Morgan Lake] There is this: a young redhead sitting, just so, at a table in a coffee shop not on the mile, where she usually goes, but tucked away on Northwestern's campus where she's almost certain she won't run into her father or the professors, or anyone from her old life. She has a web-enabled cell phone, which is the closest she has to on the go computing power right now, and she's browsing with it. Before her, there's a cup of latte, sweetened only with raw sugar - no mocha tonight, no tea, just espresso and steamed milk with a lovely little design crafted in the bit of froth on top.
She could be any other student really, except that she's not.
[Kage] [We'll start with Perception + Awareness. Just because that's important!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Morgan Lake] Why yes, that would be a certain young apprentice of Kage's acquaintance, or someone who feels very much like her. There are traces of residual magic around her, but nothing currently active, and no oddity about her resonance.
to Kage
[Kage] The weather has been as uncertain as a new lover, as if it doesn't quite know how to treat yet with this year: should it bluster, should it be fair? Should it be cold and distant or wet and clingy? How should it kiss Her, the Year? How should it be, this Spring? And most mortals are slaves to the (or at least, affected by) Year's Great Passion.
Witness, Kage.
The young woman is in a coat left unbuttoned, her throat open to the (amorous) touch of the air, her hair twisted up in a couple of [otaku] buns, tendrils of red hair fly-awaying. Beneath the coat, just one layer, a teeshirt and then a pair of comfortable jeans. There's a bracelet on her wrist, but no other jewelry; she is unadorned and unlovely, plain, disappear. There is another sweater in the backseat of her truck, an umbrella and an extra pair of socks, if it really comes down to it, but that's all the way in her truck, which is parked all the way in guest parking, all the way over way over there (and through the woods).
Enid who isn't Enid any longer (who is Enid, always: can't shuck that so easily) isn't difficult to find, even in the crowd of twentysomethings and older who are a constant state of flux in and through the coffee shop, and the red-haired Orphan (still) approaches directly, bootfalls soft (gentled), rather than veering to order a drink or a snack.
"Hey, you. How are?"
[Morgan Lake] It's a familiar voice, but one not-Enid (but yes, Enid-always) hasn't heard in some time - since Before. When the girl starts slightly, looks up from the white Blackberry in her hand, her eyes are guarded, careful, and it takes a moment for her lips to curve up. The pleasure, when it arrives, is genuine enough - she'd enjoyed Kage's company when they'd talked and spent time together before [Before].
She nods at the chair across from her, nudges it out with one tennis shoe clad foot to indicate that the older mage is welcome to join, should she so desire.
"Hey. I'm okay." (Liar [it takes one to know one]) "How're you?"
Jeans, long sleeved black button down shirt, hair down and free (tucked behind her ears) tonight, she really does blend reasonably well - as a first year, perhaps.
"It's been awhile."
[Kage] The chair scrapes against the pavement (protest or welcome in a language that can only be abrasive) when Enid's sneaker nudges it. Kage, her delicate features serious, but not grave, not full of bad news or impending solemnity, pulls it the rest of the way out. The front two rungs go into the air, cast a shadow; they don't screech this time, although they give a wordless gasp when she does sit. Kage looks as if she could (should be) still attend university.
"I know," she says, and for a moment -- just a second -- there's a sea-shadow, passes across her dark eyes. They're not brown, but they're always of a colour difficult to discern, especially in the late afternoon, when the sun's gilding gold through the stormclouds, through the promise-banded spring rain. She likely means that she knows Enid's not okay, or that she knows just why it's been so long, that she knows Enid's no longer Enid, that she's now taken the name of some other Arthurian figure (you'll still be close to them that way [adhering to their wishes]).
"I'm sorry. Longer than I wanted. You want to talk about your adventures and just who you are right now?"
[Morgan Lake] ".....did you talk to Ashley, Austin or Emily?"
That will affect what Kage already knows, of course; Austin'd left before the new name had been finalized, Emily's been as supportive as can be, given her own life and issues, and Ashley . . . is Ashley, and more human with not-Enid than she is with most, but that's not always saying much. She, though, still knows the most about the After, the Now, than either of the others.
