Belief

[K. R. Jakes] Twilight.

The sky is gray and brilliant. The sky is smoke, gentled, bright. Darkening, deepening; purpling, bruising where night falls heavy. The doors to the church [cathedral (high ritual)] nearish a certain Orphan's apartment, where a certain Chorister slept, temporarily, cloistered away, doing maintenance, are unlocked. The church is of stone; it is high. The door is of deep, dark blue wood, and peaked. But inside it is gold -- it is radiant; it is dizzyingly honeycombed. There are candles, still lit [perpetuity: but no, this is not a Catholic church, although the untrained eye might well mistake it -- see, look, there are Saints in the windows, glowing. There, some shining light from outside touches one's halo, fingers the corner of a deep-red robe, an arrow, jewels them, makes them gleam: treasure, bright, illuminated].

There is an Orphan, her hair as red as saint'sblood, redder, seated in a pew, her elbows ([poise] irreverent) draped over the back, her head tilted back as well. There is, to the sensitive, those who are Aware of nuances, the kiss (beloved [burning], i will to you: i will do / o, wither, drain-away, disappear, leech] of someone Working, subtle-thing, looking at Fate and Fortune, listening to the hum of resonance [quintessence], watching the passage of ghosts, dreams, remnants, relics, dragged out've whatever it is was here, has been here.

What there isn't.

A service. Others. Noise.

[Ashley McGowen] [Perception + Awareness]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] It's a subtle thing, that burning and leeching wrapped around a Word she has not yet discerned, the way it works its way through the threads of reality spun into the church. It catches Ashley as she walks by the place, falls over her the way that a sea serpent notices the shadow of a ship at the surface of the water. She is Hunger, she can't not look.

The sky is darkening and it's brighter inside, and there are voices. And noise. Noise like sheet metal being dragged over the pavement, sparking and hissing and screeching along stone, reverberating in her bones as though it would slough flesh away. She shuts it out long enough to open the door a crack (light falls on the sidewalk at her feet) and peers in. Catches sight of the red hair, though she already knew what she'd find inside even before she looked. Catches sight of the light filtering through too, the saints lining the walls and painting the pews with light.

Ashley ignores the noise as best she can, lets it drop behind the words that are being spoken, and starts toward the Orphan. Her hands find their way into their pockets; her back is straight, even though she's walking down an aisle in the middle of the service (rude, as irreverent as Kage.)

Without saying anything, a small form coils itself into the pew next to Kage, and stays silent. Trying to see what she sees, or guess at what she might be looking at perhaps.

[K. R. Jakes] The diminutive Magi walks down the pew and she is Hunger, and she is Ravenous, and she is Hungry, and then she is there, curled up, a small creature (no) on the pew beside Kage, and silent. The acoustics here: they're what acoustics should be. They know what to do with echoes. They know what to do with human voices (wake us [and we drown]). They know, and they do these things. The sound of pages turning. The sound of people, chaunting, chorus: one word. The sound of people, whispering; not too many, not really, because it's only Thursday evening, because it's only practice, it's only reverence.

The red-haired woman (who is plain [average: nonentity]) half-closes her eyes when Ashley sits. Her eyelashes are dark against her pale skin; her eyes a gleam, too, of darkness -- they're not illuminated by anything -- in the space between. What is she seeing, why is she looking, what is she looking for? The congregation murmurs something, a low-drone, resonance, which filters through the honey-comb, gilt-radiant hall and Kage turns her head to look at Ashley,

and her eyes are a plain human woman's, and the Effect has faded ( - a caress, fever: the affter-effect). Her mouth quirks. She says - and pages turn all around, books are placed back in their niches, their little homes at the back of pews, shelves that smell of cedar, of O song of Songs - low-voiced enough -

"Is it raining? Were you coming to see me?"

[Ashley McGowen] Truth be told, Ashley is similarly curious to see Kage here. She remembers that assertion from the Orphan (I don't Believe) when they sat together in Kage's living room. It seems like a long time ago. It feels that way. Hard times do that to a person, wear them out and stretch them thin so that it's hard to believe that so much could be felt in such a short span of time.

"I felt you Working, and I got curious," Ashley tells her, with a glance out of the corner of her eye. Kage is there, and she can't see most of the chanters, the preacher; he stands where she is blind, and she hears him only by the echo off the wall. By the response of the chorus, before they tuck their books away in the neat cedar shelves.

"But it is raining, a little." The Hermetic's voice is perhaps not as quiet as it should be. Not loud, but she doesn't take on that whisper, that awe. Drops of drizzle have collected in the strands that crown her head like some kind of dark halo. "What were you watching?"

[K. R. Jakes] "When they leave," Kage says, and it may or may not take Ashley a moment to understand this as I will tell you when they leave. When we're the only ones left in the chapel, the only ones left sitting on the wood pews, when only our shadows stay, and the smell of books, and the smell of burning things, once the candles have begun to wink out one by one [star by star, number by number: stars by number, in her hair]. There's always one or two.

And Kage, for all her casual irreverence, her callous grace, her easy composure, muted flamboyance [hubris (right?)], stays quiet while those who came because they Believed -- or at least, because they thought they Believed, because they found something here that they liked to think of as Home, because it was a duty they could check off, an identity they could assign themselves, because it was a good place to pretend or a good place to drink deep of pretend [no (be touched, please)] -- file out.

And when only one or two women remain, talking up near the altar with the priest/reverend, Kage says, "I was just looking to look." Her tone is easy. "Don't you ever do that?"

[Ashley McGowen] There'd been a time when she looked just to look. It was when things were new, when as a young apprentice she would peer into rooms and watch the play of elements beneath the walls, soaked in what secrets minds would divulge without ever knowing it, subtle shifts in other Wills and moods and how easily even strangers could be read. Bran, walking in the snow with heat emanating from his body like from a fire, a bright point in the ice.

