Foundling

[K. R. J.] This is a park.

This is a park in Lake View; not one of the vast, sprawling greens -- a small park, with an air, solitary, half-secluded, a little wild: bramble and artfulness. There is a little low gate; the gate is an ornament. There is noone who can be kept out of this park. When the city remembers to, on the odd occasion, the city sends someone with a heavy key to lock the heavy padlocks on the gates, but those heavy padlocks have cheated on the city, have dallied over-long with rust, and they're red with it. Anyone who wants to, going from one place to another, Starbucks, a church, a museum, a club, a theater, the lake, a hostel, a hotel, can cut through the little park, or at least look in and see the summering grass, the summer-crowned trees, heavy blooms, snarl of roses, thorns-thick against the metal, the way the paths all meet, the way they knot, here, there, laid-out in a geometric riddle, the little sunken fountain at the center, where moss-blooms, willows, whitening in the corner, aspens, whispering in the other.

This is a park; that is a park. The park has benches and on one of the park benches there is a young woman with hair as red as blood, or redder, fox-red hair, hair as red as foxes: burnished, fire, all these things. Ashley can feel her; the familiar [a luminous amorousness, a bright ardency, that spring-blush that-seed-when-you-kiss, the jump of ardency, heat; the balancing act: leeching, draining, disappearing: the withering winter brings], and the unfamiliar [immanent (kindling). immanence (kindled). a sudden cut]. Feel her before Kage feels Ashley, at any rate; before she thinks to Feel. Because:

Kage is in the park-bench, opening her eyes as if she's been asleep for a long, long time, sitting up, not-quite-halting, a thing-uncurling, putting her feet on the ground, palms flat on the surface of the bench, dreaming. It's late; twilight is smoke in the trees, but storm-dark, because Chicago: it's a miracle it's not raining now. The pavement is wet: silver.

[Ashley McGowen] [Can I get down again if I climb the fence?]

[Ashley McGowen] She knows where this park is. She's walked by it many times. Ashley loves it the way she loves the derelicts in the southside, the towers that hang empty and open in Cabrini-Green, full of nothing but rot and memories. They're like modern ruins, spots where the fingerprints of humanity are washed out and fading, breathed over. They have a sad, defiant sort of beauty to them.

When she passes, it's with a glance within, toward the overgrown grass and the roses snarling past the gate. It's the kind of place you could step into and expect to be sent to some Elsewhere, to wrap yourself in foliage and Transform.

Kage's Will tugs her attention further in even before she's realized that it's doing so, a blend of familiar and unfamiliar - which is curious indeed. As she steps up to the gate, as her hand wraps around one of the bars, she spots the Orphan there on the park bench. Waking. Ashley is too curious to be cautious, in spite of angels demons and doom-children.

The Hermetic was athletic long ago, and some of that athleticism still remains with her after all these years, faded though it is. She lifts herself up, pulls, hovers at the top of the fence for a moment before jumping down. It's not graceful, she doesn't make it look easy, but she does it. Lands quietly, and as she's straightening, casts another look in Kage's direction. Waits for her to right herself.

[K. R. J.] [So... Get my bearings? Regain usual composure all quick-like?]

[K. R. J.] [And uh. Per+Awareness, too?]

[K. R. J.] Her right foot touches the ground first. Then her left. There is blood in her mouth; the iron of it. She can taste it. She can (still [echo]) taste it. Now, Kage is sitting up; her disarray is more obvious, perhaps - the dreaming tangle of her hair, the bruise of her mouth; she looks as if she has been kissing someone, or being kissed. Ashley is at the gate, her hands on the bars; Kage can feel the Hermetic - the hunger of her, the relentless determination of her: these things which make her so formidable, these outward expressions of how, and why, she is formidable. Kage can feel the Hermetic, and in a second she'll see her, too; in a second, she'll look over, where Ashley is standing, waiting for Kage to pull herself together.

But before that second comes, before: there is blood in her mouth; she can taste it. Kage, flushed, presses both hands to her heart -- suddenly, see? Really quickly: like she's expecting something; her spine goes straight. Then she feels her ribs, her neck, cants her head like she's trying to figure out which thread to pull on a knot, purses her lips, covers her mouth, spits, and: there. There it is: a clot of dark heart's blood, thick, dredged up from the deeps, some place she feels in her chest.

Another second: stare.

