The downtown aquarium is a pretty decent place, all things considered. They had fish, which you couldn't really ague with since it was an aquarium and these sorts of things were supposed to have fish. It was kind of a duh thing, really. That aquariums had fish.
Caleb figured that an aquarium would be a place full of water. From the Latin aquarius, for water. And on the motif of the English vivarium. A place to keep pets. He determines that this is, obviously, a place to keep water pets. He couldn't think of any water pets that would make sense, but it was worth checking out.
He stood awkwardly at the front, waiting to see how to go about getting in. Nobody really noticed him, presumed he paid for admission when he walked in with backpack in tow and off to some exhibit about coral reefs. It was whatever struck his fancy and, at that junction, colors were what struck his attention. The young man headed off on his way there. He's not particularly tall, nor is he particularly short- a couple inches off of five and a half feet tall. Dark hair. Dark eyes. Glasses, which he had pushed up on top of his head in favor of looking at the swirling colors and dancing blobs of fish that came when you were supposed to wear glasses and decided nah, I'm gonna forget about this and you do.
Clothing was boring and unimportant. Jeans. Jacket (which was not denim, but rather something from an army surplus store) and a tee shirt that looked a little like a hand-me-down.
Margot
The aquarium was dark and cool, a good reprieve from the burst of summer-like heat that invaded this first weekend of October. Margot had brought herself alone today, wanting to clear her mind and ponder. As she went from display to display she contemplated the Matter of water, the meaning of water, the mechanics of gills and webbing and whether she could pull webbing between her fingers and toes to make herself swim better (when would you ever need that, Margot?). She considered the essense of Mind itself, and enjoyed how cute otters are for a fair amount of time as well.
When she'd stepped out from the 'exit' path of the aquarium path and into the gift shop/lobby/re-entrance area, the little Blood Witch squinted some against the light flooding through the entrance and gift shop windows. Her dark hair was left down to her shoulders today, tucked behind the right ear but not the left. She'd dressed in a loose-fit white tank top, bright violet jeans, and black-and-white sneakers. There was a tote bag over one shoulder and at her hip but not much else.
She'd stopped to check her phone, look down and answer a text message. Even though she was only stationary for a minute, already the impression of death and gore began to ebb into the air and unsettle the more sensitive here and there in passing. They'd chalk it up to nothing, but Caleb may know it for what it is.
[And maybe that'll go both ways? Perc + Aware!]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 4 )
Caleb
[totally rolling per+aware because Jess said the sheet looked good]
Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 5, 6, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Caleb
He stopped. Brows knit together and he pushed his glasses down from the top of his head. There was a moment of contemplation there, the general stop and evaluate that came with a new and interesting sensation. He presses his mouth into a line, then a pensive frown as he turns around. Slowly.
It didn't feel like danger, but rather the aftermath of it. He turns and finds his attention on Margot with her dark hair and her violet jeans and her bloody, bloody countenance. HIs eyes are not wide, and he seems to have some indeterminate ethnic origin that comes down to maybe from here or maybe not nobody really knows but whatevs.
He cocks his head to the side, just sort of stares. No, wait, not sort of. He does stare.
Margot
Tinkerer.
The word came to her like a revelation, and she had the sense that it was whispered in her ear by someone unseen. No, she knew who; her Avatar, Andraste, giving direction and watching as her little Right Hand was grown strong. One day ready to hold the Sword, but not quite there yet.
Forgettably hazel but noticably wide eyes blinked in surprise and her head lifted, the phone held in front of her still but momentarily forgotten. Her head did not twist around to seek a source, but twisted sure and certain and steady to Caleb.
He stared.
She Stared back.
With already owlish eyes, surprise looked remarkably apparent on Margot's face. It took her a few seconds, but she blinked and glanced nervously around, like she was worried somebody else was going to appear from the woodwork behind her as well. When it didn't happen, she looked back over to Caleb with no strong effort made to hide the caution on her face.
The left hand parted from her phone and raised in front of her with the palm out. 'Hey', it said. 'Who the hell are you,' it tried not to say but kind of did anyways if you looked close enough.
Caleb
Hazel meets brown. Just brown. Maybe dark brown, not light brown assuredly but certainly definitely brown. His hands stay in his pockets, backpack stays over one shoulder and the world could pass and he probably wouldn't have noticed. He just... looked at Margot. She looks at him, raised a hand to say hey and he perks his eyebrows up, makes a tentative approach.
