Margot
In the days following her meeting with Kiara, the email that she'd sent off to the address provided had been answered with a phone call. The first time she spoke with Sadie she did so for a solid twenty minutes before disconnecting the call. The woman on the other line wanted to be certain that Margot was confident in her choice of joining the Verbena, and was curious about whether she'd be joining a coven or not (the answer was a resounding 'no'). Based on these facts and other details from the conversation, the soul-sister of Kiara determined that she'd come to meet her and help with the Initiation.
The next day Margot received an email with flight details and the dates that this mysterious new Verbena woman would be in the city-- mid-September, it appeared. From there further plans were made. They needed to be free to speak and Wield if they so desired, and so Margot suggested her favorite fall back: hiking.
Mid-morning on a Thursday, Margot's car rolled into the parking lot at a trail head along the foothills of the stretch of mountains that boardered the Western frontier of the city. The day was overcast and promised for a thunderstorm later that night. The air was crisp and cool and the smell of rain was heavy on the earth and in the trees that framed the path that they would be walking. Margot had chosen a trail in particular that would bring them to a lake-- the significance of water for this meeting had not been missed.
She got out of her car dressed ready for the hike ahead of them-- jeans with frays at the cuffs and knees (function over fashion), dusty hiking boots, an olive-green hooded sweatshirt zipped up to the chest to show a triangle of black T-shirt underneath. She wore her hair down around her shoulders and had a red-and-blue patterned bandana tied around the top of her hair, which served the purposes of keeping her hair out of her eyes and forest debris off her scalp. A backpack, presumably packed with hiking supplies, was shouldered when retrieved from the back seat, and Margot glanced about for other cars, other faces, seeking Sadie out.
Sadie
Everyone says motherhood changes a person. No one believes it until they actually enter into this ancient and sacred bond. It does change a person, irreversibly. One cannot unbecome a mother.
Margot did not know Sadie before she became a mother. Kiara did. But then Kiara and Sadie knew each other before they had ever met, before they Awakened and clasped their bloodied hands in sisterhood. New York had changed them. Change is a necessary part of life. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it hurts so bad you don't think you can possibly survive.
Today's meeting isn't inherently about motherhood or sisterhood or any other sort of relationship that comes about as a result of being a woman. They are both women. That's about as much as they appear to have in common, at first.
Within a few moments of arriving, Margot gets the sense that she isn't alone. The sense of crystallization, both hardening and becoming clear, a strange euphoria underneath it.
The woman to whom the resonance belongs stands five-foot-nine even in bare feet, taller with the thickness of the soles of her boots. Her jeans look older than Margot, and she's wearing a halter top underneath a flannel shirt which she has tied rather than buttoning, the sleeves rolled up to her elbows. Her curly auburn hair is more or less controlled by a yellow bandanna tied into a headband, and where her aviator shades do not cover her face, freckles do.
"Margot?" Her speech gives away her hometown: London. When Margot confirms her identity, the older woman breaks out into a grin. "I thought that was you. You ready?"
Margot
The woman spotted in the parking lot as well was impressive in that she was tall, pretty, and out of the ordinary. The freckles and auburn hair matched with the dusky tone of her skin had Margot raising eyebrows curiously, had her suspicions arising-- she'd never seen a picture and didn't receive much of a description beyond 'you'll know her when you see her'.
Margot?
Certainly enough, the advice held true. Margot answered in turn with a small lift of her hand and polite smile in greeting, and her boots crunched on gravel to carry her toward the mouth of the trail to join the newly-met Verbena.
"Sadie, hi." Was she ready? Margot nodded her head a couple of times and adjusted the straps of her backpack across her shoulders. The faint mufffled sounds of water and glass came from within the canvas.
"Ready as I'm going to be." She nodded her head up the trail, as though to indicate that Sadie should begin leading the way. They were only several first steps into the trek before she launched her first question: "Has Kiara told you a lot about me and mine?" She means her Cabal, but doesn't call it that directly yet. There's more of a familial, a kinship implication with the use of the word 'mine' than anything else.
Sadie
That's a loaded question.
