[K. R. Jakes] [am I good today?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 4, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Shangri La] We raise and raze our city like the strangest house of cards, a ghost-breath mist of snow;
A ghost-breath mist of snow where no snow falls
Fire. It flickers, licks and warms but does not burn . . . does not burn here, but over there, away, out of the corner of one's eye. Somewhere, a house of cards falls, and in Chicago it snows in that wet, just barely frozen sort of way that clings to the eyelashes, cheeks, shoulders, throat. Little kisses, damp and cold, that brush and trickle across skin and hair and somewhere [a city] burns. Somewhere cards tumble and there's no Alice anywhere 'round. There is Kage, and she is cold and wet and licked warm but not burning
For we are Atlantis, and the town of Prester John.
Three weeks apart from never, we dance and do not fall.
We are Shangri-La
wet, hot. Something is wrong. Something is wrong [...burn it down...], Spidey-senses are tingling, the Bat signal is lighting up the night. This is not how it goes, this is not what belongs here (I don't belong here), this is strange even for Him, even for when he first came into her life those years ago. This is [building up our city just to watch it burn] . . . not out of the ordinary, because that's a difficult definition to apply when everything is out of the ordinary
topsy-turvy
inside out
upside down
strange. This is foreign. This is strange and smells of incense and (peppermints) exoticism, of faith and transcendence. Sound does not process, not yet, but for a smooth ripple on the edges of perception. Or maybe that's the sound that should be, the sound of fire cracklingconsuming, the sound of notquitesnowbutcertainlynotrain falling on windows, on sidewalks. It's curious, this feeling-not, this
History has dreamed of us,
building up our city just to watch it burn.
loss, this feeling of being apart but not a part, some separate, distinct whole, alone.
Come, says the night, woozy and full, sweet and crystalline. Come and we will call you sister.
Burn it down
[K. R. Jakes] No. Wait. What?
Disconcerted.
K. R. Jakes is disconcerted (what). K. R. Jakes is also (in)cautious. This is why, when less than a block from her apartment, she felt (throb) something unusual this way comes, she pauses in the center of the sidewalk and considers the street and her place on the street. It wasn't a sudden oh my god what pause. It wasn't a back-up, ready to fight-or-flee pause; it was just a pause, and she, quintessentially cool (poised [won't make me blink]), lifted a hand to the collar of her coat, snapped it up sharp when she turned, drawn, knowing she was drawn just the way the moon is drawn by the sea that a way. This is why, this (in)cautious nature, she does not instantly go toward the fire that isn't fire. After her collar is adjusted, she glances up at the starless sky, at the heavy clouds, and she holds out a hand; it's just snow. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe it's [silent film (silent movie)] ash that crosses her palm, coin for thoughts, coin for wishes, coin for disasters yet to be told.
It'd disconcerting. She feels for a second as if she were in two places, one of them soundless, one of them not. This is how that wrongness works on her. This is how it tastes, on her tongue, when she licks her lips, and this is how she reacts: a moment's mundane reconaissance before anything else. She stays still.
[Shangri La] She stays still
(a dim welcome hum, the thrum of a heartbeat)
is disconcerted [little.girl.lost] on a street familiar. She knows this spot, has passed overbythrough it many times, on her way too and from many places. But still it's different (wrong) and the air tastes of ice and ash, of fire and water.
A moment's mundane reconaissance garners her this: she is where she thinks she is, but there is inferno here, lingering. The wrong is not necessarily bad aside from that - its cause, which is not (or was not, at some point) necessarily bad, either. Madness is a different thing entirely, and (we're all mad, here) she of all people knows that. It also garners her an accute knowledge of something Other. Something watchinglisteningstill, and echoing her mundane reconnaissance, so careful. So quiet. Or maybe she is echoing it.
Choices are made and casualties counted
(air can make me meaningless)
Falling like pages
when a book hits the wall
At any rate, there is something watching. Something has taken note, and is weighing and measuring - something secret and quiet, something dark and deep. And somehow, the night forgets to breathe.
(air can make me meaningless)
There are hints, clues - a ruffle of pages.
The smell of sweet pipe smoke (and ash and fire and oh).
But just there! A shop. It's late evening, heading into night, and the shops are beginning to close. But this shop is lit with a yellow sort of glow - lamplight and incandescent bulbs, none of that LED nonsense that keeps showing up, shouting about energy efficiency and such. This is a homey sort of shop, though its purpose is difficult to ascertain. The closest, easiest descriptor is junk shop.
And above the door, quite simply: Oddities, in gilt script.
[K. R. Jakes] [How curious. Why are you suddenly there like some magick shop of curiousities or spirit-y time slippy doom.
Let us have a combined Prime(hark:quintessence?)/Corr(areyoureallythere)/Entropy(what'syourfate)/Spirit(orareyoughost) 1 sight thing going on, plz, to poke it. Practiced Rote -1! Taking time -1! Coincidental 3 + 1. ]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 8 (Success x 3 at target 3) [WP]
[Shangri La] How curious. Why are you suddenly there?
I was always here. Pressing gets pressed back in a strange sort of way - it's not words, but impressions like old, strongly resonant buildings and places have. Why are you suddenly here, you fey thing, you Demon-lover's child? Like some arrogant two year old, prodding, always poking.
The place does have a glow, a shine, but it's difficult to place it to the shop itself of something within. It is strangely, oddly lacking in anything resembling fate, but it is truly there, and not a ghost.
[K. R. Jakes] The Orphan stared at the shop and said a word. Said three words, and another for good measure, low and steady, careful, and she opened her eyes the way they were supposed to be opened (this is my first superpower), and she closed her eyes for a second, while she undid the locks, and then cast a glance up and down the street, before she focused her attention (ardor [ardent]) on the building, half-hearing the way its resonance sang, a note to define its quintessence, pensive. And ...
It replied! It reacted! What! It isn't words. It's just the impression of a response. It's just the impression of demon lover's child of fey and arrogant. Kage's dark eyes widen [what are you seeing (normal)] and she takes a cold breath of air, sucks winter down, and then releases it. She's still shaking off the strange doublesight [it will last (she can move)] when she strides down the sidewalk and
no I'm not
reaches the door, opens it and walks inside.
[Shangri La] I will tell you all my secrets
softly in your ear
Kage moves, enters, and a bell rings cheerily over her head. There's a feeling of having passed through a gate, of having gone from Here to There (no shadow or ghost, but real - still, there are other options [more things on heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy] one must consider) or perhaps Somewhere Else entirely, a land of half truths and nothing-is-what-it-seems, and of seeking and Seeking, of Questions, but not necessarily of Answers.
There are books inside, and Books.
There are things of wonder and mystery.
This is the sort of place one reads of in fairytales, the sort of place that is bigger and smaller than it seems. Perhaps Rip Van Winkle's cousin came here, and reads still. Perhaps this is where Baba Yaga learned how to put her house on chicken feet. Inside, time telescopes, shifts. Inside is magic. Here, one expects to find some fae or fey or not quite human thing tending shop. It's the store where The Neverending Story began, where darling Bastian Balthazar Bux found a book full of luck dragons and things. It's the store where some kids in California found a [Forbidden] game. Which is to say, this is an archetype.
But for the very human thing behind the counter looking at her now.
be careful what you wish for
you may not wish to hear
"Hey," he says. "I can only help you if you know what you're looking for."
Or . . . maybe not just human.
[K. R. Jakes] K. R. pauses inside and, yes, looks around. Looks at the books, looks at the aisles, dusty and dark, looks at the boxes, full of oddments and baubles, looks at the cases, glass, in which wonders never cease, looks at the light fixtures, looks at the floor, carpet or wood or neither, and yes, the man behind the counter says something, and she looks at him too. By now, she is only looking, she isn't seeing fate, she isn't watching [hearing] resonance, she isn't glancing at the spiritual reflection of the place: only looking.
Askance. At the guy behind the counter. She doesn't approach yet. Just: "Are you the owner?"
[Shangri La] "That depends on if you have a complaint. If so, he'll be in on the Thursday after next, if the rain at 2:30 makes a rainbow." There's a grin, charming, teasing [come in, little girl, it's safe and warm here], and he sets aside the book he'd had in hand when she came in, the better to study her. It's curious, this look, as if she's a particularly interesting breed of . . . something.
"So, what are you looking for?"
[K. R. Jakes] "I don't have a complaint. What does that get me?" Not waiting for a rainbow at 2:30 to tell her whether or not to come back on Thursday. "I'm looking for an interesting answer," Kage says, with a smile that touches on wry; she's a cool character, Kage, not aloof, but composed (thoughtful [pensive]). She wears composure like it's style, style like it's elegance, elegance like it's beside the point, something anybody can have. "For something I haven't seen before. Can you help me?"
[Perc + Awareness: Mrr? What's shining here abouts?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Shangri La] "That gets you a smile, minus the wry - not that I ever display much of that. And an answer for something you haven't seen before is quite the tall order, isn't it? I mean, I'd have to know what you've seen and what you haven't, and just guessing at that is kind of . . . I don't know, arrogant. I've seen a lot."
The last is with a shrug, and lacking in either modesty or pride - it's simply the way things are.
"Tell me, She-Who-Wants-an-Answer-to-Something-Unseen: Where water flows upwards I there reside; behind humans creation is where I do hide While inside I dream of how up I could fly and rising outside I see all under the sky Where am I?"
[K. R. Jakes] He is still behind the counter. Kage decides not to continue this (odd) conversation just three steps from the door. She knows where it is. She trusts she can find it again. She walks over the counter, and he is telling her a riddle, and she is half-smiling, although it isn't the sort of smile that touches her with gorgeousness. It's just a smile; a really, this, sort've smile; something twinned with inquisition.
"I don't think so," that it's a tall order. "There's a lot I haven't seen. There's a lot I haven't done. A lot I want to see and a lot I want to do." Kage rests her elbows on the counter, eyebrows still lifted. "You're in the stone-cup, the deep-well; you're underneath the city, in the water-pumps; you're where there is no lake, but water, when the sky has fallen and there aren't stars. I have two piles of books I added to five piles of books and one pile of letters. How many piles of words do I have? Are you the owner?"
[K. R. Jakes] [oh! please witness this.]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
to†Shangri La
[Shangri La] [witnessed]
to†K. R. Jakes
[Shangri La] "I could be, was, have been, will be. Maybe. Owning a thing is difficult, don't you think? There may be a piece of paper somewhere with my name and signature and this address on it," he says, dismissive. "And you've one."
He settles back, leans against the counter behind him (which is covered with more books and oddities - glyphs that are runes that are ancient and old and new and strange, dancing in some corner of her brain, instruments, leadgoldcoppersilver, hematitesoapstoneagatelapis, sage for purity, rosemary for remembrance) as he watches her, assessing.
"Who is so clever and quick-witted
as to guess who goads me on my journey
when I get up, angry, at times awesome;
when I roar loudly and rampage over the land,
sometimes causing havoc; when I burn houses
and ransack palaces? Smoke rises,
ashen over roofs. There is a din on earth,
me die sudden deaths when I shake the forest,
the flourishing trees, and fell timber -
I with my roof of water, an avenger
driven far and wide by the powers above;
I carry on my back what once covered
every man, body and soul submerged
together in the water. Say what conceals me
or what I, who bear this burden, am called."
[K. R. Jakes] And you've one.
"Well, that was as easy as falling when you're rain. What did I win?" And there, right there. That's when the (cool [composed]) Orphan smiles, and the smile touches her eyes, transforms her face, makes her briefly lovely; lends gorgeousness to the darkness in her eyes. "Besides another riddle."
Another riddle, which sounds familiar, but she doesn't know the answer to, so considers more gravely than she might otherwise have. She is cold, and wet, and outside, it felt like fire, like ashes, and inside, it's warm, not warm enough to unbutton her coat yet, but warm, and the f'ing building doesn't have a fate, and now she's playing wordgames with a dreamy looking shopboy who's seen a lot, according to him, and who's got a crapload of interesting things behind the counter.
"You're called storm," she says, "and tempest, and you'll always be concealed by the same."
[Shangri La] "I am, indeed," he says, and there's more gravity to it than should be in any dreamy looking shopboy's voice when he's talking about such things. "A storm landed, a tempest in the proverbial teapot."
Outside feels like fire, like not-snow-not-rain that could be ash, and the wind picks up as he acknowledges what she's called him.
"Your answers get you seeing, as you wish. Close your eyes, if you please." He waits, watches, to see what she does - doesn't move until she's done as he suggested, and when he does there's not a sound so much as the feeling of air resettling, of currents shifting, and she can feel the potential for lightning, the heavy air that comes before a roll of thunder.
[K. R. Jakes] "Are you honorable? Will you shake hands and agree not to kill or maim, first?" K. R. slides one hand out across the counter, offering a handshake; she's regarding the shopboy seriously.
[Shangri La] "I am as honorable as the wind and rain, and as dangerous as the thunder and lightning. I can only shake on my intentions, Miss - not all things are in my control." He is honest; there's no thought of deceit to him. He's honorable as the wind and rain, and as honest as it is, too.
[K. R. Jakes] "Then take my hand," she says, mouth crooking. "And I'll shake to intentions, as long as they're of the 'not kill' and 'not maim' variety, Mister Wind's Honor and Rain's."
[Shangri La] And take her hand he does - movement is a little rush of wind, and even watching him it's difficult to tell when he moved around the counter to be by her side. "Close your eyes," he whispers in her ear, close, and there's a crackle - outside, amongst the fire-that-isn't, the ash-snow, lightning flashes.
[K. R. Jakes] [do I startle?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[K. R. Jakes] Kage, wary Kage, has a certain self-possession in the face of strangeness; it does not abandon her now. He moves, and it's a blurr, plays tricks with her mind; takes her hand, whispers in her ear, and the air's all fraught with [potential] possibility, all fraught with that snapcrack feeling, precedes disaster or illumination [hurt]. She straightens, turns her head to regard him for a steady moment. She blinks, once. And then, watchfully, warily, she takes a quiet breath and closes her eyes.
[Shangri La] Around her, all is noise, all is violence and destruction, all is nature, all is bruise-yellow tornado-light, all is hail and rain and gusts of wind and percussive thunder and lightning close enough to raise the hair on her arms, to scent the air with electricity. This is a very different sort of sensuality than that brought by her demon lover, but no less there - this is a prickling of something in the bottom of her brain, some primitive part that needs to find cover and safety despite his promise.
"Don't open them," he whispers, and it's the sound of a cyclone, the feeling of hail. He is still at her ear, whispering, his breath warm and cold over her skin, his breath bearing life and death at the hands of a typhoon, a hurricane, a blizzard [his hands, all his, the watering of the earth, the freezing of the air]. "Listen. Think. Feel. And tell me what you see."
[K. R. Jakes] [lalala]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[K. R. Jakes] "I - " a moment's pause. No cool lines. No calm, collected avoidances. No riddles. A word, and a hitch to her breath: tension, whispering against her bones, against her neck, where his breath tickles (if she's even aware of that [too much else]). It's not that different from Him and she wonders for a moment whether the shopboy is even a boy at all. Whether or not he's another shard of godhood, of divinity. Not hers, but someone's mystery, flesh and blood and rain.
"I," uncertain, her eyelids flutter: restraint. "See wind," and a sense of irony touches her mouth, curves it, sweet. "Air, all in calamity and uproar. Violence, movement, falling, that's what I see, cacophony, a confusion, frisson, rising."
[Shangri La] "What do you smell?"
Someone's bit of divinity, maybe, so very different from Him but not, whispering, just there, and yes, even amongst the violencemovementfallingcacaphonyconfusionfrissonrising, the shopboy is capable of making himself felt, of providing some some, uncertain sense of anchor [eye.of.the.storm] where there might not be any otherwise. There is more, of course. There is always more. Strange shopboys with very interesting things on their counters do not turn into wind, into riddles, into air and divinity to bring one to they eye of Storm every day.
[K. R. Jakes] "Smoke and snow," she replies, turning. Her eyes are still closed. Perhaps Kage is actually trusting, and she's learned lessons about trust. The Orphan pivots, in the dusty shop, the shop that is wrong, the shop that pushed back at her testing mind, and reaches to -- catch the shop boy's wrist, catch his shirt, catch his side, catch him, touch him, make that a real anchor, stop reeling, no, don't reel. She licks her lips. "Spring and metal."
[Shangri La] Are they still in the shop? It's hard to tell, but she grips a shirt (some polycotton blend, just what one might expect a nearly hipster looking shopboy to wear, but it flutters, odd, a breeze inside) and finds . . .
. . . the opposite of what she seeks.
Shopboy is not the eye of the storm, no, but he can provide it. Touching him makes the roar rise, brings tornadoes and tsunamis, brings downpour and blizzard, brings dizziness and flyingfallingfreedomdestructioncreationchaoswildwyld. He leans in, whispers [roars], and lips brush her earlobe, the bit of skin just belowbehind it with a flash of lightning, a spark.
"What do you taste?"
[K. R. Jakes] A shirt. Fine: she'll grip the shirt; press her knuckles in (person [flesh] right?). Not hard, not mean, not sharp; just steady, just questioning. Her eyes are still closed. Her eyes are still closed even when lightning strikes, when lips write a spark against her skin, although they flutter again. Quiet. A long spell of quiet, and then, "Nothing," she says. What does a storm taste like? What is a tempest really like?
[Shangri La] Person, flesh. There is solid, there, but it does nothing to take away from the rest, knowing that. There's disappointment in his voice, when he speaks, and he draws back
(no don't do that [oh gods yes, please do])
to shake his head, tsking like the fall of golfball sized hail.
"No." Sharp, disapproving. "Try harder. What do you taste?"
[K. R. Jakes] It's reassuring, somehow, that he should be solid, underneath all the noise, all the din and clamor, all the movement. Her forehead scrunches. "Ice," she says, "And cold. Ash," she says, "And metal. I taste -- I don't know what that is; nothing; it's something blank as paper. Don't 'no' me like that."
[Shangri La] "I taste electricity," he says, crackly, and so does she.
"I taste ice," he says, cold, and so does she.
"I taste dry," he says, and so does she.
"I taste life," he says, and so does she, "and I taste death."
There's a pause. "Open. There's no point if you don't. What do you hear?"
[K. R. Jakes] "The silence before," she answers, simply. "And the roar. I hear the drumming, and I hear the -- break; the hiss? The rise and fall of sussurations. I hear breath. That's what I hear. I can't hear myself. I don't know how I hear you."
[Shangri La] There's approval, and he leans closer to murmur again. "You hear me because I am. What do you feel?"
[K. R. Jakes] "Pressure," she says, her mouth crooked (sweet). "And ... cool, prickle, delicate, burning, pulling. A lot of verbs. I feel pressure," she repeats, still half-smiling. "A rush."
[Shangri La] "What am I?" Such a small question, that.
[K. R. Jakes] The Orphan half-laughs, something soft, tangled, ash and moonlight on water: a gesture, delicate, husked. And then, silence, while her eyebrows draw together, fine features going grave with consideration, going still. Most people aren't completely silent, and Kage isn't. People breathe, you see, even if they don't speak, even if they don't breathe loudly, still, they breathe. So her silence isn't complete, doesn't hope to be, but she stays in it for a little while, shaping an answer that isn't that glimmer of laughter [static (electricity)].
"What are you? I don't know," and she sounds fervent, for a second. Copper and ice, ivy and thorn. The air she tastes is crystalline, is so clear. Not stuffy, not shop-air. "Mysterious," she says, wry, but meaning it, "Mystery," she says, more seriously, "A force of nature."
[Shangri La] Another small question - but it isn't, not any more than the last had been. "What are you?"
[K. R. Jakes] "Opening my eyes," she says, or warns, or tests: whichever.
[Shangri La]
"But first," he says, and a hand comes to rest over those eyes [flash of lightning, afterburn] briefly before pulling away. "What are you? You need to know this." It's slightly disappointed, but not like the earlier no-ing and hailstone tsking. "You need to know so it can become something else."
Like wind and rain.
Like bruise-light.
Like the center of it all.