Now, she just shrugs. "Not really, unless I want to know something. Most of these people don't have anything to tell me." One thing she learned about the minds of Sleepers. They're no longer a challenge. They are conquered territory to be swept past in a quest for things more interesting and unknown, empty calories.

Someone strikes a key on the organ (again that screeching) and a muscle in Ashley's cheek twitches at the unpleasant noise, before she casts a look up and around at the stained glass. It, at least, she's able to appreciate. "Did you see anything interesting?"

[K. R. Jakes] "Yes," Kage says.

The rote she'd been using, the eyes she'd been looking at the service with: they were the same eyes she'd looked at Dylan with during that half hour, after she'd asked him, after he'd said she could look. They were the same eyes she'd used when she'd read his fate [ticket: called] and his namelessness [visionary, essentially: scraped away] and how high, how off-the-chart, his resonance, how everything else slicked away from it, and what he was thinking, and the state of his spirit, and -- the same eyes. Watching, instead, stained-glass, a man giving a sermon, the air above the crowd, the crowd, Sleepers who don't burn near as bright, but sometimes, occasionally, the glimmer [half-heard sound] of something, like an echo heard in another room, three rooms over, like a shard of glass catching light, flaring up, like --

This, then. This: is easy, is simplicity. The half-smile, the half-curve of her mouth; the not-quite sardonic lilt of her eyebrows, upward. If Kage had seen less, or had seen more, maybe that lilt wouldn't be there at all. "But I don't know if you'd find it interesting. I was just watching what people look like, lit up or darked out. Watching how a word would change that, sway it, re-map it, watching doors open and shut."

[Ashley McGowen] Watching how a word would change it. If anything else, she understands the power Words have; all Hermetics do. A word, after all, is simply a concept, an utterance the mind forms to encompass something larger and far more nebulous. She's studied the power that they have, is a poet, understands that sometimes they resonate the way a note used to.

She's not watching Kage. She's looking at the stained glass, at the way the light that comes through it from the street lamps and office lights outside is transformed into something else. Because that's what she can appreciate about this place. Not the words and not the people gathered and looking for something they should find within themselves and not the music she can't hear. The light, and the way it plays over the wooden rows.

"The power they have over people is kind of impressive," Ashley agrees (or perhaps she doesn't agree; maybe they are both looking and what they are seeing are two different things.) "I guess I was just a little surprised to see you watching anything in a church, is all."

[K. R. Jakes] This is one of the not-infrequent moments in which the difference between the two magi(cians [alchemists] will-workers [wizards] superheroes [occultist])s view of the world, of what is happening in the world, is highlighted, underscored, but with subtlety. Words, again. They're important. They matter. Kage is conscious of this as she watches Ashley's profile, the eye-that-can't-see, the eye-that-can-see, as the Hermetic watches the play of light across wood, against the floor, and this smokes up her gaze, tarnishes it up with something oblique and also direct.

Her mouth quirks, and she says, "I'd say 'I can't imagine why,' but I suppose that would be disingenuous of me." And Kage is never, ever disingenuous -- right? Kage leans forward, rests her head against the back of the pew in front of them, rests her elbows on her knees, the steeple of her fingers pointed downward.

"I like old buildings. Buildings that feel old. Like they've been hewn from long-ago. Houses built for ideas, for something that can be present and absent at the same time."

[Ashley McGowen] "Me too," she says. "I actually...you know, sometimes I like the look of abandoned buildings. There were a couple old mills near where I grew up in Connecticut. I used to get into an old lighthouse through one of the windows."

Kage has her forehead on the back of the pew in front of her, is looking down at the stone beneath her feet. Or perhaps she's not looking. Perhaps she's just resting, closing her eyes and shutting out the light and listening to the sound of the departing worshipers. Ashley's still looking at the stained glass, the pictures, head turning as she moves from one to the next.

"When you were watching how they lit up, earlier, what did you notice?" she asks. Merely curious in an objective answer, or maybe it's more direct, in a way: what did -Kage- find.

[K. R. Jakes] "Did you watch Scooby Doo when you were younger?" The church isn't gloomy, but there is a gloom, a murk, between pews, where the light doesn't quite fall; against it, Kage's hair is fire-bright, is bloody.

Ashley wonders what Kage noticed when she was watching people, earlier. To that, she says, "Do you burn incense, or have you ever been somewhere a lot of smokers've congregated? There are some old restaurants and clubs in Chicago like that. Where people used to smoke so much the ceiling's a different colour, the paint changes. Or have you ever been somewhere, like - " a pause. " - an helgêtrergastêrio or - maybe more likely - mageumatamelathron - where candles've been burned so often - fire used, so frequently - that the place itself is different?"

[Ashley McGowen] "A little," she says, momentarily puzzled by the question but choosing not to think about it or ask. Kage is like this: she suspects it'll become clear. Or it won't - perhaps she's asking solely for her own edification on some point. Some tie that Ashley can only guess at. "But..." And there's a laugh here, something dry and quiet and brief. "Not much. The dog's voice used to grate on me. How off pitch it was."

There's the mention of smoke collecting in a room, staining the ceilings and the walls dark or just that hazy dull yellow-brown. The unfamiliar words give her pause, something long enough to allow her to dissect them, figure out what Kage pieced together. Then, "Yes." There's a contemplative look, again, at the stained glass, at the stone walls. Sleepers can do it too, imprint on a place with sheer belief, though not quite to the extent that a Willworker can.

[K. R. Jakes] "Well, that's what I noticed."

Kage can smell old books, leather. Peppermint, from some candy some kid crushed in one of the nearby seats. Her tone of voice is simple, easy; is glass, clear, water [baptismal (sacrosanct [irreverent, that Kage-creature])]. Kage can see shadows, deepening, darkening -- and in a moment, her gaze'll slip sideways again; she'll start to See things, again, unless she stops herself, ties herself into a knot. Which is what she'll do. Ashley's here. Kage has ideas about will-working in front of other Mages when it isn't necessary, ideas that tie-in with courtesy.