Though Sadie and her sister are two separate bodies, they share an Avatar. Folks like Margot's mentor would refer to the Avatar as fractured, but those who actually live in that state might argue to the contrary. They share Spheres, they share Quintessence, they even share sensation, if they open up their minds in order to do so. Not a lot of secrets exist between the two women, and when Margot asks what Kiara has told her, the taller woman's lip quirks upward in an expression she's doubtless familiar with by now. It's a mirror image of Kiara's.
"A bit, here and there," she says, and hooks her thumbs into the straps of her pack as the trail inclines. "I hear she wasn't wearing pants the night she met your friend Ned."
Margot
A faint blush-- no doubt the first of many blooms-- rose on Margot's cheeks at the last comment. 'A bit' was a vague answer, and the detail provided afterward suggested that a few stories had been told here and there. Anecdotes, from the sound of it, at least. It wasn't those she was worried about as much as the deeper details (like what she and Ned had done to Luke, for instance).
"Yeah, well, uh... I guess, if that's the life she wants to lead." Margot shrugged her shoulders and cast a glance ahead past Sadie. The trees were changing color in patches-- some still green, others gone golden and orange. A large one that they passed was caught between stages, with its leaves gone crimson around the edges with the chlorophyl still holding strong in the centers. The pattern on these leaves was appreciated enough that she paused to snap a picture from the case-covered phone she was keeping in the back pocket of her jeans. What? She was nineteen, after all.
As opposed to taking the time to 'share' the foliage right away, the phone was pocketed and the trek continued. Sadie wouldn't really even need to pause to wait for her; Margot's legs weren't the longest, but she was quick on them.
"She said you two were sisters? Doc explained that your Avatar's the same. That's neat." A pause. "Mine's a Goddess. Far as I can tell I'm the only initiate She has."
Sadie
"A goddess, huh?"
She doesn't sound as if she's placating the young Disparate, though her accent does give her an impression of detachment that the English upper crust have been instilling in their students for decades. Stiff upper lip and all that.
"If your Avatar had two bodies, you'd know. At least, unless the other hasn't Awakened yet, is my understanding. Do you see Her often, or just during Seekings?"
Margot
"I'm pretty sure that She's always there, in a part...."
The Witchling's brow furrowed while she thought about this. Ever since she Awoke something has always felt different and she hadn't been quite able to put her finger on it. Since she began to understand, learn, and expand in the Crafts and Spheres, though, it became more pronounced. Even now, as she stepped along the path up the side of a mountain, she could feel the extra something there in her very bones with each impact and motion.
"Started out as kind of a... superstition feeling, I guess. Like someone was looking at me or lurking in the shadows of my room at night. Since my Seeking, though, it's gotten more... solid, I guess. Maybe it's just because I understand it more, or maybe it's because I'm stronger and able to better recognize it." A finger lifted to itch at the inside of her ear, then that hand moved to adjust the bandana on her head just a little.
"I see Her in dreams sometimes. I didn't really see Her in my Seeking, but I felt her. I had to draw a bow, and I felt in that moment like from inside my arm someone was helping me draw the bow and steady my aim." Steady. She said the word and Sadie could put a finger on the sensation that paired up with the more obvious sticky-bloody-churning resonance. The combination of the two was more disconcerting than the bloodied imprint on the world was while standing alone. The controlled and measured carnage was more dangerous than a wild part of nature's cycle.
Sadie
Unsettling, sure. A Sleeper would be unsettled by Margot's resonance. As she grows more powerful, she will notice people reacting to her in ways that they now react to her mentor, who feels like waking up on a slab in his place of employment, or to Grace, who feels like a guillotine on her best days, or to Kiara, who feels like the rainforest.
Doc rarely talks about his Avatar because it is not as powerful as his intellect. He has had to find alternate ways of restoring his Quintessence, and the story he told of his Awakening was not as dramatic as Margot's or Ned's. He had walked through a wall following a shadow. Big deal.
"I've a friend, lives in Seattle," she says, "lovely fellow, Cultist, owns a vinyl store? I can't tell if he's having a go, but according to him, his Avatar looks like Kurt Cobain and is always hanging 'round the store, criticizing people's record choices and asking why they're so sober. No one else can see him. Mine's more like yours, I reckon. Feeling as if She's always around, becoming more familiar with Her the more I learn."
