[8.7 Spoilers] New Other Correspondence #2

Subject: (2nd Batch) Tashlit
From: Matthew Moss (Mossball@mooseboop.ca)
CC: Avery (AKelly@tbaynorth.ca); Verona (VHayward@tbaynorth.ca); Lucy (LEllingson@tbaynorth.ca)
Attached: Cblock6.jpg

Because Verona was interested I forwarded you guys some early thoughts on Tashlit.  It’s tricky now to give you a rundown without retreading old ground.  What I can tell you is that because the approach with Tashlit differed from our usual (with the exception of the unnamed goblin painter that Verona also liked) we had to work backwards.

With most other recruits we either knew what they were capable of when they joined because we had initial skirmishes.  Others (like Montague) we sought out for specific roles.  In Montague’s case that was powering the perimeter.  For Tashlit we had only the recommendation from Verona (To paraphrase: “she probably doesn’t eat babies. Good fashion sense”) and we had to figure out what to do with her.

This is fine.  I don’t want to sound critical.  It’s good if you help vet incoming Others and have a role.  But there were a few days where both we & Tashlit felt a bit awkward trying to fit her into things.  She has had a long and tiring walk across Canada since leaving her dad’s place.  We don’t begrudge her a bit of respite and she spent a day swimming and setting up in a disused cabin south of Kennet.  But things were not easy and while she did guard the river mouth from a kelpie and drowned echo she communicated to Alpeana that she felt guilty for not doing more.

However she was able to do some healing and helped power the perimeter one evening.  We also discovered she can spend power to raise and lower the water level of the river and while not useful right now it gives us options.

Mostly now she intends to help with walking the perimeter if we expect trouble.  If Verona is serious about wanting Tashlit as a familiar then it might be best if we don’t become too dependent on Tashlit in one area.

Tashlit is sponsored by Alpeana and Guilherme.

---

“What is with this recruitment process, Ronnie?  Please tell me you spent more time with Tashlit before recommending her.”

“I basically said hey cool Other, I know you want the jewel Clementine has but no and she listened.”

“Ronnie.”

“That counts for something!  After a night of dealing with a tour through the ruins, then butthead ghosts, old stillbirth ghouls or whatever, and then freaking Sharon?  And expecting to deal with my dad, and then there was Bristow, but that was later…”

“I really want to put Bristow behind us.”

“Yeah.  Sorry Ave.  So, uh, nothing was working that night and Tashlit was like, a reminder.  Of what I wanted the practice to be.”

“I liked her, and so did Snow.  I think it worked out.”

“I guess.”

“I think my instincts are pretty good.”

“Can you imagine the mound of crap we’d be in with the local Others if she hadn’t worked out?  We’re already on testy ground.”

“But she did work out, is the important thing.”

“I, um, I don’t think it’s a bad thing.  Even if Tashlit isn’t a perfect fit, isn’t she the Other we can trust most?  We could use more of that.”

“You’re not wrong.”

“Seems like I was ahead of the game, picking her.  Really, you two need to pick things up a bit.  Why am I doing all the legwork here?”

“Easy does it, Ronnie.”

“I even picked Snowdrop.”

“Muh?”

“Go back to sleep, Snow.”

“Is she okay?”

“She’s okay, I think.  Battered but she’s tough.”

“And you?  Are you okay, Ave?  How’s that shoulder?”

“It sucks and I’m really hoping Tashlit has the juice for a healing because I don’t know how to explain this to my parents.  I’m trying not to think about it, which brings it down from about a nine to an eight point five.”

“We could ask Zed to stop and see about buying better meds for the pain.  Want to tap him on the shoulder, Lucy?  He’s wearing noise canceling headphones.”

“I’d rather get home sooner, actually.”

“Sure, Ave.  Why don’t you send Matthew a message asking to make sure Tashlit saves her faith juice, Ronnie, and I’ll get up the next email to read aloud?”

“Good plan.  Emailing him now.”

“Next is… Lis.”