"What would you notice? The priest is still up front -- a couple of other people. What do you see, just looking to look?"

[Ashley McGowen] [Looking to look]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 4, 8 (Success x 3 at target 3)

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley has no such qualms about Willworking in front of other magi. The Hermetic has done it many times; in the Order it's just something one does. There are tests, there are challenges (in the "old" days there was certamen, but Ashley, who Awoke as the War closed, has seen few), there are demonstrations. So when Kage asks her, she looks just to look, though lacking the Ars Spirituum her finger slides through the gold and iron links instead.

"You," she says, with a sidelong look at Kage, the burning seat of Will, the unAwakened Sleepers who nonetheless have patterns all the same, connected threads of weaker Wills. She doesn't see them, not the way Kage looked at things with stained eyes - she attunes herself to their strength, feels it, understands it in comparison with her own. Something deep seated, in the back of her mind, in the pit of her stomach. A moment's surprise touches her voice as she adds, sensing familiarity in some of that spun through the church itself, even if the owner isn't present, "Owen. I forgot this was his church."

There's a pause, and then she adds, "A lot of my Tradition forgets that Sleepers have Will, I think. Takes them longer, but they can still shape a place. A lot of the ones here only kind of believe, and if you were to convince them..." She considers the walls, the way they could one day solidify into something, something part of the world and yet separate from it, and shrugs.

[K. R. Jakes] "There are few impossible things," Kage says, and there is a touch of something wistful (yearning [collected]) twisting her tone. "If there are any." The red-haired Orphan regards the Hermetic thoughtful, pensive; leans back in the pew, again, and keeps Ashley in the corner of her eye - "You wouldn't say you forget that Sleepers have Will, yourself? Just a moment ago, you were essentially saying that you don't often ... Look, unless you had a purpose, unless you wanted something, right?"

[Ashley McGowen] To impossible things, or the lack of them, Ashley has no reply. They've spoken of this before: in relation to shouldering rifles, in relation to music. Kage sees possibilities where Ashley is more likely to weigh the costs and benefits. Pragmatic to the end, the Hermetic.

She's curled up in the pew, almost into herself (endlessly) and with her arms wrapped around her legs. Self-contained. Now her chin rests on top of one of her knees as her eyes return from searching the stained images, back to Kage. "I always want things," she says. "It's just a matter of energy to pursue some things over others, I guess. I already know how they're going to look. I mean, what they can do if there are a lot of them can be interesting, but as individuals they're just kind of..."

She trails off, then, looks back up to the glass. She's aware of the growing rift between herself and the mundane world; she simply regards it as a matter-of-course. "I get what you're saying, though. You're right, even."

[K. R. Jakes] Now, K. R. Jakes is an arrogant creature. Most mages are. The other mages who are aquainted with her: maybe they wouldn't peg her for too-proud or too-arrogant, though; maybe they don't see it. Not quite. Or maybe they do. Maybe they regard her insistence on solitary practice, on separatism, to be too-proud, too-arrogant, too-foolish, all Hubris. Maybe they don't. Still: You're right, Ashley says.

And there is a silent second, a blink. And then, a half-wry smile: "Yeah. Is your father the same way?" Curious, Kage. Because she can't imagine having family members who are also awakened. She cannot imagine Margot or Janet awakening, and the thought of them awakening, well -- she just can't imagine it. She cannot even imagine Cary awakening, unless he was to immediately join up with the Technocracy. Then, maybe, maybe -- but no.

Pause, beat. Then, this, thoughtful: "Hypothetical question: That toxic sludge. Which do you think has more reason to exist -- the Sleepers, or the sludge? Which deserves it more?"

[Ashley McGowen] Kage asks about her father, and there's a shift, there for the perceptive to read. Her muscles stir, rustle, and her gaze comes back down. Returns from above, and meets Kage's eyes. "Kind of," she says. "He really didn't relate well to my mother. But I was - " and there's a touch of amusement, here, dark and wry - " an accident anyway and they got married after that, so for all I know it would've happened anyway. Might not've had anything to do with her being a Sleeper."

Kage is bringing up the sludge (the Reaver) and the look she gets from Ashley is puzzled, for a second. Probing, unsure of why she'd ask. But Kage is inscrutable. She always is. "I'm not sure one deserves it more than the other," she says. "I mean, the Sleepers, they have potential that they deserve to have a chance to actualize. The substance deserves a chance at the same."


[K. R. Jakes] "If - " Kage says, certain of this question (this [im]possibility). Her voice is sure, is still-low -- there is not even a hint of judgment. There isn't even a glimpse of this-is-how-I'd-like-you-to-answer, or, why-don't-you-think-this-way. " - a choice needed to be made: give the sludge," Kage has no name for it, does not call it Goopy, does not call it Hunger, Reaver, the Spill, although perhaps she has a name for it [privately], "its chance and let it grow or end it because there's a possibility, a pretty big possibility, that it would harm the people who are still dreaming, the Sleepers. Or, well: other Traditionalists. Not you. But others." There. The question's in that host of specificities, and it's followed by this - " - have you found its true name yet?"

[Ashley McGowen] "I asked it to name itself and throw off its designation," Ashley says. "So yes." She doesn't offer up that True Name, though. As far as she's concerned it's something between herself and the Reaver, something she wants to keep to herself should others decide that it's too dangerous.

To Kage's other question, it takes her a while to answer. She seems...not conflicted, but pensive. Perhaps she is trying to figure out what Kage wants to hear from her, or maybe she is genuinely unsure. "That possibility isn't a certainty. The city's welfare is obviously in my interest, and if I can't teach it to control itself then what has to be done is pretty clear, but...I do want to give it that chance. And, I mean, there are a lot of dangers to Sleepers out there. It isn't my job to protect them. It's a disservice to them, even."