Margot
"Do you think She and Kiara and You are all the same thing? And maybe that's why you feel both of them all the time?"
Were Sadie to glance to the Initiate, she'd find Margot's wide eyes staring back at her, curious to know the answer and eager to hear of her theory was well-recieved.
Margot
"I mean, obviously you're connected, but like instead of being a Goddess the Avatar is both of you?"
Sadie
"It's funny..."
Said in a musing fashion that is antithetical to the notion of humor.
"You'd think our Avatars would feel the same, but Kiara's perception of our Avatar has always been that it's the wind, and I've always felt it was a river. I think it's something bigger than both of us."
Margot
"Maybe the earth...," Margot mused thoughtful and quiet. This idea that the same Avatar appeared differently to different people who were tied to it was a rather rich sort of food for thought.
A few minutes of quiet passed by, and the two women spent that time focused on a more steep section of trail. The scenery was pretty and worth the eye's attention during the time; a blanket of autumn colors stretching down the mountain side and out across the valley, the city's taller buildings stretching up over the treetops here and there and, further than that, the horizon and world East and beyond the city's limits.
When the trail leveled out a little more easily once more, Margot spoke up once more with the breath pulled back to her lungs.
"Her name is Andraste." Her Avatar, that is. The name may ring bells, given where the Verbena hailed from-- this was a Goddess of her own island's history and folklore, after all. "And I'm pretty sure that she's shaping me to be her vessel. Which means bringing War and seeing where the Victory will lie." She huffed the breath from her lungs for a better cleansing breath in, then unclipped the water thermos from the side of her backpack to seek out a drink. After wetting her throat and tongue she concluded the thought with something that might have been a concern were it not for the tone of grim duty that came with. "I'll need to fight. To burn and kill-- I've seen it in the dreams. Felt the flesh yielding under my fingertips and seen the battlefields."
Sadie
[LE PAUSE]
Margot
[TIME FOR AN HOUR BREAK]
Margot
.
Sadie
"Hmm."
There was a time not so long ago when the presence of a warrior in their midst would have meant security for the Circle. Man's capacity for violence has shaped the way modern society operates. Without war, borders would look much different, as would trade routes and highway systems. Plenty would be different if civilizations did not seek to obliterate each other.
Sadie does not believe in predestination. She is a Disciple of Entropy. Of course she doesn't.
"Are these dreams of what have happened, or what will happen?" The distinction is held in her inflection. "Your Avatar went through many previous lives before Awakening you. Don't forget that."
Margot
"What's supposed to happen." A hand swiped the water from her lower lip before returning to its default place at the strap of her backpack. The furrow to her brow was still there-- hadn't left the whole time that she'd been contemplating. She never fancied herself a philosophy major-- she'd worked out a path toward bio-ecology sciences for college. She'd aspired to do real work against global warming but would just be happy with some tenor one day. Yet here, even though she could create life (and not with her womb either), she found that Magick required so much more thought into the unknown and loosely structured.
"I don't feel like I'm looking into something in the future. Maybe it's a past life....? It feels linear." Note how frequent the use of the word 'feel' came up. She used magick with her bones and gut and intiution, even though she had grown up using her intellect for everything and letting intuition fall to the wayside.
"That would make sense, though... If She needs a horseman for Her Wars, then She'd just Awaken another when one dies." A pause, a scowl, and: "It feels like destiny, but that could just be Her finding ways to compel me. I've... not really ever considered myself violent before this."
Sadie
One of the unfortunate truths Margot will be able to one day say she took away from her apprenticeship with a Mad Scientist is that she had herself a well-rounded education. It may not seem like a benefit at this point, her brain wired for an education that would enable her to effect change and lift herself and possibly her family into a higher socioeconomic sphere, but science and philosophy have always been bedfellows.
Hell, on nights when the Doc is particularly snockered, he likes to talk, to himself if no one else is listening, about how art and science are really just man attempting to comprehend nature. The first time he sat the two of them down he had seemed disgruntled by having to tell her no shit they're talking philosophy at this stage in the game, the conversation concerned the very fabric of reality.
Kiara and Sadie are gentler teachers than Andrés is.
