Do Me A Favor

[Ashley McGowen] It's the height of summer, and while somewhere in Boston Justine Noble gathers together a few changes of clothes, weapons and her instruments, kisses Adam goodbye and hugs Bran, Ashley is making her own preparations. They're old friends: they've fought beside each other too many times to count, but it was always different before. Guerilla warfare against Technocrats and marching into the Umbra against some unspecified host of dark things, well, those are very different.

One of Ashley's preparations involves dropping by the apartment of Kage Jakes.

She looks much better today than she has. More herself than she has in the past two weeks. Her eyes are bright and alert again, better rested, she doesn't walk with weariness or have that stiff lack-of-expression of someone who is trying to hold too many things back. There's just purpose now. Later tonight, Ashton Winters and Solomon Ward and one of her Tradition mates will hunt down Edom. Ashley likes Ashton. She rather hopes for the Euthanatos' safety.

When she arrives in front of the Orphan's front door, she raises a small fist and knocks. Kage probably knows the rhythm by now: rapid little bursts, not too loud, but there's an urgency behind them, as there's an urgency behind most things Ashley does. The Hermetic is in a blue and orange striped shirt today and a pair of jeans. No dark colors, no brooding.

[Kage] When Ashley knocks on Kage's door, Kage is (luckily [fortunately]) at home, and in her study, where a little stuffed mouse is sitting ontop of a tapestried pillow, a pillow on which William Morris has detailed the Tree in the Garden of Eden (good and evil [knowledge and virtue)], and it may or may not have been recently cuddled. When Ashley knocks on Kage's door, the Orphan is running her fingers through damp red hair, and each time her fingers make the pass, some glint, some burnished gleam, surfaces from the dark. When Ashley knocks on Kage's door, the Orphan is staring at a book she has pinned open on her desk, at her laptop, and her eyes are opaque, blank with thought, blankly pensive. She's listening to music, something low. Not hard rock today, and not country. Chanting, something soulful. Hildegaard von Bingham, who had ecstatic visions, who saw Heaven. She's not really listening to the music. It's just on so the apartment won't be quiet.

Then there's a knock, knock knock knock. Kage blinks awareness into her eyes, glances at the clock on her laptop, then the clock on the top of her bookshelf. She exhales a breath she didn't consciously hold, and stands, padding out of the study, past the bathroom, down the hall, down the step into the living room and across the floor to the door. She doesn't bother peering through the spyhole; just unchains the door, opens it.

Her older sister, her older sister's husband, their two children are probably in Los Angeles by now, waiting for their connecting flight. Kage bought them tickets to Hawaii, surprise!, to celebrate the holiday weekend [and Cary's birthday].

"Hey, 'ley," she says, mouth quirking: not quite a smile, not quite a smirk. "Come on in."

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley's smiles aren't like Kage's. There's no dawning glory, no transformation from something ordinary into something gorgeous. There's generally something smug about them, something catlike, a vague air of I-know-things-you-don't. When there isn't, though, when it's genuine, it has a way of softening her features, brightening them, drawing attention to the fact that under all that dark hair her eyes are very blue.

"Hey," she says, walking into the house. Just past the threshold she lifts one foot to tug at the laces, tug the shoe free, then repeats the process with the other. They drop unceremoniously just inside the door, and the canvas loses its shape without her foot inside it.

From somewhere in the apartment there's the faint jangling of noise. It's quiet enough to be tuned out, like construction down the street or yelling four doors down. "How are you? Had to deal with a bout of nerves from Emily yet?"

[Kage] This is Kage: a wrap, casual, loose around her hips; tied without much care for the knot. A loose and too-large button-down, falling down off one shoulder, and beneath the teeshirt, strap visible, a (feminine [girly]) gray bra. She couldn't be more clearly fresh from the shower if she'd come to the door, trailing bathbubbles and buoyed by a cloud of steam all fraught with rainbows and humidity. Had to deal with a bout of nerves from Emily, Ashley says, and Kage's quirk of a smile deepens, becomes a touch more amused (muted [flamboyance] devil may care).

"I wouldn't call them that. We had lemonade at the LaFette, more or less discussed the potential for things to go wrong while we operate the Talisman. She's doing pretty well, all things considered. And not well in that way some people have, when they don't know any better."

"Tea?"

[Ashley McGowen] There's a bulge in one of Ashley's pockets, something that looks like a small cannister, or two, stuffed in against her hip. Her pockets are like that: constantly full of things, probably shouldn't be able to contain everything they can contain.