[K. R. Jakes] A couple months ago, whatever doubt there might've been over whether or not K. R. Jakes had [standards (convictions)] a conscience was washed [o, water (o, moon-lucent clarity)] away, at least as far as a few of the Traditionalists in Chicago are concerned. Strangely, Ashley is one of the few people (alive [around]) who has seen Kage, passion-driven and furious, this isn't right, no. And that was before whatever (tentative [wary]) trust the mages share [perhaps (possibly)] became strong [there has to be a because (once upon a time)].

So it wouldn't be a huge leap of logic for Ashley to think that Kage is (a) for killing the waste now or (b) letting it live. The almost-Chorister [almost-Euthanatoi?] Orphan's eyebrows both prick up at the way Ashley words her denial. "Whether or not it's a disservice to them," a pause, and then:

"For this hypothetical, I think that's irrelevant. They're unaware," she says, simplicity in her tone: bones of some ballad-killed girl, revealed in the mud-sludge of a river, gleaming, for some harpist to make into a fute. "They're silent. They don't have a voice here. You do, and the sludge does. So I'm curious about what you think would be right. What action you think, ultimately, would best serve you."

The priest and the four people who'd decided to stay behind are filing out, now, are slanting through a plain-set door under the gold-limned walls.

[Ashley McGowen] There's whether it would be right to deny the Reaver, a sentient (Awakened?) being power rightfully gained, the right to do with Sleepers what it will, or whether to protect the city's Sleepers. Lazy, complacent, need to be driven to realize potential (by such a thing as the Reaver itself.) But Kage didn't ask about fair or just. Kage asked what would serve Ashley best, what she would do - unfortunately that conflicts with her own sense of what would be right.

"I'd kill it and protect the city," Ashley says, and her reluctance shines through in her tone, the sweet soprano of a (former) musician trails flat. "But I wouldn't feel great about it. It would just be the smart decision."

She's not watching Kage, note: not searching her eyes, her face, for what Kage might want to hear. Ashley has learned in the past months, understands the need for subterfuge when it comes to dealing within the chantry, understands that cowards aren't the only ones who lie - sometimes the cunning do, too. But this she takes for what it is, an inquiry into her beliefs. Hypothetical.

[K. R. Jakes] "Why would that be the smart decision?"

[Ashley McGowen] "A healthy and working city is of more value to us than one where it's killing Sleepers. Besides, unchecked it's going to be a danger to us sooner or later, and if it starts harming Sleepers the Technocracy is likely to get involved...and so on," Ashley says, with a frown.

"I mean, regardless of whatever its -rights- would be...if it's out of our control we'd be better off taking care of it before it got to that point."

[K. R. Jakes] Us, Ashley says, and she can mean Ashley and the Midgaard Serpent, she can mean Ashley and Kage, she can mean Ashley and the Mages, she can mean the People of Chicago, and it doesn't matter. This is a context Kage isn't thrilled to hear that word. Does it show? No more than usual. Kage is a creature of poise [contained grace (composed: like a sonata, a melody, rhapsodia)], after all: of careless, callous style -- the way she cants her head, the way her eyebrows flick down and her lashes kiss. Even the way her mouth quirks, faintly: "What do you think it would be like if it was firmly in your control?"

[Ashley McGowen] It doesn't show on Kage's face, not to Ashley - Ashley who has difficulty reading expressions to begin with, more so when it's Kage, who has so many tells that it's hard to pick one. Kage, who is composed like a melody she can't hear (can't read either.) Maybe Ashley isn't aware that sometimes (many times) she is a monster.

Maybe she is. Maybe she thinks she's paid a sufficient price to entitle her to do whatever she Will. Maybe she's so angry it doesn't matter. Maybe she's just that callous, always was and will always be. "I don't know," she says. "I don't intend for it to be -in- my control, exactly. I want it to be able to control itself."

She sees herself in it, and that's not hard to guess at, but she doesn't say that. It's a matter she remains tight-lipped on, whatever her reasons.

[K. R. Jakes] "But - " a brief pause. The Orphan looks perplexed, or, at least alert: inquisitive. "I thought you just said: if it's out of our control we'd be better of taking care of it before - " a gesture, muted flamboyance. " - it got there."

The Hermetic has mentioned more than once now that the toxic sludge is hungry, that it just wants to devour. Each time she has, she's hesitated, or looked pensive, or looked conflicted; it's not difficult at all to see that Ashley feels a kinship with it [essence calls to essence (spirit to spirit)]. Kage is quiet, listening for Ashley's answer, if Ashley has one. Then she'll add -

" - well. Hypothetically, whatever happens: if it's - aware. Has a - spirit. Maybe it will do better next time."

[Ashley McGowen] "If it's in control of itself it can be reasoned with," Ashley says, "so it's in our control then. As much in it as it's going to be. As much as...as I am in yours, or..." That's when she trails off.

And that's when Kage mentions her hypothetically, its spirit, the next time. Ashley's heard similar things, from Wharil and Ashton. Kage gets a long look, in response. Something that is as inscrutable as the Orphan herself often is, because it is laden. And Ashley says, "I don't think there is a next time. But even if there was - is that what you think is the best way to deal with something you can't predict? Kill it and hope it's gentled the next go-around?"

[K. R. Jakes] "If it's in control of itself, it can say 'fuck you, you're wrong.'" The curse doesn't belong in this setting. There's even something to the way it doesn't-but-almost-but-not-quite echoes. Doesn't belong, that sort've language.

" - something one can't predict?" There: the eyebrows lift, once more. And her answer is, again, simple as ballad-bones, simple as an ending: "No."