---

Subject: (2nd Batch) Lis
From: Matthew Moss (Mossball@mooseboop.ca)
CC: Avery (AKelly@tbaynorth.ca); Verona (VHayward@tbaynorth.ca); Lucy (LEllingson@tbaynorth.ca)
Attached: Cblock7.jpg

One persistent issue we were having was that we could patrol the perimeter at night /walk the boundaries/put power into things and that helps with more dangerous threats that come by woodland path or backroads.  It doesn’t help with those that come by car.  Cig has been handling some of that but the reality is that a hundred people will stop in Kennet on a quiet day as they pass through on the highway.  They get fast food or stop somewhere to use the washroom & any one of them can be a practitioner or a very subtle Other.  Cig can’t get into the gas stations or fast food establishments and can’t easily tail someone in a car who comes into town and drives straight to the town center.

Lis is a Wallflower Doppelganger.  Dopplegangers often copy an individual and some may mirror someone and then remove that someone to take over their life or steal boyfriends (among other things).  Lis doesn’t match herself to a single individual and instead will match to a group.  She averages out the traits of the group for physical features & mannerisms & can act seamlessly as a member of that group.  The bigger the crowd the better the effect.

I won’t lie.  Lis has had a difficult history.  She could be compared to John.  John came into being fighting from minute one.  He took lives and gained some awareness and more capability for critical thought and reflection with each one.  Is it possible that we could have a conversation with John and decide that at one point he was capable of stopping what he was doing and leaving but didn’t?  Sure.

Lis manifested in an all-girls private school in Quebec and she came out fighting in her own way.  The climate she arose in was one of backstabbing & sabotage & bitterness and she blended into that crowd and poured fuel on the fires.  From day one she turned student against student and teacher against teacher and lives were lost.  Two groups of witch hunters banded together to try to sort through the mess and the three hundred students in attendance and she joined the collective witch hunters with each group thinking she was a member of the other.  She blended in with the staff of the motel where they were staying when they weren’t investigating & acquired keys.  Then she quietly and methodically went from room to room to where witch hunters were sleeping and executed them.

That’s the reality.  This is part of what I was dreading discussing with you girls.  That some of the Others we need in order to maintain the peace and security of Kennet are ones where– I don’t know.  I don’t know where I stand on what Lis is and the history she comes from or how responsible I think she is about it all.  She sprung from humans and human nature and she has settled down since.

The last two witch hunters she tried to kill were returning from a shift watching the school and they smelled the blood the moment they opened the car door in the parking lot.  They killed a motel staff member out of paranoia before injuring Lis & driving her away.  She remained in the wind for some time after and I think that was the break she needed to start thinking straight.  She hit the ground running and then went from crisis to crisis without stopping to think– hiding meant calming down and finding a kernel of Self without being surrounded by the infighting and ugliness that helped her come into being.

Lis is now pretty quiet and thoughtful.  She has been very honest and straightforward about her past which is how & why I can tell you.  I get the impression she only really enjoys herself when part of a crowd but she sticks to observation in those circumstances now– unless we need to deal with a problem.  We set Maricica and John with the task of monitoring her but with her going back and forth to Edith a lot of the time you could consider Edith an unofficial sponsor.

She has the disguise ability with its limitations: she can pick what crowd she uses to blend herself in even if that crowd is ‘everyone on this side of the room’ or ‘all men in the immediate area’.  Structure throws her for a loop so schools and things are tougher.  She doesn’t control or edit anyone’s thoughts and her ability to infiltrate is limited mostly to never being the face that stands out of the crowd.  A big benefit is she can pick up sentiment so if someone comes looking for trouble and they are a part of a group she is mimicking & averaging out then she can feel that little desire for trouble & narrow down the sources by sorting through the groups she absorbs.

---

“I’m wondering if he sent these in order.  Is this him easing us into the bad stuff?  Am I going to be ticked at Matthew again?”

“I have so many questions.  How do things average with stuff like gender?  Can you put an adult and a kid together and get a really weird teenager?”

