It was some ungodly hour on a Saturday morning when Margot's phone chirped like a bird to announce that she'd received a text message. Margot was always one of those 'rise with the sun' people, and slept with the blinds of her window open to let the light in come morning. She'd already been laying in bed considering what her next move was. She worked the afternoon shift today, but her morning was wide-open.
Was being the operative word in that sentence.
Coffee? (cup emoji)(cup emoji)(cup emoji) -- and so on, for about fifteen of them.
Margot was a morning person, but she wasn't even close to the level on which The Doc existed. She scrubbed at her face and sat up in bed, considered whether he'd even slept yet from the night before, and texted back.
Sure. Where?
The 'where' turned out to be the little coffee house just a few blocks up from the University-- someplace she was of course familiar with. She'd ordered herself a latte and croissant and sat to wait for the Doc. Unless he was there first, in which case she'd wave and go to join him instead. However they came to sit at the same table, Margot would greet him the same way.
"Did you even sleep last night?"
Presumptive Polly, wasn't she?
Sepúlveda
Though this had been his idea for the first time in their admittedly short history together Dr. Sepúlveda arrived after his pupil.
When he steps through the door the spritely Etherite brings with him the brisk chill of the morning. The day will warm up. His resonance has always been cold and will always be cold and it reminds people of the inevitability of - well little in life is cold besides death. He is wearing two-toned Oxfords and jeans that may well be as old as his student. A red t-shirt underneath the cardigan she's already seen him wear for poking around the house. His hair is a mess and he hasn't shaved his face. Glasses in place.
Oh there she is.
At the register he orders a bananas foster latte after grilling the barista as to what the hell was in it. Banana syrup? Seriously? Yes okay what's the worst that could happen. He pays and steps away from the line of screeching milk and hissing espresso shots to crash land at Margot's table.
Did you even sleep last night?
He frowns.
"What?" Like he didn't hear her. It registers a second later: "No, god no, why sleep on a Friday night? You only get four of them a month, Margot."
Margot
"Jesus Christ." Margot sounded quietly exasperated and shook her head. She looked down to tear an end piece off her pastry, and spoke as she did this delicately with her fingertips (so as not to litter the entire table with croissant flakes).
"Is that what happens when you figure out how to hit the reset button on your need to sleep? You just opt not to?"
Her free hand found the plain white mug that her coffee had been served in, and she paused to ask, curiously: "What were you up to?"
She popped the pastry into her mouth and listened quietly while eating what would account for her breakfast.
Sepúlveda
For not sleeping last night he doesn't look any worse for wear than he normally does. Disheveled sure but that's because he doesn't comb his hair and though he trims his beard he doesn't do much to keep it in order. After their run-in with the goblin Margot knows what he looks like when he's in bad shape. It would probably take a disastrous injury to get the man to stop talking once he gets going.
"Well..." He leans back in the wooden chair and knits his fingers together on his lap. Starts joggling his knee beneath the table. "I went to the office--" The morgue. "--around eight o'clock, did two autopsies, put on a suit, went to court, testified in a, ah, murder trial for an hour, maybe? Went back to the office, talked to the DA for another couple hours about an inquest they want to open up, did two more autopsies, left around, ah... seven? Eight? Eight o'clock. And then I had a date. With a woman. We went to dinner and then she wanted to go out dancing, so what the heck. Dancing. We went back to her place."
Hey, you asked.
"Anyway, after she fell asleep, I went back to the lab, my lab, and I worked on my research for a few hours, and then I thought to myself--"
Banana foster latte!
He gets to his feet.
"--I should see what Margot is doing!" He points at her. "Hold that thought." And then goes to retrieve his ridiculous beverage.
Margot
So she heard everything that the Doc was up to, and as it turned out it was less interesting than she'd expected. She figured he spent the time in a laboratory or in his library, whitting his extra hours away on magical-- excuse her, scientific things. As it turned out he did several autopsies and testified his findings in a murder case and then went out with a woman and danced and --
Margot's nose wrinkled at that point of the story. Gross. She'd get over it, because hey, she asked, and the Doc was moving on anyways.