"And what would you like to know? I'm finishing up a year off between high school and starting college, with plans to go to Northwestern for pre-law." Which is, all told, not that different from her original plan. It just involved some creative scholarship and grant applications, and making sure her newly acquired identity was sound enough to hold up to any scrutiny from the various boards and committees. Her actual transcripts had been taken and altered to show a different school - a public one, likely, and thus less prestigious, but she'd done well enough that that sort of thing doesn't have the same affect as it might otherwise.
But of course she doesn't want to talk about her adventures - that story is told in the way she deftly steps around that part of the question, in the way she sips her latte as if she's answered everything there is to answer.
[Kage] "The girls," Kage replies, cupping her chin in her palm. "Just after you came home. And then again, after you moved in with Quicksilver. How is that working out, anyway?" Her eyebrows rise (evidence: question), and there's nothing at all suggestive, although maybe she's concerned at the idea of pretty little Enid all in alone in big bad Solomon Blackstone Quicksilver's invisible monstrosity of a house. "And, you know. How's it feel to be following in the footsteps of the great Hermetics?" How's it feel to be a Traditionalist?
"I want to know everything, Enid," she says, and this might be the last time Morgan Lake hears Kage R. Jakes ever say the name she was born with. Her voice is low, an easy, controlled thing; cautious, though; a shadow, private, a cloister (sh). "But it's what you want to talk about that's the important thing here. I would appreciate the answer to at least one of my questions, though." A pause, and she considers making that two, because Enid's got something hanging around her, something that tickles at the back of Kage's neck, something she's dimly aware of and wants to investigate (not yet, this ifrst),
"My kitchen was destroyed, and I want to re-Christen her with good food. The kind that is baked. By bakers who are skilled. Which means, bakers who are not necessarily myself."
[Morgan Lake] "It's not so bad, I suppose, living with Solomon. The house is big, so we mostly miss each other." She says, as if she doesn't miss the boy (younger than she, as far as she can tell, and more advanced which makes her envious) at all. "I study, and practice, and I have free reign in the kitchen." She also makes sure the place is clean to her standards, which are very different than that of most teenaged males, particularly those living on their own, but that's just because she needs it to be so, not for any other reason.
The second question actually gets the first hint at a smile - one corner of the girl's lips curls up uncertainly, as if it's half forgotten how and might get a sprain int he process. "It feels a lot like school, with some practice thrown in. I like it, and it suits me." Of course, she's only an apprentice as yet - she hasn't been subjected to the politics and pomp in person, so this comes easily, what she says. Who knows how she'll feel if and when that changes.
"If you'd like someone to come fill your house with far too many baked goods, I'd be more than willing to oblige. Just let me know when."
[Kage] [spirits, spirits, everywhere? What's that tangling in Enid's hair? 3+1-1[practicedrote]-1[foci 'cept can't minus another one, but you know]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 4, 10 (Success x 2 at target 3)
[Morgan] It's strange, really, to find the girl so marked - in a way that can only be seen when one looks beyond the veil, of course. It would hardly do to have this sort of thing easily found. There, on her sternum just below her breast, is one half of a glowing red heart. The left half, to be exact.
[Kage] [WTF IS THAT? Occ+Intel Diff 7.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[Kage] [Wait, go ROLL CRAZY]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 4)
[Morgan] [Per + Aware!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 6 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Kage] "What've you been studying so far? History of, etcetera?"
That tickle in the back of her mind -- that knowledge that there is something Other, hanging around Enid -- is what causes the Orphan to, quite calmly, place one hand under the table, slide it into her pocket. There's a ring, in her pocket. There's also a businesscard. It doesn't matter to the Orphan which one she cuts herself on, but it's the ring this time: the ring, sharp-cut gemstone eyes, and there isn't a lot of blood spilled (just, enough to be helpful). Kage takes her hand out've her pocket and presses the (cut [small cut]) bleeding thumb against her eyelids, smearing the paltry offering there (you can't even see it). Then -- and Enid will feel this: the bright beloveding [burning (ardent)] that is Kage's magick, subsumed by the withering [draining away] of: twins: spirit -- she can see more of the world.
