May 5th, 2016 - Bow/Quiver/Horn [Seeking, ST'd by jamie]

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If they have learned nothing else from dealing with more experienced Mages, Margot Travers and Ned Gaites can at least say they now know the law of relativity to apply not only to time but to the quantity of fucks reality deviants give about anything other than their own agendas.

Over a month has passed since they've seen or heard from their wayward mentor. Last they heard he was getting evicted. Last anyone heard, he was going to go Fuck With Time. The man is capricious, explained once that his is a Dynamic Avatar, and Dynamic Avatars push their people towards change above all else.

Both of them are Primordial. They seek truth in ancient places, in the dark and the dirt and the death from which mortals avert their eyes.

In the midst of everything, he called them. Summoned them, is more like it.

--

Most of his shit is out of the basement by the time they get there. Whatever was in the laboratory itself has been boxed up and sent elsewhere, as have the majority of the books. He has made a Christmas tree out of a pile of books, light strings and all, a testament to the fact that he got drunk and decided to amuse himself but no real indication as to when this happened. The majority of the books and the shelves are gone.

So: two chairs. An IV pole between them. His antiquated chemistry set. That pile of books lit from no discernible power source. And Dr. Sepúlveda, wearing black slacks and a button-down shirt and his glasses and a pair of purple nitrile gloves.

"We have thirty-two hours before they come to kick my ass out," is the first thing out of his mouth once the two have entered the basement. He's prepping two syringes with Lord only knows what, addressing the needles instead of his students. "Don't dilly dally, you're about to make an important contribution to Science."

Ned
"....I think we need an adult."

Is Ned's first interaction. He is dressed pragmatically. A pair of loose jeans, with a few rips at the knees (nothing so big as to constitute fashionable, but genuine wear and tear), a dark black hoodie that conforms to him rather than envelops him and a simple pair of gray converse. A small knapsack is settled over one shoulder, while the gel-tamed hair is slicked back comfortably. He's looking worriedly, (par for the course) at the IV and the chairs. The small bag slings down from his shoulder to settle at his feet.

"32 hours is pretty damned short on limits for enlightenment, Doc. Don't you think maybe we should try to find some place a little more...I dunno...isolated? And not under threat of Policeman arriving? Or is that all part of the process? A sense of immediacy and lingering jail time?"

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Tap tap, goes his fingernail against the needle.

"Nope."

Margot
Margot appeared in the basement standing beside Ned, looking just as worried at the bare bones set-up as he did.

Shouldn't they set up somewhere else if they were on a time crunch?  The witchling glanced between the two, then shrugged at Ned and offered helpfully:  "Time's relative anyways, right?"

The sweater that she'd been carrying over her shoulder, doffed once they'd come through the door, was let to fall on the floor where it didn't look especially dusty or tracked with dirt from packing and moving.  Without the sweater she was in a dark gray tank top and a pair of jeans.  Her shoulder-length brown hair was parted heavy to the right, twisted and pinned back out of her face.  She looked tired, but didn't they all?  What lives they led, anyways.

Margot approached the Doc and the set up he'd made for them.  Investigated the IV pole and whatever liquids he may have hung upon it already.

"Uh, how you been, Doc?"

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"I put an ad up on Craigslist to see if anyone wanted to adopt two noisy twenty-something motormouths, but I didn't get so much as a nibble, so it appears I'm stuck having to tell you I don't have time to answer that question."

Two syringes. One for each of them, it appears, but one is clear while the other one has a slight blue tinge to it. Hung from the IV pole are twin liter bags of saline. Now that the syringes are prepped he's doing his level best to keep his gloved hands off his face and hair.

"I have a hypothesis," he says as he turns from the table and faces the two. "You're impatient, and your impatiences have formed a symbiotic relationship, and they're breeding little baby impatiences, and you've got yourselves convinced you can't 'do magick'--" Air quotes, here. "--like the grownups can 'do magick' until you're able to manipulate the Spheres you can, at this moment, 'only' sense. So! I'm going to see if injecting a mild sedative into your systems will be enough to shut your brains up long enough for your Avatars to take you on a Seeking." A beat. "Or you two can go back to whatever it was you're doing and I'll have a party, it's really up to you."

Ned
"Ebay is for human trafficking. Craigslist is for friends with benefits."

Ned says it off-hand, moving in alongside Margot to inspect the IVs, though it only takes him a few moments to recognize the setup as standard. The syringes receive the briefest glance, before Ned is sucking in a quick breath and shrugging his way through the Doc's last chunk of conversation. He's in the chair and settling in somewhere around 'yourselves convinced', yes flipping up toward Margot and then bouncing down at the chair.

"We had this conversation already. We're ready for this." He glances at Margot. "...Nothing else matters until we're on the other side."

Ned turns his forearm over, rolling up the sleeve until it sits high on a mildly impressive bicep. Then he's slapping the pale skin to summon a vein to the surface.

Margot
"Well, it's good to hear you've been busy at least," Margot answered Doc dryly, and crossed her arms over her chest.  Meanwhile, Ned sat himself down in one of the two chairs and started getting himself ready for whatever syrum the Doc had whipped up to block the doubt signals in their brain and let their Avatars actually get a say in.  Ideally.  That's what was supposed to happen at least.

The always-worried cast that Margot'd been carrying around since she arrived in Denver took the tiny particle of doubt she carried and stuck it under a magnifying glass; her mouth was pursed to a side while she watched Ned slapping away at his arm.  With a shake of her head, Margot sat down in the chair that must be hers as well, settling her forearms with the wrists and thin skin turned up toward the ceiling.  Scooted herself back so that she was flush with the armchair's back, which of course meant that her feet weren't touching the floor anymore.

She looked down at her arm and rubbed the thin skin at the crook of her elbow.  "It's true," she agreed, eyes hopping up to find Ned's face first, then going to Doc.

"We're on board.  Let's do this."

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[life 3/prime 2: doo de doo, doing science stuff]

Dice: 3 d10 TN4 (1, 4, 7) ( success x 3 ) [WP]

blood pressure
As his apprentices settle in, Sepúlveda removes his trusty flask from the back pocket of his jeans and takes a loud swallow from it. Farewell, sterile field. Flask goes back into his pocket.

"Cool it, Trainspotting," he says when Ned awakens a vein. "I'm a forensic pathologist, not a phlebotomist. We're going IM with these bad boys. You won't know what hit you."

Which, like roughly fifty percent of what comes out of the Mad Scientist's mouth, is bullshit. They can see the injection coming. But he stands behind their chairs so they can't see whether they receive the clear needle or the one clouded with blue.

They feel the sting of the needle's tip. The burn of the fluid. Ned first, then Margot.

"Word of advice," he says as he withdraws the needle from Margot's arm. The light is starting to go out of the room. The chairs are starting to dissolve beneath them. Sepúlveda's already deep voice seems to drop deeper. "Don't believe a word anyone tells you."

With that they're left in a darkness lit only by multicolored bulbs wrapped around a Christmas book-tree.

Ned
"Oh by the way....Hey Margot....Did you mention that thing...about....Luke to the Doc...?"

It was Ned's last words, head lolling to one side to regard his fellow apprentice with a serious sort of glance and then a shit-eating smirk.

Problem solved?

Before darkness finally collapsed in on them both.

Margot
While not necessarily afraid of needles, or familiar with the medical field as a whole, Margot was still bright enough to figure out what IM stood for and to know that it would probably hurt.  When the sting and burn of the injection struck she flinched, of course, but took a controlled breath (she's had plenty of practice with that lately) and relaxed her arms.  Her head was starting to feel heavy already, so she let it rest back in the chair.

Hey Margot.

Ned caught her attention, and the question he posed as the lights began to fall away had her looking stunned.  Her brow started to knit into what promised to be a very serious scowl, but the dark came up and ate away everything besides the weird makeshift Christmas tree of books and her own vague sense of being.  Which itself tumbled as though toppling backward down a hill in slow motion before stilling again.

She was silent to begin with while trying to hone her focus back down into one place.  Her hands, they were a good place to start.  She squeezed them, tested her control and what they had underneath them.  Still in the chair?  Still in the room?  That was the same Christmas tree right?

"...Ned?"  Uncertainly she called into the darkness.

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Everything comes from darkness. It's the first entity a person knows and the last embrace before the inevitability of Death. It's what greets them when the two of them lay their heads back against the chair, when the warm heaviness of whatever the Doc just shot into their arms takes effect.

No small amount of trust inherent in this. They both said they were ready, but the person to whom they said this is insane.

--

... Ned?

An answer ought to come from arm's length away, if a little further. It ought to be masculine and certain. It ought to Be, period. But no answer comes.

A warm breeze stirs. Drifts through her hair the way her mother's fingers used to, like the lover she hasn't met yet. Her Avatar is not her mother. It is not a lover.

Andraste is a goddess. Her hair is blood and her teeth are swords. She has certain expectations.

Water drips, echoes, tells her this much: she's in a confined space, and there's an exit.

Margot
Somewhere in the mix she lost certainty as to whether the chair was even beneath her any longer.  She was standing-- maybe she just discovered consciousness this way, because she remembered feeling like tumbling but didn't remember actually falling or rising once more.  There was no answer when she called out, but she was familiar with the drip-drip sound of water (there was a leak in her bedroom for two years before she finally figured out how to patch a roof and stop the sound herself).  She was familiar with the sense of walls and proximity and distance, and with that she was also familiar with the sense of an exit in that space.

Her eyes closed, though it didn't matter because everything was dark.  At some point the pins had vanished from her hair and it had fallen loose for the wind to comb through.  It felt comforting.  Ned wasn't answering her to help, he'd gone down his own path, but they knew that would come.

"Alright," she said quietly to the Goddess she was pretty sure was listening, and she began to take slow exploratory steps through the dark, feeling for the way out.

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[gonna go ahead and roll correspondence 1 for you]

Dice: 1 d10 TN4 (1) ( botch x 1 )

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And her bravery is the only tool available to her at that moment. Passive reliance on her Awakened senses does nothing more than lay a weight on her. Paradox backlash not yet discharged.

Alright bumps up against the cavern walls behind her, travels in and up, but does not form a blanket. The breeze ebbs from her hair, which feels damp against her shoulders, but it gives her another way to orientate herself.

She can go forward, or she can turn around and climb.

Margot
A few steps forward and Margot paused to orient herself.  She heard her voice bounce and echo behind her, felt the breeze coming from before her.  She was in some kind of a cavern, it seemed-- wet with stone under her feet.  It would make sense that a breeze would mean an exit, but Margot was a girl whose very soul belonged to the deepest parts of the Oceans.  She knew what caverns were, and knew even some of the smaller ones could be vast enough to mislead in such ways.

Upward, though, upward was often promising.

So Margot turned around and began feeling with each step-- reaching out her toe before putting weight down on her foot, then repeating.  She felt with her fingertips ahead of her as well, hunting for a wall, a surface, something to feel at and try to evaluate her chances of scaling up.

All the while, squinting and hunting for any bit of light.  If it wasn't a good gradual slope that'd be easy to clambor she'd definitely need her sight, otherwise risk stranding herself on some surface with no further footholds to move herself up or sideways.

blood pressure
Moving away from the light, Margot has to use her hands. She cannot enhance the nerve endings yet, but she can see using different spectrums of light, and she can sense the crevices and cracks in the stone once she gropes her way to the wall that seems to be offering her an option more than it is offering her resistance.

If she has ever been climbing indoors, she knows that professional climbers use special shoes, have someone spotting them. This is not an indoor wall.

Her palms are slick. She cannot tell yet if it is sweat or condensation or blood. The air in here smells fresh, either from a spring she cannot see or from the breeze circulating from the outside world.

It is a difficult climb, and she almost slips once. Towards the top of the wall, the darkness begins to thin. Here there is light. A sliver of it, door-like, carved into the far wall of the cavern.

