calling_logs | What girl doesn't need a good axe?

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What girl doesn't need a good axe?

WHO: Garnet and anyone who wants to drop by!
WHAT: Weapon shopping.
WHEN: Around midday.
WHERE: The Mid-Summer Festival in the Lost City of Amazonia
NOTES/WARNINGS: Dem thighs always need a warning. /ahem. Nothing as yet.

She had taken her arrival with her usual aplomb. The City of Tomorrow had been interesting, but she saw more things that she might need to take a closer look at when she thought about attending the Festival that everyone was talking about.

So that was where Garnet had gone. It was rather nice to be amongst fellow warrior women - not that she wasn't always, or almost always, but the attitude here was different. Pearl fought because Rose fought. Amethyst fought because, in her words, she was 'scrappy.' Garnet's reasoning was different. She fought because the battle needed to be fought, and she was able to fight it.

The reason she was looking intently at a weapons booth, though, was because...

Well...

Her giant axe looked a little lonely, and this place was, currently, a little closer (and definitely less laden with memory) than the strawberry fields.

Her lips tugged to one side, a hand at her chin, Garnet eyed a particularly well-made polearm. Reach, and a blade. Both of those were positives in her book.

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The sound was... distinctive. Garnet stood. Listened, counted by distinct noises. Four? Five? Difficult to number. But she could guess where they would be by that alone. Her polearm would have been a good lure, but she still wanted to keep it.

There was no way her axe would've fit in here.

The thought came quickly: Amethyst would've loved this. She could almost see Amethyst folding into her rolling attack, bouncing off each beast, binding them with her whip. Maybe she would have to see to it that she got the chance.

But as it was, she waited. Waited until the beasts sounded too close to run away easily. And then both of her gems began to glow. Low at first. Low enough to not quite be seen. But brightening second by second.

Loki takes that as a signal to launch her own attack, going 'low' again, sending out a radial burst of that same destructive energy, briefly lighting the room with that same olivine sparkle.

And Garnet... Well, there's something beautiful about seeing that kind of brute force in action. She struck, leaping high and punching, kicking, grabbing one and somehow generating electricity that arced through the creature and left it twitching on the floor. She was a force to be reckoned with, and when she was done, she simply jumped back down to the floor, leaving the beasts in the past.

Pure poetry in motion, and Loki takes a moment, in the wake of her spells, to watch with plain appreciation.

"You're quite good at this," she comments.

"Practice."

But then, thanks to years of experience now with Steven, thanks to learning a bit more about how to speak to people, she added, "So are you."

"Practice," Loki allows wryly. "So," she continues, dusting her hands off. "You're the Seer, which way should we go?"

So Loki had caught that. Not that she'd been hiding it, but that fact alone was good to know.

"The fork to the right continues downward and eventually reaches a dead end. There are rooms that may hold useful items. The fork to the left also continues downward, but leads up first. It goes... deeper."

Very deep. All of the futures agreed on that.

"Hmm. Let's clear out the dead end first," Loki decides. "Might as well check it out, right?"

She could hardly have missed that the other woman was a Seer; it's pretty obvious, when one has seen as much as Loki has.

"You will find more of use there than I." But it wasn't a no. Instead, with her gems acting as lights, that was the direction Garnet went, unafraid.

"Oh?"

There's genuine curiosity in Loki's voice, as she brings up the rear. She trails her fingers idly along the black basalt of the tunnel, feeling the carvings. They're more clear, this deep, where the moss doesn't grow.

She could've looked at them. Maybe she had looked at them, but behind that visor of hers, she didn't show it. "There are books you will find interesting. Scrolls, and some few carvings on stone."

For herself? Nothing. Nothing but... Well, possibly one monster that might have something interesting. Possibly. (A narrow possibly.)

Loki's eyes light up, and she gives Garnet a broad grin, a spring in her step as she puts her long legs to use.

"Well then."

Watching Loki go, a hint of a smile came to Garnet - just for a moment. She'd expected that.

With light from the gem on her left palm leading the way, Garnet followed, sifting through the futures to try to see just which one they were going toward. It seemed like the chances for the one monster that might interest her were dwindling. Ah well. It wasn't likely to begin with.

The further they went, the deeper the corridor went. A slow descent, like a ramp, though now and then there was a hint of more to come. A change in the carvings that, occasionally, Garnet actually paid attention to.

Every now and then, Loki herself stops, raising a hand that glows faint green as she waves it over a carving, or a sigil, murmuring words of magic. Once, a piece of one of the sigils, angular and pointed, like one half of a diamond, flares green in response, and sinks into the wall with a faint shing.

"Well well," Loki murmurs. "What have we here?"

It's the fact that it's one half of a diamond that catches Garnet's attention. Time might flow in her vision, but she doesn't catch every single detail. That's slightly beyond her power.

"A good question."

"This is my rune," Loki explains, tapping the still-glowing sigil. "Not a thing I expected to find here."

There were possibilities:

Loki left it here without memory.
It was left for Loki to find.
It was made to call Loki to this place.
There was another Loki who was here.

All Garnet did was turn her head in Loki's direction, tilted in question.

"It could have been left here by another Loki," she says. "Or by Me-From-The-Future. Or by worshippers..."

"All of those are possibilities," she agreed. "The future isn't clear."

That, though, might have been an understatement. The future around Loki was a wild, tangled thing that she didn't even want to try to tease into order.

Loki flashes her a grin, bright and toothy.

"It seldom is." Idly, she pushes a little more power into the rune, making it flare greenly, and... sink into the wall. Somewhere in the distance, a clunk echoes.

Behind her visor, Garnet's eyes narrowed and she did a quick consultation of what the immediate future would offer. Those 'clunk' sounds were rarely a good thing. Not always something to be concerned about, but rarely actually good.

A cave-in, a hidden door, a broken mechanism-- They're all possible, all tied together, as if the path of the future leans on the faintest hair.

"...Oops."

"Don't.

"Move."

There was a pause between the words as Garnet quickly searched forward into the future, seeing the three main branches form from nothing, watched the waters heading toward them twirl and tumble, choosing seemingly at a whim which to go toward. Everything was very uncertain--

But as everything stayed quiet, the future where they found themselves surrounded by falling rocks seemed to fade. She wouldn't be certain, of course, but she could only see what seemed to be happening.

"The future is more uncertain than usual. I can't guarantee a positive outcome until I look deeper--"

Or.

She looked toward Loki. And then, making a decision, she stepped over, grasped Loki's jaw, and placed a kiss on Loki's forehead. Future vision: granted. It would last only a few seconds, but in those few seconds, Loki could see what Garnet saw.

Choices. How each choice would make the future unfold. What those futures would hold. And much as Steven had said, many of those possibilities were bad. But a few were good.

Those were the ones Garnet always tried to steal toward. But Loki was a chaotic variable. In this, it seemed to be Loki's choice that mattered.

The possibilities snake out before her, plunging into pits, and crashing over cliffs, and Loki's eyes widen, pupils constricting as the possibilities chase each other through her mind. This way or that, or perhaps that...

She finds the path through sheer dumb luck, in the end, her eyes snapping into focus, and she presses more firmly on the rune, dragging her finger over, and up, and there's another, closer click, and then a low rumbling, before a section of the wall sinks into the ground before them.

"Ah, secret doors. My favourite kind."

She had seen that possibility. But it had been narrow - difficult to focus on, especially with how Loki's being seemed to skitter through all of the timelines like an errant leaf. The easiest thing to do was just accept what had happened, and extend a hand to shine her red-tinted light on what was inside. "Good work."

Vital to say that. Encouragement, she had learned from Steven, did wonders.

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