Then: well. They'll never say that Kage was anything less than one of the most stubborn people in the world. She pulls herself together, sheer strength of will; stops whatever frenzy of emotion is threatening -- yes, threatening -- to spill out, controls it, composure, has her composure, the Moon wishes that it was as strong in its dedication of the courting of the sea as Kage is, and she doesn't let herself worry about being lost, because this is the real world. The world is real: here we are. Kage wipes her hand on the thigh of her jeans.

" - hey," she says, voice a clot of smoke. "Did you see - " Then: another strange expression - she turns her head away from Ashley, covers her mouth again, then defying all politeness, reaches into her mouth and: spits out two seeds.

[Ashley McGowen] As she approaches, while she waits, Kage presses both hands to her heart. A crease appears between the Hermetic's eyebrows, and the Orphan coughs, and something red and disconcertingly chunky appears in the palm of her hand, like a blood clot or a piece of lung or...

"Kage, are you okay?"

Kage, of course, stares. Wipes her hand on the palm of her jeans, and that furrow deepens, little ridges and valleys of consternation appearing between a pair of dark eyebrows. Kage is fighting to stay in control, Kage's mouth is a little bruised, swollen (in a way that makes Ashley remember early summer in north Boston, a long time ago) and Kage speaks.

Spits out two seeds, and somehow Ashley's eyes are managing to widen even while her brows stay drawn together like they are, something at once concerned and bewildered and, of course, desiring to know so badly it's painful. "See what?"

[K. R. J.] "'ley," Kage says, and her voice is stronger now; a little less smoke, although still -- it's a voice that knows stars, see: the dark spaces between. "Do me a favor," and she reaches out with her other hand, her left, to take Ashley by the wrist, pull her closer, put Ashley's hand over her heart. Does it: immediately. Even though that takes will, too. Don't flinch. "What do you feel?"

Kage's skin is warm; not fevered. Normal warmth; her heartbeat is strong, maybe a little quick. The Orphan is looking at Ashley intently.

[Ashley McGowen] Kage says her name (not her Name: the nickname she's given - though nicknames have their own power, a familiarity) and Ashley's eyebrows raise, expectant. She doesn't resist when Kage grabs her wrist, tugs her in close, but there's a startled surprise when that hand is immediately transferred to Kage's heart. She doesn't flinch either, but there's a searching look cast toward the Orphan's face as her palm flattens over her chest, something startled and confused and wondering.

Seconds later a skittish shuffle of feet betray her, while there's after a long pause in which she feels the rhythm beneath her hand, trying to see whether there's anything unusual, anything she should be looking for. "Your heartbeat," she says. "Beating like it should."

[K. R. J.] "Yeah," Kage says, as if she was confirming what Ashley said; as if Ashley had asked a question. She closes her eyes for a moment. Opens them, and her gaze slants off to the side; a fall of shadow, a lightless thing -- and while she is still looking off to the side, at evening, beginning to creep into the park, pulling shadows out've benches, out've low-stone walls, out've bushes, she starts to smile. This sloooooooow thing: daybreak, dawn; this thing echoed by a demure downbeat of her eyelashes, kiss her cheekbones, and then: she looks back at Ashley. "Yeah? Do you know what that means?"

And: Kage is laughing. "I'm alive." Kage is: lucent, is radiant; is luminant [luciferous], and gorgeous with it: this human exultation; this un-restrained, un-fettered delight. "I'm alive!" And: Kage is jumping to her feet, holding both of Ashley's hands, "I'm fucking alive! I'm alive I'm alive I'm alive and I'm here - I'm alive I'm alive I'm alive - " and she is hugging Ashley, then spinning her around " - Alive, alive, alive, alive, alive - "

Totally delighted. Totally surprised. " - alive, alive - " And she executes a graceful, fey-thing twirl - because composure is an innate [immanent] thing, because it can be tooled to such delicate work: look, she spins a shadow. Her cheeks are roses: " - HA!"

And Kage? Looks up at the sky. " - HA!!!"

[Ashley McGowen] The moment she felt the touch of the Orphan's Will outside the garden, when she crept nearer, weighed its nuances, she suspected that Kage had been Seeking. When Kage spat blood, spat seeds, her immediate assumption had been that it had gone wrong, had gone the way Ashley's did.

All doubts are then erased. Kage's exuberance creeps up on her, takes her like an attack, because Kage is smiling in that way she has and Ashley can't help but grin back after that first I'm alive. She might have said something, but Kage continues, exalts, pulls the smaller woman into a hug, and Ashley is somewhere between utterly bemused and feeling the edges of her Will tugged at by fierce joy, which is easier (and harder) to share than sympathy ever is. She doesn't resist but the hug she gets in return is a mixed thing, a sort of I'm-happy-for-you-but-don't-throw-me-like-a-discus-please.

