Don't tell Owen.

[Emily] These things begin with a phone call, an apology, a belated followup on something discussed once, on the edge of memory, before the fallen (falling) and the unliving risen, before the seemingly endless exams. It's also a phone call that asks Are you okay that skirts answering the same question, inverted, that opens and invites (you are welcome here).

Emily's flat is the same as ever. There are no new developments. Still tracts of uncharted lands, open, undeveloped by the presence of couches or televisions or throw rugs. But it smells deliciously of homemade bread, of fresh herbs and glisteningly beautiful fresh fruits. There's a spread of little wedges of something yeasty and delicious, of cheeses and some meats how very European), a few hard-boiled eggs to round it all out. A lazy Sunday menu of make your own portions and finger foods, and easy eating.

It's out on the counter that separate her kitchen from the small dining room. It's a chilly day, but the window is open and it circulates fresh smelling air through the small flat. You can smell the lake, several blocks away. Clean. It is all very clean.

The Orphan herself is in jeans and a tee-shirt (It reads: 2B !! !2B [that is the question]). Barefoot. Hair unbound. She looks better, has slept more since they last saw one another, is not carrying as much (but feels what she is carrying all the more keenly).

[Riley] It's a lazy Sunday for most. For Riley, it began with work. Not at Best Buy, but in someone's home, the friend of a friend of a coworker's roommate. A lot of the tech woman's side business comes word of mouth, and her services don't come cheap. It's why she doesn't mind running diagnostics on some stranger's computer, chatting about the weather or television or whatever. She was on her way home when Emily called. They've both been busy these last few weeks, healing physical and emotional hurts, studying for exams (Emily had more than Riley by far), living their separate lives.

Riley's ribs are fine now. Emily knows that her body has suffered far worse than a bit of bruising. Now that Emily knows the scars on Riley's bones, the scarring of her skin might be more noticeable. A thousand tiny cuts on her right side, where twenty years ago shards of glass embedded themselves into her skin, have long since healed. However, there's an incision line on the inside of her left arm, old and faint with the passage of time.

When she arrives at the flat in Lake View, she's carrying a paper cup half-full of cold coffee and a reusable shopping bag filled with small plastic containers of assorted berries and a container of cream. She smiles as bright a greeting as ever when Emily opens her door to her. Today her wavy brown hair has been plaited into messy braids, tendrils and wisps and curls escaping here and there. She's wearing jeans and the green shirt with the yellow lemons that reads "When Life Gives You Lemons KEEP THEM Because Hey, Free Lemons." It's one of her favorites, and tends to sum up the Virtual Adepts view of hardship quite nicely.

"Hey!" And whether Emily wants one or not, she gets a brief but firm hug that lingers just a touch longer than that of mere friendship. There's something conveyed in that brief embrace: comfort, reassurance, I'm okay, things are okay, it'll be okay. Then Riley releases her friend and kicks off a pair of sandals. She's not wearing a jacket, though there is a yellow long-sleeved tee beneath the green short-sleeved one. It's enough to keep the skinny nearly-native Chicagoan warm on a day like today.

"How'd your finals go?" she asks as she heads for the kitchen with her burdens, glancing over her shoulder as she goes.

[Emily] There are friendships that Emily is perpetually falling out of -- kept too close, too hard to maintain : a struggle, the urge to run, hardship weathered for some greater purpose -- and there are friendships, like this one, that she finds herself falling into, unwittingly and unsearched for. It is a good thing, a warming thing, and she returns the hug with as much clarity as it is offered. Her home is brighter when the Adept visits, they both know that, and the smile Emily wears is just that much warmer when Riley is near to bolster it.

"Hey yourself," she says, her own thin arms (once bruised, once battered) holding the other girl tight for just a moment longer than necessary. Then there are hands to help carry, welcomings in. "They went okay," she's saying, as they move through the nearly empty living room. Owen's rocking chair has a book in its seat, a blanket obscuring the title. It is lived in, in a way no other corner of her home is. The door to the bedroom, where Riley once slept, stands open. It is no more furnished, today, than it had been then.

They went okay, is Emily for I should have studied harder, but I'm not worried at all about my grades.

"I'm more worried about hearing back on the grad program than my exams," she explains a little. It is punctuated by, "I baked bread!" and "What would you like to drink?" though the Adept likely knows her way around the cupboards just fine by now.

"How were yours?" Glad they're over?