“I think they have to be part of a group.”

“But if you put them in a room then they’re part of a group that’s ‘people in a room’ and then you can combine them.  What I’m wondering is if there’s some weird combo where the average is weirder and more stand-outty than not.”

“Let’s not get too sidetracked by the interesting Other.  Zed’s being really nice while we’re being rude and asking him to give us privacy.  I don’t want him to have to do that the whole trip.”

“Lucy. Lucy Lucy Lucy…”

“Ronnie, I love you but that tone makes me want to empty this bottle of water over your head.”

“After all her smirking over Fernanda and me earlier, I think you doing that might help make my shoulder feel better.  It would at least distract me.”

“Really, Ave, we can stop for something.”

“Really Luce, I’d rather get some supernatural healing than get a pill that never does much for me anyway.”

“And if she doesn’t have the juice?  What do you tell your mom?”

“Ave can tell her mom she almost fell off a bridge.”

“That’s not going to make life easier.  And talking about this is just reminding me the injury is there and is making me notice it hurts.  I regret bringing it up.  What were we talking about?”

“I was going to tell my beautiful and judicious best friend that our duty is to get sidetracked by the interesting Others.  We figure them out and their motivations.”

“More with the original Others than the new ones, right?  These new guys aren’t, uh, our primary focus.”

“They could be assistants to the primary focus.  She’s close to two people we’re keeping a close eye on.  Checking in with E on the regular?  That’s…”

“…Possibly because Edith is the person who’s home most of the day?”

“Maybe.  I don’t like it.  And I don’t like that the Other with a serious body count of innocents and maybe-good-guys is that close to two people we don’t necessarily trust.”

“On the flip side, what happens if we ask her to average out the Kennet Others and she gets a bad sentiment?”

“Hmmmm.  She might be humans only, no Others.”

“Ugh.  I’m going to get some serious salt on my fingers as I snack, so can someone else unpack the next email?  Ave?”

“On it.”

---

Subject: Jabber (2nd Batch)
From: Matthew Moss (Mossball@mooseboop.ca)
CC: Avery (AKelly@tbaynorth.ca); Verona (VHayward@tbaynorth.ca); Lucy (LEllingson@tbaynorth.ca)
Attached: Cblock8.jpg

Jabber is an alchemical Other created by an alchemist who wasn’t among the kinder souls in practitioner society.  In the poor lighting he could be mistaken for a goblin but he has flesh resembling wet white clay braced with splints/screws/rods where it wasn’t strong enough on its own.  He has a mouth like a bear trap and a crude white mask that could be paper mache or plaster.  Metal bands looped around his head and screwed into bone help keep his skull from collapsing sideways and keep the mask in place.  When still he could be mistaken for a macabre doll but he is rarely still– he limps and drags himself around and makes incessant noise.  His namesake.  He makes Cherrypop seem quiet.

---

“Wait wait wait wait wait- stop reading.”

“Don’t tell me you have a phobia of creepy dolls, Ave.”

“Wait.  We might have forgot something.”

“Oh no.  Is it the kind of something we can have Zed send-”

“Cherry.”

“What?”

“Lucy, when you grabbed our bags, did you pack Cherry?”

“I figured since you guys were hanging back you would.  Since Zed and I were carrying and you know, actually doing the laborious thing.”

“I have mud inside my jeans.  I have mud inside my shoes, in my socks, and that’s after a quick change of clothes.  I have a gaping shoulder wound.”

“I was watching Avery.  And talking to Nicolette.  Did Snowdrop?”

“Yes!  Yes, I got Cherrypop like the good friend I am.”

“Really, if anything, I could argue it’s her fault for keeping us up last night and making us so tired that we’d forget.”

“We may be among the worst guardian witches or whatever our title is supposed to be.  We’re- I feel so guilty.  So guilty.”

“I- frig!  We’ve been driving for thirty minutes.  Zed.  Zed!”

“What’s up?  I had my headphones on.”