"If it's any consolation, I highly doubt She's chosen you to be the next Joan of Arc. Even if it feels as if She's compelling you to act or behave a certain way, you've still got a choice, you know? Seems to me these dreams you're having are more to prepare you."
Margot
"I'm not afraid."
Margot's tone had the defensiveness of her youth. The fact that Sadie was a gentler teacher than her full-time Mentor was not entirely missed by Margot, but it occurred to her more on a heart-and-soul level than a mind-and-brain one. She wouldn't be taking any knowing advantage of this insight just yet. That tone would have come out no matter who she was speaking to.
She wound up revoking it in the end anyways. A slight blush bloomed on her cheeks once again.
"Well, okay, I'm a little afraid. But it doesn't terrify me to go forward with Her. It's scarier to go back, anyways."
Sadie
"If you weren't afraid, I'd be afraid."
Humor lurks beneath the surface of near everything Sadie says. She has a sharper tongue than her sister, has always been quicker to say what was on her mind, but she's minding it around Margot. She remembers being new.
"Did Kiara tell you about the initiation ritual?"
Margot
The answer was a simple shake of the head. "No, not in any detail..."
Sadie
"Ours was intense."
Because of course she and Kiara went through theirs together. In addition to an Avatar and a mentor, they had shared a life once. Studying and testing and meditating. Literally braiding each others' hair. It's a wonder Sadie hasn't chosen to stay in Denver. She has a room in Kiara's apartment, but has left nothing in it.
"When you think you're ready, I'll have a chat with Kiara, put you through the ordeal proper. In the meantime..."
She trails off. Now is the time to ask questions, apparently.
Margot
In the meantime... Margot let that hang for a minute. The floor was clearly open for questions, even though the actual floor under their feet right now was no formal place. The dirt was packed from many feet for many years before, and their ceiling was treetops with branches and plentiful and colorful leaves.
Though, to think of it, this a formal setting for the Verbena, was it not?
The questions were thought over carefully, and the first one was preceded with another dolop of insight into her relationship with and the nature of her Magick.
"I dream about the oceans sometimes too. Always with rocks, always with steel clouds and storms in the sky too. The waters are always choppy and never shallow. That seems significant. That's a big part of why I reached out to you." To the Twisters of Fate, specifically.
Then: "What would my initiation look like? I mean... where will I go? How long will I be gone? ...I'd ask what's expected of me, but... well, it seems like it'd be inappropriate to study ahead for a test like this."
Sadie
"Of all the tests you've taken in your life, why would the one that could literally kill you be the one that's inappropriate to study ahead for?"
Margot
The question she received in return startled her a little-- her eyes widened and heavy brows flew up on her forehead. After blinking a few times, she replied:
"Well, because it's a test of this--" and she gestured to her heart first, but within the continued span of the motion dragged her hand down to her stomach. "And not a test of this--" and this time, she gestured to her mind.
"Either you're right for the Tradition or you're not... right?"
Sadie
"There's nine Traditions, and at least as many Crafts, if not more... how would you know if you're right for the Tradition, or vice versa, if you don't ask questions? Asking questions, being curious, that's how you know in your heart you're walking the right path, is how I see it."
Margot
"Ah."
She soaked that answer up for a dozen or so seconds, continued the hike on upward and upward. By this point they were cutting along a narrow cut deep through the dense trees along this mountainside, stretching all the way up toward the peaks where it was only interrupted by jagged faces of rock and cliff cutting through.
"I suppose... I mean, I've studied for Spheres, and I've learned about the Verbena against the other Traditions. I know that if I'm going to fit anywhere Verbena's the best bet, so I've already asked those questions. I figure at this point it's just a matter of whether the Verbena will have me or not."
Another pause, then. "It felt kind of like cheating to ask what to expect ahead of time. I thought maybe how you adapt and respond to the unknown might be part of the test, but..." Big hazel-colored eyes found Sadie's face (or the curly auburn back of her head, if that's what was presented instead by forward hiking). "Well, I mean, if it's okay to study...
"What happens in the initiation?"
Sadie
"It depends on the coven."
Sadie can imagine how old it must get, hearing the words 'it depends' so often in the first year of Awakened life. She was an apprentice once, knowing nothing but that her life as it was a few units of time ago.
