[PRP] that crunchy granola stuff (Shiloh & Eve & Julian)

[Melancholies]

Shiloh knew about Eve through Jamie, and she sounded like a kind (if not eccentric) person. In all honesty he had wanted to meet with her more solely on that account, but now he actually had a purpose. A mission. A super important mission (which might not be that important at all, rather than just pure curiosity). Regardless it led him here to Equinox.

The inside was pungent with the aroma of various teas, but this was also coming from someone who wasn't fond of tea in the first place. Sure, he drank it on occasion to help with his restlessness and his sleeplessness and his occasional stress, but that didn't mean he liked it, he just liked drinking it with Jamie because it gave them a nice little moment together at the end of every night.

Ah, but he was letting his thoughts wander all over the place. Equinox wasn't as populated as he remembered it being, but having the quiet space might suit his purposes better. He had important magic s**t to talk about anyway. Gripping the sketchbook he had in the crook of his arm, he stepped all the way inside and let the door shut quietly behind him.

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[cibarium]

As Shiloh made his way into the store he was eventually intercepted by Julian. His dark hair was slicked back into something professionally presentable, and he had on a little bow tie under the customary apron. None of this was too unusual, but the man had a subdued but intense smile that looked a bit out of place on his freckled face.

"Hello there, customer. I am here to help you, if you need me," he greeted. There was a calming, polished, broad cadence to his voice. "My name is Julian. And yours is Shiloh. I still remember you from that time I astrally projected to you in my sleep. That was some Homestuck bullshit."

Yup, this was definitely the same guy.

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh jumped slightly, obviously surprised, "You work here?" He blinked rapidly a few times before shaking his head, "Well, uh, yeah. I guess you dead. Hey! This means you're not dead." Shiloh had no idea what the ******** a Homestuck was though.

"So that's a plus. Uh, I'll buy something if I have to, but I was actually looking for someone named Eve?" He looked around the shop, and then back to Julian, slightly weirded out by his weird way of announcing things. "If she's available, I mean."

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[cibarium]

Julian gave an enthusiastic nod at Shiloh's observation that he was, in fact, not dead. "Eve is my aunt," he replied, an explanation and a verification all at once. "She owns Equinox, actually. I help her out at the store because I feel I owe it to her and Leila for taking me in after running away from Chicago." He rattled this out candidly while leading Shiloh to the back of the store and gesturing towards one of the insidiously comfortable armchairs available to sit at. "You don't need to buy anything. I will go and fetch Eve. She is a wonderful person I would give my life for..."

His voice trailed off, not because he had decided to stop talking, but because he was still talking as he walked away and toward the office and kitchen. It was just becoming more difficult to understand him the farther away he was.

After a minute or two, Clover trotted over to sit next to Shiloh's table. Eve appeared next, making herself comfortable across from her customer.

"Hello," she greeted warmly. "I take it you're Oliver's brother? How was the full moon for him?"

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Something was very off here. Maybe this was just how Julian was in the waking world? But he seemed so dry and irritably and grumpy before. His brow furrowed as he walked away, voice still rambling.

"H-Hi..." He was still immensely put off by the display earlier, "Um, yeah, I'm Shiloh. I've heard about you from Jamie." He smiled, sort of, "Is he always like that? No offense, but it's kinda..." He waved his hand and dropped the subject.

"...nevermind. Anyway, I think he took it okay. He ended up being a raccoon he said." He set the sketchbook out on his table. "Um, I really appreciate the stuff you do for him and Jamie. It really helps them out..." How to be polite to adults, how, how, how... "I can wait if you're busy? But I kinda wanted to ask you something. It's kinda ********' weird."

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[cibarium]

Eve smiled back, pleased to meet anyone associated with a Pack member. She nodded attentively through Shiloh's account of Oliver's first full moon, happy to hear things had gone well... and it was difficult to hide her amusement over the discovery he was a raccoon. Jeremiah had given an anecdote that didn't name names, but... in retrospect it was easy to figure out exactly which budding moonwalker had been discovered rooting for chicken nuggets in the trash.

