Arianna
The only way that Arianna Giametti and Andrés Sepulveda seem likely to colocalize is in establishments that are purveyors of fine (or cheap, cheap works too) alcohol. They are about as unlikely drinking buddies as ever the Awakened world has seen: he with the sense of cold foreboding wrapped around his pattern, and she with the sense of starlight wreathed around her. And today she has been drinking enough that her hands and words seem inexorably tied, and she is explaining to him something, as the door to said drinking establishment swings wide, something in one of those expressive languages, languages of the heart, romantic, some call them, she is saying something that requires large and sweeping gestures, and Italian is close enough to Spanish anyway.
What they are talking about doesn't matter much. The obvious sense of camaraderie and mischief to her, the easy way she seems to make very bad ideas seem logical and well within the bounds of reason? The absolutely impeccable quality of her dress, aspects of her appearance; this easy and uninhibited sense of privilege and wealth? Those are important. Those are critical.
It turns out, she is telling him about a recipe. It could be magical; or it could be a secret family pasta sauce. Her hands still a little, come up to wrap a pashmina around her neck against the cold of the Denver winter. Because it is Spring; and therefore there is a blizzard.
Andrés
[DIRECTOR'S COMMENTARY: jamie has 90 minutes on her laptop battery and will have company in 15-45 minutes so her posts will not be top-notch]
Many airports and European bistros have instances where travelers from Spain and Italy have run into each other and had entire conversations without either having previously learned the other's tongue.
Mexican-Spanish is not his mother tongue. It was his mother's tongue and his father's tongue but his father was barely around and his mother -- well. Arianna has none of this information. She does know that he speaks Spanish with an immigrant's fluency and can understand about half of what she says when she lapses into Italian. A match made in Hell.
If she has not smacked it off yet, he has his arm around her waist. Not tight, not possessive, but like he, five-foot-six in his shoes, needs her for balance. He's wearing most of a suit. The tie is gone. He hasn't shaved his face since Saturday. His glasses are on his face. His wedding band is gone.
"Anyone!" he is saying. "Anyone who denies the change of the climate, they have never been to the United States!"
Arianna
She mostly understands him when he speaks; probably a fair bit better than he understands her, and so it brings the conversation back to English more than her tipsy multi-lingual tendencies would otherwise prefer.
"Tell me again, about this Climate Change -- and why, if you have done the proper cantrips; if you have the associated research; why would it be denied? Change is inevitable, right, this is how your English saying goes?"
There is a flush to her cheeks, a rosy-warmth and healthy looking thing. It is partly alcohol, and partly amusement. She hasn't shoved him off of her, rather slipped an arm around his shoulder, steadying him further. Or steadying herself off of him. Ari is taller by an inch; she is immeasurably more put together.
It is a small miracle that they are not debating the finer points of Hermeticism as they wander-weave down the street, in search of the next pub on tonight's ill-advised crawl.
Grace
She's bought her plant materials today. Those are stuck in the back of her car, waiting for the chance to be used. But then, she found herself in the general area of a number of bars. It's a good plan, right? Drunken hydroponic gardening? She can always get Kalen to drive her home. Or, possibly, just undrunk herself.
So, she walks into the place, and... finds that Andrés is here, by the way the cold slither goes down her neck. Fantastic.
No, it's good to see him, not... You know... I mean, hopefully he's not...
She walks up, squinting a bit, and then relieved once she actually gets a good look. She's got on her usual red (sharp-looking) coat, with jeans underneath. Accidentally fashionable, at best, Grace only teally cares that she's clothed.
"Oh, hey. Dr. Sepúlveda. Nice to see you not naked. Who's this? Also, it's denied somewhat because people don't understand the difference between seasonal changes and climate changes. Fucking senators throwing snowballs to 'prove' it's not happening..."
Andrés
"Gracia! Ignorance! Ignorance throws the snowballs!"
He neither releases Arianna nor addresses the part of her sentence that has to do with his prior nakedness. He does however speak with the hand that isn't latched onto the Hermetic's hip.
"Le presento a Arianna," he says. "Arianna, le presento a Gracia." Lightbulb! He isn't just trying to be a dick! He has a thick accent and is drunk half the time! "If you want to give each other your..." A flailing yet cyclical hand motion. "... your whatevers. Persuasions. What is the w--TRADITIONS. Yes. Do it. I'm not."
