15013/Curiosity and other emotions

Curiosity and other emotions
Date of Scene:	30 April 2023
Location:	The Magic Box, Sunnydale
Synopsis:	What started as a personal mission, became a different entity. Willow Rosenberg, witch extraordinaire, brought Joy to Hope. In the form of magic transportation and a small battery-free radio...
Cast of Characters:	Askante, Willow Rosenberg

---

Askante has posed:
Days are supposed to announce then they're going to be a little odd, like the weather is supposed to be surreal, or interchangeably bizarre. Signs. Omens, even! But no, today is an ordinary kind of late April day, or was for most of itself anyway. Sunny, cloudy, a bit chill, intermittantly raining showers down. The usual stuff. And it's probably early evening by now and there's puddles on the road outside. A slow day, in other words, but Magic waits for no witch (or wizard, or warlock for that matter) and perhaps there's been a few customers.

Like this one. Scarecrow thin and gangly, the visitor looks like well... it can't possibly look how it actually looks, because the few punters in here don't panic at the sight of it. But it really does look like a tall, four armed monster just walked into the shop. It had to duck, looks around a bit surruptitiously and heads for the light reading section.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow had been working a double shift, which normally wouldn't have been so bad. But the rain - off and on as it was - kept most of the customers away, and she had completed all her task before midafternoon. The exams were marked, and the grades were tabulated and type into her computer. All the shelves had been done on Friday. Even with rearranging, it still left her with the hours after supper to be filled.

For once, Willow was bereft of things to do.

Funny that, Buffy had the same thing happen not two days ago. And wouldn't you believe? She took the women's magazine home, leaving Willow with nothing to pique her interest. (It should be noted: For Willow to stoop to reading a woman's magazine was sad, very sad.)

The few customers lingering in the Box weren't exactly helping her either. Beyond 'can I help you?' there wasn't much to do but wait.

Until.. Nah.. she couldn't have seen that.. could she?

Wandering over, she asked, figuring the man wanted his privacy, not help, "Can I help you?" Just in case.

Askante has posed:
The 'man' looks a bit startled, fumbling the book of 'charms or beginners' and catching it with a clap of the second set of arms, looking at her, down at the book and back. "Maybe? Possibly. It's a possibility. I don't think I'm looking for the right thing. I er... hi?" The voice is strangely musical and neither contralto nor tenor, but somewhere in between them both. Its tail twitches, then curls down around one knee and calf to keep itself out of the way.

"Erm."

It looks about helplessly, then back at the diminutive woman before it. "Do you have anything that can teach me how to turn a radio into magic?"

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
*blink* *blink*

A radio.. into.. magic?

"Ahhh, can I ask what for?" Because there was magic. And then there was MAGIC. Willow wasn't certain *what* was camp he was in, and there was no way she planned on blabbing about MAGIC for a mundane customer.

Askante has posed:
"Well, Hope wants to listen to the radio and I don't know how else to get it into the box," Askante replies. Which makes zero sense at all, even if you think sideways at it. It gives a soft chirr, shaking its head and putting the book back on the shelf very carefully. "I don't think I'm going to have a lot of luck in this quest. I've had a lot of quests in the past, but the two things are oil and water, usually. If I manage to magic a radio, it will probably melt."

It looks back at her. "Right?"

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Hope. In a box.. OH!

"Do you mean Pandora's Box?" It was a myth. Well, sort of. All myths had a basis in reality. More so if you believe in magic, or the supernatural. And Willow believed in both.

How did he get his hands on it, though? Then again, at his height, his skin tone (ha! scales), and the extra arms..

It should be noted, most normal people would have taken a step back, smiled, and with a little nervous laugh, excused themselves. Willow wasn't a normal girl. Not even a bit.

"There are some things we could try. Though they might be difficult. You see, even if we can solve the problem of miniaturisation, we would need to figure out the power. Unless you send it over the airwaves out here.." Willow frowns as she thinks. "Except then you would control the station and volume. I don't think you mean that. Do you?"