Kage twirls, shouts to the sky, and Ashley gives her a sidelong look when her feet touch ground again, brows still furrowed, and laughs. Happy, happy for whatever Kage is so happy about, but weighed down with that note of uncertainty, of surprise.

"Did you worry you weren't?"

[K. R. J.]
to†K. R. J.

[K. R. J.] It should be said that the two seeds, blood-covered, which she spit up: they've been in her fist. Her closed fist. Now, they're put in her pocket; a pocket she checks for holes with her knuckles. There is far too much cloud-cover for Kage to see any stars; still, she knows they're there, as surely as she knows her blood's under her skin, moving along vein-roads, artery-roads, as surely as she knows that her feet are on the ground. Kage inhales, exhales: the breath is like wind, shaking her down, singing in her bones, clean, clear, and her expression changes again. Something a little different; something a little inscrutable. Not enigmatic: not on purpose. Just: difficult to parse; and it was a fleet-thing, too -- the way it changes, her expression: catch stars out've water with a sieve.

"Well," she says, and stops, dragging her fingers through the wild mess of her hair: "Actually." Now, solemnity returns; gravity: it's like a stone dropped into still-water, see? Changes things. Because: well.

Actually.

[Ashley McGowen] Actually, Kage says, and it's as good as saying yes. It communicates more than yes, in fact, with that gravity she turns on Ashley all of a sudden, it communicates that it was more complicated, that...well, honestly, Ashley can't even begin to guess. She often can't guess at what's going through Kage's mind (would need Mentis for that, dig past those laden expressions and find the roots.)

Ashley returns that solemn look with a smile, ringing with separate tones: something wry, something still a little confused. Something that might be wistful understanding, just for a second. She brings a hand up to the back of Kage's shoulder, rests, as though it would guide the Orphan somewhere, but for the moment she just glances around, unsure of whether Kage would leave the garden. In the end it drops away: the garden is as good a place as any.

"Tell me about it," she says, glancing out of the corner of her eye at Kage.

[K. R. J.] [Out've curiosity...]

[K. R. J.] "Let's get some food," Kage says, and Ashley may well read it for an agreement; let us eat. Then: telling. "I'm going to walk through the gate," she adds, mouth quirking: "Not climb over it. If that's all right."

Hey: she pulled herself together. Willful. She noticed. Can think back and reconstruct what she didn't know she noticed.

[Ashley McGowen] "I thought it was locked," Ashley says, with a look toward the gate that's a bit chagrined. Of course, she didn't check either, just saw the rust, the overgrowth within, and assumed. Jumped the fence, took the hard way around and over.

"Let's go," she says, a second later, placing implicit trust in Kage's choice of places to acquire food from.

[K. R. J.] It occurs to Kage that she does not know whether or not the gates are locked. Does not know how she came to be in the park. Does not know how long she was there, on the bench, with her eyes closed. Does not know if she was unwaking; unwakable. Does not know if she was walking around, eyes open, but mind elsewhere. Does not know if she coalesced out of a thought; out of a fall of light; out of air and shadow. Yeah: the gates might be locked.

They aren't.

---

They -- Ashley, Kage; Hermetic, Orphan -- are in a Jewish deli. This little place: literally, built in a hole-in-the-wall after some race-riot fueled fire. There are still some smoke-blackened bricks; there are still stains, on the floor, in the corners. This little place: swept clean, but old, where the pastrami is to die for, and we haven't even started in on the rye or the potato latkes with apple sauce and sour cream. There aren't a lot of people in the deli. The inside has a warehouse feel: comes of being a hole in a wall, once, perhaps -- of being so near the waterfront [drowning happens (there)].

Kage chose a large booth: private, but sort've vast. The kind of booth mafiosas might have meetings in, did they happen to like Jewish culinary treats. She orders a lot of food. The latkes to start: appetizer. Also: the stuffed knishes.

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley thinks Israel has brought her food from this place. In any case, she's pleased with Kage's selection, and follows the Orphan inside with an amiable sort of quiet. She'll situate herself. They'll talk in time. She knows that whatever Kage saw, whatever happened: it was significant. It was personal. That's why Ashley doesn't rush, doesn't prod.

She sits and looks at the menu with hungry eyes, and even though she isn't right out of a Seeking she too orders a lot of food. Latkes and a reuben: she's seen the size of the sandwiches here. They're the size of her head.