Arianna
Here Arianna is, enjoying the company of commoners, arm looped around the shoulders of a most unlikely friend, dripping with the sense of starlight, tripping over the toes of her multitude of languages. She is almost comfortable in how they discuss these pedestrian things like the fate of the global ecology when...
... Grace wanders up. Ari's eyes flicker over to her quickly; to the sound of a new and unfamiliar voice. There is a slick of quicksilver to them, something mercurial and unfathomable but clever, but quick, and all together too inviting. Sharp red, bright white, and what can only be assumed to be shades of what was black -- they are at least a complementary tangle of outerwear, if not resonances. The corner of her mouth curls, slightly, at some inward joke.
"Naked..." A look to Andres, and then, in something close to Spanish, she says, "You didn't seem to be the sort." Mirth here; approval or perhaps cleverly covered disdain. It is difficult to tell just now. Hard to see around the teasing in her eyes.
"It is a pleasure, Grace, to make your acquaintance," and though the words are formal, they are tinged with her mood and her slight inebriation. There is a playful pass at curtsey here, one that isn't going to drop the good doctor on his ass. She has manners, after all, however occluded they may be at most times.
Grace
Arionna's curtsey. Grace tries to mirror it, with a frown of concentration on her face. She was named Grace, but the name never suited her.
"Arianna. Nice to meet you. Also, yeah. He didn't really look like he had too much of a problem with it either..."
Grace though. A blush comes to her face just talking about it. She shakes her head.
"I guess not too many people can say The Union desperately wanted to make their clothes disappear. It's, you know, bragging rights."
Of a sort.
"I'm with the Elites. You? I've heard the name Arianna around.
Margot
Let us not worry about what Margot was doing prior to this moment. Let people presume what they will about the time of a 19-year-old girl and what she may dedicate it to (they're probably wrong anyways). What does matter is that this here was a hot spot tonight, a veritable leyline where Fates and paths crossed over into a patch of concrete and brick in front of a bar in the heart of Downtown Denver.
She was wearing a pair of black boots laced up the ankle, into which a pair of snug gray jeans were tucked. A heavy brown jacket warded off the chill from the last breath of winter-- accustomed though she may be to chilliness due in whole to her mentor's resonance, she was still human bodied and susceptible. She had her hands in her pockets and her hair down, left for the wind to tug and pull however it pleased when it whispered.
Ahoy! Up ahead! A zap in the air, a chill, a sparkle, a whoosh. Margot slowed and stopped several yards away, frowning, hesitating, hovering.
Grace, who walked away upset when she saw her last. The Doc, with his arm around the waist of a pretty stranger in a dress. He looked properly toasted, so did she. Her nose wrinkled and she hovered, unsure of if she wanted to come and play.
But that resonance, though.... They would notice, it was like having a battlefield full of carrion and sticky red crawling up behind you.
Arianna
Grace blushes. It draws a little more of Arianna's attention her way. This could be a good thing; it could be a very very bad thing. But these are not her usual circles, and so her usual games are held at bay, but only just so. When Grace says 'the Elites' one of Ari's eyebrows arches just so, lofted a measured amount.
"The Elites? I thought you were a faery race of nightmares made up just to scare good little Apprentices within the Order into behaving just so, lest their wands be taken away and fashioned in ... to...those memory things." Well, this is where it falls apart. She has likely never held a thumb drive in her life -- not one that livedto tell the tale.
This, though, with the curl of mischeif sharply intact.
"Though do tell, as I am always curious: from whom have you learned my name?" Oh yes, now, her Hermetic is showing. The grammar; the grammar always gives them away.
Andrés
"It is a popular name," says Sepúlveda.
What else is he supposed to say. He's on the sidewalk with his arm around the waist of an attractive woman who has her arm around his shoulder. Yeah it's well-known he was going to break into the Amaranthine Laboratories and retrieve Alexander Brandt. Yeah it's not so well-known that he contracted clothing-eating nanites and spent three days holed up in an invisible van outside the motel Serafíne the Cultist had cordoned off in case of cases like this.
And then here comes his apprentice.
It has nothing to do with the fact that something goes off in his pocket. It isn't his cellphone. It's blocky and weird and may or may not resemble something Grace saw in the back of the "ambulance" in which she first witnessed Sepúlveda's nudity.
"Shit," he says when he pulls the device out of his pocket. "I gotta go."
Arianna
[Awareness: because I suppose I should roll this if we are openly talking magics in public]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 6, 7, 8) ( success x 3 )
Arianna
[Awareness: because I suppose I should roll this if we are openly talking magics in public]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 7) ( success x 1 )
Arianna
((ACK! Why double roll, why?))
