Absit Omen RPG

The short frame, the red curls, the stance. The context delayed Savvina's recognition for a long beat, but there standing on the other side of the wall was Saoirse having come from the direction of the woods.

"Δεν το πιστεύω!"[1] Savvina wiped her hands on her canvas apron and began at a trot, with no trace of Saoirse's caution, to the low wall on the west side of the property. The stone wall was hip-height and easy to cross. No trap was tripped, no alarm was ringing anywhere. The wall was just a wall.

"You are okay...!" she breathed and wrapped up the younger witch in a hug. "I was so worried but I could not get word out," she said into Saoirse's hair. It had been so long since these two outlaw werewolves had seen each other. They had not been especially close, but Savvina had not been especially close with anyone. Still, they'd been supports for each other in the chaos, along with Oscar Truemane.

The Savvina that Saoirse knew before was not the run-and-hug type. She had always been collected and slow to show affection. But these last months of isolation had changed her, caused her to make resolutions, and examine her just-out-of-reach way of holding friends.

She had so many questions and warnings and worries for Saoirse, but they could wait a moment. They could stand by for a few deep breaths.

1.	"I don't believe it!"

Yavin dismissed Raizel's image so easily. This face that Savvina had worked so hard to place, he could just wave away. Raizel was supposed to be the answer and Savvina had to admit now that she'd placed so much hope on her.

The revelation of the wizard who'd been hiding beneath was then that much more unacceptable. Yavin was curious, but Savvina was not ready. She backed away, backed away, backed away until she was stepping off of the thick rug and towards the heavy door of Yavin's boutique office. She put her back against it, but made no move to open it.

"I didn't want it to be this," she muttered sadly. "I thought we would find something else."

Now that she and Yavin had been in the memory under his mind-reading magic, the memory was clearer and fresher. All trace of Raizel was gone from it. Now it just ended bluntly, like a memory shouldn't. 

When Yavin entered Savvina's memory, his practiced and powerful magic drew Savvina in and her mind forgot her body. She was no longer remembering Regent's Park; the Legilimency allowed her to be in Regents Park. It felt like stepping into a painting, her subconscious free to fill in details the active memory did not take the time to recall.

When she turned her head to look, her mind tried to construct details she hadn't actually absorbed, papering them together from fragments that looked almost right. The image Skżlos sometimes blurred and stuttered, the exact course of his movements untracked, but best-guessed. It was easier to take in when time froze. After a moment of initial adjustment, Savvina attended to Yavin. He seemed different as well, but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"No, she was there. I remember," Savvina insisted. "This is Raizel. Who else could it be?"

Who else could have spoken to her in Hebrew? Who else would she have been surprised to see in London? Who else would have pulled her into her past with warmth and - caution...? Savvina let herself notice it. With the memory so engulfing and Yavin's skepticism, Savvina remembered - something about seeing Raizel was off. She checked on Skżlos who was frozen mid-step.

6 August 2012
10am on a Monday
Gravesbarrow House, near Godric's Hollow

The Gravesbarrow House was in the West Country, on the edge of a wood, the closet village being Godric's Hollow, where there was Floo access. The immediate surrounding area, up to the old low stone wall, was set with an Anti-Apparition enchantment - access was up the path by foot. The house was small and built of wood. The building had been maintained as an out-of-the-way storage closet of sorts for the safe keeping of key Magical Law Enforcement assets, usually witnesses in waiting.

Savvina Katopodis had been living here for two months now, a long-waited reprieve from the stifling, lying, winding burrows of the subterranean Ministry of Magic. Another fellow lived there, older, Mr. Zielinski. Unlike Savvina, he was free to come and go as he wished. They were not fond of each other, but since they both tidied up after themselves, there was little reason for them to speak. Savvina didn't know 'what he was in for' but suspected he was a witness in some ongoing investigation who needed to be able to stay hidden. He was free to come and go as he wished; Savvina was ordered to stay put. Everything she'd need would be brought in and check-ins from Magical Law Enforcement, she was advised, would be random.

They were allowed visitors. Mr. Zielinski never had any. Savvina had some. She saw Harper Graves from week to week, and the Werewolf Capture Unit came to collect her each month, giving away her status to Mr. Zielinski early.

