EXT to INT - Windgrace Manor
Pandora Synepho approached the mansion with trepidation only showing in the stiffness that drove her posture to a more perfect stance. She stood straight unto a near hieroglyphic-like rigidity, carrying a bottle of wine in a basket over one arm held before her as if displaying the vintage. She was built slender with long lean muscles amid soft curves like her foremothers with the same warm beech colored skin and curtains of dark curling hair. She was immaculately groomed with nails evenly trimmed and varnished, her frock, made of Egyptian cotton, woven thin and embellished with red and white floral patterns by a fine exacting hand. Every inch of skin of her arms was free to collect sunlight as it filtered down through the fog, dampened by the unnatural weather. Even her eyes suggested the warm tones of a welcoming tree's bark in sunlight. These were paler than her grandmothers, a dilution of the deep brown hers had been by virtue of a recessive gene handed down by the man she was seeking himself.
With a sudden but certain raising of a willowy little arm, she'd rap upon the imposing wooden doors. Visibly she donned discs of gold carved in a Grecian motif caught between a bracelet and a loop around her fingers for an eccentric bit of jewelry, adorning the backsides of her hands, perhaps those and the large bangles betraying her Egyptian priestess' sense of style. There was a grand sense of anticipation amassing in her, her long journey had finally, and with some effort, lead her to this ultimate moment. The abounding fog did not detract from the dreamlike nature of this otherwise calm day. Graven into her face was a placid smile of greeting, small as it was beatific.
Her most recent tracks through the fog at the bottom of the porch's stair yet lingered as she dispelled it as she went from a very small aperture around her in a little eddy, for a brief period of time. This left a wake before the mist blended back in with itself as though even she who held sway over weather had never walked by.
Drystan Windgrace: | Almost as quickly as she had knocked, a member of the staff was opening the double doors wide, and greeting her. They informed her she was at Windgrace Manor, and thanked her for her presence and then asked her the nature of her calling, so as to know how to direct yet another stranger upon the doorsteps.
As this happened, Drystan was just coming out of his room, leaving the doors open and had started to bound down the stairs, barefooted. He was wearing a random pair of gray slacks and a soft well cut deep navy sweater that made his eye color pop all the more. His hair was back to its natural deep brown, thanks to Dinah’s musings at his scalp. He was freshly shaven, which gave every man the look of being years younger than they actually were - a magic that no one to this day understands - and this certainly also worked upon him. He had paint dried and crusted on his hands and forearms, where his sweater cuffs had been pushed to his elbows. He paused on the landing and called back at his open doorway, "Lucky! I saw that! Stay away from the canvas!” He was chiding the catboy that was hanging out in his room as he worked, that had snuck from his loaf position on the chaise, to pitter patter over to the canvas and sniff at it. With his third eye wide open, it was easy for him to have a sort of lagging sense of sight from the location he had just been in - Odd angles and strange spaces were home now.
He continued down the stairs, bouncing a bit as he went, and once he hit the foyer area near the front doors, he was about to take those few steps to make the left that would take him round to the kitchen - to find him and the kitty snacks, of course. But he casually looked past the staff as whomever was at the door, just half a glance and a nanosecond of time and he stopped absolutely dead in his tracks. He stared hard and blatantly, frozen, unable to force himself to move himself or his eyes from that from the woman in the doorway.
Pandora Synepho insisted on handing off the basket bearing the bottle of wine to the person who'd answered the door, with a voice clear as a silver bell, accented past the British of her lessons toward something carrying the exotic spices of the oldest parts of the old world, "Please you take it, let him know I brought it after perhaps." She did not want to carry it back with her which she'd brought all the way from the vineyard near the oasis she'd inhabited for most of her long life. She carried herself as if aware she was being observed, and professionally, so that there was a deliberateness to her motions, not unlike those of a dancer, perhaps. A bare dusting of kohl outlined her eyes as her sole artifice past the hiding of her other form as she always did when going about on two feet.
She'd continue, "Please tell him, if Lord Drystan Windgrace is in residence that Pandora Synepho is calling on him. He will not know the name--" she had been taking in the place she'd been admitted to but had not seen the boggling man. Perhaps she was too busy arguing her case, with that smile upon the attendant who'd greeted her, "--but I promise I shall not waste his time. Not much of it anyway." She did flick her eyes in his direction but just for a moment. Afterall she did not know precisely what the man looked like whom she sought.
