tampered | Log: Ongoing

Log: Ongoing

When; The 15th
Rating; PGish?
Characters; Faye Valentine (

glock30 and Tia Dalma (

tiaxdalma)
Summary; After making a deal to learn a bit more, Faye heads over to The Black Swann to talk with Tia.
Log;

Faye was mostly surprised by all the sand. She hadn't seen sand in so long that she wasn't quite sure if she actually ever remembered seeing it. She wasn't sure if it wasn't one of those memories you made up or not. But there was certainly a lot of it here--and an ocean, to top that--as she made her way carefully over to a large ship, trying to keep her eyes both on her feet and on the massive structure in front of her.

In truth, she was a little nervous. The promise of... answers and the possibility of new questions made the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. And this Tia Dalma woman--though Faye trusted what she said, for whatever reason--made her a bit anxious as well. She wanted to smoke, but she told herself not to, occupying herself instead with the hope that Dalma would find her first so that Faye didn't have to wander around the unfamiliar territory like some dumb dog.

She started up to the ship, counting the steps she took as she went.

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Tia was in her room, pacing, and she'd sent a girl to fetch her visitor on the docks. She'd take her onto the ship and to Tia's quarters below deck. Tia herself was anxious and tense, but not the point where preforming a reading wouldn't suitably distract her. She was worried about Jack's meeting with Jones, but there was nothing she could -- well, there was nothing she would do. She'd given her word, more or less. And even if she hadn't, she knew she didn't dare interfere unless it was to save a life.

When she heard the girl return, she reluctantly moved to the table in her quarters, sitting heavily in her gilded chair. The many cluttered items about her room did little to comfort her, as they all carried memories - friends here and there, friends dead and gone, friends still waiting to be seen... Tia sighed, and waited for the inevitable knock.

Faye had been a bit more than relieved when a young girl--younger than her at least--came to fetch her. She followed her more or less silently down into the lower levels of the ship, and Faye couldn't help but glance around at all the shadows and the shapes they made. She stuck relatively close to her guide, though, and sighed thankfully when the girl led her to a closed door and instructed her to knock.

Standing in front of the door for a minute, Faye fiddled with the ends of her sweater. It's nothing, she told herself, squaring her shoulders. She wasn't afraid, and, as if to prove it to herself, she knocked heavily on the door until she was sure she might splinter the wood.

The door opened of its own accord, and Tia sat waiting. She grinned when she saw the young woman - from the future, wearing something that would make all the men she knew blush (in the least). She had a feeling that this woman, Faye, used this sort of thing to her advantage.

"Welcome, Miss Valentine," she drawled, motioning for Faye to come in and sit down. "I hope yo bring all you need."

Dalma motioned her inside, and Faye stepped into the strange room with confidence, raising her chin but jumping a bit when the door shut loudly behind her. The other woman was wearing an odd dress and an assortment of what looked like charms. She was unique, and although Faye was slightly wary of her, she liked her.

She took a seat across from the woman, trying not to touch anything on the table. "I have the... cigarette, if that's what you mean," she replied, realizing how stupid that sounded. She felt like an idiot. "I also found an old lighter."

Faye drew the latter item out of her pocket. The cigarette she pulled from behind her ear, where she had taken to keeping it when it wasn't in a random pack. She held both heavily in her hands.

"Mmm..." Tia nodded, watching as the other woman handled the items. She was interested in the lighter, having not used one before, but it would be in terrible form to be playing about with such items... such items that Faye clearly held in high regard, along with the former owner.

She lifted her hands and motioned to the flat leather skein on her table, and when they'd been set there, she leaned over them, eyeing the things closely. It reminded her vaguely of Jack, the things being closest to this dead man being things of an addiction. This dead man... She reached out one fingertip to touch the end of the cigarette lightly, and then leaned back, chin settled on her hands. "This man.." he nose wrinkled, and the foreign name sounded awkward from her lips, saying it slowly, clearly unsure if she was saying it correctly: "Spike ... Spiegel?"

It felt... odd to have the cigarette and lighter taken from her, the cigarette more so than the lighter, but still. She had never had it out of her reach, had never let anyone else touch it. It was her way of... remembering, though she hated to admit it, and when Tia took them from her, a chill when down her spine.

Faye watched her work, morbidly fascinated, wondering how this was at all possible. She didn't really believe in ghosts or the After Life or anything like that. It was one common trait that she and Spike had shared. Once you were dead, you were dead. It was just figuring that bit out that was the hard part.

When the woman across from her said his name, she felt her stomach constrict. It had been months. Jet hadn't even spoken to her about Spike. Tia said the name as if she were tasting an unfamiliar spice, and Faye was afraid that she choked when she said, "Yeah... that's--yeah. Spiegel. Spike." She scowled. "Idiot."