Askante has posed:
"I don't think so, no." The creature sits down on the floor, or rather crouches on its haunches like a skeksis, with its tail all lengthy behind it. It rustles its spines, a shiver of sound and drums on the floor with attenuated claws. "It's problematic -- the box..." it gestures with the other hands, elbows on its knees, to about the size of a child's jack in the box. "I know you can get teenie tiny radios that are that small, would make it easier. But I want Hope to have a good quality of sound... there's so much music in the world now, so much! And it's invisible and inaudible unless you have one of those little boxes. I took one apart to see what made the magic and only found a copper coil."

It makes a hiccuping kind of noise, "Sorry, I'm babbling. I don't usually come into places like this... bad memories. But I'm a little out of my league with that. I figured a shop for wizards and witches might help..." it looks around a bit then, fixing black eyes on various things "...most of this is kitsch though, isn't it?"

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow shakes her head sadly. "We can't make a living any other way. Most of our sales are of the new age and kitschy sort."

Holy cow. She does and does not see him at turns. It was very weird. So much so, she blurted, "You aren't precisely human are you?"

Carrying on, very fast, she continues. "I can think of several ways to put the radio in the box. Just I haven't done it, it's all theoretical now. You aren't going to find what you are looking for in the front of the store. In fact, you may need to borrow some older books that I can't let you take them out of the store."

Askante has posed:
"The more they believe in a mundane thing, the less they believe in that which they can't see or touch. And so, they don't see the wolves in their midst, or the saints amongst the sinners," Askante murmurs softly, looking at a young woman looking to get crystals and funky jewelery as she browses. It looks back at Willow with a blink of nictating membranes and replies only this: A slow shake of the head, side to side.

"I don't know if you know what I am. People put labels on, make it fit in boxes, but when there's no catagory that quite fits?" It shrugs, looks at the 'loft' of books up above and at the back, then looks ot her once again. "A trade for a trade -- do you barter, or do you insist on the little pieces of fabric with green letters on it?"

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow cocks her head as she listens. Askante's form solidifies as she hones in her sight - mage's sight to be sure. Then when she come back to her normal sight it is simply his true body that she sees. A bit odd, but she doesn't get niggles off of him, so she gives him the benefit of a doubt.

"People tend to see it as simply as possible. If they saw ghosts, and monsters, and demons.. their whole life would be frightening. It's simpler to see things not as they are, but as they want them to be. And when they don't have a category to place you in.." She shrugs. "It makes some of our jobs easier."

Her gaze drifts to the upper library that is (ostensibly) Giles' own library, she was careful with her answer. "I think we can do this pro bono." She perks up. "Besdes, I haven't anything else to do at the moment."

Askante has posed:
Askante gives her a long look at that. "Yes. Exactly that. People see what they want to see, because the truth would break what they perceive to know. And if that happened, well... all hells would break loose." It nods to that, a solid, deeply believing kind of nod. "They have a bad enough time with spiders and such."

Again, the sideways blinking of the nictating membrane and it beams a smile. "Wonderful! A moment, let me just..." it pats the old leather duster, faded with time. It looks, if she squints at it, like that's a handmade thing and probably should be in a museum, as by the cut and design and style, it's from the Wild West. "Oh! Inside pocket, silly..." deep it rummages, then pulls out a radio shaped like the statue of liberty. You tune it by rolling the base of the statue and the on and off is pushing the torch. "Here. I can help you get a fix on the Box, but I can't let you get to it, of course. I would get in trouble. But there's ways around that with translocational scrying."

At the same time, it fishes out a turn of the century russian doll, a matroshka and grins, patting the Baboushka on the outside with fondness. "She'll help."

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Now /that/ was a radio.

Admittedly, she hadn't thought of the box beng *out there*, which made it more tricky. The teleportation would actually be between here and there, rather than a twist on the kinetomancy she expected.