"Good," Ashley says, of Emily. "I wasn't sure whether she'd be the resolved type or the anxious type, yet. Glad it's the former." To tea, she gives Kage a nod, and turns her attention to her pocket, pulling two narrow, squat jars free: look like the sort of jars in which face paint or makeup might be contained. They're full of...what appears to be some sort of blue paint.

"I have something for you, by the way. And Emily."

[Kage] "I have the feeling that Emily could become an unrelenting force of Nature, give her a few years, a few more years like this one," Kage says, as she steps up into her living room, circles through the dining room, the table which is covered right now in books. There is an open suitcase on the floor beside it, and another suitcase, smaller, more in line with what a frequent traveller would use. They are incongruous, among all the rest. Especially as Kage isn't going anywhere.

The narrow kitchen with its green windowsill, full of luminous, full up of the numinous - all green as dying things, all green with herbs, herbwifery, witchwood. Kage takes some black tea down - Russian caravan, perhaps, or Lavender - from her tea-rack. There is already a teapot out. Kage prefers loose leaf, as Ashley well knows. It's almost funny, how many teasnobs there are among the female Awakened in Chicago. It isn't something very American, and even Emily, the diplomat's daughter, has trod this turf long enough for coffee to sink its fingers into her. She puts the water on, it begins to heat.

Little bubbles. Ascend. Ascension.

"Please tell me that's woad, and you, Wharil and Daiyu will be putting some on later. I have a couple of books with designs - "

[Ashley McGowen] There are many teasnobs: they're all in good company, and they don't offend each other's sensibilities. Ashley has been intensely pleased, in fact, in going to the houses of people who actually appreciate real tea: Kage, Emily, Jarod. More recently, Daiyu.

Ashley sets the small jars there on the counter, leans her hip into the edge. Folds her arms while she watches Kage place the leaves into the strainer and set the teapot on. The Hermetic spares a glance toward the suitcases: she doesn't know whether Kage is going on a trip soon, but she does know that Kage travels often. Remembers that she gets consulted about movies and such things, which Ashley finds fascinating, in fact. She adores the idea of being a nerd and getting paid for it, though she herself has found her way into sociology rather than esoterica.

"It -is- woad," she tells Kage, "but the actual protection is going to come from an Enochian rune." And, here, she pulls a piece of paper from her pocket: a diagram, depicting both the rune and where it is to be applied (the face, of course.)

There's a wry glance toward the Orphan as she lays the diagram out near the jars. "I know it's kind of odd, but I needed something to apply the rune and woad struck me as more exciting than acrylic paint. This'll act as a sort of armor, though. Ars Essentiae."

[Kage] "I was in my study," Kage says, while Ashley takes the paper from her pocket, while Kage watches her take the paper from her pocket. An Enochian rune, Ashley says, and Kage's gaze is touched by wistfulness, a distant sort've longing. "Let's take this stuff in there." The jars, Kage leaves where Ashley left them, although she does bend to peer at them, fascinated.

Kage has studied woad. Kage has mocked woad, too, back in Hollywood, when she was pulling her weight for a Mystery author who was working with Warner Brothers on a rewrite of the adaptation of her script, and they'd seen some awful looking Viking movie in the works. That Ashley thought woad made sense as a way to apply a rune of power, Kage doesn't question: doesn't even say that it sure is Verbena of her, doesn't linger overlong on how influential Ashley's avatar is on the one-eyed Mage. She takes the diagram, studying it, and leads the way down the hall. The music gets louder, a low hum in the background, sound as grace, but as soon as Kage goes into the study (that's where the nameless 'crow slept [those are the pillows he used]) she turns her (state of the art [pimped out]) stereo off.

"Thank you," she says. Because: she is thankful. "So how does it work?" A beat, and, "How are you feeling, 'ley? Nerves?"

[Ashley McGowen] It's fortunate Kage doesn't mock: the Orphan might not have anything to fear from Ashley's temper, but any teasing might have resulted in embarrassment, certainly defensiveness. It's not something she could have gotten away with among other Hermetics without raising a few eyebrows, and while Ashley is beginning to recognize and address her Verbena tendencies, while she's beginning to learn and question, she isn't fully comfortable with them yet.

She sets the jars in Kage's study, and there's a glance spared toward the couch. The pillows (remember a vision, remember Heat.) The stuffed mouse, and a quirk of her mouth as Kage examines the diagram.

