Margot
When the pair had gone into the old second-run theater the weather had been nearly hot, with the sun shining bright and harsh. There were strong winds above and the clouds raced their way across the skies. Dark clouds had been building on the western horizon, and by the time whatever film they'd opted to see had finished they had brought their thunder and downpour overhead.
Margot had wrapped her sweater closed against the chill the sudden rain-and-hail had brought, and suggested they take shelter under the generous theater awning away from the doors. Found a spot off to the side with a large potted bush to block the backsplash of the gutters overflowing with the sudden onslaught.
"Nice, did you see that lightning?" She remarked, sounding moderately impressed. Her phone tugged from her pocket and she glanced down to check the time. Saw that she had a voicemail and her brow knitted together.
"Weird, that's Portland's area code. Hang on."
Margot then plugged up one ear with a knuckle and put her phone to the other ear so that she could hear the voicemail. Almost immediately the good mood from an easy evening drained from her face, and the color soon followed. Whatever she was hearing, it wasn't good.
Ned
The rainfall hadn't surprised him. They'd caught a glance at the edge of the clouds rolling in just before the movie had begun. That things were in full swing now, with hail and downpours was inevitable really. Half of his expectation could easily be blamed on his penchant for pessimism, mind you but getting proven right when anticipating the worst, was not as fun or comforting as it seemed.
Lightning flashes and their is a flicker of recognition from the young Orderly, who hasn't reached for his phone to take it off airplane mode, since the movie started. There's a little too much responsibility for coming in on 'surprise shifts' that can drain good (read: normal) times like these of their pleasantness.
Kind of like-
"Portland...."
Ned's own features had taken on a cast of confusion. Why was that familiar again??
Margot
[I should'a thrown these dice what was I thinking: willpower]
Dice: 5 d10 TN7 (1, 3, 4, 5, 6) ( botch x 1 )
Margot
The message went on for a good minute and a half, two minutes perhaps. Margot's face was hidden in part by the hood that she'd tugged up soon as they stepped outside and by the sheet of brown hair fallen out from under it as well, but what could be seen had clearly gone ashen. Her eyes had settled in the near distance and grown wide with terror, unfocused as something worse than just terror and memory alone (some traumatized disorderly combination of the two) rose like a tide and shook her sense of being rooted and safe and present.
Her hands shook, and the phone slipped from her grasp. Her shaking hands moved to cover her mouth tightly, to muffle the panicked in-out-in-out gasp for breath that had her nostrils flaring.
Ned would recognize this. Earlier this year he had to take a knife from her when it was happening. This time he wouldn't have to take a knife away from her, but at least then he didn't have to worry about the general public around them to make things worse.
Through a part in her fingers she gasped: "Fuck."
Ned
(Dex + Ath: Whoops?)
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (7, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 5 )
Ned
The phone slips from Margot's grasp and Ned's reactions are on point. The orderly in him instantly activates the moment he recognizes the flush of panic and sudden disassembling of a psyche. His hand shoots out before the Phone has a chance to get further than past her wrists, snagged in his grip even as he steps in front of Margot to inspect her crumbling features.
A quick glance lashes out at the world, as if to stave off invasive presences that might be wondering if she's ok or are simply curious at watching the meltdown, but the rain has kept crowds to a minimum of Just them, outside this second-hand theatre so it's one less concern to worry over.
"Breathe. Concentrate on your breathing. Slow it down. Force it to conform to your thinking and your control, not the other way around. Breathe."
He'd gather her up in a firm wrap of arms, eyes continuing to scan for possible intrusion from others. He'd shake his head and mouth 'It'll be fine' at anyone that got close, and maintain that grip until she'd assembled a bit of herself. Or was at least capable of words.
(Charisma 2 + Expression 2)
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (6, 7, 9, 9) ( success x 4 )
Margot
Margot didn't fight away when Ned created shelter for her with his arms. Her head tucked into the space made and she labored to get her breath under control. It would slip and start gasping-panting again here and there but she'd swallow and suck in a deep breath and start over. It took a couple minutes of this for her to manage words again, and when she did she pleaded that they go.
She'd then step back from his arms and chest and scrub the tears from under her eyes with hands that were still shaking. "Around the building," she managed in a strained voice, and nodded to indicate the way. The forceful push of rain and hail had let up in that time, retreated to a steadier pattern of rain. Nothing that a hood couldn't withstand for several minutes before an umbrella or shelter would be wise.
Once far enough away from the awning and potential curious ears and eyes, she started searching for the phone that he caught. "Where's my phone... It's... It's fucking Luke, I didn't think they'd give him my number."
Ned
"....Fuck."
Ned repeats, though not as intensely as Margot had the first time. This was an acceptance of that pessimism that seemed to drive him in most circumstances. Ned's already handing her phone off to her when they round the corner, allowing her to turn and skip asking for it. He marches past her a bit, ducking under his own hood, a thick black one beneath a thicker coat (because Ned was the sort to plan for rainy days, even when the weather promised sun and heat...and he had a weather app).
"Alright. We need to get to someplace a little more secure than this. Being out in the open could prove problematic. Once that's done, we can sort out how to respond properly."
A frown.
"We'll head back to my place. He doesn't know me so it should be secure enough for the moment."
Margot
Margot was well aware of what weather would come, but still enjoyed to play spectater to the display of a good storm. She'd dressed in jeans and sneakers and brought this black hooded sweatshirt to go over her T-shirt for when the heat of the day broke for the rains. She walked with her shoulders up, tense and defensive. With her phone back in her hands she stared at the number for a few more moments, then tore her eyes away to look back up while they walked. Breathe in. Breathe out.
"Okay," she agreed to heading back to his apartment instead of her own. "You're right, okay."
She swallowed and dug around in her sweater pockets, found her keys and held them out to Ned with a look of mingled request and apology-- she always defaulted to being the driver, knowing his own aversion to the road given her (loose) understanding of the circumstances of his Awakening. With her heart trying to jackhammer out of her chest and throat and the bottom trying to drop from her stomach, though....
Along with the keys, she handed over her phone again, with the voicemail queued up for him to hear. Like his hearing would help ground her further, assure her that her panickiness wasn't blowing things out of the water. Reality could be tricky when it kept trying to tinge black and red at the edges.
Ned
Ned's own anxiety seemed to rear glance down at the keys. It was a moment, stark and clear. A sharp balking pause that had her continue forward a pace or two. He's staring at the keys with a heavy frown. Before she has a chance to reconsider or apologize or voice anything, however, he's taking them up and offering a quick nod, breathing as well.
He took the phone as well after a quick sidelong glance in her direction, slipping the keys into his other hand, even as they pushed toward the car waiting on the edge of a side street. They'd lucked out finding a Broken meter and he took a couple quick glances to the street in either direction before crossing toward Margot's little civic.
All the while he's listening to the message with something like concentration on his face. It might seem like he's lost for a second, but after the message is done, he's dropping the phone into his pocket and opening the door to the car, glancing across the roof at her with a nod of reassurance.
"Let's just get someplace safe for now."
The car door slips shut, he hands her back her phone. The keys go in and the engine kicks on.
Margot
It was a little bit of a walk to the broken meter they'd found and parked by-- outside the lot, against the curb. Margot'd pursed her lips when she saw Ned's hesitation but just as her fingers started to curl around the keys again he'd snatched them up out of her hand resolutely and they were on their way.
As they walked, Ned heard the following play from Margot's phone:
"Marge." A huff of breath, laughter breathed but not well-vocalized. "You run away, you change your number. I had to get it from the receptionist at Mom's facility. I'm hurt, you've got me thinking you don't want to talk to me anymore."
There was a cadence and confidence of charm to the words but the voice itself was rough and cracked. It was a man, probably around their age or somewhere in between. He coughed aside the receiver and continued on.
"Mom's doing well. She misses you. I mean, I think she misses you, but it's hard to tell. On account of, well, you know... But hey, that reminds me, I have a couple of questions for you. The details are a little blurry, but I'm pretty sure that at some point before you am-scrayed across the continent you blew off my fucking arm!" There's a slam and rattle in the background, glass upon wood, a bottle upon a table. Breathing, thin and ragged for a few seconds, then:
"Call me. You have to come home sometime, we both want to see you. And don't go changing your number again."
After that the phone went in Ned's pocket, and Margot didn't say a word of it. Just nodded along with him when he suggested they just go for now, talk it out when they're elsewhere. She fastened herself into the passenger seat and sat with her hands over her face, fingers threaded into her hair, breathing her way back to calm. It made for a quiet passenger in the drive, but that was probably okay by Ned, as it allowed him to focus on the road. Margot's car was reliable and easy enough to drive, at least.
Ned
The ride was slow. Easy on the both of them, really. The evening traffic was relatively light, especially in the rain, but the weather didn't make Ned's efforts any easier. He brakes at every stop sign. Stops at every yellow light and waits until the way is absolutely clear of pedestrians before he makes any turns, left or right.
It is a long and quiet ride back to his place, but eventually, with the rain finally petering off into small plops and drops, they make it back to his apartment building. He extracts the keys and hands them back to her rather quickly, almost as if they're hot to touch. He pushes the driver's side door open and locks the door before slipping it closed.
"Neighbourhood's not the greatest so take anything of value out, yeah?"
Before fishing around in his coat pocket for his own keys.
"You can stay here tonight. We'll get you sorted and I can go by yours to pick up some of your stuff. After that, maybe we can find someone with some Corr to put up some wards on your building..."
Keys go into the security door and he's pulling it open, holding it there to turn and look at her for the first time since they climbed into the car. The hallway ahead is brightly lit, the elevators (two of them) dingy looking, at least by the door's appearance.
Margot
A long, quiet, gentle ride was good for the both of them. One uneventful drive later and they were parked at Ned's apartment building in a questionably unsafe part of town, and by that point Margot's panic attack had subsided. She'd scrubbed away the marks left from tears through mascara and was breathing normally again. Her mouth was tightly closed, tense, and she still looked pale in the harsh light of the hallway into the building when Ned turned to survey her, but at least she had her shit together.
She was standing with her hood up and hands in her hoodie pockets, one pocket full of phone, the other holding her keys. The only thing of value she felt the need to bring in was the purse hanging from its strap off her shoulder. She was looking at the elevator doors without giving them much consideration, then shifted her gaze up to Ned's face. It was a moment where a weak smile of thanks would be appropriate, but she didn't bother to muster it. Still, it didn't take any of the genuine thanks away from her words.
"Thank you. I didn't consider... I thought he'd be in prison longer, I don't know why he's out so early." She wet her dry lips and raised a hand to scrub her face and sigh and step across the building's threshold into the hallway.
"....Didn't think he'd remember so much either."
Ned
"...We're going to plan this out, Margot."
Ned's reassurance is not the emotional kind. He is similar to the Doc in that manner at least. Margot steps through the door and into the hallway and Ned glances behind them toward the street and landscape beyond, to ensure no one's bothered to follow them in.
"Make sure you're as prepped as possible for dealing with this circumstance and that includes handling all the preventative stuff."
Elevator button presses. It fails to light up but Ned's confident of it's arrival if his posture is any indication.
"He's out. He's got your number. We know that much. Confrontation potential is high. The longer we wait for him, the worse off it gets. Judging by the phone call, he's still pretty emotional. Which is good. We can use that." Matter of fact. Eyes on the Elevator. Contingency placement.
"We shouldn't be waiting for him, either. To calm down, formulate a plan of his own and then possibly come find you. Won't do your nerves any good and it you can't just pick up from your apartment entirely. He got in contact, which means he's got a number available which means he can be contacted. We set this up on our terms, in our way. Know your enemy...means you rob of him of his best weapon..."
The elevator chimes open, a dusky brown interior that smells vaguely of new furniture. Ned steps in, turning with his hands in his pockets to stare up at the Floor numbers.
"...Fear."
Margot
Reassurance and calming a person down could be executed in several ways. Margot ran with a pair of Mages that didn't lean toward hugs and headpats and comfort. Both were too logical, the Doc too stiff and Ned simply too practical for such things. Making a plan and remembering how solid the ground they stood on was the approach he would take, and Margot quietly listened, nodding once or twice here or there.
As the elevator doors creaked their way open, though, Margot's brow knit together and she frowned ahead at first, then to Ned's shoulder when he stepped ahead and into the 1970's elevator that'd carry them to whatever floor he lived on. Frowning, she stepped in after him and turned to face the doors, her own hands in her pockets as well.
"Of course I know him. He's my brother." The last three words were as much a statement of how much she knew as they were a hollow plea. She didn't like the word 'enemy', it had dropped within her like a rock in an empty pail.
"....He's not going to do anything to Mom. That's the only reason I'd go back, for her. He won't hang around waiting to see if I call his bluff or not."
Ned
"...You need to be prepared for the eventuality that he isn't your Brother anymore. Past reflection, maybe-"
The doors chime open. Ned didn't live that far up, apparently. Stucco walls and cheap well stained carpeting lead the way down a series of close together doors. Bachelors didn't need a lot of room after-all. Ned's fumbling for his keys again, eyeballing the front door one.
"-but ultimately, he's got motives and he is going to try and use those memories between the two of you to push back back and put you on the defense. Just like mentioning your mother. Just like mentioning what he remembers-"
The door unlocks and Ned nudges it open, the chill of the rain sweeping out to slap at him. He'd left a window open again. God damn it.
"-If ever there was a time for you to go looking for a reason to talk to a War Goddess. Now's about right, really..."
He pushes in through the door, the narrow hallway leading into the main room, featured only a single simple narrow door which led into the bathroom, with it's stall shower, tiny counter and toilet all crammed into a four by three space. The main room was a kitchenette, with hot plate and mini-fridge, a coffee table, with a futon that obviously turned into a bed, clothes evvverrryyyyywhere (#orderlylife) and a corner dedicated exclusively to takeout boxes.
Ned begins kicking most of the clothes into corner, the laundry basket up against the wall already jammed with scrubs and various other articles of clothing.
"Don't worry about the clothes. Anything not in the bin, is clean." No closet space though and really, Ned didn't work a job that made this place anything more than somewhere to crash and isolate for a few hours between panic and paranoia attacks.
The Futon is surprisingly bare of clothing, the sheets on it fresh looking, the quilt draped over the back, comfortable and thick enough to stave off winter. Not cheap.
He shuffles his way toward the windows on the far fall, gaping open on both sides and snaps them shut with a pair of grunts, before turning with a puff of breath to eyeball her.
"You want some tea?"
Margot
Inside of Ned's cramped little apartment (okay, so hers did have a little bit more space in it after all, she'd scoffed with disbelief when he told her that once before) Margot shrugged out of her rain-sodden hoodie and stepped out of her wet shoes as well in a show of manners long since ingrained. Some out of the way place was found for both and she stood near the mouth of the brief hallway before the main room while Ned bustled about moving clothes out of the way. She watched him, frowning soft and perpetual with her fingers tapping together anxiously in front of the bright blazing yellow of her T-shirt (which declared the patriarchy to be bullshit in pretty cursive font).
Did she want tea? Margot blinked, then nodded. "Yeah, thanks." Then moved toward the futon but didn't quite sit yet. Hovered nearby it instead.
"Don't you have siblings?" She asked him this suddenly, looking across the small space between the futon's arm and the kitchenette he was doubtlessly getting water boiling in. "You'd know, then, if you did, that he's always gonna be my brother. He hasn't been a good one for a long damn time, but he's still..." A scowl, a wrinkle of her nose, and she jammed her hands in her pockets.
"...I dunno what he'll have in his head to try and do. I mean....," she cringed, already knowing how bad this was going to sound, but said it anyways, "it was just an arm?"
Ned
"Sister and an adopted Brother. Normal types. Both much younger. We don't talk anymore. Live with my Mother on the other side of the country."
Once again, matter-of-fact, delivered with the sort of dismissal Ned seemed practiced in. If it bothered him, Margot would probably see it on his face. Control of the practical, Ned has down. Control of his emotional state, not as much.
"All I know about siblings, is what I know about family. You choose who you call family. Everyone else is just a relative. Otherwise, that love they obligate you with, makes you a target and taking an arm is enough of a reason to Hate someone. Or love them, depending on how you look at it."
He's futzing about with the Kettle on the hot plate. Manual style, none of that electric stuff (because Ned worked the sort of job that leaving an electric anything on would warrant coming back to a fire hazard). He plugged the hot plate in behind it's pedestal of a cupboard system and then pulled the cupboards open to reveal a dozen and a half types of tea, with all the necessary bits and pieces you could possibly pour into it from honey, to various sugar types, to several flaked and sprinkly things if you wanted to get fancy. Below those on the lowest shelf, was the coffee, also in a half dozen types from instant to the stuff barista's bragged about.
Caffeine was god to anyone in the medical profession.
"You plan on keeping him alive?" Blunt. Straight forward. He's plucked out three different types of tea and set them on the cupboard, pointing at them as if indicating she should choose. Meanwhile, still in his jacket, he moves around what few piles of clothes are left to the faucet and the tiny sink, just beside and above the fridge to fill the kettle.
Margot
Another evening, perhaps, and Margot may have pursued a track of questions about Ned's more mundane aspects of life, the things that she realized she didn't know-- like siblings, a great example. But tonight she was distracted, and Ned was matter-of-fact and didn't seem bothered to linger on the family he had on the other side of the country. He was pointing out the difference between family and relative, bustling about to get the necessary components to tea ready.
The question he'd presented had Margot fixing him with an expression of dull shock. "Jesus, Ned." That was all he got at first, the look and exclamation, then Margot drifted over to the counter to scope out the tea options. She leaned toward minty first, something marketed as calming if no mint presented itself. Eventually, though frowning and keeping her arms tucked over her chest to smother the flutter-ache-worry within it, she conceded an answer.
"I don't want to kill him, I've got enough of his blood on my hands already."
Ned
"....And vice versa."
He offers in response. The kettle continues to fill slowly. The faucet is crap, apparently.
Margot's options do present a Peppermint option, from a Herbal store no less if the lacking brand name is any indication.
"You hang onto your guilt too much, you know that? Might as well be Catholic...." The kettle's finally full and he turns off the faucet, moving around the clothes and pieces once more to set it on the hot plate and flick the dial to max to get things going. He plucks up the Peppermint box, seemingly agreeing with her 'calming' thoughts and pulls a pair of bags out. Then goes hunting across the room for the overhead cupboard above the sink and faucet. A dozen mugs, two plates, and a couple of bowls,a longside a plastic tray of utensils all mashed together, present themselves to the eye for the few seconds the cupboard is open. Ned plucks down a spoon and a pair of featureless mugs, one white, one purple, and returns to the hotplate, setting both atop the inactive element. The kettle's metal bottom begins to ting and pop as it heats up.
