Spring came rolling in to Denver in the last week of February and hasn't blown out on the backs of any storms just yet. Trees were budding and flowers were shooting green from the soil as well. This particular Sunday had been so warm and sunshiney that the mercury nearly reached 70 degrees and many of the citizens of Denver had donned shorts and flip flops to rejoice before the cold inevitably came back to bid farewell properly.
Margot had reached out to The Doc this time. Texted, asking if he'd meet her at the park. She wanted to test her Divination Bunny out (as she'd taken to calling Yorrick), and liked the idea of having a safety buddy around just in case she temporarily blinded herself with Paradox or drew the wrong sort of attention by sending her resonance thrumming and dripping into the atmosphere.
It was afternoon, and Margot had selected a patch of grass near one of the smaller ponds within the park. There were pretty botanical gardens nearby, but this area was shrouded with trees and often buggy and muddy and marshy so it wasn't occupied often. They could be spied across the water from the jogging trail, but otherwise the place was about as secluded as Margot could hope. She was drinking an iced green tea that she bought from their pit stop at a cafe across the street, and a blue nylon pet carrier was on the ground near her feet, holding Yorrick so he wouldn't go hopping away while she decided exactly what she wanted to scope out here.
"So, I've been reading more about Andraste," she said conversationally while looking thoughtfully out at the water and picking her mark. "And thinking over how... you know, it all works with us. I'm worried, though... What happens if my paradigm doesn't really coincide with living peacefully within the scope of the law?"
Dr. Sepúlveda
Lord only knows what the mad scientist who has taken Margot and Ned under his wing gets up to on a Sunday afternoon. Lord, or anyone who has spent time with him during the hours where he isn't expected at the county coroner's office. It goes without saying that when Margot texted him earlier today he had either been up all night or had arisen early and was probably up to his elbow in some unspeakable experiment that he only broke away from long enough to belt liquor down his throat.
Regardless: she texted him first this time. He responded saying he would be there. Emojis abounded.
Now here he is trudging up and off the path. He appears to have recently buzzed off the growth of beard he'd worn to the dinner party. Not so recent that he isn't now wearing three days' worth of five o'clock shadow. The silver in his hair is most prominent at his temples and scattered amongst the growth on his face. Outside like this in the daylight and in nature without spectacles occluding them the green of his irises pronounces itself.
He is wearing a cardigan over a button-down shirt. Jeans instead of slacks. Hiking boots like he heard 'park' and thought 'holy shit we're in the middle of nowhere.' His hands are in the pockets of said cardigan. Of course he has a flask in the back pocket of his jeans.
Though he does not say so he appreciates that his student gets right down to the meat of things. She's been reading more about Andraste. Partway through her explanation he removes the flask from his pocket and slugs a shot off it. His frown has nothing to do with the burn in his esophagus.
"'Scope of the law?'"
Margot
"Yeah, you know...,"
Margot learned to be direct from Ned, really. He set the tone in how the three of them all worked together, he and Doc. If she didn't have their direction she'd still be beating around the bush or trying to figure things out on her own. She may have never texted Ned back after meeting him at work-- he's the one that reached out to her first, after all.
The Doc dressed himself like they were going hiking, but Margot was wearing simple sneakers with ankle socks, a pair of khaki shorts that let some sun touch on her pale legs, and a long-sleeved purple shirt. Her hair was pinned back out of her face on one side, but still fell to cover her cheek and eye on the other side when she knelt down to open up the animal carrier.
"Andraste's a goddess of war. So, there's a lot of.... violence. Sacrifice. These things. They're important to understanding and growing and all, but..." With her lips pressed together with worry, Margot pulled a big red hare into her lap, with long ears and a short but smooth coat. He seemed docile enough; the rabbit was content to stay in her lap while she hugged one arm under his front legs and petted his head and shoulders. She looked up at the Doc with a heavy brow of thought and worry.
"It's all very dark. Witches get burned."
Dr. Sepúlveda
"Margot, you go to the wrong place or the wrong time, you get burned for having brown skin or... or breasts. You know? You and me, we're living in the best time to not get burnt at the stake we've ever had. It's just gonna get better from here."
He eventually concedes stillness and folds himself into a cross-legged sitting position easy enough for how thin he is under his layers and extends his left hand for Yorick to sniff. The closest to an introduction man and animal get. The flask stays in his right hand and he has not yet divested himself of his wedding band.
"Andraste wasn't just war, and war isn't just killing. You know? Icenic warriors like Boudica invoked her because of her, eh..." Swig. "Her powers of divination, hence the hare, but you have to remember, the Celtic Britons, they were beset, on all sides, throughout their history. All they've ever known is war. So--" He stifles a belch in his fist. "--the icons, the image of Andraste, is very war-like, but she is also iconic of other shit. You read that far yet?"
