Margot
Coincidences. Deja Vu. It's a small world. Fate?
When you could access reality to reweave its fibers like thread, those things were looked at a little differently. Maybe it was just happenstance that Nicholas Hyde worked at the same hospital as Ned Gaites, or perhaps this was planned ahead of time by Some Great Force. Depends on who you asked
Whatever all of that may be, the fact was that Margot was at the hospital for one, but not necessarily for the other. The hospital cafeteria was full of natural light and places to sit, for many people came through the establishment needing food along the way. In this particular case, there was also a door that fed out onto a patio where a few more outdoor tables were available to sit at as well.
Margot sat out on this patio, a little Blood Witch soaked in afternoon sun-- especially warm and bright and direct in its final hours of shining. She had a text book open and a notebook open as well. Reading, taking notes, and ignoring the sandwich and soup on the tray in front of her. Stress was weighing heavy in particular these days, and that could take its toll on an appetite. And on appearance, too. Her brow looked like it was stuck in a furrow of focus and worry, and circles were starting to shadow their way into place under her eyes. Thankfully, that wasn't an abnormal sight to see at a hospital. She blended in nicely here.
Nick Hyde
They lead a sort of double life, those of them who decide to continue to work a job: they are constantly transversing these worlds, moving back from wakefulness to sleep and back again. Nicholas Hyde has been told of his chances of being able to continue to do this long term, by his friends and his sisters and perhaps even his wife, who has to be aware on some level (every level) of the danger inherent in working in the sort of place that is more typically a Conventional stronghold.
Still: Nick is not Pen's sort of brave, but this is a risk he takes knowingly and willingly.
He is with coworkers, when Margot catches his attention. He is walking out with two other people, a young woman with straight long dark hair, unremarkable, and a man somewhat older than them both with large dark framed glasses and a neatly trimmed salt and pepper beard, well dressed and with a rainbow ribbon on his lanyard. Nicholas walks between and slightly behind the two of them, floating along with his eyes occasionally wandering to other people or bits of scenery the way she has seen him do before. Even people with double lives are still given to the same habits.
Perhaps she can catch bits of the conversation, which to most people is probably only marginally interesting. " - had to refer to outpatient - " " - pretty extensive trauma history, you know - " " - three suicidal clients today. I'm ready to go home." Et cetera.
At which point as they are leaving the clinic they pass by Margot's table. And Nick's eyes stick to her like velcro, and Nick stops. "Hello Margot," he says, and the other two look toward her too, and Nicholas smiles at the two of them and waves them on. "I'll see you tomorrow."
Margot
There's a particular something about immersing yourself in learning that allowed everything around you to be blocked out. She was here for Ned, having sent him a text asking to meet after work (or something along those lines). She was doing homework in the meantime. Eyes down on her papers and books, the ambient sounds of the hospital around her blocked out.
No earbuds, though, that was worth noting. Her phone was quietly playing forgettable music-- background noise, really, indistinguishable when it came down to it.
Hearing her name startled her, and Margot jumped visible, cursed quietly under her breath and clapped her hands down onto her book and paper as though she was afraid they may leap off the table in reaction to the surprise as well. Wide eyes hopped up to Nick's face, and immediately her ears (visible, hair tucked behind them) and cheeks went pink with embarassment. Another curse, muttered under her breath. Ugh kill me now.
All the same, she cleared her throat and put on a smile. Reached over to her phone and tapped it a few times to cut the music into silence.
"Hi, uh... Doctor..." She furrowed her brow a little, like the name didn't quite fit and tasted uncomfortable in her mouth to speak. There was already a Doc, and Nick Hyde was not he.
Anyway.
"How are you?"
Nick Hyde
Margot: jumps. Her hands clap over the pages of her book as soon as he says her name, and afterward there is the flush beneath her skin that - ah. That someone should have seen that.
Nick sees it, and he notes it in whatever private dossier he keeps of the Awakened folks he knows. He doesn't miss much, Nicholas Hyde.
But there is only a smile there for the apprentice, something just tinged with warmth - that is, until she calls him Doctor, at which point he laughs. He's not overly surprised (the mistake has been made before) but there's still just this gentle amusement, and insert into it something a little wry and self-deprecating and you have: "You'll offend the psychologists if you call me that. I'm just a lowly counselor. Calling me Nick is fine."