“I know and it’s appreciated and something’s come up and we’re really sorry and I understand if you ask us to find another way home…”

---

Jabber is fashioned of the same kind of clay that gods would breathe life into & was hollowed out to serve as a hallow and host of sorts.  He was made as part of a set of dolls with interlocking functions.  One to stir up feelings and another to collect/ one to refine and one to recycle.  They were smashed because they were being used to gather up civilians and then keep them in place while they were harvested of all relevant fluids and parts.  Jabber escaped but was already worse for wear: the dark deeds he was part of have tainted his clay and nature somewhat and he wasn’t pure to begin with.  The hands that made him were stained enough.

Jabber has been the kind of Other that we would hear of now and then for the last five or so years.  Through luck or some strange cunning that lies buried in that clay Jabber has avoided the attention of practitioners and witch hunters.  He has gravitated closer with the Carmine blood soaking Kennet and did not put much effort into eluding us.  When we laid out terms he nodded his assent with no negotiation required.

In another context and made by other hands Jabber’s functionality on paper could be called a positive thing.  He draws out happy energies and mirth and acts as a battery.  In actuality Jabber’s laughter and smile could be considered infectious or viral.  This lasts as long as he remains nearby or until he “tops off” on what he can absorb through air.  In past years this would be the cycle and he would wander into a crowd or find his way into a house through a pet’s access door & he would fill up.  Then the stored energy would leak out through cracks or imperfections in his body until he felt the absence and sought more.  Rinse & repeat.  Affected civilians experience lost time as a blackout or disconcerting daydreams and are depressed & emotionally imbalanced after the fact.

Jabber is the closest thing we have to a big red emergency button.  If trouble brews and civilians are in the midst then he will make them forget what occurs and preserves their innocence.  He is also a vessel for raw power and in the event we anticipate an attack and Montague is not enough then we can use Jabber.  In a bad situation we could tap more civilians in Kennet to fill him up again for a second use in a short span of time.

Lis raised difficult questions about her history and habits.  Jabber raises questions about how much we’re willing to use/abuse the human side of Kennet.  Between the two of them we had a fair few debates and I would like to think you three would have sided with me.  More on that in my next email.

Jabber is being monitored by Charles and myself.  Every aggressive use stresses his body and we’re the only ones with the practical knowledge on how to look after him.  He seems content to be deployed strategically (at enemy incursions so far) and the only practical issue becomes ensuring he doesn’t wander off.  He isn’t like a goblin who will sit and watch television or sleep most of the time and he is difficult to communicate with.  But he remains a necessity of sorts in case of an emergency situation.

---

“I don’t get it.  This badly made doll wanders up, smiles, people smile, it moves on, and they sort of forget the last five minutes?  And we get a bit of power to charge up the perimeter with?”

“I wonder if there’s more to it.  Maybe we have to see him in action.”

“You’re getting outclassed by these new Others, Cherry.  Cig is weaker in a fight than you-”

“Bahaha!”

“-Jabber is noisier-”

“Ey!  No!  I can be noisy!”

“Why on Earth would you get her started with that, Ronnie?”

“-I think Tashlit might be the coolest…”

“No!  Aaa!  No, Snowdrop is coolest!”

“Awww.  That’s actually touching.”

“Yeah, uh huh!  She gives me trash to eat!”

“A little less touching, Ave?”

“You got her all riled up and there’s still so much car ride left.”

“Aaaaaa!  Aaaaa!  Aieeee!”

“Cherry, do you know what would be hilarious?”

“Neh?”

“Zed’s got his headphones on again-”

“No small wonder.”

“-and if you became a fork again and you were really, really quiet, you could jump out and shout boo right after we got to the destination.”

“I would love to see that.”

“Yeah.  That would be great.”

“Ehehehe.”

“I can’t believe that worked.”

“Let’s just commit to not forgetting the fork between the seat cushions or whatever.”

“Shhhhh.  We make no mention of any situation where we -hypothetically or otherwise- forgot Cherrypop.”

“Who’s the next email?”