"It works because it's a symbol," Ashley says, "it's a Word. The woad just gives it some extra weight. When I Will that symbol into being, it's given power because of what it represents - because Concept is reality." There's a sidelong look toward Kage, then, and then she adds, "Or did you just want to know how to apply it? There, you'd apply the symbol to your face - or I can do it before we go through the Shallowing, if you or Emily aren't comfortable."

Kage asks whether she has nerves, and Ashley pauses. "Some," she admits. Kage is one of the few she would admit this to, in fact. "This is the first time I've ever really...knowingly gone into a fight, you know?"

[Kage] That surprises Kage. That this is the first time Ashley has, knowingly, gone into a fight. Perhaps it surprises Kage because of what she knows about Hannibal's students, about House Flambeau, about Ashley, before she came to Chicago. Kage doesn't hide her surprise, either. Both of her eyebrows lift, and it actually takes her attention away from the diagram.

The red-haired Orphan is sinking onto the couch, tucking one leg beneath her. Her feet are bare, and her toenails are unpainted. There's a loose anklet around her left ankle, however, something metal, something that would glint underwater, something she didn't take off. She curls her toes into the carpet she's laid down on the hard floor, sets the piece of paper aside. Kage's study is messy, not sloppy: just, messy.

"I believe," she says, composed Kage, just a touch above deadpan, "that I'll need to find my digital camera." And, a counterpoint: she picks up her stuffed mouse, and it rests on her stomach, behind her knee: "Do you guys have a plan for what'll happen once you're inside? Did you manage to get the thing's True Name?"

[Ashley McGowen] Kage sinks to the couch, and Ashley, brow furrowed, drops down onto the couch next to her. It's not so much a sink as a quick burst of purposeful motion: many of Ashley's movements go this way. Kage looks surprised, so after a sidelong look toward her, Ashley adds, "Well, I guess that isn't entirely true. We attacked Technocratic strongholds, but those...I mean, that was mostly mopping up, the fights that followed. Going into the Umbra to kill demonlings is a little different."

The Hermetic draws a leg up onto the couch with her too, wraps her arm around it, wiggles her toes inside her sock. The mess in the study doesn't seem to bother her; Ashley's place is always similarly disorganized. Lots of papers all over the place. Occasionally, empty teacups.

"I got its True Name," she says. "We have what we could put together, as far as plans go. Justine is coming into town to help me," she adds, with another glance toward Kage. It's evident in that moment that, beyond simple happiness at seeing the Flambeau again, she feels reassured: she and Justine know each other as thoroughly as friends can.

"But we don't know much about what's in there. It was hard to find the specific place where the chalice itself is, and Israel wasn't able to scry out what kind of defenses are around it. I can't see past the Gauntlet, myself, so I can't really scout ahead." There's a release, a puff of air. "So we're kind of going in blind."

[Kage] This plan is going to fail, Kage thinks, and people's souls are going to be destroyed, devoured, forged into a tool. Harvested. That's the word she used at the meeting, surprise. That's the word people have adopted, because they all feel its rightness. They're not calling the Twilight Star 'The Twilight Star.' They're referring to it as a Chalice, as what was Dreamed, as the Ever Thirsting. They've chosen their symbols. They're standing by those symbols. The red-haired woman takes a slow breath of air, as if the air could clear her mind, could sweep the fog away, undo it.

There isn't really any fog. Kage is good, usually, in moments of crisis. Kage is good with the unbelievable. With the shocking, the horrifying. Even when Kage is afraid, she manages to reach out. Truthfully, she manages it better. There's no time for reserve, for care; there is intuition and there is logic, and they twine, and this has been okay for her in the past. Kage, under-pressure: a focused this, and clear-eyed.

"The last time I looked, it was all still chaos, all still the color of blood, of turmoil." A beat, her mouth quirks: "But hey, that's probably just a trick of the light from Anthelios. Whatever it's called." Another beat. And, "Justine, huh? That'll be good. I've heard she's much more lethal than she seems, and I rather liked how she seemed, from what I remember."

It's true. Of Hannibal's apprentices, Justine was the one Kage liked. Ashley and Bran, not so much. Funny, how things work out.

[Kage] [ooc: No! rhythm off. ahem: 'But hey, that's probably just a trick of the light. From Anthelios, doom star.']

