Keeping Court III

[K. R. Jakes] Jarod, Emily says, and she is certain that should Kage have met Jarod she would just know who it was Emily meant. Emily was right: if Kage knew Jarod, just his name would be able to bring him to mind, and knowing that one's particular personality, perhaps a whole host of interesting reactions. As it is, there's nothing in particular which enters Kage's gaze at the Verbena's name. Just this: a questioning air, emphasized by the slight cant of her head. "I don't know his name. But I can ask around, and I will."

Kage was quiet for a moment, and wind whispered against the water, and tangled (a lover) through the redhead's hair, then touched (beloved) the darkhaired woman's cheek, then (playful) raked through the trees as if they were bones, as if they were oracles, scattering silence into sound, a dull roar.

"I remember it was difficult to understand how to speak plainly, when I first woke up. It was like a new language, and to be honest, sometimes I still feel that I lack the words." She paused, and then said, "I can say this, however. What you want is important. In everything you do. I know that may seem obvious, but ... Don't forget it."

[Emily Littleton] Emily reached up to brush a wayward and wind-worried curl back behind her ear. It gave her a moment's pause in which to think about Kage's last statement. That was more troubling than the strikingly beautiful Verbena she had just asked about.

"I don't think I know what I want, yet." The last word was significant. Emily would figure out what it was she wanted to be when she grew up, and it would be important. But right now, in the space between Autumn and Winter, in the near-frozen Throne Room where the Fallen Kings kept Court, she had no idea. No clear path out of the woods. No way home.

"I truly never imagined I would be having these conversations, or considering these choices. It is unreal, and yet seems vitally important somehow."

There should have been some sort of warning sign. Some brilliantly yellow background, with a heavy black pictogram. Caution: Delicate subject ahead. Danger: Precipitous drop in sanity approaching. Attention: Freaks & Crazies crossing, 100ft. Sadly, life's signage department had fallen down on the job, here. The only clue she'd had that anything big was coming was that everything had been quiet for a little too long.

[K. R. Jakes] Emily says she doesn't think she knows what she wants, yet, and Kage makes a quiet (and contemplative) sound in the back of her throat. But she leaves Emily's comment there. That yet: that yet is important to Kage. "I can also say this," Kage says, and she has cupped her hands together, laced her fingers one with the other, brought them to her mouth that her breath might warm them. "There is a lot of wonder to be had. And terror, sometimes. But wonder, too. I wouldn't choose ignorance over this, even though it can be difficult."

Her mouth quirks, wry (but there is a kiss there, hiding in the corner. Go on, somebody: thieve it). "Can I ask you something? How has this O brave new world been manifesting for you, since it happened? What happened to make it happen? Would you like me to go over some of the possible clubs that are out there? I can give you names. I've always thought," and she sounds wistful, here, "that names were important."

[Emily Littleton] It was cold, but her fingers had long since gone numb. Emily planted her hands on the body of the fallen one, let part of her weight fall to the heels of her hands. She was not as poised as Kage, reclining there on their shared perch, but Emily could make it look comfortable. As if the rosiness in her cheeks belied something more cozy than chill afternoons and a nearly-frozen nose.

"Actually... I didn't realize how big a deal all of this was until I started meeting other Awakened people." She shook her head a little, almost ruefully. "I thought I was just, finally, understanding my discipline in a new way. Seeing it in my mind's eye while I worked. That I'd internalized it in some nearly-innate way."

Emily shrugged a little.

"I ... probably should have thought that through a bit more. But when something just clicks, I've learned not to ask why too much." Things just clicked often for Emily. She was bright enough that Awakened senses could be written off as an extension of that diamond-bright intellect. Kage didn't know Emily academically, though, so the foreign girl's comments might have struck her a bit oddly.

"It didn't get weird until Jarod," the rockstar had a name now, and Emily did not go back to using his epitaph. Yet. "He showed me some of what he can do... and it's substantially more than Seeing."

