Between midnight and moonrise

[Emily Littleton] It's a warm night, just breezy enough to keep from feeling stagnant. Warm enough to loosen some of the tensions and knots they'd been carrying around all winter, wearing like armour against the brisk wind, falling snow and merciless sleet. It was warm enough to tease the fine hairs at the base of one's neck, without drawing goosebumps. The air, redolent with the perfume of flowering trees and shrubberies, hung just heavy enough, just damp enough, to be inviting.

Inviting of a storm, or windows left open overnight, or long walks along well-enough lit pathways.

It's just past midnight and the rustling birds and chirping crickets have tucked themselves away to sleep. There's the distant sound of tires on asphalt: the slow inhale, exhale of a city nearing rest.

The Orphan walked along the concrete path, hands tucked into the pockets of her lightweight jacket. She sauntered more than walked. There was nothing purposeful about it. The half-faced moon had not yet dragged herself across the horizon and the stars twinkled silently overhead.

It was an excellent time for walking. An excellent time for thinking things through, putting things mentally in their places, and getting ready to begin (again).

[Ashley McGowen] It is an excellent time for walking. There are far fewer people out this late, and Ashley usually considers this and early morning to be the best times to go out with the dog; this way she avoids the throngs of students and businessmen near her neighborhood, the tourists on the Mile and in Grant Park. Especially right now, in the heart of spring, when so many people are getting out and shedding their winter plumage.

The Hermetic isn't in a jacket. As soon as the weather becomes even vaguely warm she's generally eager to shed it, and the recent days have been much kinder to this tendency than the late chills Chicago has been having. She's clad in her jeans and a dark blue T-shirt and her red Chuck Taylors, one hand balled in her pocket.

She has Zane with her, padding along at her side, and the other hand holds his leash. Though usually well behaved, the shepherd still needs an occasional tug to keep him from wandering off to sniff at plants or at the markings the many dogs who have come this way have left. She keeps him at her left side, and when he wanders or steps around things it's usually a tell for her. In the year she's had the dog she's gotten used to using him as an eye.

Ashley's feeling quiet, pensive, in Gregor's absence, and so she doesn't notice Emily until Zane has jerked once, briefly, at his leash, wanting to start toward the familiar person. Then she looks up, notices the Orphan there alone on the path, and starts toward her.

[Emily Littleton] There are many things that separate these two Willworkers, that define and articulate their differences, but the need to parse and sort and sift through recent events is shared. Each has found their way to the park with their own host of private thoughts, secret aims, and path to follow. Here their paths converge.

Zane tugs Ashley toward Emily and the dark-haired girl looks over at the approaching canine, follows that familiar lead back to a now-familiar face, and smiles in greeting.

"Hey, Ashley," she says, and her voice is gentled in the early morning hours. "Hey, Zane," she adds, offering him a hand to sniff and then some scritches by his ears.

"It's a nice night," she says. From another person it could have sounded trite. From Emily, just now, after the past week and their last meeting, it sounds relieved and genuinely appreciative. There's an understanding, too: people with nothing to think through, people with somewhere to be, they are not out walking in the dark time between midnight and moonrise.

There's no messenger bag with her, tonight. Just whatever she's got hidden away in her pockets. Unburdened.

[Ashley McGowen] Zane greets Emily in the same manner as he greets most people Ashley is on friendly terms with (which is to say, wild enthusiasm.) The dog's tail whips the back of Ashley's legs as he smells Emily's hands, and after an amused glance toward the canine the Hermetic steps aside so that she can carry out a conversation unflogged.

"It is," she agrees. She, too, is free of the bag that normally accompanies her; she doesn't need it, when she's out like this. It's rare that she runs into people this late.

Emily sounds relieved and in her own way, Ashley does too. It's hard to get any real thinking done when it's so miserable outside that you're just focused on getting through it and getting home - and though part of her revels in bad weather, it isn't the sort that breeds concentration.

