Two years ago - or, fine, maybe three - Evangeline would have been pretty into the bit where Lucien snatched her up around the waist and hauled her off into the– into what would be a sunset if they were on Earth, but they're not on Earth, so it's just a sort of misty hazy thing on the horizon, probably one of those Summerlands light-source-rain-clouds.  

(Volkov had a theory about it, how the magic worked. That's not important right now. It's a relief to remember that she can be pretty sure Volkov will walk out of here just fine, looking like somebody else...) 

He's not actually here to cater to Evangeline's feelings.

(Not anymore.) 

He was just fairly sure that Evangeline did not, actually, want the entire town of Cedar Hollow to know that she had been standing with the wolves at the moment the butterflies and then the fog went up, and thus blatantly involved in the demonstration. The cute little silk mask wouldn't hold up to real scrutiny. Nobody was scrutinizing the woman in the crowd; that would have changed if she had still been standing where she was when the smoke cleared. It's admittedly a little absurd that she's been going about this whole time with her hair uncovered, one would think that would be an obvious tell, but apparently not. He would be disappointed in them, if he still bothered with disappointment.

- wait. 

Actually, maybe, he would like to stay within earshot of this. Something is about to happen, and - well, everything up until now was rather predictable, though judging by Evangeline's face she is intending to have words with him about it later. But the new thing was not, actually, predictable, or predicted, and Lucien is confused. 

(With vampire senses, staying within earshot does not require stay very close. Lucien and the woman in his arms are long out of sight.) 

Okay, here goes! What if he shows the strange man this, and then tries to make it extremely clear with his gestures and facial expressions that he has no idea what the fuck and has never seen anything like this before and has so, so, so very many questions. 

(Xavier is a performer, and not an inexperienced one; the Summerlands embassy would hardly have picked him out for this if he didn't know what he was doing. He can make his gestures and expressions very evocative.) 

So, uh. Yeah. Never seen this shit before. Didn't think you could even do that, with magic, surely the good doctor would know, so – what the fuck? Questions?? So many questions????

(Maybe he's overdoing it on making the man look heroic in the lightshow depiction? Xavier is not unaware that good art calls for subtlety, sometimes. He's in more of a hurry than usual, though.)

"........Iomedae?" suggests Blai, tapping his holy symbol. Is that much sparkle the artistic convention for illusion shows here -

...He doesn't know that one. 

(The man is from Earth, presumably, and human or close enough, what with how he is apparently completely unaware of the multiple life-debts hanging onto him right now. Rio is not even party to any of them and it's still incredibly distracting!) 

Xavier also doesn't know that one! And he's had reason to memorize, not just all of the current house insignia and signs, but also the ones that died out decades or centuries ago. Sometimes they show up in theatre pieces. It's kind of debatably Summerlands-y, it's got the whole lightburst thing going on, maybe it's representational - no, he's never seen a sky-light, or come to think of it any other kind of light, that looked like that - there's a sword in the middle! That's not how lights work!

...He did catch the syllables that the man just said. He doesn't recognize them but he can repeat them, very carefully, almost perfectly imitating the man's accent. "Iomedae." Are facial expressions sufficient to convey that he heard it just fine and just actually has no idea whose house or court or land or whatever that is? 

(The fog is almost entirely gone, now, and so is the crowd, and uhhhh probably Solomon should take this opportunity to find the ability to move again and scuttle off with the stragglers. ...He's still pretty sure that no one's put together that he did the fog. It's actually almost disappointing, somehow, but maybe it's not too late to be home in the basement before his mother has reason to go knocking on the door–) 

As much as Marlowe enjoys watching the butterfly boy do his lightshows, there's no longer any good reason for him to be here - the guards aren't going to hurt the Winter lordling now that the guy he iced has mostly extracted himself from said block, with no remaining injuries except to his dignity - and Marlowe he should really at this point be telling someone about this shit.

Dad's long gone, almost certainly, he would've bugged out the moment anything out of the ordinary happened. It's not that he's a coward. It's that being the River Lord is an important responsibility - and he should know, Dad will not shut up about it - and if anything were to happen to Erasmus Marlowe (as he puts his name down on the human-world papers) then someone else would have to take the job, and drowned gods forbid. 