Still, she's quiet. Turned inward. A lot has happened to Ashley in the past few days; she can give Kage time.

[K. R. J.] There are some people who come from visions and it is as if the visions have re-shaped their tongues. Have given them the ability to speak fire into air, iron into gold, glass into sand, sand into glass: cities into a shadow, a shadow into light. They're eloquent; they need to speak. If they don't speak, that'll be inside, and it'll hurt them: it'll become a snarl. There are some. Evidently, Kage is not such a one. The red-haired Orphan is quiet; thoughtful, pensive, alone-with-her-thoughts, more solitary, more self-contained, even with Ashley right there, across the table, than usual. There isn't a wall; there is no sense that she's distancing herself, or wouldn't be, if Ashley were paying attention. This is just how it is.

Until: "Okay." Okay: telling. "Do you know what 'peradam' is?"

[Ashley McGowen] Kage has a tendency to do this: to cobble words together for what she sees, things she knows. Ashley has noticed this.

There was a time when she looked at it askance, treated the Orphan's tendency to do so with a sort of patronizing amusement. She's stopped doing that, because she's had time to think about it: she values Will after all, and being able to push through on your own, Name things for yourself, well. It's Willful. Ashley isn't sure she'd call it smart (well, pragmatic) but it is Willful.

So there's just a simple, "No. I don't." Tell me.

[K. R. J.] "I don't either." Here: the brief smile, errant loveliness; a star. "Do you know what the most difficult to find comic book is?"

[Ashley McGowen] "I don't read comic books," Ashley says, with a trace of a smirk, simply because Kage smiled, because the Orphan is making a point. She isn't even confused anymore.

[K. R. J.] "You really should." The Orphan's right eyebrow lifts, fractional; it is followed by her left. "See. This I happen to know. Maybe. There's a comic called Cerebus the Aardvark. And: more rare, more sought-after - there's the first Spiderman ever. The other day - " a beat. A pause. Days, she thinks; does not say. This has been a week of events, a week of days. A matter of fact: just what day is it? Night, now; but it was day, before, and night again - and now it's just becoming night, now twilight's just settled itself on the streets, just died.

"I was looking for something. I was looking for Him, too; He'd been scarce. "What I found was this shop. For antiques, I think; valuable things. No books. I went in: I was going to buy a painting, but," that errant smile, again; something almost rakish about it; self-aware. "I didn't have a goal: I just went in because it felt like I should go in, because things felt strange, and I struck up a conversation with the shopboy, right? He was reading the first Spiderman ever to himself. And uh, the place had no name. Unnamed. Because the owner apparently thought it made a statement, having some unnamed shop, a place you couldn't find unless someone told you about it: a total snob. Do you know Jeffrey Banks? It sounds like something his ex-wife would say."

"Anyway, while we were talking, I was looking at these diamonds in the display case, laid out on white- they were pretty, like water-drops, dew on snow, something. But I'm not really a diamond sort of girl," here, a wry quirk of an eyebrow; something sardonic, surfacing: swiping away the cobwebs of awe. Her tone is getting matter-of-fact: "And he went crazy. Not violently. Just: Do you see the peradam? Do you see the peradam? You only see the peradam when, okay, you get a choice, you can take and Know or take and Not-Know and there are so many Doors. He was scared of me. I think."

"I think he'd also had the same choice. Or a similar one. But hadn't made it: so he was just there."

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley listens. Perks when she's given a Coke, perks further when she's given a plate of latkes, but listens to what Kage has to say about comics, about this odd shop plagued with severe hipster snobbery. "I don't know Jeffrey Banks," she says, before tilting an ear once more.

About peradam, she raises her eyebrows. Wondering for a moment, perhaps, why someone -wouldn't- make a choice, except she knows: a lot of people are cowards. A lot of people choose to Sleep. "I take it you decided to take and Know," she says.

[K. R. J.] "No," Kage says, eyebrows drawing together; aware that this is reveletory, that this'll dredge the way she thinks, the bone-structure of her reasoning, up to the surface. "I left the peradam in their case and went through the door that, uhm. There was a door that wasn't there and then was: I went through that one, instead of back onto the street. And through the door, there was a garden and -- it was day. I mean, afternoon. But through the door, in this garden: it was night. There were stars. No clouds, no storms: just stars, tall trees, and a smell, and -- " Kage frowns, Kage is frowning down at the latkes, at the knishes, even as she reaches for one to gnosh on. "The door closed behind me," she says, after it swallowed: "He grabbed me. The door disappeared. And we talked."