*think, Willow, think*

"Our brains try to see, or feel in the most expeditious way. The nerves for heat and pain are together. If you are reading and the first and last letter are in place we don't actually need the rest of the letter to be are the right order. In fact, we construct the view we see as a whole, when it actually is composed of miniscule bits of view and black spots around it. We see the whole store, but the whole store is not seen in actuality. Theories in physics say that we all live our entire life alone - nobody's perceptions match anyone else.. and I'm probably talking your head off, instead of figuring out the problem."

She still could do the switch on kinetmancy-teleportation. But could she do it over such vast distances. hrm..

Askante has posed:
"It's actually comforting. You can talk my head off all you like, I would recover in the end." Askante grins, showing two rows of pearly whites, sharp looking, but neat. There's definitely more than the standard thirty six in there. It looks around for a piece of paper and helps itself to a notepad behind the till, heading with a flourish of the paper, toward the table at the base of the stairs. It sits there, after turning a chair sideways so the tail doesn't get in the way and starts to undo the matroshka, one doll at a time. Each one is given a pat, a polish, a tickle under the chin or otherwise -- that itself seems to be ritualistic. And then, by the time it is finished, six stand there and the seventh holds a tiny bottle of ink in her hands. It takes that ink and with very great care, removes the stopper.

And then it's using one of its own quills hollowed out, to dip the ink and draw on the paper.

It is a talented artist, in a way that makes the eye a bit squiffy for looking, as the artistry with that ink seems to be attempting to make three dimensions, a source of light and complicated other things like the tinge of magic on a box, plain and ordinary, sitting on a shelf. And it's coloured correctly, on one dip of ink.

"There. Not my best, but it doesn't move." There's even a little chip on the corner of the box, faithfully rendered.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
What big teeth you have grandma..

*shudder*

Willow gets up a few books, and puts them on the table, and boots her computer up. Really she doesn't need her computer, but for some reason she feels grounded when she thinks. As the dolls do their things with Askante, Willow is thinking about what to do..

If only she could be closer.. And *click* it all comes together.

A portal. A particular one. Not for a huge transportation of people and good through the vastness of space, but a tiny one - connecting the radio with the inside of the box.. wherever it may be. Still was tricky, but now that she had thought of it, all the steps were lined up. All they needed was the radio, and Bob's your uncle.

And it seemed that Askante had the radio.

"This is what we're going to do.." After all she had it before.. how hard would it be to repeat it?

Askante has posed:
Askante hands over the Statue of Lady Liberty and her secret tunage, setting it down on the tabletop. It smiles again, making complicated shapes with its hands, mystical shapes which seem to do little other than provide a focus. The image it drew could ALMOST be real, as it gestures become faster paced, more precise and more exacting. It will make doing a portal into the box that is an image of a real box on a real shelf in a real apartment in the sky... easier. And it will probably get past the box's keeper too, which would be a good thing.

"It is nice," it says conversationally "to be doing magic with a witch that is not with me being the subject of foci. Or me being a psychopomp. That can get painful."

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
"Frankly," Willow was quite serious. "That is some bad magic. All magic should be centered on yourself. At the least, if you need a foci, that would be more sensible, still, to use the foci, to generate something much more powerful than you or the foci can be. Besides, it would be a tripod of power, instead of a mirror. Of course, if you have more.."

Thinking about how a real live coven with real live magical power could be gives a shiver to Willow. She had only had a few experiences doing that very thing.

Thankfully, the last idler had wandered away from the store, leaving just Willow, and Askante to do the ritual. Before she settled down to cast, she closed the front door, and turned the sign telling people to come back tomorrow.

"Are you ready?" It was dark out by now.

Askante has posed:
Askante nods to her. "I always am. It is in my nature," it replies but gives her a long, rather thoughtful look. A very inhuman being, with a very human way of empathic expression, its face is very nuanced, despite the alien edge to it. "The white rarely calls a being to cast through. If it does, it has the decency to ask. Most have not asked." Which tells you a great deal really. It sighs a bit, shakes its head to itself with a rattle of the quills, soft.