Between the ledge and the light are two daises. Platforms made of rock, natural but maintained. On one of the daises rests a bow and arrow. On the other rests a large bundle secured with twine.

Margot
The climb felt treacherous, but only because Margot had to use senses in a way she wasn't entirely familiar with.  What light she could find had to be perceived and understood a little differently, but at least she had a familiarity with the mechanics of light and knew how to adjust that accordingly.  Here, it seemed, things were just a little more Different.  A little Loose around the edges of mechanics and rules?

Certainly, because she somehow made it up that wall in just sneakers and bare hands and at long last hitched a knee up over the leg to roll the rest of the way up.  She lay on her back for a moment before sitting up and scooting away from the sheer drop.  From there, to her feet and turning around to where the light was casting from now.

There, thrown into relief in shades of shadow and granite-dark-black rock, were the daises almost like alters rising from the ground.  Apparently having been there forever, burst up from the ground when Earth was made itself.  Certainly not carved by the hands of man.

Two choices, no doubt symbolic, she figured.  One was the bow and the arrow, a clear sign of war and attack.  The other, a bundle-- something wrapped and tied up with twine, a mystery, what could it be?  She glanced back and forth between the two, slow and thoughtful, frowning while considering.  Certainly she was supposed to choose War, wasn't she?  Wouldn't that be the right answer?  But her eyes kept falling back to the bundle.  Would she regret never knowing what lay beneath?  What the other choice could have been?

More than that, though, would she regret making her decision because it was what she was expected to do, or because it was what she wanted to do?

A glance was cast over her shoulder toward the ledge from which she'd come.  When she looked back forward she set her mouth with determination.  Walked forward with the kind of comittment that came from jumping off the high dive.  You've just got to take a breath, run, and jump.

Or, in this case, reach out and pull the twine of the bundle to find out what it held.

blood pressure
And the bundle is tied so tightly that she will have to do more than tug at the twine in order to lay bare the contents of the canvas. The twine remains secured, and the contents lie inert despite her jostling of them.

The ground shakes, once and then again. A shadow begins to fall across the ledge just outside the door.

Margot
The twine wouldn't just fall away, it turned out, and Margot considered the density of the knot, considering where to pull and how to most easily loosen it.  That was when she felt the ground rumble.  A vibration in her ankles and bones, felt on an even deeper level connected to her Magickal being in some echoing ghost of a manner.  She'd paused and glanced up.  Then a second rumble, and a shadow cut across the sliver of light that appeared to be a way out.

Shit.  She didn't vocalize the word, but cursed it silently upon a breath instead.  She was reminded instantly of Jurassic Park, though she could see no pool of water to ripple.  It wasn't a stretch to imagine that whatever lurked on the other side of that passageway was just as terrible as the Terrible Lizard, too.

Her eyes darted to the bow and arrow, and without much hesitation she pushed away from the first dais and darted over-- fast, so fast-- to the second one.  The bow was pulled up onto one shoulder for the moment, the arrow seized in hand, and she darted back to the initial dais and its bundle once more.

If the twine wouldn't yield to her fingers, then she would make it submit to the blade of the arrowhead.

blood pressure
The bow is sturdy yet flexible, crafted by a being who valued utility above all else. It would need to be useful in a number of situations. The quiver of arrows fits easy across his shoulder though it was doubtless made with a different adult in mind.

Margot is still on the cusp of adulthood. In the triptych lauded by the people who gave Andraste her name and visage, she is still a maiden. Maidens are called upon to fight in times of dire need.

Without Ned here to consult with or Sepúlveda to mock her indecision, she makes one on her own. She chooses the bow and the arrow, but she does not go forth in search of the creature responsible for moving the earth.

If she tests it with her finger before setting it to the twine, the arrowhead feels like obsidian. Something tempered and strong. It slices through the twine as it would slice through the air, and the canvas falls away now that its binds are cut.

Inside is a war horn, broken in two halves. The metal inlay around the horn's edges looks like lapping flames.

The shadow now darkens the doorway.

Margot
A blade of obsidian and a bow supple and clean, and even Margot could admire the quality craftsmanship at play.  Maybe there'd be time to dwell on that later, though.  For now she was pleased with the strength and sharpness of the small bade and even moreso when it cut so easily through the twine.  The bundle fell open, and what it contained gave the witch pause.

A war horn, beautiful even in the minimal light provided, but broken clean in half.  As she was considering options for putting it back together the light cut away entirely, blocked out by a shadow filling the exit.

If the horn were intact she likely would have chosen it, continuing to favor the less obvious option.  Maybe the horn would call a reinforcement.  Maybe it would summon the spirit of whatever darkened the doorway to her side, rallying it to a battle along with her.  Maybe it meant her no harm?

But...  For now the horn was left on the dais in its pieces, and the bow was brought down from her shoulder instead.  She'd shot archery once before in her life and recalled the basics of how to hold it, could work through the rest with a base understanding of mechanics and design well enough to notch and pull the arrow back within the bow.  Took aim toward the doorway and held steady with her elbow back and trembling but holding all the same.

It may mean her no harm, but it may be here to consume her entirely as well.  She'd just hold steady and wait to see.

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Groaning breath. Thickening shadow. Stooping creature.

It brings with it the scent of silt and loam. Fertile misty scents though its respirations are as rocky as the structure in which Margot has temporary refuge. The stomping lessens in intensity as the creature slows and stoops to peer in through the entryway.

A yellow eye the size of a basketball blots out the sun and blinks at the sight of her. Its exhalation fills the cave with the smell of grave dirt.

Margot
Perhaps the comparison to Jurassic Park wasn't so far off.  Something massive was through that doorway, and with it came the smell of freshly turned earth and rich clay in the rain.  Margot found that curious, noted how it seemed one with the very cavern she stood in-- in smell and essence alike.  She held steady.

A huge eye appeared then, yellow and blinking and focused in on her.  A breeze swept past her ankles and up around her waist, bringing with it whatever dust or debris may have been lingering on the floor.  It smelled like the grave, and Margot's chest swelled and chin lifted as she breathed in deep like she was greeting, challenging, or maybe even seeking still to understand what huffed the breath in the first place.

For a hanging couple of moments she was still, that breath held and the arrow held still, pulled back tight with the string held just so with her finger.  She stared at the eye that stared right back at her.  Then she breathed the breath out slowly, and the arrowhead lowered so that it didn't appear to line up directly with the big black pupil any longer.  It's worth noting that the arrow and string still stay in place in her fingers, it's just that her pull and aim had relaxed.

"Hello," she said quietly, for she felt in a place like this her voice would reach that creature even if she just thought loudly enough.  "Will you let me through?"

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Hello.

Its inhalation draws the temperature inside the cave down a few degrees.

Will you let me through?

Its exhalation reeks but she can see an alien sort of intelligence in its one yellow eye. A consideration in the timbre of the breath. It has nothing to gain from harming her. Nothing to lose in letting her pass.

With a low grumble of assent, the creature steps back from the ledge and begins to lumber away.

Margot
Intelligence, recognized in the shared moments of eye contact and greeting.  Consideration, then assent rumbled into the cavern.  The giant creature backed away, and Margot smiled with relief and satisfaction alike.  The arrow was returned to the quiver, the bow shouldered once again.  The horn was wrapped up secure in the fabric that originally bundled it and cradled in her arms almost like a child, or a precious book (the latter more likely, knowing Margot).

She approached the doorway then, and presuming that nothing crashed down upon her right away she stepped through as well, peering out and up for the creature that had allowed her to pass.  Seeking to satiate curiosity in what the rest of it looked like, and to nod her thanks to as well.

Also, of course, she would want to see what lay beyond that door.

blood pressure
With the daises now emptied behind her, the way cleared by the lumbering yet ultimately harmless giant, Margot steps out onto the ledge of the foothill into which the chamber was carved. She is still some distance from the ground, which is lush with grass so far as she can see, even when a ravine runs like a scar through it.

That ravine was once passable by way of a footbridge. The footbridge long since fell into disrepair, and a figure on the opposite side of the ravine is in the process of fashioning a tightrope from one side to the other with a bow and arrow of his own.

A quick look around reveals steps ether carved with tools or simply worn into the side of the foothill by so many trips by so many heavy feet. It will be no great difficulty for Margot to make the climb.

Meanwhile, Ned's arrow flies fast and true, buries itself deep in the abandoned post on the other side of the ravine. The rope sags a bit with his weight, but it will hold true as he scales his way across.

Ned
Scale he does, hand over hand, feet cinched tight at the ankle as a dragging device to keep him afloat. Careful movements, hanging upside down, the bow and arrows slung carefully into place as they had been before. He doesn't look down (giant gaping maw of gnashing teeth and tongues, wearing clown make-up-shuuttttt upppppp brain).

He'll come to the other side and swing his feet down before his hands touch the arrow. Heels clap on the surface before he twists, turns and stumbles slightly to get his bearings and his balance once more. He puffs, that lingering sense of pressurizied doom swatted at with a spare and rope scuffed hand like he could physically remove it.

"They call me, Ned the Mighty, slayer of bridges, assailer of ropes. Bow before me, mortals..." Margot will assail the hill and find Ned at the edge of the ravine, hands on his hips, laughing in a mocking tone.

Margot
Out from a dark that felt wet and cavernous all at once stepped little Margot Travers, hair wild and damp and loosened from its prior bindings.  She had a quiver of arrows on her back, a simple bow on one shoulder, and was carrying a large something wrapped up in fabric cradled in her arms against her chest.  She squinted hard into the bright sunshine but couldn't free up a hand to block her eyes without setting the horn down entirely, so she just stood blinking and looking down at the scenery until they adjusted.

When they did, it was to see a small but familiar figure down below, making its way across a rope-and-arrow fashioned line to replace a bridge gone out.

She almost called out, but remembering what she'd passed in the cave behind her (complete with a glance of wonder over her shoulder), she instead opted to follow the path of steps worn into the mountain.  Light and deft-footed down the hill she scaled until she found Ned posed and boasting victory at the ravine.  Pink-cheeked from the descent but not too out of breath to talk, Margot came into sight and called to him in enthused but measured tones.

"Ned!  I didn't think I'd get to see you on this side!  Where were you?  I saw a giant."

Ned
"I saw a Bridge. No trolls though."

He offered, though his sounded far less fantastic. Ned regards the other apprentice with careful scrutiny her disheveled appearance far more indicative of a trial then his own. He looped the bow back over his shoulder and cinched it tight with a few adjustments before moving over to stand near Margot, gaze already traveling the length of the surrounding landscape with a careful sort of scrutiny.

"I'm half expecting some Uruk Hai to leap out and begin 'For the Horde'ing at us..." Ned may well have pissed off Geeks and confused Normals with that one line were this reality. Luckily, enough, it isn't.

"You see Andraste yet?"

Margot
"That bridge?"  Margot asked, nodding her head to the remains of what was before that Ned crossed the same path as.

As for Andraste, Margot shook her head and glanced back over her shoulder, toward the way she'd come from.  "Not unless she was manifesting as that giant, but I don't think so...  It smelled like earth, and she's been more copper before..."  Her brow furrowed a little, but relaxed when a thought occurred to her.

"We both found a bow and arrow, that can't be coincidence.  Though I also took...," and she adjusted the bundle in her arms to move the fabric away, revealing within a grand war horn that was split in two, inlaid with metal around the edges to look like flame lapping and eating away.

"I thought about trying to fasten it together but I don't know how to get it tight enough to still work."

Ned
"Hah...."

Ned holds out his hand to take the Horn from her "So that's what was in the bundle. I left mine behind. Didn't trust it." Figures.

Ned fits the two halves together as best he can, then folds both hands around the narrowest end, one infront of the other. He glances down at the length of it eyeballing the effort, before sucking in a large breath and turning to look out at the God-mountains in the distance.