"Well thanks for thinking of me amid all that, I suppose," she said after him as he left the table to fetch his drink. She spent the time waiting for him to come back finishing more of her croissant and drinking more of her latte before it became too cool.
When he returned, she seemed to have thought better of asking open-ended questions like that and instead inquired: "So, what'd you want to talk about then?" Her expression and posture (stiff, appropriate) said that she didn't really think that the scientist would just want to hang out for the sake of her company. She was expecting an assignment or something.
Sepúlveda
The closest he has come to giving the kids an idea of what happens in that laboratory came in the form of a warning shared with Ned: you don't belong in there.
His extra hours come in the form of his weekends. If she explores the rest of the traditions she may find some of them manage to work around or eschew professional lives in pursuit of their own studies. There are folks in this very city who are much younger than Sepúlveda who are progressing much faster in their magical studies than he is. His work and his Work are intertwined.
He also hasn't spoken much about himself to her. His focus has been on them and their questions. Their lack of direction.
When he comes back he comes back with a colorful mug that belies its contents with a mountain of whipped cream and cinnamon. He plunks it down and reminds everyone in the room that this is a shitty dark world we live in by moving the ashtray into the middle of the table and lighting a cigarette as Margot cuts to the chase.
Everyone else in the café this time of day is wearing comfortable clothing for studying. Their hair is in ponytails or trapped by headphones. Some of the couples are sitting on the same side of the table even as they ignore each other to finish assignments or papers. Most everyone in here is a couple. Folks will make assumptions looking at the two of them sat together. Professor-student is chief among the assumptions. It degenerates from there.
Cigarette lit he throws down the match he'd used and says, "You." Dun dun dun. "Well, you and your friend Ned, but for right now, you. This is the only time in your life when you can be completely selfish and do whatever it is you want--" He's talking with his hands. Drawing gray smoke lines in the air with his cigarette. "--and correct me if I'm wrong, but this isn't... liberating, for you, or exciting. As I was Working, last night, I kept coming back to the thought of you, not knowing what it is you want to do or how to go about doing it, and I wondered, Is she overwhelmed by the infinite possibilities open to her, or is it something else? I find it troubling, knowing you're troubled and not knowing if the trouble is impeding your progress. Does this make sense?"
She only has time to nod or frown. Vocalize to a degree. He's hurling a question at her a moment later:
"What do you hope to accomplish this year?"
Margot
As she listened, Margot's expression became flat like soda left out in open air for too long. He wanted to talk about what she wanted to get out of life, and that made a pit in her gut start to form that had nothing to do with hunger and could be filled with no pastry.
What did she hope to accomplish this year?
Thoughts of career and school all leaped to the forefront, ingrained as they were into her for as long as they had been. Margot was a smart girl from a poor family, so she was always encouraged to focus on her academics and her participation in school sports. Scholarships were her way out of the life that her poor mom had to live. To avoid becoming like her brother.
But now this was more than a freak happening and a couple of nightmares to boot-- it was magick, and she could learn to do anything if she could just dredge up the understanding and practical application.
But over the course of a year?
She swallowed and tucked her face behind her coffee mug. "I hadn't thought much beyond surviving. I always figured I'd get a degree and make enough money to live in a nice house some day. But things have changed." She glanced up to the doctor, then back down at the space above her mug.
After a moment more, she stated more definitely: "I want to get ready to go back home. To clean up."
Sepúlveda
[manip + subt: let's try not to let our expression give away that you totally know more about what a mess that situation is than she's told you]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (3, 8) ( success x 1 )
Sepúlveda
Something passes behind his eyes when she says she wants to go home.
They live in an age of networks. Everyone connected and information available all the time always and all she had to do was tell him she was from Maine and he could ask the Internet for news sources. The Freedom of Information Act is a real bitch. Her brother and mother's conditions are not exactly readily available but neither are they private either.
He sets down his cigarette for the sake of trying his ridiculous beverage. This is not an appropriate time to make an appreciative noise so he doesn't. He just pushes the mug towards her.
"Try this." Picks up the cigarette again. "What do you need to do to get ready?"