Which rather neatly resolves her conundrum with whether to reference him as another Doc, doesn't it. There is this space in conversation, the span of a couple of heartbeats, where his eyes sweep over her and what she's studying and he says, "How are you doing? Are you here waiting for Ned?"
Margot
"That's good," she covered quickly, "because calling more than one person Doc was going to get a little out of hand."
He'd find that her text book was on the subject of ecology, an introductory course. She was taking notes on a chapter about global warming's impact in particular (thanks, election season). She tucked the notebook into the textbook's pages to mark her place and closed it. Not hastening for privacy, but tidying her space up to make way for conversation instead.
Was she waiting for Ned? She blinked, then nodded. "Yeah, I was just..." She trailed off. Why was she explaining herself? She gave the impression of stopping short on what she was going to say because perhaps it would reveal too much. How many secrets was she supposed to keep? Who were you supposed to trust entirely? Eyes flicked around her. How safe could it be to talk openly?
At last, realizing what a suspicious nitwit she must look like, she sighed and gestured to the seat across from her at the table. An invitation for him to sit and join her, if he liked. "We compare notes often. Like we mentioned, trust is a hard thing... Especially with current events, you know?"
Nick Hyde
It is worth noting that until she had gestured for him to take a seat, he had remained distant, not encroaching on her space and looking as though he might be willing to leave at any moment. Margot might misinterpret this, perhaps with the assumption that she is keeping him or simply that he is not interested. His eyes linger on the title of her book, and his eyebrows are a pair of delicate dark arches.
At least until she invites him to sit, at which point he visibly relaxes, no longer ready to take flight at the first sign that his continued presence is crossing some boundary. Nick pulls the chair out with a quick flick of the wrist, this sort of casual elegance that might be Pen's influence, and he seats himself.
There is this quiet sort of understanding with which he absorbed even her suspicion. Then again, one could assume that this is an expression Nick's face frequently defaults to. "Current events? So Andrés has told you a few things about what's going on?"
Margot
If Margot looked like a freshman college student, it's because she was exactly that. Or, well, she was masquerading as one. Had pruned herself to be one up until the summer after her high school graduation when Everything Went To Shit. Now she was something of a Witch, who was beginning to sense what empowerment was and smell it in the wind but just still hadn't quite reached out to grasp it just yet.
So, for now, she looked like a college student. Today she dressed in a white fitted tee with "Ask me about my feminist agenda" printed across the front in black, a pair of olive colored corduroy pants, and black Toms shoes (or, more to the point, a knock-off pair purchased from a big box store-- the idea still stands, though). Plastic sunglasses pushed up into her hair to double as a headband and assist in the effort to keep the heavy brown mass out of her face. She even had a nose ring! A little silver hoop in one nostril. No tattoos, though. There was still time.
When he asked about what Sepúlveda had disclosed so far, the girl's dark brows hunkered back down into a familiar scowl of disapproval and worry. She was going to furrow herself into early wrinkles, just you wait.
"He told me about some half-thought-out plan to study and then infiltrate someplace that nobody should be."
Nick Hyde
Nicholas sits in the chair across from her and his hands are easily draped over the armrest of his chair and his legs positioned in this way that makes him almost look as though he'd found this forest throne and seated himself in it, as though he were some Sleeping King. And maybe some intrinsic element of him influences that, in the hair dark as a crow's wing that kinks over his forehead and around his ears and in the way his eyes tend to wander with that impression of Not Quite Here.
He, like Pen, sometimes looks like a painting too, if something more understated and somber in nature.
Just now his attention is on Margot though, at least for the time being. And there'd been this little lift of a corner of his mouth when he'd read her shirt, as though he would indeed ask her about her feminist agenda if the conversation weren't already tending in a certain direction. And here's this: he'd actually be interested.
"That's the plan right now as I understand it," and maybe she can tell that his voice is too careful here, because Andrés is Margot's mentor and whatever opinions Nicholas has he keeps to himself. "You don't sound as though you're placing a lot of confidence in that."