"...Hold onto to your hat."

Then Ned blows into the horn's narrow end, as hard as he can.

blood pressure
Nestled in Margot's arms, no longer a bundle but a broken thing in need of repair, is the war horn she had not known whether to tend to for the uncertainty come along with its presence and purpose.

It takes two people to hold the horn's halves together enough that it will make a seal. In this, they have to work together. Ned takes on the broken thing, symbolic for her but practical for him, and introduces it to breath.

Out of it comes a bellow of calm. An answer to a question not yet asked.

Will you come?
I'm on my way.

The mist comes down from the mountains, rises up out of the ravine. This time, the waters of Lethe do not wipe clean their memories. It wasn't a hallucinogenic their mentor jabbed into their bodies. It may not have even been a sedative.

He was saving that shit for himself.

Today is the day Mexicans celebrate their unlikely victory at la Batalla de Puebla and may not have meant dick to either of them, but it ought to have. Their mentor is a Mexican-American alcoholic, and when they open their eyes to find themselves in the chairs in the emptied basement he is sitting on the table draining his flask.

A fresh bottle of tequila sits next to him. He blinks, then tosses aside the flask.

"Don't let it go to your heads," he says. "I've know guys with the IQs of hamsters who haven't died on their first Seeking."

Their resonances, at first temperamental and gruesome, are stabilizing. Their magick has a sense of integrity about it, now. They are no longer apprentices. They may still be initiates of the Art, but they are the masters of their own souls.

--

Later, Sepúlveda will start laughing at absolutely nothing and confess, quite drunk, "It was just water, in the syringes. I added food coloring to yours--" Ned's. "--just to see what would happen."

May 2nd, 2016 - The Shade of Shields [Nick]

Margot
Less than 24 hours had passed from when Margot left Nick and Arianna to their picnic in the park before the Chakravanti had reached out as he said he would.  Margot was on campus, walking back to her car after finishing her morning classes, when she received the call.

Let's meet and talk.  Coffee?
Sure.  I know a place.  I'll see you there in about 30 minutes.

It was midday and for how brisk and chill the weather had been yesterday it was equally warm today.  All of those clouds had blown over quickly in the evening, and by the time the morning came the skies were clear and the cold front gone.  Now the sun was shining bright in the blue and cloudless sky, and were it not a Monday there would certainly be more people crowding the coffee shop patio along with Margot to take advantage of the beautiful day.

The fact that the patio was clear save for herself was a relief to the little Witchling.  She had a pretty good idea of what Nick wanted to talk about, and it wasn't a conversation that she wanted to have in hushed tones around many eavesdropping ears.  She figured if people began crowding up the surrounding tables then they could stand and start walking to finish the conversation instead.

For now, though, Nick would come upon the shop and find Margot sitting in a corner out in the sun, dressed in a pair of jean shorts and a black T-shirt and flip-flops.  Her hair was braided into a crown to keep it out of her face and off her neck and her legs were stretched out to rest in one of the extra chairs around the table, placed intentionally in the sun to soak up some color for the Summertime that was inbound (or here, if you asked Pagans instead of the goddamn calendar).  She had sunglasses over her eyes to shield them from the sun's glare, and was drinking from a hot beverage paper cup.

When Nick did appear (she'd been watching for him so he wouldn't surprise her this time), Margot offered up a small smile and lifted her hand in a still-frame of a wave to greet him.

Nick Hyde
There are some Mondays that leaves one wishing that the weekend had been just a little longer, not because they are terrible but because the kind winds and gentle sun leave one longing for more time outside.  It's midday and Nick has just left work, and if he's seeing Margot a little sooner than he might have intended, well: he is concerned.  Maybe he's right to be concerned. (He usually is, he finds, when apprentices are involved.  Apprentices, they get up to some shit.)

When he arrives at the coffee shop he is wearing a pair of light grey cotton pants and a shirt that is a light blue, the color of the sky at its washed-out edges where it and the clouds blur and merge.  His sleeves are rolled up, his badge has been tucked away in a pocket, and if he had a tie it's been discarded and left back in his car.  The blue makes stark the light brown of his skin and the black of his hair, somehow, paints a contrast.

Margot is alone and he too is glad of this.  He dislikes eavesdropping ears.


He doesn't return the wave but instead approaches her, and she might be glad that she is watching him because his footsteps are utterly silent, as though his feet were planted in a world beyond this one while the rest of him stayed behind.  He must have gone inside at some point: he's already got a glass in hand, iced and pale brown.  "Hello, Margot.  How are classes going?"

Margot
Let's just go ahead and assume that Nick's still an expert at reading people, and Margot is still nervous and unskilled at hiding her motivations that well.  She was learning, not quite so plain in showing her emotions on her face as some, but her poker face needed a lot of work to stand up against Nicholas Hyde.

Though the girl's posture was relaxed to the point of lounging there was still an air of tension around her;  much like somebody steeled for a trial-- not an attack, though, that was a tiny detail that many would miss but Nick certainly wouldn't and it was an important one to note.  She wasn't worried about attack or accusation, but was prepared to defend herself all the same.  He's probably had a lot of people try to defend their decision making.  This wasn't new.  She straightened up when he came near but kept her feet up in the spare chair so that her legs (pale, pale, winter-flesh-white pale) could drink up the sun still.

"Oh they're fine.  I'm still holding up my 4.0 somehow, even with Everything Else on top of it."  She smiled (small, flimsy, a front and not a great one) and waved her hand generally through the air to go along with the indication of 'Everything Else'.  You know, the Universe and Reality and manipulating it, that kind of stuff.  Her hand came back down to dual-cradle the coffee cup and sleeve between her palms, so that way her fingers wouldn't have to hunt for things to fidget with to give her away even further.


"I'm still deciding whether or not I want to stick it out or focus on my Craft entirely instead.  I'm going to be meeting with Thane again soon, and another lady named Kat too.  Maybe spending an evening with them will help me make up my mind."

Nick Hyde
Nick pulls out a chair and seats himself after he has set the coffee down on the table in front of him.  His own posture is relaxed, though of course he hasn't missed hers: that she has come in with ready answers, armored with shield held at the ready.  It's a posture he recognizes.  He's seen it on more than a few clients.  He's seen it from time to time on friends.

"That's impressive," he says when she tells him she's been managing to keep her grades up.  "It's good that you've been able to maintain your focus.  My grades suffered a bit toward the end of grad school."  It's not meant to discourage her; his voice is rueful, a reflection on his own failings rather than any expectation of hers.  He has stretched his legs out in front of him, slouched back in his seat.  He probably has to keep himself straight-backed all day, given the way desk chairs in clinics and hospitals are designed and in order to present himself professionally; it's probably a relief.

He takes a pull of his coffee through his straw, and it is as expected pleasant and smoky and bittersweet.  "What would you plan to do with a degree, if you got one?  Do you think it would supplement your Craft?"

And maybe she knows, or believes she knows, his thoughts on that: he after all has kept a profession, even in spite of the long hours it forces him to keep on top of his magickal work.

Margot
"I don't know."

The answer wasn't sullen, but it was moody in its own particular way all the same.  The subject wasn't exactly her favorite one.  "Ned keeps saying that I should stop wasting my money and energy and time on it.  I'm unlocking the universe, as he points out, so the point of attending class and getting a degree kind of becomes moot."  It seemed that she didn't entirely agree with him (yet), but she couldn't quite argue the logic with him or herself.  She was really only going out of commitment at this point.

"But look," she said, and dropped her feet from the chair so she could sit up straight and closer to the table.  The cup was situated into her left hand and rested on the table, while the right hand was set beside it palm down.

"We're not here to talk about my degree and GPA, are we?"

Nick Hyde
There is a flat sound he makes when she tells him what Ned thinks, something noncommittal, as he takes another sip through his straw.  Perhaps he is considering how to frame a reply, because a man as insightful as Nick Hyde picks up easily on her uncertainty, that this subject is still a tender one, something to be handled with care.  And indeed his eyes are not focused on her, but somewhere across the table probably near her elbow.

Whatever commentary he was going to offer dies unsaid because: but look.  This draws his eyes up to hers; his are a warm pale brown when the light strikes them so.  Just now there is something amused in them, some crinkling at the corners of his eyes and also: something sharp.  You could cut yourself on it if that was how he intended it to be used.  Does he?

"We could be.  What do you think we're here to talk about?"

Margot
"We could be, but I already sink enough of my time into academia as it is."

What did she think he wanted to talk about?  Margot cast a glance over the rim of her cup at him, hazel eyes upon his own (hers angling more toward moss and stone than the light tan of worked hide).  She took a drink, a deep one, then set the cup back down and touched at its edge with the tips of her index finger and thumb.

"I'm here because you asked me to come and talk.  Because I think you saw through my shitty attempt to look unbothered and got worried.  Because I'd rather just talk to you directly instead of let you wonder, speculate, confer with Pen, and ultimately get back to Doc that I'm acting weird and have him sniffing around trying to find out what's up."

Partway through that Margot's eyes had fallen to her fingers, bare of any rings or polishes.  She looked up again, though, to finish.

"You want to know what I'm looking over my shoulder for, don't you?"

Nick Hyde
Her answer, her initial one, brings something forth in him that might be rueful, might be touched with apology: that she sinks enough of her time into academia.  Because, well, he was there once too (though never uncertain about his academic pursuit.  Nick has been uncertain about many things regarding himself and his future, but not that.)  There are things he could say, except that he asked her another question and ah: getting to the heart of things.

There is a point as she is speaking at which he looks amused, as she begins to list off the things he might do if she did not speak with him directly.  He does not interrupt her though; he lets her finish, and as she levels her eyes at him he meets them.  There is still humor there, and maybe it springs from something gentle but that keen glance is still offputting, isn't it?

"I suppose so," he says.  "Mostly I was just worried about you.  And I am interested in your magickal studies, and hearing about them," he says.  "You don't have to tell me anything you don't want to.  I just wanted to know that you're all right."

And because he can't resist, because Nick in spite of whatever ethereal gloom lingers about him has a good sense of humor, "Did you really think I would go to Andrés about you before I'd go to you about you?"

Margot
He was worried about her.  Margot didn't look skeptical, even if she was being a bit defensive on the matter.  She believed him when he said this, trusted in Nick and his Cabalmates good natures.  She wouldn't have bothered to come in the first place were that not the truth.  He wanted to know if she was alright too, but posed another question instead of asking directly.  Margot chose that opportunity to slip past the subject of how alright she was or wasn't (an act that probably answered the question itself), and instead answer the humor-touched inquiry in the same flat and serious tone as before.

"If you thought coming to me first would be more harmful than having the Doc intervene directly himself, yes."

She glanced back up and found the Chakravanti's eyes again.  "Whatever's going on, I want to take care of it myself.  I don't want him involved.  He'll overreact."

Nick Hyde
Her reply elicits a thoughtful noise, some perhaps carefully hedged acknowledgement of what she has said.  He doesn't deny it; either she hit upon some truth or he doesn't feel he needs to.

Nick has settled back in his chair, one of his arms lightly draped across the armrest, the other hand resting across his lap.  She'll find his eyes still on her when she looks back up.  "I respect that," he says.  "But would you feel comfortable at least telling me?  It sounds as though what you're doing is risky, and it might be good to have me or someone else know what's going on so we know how to help you if it isn't something you can handle on your own."

A beat, and he raises his arm, drops his chin into the curve of his thumb and forefinger.  "I trust your judgment, and I also think you know that it's smart to take precautions."

Margot
For a minute or so Margot hid the lower half of her face behind her coffee cup, sipping it dutifully while she heard the man out.  At points her brow flexed with disagreement or protest, but he showed her the respect of listening to her without interrupting.  She owed him the same at the very least.

When the cup lowered back to the table, Margot left it there (it was largely empty now) and folded hands together with fingers knit to rest in her lap.