“This is an odd one.”

---

Subject: Ken (2nd Batch)
From: Matthew Moss (Mossball@mooseboop.ca)
CC: Avery (AKelly@tbaynorth.ca); Verona (VHayward@tbaynorth.ca); Lucy (LEllingson@tbaynorth.ca)
Attached: Cblock9.jpg

We didn’t recruit Lis and Jabber one after the other– there were other Others between.  They were contentious picks however and they led to a lot of discussion between us about what we were trying to do and where our responsibilities lay.

The suggestion on compromise came from Charles.  Representing the people of Kennet is… Kennet.  We’ve gone to the spirit world to make our appeal of necessity and because there is no Lord here & no set system in the spirit world it was the Judges who heard our appeal.  Aurum & Alabaster.  All us Others of Kennet with Cherrypop and Snowdrop excluded attended and this left the perimeter open.  An unfortunate kind of circumstance that results when we turn to ceremony.  Ceremonies are a kind of ritual after all.

When we left that day it was with the added company of Kennet’s Anima Corporeal.  The spirit of the city made flesh.  He was fine shortening his name and even seemed to prefer it.  We also knew (as would soon be confirmed) that trouble might have slipped in during what were normally the quiet parts of early day when we relied on perimeter more than anything else.

Ken is surprisingly political and seized on the small amount of power he had as a newcomer to the council & as a representative for the citizenry.  He is vocal with his opinion and yet has little to no ambitions in leadership (preferring to complain rather than do…).  This is something of a relief on one level and a daily headache on another.  In another town or city with these same circumstances I could imagine the city or township spirit taking over the council– many city spirits are in fact Lords and trade on the power of how distinct their city’s image is.  It’s interesting to compare him politically with our last Other.

I’ve come to love Kennet where I’ve spent a third of my life and expect to spend the rest and thus I like Ken.  At the same time however Ken is our town in totality… including parts I don’t tend to grapple with.  I knew those parts existed because of the customer service side of my work at Buckheed but now I face it daily.  In lieu of family Ken turns his focus to tiredly minding the spirits of Kennet.  He does have a drinking problem.  He does have a drug problem.  These things are (usually) background.

If Lis is the average of a small group then Ken is that stretched out to Kennet as a whole.  The dynamics and effects are similar but reversed: Lis extends herself out and Ken can (if he wants) divide himself down into rough regions.  After our initial experiments doing this however we have agreed this isn’t for the best:
1)  The industrial corner of Kennet is badly cared for and malnourished with a lot of latent frustration (and so is the ‘split’ of Ken that represents it).
2)  The commercial downtown area has a rampant drug problem that is evident if you spend even fifteen minutes there (& so does the ‘split’– spend fifteen minutes in her company…)
3)  The residential area is the most active & present but is primarily focused on getting by and doing what needs to be done.
4)  The tourist end is a bit scattered & eternally hopeful but anyone who lives here will acknowledge it is only useful or awake a portion of the year.

The extra hands simply aren’t worth the hassle of finding oneself face to face with the other aspects.  Split they tend to share out the demographics of Kennet: two female and two male.  One old (usually #1 above)/two roughly middle aged (2 & 3)/one younger (usually #4).  Undivided we get Ken: a man a little older than me and ambiguously blue/white collar.  Somewhat more median/mode than mean.

Ken’s awareness & attunement to the people & places of our town of five thousand people are valuable.  Working with him lets us put some power into reinforcing aspects of the town or even quickly navigating it.  He’s not quick about it but he can alert us to problems.

Ken has been able to tell us that something’s wrong with him and getting worse: the Carmine Beast effect.  It’s a more violent edge that catches him and us off guard at times.  This doesn’t mean he turns into a killer or a monster or anything but it does manifest as temper and a darker edge at times.  He recognizes this isn’t him and this disturbs him.  Aside from this he can tell there are intruders present.  This appears to be some less human Others– no tie to any commander or summoner.  They aren’t eating and they aren’t emerging when Montague powers the perimeter diagram.  He feels they will do us harm but can’t place it.  It’s up to you if you want to help.

