Wasn't Meant To Be

[K. J.] October 7th. 11 AM. Years ago.

"If this doesn't work?"

Kage R. Jakes asked the question, and her voice was low, was cool and even (but underneath, touched by intentness; burnished by it. A radiance). Her arm was cradled against her chest, and she was massaging her left wrist with her right hand, as if it ached. She stood in the archway of a vast building, but the buildings great distinguishing feature was the halflight that it seemed bathed in. That, and its utter abandonment. There was grafitti on the walls, not a lot, but enough, and there were a number of broken locks, of bookshelves sagging under the weight of dust and silence, and voices did not seem particularly welcome. Where was the light coming from?

There were windows, high up, and outside it was bright -- but by the time the light washed down to the lower levels, washed through glass and down levels and levels, spirals and spirals, it was gloom and murk and midnight hour.

High, high above the magi, something broke: a pipe.

[S. Ashton Winters] October 7th, 11AM

What if it doesn't work?

"Well," she says with a grin. Ashton doesn't grin like that often, but when she does one can almost assume that there is no good that will come of it. Ashton took a step back so that her back was a little closer to the building, "if it doesn't work, it just wasn't meant to be."

A beat. That grin widened- it was the look of youthful fanaticism. Faith, complete and undisturbed and unresolved.

"We make it to the top, we can buy them some time-"

---
December 12th, 1947
"If we get to the top," Dorothy tells her mentor, "we can buy them some time-"
"Dot, it doesn't work that way," the woman told her.
"Bullshit-"
"It would benefit you to speak a little more like a lady when you have intentions of going and derailing a major threat to magical society, Ms. Morgan."
"Fair."
---
October 7th, 11:03 a.m.

"... did you hear that?"

[K. J.] October 7th. 11 AM.

The cold (wintery) Death Mage grins a fanatic's grin: the grin of someone who's having too much reckless fun. Kage, quietly, regards the older (and so much more experienced) magi's eyes for a second. "I don't accept that," she begins, it just wasn't meant to be. Her tone is resolved, is firm. There are many things that Kage is unwilling to accept at face value. Fate is one of those things. This isn't to say she doesn't believe in it, but in a situation like this, where something so luminous, so breakable, is on the line: she doesn't accept it. If it fails, they're to blame. They didn't do enough. They didn't. "If we're going to the top, we - "

Did you hear that. "Yes." Kage takes a drag of her cigarette, and the end of it flares to fiery life -- it's demon eye red, and ashes, ashes away, then she flicks it to the side, exhales smoke (and smoke is a veil). "Maybe we should hurry

." A quirk of her mouth. "Don't want to disappoint him."

[S. Ashton Winters] October 7th, 11AM

"If you don't accept it, then do something about it," she says. States.

She is a lot of things, really, and she shouldn't be as vibrant as she is right now. Kage would be pleased that, two years after this, Ashton Winters would be much more cautious than she is now. New in her recently-acquired knowledge. New in her recently acquired enlightenment, right now the woman is living livid springtime. She is cold, yes, but not yet bitter.

It would take years before she gets there.

She raises a brow to Kage, gesturing to her cigarette briefly. If allowed, the older, more experienced mage hands it back. She rolls her shoulders back, and she is, in a moment, professional again. Half a grin, and she is ready.

"Let's go in, shall we?"

[K. J.] October 7th. 11 AM.

Kage quirks one eyebrow, but hands the cigarette off without much fuss. Kage doesn't often smoke. This is, just possibly, the only time in the span of their brief aquaintance that Ashton has seen her with a cigarette in hand. She always has a pack, however. She's always been particularly free with them.

"Yes," she says, and it will have to do as an answer to both questions. The Orphan-who-almost-wasn't drags her fingers through her hair, then slides her hands into the pockets of her coat. She only shook her head when Ashton tried to give the cigarette back. Keep it or discard it. Her mouth quirks, wry.

And it is worth noting that she doesn't hesitate, doesn't wait, before turning away from the arch and stepping back under the daunting shadow of the abandoned roadside curiosity. There are no elevators, only stairs and abandoned scaffolding, stairs that lead nowhere, stairs that lead up. This place was supposed to be a Memorial for the lost, and as the original plans were lost for it, long before it was completed, there is a disconnect. Ashton and Kage are practically underground, because there is no other way to get inside.

Up on the roof, somebody is trying to Work something. Somewhere, there is a piece of something so lovely, and it needs help. Somewhere, there is ...

October 1st. 2 PM.

"Ashton Winters," Jeffrey Baker said, smiling as if he were pleased to see her. "What are the odds of us meeting like this, at the gym, completely at random?" A glint of something in his eyes, amused. "How would you like to me to owe you a favor?"

[K. J.] ooc: HMF, strike one of those 'to's' of course.

[S. Ashton Winters] October 7th, 11AM

She inhales, and the dark haired woman tasted tobacco smoke on her tongue. She is pleased, she is relaxed, though her lungs are screaming at her since she had been so kind to them recently. Kage won't take her cigarette back, but instead the Euthanatos just finished it off. She kept it.

The woman finished it off and pocketed the butt.