"Oh, well that's me feeling safe and sound," he'd grumbled in his lightly Polish accent. He muttered something else about locking his bedroom door.

Savvina didn't like gardening much, but it was something to do. She'd been scraping at the overgrown garden, picking weeds from between the stones, and had repainted a bench. Without a wand, it was slow, crusty work. There were a few potted plants doing their best nearer to the house, dill and basil. Today, the clouds were big and fluffy and the sky impossibly blue. A distant Apparition crack caught her attention and she straightened up to see past the windbreak.

If it was Mr. Zielinski, she'd go back to her so-called gardening. If it was MLE to check on her, she'd head inside to wash up.

Savvina was not one to rush. She'd learned in her many stays in custody that you never kept your custodians waiting, but Mr. Mystery was more to her like a Healer. She didn't mistake this moment as irrelevant to her incarceration, oh no, but with the offer to situate herself, Savvina considered it carefully.

With a side-eye to the skeleton valet, if that's what it was, she requested a decaffeinated tea. And from Yavin Morgenthau she asked of him a rug. At the prompting of what kind of rug, she chose something with a high pile. These things were provided as promised. Savvina stood, removed her shoes and padded across the cold floor to her little rug, where she got situated. She was almost savoring it. She sat with her legs loosely crossed and moved her hips so she could make her spine comfortable.

She took a deep breath, considering once again the strange office. She marked again the location of the door and the other strange objects Yavin decorated with. The lanky man, she did not mind him.

"Expectations have been suspended. I am ready." Having said this, she closed her eyes and looked for Skżlos, her lost tawny colored dog with the sooty nose and ears. She found him by that bench in Regents Park on that cold day and the thought made her heart ache. She knelt in front of him and scratched him around his thick neck fur. She focused on the memory of his texture and smell.[1]

It was hard to separate this day from other days because she and he had done it often, regularly.

"I see Raizel," she said. She did not realize her mind had superimposed her old friend over another. This change of memory was not deliberate. In her mind's eye, Savvina saw her clearly with her blonde hair and jacket. "We are happy to see each other. We are speaking Hebrew."

Savvina tried not to follow a tug in her viscera that wanted to lead her towards confusion and shame for knowing so little.

1.	7 Dec 2011 - In this place, in this part of the world

Savvina broke off her eye contact, and thought of Raizel and when she'd visited - or been pushed to.[1] The chat had been painfully short, Raizel obstinate and even offended at Savvina's accusation. They'd smiled before she'd left and Raizel had mended things further, when she'd remembered her for Pesach.[2] To think she was 'in on it', no. That didn't seem right.

"Yes, that's fine," she said with just a little distance in her voice. "But I don't think Raizel would hurt me. It's been a long time, but we are friends. I don't know why I remember seeing her but she doesn't. Maybe knowing will be one more step."

Like the pebble that starts a landslide.

"How do we do this?" Savvina asked then now that she'd had her say. "There are weeks missing, you know, and I want to help. Or, at least, not stand in your way."

Savvina rediscovered her nerves but quieted them. She knew little of Legelimency, at least the Western style. Everyone had secrets - private things - that they didn't want strangers to know.

1.	17 Jan 2012 - Yiyeh B'seder
2.	6 Apr 2012 - Pesach Semeach

"That is a paradoxical question, no?" Savvina said with a smile in her eye. Certainly she expected to be asked something like this and by now she was very practiced in her story so it was no problem to tell it again.

"Remembering what you cannot remember? But I understand."

Savvina had lately become sensitive to the word 'forget'. That word had no actor that made it so, which made its use in her saga a euphemism. Savvina had forgotten nothing. A thief had come, she was now sure.

"It is like this: I want to know who I saw in the park. I want to remember the thing right after what I last thing I remember."  There now, Savvina became just a little animated, her voice a little more staccato. She touched her finger to her thumb.

"I know from here," she showed with her hand a wall. "To here." Her other hand a shoulder's width away. "I need to know the between."

Savvina thought that maybe Mr. Morgenthau might appreciate a narrative. "One day, I was walking in the park in London with my dog like we did almost every day. That is the last thing I remember. The next thing I remember is waking up here, captured by werewolf hunters telling me I had killed someone. But there is something. I almost have it."

Being here with a mind-reader, maybe he could understand what it was like to chase a thread, Savvina leaned forward, too.