Margot
If possible, Margot's brow furrowed even further when the Doc spoke his piece and made his points. Yorrick the Rabbit stretched his head out to wriggle a little pink nose and sniff at the Doc's knuckles, but that was as far as that introduction went. Margot had started rubbing along the rabbit's ears in a gentle, absent pet and he was now busy closing his eyes and enjoying the affection.
Margot, in the meantime, stared at a patch of mud and a couple of ants trotting across it to pull apart a dead grasshopper while she spoke quietly.
"I know, that's what's weird... This isn't exactly a time of war, not a strong one, like you said. So why would Andraste pick somebody to empower? Maybe it's a sign of things to come-- she's readying for something I don't know about yet?" But at least she didn't have to worry about getting burned at the stake. He'd then gone on to ask how much else she'd read about the goddess-- there was more to her than war, wasn't there?
"Yeah, I've read a book and a few articles. She's mostly known for War and Victory, but she was also known for her divination like you said. Plus, ah..." Her cheeks went a bit pink and she cleared her throat, looked down at Yorrick and stood his ears up straight while petting them, which he tolerated well. "Love and fertility, too."
Dr. Sepúlveda
[manip + subt: yeeeeeah this is toooootally not a time of war <.< ]
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (2, 10) ( success x 1 )
Margot
[Perception + Empathy: Sure buddy]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 10) ( success x 1 )
Dr. Sepúlveda
This isn't exactly a time of war...
Given that they're both looking off into a distant horizon one could excuse Margot if Margot did not catch on that her mentor was trying to suppress some thought or feeling - he does not do feelings but feelings and impulses share a lane in the limbic system - but Margot is sharp and Margot is more perceptive than her mentor is manipulative.
"If we were going to think about things you don't know about yet," he says as he unscrews his flask, "we're going to be here a while." No they're not. He is not a permissive teacher. "And the shit we don't know about the relationship between the practitioner and the Avatar could fill..." Another slug. "... a library. Easily. You're asking the wrong questions. Who gives a shit why She chose you? She did. That ain't the question to worry about. She's gonna be there until the day you die, Margot, and She don't give a shit whether you're comfortable or not. Your job isn't to understand why. It's to, eh, explore, you know, expand your understanding and figure out how to reconcile Her wants and your own, and I can't help you with what She wants. I can help you interpret it, sure, like with Yorick here, Yorick is a great start, but..."
He sloshes the liquid around inside his flask to gauge its fillness before taking another swig.
Margot
The Doc's explanation wasn't wrong, but it still had Margot rolling her eyes a little (exasperationn, not disbelief) and shaking her head. It almost always boiled down to you're not ready to understand that yet or that's too big don't worry about it focus on learning something else. She felt like understanding the why would be major in having other things fall into place, but...
"If you say so," she conceded, and pulled the rabbit up further so that she was now holding him standing up on his haunches, supported with an arm over his belly and a hand holding onto his chest and shoulders. She smoothed the ears upward so they stood (sometimes they stood, sometimes they flopped a little).
"What's in there, anyway?" She asked, sounding suspicious and curious both while eyeballing the flask and the rate at which he was slugging through it.
She looked poised to try and work some Craft, but was too distracted to start just yet.
Dr. Sepúlveda
"Where?" The flask, genius. The lightbulb flicks on and he looks to the little metal container as if it just appeared in his hand versus having been there all along. Then he holds it out to her. "Tequila. You want some?"
He doesn't expect her to take it.
Margot
She shook her head at the offer; no, of course Margot didn't want any tequila. But she did eye him a little further before exhaling a breath that served as punctuation to a thought. A conclusion, a decision. She blinked a few times, then looked forward again, out to the lake. Shifted the rabbit so she held him high enough that she was looking out at the pond through his ears.
"You're avoiding the subjects, Doc. Both of them. Ned was right-- we are going to war, aren't we?"
[Life 1/Matter 1 Scan: Arete 1, Coincidental diff 4, -1 diff Tool (Yorrick the Dowsing Bunny)]
Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (2) ( fail )
Margot
[REROLL]
Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (7) ( success x 1 )
Dr. Sepúlveda
"War?" A beat. "Ned? Edward? Edward was right? No, no no no no. No no." Slug. "No. Christ, I've failed you two. You want to know about the War? Eh? Capital letters? The Ascension War? Because right now, so far as I know, we are not--" Burp. "--we are not at war."
Margot
"Don't make it sound like such a rare thing, his being right," Margot scolded the Doc after a couple seconds of delay. She blinked whatever she'd seen away from her eyes and gave the rabbit a small affectionate squeeze before letting him settle into her lap once more. Back to absent petting, she looked past her shoulder to where her Mentor sat.
"We're not at war right now, but he told me that it's coming. That Grace woman said as much-- some Act of War or Declaration or something... I've been thinking, maybe that's why Andraste called upon me. Divination manifest."
Don't be so full of yourself, Margot. But still... A horseman was a horseman, even if it lived in the breast of a teenage girl.