It then presents two hands palm up, whilst the other two rest upon the table top, palm down and relaxed.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
"Well, if you mean me as the white, technically you asked me for my help." Though, Willow wondered what he meant by white? And technically, most people were in various shades of grey.

Of course, now she wondered, "You aren't keeping Hope prisoner? Or being mean to her?" Because, sugar, she had already set out the plans for him to view.

Askante has posed:
"Am I? No. No, I am not. She remains, so that the the power of the box is kept integral. A long time ago, she volunteered to be held, because Hope must always remain," Askante replies, with a soft rattle of spines as it shakes its head. "But it was not until recently that I found where she was and was able to visit the box. And now, the world is full of sound, the silence has been hers too long. Therefore... the small radio thing issue we are... here.. with."

It pauses, smiles. "Thank you, by the by. Witches and Warlocks have not always been kind."

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow listens to the overall story of Hope, and it does seem to coincide with what she has learned. "She volunteered? How brave she must have been. To remove your soul from the rest of them, to allow them to keep on surviving. Before I was a witch I often believed that all those myths were just that - myths. With just enough truth to make them be believable."

"And when I found out what I was.." Kinda. "I found so many things I believed in as a child, were actually true. Funny how we forget the truths."

She blushes as he thanks her. "Thank you! I must admit you were a bit scary at first! But I try to let everyone prove their worth."

The radio. That was the thing. And because she had done something similar she was pretty certain that she could finagle a work around that she do what they wanted. Something about folding the space in between them, so that that radio would be here one second, and there the next.

Making it small was the actual hard part.

Askante has posed:
"The Incarnates... my siblings, we were here to help. We tried. It is a sadness though, each time I sleep, the world changes. In my case, I think I should have woken up sooner, so much of what I am, has become very strange." It inclines its head to her respectfully and watches her thought process pan out in getting her mind right.

"That is why most people do not see me, you know. They see what they want to see, because it is easier to forget and disbelieve, than to see and know. Things in the dark are not always me and it can be horrifying out there."

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
"My friends and I have been tasked - similar to you. Except we aren't immortals, or anything like that. But we can see lots of things that normal people don't. It's.. better? ..for them not to, I guess. Too many demons, and vampires, and the like. But you know? Even those creatures have creatures that are worth giving a chance."

Willow nods as she speaks. What with Angel, Spike, Ox - and so many others - it never paid to think that if one creature is bad, then the rest of the creatures were lumped into the same box. Willow tried (at times) to take everyone at face value until they proved themself otherwise. Heck, Willow had resurrected a vampire!

She began to explain what she was proposing to do. "..Of course to miniaturise the radio might be a problem. It could just go into the space and its parameters would be similar for both sizes without any further magic.." Something to do with conservation of time and space. She didn't know if she could explain better than theory - but /she/ understood it.

Askante has posed:
"There has never been a black and a white in the world of men and others. It only exists in the minds of man... still it is good work that you do then. I saw a moving picture recently, because one of my listeners recommended it. Dune, it was called. It said Fear is a mindkiller, but that does not sound good to me. It is a truth though, nevermind how I feel about it, it takes away the power to run, to think. I am learning all the new ways that Fear manifests in this world -- it is different."

After a moment's consideration though, it notes "I do not know that you could access the box without permission, but perhaps you can use the image as a link? I do not know if that will work. If you need to, you can tap into my being -- Hope and I are the same... what is the word... species? Sympathetically, it should work to reach her space -- she is my sister." But then it quiets, so as not to distract and let her do her thing.

...But apparently not for all that long. "If you need me to do anything, please say." Okay, NOW it's quiet.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
Willow explains:

If he was the focal point to act as the end point, and she was at the beginning point - all that remained would be the radio moving between the two points. "It's a bit funky to explain the why and wherefores of the magic, but trust me, I don't need to go to Hope's domain, and if you are willing to help pinpoint the precise location in your mind, it should work."