"Enjoy your night," he says. "Miss Jakes. It's colder than when you came in - bundle up."
[K. R. Jakes] His palm is against her eyes when she opens them. He can feel the movement of her eyelashes, and she sees only the dark he cups there before he pulls away, and it's just the shop again: extra/ordinary. She contemplates the shopboy for a long, steady moment.
"I didn't give you my name. What name should I use for you?"
Thursday, May 6, 2010
New Tricks
[Emily Littleton] A tisket, a tasket, a green and yellow basket...
It has been too long since the Others kept Court amongst the frozen (fallen) Kings. Too many nights since the moon rose low over their quiet gatherings. Too many days of still-cold sunlight, undappled by leaves, broken only by clouds and the on again, off again snow.
Winter could last so. damn. long. It was wearing her out.
The dark-haired Other brought her carrier bag (basket) of take out and home-made treats (offerings [sustenence for the long, cold winter night]) up to the door of Kage's building, trailing a sense of wonder (Reverence) across the starstuff along her path. She is better, tonight, less touched by the horror of it all. She is better, tonight, less soul-wearied and worn thin.
They have much to talk about, and the gravity of that cannot be communicated in the beep-beep-boop sounds of calling up to Kage's apartment so she could be let in through the gate. It is a solemn knocking upon doors (hearts) thing, but the technology of it all gets in the way.
And speaking of technology, Emily has left hers elsewhere.
Unburdened.
Unadorned.
Standing at your door.
And the line rings through...
[Kage] The line is still ringing (can she have forgotten) when the old building's door opens and Kage stands in the doorframe, shoeless, smiling. The smile touches her dark (no evidence of their true color, their true name) eyes and it is real. "Why hello there," she says, as if it were the opening volley in a risque joke. "I suspected you were here." And the wind is howling, above the buildings, above the skeletal trees and above the church (no bells [yet]). "Come on in before the cold rips the vision you and that food provide away."
This is the first time Emily has been inside Kage's building, if not the first time she's stood without it. The building itself is so old there are echoes (sometimes [step]) that attend movement. It isn't old at all when held against European standards, but by American, by Chicagoan, it's weathered a lot: fires, riots, generations, madmen, and Kage's apartment is just up the stairs, and she left it unlocked when she went to fetch Emily, so Kage opens the door for Emily without bothering for a key. There's no hurry; the walk up the stairs can be leisurely. The other dwellers of the building are quiet, or at least out for the night.
[Emily Littleton] The line is still ringing, but Kage has come down, so Emily puts away the intercom and shifts a little, toward the doorway. It is not a quiet night, not a quiet night at all, and the wind whispers between them even in this place, sheltered as it is by the building (old [knowing]).
There is a church across the way; this much is not forgotten, not missed out.
"Hail, and well met," she says, her mouth curling into an echo of that smile. It is warm, but not entirely unguarded. They walk up the stairs together, one after another, slowly and calmly. Like there is nothing at all wrong with the world. Perhaps, just for one night, there is nothing at all wrong with the world. Perhaps, though Emily would very much doubt it.
"It's been too long," she says, by way of an apology. "Thank you for having me over," she adds, and it is an acknowledgement. And so they dance. Helloes and how are yous, what a lovely place you haves and what have you brought for dinners. It is easy, this walk with me talk with me dance. It comes easily to Emily, because she has had to make so much come easily in recent days.
"I brought potato leek soup and some wonderful sandwiches from the deli. One's vegetarian," she adds, but doesn't say why this is important. One is vegetarian, and there are a handful of reasons why that might be. (There is a church across the way [and it is the season of sacrifice] Lent).
[Kage] "You're welcome," she says, courteous (courtesy [fault]). "You can hang your coat on the rack."
The coat-rack is just inside the door. Just inside the door, the living room; all books and shelves and fireplace and old seaman's chest for a table (travel [catography]). All tapestries and illuminated letters, framed, an R. in jewelled colours framed on the wall just beside the door. There is a leather recliner, a couch with a William Morris throw tossed o'er it, and there is a cellphone blinking and plugged in to its charger. There are a lot of books. There is a music stand of walnut and a chest or three stacked against the wall. No musical instrument in sight, not right now. There is a badass sound system: the signs are there. The floor is wood -- hardwood, spare rugs thrown over.
There is a hall, not quite just ahead, but almost just ahead, with closed doors and a little crook at the end, turning into a couple of stairs that lead up to a door only half-glimpsed from here. The other side of the hall and the entrance: the kitchen and the dining room, a thick, Pre-Raphaelite table of wood with beeswax candles lit [the wick is quick] and burning haloes of radiance into the air. There is a lamp on in the living room, and the fireplace is burning, but there is no light on in the dining room. There is a laptop, closed, on the floor by the wall beside the table.
"And it has been too long. But I'm hoping that you've really been well. No dangerous calls in the middle of the night. No meddlesome troubles to unsweet your sleep. Here; let me take that." And without further ado, she'll take the food to the kitchen and get out plates. Emily, if she follows behind, will notice that the kitchen's counter doesn't quite match -- it just looks new.
[Emily Littleton] You can hang your coat, she says. And Emily does. She slips out of it and carefully balances it on one of the pegs of the coat rack. (You can stay awhile [I think I just might]). Kage's home, not the first she has seen today, is warm with candlelight. Rich with the tones of hardwood and weathered accents. It is a tapestry of its own, and the warp and weave are pleasing to her.
She leaves her shoes by the coat rack, as well, and pads through the house on her tip-toes (not silently, no). She comes just to the edge of the kitchen, but waits beyond its border. Waits on something, what is unclear. Waits on Kage, yes that must be it.
"I am hoping for that, one day, too," Emily says, and it is a careful sort of thing to say. It is a no, not quite wrapped in a but we don't have to talk about that. "I have been hoping, actually, that the same were true for you. Have things been better?" she asks, a little less lyrically. Blunt. (Concerned.)
"Is it quieter now?"
[Kage] "Tea," she offers, "Or juice. Or," here, a smile, "Hot chocolate? I have real hot chocolate. The kind you pour with a chocolate pot and is thick and spiced. Or wine?" Emily will give her preference, and if it is tea, she'll have another choice: black or green. If it is juice: apple or pear. Oh, or coconut milk.
While the matter of what they should drink is taken care of, while the wind raps its knuckles against the windowpane (the kitchen has a window, tiny, shrouded by greenery; when there is light, it must be lovely), traces out messages in frost and the reaction of winter against a house that cages fire, a language nobody's learned yet, nobody will, fairytale language, means nothing but it is lovely. And dark, outside. Very, very dark.
"Have things been better," she says, an echo. And then, more quietly herself. "They've been quieter. Is that better? I've had less unwelcome guests appearing at my door, all hours; that much is better." Her mouth quirks, wry. "But I don't know if I like the quiet," wistful, maybe. "This quiet. I like to have things out -- to see them clearly; do you know what I mean? When things are too quiet, I wonder."
By now, the soup is -- Mug or Bowl? -- poured and the plates, with sandwiches, have been set at the table. Kage looks a question at Emily, while hovering at the switch which will flood the dining area with light that does not come from candles.
[Emily Littleton] "It hasn't really been quiet," Emily says, wistfully. Wishing for quiet, for that unknowing, was a sign of something. A sign of what? She doesn't know. She chooses juice, and pear at that, and they will find a place to sit. Kage will either flood the room with lamp light, or leave it half-dark from the candle flames. Emily doesn't say, but she prefers the half-light (prefers the half-dark).
"Have you heard about Enid?" Emily asks as she lowers herself into a chair. She is not fluent in the faelike tongues tonight. She is banal, dragged down to a more earthly place. An arched eyebrow, a pregnant pause. If no, then she will continue; if yes, there is only a knowing nod.
"She's staying with Ashley, now, but I think she'll be moving soon. The boy -- Austin? -- is on his own. It worries me, but I don't think it is mine to carry." Compassion. Concern. She sighs a little.
"Is it always like this? Either quiet (ice) or storm (fire), with hardly any in-between?" It is a calm question, for all its gravity. Emily is calmer now, somehow.
[Kage] "I heard about Enid," Kage says, and her tone is neutral (even [steady]). "A conventional family and trouble in China." And she listens, of course. "Why don't you think it is yours to carry?" she queries, and it is still neutral. "Do you want to do something about it?"
The room is still half-dark, half-light; the room is gloaming, and they are each softened [blurred] by flame and shade. The candleflames only flicker when they say certain words and look a certain way, moved by breath alone (and language [speak]), not draft, no ghosts. Washed gold. The question Emily asks is a question that she has asked Kage before, and it is a question that she, likely, will ask herself again and again until she has an answer (sink [swim]) that satisfies her. If she ever has an answer that satisfies her.
Kage gives the question due consideration, again, and her answer is simple: "Yes. And no. And both. It's just like living, Emily; there's always some thing going on. Some people are better at causing trouble or getting sucked into it than others. Some things are louder, some are quieter. There's a lot out there."
[Emily Littleton] She considers what Kage has asked her for an overlong moment. Emily has been on the precipice of explaining something about her past, standing at that terrible edge, all week. All month. Since she Awoke, wide-eyed and lost to the newness of it all. It has been rising in her, slowly, coming to the surface through the cracks in her veneer. There weren't enough cracks to night to let it show through; she was better rested, calmer, collected.
"I want... for him to have options. Places to go, people to talk to. So that when and if he chooses to be alone, it is truly a choice." No one should be abandoned in their time of need. It is a clear thought, one that doesn't need the personal investment she feels to telegraph across that small space. "I don't know that I am the right person to offer, but someone ought to. And if I feel that way, the only someone I can compell is myself."
There is a quiet here, and she tries not to let these thoughts dovetail too closely to the conversation at Ashley's earlier.
"And I suppose that makes sense. This is living, after all." A little smile. Not wry, just knowing. My, how we've grown in the past few weeks. "Other than this," meaning Enid, meaning Austin, "I've mostly been studying. You would be proud," she says (look Ma'). "I'm learning new tricks."
[Kage] Emily is on the precipice of some revelation (gleam), and Kage is watchful, but she doesn't feel the need (want) to pressure Emily into unspooling whatever it is she's been considering, whatever it is that touches her dark eyes with that expression. Nay; the Orphan is content to stay watchful, to listen, to eat her potato and leek soup, her sandwich and to drink her coconut milk. This is what she offers, to the first subject: "Why don't you think he already has these options, that he's just alone now because this is the way he has of staying low?" It's not an idle question. If there's a reason, Kage wants to know. Did Austin run from Ashley like Henri did?
"I'm afraid he'll probably have to stay low for a long time; maybe leave the city. I'm a little surprised Enid's going to stay, but," and there, that's the end of that thought. Kage heard about Enid. Not the whole story, but she can read something between the lines of what Enid's said, and Ashley, and now Emily. Continue with this: "It sounds as if you do believe it's yours to carry; so carry it. Just know that he's in a lot of trouble
Then Emily reveals that she has learned new tricks, and Kage raises her eyebrows (challenge [cool]) and grins (easy). "I'm glad. More of the same? Good tricks? Tell, tell. Or show."
[Emily Littleton] Emily's breath pulls in between her teeth, sharply. As if something Kage has said has wounded her, or pressed hard against some half-healed hurt. Her expression tightens, then releases a little.
"I picked them up from the airport," she says. No pause. No time to think. "Enid was upset, but Austin was not well." Not well, the words are so unassuming. So understated. "I worry because he was hurt, perhaps deeply, and he left Ashley's soon there after."
Now a pause, a sip of juice (sweet [concentrated]) to wash the thoughts down. "Though you're right. It's presumptuous of me to think he doesn't have options." To worry. Though Kage had questioned, not stated, and Emily was internalizing (assuming). She cared; perhaps that was a flaw.
The worry fades into something brighter, warmer. "The same and yet different," she says; so helpful this doublespeak is. Down she sets the juice glass, up tilts her chin just so. (Proud [triumphant]). "I would like to show you, but I have never tried that before..."
[Kage] The sudden scrape of the other (for how much longer?) Orphan's breath causes Kage to raise both eyebrows, her hand to still on her mug of milk (warm [honey]). There's nothing so obvious as a headtilt, but she is watching Emily just a little more closely, just a little more carefully, why, ah, oh.
"Well. He could just be proud. Some people are too stubborn to accept help when it's offered just because of who it comes from." A beat. "It would be just as presumptuous to think he does have other options; especially if they called you to pick them up from the airport. Poor Austin," Kage adds, and if Austin were around, he probably would not appreciate the half-absent tone or the sentiment.
The same and yet different, Emily says, and Kage's mouth crooks. Easy. "Show, anyway, whatever it is; I'll use my own eyes to watch. Are these Jarod-taught tricks?"
[Emily Littleton] ((Oh say can you see..., Arete 1, extending to next round))
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Success x 1 at target 4)
[Emily Littleton] ((Extending ... Arete 1))
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Success x 1 at target 4)
[Emily Littleton] Poor Austin.
Emily nodded. There was not much to do beyond that, not now. And Kage is asking for her to share, for her to conjure up that gathering sense of Reverence and to spin it into soemthing shared. This is new, for Emily, extending her senses beyond herself. It is not quite defying gravity, not yet, but it is growth of an unplanned and organic sort.
She pushes the sleeve of her sweater up so that her fingertips can find purchase on the pulse point in her wrist. The younger Orphan stills her body, quiets her mind, and lets the rhymthm of her own life crowd out the other details that press in on her awareness. Slowly, she goes slowly, because this is all still new and because this is the first time she has tried without Jarod nearby.
It is imagined, perhaps, how the table falls into a hushed calm. How the half-dark around them deepens, thickens, only to shimmer faintly with something. Kage knows that something, and it burns brightly within Emily (in a place she cannot yet touch [cannot yet see]).
The ba-dump thump beat threads through everything, and broadens, slowly, spreading out to be an awareness of so many smaller sub-patterns. There is less here than in the garden, so Emily and Kage stand out like densely woven tapestries. There are other lives here to sense, but they are less patterned, less vibrant.
When she had this Sight tethered firmly to her own consciousness, then she reached out to welcome Kage into it. To touch the other Orphan the way Kage had opened her eyes to Grace (longing). Even though, in doing so, Emily opened herself up to scrutiny. Kage would see her pattern as Jarod had, with the scars and reminders of past hurts indelibly carved on the shape of her bones, the stretch of her sinews. They could also see in each other the vibrancy, dynamism of unbridled hope (Creation).
[Kage] [pause button!]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 6 (Success x 2 at target 3)
It has been too long since the Others kept Court amongst the frozen (fallen) Kings. Too many nights since the moon rose low over their quiet gatherings. Too many days of still-cold sunlight, undappled by leaves, broken only by clouds and the on again, off again snow.
Winter could last so. damn. long. It was wearing her out.
The dark-haired Other brought her carrier bag (basket) of take out and home-made treats (offerings [sustenence for the long, cold winter night]) up to the door of Kage's building, trailing a sense of wonder (Reverence) across the starstuff along her path. She is better, tonight, less touched by the horror of it all. She is better, tonight, less soul-wearied and worn thin.
They have much to talk about, and the gravity of that cannot be communicated in the beep-beep-boop sounds of calling up to Kage's apartment so she could be let in through the gate. It is a solemn knocking upon doors (hearts) thing, but the technology of it all gets in the way.
And speaking of technology, Emily has left hers elsewhere.
Unburdened.
Unadorned.
Standing at your door.
And the line rings through...
[Kage] The line is still ringing (can she have forgotten) when the old building's door opens and Kage stands in the doorframe, shoeless, smiling. The smile touches her dark (no evidence of their true color, their true name) eyes and it is real. "Why hello there," she says, as if it were the opening volley in a risque joke. "I suspected you were here." And the wind is howling, above the buildings, above the skeletal trees and above the church (no bells [yet]). "Come on in before the cold rips the vision you and that food provide away."
This is the first time Emily has been inside Kage's building, if not the first time she's stood without it. The building itself is so old there are echoes (sometimes [step]) that attend movement. It isn't old at all when held against European standards, but by American, by Chicagoan, it's weathered a lot: fires, riots, generations, madmen, and Kage's apartment is just up the stairs, and she left it unlocked when she went to fetch Emily, so Kage opens the door for Emily without bothering for a key. There's no hurry; the walk up the stairs can be leisurely. The other dwellers of the building are quiet, or at least out for the night.
[Emily Littleton] The line is still ringing, but Kage has come down, so Emily puts away the intercom and shifts a little, toward the doorway. It is not a quiet night, not a quiet night at all, and the wind whispers between them even in this place, sheltered as it is by the building (old [knowing]).
There is a church across the way; this much is not forgotten, not missed out.
"Hail, and well met," she says, her mouth curling into an echo of that smile. It is warm, but not entirely unguarded. They walk up the stairs together, one after another, slowly and calmly. Like there is nothing at all wrong with the world. Perhaps, just for one night, there is nothing at all wrong with the world. Perhaps, though Emily would very much doubt it.
"It's been too long," she says, by way of an apology. "Thank you for having me over," she adds, and it is an acknowledgement. And so they dance. Helloes and how are yous, what a lovely place you haves and what have you brought for dinners. It is easy, this walk with me talk with me dance. It comes easily to Emily, because she has had to make so much come easily in recent days.
"I brought potato leek soup and some wonderful sandwiches from the deli. One's vegetarian," she adds, but doesn't say why this is important. One is vegetarian, and there are a handful of reasons why that might be. (There is a church across the way [and it is the season of sacrifice] Lent).
[Kage] "You're welcome," she says, courteous (courtesy [fault]). "You can hang your coat on the rack."
The coat-rack is just inside the door. Just inside the door, the living room; all books and shelves and fireplace and old seaman's chest for a table (travel [catography]). All tapestries and illuminated letters, framed, an R. in jewelled colours framed on the wall just beside the door. There is a leather recliner, a couch with a William Morris throw tossed o'er it, and there is a cellphone blinking and plugged in to its charger. There are a lot of books. There is a music stand of walnut and a chest or three stacked against the wall. No musical instrument in sight, not right now. There is a badass sound system: the signs are there. The floor is wood -- hardwood, spare rugs thrown over.
There is a hall, not quite just ahead, but almost just ahead, with closed doors and a little crook at the end, turning into a couple of stairs that lead up to a door only half-glimpsed from here. The other side of the hall and the entrance: the kitchen and the dining room, a thick, Pre-Raphaelite table of wood with beeswax candles lit [the wick is quick] and burning haloes of radiance into the air. There is a lamp on in the living room, and the fireplace is burning, but there is no light on in the dining room. There is a laptop, closed, on the floor by the wall beside the table.
"And it has been too long. But I'm hoping that you've really been well. No dangerous calls in the middle of the night. No meddlesome troubles to unsweet your sleep. Here; let me take that." And without further ado, she'll take the food to the kitchen and get out plates. Emily, if she follows behind, will notice that the kitchen's counter doesn't quite match -- it just looks new.
[Emily Littleton] You can hang your coat, she says. And Emily does. She slips out of it and carefully balances it on one of the pegs of the coat rack. (You can stay awhile [I think I just might]). Kage's home, not the first she has seen today, is warm with candlelight. Rich with the tones of hardwood and weathered accents. It is a tapestry of its own, and the warp and weave are pleasing to her.
She leaves her shoes by the coat rack, as well, and pads through the house on her tip-toes (not silently, no). She comes just to the edge of the kitchen, but waits beyond its border. Waits on something, what is unclear. Waits on Kage, yes that must be it.
"I am hoping for that, one day, too," Emily says, and it is a careful sort of thing to say. It is a no, not quite wrapped in a but we don't have to talk about that. "I have been hoping, actually, that the same were true for you. Have things been better?" she asks, a little less lyrically. Blunt. (Concerned.)
"Is it quieter now?"
[Kage] "Tea," she offers, "Or juice. Or," here, a smile, "Hot chocolate? I have real hot chocolate. The kind you pour with a chocolate pot and is thick and spiced. Or wine?" Emily will give her preference, and if it is tea, she'll have another choice: black or green. If it is juice: apple or pear. Oh, or coconut milk.
