Margot
On a Monday evening, Washington Park wasn't very populated at all. By now the family daytime traffic had come to a large close, children whisked home for dinner. The paths boasted runners as it did any time of day, but they seldom stepped off the park or took the headphones from their ears. Out in the space off path, where it was grass checkered with enough trees to please the eye, Margot and Will dueled with sticks.
To their credit, the sticks were good ones-- extra twigs and dead leaves snapped away, the width not too narrow, the limb not too heavy, the length snapped down comfortably. The petite girl had a distinct disadvantage with length of reach, but she was quick and alert and had been practicing hitting things with the pointy end of a weapon as of late. She was dressed in a pair of skintight black athletic capris with a pair of simple white tennis shoes and a gray lightweight hoodie that was zipped to the chest. Her hair was ponytailed back sloppily (done with a quick rake of the fingers and on-the-spot snapping of an elastic off her wrist). Her form could use some work but when her stick snapped against Will's the vibrations down to his handhold warned that it'd sure smart if she ever caught his fingers.
"Okay, my turn," she said, mid conversation, while they stepped back for a break. She scrubbed the sweat-damp palm of her hand on the hip of her pants and examined how her hand was impacting the bark of the stick where she'd been holding it. "What's the weirdest ritual.. or rote, I suppose, that you've done?"
Questions. As great a getting-to-know-you game as any.
William
There weren't terribly many people here. They all had things to do save for these two mages who were standing out in the grass, poised and ready to take out their grievances upon each other with sticks. or to play at being a knight. Or they were just preparing to become super heroes. Who really knew what they were doing, other than playing with stucks.
Good sticks, too. What he had in advantage for reach, Margot made up with by the fact that she was faster than he was, and just a little quicker on the uptake. He's faster than he was, though. More precise and a bit more aware of his body and how it moved. They stepped back for the break, William's right hand still feeling a little like it'd held on to the hand grip of a motorcycle for too long.
"Weirdest ritual- my housemate Holly and I met up a couple months back before she had a big diplomaticx deal to go on; it's what our House does. We meddle in the affairs of mortals when we aren't supposed to and we're diplomats. It's a thing." He continues on, "andway, she was going in and one of the people she was working with tends to bowl her over, so she was looking for a mental empowerment ritual to keep her head in the game and to not get ruffled. Holly has this huge sense of propriety, so we cast a circle, got all ready, and then had a three hour conversation that consisted of asking her the most embarassing personal questions for three hours in the language of the angels."
Margot
While she followed his story, Margot scrubbed her hands together next to take the motorcycle-tingle from her own palms. She looked lost somewhere in the middle, where he'd given an explanation of how this Holly person was seeking mental fortitude and why, but came back around when he wrapped with an explanation about questions and the language of angels.
"Latin?," she asked in an effort to guess the language of angels. Almost immediately after she shook her head. No, of course it wouldn't be.
"That is pretty weird...," she admitted, and grinned a little at him. "You think we'll get three hours of questions in if we're using English and sticks instead of circles and Angelican?"
It was his turn, but he'd already figured out that she pretty much never reminded him of that. He'd already gotten her to blush twice, it was easy enough. As to whether it was so easy that the fun had already been taken out of it or not was up to Will.
William
"Yeah, but I'm not going to intentionally ask you how your last seven periods were. It's not going to be that level of personal and awkward," William laughed at it, he had to laugh at it because it was laugh worthy. He took a second to stretch out his shoulders.
"Okay!" He says, content with his stretching and he looked back at margot. William changes hands, just to see if he will have any trouble doing this with the opposite hand. Why not? They had sticks, it wasn't like he was going to loose a finger, right?
"What is the most boring thing you have ever done with magick?"
Margot
[Round 1: Stickfight!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 4, 9) ( success x 1 )
William
[Dex+melee: I am totally getting good at this]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 6, 8, 8) ( success x 4 )
Margot
The girl blinked once but the grin didn't fade away at the mention of a period. He's seen her wear t-shirts with feminist catchphrases across them at least once before, so of course she'd be all about normalizing a period. That one at least managed to leave her cheeks just as pale as they'd been before.
"How they were? That question has to have the same answer, overall; 'shitty'." She ran her hand over her scalp to brush loose hairs back into place with the rest, even though she knew they'd only fall down once she started moving again. She eyeballed the flat part of the stick she'd been holding and wished she cared enough about keeping it to wrap a handle out of leather; then it'd be way more comfortable to hold.