She rolled her shoulders and shifted again, taking her hands away from the tree trunk. "Then I started meeting people, people like him who wanted to tell me about this new world, bring me into the fold. I've run into them each a few times, now, in just a couple of weeks. Odd, though, that I'd never even known they existed before I woke up."

She looked over at Kage with an odd glint to her eye. "It's like there's been another world here all along. One that I've been missing, just by virtue of not looking for it. And now that I've looked into it, I can never go back again."

[K. R. Jakes] "He sounds interesting, that Jarod."

The two women's eyes will meet when Emily looks over at Kage, because Kage is looking at Emily as she talks. The rest of the world is lovely: is quiet, is hardening; is freezing, is frost without fire and wind without storm; it is cold, and callous, and real. But Kage is looking at Emily, studying the new mage as she speaks, listening to her, watching the way what she says re-writes her expression. Her mouth pulls into a brief smile (echo) when Emily meets her eye, when Emily -- well. When Emily gets it.

"Other Awakened are troubling and troublesome. They can get very excited over fresh blood. You've got the potential to change the world -- literally. You can do it if you can think it. You can do it if you know how to work it. Other people who are the same, who might disagree with what you think, or who might agree ... Well, they get excited. What is your discipline?"

[Emily Littleton] You've got the potential to change the world.

Those are heady words to an early twenty-something with mild delusions of grandeur. Emily couldn't help but imagine that all of this, all of this weirdness, the wonder, the restlessness of her life, all of it was driving her toward something... magnificent. That there was a reason behind the continuous tumult and when she finally broke free of the storm her life would mean something. Something real. Tangible. But many young people were destined to change the world, take it by the reins, rule justly and fairly -- if only in their own minds. Real life often intervened, turned those dynasties on their heads before they truly began.

The words called to mind a familiar and no less resonant quote: Be the change you wish to see in the world.

What would Emily be that might change the world?

"I'm an engineering undergrad at Northwestern," she replied, because it was the best and clearest title she could give herself at the moment. Emily looked away from Kage, willing the too-bright ideas from her eyes. Letting their calm (stormy) blue fields settle.

[K. R. Jakes] "Engineering, hm?" This seems to give Kage a moment's pause, a moment's introspection. "There are two Traditions who deal in science as mad and wondrous. Well, there is one. Then there's another, which seems to mostly be made up of the most pretentious jackasses you can imagine with delusions of grandeur and cool."

[Emily Littleton] "Mmmm." She rolled the sound in her throat, let it curl against her teeth. Emily looked thoughtful for a moment, then shrugged. "Somehow... I don't think I want to let this run too closely up against my studies."

There was a pause, and Emily considered what she'd just said. Why she might have said it, or felt strongly enough to say it without thinking it through completely. Intuition being what it was, speaking before thinking was mostly ill-advised.

"It... feels like I'd be wasting the opportunity to look at things anew, from a completely different point of view. Maybe I'm mad," she said, repeating Kage's sentiment from earlier. "But opportunities like that ought not be wasted lightly."

[K. R. Jakes] "I will be honest. I find that to be something of a relief," she says, and there is that rue again.

Truly: Kage is almost always honest, in her way. The truth usually serves so much better than a lie does. "...Because there is another way to think. Not traditional, but conventional; I don't know as much about those ones. They're static, they're powerful, they're -- they don't care much for people like you and I. Or any of the other Awakened you've met so far, I'd wager all the aces from my favourite deck of cards."

There it was again. This world was wondrous, but there were perils: truly, one had to be brave to be awake. To See the world as it could be.

[Emily Littleton] Something within Emily stiffened, recoiled, but that was hidden deep within. It bubbled to the surface in a slight tightness around her eyes, a momentary tautness to her mouth. This is not the first time Emily has heard that there are Others -- not Others like Kage, her crimson-locked fellow courtier, but Others made of shadow and innuendo -- so it does not rise to fill her eyes with memories. Not now. Not here (again).

