Margot Travers
At the beginning of the week, Nicholas Hyde found a voicemail on his cellphone. Margot's quick-spoken voice sounded hushed and hurried, like she was trying to avoid being overheard by making this brief.
"Hey, Nick, it's Margot. I'm, uh... This is awkward, but you said you were a counselor? Well, the Doc.. That is to say, I was wondering if maybe we could talk? I have insurance through the university, I don't want to be presumptive of your time or anything." A pause just long enough to be awkward, maybe long enough for Margot to smack herself in the forehead before she finished up. "Please let me know. Thanks."
Nick got back to her, agreed to meet her and suggested Washington Park as a nice open space. Thursday'd work out best.
They met at a landmark that was easy to find, a bright patch of flowers well manicured and cared for in beautiful, colorful patterns with walkways between them. Margot was lurking near a patch of lavender, apparently counting bees and robins. The temperature was chillier today than it had been recently, so she was dressed in a brown jacket and gray beanie cap. Jeans and brown sneakers, she seemed almost like she was purposefully dressed in the blandest colors possible. Urban camoflauge, an reremarkable blending in that had nothing to do with supernatural flair.
Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas is versed in the Art of Time magick, and so perhaps a part of him one way or another always knew this day would come. An Awakened member of the community has called him: You said you were a counselor?
Truth be told, Nick is surprised it has taken this long. But they're a willful lot, magi. It isn't a surprise that the call has come from an apprentice.
He had agreed to meet Margot, assuring her all the while that she was not a burden and was not being presumptive of his time. Today will find him meeting her in the park where she lingers by a patch of flowers, their soft violet hues a contrast to the budding growth of young Spring. Soon it will snow, and it will kill off some of the flowers that have just begun to break through the soil. So it goes.
Nick is wearing a puffy green jacket today (the color is coincidental; he has been avoiding the drunken throngs of people throughout downtown) and a pair of brown corduroys. His hair is beginning to grow wild, dark crown of curls as it is, and he has not as yet made any recent attempt to tame it with shears. He has his hands in the pocket of his jacket as he sights her and wanders up. His feet make no sound, would not even if he were not treading through soft grass, and so he is careful that his voice foretells his coming before he is anywhere near her. "Hello, Margot."
Margot Travers
Soft footsteps and a greeting before proximity spoke of Nick's practice with cases like Margot's. She'd straightened up a little (as opposed to startling, like she'd done last time), and turned her head to look for and toward him. It helped that she was expecting him this time, too. When her eyes found his face she smiled. The expression was genuine, she liked Nick, his presence was a welcome one.
"Hey, Nick. Thanks for meeting me."
Her hands stayed in her pockets, but she turned her shoulders so she was more faced toward the other Mage. Eyes cast over the hue of his jacket, then she grinned a lopsided grin and pulled her jacket zipper down, tugged a lapel out. Her shirt underneath was shamrock green.
"Going out tonight, have to make sure nobody has an excuse to come pinching. How are you?"
Nicholas Hyde
"Glad that I'm not covering for the emergency department this weekend." There is a touch of wry in his tone here, though he doesn't necessarily expect her to laugh: this is the sort of gallows hospital humor that sometimes follows people outside of work, when they do the sort of work he does.
He, too, has smiled upon greeting. Nick is the sort of man who finds it easy to reflect the emotions of those around him, who perhaps even takes them on to some extent. It can't be entirely avoided. Regardless: he does seem happy to see Margot as well, and there's this little tilt to his brows that indicates some concern even before they've begun to speak. Her voice message, after all, was a little worrying.
"Do you want to go sit somewhere? Might as well enjoy the ground while it's dry." A rare enough thing during this time of the year.
Margot Travers
"Sure, or we can walk-and-talk like this is a political drama." She wasn't quite perceptive enough yet to readily recognize the small tilt of concern to his brown, and so held her grin up just a little while longer before turning and beginning to walk. Regardless, they'd need to go elsewhere, so she began walking, figuring he would be doing so as well.
With the initial bit of friendly greeting out of the way, and with a few moments to pass for Margot's hoisted grin to slip away as well, the girl's expression fell solemn instead. She was thinking of how to approach what they were there to talk about, and thinking over the content itself was distressing enough without really knowing how to present it.
So she started with a story.
"When we were having this talk, Doc and Ned and I, Doc told me that I should just learn how to 'fix it'. That I'm a witch and it'll be easy. I think that he might have forgotten quite what being on my level is like, having been able to change things as much as he does for as long as he has. I think that would take... ah... quite some time."