"Penelope said that it always comes back around, because we haven't yet won. And we're supposed to, I guess. I think we're the good guys? I feel like I'm a good guy." Even if she did need blood sacrifice to work her craft.
She was quiet for a minute, and then reached for her green tea. Pointed out toward the pond with the straw and said matter-of-factly, as though commenting on the clouds passing overhead: "There's a body at the bottom of that pond."
Dr. Sepúlveda"I don't even know where to start," he says. Musing. Not quite defeated but at least beleaguered. Sitting with his forearms draped over his knees and the flask in his hand like a line keeping him from drifting off. "Not only are the things you're saying wrong, but other people are putting wrong things into your skull and they're coming out your mouth. It's like a self-sustaining--"
There's a body at the bottom of that pond.
He flicks his eyebrows and tosses the flask aside to get to his feet. Steady on them for as much as he just put away and his hands are on his hips like she'd just pointed out an interesting genus of algae and not a corpse as he wanders towards the water.
"Huh," he says. Reaches into his back pocket and removes a gadget that looks like the lovechild of a cellphone and a radar gun. "Yorick tell you that?"
MargotMargot's brow seemed stuck in a frown. She didn't seem to much appreciate being told how wrong she was, how wrong her friend was, or having her worries squashed down on account of her wrongness. She was half-focused on the Doc, more focused on her Craft, but she had the feeling that he wasn't being completely open and honest with her. Shuffling subjects aside, sweeping details aside and under rugs with dismissiveness instead.
But hey, there was a body to distract them and prevent a bitter clash from rising between Mentor and Student.
Did Yorick tell her that? She shrugged one shoulder and let the rabbit on the ground in a space created by opening her lap and jutting her knees out to the sides.
"In a sense. More like I piggybacked into what he can tap into. Borrowed his eyes for a time."
Dr. Sepúlveda[entropy/life/matter 1: SCANNING THINGS. entropy is to filter out microorganisms.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 3, 7) ( success x 2 )
Dr. Sepúlveda"Interesting..."
This is half-muttered. His attention is on adjusting settings on the device so it will do what he wants it to do. They are not isolated in the truest sense of the world but no one else is around and even if they were the two of them aren't exactly hurling lightning bolts and melting walls. That's not the sort of disagreement they're having.
"Margot, people throw the word 'War' around as if it has no meaning, and they do it before they have all the information they need, so one person hears the Union has captured or killed a couple people in New York and by the time it gets to Chicago everyone is freaking out and there's no reason for it. So far as the Union is concerned, we are the bad guys, and, eh, seeing as their primary objective is to keep humanity safe, a bunch of dreadlocked acid-smoking degenerates who can't cooperate for five seconds and have a tendency to divorce themselves from reality so hard that reality itself goes 'Eh okay fuck you too'--"
The machine beeps with the results it's netted.
So there's a skeleton in the water. It's not hurting anything. He turns away from the pond and wanders back over to where he left his apprentice.
"I don't think they're bad guys, and not all of us are good. The world isn't black and white, Margot, it's more like... orange and blue."
Margot"Kidnapping and killing a couple of people doesn't sound like no reason." There's a hard flint of resolve in Margot's voice. She didn't speak nearly as forcefully as her counterpart and fellow apprentice often did, her voice softer and more thoughtful (when it wasn't strung tight like an overtuned guitar string from panic and anxiety, that is). However, blunt though she may not be in approaach or delivery, she sounds like she's not going to be swayed on that topic. Funny, for a potential horseman of war.
"Orange and blue are still on opposing sides of the color wheel, though. It's just another way of saying that things are Black and White. Black and White at least mix to make a gray area... Blue and Orange? They only come together for sports teams and infernos."
Yorick nibbled at some grass roots, and Margot stayed in her spot sitting on the ground. Looked over to the Doc when he came walking back after using his device to further scope the water-- just some skeleton, whoever was lost there was probably long since forgotten and given up on. They weren't here to put the memory of the dead to rest, so long as that dead memory wasn't hanging around rattling bones and scaring the living.
"...So, what actually did happen then? Why are there whispers of war around here?"
Dr. SepúlvedaThis is why Ned and Margot need an adult around. Clearly they've been getting themselves all wound up comparing notes and speculating. Ned's penchant for analogies is rubbing off on the girl.
Sepúlveda sits back down next to her and sighs a heavy sigh and takes a belt off his flask. Stares at the pond and taps his wedding band against the flask because god forbid he sit still for five whole seconds.
Why are there whispers of war around here?
"Because there are young ears around that don't need to be hearing about wars." He anchors his forearms on his knees and looks at her. "What happened was, lots of other things have happened in the last several years, and the local Technocratic amalgam - this is what they call themselves - sent in an operative to talk to a Disparate known to the locals as Alexander Brandt, who didn't tell this operative what he wanted to hear, so the operative took him into custody, and now we have to go and get him back, which is probably a lost cause at this point, because when they take you to Room 101 it's to crack your little walnut and extract all the information you have, and he has a lot of information." He looks away again. Slosh slosh slosh. He's going to need a refill. "The information they wanted pertains to this girl who... again, with the rumors! Rumors are like hemorrhoids, Margot. Am I... am I doing the analogies right?"