"The most boring thing?" She thought about it for a moment, really seemed to be combing through an inventory of events and spells she's cast. Her eyebrows screwed together and she looked thoughtfully up into tree branches as she recalled, tapping the bottom of one sneaker with the end of her dueling stick.
"I did a quick-sort of measurements across the house that the Doc and Ned and I are making ours. For the Home Depot run." It made picking up the bitch work of measuring everything immensely easier, though. Doc and Ned had been arguing the semantics of something related to Matter and how it could interact with the world, as she recalled it.
When she looked back down she found Will at the ready, and so lifted her weapon to meet his. She'd felt pretty confident up until this point, so little did she know how badly she was about to get whomped by the tall blond guy.
William
"Actually, no," he said with a degree of surprise, "Holly said that they were surprisingly light and relatively cramp free. I'm pretty sure she actually used magick to avoid having horrible periods. It was pretty impressive all things considered. She did explain how a Diva cup worked, though, which really confused me but I figure if you're going to use mestrual blood as a ritual tool that's really the way to go."
He nods at that, appreciating of the practicality of it all. He took a stance once she said that she had finished answering the question. He's got a dumb damned grin on his face, but he always seemed to have something that came naturally to him there. William was most himself when either smiling or grinning like he's gotten away with something, because all things told he usually was getting away with something. At that moment, he was getting to have conversations and play with sticks and enjying the beginnings of autumn.
She readies herself, and she had been confident up until that point. William had seemed a little cocky, but he was always cocky. William was nothing if not himself and in the moments before their actual round two or three or seven, he wasn't full of bravado. No, there was a degree of calmness and confidence that said that he was comfortable. He was ready to use what it was that he knew. He even takes the first strike.
It isn't hard but it is certainly precise, a touching of the would-be swords that is more tesing the waters. Margot moves as she had before, making up for the differences in size with her superior mobility. William moves himself like he's getting a feel for how she moves, looking for the patterns that she follows. Listening to the things around him. Focused on nothing so he can take in everything- the way that her shoulders move, the way that her footing is even and balanced
Right up until the time that she lunges too hard, when he had parried every blow that had come until the last blow that should have knocked the stick out of his hand and he sidestepped, easily. He moved like this was ballroom and, as though this were a waltz, it took three steps in rhythm before he ended up behind her and stuck his imaginary sword between her shoulder blades.
Didn't apply a lot of pressure, just enough to let someone know that he was behind them and, yes, had attained the upper hand.
"I made a piano in my living room because I didn't want to figure out how to get it into the apartment."
Margot
This Holly girl saved her menstrual blood for rituals, apparently, and Margot's expression turned to one of consideration. She couldn't deny the practicality, but even as she was considering how she could work it into a ritual herself something in her gut twisted and turned. There was a sense of revulsion and rejection deep in her core, tied to something basic and magickal. Her head shook, and soon they were touching sticks and 'fencing' once more.
This time around when she lunged in to tap his center she found herself stumbling forward with momentum that had nothing on which to stop. After a few steps she came to a stop, but not before she felt the strike between her shoulderblades. A sting, particularly because he'd found the edge of a vertabrae, but she doubted that there'd be much of a bruise left behind.
She turned around, stick held casual to her side and pointed down to the ground.
"Piano?" She blinked, then grinned some. "That's smart. It feels slightly... I don't know, disrespectful? Wasteful? To use magick on such day-to-day stuff like arranging the house or taking measurements. To me," she apparently felt the need to clarify this part specifically, based on the tonal shift, "not like it's not allowed in my Craft. Maybe just some weird reverence thing when it comes to Gods and Goddesses that I have to get past."
Next question.
"How close or far away do you think you'll make your life from the human world?"
William
"My landlord has no idea how I got a baby grand in the apartment. I have a feeling that, if I move, I'll just break the thing down for Quintessence and call it a day. It's probably wasteful, but I don't have a patron to answer to," he shrugs.
There was then the question of how close or far away he would be from the human world and he doesn't have a hesitation when he answers, "I will likely always be entrenched in the human world. Close enough to live and influence the world, but not close enough that I can't escape. What House Jerbiton is tasked with, when I said that we meddle, it's that it's our duty to represent and make people aware of and receptive to Hermetic ideals. It's a fight against the mundane- letting people be receptive to the idea that your Will can change the world and any number of subtly nuanced things. It's like... being a part of the effort to keep our craft from dying in the eyes of humanity. It's a weird balance between mediating in the magickal world and challenging the mundane world to be more than it is."
"Counter question: what is one thing you wish you could change about magickal society?"