"Killing him has to be an option, Margot. If you can't turn him, shift his attention or get him to recognize he needs help."
A pause.
"Especially given how intensive life has gotten for you since then..."
Margot
Peppermint was agreeable for both of them, and for her part Margot tried to just stay out of the way. She knew that tiny kitchens weren't made for more than one person, and though she wanted to put her hands to work to help aleviate the restlessness and start helping put tea boxes away, or tidy up, or shift clothes piles, this wasn't her space. She settled for keeping her hands tucked between elbows and ribs and chewing her lip instead.
"Or Jewish," she added to his comment about Catholicism. Following that, or more to the point, following his insisting that killing has to stay on the table, quiet washed over the witch again. Her mouth pursed and she was shaking her head slowly, perhaps without even realizing it so small was the motion.
Eventually she looked back up to Ned, appearing like someone between a cliff's edge and a hard place would.
"If it comes down to his life or mine, obviously I'm going to end up doing what I have to. It happened already before. It's just.... that has to be, like, Plan C. Or D. Or F. Plan F for Fuck That."
Ned
"Listen..."
He breathes, because there wasn't anything left for either of them to do and Ned's been skirting the topic as best he can which...really isn't very good, but there comes a time to be direct which he obviously hasn't been so far. He pulls out the sweet bin, with it's various sweeteners and sets it next to the mugs.
"...If it comes down to it, you're going to do what you have to do but I will not let it come to something like that. No plans A through F, just plan A, with a B. You're plan A. You get whatever shot you want to take however you want to take it at this Brother of yours. You take aim, pull the trigger and it goes off however you mean it to. Fine."
The kettle's beginning to hiss.
"But if that doesn't work then I'm Plan B. I'm going to do my best to take my shot and make sure I'm keeping you, me and the Doc as safe as possible. That doesn't include taking your personal feelings into account, until after the fact. You're either going to hate me, resent me or cry on my shoulder or all three when it's done but I'm giving you fair warning right now. He doesn't get to hurt you anymore. That simple. So when it comes down to it, make sure you get your Plan A correct....cause I really don't want you hating me and you really need to sort out your problems."
The kettle begins to whistle and he snatches it off the hot plate before it wakes the neighbours. He drops his eyes to the mugs, filling both with their tea bags and then turns off the hot plate. He brings the kettle over to the sink and sets it down inside, before returning for his tea, hand already reaching for the honey.
Margot
Listen.
Margot straightened up and filled her lungs with a breath and steadied her gaze on Ned. It was time to lay it out straight, and she was willing to hear Ned out. She usually was, after all-- it was a seldom thing that she was cutting anyone off into silence, and it was difficult to picture her covering her ears and refusing to come out from under the shelter of denial. They were both Awakened and floundering with it for a time. If either were built for denial, they wouldn't have fought so hard to seek out understanding.
The explanation of their roles as Plans A and B was digested easily. It was Ned's explaining why he really didn't want to have to come down to Plan B that had the most effect. Edges of resolve softened with-- what was that? Gratitude? Sympathy? Affection? Some blend of the three no doubt.
"Ned." He was filling mugs with water and teabags and pulling out honey and sweeteners, so she spoke his name to still his attention first.
"That, ah... means a lot. So thank you." The tea bag would need time to steep and the mug was probably quite hot to the touch still, so she let it be. Gaze fell away from Ned and to the mug, watching the water stain with peppermint and other herbs. "Hopefully we won't have to find out if that'd be enough to hate you."
Ned
(Willpower)
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 4, 4, 4, 6) ( success x 1 )
Ned
"If it is, I'm gonna have the Doc mind wipe the both of us."
It's...really difficult to tell if Ned is actually joking when he says this. The sheer level of dead pan is epic in proportion. If only for a split second. Then he's grinning wildly and picking up his mug with a hiss of intolerance. The honey goes in, the spoon stirs and he is finally ready to doff his jacket and sling it into one of the many clothes cluttered corners.
"You're gonna sleep on the Futon-" waving at any objections "-because I've got a Shift coming up in a couple of hours so we can trade off. Computer's set to netflix at your leisure so waste some time until you feel tired or after you wake up. Cereal's in the cupboard next to the dishes and there's some fruit in the fridge for garnishing. Milk should be good for at least another few days. I'll pick up some more groceries after work's done."
He's blowing on his tea, frowning at the steam.
"Cool it, you."
Talking to the mug of liquid. He slumps down onto the couch, blowing continuously on the contents.
Margot
The pause in the air is nearly thick enough to cut and then spread on a bagel, after Ned said he'd have their memories wiped. Margot was struggling to determine if he was joking or not, and the wide wild grin that followed didn't entirely convince her otherwise. It was let to lie, though, as talk of arrangements was made. She offered no objection to the assignment of sleeping on the futon, for frankly she was having trouble seeing where else her head would be laying for the evening. The question of where he'd sleep was soon answered by an explanation that he simply wouldn't, not for a while at least (the unfortunate hours of hospital workers....).
Her own mug was taken up, flavored with a light amount of sugar, and she drifted to join him on the futon. She eased into a sit slowly and didn't slump, but leaned forward over her lap with her elbows on her knees. Blew the steam from the top of her tea absently.
"...I'll bet that Pen and Nick would be able to take Yorick. They've probably got the space for him." A pause, then she frowned and turned her head to look past her arm and shoulder back to where Ned lounged. "I don't really know how many details I want to give them. I don't really want... I know people worry and care and I just don't want them getting too involved in this, you know?"
Ned
"Especially given they're mages. Nick might sit you down on a therapy couch while Pen-"
Ned stares at the open air for a second, imagining the Flambeau's response.
"Well yeah. Crusades have been started over less, I think."
He sipped gingerly at his tea.
"Yorick can come here and puddle about for as long as you need. I'll be in and out with work this week, so we may not catch each other too much. In the meantime, you can sort out what you want to do about this circumstance." Another pause to sip. "Your place. Is it lodged under the student housing? School attached? Cause that will be easy for a relative to find through the school."
Margot
The thought of Nick's therapy couch didn't worry her that much. She's already talked over her post-traumatic stress disorder with him once before and survived. She wasn't too eager to go through it a second time, though. She had the feeling that he would coach conflict resolution and just wasn't sure how far that would get her, honestly. Pen's enthusiastic response to a threat upon these bright-eyed Apprentices was well summed up by the mention of Crusades as well.
The offer to access here was met with a smile of thanks and a nod of acknowledgement, then Margot turned her head to face forward once more. Finally took a scalding sip of her tea and hummed thoughtfully at the question he'd presented.
"It is.... the scholarship helps fund the rent, so it's all in the papers somewhere no doubt." Her back curved forward more after a small sigh as she started plotting through this aloud. "It took me three days to get out here myself. I'm guessing he's still in Maine, I don't think he would have waited until he was halfway here or here already to have left a message quite like that. Could be here this week, could wait... I don't know. If I could just track him this would be easier, but I'm not there yet."
Another sip from her mug, and she added: "Maybe Andraste wants me to face this first. Closing this chapter might be a test before she'll let me Seek."
Ned
"Nevermind what the Doc would do to him..."
Ned murmurs, thoughts of disassembling and anatomical re-arrangement already drifting through and beyond his current thoughts.
"Blood's part of your toolset and you've got Corr though...no time" Frowning now over his tea. "Can't do much more beyond anticipating him in the now. Suppose we could maybe put out some feelers to see if some other Mage might want to track him for us. Can make up some excuse or-...nah, that's not gonna work. Too many questions and threats."
He pauses, tapping his chin.
"Unless we do it digitally. He's gotta be spending something. Could maybe tap one of the VAs in town...see if they can trace a credit card or bank card of his. That'll at least put him in the city at some point or another and it's innocent enough not to warrant too much in the way of suspicion."
On the subject of War Gods, Ned is unsurprisingly succinct.
"I think dealing with your Brother, counts as bonus points in Andraste's 'get on with it' column..."
Margot
The thought of what their Mad Scientist mentor might do if he was feeling protective and got a hold of Luke sent a small shudder down Margot's spine. The brief image of a flayed body on a cold steel table hung around just long enough to be recognized before it was promptly chased away.
"Grace might be willing to help with that. She's the perfect level of acquaintence for it too-- nice enough to help, probably, but not close enough to really start prying into my personal reasons or hang ups for things." There, a next step, a plan. At least in part. She was willing to bet Grace would be able to set it up that alerts on Luke's spending could come right to her phone, without having to keep the Virtual Adept in the loop as a middle man for this information. Ned tapped his chin thoughtfully and Margot tapped the side of her mug just the same way.
They agreed on the subject of Andraste, and finally Margot relaxed enough to lean back onto the couch instead of hovering forward at its edge any longer. Took another, deeper sip of the tea now that it had cooled just a little more.
"Suppose it was gonna come to this eventually, either with me going East or him coming West. I thought going back would be best but... I suppose my definition of 'home court advantage' has changed since then."
Ned
Ned sets his tea on the small coffee table, the laptop at the far corner pulled close and flicked open. There was no password on it, simply a quick touch pad click that opened up a sparse desktop. The netflix logo was the most obvious hallmark.
"Good. Grace is the only body I know that could possibly pull that off. We'll set up a meeting at some point in the next couple of days to go over the details. After that, we can better plan for where and when to deal with this. That also gives you time to work on your Plan A."
He pulls himself to his feet with a grunt, moving around the room to dig through piles of clothes or otherwise. Eventually he comes up with a pair of scrubs (which he sniffs, considers and shrugs) before heading toward the bathroom.
"Our shit comes back to haunt us all eventually. Figure that's what a Seeking's all about anyway. Might as well head off anything Andraste can show you during that clusterfuck by dealing with it now." The bathroom door closes most of the way as Ned gets changed, already prepping for the work shift to come.
April 29, 2016
April 19, 2016
April 17th, 2016 - Important/Relevant/Powerful [William]
Margot
One Saturday afternoon William received a text out of the blue from Margot (just Margot in his phone, she still hasn't submitted a surname to him yet).
Hey. I've been doing a lot of reading.
A dangerous statement coming from any Mage, smart ones like her in particular. Let's continue.
Want to go explore the woods and mountains tomorrow? I'd like to go hunting for Magic in the wild it comes from.
A funny way of asking somebody out for a hike, but there you had it. The start of a plan to head out toward the foothills the next day. MargoApt offered to drive since it was her harebrained scheme anyways (so she may as well eat the gas cost), and when she picked him up William'd discover the weather chill, the skies overcast and bright like the flashing steel of a sword. Margot was behind the steering wheel in sturdy jeans, dusty hiking boots, and a heavy wool sweater of black and red stripes. A brown jacket was in the backseat along with her backpack (stuffed full with plenty of day trip into the mountain essentials, of course).
Time would pass as it did (when left unbothered), and soon enough they were out on a hiking trail and Margot was standing at a bend in the path, paused and surveying a stretch of meadow and grass before the grass gave way, submitting to the trees that sucked the nutrients from the earth and the sun from the skies.
"Nothing to be found on the trail. Come on," and she stepped off the path and started down the small slope to the meadow instead. As she went, hands on her pack straps, she called over her shoulder to William.
William
Literacy is a dangerous thing.
Nothing good ever came out of reading a book when you were of the magickal persuasion, if only because books provoked questions and questions required answers and sometimes those answers were things that you didn't necessarily want to find out. William was gearing up for the end of a semester that he had o0nly marginally been paying attention to, so there is an offer laid on the table to him- exploration in particular.
And how could he resist?
The young man agrees, emphatically, asks how long they were going to be if only because he might need to prepare. It was going to get colder later in the night, and they were venturing up and well past the point where he was certain there would be no air. William was born below sea level, and the mountains (though refreshing) can provoke the feeling of lightheadedness that comes with holding one's breath for too long.
He might not be as fast as Margot, but he could keep going for quite some time if necessary. The distance doesn't seem to bother him and, strangely enough, he had been quiet for some time. Didn't disturb the fact that they were in nature, occasionally lingered to look at something or paused because he might have heard something. William Holmes hears a lot of things, sometimes those things might not necessarily be there.
Come on, she says, and steps off the path.
He grins, clad in a pair of jeans and some hiking boots that have seen some wear. He's wearing a pullover and a knit cap. They very much look the part of people who will later be discovered eaten by a bear.
"You do this a lot?" he asks.
Margot
Though there wasn't much wind today, not even up where the mountains liked to create air currents, it was quite cool. Moving their bodies kept them warm, and Margot had unzipped the jacket that she'd put over her sweater already. The question gained a glance from the bottom of the grassy slope, where Margot was waiting up for William before setting forward toward the trees.
"I used to, before I moved out here. It was more forests and not really a lot for mountains back in Maine. And the ocean." There's a tiny note of melencholy when mentioning the Atlantic. She missed it, obviously. "I'm trying to get out more, though."
She gestured forward, stretched an arm out and indicated with a couple fingertips instead of pointing directly. "A lot ties into the Earth, but more than just the dirt under the sidewalks back in the city. I think that the ties get stronger, the further into the wild you get. That's what I wanna test out."
William
He listens. Keeps his mouth shut while she's talking and actually pays attention instead of doing the thing that people do when it very much gives the impression that they are waiting for the other person to stop talking so that they can talk and do whatever it is that they would normally do.
"I know that, in some instances, the barrier between the spiritual world and the physical world are thinner the further you get away from human influence," he says, "and certain times of the year and correspond with a shallow space between the worlds... but it doesn't correspond with all spiritual planes." As though he's saying this from experience, though he is paying attention to where they are. Looks down when he's walking down the slope to make sure he doesn't plant on his face.
Stops for a second, pockets a rock. Keeps moving.
Margot
"Right, the Gauntlet," Margot agreed along with what William had explained. It wasn't the kind of agreement that came from 'I already knew that one', though, but rather that she understood the paramaters of what they were speaking of, enough so that she knew the vocabulary at least. That the Gauntlet was thinner the further away from concrete and skyscrapers, though, that was what she was testing.
"That's kind of what I'd picked up in what I was reading. And it would make sense that Magick may be stronger where the Gauntlet is thinner, too. Things are inherently more Magickal over on the other side. Osmosis and all that..."
At certain points the grass grew tall enough to reach Margot's thighs (the top of William's knee instead, most likely, for Margot was a small-statured thing), and to the left and right were different blooms of spring-- bright yellow and bold violet and delicate little threads of white as well. Her palms were tickled by the tops of the grass when she waded through, but came to a pause where the grass began to yield to the denser trees and forest.
She stood with her feet planted and one hand on her hip, the other still on her pack. She looked into the woods thoughtfully, with her dense brows stitched together in the middle-- not worried (for once), but contemplative. Planning. Making decisions.
"Hey, what about you? Where does your Magick root itself, and how do you unlock it? I know Hermetics have words and wands and all, but... What about anything raw?"
William
"Raw like being unadultered or raw like flayed open?" he asks for clarification.
A pause.
"And it isn't... words and Words are different things. Magick is the act of fundamentally stripping away the pretense and the bullshit and working with what is. Ehyeh ašer ehyeh, I am that I Am- or I am what I will be." He then says something. Something that... it is a word. It is most assuredly a word but it is most assuredly not in a human language. "That- it's light, but that word is more than light, is the embodiment of everything that light is. When something is given a name or a word it's-"
He falters for a second, like he isn't sure if he can do the concept justice, "it's given a definition, and by giving something a definition you give it a shape that is at once useful and binding.
"When people talk about quintessence, they think oh, building blocks of magick and what fuels it but it's more than that. It's everything. It's the ground beneath us, the spirits in the umbra, the reason that the first thing we can do with Ars Vis is strip the raw power from the blood and viscera from our own bodies.
"It's the fundamental proof that we are only separate by our Names and not by our root definition."
A second.
"I'm rambling. Basically, for me, the act of magick is touching the world at the core of what it is and manipulating it because ours is the Will of Creation and we are not separate being from what spoke us into existence. I don't know if I actually answered the question."
Margot
Much as he had done for her, Margot had the good courtesy (the good thought, the sharp mind, and the scary curiosity) to keep quiet and listen when he spoke. Hermetics had words and Words, and William was speaking both, and both were incredibly important right now. So she stood in that same stance with her big eyes upon him, listening intently. Dark brows hopped up on her forehead, interested by the word that was light (by his definition), but certainly wasn't something dreamt up by man, lest it was the first one spoken at Babylon perhaps.
When he finished, Margot grinned a little at his conclusion. Chuckled, then rolled her head to indicate forward and stepped into the treeline.
As she walked, she answered him.
"Unadulterated or flayed, I suppose, both have served fine. I mean... I don't know, raw. Like sweat or blood or tearing or pain or... pounding." She furrowed her brow, realizing she was basically just dipping into a paradigm that she and Ned were creating between themselves. Little bits of each, here and there. But she was still trying to drive to a point. She was hunting for more things than just the Magick in the trees.
"Pretty much everything I've found that works for me has been something raw. I'm looking for somewhere we can connect."
William
"Yeah, that's actually a thing. Pain, sweat, blood, connection- it's all a thing you can use, or at least things I have used, to reach into that inner understanding that the boundary between you and me and the rest of the universe is bullshit."
A second, then, "when I first woke up, one of the first things I could do and noticed and was confortable with was feeling the way things break- Entropy. Pain's the only way I know how to get to that particular destination."
Margot
The Verbena-in-training nodded her head, and the shaggy bob of muted brown hair bounced along with. A hand reached up to tuck that mass back, and when she did she passed through a patch where trees hadn't quite bloomed from the spring just yet. The sunlight caught the side of her face, and William would notice that her hair was glimmering ruby-copper-crimson at the temples. Streaked through, but it didn't look like she'd intentionally dyed it that way. Thin, here and there, like she was going salt-and-pepper-gray but in different colors than usual.
"Pain seems to be a key for a lot of people. Myself, I don't take anything away from it. It's still just.... pain." She frowned, but continued. "A lot of what Ned does is with pain, though. And intoxicants, but..." She shook her head and waved her hand. This wasn't a story about Ned, and his story wasn't hers to tell anyways. Not that part at least.
"But I am a blood witch, basically by definition. They usually go hand in hand, so that can work."
She was looking about the forest around them, scanning the scenery without reaching past and deeper into the fibers of reality, but just seeking with her eyes in the same way that she did before they Opened and she Awoke. Feeling out the scenery. In particular, hunting hopeful for a creek she suspected should be around here someplace.
"....I don't know any Entropy, though. It's on my list of things to learn."
William
He notices things. Little thinks. Like the way that her hair looks now, how it is glimmering ruby copper sunset in some places. At her temples, like she may have been graying but instead her hair came in more like a red fox than a silver one. Here his eyes are still green, but more vivid if only because he's offset by nature. Hair more golden because the sun is kind to him. Comfortable here in the way that he is comfortable most places.