[Ashley McGowen] "That's the right of anything sentient. Alive. It has a mind and a Will. I'm not going to deny it its right to do that just because it doesn't have a human shell," Ashley says. Her tone could be heated, it could be snappish. It isn't. "And I think it's kind of telling that everyone else -is,- and still willing to rattle off a lot of self-righteous bullshit at me in the next breath." Perhaps she means Solomon and Israel; perhaps she means Kage. She's not looking at the redhead, and it isn't clear.

"It hasn't actually -hurt anyone.- Remember that."

[K. R. Jakes] [Squint. Do you mean me?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 7, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley means Israel and Solomon moreso than Kage, as well as the others that jumped on the kill-it bandwagon! She's getting upset because she thinks Kage may be one of those. Ashley's taking all of this on a pretty personal level.
to K. R. Jakes

[K. R. Jakes] "What sort of self-righteous bullshit?" The red-haired Orphan hadn't been at the last meeting the Tradition mages [Orphan (Israel)] called. Maybe that first meeting -- the one where the Society of the Nameless 'Crow laid down their rules -- was the only one she intended to go to. Then, she had baked cookies [what happened to those? Someone must've eaten them] in the White Fence House's kitchen. Ah, Americana.

[Ashley McGowen] "About protecting the Sleepers and leaving the world a better place and shouldering responsibility with Awakening, ad nauseum," Ashley says. "The people who keep calling me a cynic are the same people who happily destroy strong rivals - like the substance. They're doing exactly what I'm doing. They just do it in the name of the weak so they can feel better about themselves."

[K. R. Jakes] "Hm," Kage says, pensive [reflective]. "That sounds a lot like the conventional line."

[Ashley McGowen] "It is," Ashley says. "The ideas are different. They still want to push their own ideas forward and advance them. Protecting the Sleepers is what -does- that." Ashley sounds more disgusted than anything; disgusted and a touch indignant, perhaps.

A true manipulator, a conniver, would certainly be more tight-lipped about such beliefs than Ashley has been: she does not hesitate in speaking about them. They're things about which she has always been open, and yet oddly many of the magi in Chicago still trust her. There's a certain reliability in selfishness.

[K. R. Jakes] "'so they can feel better about themselves,' you said," Kage says, a belated echo [chasing the echo down (hunting the echo down]. "Like that's wrong -- to define yourself by what makes you feel better. But isn't that what you do?" Perplexed, see.

[Ashley McGowen] There's a hesitation, there, a pause, because it's not a question someone has asked before. It shows in the way her brows furrow, the way she has to process her answer. "It's not, necessarily," Ashley says, "but they aren't being intellectually honest."

Ashley, note, is not an angry debater. She becomes heated, passionate. Rarely angry at being challenged, at being questioned, at having to stop and think about a response. Kage says something she hadn't thought of, and the way she absorbs it and turns it over in her mind, gnaws at it, is quiet and continues on even after she has spoken.

[K. R. Jakes] "Then - why can't it just be true, for them, that doing these things for the good of others is all that there needs to be? Because that's not the way it works for you?"

[Ashley McGowen] "But if..." Ashley stops, trails off, lets out a sigh. "Because it's not 'just true.' I mean, they should be able to admit to themselves why they're doing it, or at least understand that they're doing it for basically self-interested reasons. I don't think that's a bad thing. It ends up working out for other people just as often as it works out for me."

The Hermetic shifts on the wooden seat for a few seconds, as though uncomfortable, as though trying to slide further back into the unyielding pew. The conversation has become tangled, and she's been speaking slowly, trying to be certain of what she says before she says it.

[K. R. Jakes] Kage leans back in the pew, too. This is a more subtle thing -- it seems less of a bid for comfort, more of a bid for blood-moving again, just because she wants to break the stillness, break immobility, feel life flushing through her limbs (demure [contained]). Kage puts her elbow back along the top of the pew, all muted irreverence.

No more questions, though. No more comments. No more hypotheticals. Just a thoughtful noise, a noise-of-acknowledgment, made in the back of her throat -- noncommittal.

[Ashley McGowen] No more questions or comments or hypotheticals come, and Ashley hovers there in the seat with her chin lying against her knees, staring off into some point in (non)space. She waits, and is silent, mulling over the conversation and things that were said. It's not quite pensive, the air around her - nothing so still, something with an undercurrent of anger and frustration. But thoughtful, all the same.

When it becomes clear that Kage will not extend an opinion forward, a thought, Ashley stirs again. The Sleepers have left the place, the lamps have dimmed so that the only light in the place is from the nave and filtering in from outside, so that her pupils have nearly swallowed up her eyes, ringed by a thin line of blue. "Kage. What happened, that made you not Believe? I mean, if you were going into the Chorus, I assume you did. At one point."

[K. R. Jakes] [Jess can't decide. Kage: totally impassive?]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 8 (Failure at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] [... all right then! *salutes dice*]

[K. R. Jakes] "I - " and here, then. Her frown is sharp, a sudden thing. It touches her smoke-green eyes, darkens them (breath on a mirror [occluded (stain)]) into something tarnished. The frown doesn't seem to be directed so very much at Ashley for asking the question, but maybe it is, a little. It's not a question Kage wants to re-examine. It's not a question she wants. " - would normally say that I opened my eyes and looked around. That's what made me not Believe. Common - fucking - " a little bit of adornment [gracelessness, conscious] " - sense. Perceptivity. Clarity."

A brief pause, and Kage, no longer frowning, twists a lock of burnished hair around one finger, before she tucks it smooth-suave back behind her ear. "I believed because it made sense. And it was also really easy to believe in Simon, and he believed."