Margot
Of course the Doc would have ways of finding out what her thus-far undisclosed history was. She'd unwittingly left a clue and he followed it. He didn't even need magic to do so. All the same, it didn't occur to her that he might be savvy to what she left in the wake of her Awakening. She still shrouded herself in ambiguity.
When the mug was passed her way she glanced at it, and its hat of whipped cream on top. Conceding, she set her own mug down in favor of the offer and took a sip. Lots of sugar, but hey sometimes that was just fine. She nodded appreciatively and slid the mug back to him. Still had whipped cream on her upper lip, which she licked away before finally coming up with her answer.
"I think I need to learn more about the spirit. Maybe find a way to make somebody... forget." She furrowed her brow and thought about that for a moment, like something had only just occurred to her as a possibility.
She also had some demons to get over, but she didn't really want to talk about that in the coffee shop.
Sepúlveda
He crushes out the cigarette and leans his forearms in the edge of the table. Moves the ashtray and the mug so nothing on his end at least serves as a physical barrier between them.
"Altering other people's memories is a knowledge even I don't possess," he says. If she detects a grimness in his tone that isn't her imagination. "You must be very careful when you undertake Work that will affect another's Pattern. It goes against the natural order of things. You have within you the seeds of godlike power, but if you wield them as such, you won't retain your Self for very long. I need you to understand this before we go any further."
That said: she has demons. That isn't a secret. And he has things he hasn't told her. Trust is a two-way street and so on and so forth. He didn't call her out because he wanted to play Show Me Yours I'll Show You Mine but he can't expect her to open up if he doesn't do so himself. One of his psychology books says as much.
"When my wife died, I could not accept it. I... well, the details aren't important. I attempted to... bring her back, in a manner of speaking, but I did so using tools that are incompatible with my paradigm. Yes? The procedure failed, badly, and..." He scratches his beard. "Well, things are as they were before, and I learned a lesson I do not think man was meant to learn."
He takes a big swallow of his latte. It's good but damn is it full of sugar.
"I tell you this because whatever you wish to have happen when you go home, I implore you to ask for help. Recognize your own limitations and don't take on anything that you can't undo. I am here to help you."
Margot
[PTSD/WP]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Margot
A sort of sympathy-- empathy? A bit of both, actually-- grew in her wide hazel eyes when the Doc told the story of when his wife died. How he'd tried to bring her back and, though he didn't say as much directly, how he had to 'put things right' again.
She smothered her hands together down into her lap to stop them from fidgiting or reaching for the mug, not wanting to haul something into the space that he'd cleared between them deliberately. Instead she considered what he'd told her for a while, thinking if over carefully and taking some time to digest what all she'd learned.
When she finally spoke again it was softly, quiet enough that even in his proximity he'd have to focus to catch what she was saying. She didn't want people overhearing.
"My mom was dead. I knew it. I brought her back, though, but I don''t... I didn't..." She faltered, voice cracking, and swallowed again. Stared resolutely down at the tabletop because looking somebody in the eyes would be to dissolve. So she swallowed a second time and almost whispered through eyes that tried to well up but managed not to spill into tears just yet.
"It wasn't right. She's not all there. I mean sure, she's breathing and her heart beats but they have to feed her every meal and she doesn't even know her own name and--" her voice cracked there, and this time with a finality to it. Her lip started to tremble too bad to go on and so she ducked her head and closed her eyes and hastily brought a hand up to swipe tears off her cheeks like she could dispose of the evidence of them fast enough that people wouldn't start to stare at the crying girl in the cafe.
Sepúlveda
Though she isn't looking at him Sepúlveda is looking right at her as she tells him what happened to her mother.
He removes his glasses and clips them to the front of his shirt. Not exactly adept at emotions or the interpretation or handling of them. With the cracking of her voice and the welling of tears the doctor hauls in and releases a breath. Swipes his hand over his hair to hold it back from his brow a moment. It doesn't seem as if she's going to continue crying but he's willing to sit and let her pull herself back together.
"That happens, sometimes. This was your Awakening, yes?" He rummages through his pockets for a moment before finding a folded-up handkerchief. Quick inspection to determine its cleanliness before he offers it to her. "You don't have to answer right this moment, but if you decide you want this, I'll take you home, at least for a visit. I may be able to help her." A beat. "Not in a euphemistic sense."