Ashton started off to work, up the stars f she can, the the scaffolding that would do little good. She iddn't need to hold Kage's hand; she didn't hesitate. She doesn't wait. She knows what needs to be done, and she knows how har this work can be. They needed to be somewhere more pure, somewhere clean.

This place was supposed to be a Memorial for the lost. It does little good now-
---
October 1st, 2 PM

"Jeffrey Baker," she addresses mid bench press. Ashton was working upper body today, and it was pretty well known that she had an insane work out regimen, to the point that people were concerned that the young doctor might have some kind of disorder.

That, or she was a semi-professional bodybuilder. You never knew with women like Ashton.

"And completely random at that," she starts, "Dustin said thank you, by the way."

The bar goes back up.

"... what do you need?" Not exasperated, but rather, resigned.

[K. J.] October 1st. 2 PM.

"Best if we talk somewhere else," he said, and there was a frankness to the way he looked at Ashton. Looked at her body, looked at the way her pulse jumped in her throat. Looked at the way her muscles reacted to the workout she was giving them, looked at the curve of her hips, the piece of hair caught against her collarbone. Admiring, and just a little bit teasing: don't you want to admire me, too?

"You want to shower off first?" There. So it was urgent, but not too urgent, or he wouldn't be offering her a chance to shower -- or maybe he would.

[S. Ashton Winters] October 1st, 2PM

She sat up, and her muscles tensed a little when she was doing this. She was very much in control of her body. Very much aware of what it did and how it moved. She could name every major muscle group, she could highlight every detail. The scar on her shoulder- the gunshot wound, the close range bullet hole was a recent addition.

It healed well, but it stood out as a proud reminder that she was not invincible. That she could make mistakes. Scars were reminders, indeed.

"Shower sounds good," she tells him, and starts to head off somewhere to go get clean. Off to a locker room. The dark haired death mage looks back at Jeffrey for a second. She looked at him in his entirety, in the detains of skin and muscle structure. He was a specimen of exquisite anatomy, but Ashton Winters was clinical as always.

She was like this in med school. She was lie this in college. she was liek this before she had eer awakened.

a pause.

"The world isn't falling apart, is it?"

another beat.

"In a way that isn't the way it's supposed to fall apart?"

[K. J.] October 1st. 2 PM.

"You, baby. Me and you."

He chuckles. He's got a rumbling chuckle. Something that could be threatening, but isn't. The Death Mage looks at the Life Mage and asks him if the world is falling apart. He replies: "Think about why I'd come to you for a good long minute while you're under that hot water."

He walks with her to the showers, but he doesn't walk inside the women's area. He flicks her a half-serious, half-playful look -- don't trust him -- and then plants his back against the wall. He folds his arms, and waits until she's done.

October 7th. 11 AM.

The Orphan-who-almost-wasn't says, "I'll take the left." Then, in a moment of humor: "Let's race." It wasn't safe to run here. Ashton could feel, if she were Aware, the suddenness of some magickal working from her companion: something that felt like a hand on her breast, something that felt like the giddy surge of desire. Something that felt like everything was spiralling away, downward. The truly aware would know that what Kage did involved the Euthanatos' specialty: that she is looking at the ribbons of luck, of fate, which crisscross this entire place. She chose left.

The stairs will hold. The stairs will hold on the right, too.

This is probably one of the more foolish things that the academic has done to date.

[S. Ashton Winters] October 1st, 2PM "You sure you want me thinking about you while I'm in the shower, Jeffrey?"

She shoots him half a smile, and goes off to get herself clean

---

December 12th, 1947
"Mister Mallory, I have a proposition for you," she tells him. Doroty looks at the man in the small, small highrise. He'd been back from war for a couple years, and she was just recently returning from it.
"Missus Morgan, you're being rather forward, I don't often take lady callers into my place of business, especially at this hour of the night." "If it wasn't important, I would not have called for you. You're the best in this business."
"That I am, Missus Morgan."

Her gaze is cold and calculated, but she is too lovely for him to really notice.

She's slowly plotting his demise. Mister Mallory has no idea.

---

October 7th, 11AM:

"If you beat me to the top, I'll never live this down," she tells her with a grin.

She can feel it starting to built up,she knows that the stairs will hold, and in a way she has some faith in Kage's ability to keep the threads of fate spiralling out of control. The dark-haired lady headed for the stairs on the right, as though she had no time.

They didn't have time. Precious little of it, and she bolted up the stairs. The woman was athletic. the woman was fast. Ashton knew what she was doing when it came to this sort of thing or, rather, she would know. Someday.

---
December 12th, 1947
"Mister Mallory, you are a member of an organization-"
"A very excllusive organization."
"Indeed.. I was wondering if you needed... an assistant, of sorts."
"Does your husband know you're in the market for a job?"
"Mister Morgan doesn't know how good I am with numbers... statistics..."

---
October 1st, 2:25 PM
"Let's get moving," she tells him. her hair is wet, still, but she is a no-nonsense sort of woman.

Fatigued, yes, but always fatigued. She heads off to try and find them somewhere a little more private to talk.

"This might be a conversation for the jeep."