Emily was not that brave. She was only as brave as she needed to be; only as proud as she needed to be; only as strong as she needed to be. She was only Emily, after all. She did not relish the idea that these wonders came with a price, and that she did not seem to have had a choice in the matter. (You always have a choice. [Decision by default is still a decision.])

She swallowed back something, seemed appropriately pensive at Kage's report. Emily nodded, once. Twice. "Why am I not surprised?" she said, somewhat sadly, but not as naively as Kage may have expected. For a moment, Emily seems far older than twenty-one-or-two. "It is good to know, either way." (Thank you.)

[K. R. Jakes] "Mm."

It's good to know, either way.

Kage finally looks away from Emily, choosing instead to gaze across the water, where autumn is being eaten by winter; where winter is winning, and ice is framing the mirror black stillness of it; where wind only skims the surface, and the bugs are asleep, painting no words with their feet on the surface. Her eyes are dark, Kage's, and they drink the scenery in; take it, fashion of it something like peace. She doesn't often choose to come out to the woods. Kage is most comfortable when she is surrounded by books, when she is deep submerged in the hunt: chasing down a new idea. Kage is a creature of the city, of culture; of pages and ink and cement and shadow and, of course, radiance. She's a creature of candles, of dualities. But this place here: she likes it. She likes it a lot, and she is glad (truly) that Emily found her way there, that they've been able to speak frankly.

There is this about Kage: a yearning, which sometimes touches her eyes, her mouth, and stills her. Like a held breath.

"Who else have you talked to? Would you like me to give you some perspective?" A beat. "And how is everything else? Isn't it about Finals time?"

[Emily Littleton] "I've spoken with you, with Jarod, with Enid's friend Ashley..." Emily listed the names. She did not name Enid directly, because they had not yet talked about willwork or Awakening. She did not list Wharil, because she could not remember the dark-skinned young man's name. She could not, in truth, remember the color of his skin or of his eyes. He was a hazy memory, grey, but warm around the edges.

"And yes. I have Exams soon. It is difficult, at times, to put all of this aside and focus." Because the Awakened world was still fuzzy and out of focus for Emily, out of phase with her day-to-day life. It bled through in odd moments, disrupted everything, and then subsided.

"Perspective is always good." Emily stamped her feet a little, waking up slumbering toes. The cold had captured them when she wasn't paying attention, stole away the feeling in them, left them numb. "It would be helpful just to know where everyone is coming from. Their group, I suppose, if they have one. Mostly I want this newness to settle so I can make heads or tails of it all."

[K. R. Jakes] "Enid mentioned an Ashley, too." There: they now officially have Enid in common. "But I don't believe I know her." This is wrong. Kage does know Ashley, and not long after this conversation, she and Ashley will stand outside Kage's apartment, and they will discuss the fate of some unstable Orphan, and Kage will look at Ashley and remember what House Tytalus is. But that hasn't yet happened, and Ashley is a common name. "Actually, Enid invited me to some baking day at her house. Enid is like you are," she says. "New. Does not know where she's going yet. I suspect she would make a decent Hermetic or Euthanatos. No." As soon as she says it, Kage is denying it. "Not a Euthanatos. I'm sorry; please don't repeat that to Enid. I don't want to influence her unduly."

"The Traditionals call people like you, Enid and I Orphans." Kage said that names were important, so she is giving Emily some names, trying to give her something to stand on. "There is absolutely no unified 'orphan' paradigm."

[Emily Littleton] At the mention of baking, the seriousness in Emily's features broke. She chuckled, and this was a resonant sound. A tentatively glorious sound when paired with the softening of her eyes, the quiet smile painted across her mouth.

"I am afraid the baking idea is my fault," Emily confessed, quite unapologetically. "I was trying to cheer her up. But then she went and turned it into a party... so I have utterly no idea what to expect." Enid was a little overzealous at times. Emily could identify with that, even if it was occasionally inconvenient.

