Still I'm spinning like a roundabout in motion

[allmydiredreams]

On the front of the Kashtta, there is a small heap of angles, knotted hair, and tattered clothes. It's up against the Kashtta's wall, one hand pressed flat against the building's wall and face totally obscured by tangles. For a good few minutes, it doesn't move, but then with a small gasp, the hand balls into a fist, hits the wall, then uncurls

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[sophicsulphur]

Iris doesn't actually notice the crazy, first off. She's ducking her head outside the Kashtta's double doors, trying to decide whether it's worth it to walk out and get some food or just eat cafeteria stuff and not risk something exploding or dying or trying to kill her, when her senses scream hugetangledmessofenergysomewhereovertotheright and she turns to look so fast there's almost whiplash.

She's getting used to the many and varied energies of Chicago's hardly-normal population, over time. But this one is vividbrightancientdeep something she's never encountered before.

The girl behind the pulsing is saying some words to a kitten, one a lot like hers, that don't entirely make sense to her. But unlike with most people, that doesn't make Iris afraid. It makes her curious. She wants to know more. There is something to learn, here.

Iris only thinks she'd be a Guardian Angel, if she were one. If she'd actually been born with the genetics, her parents would have called Angel of Knowledge before she was out of diapers

[allmydiredreams]

Babel's entire attention is on the kitten when Iris approaches, aside from the way her shoulder, hip, head are all still pressed against the Kashtta Tower wall. She's still talking to it, softly -- "Everything's gone, small one, not any kittens here." -- with one finger on its head. Occasionally she flicks at its ears, and it miaous at her in its tiny squeaky voice.

She's marginally aware of Iris -- she's at least noticed that another bodybeat has entered the fray, but it's not something she can focus on to the exclusions of all else at the moment. She can't focus on anything that way at this point, really. But when Iris speaks, she squints up through her hair at the other girl. "I'm listening to the Tower," she says in a loud stage whisper. It's not that she's ignoring Iris's question, it's just that she didn't register there was one. She holds up the kitten. "It will help me."

[OOC: And then I forgot to ooc-note. XD I may not be posting Kaden in for a bit as some of the planned stuff had to be pushed back -- I'm fine with Iris

[sophicsulphur]

She doesn't really mind that her question didn't get answered. After all, the other girl's obviously got something really important to do, and Iris would understand perfectly well if she didn't have the time to talk to her right now.

Her curiosity won't dampen down enough to let her leave, however. So she takes a seat against the wall next to Babel, closes her eyes, and tries listening to the Tower, too.

The structure itself doesn't feel like much of anything, to Iris. That's something she's always noticed about it: a building this tall should feel like it's bound by something more solid than metal and stone, some magical force that keeps it from toppling in on itself. That's how they build castles so tall in her world. But the Tower feels inert, with not even the dormant wisdom of an old weathered bluff to tickle at the edges of her consciousness. It's vaguely disconcerting

[allmydiredreams]

Babel smiles when Iris sits down next to her, imitates what she's doing. For a moment, a single, hopeful moment, she wonders if this girl can feel what she does, knows what it's like -- but no. No, there's no marker, no telltale countdown ticking at the very base of the footsteps shaking her bones

[sophicsulphur]

"I can't hear anything," she admits, with a shake of her head. "I wish I could. I think I'm just a lot weaker than you are." She means her senses, her abilities. Babel clearly perceives things she cannot, and for a moment her whole being flinches with the truth of that, painful and aweing. Painful because she wants to feel everything, and she did, once, back when she was dead, and she misses that so terribly much. Aweing, because it's wonderful to know that others can do that, even while remaining alive.

It gives her hope, for her own evolution, and she's left with chills down her spine: the good kind, the kind that fill you when you hear a song that moves you to your core.

She understands how the kitten can be focus. The girl's reasoning is practically alchemical. The kitten has its properties, small and sharp and simple, and using its proximity as a touchstone, she can apply those properties to her own self-- it's simple genius, the kind often overlooked. She smiles, genuinely, and nods, at that. Yes, she thinks she'll get along

[allmydiredreams]

"Revel; not the same," Babel says, reaching out to put a hand on Iris's collarbone. It's not a terribly intimate gesture, and yet at the same time it somehow is; she can feel Iris's emotions and wants and powers and being so much clearer this way, and it steadies for a moment, but at the same time, she extends this to anyone and everyone. It's routine. "It all hurts after awhile."

She moves her hand then, the jangling in her arm lessening back into the general hum of everything around her. She can still feel Iris, but she's not so horribly loud anymore. The kitten helps immensely. As does, strangely, the Tower. So Babel leans her head against it again.

And then nods at Iris's answer. "So much pain and power pulling--it all sings sharp and minor key," she says, singsonging a little bit. Then she blinks, fixing Iris with an intense, near-unblinking stare. "Only one solo isn't going to stop it."

[sophicsulphur]

She doesn't quite parse that first utterance, but the touch is surprising, yet not startling, and rather nice. It reminds her of the very fringe beginnings of forming a pact, the way Babel comes more sharply into focus around the point of contact-- a point that runs deeper than skin, and she knows both of them know it. It's nice because it's the obvious thing to do, and it's something that people don't, not normal people, not so spontaneous and sure

[allmydiredreams]

Babel looks sad for a moment at Iris's feelings; she can tell there's a tiny beat of want, and part of her wants to figure out how to demand of the clouds (the clouds that aren't there) that they make her another, that she's not the only one anymore. But she wouldn't want anyone else to feel what she does, for their sake as well. Everything vibrates, pushes in, until she can't find herself anymore

[sophicsulphur]

Babel's display doesn't put Iris off, only concerns her. One of her best friends beyond the Rift is a man who looks homeless, but to her he doesn't read that way at all. He's a prince of shadows and rats (and she thinks this, knowing nothing of his true status), a fine and friendly creature who she trusts almost as much as anyone she knows in Chicago. His dishevelled appearance, to her mind, is only a marker of his status, as rat-man, decay-spirit, walker with darkness and death

[allmydiredreams]

Iris is certainly right that Babel wasn't necessarily meant to be wholly in this world, for all that she was made for it. To record it, to live it. Sometimes even the best laid plans go wrong.