But there's more to that question, they both know. With the end of the school term, Riley is freed from more than just her class load. And so they will celebrate. Either with the tasty vanilla sodas, or the red ales, or some homemade Sangria -- made from those berries, let to stand and sweeten while they passed the time. Whatever suits the other girl best, as Emily seems easy going and non-too-fettered with worries today.

[Riley] For as friendly as Riley is, friendships like what she has with her potential Cabal-mates are rare. Sure, she can strike up a conversation, and patience and a strong will can usually keep her from exploding at them in a fit of rage, but the camaraderie, the closeness she feels with Emily and Chuck is exceedingly rare. They're the kind of friendships everyone benefits from. Riley brings people up, Chuck comforts, Emily grounds. Or at least, that's how it feels to Riley. She has yet to fully realize how Owen might fit into the equation, if he even wants to be part of it.

"Oh good," she says of Emily's assessment of her own finals performance. Is followed with, "I'm sure you'll do fine." The cloth bag is set on the counter beside the sink, its contents added to those resting on the counter between kitchen and dining room after a brief run beneath the faucet. Then Riley's dumping the contents of her coffee cup and rinsing it out before looking for Emily's recycle bin.

"I think I did okay." Which is Riley for, I aced them, of course. Not being able to look one of her professor's in the eye had not stopped her from absorbing the material like a sponge. And the other was a fluff course, literature or painting or something similar. Emily knows that Riley tends to take similar courses every semester. Something technical that she can apply toward some certification along with something fun that tickles her fancy.

She accepts a vanilla soda, pours it into a glass rather than drinking it from a can or a bottle - which is then dropped into the recycle bin after a brief rinse. "I'm looking forward to a couple weeks of relative peace. I might drive up to Milwaukee in a couple weeks, see the sights. It's usually really pretty this time of year." Riley steps out of the kitchen when her trash is disposed of and her drink is ready, looking around the apartment. She doesn't have a clear memory of being here recently, the time when Emily had to take her to the hospital and she slept on a futon until Chuck arrived to take her to his place.

[Emily] The place is different, and all the same. The line of pictures, while hazy in her memory, were undoubtedly noted in the recent visit. Perhaps as something to check out later. There is still no living room furniture beyond Owen's chair. But their dining room modifications are holding, and it's ever easier to see the space as Emily's rather than as an extension of the IKEA mailer.

"I've never been to Milwaukee," she says, echoing the odd place name with practiced mimicry. Riley may her vestiges of her own accent mirrored in Emily's for the moment it takes to speak that word. It may amuse, or irritate. Emily takes up a soda of her own, drinking it from the bottle. This is rare: the European with a sweet drink, saccharine really, sipid almost, with bubbles (demure, at least, not as riotous as cola).

She leans the neck of it out to clink against Riley's glass. It's a congratulatory meeting, a little celebration mirrored in deeply blue eyes.

"To summer," she says, though the weather outside is reticent to agree with them. It dawdles in the chill of a damp, late Spring. "And to studies of another persuasion."

Here an artful raising of eyebrows, a quirk of her mouth than might just imply -- does imply, teases, taunts, tests, relents and recants. Well, yes, before she embarrasses herself, it pulls back to something less suggestive. But there was a flicker of something downright mischievous, a summer fling remembered (halfway down the second wall, boy with brown laughing eyes, Roma, Italia, summer), something from an easier lifetime.

[Riley] It doesn't irritate Riley to hear her sometimes harsh Chicago accent mirrored in Emily's pronunciation of a northern city. She feels she knows the younger woman well enough to know she's not mocking or teasing her or poking fun at the way she talks. The sound of it issuing from the European girl's mouth coaxes a grin, however.

Glass clinks against glass, summer is toasted. Summer in Chicago tends to be on the unpleasant side. The air is hot and heavy and humid, the sun unrelenting when the clouds are burned away. Riley accepts the cold damp spring for the boon that it is, enjoys it while it lasts. She takes a drink of the soda, sucks in her lips to capture every last drop of flavor before she goes for another sip.

"Ah, summer studies," she sighs, catching that brief flicker in Emily's eyes. Tucking a hand into the pocket of her jeans her warm dark eyes go momentarily far away as she falls into a brief reverie. But, Riley's memories of summer passion don't take her back to other countries, but keep her firmly rooted in Chicago. A soft smile curves her lips just before she finds herself back in the present. Back in Emily's apartment, with its sparse furnishings that nevertheless feel like Emily's home. She was only gone for a second, but it feels like longer.

"What'd you have in mind?" she asks, lifting her glass for another drink.