"It never gets too busy here," she admitted in response to the request for help. "Julian didn't do anything offputting, did he? He mentioned you're a Noble, so... just so you're aware, the one you were talking to is actually a fetch." There were some mixed feelings there, but her tone revealed mostly exasperation. "He let us all know before being... switched. Still fools me every time I look at him."

Was there a tactful way to allude to the whole evil double aspect of the tithing?

melancholes

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh gawked, "You're kidding!" His hands slammed down onto the table a little too hard, blood pressure probably rising a little bit. It showed in the ruddiness of his face. "How? He? Who tithed—but—" His head was spinning with this new information. At least it sounded like he went voluntarily...

"Not... offputting I guess. Nothing bad." He cracked his knuckle anxiously. This topic was obviously a great source of stress for the teenager, "He was just acting weird. I mean, I've only met him once, but he wasn't so... so... I dunno, thrilled to exist?"

He sighed as he started to thumb through his sketchbook. "Well, thanks for letting me know I guess. At least his fetch seems really obvious." He glanced up where Julian had vanished off to, looking not unlike a wary, cornered animal. He didn't like the sound of this at all, but whatever. It wasn't his life; but he was jealous with those that had a choice in the matter.

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[cibarium]

Eve scooted in a little closer the second Shiloh's fist hit the table. Knowing Lady, she was aware becoming a Noble was usually a traumatic process, but the outburst still surprised her a little, if only because it momentarily broke her shop's peaceful atmosphere. Past that, she couldn't blame anyone for their feelings on fetches. It seemed they were always trouble.

"I'll make sure he leaves you alone, then," she offered, giving a curious look to the sketchbook. "What did you need me for?"

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

"No, no, it's fine I'm sorry." His words came out a little jumbled, but he was managing to settle down. He handled this sort of thing better than he used to, but his feeling were still the same. Not to mention the information had caught him completely off guard. Either way he was quickly composed, cheeks flushed and flustered from losing his cool so easily.

"It's uh, kind of a weird request." He opened the book to a specific page, one where he had a detailed image of the new sigil sketched. Underneath it were the runes Noeh had transcribed.



"I spoke with The Sorrowful One recently. Y'know, Noeh. There's been a lot of weird shifts in the Court recently so I had to see her; um, that's not why I came though." He gently touched the runes, "She pointed out that the keys in the sigil were Ogham runes--whatever the ******** those are--and she pointed me in your direction to have them read. Said "Eve Fitzpatrick is into that crunchy granola stuff"." He looked back up to her.

"So. Y'know. Here I am." He looked a little sheepish. "I've kinda been meaning to stop by anyway. Ollie 'n Jamie speak pretty highly of you."

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[cibarium]

Eve smiled and blushed -- yes, blushed -- a little at the praise. "Glad to hear I'm more of a good influence than a bad one," she replied, pulling Noeh's writings closer to her so she could look at them. "I haven't been into runes and things for a long time, actually, but since it's only five characters..."

She took out her phone. To Google it.

Such amazing mystic wisdom, this one.

Her brow crinkled a bit in concentration, then in confusion as she checked and wrote the corresponding letters down, one by one: S... U... N... N... E. The paper was turned partway so Shiloh could read it as well.

melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh was ready for Eve to some some crazy witch seance thing, make the spirits transcribe the runes or start chanting out the verbal version of this s**t or whatever, but instead she yanked out her phone and did exactly what he or anyone else could have been easily capable of. His eyes glazed over slightly as she went to work, feeling a little stupid.

...but it was short lived at least. Eve was someone spoken highly of in his current household by the people he considered most important, so he'd wanted to chat with her for a while now.