So they had Enid in common, which was quite possibly the most dangerous and capricious person of Emily's collection of magely contacts. But it was a start. And Enid, for the moment, was like Kage and Emily. Orphaned. Isolated but not completely alone.

"I have been told it is not safe alone," Emily said, on the topic of being Others. "Yet you are not new, and you are Solitary. And you are... so it must be possible."

[K. R. Jakes] "I think Enid is hoping for some normalcy. I confess, I'm curious about her father." There is a brief pause. And then: "I get the feeling that Enid has lost all of her friends. That she's come unhinged from the life she once had, and she's trying to make a new one. I can understand that." This is said with a quiet (sad?) smile, and a glance downward, at her knees, at her jeans, past her knees, to the toes of her boots with their scratch marks, their dust to show she's walked for a while. Kage's eyelashes sweep low, shield her gaze for a moment, for three.

"It isn't safe to be alone," she says, looking up. For a moment, Emily just has her profile; then Kage looks over at the other woman again. Her expression is serious, but there is something proud (oh, arrogant) about the set of her jaw and the lift of her chin -- something cooly radiant. Kage is poised, understand: this poise comes out sometimes, makes her seem -- oh, more than she is. "And anything is possible. But it isn't safe at all. The safest thing to be is ... subtle in your work, in your practice and your art. Joining up doesn't give you iron-clad protection. But it does give you ... allies. Or it can give you allies."

[Emily Littleton] "Can one not have allies, and keep to their own conscience?" Emily asked, musing the words cautiously so they might not seem so brazen. She watches as Kage unfolds, emboldened, into something momentarily more. She sees the calm collectedness, the poise, the careful carriage. It calls to something within Emily, the place within her that has remained steadfast through so many changing tides, so many foreign places. It calls, but Emily cannot echo back just yet.

"Not that I necessarily want to be alone. Or need it. Just that I have always found it easiest to think when the hour is small and the room is empty. I am not good at musts and ought-nots."

I am not an island, but sometimes the tide must rush in, separate this space from the mainland, make us seemingly less whole. In those moments, and only in those moments, I am Home.

"Also... my life has not been what you may call 'stable.' I've always moved around a lot. Lived in more cities than I can count on my hands and toes. It does not make for easy allegiances."

[K. R. Jakes] "One can have allies and keep one's own conscience," Kage confirms, and she remains serious (yearning, wistful). "But they tend to be -- harder won, perhaps. You don't, for instance, move to a new city, and know that even should you choose not to involve yourself in local politics, that you can potentially call on another, say, Son of Ether if that is what you are. Actually, this may help: The faculty of one university department will stand together against the faculty of another university department, yes? If there's only so much funding to go around, Humanities will bid for it, and damn the Sciences anyway. If you're a new teacher, you'll still get the benefit of the rest of your department supporting you, at least nominally, as long as you don't go too far outside the boundaries of what's acceptable." A beat, and then, "Stay that way." She means not good at musts and ought-nots. "Regardless of the choices you make. And that will help you, I think, stay true to whatever it is your heart wants to stay true to." Another beat, which unfurls into a pause. And then: "Is being awake making it strange, wth your family?"

[Emily Littleton] Kage had struck an all too familiar chord, and Emily nods along to her example with knowing eyes. Damn the Sciences, indeed! Emily did not involve herself in such politics, but she certainly fell prey to the machinations of grant writers and paper pushers. Departmental politics was insanity cubed. That this absurdity dominated the Awakened world was not surprising, if perhaps a bit disappointing. (You can change the world [but you can't get rid of the red tape])

"I am rarely awake when my family is, so I suppose nothing has changed on that front." Emily's statement was somewhat cryptic, perhaps, until she added. "My parents are currently living in Taiwan. We do not talk about these things, so it is no stranger than not telling them about who I am dating. They ask about University, and when I will visit. I don't think they want to know too much about the rest."