[Emily] There's a moment's hesitation, a little snippet wherein Emily wants to say Run away with me, for a week, where there are no zombies, no magery, no meetings at the Chantry, somewhere with bright summer sun and good food, warm beach sand; let's go where the sadness can't follow, return rejuvenated, browned and sunkissed, the way that normal co-eds might. It lingers, overlong, and it spills into a wanting that cannot go unvoiced. It is a silly thing but also a serious thing, thrown out between them without much weight.

"Mmmm," she rolls the thoughtful sound against the back of her teeth, cages it, captures it, lets it grow into: "Maybe Greece?" Eyebrow lofted, smile widening, gaze canted innocently upward for a moment's pause -- Luna lofted over a sleepy, cerulean sea, whispers of warm breezes.

Then a chuckle, low and resonant, laughingly honest. "Sorry... I think I'm still dreaming, somewhat, of getting away from the fray. It's been crazy here lately." A pause, a softer smile. "On a more immediate front -- we'd talked about sharing notes, studying together. I've been using the scan Jarod taught me a lot lately. Maybe I can teach you?"

She'd said his name. It was a confidence Riley had earned; it was not given readily or easily. The offer, though, of sharing what she knew? That was unfettered and open, freely given. A beginning.

[Riley] "Hmmm," Riley draws the sound out, eyes narrowed and directed away at some spot on the hardwood floor. "Greece is having all those riots, though. If you're wanting to get away from the madness, that's probably not the best place. Though I'd love to go there someday when things calm down." She does not say if. Economies the world over have fluctuated over the centuries. When they get too low, they have to bounce back, and usually do.

"If you really want to get away, I could do some research. See what countries have the least amount of civil upset right now." Despite the seriousness of the topic, Riley smiles around the rim of her glass. She enjoys looking things up, revels in something most would find mundane. Research, be it for fun or for work or for school, is something Riley always throws herself into with a will. "France, maybe. Or Spain."

The talk of scans has her perking up, standing a little straighter. "Oh? I'd love to learn some more scans. The ones I've learned have been super helpful." And they have been, as Emily knows. Finding things during her Awakening, determining her exact location when her Avatar had finally had enough of Riley running around, not using the talents she had been Awakened to use. And seeing that the people she thought were people were actually reanimated collections of matter.

[Emily] "Catalonia?" Emily posits, with a stronger accent pulling her tongue away from the familiar shapes for a moment. This location, word, idea is lofted into the space between them with a little lift of her chin, of her bottle of soda-sweet amber, a smile (fondness). Riley had not immediately dismissed the idea, this was intriguing (promising).

There's a little nod when Riley perks up, a yes, I quite thought so, approval. The lightness in her eyes shifts somewhat, not toward gravity but toward a shade of seriousness. Yes, the scans have been useful. Yes, they'd probably each saved their own life, possibly more, with what little they could, as Apprentices, contribute.

"I don't really know how teach, perse, not this, but I can show you what I do, tell you what I think I understand about it -- do you think that might help?" She asks Riley for as much direction as she might offer in return. The bottle dangles lazily, its neck caught between her fingers. She has been carrying narrow-necked bottles for longer than she's been legal (here to drink). It's habitual. Ingrained. Like the thumb of her opposing hand that hooks into the back pocket of her jeans. Like the nonchalant and easily cant to her hip, her shoulders, unassuming, as if they aren't talking about the most wonderous things, the building blocks of skills that might, one day, remake the world anew.

[Riley] There's a blankness for a moment in Riley's dark brown eyes, that freezes her smile and causes the faintest tension at the corners of her mouth. It's not discomfort, or a prelude to an embarrassed grin. She's trying to place the name with a location, but her grasp of world geography is sketchy at best. Then her expression brightens. The answer lies in Emily. Emily, who of course is well traveled, who has seen the world and a lot of places Riley has only imagined in her nearly twenty-seven years as a resident of this planet.

"How 'bout you put together a list of places you'd want to go, and I'll do some research." This time, she says 'research' differently. Not quite an emphasis, nor is it as glaring as the difference in the way some people say potato. But the way she says it, coupled with an almost mischievous glint in her dark eyes may alert Emily that this particular kind of research isn't going to just involve a Google search or calls to local travel agents. This kind of research is what got the Virtual Adept someone's medical records.

She's been sipping at her soda, but that's not to say she's been drinking idly. Riley's a bit of an optimist. Right now, her glass is half-full. "We can definitely try it," she says. "You can show me what you know, and we'll see if I can figure it out from there."