"There are covens in some cities that have rigid initiation rites, or they won't even consider accepting you unless you can trace your lineage to other witches. In this case, once you're initiated into the tradition, you'll be on your own, yeah? You're probably going to want to make sure you're able to heal yourself, fortify your mind and spirit against corruption, things like that."
Margot
"I know Life and Spirit pretty well... they're what feel most natural to me, I think." She brushed a loose hair from her face, remembered the bandana on her head and did a better job of tucking it back the second time around instead. "Mind, though..." That trailed off, the faint flex of her brow explained enough right there.
"...if I'm not joining a coven, who do I go to to be Initiated?"
Sadie
Sadie holds out her arms and waggles her fingers, her nails painted black, smiling and flicking her eyebrows to create an unspoken tada! effect. Once the moment has passed, she returns her thumbs to the straps of her pack. The altitude has her breathing heavier, but she is still able to carry on a conversation.
"Or Kiara, since she lives here and I presume you're going to stay in the area if you succeed?"
Margot
The gesture that the woman made quirked a grin onto Margot's face. The good humor was infectious, and was a shift away from the more serious or irate nature of other discussions like this. Plus, wasn't it exciting to think of initiating?
More than that alone, though, was the relief. She had been envisioning some council of severe women and men who would argue quietly amongst themselves over her worthiness (apparently including over her lineage as well, and she had so little she wouldn't ever even apply that word to describe it). To know it would be Sadie or perhaps Kiara (or maybe both?) sounded way easier on her social anxiety.
"Uhh.... Yeah, I don't think we're going anywhere anytime soon. Just got into a house, you see." Another small grin punctuated the statement.
Sadie
"A house? Well, color me impressed."
Some light teasing as they approach the crest of the hill. The first of many, depending on how high up they decide to go today.
Margot
The serious mood felt lifted, or at least for the moments to come. They were atop the first crest, and before long they would be to the lake (the second crest was beyond that, the small lake cradled gentle between the two). Margot figured they could stop there, eat some hiking food, and continue or descend again from that point depending on how they were feeling (pretty much how a hike goes, right? see, some things could be very mundane for Mages too!).
It was around the time that they had been settled in on a sun-baked rockface that sat flat over a 10 square meter area. Margot was drinking water and munching on a banana at this point, and watching the way the wind rippled the water and searching for the subtle reflections of the cloudcover on the surface.
"Well," she said apropos of nothing, and looked to Sadie between banana bites. "What comes next? In initiation, I mean." Bite, munch. "I think... If I'm going to be with the Water and the West and Twisting Fate and all, it's probably more suiting if you were there for it?"
Sadie
Once at the lake, Sadie undoes her bandanna and, by extension, her curls. They spring up with the introduction of light breeze, and the Fate Witch kneels down by the water to soak the bandanna before tying it around her neck this time. She takes up two handfuls of clear water to splash her face clean, then runs her fingers through her hair and starts to braid it as she walks back to the rock face and sits cross-legged in front of Margot.
"Why?" she asks, because she wants to hear the answer.
Margot
"Because that's your faction."
Munch. She watched the braiding with mild interest, but mostly just watched Sadie overall as one does when in conversation with a person.
"It would make just as much sense if you and Kiara both worked to initiate someone together. It sounds like Initiation's going to be tied deep into Magick-- as well it should be, but if that were the case wouldn't it be... I don't know, stronger or more effective or something if both parts of the same Avatar were present?"
Sadie
"Sure."
Her braiding ends when the tail is lain over one shoulder, and she secures it with a band that has been around her wrist this entire time.
"What do you think would happen if Kiara oversaw the rite alone, just out of curiosity?"
Margot
Once more, cheeks went pink. She worried that Sadie would believe she was doubting Kiara's ability to oversee an initiation, and the Witchling would be loathe if that misconception made its way back to the Lifeweaving woman.
"Uhh..." She put the last bite of banana in her mouth to give herself time to recover. The peel was considered before returned to the bag that it was initially packed it. Biodegradable, sure but nobody wanted compost around their hiking trail.
"It would probably go about the same, I suppose."