Margot
"Why would anybody waste time bothering the spirits around this place?!"
She didn't shout. Margot wasn't a shouter. But she did sound and look genuinely exasperated; that particular nugget of information had been eating away at her in a particular manner. Aggravated with the wrongness she believed there to be in that decision.
But what did she know? She was an Apprentice. The Doctor had to remind her when she voiced this frustration initially. Things could be traced, she had to remember that. Correspondence didn't solve all of the problems in the world-- she was just a little carried away by her fresh new understanding of it.
"Nobody should be marching up to the place in person. There's got to be a way to at least... at least... flush the building out first or something? But even then." Margot fretted visibly. She had a good two days to herself to mull over these worries already, so all kinds of disaster scenarios were compiled already. "It's their turf. And they're sending two people?"
Nick Hyde
There are a lot of questions that Margot voices, just now. And if he is surprised by her vehemence, or takes personally her questions about why they would choose to bother the spirits in this place, there's nothing to suggest it as such in his expression here.
Instead, Nick lifts one of his hands and drops his chin into it, letting it fall into the soft space between thumb and forefinger while he watches the apprentice. There's this: she's fretting, and she's so young and so new, and she wasn't at the meeting, and there is so much of all of this wrapped up in a sense of control. In power, and a lack of it.
So instead he only says, "What would you do instead?" A beat. "I only ask because sometimes people with new perspectives can help us notice new things."
Margot
The question caught her by surprise, and caused Margot to take pause. To stop and really look at the man sitting across from her. He seemed like the courtyard was his space, and it was a peaceful one at that. He sat comfortably enough in that chair whether he was leaned back with his legs just so, or if he was tilted forward instead to tuck his chin in his fingers as he was doing now.
Didn't he say he was a councelor? Suspicion began to bud somewhere in the corner of her mind. Careful, her inner voice cautioned. These are his waters in which you swim.
Don't get her wrong. She liked Nick. Paranoia was just strong in their people. In Ned. In her.
"I... don't know. I suggested leveraging distance, but Doc shot it down. It just... I don't think that something with the word "techno" in the name would be using the spirits to their defense much. Not when you can do things like make people pass out or get electrocuted."
Margot
[Manip 2 + Subterfuge 2: No problems here, don't you worry]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 7, 7) ( success x 3 )
Nick Hyde
[You seem a little uneasy. Perception + Empathy, Astute specialization.]
Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 3, 5, 5, 7, 10, 10) ( success x 5 ) [Doubling Tens]
Margot
Oh there's suspicion there alright. She tried to hide it, but there it was-- her poker face wasn't bad today but it wasn't great overall either.
Of course, it didn't hurt that Nick had an eye and ear for these sorts of things already-- keen-eyed for fear and insecurity in particular. Fortunately for him, Margot came with plenty of that.
She was worried about the good Dr. Sepúlveda in particular-- scared that he wouldn't come back from wherever he was marching off to. Scared of abandonment on account of that-- some underlying issue with the subject picked up on underneath the surface there as well (not again, i don't want to lose another one). Worried about the repercussions of the situation as a whole.
Nick Hyde
Paranoia is strong in their people. There are echoes of this conversation, however faint, in one that Nicholas had with someone else a long time ago. The roles were reversed, then.
Nick likes secrets, and he is a particularly good secret keeper, and the human heart hides so many. See here: Margot has sensed that he might be laying traps (and maybe he is), and Margot has the sort of fears that make a person startle when they hear a human voice they weren't expecting to hear at a moment when they weren't expecting to hear it, and Margot is holding onto Andrés like some stand in parental figure because it's hard to be a child in a large world all over again.
"They don't use spirits to their defense, much. Some of the intent in speaking to spirits has to do with that. Some of it has to do with the fact that there are a lot of spirits that hold a grudge - the Conventions have transformed the world they exist in too. And we can't afford to turn away allies."
He lifts his chin then and lets his hand fall away, back to the armrest. "Do you think I'm trying to trick you, Margot?" And here, he smiles, this thing that is gently amused and perhaps a little melancholy in its way. "I asked you a question because I want to know what you think."