[Emily] And here, now? Yes, this is when it would be nice to have a sofa. Something to throw themselves into with abandon; even bean bag chairs would do. There's a little pursing of her lips, now, as she scans her vacant apartment and turns back toward the table with a nodding of her head (this way). It's not the most comfortable table, but it will do.

The Orphan hooks her foot around a chair leg, tugs it out to where she can fold herself, long-limbed and graceful, into it. It almost passes for a flop, save that the IKEA chairs do not have the give and mercy that a sofa might. There's a little rasp as her bottle settles on the table, a languid, lazy arc to her hand as she moves it up to run her fingers through her hair. The breeze whispers in, pushing aside the thin gauzy panels at the dining room windows.

It is a good day.

"From what I've gathered," she says, matter-of-factly, as if it were solid truth, "Everything has a pattern to it. Many of them, actually. A network of lines that enlace, a network of lines that intersect," this sounds, somewhat, like she is quoting from something. It is not biblical, it is not steeped in some deeper, well known allusion.

"It's easy to imagine them as a representation of what we already know -- physics, for Forces; biology, for Life; cartography, for Correspondence," the sciences line up with the Awakened senses, easily enough in Emily's mind. It is part of her paradigm, this, that the magical and mundane are intertwined (that they are all of His work, there plainly to be understood by His children), though she keeps God out of it here, in this spartan place. "It goes deeper, of course, but it seems a fair enough place to start."

A smile, offered easily now, to the other girl who must make her own assumptions, find her own footing. Emily is a few steps further down her path for all that she is younger than Riley, but she doesn't talk down to the Adept. It's conversational, any point can be challenged, it's Seeking (reverent, unrelenting) -- because they both held a deeply ingrained need to Know.

"What Jarod taught me is how to perceive -- see, feel, intuit, however it comes to you -- the Life patterns around me. I can try to share that sense with you, if you like, so you can see or feel for yourself. So you'll know what you're looking for when you try. But it's overwhelming, and it's personal; you'll find markers and stories in people that you might not want to know. Like rummaging around in their Mind, reading their pattern shares secrets; I didn't understand this when I started." There's a flush of something, shame or embarrassment, but it passes quickly.

[Riley] Riley takes a seat opposite Emily at the table. She remembers the shopping expedition made to find things to soften its lines, to make it look less sterile and uninviting. Her glass is set upon it with a light thunk. Like the night in a bar with Ashley, her hands stay near it, moving ceaselessly without being jittery. Charged. The glass receives one three-hundred-sixty degree rotation, though her gaze remains fixed on Emily.

And she nods, here and there. This sounds, no feels familiar. Until now, she hasn't had any formal training. What she's learned she's pieced together on her own, gleaned from conversations here and there with other Mages, or with her phone when it spoke to her one day in sans serif. Taking what she could from where she found it. Now, finally, someone is telling her something that will hopefully help her thread what she's learned together.

She knows that while she was sleeping, Emily performed such a scan on her. She and Owen had been searching for possible infection, despite their own feelings on the prospect of real life zombies. When Riley eventually learned of this, whether she was still loopy from pain medications or recovered enough to be coherent, she had laughed and said something about not having been bitten.

So Emily and Owen know something of the story written into Riley's bones. They don't know the whole story, what could possibly have caused that level of trauma to her skeletal system. It's a wonder she's been able to grow as tall as she is, to be as active and as healthy.

"That sounds like what I know about Matter and Correspondence," she says, muses really. The glass gets another turn before she realizes what she's doing, rests her hands flat on the table. For now, anyway. "What I did to scan Matter wasn't really all that different from what I did to realign my coordinates when my Avatar got me lost the other day." It feels weird to say it aloud, the oddity of it showing clearly in her face, though perhaps not for the reason Emily may think. "Ashley said something about using Will to do magic. Do you think it's just a matter of pushing that Will in another direction?"

[Emily] "I think that's the crux of it, oversimplified and tied down to a single sentence, maybe. It's the how, but not the why." There's a shrug here, and another sip of her soda. Another little rasp as it settles on the table once more. The Orphan tips her head from side to side, casually thoughtful.

"The why seems quite important to me, but I think we each have to find that for ourselves. It's not enough to know how and what to do, but when it's apporpriate, why it's there in the first place. There's always something given up in the balance, it seems." There's a twitch her mouth, now, amused. "Not unlike signing online. You give up privacy, security, for access to all of that information. It'd take a lifetime to get it all back, if you made the wrong mistake."