Margot
[[ Variety is the spice of life? ]]
Grace
"I could take your wand and turn it into a stick-insect robot," she says, a fake-cruel little grin on her face.
"Or, a wifi hotspot," she says, with a horrible evil laugh.
But when he freaks out and starts the other way, Grace looks around, a little alarmed that perhaps Dr. Sepúlveda has seen one of the Technocrats he ran into at the lab. But, it's just Margot. She looks at the Apprentice, quite confused, before looking back at the doctor...
Who's disappeared.
"Huh. I uh, heard your name from Silas."
God, but Dr. Sepúlveda is weird.
Margot
Well, there went the Doc. We'll say that he blew right past Margot when he bailed out after a quick look at some device (not his phone, though) that was produced from his suit pocket. When he'd passed Margot there was some brief exchange of words-- Margot looking displeased (wrinkled nose, furrowed brow, quickly shaking her head and muttering back to him). After a certain point Andrés must have decided that he didn't have the time or it wasn't worth the hassle, because he made a gesture of 'whatever' with his hands and continued past.
Some parting words, though, had Margot looking over at Arianna and Grace. If at that moment either looked her way as well, she pushed a closed-lipped forced smile onto her face and lifted a hand to wave; the wave looked far more genuine than the smile. Some people are just poor in their social graces.
She started walking again, along the same path she'd been on, which was now a direct approach of the other two Mages. Her hands went in her pockets, and in another show of amazing social finesse she greeted the pair upon proximity with a simple:
"Hey."
Arianna
Sepulveda departs, leaving Ari to stand on her own and mark this: she has practice at being inebriated and socially adept. There are aspects of being slightly toasted that make this easier, that keep that smile and the warmth in her eyes despite the grim resonance coming up behind them.
Have you ever heard of monsters? Do you know them to be true? Margot feels like monsters and this woman, in her dress and her white coat, in the wake of Andres abandoning her, she seems utterly unmoved by it. As if the monsters trapped in Margot breast are not that dark, and not that unknowable. She is at ease with them; she may even know their Names.
At an appropriate time, perhaps coupled with the doc's departure, she casts a look over to the source of that sticky, dark and --
See this? A flash of teeth. Polite. Genteel. So, absolutely, politically correct: a little laugh. "Oh, yes. That would be a good one." This, then, with so many unspoken undercurrents.
"Though I would advise against it." It is only the thinnest shadow of a warning; a blade seen on edge; only at its thinnest point. It gives no sense of the sharpness of the thing; that is kept caged.
And this brings Margot, and her closed-lipped smile, and her caged expression, and her hesitance forward. "Good evening," says Ari; it is pleasant and warm. That sense of mischeif has been walked back a little bit. It is colder here, without the doctor beside her--isn't that saying something?
Arianna
((Edit:
I could take your wand...
*And her attention snaps back to Grace. See this? ... (and so forth...)
I don't know how I lost that in copy/pasting!))
Grace
Grace gets that. If anyone were to take her instruments, she'd be pissed too. Still, it gives her an idea...
She pulls her phone out if her pocket.
"Hey, Margot. What's his problem?"
The last time Grace said anything to Margot it was to tell her to fuck off. This seems to have been forgotten. Mostly.
She then proceeds to tap away at her phone's screen. Mercurial Elites, man.
Arianna
So you've heard that stereotype, right, about how technology really doesn't get along with wizards? How their cars don't quite run right. How they eschew modern conveniences in favor Older, Truer methods.
This is especially true with Arianna. She is well and truly cursed. Not that she minds it; technology is querrelsome at best. But she does the Elite the favor of stepping a little further from her when Grace pulls her phone out of her pocket and starts typing away. So it will be less her fault when it starts behaving... poorly.
Margot
Arianna's warmth in her greeting wasn't missed. In fact, it was apparent the impact it had on the little witch. She appeared relieved, like she was worried that there was going to be some kind of a what do you want? replacing the 'good evening' that actually came. The tension in her brow lessened, forehead smoothed and eyes relaxed.
Then came Grace's greeting and question combination. That relief doubled up enough that Margot actually let out a breath she didn't realize she was holding and her shoulders stopped being so square and rounded down to rest. It was good to know that grudges weren't being held over how tense their last encounter was. That she wasn't being held necessarily responsible (yet) for how her Mentor behaved was nice too, though the question did have her glancing back over her shoulder to where the Doc had disappeared.