Intrinsically pleased, because finally it was quiet.
She mentions blood, though, specifically blood. Does make him stop. Does make him look with brows raised and a smile that crosses his face with something that seems like a cross between recognition and fondness, "I can work with blood. LIteral or figurative. What all do you know how to do so far?"
"If you're cool with physical contact, we have a lot of overlap."
Margot
It should make sense, like a puzzle piece fitting into place, that Margot would work with blood. William had felt her Resonance before, though he hadn't felt her do Magick yet to really know the seeping sticky skin-crawl of being around her Craft. Still, though, it clung to the air around her. Like how murder never truly leaves a room even after you scrub the walls.
She was surprised to find that he smiled, though. Margot had come to expect that the core nature of her Craft would bother the more refined, but she was also starting to learn that people here defied her expectations more often than not. If anything, the Mages were more intrigued by her than off put.
If she was cool with physical contact or not, though... She looked at him questioningly and tipped her head just a bit. How her eyes set on her face coupled with the movement had her leaving an incredible impression of an owl there.
"Well, within reason, sure."
Proud of herself for not blushing and flustering, but quick to usher along to the next thing all the same, she turned and started walking again. Along the natural upward-and-leftward curve of the ground they were walking, with the flow of the earth. Seeking that running water still. She spoke of what she knew while on her forward march.
"I'm an Apprentice. I can just... sense. But I know of Life, and of Spirits. Of Prime and Forces and Matter and as of just recent of Correspondence as well. I can find ghosts, and sickness, and I understand space and can find things and people and.. well, the sky's the limit with application, really."
William
"No kissing on the lips. Just like in Pretty Woman."
He's joking. He's very obviously joking. Grins and keeps on walking because she's not blushing or flustered but damned if he didn't want to try and get her there. Hands go in his pockets. Backpack stays where it is because he comes with tools- makes it a point to come with tools because a much of his practice seems to be bound up in the physical even though it is so very conceptual.
He has to touch something. Has to be in the thick of it, can't remove himself from being in the middle of magick because distance is still very real to him.
They are coming up on water. It's babbling in the distance, or perhaps rushing because water does what it will.
"Let's try something with Life," he offers, "I think that might be our best overlap. I could try and share the perception of entropy with you if you wanted- it would be kind of... uh... a group hallucination doesn't quite fit, but it's kinda like that?"
Shakes his head.
"It's interesting to perceive the relationship between growth and breakdown."
Margot
The joke is taken as such, and Margot just grinned back at him, the expression a little lopsided and not without its own tiny flint of warning behind it. I know you're joking but seriously watch your step buddy this is tricky path you're climbing around on. There was water somewhere ahead, and they could catch its whisper in their ears now.
"Group hallucination isn't far off, though. Not sure how else I would describe it. Ned and I made a joint effort at scanning where I live and managed to reach out into the whole building instead of stopping at just one room like I'd normally have to. His way of sensing things is different, though. It was like having a technicolor grid mash up with gut-sense and intuition. It made me feel dizzy. I'm pretty sure I almost fell off the table," she added with a small chuckle.
There, up ahead, a brook. Narrow and cut not very deep into the earth (but grooved all the same, it's been running long enough to make its mark for certain). Margot looked satisfied with what they'd found and came to a stop to look up where it was coming from, down to where it went.
"....I think that water's going to have something to do with healing and cleansing, when I'm able to do more. It's tricky, when I'm figuring out what does what and is associated with what, but I'm not able to actually test it yet."
William
They come upon a brook and he looks at it, eyes wary for a second in the way that someone who was burned at the stake in a past life looks at a campfire. Knowing that, yes, this is no threat, but at the same time it's just memory enough that it causes concern. (It is no past life, not even a decade old. Fear teaches many lessons. To some, it is a spirit of Respect.) William knows not to assume that water is soft.
Crusher of cities. Giver of life. That which carves through mountains.
"I can see water and blood being similar- and water and fire, in that regard, for cleansing. Makes way for something new, takes away impurities," he thinks aloud, continues onward and stops, finally, when he's at the edge of the brook. Looks for a stone to stand on, to tempt trepidation.
"Do you think it's healing in the physical sense or healing in the mental sense?"
Margot
"Physical," Margot answered definitively. She'd glanced at him when she felt the hesitation and pause in the air upon finding the creek at last. Saw the wariness there, recognized a familiar aspect to it, and politely looked forward to ignore it (ignore, but not fail to recognize). They weren't here to expose demons and weaknesses. The day didn't need to be nearly as heavy as all that.
"I've done that much before. It's the mental healing that I couldn't--," she cut off there with a hard frown and small shake of her head. "...The mind is tricky. I have a hard time finding where that area exists between the Soul and the Body."
Content with just being able to see the stream for now, Margot shrugged off her pack and set it on the ground in front of her toes with the air of someone who was settling for the moment. Knees bent outward so she could crouch down and unzip the pack. When she stood again it was with a water bottle in hand, the other hand twisting its cap off for a drink straight away. The cap wasn't reunited with the bottle straight away, but Margot did take a break from rehydrating to glance back over to her golden-haired companion.
"I've seen plenty of the breakdown of Life, but not a lot of the growth. One of my neighbors has some tremendous cancer that I'm able to feel just chewing away at them under my bed. Not a lot of growing going on there."
William
(Hop! Dex+athletics)
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4) ( botch x 1 )
William
[Don't panic! WP]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
William
[Damage? Because rocks and oww?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
William
[Soak, because only my pride is damaged]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
William
Inhales slow and deep and looks at the water again. It is life. That which makes all things possible when it comes to a breathing earthly form. It should be easier for him to interact with it right now. Takes a look at Margot again and her water bottle and her definitive answers.
He couldn't leave it alone. Couldn't just stand there and be concerned by its presence. Ditches the backpack at the shore and finds a stone he feels like he could stand on. Makes a hop for it-
And lands. Definitely lands, but water, you see, is slippery. Water is slick and stones are not built for being stood on often. They are slippery and there is no such thing as treat and he falls.
Splashes.
Doesn't quite float away because there's not much water there and certainly not enough to drown in, not enough to send him scrambling to his feet and looking like a terrified and soggy cat. Nope, just enough for him to be pretty goddamned wet.
William just sits in the water.
"..."
Yep. She saw that. Play it cool.
"Cancer fucking blows."
Margot
[Willpower: I promise I'm trying not to laugh at you]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Margot
There was idle curiosity present while Margot watched William climb himself up on top of a rock and go to hop into the creek. Or maybe he intended to hop over it? It seemed to Margot that it was some effort to conquer the miniature waterway and what it was doing to his psyche, which was why she tried very hard not to laugh openly at him when his landing put him ass-down in the cold water.
Her eyes went wide and her expression brightened with the start of laughter, but she clamped her mouth closed and her nostrils flared and she managed to keep herself from snorting and giggling and slapping a knee while pointing (though, let's be honest, that's all anyone wants to do when somebody lands flat on their ass in the water).
"Aw, man, don't just sit there," she told him with a shake of her head and walked (not jumped) down to offer to help him up. She was frowning sympathetically at how wet his jeans were, in particular. It was a chilly day out, after all.
"Do you have any way to dry yourself off? You'll freeze yourself pretty quickly rocking around the mountain in wet jeans."
William
Aw, man, don't just sit there.
Which was when he lost it.
Absolutely lost it. Doesn't have the good sense to cover his mouth or restrain the laughter and he can't fucking help it because his ass hurts and this is somehow hilarious to him.
"But-" Nope. Keeps laughing.
"Fuck," takes her hand as a symbolic gesture and just gets himself up. He's wet. He's really wet, doesn't seem to care, "it's good, it's good, I'll dry out when we're done. Let's sense springtime- whole big blooming literally fucking wilderness."
Margot
William's laughter had caught Margot by surprise. It didn't startle her, though, which was an entirely different thing. She stood with her boots planted one on the bank and the other on a patch of dry earth and stone that the creek bubbled around. Infectious as laughter had the habit of being, a grin spread wide across Margot's face as a way of joining in the spirit.
"Oh come on," she told him when he dissolved into laughter the second time (with a jingle of a laugh in the sound of the statement all the same), and that was when he cursed and accepted her hand and help up to his feet, unnecessary though the assist may have been. He'd worry about drying himself later, and she raised her eyebrows at him as though to ask Are you sure?, but didn't speak the question or dwell upon it. Instead, she shrugged one shoulder and moved on ahead.
She'd let go of his hand once he'd found his feet, and now stood with hands idle at her sides.
"Well, alright, let's do this then. What Life are we feeling out, and how?"
William
"Rabbits?" he pauses, thinks for a second, "we can cast a wide net, or as wide as our current perceptions will let us throw. Define our search once we find something interesting."
He's soaking wet and he's got a smile on his face.
Reaches for her hand all the same, "how do you normally do this for yourself? Do you ever just try and feel the world around you for the Hell of it?"
Margot
Her eyes went from the smiling face to the hand reaching for hers. She looked skeptical, but put her hand out in front of her with the palm facing up all the same. There was doubt there, in how she looked at their hands together. Like something was missing and she was deciding what.
"Well, usually I have an idea of what I'm going to be looking for. Though when we scanned the building I mostly knew where we were looking. But typically it's like... I can feel around a house with my senses looking for vibrations to find movement and can mix that with Life to find living things and know where they are and if they're running, sitting, jumping...."
"Rabbits are fine. Birds, just animals in general." She was nodding her agreement, but still found herself glancing back to the hands held together between them.
"...I don't know that I can follow along with you without a tool that works for me, though... Touch alone's never been in my Craft."
William
"This is how this has worked for me in the past-
"Water is the basis for all living things on this plane- it's like blood in that sense. I hadn't actually intended on being a sopping wet mess, but it'll work for now, hence the lack of desire to dry off or become weatherproof right now.
"A physical connection, though not necessary is helpful for me. Symbolic embodiment of the connectedness of life and nature in general. At which point we're going to need to focus, swap spit- or blood, preferably blood because I'm working with you and not Sera and I said I was going to be a gentleman and I feel like magickally making out would not be the best idea right now."
He continues.
"From physical sensation to bleeding to hearts beating to transcendence of boundaries and tada rest of the world. For me, with that connection, it would start at a single point- you, because we're close or touching, then out to encompass whatever else the senses can handle."
A beat.
"Again, not necessary so long as there's bleeding or tears or spit or sweat or something. Touch is just a convenient bonus."
Margot
For two people to work magick together, an understanding had to be struck and the common ground forged. Margot was by and large unfamiliar with how William worked, and so he explained-- connectivity, touch, physical things of the body for working with Life. He'd made a comment about swapping spit but opting not to and earned himself the same reserved half-cautious half-unsure (yet in spite of herself still a little entertained) expression that was beginning to grow familiar when around him.
Not the best idea right now, he'd said. Her agreement was clear enough, and he continued. Still, though, when he'd concluded her brow was heavy with a thoughtful frown.
"Alright," she said, "hold that thought then." And shook her hand from his so she could go back to her pack on the ground. The front pocket was unzipped and its contents considered carefully for a few seconds before she made up her mind, snatched a small knife, and returned. The brown leather it was sheathed in was unsnapped and tucked into her coat pocket. Her left hand was held out again, palm up, but before there was much time for him to take it back she'd brought the blade to a particular patch in the palm of her hand that she had been shown-- where to cut while doing the least damage possible.
"When in doubt, bleed it out," she told him with a shrug and an almost bitter note. Don't worry, Margot, before long you'll break that glass ceiling and be able to make real change, then the tools will get easier. "Alright, let's do this."
Without much further ceremony, the Witchling steeled herself and dug the blade into her hand. She hissed sharply and the knife dropped into the dirt and water along with a drop or two of red. Then she held her hands out, the both of them, palms up with the left streaking crimson into her life and death and love lines all the same.
[Magic magic modifiers what have you here we go]
Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (7) ( success x 1 )
William
He's learning that a pocket knife is important to have around, if only because he's found he can do any various and sundry things with one. It's small and a little dull and he watches when she digs through her palm, winces and she hisses and he does the same.
Flicks the blade open and it's small enough that it's innocuous, dull enough that he has to really apply pressure to draw blood. Breathing becomes uneasy and forced calm. He doesn't usually cut across his palms. Usually goes somewhere soft or bites his tongue or drags something sharp across the inside of his forearm, but keeping the motion parallel is important to him.
Clenches his jaw because it hurt, exhales with satisfaction and locks eyes with her. Exhilerated, primed, anticipatory, reaching- he's in his element and he's alive and like this was what he was born to do. Willworking. Pulling the fabric of creation itself.
Same hand. Same method. Drops the knife into the water because symmetry.
Blood falls. Eyes eyes with her.
Exhale.
(Magick!)
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (4, 5) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
One Saturday afternoon William received a text out of the blue from Margot (just Margot in his phone, she still hasn't submitted a surname to him yet).
Hey. I've been doing a lot of reading.
A dangerous statement coming from any Mage, smart ones like her in particular. Let's continue.
Want to go explore the woods and mountains tomorrow? I'd like to go hunting for Magic in the wild it comes from.
A funny way of asking somebody out for a hike, but there you had it. The start of a plan to head out toward the foothills the next day. MargoApt offered to drive since it was her harebrained scheme anyways (so she may as well eat the gas cost), and when she picked him up William'd discover the weather chill, the skies overcast and bright like the flashing steel of a sword. Margot was behind the steering wheel in sturdy jeans, dusty hiking boots, and a heavy wool sweater of black and red stripes. A brown jacket was in the backseat along with her backpack (stuffed full with plenty of day trip into the mountain essentials, of course).
Time would pass as it did (when left unbothered), and soon enough they were out on a hiking trail and Margot was standing at a bend in the path, paused and surveying a stretch of meadow and grass before the grass gave way, submitting to the trees that sucked the nutrients from the earth and the sun from the skies.
"Nothing to be found on the trail. Come on," and she stepped off the path and started down the small slope to the meadow instead. As she went, hands on her pack straps, she called over her shoulder to William.
William
Literacy is a dangerous thing.
Nothing good ever came out of reading a book when you were of the magickal persuasion, if only because books provoked questions and questions required answers and sometimes those answers were things that you didn't necessarily want to find out. William was gearing up for the end of a semester that he had o0nly marginally been paying attention to, so there is an offer laid on the table to him- exploration in particular.
And how could he resist?
The young man agrees, emphatically, asks how long they were going to be if only because he might need to prepare. It was going to get colder later in the night, and they were venturing up and well past the point where he was certain there would be no air. William was born below sea level, and the mountains (though refreshing) can provoke the feeling of lightheadedness that comes with holding one's breath for too long.
He might not be as fast as Margot, but he could keep going for quite some time if necessary. The distance doesn't seem to bother him and, strangely enough, he had been quiet for some time. Didn't disturb the fact that they were in nature, occasionally lingered to look at something or paused because he might have heard something. William Holmes hears a lot of things, sometimes those things might not necessarily be there.
Come on, she says, and steps off the path.
He grins, clad in a pair of jeans and some hiking boots that have seen some wear. He's wearing a pullover and a knit cap. They very much look the part of people who will later be discovered eaten by a bear.
"You do this a lot?" he asks.
Margot
Though there wasn't much wind today, not even up where the mountains liked to create air currents, it was quite cool. Moving their bodies kept them warm, and Margot had unzipped the jacket that she'd put over her sweater already. The question gained a glance from the bottom of the grassy slope, where Margot was waiting up for William before setting forward toward the trees.
"I used to, before I moved out here. It was more forests and not really a lot for mountains back in Maine. And the ocean." There's a tiny note of melencholy when mentioning the Atlantic. She missed it, obviously. "I'm trying to get out more, though."
She gestured forward, stretched an arm out and indicated with a couple fingertips instead of pointing directly. "A lot ties into the Earth, but more than just the dirt under the sidewalks back in the city. I think that the ties get stronger, the further into the wild you get. That's what I wanna test out."
William
He listens. Keeps his mouth shut while she's talking and actually pays attention instead of doing the thing that people do when it very much gives the impression that they are waiting for the other person to stop talking so that they can talk and do whatever it is that they would normally do.
"I know that, in some instances, the barrier between the spiritual world and the physical world are thinner the further you get away from human influence," he says, "and certain times of the year and correspond with a shallow space between the worlds... but it doesn't correspond with all spiritual planes." As though he's saying this from experience, though he is paying attention to where they are. Looks down when he's walking down the slope to make sure he doesn't plant on his face.
Stops for a second, pockets a rock. Keeps moving.
Margot
"Right, the Gauntlet," Margot agreed along with what William had explained. It wasn't the kind of agreement that came from 'I already knew that one', though, but rather that she understood the paramaters of what they were speaking of, enough so that she knew the vocabulary at least. That the Gauntlet was thinner the further away from concrete and skyscrapers, though, that was what she was testing.
"That's kind of what I'd picked up in what I was reading. And it would make sense that Magick may be stronger where the Gauntlet is thinner, too. Things are inherently more Magickal over on the other side. Osmosis and all that..."
At certain points the grass grew tall enough to reach Margot's thighs (the top of William's knee instead, most likely, for Margot was a small-statured thing), and to the left and right were different blooms of spring-- bright yellow and bold violet and delicate little threads of white as well. Her palms were tickled by the tops of the grass when she waded through, but came to a pause where the grass began to yield to the denser trees and forest.
She stood with her feet planted and one hand on her hip, the other still on her pack. She looked into the woods thoughtfully, with her dense brows stitched together in the middle-- not worried (for once), but contemplative. Planning. Making decisions.
"Hey, what about you? Where does your Magick root itself, and how do you unlock it? I know Hermetics have words and wands and all, but... What about anything raw?"
William
"Raw like being unadultered or raw like flayed open?" he asks for clarification.
A pause.
"And it isn't... words and Words are different things. Magick is the act of fundamentally stripping away the pretense and the bullshit and working with what is. Ehyeh ašer ehyeh, I am that I Am- or I am what I will be." He then says something. Something that... it is a word. It is most assuredly a word but it is most assuredly not in a human language. "That- it's light, but that word is more than light, is the embodiment of everything that light is. When something is given a name or a word it's-"
He falters for a second, like he isn't sure if he can do the concept justice, "it's given a definition, and by giving something a definition you give it a shape that is at once useful and binding.
"When people talk about quintessence, they think oh, building blocks of magick and what fuels it but it's more than that. It's everything. It's the ground beneath us, the spirits in the umbra, the reason that the first thing we can do with Ars Vis is strip the raw power from the blood and viscera from our own bodies.
"It's the fundamental proof that we are only separate by our Names and not by our root definition."
A second.
"I'm rambling. Basically, for me, the act of magick is touching the world at the core of what it is and manipulating it because ours is the Will of Creation and we are not separate being from what spoke us into existence. I don't know if I actually answered the question."