[Ashley McGowen] "But why wouldn't you take them?" Straightforward, Ashley. Clever as she is, she's often locked into a course of action by her own nature: take is better than to not-take, to run is better than to stand still, to fight is better than to listen, hush, show palms.

Then she takes in the rest, eating, careful: doesn't want to get applesauce on her shirt. Or everywhere else. "What did He say to you?"

[K. R. J.] [Hmm...]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 6, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[K. R. J.] "They glittered," Kage says, answers. Then: cups her chin in the palm of her hand. Touches her wrist with the other hand. Then, and she doesn't realize it, brushes her hand across her breastbone before she settles it in her lap. "I didn't know what they were; I didn't know what bargain I'd be tying myself to just by accepting take one and Know, take one and Not-Know, or Leave. I didn't want to do any of those things. Besides," a beat, and Kage: she is a cheater. "I knew where they were. The shopboy made it sound like they were always there, just not - not usually seen. Or ever seen."

What did He say to you, Ashley wants to know. "I asked him what his name was. Again. He didn't tell me. He said," a brief pause. He wasn't just talking: he was also Doing. How to describe: what it felt like? Him, in her lungs? Him - the inability to scream? The Orphan's gaze is not hollow, but it darkens, deepens by degrees, tangible shadow: "He said ' - ask another question. Stay here, right here, and I will tell you everything you ever wanted to know.'"

[Ashley McGowen] She didn't know what kind of bargain she was tying herself into. Ashley has to nod at that, reluctantly concede. Ashley has tied herself into a lot of bargains, traded a lot of things when she didn't know what she was trading them for. But that's the way things go, and she takes risks.

That the Orphan's expression darkens, she doesn't miss that either. She's seen Him, she understands why it's difficult for Kage to explain what He is, what He does. She felt the other woman's irreverent awe and looked into the man's starry eyes. "So did you? Ask Him a question and listen to what He said, that is?"

[K. R. J.] "No," she says (trust [faith]). Her mouth curves, touches on amusement, although that is still leavened by something grave. "I didn't really get the impression that it was a 'stay, I'll tell you, then you'll know more' sort of deal, 'ley. It was more: stay, forever. And I'll feed you tidbits of things, and maybe you'll go mad, and maybe there won't ever be another thing, but I'll be here, telling you things you want to know, but don't ask. So: I told Him that I didn't want to be just told things. I wanted them, too. Do you - ?" Here, her eyebrows draw together, again, and her gaze is off-away, far-away: "The garden was walled, you know. And there was no door. Maybe there was a door, somewhere, but - it kept changing. Anyway, He told me to look and seek what I could find and know what I can love and promised to be here. He touched me and there was blood. Then: I went exploring. I was looking for a door, or, like." She grins, again. "I thought about talking to you at St. James, actually. And I decided to investigate the heart of the garden."

"And it was - " Brief pause. The brief pause becomes a long pause. The long pause stretches. Kage takes a sip of her water. Her voice was getting husky, again; smokey with disuse. "There was a well." She says this, deliberately. "An inverted tower, I think. Boarded up, dark. And there was a hill. A tower inside, I think. Tall. The stars crowned it. And beside the well, there was a boy, and something had ripped his ribs open and ... I mean, I don't ... I'm not a doctor, but he was missing ... He said that one of the ladies in the tower had taken his heart. He could speak, fine. I didn't expect him to be able to. And I tried to help him, and He - "

"He made some comments." Beat. "I thought maybe He'd done it to the boy, to be honest. Because the boy had blood in the same places He'd drawn blood from me."

[Ashley McGowen] I didn't want to be just told things. I wanted them, too. There's a sort of understanding in the Hermetic's eyes when she glances up: being fed answers is something, but it's not enough. It never would be, but perhaps she'd try to stay, learn what she could and find a way to make off with that knowledge. Then again, what she'd do and what Kage would do, they're different things. Ashley still thinks about it.

"Maybe it wasn't him, and it was more to do with what you gave Him, and what the boy gave her," Ashley says, after a beat, a moment's thought. "Did you try to help him?"