"I'm not on my own.  Ned's known from the start."  There's a small flint there, like a challenge.  Waiting for the argument that he was just another Apprentice and what could Apprentices really do against... well, anything?  They were baby mages, after all, still floundering to manipulate and touch and change, only just understanding.  After a few moments that softened, though, and she looked at him with consideration more than anything else.  Weighing options and consequences until...

"You remember my brother?"  Of course he would.  "He's out and on a path to come find me.  I don't want the Doc to know because I don't want him to go killing my goddamn brother."

Nick Hyde
Perhaps in another life, Nick might have been an advisor to kings and queens, or in another place he might have been a healer, a sort of wise man, favored of the gods.  This isn't that place, but maybe in another life he was one of those things.  Maybe that's what he echoes.  See: he doesn't rise to whatever glint of challenge he sees there.  He either knows better or he does indeed trust her and Ned: who's to say?

There is some light of recognition there when she mentions her brother, and this slight inclination of his head, because of course he remembers.  "I don't want that either," he says.  And maybe she finds that suspect: he is Chakravanti.  "What do you think your brother is likely to do when he finds you?"

He hasn't gone through his coffee at nearly the same rate as she has hers.  He picks it up, takes another pull through the straw, and sets it back on the table into the ring of condensation it was sitting in before.

Margot
Margot was still and quiet after the last question posed.  What did she think Luke was going to do?  Eyes focused someplace in the middle distance while she considered.

"I don't know," she said quietly.  "I used to think he would do some really shitty things-- steal from us, belittle us, run away and worry us to death then come back and disrespect, but never actually hurt.  After what happened, though?  I'm not so sure anymore.

"I'll find out, though."

Nick Hyde
Nicholas nods once more, a few slow movements of his head, though his eyes have wandered off again and no longer have that clear sharp focus for her and her alone.  If she'd look at him now she'd find something distant in them, questant, and something maybe a little soft and vulnerable there too.  But she's not looking at him; no one is.  They are still alone on the patio, drenching themselves in sunlight.

"It makes sense to me that you would want to handle it on your own," he says.  "After what happened, it must be pretty scary for you to know that he's trying to come and find you."

His finger is laid up along his cheek, his thumb along the underside of his chin, and he'd turned his mouth into it when he'd looked away.  Now his attention has returned from whatever thing it had gone to seek out, either in the world around him or the one within.  "You know, I never told Pen what you told me about him.  I told her that you'd been through a lot, but I didn't tell her what."

Margot
Eyes came back from the middle distance to find Nick's face, and one dark eyebrow quirked up at him.  Mustn't it be scary, he'd mused.  The look she gave him said 'of course it's scary, is that even a question?'.  But she didn't call him out and didn't really answer either.  This gave him room to run into the next statement.

"I know," Margot assured him.  She looked like she meant it too.

"I didn't think that you would go and tell her what I told you.  You do this for a living, you have too much respect for that.  I just figured you might tell Pen about the situation because of the inherent danger to a couple of Apprentices that think they have shit under control but probably really don't."

Nick Hyde
That look she gives him: was it unexpected?  He just meets her eyes then, and his are watchful, and sometimes some people say a thing just to see how the other person will react.  Sometimes some people say a thing because it helps them process their own feelings, to empathize out loud.  Sometimes, sometimes.

When she finishes speaking there is a flicker of amusement again, and here: there's an edge to this where there might not have been before, and he laughs once, letting his hand fall away from his face and back across the arm of his chair.  That knife's edge fades, softens as he considers his question long enough to frame it.  "Do you think Pen and I have shit under control?"

And he smiles once, and it's not bitter precisely, and not melancholy necessarily, but it might be: knowing, and wistful.  "I can't protect you, Margot.  I know that.  Our lives are dangerous, and you're probably as much a danger to him at this point as he is to you.  I just wanted to make you aware that I'll help you when and if you need it."

Margot
The laugh was unexpected but not really surprising.  The question that he asked afterward, though, gave Margot pause.  She realized that she did indeed believe the two to have their shit quite resoundingly together.  They certainly gave that impression, didn't they?  That had her starting down a rabbit hole of considering what constituted having one's shit together in the first place.

The empty coffee cup was taken up in her hand once more, and Margot swished it around as though wishing there was more left behind.

"I appreciate it, Nick.  I don't think protection's what I need anyways.  Trees don't grow in the shade of shields."

Nick Hyde
"No," he says, swirling the coffee and ice that remains in his glass, "they don't."  He drains the remainder, slides it back across the table, and it neatly settles back into the ring left there.  Rings and circles - they're more the domain of his cabalmates than his own.

"I really would be interested in hearing sometime about what you're learning though.  Thane is a good person to learn from.  He might've had me sold on the Verbena, if I'd met him before I met my mentor."

A lie, perhaps: he was too long a Disparate for him to have chosen a Tradition idly.  But if it is it's still given weight, and carefully considered, in the way of a person pondering other ways fate could have led.  "If you're in over your head, please call me.  We all find death sooner or later anyway, there's no need to go rushing towards it."

Margot
"When I've learned more, I'll let you know all about it.  Right now I'm just trying to survive to the summer."  She grinned a wry grin and pushed her chair back so that she could stand.  Carried the empty cup with her so that she may throw it away as she went to take her leave.

"I get the feeling that I'll be seeing plenty of death in my time.  I'm not planning to rush it along, though.  I'll see you around, try not to worry as much as I do-- it's exhausting."

Again, the wryness to her smile, but it wasn't a hollow expression.  Grim, braced, but seeing the horizon at the very least.  She tipped the empty cup in gesture of farewell.  "Bye, Nick.  Thanks."

And off she went.

May 1st, 2016 - First Beltane [Nick, Arianna]

Arianna Giametti
Many things have happened in April, many nameless and unknowable things like the melting of snow and then the crashing down of more, because Spring is not snowless in Denver. Spring is not truly Spring. It is the taunting suggestion that Winter might be breaking and that a threshold might be crossed and then running backwards in time just as fast as it crashes forward.  It was Equinox not that long ago, and presently it is Beltane and it does not seem like the sweetness of first summer day, when the pyres are built high, and straight-sided, and tall and also stacked with sweet herbs and wildflowers.  It is brisk again, and there is the threat of snow again looming in the week to come and this place is madness all over again.

Few of the lesser holidays call to Arianna like Beltane, though she is infinitely tight-lipped and noncomittal about why.  It is a day to be out of doors, however unsummery it is beyond the walls of her house and the streets of her neighborhood -- ownership which is still too new to seem onerous.  When Nicholas called and suggested an outing she had to bite her tongue and work so very hard at sounding ambivalent before ultimately jumping at the chance.  It is an adventure! On a thresholding holiday! In the out of doors! With friends!

And snacks.

And a picnic blanket, because the ground is still so muddy, Nick, after all that snow; it is still so muddy and I will not, cannot, shall not, please don't make me sit in all that mess.  Not even for a swig of wine, or, maybe... what type of wine is it?

So they have found a place, out past the usual winding ways of the park. Out past the people, mostly, where the connection to the endless sky as it runs into the mountains is more complete and the smell of growing grass is not entirely thwarted by the snow and coldness of this Denver-spring, which is not spring, and there is wine, and slices of apple -- there must be apple; it is Beltane -- to dip in honey, and a crumble of spices and cookies to dip them further, and other small delights.  And Arianna, who is possessed of this unreasonable inclination to wear white, or grey, or silver in the least practical of places, reflects the afternoon sun like the moon does her evening light, and she is Luminous without having Worked at all, and she is asking him, leaned in and oh-so-very curious like:

"Do you celebrate the cross-quarters?" Oh, so Hermetic.  A little frown.  "In your Praxis, I mean, do you mark the seasons?" Oh, look, a little better.  There is a flourish with a halfmoon of apple, draped in but not dripping honey. All of these things touched by superstition and yet oh so coincidental.  "Are they holy to you, or somehow more resonant..."

Nicholas Hyde
This place is madness: it is Beltane and the snow threatens.  Nicholas, who is now used to winter enough that he no longer wilts in it like a delicate desert flower, has nonetheless remained burrowed beneath blankets in his study for most of April, which by now should have been proper Spring.  Still, it is Beltane and so they are outside.

There is a bite in the wind today, icy fingers that tangle and twist themselves in Nick's hair and leave it tousled, coarse curls tumbling down over his forehead and ears like Bacchus.  He is on the blanket (which he did not argue with Ari over - he might not be averse to mud but he hates heavy laundering) and seated leaned back on his arms.  There is indeed a jug of wine, cleverly concealed because Nick is unsure of how Denver looks upon public drinking, in spite of its liberal stance toward a certain herb.

He takes one of the apple slices, without honey, and crunches it in the pocket of his cheek.  "I do," he says.  "I marked them before, as I was learning as a Disparate.  I more formally marked them once I was initiated."

This glance slides over to Ari now, and she has been tight-lipped and noncommittal but see her cabalmate, he tends to have these things that he intuits about other people.  And there's this little smile, this thing sharp as a crow's beak.  "Do you mark them too, or is this the first Beltane that you've had plans?"

Margot Travers
Beltane.

It wasn't a holiday that Margot ever celebrated before now.  It was her first year observing the holiday in any way beyond the academic alone-- because of course she's read about it before, the brainy little bookworm she was (is, still, but now in a different way-- reading about spells and rituals and gods of dark and light instead of learning about ocean currents and how they've been changing over the past fifteen years due to global warming [hello thesis paper]).  She knew that she needed to get outside and see the sky, breathe the air so fresh and brisk and wet and clean, smelling of wet grass clippings and leaves and mud and pavement.  If she spent another day hiding out in the closet that Ned called an apartment or keeping on the move across campus so as to not be hovering in any one spot for long...

Well, people have gone mad in such circumstances before.

She shared a similar mind to Nicholas and Arianna, wanting to come where grass and trees and flowers were easily accessible in the park, but wanting to be where fewer people were lingering.  Away from basketball courts and playgrounds and attractions.  This shared sentiment and perhaps even a magnetic draw of mutual magickal cores brought the three converging upon the same part of the park.

Margot would appear walking along a path that cut within eyeshot of the pair and their picnic blanket, dressed in a heavy black hoodie and snug gray jeans, with a plum colored beanie on her head to help keep the chill away.  Her hands were in her pockets, her eyes on the path in front of her.  She didn't get the chance to notice Nick and Arianna, for just a couple yards into view she stopped and pulled her phone from her pocket, responding to some kind of text or other update push.  Even from a distance they could see the heavy scowl on her face as she read what the screen had to share.

Arianna Giametti
The halfmoon is savaged. First a bite is taken, removing any threat of dripping honey, and it is sweet and crunchy and the envy of all the Shining Ones in audience. Both honeyed sweet and five-flowered sacred.  And then, as he asks her about Beltanes past, she tucks the remaining piece into her cheek and glances at him across the bridge of her nose and the green in her eyes is something grey-slicked and shifting, and the corner of her mouth curls in amusement.

Crunch.
Swallow.

"This isn't my first," she says, and there is a note underscoring the words that lilt them in un-innocent ways, but before that can rise to any sort of entrendre, she continues. "Many of us mark the Quarters and Cross-Quarters in their studies.  I think," wry tone, half-smirk, "It may be only so that we do not become decoupled with the turning wheel from so long spent in our studies, backs bent over books, eyesight dimming through the years."

She licks a drip of honey off the edge of her thumb before adding, as a particularly serious caveat:

"Not that I have always been so much of an indoor Hermetic--"  This said, as if it were something that she might follow up on with even more words, words and Words, but something moving at the edge of her vision draws her attention away from him for a moment.  She can just make out who Margot is, and the general shape of that scowl. When she looks back to Nick, it is with eyebrows raised in inquiry and a tip of her head toward the Apprentice who often tasted of blood.

A fitting meeting for the date.