He's not a creature with guile, this one. Everything going through his mind written so clear across his face, like the concept of deceit was one he had never truly learned or never truly been taught. You don't ever really ever learn it outside of necessity, and perhaps he'd never had the need for it. But the look on his face is one of concern. Looks her over like a medic would look over an ailing patient.
Caleb drops his voice- a baritone with the kind of clarity that should belong to people who read audiobooks for a living, "are you okay?"
Margot
Margot couldn't yet be old enough to drink, and looked petite from a distance but that was thrown further into perspective when Caleb closed distance. She'd tucked her phone into her back pocket and straightened her posture, spine straight and chin up, but even a man of average height like him had more than half a foot on her, and several inches in reach as well. The caution was there as well, but it relaxed back some when she notice the knit of concern on his brow.
Are you okay? he asked.
The question took the bloody-demeanoured girl aback. Dark eyebrows hopped upward and she glanced hastily down, checking her front and arms for signs of damage. "Uhh... Yeah, it looks like it," she answered slowly and looked back up again.
"Why do you--," but then it occurred to her, and realization dawned momentary on her face before she frowned softly and shook her head. "Oh.. no, that. That's just... normal for me. I'm fine."
Caleb
She's okay.
She says she's okay, and there he is with his hands in his pockets, which come out long enough to rest at his sides. He gives her a look, too, but it's not lecherous by any means- again, as though the concept of staring at women lustfully had never occurred to him. He looks at her the same way he'd been looking at the fish. Now that the concern is gone he seems... delighted?
Perhaps delighted, or perhaps intrigued. He doesn't reach out, though- Margot has a sense of personal space that he does not invade- having learned that lesson already that you can't reach out and touch people randomly. That'sa something he'd learned before being released into the world. Keep your hands to yourself. Don't eat anything that you're certain isn't food. Don't take things that aren't yours.
"Okay," he replies. Not incredulous or warning that thought away. He says it like he just accepted it, incorporated it into his paradigm as the young man nods. "Good, I don't know any doctors here to help if you weren't okay."
A second.
"How did you get that way?" cocks his head to the side, curious.
Margot
The question was forward, in Margot's own opinion, but really more because of the circumstances of her own Awakening. They were traumatic for a number of them, and hers was a prime example of that percentage. Not to mention the fact that they were standing around in a less-than-empty lobby.
"That's tricky to answer in public." Her mouth pressed into a thin line, thoughtful and curious and still just the teensiest bit suspicious of this stranger.
"Uh, let's back up." Rather than taking a physical step back she instead stuck out a tiny hand with dark violet polish on the short-clipped nails. "I'm Margot."
Caleb
"Oh."
Let's back up, she says. Tells him that his question is tricky to answer in public, and seems... well, he doesn't know how she seems, truth be told. He looks at Margot like she is an unsolved slide puzzle of a cubist painting; the pieces fit together in a way but so many of them just work in other places and he doesn't seem quite clear on where to slide them.
He looks at her hand, there is a delay and he reaches out to trake her hand. Holds it for a half a beat before his brows raise and a lightbulb goes off over his head and he shakes it. Up down. Up dow, let go and return your hand back to its place. His hands aren't smooth; he feels like he's probably accustomed to some kind of manual labor. Has a firm grip but lacks some finesse.
"I'm Caleb," a second, "what made you decide on Margot?"
Margot
A pronounced eyebrow raised curiously at the delays in Caleb's handshake. She squeezed his hand and shook along with, then brought it back to hold onto the strap of her tote. The left thumb caught into her vacant belt loop and she furrowed a frown at his next question.
"Uh, what made you decide on Caleb?" She shook her head. "It's my given name."
She paused and watched him for another couple of moments like she was trying to figure him out. Apparently she couldn't, because she asked him in a low voice suggesting that she didn't want to be overheard.
"What's with you? Are you okay? You seem like you're..."
She trailed off while hunting for the word, surveying him for a moment more before deciding: "Lost."
Caleb
"I read a lot of Christian mythology, and I really liked the characters Caleb and Joshua, plus it means bold, and dog. Dogs are considered loyal symbolically so I figured loyal and bold were good traits to remember to embody," he said with a shrug, conversational and calm and like this was anormal string of conversation. Asking people why they have their names and what they think of them.