There's no scare tactic to it; she's not trying to warn off Riley from anything. Emily tends to think of the world as a dangerous place, populated with wonders and dangers alike. Everyone out for what they can get, take, make of and for themselves. It didn't take Waking Up to introduce her to the horrific implications of Free Will and rational self-interest. There's no vitriol behind it, or overmuch worry. It's flat and matter-of-fact, again. Simple. Just the heart of it.

The offer is still there, to show her, to lay bare the secrets in her own bones, to let Riley look in the way Emily had looked out. The other girl had not answered yet, and Emily does not repeat the offer, but it stands between them, unretracted.

[Riley] "From what I've been able to gather," a preface that says not much, "it's the how that separates the Traditions. Ashley said Will, and the use of it, is mostly a Hermetic notion, but not knowing how Virtual Adepts work, it's the only explanation that makes sense to me right now."

Her mouth quirks at the internet analogy. If Riley wishes to gain access to something, she has ways of getting in while maintaining her privacy and anonymity. Though she came close to losing that the day of the tanker spill. Even still, she doesn't think of the world as a dangerous place, or a safe place. It just is. Thinking of it that way has helped her keep her dangerous temper in check for years.

"When do you want to start?" she asks, lifting her glass to finish it off now.

[Emily] "Whenever you're ready," the answer comes back, quickly, just before the Orphan takes another sip and sets the bottle back down. Hers is just now half-full, half-empty. She is not as accustomed to the over-sweetness, and it becomes ever more cloying as it warms.

Emily's fingertips find the pulse point in her left wrist, linger there, but she waits on Riley's go-ahead before she begins.

[Riley] She may not need to, but Riley pushes her chair back, lifts it so that it does not scrape on the hard wood floor, and deposits it near the corner where Emily sits. Reaching up, she brushes stray wisps of hair back from her face. Then she settles, leans forward a little. She is an attentive student, studying the placement of Emily's fingers against her wrist, the expression of her face, all of it.

Meeting Emily's blue eyes, she nods. She's ready, or as ready as she'll ever be.

[Emily] (Life 1, base dif 4, rote -1 = dif 3; extending to share with Riley)
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 3 (Success x 1 at target 3)

[Emily] (Extending! Same as before)
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 10 (Failure at target 3)

[Emily] (No... really. Retrying +1 dif)
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 4)

[Emily] (One more round, for duration. dif4)
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 4)

[Emily] Riley resettles herself closer to Emily, and the Orphan waits until that motion has settled before she begins to reach out -- it is the first time she has done this since she scanned Riley's pattern from her bedside, looking for signs of infection and decay.

Her mind quiets, sharpens, focuses on the thrum of her heartbeat beneath her fingertips. It becomes a steady cadence to tie her other awarenesses to, an underlying surety to weave everything else around. The air around them steadies, grows thick with that sense of Reverence, the Grace and certainty that surrounds her magic. It's threaded through, tonight, with a restlessness, a yearning -- Unrelenting -- the quieter note to her native sanctity.

It comes forward gently, just as Emily's eyelashes blink together and part slowly. It slides over Riley as a whisper and a suggestion, first; revelation, coming like the creep of dawn. It calls forward her own heartbeat, the pattern of her breathing; casts them in contrast to the girl sitting beside her. Call and response, melody and countermelody. They are two instruments in the same great symphony, but taken in isolation like this it is easy to separate one from the other.

Beneath the healthy glow, the strength of her pattern, are the shadows where Riley's own body is recently mended. The weak places in Emily's from her intermittent lack of sleep, a body pushed too far, slowly recuperating from some strain. Deeper yet, the lines and whorls of old hurts -- bone deep bruises, mended breaks, fine and fat-lined scars alike. They are secrets, squirreled away, scribed upon the very bones that hold them up like a scaffolding, like a new creation reaching skyward for God -- they see each other, other's histories, each other's hurts and the places where the world has pushed too far, too hard, but not hard enough to end them.

Emily's life had not been gentle. There are places where her bones are dented from impact, dented but not quite broken. There are breaks, as well. Scars in her lungs from illnesses that were not caught soon enough. She is thinner than she ought to be, thinner than she needs to be. Though there is a lean, lithe agility to her, there is no strength.

Riley sees her friend as she has not seen her before. She is beautiful, vibrant, glowingly alive. She is shadowed by secrets she's never even hinted at.

They are both fragile, so very transitory these bodies. These vessels, imperfect.

The Sight lingers, as long as Riley wants it to. It covers her, envelops her, allows her to push or prod at what interests her, but she too is laid bare, at the mercy of Emily's discretion. It is a shared thing, an intimacy, a trusted and unveiled moment.