Margot
Much as he had done for her, Margot had the good courtesy (the good thought, the sharp mind, and the scary curiosity) to keep quiet and listen when he spoke. Hermetics had words and Words, and William was speaking both, and both were incredibly important right now. So she stood in that same stance with her big eyes upon him, listening intently. Dark brows hopped up on her forehead, interested by the word that was light (by his definition), but certainly wasn't something dreamt up by man, lest it was the first one spoken at Babylon perhaps.
When he finished, Margot grinned a little at his conclusion. Chuckled, then rolled her head to indicate forward and stepped into the treeline.
As she walked, she answered him.
"Unadulterated or flayed, I suppose, both have served fine. I mean... I don't know, raw. Like sweat or blood or tearing or pain or... pounding." She furrowed her brow, realizing she was basically just dipping into a paradigm that she and Ned were creating between themselves. Little bits of each, here and there. But she was still trying to drive to a point. She was hunting for more things than just the Magick in the trees.
"Pretty much everything I've found that works for me has been something raw. I'm looking for somewhere we can connect."
William
"Yeah, that's actually a thing. Pain, sweat, blood, connection- it's all a thing you can use, or at least things I have used, to reach into that inner understanding that the boundary between you and me and the rest of the universe is bullshit."
A second, then, "when I first woke up, one of the first things I could do and noticed and was confortable with was feeling the way things break- Entropy. Pain's the only way I know how to get to that particular destination."
Margot
The Verbena-in-training nodded her head, and the shaggy bob of muted brown hair bounced along with. A hand reached up to tuck that mass back, and when she did she passed through a patch where trees hadn't quite bloomed from the spring just yet. The sunlight caught the side of her face, and William would notice that her hair was glimmering ruby-copper-crimson at the temples. Streaked through, but it didn't look like she'd intentionally dyed it that way. Thin, here and there, like she was going salt-and-pepper-gray but in different colors than usual.
"Pain seems to be a key for a lot of people. Myself, I don't take anything away from it. It's still just.... pain." She frowned, but continued. "A lot of what Ned does is with pain, though. And intoxicants, but..." She shook her head and waved her hand. This wasn't a story about Ned, and his story wasn't hers to tell anyways. Not that part at least.
"But I am a blood witch, basically by definition. They usually go hand in hand, so that can work."
She was looking about the forest around them, scanning the scenery without reaching past and deeper into the fibers of reality, but just seeking with her eyes in the same way that she did before they Opened and she Awoke. Feeling out the scenery. In particular, hunting hopeful for a creek she suspected should be around here someplace.
"....I don't know any Entropy, though. It's on my list of things to learn."
William
He notices things. Little thinks. Like the way that her hair looks now, how it is glimmering ruby copper sunset in some places. At her temples, like she may have been graying but instead her hair came in more like a red fox than a silver one. Here his eyes are still green, but more vivid if only because he's offset by nature. Hair more golden because the sun is kind to him. Comfortable here in the way that he is comfortable most places.
Intrinsically pleased, because finally it was quiet.
She mentions blood, though, specifically blood. Does make him stop. Does make him look with brows raised and a smile that crosses his face with something that seems like a cross between recognition and fondness, "I can work with blood. LIteral or figurative. What all do you know how to do so far?"
"If you're cool with physical contact, we have a lot of overlap."
Margot
It should make sense, like a puzzle piece fitting into place, that Margot would work with blood. William had felt her Resonance before, though he hadn't felt her do Magick yet to really know the seeping sticky skin-crawl of being around her Craft. Still, though, it clung to the air around her. Like how murder never truly leaves a room even after you scrub the walls.
She was surprised to find that he smiled, though. Margot had come to expect that the core nature of her Craft would bother the more refined, but she was also starting to learn that people here defied her expectations more often than not. If anything, the Mages were more intrigued by her than off put.
If she was cool with physical contact or not, though... She looked at him questioningly and tipped her head just a bit. How her eyes set on her face coupled with the movement had her leaving an incredible impression of an owl there.
"Well, within reason, sure."
Proud of herself for not blushing and flustering, but quick to usher along to the next thing all the same, she turned and started walking again. Along the natural upward-and-leftward curve of the ground they were walking, with the flow of the earth. Seeking that running water still. She spoke of what she knew while on her forward march.
"I'm an Apprentice. I can just... sense. But I know of Life, and of Spirits. Of Prime and Forces and Matter and as of just recent of Correspondence as well. I can find ghosts, and sickness, and I understand space and can find things and people and.. well, the sky's the limit with application, really."
William
"No kissing on the lips. Just like in Pretty Woman."
He's joking. He's very obviously joking. Grins and keeps on walking because she's not blushing or flustered but damned if he didn't want to try and get her there. Hands go in his pockets. Backpack stays where it is because he comes with tools- makes it a point to come with tools because a much of his practice seems to be bound up in the physical even though it is so very conceptual.
He has to touch something. Has to be in the thick of it, can't remove himself from being in the middle of magick because distance is still very real to him.
They are coming up on water. It's babbling in the distance, or perhaps rushing because water does what it will.
"Let's try something with Life," he offers, "I think that might be our best overlap. I could try and share the perception of entropy with you if you wanted- it would be kind of... uh... a group hallucination doesn't quite fit, but it's kinda like that?"
Shakes his head.
"It's interesting to perceive the relationship between growth and breakdown."
Margot
The joke is taken as such, and Margot just grinned back at him, the expression a little lopsided and not without its own tiny flint of warning behind it. I know you're joking but seriously watch your step buddy this is tricky path you're climbing around on. There was water somewhere ahead, and they could catch its whisper in their ears now.
"Group hallucination isn't far off, though. Not sure how else I would describe it. Ned and I made a joint effort at scanning where I live and managed to reach out into the whole building instead of stopping at just one room like I'd normally have to. His way of sensing things is different, though. It was like having a technicolor grid mash up with gut-sense and intuition. It made me feel dizzy. I'm pretty sure I almost fell off the table," she added with a small chuckle.
There, up ahead, a brook. Narrow and cut not very deep into the earth (but grooved all the same, it's been running long enough to make its mark for certain). Margot looked satisfied with what they'd found and came to a stop to look up where it was coming from, down to where it went.
"....I think that water's going to have something to do with healing and cleansing, when I'm able to do more. It's tricky, when I'm figuring out what does what and is associated with what, but I'm not able to actually test it yet."
William
They come upon a brook and he looks at it, eyes wary for a second in the way that someone who was burned at the stake in a past life looks at a campfire. Knowing that, yes, this is no threat, but at the same time it's just memory enough that it causes concern. (It is no past life, not even a decade old. Fear teaches many lessons. To some, it is a spirit of Respect.) William knows not to assume that water is soft.
Crusher of cities. Giver of life. That which carves through mountains.
"I can see water and blood being similar- and water and fire, in that regard, for cleansing. Makes way for something new, takes away impurities," he thinks aloud, continues onward and stops, finally, when he's at the edge of the brook. Looks for a stone to stand on, to tempt trepidation.
"Do you think it's healing in the physical sense or healing in the mental sense?"
Margot
"Physical," Margot answered definitively. She'd glanced at him when she felt the hesitation and pause in the air upon finding the creek at last. Saw the wariness there, recognized a familiar aspect to it, and politely looked forward to ignore it (ignore, but not fail to recognize). They weren't here to expose demons and weaknesses. The day didn't need to be nearly as heavy as all that.
"I've done that much before. It's the mental healing that I couldn't--," she cut off there with a hard frown and small shake of her head. "...The mind is tricky. I have a hard time finding where that area exists between the Soul and the Body."
Content with just being able to see the stream for now, Margot shrugged off her pack and set it on the ground in front of her toes with the air of someone who was settling for the moment. Knees bent outward so she could crouch down and unzip the pack. When she stood again it was with a water bottle in hand, the other hand twisting its cap off for a drink straight away. The cap wasn't reunited with the bottle straight away, but Margot did take a break from rehydrating to glance back over to her golden-haired companion.
"I've seen plenty of the breakdown of Life, but not a lot of the growth. One of my neighbors has some tremendous cancer that I'm able to feel just chewing away at them under my bed. Not a lot of growing going on there."
William
(Hop! Dex+athletics)
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 4, 4) ( botch x 1 )
William
[Don't panic! WP]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 1, 7, 8, 10) ( success x 3 )
William
[Damage? Because rocks and oww?]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (4, 5, 10) ( success x 1 )
William
[Soak, because only my pride is damaged]
Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (1, 6, 9) ( success x 2 )
William
Inhales slow and deep and looks at the water again. It is life. That which makes all things possible when it comes to a breathing earthly form. It should be easier for him to interact with it right now. Takes a look at Margot again and her water bottle and her definitive answers.
He couldn't leave it alone. Couldn't just stand there and be concerned by its presence. Ditches the backpack at the shore and finds a stone he feels like he could stand on. Makes a hop for it-
And lands. Definitely lands, but water, you see, is slippery. Water is slick and stones are not built for being stood on often. They are slippery and there is no such thing as treat and he falls.
Splashes.
Doesn't quite float away because there's not much water there and certainly not enough to drown in, not enough to send him scrambling to his feet and looking like a terrified and soggy cat. Nope, just enough for him to be pretty goddamned wet.
William just sits in the water.
"..."
Yep. She saw that. Play it cool.
"Cancer fucking blows."
Margot
[Willpower: I promise I'm trying not to laugh at you]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 5, 9, 10) ( success x 2 )
Margot
There was idle curiosity present while Margot watched William climb himself up on top of a rock and go to hop into the creek. Or maybe he intended to hop over it? It seemed to Margot that it was some effort to conquer the miniature waterway and what it was doing to his psyche, which was why she tried very hard not to laugh openly at him when his landing put him ass-down in the cold water.
Her eyes went wide and her expression brightened with the start of laughter, but she clamped her mouth closed and her nostrils flared and she managed to keep herself from snorting and giggling and slapping a knee while pointing (though, let's be honest, that's all anyone wants to do when somebody lands flat on their ass in the water).
"Aw, man, don't just sit there," she told him with a shake of her head and walked (not jumped) down to offer to help him up. She was frowning sympathetically at how wet his jeans were, in particular. It was a chilly day out, after all.
"Do you have any way to dry yourself off? You'll freeze yourself pretty quickly rocking around the mountain in wet jeans."
William
Aw, man, don't just sit there.
Which was when he lost it.
Absolutely lost it. Doesn't have the good sense to cover his mouth or restrain the laughter and he can't fucking help it because his ass hurts and this is somehow hilarious to him.
"But-" Nope. Keeps laughing.
"Fuck," takes her hand as a symbolic gesture and just gets himself up. He's wet. He's really wet, doesn't seem to care, "it's good, it's good, I'll dry out when we're done. Let's sense springtime- whole big blooming literally fucking wilderness."
Margot
William's laughter had caught Margot by surprise. It didn't startle her, though, which was an entirely different thing. She stood with her boots planted one on the bank and the other on a patch of dry earth and stone that the creek bubbled around. Infectious as laughter had the habit of being, a grin spread wide across Margot's face as a way of joining in the spirit.
"Oh come on," she told him when he dissolved into laughter the second time (with a jingle of a laugh in the sound of the statement all the same), and that was when he cursed and accepted her hand and help up to his feet, unnecessary though the assist may have been. He'd worry about drying himself later, and she raised her eyebrows at him as though to ask Are you sure?, but didn't speak the question or dwell upon it. Instead, she shrugged one shoulder and moved on ahead.
She'd let go of his hand once he'd found his feet, and now stood with hands idle at her sides.
"Well, alright, let's do this then. What Life are we feeling out, and how?"
William
"Rabbits?" he pauses, thinks for a second, "we can cast a wide net, or as wide as our current perceptions will let us throw. Define our search once we find something interesting."
He's soaking wet and he's got a smile on his face.
Reaches for her hand all the same, "how do you normally do this for yourself? Do you ever just try and feel the world around you for the Hell of it?"
Margot
Her eyes went from the smiling face to the hand reaching for hers. She looked skeptical, but put her hand out in front of her with the palm facing up all the same. There was doubt there, in how she looked at their hands together. Like something was missing and she was deciding what.
"Well, usually I have an idea of what I'm going to be looking for. Though when we scanned the building I mostly knew where we were looking. But typically it's like... I can feel around a house with my senses looking for vibrations to find movement and can mix that with Life to find living things and know where they are and if they're running, sitting, jumping...."
"Rabbits are fine. Birds, just animals in general." She was nodding her agreement, but still found herself glancing back to the hands held together between them.
"...I don't know that I can follow along with you without a tool that works for me, though... Touch alone's never been in my Craft."
William
"This is how this has worked for me in the past-
"Water is the basis for all living things on this plane- it's like blood in that sense. I hadn't actually intended on being a sopping wet mess, but it'll work for now, hence the lack of desire to dry off or become weatherproof right now.
"A physical connection, though not necessary is helpful for me. Symbolic embodiment of the connectedness of life and nature in general. At which point we're going to need to focus, swap spit- or blood, preferably blood because I'm working with you and not Sera and I said I was going to be a gentleman and I feel like magickally making out would not be the best idea right now."
He continues.
"From physical sensation to bleeding to hearts beating to transcendence of boundaries and tada rest of the world. For me, with that connection, it would start at a single point- you, because we're close or touching, then out to encompass whatever else the senses can handle."
A beat.
"Again, not necessary so long as there's bleeding or tears or spit or sweat or something. Touch is just a convenient bonus."
Margot
For two people to work magick together, an understanding had to be struck and the common ground forged. Margot was by and large unfamiliar with how William worked, and so he explained-- connectivity, touch, physical things of the body for working with Life. He'd made a comment about swapping spit but opting not to and earned himself the same reserved half-cautious half-unsure (yet in spite of herself still a little entertained) expression that was beginning to grow familiar when around him.
Not the best idea right now, he'd said. Her agreement was clear enough, and he continued. Still, though, when he'd concluded her brow was heavy with a thoughtful frown.
"Alright," she said, "hold that thought then." And shook her hand from his so she could go back to her pack on the ground. The front pocket was unzipped and its contents considered carefully for a few seconds before she made up her mind, snatched a small knife, and returned. The brown leather it was sheathed in was unsnapped and tucked into her coat pocket. Her left hand was held out again, palm up, but before there was much time for him to take it back she'd brought the blade to a particular patch in the palm of her hand that she had been shown-- where to cut while doing the least damage possible.
"When in doubt, bleed it out," she told him with a shrug and an almost bitter note. Don't worry, Margot, before long you'll break that glass ceiling and be able to make real change, then the tools will get easier. "Alright, let's do this."
Without much further ceremony, the Witchling steeled herself and dug the blade into her hand. She hissed sharply and the knife dropped into the dirt and water along with a drop or two of red. Then she held her hands out, the both of them, palms up with the left streaking crimson into her life and death and love lines all the same.
[Magic magic modifiers what have you here we go]
Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (7) ( success x 1 )
William
He's learning that a pocket knife is important to have around, if only because he's found he can do any various and sundry things with one. It's small and a little dull and he watches when she digs through her palm, winces and she hisses and he does the same.
Flicks the blade open and it's small enough that it's innocuous, dull enough that he has to really apply pressure to draw blood. Breathing becomes uneasy and forced calm. He doesn't usually cut across his palms. Usually goes somewhere soft or bites his tongue or drags something sharp across the inside of his forearm, but keeping the motion parallel is important to him.
Clenches his jaw because it hurt, exhales with satisfaction and locks eyes with her. Exhilerated, primed, anticipatory, reaching- he's in his element and he's alive and like this was what he was born to do. Willworking. Pulling the fabric of creation itself.
Same hand. Same method. Drops the knife into the water because symmetry.
Blood falls. Eyes eyes with her.
Exhale.
(Magick!)
Dice: 2 d10 TN3 (4, 5) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
MargotFor a brief moment, the symmetry had her worried. Influenced by the fact that he was cutting his hand as well, and also born of what she knew so far (there has to be touch, a connection, to share the experience), she saw the symmetry and worried that he would try to seize her hand. That the conduit would be blood as well as flesh, and frankly she didn't like the idea of becoming a 'blood brother' with him (sorry Will).
But Margot was smart and quick on her feet and quick in her mind as well, and she was getting better and better at reading people. He was seeking symmetry, and there was a ritual in that and that alone-- like a dance, almost. And when she looked up and found his eyes already locked onto hers, a jolt went down her spine, through her knees and grounded her there in the earth.
He breathed out, and she felt the breath pull from her lungs along with-- like a billows, working and pumping together, with the breath of Life to build the pressure and direct the machine, with the blood and pure Magick to serve as the fuel.
What Margot brought to the table would not contend much against William's, for the force of his Magick was double her own, and sheer force of will had built it further. It was still there, though-- a sense that didn't manifest visually but rather as a sense within one's self. A tug in the gut and the heart in the direction of where Life was, a mutual sensation of the heartbeat of the thing that lived and breathed elsewhere from there. Perhaps a dull red in the black void of echolocation-esque scanning, but only because red was associated so strongly with the warmth of life.
There were plenty of creatures alive in these woods, and they could feel many all of them.
WilliamThere was a benefit to having been courted by so many and summarily dropped by them in similar fashion- William Holmes has seen a number of ways people work and Work and has developed practices dissimilar to what one would think a Hermetic worked like. This, of course, was a lie of sorts. They are not as cookie cutter as they seem, unified under common ideas but, at the same time, the practice varies wildly.
He tried once to explain to a young woman, who considered herself a beacon fo darkness and a worshipper and devotee of the Old Gods- who called him a sunflower, who gave her sight to the Morrigan, who held disdain for so many people of the city- he'd tried to explain to Arionna that there was a purpose in etiquette, that there was meaning in ritual even if people didn't remember what the meaning was. This is ritual in itself, even if the ritual isn't written down.
Ritual isn't always written into the pages of some book or held up by some Golden Dawn figures who don't know the true meaning behidn what they do- it is communication. It is symbolism.
They perceive the life around them differently, but they perceive it together. Red, red blood falls and strikes a contrast against green, green grass. There are birds around them tiny fish in the brook, crawdads under rocks and insects in the grass and a spider liquifying its prey as some little red tailed hawk in the distace, just barely at the edges of their perception, is laying its eggs.
Three. Specificially, three eggs.
His heart is beating hard and fast and his breathing is calm. This is Effort. This is grounding.
MargotThey switched from individual animal to animal after getting a basic understanding of the density of life in their area (animal life-- non-insect, though, that was asking for an overload). When they came upon the hawk Margot reached toward Willaim with the hand that wasn't dribbling blood onto the ground, found his sleeve and grasped it.
"Look," she breathed, and they observed without quite necessarily 'looking', for though Margot's face was still turned toward William she certainly didn't seem to be doing much seeing with her eyes-- far too focused on what was Perceived instead.