But she's dropping her voice and he knits his brows together. Doesn't move, doesn't push forward into her space but does drop his voice to match hers in volume.
"I haven't been around a lot of people... am I doing something wrong?"
Hands come up, brows raise, "if I am, I'll stop."
Margot
It seemed much of what Caleb was doing was going to make Margot stare. From his explanation behind choosing his name to the polite explanation that he wasn't accustomed to being around people, the petite college-aged girl's expression didn't change by much. There was a slow shift, though, a sliding scale between caution and concern that started to tip more toward the latter.
The inquiry as to whether he was doing something wrong was answered with a shake of her head. "No, no, you're alright." Her gaze dropped to his hands raised to portray harmless intent, and she felt the urge to push them back down again but instead jammed her hands into her pockets to keep them to herself.
"When you say you haven't been around people... what...?" The question wasn't fully formed, and she opted to let it die in the water right where she'd left it. A brief glance about preceded her jumping into a completely different question instead.
"Hey, look, you seem a bit... new in town. Can we walk and talk? It's less obvious than hovering in the lobby." She lifted one hand from her pocket to jerk a thumb back toward the entrance of the aquarium walkway that led patrons through to see the living exhibits. "Were you just about to go in, or on your way out?"
Caleb
He watches, stands, and let's her finish thoughts. All of them- he doesn't seem to have the need to interrupt and, instead, waited on the figurative baited breath to determine whether or not the question was going to go in some direction he wouldn't have expected (they're all questions he doesn't know the eventual end goal of.)
She tells him that he seems new here, and it is a statement taken at face value it would seem because Caleb's response is to nod in agreement and concur that yes, her assessment was correct. He is new. New is the best approximation and most accurate word that one could use to describe the not-tall-not-short person standing with Margot.
"I can always come back," he tells Margot, "the aquarium isn't going to disappear; let's walk."
A second passes while he muses, walking and talking instead of standing or doing one or the other makes him-
"Where do you want to go? This talk requires... privacy?" A question, a confirmation that he understood her and picked up on the actual intention. The subtext- something that is so hard to really understand.
Margot
Caleb's answer made it apparent that he just arrived, but he sounded sincerely content with the idea of leaving early. The aquarium isn't going to disappear, he assured her, but her mind was busy churning concerns about money wasted on a ticket that couldn't even be used. It was there, that worry about someone's wasted dime, etched into her forehead as she looked ponderously at the relatively nondescript looking man, but only for a moment. Another thought occurred to her in a mental voice that was firmer, deeper, and scolding. Why did you notice him? Why did he notice you? Isn't that more important than ten dollars and some fish?
"Alright," she agreed, and started walking toward the double glass doors marked as an 'exit' on the opposite side of the gift shop/lobby than where patrons came in to buy tickets. He inquired about privacy like the entire concept was a mystery to him as opposed to the situation itself, and this earned him yet another of those curious 'trying to figure you out' stares. She held the door open to pass through first and made sure her fingertips stayed on the door long enough to keep it open for him to pass through as well. Out on the sidewalk it was hot and the sun was blazing and Margot was glad for the loose cut of her tank top when the breeze touched her sides under her arms. She reached into her tote to pull out a pair of plastic sunglasses and put them on.
"Well, a relative type of privacy. The kind that comes from not being overheard. I don't care about being seen, but..." She shrugged, tucked her hair back with the arms of the glasses behind her ears, and nodded her head to start walking forward along the sidewalk in front of the building. She was going to be perfectly content to make a lap around the block if he was letting her take the lead. That would be a good place to start, they'd get some time to talk without losing distance between themselves and their vehicles (assuming this guy even drove a car, which was becoming more doubtful the more she spoke with him). If they needed more time they could go up another block and double back later.
For now, though, her sneakers were quiet on the cement and her voice was quiet without sounding meek.
"Well, the questions that we're asking, the answers and subjects just aren't meant for every ear. Like what drew your attention to me and mine to you. We can't very well come out and say 'Oh! A fellow Worker! I felt you across the room, nice to meet you!', y'know?" Her eyebrow raised here, skeptical and feeling through unfamiliar waters. She's never been the one to do the explaining about magick and its soicetal trappings before. "I mean, you do know, right?"