Like: the half-a-glowing heart on Enid's chest. Kage's dark eyebrows rise and her expression is best described as: what in the. Not panicked, though; not afraid. Just: what in the. Very surprised. "Hmm," she says. And then, "So, I've gotta ask."
[Morgan] Enid's eyes narrow at the Other she sees, which is, in some ways, not so interesting as the Other Kage sees. She sees no heart[shaped box], a-glow or otherwise, but see sees a flare of magic, and this is displeasing. It doesn't feel intrusive, though, so there's that; had it been, there'd be more than a shift of her shoulders to a defensive set, more than her arms crossing in front of her. Still, it's the first question she answers first.
"History, politics, laws, that sort of thing. Some practical work as well, especially since." Since she got back home from China, and whatever happened there - goodness knows, she's not one to talk about it unless pressed. She's happy enough to let it go unmarked, but for the odd occasion she can't help crying over it, over wanting what she'd thought her family was, over wanting to go back to her old home, her old bed, her father's house.
The other, though, gets a raised brow, and a tightening of that defensive posture. "Ask what?"
[Kage] "What kind of truck have you been having with the spirit world?" The question is simple, and couched in a low voice (wax, tallow; a candle, burning down). "You've got something on you, right here," and she scratches her breastbone, just beneath it, where the broken heart (or best friends forever spiritual marking from who-knows-what) glows and burns. She points it out like she'd point out a mustard stain, but her gaze is intent, and it lifts from that spot (X marks the) to Enid's eyes.
[Morgan] Enid blinks. Once. Twice. Thrice. "I . . . um. I haven't, I don't think? That's not one of the ones I know." There's a pause, and a breath. "Except . . . well, I saw this kid die. And then he was in my dream, and he kissed me."
This is with a furrowed brow and wrinkled nose - not distaste, exactly, but confusion - dead-is-dead-but-not, ghosts-and-gods-are-real, spirits-are-manifestations-of-Words, and other, similarly complex philosophical constructs. She hasn't started with the reading that eases the grasping of these things yet, though being constantly exposed to her father's line of study and teaching helps somewhat. At least as much as her mother's scoffing hindered, at any rate.
"But I didn't do anything. I can't, not yet."
[Kage] That mark didn't strike Kage as something a wraith -- especially not a new-dead one -- could put on a person. Even if it was the person who saw them take their last (mortal) breath. Still, Kage looks consideringly at the younger redhead. Her hand is under the table again: this time, she's sketching out something on her pants, some rune, some diagram that'll help her get the clarity she needs to really open up (no music, see; no touch, right now). The Orphans' magick is a hodgepodge of occult and pulp fiction: of true knowledge and fairytale knowledge. There's no entropic taint ; no death (destroy the world) to the heart. It's just: there. She's almost getting used to it.
"They can do things to you," Kage says, after a brief pause. Enid says that the boy was in her dream and he kissed her, and Kage shakes her head, slightly: "Do you remember what else happened in the dream? Did he kiss you there?" Beat. "...How did he die?" The sympathy isn't the first thing that comes, but: it comes. It's tough to see that kind of thing, and Kage knows it. Kage doesn't like seeing it herself.
[Morgan] ".....no, you think I let weird emokids kiss me on my chest?" It's affront, that, and not louder but certainly more intense. "He kissed my lips, and if he hadn't surprised me, I would have kicked him or something for that. There was this concert-thing, at a church. I talked to him there, tried . . . he was stupid, that boy."
She frowns, glares even - if she'd had any idea she'd still be talking about it after, she'd never have gone.
"There was an invitation in the mail that felt all . . . I don't know. It didn't register as weird at the time, but I wanted to go to the concert, even though it was at a church in a sketchy neighborhood. So I went, and Nathan and Kaya," such scorn! Such distaste for the Dreamspeaker and the Cultist, "and Anna were there. Things felt weird, so Anna and I sneaked around while Nathan and Kaya were more direct. We didn't find anything, except then, at the end, Kaya was all in near-hysterics about skeletons and stuff, and I found out that the kid who was singing . . . I don't know, made some weird kind of deal. He wanted people to see his last performance," here, there's near amusement at the melodramatics, except that it had been, "so he wouldn't die alone. He shot himself."