While the matter of what they should drink is taken care of, while the wind raps its knuckles against the windowpane (the kitchen has a window, tiny, shrouded by greenery; when there is light, it must be lovely), traces out messages in frost and the reaction of winter against a house that cages fire, a language nobody's learned yet, nobody will, fairytale language, means nothing but it is lovely. And dark, outside. Very, very dark.
"Have things been better," she says, an echo. And then, more quietly herself. "They've been quieter. Is that better? I've had less unwelcome guests appearing at my door, all hours; that much is better." Her mouth quirks, wry. "But I don't know if I like the quiet," wistful, maybe. "This quiet. I like to have things out -- to see them clearly; do you know what I mean? When things are too quiet, I wonder."
By now, the soup is -- Mug or Bowl? -- poured and the plates, with sandwiches, have been set at the table. Kage looks a question at Emily, while hovering at the switch which will flood the dining area with light that does not come from candles.
[Emily Littleton] "It hasn't really been quiet," Emily says, wistfully. Wishing for quiet, for that unknowing, was a sign of something. A sign of what? She doesn't know. She chooses juice, and pear at that, and they will find a place to sit. Kage will either flood the room with lamp light, or leave it half-dark from the candle flames. Emily doesn't say, but she prefers the half-light (prefers the half-dark).
"Have you heard about Enid?" Emily asks as she lowers herself into a chair. She is not fluent in the faelike tongues tonight. She is banal, dragged down to a more earthly place. An arched eyebrow, a pregnant pause. If no, then she will continue; if yes, there is only a knowing nod.
"She's staying with Ashley, now, but I think she'll be moving soon. The boy -- Austin? -- is on his own. It worries me, but I don't think it is mine to carry." Compassion. Concern. She sighs a little.
"Is it always like this? Either quiet (ice) or storm (fire), with hardly any in-between?" It is a calm question, for all its gravity. Emily is calmer now, somehow.
[Kage] "I heard about Enid," Kage says, and her tone is neutral (even [steady]). "A conventional family and trouble in China." And she listens, of course. "Why don't you think it is yours to carry?" she queries, and it is still neutral. "Do you want to do something about it?"
The room is still half-dark, half-light; the room is gloaming, and they are each softened [blurred] by flame and shade. The candleflames only flicker when they say certain words and look a certain way, moved by breath alone (and language [speak]), not draft, no ghosts. Washed gold. The question Emily asks is a question that she has asked Kage before, and it is a question that she, likely, will ask herself again and again until she has an answer (sink [swim]) that satisfies her. If she ever has an answer that satisfies her.
Kage gives the question due consideration, again, and her answer is simple: "Yes. And no. And both. It's just like living, Emily; there's always some thing going on. Some people are better at causing trouble or getting sucked into it than others. Some things are louder, some are quieter. There's a lot out there."
[Emily Littleton] She considers what Kage has asked her for an overlong moment. Emily has been on the precipice of explaining something about her past, standing at that terrible edge, all week. All month. Since she Awoke, wide-eyed and lost to the newness of it all. It has been rising in her, slowly, coming to the surface through the cracks in her veneer. There weren't enough cracks to night to let it show through; she was better rested, calmer, collected.
"I want... for him to have options. Places to go, people to talk to. So that when and if he chooses to be alone, it is truly a choice." No one should be abandoned in their time of need. It is a clear thought, one that doesn't need the personal investment she feels to telegraph across that small space. "I don't know that I am the right person to offer, but someone ought to. And if I feel that way, the only someone I can compell is myself."
There is a quiet here, and she tries not to let these thoughts dovetail too closely to the conversation at Ashley's earlier.
"And I suppose that makes sense. This is living, after all." A little smile. Not wry, just knowing. My, how we've grown in the past few weeks. "Other than this," meaning Enid, meaning Austin, "I've mostly been studying. You would be proud," she says (look Ma'). "I'm learning new tricks."
[Kage] Emily is on the precipice of some revelation (gleam), and Kage is watchful, but she doesn't feel the need (want) to pressure Emily into unspooling whatever it is she's been considering, whatever it is that touches her dark eyes with that expression. Nay; the Orphan is content to stay watchful, to listen, to eat her potato and leek soup, her sandwich and to drink her coconut milk. This is what she offers, to the first subject: "Why don't you think he already has these options, that he's just alone now because this is the way he has of staying low?" It's not an idle question. If there's a reason, Kage wants to know. Did Austin run from Ashley like Henri did?
"I'm afraid he'll probably have to stay low for a long time; maybe leave the city. I'm a little surprised Enid's going to stay, but," and there, that's the end of that thought. Kage heard about Enid. Not the whole story, but she can read something between the lines of what Enid's said, and Ashley, and now Emily. Continue with this: "It sounds as if you do believe it's yours to carry; so carry it. Just know that he's in a lot of trouble
Then Emily reveals that she has learned new tricks, and Kage raises her eyebrows (challenge [cool]) and grins (easy). "I'm glad. More of the same? Good tricks? Tell, tell. Or show."
[Emily Littleton] Emily's breath pulls in between her teeth, sharply. As if something Kage has said has wounded her, or pressed hard against some half-healed hurt. Her expression tightens, then releases a little.
"I picked them up from the airport," she says. No pause. No time to think. "Enid was upset, but Austin was not well." Not well, the words are so unassuming. So understated. "I worry because he was hurt, perhaps deeply, and he left Ashley's soon there after."
Now a pause, a sip of juice (sweet [concentrated]) to wash the thoughts down. "Though you're right. It's presumptuous of me to think he doesn't have options." To worry. Though Kage had questioned, not stated, and Emily was internalizing (assuming). She cared; perhaps that was a flaw.
The worry fades into something brighter, warmer. "The same and yet different," she says; so helpful this doublespeak is. Down she sets the juice glass, up tilts her chin just so. (Proud [triumphant]). "I would like to show you, but I have never tried that before..."
[Kage] The sudden scrape of the other (for how much longer?) Orphan's breath causes Kage to raise both eyebrows, her hand to still on her mug of milk (warm [honey]). There's nothing so obvious as a headtilt, but she is watching Emily just a little more closely, just a little more carefully, why, ah, oh.
"Well. He could just be proud. Some people are too stubborn to accept help when it's offered just because of who it comes from." A beat. "It would be just as presumptuous to think he does have other options; especially if they called you to pick them up from the airport. Poor Austin," Kage adds, and if Austin were around, he probably would not appreciate the half-absent tone or the sentiment.
The same and yet different, Emily says, and Kage's mouth crooks. Easy. "Show, anyway, whatever it is; I'll use my own eyes to watch. Are these Jarod-taught tricks?"
[Emily Littleton] ((Oh say can you see..., Arete 1, extending to next round))
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Success x 1 at target 4)
[Emily Littleton] ((Extending ... Arete 1))
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4 (Success x 1 at target 4)
[Emily Littleton] Poor Austin.
Emily nodded. There was not much to do beyond that, not now. And Kage is asking for her to share, for her to conjure up that gathering sense of Reverence and to spin it into soemthing shared. This is new, for Emily, extending her senses beyond herself. It is not quite defying gravity, not yet, but it is growth of an unplanned and organic sort.
She pushes the sleeve of her sweater up so that her fingertips can find purchase on the pulse point in her wrist. The younger Orphan stills her body, quiets her mind, and lets the rhymthm of her own life crowd out the other details that press in on her awareness. Slowly, she goes slowly, because this is all still new and because this is the first time she has tried without Jarod nearby.
It is imagined, perhaps, how the table falls into a hushed calm. How the half-dark around them deepens, thickens, only to shimmer faintly with something. Kage knows that something, and it burns brightly within Emily (in a place she cannot yet touch [cannot yet see]).
The ba-dump thump beat threads through everything, and broadens, slowly, spreading out to be an awareness of so many smaller sub-patterns. There is less here than in the garden, so Emily and Kage stand out like densely woven tapestries. There are other lives here to sense, but they are less patterned, less vibrant.
When she had this Sight tethered firmly to her own consciousness, then she reached out to welcome Kage into it. To touch the other Orphan the way Kage had opened her eyes to Grace (longing). Even though, in doing so, Emily opened herself up to scrutiny. Kage would see her pattern as Jarod had, with the scars and reminders of past hurts indelibly carved on the shape of her bones, the stretch of her sinews. They could also see in each other the vibrancy, dynamism of unbridled hope (Creation).
[Kage] [pause button!]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 6 (Success x 2 at target 3)
Names
[K. R. Jakes] K. R. Jakes is half-a-block from Ashley and Emily, perhaps less, when she spies them: diminutive Ashley, short of hair; dark-tressed Emily, who wears Home around her throat, tucked safe under her shirt. Her hands are jammed into the pockets of her coat for warmth, which is unbuttoned, letting winter sneak fingers inside, lay His knuckles against her shirt, reach through, bruise her skin; occasionally, she flaps her coat, pulls it tighter. Her steps slow for a second; she pauses, and perhaps she is considering that she has never actually seen them together, although each has mentioned the other to her -- even before she knew that that's what they were doing. Perhaps she is considering something else; at any rate, her gaze wanders to the side, rests on the mouth of an alleyway, and then narrows. Kage's shoulders lift-and-fall, and then forward motion happens again, although her swagger is somewhat diminished, it is still present [lyric: I'll tell you one] while she approaches. When she's close enough, close enough to catch Emily's last sentence, she says, "Evening."
[Ashley McGowen] "That's the next step," Ashley says, with a nod. She's watching Emily, seeing that light of inspiration in her eyes. It stirs something in her, somewhere, some of the joy and passion for Willworking that she's been lacking of late. Some of the wonder she used to feel when she'd push boundaries, during those dark evenings in Europe running with her old cabal mates.
"You're going to fail sometimes. Let it teach you something and keep persisting until you get it - and then improve upon it once you've got it."
And then, this said, she turns her head to look at the Orphan who has come up to the two of them. "Evening, Kage," she says, and her tone is pleasantly surprised even if her expression is not.
[Emily Littleton] They have been standing there, talking, for some time. And Emily, who is enjoying the conversation, has places she needs to be and things she needs to attend to. A subtle reminder of this buzzes in her jacket pocket, jarring her side slightly (in the soft place below her ribs) and widening her eyes a bit. She didn't pull the phone out of her pocket, but did look down a little (distracted).
"Sadly, I must away," she finds herself saying, at the conclusion of her chat with Ashley. Which is also the moment when Kage arrives, with a diminished swagger (minor key?), as Emily is gathering her carrier bag off the floor of the sidewalk.
"Kage..." she says, and there's an inward struggle for a moment: to stay, to go. Emily comes down on the side of going, but only because she has too much to say to her Other, and a growing need for sleep. (Burning the candle at both ends.)
"I hope to catch up with you both again soon." There is regret in the words, as if she'd really like to stay. Apology, for Kage, who she has not spoken to in... too long. After helloes and goodbyes and such things, Emily makes her way back to the corner to cross, back towards her car and home (wherever that is for now).
[K. R. Jakes] Her smile of farewell is brief (scant [a slant of light]). "And good night, Em." Her attention turns to the Hermetic. There's a question in her expression, more obvious than it might otherwise be; closer to the surface (visible just beneath the skin). "Do you need a ride home, 'ley?"
[Ashley McGowen] "Take care, Em, and good luck," are Ashley's parting words as the girl makes her way off down the street toward her car. The Hermetic is still leaned against a wooden pole, studded with staples and splinters and apparently unbothered by either. The man about thirty feet away is painting an ink silhouette of the skyline on a piece of paper: Asian ink and paintbrush, and from time to time Ash watches as the ink is spread in a wet swath across the page. Wistful, almost.
She's been standing out here for some time, as evidenced by the redness that has crept into her flesh across her cheekbones and nose and ears. She straightens, a little wearily (how long has it been since she slept?) and nods toward Kage. "Yeah. Thanks," she says, meeting the Orphan's eyes and noting the question there - but unsure of what it is. "How are you?"
[K. R. Jakes] [m?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 3, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[K. R. Jakes] "Well." And succinct, apparently.
Kage almost sounds as if it were true; almost. It does not look true. The Orphan's skin is too pale (lacklustre). Her lips are too chapped; she is thinner, a candle what has been burning too long, and now the fire's out, and the wax has thinned, has dripped, has poured away. There are shadows around her eyes so dark that they look like bruises, almost. In short, Kage looks like shit. Not well at all.
"Enough," absent, tacked on the end -- as if to make it more true. "I think I'm parked down this way. You look tired," she adds, because even though she is tired, even though she is somewhat unsteadied tonight, she is sharp enough to note this; sharp enough to mark certain expressions on the Hermetic's face. "How've you been? You know," a brief, wry smile. "I think that's the first time I've ever seen you and Emily standing in the same place. When Enid gets back from China and I see you two standing in the same place, all my worlds will have collided."
[Ashley McGowen] "...Enid's back from China," Ash says as she begins walking toward Kage's car, hunching up her shoulders and shrugging the jacket upward to settle the collar around her neck. It is instantly clear to Kage, as soon as she mentions Enid's name, that this is what has Ashley worn thin: there's something tired, something even heartsick, in her expression as she glances up and down the street and then steps off the curb. "Last week."
She doesn't begin to explain immediately, though, instead watching Kage's face, noting that she too looks worn. "Are you sure you're okay? You look...sick, or upset, or something." Hesitant, because she's expecting to be rebuffed, but the question is still out there, accompanied by a gaze that rakes over Kage's face, over the shadows beneath her eyes.
[K. R. Jakes] " - oh? Already?" Ashley looks heartsick over Enid's return and Kage raises her eyebrows. "Are you fighting?"
"I will be fine," she says, and her voice (haunted [clotted (rake out the leaves)]) is low, but steady. "I just," a pause. Natural; it comes when people ask her a question that will be in some way revelatory. "I just haven't slept well for a couple of days," and, somehow, there is a note of self-directed wryness in this.
[Ashley McGowen] A glance sidelong toward Kage. An arched brow, a skeptical pursing of her lips. "Right," she says. "Well, if you decide you want to talk about it..."
And she trails off, considering Kage's question, about whether she and Enid are fighting. Then there's a sigh. "Enid...all right. Her mother's a Technocrat. Got a hold of her and Austin while she was in China and attempted a conversion. She got out and she's staying with me now, and..." A pause, and her mouth thins. "I just have no idea how to make it better, you know?"
[K. R. Jakes] [now now, you may be tired, but you're not THAT blunt!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[K. R. Jakes] Her reply doesn't come right away. They're walking down a narrow alley, and a dark one; the perfect place for two women such as themselves to be attacked (the perfect place for an ambush [for a murder]). The cement is slippery; the light is chancy, and uneven, and a lightbulb is flickering as if it were a fire a moth kept trying to singe with its wings, and there is a parking lot on the other side, Kage's black truck on the far side.
"I get the impression that Enid's mother wasn't a very good mother; she doesn't sound like a very good Technocrat either, if she didn't even notice when her own daughter went awake. It isn't as if Enid was subtle. I -- how did she get out? Is she," a brief pause. "A trick or a trap?" Callous, maybe.
[Ashley McGowen] "I guess she's away a lot. Comes home once or twice a year. So no, not a very good mother," Ashley says, and she hunches her shoulders again when they reach the alley. Squinting in the dim light. "But she noticed that Enid went Awake, and I guess tried to persuade her over by talking to her, and when she wouldn't go..."
She keeps pace with Kage, keeping the Orphan on her left side. She can't see her while she talks, can't always hear her very well either, but it at least allows her to keep an eye on the rest of the world. "She had other people in her mother's cabal that she was close to. Called them aunts and uncles. I guess one of her uncles let her and Austin go." Here her mouth thins, her hands find their way deep into her pockets. "I checked her and Austin out when they got back. They're clear." A beat. "She begged me not to."
[K. R. Jakes] She begged me not to. "I'm sorry," Kage says, after another long pause. They have enough time to walk across the parking lot. They're not the only people out; this is late evening, and even in winter, Chinatown is full of crowds (some less savory [some less than sweet] to be certain). She takes one hand out of a pocket and presses her palm into her forehead, bending her head [profile: delicate] into the pressure. The cold makes her wrist tingle where it is bared for a flash of a second.
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley is silent as they walk toward the truck, as Kage presses her palm to her forehead as though to cool it, as though to soothe away pressure or tension. She lets out a slow breath. "She's staying with me. But she wants her parents, and there's not really a lot I can do for that." Which, perhaps, is a complex emotional situation in and of itself: Ashley thinks of Enid as something between her younger sister and her child, has since she took the girl on as an apprentice. That she can't serve as an apt replacement right at this moment is hard to accept.
But this is as close to expressing those emotions as she's likely to get; even talking this much about it is something, is an oddity, and perhaps a sign of how worn down she's gotten. She turns her thoughts away from it, back to the Orphan. "Something bothering you that's keeping you from sleeping?" (It's just a thing that's smart to do.)
[K. R. Jakes] [mrr?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[K. R. Jakes] and there's not really a lot I can do for that. "No," she agrees.
Kage is fortunate in that she has managed thus far to stay in contact with her family. They're still close (too close, sometimes) and she can and does go to them when she needs a place to be quiet and hide. They don't know about what happened four years ago when she suddenly began to see Him. They don't know anything except Kage almost had a mental break. They're family, and blood is thick. "You miss those ties if you had them. Is she going to stay, or are you going to send her away, somewhere safer, where she can take on a new identity?"
something bothering you that's keeping you from sleeping, Ashley presses, and the Orphan exhales sharply. They're at the truck now, and she pulls her carkeys out of her pocket, puts the key in the lock, opens it by hand, then unlocks Ashley's door as well. "I have bad dreams," she clarifies. Her tone of voice, however, is inscrutable [opaque (don't look)].
[K. R. Jakes] ooc: change to! "You miss those ties when they're gone. If you had them."
[Ashley McGowen] "I'm not really close to my parents," Ashley says. Perhaps it's meant to be an explanation, of sorts, of what she expected (hoped) to find when she was inducted into the Order of Hermes. For what she'd hoped she could do for Enid, because she did not find what she expected. "She's going to stay here. She'll be moving in with Solomon. Between the two of us and Hermetic ritual, she should be safe."
Upon reaching the truck, Ashley grips the handle above the door to lift herself into it, turning her head to look at Kage, to watch her, as she makes her way around to her side of the car. And when the door opens, "...I see. From your Avatar?" Then, hesitant, "If you want to sleep, I can help."
[K. R. Jakes] Understand this: it isn't just that K. R. Jakes can't sleep. That she lies down on her (ivory) bed and rests her cheek on her (cool, wintry) pillow and breathes in the (clear, unresonant) air and watches darkness gather in the center of her ceiling and cannot sleep. It is also that the thought of sleep, of what dreams may come, drains her; the very thought of whatever she'll see once she falls into it makes her stomach clench and her muscles tauten and a wave of sick fire flush up her throat and throb in her temples, a drum, nightmare, nightmare, come.
"Oh," she says, casually enough - "He gets involved, sometimes. I can usually smell Him if I wake up from one and He isn't there, leaning over me. Thank you, but no." Firm (imperious [proud] little Orphan). Brief smile, no light. "I'll be fine. It's just a bad day."
And back to the Ashley McGowen show, Kage raises a skeptical eyebrow, but refrains from criticizing Hermetic ritual. Instead, she says, "Should she? What exactly are you going to do? Keep her in Solomon's house?" A briefer pause; follow it with: "What about her father? Do you think she'll be able to stay away?"
[Ashley McGowen] Kage refuses, and Ashley just nods: it's something she can understand, refusing help, letting your Will carry you alone. Relying on yourself. And so while she doesn't think it's just a bad day, that there's something more to it than that, she lets the matter rest for the time being. Kage is indeed Willful, and Ashley respects that.
"I can ward her when she leaves Solomon's, but she hasn't really wanted to leave that much," Ashley says after a beat. "As for her father...I think she can stay away. She'll have to." Unless she could find a way to remove Kaye and Dan and Pete from the equation. And she is still thinking about it. Very, very thoroughly, and very, very carefully.