Caleb
He observes everything on the way out. He looks at the fish as they go away, at the ceiling for a moment and at the faces of those that seem to just part and flicker away to do whatever it is that they normally do. He's just a piece of the scenery, this one, with a second hand coat and a pair of glasses that are surprisingly clean and well cared for. They're perhaps a little surprising given that everything else seems second hand and those? Those are new, or at the very least of a quality that they aren't going to fall apart at a moment's notice
Caleb observes as they step onto the concrete pavement, the way that she holds the door as he reaches for it but she beats him to it none the less, "I'll get the next one," he says, like he's certain that there will, in fact, be a next door. That this will just be a series of doors to open and courtesies to repay. But it is walking with them, and he continues along on his way.
It takes a second or two to modulate the walking so that they're going about the same pace. Margot is short. This takes a little doing, but he doesn't seem to have problems. He observes her, takes in the details but does not adopt a different sort of posture. He does not mold himself to trepidation because... well. There could be many reasons as to why he does not. It's warm outside, but he doesn't take his coat off. There's sunshine and the sidewalk is hot and the ky around them is bright bright bright.
"I've been told that when discussing matters of the metaphysical you need to be discreet," a complexity in speech perhaps unexpected, a pattern of speech that seems to come about by rote only, but Caleb continues, "I..."
He frowns. Brows knit together before he inhales and-
"Is it... natural.... for there to be so many people who can't be privy to these things? I know you need to be discreet but... it's so empty here."
Absolutely baffled, tone only muddied by the sheer nature of its question unspoken.
Margot
"It's natural here anyways..."
She would be watching him with a face full of curiosity and confusion every step of the way, but she was already aware of how much staring she'd done. Enough so that she observed the style of his haircut, the quality of his glasses against the rest of his clothing, how open his face appeared to be with emotion and thought. It could all be a clever ruse, but she was aware that literally everything could be a clever ruse and that was a rabbit hole that was worthless to chase down too far. In lieu of constant staring Margot settled for looking naturally forward while they walked and stealing glances here and there as appropriate in the conversation.
Like here, where he paused and frowned and inquired about how surrounded by Sleepers they were. She was raising an eyebrow at him yet again, looking more worried about the situation as a whole now than she appeared concerned or cautious for her own safety.
"....Most of the world is still Sleeping. The vast majority of us, thousands of times over again, remains asleep for our whole lives. I've heard say that everyone has the potential of Awakening, but that potential must be really hard to tap. Except for where you come from, apparently." She looked forward again and jammed her hands as deep into the small pockets of her bright purple pants as they would allow. "Which is... where, exactly?"
Caleb
"That's awful," he says, and makes it sound like that really is awful, "everyone can wake up, everyone has the potential to... but... do they even know that's an option?"
That seems to be a larger question- was the world ready to know they could wake up? Was the world ready to know that there was a terrible and beautiful world full of potential out there for them? Was the world genuinely ready for everyone in it to have the ability to shape reality into being what they want it to be?
What a wonderful and horrifying notion. One that requires humanity to have much greater rein on their impulses than they have demonstrated.
But! Where is he from, and that makes him think again, and really think on what should be a pretty easy question. Upon longer glances more details are memorable. His hair is longer on top than it was on the sides, mostly dark brown. On longer inspection he looks vaguely Asian and surprisingly solid. Athletic, even.
"Fifteen miles outside of Moab, Utah," he finally responds, nods. Yes, that is a satisfactory answer. "This is my first time... you know... out in the world."
Margot
"I don't think everyone should wake up," Margot said with a shake of her head. Caleb sounded as though he pitied the Sleepers, but Margot herself distrusted the masses. Crowds of humans were historically known for wrecking everything in their path, including their own structures and societies. "Reality wouldn't be able to withstand so many people hacking away at it."
As to where he was from, she glanced up toward the golden-bright leaves turned in the trees lining this part of the street they walked. Placed Moab on a map in her mind, then looked curiously back to Caleb yet again when he confessed that this was his first time, you know, out. It had taken him a few moments to adjust comfortably to her short-legged gait, but it slowed a little more now while she worked to make an understanding of this magic-touched fellow's background.