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley does not allow herself to think that the plan will fail. Does not even dream it, because if she doubts, that is when her Will begins to falter, because if a person believes that they have lost, they already have. Unshakable, unwavering Will: it's really just another word for belief in oneself, belief in one's own ability and strength. This has to work, she will make it so.

She's still scared, though. Even if she pushes the what if, what ifs from her mind, they still set her nerves to quivering, and that isn't as easily stilled. "Justine is usually pretty calm," Ashley says, "but she sort of...cuts loose and goes psychotic in a fight." Ashley's mouth quirks. "It's like all the dickishness she doesn't channel in day to day life, concentrated for about sixty seconds. She's terrifying."

Ashley bites the inside of her cheek, then. Glances toward Kage once more. "I don't mean to do a melodramatic doom speech, but if, uh. I get stuck in there or die or something, would you mind looking after Zane for me? He likes you, and I know you'd take care of him, so..."

[Kage] A pause.

The Orphan is playing with her stuffed mouse's ears. Her fingers, slender things, but strong, are on the rim of them: she is wigglng each ear, gently, back and forth, pulling them out, out, out, then letting slack come back to the stuffed animal. This movement has no purpose. It's just a thing to do with her hands while, in the other room, the water boils. Her kettle isn't working very well; she'll have to get a new one, soon.

A pause, and Kage's eyebrows draw together. She flicks a look, luminous, searching, toward Ashley. A pause, and then her mouth quirks. The righthand corner: a shadow, an almost smile. "You aren't going to get stuck, 'ley. That's not how these things work. I'll remind you to feed him if you go all Broody And Tortured afterward, though."

Which could be a yes, but also isn't.

[Ashley McGowen] When Kage searches her, there's little to be seen: no pleading, no fear. Some nervousness, but that is to be expected, given what is going to happen tomorrow. What is going to happen later tonight when the other group goes after Edom, even.

All Ashley says, when Kage assures her that she won't get stuck, is "Okay." Perhaps it's implicit trust. Kage is, after all, part of the group that is supposed to be holding the Shallowing open. Kage doesn't assure her that she won't die, but, well. "I doubt you'll have to worry about me going all broody this time."

[Kage] "But 'ley, it's a constant worry," Kage deadpans, because she doesn't mean it (because she believes, sometimes, that Ashley has learned from the past, that it won't be so easy for that darkness to get its smutty fingerprints all over Ashley's will, because if nothing else, Ashley wouldn't willingly let herself - or her Avatar - be so influenced). Then: Kage's mouth skews, a little. Because she is biting the inside of her lip, and the skin around her lips: pales, a little.

In the kitchen, the kettle shrills I'm done, hey guys, I'm done, done, guys, done, guys, didn't you want water, guys, guys, guys, guys, now you can make tea, and Kage says, "I'll be right back," and leaves Ashley alone in her study, where books are plentiful, where, half-hidden behind the desk, there are three un-opened but official looking fed-ex packages. Kage's study has a lot of strange things, interesting to those who are interested in Esoterics, in philosophy, history, the arcane. Ashley'd probably recognize quite a few symbols, although in Kage's study, they aren't for Use, they're just decoration [trappings (wall hangings)]. See: a prayer bench, a misericord, wooden and lovely, a paisley scarf draped o'er.

When she returns a few minutes later, she sits on the edge of the couch instead of on the couch itself, planting her feet in the cushions (like a woman [like a Daphne]), and she rests one hand on her lap, the other, well: she smooths a lock of drying-now hair behind her ear, says, "Can I ask you something?"

Telling, that she phrases it like that. It's not the way Kage, who's conscious of language, self-assured, would normally phrase anything. She's hung out with academics, numerous, and also with Hannibal. When Ashley said something similar to Hannibal over the phone, he called her on it.

[Ashley McGowen] Kage leaves Ashley alone in the study, and Ashley is still. For about thirty seconds. For about thirty seconds, she manages to be good, to keep her hands folded in her lap, to not go poking about and exploring and looking at symbols even if her eyes are wandering. The stuffed mouse is picked up, eyed nose-to-nose for a few seconds as though it were a tiny opponent before it is set aside. By the time Kage is back in the study she's in front of bookshelves, looking at titles as though she could rifle through them and pull them in with her eyes alone.

When Kage comes back, though, perches there on the edge of the couch, Ashley returns to it. She doesn't sit on the edge. She drapes an arm over the side, leans back, regards the Orphan as though they are having a relaxed conversation (they are not, and she is not relaxed.)