There is no wistfulness. No homesickness. Perhaps it is because of the silver trinket, tucked away against Emily's skin and under all of those layers. There is no Home in how she speaks of East Asia. (You can never go home again.) Kage doesn't know yet, but perhaps she can suspect, that Emily has no place to call home. No true hometown. Nothing viscerally familiar to revisit when she feels far adrift.

[K. R. Jakes] Given their conversation, I am rarely awake when my family is truly is a cryptic remark, and Kage cants her head to the side, eyebrows drawing together -- just enough to cloud her gaze, occlude it, touch it with perplexity -- before her expression smooths out again. "I see," she says. "If you'd like to talk about that, feel free."

Then she smiles, and this is an easy smile. It touches her mouth, lines around each corner; touches her eyes, makes them almost shining (but soft, the shining is overlaid, light-in-water). "You haven't asked what sort of funding a bunch of Awakened might argue over. This," she says, touching a place on her own chest with two fingers, which not coincidentally matches the place where Emily's Home hangs around her throat, "is one of them."

[Emily Littleton] Who she was dating (no dating, seeing [not even seeing, just sleeping with]) was tied up in this big, Awakened problem. Though Kage would probably not (ever) know that. Emily might not tell anyone about that. She wasn't even sure she should tell the part of her mind in charge of making rational life decisions that she was seeing (sleeping with) the Verbena Disciple. If that part of Emily's mind had not chimed in yet, there was probably a very good (or very bad) reason. Either way, her family did not need to know about that. Or about Awakening.

Emily studied Kage's gesture curiously. The Awakeneds argued over... self? Identity? Souls? Well, all of those ideas made sense. They argued over... Kage? Perhaps, but it didn't see so from the way this conversation had gone. Perhaps, though. Perhaps.

Her brow knit as she tried to riddle through what Kage might mean. Emily did not respond, verbally, just let that perplexed expression speak volumes. She was so, so new. And while Jarod had told her to keep the necklace safe, keep it close, she had not taken it mean much more than sentimentalism.

[K. R. Jakes] "Ooooooookay," Kage says, very slowly. Then she stands, pushing away from the (fallen king; throne) tree to face Emily directly, her back to the water. "Would you like a lesson?"

[Emily Littleton] Emily had the profound feeling that she was missing some key understanding. It felt like discovering you had failed to read up for lecture, and there would be a pop quiz. It was a sinking feeling, coupled with a deep need to catch up as quickly as possible.

"Quite!" she responded quickly. There was a (suppressed) eager glint to her eyes too. Someone had finally offered to teach her something. It was exciting! Learning new things! Emily could not (entirely) stop thinking in exclamations.

[K. R. Jakes] "Do I have your permission to go into your head so that you can See in a more-than-theoretical way? I won't change anything -- I can't change anything, actually," she adds, with a faint smile, but there is about her an air of waiting now. Just quiet, and waiting, for Emily's reaction whatsoever it is to that particular offer.

[Emily Littleton] Some part of Emily's brain tried to suck her eyeballs back into her skull. At least that's what it felt like, contemplating someone somehow going into her head and mucking about with the insides of her brain. Even in a metaphorical sense, she wasn't sure how to feel about that beyond violated. But Kage was asking first, so perhaps the process would be more gentle than taking a swizzle stick to her thoughts and simply stirring around a bit.

So the look the co-ed gave the redhead was a little uneasy, to say the least. But it calmed as she thought this through a bit more, rationalized with herself. And hey, if anything went wrong, she wasn't technically worse off than now. Emily was likely clinically insane from all this Awakening stuff. Really, there were two places to go from here. Up, and so far down she wouldn't (consciously) care anymore.

"Oh... kay...." Emily conceded, stamping down the sudden desire to craft tinfoil hats in her labspace. "I am curious enough to try, though I confess it sounds somewhat alarming to have anyone in my head."