"...But you're in your twenties," she said flatly (read: insensitively). She blinked at him and canted her head a touch, lifted her right hand to grasp the straps of her tote and rest it there. "I mean, you have to have gone out into town or done little league or something, even if you were homeschooled."
Caleb
She tells him that this makes no sense, which makes him tilt his head to the side like a confused golden retriever. She says it with a flat tone that seems to make him look a little more confused than he had originally been
Little league. Going to town.
"Oh! I did go to town a couple times," like this was some massive aha moment for him, "but it was a short trip. We didn't ever really need things so we never went." Magical. Makes life so much easier- no doctors. No grocery shopping. No clothing shopping or mending to be done.
"My-" which makes him stop, look at her for a second "- I don't know what to call him, but he said we didn't really need to talk to people so!"
...
"... I don't know what home schooling is. But thanks for telling me I'm in my twenties, that's good to know," genuinely grateful, that.
Margot
By now Caleb might be under the impression that Margot's default expression was a frown. The furrow to her brow could very well be the way it was shaped by nature. Everything he said extended the life of that thoughtful, puzzled frown. She was worried about what she was hearing from him about his past, and by the sound of it the past was a recent one. He'd thanked her for informing him that he was in his twenties, he'd stopped to remember how to shake hands, a gesture that would be second nature if you'd spent much time meeting people in America.
"Normally 'Dad' would fill that slot, I think, but nothing I've heard has sounded 'normal' yet, so..." Margot shrugged her shoulders and looked uncomfortable. She'd reached a hand back for her phone when a thought occurred to reach out to someone, but she paused and put a pin in that thought after feeling the shape of the device in her back pocket. For now her hands came to settle together on the bag strap at one shoulder once again.
"So, when did you leave Moab? Why'd you come out here-- just follow the highway or something?" She glanced up to him again. She felt a little apologetic somewhere about the barrage of questions, but really how else did someone to respond to a transplant like this? "Is your... whatever-you-call-him having you meet someone here?"
Caleb
So there they are- two people walking and thoughtfully frowning at the things the other one is saying. One would probably assume that they were discussing putting a parent in a nursing home given they way that they seem to be in thought, then interested, and then in thought again.
She takes out her phone, which he inspects quietly before nodding again like he had logged its presence away.
"I left... four weeks ago? I rode in a truck for a little while, then with a pregnant couple. Then with the same pregnant couple and a baby. I walked the rest of the way- my 'Dad' -" sounds like he knows it isn't the right word but he goes with it anyway "-set me up with a PO box here. Since I have a PO box here I guess I'll stay in case I get mail?"
"Nobody is meeting me here. I guess it's nice, it's strange to travel alone though. How did you get here? Were you always here?"
Margot
"What's the point of setting up a P.O. box for someone who isn't out in the world, and a whole state away on top of that?" Margot's scowl deepend, that thought wondered aloud and left to hang because she couldn't immediately think of an answer to that question. "Probably to throw off your trail... but why start a false lead when there wasn't a trail to begin with? Unless there was..." She'd muttered the potential answers quietly enough that they could have gone almost missed. Clearly she was musing to herself as opposed to actively entertaining the theories with Caleb. This was made all the clearer when she interrupted herself to lift her head, blink at her walking companion, then shrug and look forward again.
"Oh, I drove out here last summer. I came from Maine, which is where I grew up before." Her answer was distracted, a verbal handwave of dismissal so that she could move on to what she believed to be the clearly more interesting and important subject at hand.
"So, uh, why'd you leave, Caleb? If you didn't need to before.."
Caleb
"Oh, I've seen pictures of Maine; Stephen King sets most of his books there. But I hope that's not an accurate depiction of Maine," he replies. Very concerned at the end like he knows that demon clowns and evil fog is a real possibility.
But why did he leave, she asks? It actually does make him look pensive, makes his stomach muscles tense and his expression flickers with brief confusion- what is that feeling? It isn't like sadness but it is close. Loss? Regret?
"My presence is detrimental to the relationship between Dr. Shrieber and his son, and as that I lack seniority in the hierarchy I was let go."
So... he got fired from the family.
Margot
Margot gave a small chuckle, the first since they honed in on each others' resonances. It sounded nothing like tinkling bells or a bubbling brook. More like quiet huffs of breath and a hiccup. "No, I never saw any rabid St. Bernards or blood-drenched teenage girls. But then, I've never visited Derry either, so..." She shrugged once again and grew quiet while he answered her inquiry: why had he left?