[Riley] At first, Riley is simply watching Emily intently. She keeps her senses - sight, smell, feel, even her sense of self - open, like windows thrown wide to welcome the breeze. She keeps her attention focused on her friend, currently her teacher. Then she feels that touch of Reverence. She's not a terribly spiritual person, Riley Poole. She believes in the possibility of a greater being the same as she believes in life on other planets and a dead civilization on Mars. She believes that Creation and Evolution are not separate, but linked in some way like two hands holding.

Yet when she feels Emily's resonance begins to brush against her senses, her eyes widen. She sits up a little straighter, brows lifting above her dark eyes. It's followed by the next, quieter sensation. Unrelenting. It awakens in the Virtual Adept a quest for knowledge, for understanding at all costs. She wants to know what this is and how to do it for herself. To break down the process perhaps, study the parts, as if it were some mechanism she could actually dismantle.

A shadow appears between her brows, faint at first, as the first inkling of understanding comes to her. The differences in their patterns, which Riley interprets as a difference in their health. She understands a lack of sleep. They've just finished finals. Outside of their normal lives (alter-egos, like superheroes), there has been stress. A grieving child passed into the care of strangers, his mother and sister dead. Riley's phone call in the middle of the night, she herself appearing with bruised ribs and a story straight out of Tales from the Crypt.

There's more. The shadow between her brows deepens at the discovery of broken bones, scars. It lies beneath the glow of her health like shadows in a crystal clear pool. This Sight is focused there. Riley knows that she is, as ever, easily read herself. There are all the things Emily already has seen, both with her own eyes and with this very...Gift. Because for all the terrible secrets she's learning about her young friend, Riley can only think of this as a gift. A boon. Blessing. And also curse, because here are things that Emily might have kept secret from her indefinitely. Both have had bodies broken and badly damaged. Riley wants to explore the breaks, but she also wants to be gentle, and right now she feels like a kid and her dad's just taken the training wheels off her bike. Wobbly and unbalanced, clumsy. So she turns her focus on the health, that which seems so strong. She brushes against the weaknesses caused by lack of sleep. The thinness. As gently as she can, she prods at a scar.

Emily is free to explore Riley as well. She is, as she ever is, open. Even if she knew how, she wouldn't try to hide anything. So Emily can see the breaks and the splintering fractures of Riley's bones. The damage is heaviest on her right side. An old fracture in one of the plates of her skull. There are scars, small childhood hurts. Burns. A cut here and there from a slipped mechanical tool or kitchen utensil. That break in her arm.

The Sight lingers as long as Riley wants it to, and she doesn't let it linger too long. This is her first experience, just a toe dipped into the water to see how she reacts. And she reacts with what cannot be unexpected wonder and interest, curiosity. Before she can drive forward and pick apart Emily's secrets, she pulls back. Takes a deep breath. Let's it out on a sigh.

"Wow." Not very eloquent, yet it's all she can say.

[Emily] There is no force behind what the Apprentices do now, no wany to mend or rend further the nicks and shadows in the patterns of one another. And bone and sinew can only say so much, can only show the after effects but will not expound into a story. Even if Riley dug deep enough to know the hows -- trajectories, timelines, likely settings for the abuse her friend's body has weathered -- she cannot divine the why from these marks alone. It is a blessing, yes, and a curse, too true, but that it is shared, knowingly must speak to something.

Emily knew, before she ever reached out to part the veil before Riley's eyes, what her friend would see in her. Laid bare. There is always a sacrifice, she had said. Something given for that something gained. Something that cannot be won back.

So Riley knows, as Owen knows, as Jarod knew -- and yet he still named her beautiful, still took her int his arms. There is a motion in her throat as Emily swallows down a memory, a pique of tiny physical reactions that speak to sadness as clearly as the brightening of her eyes might had she gotten as far as moved to tears.

Riley can feel the pull her nearness has on the other girl. The little electric pull between them, the warmth of their arms resting near to one another on the table top. She can imagine what it might be like, had they shared more than than space, were this more than just study. She might imagine it, just as Emily wills herself to not remember.

It falls away, dissipates, like smoke rising from a candle snuffed. Dancing, fleeting, falling away until it is soon forgotten. Until it hangs between them, a shared awareness, recedes into the shadow of recent memory. Until the reverence and the relentlessness fade, until it is just Emily and just Riley and the only thing stirring between them is the wayward breeze, which sighs in through the window, bringing with it the damp smell of Chicago Spring.