[K. R. Jakes] "I don't know about Solomon's house. But -- you. There are mundane ways to find you, 'ley. Enid's mother met you, didn't she? Did she get your name?" A brief pause; tense. "I'm sorry if I'm being negative." That isn't an apology she'd normally give, not really; not for a question like this. Still, this is now, and she gives it, eyes on the road, knuckles white, and the truck on the road, too, not at all silent. There was music for a moment: it leapt to life as soon as the truck turned on; Kage turned it off. She glances at Ashley in the rearview mirror once they hit the street.
[Ashley McGowen] "They know me, yeah. But all of my bills and my lease and everything are registered under my Sleeper name." A moment of silence. "Even if they -can- find me, I'm not going to hide from them. If she wants to come find me, she can do it. I'm not afraid of a woman who was so out of touch with her daughter that she let us talk to her for months before she did anything."
A twitch as the music blares to life within the truck, and then she relaxes. "If she comes after me, it's going to happen, and I already have some pretty extensive wards. No point in getting worked up about the possibility at this point."
[K. R. Jakes] The truth is this: Kage is of the same mind. However, Kage is also (paranoid [cautious]) thoughtful. Or at least, she's readier to see a trick when there is one to be seen. "I'm inclined to agree," she says, with a faint smile. Sardonism touches it. "Unless," she's looking at the road, again, "The woman isn't so much blind and slow as ruthless and heartless, and she just wanted to draw the riffraff out with a bright new penny like Enid. New opportunity, waste not, want not, etcetera. Either way, I'd like to see Enid, if I can. If you'll tell her I said hello, at least."
[Ashley McGowen] "You guys met with some of them last month. They already know who some of us are, if they communicate internally at all," Ashley says, turning her head to look at Kage. "But I doubt they want to risk trying to get rid of -all- of us, so we're at a stalemate. If they come after me they'll be contending with others, and so forth. She'd be stupid to try it."
When Kage asks to see Enid, Ashley nods, redirecting her eyes back toward the road. "She's at my place for the next couple of days. You're welcome to stop in and say hi."
K. R. Jakes] The redhead turns the heater on and pulls her hat off. Her hair is a mess, and far greasier than it should be; tarnished, besmirched, a darker red. She does not appear to notice and does not groom herself in the rearview window when they idle briefly at a red light. Her mouth curves, faintly -- memory. She still has that card. "I wonder what they think," she says, and means what they think about the standing back from the situation which did not happen. To Ashley's offer, a nod. She's really too damned tired to drive, and it takes willpower to stay steady, to stay honed and sharp.
"Well, 'ley. How are you beyond all that? Speaking of having people to contend with, have you, Wharil and Gregor finished your charter and gone all official yet? Or is that plan in need of glue?" After all: Kage witnessed one of Ashley and Gregor's misunderstandings. She knows some of Ashley's issues with Wharil.
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley, who did not meet the two Technocrats that all of them met that night, simply looks over at Kage and shrugs. She struggles to think of them as people the majority of the time - one can't afford to humanize one's enemies during a war. And to most Hermetics, the War is still most definitely ongoing and present.
Then Kage asks about the cabal, and a bright spark re-enters Ashley's features. "Yeah, we've talked. We're official. It's...been really beneficial so far, actually. Wharil's been more forthcoming and...Gregor was right about us assuming more responsibility for the city." A happy tale, really, how well the three of them have talked things out, how it's resulted in growth for her and Gregor at least. Ashley doesn't leave it at that for long, though. "Have you given it any more thought?"
[K. R. Jakes] "Good," Kage says, because she -- for whatsoever reason -- wants Gregor, Ashley and Wharil to cabal up. Kage wants -- for whatsoever reason -- the Traditionalists in Chicago to have structure [leadership (responsibility)]. "I kind've thought that maybe you guys would need glue now that threats aren't -- you know. Now that you've got to remember they're there. So. The Society of the Nameless Crow. What are you guys going to name the white fence house?" The Hermetic probably wouldn't put it past Kage to avoid answering a direct question simply by pretending to be more exhausted than she is. But she isn't pretending: the question, for a moment, simply doesn't register; she was listening to the other part of what Ashley said, glancing at the animation that touched Ashley's features, and that was more important. So it takes a second, and then, belated, with a little startle: "Have I -- " she checks herself. "A little," neutral, of course. "Haven't talked to Gregor or Wharil."
[Ashley McGowen] What are they going to name the house. This draws a look, something that could be mistaken for wary. Except it's not: Ashley trusts Kage, perhaps because once a person's competence is proven her trust is easily won (and so easily lost again). It's a look that suggests that she is taking note of the fact that Kage even thought to ask that question, wondering if recognition of ownership is being extended to the Society without them having to claim it or lift a finger.
"We haven't discussed that yet," Ashley says. And here her expression twists a little; there's information she's learned that she wants to share, but isn't sure if she should.
Kage's response saves her, though. "You should talk to them, then," she says, raising a hand to rough through the hair at the back of her neck, leaving it curled against the collar of her coat. "If you intend to." Another look.
[K. R. Jakes] [aw, what're all those looks for?! -1 not on mah game t'day]
[K. R. Jakes] [mystery roll, doo-de-doo]
[K. R. Jakes] [final roll! don't laugh!]
[K. R. Jakes] K. R. Jakes is not on her game tonight (at all) and she is watching the road and listening to Ashley and Him vye for her attention. The first look isn't even noticed -- or, rather, it is noticed, and earns a raised eyebrow in response. "I think," she says, not believe, "That you," another check. "Plural you, that is." Back to thought: " - should name it as soon as possible. And," a hesitation. "Don't name it Willis, or anything of the kind. Name it something clean and new."
"And, oh. I've spent a lot of time at the white fence house since we were there together. I assume I'll run into one or the other of them there, eventually."
[Ashley McGowen] "I agree," she says, after a moment, when Kage says that they shouldn't name it Willis. Her expression twists again, and momentarily she fidgets, right leg bouncing up and down (too much time around Wharil?) as she contemplates her answer. Then, a sigh. "The node is sentient, and the Guardian has already given us its name."
But whether they should call it by that themselves is a different story: to have the Name of a thing is to have possession of it, and so far they do. Whether or not the -others- would, or whether the Society even wants them to, well...
"But yes. We should settle on something other than that, that's still suitable."
[K. R. Jakes] For a second, her shoulders tense (no). Then tension ebbs [wary (before the storm)] and is replaced by something that approaches ease. Even amused (contained [don't!]). This isn't about Ashley, though; not about the sentient Node or the Guardian who has already given out the Node's name.
What she says, eventually: "I didn't realize Ashley McGowen is your craft name?" Ashley'd said that all of her mundane paperwork was under her other name. Hopscotch topics.
[Ashley McGowen] It is an odd jump in topics, something that makes Ashley's head turn in Kage's direction, something that provokes a puzzled stare. "Of course it is. I wouldn't introduce myself by my Sleeper name to other magi." Mild disdain, there, for the Sleeper name; it marks a time before, it marks another person, another identity. One that she shed a long time ago.
A twitch of the corner of her mouth before she adds, "Sorry, I guess I should've chosen something more pompous to eliminate the chance of confusion."
[K. R. Jakes] "Hannibal Caspian Temple. Solomon Blackstone Quicksilver." This is Kage's way of agreeing with Ashley. "Why did you choose that name?"
[Ashley McGowen] A Hermetic's Name is a quite personal thing. Kage should know this, with all the time she spent around Hannibal: the Craft Name is the embodiment of the person they choose to become and embrace as they proceed along the path to Enlightenment. A pause stretches, silence coils up on itself in the small space. Then: "Why do you ask?"
[K. R. Jakes] "Because it isn't full of portent; I can't guess at the why," she says, glancing at Ashley for a second. "I'd like to know it."
[Ashley McGowen] "It is, just not outwardly," Ashley tells Kage, reaching up around the back of her head again, fingers rustling through hair, before letting them drop back into her lap. "Yggdrasil was an ash tree, as I'm sure you're aware...the name translates to a field of ash...McGowen is a name given to iron-workers. Though part of the reason I took it is because a close Akashic friend of my father's carried that surname and was nearly killed saving his life. It's...sort of a way to keep in mind my Akashic background, I guess, and pay attention to the symbolism inherent in the name too."
She turns her head to look at Kage, thoughtful, and seems as though she'd return a question of her own. Then she adds, "A lot of Hermetics choose very classic names. I chose something modern because I think it's important that the Order move forward. Adapt with the times."
[K. R. Jakes] K. R. Jakes doesn't choose to say anything at first. She asked the question (rude [obvious]), she listened to the answer, she smiled (brief) at one sentence (sure you're aware), and her eyes stayed glued to the road. The black truck is on Ashley's street now, slowing to let a pair of idiotic undergrads go by.
They're having a snowball fight, and the snow is practically mush, is wet, scatters, sloppy ice; it isn't satisfying for snowballs, but this isn't stopping them. Illuminated by the truck's lowbeams, they look, briefly, like coyotes-straining-to-be-human, too lean, too long, but that's a trick of the shadows. Sometimes what is mundane and looks momentarily strange really just is mundane. Sometimes.
"It's a good name for hiding," she says, after a second. "And it's a good name for fame."
[Ashley McGowen] There's quiet interrupted by a scoff, an irritated flash of teeth, toward the two undergrads running in front of the truck. They do this: walk out in front of cars, confident that several tons of metal will stop just for them, that through sheer presence they can make the road stop around them. (She was one of them once.) They move off into the shadows.
Then her eyes trace the Orphan's profile and her mouth thins, just briefly. In Boston, with its many Hermetics, she was often a peripheral figure: dwarfed by smiling Bran and wise Justine, a reedy little tree struggling into sunlight between its larger fellows. Here that doesn't matter, and her name is becoming more important than it ever was there. "We'll see," she says, in quiet tones that could easily be mistaken for neutral ones.
"Is Kage short for something, or did you choose it after...?"
[K. R. Jakes] "No." Her name is unusual enough that the spectre of why Kage has haunted her all through school. "It's just a name my parents made up when I was born. My sisters have much less creative names; I suppose Mom and Dad learned their lesson. There was no reason for me to rename myself after."
The undergrads make it back to the sidewalk without incident and the truck glides down the street, two, three more buildings, and then she brings it to a halt. "And here we are."
[Ashley McGowen] There's a flicker in Ashley's expression as she eyes Kage then: because Kage is a unique name, because it would have meant something different had she actually chosen it for herself (trapped after Awakening is different from being trapped from inception, after all.) Because all Names have symbolism, all people embrace their Names in some way, and Hermetics simply choose to shed that which another has chosen for them.
It's something she'll doubtlessly mull over once in a while during those occasions when they see each other, and she'll wonder. "Thanks for the ride home, Kage," she says, as she reaches for the door's handle. "You sure you're going to be all right to drive home?"
[K. R. Jakes] "I'll be fine; I'm glad that the guardian's given up the goods," she says, with a (brief [rueful]) smile. "No harm, no foul. Have a good night, 'ley. Don't forget to tell Enid I say hey." A brief pause, and, "I'll come by sometime later in the week. I'll call first."
[Ashley McGowen] "All right," Ashley says. The door cracks open, and she grimaces at the first blast of cold air before gripping the handle above the door so she can lower herself out. "Just call whenever. Good night, Kage."
And, with that, she slides out of the seat, and there's a passing wave before the door clicks shut in her wake.
[Ashley McGowen] "That's the next step," Ashley says, with a nod. She's watching Emily, seeing that light of inspiration in her eyes. It stirs something in her, somewhere, some of the joy and passion for Willworking that she's been lacking of late. Some of the wonder she used to feel when she'd push boundaries, during those dark evenings in Europe running with her old cabal mates.
"You're going to fail sometimes. Let it teach you something and keep persisting until you get it - and then improve upon it once you've got it."
And then, this said, she turns her head to look at the Orphan who has come up to the two of them. "Evening, Kage," she says, and her tone is pleasantly surprised even if her expression is not.
[Emily Littleton] They have been standing there, talking, for some time. And Emily, who is enjoying the conversation, has places she needs to be and things she needs to attend to. A subtle reminder of this buzzes in her jacket pocket, jarring her side slightly (in the soft place below her ribs) and widening her eyes a bit. She didn't pull the phone out of her pocket, but did look down a little (distracted).
"Sadly, I must away," she finds herself saying, at the conclusion of her chat with Ashley. Which is also the moment when Kage arrives, with a diminished swagger (minor key?), as Emily is gathering her carrier bag off the floor of the sidewalk.
"Kage..." she says, and there's an inward struggle for a moment: to stay, to go. Emily comes down on the side of going, but only because she has too much to say to her Other, and a growing need for sleep. (Burning the candle at both ends.)
"I hope to catch up with you both again soon." There is regret in the words, as if she'd really like to stay. Apology, for Kage, who she has not spoken to in... too long. After helloes and goodbyes and such things, Emily makes her way back to the corner to cross, back towards her car and home (wherever that is for now).
[K. R. Jakes] Her smile of farewell is brief (scant [a slant of light]). "And good night, Em." Her attention turns to the Hermetic. There's a question in her expression, more obvious than it might otherwise be; closer to the surface (visible just beneath the skin). "Do you need a ride home, 'ley?"
[Ashley McGowen] "Take care, Em, and good luck," are Ashley's parting words as the girl makes her way off down the street toward her car. The Hermetic is still leaned against a wooden pole, studded with staples and splinters and apparently unbothered by either. The man about thirty feet away is painting an ink silhouette of the skyline on a piece of paper: Asian ink and paintbrush, and from time to time Ash watches as the ink is spread in a wet swath across the page. Wistful, almost.
She's been standing out here for some time, as evidenced by the redness that has crept into her flesh across her cheekbones and nose and ears. She straightens, a little wearily (how long has it been since she slept?) and nods toward Kage. "Yeah. Thanks," she says, meeting the Orphan's eyes and noting the question there - but unsure of what it is. "How are you?"
[K. R. Jakes] [m?]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 3, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[K. R. Jakes] "Well." And succinct, apparently.
Kage almost sounds as if it were true; almost. It does not look true. The Orphan's skin is too pale (lacklustre). Her lips are too chapped; she is thinner, a candle what has been burning too long, and now the fire's out, and the wax has thinned, has dripped, has poured away. There are shadows around her eyes so dark that they look like bruises, almost. In short, Kage looks like shit. Not well at all.
"Enough," absent, tacked on the end -- as if to make it more true. "I think I'm parked down this way. You look tired," she adds, because even though she is tired, even though she is somewhat unsteadied tonight, she is sharp enough to note this; sharp enough to mark certain expressions on the Hermetic's face. "How've you been? You know," a brief, wry smile. "I think that's the first time I've ever seen you and Emily standing in the same place. When Enid gets back from China and I see you two standing in the same place, all my worlds will have collided."
[Ashley McGowen] "...Enid's back from China," Ash says as she begins walking toward Kage's car, hunching up her shoulders and shrugging the jacket upward to settle the collar around her neck. It is instantly clear to Kage, as soon as she mentions Enid's name, that this is what has Ashley worn thin: there's something tired, something even heartsick, in her expression as she glances up and down the street and then steps off the curb. "Last week."
She doesn't begin to explain immediately, though, instead watching Kage's face, noting that she too looks worn. "Are you sure you're okay? You look...sick, or upset, or something." Hesitant, because she's expecting to be rebuffed, but the question is still out there, accompanied by a gaze that rakes over Kage's face, over the shadows beneath her eyes.
[K. R. Jakes] " - oh? Already?" Ashley looks heartsick over Enid's return and Kage raises her eyebrows. "Are you fighting?"
"I will be fine," she says, and her voice (haunted [clotted (rake out the leaves)]) is low, but steady. "I just," a pause. Natural; it comes when people ask her a question that will be in some way revelatory. "I just haven't slept well for a couple of days," and, somehow, there is a note of self-directed wryness in this.
[Ashley McGowen] A glance sidelong toward Kage. An arched brow, a skeptical pursing of her lips. "Right," she says. "Well, if you decide you want to talk about it..."
And she trails off, considering Kage's question, about whether she and Enid are fighting. Then there's a sigh. "Enid...all right. Her mother's a Technocrat. Got a hold of her and Austin while she was in China and attempted a conversion. She got out and she's staying with me now, and..." A pause, and her mouth thins. "I just have no idea how to make it better, you know?"
[K. R. Jakes] [now now, you may be tired, but you're not THAT blunt!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[K. R. Jakes] Her reply doesn't come right away. They're walking down a narrow alley, and a dark one; the perfect place for two women such as themselves to be attacked (the perfect place for an ambush [for a murder]). The cement is slippery; the light is chancy, and uneven, and a lightbulb is flickering as if it were a fire a moth kept trying to singe with its wings, and there is a parking lot on the other side, Kage's black truck on the far side.
"I get the impression that Enid's mother wasn't a very good mother; she doesn't sound like a very good Technocrat either, if she didn't even notice when her own daughter went awake. It isn't as if Enid was subtle. I -- how did she get out? Is she," a brief pause. "A trick or a trap?" Callous, maybe.
[Ashley McGowen] "I guess she's away a lot. Comes home once or twice a year. So no, not a very good mother," Ashley says, and she hunches her shoulders again when they reach the alley. Squinting in the dim light. "But she noticed that Enid went Awake, and I guess tried to persuade her over by talking to her, and when she wouldn't go..."
She keeps pace with Kage, keeping the Orphan on her left side. She can't see her while she talks, can't always hear her very well either, but it at least allows her to keep an eye on the rest of the world. "She had other people in her mother's cabal that she was close to. Called them aunts and uncles. I guess one of her uncles let her and Austin go." Here her mouth thins, her hands find their way deep into her pockets. "I checked her and Austin out when they got back. They're clear." A beat. "She begged me not to."
[K. R. Jakes] She begged me not to. "I'm sorry," Kage says, after another long pause. They have enough time to walk across the parking lot. They're not the only people out; this is late evening, and even in winter, Chinatown is full of crowds (some less savory [some less than sweet] to be certain). She takes one hand out of a pocket and presses her palm into her forehead, bending her head [profile: delicate] into the pressure. The cold makes her wrist tingle where it is bared for a flash of a second.
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley is silent as they walk toward the truck, as Kage presses her palm to her forehead as though to cool it, as though to soothe away pressure or tension. She lets out a slow breath. "She's staying with me. But she wants her parents, and there's not really a lot I can do for that." Which, perhaps, is a complex emotional situation in and of itself: Ashley thinks of Enid as something between her younger sister and her child, has since she took the girl on as an apprentice. That she can't serve as an apt replacement right at this moment is hard to accept.
But this is as close to expressing those emotions as she's likely to get; even talking this much about it is something, is an oddity, and perhaps a sign of how worn down she's gotten. She turns her thoughts away from it, back to the Orphan. "Something bothering you that's keeping you from sleeping?" (It's just a thing that's smart to do.)
[K. R. Jakes] [mrr?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[K. R. Jakes] and there's not really a lot I can do for that. "No," she agrees.
Kage is fortunate in that she has managed thus far to stay in contact with her family. They're still close (too close, sometimes) and she can and does go to them when she needs a place to be quiet and hide. They don't know about what happened four years ago when she suddenly began to see Him. They don't know anything except Kage almost had a mental break. They're family, and blood is thick. "You miss those ties if you had them. Is she going to stay, or are you going to send her away, somewhere safer, where she can take on a new identity?"
something bothering you that's keeping you from sleeping, Ashley presses, and the Orphan exhales sharply. They're at the truck now, and she pulls her carkeys out of her pocket, puts the key in the lock, opens it by hand, then unlocks Ashley's door as well. "I have bad dreams," she clarifies. Her tone of voice, however, is inscrutable [opaque (don't look)].
[K. R. Jakes] ooc: change to! "You miss those ties when they're gone. If you had them."
[Ashley McGowen] "I'm not really close to my parents," Ashley says. Perhaps it's meant to be an explanation, of sorts, of what she expected (hoped) to find when she was inducted into the Order of Hermes. For what she'd hoped she could do for Enid, because she did not find what she expected. "She's going to stay here. She'll be moving in with Solomon. Between the two of us and Hermetic ritual, she should be safe."