[Ashley McGowen] Simon, again. How often his name has come up by accident, as something Kage didn't want to mention and would skirt around, as something Hannibal spoke briefly of but would not illuminate. The curiosity she has isn't the type of curiosity people would have when they'd ask about her and Bran, years ago - that was simple, it was the sort of curiosity people have when they slow down to pass wreckage on the highway (and about as welcome). Here Simon is almost a key, something to understanding many of the things that elude her about Kage.

"So...it made sense to believe, and then it made sense to -stop- believing? Why?" There's a sidelong look, and it's Kage's answer she wants, here.

[K. R. Jakes] A pause. And then: "Okay. When you use what Traditionalists usually call Correspondence to look at something far away, how do you usually perceive it? Do you get visuals? Can you zoom cam?"

[Ashley McGowen] There's a pause, and another sidelong look toward Kage. She bites the inside of her cheek for a few seconds, watches the Orphan, trying to guess at meaning. She inevitably gives up.

"I get visuals," she says. "It's like I'm there but not. I can kind of move through space and investigate things like I would if I were actually present. The space doesn't actually exist," she adds, perhaps to provide some additional context or cast light on what she would see.

[K. R. Jakes] Kage's mouth quirks when Ashley examines her. "Then -- okay," and she glances upward, up, upward at the vaulted ceiling, at the gloom, gathering in the rafters now that the lamps have been dimmed. "If you were to do that, but -- up there. Look, in that fashion, at the ceiling -- at that corner, all the way over there, see?" And Kage points, just like she's marking out a constellation for Ashley. "You'd see -- " a pause. Then, a brief, blooming sort've grin -- "You want me to tell you, or do you want to look?"

[Ashley McGowen] [Looking!]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 1, 10 (Failure at target 4)

[Ashley McGowen] [What? No.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 6, 6 (Success x 2 at target 5)

[Ashley McGowen] Kage asks if Ashley wants to look, and of course she does. She suspects she will see a ceiling. She also suspects that Kage is making a point, and is happy to Work along that path until the point is made - not always stubborn and defiant, Ashley. Her thumb skews through the glass link that usually snakes beneath her shirt collar with the rest of the chain.

The first time her concentration, her Will, is not what it could be. She struggles to find purchase on where she is - perhaps because, for a little while, her thoughts were elsewhere (Boston, distant December days years past when they sat in her living room). Never one to be put off, she tries again.

Ashley's eyes don't go distant, they don't haze over, she doesn't have the faraway look of a Seer. Ashley's a Mind mage in the truest sense - she denies the existence of the physical world, is everywhere at once (it's held in coils). The Hermetic rends space, shreds it like rice paper in a pair of strong jaws, and is there on the ceiling, in that area Kage sketched out with a fingertip.

[K. R. Jakes] [Aw, am I very Aware of this, or not at all?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 4, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[K. R. Jakes] The St. James Cathedral of Chicago is [ravishingly] lovely.

The ceiling, especially; the way it plays with space, the way it glorifies colour, the way it drinks in light and changes it. Because there is gloom gathering in the eaves, now that evening's settled on the church, because the windows are rain-darked, all clouded, the heights, it might be difficult to see purely (easily). But where space is no matter, why should light be? The Hermetic denies space, rends it into pieces: her vision is there. That space. Just there.

And she finds herself examining a piece of Victorian stencil-work, high, high above the parishioners, just off to the side of one of the cathedral's arched windows. And there, Ashley's sharp, Ashley's smart, she'll probably see immediately what Kage is talking about, or wants her to see: cracks, fine, hair-line, spreading out, spiderwork, spiderweb, flaw in the building, something breaking, dissolving where it shouldn't be, imperfection.

There are no crooked lines. Just: that. Cracks. Not whole at all. And the beginning of a stain, very small, but -- water-damage. It'll grow. Someone should let them know.

[Ashley McGowen] It doesn't take her long, even though she is still partially blind, even here, even when she steps through space - some laws she's learned to break, to transcend. Some still bind her: to cracks she can't smooth over, to say well what then, to her own form that's been shattered and knit itself back together under the powers of others or of time, not her own.

She descends, looks over at Kage, and is quiet - at first because she was turning it over, deciding on what was being said, and then because she understands and there is nothing she can say. Their rationale for not Believing really isn't that different.

Then, "What did Simon think of it, when you stopped Believing?" She assumes it happened before. Not after.

[K. R. Jakes] [Man. What did he say? Hypothetical Simon WP - a few, after a long day.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 5, 7, 7 (Botch x 2 at target 10)

[K. R. Jakes] Kage doesn't look distant. Kage doesn't choose to touch that memory too closely; she needn't. She remembers what he thought of it. What he thinks of it. She remembers it more clearly than she'd remember any image she tattooed on herself, remembers it more clearly than she'd remember any poem she'd read and reread; more clearly than she'd remember the colour of her eyes, if pressed.

"Well," she says, and her mouth curves [kissable (hidden)], a touch of something sardonic: "I got the impression that he didn't really think much of my revelation at all."

Understatement.

Beat. Then, less sardonic, more serious: "It was a messy knot. Had to cut it to get out."

[K. R. Jakes] [Theoretical Was Simon Coherently OMFG In His Botch-y Rantness?]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 5, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
to Ashley McGowen

[K. R. Jakes] [Really? That's all?]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7) Re-rolls: 1
to Ashley McGowen

[K. R. Jakes] [REALLY? THAT'S ALL?]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4, 4, 5, 7, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 1 at target 8) Re-rolls: 2
to Ashley McGowen

[K. R. Jakes] [....aw, c'mon man. I'm Chosen And Shit! Is this the BEST I can do?]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 9) Re-rolls: 1
to Ashley McGowen

[K. R. Jakes] [CHOSEN and totally righteous!]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 6, 9, 9, 9 (Botch x 1 at target 10)
to Ashley McGowen

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley recognizes the understatement, and that she doesn't pry into. Doesn't need to; she knows (remembers) just how messy those knots can be, and that the cutting sometimes isn't any cleaner. But there are pieces that fit together, curiosity that settles, sated (no.)