Margot
"I don't--"
Margot looked startled all over again at the accusation. Did she think he was trying to trick her? Big eyes glanced about-- where was Ned anyways? Oh, divine timing, please come to her rescue...
But the glance about brought no relief, and she was still left on the spot with the Chakravanti smiling gentle and knowing. She looked caught, because of course she was-- her attempt at being casual had failed. He raised a decent enough point about using the spirits as allies since the Technocrats wouldn't be doing so already. She was too inexperienced to consider all the angles and options before getting fired up over her own conclusions made in speculation. There's a reason she wasn't invited to the meeting.
"No, I don't. I just don't know if this is..." She made a face, and escaped eye contact by looking at the soup she had hardly touched (a film was growing around the spoon over the surface of the soup, a testament to how long it had been sitting thus far). "I realized I'm unloading on you when I was waiting to talk to Ned instead, and you seem really nice and all but..."
You're not one of us, said the face he could read so easily. She was worried about Doc and wanted to talk to Ned about it. Didn't want to talk to Nick about it because maybe, just maybe this War would make a Traditions war too and maybe then alliances could shake?
Nick Hyde
Margot looks started, and she stammers, and Nick's amusement transforms just slightly, something there in the way his eyes glint and turn lively and their focus is solely on her, now. There aren't razors to it, nothing malicious necessarily - though she might certainly read it that way. It's closer to: something in him thinks it's a lot of fun to keep other people on their toes. He enjoys her surprise. He'd enjoy it more if it weren't so clearly unpleasant for her.
He does not hide this.
"But you don't know me," Nick finishes for her, "and it's entirely reasonable, and wise, to be cautious of people you don't know. Traditionalists or not."
There are these few seconds where he considers her further, enough space to breathe in and breathe out again. Then he says, "It's all right if you do want to talk to me, though, when you're ready. With everything going on, I just want to make sure that you and Ned don't feel isolated, and that you aren't isolated. I have a responsibility to you."
Margot
Relief washed over the little witch when Nick spoke up and finished the thought for her. Sure, it was an inclusive community and all, and sure her mentor trusted him, but she'd met the man once before. She didn't know him, and he both understood and forgave that. Commended it, even. It was wise.
The moment to breathe in and out was utilized for exactly that-- breathe in (one), breathe out (two). She was steadier, sitting more comfortably in her chair when he spoke up again. He earned himself a curious raise of the eyebrows and her pause-- she'd been reaching across the table to tip her phone to view the screen. Check the time. Hunt for texts. She was going to be waiting regardless, but all the same.
The time was approved of, and if there was a message she didn't answer it immediately. The phone was tucked into her lap instead of being left on the table now, and she shook her head with an air of disagreement with what he'd said.
"You don't owe us anything, nor are you responsible for us." A beat, then: "Why do you worry so much about isolation? So what if we were to... I don't know, hole up somewhere and do our own studies instead?"
Nick Hyde
Margot looks at her phone, scans the time and looks for messages. Nick, he'll be thirty in a few days, and people in his specific age group are in some ways a bridge between these damn kids shackled to their cell phones and people who lived their childhoods mainly within the era of analog. Still: he recognizes her searching her phone for what it is, this bid to give herself a little space from the conversation, and she needs that right now.
So instead of watching her while she scans messages his eyes instead drift off elsewhere, and maybe he finds something of interest in one of the photos that line the walls of the cafeteria or maybe he notices an awkward misspelling in one of the advertisements there. He notices something, is the point, and that something doesn't involve Margot for however long she needs.
"I said responsibility to, not responsible for," he says quietly, but with this tone that implies that he sees a distinction. But this is inserted there, unobtrusive, and Margot has asked him a question (two questions) and here he has a choice.
"I think I mentioned at dinner that I was a Disparate for a long time myself - oh, Pen told you that," because sometimes he forgets. "For two and a half years, before I was initiated into my Tradition." Beat, a thought. "Regardless, I got in over my head and I think without my former mentor stepping in when she did, I would have Fallen or moved so far outside Reality that I couldn't find my way back."
This is when he looks back at her. "I don't know Alex, the man who was taken, but I wonder whether he had someone watching out for him. What do you think would happen to you and Ned, if something - gods forbid - happened to Andrés? What would you do, as things are right now?"
