smear of nothingness, vanishing into empty green.Teliaz looked up at Dylrath. "What happened to her?"Dylrath shrugged. “Two possibilities: she pulled out a controlled landing and got up and walked away, or she's lying broken and mangled on the other side of that hill.  Which way would you have wanted it to come out?”Teliaz stared back at the ball and didn’t answer. "Is she real?" he asked at last."Not yet.” Dylrath said slowly, temporizing. “Part truth, part illusion, I think. She's a possibility. I did some divination work for you. You know, what it would look like if things go right for you. Divination is tricky stuff. It's the future as it might be. Maybe.”Teliaz nodded. "Right. She doesn't exist, but she ought to exist.”Dylrath sighed. “I'd give a whole lot to make that girl real, even if she never looked at me. That's what being a god is all about, isn't it? Reshaping the world to your own desires. Mortals, we can only reshape ourselves, and paint pretty pictures. But gods, gods can make it happen. Really happen. And if you're gonna do it, then by god, build some reality worth having."“I could make her?” Teliaz pondered.Dylrath shrugged. "It takes time and a whole lot of patience to teach somebody to ride like that. And the student has to want to do it . . . You can't force someone to love riding that much.""Show me it again," Teliaz demanded."Sorry,” Dylrath apologized. “I only had one vision stored in that globe.  I could get you another, but it'd take me a few minutes to cast it, and it might not be quite the same one. And I think I'd have to charge you something for it.""Such as?""If you decide to go through with your Dad's scutwork, don't start with me. I'm sick of the hostage bait routine, and the Defenders aren't likely to fall for it again anyway. Or at least, if ya gotta kill me, just do it clean out, don't make me into a trap for 'em again. It's embarassing. Deal?""Deal.""And no messing with my stuff while I'm busy casting.""Agreed."Dylrath rubbed his hands together and pulled out some components. He closed his eyes, mumbled a few words and began making passes with his hands over the globe. A small light flickered deep within the globe, a small spinning spark. A faint smell filled the air, like sandalwood, roses and jasmine. Dylrath focused deeper, and the spark inside the globe disappeared, although the smell remained. Without opening his eyes he lifted up the globe and offered it on his open palm to Teliaz.Teliaz looked into the globe, half expecting a trap, and hoping desperately to catch a glimpse of the Outgrabing Girl again. The globe seemed dark and empty.And then he felt something. Something like a hand pushing on his chest. A small warm hand, pushing gently. He looked down, but there was nothing there. The smell of the incense was very strong, and something soft brushed against his cheek and touched his mouth gently. Something soft and warm, like skin, like  . . . lips? Is that what lips felt like? He could feel the breath from her nose. He pulled away from the confusing sensation and the girl's mouth followed him, wet and gentle, and very insistent. Her tongue licked his lips, and her teeth briefly and gently held his lower lip as her hand slid up his neck to caress his scalp.  His lips and neck and scalp which had never been touched by a mortal hand that hadn't immediately withered and rotted away from contact with his oozing, pustuled, poisonous skin. The girl's soft body pressed up against his chest, and he could, just for a moment feel the whole shape of her against him, her arms around him, her lips on his lips and her hand in his hair. And then she was gone. The scent lingered.Dylrath blinked a few times. "Anything?" he said, opening his eyes, peering into the empty globe and shaking it a few times. "Peeyew, what a stink. I hate olfactory divinations. Virtually useless. Unless you've got a talking dog around to interpret 'em for you. Sorry guy, I tried.  The spell's experimental.  I never know what I'm gonna get out of it." Dylrath polished the globe a few times and stuffed it into a padded pouch. "That's all I've got in that line for today.  I can try again later, I should live so long.”“You ok, man?" Teliaz stepped away, shaken. “Yeah,” he said disractedly. “Look, I gotta go . . .”“’Scool,” Dylrath said. “Drop by whenever.”</blockquote>

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