[Riley] Someone Riley may never meet experienced this knowledge, and still called Emily beautiful. It would take a lot to keep Riley from feeling the same, though the thought, the realization, does not come paired with sexual appreciation. The Italian woman does not wrap her long, thin yet strong arms around her friend and pull her into an embrace.

What she does do, is place her hand over Emily's. Her own is warm and soft and strong. Riley has no words for a moment. In her mind, she's still going over the things she's discovered. Her brow is still furrowed with a concern she doesn't voice just yet as she relives the sensation of knowing Emily's insides, the shape of her organs, the color of her scars, the impression of the cracks in her bones.

"Do you want to talk about it?" she asks gently, and Emily is free to interpret the subject however she wishes.

[Emily]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 2, 5 (Botch x 2 at target 6)
to Emily

[Emily] That question is different, here, with the warmth of Riley's hand covering her own, with the spring breeze nudging her curls, pushing the soft fabric from the sill. With the scent of homemade bread, yeasty, inviting. In this place. Here. In the home she is building for herself. In the city she has chosen to (try and) make her hometown. It is different, not so easily skirted, not so easily set aside.

Emily is still, so painfully still that Riley can't feel her hand so much as tremor beneath the palm of her own. She can't see the Orphan's chest rise and fall, so shallow are the breaths the other girl takes in, lets out.

Then she is moving her hand away from Riley's, gathering hers into her lap, shoulders rounded, countenance pale and pulled. It happened suddenly, a wave of anguish and long-kept secrets pulling her down, weighing at the corners of her eyes and her mouth, bowing her head until Emily could scarcely look up from her lap. In a heartbeat. Eyes close (the smell of warm, wet river mud). Eyes open (his face, its stubble against her cheek, rough hands against her --)

A breath now, sharp and carefully taken. The Orphan's chair pushes back, she needs to stand. Needs to know she is not bound. It is a wild thing, aching and fearful at her breast. It will not calm, but presents itself so unlike anger that Riley cannot confuse them. Not in that moment. Not with the change in her friend that is so clear: hands shaking, hands clasped, feet pacing.

"I was younger," she says, in that way that people do, when they're starting stories that lead down dark pathways, into alleyways of regret. "It was six -- almost seven years ago," she says, correcting herself thoughtlessly. The anniversary was burned into her bones. Would not be forgotten.

"In Prag," the city's name is a short syllable, heavily canted toward the German pronunciation. The place pulls the Britishness out of her voice. Makes it foreign on her tongue. "I... I was taken. From the streets. Outside the city center. There are police reports; you can read them."

She's crossing, now, to a bookshelf. Eyes drawn, in that moment, to a particular picture on her wall. From a small box, she withdraws a little thumbkey. USB stick. This she brings back, sets on the table, leaves near Riley as if it is painful for her to touch.

She cannot stay still, not Emily, not now. Will not sit down in that hardbacked chair. Will not feel bound, again, even by something as light and warm as Riley's hand over hers.

"I was missing for three days. If they'd found me later, I'd probably be dead. I don't -- I've only really talked about this once. It didn't go well. He left a week later, maybe not even that long." Please, her voice was momentarily tremulous. Please don't.

"Chuck put what he could find on that drive. You can read it, if you want. I just..." she looks away, ashamed. Crosses her arms across her middle. Frowns. "Please, don't tell Owen?"

It's an odd request. Emily stands, pushing her weight from foot to foot. Incapable of balancing the agitation with the reverence and the relentlessness still strung thinly around her. Her hand comes to her throat, to the chain there, pulls free the locket. Long fingers wrap around it, obscure it from Riley's view. The Orphan lifts it to her lips, mumbles something against her skin, lets the thin heartbeat there, growing ever stronger, speak to her in dulcet tones of Home. It enfolds her, quiets her, gentles her, enough that she can stop with pacing, with fidgeting, with the wild and frightful worry.

Enough that she can stand, laid bare before her friend in more ways than one, in the sanctuary of her own naked living room. That she can stand to be here, stand here, be. It's all she can offer.

[Riley] [Short Fuse]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 8, 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Riley] Emily pulls her hand away, and Riley is wise enough to let her go. She watches her push back from the table with a horrible sinking dread building in her breast. Shifting in her own seat, she turns to watch her pace and fidget. She lowers her hands to her own lap, where they clench, rarely unclench, clench all the harder. At one point, her knuckles are white, her hands shaking with anger she can't even begin to express.