Upon reaching the truck, Ashley grips the handle above the door to lift herself into it, turning her head to look at Kage, to watch her, as she makes her way around to her side of the car. And when the door opens, "...I see. From your Avatar?" Then, hesitant, "If you want to sleep, I can help."
[K. R. Jakes] Understand this: it isn't just that K. R. Jakes can't sleep. That she lies down on her (ivory) bed and rests her cheek on her (cool, wintry) pillow and breathes in the (clear, unresonant) air and watches darkness gather in the center of her ceiling and cannot sleep. It is also that the thought of sleep, of what dreams may come, drains her; the very thought of whatever she'll see once she falls into it makes her stomach clench and her muscles tauten and a wave of sick fire flush up her throat and throb in her temples, a drum, nightmare, nightmare, come.
"Oh," she says, casually enough - "He gets involved, sometimes. I can usually smell Him if I wake up from one and He isn't there, leaning over me. Thank you, but no." Firm (imperious [proud] little Orphan). Brief smile, no light. "I'll be fine. It's just a bad day."
And back to the Ashley McGowen show, Kage raises a skeptical eyebrow, but refrains from criticizing Hermetic ritual. Instead, she says, "Should she? What exactly are you going to do? Keep her in Solomon's house?" A briefer pause; follow it with: "What about her father? Do you think she'll be able to stay away?"
[Ashley McGowen] Kage refuses, and Ashley just nods: it's something she can understand, refusing help, letting your Will carry you alone. Relying on yourself. And so while she doesn't think it's just a bad day, that there's something more to it than that, she lets the matter rest for the time being. Kage is indeed Willful, and Ashley respects that.
"I can ward her when she leaves Solomon's, but she hasn't really wanted to leave that much," Ashley says after a beat. "As for her father...I think she can stay away. She'll have to." Unless she could find a way to remove Kaye and Dan and Pete from the equation. And she is still thinking about it. Very, very thoroughly, and very, very carefully.
[K. R. Jakes] "I don't know about Solomon's house. But -- you. There are mundane ways to find you, 'ley. Enid's mother met you, didn't she? Did she get your name?" A brief pause; tense. "I'm sorry if I'm being negative." That isn't an apology she'd normally give, not really; not for a question like this. Still, this is now, and she gives it, eyes on the road, knuckles white, and the truck on the road, too, not at all silent. There was music for a moment: it leapt to life as soon as the truck turned on; Kage turned it off. She glances at Ashley in the rearview mirror once they hit the street.
[Ashley McGowen] "They know me, yeah. But all of my bills and my lease and everything are registered under my Sleeper name." A moment of silence. "Even if they -can- find me, I'm not going to hide from them. If she wants to come find me, she can do it. I'm not afraid of a woman who was so out of touch with her daughter that she let us talk to her for months before she did anything."
A twitch as the music blares to life within the truck, and then she relaxes. "If she comes after me, it's going to happen, and I already have some pretty extensive wards. No point in getting worked up about the possibility at this point."
[K. R. Jakes] The truth is this: Kage is of the same mind. However, Kage is also (paranoid [cautious]) thoughtful. Or at least, she's readier to see a trick when there is one to be seen. "I'm inclined to agree," she says, with a faint smile. Sardonism touches it. "Unless," she's looking at the road, again, "The woman isn't so much blind and slow as ruthless and heartless, and she just wanted to draw the riffraff out with a bright new penny like Enid. New opportunity, waste not, want not, etcetera. Either way, I'd like to see Enid, if I can. If you'll tell her I said hello, at least."
[Ashley McGowen] "You guys met with some of them last month. They already know who some of us are, if they communicate internally at all," Ashley says, turning her head to look at Kage. "But I doubt they want to risk trying to get rid of -all- of us, so we're at a stalemate. If they come after me they'll be contending with others, and so forth. She'd be stupid to try it."
When Kage asks to see Enid, Ashley nods, redirecting her eyes back toward the road. "She's at my place for the next couple of days. You're welcome to stop in and say hi."
K. R. Jakes] The redhead turns the heater on and pulls her hat off. Her hair is a mess, and far greasier than it should be; tarnished, besmirched, a darker red. She does not appear to notice and does not groom herself in the rearview window when they idle briefly at a red light. Her mouth curves, faintly -- memory. She still has that card. "I wonder what they think," she says, and means what they think about the standing back from the situation which did not happen. To Ashley's offer, a nod. She's really too damned tired to drive, and it takes willpower to stay steady, to stay honed and sharp.
"Well, 'ley. How are you beyond all that? Speaking of having people to contend with, have you, Wharil and Gregor finished your charter and gone all official yet? Or is that plan in need of glue?" After all: Kage witnessed one of Ashley and Gregor's misunderstandings. She knows some of Ashley's issues with Wharil.
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley, who did not meet the two Technocrats that all of them met that night, simply looks over at Kage and shrugs. She struggles to think of them as people the majority of the time - one can't afford to humanize one's enemies during a war. And to most Hermetics, the War is still most definitely ongoing and present.
Then Kage asks about the cabal, and a bright spark re-enters Ashley's features. "Yeah, we've talked. We're official. It's...been really beneficial so far, actually. Wharil's been more forthcoming and...Gregor was right about us assuming more responsibility for the city." A happy tale, really, how well the three of them have talked things out, how it's resulted in growth for her and Gregor at least. Ashley doesn't leave it at that for long, though. "Have you given it any more thought?"
[K. R. Jakes] "Good," Kage says, because she -- for whatsoever reason -- wants Gregor, Ashley and Wharil to cabal up. Kage wants -- for whatsoever reason -- the Traditionalists in Chicago to have structure [leadership (responsibility)]. "I kind've thought that maybe you guys would need glue now that threats aren't -- you know. Now that you've got to remember they're there. So. The Society of the Nameless Crow. What are you guys going to name the white fence house?" The Hermetic probably wouldn't put it past Kage to avoid answering a direct question simply by pretending to be more exhausted than she is. But she isn't pretending: the question, for a moment, simply doesn't register; she was listening to the other part of what Ashley said, glancing at the animation that touched Ashley's features, and that was more important. So it takes a second, and then, belated, with a little startle: "Have I -- " she checks herself. "A little," neutral, of course. "Haven't talked to Gregor or Wharil."
[Ashley McGowen] What are they going to name the house. This draws a look, something that could be mistaken for wary. Except it's not: Ashley trusts Kage, perhaps because once a person's competence is proven her trust is easily won (and so easily lost again). It's a look that suggests that she is taking note of the fact that Kage even thought to ask that question, wondering if recognition of ownership is being extended to the Society without them having to claim it or lift a finger.
"We haven't discussed that yet," Ashley says. And here her expression twists a little; there's information she's learned that she wants to share, but isn't sure if she should.
Kage's response saves her, though. "You should talk to them, then," she says, raising a hand to rough through the hair at the back of her neck, leaving it curled against the collar of her coat. "If you intend to." Another look.
[K. R. Jakes] [aw, what're all those looks for?! -1 not on mah game t'day]
[K. R. Jakes] [mystery roll, doo-de-doo]
[K. R. Jakes] [final roll! don't laugh!]
[K. R. Jakes] K. R. Jakes is not on her game tonight (at all) and she is watching the road and listening to Ashley and Him vye for her attention. The first look isn't even noticed -- or, rather, it is noticed, and earns a raised eyebrow in response. "I think," she says, not believe, "That you," another check. "Plural you, that is." Back to thought: " - should name it as soon as possible. And," a hesitation. "Don't name it Willis, or anything of the kind. Name it something clean and new."
"And, oh. I've spent a lot of time at the white fence house since we were there together. I assume I'll run into one or the other of them there, eventually."
[Ashley McGowen] "I agree," she says, after a moment, when Kage says that they shouldn't name it Willis. Her expression twists again, and momentarily she fidgets, right leg bouncing up and down (too much time around Wharil?) as she contemplates her answer. Then, a sigh. "The node is sentient, and the Guardian has already given us its name."
But whether they should call it by that themselves is a different story: to have the Name of a thing is to have possession of it, and so far they do. Whether or not the -others- would, or whether the Society even wants them to, well...
"But yes. We should settle on something other than that, that's still suitable."
[K. R. Jakes] For a second, her shoulders tense (no). Then tension ebbs [wary (before the storm)] and is replaced by something that approaches ease. Even amused (contained [don't!]). This isn't about Ashley, though; not about the sentient Node or the Guardian who has already given out the Node's name.
What she says, eventually: "I didn't realize Ashley McGowen is your craft name?" Ashley'd said that all of her mundane paperwork was under her other name. Hopscotch topics.
[Ashley McGowen] It is an odd jump in topics, something that makes Ashley's head turn in Kage's direction, something that provokes a puzzled stare. "Of course it is. I wouldn't introduce myself by my Sleeper name to other magi." Mild disdain, there, for the Sleeper name; it marks a time before, it marks another person, another identity. One that she shed a long time ago.
A twitch of the corner of her mouth before she adds, "Sorry, I guess I should've chosen something more pompous to eliminate the chance of confusion."
[K. R. Jakes] "Hannibal Caspian Temple. Solomon Blackstone Quicksilver." This is Kage's way of agreeing with Ashley. "Why did you choose that name?"
[Ashley McGowen] A Hermetic's Name is a quite personal thing. Kage should know this, with all the time she spent around Hannibal: the Craft Name is the embodiment of the person they choose to become and embrace as they proceed along the path to Enlightenment. A pause stretches, silence coils up on itself in the small space. Then: "Why do you ask?"
[K. R. Jakes] "Because it isn't full of portent; I can't guess at the why," she says, glancing at Ashley for a second. "I'd like to know it."
[Ashley McGowen] "It is, just not outwardly," Ashley tells Kage, reaching up around the back of her head again, fingers rustling through hair, before letting them drop back into her lap. "Yggdrasil was an ash tree, as I'm sure you're aware...the name translates to a field of ash...McGowen is a name given to iron-workers. Though part of the reason I took it is because a close Akashic friend of my father's carried that surname and was nearly killed saving his life. It's...sort of a way to keep in mind my Akashic background, I guess, and pay attention to the symbolism inherent in the name too."
She turns her head to look at Kage, thoughtful, and seems as though she'd return a question of her own. Then she adds, "A lot of Hermetics choose very classic names. I chose something modern because I think it's important that the Order move forward. Adapt with the times."
[K. R. Jakes] K. R. Jakes doesn't choose to say anything at first. She asked the question (rude [obvious]), she listened to the answer, she smiled (brief) at one sentence (sure you're aware), and her eyes stayed glued to the road. The black truck is on Ashley's street now, slowing to let a pair of idiotic undergrads go by.
They're having a snowball fight, and the snow is practically mush, is wet, scatters, sloppy ice; it isn't satisfying for snowballs, but this isn't stopping them. Illuminated by the truck's lowbeams, they look, briefly, like coyotes-straining-to-be-human, too lean, too long, but that's a trick of the shadows. Sometimes what is mundane and looks momentarily strange really just is mundane. Sometimes.
"It's a good name for hiding," she says, after a second. "And it's a good name for fame."
[Ashley McGowen] There's quiet interrupted by a scoff, an irritated flash of teeth, toward the two undergrads running in front of the truck. They do this: walk out in front of cars, confident that several tons of metal will stop just for them, that through sheer presence they can make the road stop around them. (She was one of them once.) They move off into the shadows.
Then her eyes trace the Orphan's profile and her mouth thins, just briefly. In Boston, with its many Hermetics, she was often a peripheral figure: dwarfed by smiling Bran and wise Justine, a reedy little tree struggling into sunlight between its larger fellows. Here that doesn't matter, and her name is becoming more important than it ever was there. "We'll see," she says, in quiet tones that could easily be mistaken for neutral ones.
"Is Kage short for something, or did you choose it after...?"
[K. R. Jakes] "No." Her name is unusual enough that the spectre of why Kage has haunted her all through school. "It's just a name my parents made up when I was born. My sisters have much less creative names; I suppose Mom and Dad learned their lesson. There was no reason for me to rename myself after."
The undergrads make it back to the sidewalk without incident and the truck glides down the street, two, three more buildings, and then she brings it to a halt. "And here we are."
[Ashley McGowen] There's a flicker in Ashley's expression as she eyes Kage then: because Kage is a unique name, because it would have meant something different had she actually chosen it for herself (trapped after Awakening is different from being trapped from inception, after all.) Because all Names have symbolism, all people embrace their Names in some way, and Hermetics simply choose to shed that which another has chosen for them.
It's something she'll doubtlessly mull over once in a while during those occasions when they see each other, and she'll wonder. "Thanks for the ride home, Kage," she says, as she reaches for the door's handle. "You sure you're going to be all right to drive home?"
[K. R. Jakes] "I'll be fine; I'm glad that the guardian's given up the goods," she says, with a (brief [rueful]) smile. "No harm, no foul. Have a good night, 'ley. Don't forget to tell Enid I say hey." A brief pause, and, "I'll come by sometime later in the week. I'll call first."
[Ashley McGowen] "All right," Ashley says. The door cracks open, and she grimaces at the first blast of cold air before gripping the handle above the door so she can lower herself out. "Just call whenever. Good night, Kage."
And, with that, she slides out of the seat, and there's a passing wave before the door clicks shut in her wake.
why'd you step back?
[Ashley McGowen] Belated, but there she is. Kage invited her over much earlier this week, and Ashley has been finding excuses to put off visiting the Orphan's apartment. Not because she doesn't want to visit.
But for this reason: when she arrives in the hallway, she stops and she stares for a moment at an invisible spot in the carpet that she recalls through blurred vision, the rough surface scratching her cheek before Wharil tried to lift her back up later. The sight and the rasp of her sneakers against the carpet and the subtle apartment smell make it all vivid, salient as it was that evening.
By now, though, she's grown more accustomed to steeling herself. So after a moment to gather herself up, guide her eyes away from that spot, she turns to Kage's door, raises a fist, and pauses for a second before she knocks. Three polite, quick little raps. And it's odd, because with everything that happened that night and with as many people as have invaded Kage's home since she returned to the city, Ashley herself has still not been inside. Doesn't really even know what it looks like, beyond what she could glimpse through the door past Kage and beyond what little she could see when she scried out Dylan.
Medieval. She remembers that. Or maybe that's the torture devices she now associates with the place.
When Kage reaches the door the diminutive Hermetic is standing outside, gaze wandering off down the hallway. Coat unbuttoned, a red T-shirt and a pair of jeans beneath, a paper bag cradled in an arm, resting on one hip.
[Ashley McGowen] [Perception + Awareness]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[K. R. Jakes] K. R. Jakes had invited Ashley over in a moment of [heat (lambent)] righteousness, and when the Hermetic did not immediately appear at her doorstep bearing BFF necklaces, well, it was something of a relief. When Ashley does take Kage up on her invitation, there is no moon in the sky, and it would be dark even if a storm weren't [passion (song)] howling over Chicago. As if an earthquake hadn't happened less than a week ago. Blanket the city in sleep, in ash and smoke and snow, and quiet it down until Spring comes again.
The Hermetic doesn't stay out in the hall for very long. The house moves all around: creak, crack, pop. An old place. It feels like it has echoes.
The door opens. Kage stays in the doorway for a second. The palm of her right hand is on the doorframe; her fingers curl over it. Her (slender) body bends the other way, though, leftward; her left hand is on the doorknob itself. There is no sound of a lock unlocked. "Hey, 'ley," Kage says, and smiles. This isn't one of those smiles she has that transfigures her features -- remakes her into something approaching gorgeous; illuminates [burns (candle)]. But it's easy, nonetheless. Not sly, not coy, but maybe a touch enigmatic none-the-less: serene, even, without wryness. "Come on in."
The Orphan has apparently been Working, and recently; Ashley can feel traces of Kage's resonance in the room which she is entering [not sanctum (no sanctuary: wasn't that already proved?)]. The room? living room. And the feel of the Orphan's [amorous (beloved [I/you]) luminous / wither, wither, wither away sedge, drain/fall] magick has reclaimed supremacy. The nameless 'crow -- Ashley, herself -- and Wharil: all of that has diminished [relinquished] and one would have to comb: look, needle in a haystack.
Medieval: yes. Nearly straight ahead, but not quite, there is a hall. Down the hall, there are three doors, and a low set of (one-two-three) stairs that take a corner, but they only go to another door which can half-be-glimpsed from the front door. That door is closed [many (many) doors]. Two of the doors in the hall are open. The place feels like winter, as if a window was open. Straight inside, one step down, and that's right where the nameless 'crow stood, and that right there is where Ashley collapsed afterward, and --
No, shh. Put it away. There are books. There's a fireplace that used to be full of books but has been converted to use, now that it isn't so godawful hot in her apartment all the time, and it's all very Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts movement, except for hints of Latest Technology and a truly epic soundsystem. Near the ficeplace there is a music stand of walnut, carved. And a music book, clipped open -- violin music.
Look the other way, and there is a dining room. The table is plain wood. There is a runner, and more beeswax candles than is probably strictly wise [although wannabe players would probably ransack the hell out of that table -- it doesn't look like she eats on it]. A couple are lit.
"You can hang your coat there," she says, nodding toward the coat rack, right near the door.
[Ashley McGowen] It looks like a Hermetic's apartment, is what Ashley notes after a glance through. Or perhaps a Chorister's (not unexpected). It's an odd thing - as she's entered the private abodes of other magi she's pieced together little things about the way they choose to decorate their living spaces. And often, they are what a person would expect. Not always related to their resonances, what they leave behind - her own is proof of that (it's what lies beneath, in the Weaving of the place, there's the Hunger) - but fitting.
She steps in with only a slight shudder. Perhaps because the place does indeed feel like winter. Ashley sets the bag down on whatever surface is readily available and shrugs out of the wool coat, hanging it in the place she indicates. "Scones in the bag," she says, jerking her chin toward it.
It's an odd ritual they seem to have established. One of tribute, almost, when they visit another person's personal space (Enid has taken to doing the same thing, when she visits Ashley.) Whether it's conscious or not on Ashley's part is up for debate, with how thoroughly she's studied cultures and customs, particularly those gone by.
Her eyes light, briefly, on the violin music in the corner, and her expression is inscrutable. Just for a second. Then, "How are you?" She could ask about several things - the indication of recent Willworking about the place, the thing Kage had to mention to Nathan the other night, how she's holding up after last Friday, but that suffices.
[K. R. Jakes] (lalala)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[K. R. Jakes] "I'm well. It's been a quiet week." What she means is that there have been no new disasters. What she means is there have been no more strangers calling her, or anyone else she knows, in out of the cold (into some dangerous element). What she means is there have been no major upsets, no disturbances, no fractures. "I'm almost lullabyed." Lullaby as a verb. The smile quirks itself lopsided, and her eyes are serious.
The last time they saw each other -- it was only briefly. Before that, bad things happen. A phone conversation: bad news happens, and the world is a dark place, and it was for nothing. And before that, Kage -- composed, solitary, in-control-of-herself, courteous-in-the-face-of-a-threat Kage -- showed up at Ashley's apartment, so wracked with (so ardent with) fury, with horror, with the will to look further and fix, that for once she hadn't been careful with her words, hadn't been solitary. Before that, it had been Ashley, pushed into reacting.
They were about due for a calm evening, something that did not tug their heartstrings or make 'em dance.
"Almost," she adds, and there it is: the lilt of a cocky smirk. Dissolves in an instant. "Thank you," re: the scones, "There's some water on, but if you'd rather juice or wine or something, I'm happy to get you whichever." A moment's regard, after she closes the door. This is arguably the first time Kage has actually had, with the nameless 'crow being the one exception, another Awakened creature in her house, forethought and not just well you're here now fine come in. "Want the full tour? How have you been? Happy to have another member of the Order in the city?"