For a moment that's all she says. She isn't sure how to bridge the gap: the last time they met Emily had been trying to reconcile an experience that was, all told, fairly traumatizing. Ashley didn't pry into those intimate thoughts that tangled up around the event, not related but reminiscent, but she did get the sense that they were there. That they were unpleasant. So there's a quiet pause before, "How are you holding up?"

[Emily Littleton] The last time Emily had been out like this, really out for a walk just to think things through (and having passing success at it), the ground had been covered with snow. Little flakes clung to her lashes. Her breath formed timid clouds before her.

That time, it'd been Jarod who'd found her wandering through her own thoughts. This time it's Ashley. Seasons turned, time passed, people changed.

"I'm alright," she said, and it's not as much evasion as it is quiet acceptance. "All things considered, I think I'm just fine," she adds, upgrading that status and adding a small smile.

"How about you?" Emily asks, turning the question and her own dark eyes to Ashley's countenance now. "I'm sorry we interrupted your cookies and conversation with more weight of the world news. I was going to let it rest a little longer..."

She remembered, that afternoon in another park, when Emily had gone running her mouth about the latest this or that and Ashley's expression had just... pinched. It was becoming obvious to the Apprentice, who was not usually so slow on the uptake, that Ashley needed her down time too. Got precious little of it. That it was a thing to be protected for all fellow Awakeneds, at least the ones Emily cared about, because it was a precious commodity, came around so rarely, and was so very quickly disrupted.

[Ashley McGowen] "It's okay. Things happen," Ashley says, and if there's a sigh in her voice, eye contact dismisses any notion that it's in regard to Emily. There aren't smiles; Ashley is a somber person at the best of times, not given to such expressions for the sake of social niceties the way many people are. She smiles when she's happy, when she means it. That's all.

"I'm glad you two told us what was going on. Gives us a lot of time to deal with this guy that we didn't get, with Marla and Jackson." Her hand drops down, finds the smooth fur on the top of Zane's skull and rubs at it absently.

Emily asked how she was. That question went unanswered when she first asked it, though it isn't quite an evasion: it seems to be more that Ashley is trying to quietly determine exactly how she is, in the first place. "Gregor's missing," she tells Emily, finally. "I don't know if it's related to what you guys found the other night or not. He summoned something and it dragged him past the Gauntlet. Wharil and I can't get him."

Emily has seen Ashley and Gregor together a handful of times, at best. There was no warmth between them, though perhaps something of a budding regard and camaraderie, the infancy of a friendship perhaps. What it evidently means, right this very minute, is that she doesn't know how she is. She's not grieving, and there's no evidence of such, but it's certainly left her subdued. Concerned and shaken.

[Emily Littleton] "I'm sorry to hear that," the Orphan says, with sympathy if not native concern. Note that Emily is not apologetic he's missing; she had nothing to do with it. She's regretful to hear that it is troubling Ashley.

There's a quiet, and it starts to stretch out a bit too far. Emily chews at her lower lip, slightly. She does not understand, fully, but she knows enough to find this news troubling.

"Could he have crossed over willingly? Rather than being dragged?" Emily asks, hesitant in her threadbare understandings of the spiritual realm. She is asking: is there room for Hope here? All she knows of the relams beyond she's learned from a particular Cultist.

Ashley's cabal was very different from the one that might be forming into Emily's own. Their reasons for banding together, their aims, their personalities and strengths -- it was impossible to make comparisons beyond that they worked together, and Willworking had its intimacies and interconnections.

"I hope you're able to find him soon," she settles on, finally, hoping it doesn't sound too out of place as an expression of concern and empathy.

[Ashley McGowen] "No. Gregor didn't have the ability to cross over on his own, and there was...his room was a mess. Blood everywhere and footprints and claw marks, and he left his jacket."

Her blue eyes meet Emily's own after a moment, though, and she seems to sense that the Orphan is a bit at a loss for words. Expressing sympathy can be difficult even if a person is more naturally disposed to it than either of them.

There's a grim sort of certainty in Ashley's expression. Her cabal is quite different from the one that Emily is forming, based much more on conveniences and social contracts than any affection between its members, but they are still deeply bound, all the same. Her expression says that she'll rip the Gauntlet open and go after him if she has to, will do much more than that to find out where he's gone, will die to retrieve him if she must. But she doesn't say any of that.