Not like she's surmised he had to 'help' his wife.
Margot
There was a bit of sniffling and perhaps two or three more tears to be swept away, but at no point did Margot lose her composure entirely and begin crying openly. After a dozen or so seconds she exhaled shakily but completely, and breathed normally after that. When the handkerchief was offered she accepted it meekly and wiped at her eyes, dabbed at her nose.
She nodded to confirm that he was right-- that was her Awakening. Had finished dabbing at her nose and finally glanced up at the Doc when he said that he could see what he could do to help her mom. She looked surprised, like she was reflexively going to protest against the offer. But then she stopped, looked a little surprised by herself now, and had to wonder just why she would want to refuse help for her mom as a gut instinct.
She looked back down again, to the handkerchief she had folded as small as it could go in her lap.
"I'm the one that wrecked the Pattern, though. Doesn't that mean I'm the one who's supposed to fix it?"
Sepúlveda
Though his reflex is to scowl he suppresses it to the point that all Margot sees is a confused frown. That's a face he pulls frequently. At least he doesn't have alcohol to push at her now.
"What are you, Catholic?"
It seems a moment to be a serious question. He retrieves his glasses from the neckline of his t-shirt and inspects them with the same cursory sharpness with which he inspected the handkerchief before hooking the arms over the backs of his ears.
"What happens at the moment of your Awakening is entirely beyond your control. Call it a burst of... Wild Talent, eh? This happens when you Awaken, and it happens when you die. The more powerful you are at the time of your death, the more spectacular the Wild Talent. Hopefully you won't witness this any time soon."
If the Doc had died the night of the goblin attack it would have been like a nuclear bomb going off in the neighborhood. Not a huge one but his Science has its destructive capabilities. That is what happens when one deals in matters outside of normal human control. Death and Time.
Anyway:
"You didn't know what you were doing, and it wasn't your fault."
Margot
What are you, Catholic?
The question took Margot by surprise and she looked up at The Doc with confusion written plainly on her face. How earnest she sounded when she answered had to be child-like. "No, but my mom was Protestant. Why?"
Irrelevant. On to the Awakening-- it was an indication of power, and she couldn't have helped what happened. It wasn't her fault. She frowned a little and looked down at her fingernails. They were plain, she hadn't put polish on them in a while, and trimmed short and kept clean. They tapped lightly on her mug mutely.
"I know that. The councelors told me that. Called it 'survivor's guilt'." She sighed and shook her head, but continued to finish the thought. "They said that I couldn't do anything about it, so I left it behind and tried not to look back. But now I know that I can do something. Well, maybe not yet, but I'll be able to."
Sepúlveda
"With Prime, you would be able to make that rabbit of yours into a Familiar."
This sounds like a non sequitur and he says it with a faraway sort of distraction. Like he's thinking of a conversation they had last time or the time before last. That story about Boudica and her army's interpretation of a hare's movement as an augury.
He still isn't entirely convinced Margot cannot learn to coexist with a warrior Avatar without resorting to a path of destruction. Not all warriors fight for glory. Protection and renewal are as much a part of the Verbena paradigm as anything else.
Focus, Doc.
"No, of course, with time and training you'll be able to affect others' Patterns and to heal them. If you can live with the state your mother is in for as long as that will take--" He holds up his hands. Shows her his palms. "I'll leave it alone." His hands lower. "But it will take years, Margot, and that is if pursuit of the healing craft is the bulk of your focus. You're studying ecology now, in college, yes?"
Margot
Eyebrows hopped up on her face when Familiars were suddenly brought into the equation. "What, Yorick?" She looked confused by what her rabbit had to do with Awakenings and going back to fix broken Patterns.
But he went on, explaining that she may learn to heal her mother but it would take years and if she wanted to go back and play caregiver then hey that was on her head.
Margot scowled thoughtfully. She wasn't entirely certain if she wanted to become a healer, much as she'd never really considered medicine as a part of her academic pursuit. She felt in the depths of her heart like her Avatar's idea of a battlefield had no medics and left no men alive to take prisoner.