Sooner or later, ultimately it didn't matter out here in the woods Time was easier to lose and perhaps even mold (another day). Margot's left hand clenched closed over the wound and her fist turned then withdrew. She blinked a couple of times and then cast her gaze away, toward the ground between their feet. To the blood mingling together on rock and stone and threatening to make its way to the water as well.
She swallowed, huffed a breath out, then opened her hand and looked at the cut. "Shit, that felt like a good idea at the time."
WilliamHe seems primed to deal with the sensory overload that comes with perceiving everything around him. Margot's the one that seemed to put precision to it; William would be more prone to letting it all flood through like it was a leavy breaking or a retaining wall crumbling. Take it all and sort it out later- Margot is much more focused than this.
She reaches for his shirt and he stands still, holds his breath and he's awestruck. This is life. This was the life that he had craved for so long to see, not the fish eating the worm but the birth of the universe, the creation that lets him focus for a second on something other than the destruction of it (never lasts long, he kmnows they go hand-in-hand, but he's no wheel turner so he doesn't have to make peace with that yet.)
He finally stops holding his breath, closes his eyes tight before turning her way and opening them again. Looks at her hand-
"At some point, it'll get where you can close that up, no problem," he starts to meander to his bag, "need help bandaging it up? I don't think you went too deep, but it's gotta hurt."
Says the man whose hand is still bleeding. He'd know if it was too deep- they both would. They reached out to feel the entirety of the life around them, it would include the beating hearts in the closest proximity.
Margot"I've seen it done. It's a while until I get there." Margot looked up from her hand to Will and offered a small smile-- one born of exhileration and insight to a secret that the vast masses of humanity didn't know. "I'm sure I will, though."
He offered to bandage up her hand, so she nodded and turned to climb the small embankment and return to where her backpack was left on the ground. There, with a foot to hold the pack in place and her right hand to do the rest of the work, she produced a little red first aid kit. This was set on the ground, and she sat down cross-legged in front of it. Figured William would be joining her on the earth soon enough.
"If you can help get my hand bandaged first, I'll be able to return the favor."
A pause, where her eyes flicked up to and found his. Shit. Innuendo. Her eyebrows raised, and she grinned. "Heh. Y'know what I mean."
WilliamI'll be able to return the favor, she says.
"You promise?" he replies with a grin. Cheeky, he sits down across from her and tries to remember the things he's seen on Saturday morning specials and during all the times that he has had to staunch bleeding but slicing wounds are a little different from punctures. "I would say something about getting wet just thinking about it, but I'm already there- so."
A shrug. A beat.
"That innuendo doesn't work when you're a guy, that was lame, I apologize immediately," he gets on to working.
"How long you been doing this?"
MargotThe cheeky grin and retort that he gave back was accepted in stride, and for that Margot felt a little accomplished. She was so bashful usually, so easy to bring to an embarrassed flush, so some innuendo-laden banter being taken in stride was satisfying for her, in a way. She looked down to start unzipping the first aid kit for him and offer up what she'd brought along further, and he continued on to explain that he was already wet, so...
Margot looked back up at him with surpise, appearing taken aback and not really sure at first of how to respond. "Uh...."
Then he took it back-- apologized because it didn't work. She stared for a moment, then chuckled and held out her hand for him to start working.
"What, Magick? I Awoke last June. But I kind of... wandered a bit after that. It was only this January that I really started to understand what's going on and what I can do." A pause, then a correction: "What we all can do."
WilliamWhat we all can do.
"The human will is capable of many a great and terrible thing when we figure out that we're not bound by-" he waves around him for a second before going back to the actual bandaging. He isnt' cavalier with this. Is actually taking his time and focusing because he wants to make sure tha tthis is done right and things are disinfected and that she doesn't get pond water in an open wound. It's a quick way to get a staph infection, that.
"Did you just kind of figure it out on your own?" William asks, he's curious, but moreover he seems impressed.
Margot"In bits and pieces, at first." He seemed impressed, and to begin Margot fed into that. She would watch his face when he spoke, and usually would switch back to watching the bandage work intermittently. She looked a bit self-pleased, because if Margot was anything she was smart, and she liked being praised by her teachers growing up and getting top marks and being recognized for that thing she was great at. After Awakening, though, the praise from a professor just didn't quite have the same ring to it. Acadamia wasn't nearly as important, relevant, or powerful as Magick.
But, she was balanced by being self-conscious. All too aware of her own shortcomings and failures, any ego she began to build was often quickly deflated. As it was now when she confessed:
"But I didn't get far. I didn't really understand what I was doing, nor did I do it often, and though I read a lot on the matter I didn't really test anything. I was afraid, still am kind of, of being discovered. Persecuted. You know, witch burnings and all.
"In January I met Ned Gaines and Dr. Andrés Sepúlveda. Ned was in exactly the same boat I was-- Awakened and lost. Then we found Doc, and he's real experienced, he can heal and make things appear out of thin air. He's explained things to us, continues to explain things to us as we keep going on forward, but we're pretty much structuring all of this ourselves as we go along.
"They're not Witches. Doc's a Scientist. Ned's a Worker, or a Crafter, maybe. I'm a Witch for sure."
MargotThen, added on more definitively, she concluded: "No, Ned's a Wielder."
William"Ned's a welder?"
Clearly, the fall on his ass hurt his hearing.
Margot"Wielder," she was prompt to correct, and he'd be damned if she didn't sound the tiniest bit like a know-it-all when correcting.
"Or a Brandisher. He'd probably call himself a Solver, since he looks at things like a puzzle, but I think he's going to use Magick with a force."
Not the magic Forces, that's different.
WilliamIt's leviosa not leviosa, he hears when she corrects him- because it does make a difference because welding and wielding are not the same things.
"Being a brandisher would be that he whips it out for certain occasions, is flamboyant with it- he doesn't strike me as the flourishing type from the few things you've said about him," a pause, a thought, "he could be a strider, one who moves with purpose in a specified direction, but I don't know about goals there.
"So, what is being a witch to you? The difference between a witch and a supplicant to the older ways," William finally finishes the bandaging, looks at it dubiously before looking at his own hand, clenches his fist for a second before letting it go, "doesn't look bad," he says to himself.
Purposeful, you see, because he could take care of that problem for himself really quickly.
MargotWith that particular spin put on the word Brandisher, Margot screwed up her face in response to the thought of Ned and flamboyance going together in the same sentence, then shook her head. "Not a Brandisher, then," she agreed.
But what about her, why was she a Witch? The girl took her hand back and checked the bandage job, not with a lot of scrutiny but rather to see if there were seams she should be careful of, ways that she probably shouldn't bend her hand if she wanted it to last longer. As she performed this check she answered musingly.
"It's in the Craft. I think how you go about doing your Magick is what brings you to your label-- part of it anyways, I should clarify. How you percieve it and believe it works of course plays into it." The dismissive wave of her hand sent that technicality away so she could continue her point.
"For me, my Avatar is an old Goddess of War. She wouldn't care about Science, and this manifestation, what I see and feel, it's too rudimentary and old for much... flourish. My magic just feels old and raw and so it's best suited for and channeled through things like blood rites, rituals with bones and ash by flame, and who knows what else the more I learn."
Her eyes hopped from her hand to his; he was flexing it and claiming it wasn't so bad.
"Do you want me to cover it anyway?" Hey, she did say she'd return the favor.
William"So, your magick isn't in her worship, it's in the act of doing as she would do. In living and being and breathing the way instead of being the moving piece in an Other's bidding?" he asks, not with scrutiny, but more like he was musing. More like he was thinking about the concept and the prospect of how magick is and what it makes you.
Holds his hand out, "reciprocity and symmetry are important, I'd love the help."
Back to thinking.
"I don't know what I am, then. Hermetics tend to get pegged with wizardry but I sure as shit am not Harry Potter or Gandalf."
Margot"Exactly," she said, somewhat astonished in answer to the understanding he'd tried for of how her magick worked. "I've been trying to explain it, and I think that's it. I'm not worshipping her, I'm more of an extension of her. I don't ask her for power, she has already given it to me and isn't taking it back."
She made it sound like she'd tried giving it back. Maybe that was unintentional-- who tried to go back to Sleep?
With his hand extended in turn, Margot set it knuckles-down on one of her knees (bigger work surface than it floating in the air or her trying to steady it herself) and took to cleaning before wrapping.
"You don't strike me as much of a wizard either, no magic words or wands or Familiars." She paused her work to look back up at his face; really look, study actually. Like she could find the answer in the plane of his forehead or breadth of his nose bridge.
"You feel like a boat in a storm out at sea when you work, but the boat doesn't capsize. Maybe you're a Discoverer? Like of new lands, except the new lands are actually just a metaphor for Existence."
William"Ah, be still my heart, it's like she knows me," he says, as though this is the best agreement he could muster that he did, in fact, agree with her assertion. That maybe he is one who Discovers. Maybe he is some kind of explorer, for good or ill seeking things one was never meant to know.
He's seen some shit. Hasn't broken his grasp with reality in such a fashion that others have noticed. Maybe he'd outgrown it with the nightmares (lies, all lies. He is tied to something older than old, formless because its form is broken. He doesn't break because he knows Things, even if he hasn't remembered them.)
"I'm keeping that, I think I like Discoverer."
MargotThe wide-eyed little witch smiled, and for once in a great while there wasn't a drop of worry or anxiety to be found tightening the expression. The bandage was clipped and tied neatly into place (she wasn't an expert, but she'd done this recently and watched any number of other bandages be tied up by more skilled hands than her own-- smart girls like her picked up on things), and she bounced her knee a little to indicate his hand was his own again.
"I'm glad, I thought it was a little inspired of me."
With the kit all packed up again, Margot stood up once more. Looked to William and shouldered her pack. "Come on, I'll bet we can find dry clothes and lunch for cheap back in Boulder.
But Margot was smart and quick on her feet and quick in her mind as well, and she was getting better and better at reading people. He was seeking symmetry, and there was a ritual in that and that alone-- like a dance, almost. And when she looked up and found his eyes already locked onto hers, a jolt went down her spine, through her knees and grounded her there in the earth.
He breathed out, and she felt the breath pull from her lungs along with-- like a billows, working and pumping together, with the breath of Life to build the pressure and direct the machine, with the blood and pure Magick to serve as the fuel.
What Margot brought to the table would not contend much against William's, for the force of his Magick was double her own, and sheer force of will had built it further. It was still there, though-- a sense that didn't manifest visually but rather as a sense within one's self. A tug in the gut and the heart in the direction of where Life was, a mutual sensation of the heartbeat of the thing that lived and breathed elsewhere from there. Perhaps a dull red in the black void of echolocation-esque scanning, but only because red was associated so strongly with the warmth of life.
There were plenty of creatures alive in these woods, and they could feel many all of them.
WilliamThere was a benefit to having been courted by so many and summarily dropped by them in similar fashion- William Holmes has seen a number of ways people work and Work and has developed practices dissimilar to what one would think a Hermetic worked like. This, of course, was a lie of sorts. They are not as cookie cutter as they seem, unified under common ideas but, at the same time, the practice varies wildly.
He tried once to explain to a young woman, who considered herself a beacon fo darkness and a worshipper and devotee of the Old Gods- who called him a sunflower, who gave her sight to the Morrigan, who held disdain for so many people of the city- he'd tried to explain to Arionna that there was a purpose in etiquette, that there was meaning in ritual even if people didn't remember what the meaning was. This is ritual in itself, even if the ritual isn't written down.
Ritual isn't always written into the pages of some book or held up by some Golden Dawn figures who don't know the true meaning behidn what they do- it is communication. It is symbolism.
They perceive the life around them differently, but they perceive it together. Red, red blood falls and strikes a contrast against green, green grass. There are birds around them tiny fish in the brook, crawdads under rocks and insects in the grass and a spider liquifying its prey as some little red tailed hawk in the distace, just barely at the edges of their perception, is laying its eggs.
Three. Specificially, three eggs.
His heart is beating hard and fast and his breathing is calm. This is Effort. This is grounding.
MargotThey switched from individual animal to animal after getting a basic understanding of the density of life in their area (animal life-- non-insect, though, that was asking for an overload). When they came upon the hawk Margot reached toward Willaim with the hand that wasn't dribbling blood onto the ground, found his sleeve and grasped it.
"Look," she breathed, and they observed without quite necessarily 'looking', for though Margot's face was still turned toward William she certainly didn't seem to be doing much seeing with her eyes-- far too focused on what was Perceived instead.
Sooner or later, ultimately it didn't matter out here in the woods Time was easier to lose and perhaps even mold (another day). Margot's left hand clenched closed over the wound and her fist turned then withdrew. She blinked a couple of times and then cast her gaze away, toward the ground between their feet. To the blood mingling together on rock and stone and threatening to make its way to the water as well.
She swallowed, huffed a breath out, then opened her hand and looked at the cut. "Shit, that felt like a good idea at the time."
WilliamHe seems primed to deal with the sensory overload that comes with perceiving everything around him. Margot's the one that seemed to put precision to it; William would be more prone to letting it all flood through like it was a leavy breaking or a retaining wall crumbling. Take it all and sort it out later- Margot is much more focused than this.
She reaches for his shirt and he stands still, holds his breath and he's awestruck. This is life. This was the life that he had craved for so long to see, not the fish eating the worm but the birth of the universe, the creation that lets him focus for a second on something other than the destruction of it (never lasts long, he kmnows they go hand-in-hand, but he's no wheel turner so he doesn't have to make peace with that yet.)
He finally stops holding his breath, closes his eyes tight before turning her way and opening them again. Looks at her hand-
"At some point, it'll get where you can close that up, no problem," he starts to meander to his bag, "need help bandaging it up? I don't think you went too deep, but it's gotta hurt."
Says the man whose hand is still bleeding. He'd know if it was too deep- they both would. They reached out to feel the entirety of the life around them, it would include the beating hearts in the closest proximity.
Margot"I've seen it done. It's a while until I get there." Margot looked up from her hand to Will and offered a small smile-- one born of exhileration and insight to a secret that the vast masses of humanity didn't know. "I'm sure I will, though."
He offered to bandage up her hand, so she nodded and turned to climb the small embankment and return to where her backpack was left on the ground. There, with a foot to hold the pack in place and her right hand to do the rest of the work, she produced a little red first aid kit. This was set on the ground, and she sat down cross-legged in front of it. Figured William would be joining her on the earth soon enough.
"If you can help get my hand bandaged first, I'll be able to return the favor."
A pause, where her eyes flicked up to and found his. Shit. Innuendo. Her eyebrows raised, and she grinned. "Heh. Y'know what I mean."
WilliamI'll be able to return the favor, she says.
"You promise?" he replies with a grin. Cheeky, he sits down across from her and tries to remember the things he's seen on Saturday morning specials and during all the times that he has had to staunch bleeding but slicing wounds are a little different from punctures. "I would say something about getting wet just thinking about it, but I'm already there- so."
A shrug. A beat.
"That innuendo doesn't work when you're a guy, that was lame, I apologize immediately," he gets on to working.
"How long you been doing this?"
MargotThe cheeky grin and retort that he gave back was accepted in stride, and for that Margot felt a little accomplished. She was so bashful usually, so easy to bring to an embarrassed flush, so some innuendo-laden banter being taken in stride was satisfying for her, in a way. She looked down to start unzipping the first aid kit for him and offer up what she'd brought along further, and he continued on to explain that he was already wet, so...
Margot looked back up at him with surpise, appearing taken aback and not really sure at first of how to respond. "Uh...."
Then he took it back-- apologized because it didn't work. She stared for a moment, then chuckled and held out her hand for him to start working.
"What, Magick? I Awoke last June. But I kind of... wandered a bit after that. It was only this January that I really started to understand what's going on and what I can do." A pause, then a correction: "What we all can do."
WilliamWhat we all can do.
"The human will is capable of many a great and terrible thing when we figure out that we're not bound by-" he waves around him for a second before going back to the actual bandaging. He isnt' cavalier with this. Is actually taking his time and focusing because he wants to make sure tha tthis is done right and things are disinfected and that she doesn't get pond water in an open wound. It's a quick way to get a staph infection, that.
"Did you just kind of figure it out on your own?" William asks, he's curious, but moreover he seems impressed.
Margot"In bits and pieces, at first." He seemed impressed, and to begin Margot fed into that. She would watch his face when he spoke, and usually would switch back to watching the bandage work intermittently. She looked a bit self-pleased, because if Margot was anything she was smart, and she liked being praised by her teachers growing up and getting top marks and being recognized for that thing she was great at. After Awakening, though, the praise from a professor just didn't quite have the same ring to it. Acadamia wasn't nearly as important, relevant, or powerful as Magick.
But, she was balanced by being self-conscious. All too aware of her own shortcomings and failures, any ego she began to build was often quickly deflated. As it was now when she confessed:
"But I didn't get far. I didn't really understand what I was doing, nor did I do it often, and though I read a lot on the matter I didn't really test anything. I was afraid, still am kind of, of being discovered. Persecuted. You know, witch burnings and all.
"In January I met Ned Gaines and Dr. Andrés Sepúlveda. Ned was in exactly the same boat I was-- Awakened and lost. Then we found Doc, and he's real experienced, he can heal and make things appear out of thin air. He's explained things to us, continues to explain things to us as we keep going on forward, but we're pretty much structuring all of this ourselves as we go along.
"They're not Witches. Doc's a Scientist. Ned's a Worker, or a Crafter, maybe. I'm a Witch for sure."
MargotThen, added on more definitively, she concluded: "No, Ned's a Wielder."
William"Ned's a welder?"
Clearly, the fall on his ass hurt his hearing.
Margot"Wielder," she was prompt to correct, and he'd be damned if she didn't sound the tiniest bit like a know-it-all when correcting.
"Or a Brandisher. He'd probably call himself a Solver, since he looks at things like a puzzle, but I think he's going to use Magick with a force."
Not the magic Forces, that's different.
WilliamIt's leviosa not leviosa, he hears when she corrects him- because it does make a difference because welding and wielding are not the same things.
"Being a brandisher would be that he whips it out for certain occasions, is flamboyant with it- he doesn't strike me as the flourishing type from the few things you've said about him," a pause, a thought, "he could be a strider, one who moves with purpose in a specified direction, but I don't know about goals there.
"So, what is being a witch to you? The difference between a witch and a supplicant to the older ways," William finally finishes the bandaging, looks at it dubiously before looking at his own hand, clenches his fist for a second before letting it go, "doesn't look bad," he says to himself.
Purposeful, you see, because he could take care of that problem for himself really quickly.
MargotWith that particular spin put on the word Brandisher, Margot screwed up her face in response to the thought of Ned and flamboyance going together in the same sentence, then shook her head. "Not a Brandisher, then," she agreed.