There's a pause, a shrug. "I tried to talk him out of it, and it almost worked. Kaya did something to the gun and it blew up when he pulled the trigger instead of . . ." There's a swallow here, and an overly long blink - trying to clear the image from her head. "Anyway. Nathan ended up shooting him, because Kaya couldn't heal him enough. And it was nasty. I think he showed up in my dream the next night."
[Kage] "We are talking about a dream you had, aren't we?" Kage replies, mouth curving (amused) when Enid's response is so affronted. She doesn't say anything else, doesn't ask for any clarification of just what happened, until Enid's done with her story. The Orphan just listens. Anna is a new name. Nathan and Kaya: she knows them of old, but doesn't grin, or smirk, or anything when the scorn Enid says their names with pretty much shines at her. For one second, her gaze flicks to the chair at her right, empty of anything but shadows, maybe a speck of dust, pollen, a flower petal. It's spring, and they're at a college campus.
"That sounds really terrible. What do you mean, things felt weird? Or ... made a deal, huh? With what? Do you remember?" Her mouth quirks, again. "Sorry; I don't mean to be all Lois Lane on you. But that's really odd. You didn't think that maybe him showing up in your dream was more than a -- was it a nightmare? You didn't think, hey, maybe this is his ghost?"
[Morgan] ".....why would I think it was a ghost? Even if I believed in them - or, well, did. I don't have much choice in that now - I didn't know . . . aren't they supposed to knock things off of shelves and make cold spots in rooms?" There's a shrug, and she's clearly a product of modern times - disenchanted, jaded. And also of her Technocrat mother. "I didn't know they could come into dreams until after it happened. And Ashley's helping me learn to keep unwanted stuff," and people, "out. But she can't teach about the other."
She's quiet for a moment then, sips her latte, looks at the remains as if she might glean something important from the froth. "I asked, but he didn't say. It all sounded like Faust to me. Or 'Devil Went Down to Georgia'. And I said as much. But the dream . . . I don't know. It wasn't really a nightmare - he was playing piano and singing 'My Girl', at first. I sang that at him when he was being all emokid."
[Kage] "They're supposed to do a lot of things. Or rather, they aren't supposed to do a lot of things. You're a smart girl, Enid. You know the world isn't easy. When I first opened my eyes, I saw a lot of that kind of thing, though; it was one of the first knacks I learned. The veil kept being drawn; it was pretty terrifying, sometimes. But: Freddy Kruger? Hi?"
And then, Kage is frowning a little. The frown touches her expressive [eloquent (tarnished up)] eyes. "Do you still have that invitation?"
[Morgan] "Freddy Kruger's a character in a bunch of mediocre slasher flicks. A figment of someone's imagination." That's with a shrug, a roll of her eyes - the patented I'm-seventeen-clearly-I-know-everything expression - and she moves on to the rest, with a brief, unreadable look flickering in her brown eyes. "Of course I know the world isn't easy. And . . . you already know the first trick I learned."
The last, though, gets a quirk of her lips. "I gave it to Ashley; it's at her place."
[Kage] "Which is my point. Try to keep your mind open. I mean: be wary, don't think just because someone's wearing aluminem foil, it really is keeping all of Them outside of their minds. But don't discount it, you know? And if someone dies in a creepy, magickal way after making a devil's deal, then they start to show up in your dreams, wonder about it. I often get information from my dreams: useful in the waking world, too. It's nice; makes me feel like I'm not squandering my time when my eyes are closed." She does know the first trick Enid learned. She doesn't bring it up, doesn't look like she's overbrimming with sympathy, but there's acknowledgment there: the way Kage looks at the teenager. Prep Ranger, the Brat. Poor thing. "Heck: even Unicorns could be possible, some way, some how." And Enid gave Ashley the invitation. This causes Kage's mouth to quirk, again. Draws out the laugh-lines around her mouth, her eyes. Kage looks young, sometimes, even though she's got such poise. "Good. Don't much like Nathan and Kaya, hm? What's Anna like? I don't know her."
