059. Timeline

The motley get their lives back to normal, until Sophia enters another dream….

### Play of the Game:

Scott as Braum, for (REDACTED) the Halifax track team and charging it to Kenwyn;Kate as Patches, for knocking a Nocker down a few pegs;Liz as Sophia, for #DetectiveSophia sleuthing through dreams to discover one fate in shadow, and one fate to save.

***"There's also the idea that time is malleable; time flies when you're having fun."***

All three members of the motley awaken separately after another wild Samhain. Sophia finds herself alone in the Place des Arts concert hall, dressed in a dazzling sequined dress, surrounded by a smashed timpani and an offended Mab. Taking her lizard, she finds her way back to metro. Patches and Cog spent the night outside in the McGill student district, where they find their handiwork all around: dozens of pumpkins, spraypainted or smashed on the ground. They, too, head off to the metro and meet up with Sophia. Braum finds himself, once again, in a kind-sized bed in the Four Seasons Hotel, sleeping next to a clothed Fala, and surrounded by members of the Halifax Track team in various states of undress or costume-wearing. The track members clap Braum on the back, thanking him for his incredible stories, before they set off; the troll discovers that the hotel rooms seemed to have been "covered" by Kenwyn's "generosity". As he joins the rest of his motley on the train, they meet an immaculately clean Incisor, who simply declares: "I hate Samhain!"

On November 27th, The Spark receives a delegation from the Grand Bes Din: Fuse and Lanta arrive bearing the necessary blueprints and schematics for the wing that Patches has been commissioned to design. Fuse has some feedback for Patches, which she takes as unnecessary criticism, given that her concept sketch was only a rough first draft. Zistor takes Patches' side and hits back at the Dayan. Patches eventually takes his notes, but is firm: "All the kith should feel they have a hand in the construction of this wing," she states. Meanwhile, Sophia is excitedly questioning Lanta about her journey to the Far Dreaming. When Lanta is a little dismissive of the Dayan, Sophia and Braum both suggest that maybe she could help them make their eventual journey as well.

The following Friday night, Braum goes to meet his ex-wife Claire after her art class. He is surprised to see her with a satyr, who timidly introduces himself as Giorgio, intimidated by the troll. As he takes off, Braum and Claire head out to grab a drink and catch up. While the satyr heads to the Spark to learn more about Braum, the troll sits down with his ex to hear about her new life apart from him. When he points out that she's taken up photography, she admits that since their separation, she sees the world "differently: there's beauty there now". Ecstatic and emboldened, Braum allows her to draw him into a conversation about Kyoko. He's vaguely nervous that she may be afraid of commitment, seeing as she's often "playful" and "joking around". Claire asks in seriousness whether Braum will be ok with whatever Kyoko tells him about their relationship's future, but the troll just smiles.

At the Spark, Sophia, Patches, and Kyoko are interrupted in their drinking, chatting, and television watching by a satyr they've never met: Giorgio is nervously asking questions about Braum, anxious that the troll is jealous, vengeful, or overprotective. The three laugh off his fears, but when Giorgio confirms that he was planning on enchanting Claire, they advise some restraint. Braum's kithain life is, after all, what drove them apart in the first place, even if Claire didn't know it.

A month later (December 16th), still waiting to hear back from the Crystal Circle, Sophia continues her Oneiromancy training with Ramzia. In her dream, the pooka stands at a cliffside, making a small notch in the edge. Looking left, Sophia can see that the cliff stretches off into infinity, with notches all along it. Sophia conjures some stairs in the the dream and steps off into the lush, summer air, heading "underneath" the cliff to the "other side". There, she finds a shadowy figure doing the same thing as Ramzia, in the same direction. But Sophia cannot speak to her immediately: following her "backwards", she becomes aware of the passage of time as millions of marks have been made, the sun rising and setting. The shadowy figure leads her back up to the "right side" of the cliff, where Ramzia has been replaced by a beautiful woman with a shock of white hair, dressed in plate armour with small spikes adorning the chest. "Welcome to my timeline," she begins. She describes how along the marks, there are sections where "she fell", designated with an X, and confirms that she and Ramzia are but "the same soul in a different body". Since Sophia cannot see any Xs in the "present" timeline, she asks about it. The woman simply responds: "No one is supposed to know my one secret: there has been no cross in so long."

And suddenly Sophia is awake, but lying next to her is not the fox pooka Ramzia, but the beautiful woman with the shock of white hair….