Drystan Windgrace: Her movement, the way she passed the basket, held herself, the lilt of her accent, her skin, her face, all of it was smacking Drystan in memories from long centuries past. He took a breath, suddenly realizing he’d not done so in some time, and then finally he was able to move. He kept his stare on her, all three eyes blinking at her as he just walked past the staff that was trying to give him the bottle and explain who the woman was to him, and it was as if those words never entered his ears. Tunnel vision was on the woman at the doorway. His ears could hear her voice almost twice, one with far less British attached to it, speaking just a half hitch of a moment behind her own words. He could hear her heart beating, and feel the pressed formality, the curiosity in her.
Standing there before her, he cocked his head to the side, and declared. “I know you.” He didn’t understand how, or why. He just knew it in his bones. She had come from a time long past, somehow, in a slightly different form.
Pandora Synepho would, upon hearing his voice, fix her eyes upon him and keep them there. She'd not imagined he'd be so hale and youthful looking, though looking up at his face she had to admit to herself that she did not know what she'd expected past not that he'd be so strikingly handsome. Even covered in his paint and casual clothes. Her time on the isle had been strange, and had given her a gloomy view of the place, muted as things had been since she'd arrived, with everything blanketed by the preternatural fog. Here was a new sunrise, and staring up into his face she'd inquire, "No, and yes. If you are Drystan himself... are you him?" Doubt colored her voice which fell silent that she might hear him again. Without thinking about it she reached up to fiddle with a certain necklace she had hidden beneath the shawl she wore.
Drystan Windgrace: His eyes wandered over her every feature, as much as he could take in at once. They moved side to side like he was reading her like a book, he poured over her eyes, the bow of her lips, and even how she looked up at him. “I am. And you…” He paused as his third eye which he did not have hidden away from her, looked harder, through her. She stood in place but he could see that some small part of her was moving ever so slightly out of sync, like her shadow was mimicking her. That faint askew detail drew a name to his mouth that he had not spoken in many years. “Kassandra.” He had not realized, but his own heart was beating wildly in his chest, the blood thrumming loudly in his ears. He dared not take his eyes off her for she might be gone if he did and he wasn’t able to bear that possibility at this moment.
Pandora Synepho stared up at the third eye, and quickly rejoined, "Was my grandmother. I am told I resemble her. My mother was..." she nodded in his direction as she trailed off, then picked up, "...she never knew much about her father, nor how to find him, if he wanted to be found. I am Pandora and I have been fortunate to see enough days go by where the name Windgrace can easily be found. Imagine... you are him. You look magnificent--" her last she spoke in a whisper with one hand up to the side of her mouth conspiratorially, "--for your age." She was one to talk, but she did not after babbling quite so much as she had. She smiled up at him in wonder and admiration, taking him in every bit as much as he did her.
Drystan Windgrace: Confusion immediately colored his vision, and he had to finally blink hard, and lean back some, out of her personal bubble. “Grandmother? What on Earth are you talking about?” He looked a bit cross perhaps, but it was difficult for him to stick all the puzzle bits in the right manner to create a cohesive picture of what she was saying to him. His mouth moved but he struggled to find words. “Your mother.. Wait. Kassandra was your Grandmother?? But she never had any children… you ..how can this be? I watched her die. You’re saying she hid your mother from me? She would never…” His tone went from confusion to bewilderment. He finally let his eyes drop to the floor as he took a step back from her fully, holding up his hand, as if he could pause time to give himself a moment to collect his marbles. He swallowed against the desert forming in his throat.
Pandora Synepho expected something like this, afterall her mother had been hidden from him. The Egyptian side of the family had thought it wise at the time. Her smile persisted, small and attempting to reassure him, even as she argued with him, "I am sorry. But she had one child. Your child. Kassandra's necklace passed from her to me when my mother died. She lived a mortal life. I have not, but I take after my father, Hezepfra of the sacred spring. I did not mean to distress you, and I wanted to tell you that I am not here for your riches."
As she spoke she reached up to take the charm that held his voice from round her neck, to show it to him as proof that she spoke true. It was the ultimate proof she possessed so she looked from it to him and back again, hoping he might recognize it.
Drystan Windgrace felt his breath coming heavily through his nostrils as he thinned his lips and clenched his jaw. As she spoke, as she explained, he felt the room fall to one side as if the ground beneath them had shifted, but gravity hadn’t taken notice. He shook his head from side to side, as his hand did the same, all of him wanting to reject this truth, that she could have kept something like that from him, through all the years! It was not until she produced the charm that his memory was set ablaze with a flood of memories that felt fresh as yesterday. All of the shared stolen time, all of the secrets and wishes they had shared. The aetherite that held the mirror image of one of those memories flared as the stone itself flashed with the magic it held.