"Not a problem exactly. Some project or another." She shook her head and shrugged her shoulders as though to say 'what can you do?'. He was a Mad Scientist after all. She was figuring out that the emphasis on Mad and Science in that title was equal but different between words. She looked to Arianna and smiled a little-- this one far less tense than the close-lipped thing she'd provided when approaching. "The Doc said you know Pen and Nick, and that I should come say hi. I'm Margot."
Yeah, Grace just said that.
Arianna
It's fair, this expectation Margot has of her. In different circumstances, that greeting may be just what she gets from the Initiate Exemptus. But not at an establishment that peddles pleasures; not outside of more strictured social circumstances. Tonight Arianna is downright pleasant. She is practically polite. She has not led anyone astray or into mayhem.
"They are among my dearest friends," she says, confirming this for Margot readily. As readily as she had completely glossed over mention of Silas. Take that as you will. "Are you both known to them?"
This, then, ties the three of them together in one question. It cements the thing. And three points make a circle, so they are cast together in it; they are made immanent and full of omens. Then for Margot: "A pleasure. Please, call me Arianna."
Grace
"Oh, you...." she starts. The cussing is cut out. "You do too know how to do that..."
She's talking all right. To her phone. Frowning at it. Finally smacks it, like it had a head and she was slapping it.
Suddenly there is a burst of something sharp in the air. She's done playing nice with Mr. Phone.
[Entropy 3: Debugging. Obviously, her phone is possessed. The only cure is some nice, regular, orderliness. And violent smacking. Diff 5 - 1, taking her time.]
Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (2, 4, 8) ( success x 2 )
Margot
Grace was busy with her phone. Something sharp snapped at the air and Margot eyed her and the device she was holding suspiciously. A keen edge, if you will, stinging and biting. She knew that some used their technology for their Magick and Grace was among them.
As opposed to ask questions, Margot felt out the air to make sure she wouldn't get caught in a backlash somehow, then returned her attention to Arianna.
"Nice to meet you, Arianna."
Were they both known to them? Margot glanced to Grace, then shrugged. She couldn't speak for the Elitist's familiarity with the Chakravanti-Hermetic couple She could speak to her own, though.
"Yeah, the Doc had a dinner party and had Ned and I over to meet them. We're in touch now, here and there." She paused, then added for context: "Dr. Sepulveda is my mentor." Left out Ned, though. Sorry buddy.
Arianna
There is a crackle of energy in the air around her, the hallmarks of working magics and, unlike Margot, it draws up something ever-ready and precise in Arianna. Her shoulders square, and her chin lifts. Even tipsy, even a little off-her-guard, her attention is cast wide before narrowing back to the Elite at her side.
"Is everything alright?" she asks Grace. It is clear spoken; it is sharp-eyed. But there is no obvious sense of danger, and so Arianna's hand strays to a pocket, fingers wrapped around the hilt of her wand, but she does not draw it out in public. Mark, though, that she is ready. She is able.
This tension remains, uneasiness, between them as she casts her attention back to Margot. She is surprised at something the girl has said, reaches for the appropriate words to touch upon it. "I... am surprised to hear he is your Master. I would have marked you for an Older ilk; a greener sort."
Grace
"I've... Met both of them, a couple times," Grace says, absentmindedly, well after the question was asked.
But then Arianna said something else, didn't she?
"Oh. My phone. It's acting up. Like, the touch screen isn't... Touching or something. I think..."
She smacks it again.
"I think I fixed it..."
Arianna
"Oh," she says. Just this. And the singing tension drops out of her shoulders; sluices; moves away is if it were never there. And there is mirth to the corners of her eyes again -- one could imagine it amuses her when, yet again, the older ways are proven to be more stable things, to hold more gravitas. In truth, it is just the stay of some unknown altercation that pleases her.
After all, this is a city on the brink of War. This is a place where an unaffiliated Apprentice was taken, reclaimed again, and they are still awaiting the retribution.
"I'm glad it's better now." That seems like an appropriate thing to say, doesn't it? That's practically pleasant. It saves her from making some sort of patently false assertion about how friends of Nick and Pen were her friends too, or some other platitude. Arianna doesn't deal in platitudes.
Grace
Her phone is amusing Grace now. Taps get followed by mischevous grins.
Somebody's up to something.
"Oh, yes. It's great," she says. "In fact, I have just made 'Arionna's Wand' into a wifi hotspot."
A grin. This time above her phone screen. At Arionna.
"I'm joking! Joking!"
Margot
"Master?"