But what about her, why was she a Witch? The girl took her hand back and checked the bandage job, not with a lot of scrutiny but rather to see if there were seams she should be careful of, ways that she probably shouldn't bend her hand if she wanted it to last longer. As she performed this check she answered musingly.
"It's in the Craft. I think how you go about doing your Magick is what brings you to your label-- part of it anyways, I should clarify. How you percieve it and believe it works of course plays into it." The dismissive wave of her hand sent that technicality away so she could continue her point.
"For me, my Avatar is an old Goddess of War. She wouldn't care about Science, and this manifestation, what I see and feel, it's too rudimentary and old for much... flourish. My magic just feels old and raw and so it's best suited for and channeled through things like blood rites, rituals with bones and ash by flame, and who knows what else the more I learn."
Her eyes hopped from her hand to his; he was flexing it and claiming it wasn't so bad.
"Do you want me to cover it anyway?" Hey, she did say she'd return the favor.
William"So, your magick isn't in her worship, it's in the act of doing as she would do. In living and being and breathing the way instead of being the moving piece in an Other's bidding?" he asks, not with scrutiny, but more like he was musing. More like he was thinking about the concept and the prospect of how magick is and what it makes you.
Holds his hand out, "reciprocity and symmetry are important, I'd love the help."
Back to thinking.
"I don't know what I am, then. Hermetics tend to get pegged with wizardry but I sure as shit am not Harry Potter or Gandalf."
Margot"Exactly," she said, somewhat astonished in answer to the understanding he'd tried for of how her magick worked. "I've been trying to explain it, and I think that's it. I'm not worshipping her, I'm more of an extension of her. I don't ask her for power, she has already given it to me and isn't taking it back."
She made it sound like she'd tried giving it back. Maybe that was unintentional-- who tried to go back to Sleep?
With his hand extended in turn, Margot set it knuckles-down on one of her knees (bigger work surface than it floating in the air or her trying to steady it herself) and took to cleaning before wrapping.
"You don't strike me as much of a wizard either, no magic words or wands or Familiars." She paused her work to look back up at his face; really look, study actually. Like she could find the answer in the plane of his forehead or breadth of his nose bridge.
"You feel like a boat in a storm out at sea when you work, but the boat doesn't capsize. Maybe you're a Discoverer? Like of new lands, except the new lands are actually just a metaphor for Existence."
William"Ah, be still my heart, it's like she knows me," he says, as though this is the best agreement he could muster that he did, in fact, agree with her assertion. That maybe he is one who Discovers. Maybe he is some kind of explorer, for good or ill seeking things one was never meant to know.
He's seen some shit. Hasn't broken his grasp with reality in such a fashion that others have noticed. Maybe he'd outgrown it with the nightmares (lies, all lies. He is tied to something older than old, formless because its form is broken. He doesn't break because he knows Things, even if he hasn't remembered them.)
"I'm keeping that, I think I like Discoverer."
MargotThe wide-eyed little witch smiled, and for once in a great while there wasn't a drop of worry or anxiety to be found tightening the expression. The bandage was clipped and tied neatly into place (she wasn't an expert, but she'd done this recently and watched any number of other bandages be tied up by more skilled hands than her own-- smart girls like her picked up on things), and she bounced her knee a little to indicate his hand was his own again.
"I'm glad, I thought it was a little inspired of me."
With the kit all packed up again, Margot stood up once more. Looked to William and shouldered her pack. "Come on, I'll bet we can find dry clothes and lunch for cheap back in Boulder.
April 5, 2016
April 3rd, 2016 - Giddy Magick [Ned]
Ned
He's sitting on the couch again, lost in thought.
He'd been that way since he arrived, two cups of coffee in hand from one of the more local coffee shops that operates somewhere nearby. Ned's not hurting for money and half the time Margot's diming out her own stash of wake-me-up for the both of them. He's opted to bring out a bit of the caffeine for this little venture of theirs.
He's dressed in a simple pair of dark blue jeans, a black sweater and the pushed back taming of gel in his hair to keep it swept away from his face. Was a staple these days.
"....Most of what I can do, doesn't last long. A few seconds, tops. It's enough to get a read on something, but most of the time, the information I get isn't that useful. Except of course when I have the knowledge and training to recognize what I'm seeing. Like looking at a patient's insides? Anatomy? Easy enough. Looking at a building with X-ray vision? I get impressions and qualities but I doubt I could tell you how to collapse it effectively with only a few seconds to study."
He's frowning at this. Obviously, Ned had thought about pulling down or demolishing buildings before.
"Really, focusing our efforts on things that we can take advantage of is probably our best best. Narrowing the field to work within our comfort zones as it were. Matter, Life and Forces are my only real focal points right now, though I've dipped a bit into what the Doc has on Entropy in his library." The frown doesn't dissipate as he thinks, one hand lifting the coffee cup for a sip.
"...Pretty simple logistically, but the applications of Probability...tilting them any...it's like mixing together two colours to get another one....and then fine tuning it with minute amount of a third colour to get the exact hue you really wanted out of the first two."
Margot
As had been the case on many an occasion before, Margot's small studio apartment served as the meeting spot for the two Apprentices. It wasn't great on space but it was convenient enough to access and the neighbors were good ones (quiet, minded their own business, the best kind of apartment neighbors). It was a good defacto place to get together and talk Magick.
Or, in the case of this evening, Work Magick.
Ned was on the couch with two cups of coffee in hand, and Margot was stepping out from behind the paper divider that separated her bed from the rest of the space in the little studio. On the other end of the couch from Ned was Yorick the Rabbit, nibbling contentedly on some chew-treat or another that Margot'd gotten (so he'd be less inclined to chew on any of her cords). She stood on the opposite side of the coffee table from Ned and gratefully reached out for the coffee he'd brought along for her. "Thanks."
She was dressed in mustard yellow jeans and a dark gray tank-top, with her hair down and tucked back behind her ears. The day had been quite warm, full of sun with the temperatures up in the mid-sixties. The warmth of the day still lingered-- Margot had pushed her one window open and left the balcony door slightly ajar as well to allow for circulation in the room.
They were discussing the possibility of merging Magicks, and after a sip from her paper cup Margot replied in her usual quiet and thoughtful manner.
"I met with a Verbena man-- Thane. He suggested trying a rite with him and some other Verbena woman, to see if it feels right. If it's something that three strangers can do together, then we can pull it off. We've seen each other Work, we talk Magick all the time." She gave a quick smile of encouragement before continuing. "Did you learn to sense the Prime of Magick?"
Ned
"No."
He shook his head, abrupt and curt.
"That one's still a bit beyond me. Trying to make sense of it within the spectrum of...colours and senses that seem to make up how I view all of this is...weird. Layers under layers. Blank canvas under the pallet or..." He's shaking his head again, scrubbing at his brow.
"Pieces don't fit, no matter how I try to arrange it. I'll have to do some more studying with the Doc's library when I get the chance. Entropy's my first priority though. Forces after that. I want to know how t get from point A to Zap, without needing a defibrillator. Once those are down, I can sort out Prime...or try to anyway."
He'd been listening when she offered up news about the Verbena, nodding along with the offer to 'work with them'. His frown loosens slightly and he manages to offer a half smile.
"I'm happy you're making some connections outside of Doc and I." That sounded facetious. Or rather, Ned's eyes narrowed slightly and he considered the sentence he spoke. "What I mean is, I think part of moving on for you is going to require a bit of adjustment that the Doc and I can't easily provide..." More frowning. "Just....keep making more friends. One of us has to be socially adept, yeah?"
He took another sip of his coffee.
"I'm familiar with Life, Matter and Forces. I've done X-ray vision, got that one down pretty pat. Infrared, though in the city that brings up all sorts of weird heat blooms and I'm not sure what half of them mean. I tested out Sonar not too long ago but...city and it's noises. Was a bit of a trial that one. Too much to sort through for so little time. Same with Vibration sense. I..." He pauses, eyes narrowing "...Feel like maybe I could sense the subtle vibrations of something...like a Voice or Footsteps through the ground if it was conductive enough..."
Margot
One of us has to be socially adept, yeah?
Margot laughed, and she herself wasn't sure if it was because of scrapbook flashback memories of the Doc and Ned both being terrible with working with people, or if it was because she was thinking of her own mishaps (awkward, fumbling for words, blushing at the drop of a hat). When he went on to explain which spheres he had an affinity with, though, her expression shifted. She looked surprised, maybe even a little disappointed? A hand moved from her cup to count in the air while she recalled her own.
"I know those. Plus Prime, and Spirit, and I just picked up on Correspondence too."
Fingers curled back closed and her hand dropped down. Eyes fell aside as well, to the content red rabbit on the couch.
"...Huh. Want to try scanning the building? I mean, on my own I can only get details in a small space, or general information from a wider one. With both of us, I bet we could pick up details from each apartment." A pause, then a frown of reconsideration. "Although maybe I don't want to know what all of my neighbors are doing."
Ned
"...Sex, sex, watching Netflix, weird virgin sacrifice two floors below us..."
Ned lists them off with passing dismissal, quirk a grin at her before lifting off the couch. The coffee cup is put on the table and he's stretching, wincing with the effort. It had been a long week for the orderly. They all were these days, but then, work was becoming less and less of a slog and more and more...well, irrelevant.
"...Scanning the building's easy enough on our own. Together...I think it depends on how we function when we're...Working. You need to explain yours a bit more. Mine's just a puzzle. With colours, shapes and sensations. A lot of sensory input that just falls into place when I manage to do what I'm doing..."
He leaves it out there, nodding at her to go ahead and try to clarify her own.
Margot
She made a face at his summary of what was going on in the building, but ultimately returned the grin anyways. Sipped her coffee some and hummed thoughtfully while thinking of a good way of summarizing how her Craft worked.
"How the information comes in depends on what I'm looking for, exactly. When I look for movement in a building I'm trying to feel for displacement in the air, vibrations in the floor and walls from people moving around. Life isn't quite as.... echolocation-y. It's more something that I feel, like a deep tug in the gut or the heart. Prime feels a lot like how Resonance feels, usually, but I expect that if I found Magick from something besides Us then it would probably be different, picking up on that."
She shook her head and leaned forward to set her coffee down as well. "The results are probably the same in the end, regardless of who's picking up on them. It's the 'How' that I'm concerned about. I mean, I don't think that this would work with the Doc because he needs his gadgets and chemicals and all of that. You and I have less tangible concrete needs to make Magick work. It'll probably.... It should work."
Then she nodded and, with more resolve, said again. "Yeah, it should work. And if it doesn't, well... Hopefully Paradox doesn't knock us both out too badly."
Ned
"...A lot of sensory information in there as well. Alright, I think we can work with that."
Ned's clearing off the table of what little is there, placing it either on the couch or on nearby stands of things that might support the objects in question. Soon enough the table is bare and he's regarding the surface of it thoughtfully.
"Scanning the building. I'm not sure how much of it we're going to be able to get together. Or what exactly we should try to concentrate on...If we can somehow work this properly, it might be we can shoulder the burden and prolong how long it lasts?" Magic theory was not his forte but he was willing to try. Innovation required testing, required risks.
"Tools?" A blatant look at Yorrick, brow perked in obvious disapproval, even before she might have mentioned the rabbit.
Margot
While Ned cleared the table, Margot went behind the room divider once more. This time when she came back around it was with a knapsack in hand, which she'd opened up and was pawing lightly around through with one hand. Ned's question of tool was answered with a glance upward, then she followed his eyes to Yorick.
"Heh, no. He's very specific-- I can only really use him if I'm looking for something. With my eyes. I can't feel anything through him. He's great for ghost-hunting. I think I could probably find a way to get him to lead me to things, but I'm not really there yet." Back to the pack, where she pulled free a couple of things and set them on the edge of the table that Ned had just gone through the trouble of clearing off. She named each thing that she set down.
"Salt," for a small plastic container-and-lid, through which a pinkish hue could be seen.
"Water," a clear water bottle, with the label torn off a while ago.
"Ash," a pepper shaker with duct tape blocking the holes on top, so the ash wouldn't get loose in the bag.
"Plus blood, of course. And smoke, or fire, or really anything that has to do with burning."
A pause, and after Margot set the sack on the floor next to the table she straightened up, hands on hips, and looked at Ned. Her eyebrows perked up with question. "You, I know weed and alcohol and pain and touch work. What else?"
Ned
"....Actually it's narcotics of any kind. Not really about the type, as the High. Altered state of mind produces the right balance for Suspension of Disbelief. Like going to a shitty movie while you're high and knowing you're going to have a good time. You just...end up having a good time."
Ned grinned up at her briefly, though his attention had remained with the ingredients she laid out on the table. His frown was pretty thick, picking up and putting down the various odds and ends, with a calculating but ultimately dismissive pluck and placement. He sighs slightly, hand coming up to scrub horizontally across his jawline.
"I doubt I can make use of any of these but....Blood definitely works. Pain...well...yeah-" He blinks and then glances up at her. "Does it have to be your blood for you to work?"
Margot
Margot watched while Ned examined and then dismissed what she'd laid out. Each dismissed item was cleared from the table and tucked back into the knapsack. When he inquired about the specifics of blood she looked back up to meet his gaze again.
"Uhm, well, no. My blood's just always been most convenient for what I feel to be pretty obvious reasons. So long as it's human blood or something close."
Ned
",,,Alright. Blending of two tools then. Common ground."
He's rolling up his sleeve, straddling the length of the table until he's sitting in it's middle with a portion of the table's cleared end between them. Her instruments are set aside, handed back to her or tossed onto the couch for Yorrick to twitch his nose curiously at. When the table was clear and Ned's sleeves were rolled he took a deep breath and glanced up at her carefully.
"Gonna need a knife. Or something to cut with.."
Margot
While Ned sat himself down on the table with one leg on either side of it, Margot stood and watched. Worry was an expression that she wore often, and it was finding its familiar place back upon her visage by the time Ned looked up to ask for a knife. At first she stood with a look of disapproving there in how she pursed her mouth closed, but after a few seconds she turned and walked the few steps it took to get to the kitchen.
When she came back she joined him on the table, straddling it the same way he was, but sitting facing him instead of facing away. She'd brought back a filet knife from the cutting block-- still good and sharp, she hasn't gotten much use out of it yet.
When she handed it over, she said: "Just please don't hurt yourself too badly." Cautioning the medical professional to be careful about where he cut. A request, really, more than a warning. Of course he knew what he was doing, but all the same.
She wasn't wearing sleeves to have to roll up, but Margot did pull an elastic band from her wrist to tie her hair back at the nape of her neck. Looked up at Ned's face and set her hands on top of her thighs. Let's do this.
Ned
"I'm not hurting myself. That would be silly..."
He pushed the knife back toward her gently, eyeballing her with scrutinizing care.
"...You're going to make an incision here-" He draws a line with his finger, across the thick pad of his palm, below where the Pinky was. "-nice and meaty but not too deep. Whatever other mojo you need to do, is on you, but it'll produce the pain I need to make this work and you'll have your blood offering as well."
Without much more explanation than that, Ned held his hand in the intimate little space they'd created between them, eyes level with her own. There was no hesitation there. No pause or grief. Pragmatic determination in the slight crease of his brow.
Margot
When the knife was pushed back to her, Margot looked a little surprised. Ned's explanation made sense enough, but she was still holding her mouth in that same scrunched up way of disapproval and worry that she'd doen before. But at least that meant it was closed to protests as well.
Big hazel eyes dropped to his hand to follow the line he'd drawn for her to follow. In the meat but not too deep. She simply looked at first, but after that first moment's hesitation (the breath, the gulp before climbing the cliff you were about to jump off of) she took his hand within her own. Cupped his knuckles and the back of his hand in her own smaller palm and held the knife up with her right hand.
"Well, here we go," she said, and her brow set with concentration. The blade touched his hand gently at first, lining up where it needed to be. Then, with a quick dig of pressure and an outward drawing motion as well, the metal bit into flesh.
[Arete 1: Coincidental, modifiers and what not + WP]
Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (4) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Margot
[Oh and that was Forces/Matter/Life general scan]
Ned
(Ritual Effect: Life 1, Forces 1, Matter 1: Scanning the Building. Diff. 4 -1 for Tool use)
Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (7) ( success x 1 )
Ned
The knife cuts.
Pain blossoms.
Ned hisses, his free hand automatically moving to cover the wound as it bled freely out into the cup of his palm, seeding the lines between their shared knuckles and fingers.
"Son of a..."
And then the world drops away for the both of them.
* * * *
It's sort of like standing amid flashes of colour, lightning and heat. There is a familiar flush of sensation, tugs from below, above and around them where footsteps (some hard heeled, others soft fleshed) voices (gruff, mumbled, murmured) and other sounds (The squeak of a bed, the chatter of a television, the electromagnetic hum of the wiring in the walls).
It is all present, inundating and bludgeoning. Enough that Margot can feel Ned's hand in hers, tensing, muscle cording with the bloom of it all.
"...Can you hear me?" His voice is a warble. Echoes like rings in water. Trailing out to strike the walls and bounce back toward them. "Whoa. Cool...rings..." His laughter is gently, plodding droplets in the pool of 'sensation' gathered around them both.
The floors are static, fed through with lines of blue lightning and orange fire. Heat and Electric utilities. Beneath, below or around those, bodies of pluming heat move and jerk and dance around in their cubes and box apartments. Several floors and layers below them, blend together in splotches and blobs that grow more indistinct as it gets closer to the ground floor. Movement is traced though, reds and yellows of human forms, hugging, or talking or sitting or standing or laying down.
"...Feels like we're in water but with none of the resistance...Lots of rainbows and...shapes..."
Margot
Hissing air in through your teeth was a sound that filled ears from the inside of your own head, but Ned would still hear the knife clatter on the table when dropped hastily from the short distance between hands and furniture. She'd quickly taken the knife-hand and grasped it on top of his as well.
Then the bottom fell out, so to speak, and the world around them seemed to be replaced with sensation of many kinds. Blood ran wet between their fingers, but Margot grasped firmly for the touch was a reminder of where physical bodies were in the physical world-- an important anchor to avoid getting lost in the vibrations above and below, the heat-bloom and thrum of a heart and its pulse.
She was seeing the color-- the orange-and-blue of electricity, the water-like ripple of sound visible in the air. How bright everything was assaulted her senses and she was lost in it for a second, until something familiar called to her, something unfamiliar perhaps to Ned. For where his sense of color and visualizations came through for both of them, the gut-heart-belly tug of Life was there for them both as well. She was right, it was a new sort of sensing of Life that she experienced. Like they were one polarization of magnet and the other bodies (and animals) around them were the other polarizations.
