Fic: Shanshu 16 - Divination

[dragonyphoenix]

Title: Divination
Fandom: BtVS
Prompt: 446 - Foreshadow
Rating: PG
Summary: Part 16 of Shanshu
Word Count: 1016

Before we get started, does anyone remember meeting Webb?

Hardly anyone called him James anymore. James, from the Latin Iacomus, from the Greek Ιακωβος, from the Hebrew יַעֲקֹב. Also known as Jacob. Protected by God. Or the supplanter. It was hard to recall sometimes. More recently he went by Webb. The web of life. Brought into being by Spider Grandmother. Web of lies. Deception. Anansi. Cunning. Trickery. Survival.

Webb flicked the last of the french fries aside and licked the salt off his fingers. The burger's wrapper lay before him, a square within the rectangle of the tray. Square, from the Latin, exquadrāre, from quadrāre, to make square. He folded the wrapper down, again and again, until it had become a tiny square which he then tucked into the cardboard box that had held the fries. Cardboard. Before that it had been card-paper. Papyrus. From the Greek, papūros, reed used in making paper. Picking up the salt shaker, he rubbed a finger along the slick plastic. Salt. Child of the sea. Child of that which gives birth to all. Brother. Sister. Helper. His darting gaze took in empty tables and a couple of kids chatting behind the counter, paying no attention to him. He twisted open the shaker and poured the salt into a plastic bag. Tricks, bag of, but this was no trick. This was survival. Twisting the shaker back together as he rose, he left the empty container behind on the table, tabule, tabula. Rasa. Tabula Rasa. Blank slate. But nothing was empty. All was in motion.

As he stepped out into the hot afternoon, the thread pulled at him. Thread, from þræd, cord, wire. þrawan, thræ, twist. The thread, not a cord but a twist, a twist of fate, pulling, no, calling, calling him to come, now, before it's too late. The coin, copper – Cyprian metal – and copper-demon – child of old Nick – combined, lay heavily in his hand. Hands, fingers twisted together like tangled yarn, yarn woven like fate. Moirai weaving the web of destiny.

And that call came, of course it came, drawing him down. L.A. Live. L Alive. Red line, dread line, bread and butter till you're fed up line. And then down, down, down into the bowels of the earth. Terra. Firma. Terra but not firma. Open and cavernous down below the rim of the earth. And not dark. But not the good light, the bright light, the brilliant light of the sun, but a dark light, a fake light, a slit your throat and toss the corpse in a dumpster light. And so he moved quickly, drawn between the parked cars, up and down the rows, until he found the one, the beast, the Jaguar all orange and black. From jaguara from yaguara. Predator. Hunter in the darkness. His crowbar smashed through the window of the beast and it screamed, the sound a howling darkness in the dangerous light. He dropped low as he ran, scooping a handful of glass into his leather bag. Glass. Melted sand. Child of the earth can only be captured while below the earth.

Because all is movement, the fake light of the great below gave way to the safe light, the solar light, the light of day and then he was home. Home, home, home, where they have to take you in but there was no one there to take him in, no one to hang his hat for him once he made his way inside. But first he stopped in the foyer, the hearth, the heart of the home, and he greeted his sisters to his left, gathering lilies under the bright light of day, and he greeted his brothers to his right, plowing through terra firma under the lesser light of the moon, and he stepped through to find his home, first door to the right and straight on till morning, but morning had come and gone and day, soon, would fade.

The small room, a perfect square, at the back of his apartment, was work done long ago, done and redone, old but renewed over the decades. Old from Old English eald, akin to Old Norse ala to nourish, and the room had been nourished with sage, sweet smoke, wise misty vines twisting through the air, filling the walls with a life of their own until they became imbued with strength and protection, wisdom and vision. He poured the salt out, forming a great circle centered in the square, three feet out from the center, until it's round and round and round she goes, never stopping, an ocean of infinities in the center of one small room.

Everything he had in the bag was tossed up into the air and came crashing down, tumbling down, rolling down the hill. And all that fell outside the circle, the pins and needles, the paperclips and rubberbands – they didn't count at all, but all that fell in, oh and didn't they make a difference. The seashell, skolika, skin of a child of the sea, the shell fell into the center of the circle, uniting top to bottom and left to right, making a whole, a hole, an gateway calling change through. And the copper married to its own demon lay low, near the bottom and off to the right. Isa blocked Perdhro but it wouldn't last. The sweetness, darkness hidden by light, chocolate with a candy colored shell, rolled from the top of the circle down until it was trapped by glass arced above the copper coin. And at the bottom left, a key, the opening of a door, and rising up from there a trail of glass and nails, rising to the surface, rising up out of the earth, rising to attack, to kill, to destroy.

Webb lowered himself to the floor, sitting before the sacred circle, and opened a box, rolling the herba buena into a cigarette, from the Spanish cigarita, little cigarra, small grasshopper, Mary Jane, mari – juju – ana, and lit it, drawing in the smoke before letting it out with one great breath, watching the smoke until is dissipated into the room. “That prophecy's foreshadowing some bad juju.”

Comments

[velvetwhip.livejournal.com]

I really like the rhythm you achieved here! Excellent.


Gabrielle

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I do love when I get to play with rhythm.

[rbfvid.livejournal.com]

Oh, I always love when episodic OCs, mentioned before, get fleshed out. And you did a terrific job here, he feels perfectly real.

[dragonyphoenix.livejournal.com]

When I introduced him, I meant for him to play a larger role. I'm not exactly sure what it is yet ...