Sadie
It's more likely that Sadie is just messing with the poor thing, or testing the edges of her decision to join the Verbenae. Looking for cracks. This may well be part of the initiation. Dynamic Essences have a way of figuring things out as they go along. It's the Primordials who like to have a mystery completely unveiled before they commit to anything.
"What made you decide you want to join a faction?"
Margot
The question was a good one to ask. Up until a month ago she didn't even know that Traditions even had factions. Her nose wrinkled a little with thought. The distraction allowed for a recovery from the flare of anxiousness over perception there.
"When I spoke with Kiara she explained the four factions to me. She didn't even finish the list of them, the Twisters of Fate were the second ones that she'd described, and what she said resounded with me more than the rest. The Water, the Entropy-focus-- Andraste's got domain over divination, too -- and she said that they're the most primal of the lot.
"It's not just that I think they sound the most badassed or whatever, either. She spoke of the Guardians, and they apparently have a thing with lineage and work with Matter and neither of those suit me. The Moon-Seekers, she said, work in cities and focus on Mind and that doesn't sound right. The Lifeweavers..."
She paused, frowning thoughtfully at this one.
"Kiara's a bloom of life. They weave Life. They're the healers, the makers, the flash of heat, the Big Bang of creation, yeah? Andraste knows heat, but it's just the fires that burn villages and cremate the fallen. In my magick I feel more like I'm unweaving and destroying. Rending the flesh instead of fixing it."
Sadie
"You have to be careful with that kind of magick, Margot. You don't want to end up accruing Jhor by destroying living Patterns, you know? You'll become a mindless killing machine instead of..."
Well, what are the Twisters of Fate, exactly?
"Well, instead of a solitary practitioner of an ancient Art. We live simply, and we try to make a difference in the world. I don't believe destruction is the answer to the earth's problems."
Margot
Jhor. She was aware of it, the word bolded on an ash-smudged page in her journal of notes from some of the first classes with Andrés. She'd never witnessed it or its effects directly, but any who spoke the word did so with the same warning that a devout Christian family may give about Satan. Beware it, for it will be your demise.
"I understand...," she said, low and simple.
"There is the molding after the breaking down..." That in a tone of trying to recover, to explain away the sense she'd tried to describe when she fiddled with Prime and the Gauntlet in her apartment and spent the better part of an hour in and out of pulling, fraying, destroying and burning threads between worlds. She'd also practiced building them back up again, but that truthfully did seem a lot like she was leaving bone shrapnel and charred iron where something different used to serve as brick-and-mortor instead.
Sadie
Sadie makes a clicking noise out of the corner of her mouth and shakes her head. Despite the solemnity of the conversation, she still seems buoyant.
"You can smash a plate and glue its pieces back together, but that don't mean you've got a plate, when you're done."
Margot
"Of course not." Again, that surprised blinking from across the still-warm surface of rock.
"I mean, if I wanted to have a plate I would just have the plate. I wouldn't be breaking the plate unless I wanted something else to be made from it."
Sadie
She gives a jerk of her chin towards Margot's backpack.
"Let's have that banana peel, yeah?"
Margot
The request had Margot believing a demonstration would be on the way. Even if she wasn't under that impression, though, she was willing to give up the banana peel as requested. It was fished out of the paper bag it had traveled up the mountain in, and Margot leaned forward with her free hand on the ground to pass the peel over.
Then she settled back with her legs crossed and back straight to watch attentively.
Sadie
By the time the two women came to a rest at the first crest in the foothills, the sun was beginning to warm the earth below and their pacing was an effort. The rest was welcome, and during the rest Sadie had taken from Margot a banana peel she had tucked into her bag to dispose of when they were back in civilization.
They had been speaking of breaking things down rather than fixing them. The visions Margot saw, uncertain of whether they were remembrances of lives pasts or portends of actions not yet come to pass. Her Avatar was a strong presence in her life, this all of the more experienced Mages she had met could concede on. Hers is a bloody Essence, tied into the earth and the stuff of the cosmos, darknesses the other Essences had no interest with.
Sadie can appreciate what it is to Work with destruction magick rather than healing. Her sister was a Lifeweaver, after all. Their Work was two halves of the same coin.