Call the River to directly under where he's standing, and begone from here? 

(He really hopes the wolves aren't going to be a problem. But either way, it's not his problem anymore.) 

(If the guards were less distracted - and definitely if Marlowe were still going at people with a dagger - then they would certainly not just let him call the River and flee the scene. But they are distracted, and the riverfolk boy has just been standing there ever since he dropped his dagger on the stones, and it does not actually seem worth it to restart a fight that has, apparently, stopped.) 

He needs information. He's heard one word - well, four syllables, it's a guess that it's a single word - out of the man's mouth, and it's not a word he knows, and he has so little to go on.

Come on, stranger from a faraway place. Say something. Do something. Lucien doesn't care what, he just needs literally anything to go on here. 

Maybe three years ago the whole snatch-and-run thing would've been hot, but Evangeline is pretty sure that at no point in her life would she ever have been into the part where Lucien has now stopped midway up a ridge, right smack in the middle of one of the mobile light-up rainclouds, and is holding perfectly still and not even slightly offering her any explanation. 

(Yeah, she's mad at him, and it's mostly not about the grab-and-flee-the-scene thing, but the rest hurts to think about.) 

Nobody here has a plan, do they. 

Volkov, to be clear, also doesn't have a plan, not since plan: distract guards from the werewolves fell apart due to the guards, instead, being distracted by a stranger from - 

- another world. 

He's not sure of it. He doesn't trust it. But he knows magic, if he knows anything, and - that isn't from here. That isn't from anywhere he knows. 

(The werewolves do appreciate the distraction, whatever its source. And they haven't been a problem, thank you very much. The problem was - well, Jack didn't catch all of it, in the stinking fog, but it sure seems like a big chunk of it was his Lordship losing his– you can't really say 'losing his cool' about a Frost Dancer, but, you know. Losing it. It wouldn't be so funny if the guard were really hurt– okay, fine, it would still be hilarious...) 

...It's so very deeply unclear what's happening right now, the plaza guards are very confused, but - this man did turn up with awfully convenient timing. Ergo, maybe it was all part of the demonstrators' plan. Which would imply that the man was a co-conspirator, and thus should be detained along with everyone else who is both obviously involved and still on the premises?

Does Blai want to resist being detained by half a dozen armed guards? 

(They're not incredibly sure yet where to take the prisoners. Holding them on Summerlands ground - specifically, holding a Winterlands noble kid on Summerlands ground - will cause problems, and honestly today has already contained enough problems. They'll figure something out, though.) 

He will go quietly with the guards! They're uniformed and were not obviously doing anything escalatory when he arrived!

.....He did not really think this through, did he. 

Nobody is having a good day today, okay? They’re not happy either. 

…Maybe the Threshold Guardian can be persuaded to step in, this one time. At the very least, nobody can possibly complain that the Earth-side crossing town is insufficiently neutral. 

It’s going to be a long walk. 

This is the worst day of his life but it would be undignified to show any sign of that on his face.

They leave the stone plaza and the scenery: is weird. Really, really weird. They walk through something like a valley, where the land curves up and around like a bowl. There are floating islands in the sky, connected by rope bridges. One has a waterfall with no obvious water source. A little further along, they cross a brook that flows uphill. The path is mostly well-lit, but there continues to be no sun, just fluffy glowing clouds here, shimmering golden rain there, over here some vast floating luminous globes harnessed in rope nets and anchored to a tree. 

It’s REALLY HOT but guess what would be undignified to show the slightest sign of discomfort about. 

From Blai’s perspective it’s a perfectly pleasant balmy-summer-day temperature.

The gravity in this place is not normal. There’s something very odd going on with the scale of the landscape. For a while there’s no sky at all, only a black membrane that hangs barely a meter over their heads, almost close enough to touch.

What plane is this - the maelstrom surely doesn't have uniformed guards? - nobody is animals and angels have truespeech - this is probably a weird demiplane.

"I think you owe me an explanation." 

"Trust me, I am precisely as eager for an explanation as you are. The man spoke one word, in a language I do not recognize, and then went quietly. As to the rest, you know as much as I do." 

"Fuck off, Lucien. Are we finished? I'm going back to–"