"This is...," she started saying, but seeing her voice around her was distracting and her eyes followed those rings, then fell to and through the floors below them. Felt herself leaning forward and chuckled some (encouraged by the gentle giddy laughter in front of her). "Insane. It's crazy. And there aren't nearly as many people fucking as you guessed, Ned."
Ned
"Hold on....refining..."
Ned's switched from the giddy reality of what they're doing to a pragmatic exploration of things. Testing waters with out-stretched hands, at least his free one, which he glances at. It is a latticework of tendons, red blooms, pulses that strike at the chest and lips and tongue and electrical threads from the brain, firing off to tell the fingers to wiggle. Which they do. Ned's gaze is sidelong, careful not to break the connection he and Margot are sharing. He wasn't sure if releasing her hand or moving would disrupt what they were doing and this was too fragile a thing to test those boundaries any just now.
"...I think I can..."
It's as if their surroundings become a bit more blurry. Pushed to the 'back of the mind' in favour of diving into the building below. He lowers his head to peer through the table space between where they are sitting, regarding the floors and on into the apartments below. Steadily, heat blooms become more distinct. Resolving into humanoid shapes, then the shapes of men and women. Even a few clusters of visible internal heartbeats and pulses. Some are slow. Methodical. Easy.
Others are fast, hectic-
"...One couple. Just finishing up-" He points and winces, yelping slightly as he jabs at the nearly invisible table accidentally "-this is gonna take some getting used to."
His finger moves from the rutting figures three floors below them, to an odd black lattice of veins, fluttering around a weakened set of heart rings, bouncing off walls with minimal recoil.
"Cancer. Or some sort of disease. Notice the weakened pulses and ripples. Can see the evidence of the disease in the black cluster of veins, tearing them apart before they have a chance to even travel beyond the heart source." He pauses, tapping the table over the oddly disjointed and disquieting image. "Like some nebula in the colours."
He's pointing again, diagonally away from them, a bit of the giddy climbing back into his voice.
"...There. Someone doing yoga. Ripples are all bouncing and layering on top of one another with the breathing. Elevated heartrate but it's...pretty synchronized. Room's just one big amateurish fractal..."
He pauses, eyeballing the apartment one floor below and to the east, watching the woman, who was red and orange blooms, bent in a tripod pose, flush her surroundings with overlapping ripples that cancelled one another out in asymmetrical synch.
"...All sorts of applications with this. Lie detection. Movement detection. Vital signs. I'm sure you could refine it further or get an even bigger read-out if you threw Corr into the mix."
Margot
[Tossin' dice before the post this time: Arete 1: Prime, -1 diff tool applied]
Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (7) ( success x 1 )
Margot
It was a new experience, to be tuned into the world through Magick, seeing the system upon which reality was built and operating for what it was at its purest, and have somebody else's perspective put in the mix. When Margot explained it as 'echolocation-y', it was clumsy but most accurate. It didn't occur to her before, but there wasn't a lot of color when she was percieving things. She felt more than she saw or smelled or tasted or heard. Everything was intuitive and understood. So, while Ned was exploring below, Margot went along with him and the commentary he had to provide on what there was to be found.
She made an uncomfortable face, perhaps feeling some moral quandry about actually seeing/feeling/witnessing another couple's intimacy, but that soon switched to a different sort of uncomfortable when they found the blackened and weakened network of disease. A sad knid of uncomfortable, she didn't know that neighbor but now she wrestled (briefly) with whether it was her responsibility to check and see if that person was getting help yet. If they knew.
"Or Spirit...," she agreed, exploring the options available. "Or Prime," as another thought occurred to her. Her head lifted so she wasn't looking down through the building any longer, but instead brought her consciousness back up within her own four walls. Focused on those walls and the air around her specifically, then said: "Hang on, I have an idea."
Keeping one hand (the hand most bloodied) clasped to his, she freed the other so it could reach back to the sack on the floor. Felt around until it found the pepper shaker and brought it up to her face so she could rip the tape from its top with her teeth. She tipped it upside down and shook out the fine charcoal-blackgray powder upon the tabletop, where Ned's blood had puddled. Set the shaker down and stirred the ash with her fingers.
Suddenly, like a chemical reaction, a change bloomed from the spot where ash and crimson met. The air restricted, breath stole away (Margot gasped, but did not cease to breathe), and the walls began to seep. The room had changed visibly, through the color and hum of utility and structure and Life that was already there-- the ceiling and furniture and walls were crawling with the layers of Magick that the two of them had performed in this room time and time again. The air was heavy, thicker, more laborous for the lungs to process. This was what viewing their Resonance through the lense of Prime was like.
Ned
".....Fuck."
It's small. Miniscule almost. He has to cough at one point, off to the side to make due with the sudden shift in their perspective that comes with Margot's addition of the Prime Sphere. It is a...clustered effect. Layers bleeding back to give them something new to consider. Ned's mind focuses on the perspective they are receiving from below and around them, yet Prime's presence forces an almost...disassociative quality. The Air itself, was visible and tangible. Breathing in, suddenly had small whorling vacuums and tides of essence vanishing through nostrils and into lungs. Visibly blending with the patterns of their own bodies.
He felt the leaden almost chewable push of his own Resonance. Suffocating claustrophobic. It forced him to breathe a little deeper but..this he was used to. The arterial flood of Margot's own raw, vicious Resonance is one he's used to as well. His job keeps him elbow deep sometimes. To experience it in such a way though has him...screwing his eyes shut every so often to adjust.
"...Brand new strings....reach out a pluck each one. All the colours, have strings and pieces. The air, our clothes, the skin, the floor. I can see...Fuck-" He scrubs at his eyes "-I can see how causing something's layers, or the essence below the layers damage, would be difficult to heal. Even moreso to resist. At the same time, making them denser."
He peered down at the Diseased webwork below, the pattern of which, the layers under it all, weakened as well. Cracked and aging and archaic.
"...Could easily separate one layer from the next. Pull the disease right out without leaving much behind and then repair the Pattern itself...But you'd need Life...more of it...." Frowning now. So much to take in.
"...I don't think I want to experience what Spirit would look like. Might find out just what's living in your apartment and the building."
Margot
"I can't afford to move. I don't want to know if this building is haunted or what by if so."
It was a lot to take in, and that was a large part of why Margot had pulled herself back into her apartment, brought herself out of the lives and rooms of those below her. She was exploring the Prime, the new addition to the mash-up of perceptions. She was a little unnerved by how her own Magick manifested sometimes, or at least by the visualization of it. To see the sharp red and dark caked black-red-brown layed upon one another across the surfaces of her apartment, to see how it seemed even to ooze from the layers of paint on the walls, it had her swallowing and (as well as the claustrophobic gasp-gasp-breath of Ned's own magick) taking a deep breath that filled her lungs as much as they would.
"Which apartment is that, can you tell?" She looked down again, back to where the old disease festered and rotted. "The person that's sick. They should know, if they don't already." Seems that she'd made up her mind on where she stood, morally speaking, when it came to walking around with the knowledge of somebody's impending death on her shoulders.
Then, soon after:
"There's so much, but it all makes sense and fits where it's supposed to go. It's navigable-- used to be a lot to take in and I could only pull pieces here and there, but I can go find what I'm looking for now. We've got to be close, close to unlocking it, you know? To changing things."
Ned
"....A little too much."
He admits. Margot was operating with far more Sphere integration that he was at present. His own understanding of Prime was limited at best (Though this moment probably went a long way to assuaging some of his curiosity). Ned remains fixed in place, hand still clutched inside Margot's own. The arterial 'icing' layered over everything was definitely something that drew his attention. Congealed, flaking, banded blood and viscera. A harsh representation that hovered on the edges of vision while his own claustrophobic gulps for air made it all seem like some fever dream.
"...I think that's enough for the time being."
He pries his hand loose from Margot's own, flexing fingers around, pulses of pain leaping out infront of him, sharp warbling blooms of reddish mist, captured and cloying like spores, under the heavy imprint of their shared Resonance. His gaze turns around the apartment, watching as layers begin to peel back and away from reality. As walls begin to assert themselves with slow, but predictable tangibility.
"....Huh. Slow to fade. Unless you actively-"
And the world pops back into place, suddenly and swiftly. Enough that it drags his breath out of him and he's left breathing a bit more heavily than before.
"-dismiss it."
The blood on his hand is caked into place, blackened at the edges and congealed around the wound which has been scabbed slightly, timorously, with the time they'd spent in the 'Layered view'. There's a small pool on the table between them, likewise congealed, slightly ridged as the cooling liquid begins to condense.
"...Rather weird set of interactions you have. Far more intuitive than my own. Lend themselves to one another well though, if a bit overwhelming."
Margot
At last their hands parted, Ned's own wrenching away from hers, and the sensory overload began to fade, fade, fade, and then--- pop! gone.
Margot moved to put her hands on top of her knees to brace herself, but thought better of it and rested her hands on the edges of the table instead, leaned forward and breathing deep and deliberate. Like having an inhaler unlock your airways after an asthma attack. After a few moments she straightened up again. Surveyed the blood on the table and all over their hands.
"I suppose so. It was uncomfortable at first, but a lot about my Magick is uncomfortable." She stood then, swinging one leg over the table backward so she was careful to avoid bumping her fellow apprentice with a knee. Walked over to the kitchen sink and nudged the faucet on with her elbow so she could begin washing her hands. The old white porcelain bloomed red-and-pink in the basin as she did.
"I'm getting used to it, though. Stepping outside the bounds will always be uncomfortable. Well worth it, though." Hands washed, she knelt down and retrieved a first aid kit from under the sink. Set it up on the counter and nodded her head for him to come on over. She no doubt had plans to help him get the cut on his hand cleaned and covered up.
Ned
Bathroom.
She hit the faucet in the kitchen. Ned went for the bathroom, leading with his elbows. He plucked some tissue off the roll to turn the sink on. A second flush of red and pink went down this drain, as he scrubbed gingerly around the cut on his hand. To little avail, as the forming scab began to ooze with the watering down. Eventually he tapped the Faucet off and dried the back of his hands on a nearby towel.
He came out of the Bathroom with the tissue held to his cut hand, moving into the Kitchen.
"...It's a bit disjointed though. Makes it difficult for you to be able to keep all those senses readied and in the moment. You'd be at a significant disadvantage in a fight unless you came to rely on those senses as much as you do on your sight here in this world."
This world. Like they were fresh back from a Dimensional hop.
"...I don't know what apartment that was, by the way but you should leave it alone. Can't explain how you know to anyone anyway and it'll just raise suspicion." He's shaking his head. Callous perhaps but Ned was never one for feeling for strangers. Paranoia won out. Always.
His hand was held out toward her, laid on the counter next to the first aid.
Margot
He called it a disadvantage, how she perceived things, and she stilled the motions of drying her hands with a paper towel to look at him with a raised eyebrow. His follow-up about learning to lean on them was met with a nod, though, and she tossed the paper towel in the bin by the end of the counter. "I'm pretty sure that's what's going to end up happening. I'll be like Daredevil or something," she added with a grin.
While she bandaged up his hand (rudimentary, basic understanding and application of first aid-- she was unfamiliar and out of practice but at least had an idea of what she was doing), Margot sighed and nodded.
"Alright, I'll leave it alone."
He's sitting on the couch again, lost in thought.
He'd been that way since he arrived, two cups of coffee in hand from one of the more local coffee shops that operates somewhere nearby. Ned's not hurting for money and half the time Margot's diming out her own stash of wake-me-up for the both of them. He's opted to bring out a bit of the caffeine for this little venture of theirs.
He's dressed in a simple pair of dark blue jeans, a black sweater and the pushed back taming of gel in his hair to keep it swept away from his face. Was a staple these days.
"....Most of what I can do, doesn't last long. A few seconds, tops. It's enough to get a read on something, but most of the time, the information I get isn't that useful. Except of course when I have the knowledge and training to recognize what I'm seeing. Like looking at a patient's insides? Anatomy? Easy enough. Looking at a building with X-ray vision? I get impressions and qualities but I doubt I could tell you how to collapse it effectively with only a few seconds to study."
He's frowning at this. Obviously, Ned had thought about pulling down or demolishing buildings before.
"Really, focusing our efforts on things that we can take advantage of is probably our best best. Narrowing the field to work within our comfort zones as it were. Matter, Life and Forces are my only real focal points right now, though I've dipped a bit into what the Doc has on Entropy in his library." The frown doesn't dissipate as he thinks, one hand lifting the coffee cup for a sip.
"...Pretty simple logistically, but the applications of Probability...tilting them any...it's like mixing together two colours to get another one....and then fine tuning it with minute amount of a third colour to get the exact hue you really wanted out of the first two."
Margot
As had been the case on many an occasion before, Margot's small studio apartment served as the meeting spot for the two Apprentices. It wasn't great on space but it was convenient enough to access and the neighbors were good ones (quiet, minded their own business, the best kind of apartment neighbors). It was a good defacto place to get together and talk Magick.
Or, in the case of this evening, Work Magick.
Ned was on the couch with two cups of coffee in hand, and Margot was stepping out from behind the paper divider that separated her bed from the rest of the space in the little studio. On the other end of the couch from Ned was Yorick the Rabbit, nibbling contentedly on some chew-treat or another that Margot'd gotten (so he'd be less inclined to chew on any of her cords). She stood on the opposite side of the coffee table from Ned and gratefully reached out for the coffee he'd brought along for her. "Thanks."
She was dressed in mustard yellow jeans and a dark gray tank-top, with her hair down and tucked back behind her ears. The day had been quite warm, full of sun with the temperatures up in the mid-sixties. The warmth of the day still lingered-- Margot had pushed her one window open and left the balcony door slightly ajar as well to allow for circulation in the room.
They were discussing the possibility of merging Magicks, and after a sip from her paper cup Margot replied in her usual quiet and thoughtful manner.
"I met with a Verbena man-- Thane. He suggested trying a rite with him and some other Verbena woman, to see if it feels right. If it's something that three strangers can do together, then we can pull it off. We've seen each other Work, we talk Magick all the time." She gave a quick smile of encouragement before continuing. "Did you learn to sense the Prime of Magick?"
Ned
"No."
He shook his head, abrupt and curt.
"That one's still a bit beyond me. Trying to make sense of it within the spectrum of...colours and senses that seem to make up how I view all of this is...weird. Layers under layers. Blank canvas under the pallet or..." He's shaking his head again, scrubbing at his brow.
"Pieces don't fit, no matter how I try to arrange it. I'll have to do some more studying with the Doc's library when I get the chance. Entropy's my first priority though. Forces after that. I want to know how t get from point A to Zap, without needing a defibrillator. Once those are down, I can sort out Prime...or try to anyway."
He'd been listening when she offered up news about the Verbena, nodding along with the offer to 'work with them'. His frown loosens slightly and he manages to offer a half smile.
"I'm happy you're making some connections outside of Doc and I." That sounded facetious. Or rather, Ned's eyes narrowed slightly and he considered the sentence he spoke. "What I mean is, I think part of moving on for you is going to require a bit of adjustment that the Doc and I can't easily provide..." More frowning. "Just....keep making more friends. One of us has to be socially adept, yeah?"
He took another sip of his coffee.
"I'm familiar with Life, Matter and Forces. I've done X-ray vision, got that one down pretty pat. Infrared, though in the city that brings up all sorts of weird heat blooms and I'm not sure what half of them mean. I tested out Sonar not too long ago but...city and it's noises. Was a bit of a trial that one. Too much to sort through for so little time. Same with Vibration sense. I..." He pauses, eyes narrowing "...Feel like maybe I could sense the subtle vibrations of something...like a Voice or Footsteps through the ground if it was conductive enough..."
Margot
One of us has to be socially adept, yeah?
Margot laughed, and she herself wasn't sure if it was because of scrapbook flashback memories of the Doc and Ned both being terrible with working with people, or if it was because she was thinking of her own mishaps (awkward, fumbling for words, blushing at the drop of a hat). When he went on to explain which spheres he had an affinity with, though, her expression shifted. She looked surprised, maybe even a little disappointed? A hand moved from her cup to count in the air while she recalled her own.
"I know those. Plus Prime, and Spirit, and I just picked up on Correspondence too."
Fingers curled back closed and her hand dropped down. Eyes fell aside as well, to the content red rabbit on the couch.
"...Huh. Want to try scanning the building? I mean, on my own I can only get details in a small space, or general information from a wider one. With both of us, I bet we could pick up details from each apartment." A pause, then a frown of reconsideration. "Although maybe I don't want to know what all of my neighbors are doing."
Ned
"...Sex, sex, watching Netflix, weird virgin sacrifice two floors below us..."
Ned lists them off with passing dismissal, quirk a grin at her before lifting off the couch. The coffee cup is put on the table and he's stretching, wincing with the effort. It had been a long week for the orderly. They all were these days, but then, work was becoming less and less of a slog and more and more...well, irrelevant.
"...Scanning the building's easy enough on our own. Together...I think it depends on how we function when we're...Working. You need to explain yours a bit more. Mine's just a puzzle. With colours, shapes and sensations. A lot of sensory input that just falls into place when I manage to do what I'm doing..."
He leaves it out there, nodding at her to go ahead and try to clarify her own.
Margot
She made a face at his summary of what was going on in the building, but ultimately returned the grin anyways. Sipped her coffee some and hummed thoughtfully while thinking of a good way of summarizing how her Craft worked.
"How the information comes in depends on what I'm looking for, exactly. When I look for movement in a building I'm trying to feel for displacement in the air, vibrations in the floor and walls from people moving around. Life isn't quite as.... echolocation-y. It's more something that I feel, like a deep tug in the gut or the heart. Prime feels a lot like how Resonance feels, usually, but I expect that if I found Magick from something besides Us then it would probably be different, picking up on that."
She shook her head and leaned forward to set her coffee down as well. "The results are probably the same in the end, regardless of who's picking up on them. It's the 'How' that I'm concerned about. I mean, I don't think that this would work with the Doc because he needs his gadgets and chemicals and all of that. You and I have less tangible concrete needs to make Magick work. It'll probably.... It should work."
Then she nodded and, with more resolve, said again. "Yeah, it should work. And if it doesn't, well... Hopefully Paradox doesn't knock us both out too badly."
Ned
"...A lot of sensory information in there as well. Alright, I think we can work with that."
Ned's clearing off the table of what little is there, placing it either on the couch or on nearby stands of things that might support the objects in question. Soon enough the table is bare and he's regarding the surface of it thoughtfully.
"Scanning the building. I'm not sure how much of it we're going to be able to get together. Or what exactly we should try to concentrate on...If we can somehow work this properly, it might be we can shoulder the burden and prolong how long it lasts?" Magic theory was not his forte but he was willing to try. Innovation required testing, required risks.
"Tools?" A blatant look at Yorrick, brow perked in obvious disapproval, even before she might have mentioned the rabbit.