She held the banana peel in her hand as if it were a living being, drawing deep breaths as if she had to think of what she was to do next, and then she slung her pack off her back and removed from it a small bowl. A mortar. Now she places into it the peel, tamping it down with the pestle. To it she adds a bit of dirt. She hums as she does whatever it is she's doing.
"We're a difficult faction to stay in," Sadie says. "Most of our initiates have strong memories from past lives, or they're like you, with primordial Avatars. We don't have an official initiation, the way the Gardeners of the Tree do. If you want to be a Twister of Fate, that's all there is to it. Once you decide that's what you want, though, you'll be opening yourself up to visions. Quiet is a danger, as is becoming a Marauder." What she takes from the mortar is not a pulverized peel, but a small round black seed. "'Live simply, so others may live.' That's all there is to it. Do you think you can do that?"
Margot
To her credit, Margot played the part of a student well. While Sadie spoke and demonstrated, the younger Witch stayed quiet and attentive. Big eyes watched carefully when tools were revealed, and her big brain soaked up what was said.
Margot licked her lips. "Visions," she repeated thoughtfully. Her eyes focused toward the lake waters while she contemplated what that would be like. Visions of what? Would her Avatar make sure they were nothing but blood and iron? No doubt whatever she saw she would ultimately be compelled to pursue and understand.
When she looked back to Sadie she was wearing a small wry grin.
"After figuring out that I was a Witch, I started to see myself retiring as a hermit in the woods. Live and let live sounds doable." She paused, then added: "I expect it takes practice to learn what visions to explore and which ones not to give chase to."
Sadie
"There's a reason even the oldest Seer on Earth still refers to what we do as 'practice.'"
This is said with a touch of gentle teasing, like she's still not entirely accustomed to the idea of being a new witch's deciding factor as to whether she joins the tradition or not.
"In my experience, a little personal risk is to be expected when you're tugging on the strands of destiny. As long as you feel you're using your power and insight for good rather than gain, that makes it a bit easier to decide which visions to pursue."
Margot
Margot's head bobbed agreement to the advice given-- do good, and the rest of the path will become clear as you go. There then followed an awkward half-dozen seconds of quiet wherein the girl looked like she had something to say but wasn't entirely sure of how to frame it. Or she could just be feeling like it was her turn to contribute but she had nothing immediately and was floundering on the spot not to look like a fool.
"Umm."
Good start. "That's not a hard philosophy to subscribe to-- living and letting live, doing basically good but not inflicting yourself upon the world too much. Given what my Avatar does, what She wants me to be doing, I think tugging and reading destiny's a good skill to have."
Beat.
"What now?"
Sadie
"Pretty anticlimactic, isn't it?"
A lopsided grin cuts a bright swath in the freckled landscape of Sadie's face. It doesn't take much to pack up her mortar and pestle, return them to the backpack that doesn't have very much in it to begin with.
"That's pretty much all there is to it. You'll find your commitment to the tradition tested as you go through more Seekings, but for now, that's really all there is to it." A beat. "I've some mushrooms, if you'd care to drink tea to celebrate."
Margot
The surprise was apparent on the young witch's face when she was told the initiation was over. Pretty anti-climactic, wasn't it? Margot glanced to the left and the right, and she chuckled a little before nodding. "I figured there'd be a test of faith, or at least some kind of blood letting into a chalice given the way Kiara and Doc were setting up the Twisters of Fate."
Not to say that her committment to the Tradition would go untested. Sure, she would be without a coven, but from the sound of it Andraste would help to keep her in check throughout Seekings and Visions, and Margot had little doubt in her mind that Kiara would be watching her with a sharper eye from here on out.
Heavy dark eyebrows raised curiously when Sadie suggested a toast of tea with mushrooms.
"What kind of mushrooms...?," Margot asked suspiciously.
Sadie
It's a valid question. More than two hundred species of mushrooms contain the psychedelic substance psilocybin. But it's obvious from the way Margot asks the question that she isn't a regular user of anything more threatening than cannabis, and Sadie laughs without malice.
"I believe they're still referred to as shrooms," she says. "Entheogenic mushrooms, yeah? Or we can just keep going to the top of the next hill. S'up to you. It's your initiation."
She gets to her feet and waits for Margot to do the same. Tea or no tea, the older witch holds out the banana seed and deposits it in Margot's hand before they set off again.
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