She can't find anything to say to it other than "I understand." It's not laden with pathos. It's a simple statement.

[K. R. Jakes] This isn't one of those moments. They aren't going to hug. They aren't even going to exchange a smile of complicity. There will be no holding of hands, no frolicking up and down the corridors of the cathedral. There will be no leavening, no companionable silence, no nod of understanding, echoed, returned; no swell of music because, dear god, they have something in common, or at least, maybe, just maybe, they have something in common, they know. None of that.

Kage doesn't reply, directly. She just looks at Ashley, thoughtful, pensive. And then, she says, "Which reminds me. I talked to Caspian the other day, and he said he taught you the Shut the Fuck Up rote. Have you used it on," always, brief, half-a-heartbeat second before, "Morgan, Nathan or Kaya yet?"

[Ashley McGowen] There's a quirk of the mouth at Kage's question, at the names she adds that aren't Morgan's. Her amusement overrides any surprise she may have had that Kage talked to Hannibal, that she and Temple keep correspondence, because didn't Kage say he'd done things that were unforgivable? "I wouldn't use it on Morgan," she says, because the apprentice is special, because what is human in Ashley often finds its home in her interactions with the girl. "But with the other two...yeah, I've been sorely tempted. But no."

Not yet. Ashley might leave it at that, but her amusement lowers a register, darkens, and she adds, "Nathan's asked me to teach him the Ars Mentis, so he might get the honor."

[K. R. Jakes] "I was always under the impression that he used it often on his apprentices," Kage says. Observant. He'd never outright said so. They didn't talk in-depth about that rote -- not after how blisteringly furious Kage was, the first time he used it on her. Maybe she's inviting comment, since Ashley lived with two of them for a while. Then, oh, then her eyebrows both rise (high). "Oh, T.H. And you're going to? Why?"

[Ashley McGowen] "He did," Ashley says. "Bran got it all the time. Justine a lot less. Me, once or twice." Which, given what Kage was able to put together about Ashley's former cabal mates, shouldn't be all that surprising - Bran Summers, who hit tables and argued with his mentor while they were there, and Justine Noble, who observed, who quietly despaired at what she saw, at all the rifts Hermetic Will couldn't mend. "Bran argued with him a lot. Morgan...I think it's a good thing, when she argues with me. It's good for her. I don't want to discourage that."

Then, why? Why - what did Kage call him? T.H.? "Did he give you a different name?" she asks Kage, with another sidelong look. Puzzled, inquisitive. Then, "I'm teaching him because with a possible Nephandus running around, it's better if he can guard himself, mostly. And he agreed to owe me favors."

[K. R. Jakes] "His patience with contradiction can occasionally make paper feel thick," Kage says, meaning Hannibal [Caspian] still. Then, perplexed: " - What? No. I started calling him T. H. after he shoved a gun in my face for the second time." Brief pause: "No, that isn't fair. The first time, he didn't shove it in my face, so much as grip it meaningfully." Kage sounds amused, recounting this. They're talking about Nathan now, so it's okay. Amused, but annoyed. Bravado. A gun is an Eye, and an Eye noone wants to look into. Not when there's someone unstable on the other side of it, their finger on the trigger. "And that's generous of you; don't you think it's doing him a disservice, though?"

[Ashley McGowen] Kage asks whether it's doing Nathan a disservice, and the way her earlier words echo makes her mouth quirk again into one of those not-quite-smiles they are both given to. "I don't think you understand how I teach the Ars Mentis," she says. "He'll still be working for it. If he doesn't..." A shrug, there. Dismissive.

"I'm not teaching him to be generous."

[K. R. Jakes] "Ah. You're going to go in and take his secrets until whatever needs to click in his mind does. And he tries to push you out." There's space, after, for Ashley to contradict Kage, to say, No, not exactly, or I won't really be taking his secrets.

[Ashley McGowen] "At first, I only try to break in," Ashley says, with a shake of the head. "Usually I only take if they really need the push, or aren't getting the point." Perhaps Kage doubts; perhaps she doesn't. Ashley has been able to show restraint with others - with Emily, only a few weeks ago.

"It worked for me, when I was learning. It'll give him some idea of what to expect."

[K. R. Jakes] "I see," Kage says, again: noncommittal. Maybe it isn't the way Kage learned, herself. Maybe Kage already knows Ars Mentis. Maybe she doesn't, and she was thinking about asking Ashley for some tips [maybe that's hard to imagine (imagine world peace)].

"Well, I hope you have fun."

[Ashley McGowen] It is hard for Ashley to imagine Kage asking for her help, with the Ars Mentis or otherwise. The thought may have occurred to her once or twice (not this evening) and was promptly brushed aside. Kage - prides herself on her ability to get by on her own, in Ashley's mind, stubborn about allegiances and alliances. "I doubt it," she says, in regard to fun. "But hopefully it won't be a waste of time. I know he has a decent library."

He'd even offered to trade (she'd refused to open hers for his perusal.) "I didn't know you were still in contact with Temple."

[K. R. Jakes] "Word on the street says so," Kage says, mouth curving, again. Word on the street, literally, in the form of Nathan himself, with big plans, big ego, big shoes, big spender, big liar. "What do you hope to get from it; if anything in particular?"

Then: Ashley didn't know Kage was still in contact with - " - hah," she says, half-low, a fire-banked thing: "No? I am."

[Ashley McGowen] "Nothing in mind," she says. "I figure I'll go and look first, and take a closer look at anything that strikes me." There are usually interesting bits to be found in any arcane library really, no matter what exactly Nathan's may contain.

"I didn't think the two of you got along," she says, of Hannibal, looking over the rounded points of her knees at Kage. Like some kind of hill creature.