"I remember who I met in the park but she denies it. I had not seen her in ages and then she turns up and we make plans. It's notable, you know? In a city this big, people don't just turn up every day. That has to be something, right?"

She looked at Yavin right in the eyes.

Savvina had been told about Yavin Morgenthau but one really couldn't prepare for him, nor something called the Department of Mysteries. He sounded like some sphinx and this place something from stories. Now that she was here, she found out the characterization had fallen short in many respects. He was tall, dark of hair and eyes, and dressed strangely. He stammered in an American accent, hands moving too much. He wore no silver, no accoutrement of authority. He seemed like an eccentric academic.

The Greek werewolf, the long-traveled, underground and bound these last six months, was dressed in the simple grey shirt and trousers, and easy flat shoes. There was a numbered patch on her chest. Over it all she wore a loose cardigan. There was no need for shackles - there never had been, but now the government agreed. She was looking more hale than she had in several months. Her stomach was icy with nerves, but there was something warm in her chest.

Savvina's escorts left them and she took a deep breath. The skeleton, she was not afraid to admit, made her think twice. She wondered what its purpose could possibly be, and whether it had ever been a person. After a moment and a confident pause to turn in place to see the entire space, she moved towards the chairs.

"No argument from me," she said and had a seat furthest from the skeleton. "It is welcome to see more of this place than Level Two and Four."

She'd picked up the lingo in her six months - the numbered floors inside-shorthand to replace the lengthy official names of each headquarters. Mysteries didn't need the abbreviation, but nonetheless, it was Nine.

"You are the mnemosage , the Legelimancer? They tell me you can recover memories. Is that true?"

People told her a lot of things that managed to change their own minds from day to day here. She found it best to confirm.

Savvina savored unpacking the basket. She arranged herself on the bed and removed each item one by one, letting her heart feel warm. They'd been disturbed in the routine search, but she'd put them back to rights. Ages ago, Savvina had been educated at Beit Gaddol in many things - magic, language, loyalty, all surrounded by friends. She was not Jewish, but had been welcomed to sedarim at the Cohens a few times. Raizel, Eszter, and Benny (poor Benny). It had been nice to be among them feeling the weight of the thousands of years in the house.

Her Hebrew was good and she was happy to see it again. She was happy as well that whatever had come between she and Raizel the last time they'd spoken did not seem so important.

12 Mar 2012
9am on a Monday
Department of Magical Law Enforcement
The office of Harper Graves

It had taken a little longer to get in to see her lawyer than Savvina Katopodis would have liked, but the full moon and weekend necesitated the delay. By Monday morning, MLP agents were ushering Savvina into Harper's office. There was no longer cause for handcuffs for the werewolf-in-limbo. Several other aspects of Savvina's custody had become more casual in these last several weeks. Today she had with her a cup of this morning's coffee and was wearing a loose, long black cardigan over the grey uniform.

Since Harper Graves became Savvina's defense lawyer, they'd been meeting nearly every week whethere there was an update in the case or not. Sometimes some other urgent business kept the appointments from being kept, but Savvina knew there wasn't much the savvy and kind Harper could do about it.

But this meeting, Savvina had demanded off schedule. Demanded in the angry throes of the full moon's eve a few days ago, demanded by way of having Kurby Bagnold prove himself 'useful'.[1]

It hadn't been her best moment, but it felt like such a break had been coming for awhile.

Savvina greeted Harper with a, "good morning," as she entered, then sat down and crossed one leg over the other. She was far more at ease and far more herself with Harper than she was on their first meeting.[2] With Harper, she'd grown to trust she truly had her best interests in mind. It helped, somehow and possibly naively, that she wasn't British.

1.	07 Mar 2012 - Edges of the Earth
2.	03 Jan 2012 - O Time, Won't You Come

When Savvina had first met Bagnold, she'd watched him carefully gleaning all she could about what kind of man he was and what he wanted from her. She'd determined him to be a guarded man, principled, and though he worked for the government wished to be independent. He wore his rings for all to see, he used magic others did not, he did not like prisoners to be flippant with him. In their short discussion she also found him not to be a liar.