Ashley doesn't call Kage out on that question, though it occurs to her to do so for a split second (can you?). She recognizes that Kage doesn't usually phrase things that way. So all she says is, "What is it?"

[Kage] Kage has some interesting books, that's for certain. Here, in the study, is not where she keeps (most of [many of]) the tomes that would be most interesting to Awakened magi, always looking to expand their own collection, their own knowledge. No: those books, excepting perhaps a slender volume by the computer, which looks as though it may contain relevant information, moth-nibbled and foxed, brittle-paged, are all kept elsewhere. Her bedroom, maybe. Kage doesn't invite people into her bedroom. Not friends, noone: she has a whole apartment to share, and they're adults now.

"Okay. So. If something happens to me, not just tomorrow, but whenever, I don't want to disappear. I want, I mean. I want my family to know that I'm dead, or think that I'm dead. My grandmom, my dad's mom, she disappeared when I was little, and we never found out what happened. I just don't want my dad to have a question where his mom is and a question where is daughter is, don't want him - or any of them, to be bookended by unknown absence. So, you know. If something happens, and there's a body, or there isn't, and you can help make it so they're not just left wondering forever, I'd appreciate it."

Kage blink blinks at the end of this. Quick, don't look away.

[Ashley McGowen] There's an intake of breath there, sharp, as Kage explains (because she doesn't ask: will you, she just explains, says it would be appreciated). Because this question makes her think of another time, another person. It makes her remember that she knocked on Michael Willis' door and told him she was sorry, that his son's dog tags rattled from her closed fist. That Michael Willis shored himself up and looked her in the eye and told her to do what she had to do, and that Dylan was a good boy, and that Ashley promised to do whatever she could to make it painless. Didn't succeed - his guts opened up in front of her, she was splattered with gore head to toe.

If she did it for Dylan Willis, she could do it for Kage. Someday. Hopefully never. She doesn't look away either. "Planning to invite Edom into your apartment next, huh?" she asks Kage, and there's a quirk of the mouth - revenge, perhaps, of the Broody and Tortured.

A beat passes, not nearly long enough for Kage to respond to that question, before she says, "If something ever does happen, I'll find them and make sure they know. They won't have to wonder." She doesn't tag on an I promise, any of the other things that could be said; Ashley isn't the type to say words at all if she doesn't mean them.

[Kage] Ashley asks if Kage is planning on inviting the Demon into her apartment, and Kage's mouth curves (ghost [shadow]). After all, Kage did invite Dylan into her apartment, invited him not knowing his name, Hell, she didn't just invite him, she brought him here, stashed him in this very room like an interesting and dangerous trinket, knowing all the while that he was something Wrong, something that could easily turn on her. It is not without the realm of possibility that she would adopt similar tactics (bargain [deal]) if confronted with an actual Devil. Then again, Kage is cautious. Maybe she's getting a reputation for having a level head, for common sense: she displays these things at meetings, anyway.

"I find Angels of Death make poor houseguests," Kage says, in that space: "Must think of the plants."

And then, well. Ashley's given her answer. There's no swell of relief, no sudden smile. There is a lessening of tension, perhaps, around the shoulders, around the eyes, but that might just as well be an illusion. Kage presses her lips together, then says, "Okay. Just. They aren't - you know, aware. They're sleeping. So it might be tricky." And if Ashley doesn't demure, doesn't say, well, right, okay, never mind then, Kage says, "Thank you."

And, "Want to play chess?"

[Ashley McGowen] "If it comes to that," Ashley says, "I'll figure out a way to tell them." She might have to make up a story ahead of time; she's not good at lying, Ashley, and she imagines that parents would have a lot of questions. She imagines that they would not react well to being told that, hey, I'm part of a secret society, I can do magic and your daughter could too even if she was too damned stubborn to join -my- secret society, and yeah, she got blown up in the line of doing secret society things.

No, that wouldn't go over well. Ashley doesn't dwell, though.

"Sure, let's play. Is the tea ready?" she asks, pushing herself up off the couch to be led to the chessboard. And in spite of how nonchalant she seems right now, there are those lingering nerves, thoughts that can't be quelled, and she won't play very well. Kage will. But Kage has a level head, or so they say.

[Ashley McGowen] [Ashley: Chess!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 2, 6, 7, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] [Kage: Chess!]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Kage] [roll credits, for real!]