[Ashley McGowen] "Tea's fine," Ashley says, with a sidelong look toward the kettle. And her week has not been as quiet as Kage's. Well, to some extent it has: it's not as though she's been running all over the place hunting down trouble, but she's had to deal with numerous interruptions. Had to give a lot of thought to the direction of the new cabal, had to clarify things with Wharil (not that things are that much clearer now), been giving information to new people she's met.
For someone who had been so opposed to accepting responsibility for the city when she first arrived, she's being pushed toward some sort of role. Unwillingly. People have a way of doing these things.
"Sure, give me a tour," she says, with an amused look sidelong at Kage. "I've been...sort of busy. Lots of things to sort out still, you know, at the chantry and stuff and...just getting things figured out. People have been asking me to fill them in, calling me in for favors..." She doesn't sound unhappy about this, necessarily - in fact, much of it is a welcome distraction from matters she has less control over.
"It's okay having Solomon around. He's pretty young," she adds, after a moment. "Not...really what I figured when I heard there was someone else coming out here. But I guess it'll be good to have someone to compare notes with."
[K. R. Jakes] "The living room," Kage says, pivoting, with an elegant little twist (twirl) of her wrist. Pivot one way, pivot another: v. ironic 1950s housewife. "The dining room and the kitchen," and then she walks down the hall, pushing open one door. "The bathroom." The bathroom is rather spare in decoration -- the only real thing of note is a truly glorious clawfooted bathtub. Across from the bathroom, another door, which she pushes open -- goes far enough inside to turn on a light.
"The study," and, the study? The study is really lovely. There is a couch with a tapestry throw, and hangings; a desk with a thousand pidgin holes and something that looks very much like a gothic altar piece. An imac and a mac screen off to the side, more bookshelves, lots and lots and lots of books. A comfortable chair, behind the desk. She has an adult's apartment, for all she's so young [and so much of what she has (ebay, baby)]. There are some interesting looking knickknacks, mostly arcane, a comic collection, a stuffed bunny. She clearly spends a lot of time in the study, or did, at some point.
"The bedroom," she nods toward that last door, and then taps a narrow white door behind a narrower bookshelf, tapping it, "The linen closet. Voila. This is where I live right now. What sort of favors? And," her features take on a questioning cast -- she raises both of her eyebrows, "what did you figure, if not what Solomon is actually like?"
[K. R. Jakes] Add, vague: "Bonisagus. They're the -- what are they? The numerology guys?"
[K. R. Jakes] ooc: ahem, make that a stuffed MOUSE.
[Ashley McGowen] Kage hasn't seen anything of Ashley's apartment that isn't her living room, possibly the bathroom. For all that Ashley has invited people over to her apartment, that's generally where she's tried to keep them - her private sanctum, after all, is in the study (Wharil and Jacques, her oldest acquaintances in the city, were back there once). And the bedroom is and will remain a place that is too personal to take acquaintances past.
"I like your study," she tells Kage, after a glance around in that room in particular. Curiously noting details and the like. Mild amusement at the stuffed mouse. A too-long glance at the couch. That was where she saw Dylan, back before she knew that he was with Kage. Back before she even knew that Kage was here in Chicago.
"Rene has a problem," is her rather vague answer to the favors question. Kage asks about Bonisagus as she finishes leading the two of them around - Ashley soaking everything in - and finally she looks away from the apartment's scenery to Kage. Wry. "Numerology, yeah. Theoreticians, mostly. Which I'm...not, really. Just sort of expected someone more experienced for a Disciple, I guess. He's a nice kid, but..."
And here, a shrug. Solomon is a Tradition mate, Kage is a friend, and boundaries get complicated here. There's something about Solomon that makes Ashley uncomfortable, but it's something she doubts she ought to elaborate on.
[K. R. Jakes] "I do, too," she says, somewhat wistfully, of her study. She doesn't know that Ashley's seen it before, but she does know that the nameless 'crow used to stretch out just there, when he wasn't moving around the apartment, a horrifying presence. When he wasn't imploring her, telling her they needed to go, to just go, that he didn't want them to find her, that -- alas, she didn't get much use out of the study during December.
The kettle goes off and Kage moves into the kitchen. They're back in the living room, then, and this much is true: the one room she didn't open the door for, only pointed at, gestured to, was her bedroom. A private heart. There are so many chests, so many boxes, so many hidey-holes. She takes the kettle off the stove, frowning at some vials and boxes of tea clustered underneath her cabinet. Ashley will notice something about the kitchen: one whole side of the counter appears to be, well, missing the counter. This is the counter by the sink, so she can see straight down onto some broken shelves. This might explain why there are bowls stacked up by the stove itself, instead of where they should be, in the cabinet.
There are complicated boundaries -- for Ashley; for Kage, it's just a matter of questioning, of wanting to know, of seeing how much she can know without investigation that isn't sound. "Rene. Who is this Rene again?" Someone's mentioned her. For the moment, though, just who is eluding Kage. "Is Russian Caravan okay or would you rather something less black?" Space for an answer. And then, "Just how old is he?"
[Ashley McGowen] "Russian Caravan is fine. With milk though," she says, as she follows Kage back into the kitchen. She ducks in near the stove; it's generally one of the warmest places in the house, and the bottoms of her pants are still wet, as they tend to be when she gets in from outside. A problem with short stature: finding pants that are not too long is a rare thing.
She leans a hip against the counter, glancing toward the area where the counter is missing, attention drawn to it like that one vacant spot in a puzzle, that piece that went missing and couldn't be replaced. Dylan's fault, she assumes. Well. The Marauder's fault.
"Rene...you'd know her if you met her. She's one of the Euthanatoi...sort of far gone. Just gives off a really creepy feel and speaks in one and two word sentences. She thinks I can help, apparently. It's a semi-favor to Wharil." A lot of mixed feelings there, for a lot of reasons, but she seems content to leave things at that and move on to Solomon.
"He's...seventeen or eighteen, I think. I'm not completely sure. But he just finished school, he can't be older than that."
[K. R. Jakes] "Hmm," is her comment on Rene, on a favor to Wharil. But she doesn't leave it there -- when has Kage left anything? "She thinks you can help her -- what, remember how to care about things again? Is she dead-hearted?"
But Ashley is content to move onto Solomon. Kage pours the hot water over the tea leaves, allows the steam to touch her face (kiss) before she puts the lid on the teapot again, leans against the refrigerator (word magnets, everywhere! along with a drawing that looks like it was done by a kid) and folds her arms across her chest. While she poured the water, she considered the kid at the bar. She'd paid him attention, but not much; she was still angry (wrath is a sin, Kage) at Nathan then.
"I suppose he did look pretty young," she says, after a second. "Wonder what Enid will make of him and he of her. As for more experience," a brief pause. "Some people just -- wake up, stronger; further down whatever path they're going to travel. And some Disciples are fools. In my experience, anyway. Which is to say, a kid without hand's on? Well," a shrug. "Stranger things."
[Ashley McGowen] "I'm not sure exactly what she expects of me, to be honest," Ashley says, her gaze far off for a moment as she thinks about it. Over how odd the request was. "Some sort of trauma or...something wrong with her Mind, apparently, that she thinks I can help her try to get past. Which I can, if she's willing to work with me. I won't do it for her."
"But I'm not sure of the specifics yet. Just that it made Wharil uncomfortable, or something." She's looking at the magnets now, the words, mentally adjusting and switching them around on the refrigerator. She doesn't have any such things, but can't help but be amused by them and by arranging them.
And then she looks sidelong at Kage. Brief, considering. "Well. I'm sure there's something more to it than that. But yeah, stranger things have happened. I just didn't expect to have to sort of teach another Adept, you know?"
[K. R. Jakes] "Hmm," is (again) her comment on Rene. This time she does leave it; she hasn't met the Euthanatos, she doesn't have an opinion, and she doesn't need to indulge in speculation. "How is Wharil?"
When Ashley looks at Kage, sidelong, considering, Kage is studying, not Ashley, but some point beyond Ashley, over toward the fireplace. Her gaze is distant, drenched in firelight and shadow, pensive. Her mouth quirks, again, though: "I suppose," to you know? "But it isn't really a problem I think I'll ever have to face. I'd be really surprised if another Orphan," terminology that isn't her own, "showed up on my doorstep and expected -- " a brief pause. "Kinship, I guess. Solidarity."
[Ashley McGowen] "Wharil's...fine. Wants to get our cabal stuff sorted out, I think. Apologized for not letting me know what was going on and for the danger to me and Gregor." Which, though it hadn't really occurred to her at first, was a very real thing while they stood in front of the Marauder - Ashton did use a shotgun, after all.
Kage is talking, then, about kinship and solidarity with other Orphans, and for a moment Ashley's mouth thins. Not disapproval, really, but: "That's why we usually try to push you guys toward Traditions. Not because we're fascists who don't want to let you believe what you want, but...you guys end up alone and without a support network a lot."
[K. R. Jakes] [y'know, how smooth -are- we right now? manipsubt? +1 strong opinion]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[K. R. Jakes] "You think so," she says, raising her eyebrows -- a touch sardonic (only a touch). The tea has steeped enough now and she turns her back to the Hermetic, presents a delicate profile when she opens another cabinet and takes out two mugs. For Ashley, something earthenware, browns and cobalt blues hidden within; for herself, something squat, gray as river silt and lumpish. She sets them down on the counter by the oven, and then she takes out a carton of milk. Pours milk, first. Then tea: this way it doesn't curdle. Takes attention.
[Ashley McGowen] "Of course I think so. I wouldn't have said it otherwise." She watches Kage pour milk into the two mugs. Then, momentarily, the tea (thank God she knows how to put it in so that the milk doesn't curdle) and watches the puff of steam that rises as the hot water hits it.
"I just don't understand why you would -insist- on staying on your own. There are a lot of advantages to a Tradition, and...I'm sure that what you think isn't all that different from a lot of Tradition members." This, bemused, welcoming a dissenting opinion. Though it's tied up in her confusion as to why Kage won't join a cabal, either - she made similar protests then and is still no closer to being enlightened.
[K. R. Jakes] The Orphan collects her own mug after Ashley has hers and then she'll lead the way out of the kitchen and into the living room. There, she'll curl up on the couch -- different from the couch in the study, and not nearly as close to lullaby. There's more couch if Ashley wants it, an uncomfortable wooden chair against the wall, between bookshelves, and a cozier looking armchair. The setup is dissimilar to Ashley's, so no echoes of who-isn't-there. "Why are you so certain?" is what Kage asks, and humor, or something kin to it, touches her mouth. "What Traditions could you see me following? When you came awake, were you already part of the Order?"
[Ashley McGowen] "No," Ashley says, with a shake of the head. Though there are some who are - the Order of Hermes has a way of taking on apprentices, grooming people in such a way as to Awaken them. She takes the opposite end of the couch and sits with her back against the armrest so that she can face Kage. "But I Willed myself Awake, and so it made sense to me."
A moment's thought, and then she adds, "I could see you in the Chorus."
[K. R. Jakes] "How did they find you?" A pause. The Chorus, Ashley says, and the humor deepens (flares out [vanishes]). There's a brief moment of teeter-on-an-edge, hesitation. She could say a thing, but then she'd have to say Simon's name. So instead: "Why?"
[Ashley McGowen] "My dad is an Akashic Brother. He tried to teach me at first, and that didn't get over so well, so he started to push me toward other people he knew in Boston," Ashley says, holding the as-yet-unsipped mug in both hands. "And the Order wanted me, so that was that."
Kage asks why, and Ashley looks back at her for a moment, debating. Deciding. "Partly the way you resonate. But besides that, you have a lot of faith," she says after a moment, "in...it's hard to put my finger on, exactly. You have faith that a better way is always possible. You try to redeem people." She tugs thoughtfully at her lower lip for a second, glances back at Kage. "Very Chorister ideals, regardless of God or the One or whatever."
[K. R. Jakes] [how smooooooooth?!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[K. R. Jakes] "Your Dad is an Akashic Brother?" Honest surprise. The way Ashley wields Mind, Kage never would have guessed that an Akashic had initially tried to teach her (had initially influenced [guided] her). "Did you always know or was it a secret until you Willed yourself open-eyed?"
The diminutive woman on the other side of the couch has had more opportunity than most to see how Kage thinks, how she reacts, under different (and stressful [horrible]) situations. This lends itself to a certain amount of insight -- which the Orphan doesn't quite agree with howsoever true it may be. Self-knowledge is hard. This might be why she doesn't say anything exactly: just quirks one eyebrow at partly the way you resonate (honest surprise) and then wordlessness for the rest. Not agreeing, not disagreeing. For now, anyway.
Her feet are bare, and she slips them underneath the throw which was thrown rather carelessly over the back of the couch.
[Ashley McGowen] "I didn't know anything until I woke up. A few of his methods took, I guess. He's Vajrapani. External conflict being a metaphor for inner conflict. I just don't have a lot of patience for Zen and the All thing creeps me out, sort of."
She might have left it at that. Kage doesn't say anything to the bit of insight Ashley provides, instead choosing to ask Ashley questions. It's not something she minds, really: with the exception of Tradition secrets, she generally has very little she attempts to hide. Her allies in Chicago know much more about her than she does about them, generally speaking.
But there's a beat, and then Ashley looks up from her mug and says, "So if I'm wrong and you -aren't- a good match for the Chorus, why'd you step back?"
[K. R. Jakes] "Vajrapani." Echo. The word is unfamiliar: Kage can count the number of Akashic Brothers she's met on one hand. With almost all of the fingers closed. She has not spoken at great length with one. She knows of them more than knows them and Chicago doesn't seem to have plans to change that for her (yet). "What is the All thing?"
The Orphan looks perplexed; the word, All, and the way Ashley uses it: that the Hermetic would be creeped out by what she intuits from the word [associations (balladry)] perplexes her. That air (touched) of perplexity stays, after she has considered Ashley's question: "You're asking why I'd step back from the Celestial Chorus if I wasn't a good match for it?"
[Ashley McGowen] "The Akashics believe that the self is an illusion that can be transcended, and by overcoming selfish needs and desires and emotions, you're brought closer to a state of oneness and harmony with the All. It's sort of a...collective humanity. Collective existence." She speaks without hesitation, articulating these beliefs like she's had a rather thorough schooling in them - which she has, in fact. "Like I said, creepy."
Someone driven so thoroughly by their Will, by inherently selfish desire, would think so, of course.
And then she quirks an eyebrow at Kage, hearing the note of perplexity in her tone. "...Sorry, I didn't phrase that well. I meant to ask what made you realize you were a poor fit for the Chorus."
[K. R. Jakes] [still smooooothe?]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[K. R. Jakes] "Mm. I'm surprised that -- well; All seems like something that someone with the midgard serpent watching her enlightenment would be drawn toward." Kage and mythology, Kage and symbols: these things work; they help her understand the world and hammer out a place for the Traditions and the Conventions and everything that is supernatural and everything that is mundane. So she uses them, easily and without self-consciousness, but her eyes stay open.
The perplexity evaporates (dissipates [fog, after dawn]) and Kage takes a sip of her tea. Blows away steam, and lets whatever runes the steam may have created dissipate, too, along with the questioning look in her eyes. Inscrutable is different than emotionless. "Oh. Hmm." Pause. And then: "I spent a lot of time with Simon." She shrugs. "And I don't Believe."
[Ashley McGowen] Her father thought so too, and it's implied in the look Ashley gives Kage, eyes clouded briefly by rising steam as she lifts her mug. Takes a long swallow and lowers it, and has to think - because self-awareness is hard. Because Kage has the right of it: she is her father's daughter, different Tradition or not. "A different sort of All, though," she says. "Hermeticism is about finding your way on your own, relying on your own strength, and finding self-perfection at the end. Akashicism is about finding harmony and finding that there's no separation between the self and the rest of the world at the end. One appealed to me more than the other."
She has to mull over Kage's later words. About Simon, and about not Believing. She herself doesn't Believe and was never drawn toward the Chorus for that reason. But that Kage mentions Simon? That hints that it isn't the real reason. "What does Simon have to do with it?"
[K. R. Jakes] [I'm totally smooth, man. It means nothing! +1 again.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 4, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[K. R. Jakes] "I see," Kage says, first. What Ashley has to say on Hermeticism is likely something that Kage has heard before (from Hannibal, or -- or even gleaned from texts that Sleepers have. From the Hermetic philosophy, as available to anyone with the will to research). "Are you afraid of it? I mean, of losing yourself, for even a second? Do you," briefest of pauses, and her gaze has grown distant, "talk to your Serpent very often?"
A beat. And then: "I meant that he was probably the what made me realize," Kage says, another sip of tea. Russian Caravan is like dark smoke, even with milk; it follows a dark path down her throat and sees many things before warming her stomach. "Since he was teaching me."
[Ashley McGowen] "It doesn't really...talk," Ashley says, after a moment. "But I see it a lot. I have dreams where I'm just...watching it, sometimes, until I wake up. It sort of pushes me where it wants to go when I'm awake. That's how it talks to me. That and through the legend." By the long pauses, the way the words linger on her lips for a split second before she speaks them, it's evident that it's been some time before she spoke to anyone about her Avatar. In all likelihood never to a non-Hermetic. "And...yes and no. I feel like I lose parts of myself all the time. But something comes along to replace them."
A thought, then. A draught of bitter liquid only just mellowed out by milk, dark gray and opaque instead of black and depthless. "Why don't you Believe? Did you, before?"
[K. R. Jakes] Wistfulness touches her features when Ashley says it doesn't really talk. The wistfulness stays, the impression of warmth on something otherwise cold; like pressing your cheek against glass, breathing out, watching the ghost of your face disappear into winter. "Does it watch you when you watch it, in your dreams? What does that feel like -- being pushed?"
Then: a chuckle [soft as a clot of ash, as a ribbon of moongleam on water]. "Not for myself. I don't see any reason to Believe. It just doesn't work in my head."
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley watches Kage as she looks up from the mug. Notes the wistfulness that touches the Orphan's features, as though she were - missing something? wishing? but for herself or for Ashley, who knows - regretting something. "...I don't know if it can see me. I'm always...there but not, you know? Like watching from overhead. Or beneath the water, or from inside its mouth."
A pause as she tries to articulate how being pushed feels, in some other way than...well, the feel she gives off. "I want things without knowing why, sometimes. Just...imagine the thing you've wanted the most. It feels like that, but with everything."
She says she doesn't believe, and that it doesn't work on her head, and the look she gets in return is curious. But accepting. It doesn't work in Ashley's head either, but it is not the question she asked.
[K. R. Jakes] "Interesting," Kage says, and means it. "What does it do when you watch it?"
[Ashley McGowen] "Just moves through the water, a lot of the time. Sometimes there's a ship, or a whale, or once in a while there'll be a warrior that decides to try to kill it. It eats them. Without letting its tail go, usually." Ashley considers. "It's always deep ocean. At night. I don't ever see land."
Another look, this one a little sharper. "Why? Does yours talk to you?"
[K. R. Jakes] [Smooth-check, again!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8)
[K. R. Jakes] "Do you ever talk to the warrior it kills? I mean, if you're watching from its mouth." And then Ashley ask her sharp question. And: "Yes," Kage says, simply. Her eyes aren't drawn away in spite of herself to any point in her apartment. She doesn't tilt her head, as if she were brushing away invisible fingers; she doesn't flicker, gutter like a candle in a breeze, breeze that tugs this a way, this a way, right over here, and His voice doesn't get louder. She doesn't even look around warily, or send a searching look, like, where are you now. For once, without superstition -- or at least, without a care for. The smell of beeswax fills the apartment, honeyed. "Frankly, sometimes He won't shut up."
[Ashley McGowen] "There was once," Ashley says after a moment, "one that spoke to it. He told it that he'd come because it would devour gods and men at the end of the world. It tried to pull the Serpent's jaws apart. But we didn't really try to answer him. There really wouldn't be much of a point, I don't think."
Kage doesn't search around. Ashley does, though, as that scent of beeswax, of candles and seals for parchment permeates the room. As though expecting to see the flicker of flame somewhere down the hallway or a light reflected off of the floor. "What does he tell you?"