Margot
"So you're like a missionary of being open-minded." She considered that for a moment, then her small mouth twisted into another grin. "That sounds fitting, actually."
The stick tapped the toe of her sneaker now. He was noticing her repeat patterns in this duel, and so knew this to be her 'ready to go' tell.
That tapping stopped with the question he posed. The grin faded away, and the more she thought about it the more serious she seemed to consider it. If he were patient enough with her, she'd take a full dozen seconds before finally answering in that pausing and thoughtful manner she so often had.
"I think... it'd be the groups here and there that worry about lineage. That's kind of worrying as an element anyone would consider, you know?"
William
"I could give two shits if people become Hermetics or not- it really isn't for everyone. My first mentor actually bailed on the Tradition-" nope, totally not irritated about that "-but so long as people are willing to question, we can still move forward."
She tapped her toe, talks about lineage and how people are obsessed with it. He takes a few steps away, takes a stance like he's ready. Nods along with her response like he agreed. He's got a nontraditional apprenticeship. He referenced his first mentor in a tradition that thrives on structure. Has probably talked to Margot about some of the weirder things about his first mentor and maybe about how his apprenticeship had gone.
William was the one who picked the Order. The Order didn't choose him. He was the one who sold them on the concept and they've not regretted it yet.
He nods, ready.
William
[Again!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (5, 6, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
Margot
[Again!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Margot
Something to be said for Will and Margot-- they were both putting a good and serious effort into this play-fencing thing. For most children playing at knights was just for fantasy of grandeaur. For Will and Margot it was genuine practice for self-defense. Possibly even a good offense in some situation one day too.
The sticks went up and tapped once more, and this time the pair came together in good form alike. Will accounted for Margot's repeat actions, and even accounted for her correcting herself on how she was caught last time. However, she proved a little too fast once more (naturally fast, where Will had to practice and work and grow toward his finese) and knocked his stick out of the way. The end of the stick hopped off the parry and tapped the side of his neck (didn't strike, didn't whip, but touched).
She breathed quick for a few moments while catching her breath (quick, but she was starting to wear out already), then dropped her stick down and stepped back from the young Hermetic man.
"...I don't know how long I'll stay in a city. Probably as long as Doc and Ned and I keep together. Nihm's kind of got the right of it that way, I think, but I'd be more inconspicuous than having a mansion on the mountainside. Maybe more like a cottage out in the trees, all warded up against bears." She smiled a little, like she genuinely liked the idea. The daydreaming didn't last long, though, for soon she was looking back at Will with a playful glean in her next comment.
"This next question better be a good one. I need a breather anyhow."
William
Didn't whip, didn't strike, just touched. Had they been playing with steel the impact would have been the same. Enough to let him know that she would have gotten the upperhand and all it does is make him pause, make him grin with delight for her victory, and step back. Stick goes down, at his side, no longer a threat. As if the stick had been a threat at all, but anyway.
He wasn't worn out yet. Still stnading calm and comfortable and like he could keep going if the need arose. He might not be as fast or finessed as Margot, but he could do this for awhile if the need arose if only from tenacity and sheer him-ness. You don't abuse your body like Will used to and not walk away with the ability to endure some crazy shit.
"Nihm's totally on to something. Henry lived in the middle of nowhere with this cute little house with fucking gutters for days," he said with a groan, "I swear, he intentionally made his house dirty. My life is nothing but a series of eccentric old men the likes of whom I inevitably become fond of."
But, on to the next question. And it better be good.
"What about your own magick terrifies you the most?"
Margot
She had asked for a good question, and one he delivered. She took her time thinking about it, making it clear she would be doing so by making the occasional thoughtful 'hmm'ing sound to extend the time she'd take. As she pondered she tossed her stick gently aside and lifted both hands to untie the elastic from her hair. The band snapped home around her wrist and fingers combed her hair back out. The sun had dipped below the mountain range to the west an hour ago and the dusk had deepened enough that the lamp posts lining the running paths had just switched on. They drew Margot's gaze and reflected as pinpricks in the centers of her big wide eyes.
"I think...," she started, steady and deliberate in her phrasing. "How rooted it is in war, and in violence. I've never been a violent person but... I'm not really afraid of it." She glanced back to Will's face, met his eyes for a second then dropped her gaze elsewhere a moment later. "It feels powerful to cast, like there's strength and war in my arms and fingers, and that's... thrilling."
The deepening of autumn's earlier evening helped obscure the effects of her blush some, but even so it crept noticable from her ears across her face.