"Wharil and I are working out what we have to do," she says, fingertips wandering over the back of one of Zane's ears. "We may have to go past the Gauntlet after him if it's even doable, but if that happens we'll let the rest of you know about it."

[Emily Littleton] There's a moment, when Emily almost opens her mouth to say something like: If there's anything I can do...

But this is Ashley. Every time before, that phrase has been met with the Tytalan Will and a steely resolve. So she doesn't extend, doesn't offer assistance. Instead, Emily nods her understanding and mirrors the solemnity she finds in the Hermetic.

It is acceptance. Perhaps, with Ashley, this is what passes for support or compassion. (It's not about giving what you want them to need.)

"He's lucky to have allies like you two," is what the Orphan says, instead. She places her hands into the pockets of her jacket. At the Eastern horizon, the half-faced moon is just beginning to crest. The sky there is lighter, a false dawn, misleading prime.

"I think that Chuck, Riley and I are going to try working together. Possibly Owen as well, but I haven't spoken to him about it yet." The topics are connected, loosely, but it's a safer segue than headed back into the silence. There was nothing inherently wrong with silence, but between two driven individuals it was often a prelude to Well, then -- Good bye.

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley, as though she suspects what Emily might have offered, is in fact already looking at her with that steely resolve. One thing Ashley has found over the years is that sympathy from others, compassion, tends to make her far more acutely aware of her own feelings: sometimes it's hard to realize something hurts until someone else says "I'm sorry," until there's a hug or a touch or an ear waiting to listen to whatever you might heap upon it.

If that doesn't happen it's much easier to tell oneself it isn't that bad and just keep moving. It's how some people cope with loss: ignore it until enough time has passed that it doesn't hurt as much to think about. All told, she's perhaps more deeply affected by Gregor's disappearance than she would have thought, but it will go unsaid and unacknowledged.

Emily says that she and Chuck and Riley (possibly Owen) are banding together, and that tugs a hint of a smile forth from the set-jawed stoicism. "I thought you might. You guys will have a lot to teach each other, I think."

There's a brief, appraising look as she recalls her conversation with the Adept apprentice last week; Riley's words in regard to Emily (godsend.) "You and Riley in particular. I think it's pretty important to have a group when you're an apprentice. My old cabal and I taught each other a lot, working together."

[Emily Littleton] Denial was a powerful and oft-underestimated tool for anyone's coping skillsets. Emily was fluent in it. She'd even built up the secondary skillset in subterfuge to assist with glossing over any tiny details she couldn't outright ignore.

Owen undermined this tactic at every turn, though, so it had been harder for her to manage things of late. (Breathe in, breathe out. [This too shall pass.])

"Riley and I have had a few conversations already. Our viewpoints are pretty different, but we'll push each other -- if nothing more." A warmer smile, now, for the Adept (who is another place [suffering her own trials] just now). One corner of that smile turned upward more than the other as Emily said: "Sometimes it's nice to be around someone who is just as new and just as amazed by these things as I am. I'm sure that everything we can do is old-hat to you or Wharil."

But sometimes I can't help but think it's pretty damned neat.

There's Wonder there, tucked away behind the dark hue of her eyes, beneath the still-easing sorrow and weariness. It's brighter than Reverence; Unrelenting in its own way. (Rekindled.)

[Ashley McGowen] "It is," she says, "but I remember when it was brand new." The fascination with her new abilities had been the way she had kept herself going, in fact. "And some things are still new enough for me to feel that way." There's a wry smile and then she adds, "Wharil doesn't get as excited about it in general as I do, I don't think, which is probably why you don't see a lot of amazement from him."

The nature of discovery, of Enlightenment: it's infinite. A sharp mind never lacks for new things to wonder at, and Ashley's never has, though she often keeps such sentiments to herself.

Zane, apparently deciding that they're there to talk for a while, takes a seat on Ashley's foot. The dog leans in against her leg, slumping in a manner that's almost human, tongue lolling as his attention wavers between scents and sounds.