More than anything however is that Ken cares about the people and well being of the town and in our debates about Jabber and Lis I intuited that those of us who were more wary of their inclusion had the same general worry: that we risked focusing so much on the Other/Practitoner side that we would lose sight of the Innocent.  Ken’s primary duty is to keep us square there.

Which makes our next & last email an uncomfortable change of tone and focus…  Give me time to type it up.

Ken is sponsored by me & Edith.

---

“In other words they were worried they focused so much on the Other side of Kennet that they made a new Other to kind of address the regular people?  It sounds like Matthew wants a pat on the head for sparing humans a second thought but what?”

“You sound annoyed.”

“I am annoyed!  How on Earth do you think that a distillation of our crummy, struggling little town is going to be anything other than imperfect and prone to dragging things out, and dragging them down?  It’s unvarnished society as an Other and society’s the thing that needs about a thousand sharp kicks in the ass to get to a better place.”

“You can go back to sleep, Snow.”

“Uggh, but this is boring though.”

“I bet- I bet this Ken guy is vaguely racist.  I bet- God Matthew I really do hope he’s a pain in the ass for Matthew.  If we’d been consulted I could have guessed most of this and they’re all surprised that there’s a drug and alcohol problem and that he’s a butt who’d rather complain than anything.  Sorry.”

“No way, don’t be sorry.  I’m not… emotionally smart.  I’m not sure I get why you’re as bothered as you are, but the more you talk about it, the more I get it.  Mostly I’m marveling at how articulate you are when you’re ticked off.”

“Is this where we drop the bad quote, ‘that’s her secret, she’s always a bit ticked’?  Sorry, I don’t mean to actually put words in your mouth.”

“No, actually you’re kind of right.  Ugh.  It’s like… imagine if the email was like, hey girls I want to give you an update, we were worried about the common man not having a voice so we invited your dad onto the council, Verona.”

“Oh god.”

“Right?  I mean, isn’t that basically the analogue?  Or Avery-”

“Oh no.”

“Imagine… what was that Incarnation that almost got you?”

“Yearning.”

“Imagine having to deal with it every day on the council now and Matthew’s all ‘give me a pat on the head, haven’t I done good, thinking of the little guy’.  Except this isn’t the little guy, this is the guy who steps on the little guy.”

“Okay, okay, but for the record I kind of got it already.  I didn’t need that mental picture.”

“Boo, Matthew.”

“Boooo.”

“Maybe I’m making mountains out of molehills.”

“Nah, I’m with you Lucy.  I vote that if this does turn out to be a pain and especially if it’s a pain for you then we all give them flack for not seeing it coming.”

“Avery, since you have the phone, do we have the last one?  It should be the Other that he held off on naming.”

“He hasn’t sent it.”

“Oh!  Nag him.  And tell him we might have to yell at him and it’ll be worse than Lucy’s wind power thing.”

“Typing.”

“Meanwhile- sorry, Lucy, did you want to say something?”

“More ranting.  You talk.”

“I can’t help but wonder about the moves they’re making.  It feels like we made a certain move by going off to school.  And we did that because of Miss, a bit.”

“Yes.”

“And these are some of the counter-moves they’ve made in the background.  Discreet and there are justifications for each move but there are also- there’s at least one person responsible.  At least two if we go by what Yalda said about there being two people there when she was turned into the Hungry Choir.  And they’re doing their own things.”

“Yeah.  We have to read between the lines and wonder how these things fit together.”

“They aren’t just there sitting on their hands.  They’re thinking about how to handle us and still get what they want.  And these are just the big moves, right?  The allies they’re recruiting and possible complications they’re going to throw in our way.”

“Exhausting.”

“Here’s the email.  Want to look it over?”

“Good.  That works.”

“Send.”