He lowered his hand and stopped shaking his head. He raised his other hand that held a similar stone, only of a different color, that sparked brightly when he stepped forward to gently reach for and hold that pendant once again. The memory within flashed, and he experienced it as if it was happening just then. Every emotion was clear, every imprint of he and Kassandra on that rooftop. When it was over, he pulled his hand away quickly, and dared to meet her eyes. “Pandora. You are my granddaughter. You went to see my mother. You …came to find me.” He paused and looked past her at the open doors, and the dreary fog that coated everything. “How did you even get here?” He had a million more questions for her, but it was a shining silver lining to the heartbreak he also felt burning somewhere deep inside of him, hidden away. He decided that was not this child’s burden.
Pandora Synepho's priestess smile went wider to a hopeful one when he called her granddaughter, when he reached for the pendant. She studied the contours of his comely face as realization and understanding worked their way through him, and when he inquired after her arrival, she reached a hand to touch her own cheek in a show of embarrassment, or something like it. She explained earnestly, "I take after my father's people. I have certain.... abilities. I called on a thunderbolt to carry me from my ship to this place. I spent my first days on this isle trying to dispel the fog, but I have no power over it. I think it must be altogether unnatural."
Drystan Windgrace laughed. A small burst, a huff really, then one with a more audible sound behind it. “Abilities. Yes…Well that runs on this side of the family as well. As for the fog? You’d be quite correct in that assessment. Quite supernatural, some might even say.” He somehow remembered himself and since the ignored staff had long since left the pair to figure out what the hell was going on for themselves, he waved a hand to the house, “Welcome to Callisto, please don’t allow my shock at your very existence worry you. You are welcome here. This is…your home as well. You don’t come for my riches, but I also won’t allow you to stand idly in doorways forever either. Please, come in and make yourself most comfortable.”
Pandora Synepho seemed to relax in the shoulders a trifle after his next words, and laughter. She'd mirror the laughter in a quiet few chuffles. After a moment she explained, walking further in to properly look at the great large house of her grandfather, "We must both have so many questions one for the other. I think we shall spend a great number of hours simply speaking them. I do not wish to overwhelm you." She was going to make a joke about him being an old man, but somehow could not given how vital and young he looked. When he'd mentioned abilities on his side of the family she had looked to his third eye, but did not see fit to comment on it. Afterall as a supernatural, speaking about one's unusual aspects was not so often done among the mannerly set.
Drystan Windgrace watched her as she stepped in, and looked about, moving to close the doors behind her. “Yes, well, you have come a very long way to see me, and ask all of those things, and have had quite a bit more time to think of them, but I am sure I will have just as many. As will your other family.” He gestured towards the sitting area near the fireplace, and paused a moment. “You have both a Great Aunt and a Great Uncle as well. Dinah and Dorian, my younger twin siblings. They live here as well, we have a sort of …extended family here as well, but…all of that will come with time. We have as much of it as we’d like, to get to ask every question we can think of.” He smiled at her, the tilted feeling wearing off as he was able to watch her move, and she was less out of sync. He noticed her glance at his forehead and he smiled softly. “We also don’t really have issue with.. Hmm… how should I say, wearing our truest selves around the house. Pardon us all ahead of time, we are each special in our own manner, and our casual nature is borne of having spent so very much time together. We are quite close.”
Pandora Synepho did not seem interested in going more than a few paces away from him now that she had him so close. Her amber brown eyes remained fixed on him, transfixed one might say, even while she replaced her pendant around her neck and followed him further into his home. "An uncle and an aunt! How delightful, twins, did you say? The Lady Angelica did not give you up easily, in fact I think she got more answers from me than I did her. I suppose my first question has already been answered. You are....like me. Different than most people, yes? This is why you sound just the same. You are so tall. Like a tree." She left off with peals of laughter given she was certainly the treesiest between the pair of them, dryad that she was. And of all her father's people she knew none had third eyes. Her grandfather was a two meter high mystery even in the flesh.
Drystan Windgrace: | Stopping at the couch he gestured for her to have a seat, and he had one as well, folding himself up in the spot next to her, but with enough space that they could properly turn to speak to one another. “Yes, they are two halves of a whole, you will see. Both light hair and eyes, take after my mother. And my mother is wary, for good reason I am sure you can imagine. She did write to me to tell me someone would come looking for me, but our speculation as to your business with me was..quite far from the facts.” He reached up and pressed his fingers into his mouth as he listened to her speak. It was just remarkable, her resemblance to his Kassandra. He smiled at her and replied, “Oh yes. You are like me, we are not quite human. Not anymore. I sound the same, because I am the same.” He smiled again broader and pressed his fingers tightly against it, before pulling them away. “I take after my father, looks-wise.” He looked down and brushed his hand down his leg. “He was a tall man.” He changed the subject quickly. “Where are you from? Alexandria? May I ask you when you were born? I know that traditionally women don’t care for that sort of questioning, but - in our case, I think it may be relevant.”