After all, no one needs to cross over the intervening space like the first time she did it. This way should be a breeze.

Askante has posed:
Askante nods to her at this, moving its four arms in a katra of motion that ends up with it framing its third eye with the finger and thumb of two hands and framing the center of its soul, the heart chakra with the other set.

Hope remains. Hope is eternal. Hope apparently is very golden-white in light and somewhat like a butterfly in its perceptions; slender and seemingly fragile but unimaginably artful in her creation. She looks as inhuman as it does, but in a positive, not a negative way. Her role after all, was always a positive connotation -- this all seems to form as a whisp in the ether, whether it is picked up on or not. Fear can think very focusedly when it wants to, or has to. Such is the nature of Fear, to create unswerving focus.

Willow Rosenberg has posed:
~I must not fear~

This would be the first time that she had tried something of this magnitude be herself, or without the backup of friends. And considering it was the incarnation of Fear that she was using as her focus? It was a little scary!

~Fear is the mind-killer~

Focus Wils! She concentrated on the distance between *here* and *there* with Askante's showing her the way.

~Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration~

And how! Despite her taking the chance she was terrified. Terrified that he might be using her for all sorts of things: none of them good. She was terrified that she was being roped into the spell that could have all sorts of things wrong with it - including Hope being tied up in captivity with him as the captor.

~I will face my fear~

Still she kept on. Without hope she has nothing. And the fact of the matter was.. she wanted to hope. She needed to hope. Without her hoping..

~I will let it pass over me and through me~

She stretches her mind over the distance, following where Askante's mind went. All the time she kept in her mind the radio as well.

~And when it has gone past, I will turn the inner eye to see its path~

She stopped thinking about fear. There was only one thing to do: trust. Trust in hope. Either it will or will not work. The only thing she could do is hope in herself.

~Where the fear has gone there will be nothin. Only I will remain.~

She envisioned the radio at the end point, with her whole being. If Hope could hold on for all eternity, Willow could hope just enough for Hope. With that she let the radio go to its proper place..Opening her eyes she looked at the place where the radio was. Was. And smiled.

Hope is..

Askante has posed:
Oh hi. How are you? You seem like you're a bit out of sorts. Here, come on in, I'm -so- happy to see you, it's been forever! I remember when you were five and all that you heart desired was that particular item. I know you. I've seen you. I've walked beside you. You know, there's a whole space corp of people devoted solely to the faith that I still walk with you all. Hi! It is /so/ good to see you. I've missed you. I do hope I'll be able to see you again...

All that, a tiny flash, a massive impact. Emotion is a funny thing. It is both the most neglected and the most prized thing in all of creation -- how we are, how we feel. And for a fleeting instance, Willow connected to something as he'd done once for the Slayer; to a primordial power that, surreal as it might be, just wanted to say 'hi'. Hope is always with you, even when things seem hopeless; all you have to do is listen and hear her. Maybe this radio can be two-way? -- The aftermath though, is profound ad incredibly personal. For a fleeting instance in time, as connection is established and the radio vanishes from the table in the magic shop... the future seems bright. It's a golden feelimg, like the promise of a new day. Like the start of an adventure where all sorts of things MIGHT happen, but nobody knows for sure what will occur just yet. Because it hasn't happened. Because we have to just hope for the best.

To all of the victims, to all of the downtrodden, to all of the helpless, to all of the sick, the traumatized, the optimistic and the pessimistic, to all of the tomorrows that as of yet have not arrived: We have Hope. And she will never fade until the day she dies. Let that day never come.

All of that and a radio that is no longer there on the table in the Magic shop.

"It worked. Thank you, white witch. Maybe one day you will meet her. May your gods be with you."

And just like that, as if it might have beene a dream... there is nobody there in the shop. But the future is bright, right? We have Hope. And now she can rock on out.