Nicholas Hyde
Nicholas and Ari have a back-and-forth that they embody, a game that they play wherein neither of them ever fully knows what's in the other's heart though they look.  The thing about luminosity is that it can conceal, that glow can blind or draw the eye so that it is blind to other things, and she is better at it than he is: and so it's a sort of dance.  He may have his guesses, and they may indeed be accurate, but all he can see is the smile that curls up at the end like a shard of wood in flame.

He takes a pull from the jug of wine and then extends it to her.  Then, wistful, "We should have talked Pen into a bonfire.  I suppose there's always next year."  Where they are from, there were celebrations sometimes, May Day festivals closely tied in with the diaspora: not so here.  People are farther removed from those roots, or they have other roots.

Easing back on his elbows, Nick tilts his head back so that he can more easily regard his friend, the mossy green of her eyes.  He's garbed in a thick green hoodie today, and chinos and boots: usual Nick attire, plain, things that do not readily draw the eye.  He is unlike his wife in this.  "I always wondered why we didn't see more members of the Order at celebrations.  I know some of you do keep the Old Ways."

His gaze is easily drawn toward Margot, whom he hasn't seen since...well, it has been a while.  He marks that scowl.  And before long he lifts a hand and calls, "Margot!"

A languid wave.  It isn't quite an invitation, but they both do look comfortable there on the blanket, don't they?  And they have food.

Margot Travers
Her name ringing from the semi-distance appeared to startle Margot a little more severely than it should a normal person;  her shoulders and spine hitched and stiffened and she fumbled with her phone, nearly dropped it but managed to save it at the last moment.  Wide half-wild eyes hopped up and darted about, and soon landed upon Nick and Arianna.

Relief washed over her tiny frame, posture visibly relaxing, then she tucked her head down and (though they ceartainly couldn't hear it) cursed quietly under her breath.

Be cool, Margot, stop acting like the boogeyman's out to get you.

A hand raised into the air over her head and waved back.  She didn't look like somebody who had much of an agenda, and felt it was rude to pass by somebody kind enough to petsit for you without saying hello at least.  So she altered course and approached.  When she was near enough to speak without shouting over the park's lawn:

"Hey, funny running into you two.  How's Yorick been behaving himself?"

[Charisma 2 + Subterfuge 2: I'm not bothered or super stressed or on edge or anything, look at how chill I am.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 6, 10) ( success x 2 )

Nicholas Hyde
[Psh.  I do not believe you.  Perception + Empathy.]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (4, 4, 5, 8, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]

Arianna Giametti
[OMG Empathy! I ... like. Care about other people. Too. Not as much as Nick, but I try.]

Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 9, 9) ( success x 2 )

Margot Travers
Margot's facade might have been enough that Arianna wouldn't ask too many questions, but Nick did this shit for a living.  He saw right through her mask like it was made of paper mache and childrens paints.  Her shoulders were forced round, her hands in her pockets to hide the urge to fidget.

She was scared.  Scared near to death, watchful, wary of something that was hunting her or stalking her down.  And there was a weight of sadness and exhaustion from the situation-- she didn't want to be afraid of whatever it was that she was seeking to avoid and evade.  Reluctance.

Running instead of confronting, fleeing something that she apparently felt to be inevitable.

....maybe Yorick wasn't at his house because of renovations after all....

Arianna Giametti
Few things are more natural than accepting the jug of wine from Nick.  It is part of the back and forth they dance.  It is even more fitting now, on this day, with his head crowned in Pan-curls and her smile slipped slighted to the left. It is easy to mistake the sense of something sacred that puddles around him, and the slip of dark ringlets over his ears, and the fullness of the jug of wine for a different sort of worship than they hold in fellowship.  Just as it is easy to be misled by the wickedness of her smile, and she carries the jug with such a long-held association and familiarity, and the laze to her amusement.

Though there are manners to attend to. She waves to Margot before she drinks.  It is more an invitation than Nicholas's wave.

And then there is wine.  Wine and honey and apples and whatever passes as Spring.  When Nick laments the presence of a bonfire, Ari's smirk turns a little wistful.  "Someday..."

It is left as the insinuation that someday she too would be able to conjure bonfires.  Or perhaps someday, they would all celebrate around one.  Thane likely was responsible for these things when they were all together before; and Ari was a surprisingly willing assistant. Fire and the out of doors and starlight were all among her favorite things.

"We have our own dreadfully boring parties and painstakingly calculated pyres," Ari is saying, with full sarcasm in her tone, when Margot approaches.  "'Lo, Margot," comes the greeting, and Ari is fond enough of the Apprentice to tuck her feet up under her and make room for the girl on the blanket.

"Join us," she says, aloud, as if the imperative would somehow seem a question.  Ari is adept at blending these margins into something pleasant, and the shift of her hold on the bottle implies the apprentice will be granted repast as well.  She misses the elevated state of distress; Margot is always a little on the prickly side, until she is welcomed into conversation, in Ari's experience at least.

And then. For tempting, she adds: "I have Madelines."  Because everyone likes cake as cookies.  And also because this is a surprise, she has not told Nick about them.  And also, because, cake.

Nicholas Hyde
"Yorick is a very good rabbit," Nick says, and there is this creeping fondness in his tone that perhaps belies any lingering concern Margot might have that the rabbit was not being cuddled adequately, or played with often enough.  Nick, see: he's been working on coaxing Pen into a dog or a cat.  Yorick has added fuel to the fire.

It isn't necessary, but he too scoots aside to make room for the apprentice on their blanket.  In that instant maybe Margot can take note of this quiet appraisal, the way in which Nick's sometimes-hazel-sometimes-amber eyes soak in her fear, her sadness.  Maybe she can take note of it because Nick so easily experiences echoes of these things in himself, when he sees them in others, because he reflects like the moon, or like a shallow pool in a deep forest glen, the sort of place people might once have gone to worship and seek truth.

He does not remark upon it immediately.  Margot is a private creature, and he tries to be discreet, see?  He tries to protect the things others hold deep within (sacred).

Instead there is this flash of a glance to Ari, and his hand shoots upward to clutch at his chest.  Betrayal!  "You didn't tell me about the Madelines," he says.  And then, "Come and sit, Margot.  We were just talking about Beltane, and how much more fun it is to celebrate when you aren't a Hermetic."

Margot Travers
The invitation to sit was considered and waffled upon.  Also-hazel eyes lingered on Nick a bit longer-- something in his eyebrows and the set of his mouth had her worried.  She knew his profession, she'd confided in him before.  She worried that he saw right through her (and he would see that worry too, because apparently he could just read people like open large-print books).

But Arianna didn't seem to be appraising her with concern or sympathy, and instead offered madeline cookies.  Something softened up in Margot's expression, friendly company and acceptance from other Mages, this Cabal in particular, brushed up against a soft spot in her soul.  So sit she did.

"Thank you," she said, for the invitation and the offer all alike.  When the cookies were revealed and offered up Margot took one from the package with delicate fingertips and held it for a moment.  She sat cross-legged with her knees out and close to the ground instead of up in the air.  Glanced anxiously to Nick real quick-like once more, then down to her cookie.  Broke a piece of it off as she spoke.

"This is my first Beltane, I suppose.  Thought I'd get out for a walk.  Not exactly a prayer at an alter or a fire dance in the sunrise, but I've had enough homework, Netflix and work for a bit."

Arianna Giametti
Nick is doing that thing, where he looks at other people and their deepest darkest secrets come spilling out. Sadly for Margot, his attempts at reading between Ari's lines have been frustrated so far this evening and so all that pent up Astuteness -- because this is totally how Astuteness works, right? -- lands on the Apprentice whilst Arianna is finding the Madelines in the pocket of her coat or possibly what passes as a picnic basket.

Nick clutches his heart; she affably rolls her eyes in mock-impatience. "Nick, lovely, we have been over this: then it would not have been a surprise!"

But she does pass a cookie first to Margot, which is the only nod given to the seriousness in Nick's eyes or the heaviness with which the apprentice settles into their small circle.  As a rule, she does not make a habit of extending concern or sympathy to people. It gets messy quickly. They form expectations.  Cookies are relatively discrete units of sympathy.  Take this: two madelines. Do not call me in the morning.

Then Nick gets cookies.  Then Ari, herself, keeps the bent and broken ones, which taste the same but are not as worthy of chiminage between friends.  "Fires are better at sundown, in my experience," she shares, indelicately, around a mouthful of lightly orange-scented cake, which is only barely made socially acceptable by the hand she raises to cover her mouth as she speaks.

She swallows, then adds: "But we have wine, too, so perhaps you'll forgive us the lack of dancing and revelry."  There's a flash then, of something far more mischievous in her eyes than in Nick's and it is clear that Beltane bonfires Arianna has attended are divergent from the Order-approved ones she has described.

Finally: "Who's Yorick?"

Nicholas Hyde
"Yorick is Margot's adorable rabbit," Nick says.  A beat.  "Dowsing bunny?  You called him a dowsing bunny, but I don't know what he's dowsing."  There is this brief tilt of concern there, seen in his eyebrows: dowsing, see, it's such a vague word, and he does like the rabbit.

He takes a few of the cookies without regard for whether they are bent or broken or whole, because a cookie is a cookie and Nick doesn't believe in broken things.  He's said this before.  As Ari mentions the wine, he takes his free hand (the hand not containing cookies) and sets the jug down in front of Margot.  He isn't sure whether she's technically of age, but, well: these things always work a little differently in Awakened circles, don't they?  Hasn't she bled and fought and faced otherworldy things the same as them?  No child, Margot.

He breaks a piece of cookie and pops it into his mouth, flicking a glance between the other two while he listens to them.  "You should go to a Beltane fire someday, if you have the chance.  I used to go to the festivals the Verbena held when I was still a Disparate.  It was how I met a lot of people up there, back before I was part of a chantry."

Whatever sympathy Margot first glimpsed in him has faded, subsided, taken on the cast of mischief that's evident in his cabalmate.  Any concerns she might have had that he would air her fears here, in the open, evidently are just anxieties.

It's for later.

Margot Travers
, .A piece of cookie had been popped into Margot's mouth.  The wine set in front of her was looked at for a moment, then she nodded her head and hiked one shoulder up and down in a small why not shrug.  She accepted the offer and sought a cup to pour some into.  If no cup was to be found, red solo or otherwise, then she'd follow their lead and take a careful drink from the jug as well.

"He dowses spirits, mostly.  I follow him and he leads the way.  Or I can peek between his ears to actually see them.  Tried that at a cemetery once to make sure it worked."  She shook her head.  Not something that she'd recommend.

"I'm sure I'll get my chance to celebrate Beltane as a proper Verbena.  Maybe even next year.  I was thinking about reaching out to Thane, but this week wound up being pretty... busy.  Didn't really get the chance, I kind of woke up this morning and realized what day it was only after I had my coffee, you know?"  She smiled because this was the place in the conversation where she was supposed to do so.  Popped more cookie into her mouth and glanced over one of her shoulders, making sure nobody was approaching them from her back.

Arianna Giametti
"Like a familiar?"  Arianna's interest piques a little further, and she looks between them to confirm.  Even if they don't confirm, no, Yorick is not a familiar, he is simple a spirit-sight gifted bunny and/or focus, then she will still be duely impressed.  When Margot passes back the wine, Ari steals another sip before handing it on to Nick.

Pre-drinking for another party? Maybe.  Catching up after a dry month of no outings with Andres? Possibly.  Most likely of all, though, is just that she enjoys the company of this particular pair of mages.  Enough to drink in their midst; enough to note the glance over Margot's shoulder as if she were concerned at being followed.

This, then, garners a subtle look between cabalmates and a shift in Arianna's posture that is difficult to read without long acquaintance.  Nick is certain that she has her wand at the ready, but concealed, and with the nuanced placement she adopts now Nick and Arianna together can see the whole of their periphery in their combined line of sights.  It is a thing disguised by how she hands off the wine to him, or how she resettles herself more comfortably seated on ground that is still hard and still cold.