Margot
The distinction between responsibility to and responsible for was one that Margot was smart enough to understand the difference between. As to whether she cared about the gray area that existed between the two enough to treat them as especially different, though, remained to be seen. Rather than bicker the differences, she was focused more on the question he'd posed for her there at the end.
She sat up straight in her chair. Closed her hands over the phone whose screen was locked and tucked between thighs away from view anyways. Mouth set in a serious line, for this was something that she'd been considering herself.
He could see that she'd been thinking about this carefully already. Because she wasn't shocked by the thought, but rather grimly accustomed to the potential at this point. She'd mulled it over enough, goodness knows. That, and her answer came a little faster than it probably would have otherwise.
"I would try to network for help. I'd want to call you or your wife first." She conceded this, understanding that it was the point he was trying to get to with expressing the responsibility he'd feel to help if that situation (god forbid) were to arise. If Ned and Margot showed up at his office or doorstep with hard news and no direction, could he turn them away?
"But," she added, and glanced down at the table when she did, having previously held the Initiate's eye while talking. "If Ned had another plan, I'd probably go along with it."
Nick Hyde
Nick can tell that she is mulling his question over; he can tell that this is a topic to which she has given some thought. (Of course she has. Fears have a way of bringing these things up, and in the bold, they make them think about the unthinkable.)
There are ways in which he and Margot aren't that different at all. Nicholas knows this; he is privy to some information about Margot that she doesn't have about him. And perhaps, if he has his way, won't ever.
"So you have each other," he says, and there is this note there which is not quite tacit approval; something warmer and more akin to understanding, perhaps. "But if it did ever come to that, wouldn't you rather have other people that you know you could trust for some things? Or, to put it in some other terms," and here, a flick of his eyes toward the book she'd shut and set aside earlier, "things raised in isolation wither and die. You have to allow plants to cross-pollinate in order to have a healthy garden. All that."
Margot
So you have each other. Margot blushed, but nodded all the same. She couldn't begin to guess the ways in which she and Nick were similar, aside from their shared gift in magick. The Doctor told her once that everyone Awoke and they were usually situations not unlike hers and Neds-- terrifying, bloody, and left you reeling with no surface to grasp and no hand to hold. No explanation provided. Maybe that was where they were similar? If he had his way, though, she'd never know.
The reference to pollination earned him a raised eyebrow. "...Perhaps not the best metaphor," she offered, but smiled just a tiny bit (shaky, a truce, a request for a lighter air). "But I see what you're saying. And I appreciate it. I'm sorry for the funny way of showing it there earlier, but I do."
The phone in her lap buzzed-- a message received. This drew her attention for fewer seconds than could be counted on one hand, just enough time to read and then lock the screen once again. Whatever the message was, it prompted her to stand. She plucked the sweatshirt from the back of her chair and pulled it on (but left it unzipped). "Looks like I'll have to catch Ned later, he's staying on for a while longer."
Textbook and food tray were gathered up, both of them. She hadn't carried a bag with her so the book was tucked under one arm instead-- thankfully she'd only carried the one along with. Certainly she wouldn't just depart on that note, though.
"You don't, ah, need a ride or something do you?"
Nick Hyde
Margot...blushes. Nick doesn't miss that either.
But for now, he chooses to store it, sit on it, because: everything in its time, right? And she smiles, and so does he, and he waves away her comment on his ability to craft metaphor. "They can't all be winners," he says.
Margot is rising, and so does he; being able to sense when a conversation has come to its end is a useful talent. He shakes his head when she asks whether he needs a ride, the corners of his eyes crinkling with amusement. "Thanks for offering, but no," he says. "I was on my way out to my car when I caught you. It's back out that way - " a gesture toward one of the side doors - "in the employee parking lot."
Where, he imagines, she did not park herself, and so they part ways. Before they do he catches her eyes again, as he did when he stopped earlier, and he says, "I meant what I said earlier. If you need to talk to me, you can, and you know where to find me."
Another smile, this quick thing that is only a little knowing. "Say hi to Ned for me when you see him later."
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