She freezes when Iris puts a hand on her shoulder, not out of fear but in order to listen better. Because the bodybeats are nigh overwhelming; she has to listen for herself. It's hard. She can't really find herself at all, just the ticking of the clock underneath everything else. Always ticking. It feels like everything's going to go wrong at any minute, like at the ends, but this is different. She hasn't been able to figure it out. It's why she's come home.

Home. If only.

She shakes her head at the question, her face screwing back up into an unhappy grimace. "Not, no, never. Pretends very well," she mutters. "Always pain, always--not responsible. Nothing to respond." She starts to curl in on herself, one hand gripping Iris's wrist in a vice-grip.

The kitten in Babel's lap mewlps up at her as she does so, though, and she

[sophicsulphur]

Iris doesn't mind the grip on her wrist. If Babel needs comforting, she'll do her best to provide. "You don't need to pretend," she says, her voice as soft as she can make it. "It's okay." She feels a little odd, attempting to comfort a deity, but that won't stop her from being there for her. "Why is it pain? Can I help?"

Her own kitten releases his deathgrip and crawls cautiously down from her shoulder, to butt his head against Babel's knee in an empathic display. Iris giggles at the cat. Flamel will make a wonderful familiar. The bond's already there, between their hearts.

If it's word association, it's a kind that makes some instinctive sense to her. Besides, it's almost the exact question Allen asked her, coincidence or no. It's becoming a ritual, now, and ritual soothes her heart. She's in amongst things she understands, now.

Perhaps few would say that of Babel. But if there's one thing Iris has been told all her life, it's that she's not most people.

"Mind and matter. It's neither without both." Which is to say, alchemy is

[allmydiredreams]

"Always pretend," she whispers. "Else it consumes -- lost yourself once? Lost yourself twice, thrice, a million apocalypses later." She smiles, a sad sort of little smile; she wishes Iris wouldn't wish for it, and she wishes she could stop wishing she'd find someone else like her. "Nobody wants to live forever."

She squeaks at the headbomp from Iris's kitty, turning her smile on him. She bops his head and flicks at his ears, then scritches. Kittens are always good. No matter what world. Kittens or their kitten-equivalents. There have only been a few that didn't have something equally cute in them.

Babel's word association usually makes some semblance of sense, if she stops long enough to figure it out. Most people don't. But that's what keeps it separate from word salad, the narration supposes.

"What do you want to change?" Babel asks. That's what alchemy is about, is it not?

[sophicsulphur]

Always pretend, or it consumes. She takes a few beats to analyse those words; she likes Babel's way of talking, but it can take some figuring out. "...You don't want to think about it. Because it's sad. Okay." She gives Babel a sympathetic look and a smile. "If that changes, I'll hold your words." And... that didn't make sense either, but that's what Iris likes about Babel. She can say the words that feel like they really mean what she needs to express, and she'll hear.

If Flamel's ordinarily wary of other cats, he isn't showing it right now as he crawls up, deliberately, into Babel's lap, his footfalls slipping and faltering as he tries to find purchase on the uneven surface. Having made it, he gives a mrow that seems almost triumphant, before making several turns around and eventually settling down next to the other kitten.

His head jerks up abruptly, though, as Iris' eyes go wide. "...Change?" She falters on that word, because it's out of nowhere, and so insightful, on so many levels. So much so that it can't be a guess, though

[allmydiredreams]

"Take my words and feel them," Babel replies, though it's more of a mutter. "Roll them on your tongue--swallow them. They grow." She makes a little motion with her fingers, exploding from a fist into a open hand, palm up, in slow motion.

She squeaks in delight when the other kitten wanders into her lap, and for a moment her face lights up just like anyone else's might; there's no trace of the crazy. She leans over for a moment of fuzzy kitten time, making indiscriminate little happy noises at them, and then looks back up at Iris. "Small things, so many tiny bones," she says, as if this is a revelation. "So many tiny beats."

But then she calms, the smile dropping from her face and her eyes unfocusing again as she concentrates harder on Iris. There's something in her beats that makes Babel think--she can pick out the lie, but she doesn't know what the truth is. The beats falter, but she doesn't know the rhythm yet. "The world always needs to change," she says. "But you don't want to just. Just. You falter."

[sophicsulphur]

Iris takes the statement as a blessing, a call to worship, invocation. She closes her eyes, breathes deeply, lets the sound and the meaning and the echoes fill her. It's a strange sort of communion, a spiritual sort of intimacy, being forged, here, crouching in the dirt, outside a repurposed office building in the middle of downtown Chicago. It might not seem like the place for blessings, at least not if you're the average Chicagoan. But Iris is used to seeking the magic between the cracks

[allmydiredreams]

Babel thrives on that magic; it's her life. It's how she sees the world, even when the magic is painful and dark and hurts more than anything. She can't really see the mundane for just the mundane, anymore. When you've seen so many worlds die, it's hard to overlook anything at all -- everything is important