MargotSerious and silent as the grave, Margot sat and listened to the story that the Doc had to tell her. When he interrupted himself to inquire about whether his anaology worked, she urged him to continue with a quiet, quick answer.
"Your analogy is great, Doc. Why aren't we worried about this Faction that we used to have a massive war with-- recently, mind you-- kidnapping somebody who's more or less on our side of the line in the dirt? I mean, what information could they want with him? If he wasn't going around blowing things up and dragging Reality down along with him, then we shouldn't just be okay with him being kidnapped."
Listen to Margot, all righteous over somebody she'd never even met, whose life and crimes she couldn't begin guessing at. She's starting to sound a little bit like Pen's passion is catching on just as much as Ned's manner of making sense of things.
Dr. Sepúlveda"We're not okay with it. We're also not charging in there guns blazing--" He glances down to make sure his cigarettes are still in his pocket and stifles a burp before setting about lighting one. "--like a bunch of assholes, either. Grace is doing some hacker crap, Nick is working with this Verbena you haven't met yet to... I don't know, question the spirits, on the off chance they have half a clue what the fuck is going on, and Serafíne, a Cultist you haven't met yet, is going to work with Penelope to see... again, with the rumors!... if this Technocrat who a couple of apprentices had contact with last year is actually willing to work with us, or if he's just a dick. I think he might just be a dick. All of that, they're doing fast as, and then Kiara, the Verbena? Kiara and I are going to go in and get him."
Like they're picking a kid up from daycare or something. That may be the reason Sepúlveda hasn't said anything yet.
(Spoiler: That is the reason Sepúlveda hasn't said anything yet.)
MargotFor a minute, there's quiet. Margot listened to the plan-- there were plenty of heads working together on this already. The community here was bonded enough that one man, whose tradition was unannounced (disparate? an Orphan?), was well worth seeking out and saving. Seemed to her that the Traditions weren't suffering from so much in fighting as she'd originally believed the may be.
After a gap of silence, she said quietly while looking at the side of her mentor's face with a brow furrowed with worry:
"This plan sounds half-cocked, Doc."
Dr. Sepúlveda[matter 3: LITTERING IS BULLSHIT. alter form on the cigarette butt. blah blah modifiers.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (4, 4, 10) ( success x 3 )
Dr. Sepúlveda"Yeah, no shit."
It looks like he's just using his lighter to set the cigarette filter more on fire than it already was. Cigarette filters are not designed to burn though so the fact that it does defies the laws of packaging. He does it anyway. Will argue, if he has to argue, that the lighter is not fueled with butane so its flame is hotter and no one is even paying attention to them so he doesn't have to explain himself. Not insofar as the matter of the disintegrating cigarette butt goes. It becomes ash and eventually floats away.
"If you have a better idea, I'll trade you that for my undivided attention."
MargotMargot watched the cigarette butt defy reason and disintigrate under the heat of a lighter flame. Her head tipped a little to the side. She adjusted how she was sitting, planted the heel of her hand in the grass behind her and leaned back, shoulders angled so she was facing Andres more than forward. Her other hand remained absently petting the bunny. Yorick was a good mellow fellow, he was content to exist around his mistress's legs.
"Well, the word 'Technocrat' has the very word 'techno' in it-- how spiritual can they be? What's the point of wasting time and energy by bothering the spirits about this?" She looked a little frustrated as she explained. Why was the 19-year-old noticing this when whoever put the plans together did not?
Because she was a smart 19-year-old.
"I'd worry more about defenses around wherever they're keeping him. I know that the Storm is over, but it's still not smart or safe to just hang out in the Spirit World, so I doubt they're keeping this Brandt guy there. They have to be somewhere physical, with magical and physical defenses around them. Maybe just one person, maybe the whole organization?
"Whatever it is, though, we're fucking wizards, Doc. We have all of the tools of the universe at our disposal, we just need to be smart enough to use them correctly. Can't anybody scope the place out from afar-- look and count and see what we can expect? Perhaps dismantle defenses from a distance too, like a bomb squad? Maybe we can trick the guards into handing him over. Maybe we can just transport him out-- like when Star Trek beams people to and from the ship?"
She looked very serious then and there. Theorized tactics like it was something naturally built into her, gifted through the tether she shared with her Goddess Avatar. Hardly noticed it herself, though, because she was worried about something else.
"You guys shouldn't go there. It's not safe."
Dr. Sepúlveda[matter/prime 2: if you're going to keep being you i'm going to need a refill. *handwaves the modifiers*]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Dr. SepúlvedaMargot seems to be proving the problem that the Technocratic Union has with the Traditions even without the benefit of having been at the council meeting herself.