"It is like that for me, sometimes, too, and I am not as bound to the Old Ways."  Lies. Lies and half-truths. Lies and half-truths and truths-of-a-sort. Arianna is bound beyond what she is letting on, but the specifics are murky, the tethers are unclear.  "I look up and a quarter year has passed and it is cresting into Summer and I am not certain what I have done with Spring."  She phrases this as sympathy, but it is an easy-going sort.  "I appreciate the attention that other Traditions give to the turn and passage of time.  I am doubly-glad that I am not responsible for it, or we would all be ever-late or sprung forward or in some such state of disarray."

She offers this with smile, to perhaps ease the burden of whatever anxiousness is about Margot, and it is words upon words but with a comfortable cadence and with a touch of camaraderie and inclusiveness.

"Thane was good at keeping us honest with the seasons," she says.  This is the closest they have come to Truth in her expression: she misses Thane; she misses the broader circle of their togetherness.  For Nick, then, and only Nick to notice: she misses Kestrel.  "Maybe you will be good at it, too, Margot.  You can keep me honest, then."

The smirk returns at the verbal gauntlet thrown.  Because keeping Ari honest is a great white whale of a undertaking.

Nicholas Hyde
"I didn't realize you were exploring spirit work," Nick says, and there is this second appraisal of Margot.  Different somehow, this time: it's a more professional interest, no sympathy there only curiosity and perhaps this tinge of excitement and interest, too.  Magi who work within the spirit world are rare, see, and Nick doesn't meet many people who understand what the fuck he is talking about.

Listening to him as he wonders, as he exalts, is not the same as sharing the experience.

"Marking with ceremony is important.  It's like being able to use the hands on a clock to reference," he says to Ari.  Mention of Thane causes this little point to appear between his brows, this furrow, and as they talk his gaze wanders off to somewhere nonspecific, across the fields that have not yet had their first greening because Denver is as far as he is concerned a winter wasteland.

"It's hard to be an apprentice and be in school at the same time," he says to Margot, and here the sympathy is back, though there's camaraderie in this, a co-misery, commiseration.  "I Awoke when I was in grad school.  Thane is helpful to talk to, though.  Have your lessons with him been going well so far?"

Margot Travers
"No, not a familiar."  Margot shook her head while passing the wine off to Ari.  "But Andraste used a rabbit to predict the future.  I figured I'd try, and worse comes to worst I'd just have a pet.  Turns out I can focus through him, so he's a useful pet."

The cabalmates were subtle in their repositioning, and though Margot was learning to pick up on such nuances she was a little distracted at the moment.  Not searching them or their motives.  She trusted them (enough).

More cookie was nibbled, and she grinned a small bit to the Italian woman that she shared picnic space with.  "Thane mentioned how cycles are important, and the passing of time is too.  I don't really see the importance of the seasons just yet, but I probably will.  I just thought observing the marked holidays and switching away from the Christian calendar would be a good start, if nothing more."

Then, to Nick:  "It is...  Difficult, that is.  Switching between academics and rituals for my studies is... tiring."  Cookie nibble.  "We haven't really been doing lessons, per say.  I met up with him once and we had a good conversation.  Planned to meet up another time but that chance didn't come.  He's gonna be putting me in touch with someone more local, though."

Arianna Giametti
There are so many subsets of conversation here that she cannot relate to: Primals and their marking of seasons, Sleeper schooling of any kind, Awakening as a first introduction to a magickal reality, Spirit Work of any kind, being Lost to one's Tradition and finding it by happenstance and braille.  If Ari were a different kind of Hermetic, she would study her nails and tune them out. Instead she leans in a little and listens intently.

For awhile.  She is missing a few too many reference points to grasp the nuances of the commiseration between Nick and Margot, and she is forever trying to layer assumptions and understandings atop one another to craft some semblence of understanding.  It is bothersome.  There are too many gaps for her to be compelling in her inclusion, so she falls quiet.  It is a rare passage of no-Words from the Hermetic in their midst.  Instead she lets her attention wander a bit and takes in the cant of the sun, and its distance from the horizon, and the rake of the wind.

Because she cannot relate to the Primals, see? And she does not mark her world in any of the same ways as they do, you know?

Nicholas Hyde
"I mark the seasons as part of my understanding of the Wheel," Nick says.  "It's not the same as receiving instruction from one of the Verbenae, but if you're interested in talking about it sometime let me know."  Perhaps Margot could wonder if this offer is made with some intent to trap; she's a wary thing, isn't she?  But his eyes meet hers and it appears genuine, sincere, and without guile.

He has taken the wine from Ari and a long swallow from the jug.  "You should talk to Kiara, too, if you have a chance."

And perhaps he has noticed that Ari's attention is wandering, because they've had this talk about river rocks and he remembers how she reacted.  The memory of that tension still lingers.  They may have sought to construct a bridge to understanding, but there's still that divide isn't there.

"Ari basically went to magickal school with a lot of other Hermetics," he offers then, with a glance to Margot and this little smile that is many things: affection for his friend, maybe wonder at her experiences, maybe a little conspiratorial too.  "Did they make you practice ritual at the same time as your studies, Ari?  Tell us about Hermetic school."

Margot Travers
Nick knew Margot well enough to anticipate the wariness.  It was there in how she glanced at his face, searched it and his eyes after he set up the offer to discuss the seasons with her.  Really?  The seasons?  And that's all you wanted to discuss, is it?

A more interesting tidbit of information caught the Apprentice's attention, and it swung over to Arianna instead.

"School?  Is it like college-- you go when you Awaken?  Or did you go as a child and Awoke later?"

Arianna Giametti
To be fair, Arianna has given an undue amount of thought to river rocks and their selected merits and their ritual purposes and the potential of them for servicable vessels of ... okay, that last was a far less successful line of inquiry, but the point here is that she has spent a wholly unreasonable amount of time thinking about rocks since the conversation in question.

And they were still rocks. Exquisitely well considered rocks. Rocks elevated to a meditative awareness. And yet. Still stone.  Still compressed mud.  Still hardened bits of Earth, and in being Earth akin to coins and pentacles and in this, perhaps returned to circles and also sometimes being imperfectly round in and of themselves but, at the core, at their heart-of-hearts, still stone.

Stone-hearted.
Rocks.

She has given it very much thought, indeed.  Maybe rocks are again what she is considering when she hears Nick say something she very much hopes she has imagined, about her attending Academy, about it being 'magickal school', and so her attention sweeps back over them to take in the color of his eyes, and the fascination in Margot's and how they are both looking to her and how there is an expectation of something marvelous to be said and shared and, damn, now she is on the spot to deliver.

"Oh, yes," she says, with a little shrug, as she reaches back to plant her hands behind her so she can lean back a little, nonchalantly, as if this were not great and exciting news at all.  To her it isn't, and her companions have the good graces not to ask her about Hogwarts itself, so, she supposes, this is normal discourse.  "It is like school, I suppose.  We had coursework and exams and recitations and practicum, though the subjects were not the same as in sleeper schools. We studied gematria beside geometry, and focused more on languages and various esoterica.  I grew up in Europe, mainly, where the linguistic expectations are higher -- "

Did you see how polite that was, Nick? She did not say anything derisive AT ALL about the monolinguistic pig-headedness of the English-speaking American esablishment.

"But in Academy it is not uncommon to study four or five tongues concurrently.  Even as a Consor. Awakened Apprentices study rote, but even Consors study ritual.  In my A-level year I lectured on symbology and ritual myself."

She glances between them to see if this will sate their curiosity.  Or merely whet it.


Margot Travers
To her credit, Margot listened raptly.  Rapt enough that her voice was still a bit hushed when she asked:

"What's a Consor?"

Arianna Giametti
This is a fair question, and Ari answers it plainly.

"Because Hermetics train their students even before Awakening, there is a population of un-Awakened but knowing members of the Order.  They cannot work magic, but neither do they believe so steadfastly in its improbability.  Some never Awaken, in fact.  We call these people Consors. Because I Awakened later than expected, I served as a Consor to my mother's practice for several years after Academy."

This last is not something she had explicitly told Nick before. What follows next is also improbably candid and unfamiliar to his ears.

"Because a Consor does not have an Awakened Will, they are not affored the same rank, authority or protections as an Apprentice or higher within the Order. Some Magi are unkind or even abusive to their Consors and those who are in the service of others."

Margot Travers
"Oh," was the answer that Margot gave in turn to the information offered up.  Then, again quiet, she added:  "That's terrible..."

But a lot in the world was terrible.  She would comment that much and then let it lie.  Not like she could change Hermetic culture and tradition anyways.

Nicholas Hyde
Imagining that Nick's curiosity could ever be sated is perhaps wishful thinking.  When Ari looks over at him she will find his eyes bright and sharp, amber in the shadow of the nearby tree and as the sun falls behind them now, sinking toward the horizon line.  He is cinder wrapped in ash and smoke, sometimes, like now.

Linguistic expectations are higher, she says, and he smiles.  They've perhaps had conversations about this before, how Nick is envious of the command of languages she and Penelope both have, how he knows little more than what he remembers of the street Spanish he learned growing up from his relatives and classmates.  "I feel like I've gained the benefits of your experience lecturing on symbology."

He listens, sharp-eyed sharp-eared, to their exchange regarding consors.  There is a noise he makes at Ari's candid admission.  It's a muddled thing, thoughtful (but there are traces of approval too: mark this.)  And he says to Margot, "All Traditions have their laypeople who are not Awakened but understand how to apply certain types of ritual or use certain tools.  They're often very helpful to us, and I think underappreciated even in Traditions that are structured differently from the Order of Hermes.  I know someone who works at a morgue in town who is affiliated with the Chakravanti.  You don't always know who they are, either, because they don't carry the same kind of resonance we do."

He tilts his head back again so he can regard Ari, and then he says, "What was it like, being a Consor?"

Arianna Giametti
[It. Was. Awesome! Let me distract you with cool stories. Manip + Subter, spec cunning (misdirecting!)]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 2, 3, 7, 8, 8, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 1

Nicholas Hyde
[Ooo.  Are you lying, Ari?]

Dice: 8 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9, 10) ( success x 6 ) [Doubling Tens]

Margot Travers
[Fat chance on picking up on this, Marge.]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (3, 7, 7, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )

Arianna Giametti
[NO TIES! right button clicked this time]

Dice: 7 d10 TN6 (2, 2, 4, 7, 10, 10, 10) ( success x 7 ) [Doubling Tens]

Margot Travers
[Alright toots that's all you]

Arianna Giametti
Nicholas regards her and mark this, she is regal.  She is the daughter of a House whose prominence reaches back into time immemorial.  There is a litany of names that trails behind her and Arianna, even as a Consor, was never quite as low as those whose names did not precede and follow them.  And still, there is a shade of something distant and darkly remembered to the corner of her eyes which are shaped like laughter but are not touched with merriment.

"It was exciting at times," she says, and the cadence of the words are correct but their lilt is not. "To stand so closely to that sort of wonder and working.  I got to experience things that I would not yet be invited to, at my Rank, were it not for my specific skills and education. And it was also infinitely frustrating to feel it was always just beyond my fingertips, or on the tip of my tongue and yet unspeakable."

There is wine, readily at hand, and Arianna takes a sip of it, and the shape of the jug in her hand seems fitting and well-mated, and the cant of her shoulders is inclusive and she seems almost complete in her fellowship but there are broad strokes that she omits and the absence is noticeable to her cabalmate if not to Margot.

"But there was also this: we all began Academy together.  Even in the Order it is rare to Awaken as a child. And then someone Awakens and they are removed, split off to follow a higher path.  And then another.  And another.  Until more are Awake than remain sleeping, until the paths are no longer divergent but fully separate and there are assumptions then about what you will or will not amount to.  Being a Consor in my early teens was great exposure, but no matter how great a Consor is, they are still only a helpmate.  And exposure is not the same as experience."

