Work Text:
Tzila sighs and claps her hands to her forehead. "This is all amazing, but we can't keep secrets from each other anymore, guys. Why are people always like this?"
Thoughtful, Everett pipes up. "Well, as long as we're trying to get all kinds of secrets out - what about that thing you do, Tzila? Think there's any chance that might help here?"
All eyes, weary as they might be, turn to the crew's naturalist. She's being put on the spot, and there's a fleeting look of alarm and maybe a little betrayal before she lets out a long sigh.
"Fair's fair, I guess. Fine." She takes a little worn leather bag off her belt, almost brandishing it at whoever seems most hopeful. "I've got a fortune-telling kit. Hand-me-down, and I'm not really any good with it, but I can give it a try if we need some kind of answer."
Most of the surviving crew are, to be frank, disappointed. Biological Man? Doesn't even know what this is. Merlin? Scoffing as best as a bocular body might allow. Even Cleo, who would normally be all kinds of into this, is just withdrawing further into herself. It's mostly Everett herself who has anything approaching hope of this working, Hambing's kinda curious, and Steve - well Steve is loving everything about today, this is no exception.
Tzila carefully pulls herself toward the doorway. "I learned what I know from a woman back on Stationary Hill - not that she ever tried to teach me anything, and half of this I didn't put together until a few traversals later. Anyone who wants to see, uh, it kind of works better if I'm in the Fold."
That's easy enough, after all, and Steve is happy to show her to his favourite diving spot. He's pretty happy about everything, really. Dot seemed half-interested, but they're mostly focused on Cleo - so it's just Everett, Micky, and Hambing following her towards the pool of Fold.
Tzila's being exceedingly careful. She's got a board to use as a table, she's carefully climbing into the pool, she's even got a rope to pull herself out by - everyone's tired, but the observers are at least a little curious to see how this goes.
She mutters to herself, "Okay, okay...where are we going next, that's a good question," and with eyes closed, dumps her bag out onto her makeshift table.
Unfortunately, there isn't exactly gravity here, so rather than come to rest, all the junk in the bag just bounces off and scatters in every direction at once. Tzila opens her eyes, sees a table bereft of stuff, and looks around to figure out whaaaat just happened.
It's a funny thing. From almost every angle, this is just a floating collection of junk. There's some hunks of crystal, a neat-looking rock, a skull, dozens of little odds and ends collected by one hand or another. From Tzila's perspective, though, the cloud of objects has a pattern - the barest shape of something.
Something that almost seems to be glaring at her, as a bit of strange sunlight reflects off of a crystal.
The Fold ripples around her, and Tzila lets out a gasp, hands returning to her forehead. That...doesn't look good, as she hunches in on herself, things rippling - and then hands are pulling on her rope, pulling her out of the pool.
Steve is super curious, and dives right in to collect Tzila's stuff. That ripple? Probably not good, but if he's not thinking about the Sentinel, it's probably okay. She'll want this back, right? Everett and Micky are focused on Tzila, the latter rubbing her back as she suffers what seems to be a terrible migraine.
Hambing, too small to help with any of the hauling, is the first to pipe up. "So...did it work? Did you figure anything out in there? That sure seemed to do something, but it's kind of hard to tell what!"
Tzila groans, slowly lowering her hands, checking her bag - oh, here's Steve with a double handful of her stuff, she has to get that put away first. Rituals might be half-remembered and half-invented, but she sticks to them. And one of those rituals is making sure her kit is put away so she doesn't go tripping on fate later. "Okay, that was...different. Like a teletheric with a lot of static - it's normally a rough idea, that was more like hearing a shout through a door made of spikes. Ow..."
Steve, for his part, is quivering in...fascination, probably, and definitely not fear of the Sentinel taking umbrage with this luminary activity. "I hadn't realized you had a mechanism for tapping into the Fold's metaconsciousness! Or was that some kind of sympathetic aspect? Thoughts are generally inert here so that was definitely a form of remote communication - and yet none of these objects seem to have an inherent resonance! I would dearly like to witness a repetition of this experiment sometime..."
Everett coughs to try to regain some meagre wisp of control over the conversation, being the one who brought this up in the first place. "...so Tzila, what's the message? Was it..."
Tzila just nods. She knows the voice, Everett doesn't really remember too well but she's heard stories, they both know who might have been doing the shouting. Stationary Hill - if you know you know. And Tzila, head still throbbing, looking to her curious audience, just repeats what she heard.
"'Where the fuck are you?!'"