Margot sounded incredibly offended by the word-- not insulted by Arianna directly as much as appauled at the notion of referring to him, or anyone really, as master. She stared at the pretty Italian woman with disbelief. But then--
"Oh. Hermetic." Already wide eyes widened further with realization, and the girl relaxed.
Then she realized there was another question hanging in the air. Forgot for a moment, because she was distracted watching Grace and her phone. Stared for a moment, then remembered that Arianna had spoken further of Traditions.
"No, no no. I'm not into Science like that. I'm studying ecology, but gizmos and chemistry sets?" She shook her head and waved her hand. "I don't have a Tradition yet." She glanced around. Nobody was passing near, nobody had exited the bar to bombard them yet. She wasn't worried about being overheard really. What, would the Technocrats have a stake out in every part of the city? Wouldn't being around Grace basically automatically ward her by proximity? She couldn't doubt that Grace kept a Ward up about herself, especially these days.
"I think I may look into the Verbenas.... Penelope actually said she'd ask a friend to meet me." The Doc was right-- community was key, wasn't it?
Margot
[[ Sorry for the occasional delay, by the way! I've got a baby about sooo, heh, you know. :) ]]
Arianna
For Grace: If looks could kill is a stupid saying among willworkers. Looks could, in fact, kill. Looks could flay a mind down to its vestigal redundancies and fail to built it back again. Looks could steal air from lungs; they could turn veins to ice. Looks, man, they're powerful things. So there is delicacy in the Look that Arianna gives Grace; it is measured; it is precisely as warning as she wants it to be without going further into coldness.
"You are quite clever."
This may not be a compliment.
"Oh. You are the apprentice for whom Thane is visiting," Arianna says, stringing quite a few things overheard into something more solidified. This brokers a true smile, a thing that touches her eyes. "I am indebted to you, then. Because we do miss him, and you have given him good reason to venture out this far."
Grace
"I really did though," a huff of a laugh. If Arianna wants to throw fireballs at her, Grace can take it. In fact, all the serious business the woman keeps putting on her face have only served to egg Grace on more.
"I named my phone 'Arionna's Wand' and turned it into a wifi hotspot."
Because, you know, doing what you're explicitly warned not to do, getting around things by using cheap tricks? It's all a good hacker ever does. Even if the result thus achieved is kind of silly...
"And, I am very clever. It is good of you to notice that. Who's Thane?"
Margot
[Perception + Empathy: Are these two goading each other or what?]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 )
Arianna
[Manip + Subter (cunning): Nah, we cool. I'm just a Hermetic.]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 8, 10) ( success x 2 ) Re-rolls: 1
Arianna
((ACK! Not re-rolls. Double 10s. I am such a M20 newb.))
Grace
[Grace just seems like she's having fun for the sake of having fun. There are some things she takes seriously, like the lives and freedom of people (as Margot has seen). Other people's possessions just don't seem to be on that list.]
Arianna
The serious business face is what is keeping Arianna from being an outright ass and asking, in a jovial and friendly tone, for Grace to let her see: how cool! Because she is so very good at being cunning, and also at being mean. And then getting her wizardly cooties all over the Elite's tech. This abrupt and perturbed outward seeming is the lesser of the available escalation tactics. Nobody's instruments are well and truly called into danger.
Yet.
Grace's smugness is met with a briefer smile. And here, then, Arianna's own phone, something anachronistic, and bulky, something that flips and doesn't touch, comes out of her pocket. Things are typed, keys pressed. It goes back into her pocket.
It does not remain in view as long as Grace's tech. It would be unfair to call Arianna's phone "tech" this many years after its debut. The question of Thane's providence, then, is returned to.
"A friend of mine, and Nicholas's and Pen's, who shall be visiting for a brief while." She says this plainly. So that Grace, distracted as she is with Arianna's Wand (the phone [not the true one]), might still take it up this time. "And will likely speak with Margot her about her mystical inclinations."
Margot
While Arianna gave stern looks and Grace grinned and continued to play (Circuit Coyote), Margot was quiet. She looked between the two of them, like she was anxious of tension that may begin to flicker-flicker-flint. She'd seen a pair of Mages in a fight with one another before, and the aftermath made her puke in her mentor's toilet. She didn't want to be here if it was going to happen again.
But nothing came of it, and Arianna had addresse her with thanks for bringing Thane back out. Claimed that Margot herself was a very good reason for him to visit. The Apprentice looked thoughtful while there was filling in on Thane's identity going on.