"I guess I'm afraid of either getting swept away by it or not being able to keep up with it."
William
He watches her. Not lecherous, not lustful, not disdainful- he just watches and nods along like listening to her were the most important thing that he could do at that juncture. Margot Travers was interesting, and this was a big question and an important one at that. She manages to fire back, but the importance there that he notes is that she doesn't answer immediately.
William is willing to wait for the appropriate response, the one Margot decides is right. His eyes are green, intent and not without their own intensity but not booring into her like he plans to dissect her every word.
"Like you may be lost in the enormity and totality of it?"
Margot
She shook her head at the question. That he'd listened openly and engaged with a clarifying question had reassured her. Though Margot's essence was grisly as its most basic block, and so had always been a bloody thing, she'd often found herself self-conscious of it. The cloak of war's gore was sticky and uncomfortable and took a lot of confidence to wear. She was only just resolved to learn to be a warrior for the Warrior Goddess in faithful exchange for her magick, so she still felt a lot like the cloak was ill-fit and consumed her and dragged noticably on the ground when she walked.
"More like I'm afraid of what happens after I march into the first real battle. If the War tastes as good as it feels in my craft, what might I become if I love it too much?"
She frowned for a moment at the thought of it, worried suddenly that the statement had been too heavy, and tried to cover by pressing down that particular conversation's trail in another way.
"But Andraste's got domain over more than war. Who knows, She may have me walk down another one of her paths, and who knows when."
William
"Are you willing to embrace that if war fits too well?" he asks. "I think that the best way to know that would be to know what it is to be in battle whether it's physical or social. The battlefield changed in the modern age- does she want you to take up the sword or weild something less literal?
"I think... that people fail to realize and are afriad to admit that we have never been truly at peace, just in a state of lesser war. That the term goes from physical to conceptual," he inhales, slow and deep and shakes his head, "I'm filtering a lot of this through having dealt with my old mentor and Grace and people who say things we don't want to provoke a war like we've not always been in one in some form or fashion. Our existence, the fight against reality to be what and who we are is a war against our most fundamental being."
William is rambling, realizes he's rambling and, instead, puts the stick down in favor of stretching.
"If war is who you are, at its fundamental level, I would try and embrace that for all of its definition."
Margot
"I didn't figure that I had much of a choice beyond embracing it." She stated this with a matter-of-fact tone, like she found the fact to be obvious and the thought of resisting it hadn't ever occurred to her beyond long enough to be immediately dismissed. She watched Will stretch, gaze watchful and curious but not much more, and jammed her hands into her hoodie pockets for the time being.
"I know some magicks and Avatars are questionable things, but mine isn't. Some are distant, but I feel Her in my bones and the back of my brain and sometimes I wonder if she's not just seeping into my day-to-day life here and there too. What she is is what I'm going to be come to get me and guide me on the way there." She screwed her face up in trying to explain that. This was a Mage with an observer's grasp of Fate alone trying to explain how it applied to her very core.
After a moment she cleared her throat. "Okay, okay, my turn."
"Whaaat... is...." She'd clearly jumped on her turn to ask a question just to find something else to talk about, but realized that she had nothing prepared. Her mind scrambled back through to a default round-the-campfire kind of question, and what she landed on was a question summoned of stumbling social awkwardness. "...the weirdest place you've had sex?" Followed by an immediate slapping of her palm to her own forehead. God damnit, Margot.
William
"A-ha! That is an easy one...." a beat passes, "actually, no, this is a hard one. I have a weird definition of weird. I almost had sex next to a serial killer's grave, but he was fucking there and it is not fun to be a medium in Louisiana and nothing is a bigger boner killer than having a disembodied dead guy."
"I would have to say the weirdest place, though, was the bathroom at the county court house, tied with the ritual closet at a frat house," he nods, definite. He has decided that this was, by far, the strangest place that he had sex and William looks the kind of satisfied that only comes when you're convinced you gave a good answer.
He has to take in her awkward look, the immediate face palm.
"Same question: what's the weirdest place you've had sex?"
Margot
"You what?"
She sounded genuinely shocked when he spoke of nearly having sex next to a grave. He either nodded or confirmed before continuing on to the part of the story where he explained there was a dead guy watching from across the Veil, and the shock took a different kind of palor on the recently-initiated Verbena's face. The hand that had been on her forehead dragged down the side of her face to rest on her cheek instead.