Margot
While Ned cleared the table, Margot went behind the room divider once more. This time when she came back around it was with a knapsack in hand, which she'd opened up and was pawing lightly around through with one hand. Ned's question of tool was answered with a glance upward, then she followed his eyes to Yorick.
"Heh, no. He's very specific-- I can only really use him if I'm looking for something. With my eyes. I can't feel anything through him. He's great for ghost-hunting. I think I could probably find a way to get him to lead me to things, but I'm not really there yet." Back to the pack, where she pulled free a couple of things and set them on the edge of the table that Ned had just gone through the trouble of clearing off. She named each thing that she set down.
"Salt," for a small plastic container-and-lid, through which a pinkish hue could be seen.
"Water," a clear water bottle, with the label torn off a while ago.
"Ash," a pepper shaker with duct tape blocking the holes on top, so the ash wouldn't get loose in the bag.
"Plus blood, of course. And smoke, or fire, or really anything that has to do with burning."
A pause, and after Margot set the sack on the floor next to the table she straightened up, hands on hips, and looked at Ned. Her eyebrows perked up with question. "You, I know weed and alcohol and pain and touch work. What else?"
Ned
"....Actually it's narcotics of any kind. Not really about the type, as the High. Altered state of mind produces the right balance for Suspension of Disbelief. Like going to a shitty movie while you're high and knowing you're going to have a good time. You just...end up having a good time."
Ned grinned up at her briefly, though his attention had remained with the ingredients she laid out on the table. His frown was pretty thick, picking up and putting down the various odds and ends, with a calculating but ultimately dismissive pluck and placement. He sighs slightly, hand coming up to scrub horizontally across his jawline.
"I doubt I can make use of any of these but....Blood definitely works. Pain...well...yeah-" He blinks and then glances up at her. "Does it have to be your blood for you to work?"
Margot
Margot watched while Ned examined and then dismissed what she'd laid out. Each dismissed item was cleared from the table and tucked back into the knapsack. When he inquired about the specifics of blood she looked back up to meet his gaze again.
"Uhm, well, no. My blood's just always been most convenient for what I feel to be pretty obvious reasons. So long as it's human blood or something close."
Ned
",,,Alright. Blending of two tools then. Common ground."
He's rolling up his sleeve, straddling the length of the table until he's sitting in it's middle with a portion of the table's cleared end between them. Her instruments are set aside, handed back to her or tossed onto the couch for Yorrick to twitch his nose curiously at. When the table was clear and Ned's sleeves were rolled he took a deep breath and glanced up at her carefully.
"Gonna need a knife. Or something to cut with.."
Margot
While Ned sat himself down on the table with one leg on either side of it, Margot stood and watched. Worry was an expression that she wore often, and it was finding its familiar place back upon her visage by the time Ned looked up to ask for a knife. At first she stood with a look of disapproving there in how she pursed her mouth closed, but after a few seconds she turned and walked the few steps it took to get to the kitchen.
When she came back she joined him on the table, straddling it the same way he was, but sitting facing him instead of facing away. She'd brought back a filet knife from the cutting block-- still good and sharp, she hasn't gotten much use out of it yet.
When she handed it over, she said: "Just please don't hurt yourself too badly." Cautioning the medical professional to be careful about where he cut. A request, really, more than a warning. Of course he knew what he was doing, but all the same.
She wasn't wearing sleeves to have to roll up, but Margot did pull an elastic band from her wrist to tie her hair back at the nape of her neck. Looked up at Ned's face and set her hands on top of her thighs. Let's do this.
Ned
"I'm not hurting myself. That would be silly..."
He pushed the knife back toward her gently, eyeballing her with scrutinizing care.
"...You're going to make an incision here-" He draws a line with his finger, across the thick pad of his palm, below where the Pinky was. "-nice and meaty but not too deep. Whatever other mojo you need to do, is on you, but it'll produce the pain I need to make this work and you'll have your blood offering as well."
Without much more explanation than that, Ned held his hand in the intimate little space they'd created between them, eyes level with her own. There was no hesitation there. No pause or grief. Pragmatic determination in the slight crease of his brow.
Margot
When the knife was pushed back to her, Margot looked a little surprised. Ned's explanation made sense enough, but she was still holding her mouth in that same scrunched up way of disapproval and worry that she'd doen before. But at least that meant it was closed to protests as well.
Big hazel eyes dropped to his hand to follow the line he'd drawn for her to follow. In the meat but not too deep. She simply looked at first, but after that first moment's hesitation (the breath, the gulp before climbing the cliff you were about to jump off of) she took his hand within her own. Cupped his knuckles and the back of his hand in her own smaller palm and held the knife up with her right hand.
"Well, here we go," she said, and her brow set with concentration. The blade touched his hand gently at first, lining up where it needed to be. Then, with a quick dig of pressure and an outward drawing motion as well, the metal bit into flesh.
[Arete 1: Coincidental, modifiers and what not + WP]
Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (4) ( success x 2 ) [WP]
Margot
[Oh and that was Forces/Matter/Life general scan]
Ned
(Ritual Effect: Life 1, Forces 1, Matter 1: Scanning the Building. Diff. 4 -1 for Tool use)
Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (7) ( success x 1 )
Ned
The knife cuts.
Pain blossoms.
Ned hisses, his free hand automatically moving to cover the wound as it bled freely out into the cup of his palm, seeding the lines between their shared knuckles and fingers.
"Son of a..."
And then the world drops away for the both of them.
* * * *
It's sort of like standing amid flashes of colour, lightning and heat. There is a familiar flush of sensation, tugs from below, above and around them where footsteps (some hard heeled, others soft fleshed) voices (gruff, mumbled, murmured) and other sounds (The squeak of a bed, the chatter of a television, the electromagnetic hum of the wiring in the walls).
It is all present, inundating and bludgeoning. Enough that Margot can feel Ned's hand in hers, tensing, muscle cording with the bloom of it all.
"...Can you hear me?" His voice is a warble. Echoes like rings in water. Trailing out to strike the walls and bounce back toward them. "Whoa. Cool...rings..." His laughter is gently, plodding droplets in the pool of 'sensation' gathered around them both.
The floors are static, fed through with lines of blue lightning and orange fire. Heat and Electric utilities. Beneath, below or around those, bodies of pluming heat move and jerk and dance around in their cubes and box apartments. Several floors and layers below them, blend together in splotches and blobs that grow more indistinct as it gets closer to the ground floor. Movement is traced though, reds and yellows of human forms, hugging, or talking or sitting or standing or laying down.
"...Feels like we're in water but with none of the resistance...Lots of rainbows and...shapes..."
Margot
Hissing air in through your teeth was a sound that filled ears from the inside of your own head, but Ned would still hear the knife clatter on the table when dropped hastily from the short distance between hands and furniture. She'd quickly taken the knife-hand and grasped it on top of his as well.
Then the bottom fell out, so to speak, and the world around them seemed to be replaced with sensation of many kinds. Blood ran wet between their fingers, but Margot grasped firmly for the touch was a reminder of where physical bodies were in the physical world-- an important anchor to avoid getting lost in the vibrations above and below, the heat-bloom and thrum of a heart and its pulse.
She was seeing the color-- the orange-and-blue of electricity, the water-like ripple of sound visible in the air. How bright everything was assaulted her senses and she was lost in it for a second, until something familiar called to her, something unfamiliar perhaps to Ned. For where his sense of color and visualizations came through for both of them, the gut-heart-belly tug of Life was there for them both as well. She was right, it was a new sort of sensing of Life that she experienced. Like they were one polarization of magnet and the other bodies (and animals) around them were the other polarizations.
"This is...," she started saying, but seeing her voice around her was distracting and her eyes followed those rings, then fell to and through the floors below them. Felt herself leaning forward and chuckled some (encouraged by the gentle giddy laughter in front of her). "Insane. It's crazy. And there aren't nearly as many people fucking as you guessed, Ned."
Ned
"Hold on....refining..."
Ned's switched from the giddy reality of what they're doing to a pragmatic exploration of things. Testing waters with out-stretched hands, at least his free one, which he glances at. It is a latticework of tendons, red blooms, pulses that strike at the chest and lips and tongue and electrical threads from the brain, firing off to tell the fingers to wiggle. Which they do. Ned's gaze is sidelong, careful not to break the connection he and Margot are sharing. He wasn't sure if releasing her hand or moving would disrupt what they were doing and this was too fragile a thing to test those boundaries any just now.
"...I think I can..."
It's as if their surroundings become a bit more blurry. Pushed to the 'back of the mind' in favour of diving into the building below. He lowers his head to peer through the table space between where they are sitting, regarding the floors and on into the apartments below. Steadily, heat blooms become more distinct. Resolving into humanoid shapes, then the shapes of men and women. Even a few clusters of visible internal heartbeats and pulses. Some are slow. Methodical. Easy.
Others are fast, hectic-
"...One couple. Just finishing up-" He points and winces, yelping slightly as he jabs at the nearly invisible table accidentally "-this is gonna take some getting used to."
His finger moves from the rutting figures three floors below them, to an odd black lattice of veins, fluttering around a weakened set of heart rings, bouncing off walls with minimal recoil.
"Cancer. Or some sort of disease. Notice the weakened pulses and ripples. Can see the evidence of the disease in the black cluster of veins, tearing them apart before they have a chance to even travel beyond the heart source." He pauses, tapping the table over the oddly disjointed and disquieting image. "Like some nebula in the colours."
He's pointing again, diagonally away from them, a bit of the giddy climbing back into his voice.
"...There. Someone doing yoga. Ripples are all bouncing and layering on top of one another with the breathing. Elevated heartrate but it's...pretty synchronized. Room's just one big amateurish fractal..."
He pauses, eyeballing the apartment one floor below and to the east, watching the woman, who was red and orange blooms, bent in a tripod pose, flush her surroundings with overlapping ripples that cancelled one another out in asymmetrical synch.
"...All sorts of applications with this. Lie detection. Movement detection. Vital signs. I'm sure you could refine it further or get an even bigger read-out if you threw Corr into the mix."
Margot
[Tossin' dice before the post this time: Arete 1: Prime, -1 diff tool applied]
Dice: 1 d10 TN3 (7) ( success x 1 )
Margot
It was a new experience, to be tuned into the world through Magick, seeing the system upon which reality was built and operating for what it was at its purest, and have somebody else's perspective put in the mix. When Margot explained it as 'echolocation-y', it was clumsy but most accurate. It didn't occur to her before, but there wasn't a lot of color when she was percieving things. She felt more than she saw or smelled or tasted or heard. Everything was intuitive and understood. So, while Ned was exploring below, Margot went along with him and the commentary he had to provide on what there was to be found.
She made an uncomfortable face, perhaps feeling some moral quandry about actually seeing/feeling/witnessing another couple's intimacy, but that soon switched to a different sort of uncomfortable when they found the blackened and weakened network of disease. A sad knid of uncomfortable, she didn't know that neighbor but now she wrestled (briefly) with whether it was her responsibility to check and see if that person was getting help yet. If they knew.
"Or Spirit...," she agreed, exploring the options available. "Or Prime," as another thought occurred to her. Her head lifted so she wasn't looking down through the building any longer, but instead brought her consciousness back up within her own four walls. Focused on those walls and the air around her specifically, then said: "Hang on, I have an idea."
Keeping one hand (the hand most bloodied) clasped to his, she freed the other so it could reach back to the sack on the floor. Felt around until it found the pepper shaker and brought it up to her face so she could rip the tape from its top with her teeth. She tipped it upside down and shook out the fine charcoal-blackgray powder upon the tabletop, where Ned's blood had puddled. Set the shaker down and stirred the ash with her fingers.
Suddenly, like a chemical reaction, a change bloomed from the spot where ash and crimson met. The air restricted, breath stole away (Margot gasped, but did not cease to breathe), and the walls began to seep. The room had changed visibly, through the color and hum of utility and structure and Life that was already there-- the ceiling and furniture and walls were crawling with the layers of Magick that the two of them had performed in this room time and time again. The air was heavy, thicker, more laborous for the lungs to process. This was what viewing their Resonance through the lense of Prime was like.
Ned
".....Fuck."
It's small. Miniscule almost. He has to cough at one point, off to the side to make due with the sudden shift in their perspective that comes with Margot's addition of the Prime Sphere. It is a...clustered effect. Layers bleeding back to give them something new to consider. Ned's mind focuses on the perspective they are receiving from below and around them, yet Prime's presence forces an almost...disassociative quality. The Air itself, was visible and tangible. Breathing in, suddenly had small whorling vacuums and tides of essence vanishing through nostrils and into lungs. Visibly blending with the patterns of their own bodies.
He felt the leaden almost chewable push of his own Resonance. Suffocating claustrophobic. It forced him to breathe a little deeper but..this he was used to. The arterial flood of Margot's own raw, vicious Resonance is one he's used to as well. His job keeps him elbow deep sometimes. To experience it in such a way though has him...screwing his eyes shut every so often to adjust.
"...Brand new strings....reach out a pluck each one. All the colours, have strings and pieces. The air, our clothes, the skin, the floor. I can see...Fuck-" He scrubs at his eyes "-I can see how causing something's layers, or the essence below the layers damage, would be difficult to heal. Even moreso to resist. At the same time, making them denser."
He peered down at the Diseased webwork below, the pattern of which, the layers under it all, weakened as well. Cracked and aging and archaic.
"...Could easily separate one layer from the next. Pull the disease right out without leaving much behind and then repair the Pattern itself...But you'd need Life...more of it...." Frowning now. So much to take in.
"...I don't think I want to experience what Spirit would look like. Might find out just what's living in your apartment and the building."
Margot
"I can't afford to move. I don't want to know if this building is haunted or what by if so."
It was a lot to take in, and that was a large part of why Margot had pulled herself back into her apartment, brought herself out of the lives and rooms of those below her. She was exploring the Prime, the new addition to the mash-up of perceptions. She was a little unnerved by how her own Magick manifested sometimes, or at least by the visualization of it. To see the sharp red and dark caked black-red-brown layed upon one another across the surfaces of her apartment, to see how it seemed even to ooze from the layers of paint on the walls, it had her swallowing and (as well as the claustrophobic gasp-gasp-breath of Ned's own magick) taking a deep breath that filled her lungs as much as they would.
"Which apartment is that, can you tell?" She looked down again, back to where the old disease festered and rotted. "The person that's sick. They should know, if they don't already." Seems that she'd made up her mind on where she stood, morally speaking, when it came to walking around with the knowledge of somebody's impending death on her shoulders.
Then, soon after:
"There's so much, but it all makes sense and fits where it's supposed to go. It's navigable-- used to be a lot to take in and I could only pull pieces here and there, but I can go find what I'm looking for now. We've got to be close, close to unlocking it, you know? To changing things."
Ned
"....A little too much."
He admits. Margot was operating with far more Sphere integration that he was at present. His own understanding of Prime was limited at best (Though this moment probably went a long way to assuaging some of his curiosity). Ned remains fixed in place, hand still clutched inside Margot's own. The arterial 'icing' layered over everything was definitely something that drew his attention. Congealed, flaking, banded blood and viscera. A harsh representation that hovered on the edges of vision while his own claustrophobic gulps for air made it all seem like some fever dream.
"...I think that's enough for the time being."
He pries his hand loose from Margot's own, flexing fingers around, pulses of pain leaping out infront of him, sharp warbling blooms of reddish mist, captured and cloying like spores, under the heavy imprint of their shared Resonance. His gaze turns around the apartment, watching as layers begin to peel back and away from reality. As walls begin to assert themselves with slow, but predictable tangibility.
"....Huh. Slow to fade. Unless you actively-"
And the world pops back into place, suddenly and swiftly. Enough that it drags his breath out of him and he's left breathing a bit more heavily than before.
"-dismiss it."
The blood on his hand is caked into place, blackened at the edges and congealed around the wound which has been scabbed slightly, timorously, with the time they'd spent in the 'Layered view'. There's a small pool on the table between them, likewise congealed, slightly ridged as the cooling liquid begins to condense.
"...Rather weird set of interactions you have. Far more intuitive than my own. Lend themselves to one another well though, if a bit overwhelming."
Margot
At last their hands parted, Ned's own wrenching away from hers, and the sensory overload began to fade, fade, fade, and then--- pop! gone.
Margot moved to put her hands on top of her knees to brace herself, but thought better of it and rested her hands on the edges of the table instead, leaned forward and breathing deep and deliberate. Like having an inhaler unlock your airways after an asthma attack. After a few moments she straightened up again. Surveyed the blood on the table and all over their hands.
"I suppose so. It was uncomfortable at first, but a lot about my Magick is uncomfortable." She stood then, swinging one leg over the table backward so she was careful to avoid bumping her fellow apprentice with a knee. Walked over to the kitchen sink and nudged the faucet on with her elbow so she could begin washing her hands. The old white porcelain bloomed red-and-pink in the basin as she did.
"I'm getting used to it, though. Stepping outside the bounds will always be uncomfortable. Well worth it, though." Hands washed, she knelt down and retrieved a first aid kit from under the sink. Set it up on the counter and nodded her head for him to come on over. She no doubt had plans to help him get the cut on his hand cleaned and covered up.
Ned
Bathroom.
She hit the faucet in the kitchen. Ned went for the bathroom, leading with his elbows. He plucked some tissue off the roll to turn the sink on. A second flush of red and pink went down this drain, as he scrubbed gingerly around the cut on his hand. To little avail, as the forming scab began to ooze with the watering down. Eventually he tapped the Faucet off and dried the back of his hands on a nearby towel.
He came out of the Bathroom with the tissue held to his cut hand, moving into the Kitchen.
"...It's a bit disjointed though. Makes it difficult for you to be able to keep all those senses readied and in the moment. You'd be at a significant disadvantage in a fight unless you came to rely on those senses as much as you do on your sight here in this world."
This world. Like they were fresh back from a Dimensional hop.
"...I don't know what apartment that was, by the way but you should leave it alone. Can't explain how you know to anyone anyway and it'll just raise suspicion." He's shaking his head. Callous perhaps but Ned was never one for feeling for strangers. Paranoia won out. Always.
His hand was held out toward her, laid on the counter next to the first aid.
Margot
He called it a disadvantage, how she perceived things, and she stilled the motions of drying her hands with a paper towel to look at him with a raised eyebrow. His follow-up about learning to lean on them was met with a nod, though, and she tossed the paper towel in the bin by the end of the counter. "I'm pretty sure that's what's going to end up happening. I'll be like Daredevil or something," she added with a grin.
While she bandaged up his hand (rudimentary, basic understanding and application of first aid-- she was unfamiliar and out of practice but at least had an idea of what she was doing), Margot sighed and nodded.
"Alright, I'll leave it alone."
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