I KNOW says his face when she brings up the fact that asking the spirits for anything let alone anything pertaining to the Technocracy is a stupid fucking idea but they'd already been over this and after arguing with Grace and volunteering to put himself in danger because fuck it, he was old and he'd already contributed his genes to the furtherance of the species and it's not like it would be some great tragedy if he got shot in the face during this little rescue operation, he appears to have conceded that he is outnumbered.
But Margot keeps going. He and she are more or less facing each other but he is also facing her disappointment and anger and when he tips back his flask to take another shot it drains the metal container. This provokes another sigh. He shifts in the grass to remove two small vials from his pocket and begins transferring clear fluid from the vials into the flask with their droppers.
The volume of fluid produced from the droppers' collusion defies reason but then again they're fucking wizards. He lets her have that one.
At the end of her spiel he gives the flask a test slosh and takes a shot out of it. Better living through Science. The vials go back into his pocket and he sighs the greatest of sighs as he sits cross-legged and faces her direct.
"You're familiar with Nietzsche's quote about gazing into the abyss, yeah? How the abyss gazes back? These guys aren't stupid, and any Work we would do in order to get him out, they could trace. There's nothing not-safe about walking into a Technocratic building and knocking on the door, Margot, that's fear talking."
Margot"Of course I'm afraid!"
She wasn't shouting. Margot didn't seem like much of a shouter, and she didn't want to draw attention to their place by causing a scene. But you recall the earlier mention of a violin strung too tight, keening anxiety and worry? That was the tone. Her eyes were wide with wory, her stare direct.
"Look at you. I know you don't care if you die. I'm not a fucking idiot. But I care if you die. We care if you die. Why would you volunteer to go marching in on a hostage situation?"
Dr. SepúlvedaAh, shit, there's the reminder he needed that other people have feelings.
Sepúlveda takes a deep breath in through his nose and lets it out. If she's going to be upset and he's going to be a flippant asshole about it he can at least look her in the eye when he answers her question.
"Everybody dies, Margot, that's part of the process. But nobody else, you included, had any bright ideas, so that's what I came up with. It'll be fine. You worry too much."
Margot[WP: Isn't it scary when your parental figures fucking bail on life? Diff 7 for PTSD tiptoe trigger]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (4, 4, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
MargotAt first Margot was still and quiet. She'd even stopped petting Yorick, who was oblivious to the tension in the air and happily munching his grass still. Her lips were pursed together tightly, like it were a great effort to hold back the tide of anger and frustration and fear. The words weren't sorting themselves out in her head. All she was doing was shouting fruitless whys and how could yous at the inside of her own skull.
Her eyes narrowed, then without a word she straightened up and put Yorick back in his pet carrier. Zipped it up and lifted it with her while she stood.
He was old enough and experienced enough with women to know what was happening. Welcome to the Cold Shoulder.
Dr. Sepúlveda[perception: i'm getting the feeling you're upset about something...?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Dr. SepúlvedaAt the rate he's going the female Mages of Denver are one day going to form a support group to deal with the fact that Andy Sepúlveda is a fucking asshole.
His attempt to use reason in the face of an emotional reaction in a traumatized 19-year-old goes about as well as anyone would have expected it to go. No shit she's upset. He's waited this long to tell her that yeah okay all this war crap actually has some basis in reality and his brilliant idea is to waltz into their enemy's midst and negotiate the release of a fellow who may or may not be completely brainwashed by the time they get in there.
Instead of blowing up at him she hustles the dowsing rabbit back into his carrier and gets to her feet. He does the same. As much as he's pounded back it doesn't seem to be affecting him.
"Margot," he says and she can hear petition in his voice but not much in the way of actual pleading, "come on, I care. Okay? I'm very good at not dying, I do it every day. If I die, you two are going to have to learn the difference between your asses and your elbows from some dingbat who thinks palm reading is a legitimate scientific pursuit. I'm very very very invested in not dying. Don't... don't do the cold shoulder thing."
MargotThe Doc found his feet at the same time that Margot did, but she seemed awfully intent on ignoring him and walking away. She looked distinctly down and aside, purposefully avoiding looking at her Mentor while he spoke to try and calm and reason with her-- he did care, okay? He wasn't going to just go letting himself get killed.
She hoisted the straps of the pet carrier up over her shoulder, so Yorick was tucked under one arm like a large purse, and turned her back, but didn't get so far as actually taking steps away. It was around this point that he'd asked her not to give him the cold shoulder, putting it into plain words.
Something about the request chimed a bell of sad memory in her mind. She thought to herself, That's probably how he sounded when his wife was still alive to get upset at him for things like this instead. It gave her pause, and when she turned enough to look at him over her shoulder he'd find her lip set in a way that spoke of resisting tears. Her eyes were pretty clear, though, she was doing a decent job of that.
"I hope you're not just blowing smoke." Beat. "I'll... I'll see you later."