“There.  It looks like we have the next email.  Cutting it down to the wire, Matthew.  And it’s…”

---

Subject: (2nd Batch) Crooked Rook
From: Matthew Moss (Mossball@mooseboop.ca)
CC: Lucy (LEllingson@tbaynorth.ca); Avery (AKelly@tbaynorth.ca); Verona (VHayward@tbaynorth.ca)
Attached: Cblock10.jpg

Throwing a quick note on top of this email before I hit send: Had to negotiate to share this information and didn’t get much time to formulate my response.  We went into this with a set of precepts we wanted the new Others to follow but as pressure increases we have had to compromise on precepts.  This felt like the largest compromise.

I can tell you that the new Others swore to the same deals we did and while this doesn’t hold the same exact sort of weight that them being at the awakening ritual would it does mean they are sworn not to do you harm.

—

Crooked Rook takes on the appearance of an elderly woman of the stiff-backed/strong & no-nonsense variety.  She carries but rarely wears a mask.  She joins us as an Other who has seen many situations like Kennet’s and is correspondingly opinionated.  It is hard to shake the feeling that she would wrest control of the council from E & I if given the chance… just to have a better chance at a good outcome.  She has seen many bad ones.

She has a keen understanding of Others and how Others are put together and knows her way around practice like Maricica knows her way around illusion.  It is for this that we brought her on board.  Even after recruiting Tashlit & Jabber & more goblins & ghouls & spirits & doppleganger infiltrators we felt the need for a way to handle the likes of Nicolette & Zed & Alexander.  We have a big emergency button in Jabber and he can give us a shock of power esp. if we’re willing to tap into the well being of citizens to get it… but that matters not at all if we don’t know how to apply that power or where to aim it.

She knows.

The price however is that she would turn Kennet into something it is not.  She would do much the same with Kennet Others.  New Others especially listen to her.  She has means of dealing with incoming practitioners that she will not directly show or teach us but they do apparently work.

She hails from Europe originally but has tentative links to forces elsewhere.  She has spent two decades in remote areas extending influence and arranging traps.  I overheard her telling Maricica that she has stepped in as a challenger against eight different Demesne claims and successfully denied all eight practitioners their claim.  She seems to prefer to prepare and direct other Others and gets involved only when she can do so decisively.  She otherwise seems to prefer to act without direct involvement and keeps her existence largely off the record with minimal traces.

Even extracting a name for her that we could give you and getting permission to share this much was a task.

If this approach reminds you to some degree of Miss then… all I can tell you is that it seems so.  I keep writing that.  That it seems she prefers this or it seems that… she shares little.

What we know of motivations: as payment for giving up a title and ‘name’ for her she wanted company for her patrols.  This was something I was reluctant to give her.   She doesn’t seem to need or want much assistance and she is aloof enough to not seem to care about the company.  Instead it feels more like politics.  Now Edith and I must perform the political math of who might listen too intently to her & who might become too much of an unknown factor.

She is not an especially strong fighter but she picks her fights and her moments well and reaches out to us when she needs assistance.  She can recognize practice at work and either intuits or has the prior knowledge to address it.  One case where this is critically useful is that she can intercept an Other on the periphery of Kennet and recognize it as bound or not.  This helps to differentiate the natural Other wildlife from the sort of thing that Nicolette’s birds or sent eye-thief were.

Expect to see her standing in high places, looking to the horizon.  If all goes well and you and she are with us for the next few decades then I confess I would not be too shocked if those twenty or thirty or forty years passed and she never warmed to you.  She has no intention of attending meetings where you three are present and has suggested she intends to have minimal interaction with you.

But to turn that around (and defend myself)… she may come for Edith and I well before she does anything to bother you three.  In twenty or thirty or forty years I would not be too shocked if she had taken control.  Maybe she becomes your headache then.  Maybe you find your equilibrium.  I don’t know.

I do know that we have had two practitioners prod at our boundary in the time between the perimeter falling and your announcement that you were coming home.  Many Others have tried to come into Kennet and many of those were dangerous.  She helped.  Several of those were actively bound by practitioners and in another circumstance we would have either had to either kill them to silence them or know that they would tell the ones who bound them that Kennet was what it was.