[K. R. J.] "Yes." This is not something Kage verbalizes: how intolerable a thing it is, she believes, Believes, for a creature to be divested of its heart, its story, its name. How wrong. It's there, though. Her eyelashes fall, again, to her cheekbones, and she regards Ashley, the dim-shape of the hungry, inquisitive Hermetic across the table, through them. "There was no obvious tower. I mean: the well, the hill. So I used the boy to find the echo, to, uhm, I used him to find his heart, and there were three paths. At the end of the one I took, I had to lose my heart. That's sort of how it went. And I died. I mean: really." There: her thumb, brushing across her chestbone again: "Or went into death. There was a hole, and it cut. A crown, and the crown cut, and then I just - " No. Silence. "The boy smiled and kissed me and he looked a lot better than I expected. I mean, he was fine. And He just stayed. And then, well, I went through death, and then I woke up. On a park bench. And my chest ached, but it was there. And then you climbed over the fence because you thought the gate was locked."

[K. R. J.] "And I think these latkes need some paprika. What do you think?"

[Ashley McGowen] Kage tried to use the boy to find his Heart, to track it down to wherever it was. This makes sense to Ashley. Allowing -her-heart to be cut out to take its place, well, that does not. She blinks across the table at the Orphan who tugged her wrist, asked her to feel her heartbeat to see whether she was alive at all, who felt that rush of joy when she realized that yes, she'd woken up, yes, she transcended Death in a way.

"But...why would you -do- that?" Ashley asks, eyelids shuttering over blue eyes for a millisecond, like it's too much for her mind to process what she sees and what she's thinking at the same time. "I mean, if you really thought you were going to die, why not just try to find another way to give him back his heart?"

[Ashley McGowen] The question about the paprika goes momentarily unnoticed, before, "Um...yeah. They do."

[K. R. J.] "Have you ever received something for nothing?" - she asks, and then -

"I didn't actually think I was going to die. That was kind of unexpected."

[Ashley McGowen] "No, I haven't," she says, "but still, why give up your own..." She stops, as Kage makes her second statement, that it was unexpected, and then it makes sense. Well, not complete sense. But more sense.

"I see," she says. Then there's a quirk of the mouth, a moment's amusement, before she adds, "But you were willing to give up your heart for him even though you were completely stubborn about not doing anything else you were told to do?"

[K. R. J.] First, this: the question - the long, long question - is like an ember. See, it falls; hits her gaze; scatters, shatters: sends light, skittering; sparking, flaring. Amused. But behind that: that serious thing [immanent (divinity): that has to slice clean]. "There were three choices. Three towers. I scaled one; at the end of it: there was what was mine. Is mine, still. You see? I wasn't giving it up. I was just - giving it; I mean: that's not something you lose. That stays with you. So: once I made my choice, yeah, I didn't back down, didn't waver because it was - it was harder than I thought it would be: because it hurt a little more. Because - "

There is a moment. This is what it looks like: fuck, fuck, fuck. Her jaw tightens; she rubs it, the side of her neck, buries her fingers under her tousled hair, bedroom-tousled hair, she could've just come from something amorous, see: didn't, though.

"It was the opposite of giving up. And it wasn't doing something because I was told to do it or because I was told not to do it. It was because I wanted to. Because it was - right."

[Ashley McGowen] Kage follows her heart. She's said that before, and hearing that it was right, that she wanted to do it, makes perfect sense. (For more reasons than one - Ashley, too, does what she wants to do, what she Wills. She just calls it something else, and it's all in the Name.)

There's a half-smile at the response, because it makes sense, because she could still argue the point, tease, but she doesn't. All she says is, "I'm happy for you."

The pause is long enough for her to chew and swallow a mouthful. The next question is almost offhand. "What are you going to learn next?"

[K. R. J.] I'm happy for you, Ashley says, and Kage takes a moment to process these words. To consider them. Then she looks at Ashley, that same knotting core of consideration in her eyes, like she is thinking a word, is turning it over, hammering imperfections out've it. Says, "Thanks, I guess. I just hope I don't lose my well-ordered mind, now," and, to be honest, Kage sounds like she's on the edge of exhaustion [elation], when she says it. "I don't intend to, but you know..."

Dylan was an Orphan and a Disciple. He became a Marauder. Israel, the other Orphan Disciple who has blown through and into town: she's comatose right now, slumbering, sleeping beauty, a sleeping thing, following some Letter that might mean God, unable to wake up, unable to be wakened. And those are the Orphans: what about the Euthanatos and the Hermetics?

Then again: maybe it's a joke. And Ashley's asking an almost offhand question. "I don't know."

[Ashley McGowen] "Why would you? I mean, I'd think you'd have more things sorted now, if anything," Ashley says, with a shrug. She didn't get it: it doesn't occur to her to think that the Disciples are all crazy. To her, they aren't. They've just dealt with a lot, seen a lot, are weighed down by their responsibilities. Are elbow-deep in the magical world. Can't avoid it anymore, can't go home again. That's just something that happens as one advances as a Willworker.