Her mood had turned drastically, her desire to spend any more time with her Mentor doused entirely. It was funny how fighting and being bad at resolving it made you want to go be alone. Margot turned all the same and started climbing the small slope to get back to the gardens, the sidewalks, the way away from here. At least she bade goodbye first.
There's a body at the bottom of that pond.
He flicks his eyebrows and tosses the flask aside to get to his feet. Steady on them for as much as he just put away and his hands are on his hips like she'd just pointed out an interesting genus of algae and not a corpse as he wanders towards the water.
"Huh," he says. Reaches into his back pocket and removes a gadget that looks like the lovechild of a cellphone and a radar gun. "Yorick tell you that?"
MargotMargot's brow seemed stuck in a frown. She didn't seem to much appreciate being told how wrong she was, how wrong her friend was, or having her worries squashed down on account of her wrongness. She was half-focused on the Doc, more focused on her Craft, but she had the feeling that he wasn't being completely open and honest with her. Shuffling subjects aside, sweeping details aside and under rugs with dismissiveness instead.
But hey, there was a body to distract them and prevent a bitter clash from rising between Mentor and Student.
Did Yorick tell her that? She shrugged one shoulder and let the rabbit on the ground in a space created by opening her lap and jutting her knees out to the sides.
"In a sense. More like I piggybacked into what he can tap into. Borrowed his eyes for a time."
Dr. Sepúlveda[entropy/life/matter 1: SCANNING THINGS. entropy is to filter out microorganisms.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN3 (1, 3, 7) ( success x 2 )
Dr. Sepúlveda"Interesting..."
This is half-muttered. His attention is on adjusting settings on the device so it will do what he wants it to do. They are not isolated in the truest sense of the world but no one else is around and even if they were the two of them aren't exactly hurling lightning bolts and melting walls. That's not the sort of disagreement they're having.
"Margot, people throw the word 'War' around as if it has no meaning, and they do it before they have all the information they need, so one person hears the Union has captured or killed a couple people in New York and by the time it gets to Chicago everyone is freaking out and there's no reason for it. So far as the Union is concerned, we are the bad guys, and, eh, seeing as their primary objective is to keep humanity safe, a bunch of dreadlocked acid-smoking degenerates who can't cooperate for five seconds and have a tendency to divorce themselves from reality so hard that reality itself goes 'Eh okay fuck you too'--"
The machine beeps with the results it's netted.
So there's a skeleton in the water. It's not hurting anything. He turns away from the pond and wanders back over to where he left his apprentice.
"I don't think they're bad guys, and not all of us are good. The world isn't black and white, Margot, it's more like... orange and blue."
Margot"Kidnapping and killing a couple of people doesn't sound like no reason." There's a hard flint of resolve in Margot's voice. She didn't speak nearly as forcefully as her counterpart and fellow apprentice often did, her voice softer and more thoughtful (when it wasn't strung tight like an overtuned guitar string from panic and anxiety, that is). However, blunt though she may not be in approaach or delivery, she sounds like she's not going to be swayed on that topic. Funny, for a potential horseman of war.
"Orange and blue are still on opposing sides of the color wheel, though. It's just another way of saying that things are Black and White. Black and White at least mix to make a gray area... Blue and Orange? They only come together for sports teams and infernos."
Yorick nibbled at some grass roots, and Margot stayed in her spot sitting on the ground. Looked over to the Doc when he came walking back after using his device to further scope the water-- just some skeleton, whoever was lost there was probably long since forgotten and given up on. They weren't here to put the memory of the dead to rest, so long as that dead memory wasn't hanging around rattling bones and scaring the living.
"...So, what actually did happen then? Why are there whispers of war around here?"
Dr. SepúlvedaThis is why Ned and Margot need an adult around. Clearly they've been getting themselves all wound up comparing notes and speculating. Ned's penchant for analogies is rubbing off on the girl.
Sepúlveda sits back down next to her and sighs a heavy sigh and takes a belt off his flask. Stares at the pond and taps his wedding band against the flask because god forbid he sit still for five whole seconds.
Why are there whispers of war around here?
"Because there are young ears around that don't need to be hearing about wars." He anchors his forearms on his knees and looks at her. "What happened was, lots of other things have happened in the last several years, and the local Technocratic amalgam - this is what they call themselves - sent in an operative to talk to a Disparate known to the locals as Alexander Brandt, who didn't tell this operative what he wanted to hear, so the operative took him into custody, and now we have to go and get him back, which is probably a lost cause at this point, because when they take you to Room 101 it's to crack your little walnut and extract all the information you have, and he has a lot of information." He looks away again. Slosh slosh slosh. He's going to need a refill. "The information they wanted pertains to this girl who... again, with the rumors! Rumors are like hemorrhoids, Margot. Am I... am I doing the analogies right?"