"Sunne..." he looked down at the word in front of him, "Sunny?" But why would it be an e rather than a y? Unless Ogham runes didn't have a y.

"So... the keys on the tree branches spell out Sunny?" He was perplexed by this. He knew that position on the sigil was important, so what was this implying? That she was directly related to the key despite being the one caged? That she had the potential to break out of it? That she'd grow into becoming a key? Dumb roundabout sigil s**t.

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[cibarium]

"There's no Y in the Ogham alphabet, so that seems to be the case," answered Eve. She was frowning down at the letters as if she could convince them to read as something else by doing so. It really didn't make sense: Renard's name hadn't been part of the original sigil, had it? "I don't know what this means," she admitted.

"The other evening I spoke with Jeremiah and Algernon about the new sigil being the new Cage... and the important thing from that is how the cage needs to be opened before the end of the year, otherwise the cycle will reset again and anyone who isn't a Noble won't have any recollection of this one." She took a deep breath... that was a complicated mouthful to get out. "The principals need to choose to open the cage, and Sunny is the fourth one..."

melanchlies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh had the most intense expression on his face. It was his thinking face, which was rarely used, but used more so in recent times. He nodded slowly, "I knew that much, yeah." Sonny had told him that anyway when he first found out about his status as a principal. Only problem was America was hesitant to jump into the idea and he had no idea who the third one was. At least Meri was a friend of Sonny's too, so he wasn't too worried about her caution. It was healthy, considering Shiloh lacked the ability to hold off and be careful.

"Sonny's the one caged now." He said as he sat up, though his eyes were still locked on the runes like they might give him some new insight. "Which is why I'm confused that the keys spell her name." Also, he was the key in the sigil. Where did it all tie together? "I'm sure that girl who drew the original draft for the sigil didn't do this on purpose either."

Shiloh sighed. "I dunno what it means either. I guess I gotta look into it more." Now he was furiously locked in a chin-in-hand pose, thinking deeply again. "I've been investigating the changes in the new world 'cause it seems like it's ******** up a lot of stuff. Like, aside from the obvious." He looked around Equinox's new decor, "But the Court's all mangled too. That's where I started actually."

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[cibarium]

"Someone who used to be in my Pack learned something about the old Sunny," said Eve, after a moment of silence. "She wanted to become more human. He even gave her some of his blood in exchange for some power." She grinned a little darkly as she recalled the story. "He didn't stay in Ashdown long enough for that part to matter much... but that's going off topic."

The difference in pronunciation between Sunny and Sonny was practically nonexistent, but Eve's keen ears picked up on it. Ezra's rant about Sunny had come to mind as well. What she'd just learned from Shiloh had made her begin seriously questioning just how right about her he was.

"I've wondered if Sonny still has that blood at all, or if the reset turned him back into a being of pure magic. Something my son said--"

Her jaw snapped shut as if something had just bitten her for those last few words. They had been spoken without her even needing to think twice about it.

After a few seconds she'd apologized and waved at the fetch-Julian to bring out some tea.

melanchlies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh was good at picking up on emotional cues—it was a skill he gained from nights of walking on constant eggshells at home—so Eve's reaction to her own words was more than obvious. What caught him sharp was the mention of having a son, but only because he hadn't heard anything about Eve's immediately family aside from Leila and more recently Julian.

"I've never heard about that." He admittedly softly. "I knew Sonny wanted to be more human because I had heard it from other people, but nothing about any blood pacts." He was silent for a bit himself, "They... aren't still I don't think, but they're a lot different now too. The reset definitely affected them." But different how? They weren't wild and unbound anymore. They lived up on that shore house with Liam and did god-knows what else with their time.

He looked up as Julian was waved over, much less bothered by his eccentric behavior now that he knew the reasons behind it. "You don't have to finish that thought." He said after a moment, "But I'm really neck-deep in this s**t, so anything you'd have to say would be appreciated." God bless Jamie for teaching him how to ask things tactfully.

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