Margot Travers
Further still, Margot sat quietly and listened.  While Arianna spoke of Hermetic school and how it was to be a Consor instead of Awakened through that experience, the Apprentice did nothing more than absorb and quietly finish her cookie.  Another sip of the communal wine was taken somewhere in the mix as well.

She didn't pick up on anything under the surface of the story.  Margot was perhaps too busy being distracted by the very idea of wizarding school, commiserating with the frustration of witnessing and feeling something but being just unable to grasp it all the same, and whatever it was that had her glancing over her shoulder earlier, that Nick had picked up on so easily but Arianna had missed the details of (much as was the situation now, but with the female roles reversed).

Her phone buzzed again in her pocket, and Margot's eyebrows hopped up on her face a little in reaction to it.  A hand clasped over the phone's shape through the fabric of her hoodie pocket, like that would still the buzzing.  She didn't check it, but instead looked somewhere in the near distance between the couple of Mages she sat with and took a slow, deep, quiet inhale of breath.  Easy.  Don't read it.

"That was my alarm," she lied, and started getting to her feet.  "I need to get going."

Nicholas Hyde
See here: Nicholas is an insightful man, but there are things he still doesn't know about other Traditions and their inner workings.  There are things he cannot possibly understand because he wasn't there.  But he is an insightful man, and we have said before that it is difficult to be insightful.

Ari's tells are subtle: her eyes shape like laughter but there's no laughter inside them.  Witness that.  He doesn't miss it.

His own are subtle too.  He shifts where he is sitting, leans forward and back, slides a hand across his stomach as though to soothe the flutter in the pit of it, to quell some secret shame and sympathy and anger that coils there.  Sometimes he asks too many questions.  Sometimes he forgets that he asks too many questions.  He blinks once, as he has his head tilted back, and then he rights it again.  "I think experiences like that are always worthwhile, in the end.  Most of the world still Sleeps, and it reminds us of how to use our power appropriately."

Then, Margot is standing up, she needs to get going, and he watches her for a second more.  "Thanks for sitting with us," he says.  "I'd like to talk with you again soon, when you have the time."  He lifts the container of cookies toward her.  "Here, for the road."

Margot Travers
The cookies were accepted with a small smile-- a weak thing, shaky, because she was making eye contact with Nick over the container and she knew that he knew and she had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to talk about sometime soon.  It probably wasn't Yorick.

"Thanks," she said and pretended like she didn't have suspicions and reservations.  "Yeah, just give me a call or text.  We'll chat."

With a cookie in hand for the rode, she bade her farewell to the two and stepped away from the picnic blanket, back toward the path and along the route that she was walking before.

April 30th, 2016 - Fortify [Ned]

Margot
Four nights.  Four nights of sleeping in shifts on a futon, Ned mercifully often working evenings and Margot typically being up and moving around, preparing without much enthusiasm or focus for school.  She'd been keeping up with classes and homework, often from a clear space on the floor with legs crossed and books in front of her.

Tonight, though, they were shifting locations.  Margot had concluded a short part-time shift at the dispensery where she worked and texted:  My place tonight?

And so they would be.  Margot was a ball of conflict, simultaneously relieved to be 'home' (not quite home yet, that word didn't work for the apartment, but she was trying to make it stick) and on edge for what she anticipated was soon to come.  Who, to be more to the point.  It was that anticipation that brought her back here.  She wanted to set up 'defenses'.

"Not as good as magick," she was saying while tucking a little spherical web-cam into a potted plant on the tiny end table beside her couch.  "But technology was magic once.  Still is, if you ask some folks."  Content with where the camera was set in place, she'd started tinkering with settings on her phone to try and get the two to sync up.

Ned
"Camera's just passive security. It'll show someone coming in but it won't do you much good if you're home."

Ned's been inspecting the apartment, trying to get the various locations and sections that could promise to keep her safe or hidden if push came to show. He'd concluded the bathroom was about the only secure place in the entire apartment and that would leave her trapped.

Still, some weapons in the right places (A couple of knives duct taped and secured up the kitchen table. One in the bathroom cabinet, all of which he'd taken from his place because he rarely cooked and they were collecting dust) would be suitable enough. Those of course were the mundane things.

He'd taken pains to bringing over a half a pound of Salt and a satchel of soot and ash. It had taken some finagling but at some point or another, one of the parks where people could legally have fires, was raided for it's cooled off pit. The pieces and chunks were ground down and put into a baggy; Ash.

Bleeding Margot, of course, was an option but not a very good one.

Ned was sitting on her couch, the bag of ash and box of salt sitting on the table. He was filling various medical vials full of the stuff. A half a dozen of each so far. Secreted around the apartment, with tiny gold stars, marking their locations (picked up from the dollar store) it gave Margot access to her 'better weaponry'.

"I can go and pick up a baseball bat for you at some point if you're more comfortable with that." Because he was sure she wouldn't have been comfortable with the knives on bringing them with him.

Margot
It was with a grim expression but no protest that Margot acknowledged Ned's mission to stash knives in different strategic locations around her apartment-- a knife under the small two-person kitchen table, one in the bathroom cabinet, and one that Margot chose to stash between the wall and the head of her bed, taped secure to the wall.  The salt was appreciated, and the gift of ash and soot had Margot impressed with the idea of where to mine such supplies.

Margot's brow pinched together while she tapped away at her phone, and in turn checked the little camera here and there to make sure it was doing what it needed to.  Not the most tech-savvy person in the world, but she was smart and born in the right generation for this kind of a task.

"I suppose," she agreed distractedly to the suggestion of a baseball bat, trailing off in the manner of someone who had another thought but it was held up.  A dozen seconds later, though, she was finished-- a video of her door (grainy, delayed, but there) was able to play on her phone screen.  Content with the successful set-up, she set her phone down on the table by the plant pot.  "At least I'll see if he's come sniffing around if I'm not home.  I'll know if he's here waiting.  Takes one unpleasant surprise out of the mix."

Her attention shifted to the work Ned was doing, watching him funnel soot and salt into various vials.  Watched as though half-entranced by the waterlike flow of many grains into their container.

"...I'm honestly better defending myself without, I think.  I learned a few things, but never really got familiar with a weapon."  With the thought of a weapon, or with actually using one?  Maybe both, knowing her.  Hands went to her hips and she lifted her gaze to scan around the small apartment, like she was hunting for missed details or inspiration.  "Hopefully I won't need one."

Ned
"Weapons aren't for holding they are for throwing. You'll just give him a reason to stab or hurt you if you close the gap. Never close the gap. Throw and run to the next knife or available throwable weapon. Aim for the legs, put them on the ground as often as possible and always scream bloody murder until you can't anymore."

Ned's dictating like he pulled this all together after numerous drunken conversations over pitchers of beer with dumbass frat boys wondering about the Zombie apocalypse and their chain-saw wielding badassdom. Or some such imagining.

"Magic-wise, what do you have available as far as practiced stuff goes? You want quick activation, so no blood letting or drawing circles or anything. Quick and dirty is the key."

Margot
While pointers for defending and escaping were given, Margot drifted past the couch and coffee table and made her way to the door out to the balcony.  It had been kept closed, for the city was cold tonight, but now she opened it with a creak of old hinges just enough to lean her torso outside.

"If there's confrontation here, the gap space available isn't very big to start.  Luke's only got the one arm, it's not like he's going to have much luck holding me still or pinning me down.  If he just wanted to... cut my throat in the middle of the night or something then he probably wouldn't be toying with me or texting me.  He'd just show up and do it without giving me the heads up to be on the look out.  But..."

With a sigh she leaned back in and closed the door.  Kept a hand on the knob while looking out the cloudy old glass window pane at its top, at the street below with a watchful frown.

"Who the fuck knows what someone'll do when they're strung out."

Next, a small shake of her head.  "I can think of a million things that I would do with my Craft if I could-- I'd steal his senses instead of dampening my own, or block his spine so his legs would stop working.  I'd turn any weapon he tried to use on me into putty, I'd gnarl his hands up like Kha'vadi woman did to Doc's wrists.  Right now?  I think my best chance is my weak-spots scan and seeing Distance to have more of a... path for throwing and aiming.  Beyond that, I'm open to suggestions."

Ned
"This is general knowledge. You're still surprisingly normal in your thinking patterns after having run ins with various monstrosities, walking zombies, voodoo spirit travelers and goblinoid things..."

Ned's finally putting a cap on the fifteenth and final vial. 9 salt and 6 Ash in total and his hands are a mess. He dusts them off slightly on his jeans, black hoodie hiding most of the stains well (save for the flecks of salt grains clinging to the well aged fuzziness). He moves toward the kitchen, eyeballing Margot at the balcony door.

"Who the fuck knows is the best possible reason to be prepared for the worst. One arm makes him handicapped but not stupid or incapable. He brings a knife and you don't close the distance. He finds a gun and that one hand is going to be more trouble than you can handle."

The faucet goes on as he vanishes into the kitchen. The sound of snapping fingers, eager for her attention arrives with running water.

"Distance and Life beacons. Can narrow your aiming scope while giving his body light-up cues for where major organs and tendons for movement are. Quick scan and you should be able to make it easier on you to throw and strike accurately and with results. That's good..."

A pause. The faucet turns off.

"If you can minimize all the lights in here. Drapes on the windows and doors. Take out all of your lightbulbs except those in a few select places. Lamps connected to a central power bar. Turn off all the lights and then go darkvision with Life or Forces. It isn't the same as ruining his senses internally but does the same job."

Margot
A glance was cut back over her shoulder when Ned accused her of having normal thinking patterns, a half-hearted warning, a silent hey, watch it, but it was short lived.  He was eyeballing her right back as he rose to go wash his hands in the kitchen sink, and the warning slipped and gave way to general discontent once more.  Worry was a shawl she wore often, but it hadn't stopped showing in her face and shoulders for the better part of the week.  It was getting to be enough that she now closed her eyes to rub at her forehead with a couple of fingers, like she was massaging to banish a headache.

"The lights... that's a good idea."  Straight away she moved into the kitchen as well and pulled out a drawer to Ned's left, at about knee level, and pulled out a couple of dish towels to pile on the countertop.  Straightened up and looked around to try and pinpoint where the duct tape had gotten off to.

It wasn't immediately visible because it was on her bed mattress, hidden from the kitchen's view by the room divider that separated her sleeping space from the rest of the studio.  So she started piling the towels one at a time into her arms instead, moving heavy with reluctance and thought.  The gears in her mind were whirling quickly, burning oil while trying to plot out alternate courses of action.

"....shit, if only I could wipe memory.  I'd so much sooner he just forget everything and go back to fucking off at home, or anywhere else.  We're planning on it having to come to bloodshed but I just..."  Another sigh, this one heavy enough that it may as well be riding on Atlas's shoulders.  "God damnit."

Ned
"Memory is a tricky thing. I'm not sure any spell or working could accurately erase someone's memory for too long. Not without regular adjustments and indicators. Our understanding of the brain is-...well, yeah. Memory wiping. Temporary solution at best, I would say."

Ned's empathy for the moment is low. Not incredibly, just...there's more to be done in planning practically than in trying to organize your feelings. Brother or not. He watches her struggle with the towels but doesn't offer to help. Margot was the sort to need things to do (as evidenced by some earlier time when he came home to a small pile of folded laundry, sitting on the edge of the futon) to keep herself busy. This served it's purpose.

"You keep concentrating on what ifs and daydreams. Andraste is probably rolling her eyes about now." He frowns, clucking his tongue. "You're not getting out of this with wishes and wants. We either prove he's doing something wrong and get him put back in jail so he's alive but can't hurt you? Or we make sure he just can't ever hurt you again. Period."