The answer had her brow flexing differently than before; disapproval, sympathy and maybe even a flash of anger on reflex. She didn't know this Caleb very well, but he seemed unobtrusive and pleasant enough. He was 'let go' into the world from some reclusive bunker in southern Utah because this 'dad/Doctor' fellow wanted more time with his son?
"What...," she started asking, wanting to ask what happened, what was wrong with this Doctor person, what this detriment could possibly be, but she found them jamming up because there was a more pertinent 'what' question that was lying underneath. She'd been wondering it for a while, but it only just formed into actual words. Her eyes cleared and sharpened some at the dawning of what she was trying to figure out had been. What was he? She stared for a moment, chewing the question with her back teeth while waffling over how to ask it. If she should ask it at all.
Her lips pressed together-- it would be offensive. You don't just ask people what they are. It was insensitive when the only answer could be 'a person', so in a world now where the answer held the potential of being anything certainly the insult could be worse somehow?
She gave a sigh, frustrated with herself and her inner dialogue, and raised a hand to rub at her eyelids with thumb and forefinger. "You are a very puzzling person," she stated simply, and when her hand left her eyes she was looking up at him to ask, rather seriously: "Where are you living, then?"
Caleb
He is completely oblivious to the fact that his existence is confusing at best and troubling at worst. He can tell, though, that Margot seemed distraught, which made him quirk his mouth up to one side and he reaches out for a moment like he was going to pay her on the shoulder, but then remembers that you don't physically comfort strangers so he makes a little face and just pats the air near her shoulder.
"No worries, I know it can be confusing. I'm starting to suspect that my normal and your normal are different, and that's okay." Oh god, and he talks like he learned his interpersonal skills from an active listening book.
But, she asked where he was living right now, "the botanical gardens. Nobody really notices and the plants are nice- once I get a job I guess I'll live somewhere else but from what I understand I need professional references and I don't think I know you well enough to list you as a reference."
Margot
Needless to say, his announcement that he was sleeping in a botanical garden and hiding (effortlessly perhaps but still hiding) from security failed to reassure the bloody-aura'd witch. By this point Margot had slowed to a full stop, coming to stand on a sunny patch of sidewalk between the foliage-cast shadows of two trees. She'd pulled her phone from her pocket again and unlocked the screen to start navigating to the contact list. She offered a small chuckle that was a little surprising to herself and sounded a touch dark in its humors. "I'm a terrible professional reference, you don't want employers giving me a call."
With the contact she wanted under her thumb, she gave pause to look back up at Caleb. "Look, it's not very safe for an Apprentice to be lost in the world like this. I'm going to call my Doc-- he's good-- for just a minute here and see... Well, can you just give me a minute?"
With Caleb's blessing (because of course he was fine with a phone call, polite and easy-going fellow that he was), Margot tapped her thumb on the name Sepúlveda and brought the phone to her ear. She was quiet and listening for the answer for fewer than a dozen seconds, standing with her elbow cupped in her free hand and arms huddled near to her chest, turned away and looking up the street watchfully as she spoke. The conversation, one-sided in Caleb's ears, went something like this:
"Hey Doc, I've got a question, do--... Do we have, like, an Apprentice Helpline or Safehouse or something?" Her hand lifted from her elbow to pinch at the corners of her eyes, appearing immediately exasperated with how the conversation was going. "Jesus Chirst..," she muttered to herself, then spoke up, engaged with the voice on the other end of the line once again. "What? No! It's a beautiful day and everyone's just fine, no one's hurt. He's just..." A glance to Caleb, "...lost."
The phone moved from her ear and if Caleb were standing close enough he could hear a shout through the other end-- muffled to the point of being indistinguishable, but a man's voice none the less. She scowled and cupped her elbow once again when returning the phone to hear ear. "He says his name's Caleb. He... doesn't really know how to be in the world, grew up in a hole in the ground or something but, well, given the... current events..."
She trailed off, and her eyebrows raised with what was said next. At this point the receiver moved from her ear so she could ask Caleb directly: "Hey, nobody's looking for you, right?" The answer confirmed what she suspected, he was on his own with nobody that he knew of pursuing him. She seemed a little relieved at that much at least and returned to the call. "No, he's alone. ...Oh,okay, I can do that. Can you text me the address?" Another scowl at the answer she received, then a look of trepidation before she nodded even though the phone couldn't convey that through the speaker. "Um. Okay. Alright, thanks."