[K. R. Jakes] Nathan's library, like Nathan's bar, are both mysterious. He said he wanted to be neutral. That he had no reason to choose sides. Kage isn't certain how true that is; Kage isn't certain how, ultimately, selfish he is; how, ultimately, unselfish he is.

Then, a half-laugh - something moon-clotted, ash-soft - "We do not. He's a monster."

[Ashley McGowen] About Hannibal being a monster, Ashley has nothing to say for a few seconds. Beats pass; silence that she seems to want to fill. Perhaps at first she intends to agree with Kage; for years she resented the man for his treatment of Bran, while appreciating how very Hermetic he was.

Then, "I think we all are." She's stirring again, uncurling, restless. Shaking away the still that's settled into her limbs, the cold that's lighted there now that there aren't bodies to heat the interior of the church.

[K. R. Jakes] "I don't."

There. Kage says she doesn't believe, but maybe she only thinks she doesn't. Regardless, she means it: she doesn't think they are [all] monsters.

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley glances back at Kage, knits a brow at how blunt, how irrevocable, that statement. But only for a second. Maybe Ashley is only thinking of Morgan, Ashton, Rene, Gregor. Wharil. Bran. Maybe she isn't thinking of Emily or Justine or of Kage herself, Kage who invited a burning man into her home and who hugged him the night before his former lover sent him out of the world.

There's just a smile, fleeting, as she flicks still-damp hair out of her eyes. "Then I guess we'll agree to disagree." There's a beat, long enough for Kage to say something if she desires, before Ashley adds, "It's late."

[K. R. Jakes] Kage smiles. Brief, this - the emergence of gorgeousness; like it's a secret she has [like it's a revelation (only some get to see)]. Touches her eyes, transforms them. "That doesn't mean much," she says, "But maybe now's not the time for a rousing argument." The red-haired woman - and, see? the gorgeousness is fading, now, with the smile; there're echoes, but they're going, going - stands and stretches. "Is late. You want a ride home?" A beat. "He said you pissed him off," and, okay. Maybe the gorgeousness isn't totally gone: it flares, again - sweet, lovely.

[Ashley McGowen] "There's nothing for me to argue," Ashley says, as a hand curls around the pew in front of her and she hauls herself to her feet. "I am what I am." Her voice could be somber, there, perhaps would be were it not for the brilliant smile that softens the conversation, gives it light.

"I'd like a ride," she agrees, and then Kage reminds her that she pissed Hannibal off, and there's a wry smile. Nowhere near as gorgeous as Kage's. "Yeah. I think I'm glad that we were just talking over the phone. He didn't really like my helpful suggestions."

[K. R. Jakes] " - only for now," Kage says, thoughtful, pensive. Not distracted, but abstracted: a throw-away comment.

Then: the gorgeousness becomes a soft [husk] rake of laughter [light shivers]. "I am absolutely shocked to hear that. And it's definitely safer to piss Hannibal off over the phone, I wel know. What were you helpfully suggesting?" Because she does not, actually, know. This is not a devious plan to ferret out a confession or an admission (as if Ashley'd think of it so, anyhow). This is just: something pissed Hannibal off. This pleases the Orphan.

It's not until Ashley slides out've the pew that Kage'll follow suit, exhaling, quiet, gentled.

[Ashley McGowen] "I told him he should apologize to someone he'd wronged," Ashley says, mouth still quirked as her hands find the pockets of her jeans. She follows the Orphan outside, having given little thought to that throw-away comment (because she doesn't want to, because earlier she'd wondered, and she doesn't want to wonder right now. Later?)

"I was pretty persistent about it. He was throwing things and slamming doors and I think he smashed a vase or something? Then he hung up on me."

[K. R. Jakes] "The only person I've ever heard Hannibal apologize to, when he wasn't lyng, is Simon," Kage says, smile fading - but naturally. These things don't last. "Flambeau," she says, low-voiced - " - drama queens. No offense."

[Ashley McGowen] "Justine wasn't," Ashley says, balling her hands up in her pockets. "Bran...sometimes, later on. He wasn't when we were younger though. Kind of got more aggressive as we got older." She's lagging a little behind Kage, waiting to be led to the truck.

[K. R. Jakes] The truck. Not far, but not close - they are, after all, near Kage's apartment. Just a few blocks away, just a couple, just a deuce, just a pair, just a brace: hunting blocks, sleek blocks, blocks with corners, sidewalk blocks. Ashley lags, so Kage, who does not slide her hands in her pockets, after a final glance toward the empty altar, toward the way the cathedral is starting to feel empty, emptied, leads the way. "Truck's at my place," she says, warns.

Then, a brief pause; a briefer smile, thoughtful. " - right. I wouldn't have pegged Justine as one of Hannibal's, just by talking to her. Did Bran ever figure out - " Brief pause. " - Is he still leading the line?"

[Ashley McGowen] "...I haven't really talked to him much," Ashley says, quickening her pace to keep up with Kage after the Orphan warns that the truck is at her apartment. Once she knows that they're going to be doing a little walking, however brief. There's a sort of wistfulness when it comes to Bran; not an open wound, not something actively painful or something she tries to push down deep. Just acceptance, in the bittersweet way it happens upon people.

"I think he is, still, from what Justine tells me. Don't think he's changed or figured things out yet." A shrug, one that says that she isn't sure he will, doesn't trouble herself, doesn't lose sleep. "And Justine...she's very resilient. She's quiet, so most people don't peg her that way, but I don't think she ever let Hannibal bother her much. Just took his lessons."

[K. R. Jakes] "Speaking of lessons," Kage says, a shift, toward the (tedious [wholly]) mundane. Toward the normal, the unquestionable. Toward this: "Are you still slacking on your thesis, or have you managed to squeeze in some time on it?"

And with that, conversation will turn to simple things. Brown packages tied up with strings. Favourite things. New Thai food places. Theses.