[K. R. Jakes] "There are different versions of the legend, you know," Kage says. Now she sets her tea down on the old seaman's chest-cum-coffee table. Newspaper, folded up, keeps mug from leaving a ring. The young woman circles her knees with her arms and hugs them to her chest. She should look smaller, but still, she looks so self-contained, so composed (be quiet [grace] here, a certain style, a certain muted flamboyance riding just underneath the skin). Kage looks just as she always does. A little tired, that's all.
"He tells me a lot of things," Kage says, after a moment's hesitation. She sounds wry. "Not all of it is useful. He isn't always honest. It depends on His face. It depends on what he wants."
[Ashley McGowen] "Like any legend," Ashley says. "But all of them end with him killing Thor at Ragnarok." And dying, she could add. But this is a part of the legend that, truth be told, Ashley has not worked out yet. It's a significance that escapes her still, that when the Serpent lets go of its tail, the world will end.
Is it because it lets its tail go?
She looks back up at Kage then, nostrils slowly growing acclimated to the sweet scent that filled the room seconds earlier. Wondering. Because of the magi who she has spoken with about their Avatars - granted, not many - hers is the only one that could be called a monster. She's wondered about that. For a long time. "It has multiple faces, you mean? Like he changes forms when he talks to you?"
[K. R. Jakes] [how smooooth?!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[K. R. Jakes] "Snakes are reborn; they shed their skin and live forever," Kage says, smiling reflectively. "Ragnarok happens so that Baldur can return. Wouldn't, otherwise."
Kage thinks about her avatar a lot (it's hard not to [he's so often there]). She doesn't often speak of him. Certainly not to her family, not to her friends and aquaintances who are still asleep, unless she lets slip a word, says somebody told me this. She doesn't often speak of him to other mages, either. She is older than she was, once, and has long since realized that most mages don't have the kind of relationship she does with Him. She realizes that they aren't all called awake to a [demi-god (monster) otherworld (guide) psychopomp (devil) angel] guardian -- or whatever He is. Sometimes, He is helpful. Sometimes, He even acts human. Not most times. The point is: Kage doesn't often speak of Him, even to complain, because what would she say eventually?
"Sort of," she says, after a second. "Well. This: He has more than one mask He wears. That He's taken. But it's always Him. And He doesn't usually change, not significantly, when He comes by to talk or ... or whatever."
[Ashley McGowen] This sets Ashley to thinking - about Ragnarok, about the legend, about what it all means. About the Serpent being thrown into the ocean at the moment of its birth, about how it grew to span the world, about how Thor tried to smash its head in (and failed) the once. Whether a creature is bound to a path from the start or whether it goes that way because it's what is expected (foretold and prophecied.) Whether it's possible to be reborn so many times and still retain the same shape (a snake would say it's possible.)
They are complex thoughts that she has not entirely worked through herself - or, perhaps, could not decide to act upon, could not understand the full meaning of even if she had considered every angle.
So she pays attention to Kage's demon lover with many masks. "Do you think he's guiding you toward something? Or does he just talk to you and guide you?" A moment's consideration. "Justine always said hers was like...some sort of infallible guardian. She'd talk to it when she needed advice."
[K. R. Jakes] [random RAR!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 7)
[K. R. Jakes] [pshaw, whatever dude]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[K. R. Jakes] "He's old," she says, in answer. As if that is an answer. And to Kage, it is. He's old, therefore he wants things; he's ancient, therefore he has a shape he'd like for her to find. He's old, and she doesn't know what he wants of her, just that he wants. Her eyes drift away from Ashley, musing, rest on some point in the living room -- stay there, for a second, for two. Her pupils grow large, drink in darkness. "I don't know His name and He won't tell me yet. I don't always think He even knows it any longer. But, ha ha," and the amusement is real; is tangible [lambent]. "I wouldn't really call Him a 'guardian.' Or if I would, he's a pretty asshole guardian to have. And I don't get to choose when He talks to me. Even if I go to places I know He likes better than others, well. He has plans. I just don't know what they are yet."
[K. R. Jakes] A pause, and she blinks, hard, and looks back at Ashley, all rue and pensive [ardent]. "Uh, He's kind of tricky to, uhm, articulate. I've only talked about Him to -- well, uh. Very few."
[Ashley McGowen] In this way Ashley is fortunate - hers, too, is ancient. Moreso than the World Serpent, the motif of a serpent devouring itself is found in most ancient cultures. Hunger, rebirth, are the most basic of drives, no matter what form they take in legend. She has a path, her Name is carved and defined; Kage has yet to figure hers out.
Though this in many ways is the challenge of an Initiate. "I appreciate you talking about it with me, in that case," she says, catching that rueful look out of the corner of her right eye. Sincerity.
"Maybe he wants to be defined, is part of it," Ashley muses. Downing the cooling remnants of her cup and setting it aside, next to Kage's on the newspaper so that it will not leave a ring on the coffee table. "What sorts of things does he ask for?"
[K. R. Jakes] "Favors," she says, and she means bargains [worship]. "And deals. Help and time. Tasks," she says, and she means [adoration] fear. What he asks for is desire, is passion and memory, is spirit and soul. What he asks for is -- well, he asks for things that often seem random. They're helpful, sometimes, sometimes they're clear; sometimes what He wants seems obvious. She doesn't know, really, why.
"Attention. Which we haven't been paying properly to the scones you brought," she adds, with a smile that touches her eyes with blithe mischief. "And He honestly gets enough of it. Do you want yours warmed up? Are they good with cream?" And with that, Kage swings her feet back to the floor, straightening her shoulder."
[Ashley McGowen] A wry smile touches the corner of Ashley's mouth at Kage's reply. She appreciates that it is difficult to articulate, but she's beginning to realize the points at which the Orphan gets uncomfortable - it is the part where she begins to get not-answers, these short responses that answer the question but tell her nothing. She doesn't entirely mind, though. She enjoys riddles.
And oh, so many of the magi in Chicago are puzzles to figure out. Symbolism wrapped around Words and Names.
"They're great with cream, there's some in the bag. And jam," she says, twisting around so that she too can set her feet back on the floor. Hand sliding into a pocket, hooking her thumb at the edge, as she follows Kage toward the (half a) kitchen. "Let me know when you get him figured out. You've piqued my curiosity now."
[K. R. Jakes] "We'll see," she says, noncommittal. She could mean a lot of things with that we'll see. We'll see if they're both still around by then. We'll see if there is answer figuring Him out. We'll see if Kage'll feel like telling if she does. We'll see what happens. We'll see out his secrets, oh yes we will, and then, oh then. We'll see. A touch of amusement: "I certainly didn't mean to." Pique Ashley's curiousity, one would assume.
And then there is a clamor, a clatter, of plates. And then the crumple-crinkle of bag, opened, and scones are taken out and warmed up, and nobody leaves the apartment tonight because they've been broken and nothing bad happens at all.
But for this reason: when she arrives in the hallway, she stops and she stares for a moment at an invisible spot in the carpet that she recalls through blurred vision, the rough surface scratching her cheek before Wharil tried to lift her back up later. The sight and the rasp of her sneakers against the carpet and the subtle apartment smell make it all vivid, salient as it was that evening.
By now, though, she's grown more accustomed to steeling herself. So after a moment to gather herself up, guide her eyes away from that spot, she turns to Kage's door, raises a fist, and pauses for a second before she knocks. Three polite, quick little raps. And it's odd, because with everything that happened that night and with as many people as have invaded Kage's home since she returned to the city, Ashley herself has still not been inside. Doesn't really even know what it looks like, beyond what she could glimpse through the door past Kage and beyond what little she could see when she scried out Dylan.
Medieval. She remembers that. Or maybe that's the torture devices she now associates with the place.
When Kage reaches the door the diminutive Hermetic is standing outside, gaze wandering off down the hallway. Coat unbuttoned, a red T-shirt and a pair of jeans beneath, a paper bag cradled in an arm, resting on one hip.
[Ashley McGowen] [Perception + Awareness]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 4, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[K. R. Jakes] K. R. Jakes had invited Ashley over in a moment of [heat (lambent)] righteousness, and when the Hermetic did not immediately appear at her doorstep bearing BFF necklaces, well, it was something of a relief. When Ashley does take Kage up on her invitation, there is no moon in the sky, and it would be dark even if a storm weren't [passion (song)] howling over Chicago. As if an earthquake hadn't happened less than a week ago. Blanket the city in sleep, in ash and smoke and snow, and quiet it down until Spring comes again.
The Hermetic doesn't stay out in the hall for very long. The house moves all around: creak, crack, pop. An old place. It feels like it has echoes.
The door opens. Kage stays in the doorway for a second. The palm of her right hand is on the doorframe; her fingers curl over it. Her (slender) body bends the other way, though, leftward; her left hand is on the doorknob itself. There is no sound of a lock unlocked. "Hey, 'ley," Kage says, and smiles. This isn't one of those smiles she has that transfigures her features -- remakes her into something approaching gorgeous; illuminates [burns (candle)]. But it's easy, nonetheless. Not sly, not coy, but maybe a touch enigmatic none-the-less: serene, even, without wryness. "Come on in."
The Orphan has apparently been Working, and recently; Ashley can feel traces of Kage's resonance in the room which she is entering [not sanctum (no sanctuary: wasn't that already proved?)]. The room? living room. And the feel of the Orphan's [amorous (beloved [I/you]) luminous / wither, wither, wither away sedge, drain/fall] magick has reclaimed supremacy. The nameless 'crow -- Ashley, herself -- and Wharil: all of that has diminished [relinquished] and one would have to comb: look, needle in a haystack.
Medieval: yes. Nearly straight ahead, but not quite, there is a hall. Down the hall, there are three doors, and a low set of (one-two-three) stairs that take a corner, but they only go to another door which can half-be-glimpsed from the front door. That door is closed [many (many) doors]. Two of the doors in the hall are open. The place feels like winter, as if a window was open. Straight inside, one step down, and that's right where the nameless 'crow stood, and that right there is where Ashley collapsed afterward, and --
No, shh. Put it away. There are books. There's a fireplace that used to be full of books but has been converted to use, now that it isn't so godawful hot in her apartment all the time, and it's all very Pre-Raphaelite and Arts and Crafts movement, except for hints of Latest Technology and a truly epic soundsystem. Near the ficeplace there is a music stand of walnut, carved. And a music book, clipped open -- violin music.
Look the other way, and there is a dining room. The table is plain wood. There is a runner, and more beeswax candles than is probably strictly wise [although wannabe players would probably ransack the hell out of that table -- it doesn't look like she eats on it]. A couple are lit.
"You can hang your coat there," she says, nodding toward the coat rack, right near the door.
[Ashley McGowen] It looks like a Hermetic's apartment, is what Ashley notes after a glance through. Or perhaps a Chorister's (not unexpected). It's an odd thing - as she's entered the private abodes of other magi she's pieced together little things about the way they choose to decorate their living spaces. And often, they are what a person would expect. Not always related to their resonances, what they leave behind - her own is proof of that (it's what lies beneath, in the Weaving of the place, there's the Hunger) - but fitting.
She steps in with only a slight shudder. Perhaps because the place does indeed feel like winter. Ashley sets the bag down on whatever surface is readily available and shrugs out of the wool coat, hanging it in the place she indicates. "Scones in the bag," she says, jerking her chin toward it.
It's an odd ritual they seem to have established. One of tribute, almost, when they visit another person's personal space (Enid has taken to doing the same thing, when she visits Ashley.) Whether it's conscious or not on Ashley's part is up for debate, with how thoroughly she's studied cultures and customs, particularly those gone by.
Her eyes light, briefly, on the violin music in the corner, and her expression is inscrutable. Just for a second. Then, "How are you?" She could ask about several things - the indication of recent Willworking about the place, the thing Kage had to mention to Nathan the other night, how she's holding up after last Friday, but that suffices.
[K. R. Jakes] (lalala)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[K. R. Jakes] "I'm well. It's been a quiet week." What she means is that there have been no new disasters. What she means is there have been no more strangers calling her, or anyone else she knows, in out of the cold (into some dangerous element). What she means is there have been no major upsets, no disturbances, no fractures. "I'm almost lullabyed." Lullaby as a verb. The smile quirks itself lopsided, and her eyes are serious.
The last time they saw each other -- it was only briefly. Before that, bad things happen. A phone conversation: bad news happens, and the world is a dark place, and it was for nothing. And before that, Kage -- composed, solitary, in-control-of-herself, courteous-in-the-face-of-a-threat Kage -- showed up at Ashley's apartment, so wracked with (so ardent with) fury, with horror, with the will to look further and fix, that for once she hadn't been careful with her words, hadn't been solitary. Before that, it had been Ashley, pushed into reacting.
They were about due for a calm evening, something that did not tug their heartstrings or make 'em dance.
"Almost," she adds, and there it is: the lilt of a cocky smirk. Dissolves in an instant. "Thank you," re: the scones, "There's some water on, but if you'd rather juice or wine or something, I'm happy to get you whichever." A moment's regard, after she closes the door. This is arguably the first time Kage has actually had, with the nameless 'crow being the one exception, another Awakened creature in her house, forethought and not just well you're here now fine come in. "Want the full tour? How have you been? Happy to have another member of the Order in the city?"
[Ashley McGowen] "Tea's fine," Ashley says, with a sidelong look toward the kettle. And her week has not been as quiet as Kage's. Well, to some extent it has: it's not as though she's been running all over the place hunting down trouble, but she's had to deal with numerous interruptions. Had to give a lot of thought to the direction of the new cabal, had to clarify things with Wharil (not that things are that much clearer now), been giving information to new people she's met.
For someone who had been so opposed to accepting responsibility for the city when she first arrived, she's being pushed toward some sort of role. Unwillingly. People have a way of doing these things.
"Sure, give me a tour," she says, with an amused look sidelong at Kage. "I've been...sort of busy. Lots of things to sort out still, you know, at the chantry and stuff and...just getting things figured out. People have been asking me to fill them in, calling me in for favors..." She doesn't sound unhappy about this, necessarily - in fact, much of it is a welcome distraction from matters she has less control over.
"It's okay having Solomon around. He's pretty young," she adds, after a moment. "Not...really what I figured when I heard there was someone else coming out here. But I guess it'll be good to have someone to compare notes with."
[K. R. Jakes] "The living room," Kage says, pivoting, with an elegant little twist (twirl) of her wrist. Pivot one way, pivot another: v. ironic 1950s housewife. "The dining room and the kitchen," and then she walks down the hall, pushing open one door. "The bathroom." The bathroom is rather spare in decoration -- the only real thing of note is a truly glorious clawfooted bathtub. Across from the bathroom, another door, which she pushes open -- goes far enough inside to turn on a light.
"The study," and, the study? The study is really lovely. There is a couch with a tapestry throw, and hangings; a desk with a thousand pidgin holes and something that looks very much like a gothic altar piece. An imac and a mac screen off to the side, more bookshelves, lots and lots and lots of books. A comfortable chair, behind the desk. She has an adult's apartment, for all she's so young [and so much of what she has (ebay, baby)]. There are some interesting looking knickknacks, mostly arcane, a comic collection, a stuffed bunny. She clearly spends a lot of time in the study, or did, at some point.
"The bedroom," she nods toward that last door, and then taps a narrow white door behind a narrower bookshelf, tapping it, "The linen closet. Voila. This is where I live right now. What sort of favors? And," her features take on a questioning cast -- she raises both of her eyebrows, "what did you figure, if not what Solomon is actually like?"
[K. R. Jakes] Add, vague: "Bonisagus. They're the -- what are they? The numerology guys?"
[K. R. Jakes] ooc: ahem, make that a stuffed MOUSE.
[Ashley McGowen] Kage hasn't seen anything of Ashley's apartment that isn't her living room, possibly the bathroom. For all that Ashley has invited people over to her apartment, that's generally where she's tried to keep them - her private sanctum, after all, is in the study (Wharil and Jacques, her oldest acquaintances in the city, were back there once). And the bedroom is and will remain a place that is too personal to take acquaintances past.
"I like your study," she tells Kage, after a glance around in that room in particular. Curiously noting details and the like. Mild amusement at the stuffed mouse. A too-long glance at the couch. That was where she saw Dylan, back before she knew that he was with Kage. Back before she even knew that Kage was here in Chicago.
"Rene has a problem," is her rather vague answer to the favors question. Kage asks about Bonisagus as she finishes leading the two of them around - Ashley soaking everything in - and finally she looks away from the apartment's scenery to Kage. Wry. "Numerology, yeah. Theoreticians, mostly. Which I'm...not, really. Just sort of expected someone more experienced for a Disciple, I guess. He's a nice kid, but..."
And here, a shrug. Solomon is a Tradition mate, Kage is a friend, and boundaries get complicated here. There's something about Solomon that makes Ashley uncomfortable, but it's something she doubts she ought to elaborate on.
[K. R. Jakes] "I do, too," she says, somewhat wistfully, of her study. She doesn't know that Ashley's seen it before, but she does know that the nameless 'crow used to stretch out just there, when he wasn't moving around the apartment, a horrifying presence. When he wasn't imploring her, telling her they needed to go, to just go, that he didn't want them to find her, that -- alas, she didn't get much use out of the study during December.
The kettle goes off and Kage moves into the kitchen. They're back in the living room, then, and this much is true: the one room she didn't open the door for, only pointed at, gestured to, was her bedroom. A private heart. There are so many chests, so many boxes, so many hidey-holes. She takes the kettle off the stove, frowning at some vials and boxes of tea clustered underneath her cabinet. Ashley will notice something about the kitchen: one whole side of the counter appears to be, well, missing the counter. This is the counter by the sink, so she can see straight down onto some broken shelves. This might explain why there are bowls stacked up by the stove itself, instead of where they should be, in the cabinet.
There are complicated boundaries -- for Ashley; for Kage, it's just a matter of questioning, of wanting to know, of seeing how much she can know without investigation that isn't sound. "Rene. Who is this Rene again?" Someone's mentioned her. For the moment, though, just who is eluding Kage. "Is Russian Caravan okay or would you rather something less black?" Space for an answer. And then, "Just how old is he?"
[Ashley McGowen] "Russian Caravan is fine. With milk though," she says, as she follows Kage back into the kitchen. She ducks in near the stove; it's generally one of the warmest places in the house, and the bottoms of her pants are still wet, as they tend to be when she gets in from outside. A problem with short stature: finding pants that are not too long is a rare thing.
She leans a hip against the counter, glancing toward the area where the counter is missing, attention drawn to it like that one vacant spot in a puzzle, that piece that went missing and couldn't be replaced. Dylan's fault, she assumes. Well. The Marauder's fault.
"Rene...you'd know her if you met her. She's one of the Euthanatoi...sort of far gone. Just gives off a really creepy feel and speaks in one and two word sentences. She thinks I can help, apparently. It's a semi-favor to Wharil." A lot of mixed feelings there, for a lot of reasons, but she seems content to leave things at that and move on to Solomon.
"He's...seventeen or eighteen, I think. I'm not completely sure. But he just finished school, he can't be older than that."
[K. R. Jakes] "Hmm," is her comment on Rene, on a favor to Wharil. But she doesn't leave it there -- when has Kage left anything? "She thinks you can help her -- what, remember how to care about things again? Is she dead-hearted?"
But Ashley is content to move onto Solomon. Kage pours the hot water over the tea leaves, allows the steam to touch her face (kiss) before she puts the lid on the teapot again, leans against the refrigerator (word magnets, everywhere! along with a drawing that looks like it was done by a kid) and folds her arms across her chest. While she poured the water, she considered the kid at the bar. She'd paid him attention, but not much; she was still angry (wrath is a sin, Kage) at Nathan then.
"I suppose he did look pretty young," she says, after a second. "Wonder what Enid will make of him and he of her. As for more experience," a brief pause. "Some people just -- wake up, stronger; further down whatever path they're going to travel. And some Disciples are fools. In my experience, anyway. Which is to say, a kid without hand's on? Well," a shrug. "Stranger things."