Because the one who did this to Emily is not within her grasp. Six, almost seven years ago, this wonderfully brave, courageous, kind young woman was stolen off the street and nearly killed. Riley can guess at what else may have been done to her, and she hopes against all hope that she's wrong. The world is not a dangerous place filled with wonders and horrors, it just is. It is sometimes one, sometimes the other, sometimes a balance between the two.

She sucks a deep breath in through her nose, lets it out slowly through her mouth. Slowly, the angry red flush begins to recede from her face, disappearing back down her throat. Color returns to her knuckles. She breathes in and out again, reminding herself over and over again that nothing she does will change this from happening. Hunting this person down will not erase the hurts done to Emily's body. To her heart and her soul.

The wrath threatens to bubble up again when she realizes what's resting on the table near her, who put it there, and what they had to have found in order to create it. Riley glares at it, in her mind glaring at the affable, laid back, lovable goof she works with, who took her in when she was injured and took care of her so her protective father wouldn't find out. She has to take another deep breathe, closing her eyes this time.

By the time she's certain she's not going to rise, pick up her chair, and smash it against the wall. By the time she's certain she's not going to storm out of Emily's apartment, hunt down her partner and break his nose, bruise his diaphragm, shatter his knee caps. By the time she knows she's not going to suck the information from that thumb drive and get herself a ticket on the first flight out to the Czech Republic, Emily has stopped pacing.

Anger that is not directed at the blue-eyed girl still echoes in Riley's dark eyes, but it's contained now. Not so much repressed as it's been scattered, deemed useless and unproductive and released. It's gone with her next sigh.

"Thank you for telling me," she says. For trusting me she means. She does eventually push her chair back. Gently. She doesn't approach Emily, but stands there, arms angled down but away from her body, palms faced up. Her expression now is only sad, that shadow back between her brows, her lips pursed. "Will you come here?"

[Emily] Will you come here? Riley asks. She looks, in that moment, not unlike the tall Asian man with the blue-bright eyes, arm outstretched, waiting for Emily to come to him. It is a memory cluttering up her here and now. It is a frightening thing, this overlay of moments, the lack of clarity that punctuates them.

Like she had with him, Emily regards that offered openness with warring need and skepticism. She is unable, unwilling, to step into it so easily. There are doubts and tensions she had no reason to hold to, here, with Riley.

This time she is not able to take the step forward that will close the gap. She swallows hard, captures her lower lip with her teeth. Her head shakes no, but there is apology in her eyes, over-brimming with other emotions just now.

"I ... I can't," she says, softly. Each word is unsteady. "I'm sorry, Riley," she says, achingly. Beginning to move again. "I'm sorry -- I have to go. But you should stay, if you like. There's bread, and things to eat: I'm not throwing you out, I just need to go. I should walk. I have to clear my head."

There's a jacket, gathered from her room so readily. Pulled on over that tee, buttoned up against imagined cold. And Emily shoves her feet into her shoes without bothering with socks.

"I didn't mean it to go like this," she says, and regret creases her features. (I didn't mean to go like this). She was always already one foot out the door, but it hadn't felt that way with Riley until now. It was how things worked out, someone was always on the cusp of saying goodbye.

Hands jammed down into her pockets. Found her keys inside one of them. She was pale, so pale, and fighting for some semblance of control.

"I'll be better, next time," she promises, already halfway across the room to the door. The door to her own apartment (I'm throwing myself out [because I wouldn't do the same to you]).

[Riley] The usually talkative and open woman is unusually quiet. She lets Emily stammer. Lets her spouts words she may or may not mean. Her arms lower slowly to her sides, hang there loosely. She doesn't make the offer again, not while Emily is so hellbent on getting herself out the door.

And then she's throwing herself out. Riley doesn't stop her, just takes a moment to absorb what the hell just happened. A lesson offered wound up teaching her so much more than she thought it might. More than she could have imagined. She takes in a breath, lets it out on a sigh.

Always a sacrifice, Emily had said. Something given in exchange for the knowledge. A gift, and a curse. Riley wonders what she'll lose in exchange for finding out this secret of her friend's.

She moves around Emily's kitchen, packaging away the foods and storing them in the fridge. Emily's half-finished bottle of soda is emptied out into the sink, rinsed out, added to the recycle bin. Whenever Emily finally returns to her home, Riley is no longer there, but her presence is still felt.

There's a note on the table, weighed down against the breeze by that thumb drive. The handwriting is jagged, but legible.

Emily-

I won't tell Owen.

Call me when you need me.