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Post by Dare Blackwood-Hardt on Jul 22, 2012 23:44:12 GMT -5
"The whole I'll work it out myself thing is a load of crap," Dare said. "I gave up and went to counseling this last time. I've... talked to the counselor a couple times since I moved to Diagon Alley. Mistress V's great, but it's not the same.
"I don't know, I worked my arse off convincing Michael that I wasn't going to walk out because of some random thing he did in the past. And I didn't. If anything, it's him hiding from the past, and from everything. You've both got to talk, and you've both got to listen. You have to pay attention."
He was talking about himself and Michael, but it was good advice. He didn't know how to talk, and Michael was afraid to talk, and their listening skills had apparently died since they didn't make sense to each other anymore. Michael not paying attention was high on the list of reasons he'd left.
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Post by Matthew Moreau on Jul 23, 2012 21:42:08 GMT -5
Matthew nodded and leaned back in his chair, though he felt anything but relaxed. "I knew something was up," he said absently. "You think you and Michael are going to make it?" he asked after a few thoughtful, silent moments. Maybe he was afraid of taking another step just like Rhys was afraid they wouldn't make it. He had never been anywhere near this far with anyone before.
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Post by Dare Blackwood-Hardt on Jul 23, 2012 23:27:23 GMT -5
"Oh God, I don't know, Matthew," Dare admitted. "I love him. If there's anything that came out of sleeping with him last night," besides the obvious, "it reminded me I still love him, and I don't think that'll change. I don't know if we can work our sh~ out, if there's any chance we'll live together again, but there's that much."
He picked around at his plate for a moment, then mopped up the last of his egg with a piece of buttered toast. "Maybe I'll get out my Runes," he teased, trying to lighten things up. They'd been pretty spot-on when he'd read for Michael those years ago, hadn't they? Everything's going to hell, was the gist of it.
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Post by Matthew Moreau on Jul 26, 2012 13:42:48 GMT -5
"Yeah, good luck," Matthew said. "I never figured out any of that rune divination stuff." Of course, he had floated around in classes enough that he really hadn't excelled in anything specific. Instead, he had done decently well in a group of things. He stood to go back behind the counter. "Want something?" He flicked his wand to get out a bowl for himself.
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Post by Dare Blackwood-Hardt on Jul 26, 2012 18:10:04 GMT -5
"Yeah, sounds great," Dare said. He'd just finished breakfast, but he could make room for some ice cream. "I'll have whatever's the flavor of the day," he added. "And I'll be right back. Doing runes isn't much, but at least it feels like doing something."
He cleaned up his mess and ran upstairs to grab an old velvet sack with his runes inside. "I'm no expert," he said, sitting down again, "but I'm okay." He started the process of spreading out a square white cloth on the table in front of himself, then shuffling the runes. "What to ask," he said to himself.
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Post by Matthew Moreau on Jul 28, 2012 12:15:06 GMT -5
“Is is everything going to be okay too vague?” Matthew asked as he sat down by Dare with two bowls. One was sat in front of Dare and Matthew focused his attention on the other. Ice cream was a hell of a good way to try not to think about what had happened the previous evening. Or what might have happened to Rhys.
Surely nothing bad had happened, wouldn't he have had some weird feeling at some point during the night if something bad had happened? Wasn't that how it was supposed to go when you loved someone? The brain freeze promptly following an overlarge bite of mystery-flavored ice cream worked perfectly well at distracting him from such negative thoughts.
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Post by Dare Blackwood-Hardt on Jul 28, 2012 13:14:25 GMT -5
Dare glanced over at Matthew, then paused in his mixing of his rune stones. "Here," he said, holding out his bag. "Stick your hand in and mix them up. Concentrate on what you want to know while you do it. Being specific is better, but if all you've got is that, then concentrate on that." Matthew was obviously still thinking about Rhys, and Dare could do his own reading any time. Getting Matthew alone to talk was something which rarely happened.
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Post by Matthew Moreau on Jul 28, 2012 13:26:28 GMT -5
Matthew eyed the bag uncertainly before setting his spoon aside and reaching in. "If this tells me something I don't want to hear, I can ignore it, right?" he asked, then focused. He only made the question marginally more specific, is Rhys going to be okay?. At least it wasn't a general is the world going to be a wonderful ray of sunshine in the morning?
