Green Flame Rising (Exalted vs Dresden Files)

9th of July 2006 A.D.

"Everything, everything sounds good," you say leaning forward, ice cream all but forgotten. "How does it all fit together? Where does it all come from? I mean I know where the Fallen and Angels come from and I know some stuff about what Mouse is and where he comes from, but it's like I have one in three puzzle pieces and a one in three of those I do have are carved in a different style you know."

Your dad leans back a little. He had taken off the white cloak as soon as the monks got on the plane and put it around the back of the plastic chair making it look oddly majestic. "I can't say I have Molly, knowing things for their own sake has never been my fascination, but I'll try to answer all I cadespsirn being neither a theologian nor a scholar of the occult."

Broadly speaking he says there are two kinds of supernatural presences, the ones that have adapted to the modern world of instant communication and the ones that have not. Among the former are White, Red and Jade Vampire Courts whose nearness to humanity means they are never more than a step behind their 'prey' and the White Council whose task is the enforcement of the Laws of Magic as far as he knows for all of human history.

You poke at that one a little because as far as you know for most of human history the various communities of people were a lot more isolated than they are now, Had the mages of India decided to make common cause with those of Mesopotamia and not with their own kin just because the first spice road had opened? Were the medicine men of the First People just content to stand aside and let the colonies grow and grow?It feels like there aught to be a history there and a reason why the language of the White Council is Classical Latin and not say Church Latin but dad just chuckles and says you'll have to explain it to him when you figure it out.

If one were to look at a map made by one of these supernatural factions you would find most of Latin America dipped in red and much of North America and Europe painted the ivory of the White Court but as is the case with many would be empires the map is not the territory. The Red Court rules as depraved parodies of lords in places where despair runs thick and the bonds of community are broken where people forget thir duty to their fellow man and drink deep of whatever poison will help them forget and they are weak where those bonds are stronger. If you ask a vampire and your father has apparently had the occasion to do so they would simply say that they hunt where 'the kine is sweetest', but that revolting thought aside what it really means is their control is only as strong as it is allowed to become. The Catholic Church together with other religious and even charity organisations in the know attack the foundation of the Red Court's power even as the half-dead Fellowship of Saint Giles faces them in the open.

The White Court's presumed hold is even more dubious, being marked by some sway over the media and the odd corrupt politician. They like to take credit for shifting mores 'because they make the hunt easier' though really their biggest impact on the world in the last hundred years was the near destruction of the Black Court by...

"A vampire wrote Dracula?" you ask surprised, almost knocking over that was left of your ice cream in the process. "Are they still alive?" Wisely perhaps you hold back 'Can I get their autograph?'

"Inspired and I confess I don't know," your dad answers looking at you funny. You wonder if you are about to get another lecture on not pocking vampires, but instead he just continues with an explanation of how the Black Court had been among the more wide ranging supernatural beings particularly throughout Eastern Europe and Russia and were now among the more local, their surviving elders buried in the deepest blackest pits they could find. He goes into the story of hunting for one in a cave complex in the Tatra Mountains. Apparently Moria is a lot more true to life than you would think, including ruined halls of mountain dwelling craftsmen now filled with once-human horrors, their flesh twisted and minds broken by the nearness of an ancient vampire. The vampire himself had not looked like a corpse or a mummy, but entirely like a living man, almost like he had cast out the horror of his being into his thralls.

"You shouldn't underestimate beings, powers that are local, for one they tend to be very strong in the place of their power," your dad segues out of the story. "For another they often don't understand or don't care how the world has changed in the last two hundred years. That might mean they will eventually run afoul of a modern military, but they will do a lot of harm in the meantime."

"But like that happens?" you ask the obvious question. "Why isn't it like in the papers, on TV, somewhere?"

"Oh it is somewhere, just not in places many people are likely to believe." Dad shakes his head sadly. "Most governments know a lot more than say the White Council gives them credit for. The best of their impulse is not to cause a panic, the worst is... well as you might imagine they think they can make use of the occult, the supernatural for their own ends. The Church has a better ear for these things than most because when some state goes looking for say people who know how to deal with ghosts or demons they are more likely to search for 'exorcist' than 'wizard'."