"Riley spoke of you pretty highly when I talked to her last week, so I'm not surprised," Ashley adds. "...I'd sort of hoped you guys would pick up Morgan, but I think she has some stuff to sort out on her own."

[Emily Littleton] Emily tried to remember if she'd seen Wharil excited at any point, but the man was like quicksilver in her mind. The impressions and memories ran from her touch whenever she came near to grasping them. Slippery. She could place his face, mostly, and some of the conversations they had had. The rest receded into a secluded, hidden place she couldn't quite touch.

Emily's grin widened, evidencing her affection for the Adept. They were friends, of a particularly good variety. That much was clear.

"I've only got good things to say of her, as well," Emily replied, echoing the regard (if not quite as eloquently or effusively). "And who knows? We may yet pick her up, in time. I wouldn't have expected to be forming this group with these people, if you'd asked me a few months ago. The last six months have gone very quickly."

There's a pause here, not long. Just long enough to reflect on how true that sentiment rang in Emily's mind now that she'd said it.

"How's she doing?" Morgan. Enid. Concern furrows Emily's brow and she worries her keys in her pocket somewhat. Morgan was in a difficult stretch of the recovery timeline, an insight that Emily did not share but keenly remembered. The shock wears off, the sympathy falls away, the swell of great changes (and tirades) ceases, and suddenly you're left with the hard work of rebuilding. It becomes very real, and quite difficult.

[Ashley McGowen] "It comes up on you fast," Ashley says, regarding the Adept. "A year ago if someone told me I'd be in a cabal with non-Hermetics I'd have laughed at them." It's wry, that. Change can indeed happen quickly. And people who are isolated form bonds that they never would have otherwise.

Another pause stretches when Emily asks about Morgan. Ashley's hand finds its way into her pocket as she considers that question, gives it real thought. There's a tired sort of affection with which she treats Morgan, most days - it's more difficult than she would have thought sometimes, having an apprentice. Being responsible for the livelihood of someone else.

"She's doing all right," Ashley says. "But I haven't really talked with her much about her emotional state, really. Just her studies." There's a pause as she considers, then adds, "She doesn't push herself very hard. I mean she does, but it's...she does what she thinks everyone else expects of her. I think getting out more and talking to more people would help her with that, but she's been pretty withdrawn since she came back from China."

Her tone isn't cold, or even impatient. Concerned, perhaps: she knows why Morgan is having the difficulties she's having. Expected them. She just isn't sure what kind of guidance to provide to the girl, or how to fix it.

[Emily Littleton] Emily pulled a thin elastic out of her pocket and tied back her hair. It was a small thing, something to busy her hands, to momentarily eclipse her expression, while she thought this through.

"Riley and I were going to work on reading Life patterns together -- what Jarod taught me before he left?" Emily couldn't remember if she'd told Ashley that he'd actually taught her anything. Or if Ashley had known that he was, in some ways (more or less [mostly less]), her de facto mentor. "Maybe we could invite her to sit in?"

She was asking for Ashley's thoughts on the matter, and also for permission. Morgan seemed to have a more formal arrangement with her Mentor than Emily had held in her last attempt at securing magical guidance.

"Or the next time I have people over for dinner, I can ring and see if she's interested in coming." There's an edge of hesitation here, not too sharp, but concerned nonetheless. "I'm not quite sure what to do. Part of me thinks that, with everything she's sorting out just now, withdrawan isn't all that bad of a reaction. There's definitely worse things she could be up to."

Emily knew.

She'd tried many of them.

(All of those roads lead to regret.)

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley doesn't seem surprised to hear that Jarod taught Emily anything; after the phone call she'd received when the man left, she understood that he was her mentor. Anything else was suspect, filed under the category in which it was not quite her business beyond mild disapproval - and some discomfort, on the one or two occasions she actually thought about it in the week between that night and Jarod's departure.

So to those things, she just nods. "She can sit in. I think seeing how other people do magic might be beneficial for her." Not -teach her,- of course; Emily's assumptions about Morgan's more formalized arrangements with Ashley seem to be correct.