MargotSerious and silent as the grave, Margot sat and listened to the story that the Doc had to tell her. When he interrupted himself to inquire about whether his anaology worked, she urged him to continue with a quiet, quick answer.
"Your analogy is great, Doc. Why aren't we worried about this Faction that we used to have a massive war with-- recently, mind you-- kidnapping somebody who's more or less on our side of the line in the dirt? I mean, what information could they want with him? If he wasn't going around blowing things up and dragging Reality down along with him, then we shouldn't just be okay with him being kidnapped."
Listen to Margot, all righteous over somebody she'd never even met, whose life and crimes she couldn't begin guessing at. She's starting to sound a little bit like Pen's passion is catching on just as much as Ned's manner of making sense of things.
Dr. Sepúlveda"We're not okay with it. We're also not charging in there guns blazing--" He glances down to make sure his cigarettes are still in his pocket and stifles a burp before setting about lighting one. "--like a bunch of assholes, either. Grace is doing some hacker crap, Nick is working with this Verbena you haven't met yet to... I don't know, question the spirits, on the off chance they have half a clue what the fuck is going on, and Serafíne, a Cultist you haven't met yet, is going to work with Penelope to see... again, with the rumors!... if this Technocrat who a couple of apprentices had contact with last year is actually willing to work with us, or if he's just a dick. I think he might just be a dick. All of that, they're doing fast as, and then Kiara, the Verbena? Kiara and I are going to go in and get him."
Like they're picking a kid up from daycare or something. That may be the reason Sepúlveda hasn't said anything yet.
(Spoiler: That is the reason Sepúlveda hasn't said anything yet.)
MargotFor a minute, there's quiet. Margot listened to the plan-- there were plenty of heads working together on this already. The community here was bonded enough that one man, whose tradition was unannounced (disparate? an Orphan?), was well worth seeking out and saving. Seemed to her that the Traditions weren't suffering from so much in fighting as she'd originally believed the may be.
After a gap of silence, she said quietly while looking at the side of her mentor's face with a brow furrowed with worry:
"This plan sounds half-cocked, Doc."
Dr. Sepúlveda[matter 3: LITTERING IS BULLSHIT. alter form on the cigarette butt. blah blah modifiers.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (4, 4, 10) ( success x 3 )
Dr. Sepúlveda"Yeah, no shit."
It looks like he's just using his lighter to set the cigarette filter more on fire than it already was. Cigarette filters are not designed to burn though so the fact that it does defies the laws of packaging. He does it anyway. Will argue, if he has to argue, that the lighter is not fueled with butane so its flame is hotter and no one is even paying attention to them so he doesn't have to explain himself. Not insofar as the matter of the disintegrating cigarette butt goes. It becomes ash and eventually floats away.
"If you have a better idea, I'll trade you that for my undivided attention."
MargotMargot watched the cigarette butt defy reason and disintigrate under the heat of a lighter flame. Her head tipped a little to the side. She adjusted how she was sitting, planted the heel of her hand in the grass behind her and leaned back, shoulders angled so she was facing Andres more than forward. Her other hand remained absently petting the bunny. Yorick was a good mellow fellow, he was content to exist around his mistress's legs.
"Well, the word 'Technocrat' has the very word 'techno' in it-- how spiritual can they be? What's the point of wasting time and energy by bothering the spirits about this?" She looked a little frustrated as she explained. Why was the 19-year-old noticing this when whoever put the plans together did not?
Because she was a smart 19-year-old.
"I'd worry more about defenses around wherever they're keeping him. I know that the Storm is over, but it's still not smart or safe to just hang out in the Spirit World, so I doubt they're keeping this Brandt guy there. They have to be somewhere physical, with magical and physical defenses around them. Maybe just one person, maybe the whole organization?
"Whatever it is, though, we're fucking wizards, Doc. We have all of the tools of the universe at our disposal, we just need to be smart enough to use them correctly. Can't anybody scope the place out from afar-- look and count and see what we can expect? Perhaps dismantle defenses from a distance too, like a bomb squad? Maybe we can trick the guards into handing him over. Maybe we can just transport him out-- like when Star Trek beams people to and from the ship?"
She looked very serious then and there. Theorized tactics like it was something naturally built into her, gifted through the tether she shared with her Goddess Avatar. Hardly noticed it herself, though, because she was worried about something else.
"You guys shouldn't go there. It's not safe."
Dr. Sepúlveda[matter/prime 2: if you're going to keep being you i'm going to need a refill. *handwaves the modifiers*]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (8, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Dr. SepúlvedaMargot seems to be proving the problem that the Technocratic Union has with the Traditions even without the benefit of having been at the council meeting herself.
I KNOW says his face when she brings up the fact that asking the spirits for anything let alone anything pertaining to the Technocracy is a stupid fucking idea but they'd already been over this and after arguing with Grace and volunteering to put himself in danger because fuck it, he was old and he'd already contributed his genes to the furtherance of the species and it's not like it would be some great tragedy if he got shot in the face during this little rescue operation, he appears to have conceded that he is outnumbered.