"...Recruitment's that important, is it?" She piped up quietly, and glanced between Arianna and Grace both. Perhaps a question she sought bouth their views on.
Arianna
"Recruitment?"
This draws a furrow to Arianna's brow for a moment, and for a moment she cares not at all what the Elite has named her phone, or whether Naming is sufficient sympathetic magic to link the named thing to the true thing and thus influence the flow of Ars Essentiae between them -- because that would be impolite. And rude, even by Hermetic standards. And would make Nick unhappy with her. A different sort of unhappy with her than he has sometimes been. It would be counterproductive, however satisfying.
And no, Margot, there will be no great awakened throw down in mystical Denver Downtown. At least, if there was, Arianna with her stern looks would not be the one to start it.
"I... I would speak to you about this in a more controlled environment, but, and please understand, Margot, that I am being brief not in dismissiveness but of necessity -- Choosing the minds with which you will align yourself is more precious and important than 'recruitment' may belie. It is choosing the framework upon which you hang your Works, your world view, and ultimately your greatest accomplishments and challenges. You are choosing the shoulders of the giants upon which you will stand as you move forward in your enlightenment. Do not let any Tradition claim you that you would not proudly claim for yourself, but also do not belittle or diminish the danger in remaining apart."
This for the apprentice; this for the one who will claim Thane's attention and possibly join his Tradition. Every single syllable of this is spoken without slurring; it is imperative; it is crystal clear and shining. For Arianna is also luminous, and the Order has been a shining City on the Hill to many in its millenia of leadership.
Grace
"Oh, that's cool!" Grace says, to Arianna's reply. Honestly, Margot needs more than just Andrés Sepúlveda in her life.
But, to Arianna's words, she shakes her head. "I don't really think 'recruitment' is nearly as important as just having people you can talk to about your... mystical inclinations. Hell, when I Awakened, I had a bunch of people -- none of them technically minded -- who I leaned on a lot to figure out how to deal. There's a lot of commonalities in what we do, when you get down to it.
"You might find if you want to have that in your life, joining up under a banner is the way to go. You might also not. I know a lot of Disparates in the city who adamantly want to go their own way, and there's nothing wrong with that. A bit more dangerous, yeah. Perhaps. But we're Mages," she says, gets down to a more serious tone herself. "There is no fear we can't conquer."
Arianna
"It is more than a bit more dangerous," Arianna says, on the heels of Grace's opinion. This, too, is clear cut and definitive. "But Grace is right: the choice is yours." It is ominous when she says it that way; it gives the thing the proper weight.
"Keep in mind, though: not all places are so... generous... to Disparates."
Grace
"Then, those places are corrupt. And I wouldn't go anywhere near them anyway, Disparate or no."
Ahh, happy shiny conflict.
"There's a word for people who care about other people's labels. That word is: 'bigot'."
Arianna
"So you have a label then, for these other labellers of people?" Arianna asks. Her mouth twists wrily, eyebrow arched and challenging. It is a dark and dangerous thing. She has honed her skills in this game against a Tytalan. It shows.
Margot
The advice that she received was soaked up like a sponge. Margot listened raptly to Arianna, for she was well-spoken and serious and impactful, and her words felt like they carried heavy weight. She listened to Grace, of whom she's heard in almost every conversation that revolved around the magickal community in this city. Grace said this, Grace set this up, Grace dismantled this and found this and fixed this. Margot bore this in mind, and also noted a similarity there-- she knew a lot of people, but none of them seemed to match up with what she felt herself to be.
Then, some back and forth about the pros and cons of Traditions and Orphans and bigots and bigoted bigot callers and--
"I'm a witch."
Margot cut in, over their back and forth. Glanced between the two, almost sharply (scoldingly, a budding emergence of what Mage she would become when her connection to her Avatar was stronger, no doubt-- when her confidence and Power were given time to grow), and continued on.
"Ned and I, we've talked about this. We'll find Traditions, it's unsafe to do otherwise. I've seen what happens. I--," But her phone started ringing in her pocket. She glanced down at the screen, then sighed and explained: "It's the Doc, will you excuse me?"
She stepped away. A brief conversation later (tense back and forth for perhaps a minute or less), Margot sighed and pocketed her phone. Returned to the others and explained: "I guess the Doc's gonna get his assistant tonight after all. Thanks for, y'know, your time and stuff you two." An awkward pause, for an awkward girl, then-- "'Bye."
And away went Margot Travers, briskly up the sidewalk from whence she came.
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