To the rest, her mouth thins. Her hand drops back down to the dog's head, curving over the lines of his muzzle and jaws - powerful and built to rend, the potential for the same hunger she gives off, though at the moment they're simply open in a dog-grin. "It's not your responsibility to help her," she says, momentarily. "So I don't want to make you feel obligated. In fact, it's probably better if she works through it on her own and approaches people when she's ready."

Her hand falls away from the underside of Zane's muzzle, after a few seconds more. "I don't blame her for being withdrawn. I just don't want to let it slide to the point that it becomes habit."

[Emily Littleton] "I don't feel obligated," Emily says plainly. There's a little shrug to it, echoing or emphasizing the absent emotion. Her hands find her pockets again. "She and I got on well enough before."

The girl looks down at Zane, now. It was safer than making eye contact with the Hermetic. And that dog-grin goes a long way to softening Emily's smile away from the harder place it had just now found.

"I've had the best of intentions to ring her, to visit, and things keep getting complicated on my side. I've three or four too many things on my plate just now, and no way to put any of them aside. I keep hoping I'll grow into the grace and panache to handle them all flawlessly, but right now? I'm just coping. Trying to figure things out."

Her mouth tenses, thoughtfully, then relaxes. The tight lines at the corner of her eyes remain.

"Riley's more extroverted than I am, better at drawing people out. If I were more like that, things with En-- with Morgan would probably go smoother."

[Ashley McGowen] Emily's smile hardens and the Orphan(?)'s blue eyes trail away to find the dog, and Ashley is suddenly uneasy. It's the anxiety that strikes her occasionally in social situations, when she isn't aware of whether she's done or said something wrong, offended without meaning to. It's easy for her to do, when she often doesn't bother to curb herself in the first place.

"I know," she says, when Emily mentions she's been busy. "I didn't mean to imply that you were at fault." The words are a little stiff, in those seconds where she's trying to gauge the cause of the tension that mars the younger woman's features. "I mean, I figure she knows that, and it's up to her to initiate and look after herself. Not you."

Easier said than done, when emotions are factored in, and she would know. She's had a difficult time measuring how involved she should be in comforting the girl, in giving her answers and pushing her along. Unsure of when it becomes a detriment.

But to the remark about extroversion, about Riley, she can offer a wry smile, something closer to sympathy. "Yeah. I feel that way a lot."

[Emily Littleton] I didn't mean to imply you were at fault... Emily's expression registers confusion, and then some mild epiphany.

"Ah, well, actually I am," she says, but the tension has mellowed and the small, wry smile returned. "A friendship is a bidirectional thing, yes? If I'm not holding up my side, regardless of how withdrawn or quiet Morgan's being, then it's at least partially my fault."

So there's where the tension came from. The friction between the nature of friendships, the available Emily-resources, the never-exhausted always-growing list of things to expend those resources on.

"Partially hers, too," Emily adds, because she isn't absolving the younger girl in any way. She simply refuses to let the absent Enid (Morgan) shoulder all of the blame.

Emily glanced over at the horizon, marked the time by the rising moon.

"Hey," she says, in a lighter tone. Easier. "I don't want to be horribly rude, but I've got to head out soon. I've an exam review session in the morning, and I still need to cram about thirty theorums into my mind between now and then." School. Somewhere between her Awakened existence and everyday life, Emily was also a student.

[Ashley McGowen] It is bidirectional. It's something she's prone to forgetting: self-centered, Ashley, and her nature leads her to shoulder the sole responsibility for such things besides. Opportunities missed are the result of a lack of Will to go out and pursue them, not a lapse of both parties. She doesn't make excuses for other people - but doesn't make any for herself either, at least.

Ashley, too, is a student, but at least has the option of working when she wishes (to some extent.) A thesis relies far less on the deadlines set by others. So Emily, after she brings up theorums, gets a nod in response.

The hand that had been trailing Zane's leash comes back up to hold the end as the Hermetic and the dog prepare to make their way home. "I'll see you around, then. Take care."