Instead Crooked Rook was able to erect a box around these Others.  Within she painted them in new colors.  She undid some bindings and twisted the definitions of others.  At our request she kept precepts that kept some of those Others from harming humans and simply allowed them to go free.  We need that kind of victory if we’re to turn tides or change the trends that run against Kennet.

If we can resolve the Carmine Beast business and keep up that kind of deflection (especially if Miss returns and can work with Crooked Rook) then I harbor hope that we can find a way back to normalcy.  That hope is so essential in a struggle like this because some of us would have given up already if we thought this would be Kennet from now on.

For that?  I can deal with the political maneuvering and the other difficulties this Other poses.

And I can only apologize for any difficulties this poses you.  Once I realized Crooked Rook’s stance I kept you three firmly in mind for every & all interactions with her.  I’ve worked to extract promises from her she was reluctant about (including the pledge to do no harm to you) & made sure that the prices paid for these things fell on us.  Not on you.

Guilherme and Maricica are the primary points of contact with Crooked Rook and are sponsoring her.

Ask if you have any questions.

---

“Huh.”

“Digesting that.  And Lucy’s already got her phone out.”

“Hey first best friend, buddy old pal.  What are you writing?”

“Gimme a second, Verona.”

“Maybe show us before you send it?”

“I’m of two minds for this one.”

“Do tell us.  Is this what you’re writing in the email?”

“No, I’m- it’s going to help me make up my mind on how I feel.  So, point number one is I kinda like her.”

“That’s my line!  Not for her but whenever we meet a neat and weird Other I say I think they’re cool -because they are- and then you guys sigh and stuff.  But you like her?”

“Straightforward, set rules and expectations.  If she’s serious about the agreement not to hurt us…”

“I guess.”

“…And on the other hand, I’m so not a fan of the fact Matthew has some idea of what she is and is dancing around the subject.  So I’m texting him and asking if Crooked Rook is an Oni who has warred with practitioners but is mostly cool with us again like the ones Yadira’s family sort of worked with… or if she’s an Oni who was a part of all that and really hates practitioners.”

“Ohhhhh.”

“P.S. Does she hate humans too?”

“Oh I didn’t even think of that.”

“Lucy’s so good at this side of things.  Subtext.  But you like her?  Huh?”

“Question and P.S. sent.  I mean, if she doesn’t like practitioners then I can’t say I one hundred percent disagree?  A lot of practitioner families are messed up.”

“True that.”

“And so are some solo practitioners.  And after Bristow I’m not sure I love me, Lucy the practitioner, as much as I otherwise would.”

“I really, really want to put Bristow behind us.”

“I don’t think we can or should, Ave.  He’s a jerk and he did it to himself as much as anything but we played a part and not becoming one of the really awful practitioners means carrying that.”

“Ugh.”

“Well put, Avery.”

“Oh, here we go.  Reply from Matthew.  According to him he thinks she’s the never-stopped-fighting type of Oni.  And she doesn’t care about humans but she doesn’t go out of her way to hurt or bother them either.”

“You were spot-friggin’-on.”

“I wish I wasn’t.  Not caring about humans is, uh, a lot more dangerous than it sounds, I think.  I can’t help but fixate on Matthew’s comment here… ‘you girls sure got an education in the short time you were there.  I only learned what Oni were this year.  I don’t know why I’m so surprised you’re so on top of this.'”

“The student surpasses the teacher.  I’m so glad I bugged Corbin about the Oni.”

“Lis, Jabber, and Crooked Rook sound like ones to watch out for.”

“Matthew just sent a follow-up.  Edith is asking if we want a meeting.  With everyone.  After we’ve had time to get settled and catch up with family.”

“Yes.  Yes yes yes.”

“I want that healing, then I gotta do the catch-up time… ugh.  Then meeting, I guess.”

“Sent, signed Lucy Verona Avery and Snowdrop, and presumably delivered.”

“Welcome home, huh?”