Nicholas Hyde
Margot indicates that she would prefer to walk, and so Nick easily falls into step beside her, and without question. There is a certain part of his demeanor that seems tailored to put her at ease, which she might notice if she were perceptive enough yet. He walks along with his hands still in his pockets, his gaze on the trail ahead.
He doesn't prompt her, yet, as she seems to mull over just what it is she wants to talk to him about. There is this look he gives her out of the corner of his eye occasionally where he notes that her smile has faded, that there are little tells that indicate some distress - what can he see? And if she had gone quiet much longer he might indeed have laid out some sort of launching pad for her.
Instead he listens. His left hand wiggles occasionally inside its pocket as he spins his wedding ring around his finger with the ball of his thumb, though this ceases once she has finished.
"What does he think you should be able to fix?"
Margot Travers
As they walked, they passed a bench. Nick let her lead, and Margot chose to keep on walking. She went at a comfortable pace, slow to him perhaps on account of her stature and shorter legs. Took her time and kept her eyes on the path ahead.
She also took her time answering Nick's question. Not so much that he may feel like he'd have to prompt her or switch gears, though.
"Last week Doc called Ned and I over because he was hearing this knocking sound-- it was following him around the house. I can sense Spirits, and he cannot, so he wanted me to see if I could feel what was happening. I sensed another Mage. Turns out he'd pissed off a Dreamspeaker and she came through the Gauntlet to get the jump on him in his lab
When I heard her screaming at him and him yelling back, it panicked me. Badly. Ned had to.. get me back upstairs. Help me breathe and calm down and had to leave me there to go help Doc."
Her chin tucked into her jacket when a breeze picked up, and she chuckled a low little chuckle. "Turns out Ned was not well equipped to de-escalate the situation. This Shaman had the upper hand and Ned was antagonizing her. Turns out he's almost as bad with people as Doc is. Doc got hurt. Things could'a gone badly. I.. I pulled it together and got the situation calmed down and everything worked out and we're all okay but...
"But I can't jam up like that. Not with everything that we have to be on the look out for, not with everything that we meddle with."
Nicholas Hyde
There are a lot of questions to ask here. Nick has so many questions. He swallows all of them for the time being, piles them up inside him and sorts through them to find out which will be the most helpful here. After all: Margot has come to him with a problem.
He is not the sort of man who will overlook that to pry information from her, to use her vulnerability to gather power. He could be, but he's not.
There is a silence that passes between them after Margot finishes, and in that silence Nick's eyes have wandered on ahead, have roved from the bench to a little spray of daisies that they pass. His hand leaves his pockets long enough to catch the petals of one of them, and he runs his finger over the little plant before releasing it and letting it spring back into place unharmed. Then his hand returns to his pocket.
"That sounds like a lot of responsibility that you're taking on for what happened. It also sounds like, as an apprentice, with a lot of this very new to you, you had a very normal reaction. Andrés told you that you freezing up is something that needs to be fixed?"
Margot Travers
"No, it's not just freezing up as in not knowing what to do. It was..."
Margot watched Nick touch the flowers that they passed without causing them injury, frowned and kept eyes on the daisies while they sprang and bounced back into place. Looked forward again and tried again to better describe.
"I got confused. It felt like when I Awakened, and I thought that I was with my mother and brother again. I hid under a blanket and did breathing exercises before I could even bring myself to get back to the staircase. He said that he's seen it before, that it gets worse. Post traumatic stress disorder, I've done some reading, I think that's what he's talking about."
She looked at her sneakers and watched them consume the dirt path beneath them, mouth pursed closed and tight. Because she knew that next came the part where she explained what happened to her family.
Nicholas Hyde
There is, perhaps, a part of Nicholas that had known this about her, or suspected, long before she told him. He is not a mind reader, but he excels at picking up on contextual clues and piecing them together; he's a clever man. This has been observed about him before. So in this sidelong look he gives Margot, there is no surprise.
She's done some reading, and this is no surprise either. In spite of the topic, there is this little half smile that pulls at the corners of his mouth as they walk together. It is perhaps a little fond, this thoughtful thing. It is gone by the time she finishes speaking, though, by the time the muscles around her mouth tighten.
"So it brought a lot of things back for you, it sounds like. What sorts of things are you understanding about yourself from what you're reading? I'd like to make sure we're on the same page."