[K. R. J.] "You'd think so, perhaps," Kage says, noncommittal. Neutral. And also: "I did worry, in the garden, that maybe I wasn't in the garden at all. That maybe I was walking on the street. Maybe I'd been walking on the street for months, unable to see people, just - just maybe others who are Awakened. Only for a second, but," a pause, a shrug. And she finishes off her water.

[Ashley McGowen] "I can see how that'd be disconcerting," Ashley says, after a moment to consider, "but if you really were - is that really something to worry about? If none of this actually -exists,- if it's totally mutable, then there's no real reason to be upset by a transition or shift in perception. Other than feeling kind of squeamish about it. Which is understandable."

[K. R. J.] "I think so," she says, simply. It would be wrong to say that she inhales the last of the knishes or the first half of her pastrami sandwich. But only because hyperbole sometimes doesn't quite cut it. That it was really something to worry about - what reality one is walking through, what branch, what coil, what level of the many-tiered multi-dimensional palace [the unending dream: the dream of the red chamber..]. "Because I think that you're real. That Wharil is real. That Morgan is real and Emily. But I also think that: the waitress is real. Your mother is real. The man who works at the factory that milled the flour for this bread, he is real. And if I'm no longer perceiving, at all, real things: just how is it possible to move them? To make 'em into something else real? To do what I want? You know? Does this make senes to you?" Her mouth quirks. "It's part of the reason that, while I've on occasion deeply regretted being able to see spirits and ghosts, angels and demons, whatever, what's going on on that other side, mostly: I'm just glad I can perceive it."

[Ashley McGowen] "Well, they're real. Wills are real. So are ideas. I guess I just misunderstood," Ashley allows, after a moment. It seems at first as though the Hermetic might leave it at that. She's picking up the reuben, chewing at it, thoughtful and quiet. Not inhaling it, not even working through it rapidly. It's an inexorable thing, the way she goes through food: slow, but constant, so that it's hard to believe how much is gone when she's done.

"I guess what I was getting at is that if some new revelation came to me - like, I found those things to -not- be real - I'd be scared and I'd be resistant to the idea. But it's possible. I mean, think of all the people that would look at what we do and what we see and call us crazy, even with what we know now." And that's the truth of it, perhaps, and Kage might fear, one of the differences between Initiate and Disciple. The idea of limitlessness that some of the more advanced Willworkers are beginning to grasp, well. It does make people go a little crazy.

[K. R. J.] "People do want to be safe, and the truth doesn't always look like a thing that will make you safe." This is said soft; moonlight, again: but moonlight, scraping through wintered branches. Then: a flash of a smile. "It isn't that I worry about people calling me crazy; I've been called a lot worse by people in the circles you and I are more or less a part of. Although it's not my favourite term of endearment, mind. I just: dislike the idea. That I'm still seeing a lie. Or that I was, for other people, seeing a lie. I get the idea that until I'm proficient in all the 'Spheres' I'm not really going to be able to see -- " a gesture. " -- the way it is all the way through. Just pieces. You know?"

[Ashley McGowen] "I don't know about that," Ashley says, thoughtful. "I mean, if pure thought is what exists, is what we are, that means that everything else I see is a lie, to some extent. A manifestation of something abstract. The manipulation of all of them is a little different, because understanding the idea of a living body is different from understanding the idea of fire, and so on, but the basic principle is the same."

She takes another bite of her sandwich, pauses. Glances off into the gloomy interior, the place that's almost a warehouse, before she looks back at Kage. "And -calling- us crazy isn't what I was trying to get at. It's that we're not crazy, we just have a different level of understanding. Maybe that's what would be true if things shifted again. Another Awakening, I guess."

[K. R. J.] "Have you ever met someone who Ascended? Or someone who knows someone who Ascended?"

[Ashley McGowen] "No," Ashley says. "But I...honestly, when I saw Dylan, I wondered..." A troubled glance to Kage and away. "I talked about it with Justine. And if it's that, I wouldn't even -want- it, I suppose."

[K. R. J.] "He definitely hadn't Ascended, Ashley. He was stuck. He wasn't a star. He was just: stuck." Kage finishes off her pastrami. Now, their breath, it is not sweet; Jewish deli food has that effect. Kage nibbles on a pickle slice. Then: "If you believe Hannibal, his Master reached Ascencion. And disappeared. I used to think he killed her."