Pulled from that train of thought by a question about her current studies, Margot blinked and blushed, just a little. She sounded sheepish when she confirmed that for him.
"Yeah, for now. I thought that I'd grow up to do something about global warming but.... I don't know, that seems a little hollow compared to learning more about what I can actually do, now."
Sepúlveda
One eyebrow quirks. He doesn't agree with her and he doesn't take any pains to conceal that from her but neither does he outright announce his disagreement either.
"Expound."
Margot
She took her time to think about it, but didn't pause for quite as long as she had before. She spoke like a ball of yarn unraveling, slow at first but picking up momentum and more certainty in what she was saying along the way.
"I didn't pick ecology because it was something that I wanted to do. I picked it because it seemed like the right thing to do-- I'm good at science, I've always been good at school, so of course I would become a scientist. Ecology because, well, it linked with global warming and something has to be done about that but..." She shook her head before continuing.
"I can't actually see myself going through eight years of school anymore, or living the life of a scientist or teacher, or going in front of Congress to argue science. It sounds too much like a life on a railroad track."
She thought about it, then smirked just a tiny bit, the expression weak and ironic but better considering that she was starting to cry a few minutes ago.
"I want to learn more about magic. The supernatural, the occult. About Us and Everything Else and what this world actually is. Everything else is just... distracting."
Sepúlveda
"Kids..."
Of course he was a teenage boy once. He did not want to stay in school if school was as extraneous as history has proven it to be to the pursuit of knowledge and the forward momentum of Science. It gave him and Eloise plenty to debate when he did decide to stay in college and go on to medical school. Eloise was smart too and had been on a track before she Awakened. Then she went Fuck it and dropped out.
It isn't himself of which Margot reminds him. It's another Verbena girl who was more interested in uncovering the mysteries of the universe than accepting the burden of scientific responsibility.
"You realize if you don't continue on with school, you won't have 'I have class in the morning' as an excuse anymore. Whatever will you do then?"
Margot
Margot's answer came with a shrug, and she spoke in a tone that made her sound precisely her age. Exactly like a freshman who was disenchanted with the idea of continuing school any longer now that it was actually a choice instead of a requirement.
"I don't know. Live?"
Margot took a last sip of her latte before the cup was down to its bottom. She took it as a sign, and glanced at the face of a modest little watch she wore on her wrist (the head on the inside of her wrist rather than the outside, so it changed how her arm turned to display the time).
"I've got to work tonight, though. That excuse still stands. I do have some stuff I need to finish up before work, but thanks for inviting me out and talking..." She trailed off there with a silent I guess... attached. She was having an okay morning, and here toed the line with her own PTSD by dredging up painful and scary memories with her mentor.
Sepúlveda
That teenaged uncertainty nets her a smile. He doesn't want to get attached to his students on account of their wing-spreading and their impending flight towards traditions better suited to them but there is a small amount of fondness there. Not a lot. Enough.
But she has to work tonight.
"Go," he says. Stands though he has only consumed about half his drink. "Live your life." He waits until she's standing and then he does something unheard of in the history of mentor-apprentice relationships.
He hugs her. Hard. The way people who do not like physical contact tend to hug other people trapping the recipient's arms so they themselves and not the recipient can end the damned thing when they've had enough. Sepúlveda is a solid man for being so short. It's a strong if awkward hug.
Margot
Margot was standing and getting ready to grab her coat so she could head back out into the world when her mentor descended upon her with a hug. She was a little taken aback-- Margot didn't think that he was much of a hugger to begin with. It showed in the delivery of affection, too-- how his arms pinned hers with a hard strength that was masked in his smaller frame, how there was nothing soft or warm in the gesture (but nothing about the Doc was warm by his nature, was it?)
She blinked once, then patted his ribcage for it was the only place she could reach with her arms pinned as they were. "Thanks," she told him, and when the hug ended she smiled at him. Grateful for his willingness to try, if nothing else at all.
"I'll see you later," she told him, and grinned a little as she finished buttoning up her coat. "If you see Ned before I do, tell him I said hi, okay?"
And thus concluded one of many morning coffee dates that would have probably been improved with mimosas as well.
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