High overhead in the nearby cosmos, the heavy moon glided towards fullness pulling both the tides and Savvina's cursed blood. It made it difficult to think or to feel things beyond anger. It had been easier to cope before when she could keep busy or bury her hands in Skżlos's thick tawny fur. But here she was alone with herself, easily ignored, ready to crack.

Bagnold acknowledged Savvina's rights but carried on with a lecture. Savvina threw her hands in the air then waved an open palm at Bagnold fingers splayed.

"Άντε! I am cooperating! I have refused you nothing! You know this."

She turned away from him now, pacing away to the edges the space would allow with her hand to her forehead.

"Go now. I don't want to see you. If you want to be useful, let me speak to Harper Graves."

Savvina furrowed her brows, not understanding. She bowed her head and ran her fingers through her hair. This again.

"I have told you already," she breathed when she looked up again. "I do not remember what happened. I have given your people everything. No matter how you ask, I have been asked before. Don't you know that I would have told you by now if there was anything? No wants to remember more than I do."

At first, Savvina had tried every night. She'd sit on the edge of her bed and pray for a dream. Or when she could not sleep, she reached deep inside to become the wolf again and try to see what she'd seen. She'd searched her memory during questioning, she'd written down all the details of her life for Harper for any clues. And in all of these efforts, there had been nothing new save one thing. Her broken memory of Raizel Cohen in the park late in the fall that Raizel had rejected. It was so troubling, she hadn't told anyone about it.

"I should not be speaking to you," she said suddenly lifting her chin. She had a lawyer now and that she should not answer any questions without her present. Perhaps people like Bagnold and the Aurors did want to help her, but there was no way to truly know.

The man righted the chair. He made no move towards force, nor did he raise his voice, give any instructions, or make any demands. It was at the same time a relief and deeply unsettling. They both knew that ultimately, they were so deep inside of the government complex that there was little damage Savvina could do to anyone except herself and the massive decorum.

Her rage fell useless against the man's stillness, as if she hadn't said anything at all. She was unheard and well-handled. How could she be at the same time so dangerous and so powerless?

"I am not a citizen," she explained tightly, bitterly. "And I have no family here to notice I am missing. The world believes I am dead. Maybe I am."

That was her safety, someone had told her, that it was better if Tawse and everyone else did not look for her. Raizel Cohen, a childhood friend, had come to see her in January as a favor to an Auror, but Savvina believed she'd scared her off.[1] And she had not yet stood before the Wizengamot, although she knew her lawyer Harper Graves must have been speaking to them on her behalf.

1.	17 Jan 2012 - Yiyeh B'seder

"Chat, chat, chat!" Savvina echoed. She was fed up with everyone in this country wanting a chat. Chat! A sharp word that sounded like a thorn in your foot. This man ,he'd wanted to chat before.[1]

"I do not want to chat, I want to go home," she cried in English, keeping her distance. Kurby Bagnold's calming hand did nothing to ease Savvina's anger. "You are not my friend. At night, you go home to your family but I stay here. You all think I will hurt someone or someone will hurt me, but I would not! Look! You're afraid of me right now!"

She dropped her arms to her sides, then gestured at herself in her grey uniform and soft shoes.

"What, do you think I will bite you?" She scoffed. "Mikrós mįgos[2] with your pretty rings."

Truly, Savvina did not hate this wizard. He was no one to her. All of these people, they were nothing but locked doors who looked at her.

1.	"Mornin'," he said, his gaze locked on her.  "I reckoned you and I were overdue for a chat." - 21 Dec 2011 - Unnatural Habitat
2.	Greek - little wizard or magician

The little window snapped closed, snapping the pencil into three pieces. The sound of the door unlatching sent her stepping backwards until the soles of her light-weight shoes found firm wet sand. When she saw who was coming through the door, she raised her hands to about shoulder level. Some of her long black hair was coming out of her ponytail. Her chest still rose and fell in shuddering breaths. There was anger and fear in her eyes.

It was the werewolf hunter called Bagnold who'd been all sternness and questions, a martyr in waiting. She had seen him in passing, but now that she was caught, what business did he have with her?

In Greek she explained herself, too upset to find her English.

"I do not care what you do! I am going crazy! The world thinks I am dead, so how should I care?"

There were silver rings on his fingers. She remembered those decorative threats. And while he came with empty hands, it took a wink to find a wand.