[Ashley McGowen] "I didn't know that," Ashley says. But it explains a few things about Hannibal, and so her tone isn't necessarily surprised, when Kage tells her this. "I'm...still not completely sure what I think it is, honestly, but I don't think you'd disappear, if it happened."

She doesn't believe in vanishing in a puff of smoke, leaving an earthly body. Nor does she think it would mean a separation, living entirely as a being of Thought: affecting this reality, after all, is the mark of an Enlightened Will. "I talked about this with Ashton, a little. And I don't know. A lot of Hermetic writings suggest that it's a state of ultimate perfection and I'd probably agree that that's what it is, but I don't know if that's even possible. Or what would happen."

[K. R. J.] There is a lull. Quietude. Then: "Do you want it? You said that if it's what happened to Dylan, you wouldn't want it. But do you want it now?"

[Ashley McGowen] "If it's perfection? I...think so," and here there's a pause, a frown as the last bit of sandwich is popped into her mouth, chewed and swallowed. "But I don't know. Because I'm not sure perfection's possible. At some point, you'd be better than everything else around you, you'd be on top and untouchable...but not necessarily perfect. And...I don't know. That just doesn't sound very fulfilling to me, in the end, being so perfect that nothing can touch you. You know?"

It's not a confession she'd make to another Hermetic. It's not even a confession she'd make to members of other Traditions, in all likelihood - because she is Hermetic to them. Kage, though, well. She's quiet again, and there's another flick of her eyes up toward the Orphan's, sitting there messy haired, just had a revelation. "Do you? Want it, I mean."

[K. R. J.] "The opposite of 'ascend' is 'descend,'" Kage says, after a long moment spent in thought, and she is cupping her chin in the palm of her hand. "Want to hear a story?" This is going to be an answer, probably: Ashley has to know by now that Kage often speaks in little parables.

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley does know that, by now. The Hermetic pushes the empty plate aside. Searches for a moment in her pockets, which always seem to be able to hold more than they rightfully should, comes up with a packet of mint gum. She pops a piece out of the bubble, offers one to Kage. "Sure," she says, with a sidelong glance at the Orphan. Waiting, only slightly amused: all of Kage's riddling still entertains her.

[K. R. J.] "Ages ago. When I was still a bright new penny, unscratched by the trials and travails of life in the gutter and the pockets of guys with too much change," a quirk of her mouth, sardonic; a shadow. "I met a woman. Named Sara. She talked about perfection. About the point when everything, everyone, All: was perfect. She thought it was reachable, but it wasn't something she intended to reach through an ascent. She was about the descent. She told me that fire was something that the perfection, that the initial Nothingness, had created in order to bring everything back down to Nothing. If that's what perfection is -- if that's what is at the end of a long ascent: I don't want it. I seriously doubt I'll ever be sick enough of shadows to want it."

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley listens, interested, at first because she expects she will have to parse meaning. Then: because Kage says descent, Kage says that this woman thought Fire was supposed to bring everything back to a perfect, whole, Nothing. An All.

It isn't insane. It makes sense, from a Willworker's perspective, from the perspective of anyone who has seen Hell and known Hunger, and that might be the reason for that, there, vaguely haunted and gnawing at the corners of her vision. "Descent is easier," is all she says, at first. "I have to think that going the other way, there'd be something better at the end."

[K. R. J.] "No." A beat. And, "People just believe it's easier. Nothing is easy about hitting the bottom; nothing is worthwhile about hitting the bottom." Kage drags her fingers through her hair, combing it into an altered state, into something neater, a little less ravished: "Nothing. That's what I don't want: I don't want to be nothing; I don't want to lose who I am to - " Brief pause. Brief sigh. "Anyway, I hear you get really shitty speechwriters, too. And ascension - the idea of it - doesn't really factor into my life very much."

When Kage reaches into her jeans for her wallet, lo. She blinks once, half-sleepy, half-dreaming. Then: "Er. Do you mind covering me?"

[Ashley McGowen] "I'm doing it because it's something to work toward, and the act of working toward it challenges me," Ashley says. "Not because I'm particularly interested in the end state itself." It's something far off, something maybe unattainable, and Ashley likes to focus on here. Besides, the thought of the end state. Well, it's a little sad: nothing more to do, nothing more to Be. Nothing more to fight.

Kage forgot her wallet, and Ashley is already pulling hers out, already putting down bills that will cover both of them on the table. "I was going to offer, anyway."