If there is one thing you had not expected out of this conversation it was an account of a CIA project in the late sixties that tried to use mediums and spirits to spy on the USSR only to eventually get into demonology and lead to something that would... require the aid of the Knights. Dad had not been a knight back then but Shiro had been. Poor Shiro, he's with God now but he did not deserve to go like that.

Dad is never going to have to make a choice like that, you vow to yourself, never ever.

"That is not to say the the Church or organizations working closely with it have never fallen to folly by their own pride," dad continues in the same forthright tone. "Especially when it comes to far off lands where missionaries thought they could preach by the sword where the people who knew the land and its dangers were killed or driven off a lot of evil was let loose that might have slept until the End of Days and a lot of people suffered for that arrogance."

He goes on to give an account of how the misunderstanding of the Supay of Peru as being 'demons' that dwelt beneath the earth had lead to the defiling of wards which contained true and enduring evil, spirits of cruelty and rage which had long been contained beneath the Peaks of the Andes and which at least one later day scholar claimed had infected the gold which was carried east on Spanish treasure ships, their influence rubbing off on every palm through which they passed. "I met one, oh it must have been coming on twenty years ago now and the spirit said he wept bitter tears for the evil he was not able to stop just as he raged against those who brought the ruin. There is a lesson in that, a lesson about humility and not passing judgement too hastily, especially when it is convenient to the one doing it."

You nod gravely in understanding. "What about here in Chicago?" you ask to lighten the mood.

Much of what he tells you Harry had gone over before though he does not know about Bock's and he does not tell you where the ways into Undertown are, you don't need to push, but he also tells you where to find a man named Simon LeCroix one of the Venatori Umbrorum who also occasionally helps out Father Forthil as the contact of the Catholic Church in the city, "Don't tell Harry about Simon though," dad adds much to your surprise.

"Why not?" you ask, startled.

"The Venatori Umbrorum are allies of the White Council and Simon is a good man, but he does not want to get mixed up with what he calls Harry's troubles."

Well then he probably he probably won't want to get mixed up with me, you sniff though only inwardly. It's not like Harry's saved the city or anything... he's trouble. Part of you wonders how people like him would do if Harry moved out or something, but you do not want to contemplate that for long. You just smile and tell your dad you'll keep him in mind.

There is one other things you want to ask and this one is a lot closer to home. You take a deep breath... "Why is mom afraid of magic?" All at one in a rush you tell him what you had guessed, from the way she reacted to the word 'sorcerer' when Harry had said it, to how she gave advice that was a bit too good about being odd at school.

He goes quiet then for a long while, reaching for the cup even though he's long since drunk it before gingerly setting it aside. "There really is no easy way to say this, part of me wonders if I should let your mom tell you, but she doesn't like to think about that part of her life and you have already guessed so much. When she was younger than you are now your mother found out she had what the White Council calls a talent, only she did not have anyone close to her who understood what it was, who believed the things she saw. Her parents were... well giving them the benefit of the doubt they were confused and wanted to help her. I confess I find it very hard to give them the benefit of the doubt considering the sorts of doctors and clinics they sent her to. She ran away, fell in with a named Gregor, at least that was what he insisted his little cabal of runaways called him. He was only not a warlock because he feared the Wardens, but he found ways to get around their Laws, sacrifice to those powers who found the blood of the Gifted sweet." He closes his eyes, against the memory perhaps or against the feelings it invoked. "When I first saw your mother she was chained to an iron pole as as sacrifice to the dragon Siriothrax."

"What happened?" Your fingers grip the table so hard you feel the plastic bending under them.

"I killed the dragon," your dad says simply. "Your mom got better went into Community College that fall, we got to know each other, fell in love got married about a year later, you know the rest."

You lean back not sure what to feel, guilt that you had made your mother relieve that part of her life when you ran away and got tangled up with magic, anger that she had not explained that you might have magic even though she knew how confusing it could be, it's all a tangle. Usum on the other hand is very clear on what he feels. "I know the name Siriothrax of old, your sire is a most impressive mortal not just for the blade he bears."

"Of course he is," you answer with a mental eye-roll, but the demon isn't done.

"Ask him what he did with the bones and scales, such wonders could be wrought from that as the artificers of this age would weep with envy."

Do you ask Michael about the Dragon remains?

[] Yes, you want to make something great out of them

[] No, this is not the time to follow creepy demon suggestions

OOC: Welp that was a large update. Hope you guys enjoy.