[K. R. Jakes] "I'm just lending you my vision for a moment. Let me have your hand," Kage says, confident. Assured. She wears assurance as closely as she wears her skin, and it might even fit more neatly. When Emily gives Kage her hand, Kage will take it, clasp it. Their hands are cold, because it is winter, because they've been keeping court in winter for a long time now, just talking, untroubled by outside influences that are not the wind. There was snow here, earlier in the week, when Emily came by with (the rockstar) Jarod, and now there is none. But snow is sleeping in the bones of the trees, in the bones of the air; snow is sleeping, and waking slowly.

And something else is waking, too. At first nothing happens, except for the pressure of Kage's hands, circling Emily's. The Orphan is doing this slow, and the Orphan is doing this carefully, because it would be far too humiliating to fail in front of Emily, beause failure is not an option. Because she wants Emily to See as she Sees. Once again, Kage breathes in slowly, and once again, she releases breath as if the shapes (the rune) that are writ/calligraphied by the heat of her body could be oracular.

How Kage experiences Prime (quintessence) is as radiance: slivers of it: traces of it in the air, concentrated in Emily's locket, concentrated and singing of Home, and concentrated in Emily herself, clean, pure, untouched, almost untapped, but so much brightness, so much (adoration) possibility. She experiences this vision as something that is almost audial -- a hum, music just beneath the surface of things; something she can almost hear. Emily can, for a few precious moments, look around and See as Kage is seeing, the untapped, undiluted limitless magick (energy). There is a concentration in Kage, as well; but it isn't untouched, unnamable. In Kage, there's a sense of -- something that is draining away, something that is withering, that withers; something that might be hungry, and this is perfectly balanced against another resonance: beloved as a verb, the first blush of a heady touch, of a kiss, the first frisson of passion and (love, grace, love). And it all: shines.

There is a star, in Emily's locket (Home, Home, Home) and it calls so strongly.

Emily's thoughts and Kage's thoughts remain separate, and that's just fine. And it dissipates, breaks up, after only two -- maybe three -- breaths, because such things can't last forever, and Kage is holding Emily's hand.

[Emily Littleton] It wasn't until the vision released that Emily realized she had been holding her breath.

As Kage's sense bled into her own, Emily's eyes widened (rapt) and the world took on a glamour and dimension it had not held before. She traced the glimmering shards of Truth back to their nexus points. Foci. Stars that outshone the setting sun and put the full-faced moon to shame. Kage's star was withering, fading away without diminishing. Emily's... Emily's had barely begun to turn toward a flavor.

Rapt. Through the brightness of their two close, too twined stars, Emily sought to find Kage's eyes. To find her face. To see how the nearly audible wonder painted her friend's features.

Wonderful. She was neither too old nor too jaded for wonder. For the slack-jawed, soft-eyed amazement of encountering the impossible face to face and knowing, without a doubt, that it had crossed over into the realm of plausibility. So she is lost in the awe of it all, as much as in the intrinsic beauty of the quintessential world.

Reverent. And this intrinsic order, while beautiful to behold, is also comforting. That the focal points, strengths of this near tangible brightness are invested in people, in trinkets of long held sentimentality...it makes sense. It feels right. There is a rightness to it, beneath the wonder, awe, and oddity.

It wasn't until the vision released that Emily realized she had been holding her breath, and so she let it escape slowly through her teeth. Blinked. Once more. And looked up to Kage with still-bright eyes, still softened features. Emily was incapable of washing the wonder from her features... perhaps this is why she was to be petitioned and recruited in the coming days. Because she breathed in all this newness (chaos), and exhaled genuine awe (reverence).

Slowly, hesitantly, she withdrew her hand. And they two were only standing (sitting) in the clearing ringed with fallen trees, beside the slowly freezing water, amidst the stark and silent trees. Keeping Court. Only keeping Court among the fallen leaves.