Pandora Synepho: || When she followed him over she'd take up a seat quite near to him to give her staring free reign up close. As she sat and settled, she tossed hair over her shoulders and when she did there was a slight rustling just a little akin to the stirring of leaves in a gentle breeze. She'd pick at the pleats in her dress like she was plucking an instrument while she answered him in turn, "I am from near Alexandria, an oasis. My father's people have long been worshipped there as local gods and keep a temple. I was born in the year 1823. I know that I do not look my age. I had never left Egypt until I came looking for you. England was cold, and grey. I feel for the crew and people onboard the Delphi, they were deep in distress when I left, but I could not make them see reason and dock I was so sure then that the fog would be no problem for me. Fog really wants to become rain or dew. Normally."
Drystan Windgrace nodded at her. “I know I do not look mine either, I generally don’t speak of any of this because it would only confuse, but I think, given some lengthy explanation, you will come to understand our nature.” He tilted his head and could not keep that small smile from his lips. “You’ve traveled quite far to land yourself in the middle of …this fog business, but as I said, It is not at all natural. In fact, we three have been tracking down the cause, to alleviate our island. It causes terrible dreams and visions, scores have wound up in the local mental institution.” He meandered along in his conversation with her. “I myself was born in the 1550’s.” He paused and let that sink in for a moment with her, watching to see her expression as he spoke. “My siblings came just a little over a handful of years after me. But,...none of us have aged since we were at our coupled ‘primes’. We are as we were then. It involves quite a bit of magic, a mastery of Hermeticism, and a deep belief in our chosen faith. It is all a bit much, but..that's the start.”
Pandora Synepho listened intently when he explained what he did, drinking up every syllable of every word. When it was her turn to speak, she explained, "I dreamed or perhaps it was a vision that I had to find you. I had been praying when the dread lady visited my thoughts. Nitokris, do you know her? Oh, I see, you are as they feared: a sorcerer." She laughed over this and how absurd it was in her view to be afraid of a magus. She was not precisely easy to harm. Even on Callisto all she'd need to do was take to the forest to stop most unwanted pursuits. Only here and now, she was having a hard time imagining hiding from this man, whom it seemed she had known all her life, despite their brief acquaintance. "You know things about magic. Grandmother never told you, truly?"
Drystan Windgrace ‘s focus went narrow when she mentioned Nitokris but he let it slide, for now - he would have maaaaannnyyy questions about this another time. “We are called many things, this much is true. The world doesn’t quite understand what we do, or create..alas.” He waved his fingers a bit into the air before returning a curled fist under his chin, elbow balanced on a knee, folded on a leg. “No. She never said or breathed a word. I had proposed to her, and …she refused me. Because it would mean becoming like me. To never age. I offered her immortality and she refused it. I came to understand her reasonings, but I traveled back and forth over many years to keep in touch despite. We would go many long months without seeing one another, and each time I did see her, she was that much closer to her death. Not even on her deathbed, did she reveal anything to me. I am left with questions that will never be answered,” he gave her a sad sort of smile. “...and answers I can never give you. I’m so sorry. Had I even had an inkling…I would have raised your mother myself. Nothing is as important as family.” He unfolded himself some and asked, “Are you suitably housed? I cannot imagine that the boarding house or any rental in the city would be up to standard - I will have Mr. Song - my servant and our head butler - Clear the guest house for you. You will be close, just around back. Whatever you need, I will make it so. Unfortunately supplies on the island are getting to be thin with the length this fog has been surrounding us - I’ve had to stop all traffic in and out of the docks for our ships because..lives are put at risk otherwise. But we make due just fine, and so shall you.” He reached over and gave her an affirming little pat on her knee. “Now that You’ve found me, I fear you won’t be rid of me. I’d pull the stars out of the sky for you, I hope you understand this.” Withthat, he exuded the care, the love, the inclusion, the feeling of family. His empathic power soothed out from him and washed over her like a soft wave.
Pandora Synepho had not thought in a million years that she'd be given a chance to quarter with her new family. She knew she should refuse the offer at least to be polite but the boarding house was not her favorite place she'd ever spent a night or several. Her smile widened and she shook her head as tears glassed up her eyes, once she succumbed to his empathic wave. "I do not mean to impose... but neither can I refuse. When we talk next you shall need to think what you would like for me to call you. You do not look like a Grandpapa. I told one of the inhabitants of the place where I have been staying that I would meet her for a walk before sunset, so I should be going... I shall return soon and hope to meet the others. And to ask you so many questions you will feel you never missed a moment, yes?"
Springing up to her feet she'd give him a bow, not just because he was her elder, but also because she was grateful, glad to have met him.