[Ashley McGowen] "I'm not sure exactly what she expects of me, to be honest," Ashley says, her gaze far off for a moment as she thinks about it. Over how odd the request was. "Some sort of trauma or...something wrong with her Mind, apparently, that she thinks I can help her try to get past. Which I can, if she's willing to work with me. I won't do it for her."
"But I'm not sure of the specifics yet. Just that it made Wharil uncomfortable, or something." She's looking at the magnets now, the words, mentally adjusting and switching them around on the refrigerator. She doesn't have any such things, but can't help but be amused by them and by arranging them.
And then she looks sidelong at Kage. Brief, considering. "Well. I'm sure there's something more to it than that. But yeah, stranger things have happened. I just didn't expect to have to sort of teach another Adept, you know?"
[K. R. Jakes] "Hmm," is (again) her comment on Rene. This time she does leave it; she hasn't met the Euthanatos, she doesn't have an opinion, and she doesn't need to indulge in speculation. "How is Wharil?"
When Ashley looks at Kage, sidelong, considering, Kage is studying, not Ashley, but some point beyond Ashley, over toward the fireplace. Her gaze is distant, drenched in firelight and shadow, pensive. Her mouth quirks, again, though: "I suppose," to you know? "But it isn't really a problem I think I'll ever have to face. I'd be really surprised if another Orphan," terminology that isn't her own, "showed up on my doorstep and expected -- " a brief pause. "Kinship, I guess. Solidarity."
[Ashley McGowen] "Wharil's...fine. Wants to get our cabal stuff sorted out, I think. Apologized for not letting me know what was going on and for the danger to me and Gregor." Which, though it hadn't really occurred to her at first, was a very real thing while they stood in front of the Marauder - Ashton did use a shotgun, after all.
Kage is talking, then, about kinship and solidarity with other Orphans, and for a moment Ashley's mouth thins. Not disapproval, really, but: "That's why we usually try to push you guys toward Traditions. Not because we're fascists who don't want to let you believe what you want, but...you guys end up alone and without a support network a lot."
[K. R. Jakes] [y'know, how smooth -are- we right now? manipsubt? +1 strong opinion]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[K. R. Jakes] "You think so," she says, raising her eyebrows -- a touch sardonic (only a touch). The tea has steeped enough now and she turns her back to the Hermetic, presents a delicate profile when she opens another cabinet and takes out two mugs. For Ashley, something earthenware, browns and cobalt blues hidden within; for herself, something squat, gray as river silt and lumpish. She sets them down on the counter by the oven, and then she takes out a carton of milk. Pours milk, first. Then tea: this way it doesn't curdle. Takes attention.
[Ashley McGowen] "Of course I think so. I wouldn't have said it otherwise." She watches Kage pour milk into the two mugs. Then, momentarily, the tea (thank God she knows how to put it in so that the milk doesn't curdle) and watches the puff of steam that rises as the hot water hits it.
"I just don't understand why you would -insist- on staying on your own. There are a lot of advantages to a Tradition, and...I'm sure that what you think isn't all that different from a lot of Tradition members." This, bemused, welcoming a dissenting opinion. Though it's tied up in her confusion as to why Kage won't join a cabal, either - she made similar protests then and is still no closer to being enlightened.
[K. R. Jakes] The Orphan collects her own mug after Ashley has hers and then she'll lead the way out of the kitchen and into the living room. There, she'll curl up on the couch -- different from the couch in the study, and not nearly as close to lullaby. There's more couch if Ashley wants it, an uncomfortable wooden chair against the wall, between bookshelves, and a cozier looking armchair. The setup is dissimilar to Ashley's, so no echoes of who-isn't-there. "Why are you so certain?" is what Kage asks, and humor, or something kin to it, touches her mouth. "What Traditions could you see me following? When you came awake, were you already part of the Order?"
[Ashley McGowen] "No," Ashley says, with a shake of the head. Though there are some who are - the Order of Hermes has a way of taking on apprentices, grooming people in such a way as to Awaken them. She takes the opposite end of the couch and sits with her back against the armrest so that she can face Kage. "But I Willed myself Awake, and so it made sense to me."
A moment's thought, and then she adds, "I could see you in the Chorus."
[K. R. Jakes] "How did they find you?" A pause. The Chorus, Ashley says, and the humor deepens (flares out [vanishes]). There's a brief moment of teeter-on-an-edge, hesitation. She could say a thing, but then she'd have to say Simon's name. So instead: "Why?"
[Ashley McGowen] "My dad is an Akashic Brother. He tried to teach me at first, and that didn't get over so well, so he started to push me toward other people he knew in Boston," Ashley says, holding the as-yet-unsipped mug in both hands. "And the Order wanted me, so that was that."
Kage asks why, and Ashley looks back at her for a moment, debating. Deciding. "Partly the way you resonate. But besides that, you have a lot of faith," she says after a moment, "in...it's hard to put my finger on, exactly. You have faith that a better way is always possible. You try to redeem people." She tugs thoughtfully at her lower lip for a second, glances back at Kage. "Very Chorister ideals, regardless of God or the One or whatever."
[K. R. Jakes] [how smooooooooth?!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[K. R. Jakes] "Your Dad is an Akashic Brother?" Honest surprise. The way Ashley wields Mind, Kage never would have guessed that an Akashic had initially tried to teach her (had initially influenced [guided] her). "Did you always know or was it a secret until you Willed yourself open-eyed?"
The diminutive woman on the other side of the couch has had more opportunity than most to see how Kage thinks, how she reacts, under different (and stressful [horrible]) situations. This lends itself to a certain amount of insight -- which the Orphan doesn't quite agree with howsoever true it may be. Self-knowledge is hard. This might be why she doesn't say anything exactly: just quirks one eyebrow at partly the way you resonate (honest surprise) and then wordlessness for the rest. Not agreeing, not disagreeing. For now, anyway.
Her feet are bare, and she slips them underneath the throw which was thrown rather carelessly over the back of the couch.
[Ashley McGowen] "I didn't know anything until I woke up. A few of his methods took, I guess. He's Vajrapani. External conflict being a metaphor for inner conflict. I just don't have a lot of patience for Zen and the All thing creeps me out, sort of."
She might have left it at that. Kage doesn't say anything to the bit of insight Ashley provides, instead choosing to ask Ashley questions. It's not something she minds, really: with the exception of Tradition secrets, she generally has very little she attempts to hide. Her allies in Chicago know much more about her than she does about them, generally speaking.
But there's a beat, and then Ashley looks up from her mug and says, "So if I'm wrong and you -aren't- a good match for the Chorus, why'd you step back?"
[K. R. Jakes] "Vajrapani." Echo. The word is unfamiliar: Kage can count the number of Akashic Brothers she's met on one hand. With almost all of the fingers closed. She has not spoken at great length with one. She knows of them more than knows them and Chicago doesn't seem to have plans to change that for her (yet). "What is the All thing?"
The Orphan looks perplexed; the word, All, and the way Ashley uses it: that the Hermetic would be creeped out by what she intuits from the word [associations (balladry)] perplexes her. That air (touched) of perplexity stays, after she has considered Ashley's question: "You're asking why I'd step back from the Celestial Chorus if I wasn't a good match for it?"
[Ashley McGowen] "The Akashics believe that the self is an illusion that can be transcended, and by overcoming selfish needs and desires and emotions, you're brought closer to a state of oneness and harmony with the All. It's sort of a...collective humanity. Collective existence." She speaks without hesitation, articulating these beliefs like she's had a rather thorough schooling in them - which she has, in fact. "Like I said, creepy."
Someone driven so thoroughly by their Will, by inherently selfish desire, would think so, of course.
And then she quirks an eyebrow at Kage, hearing the note of perplexity in her tone. "...Sorry, I didn't phrase that well. I meant to ask what made you realize you were a poor fit for the Chorus."
[K. R. Jakes] [still smooooothe?]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)
[K. R. Jakes] "Mm. I'm surprised that -- well; All seems like something that someone with the midgard serpent watching her enlightenment would be drawn toward." Kage and mythology, Kage and symbols: these things work; they help her understand the world and hammer out a place for the Traditions and the Conventions and everything that is supernatural and everything that is mundane. So she uses them, easily and without self-consciousness, but her eyes stay open.
The perplexity evaporates (dissipates [fog, after dawn]) and Kage takes a sip of her tea. Blows away steam, and lets whatever runes the steam may have created dissipate, too, along with the questioning look in her eyes. Inscrutable is different than emotionless. "Oh. Hmm." Pause. And then: "I spent a lot of time with Simon." She shrugs. "And I don't Believe."
[Ashley McGowen] Her father thought so too, and it's implied in the look Ashley gives Kage, eyes clouded briefly by rising steam as she lifts her mug. Takes a long swallow and lowers it, and has to think - because self-awareness is hard. Because Kage has the right of it: she is her father's daughter, different Tradition or not. "A different sort of All, though," she says. "Hermeticism is about finding your way on your own, relying on your own strength, and finding self-perfection at the end. Akashicism is about finding harmony and finding that there's no separation between the self and the rest of the world at the end. One appealed to me more than the other."
She has to mull over Kage's later words. About Simon, and about not Believing. She herself doesn't Believe and was never drawn toward the Chorus for that reason. But that Kage mentions Simon? That hints that it isn't the real reason. "What does Simon have to do with it?"
[K. R. Jakes] [I'm totally smooth, man. It means nothing! +1 again.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 4, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
[K. R. Jakes] "I see," Kage says, first. What Ashley has to say on Hermeticism is likely something that Kage has heard before (from Hannibal, or -- or even gleaned from texts that Sleepers have. From the Hermetic philosophy, as available to anyone with the will to research). "Are you afraid of it? I mean, of losing yourself, for even a second? Do you," briefest of pauses, and her gaze has grown distant, "talk to your Serpent very often?"
A beat. And then: "I meant that he was probably the what made me realize," Kage says, another sip of tea. Russian Caravan is like dark smoke, even with milk; it follows a dark path down her throat and sees many things before warming her stomach. "Since he was teaching me."
[Ashley McGowen] "It doesn't really...talk," Ashley says, after a moment. "But I see it a lot. I have dreams where I'm just...watching it, sometimes, until I wake up. It sort of pushes me where it wants to go when I'm awake. That's how it talks to me. That and through the legend." By the long pauses, the way the words linger on her lips for a split second before she speaks them, it's evident that it's been some time before she spoke to anyone about her Avatar. In all likelihood never to a non-Hermetic. "And...yes and no. I feel like I lose parts of myself all the time. But something comes along to replace them."
A thought, then. A draught of bitter liquid only just mellowed out by milk, dark gray and opaque instead of black and depthless. "Why don't you Believe? Did you, before?"
[K. R. Jakes] Wistfulness touches her features when Ashley says it doesn't really talk. The wistfulness stays, the impression of warmth on something otherwise cold; like pressing your cheek against glass, breathing out, watching the ghost of your face disappear into winter. "Does it watch you when you watch it, in your dreams? What does that feel like -- being pushed?"
Then: a chuckle [soft as a clot of ash, as a ribbon of moongleam on water]. "Not for myself. I don't see any reason to Believe. It just doesn't work in my head."
[Ashley McGowen] Ashley watches Kage as she looks up from the mug. Notes the wistfulness that touches the Orphan's features, as though she were - missing something? wishing? but for herself or for Ashley, who knows - regretting something. "...I don't know if it can see me. I'm always...there but not, you know? Like watching from overhead. Or beneath the water, or from inside its mouth."
A pause as she tries to articulate how being pushed feels, in some other way than...well, the feel she gives off. "I want things without knowing why, sometimes. Just...imagine the thing you've wanted the most. It feels like that, but with everything."
She says she doesn't believe, and that it doesn't work on her head, and the look she gets in return is curious. But accepting. It doesn't work in Ashley's head either, but it is not the question she asked.
[K. R. Jakes] "Interesting," Kage says, and means it. "What does it do when you watch it?"
[Ashley McGowen] "Just moves through the water, a lot of the time. Sometimes there's a ship, or a whale, or once in a while there'll be a warrior that decides to try to kill it. It eats them. Without letting its tail go, usually." Ashley considers. "It's always deep ocean. At night. I don't ever see land."
Another look, this one a little sharper. "Why? Does yours talk to you?"
[K. R. Jakes] [Smooth-check, again!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8)
[K. R. Jakes] "Do you ever talk to the warrior it kills? I mean, if you're watching from its mouth." And then Ashley ask her sharp question. And: "Yes," Kage says, simply. Her eyes aren't drawn away in spite of herself to any point in her apartment. She doesn't tilt her head, as if she were brushing away invisible fingers; she doesn't flicker, gutter like a candle in a breeze, breeze that tugs this a way, this a way, right over here, and His voice doesn't get louder. She doesn't even look around warily, or send a searching look, like, where are you now. For once, without superstition -- or at least, without a care for. The smell of beeswax fills the apartment, honeyed. "Frankly, sometimes He won't shut up."
[Ashley McGowen] "There was once," Ashley says after a moment, "one that spoke to it. He told it that he'd come because it would devour gods and men at the end of the world. It tried to pull the Serpent's jaws apart. But we didn't really try to answer him. There really wouldn't be much of a point, I don't think."
Kage doesn't search around. Ashley does, though, as that scent of beeswax, of candles and seals for parchment permeates the room. As though expecting to see the flicker of flame somewhere down the hallway or a light reflected off of the floor. "What does he tell you?"
[K. R. Jakes] "There are different versions of the legend, you know," Kage says. Now she sets her tea down on the old seaman's chest-cum-coffee table. Newspaper, folded up, keeps mug from leaving a ring. The young woman circles her knees with her arms and hugs them to her chest. She should look smaller, but still, she looks so self-contained, so composed (be quiet [grace] here, a certain style, a certain muted flamboyance riding just underneath the skin). Kage looks just as she always does. A little tired, that's all.
"He tells me a lot of things," Kage says, after a moment's hesitation. She sounds wry. "Not all of it is useful. He isn't always honest. It depends on His face. It depends on what he wants."
[Ashley McGowen] "Like any legend," Ashley says. "But all of them end with him killing Thor at Ragnarok." And dying, she could add. But this is a part of the legend that, truth be told, Ashley has not worked out yet. It's a significance that escapes her still, that when the Serpent lets go of its tail, the world will end.
Is it because it lets its tail go?
She looks back up at Kage then, nostrils slowly growing acclimated to the sweet scent that filled the room seconds earlier. Wondering. Because of the magi who she has spoken with about their Avatars - granted, not many - hers is the only one that could be called a monster. She's wondered about that. For a long time. "It has multiple faces, you mean? Like he changes forms when he talks to you?"
[K. R. Jakes] [how smooooth?!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 7)
[K. R. Jakes] "Snakes are reborn; they shed their skin and live forever," Kage says, smiling reflectively. "Ragnarok happens so that Baldur can return. Wouldn't, otherwise."
Kage thinks about her avatar a lot (it's hard not to [he's so often there]). She doesn't often speak of him. Certainly not to her family, not to her friends and aquaintances who are still asleep, unless she lets slip a word, says somebody told me this. She doesn't often speak of him to other mages, either. She is older than she was, once, and has long since realized that most mages don't have the kind of relationship she does with Him. She realizes that they aren't all called awake to a [demi-god (monster) otherworld (guide) psychopomp (devil) angel] guardian -- or whatever He is. Sometimes, He is helpful. Sometimes, He even acts human. Not most times. The point is: Kage doesn't often speak of Him, even to complain, because what would she say eventually?
"Sort of," she says, after a second. "Well. This: He has more than one mask He wears. That He's taken. But it's always Him. And He doesn't usually change, not significantly, when He comes by to talk or ... or whatever."
[Ashley McGowen] This sets Ashley to thinking - about Ragnarok, about the legend, about what it all means. About the Serpent being thrown into the ocean at the moment of its birth, about how it grew to span the world, about how Thor tried to smash its head in (and failed) the once. Whether a creature is bound to a path from the start or whether it goes that way because it's what is expected (foretold and prophecied.) Whether it's possible to be reborn so many times and still retain the same shape (a snake would say it's possible.)
They are complex thoughts that she has not entirely worked through herself - or, perhaps, could not decide to act upon, could not understand the full meaning of even if she had considered every angle.
So she pays attention to Kage's demon lover with many masks. "Do you think he's guiding you toward something? Or does he just talk to you and guide you?" A moment's consideration. "Justine always said hers was like...some sort of infallible guardian. She'd talk to it when she needed advice."
[K. R. Jakes] [random RAR!]
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 6, 7, 7, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 7)
[K. R. Jakes] [pshaw, whatever dude]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[K. R. Jakes] "He's old," she says, in answer. As if that is an answer. And to Kage, it is. He's old, therefore he wants things; he's ancient, therefore he has a shape he'd like for her to find. He's old, and she doesn't know what he wants of her, just that he wants. Her eyes drift away from Ashley, musing, rest on some point in the living room -- stay there, for a second, for two. Her pupils grow large, drink in darkness. "I don't know His name and He won't tell me yet. I don't always think He even knows it any longer. But, ha ha," and the amusement is real; is tangible [lambent]. "I wouldn't really call Him a 'guardian.' Or if I would, he's a pretty asshole guardian to have. And I don't get to choose when He talks to me. Even if I go to places I know He likes better than others, well. He has plans. I just don't know what they are yet."
[K. R. Jakes] A pause, and she blinks, hard, and looks back at Ashley, all rue and pensive [ardent]. "Uh, He's kind of tricky to, uhm, articulate. I've only talked about Him to -- well, uh. Very few."
[Ashley McGowen] In this way Ashley is fortunate - hers, too, is ancient. Moreso than the World Serpent, the motif of a serpent devouring itself is found in most ancient cultures. Hunger, rebirth, are the most basic of drives, no matter what form they take in legend. She has a path, her Name is carved and defined; Kage has yet to figure hers out.
Though this in many ways is the challenge of an Initiate. "I appreciate you talking about it with me, in that case," she says, catching that rueful look out of the corner of her right eye. Sincerity.
"Maybe he wants to be defined, is part of it," Ashley muses. Downing the cooling remnants of her cup and setting it aside, next to Kage's on the newspaper so that it will not leave a ring on the coffee table. "What sorts of things does he ask for?"
[K. R. Jakes] "Favors," she says, and she means bargains [worship]. "And deals. Help and time. Tasks," she says, and she means [adoration] fear. What he asks for is desire, is passion and memory, is spirit and soul. What he asks for is -- well, he asks for things that often seem random. They're helpful, sometimes, sometimes they're clear; sometimes what He wants seems obvious. She doesn't know, really, why.
"Attention. Which we haven't been paying properly to the scones you brought," she adds, with a smile that touches her eyes with blithe mischief. "And He honestly gets enough of it. Do you want yours warmed up? Are they good with cream?" And with that, Kage swings her feet back to the floor, straightening her shoulder."
[Ashley McGowen] A wry smile touches the corner of Ashley's mouth at Kage's reply. She appreciates that it is difficult to articulate, but she's beginning to realize the points at which the Orphan gets uncomfortable - it is the part where she begins to get not-answers, these short responses that answer the question but tell her nothing. She doesn't entirely mind, though. She enjoys riddles.
And oh, so many of the magi in Chicago are puzzles to figure out. Symbolism wrapped around Words and Names.
"They're great with cream, there's some in the bag. And jam," she says, twisting around so that she too can set her feet back on the floor. Hand sliding into a pocket, hooking her thumb at the edge, as she follows Kage toward the (half a) kitchen. "Let me know when you get him figured out. You've piqued my curiosity now."
[K. R. Jakes] "We'll see," she says, noncommittal. She could mean a lot of things with that we'll see. We'll see if they're both still around by then. We'll see if there is answer figuring Him out. We'll see if Kage'll feel like telling if she does. We'll see what happens. We'll see out his secrets, oh yes we will, and then, oh then. We'll see. A touch of amusement: "I certainly didn't mean to." Pique Ashley's curiousity, one would assume.
And then there is a clamor, a clatter, of plates. And then the crumple-crinkle of bag, opened, and scones are taken out and warmed up, and nobody leaves the apartment tonight because they've been broken and nothing bad happens at all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)