Margot Travers
The bookish quality that little Margot Travers had about her seemed to be endearing her to any number of potential mentor figures. When Doc first sat her and Ned down for a serious explanation of what they were in for she'd produced a pencil and notebook, and the Doc had to put forth a concentrated effort to avoid looking too pleased with her. The fact that she'd gone to the trouble of researching the subject herself, as opposed to tip-toeing around and waiting for somebody else to tell her what it was and what exactly to do with it, caused Nick to smile despite the weight of the subject at hand.
What did she understand from that reading? For the first time since they started walking-and-talking she looked directly at him, apparently confused by the question and seeking clarification.
After a moment she tried, though, sounding cautious like she wasn't certain if she was answering right. "That... I'm at risk around stuff that reminds me of what happened. And hearing the Doc fighting with that Shaman lady, the shouting and all must've brought me back. And it can keep compounding and complicating if I keep denying it and avoiding it."
She moved a hand from her pocket to tuck loose hair out of her face and back under her wool cap again. "I also think that I need to finish some unfinished business. Maybe closing the final chapter on that story will help."
Nicholas Hyde
Margot appears to be seeking clarification, and to what she says he only nods. He keeps even with her as they walk, even though his legs are longer and he likely has to slow his pace to accommodate her. "It sounds like you have a good understanding of what's going on then. Do you want to talk about what happened, before?"
Another sidelong glance to her. "You don't have to, if you don't want to."
Margot Travers
[Well, Margot, how willing are you to talk?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 2, 5, 6) ( success x 1 )
Margot Travers
A sidelong look was met with a look in kind-- Nick'd find wide hazel eyes staring right back at him. Perhaps evaluating his visage and determing if it was trustworthy enough to lay this on the line with.
Well, she'd come this far. And this was what she was here for. And if you never stepped off the ledge you'd never learn to swim again.
So Margot took a breath, looked forward, curled her hands into fists in her pockets, and started.
"I grew up in Portland, Maine, with my mom and my brother. And my brother sucks, like, a lot. He's been into meth and heroin and shit since he was like 14 or 15 years old. And this one night last summer..." There. It was starting already. She felt a swelling in her throat and a skip in her heart and breath. She paused, took a breath, and pressed on. "Luke hadn't been home for two and a half months and then came back in a huff. Tearing up his room, wanting to know where mom was, accusing her of taking something." She snorted with angry disdain. "He thought she found some stash of drugs he was holding and when she came home from work he got into a fight with her about it. He was high as fuck on something and it was intense so I went outside to call the cops and... and he.. and she..."
She stopped walking now and was staring forward-down. Tears stung her eyes and she took a breath again but pushed on, even if it did all come out as a rush, because this was difficult and she felt like something were gripping her heart and squeezing it tight and it made her want to leap and kick and bound away like a terrified red rabbit but she could do no such thing. Disciples of Warrior Goddesses didn't run away from scary shit in their past. They faced it.
"I heard a scream and when I came back in Luke was choking her and he smashed her head on the counter and she died I saw the life leave her and everything came down and in and exploded and now Luke only has one arm and I brought mom's body back to life but it's just her body and it's in some fucking institute upstate and I just fucking ran away from them."
Nicholas Hyde
People bare their souls to Nick on a regular basis. He knows things about other people that their mothers don't know, that their spouses don't know, that they've never spoken of to another human being. This is the first time Margot has told anyone this, or at least he suspects this intuitively in how the words tumble out of her.
He has turned his head in full toward her, and he is still walking but only to keep pace with her. He would've stopped otherwise, and he slows his own pace gradually because he would prefer to be facing her right now. The first thing he says is, "Is it okay if I touch you?" And when she gives assent, he reaches out to put a hand on her shoulder, curving it over the blade, this solid firm bracing pressure. In front of her, so she can see it and anticipate it.
He will let a silence pass again as he gathers his thoughts, because this never gets easier, being with other people in the thousand small ways that they die. He squeezes her shoulder once.
"What happened to you and your mother is terrible." Her brother, too, but: everything in its time. His tone communicates what his words cannot possibly, the weight of all of it. "Margot, you know that none of that was your fault, right? Not any of that, and not staying upstairs while Andrés was fighting with that shaman."
Margot Travers
The hand on her shoulder was accepted, and though the very nature of human touch while soul-bearing made her want to weep Margot swallowed her tears, steeled her resolved, and took another breath.