But Margot keeps going. He and she are more or less facing each other but he is also facing her disappointment and anger and when he tips back his flask to take another shot it drains the metal container. This provokes another sigh. He shifts in the grass to remove two small vials from his pocket and begins transferring clear fluid from the vials into the flask with their droppers.
The volume of fluid produced from the droppers' collusion defies reason but then again they're fucking wizards. He lets her have that one.
At the end of her spiel he gives the flask a test slosh and takes a shot out of it. Better living through Science. The vials go back into his pocket and he sighs the greatest of sighs as he sits cross-legged and faces her direct.
"You're familiar with Nietzsche's quote about gazing into the abyss, yeah? How the abyss gazes back? These guys aren't stupid, and any Work we would do in order to get him out, they could trace. There's nothing not-safe about walking into a Technocratic building and knocking on the door, Margot, that's fear talking."
Margot"Of course I'm afraid!"
She wasn't shouting. Margot didn't seem like much of a shouter, and she didn't want to draw attention to their place by causing a scene. But you recall the earlier mention of a violin strung too tight, keening anxiety and worry? That was the tone. Her eyes were wide with wory, her stare direct.
"Look at you. I know you don't care if you die. I'm not a fucking idiot. But I care if you die. We care if you die. Why would you volunteer to go marching in on a hostage situation?"
Dr. SepúlvedaAh, shit, there's the reminder he needed that other people have feelings.
Sepúlveda takes a deep breath in through his nose and lets it out. If she's going to be upset and he's going to be a flippant asshole about it he can at least look her in the eye when he answers her question.
"Everybody dies, Margot, that's part of the process. But nobody else, you included, had any bright ideas, so that's what I came up with. It'll be fine. You worry too much."
Margot[WP: Isn't it scary when your parental figures fucking bail on life? Diff 7 for PTSD tiptoe trigger]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (4, 4, 4, 7, 8) ( success x 2 )
MargotAt first Margot was still and quiet. She'd even stopped petting Yorick, who was oblivious to the tension in the air and happily munching his grass still. Her lips were pursed together tightly, like it were a great effort to hold back the tide of anger and frustration and fear. The words weren't sorting themselves out in her head. All she was doing was shouting fruitless whys and how could yous at the inside of her own skull.
Her eyes narrowed, then without a word she straightened up and put Yorick back in his pet carrier. Zipped it up and lifted it with her while she stood.
He was old enough and experienced enough with women to know what was happening. Welcome to the Cold Shoulder.
Dr. Sepúlveda[perception: i'm getting the feeling you're upset about something...?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 7, 10) ( success x 2 )
Dr. SepúlvedaAt the rate he's going the female Mages of Denver are one day going to form a support group to deal with the fact that Andy Sepúlveda is a fucking asshole.
His attempt to use reason in the face of an emotional reaction in a traumatized 19-year-old goes about as well as anyone would have expected it to go. No shit she's upset. He's waited this long to tell her that yeah okay all this war crap actually has some basis in reality and his brilliant idea is to waltz into their enemy's midst and negotiate the release of a fellow who may or may not be completely brainwashed by the time they get in there.
Instead of blowing up at him she hustles the dowsing rabbit back into his carrier and gets to her feet. He does the same. As much as he's pounded back it doesn't seem to be affecting him.
"Margot," he says and she can hear petition in his voice but not much in the way of actual pleading, "come on, I care. Okay? I'm very good at not dying, I do it every day. If I die, you two are going to have to learn the difference between your asses and your elbows from some dingbat who thinks palm reading is a legitimate scientific pursuit. I'm very very very invested in not dying. Don't... don't do the cold shoulder thing."
MargotThe Doc found his feet at the same time that Margot did, but she seemed awfully intent on ignoring him and walking away. She looked distinctly down and aside, purposefully avoiding looking at her Mentor while he spoke to try and calm and reason with her-- he did care, okay? He wasn't going to just go letting himself get killed.
She hoisted the straps of the pet carrier up over her shoulder, so Yorick was tucked under one arm like a large purse, and turned her back, but didn't get so far as actually taking steps away. It was around this point that he'd asked her not to give him the cold shoulder, putting it into plain words.
Something about the request chimed a bell of sad memory in her mind. She thought to herself, That's probably how he sounded when his wife was still alive to get upset at him for things like this instead. It gave her pause, and when she turned enough to look at him over her shoulder he'd find her lip set in a way that spoke of resisting tears. Her eyes were pretty clear, though, she was doing a decent job of that.
"I hope you're not just blowing smoke." Beat. "I'll... I'll see you later."
Her mood had turned drastically, her desire to spend any more time with her Mentor doused entirely. It was funny how fighting and being bad at resolving it made you want to go be alone. Margot turned all the same and started climbing the small slope to get back to the gardens, the sidewalks, the way away from here. At least she bade goodbye first.
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