[Morgan] "Kaya's a drama queen and Nathan's an idiot," is Enid's succinct summary of the two, but mention of Anna gets a smile. "Anna's cool, though. Also a Dreamspeaker. Made sure I got home okay after everything with the emokid. She's nice." 'Nice' isn't exactly high on Enid's priority list, but still, it's a good quality to have - the young Hermetic acknowledges this easily. She doesn't always hold it, but she tries (and she used to a lot more of the time, honestly). "You should meet her. And possible is one thing - sure, anything's possible. And I guess that apparently means it is, somewhere. But still . . ."
It's complicated, and Enid doesn't get it all - this frustrates her more than she's likely to admit, ever, though that doesn't mean those she's around the most can't see it in moments like this, when she can't quite parse something or another. (Also 'poor thing' would get a frown and a haughty toss of her head, but that's neither here nor there.)
[Kage] It's complicated. When Kage first met Enid, Enid said those two words all the time: It's complicated. Hidden third word: It is complicated. She said it about her family situation and she said it about her school situation and she said it about her friend situation and she said it about everything that came up. It's complicated. This time, she doesn't say it aloud; maybe she's internalized that lesson, no longer thinks that things can -- or ever will -- be simple. Either way, maybe Kage notices the absence of those words. Maybe Kage doesn't. She does notice the ellipses, though, as clear as if they were floating in the air, and what she says is this,
"But still. But still what? What you think will, one way or another, define what you run into. What the Order of Hermes thinks will define what you run into. The world's definable: at least there's that. All the mad, crazy shit: it all has names."
[Morgan] "Names are important. Words are, too," she says, and her brow furrows - she still has to find hers. Her Word, that is. (And, at seventeen? Everything is complicated - or seems to be. Add into that the oddness of being a newly awakened Willworker, and it gets exponentially more so.)
"But still . . . I don't know. It's hard to wrap my head around it, I guess; it doesn't make sense. I mean, I get emotional resonance - most places have it, some more so than others. And if that's what a spirit or ghost or god or angel or whatever is, it kind of makes sense too - but Ashley says there's more to it than that. That . . . I don't know, that enough people conceptualizing the same thing makes it so, somewhere. Which obviously works, because those Smart car things used to be just someone's idea, you know? And then someone else came in and added their thoughts to it and so on, until it got manufactured and marketed. But that seems . . . no, I guess that kind of works," she finishes, musing.
[Kage] The red-haired woman listens to the red-haired girl and doesn't seem to be uninterested or even confused (or anywhere near as confused). Kage is an Orphan: she has no Tradition she follows, no set of rules acknowledged by anyone else but herself; still, she seems to be a steady creature -- careful, arrogant (proud) maybe, someone who knows who she is and how to work to re-define the world. "Why can't a spirit or a ghost or an angel or whatever make sense on its own? You believe in blue whales, don't you?" Then Enid talks about the Smart Car and how it came to be. The Orphan listens to that, too. And then she says: "Mm. Yes; but that's a pretty narrow way to look at the reality of possibility -- no." She corrects herself. "Not a narrow way. Just: a rote way; just: using the vocabulary of science. Which isn't necessarily wrong. Do you see magick as magick, Morgan? Or Elements? Tempers? You're jacked into some truth: outside've it all? Science?"
[Morgan] "When I first started talking to Ashley, it was mostly in terms of physics and forms of energy. But my logic there kind of flounders and fails - I did alright in math and science," better than, really, but, "but that's not my strength. It works better if I think about it as cases. 'E . . . Morgan v. Ars Spirituum' or what have you. With precedent - or without, but that's rare - and the whole thing. I spent a long time in Mock Trial and Debate," she adds with an amused smirk. "It's still rote. But there are groundbreaking, world shaking cases all the time. And they'll come to me, and I'll win them."
There's a pause, then, and a sip of her now cooled latte. "I have to, you know? At least most of them. I have to get better or it's all kind of . . . I don't know. Pointless, I guess. If I don't make it, then the things I've done are even more . . . indefensible. At least if I do, they've served a purpose. Which doesn't make it alright or anything, but . . . reconcilable? I think that's the word I want."
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