But no, that wasn't the weirdest thing, the weirdest was the courthouse for a ritual. She made a face, wasn't sure if she was more baffled by how the latter was more weird than the former or by how he was comfortable enough with the idea of banging in a public restroom to do it. Before she could ponder too hard the question rebounded upon her, and the cheek under her hand bloomed hot with embarassment that she tried to keep out of her voice.
"Oh, no, I've... I'm not the adventurous sort, never anyplace weird."
She didn't exactly want to come out and say that she'd only ever had a boyfriend once before but given how she waved her hands in front of her and kept her answer dismissive and short she may as well have.
William
"I totally get the impression that after I told you I almost had sex in a graveyard in high school that I should not give you ideas about how to be sexually adventurous. My knee jerk reaction was hey! Let's go have sex! but that would totally make it weird."
He grins, playful. Clearly joking. Probably joking. Hopefully joking?
Margot
[>_> How joking are you? Perception + Empathy]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 5, 8) ( success x 1 )
William
[He's probably joking somewhere between fifty and ninety two percent? She thinks?]
Margot
Margot eyed Will suspiciously for a few good long moments. Was he joking? She was pretty sure he was. But not entirely sure either. It took a short while but ultimately she went 'hmmph' and glanced around. She found someone running with their dog on a distant trail but beyond that the park was going still. On the ground not terribly far away was a tote bag Margot'd brought along with her, and she turned to walk over and then crouch beside it.
"There's plenty of other things to be worried about besides who to sleep with right now anyways," she said with the mild uncertainty and curiosity of one unpracticed in discussing such things openly, and pulled her phone from the bag. She had one text, checked it, fired a brief response, then stood back up with a bottle of water in hand.
"Although, I suppose someone who uses sex as a part of their rituals would argue the exact opposite..." She took a deep drink from the water bottle before walking back over to Will to offer him a drink as well.
William
"You have to be on the same page if you're using sex for ritual purposes. It's different if you're going high ritual versus low ritual and it adds another layer of complicated and bah. Frankly, I'm not going to have sex for ritual again for awhile unless it becomes absolutely necessary or that's the best way to go about it. It's probably one of the few instances where getting off too early could literally be the end of the world," he has to laugh about it, though. Takes the bottle with a nod and a tip of the top. He takes a draw from the bottle before handing it back over to her. William goes to collect his things. Wallet, phone, jacket. All checked off.
"At that point it's like having another person to do rituals with, anyway. If sex magick is your thing and it's the other person's thing? Man, change the world. Fuck like bunnies. Frankly, people have enough problems with Hermetics that it throws off my regular game..."
A second passes.
"Wanna go grab pizza? I'm pretty dang hungry and I'm having a lot of fun asking you a thousand questions."
Margot
Margot had an uncomfortable stitch between her eyebrows and the corners of her mouth were tight, but she did seem genuinely curious and interested in William's insight into another aspect of magickal ritual. She hiked the tote straps up over her shoulder and tugged the hood of her hoodie up against a soft but admittedly cool breeze that was beginning to rouse.
When she spoke again her voice was quiet with contemplative confession.
"When I was reading about Andraste a lot, after I first figured out who she is? I learned that her people prayed to her for victory in times of war, for foresight, and for fertility." She sounded afraid of the very notion. "I'm learning war, and I've picked up on Entropy, but..." That uncomfortable twist to her mouth looked outright worried, and she tugged the drawstrings of her sweater so the hood scrunched to hug her crown. "I think those rituals are going to be strange."
She spoke like it was an inevitable she saw on the horizon, some kind of milemarker on a map of accomplishments that her Goddess wanted completed before setting about... what? Destiny? Duty? It really all depended on who you asked.
An invitation to pizza lifted her gaze and the corners of her mouth once more. "Yeah, that sounds alright."
William
"You can always work in the symbolic and then work your way into the literal if and when you are comfortable. It opens you up to a whole different realm of possibilities- honestly you could probably also get a lot done via masturbation it would be like an assertion of oyur own personal power, but it all really comes down to becoming comfortable with yourself and then being comfortable enough that other things follow."
"And sometimes, yeah, it's weird. It's weird when you look back at it? Like with any ritual, when you're in the moment you're in the moment. You can't break away, because if you lose focus and you lose your comfort with the places that you are there's a good chance that you'll have wasted all of your efforts for nothing," William slipped his hands into his jacket pockets, pats his wallet with one hand and the phone with the other. Everything is right with the world.
He's willing to talk about ritual the rest of the way, or to give Margot shit about various and sundry things like being short and well on her way to being a travel sized War Goddess. Overall, he seems just happy to have the company.
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