The call ended, and Margot turned her head to Caleb while tucking the phone back into her pocket. She had a small smile, polite with small apology. "Okay, so there's a place we can go that's---..." Margot trailed off yet again, but this time the voice that interrupted her was in her mind directly instead of through her phone. Or, well, there was an impression of Doc in her mind, as flashes of street signs and compass hands and tracings along a map and the visage of an estate all appeared as though through the frost-caked glass of a crystal ball. Her eyes had gone wide, her breath had caught for a second (something like jumping into water colder than you were ready for), but within moments she was puffing the breath back out and blinking and shaking her head. "Jesus, weird. Sorry, uh, there's this place just outside Denver that's safe for Mages.
---------------
Doc @ 1:52PM
[int + tech: how beautiful is my fucking device?]
Roll: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 5, 5, 6, 9, 9) ( success x 3 ) [Doubling Tens]
Doc @ 1:53PM
[corr/mind 2: BOOM, INSTANT KNOWLEDGE OF WHERE THE CHANTRY IS. i'm going to be a twink and say his resonance applies here. and also he's spending quint.]
Roll: 3 d10 TN3 (4, 6, 7) ( success x 3 )
Doc @ 1:54PM
[extending so she doesn't forget it two seconds later]
Roll: 3 d10 TN4 (3, 5, 6) ( success x 2 )
Doc @ 1:54PM
TADA
witness @ 1:54PM
Woop woop!
Caleb
"Oh!"
Like a catchphrase, the number of times that he seems pretty surprised and delighted by the information that he was receiving. He's lived gods knew where and it would seem that indignation was not something that was impressed upon him. Caleb nods like he knows what she is talking about- like this may be normal.
"Are you sure how to get there? There aren't too many of those in Utah from what I know," Caleb continues.
"How many awakened people are in Denver? Are there many?"
Margot
A small chuckle preceded Margot's reassurances. She'd nodded and gestured for him to come along and start walking with her. She was continuing up the sidewalk to finish their largely-complete circling of the block, headed back to the aquarium parking lot and the vehicle she'd left there. "I'm more sure than I'm probably ever going to be, so this would be an excellent time to get going."
"I don't know how many of these chantries there are in Colorado, I really only know about this one. I expect there's probably another further south or southeast or something, further away from Denver, but that's just speculating." She shrugged her shoulders and continued on as she cut from the sidewalk across a patch of grass that lined the parking lot, making a shortcut to the corner in which her car was parked. "There's maybe... a dozen? That I know of and have met myself, anyways. There's plenty of others that I don't know, though. There's some apprentices and a Cabal out in the Colorado Springs-ish area that I've heard about. So if you look at the population density of humans versus the numbers of us...," she trailed off while doing some mental math, nose screwed up a little with the calculations, and fished her keys free to unlock her car. "I don't know exactly, but there's gotta be near half a hundred in the state when you consider that." The car went bloop!-bloop! to announce unlocked doors, and Margot climbed into the driver's side first, and waited for Caleb to join her in the passenger seat before buckling in and starting the car.
The drive was likely interesting, full of chatter and questions and what answers the nineteen-year-old bloodwitch could provide. She probably spent the better part of her time alternating between explaining surprisingly mundane things (like exit lanes on the left, or bridges leading train tracks over the freeway), and the rest explaining things impossible to describe as 'mundane' (like cabals and why sleepers should remain sleeping and spheres).
Eventually they'd find themselves at the Chantry, a largely rural property on a sizable chunk of private land, an impressive estate if ever there was one. Margot seemed reluctant from the moment she pulled up the drive-- not from doubt of having the wrong address, but because she was nervous. This was her first time visiting the place, and while some would take the opportunity to explore and catch the tour along with the newcomer Margot did everything she could to politely dismiss herself and be on her way as quickly as possible.
Though she did skip out early as she could, she made sure that Caleb was at least left with her phone number. "In case you have questions," she'd told him, and grinned quick-and-antsy with hands in her pockets in the doorway before leaving. "Except for in the wee hours of the morning." Soon after that, with the crunch of tires on gravel, Margot took her leave.
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