Margot
"Of course she is.  I haven't taken up arms and declared war against my own blood, that's gonna be a moment too good for her to want me passing up."  Frustration manifested in bitterness toward the diety, proving humanity's tendancies to thank, praise, curse and blame their Gods on a smaller and more direct scale.  It was less of a loose complaint about the universe in Margot's case.

"He was in jail before, that only holds for so long and apparently not long enough.  He saw and experienced something that's outside the realms of anything else before-- didn't Awaken, but Sleepers don't get to witness that stuff anyways.  I get why he'd start driving across the country for answers.  If answering his questions will help him calm down and go away, great, but.."

She didn't sigh this time, though the pause was appropriate for it.  Instead she furrowed her brow with some kind of resolve and looked at the towels in her arms.  Wadded the pile up tightly and gave it a heft-and-toss over the top of the room divider so that they'd land on her bed-- the window and door were over in that direction anyways.  One missed and hit the floor instead but she'd worry about that later.  Now she'd turned to face Ned more directly instead.

"He drove me from home once before, but not a second time.  I'm not going to let him.  More than just that, though;  you're not letting me let him either.  So we're gonna be okay."

No more wishes or what-ifs, but hope could remain on the table still.

April 26th, 2016 - Favors [Grace]

Margot
Meet me at 3?  We can get coffee and talk about this?

Sure.  I know a place.

A link to a coffee shop's location in the Sante Fe Art's District was sent over through text messages soon to follow.  It was a Tuesday afternoon and the weather had been fairly chilly-- a hell of a thunderstorm swept through and brought a cold front along with it the day before.  Margot would have ordinarly sat inside on a day like this but at least the clouds in the sky were pale gray and high in elevation, not threatening to dump any more rain upon them anytime soon.  The winds from the day before had stilled too.

With a paper to-go cup from the shop in her hand, Margot was hovering outside in a hoodie and jacket with the hood pulled up over her head-- not far enough forward to hide her face like she was trying to mask her identity (that'd be the best way to draw attention, to look like you were actively hiding anyways), but just to keep the damp cool air off her neck.  Jeans, sneakers, nose ring.  All she needed was a cigarette to look the part of a proper coffee shop loiterer.

When Grace approached, the petite young woman nodded her chin up and lifted a hand to wave.  She would smile, but there was no pretense at play here-- while she was trying to keep Pen and Nick oblivious to the situation that was impossible with the request she was making of the Virtual Adept.  So, it was an expression of grim resolve that greeted Grace today.

Grace
Okay, grim resolve. Meet grim resolve. Grace wanders up in her jeans and grey turtleneck jacket, zipped up the neck, her hair messed up and her eyes tired, like she suggested coffee for a reason.

But when she finds Margot, her eyebrows raise a little. Hi there. She walks over, slides into a chair like it is comfort itself.

"So. You want me to trace someone for you?"

Margot
Following Grace's lead to sit at a table, Margot stopped hovering near the wall like a weirdo and sat down as well.  She slipped into the seat across from Grace instead of beside her-- not many people wanted to hang out on the patio, so there wasn't a need to huddle heads for the sake of privacy.

"Yeah."  A pause, where Margot's jaw set.  "My brother."

The coffee cup moved up, but paused as she thought to add a little more clarification.

"He just got out of prison-- or maybe rehab?  If he's out this early?  Anyway, he called me with a none too friendly message and I don't want him visiting unexpectedly."

Grace
Oh. Grace's head ticks up a notch at this new information. Finally, Margot has decided to provide some.

"Ahh. In that case... I could probably set something up for you. But listen -- would you like something else? To feel more safe perhaps?"

Margot
The question posed had Margot looking up into Grace's face.  With how her eyebrows were raised up, she appeared surprised.  She didn't expect an offer for protections as well, and after blinking a few times the surprise gave way to a softening of an otherwise grim visage.  Not entirely relaxed, but relieved certainly.  Appreciative, for sure.

"Grace, thank you.  Knowing where he is is going to be a big enough help."  She took a sip then lowered her hands to hold the cup nearer to her lap.  Seemed to consider the offer for a moment, then consider how to explain her own thoughts on the matter before finally she huffed a breath and gave an answer.

"This is going to sound ridiculous, but hear me out:  I think that I'm supposed to be facing him on my own, at least as much as possible.  My Avatar, she's a War Goddess, and I feel like this is happening as maybe a test of some kind?  To show my mettle?  It's... a dick move, I think, he's mybrother, you know?  But still."

Another sip, then a reassurance after a pause:  "Ned's helping me prepare to defend myself, and I've been staying at his place until I'm ready, where Luke won't find me."

Grace
"I would be careful about trying to literally interpret what your Avatar is saying," Grace says, looks up at Margot with a bit of worry in her eyes. "Once, my Avatar made me a contestant in the Wheel of Fortune with Pat Sajak and Vanna White."

Just, you know, let that sink in, Margot. Sometimes, Avatars are weird too.

"Everyone on set kept encouraging me to play, including my best friend and worst enemy. My Avatar was saying all these things to me -- do this, do that, do the other thing. The lesson was to say 'no'."

She looks up toward the ceiling, examining the room a bit for people within earshot. Keeps her conversation low.

"Every time, I've had to fight my Avatar, stand up to it, stab it, take from it what I need. You say she's a war goddess. What does she think about you surrendering to her all the time?"

Margot
"I think 'all the time' is a bit excessive," said Margot with a quiet tone of defense, the kind that came with a tiny bit of a sting to her pride.  There wasn't much pride built up in the way of Magickal affairs just yet, but when it came to the matter of the strength of your spine even bookish little things like Margot Travers could get a little touchy.

"I mean, think of it this way:  I've not really been much of a warrior up until this point.  I ran away from my problems and have shied away from violence when I can, either by avoiding the situation, running, or negotiating and talking reason.  I have dreams about Andraste, and when I see her in my dreams she has sharp black teeth and her hair is a literal river of blood.  She wants me to...."

The scowl got heavier here, because she was trying to interpret what her Avatar wanted again and she knew that Grace just cautioned her against it, but there was a loss of other ways to describe it.  She licked her lips, took another quick sip of her coffee, and tried again.

"I suppose I should say that I feel like I'm supposed to become more like her.  I don't feel like I'm supposed to worship her or copy her, but I'm supposed to be her Right Hand.  And I think that she needs to know that I can fight and find Magick in the battlefield instead of just letting my own blood and burning my own supplies."

Grace
"And you think she wants you to kill your brother?"

It's direct, her question. If Margot says yes, perhaps she won't offer guns and ammo...

Margot
At first the silence between them answered the question, filled only by the background sounds of the city surrounding them and the quiet sip that Margot made at her coffee cup.  Perhaps Grace had heard enough and was about ready to just let the Apprentice stew in her own poor choices before the girl sighed and pressed her lips together and looked down at her knuckles.

"I don't want it to come to that.  I want to be able to explain what happened to him and make him understand, but... I don't think that's likely.  I took his arm away.  He--.."

Her voice cracked and she swallowed against the sudden dry patch in her throat.  Took a breath and bit her lip.  Clearly this was a topic she struggled with.  She spoke of it fretfully, like walking on untrustworthy ice, unsure of whether she should bolt across it quickly and hope that she beats the surface cracks or if she should ease around it instead.  Apparently she just found a particularly thin patch of recalling events in her own psyche and chose to skirt around it instead.

"He might be out here to kill me.  And if prison didn't keep him away once it won't keep him away a second time.  I'm gonna... gonna try.  Gonna try really fucking hard with him, but if it comes to it...  If it's him or me, it's gotta be me."

Grace
"Try. Really fucking hard. You want to be able to tell yourself later that you didn't have a choice. You want to be able to mean it," Grace says, eyes Margot's coffee like she wants it. If it weren't for the prospect of sharing germs, she might just go for it.

"I can get you some light body armor," she says, still looking at the coffee, but tugging at her grey jacket like: 'See? This.' "Was going to offer a place to stay, but you've got Ned... Would you like a highly-trained dog?"

Margot
The words of caution about trying very hard, if for nothing more than the sake of her future self's conscience, were accepted with a serious nod.  Margot was listening, and she was taking Grace very seriously.  She wouldn't have reached out to the woman if she didn't think that her words and wisdom carried weight.  Ultimately the actions and decisions would still be her own, but guidance didn't really hurt.

Eyes hopped next to the gray jacket that was indicated, and she smiled.  "If it's not too much trouble, I think that would be handy for this and any number of other issues I'm probably going to come up against in this bright new world.  As for the dog..."  A shake of her head, and the smile turned into more of a grin-- humor, even if only a little, was a healthy thing.  "My apartment's pretty small, and Ned's is somehow even smaller.  I even found someone to keep my pet rabbit, there's so little room for extra bodies.

"I do really appreciate the offer, though, Grace.  I mean, I know we haven't, like, hung out much or anything?  But I trust you, and I'm glad that trusting you was a good choice."

Grace
Grace unzips her jacket down to the bottom, strips it off, revealing the t-shirt underneath. It's the one with the giraffe on the front who's wearing about 10 ties with the line "Trust me, I'm super professional" on it. She hands it over to Margot.

"Try it on, see if it fits. You look pretty much maybe my size."

So, literally the shirt off her back, she will hand over.

"It's cut-resistant. Not easily stabbed or bitten through. Got it for zombies."

Margot
Grace unzipped her coat and shrugged it off and Margot just stared at her in disbelief at first.  The coat had to be held out to her for a couple seconds, maybe even shaken to indicate that Yo, girl, you're supposed to grab this before she finally reached out and accepted the jacket.

"Jesus, Grace, thank you."  Really, the coat off her back.  Margot analyzed the jacket, feeling the material between her fingertips.  Then she set it over the back of one of the empty chairs cluttered around their table and stood up.  Unzipped her own brown jacket, not nearly as sturdy but it was a worn old leather and just a little bit big on her petite frame.  The lining was clean and warm looking, though.  This was also put over the back of the chair so she could try the coat on.

"You can replace it for yourself, though, right?"  Concerned, of course, but Margot was also checking the length of the sleeves, how the jacket sat about her waist and chest and hip when it was zipped.  She pulled the hood of her sweater back up over her head after tugging it free from the coat's collar, then gestured to the brown coat on the chair.  "It's not nearly as awesome, but it's warm...  Not a fair trade, but it's yours."

Grace
"Oh, no. Keep it. I can get another jacket. That's just for expediency's sake," Grace says, waving it off. "I could go for your coffee though."

Also, for expediency's sake.

"About your brother? If he enters Colorado, you'll get a birthday email from me, okay? Consider it the warning. I'm not going to be around for a while -- going up to Colorado Springs to do a thing. You be careful. If you need help, ask for it. Reinforcements are a part of warfare, after all, right? Being smart, tactical, all that."

Margot
The expression on the girl's face showed a measure of discomfort with accepting what she deemed to be such a valuable gift without providing something in return, but she didn't argue.  The coffee that was being requested out of her hand wasn't monetarily worth much but Grace looked as tired as she herself felt stressed, so the still hot drink was handed off without hesitation.

"I'll keep my  eyes on my email then.  And yeah, I have my back-up in place."  She didn't point out the fact that her back-up wasn't her dangerously mad scientist of a mentor, but rather her fellow Apprentice of a cabalmate.  She just smiled gratefully and gathered up the brown jacket in her arms, still wearing the one that Grace had bestowed upon her.

"Seriously, thank you again.  My favors aren't as big as yours yet, but they'll get there, and when they do or even before I'll owe you one, alright?"  She looked like she was getting ready to go-- no doubt Margot had a number of things that she was trying to get figured out and in order before her brother descended upon her.  Who knew how soon or how far away his arrival would be?

But before she went, she felt it prudent to add:

"Oh, and whatever you're doing in Colorado Springs?  I hope it all goes well for you."