"I know that." Because she did. She knew it and she meant it. She looked up at Nicholas and, miraculously, those owl-like eyes hadn't spilled tears just yet (though it wasn't a far cry from happening).
"But there's an apprentice that was kidnapped and tormented by the Technocracy in this city. Me and my friend, we're apprentices too. And there's Mauraders and Nephandi and Monsters and Ghosts and any other number of things that go bump, things that are bound to happen doing what we do. What happens if I'm in a situation where if I shut down and start seeing my mom--" That stung. She pumped the brakes, tried again.
"I don't want to make myself anymore vulnerable than I already am by the nature of being me right now."
Nicholas Hyde
Nick's hazel eyes meet hers, and there are a lot of people who would have trouble maintaining eye contact like he does while someone else is obviously so close to crying. He does not look away, though he does pull in a long breath that swells his chest; and then release.
"It's brave of you to tell me this, and I know you're going to keep being brave. If you shut down and start seeing your mom, we'll figure it out." And if he too is afraid of Marauders and Nephandi and Monsters and Ghosts, well, she wouldn't know. She can't know yet that those things only become more terrifying as the stakes get higher. Nicholas is being The Adult today.
There is another little squeeze of her shoulder, and though his eyes had wandered for a moment, here they find hers again. "Margot," and here there is a slight smile, something wistful, "I know you're a smart woman, so tell me honestly - when you look at Andrés, do you think he 'fixed it'? Do you think this is something that you can magick away?"
Margot Travers
The question that Nick posed had Margot looking thoughtfully at him. It solemned her up some, and maybe that was intentional. Speaking of the current, the here and now. The people that were not her Mother and Brother, but rather her Mentor and Fellow.
When she replied, her answer seemed well thought out, deliberately phrased. "I don't believe that the advice the Doc gave me is any advice that he has taken for himself. But then, I don't know what the Doc would be fixing for himself like I would be trying to fix me." Then her words loosened some, because she was speaking less about the Doc (revealing fewer details about him, for they were his details and not hers).
"That said, I think Magick utilized by the right person could 'magick it away', but I don't think that the Doc or I are the right people." She paused, and cast a glance back up to Nick. Considered him for a moment, then cleared her throat and rolled her shoulder under his hand to request that it be moved. Turned to start walking again. "I don't think that's exactly your style either. Seems contrary to what you do for a living."
Nicholas Hyde
Margot suggests that this sort of use of the Art of Mind is contrary to what he does for a living, and Nick draws in a breath, and as he considers his eyes fall somewhere down and to the right. Toward the flowers, perhaps, though - no, if she follows his gaze she'll find it directed nowhere specific. "I don't believe in fixing people because I don't believe people are broken. This is...grief is normal, and natural. It's our refusal to accept pain as a part of life and death that makes us suffer."
A beat. He has bitten the inside of his cheek, thoughtful. His hand had fallen away after her shoulder rolled beneath it, and now he is walking with her again. "I understand what you're saying to me. And I think figuring out how to not shut down in bad situations is a good idea. If you wanted to learn the Art of Mind yourself, learning to shape yourself that way would be a good way to start. Magi that I know who are advanced in that Art say they began by figuring out what they could change."
His hands have been tucked back into his pockets. His footfalls next to her are still without sound. "I think it would also be helpful for you to keep talking with someone, and because I don't have the appropriate distance from the situation it would be unethical for it to be me. I know Sleepwalkers who do what I do and would understand the aspects related to magick, though."
Margot Travers
"I don't know..." There was a clear tone of uncertainty when it came to the Mind sphere. For reasons that she herself didn't quite get (something about it not really meshing with her paradigm, no doubt) she didn't really feel like she would be reaching into the minds of people around her or steeling her own, much like how she didn't see herself messing around in the river of Time.
But for talking with people, she nodded in agreement. That one seemed like much more of a no brainer.
"..wait, there are Sleepers who know about Magick?"
And the conversation may take a turn from there. Margot would be very curious to know about consors and Sleepwalkers who aided Mages and things of that nature. When their visit and walk around the park came to a close she would thank him sincerely and a couple of times over while they were saying goodbye. Probably got a name and phone number out of him for somebody else to begin visiting too.
Tragically, when Margot Travers and Nicholas Hyde parted ways, the young Apprentice had given no warning of her plans for misadventure for the evening (tracing shooting victims and interfering in drug wars of the city's underbelly). Perhaps he could have been a voice of reason and stopped her.
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