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Post by Dare Blackwood-Hardt on Jul 28, 2012 14:11:14 GMT -5
Dare let Matthew stir up the runes, then brought them back in front of himself and picked one out. He placed it and four others on the cloth in a cross shape, then pondered them a moment, trying to get everything straight in his mind. "It's been a while," he said, asking Matthew for patience.
"Okay, this one," he said, pointing to the left arm of the cross, "this is the past. Wunjo is joy, but it's also perfection. Maybe like, the joy of the gods, that they can make perfection. It's not about the struggle for perfection though, but like, being satisfied with a job well done."
"This one," he said, pointing to the center rune, "is the present. Ger is about the cycles of the year, and right now, the autumn. It's about like, Karma and the autumn harvest. Reaping what's been sown. The one on top is what's working for you. Berkana is the birch tree, which is for renewal, rebirth, growth and stuff. It's good, it means that there could be a good outcome. It represents family and a good household."
He tapped the rune at the bottom of the cross. "This is what's working against you. Man, which is just what it sounds like, mankind. We have to do most things on our own, but there are millions of people going through the same thing. So it's about the relationship of the self with everything else, working together."
Dare paused, then took a breath. "This is the future," he said, pointing at the rune at the right arm of the cross. Laguz represents water and deep sexuality." Which probably made sense, no matter what Matthew's question had actually been. "It can be like the ocean, huge, uncontrollable, alive and always changing, or it can be like the tide, a return from a long journey." He looked over at Matthew, wondering if that had made any sense.
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Post by Matthew Moreau on Jul 31, 2012 7:04:15 GMT -5
Matthew stared blankly at the runes for a few moments, then looked up at Dare. "So that made about this much sense," he said, picking up his hand and holding his thumb and finger about an inch apart. "Okay, maybe a little more. A good outcome is good. I asked about Rhys, of course. The world does kind of hate him, doesn't it?" he asked, reaching out to run a light finger over that man stone.
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Post by Dare Blackwood-Hardt on Jul 31, 2012 11:30:15 GMT -5
"He probably thinks so," Dare agreed. He looked at the runes, then tried to explain again, keeping Rhys in mind. "Okay, the past is Wunjo," he said again. "Joy and perfection. That could be about about Rhys's parents, and all the crap they did do him. They thought they were making him perfect, right? Maybe they were trying to one-up God, they're big into God, and they tried to remake Rhys into what they thought God wanted. The joy of the gods, satisfaction with a job well done, you know?" Did that make sense?
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Post by Matthew Moreau on Jul 31, 2012 12:56:05 GMT -5
Matthew's eyebrows creased. "He's always kind of said that his parents and the other people weren't you know, bad or whatever, that they were doing what they thought was right. I mean, I kind of get that, but I still want to strangle them all." It drove him to madness when he thought of everything Rhys had been through in those peoples' hunt for perfection.
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Post by Dare Blackwood-Hardt on Jul 31, 2012 16:48:01 GMT -5
"Yeah, it didn't do him any good," Dare agreed. "The present is Ger, and it makes more sense now. Reaping what's been sowed, Karma. It's all catching up with him. The sh~'s hitting the fan." That was a Muggle saying, but it worked. "Berkana is working for him, that's renewal, rebirth, and growth, that sounds good. Family and a good household." Dare glanced across at Matthew. He didn't think for a moment that it was Rhys's parents working for him. He'd have bet a month's Galleons on it being Matthew, and wondered if Matthew had made that same connection.
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Post by Matthew Moreau on Jul 31, 2012 17:29:45 GMT -5
Matthew hadn't really considered himself Rhys' family, however much his mother had welcomed the man into theirs, at least not in any real sense, until now. "Me. And you, I guess, you're right on the path to being his best friend or something," he said, gesturing absently toward Dare. "He needs us." Yes, he was going to have to go hunt Rhys down later.
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Post by Dare Blackwood-Hardt on Jul 31, 2012 17:36:11 GMT -5
Dare nodded. "Even if he's not telling us the same things, at least he's telling us, right?" he asked. "And working against him is Man, other people going through the same thing, and his relationship with all those people. I don't want to say his internet things aren't helping, because it seems like they should be, but that's the first thing I think of."
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