Tia stared at the objects more, and then poked at the lighter, gently, gently. More images came to her, and feelings. She leaned over them and whispered to them quietly, and hummed... It was easier to read Christine's life, from another world, because Christine herself was here before her. But the dead man from another world was more difficult... in fact, only possible because he was dead, so his soul was less attached.

"I see a woman," she said. "A blonde woman. I know this curse before... not a literal curse, not like in my day, but a curse of him soul. He love her too much, that there not be room for anything else in him heart."

More silence... there was more, and Tia reflected on it in a quiet moment, deciphering the things that came to her.

Tia was staring at the objects, so Faye started at the objects, too. Normally she would have been more interested in all the crazy, odd things around here, but... Not this time. When the woman began to hum, she cupped her chin in the palm of her hand and watched.

Faye blew a stray piece of hair out of her face and said sourly, "Julia." A curse, huh? That sounded about right. It wasn't that she hated Julia or even disliked her--she didn't know the woman enough to pass judgment anyway--but Faye found herself unintentionally blaming her for everything that had happened. She blamed Spike, too. She blamed a lot of people that probably didn't deserve it, but she really didn't give a damn. "That sounds about right, and that sounds like Spike, too. Moron."

Glancing back down at Spike's things, Faye waited quietly, feeling claustrophobic and hot.

Faye's mood was easily detectable - she cared for this man. He had touched her life deeply. The insults she tossed out hid nothing to the gypsy queen as she pondered. What a complicated life this woman had lead... as well as her fallen friend. But so was everyone's life, in the end.

"Not be all..." she started, leaning back in her chair and keeping her eyes on the small items. "Him meant to die long before he did. He escaped, and used him years wisely... but every day of him life, he be walking to him death. Every step to one end... nothing any man could do to stop it, just prolong. The years him have after..." she paused, closing her eyes with a frown. "A band of evil men. They be the ones who darken his soul and put the mark of death on him life, but he be throwing in with them by him own choice."

The words soaked in in a way that Faye didn't like at all. She had been given bad news all her life, and while she had known that Spike's past was dark--darker than her own--it was something altogether different to actually hear it for the first time. Faye shook her head, having a hard time believing it. She was stubborn, after all. "But... why?"

Drumming her fingers on the very edge of the table, she said, "He escaped everything, you know? Everything. He was so stupid and so reckless and just..." Faye trailed off with exasperation. She wanted to shoot something. "He makes--made stupid decisions, and I don't care if that's what he was suppose to do, if that was his fate or something. He had a choice, and he was selfish. He was such a hypocrite." She knew she sounded irrational and childish, but... this was Spike. The last thing he had done had been to make her cry like she was ten. She thought she was entitled to acting childish.

"If he knew how it was going to end, why even bother?" she asked, looking over at Tia. "Why not just go this 'band of evil me' and be done with it? Why draw it out and get the rest of us so damn concerned?"

Tia let out a sigh, finally looking up at Faye. She let the power she'd been using to bring up the echoes of this man's spirit slip away, feeling that the necessary questions had been answered. Any more in-depth motivations would be too difficult to divine without a fully engaged ceremony, and she was not about to conduct such a thing for a man she didn't know.

"Why do men do any of the things they do?" she asked rhetorically, her voice sympathetic. "Such intimate things, even I cannot see this far."

Faye felt uneasy, so she studied her fingernails. She had bitten them all. They were a mess. She chewed thoughtfully on one for a moment before saying with a sour smile, "To frustrate us, I guess." She knew that the question wasn't meant to be answered, but she couldn't help but say something.

She raked a hand over her face. "Men are so pointless." The comment made her sad, for whatever reason, and she glanced back at Tia again, trying not to let it show on her face, asking, "Do you need to... I don't know, keep these for anything?" Her fingers buzzed above the lighter and the cigarette.

"Take them," she said softly, with a bit of a smile, making little motions with her hands for Faye to pick her precious items back up.

"Men... be all sorts of things, but mostly trouble," Tia said, shrugging a bit. "I know. I think we all know..." she shook her head, the worry about Jack creeping back up into her without her consent. What about this place made her feel so much more intensely? "Be strong, Faye. Not else we can do, in the end."

Faye snatched the items up with little hesitation, putting the cigarette back behind her ear and clutching the lighter in her palm. It was warm, and that made her sad as well.

Listening to Tia speak, Faye found herself smiling and then--just a bit--chuckling. While pushing herself to her feet, she looked down at Tia, meeting her eyes for a brief instant and catching a bit of far off, distant, and well-hidden worry. Faye wouldn't have recognized it if she hadn't pulled the same look so many times herself. "I will. Be strong that is," she said, pushing her chair in.

Faye inclined her head toward Tia and said, "Thank you. I... hope that we can meet again in the future. Maybe under better and different circumstances." The door was opening in font of her before she realized she had pulled it. Faye paused for a moment, and then finally turned and said, "And--whatever it is that you're worried about--I hope it turns out all right in the end."

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Log: Ongoing

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