Do you babysit?

[Emily Littleton] Tucked away into a corner strip mall in a quiet part of Lake View is a delightful tea house with an assortment of exquisite pastries and a collection of small booths. It's the sort of upscale place that college kids visit once in a Blue Moon, as a treat or expedition. Where socialites might gather for a gossip session over a shared slice of something. It's a place where Emily can indulge her culinary snobbishness, catch a quiet moment, and attempt to unwind.

Because surely a demon would not have the gall to disturb her moment of solace and sugary indulgence. Certainly, not.

The slight Orphan is worn down, worn thin, wearied and burdened by all that she carries. Here, however, she is just that British girl who comes by now and then. She is polite and prim and proper, tips well, keeps to herself, and reads either a book on philosophy at that table in the corner by the window. Tonight, there is a book on the table beside her, but it does not hold her attention. Instead, there is a small notebook, in which she makes infrequent and somewhat carefully worded notations in her careful and precise script.

[S. Ashton Winters] Tucked away into a corner strip mall in a quiet part of Lake View is a delightful tae house with an assortment of exquisite pastries and a collection of small booths. Emily Littleton, with her hints of Manchester lurking behind rows and rows and rows of stamps on her passport, had no idea that a demon did, in fact, have the gall to disturb her moment of solace and sugary indulgence. Certainly, yes.

That demon, however, was placated. Placated with one of her more refined tastes. One of the little known, less cared about theories about pregnancy is that what you eat and drink (after a certain point) colors the taste of the amniotic fluid. Growing humanthings, at this time, swallow the amniotic fluid and whatever taste it may have. Human children, after being birthed and after they've been released of eating nothing but babygoo and breastmilk, tend to like the foods that are familiar to them: ie- the things their mother ate while pregnant with them.

Ashton Winters ate, and continues to eat, an assortment of strange things. Persian food, Asian food, and the occasional cup of expensive tea.

Not coffee.
Fuck coffee.
Coffee is for business, to be guzzled down because you need the taste and the mental acuity that comes with a caffeine high. Not that she needs it- the winter woman doesn't sleep. (Much to her own dismay)

No, no. coffee is a drink to establish how insanely badass one is. Ashton drinks her black. Drinks her navy black, so thick that she has to chew it. Drinks it like one drinks a dark beer. Ashton Winters has all sorts of theories about beverages- ones that she doesn't discuss with her colleagues at work or with the man at the bar she was at two weeks ago or the man she was helping along towards ascension via what one could consider a warped view of recycling. (She separates her plastics and her cans, too. Good Euthanatoi recycle.)

This isn't a coffee house, though. This is a tea house, and as such she drinks it for the flavor, for the excitement, for the thrill and joy and experience that comes with coffee.

Marcelle drinks tea because it reminds her of what her mother ate while she was pregnant. She drinks decaf tea in a sippy cup; it makes her feel like a big girl. It's cut with PediaLite.

She has come, with a small child in tow, who is walking because she insisted on walking. She's wearing jeans today. And rain boots. Oh, Marcelle has rain boots. She has them because she enjoys puddles. She loves them, with vicious, vehement, ardent passion how she loves puddles! Shton, by virtue of being old, has yet to remember how much she, too, loves puddles. The woman has forgotten how much she likes them, just like she doesn't realize that she and her daughter have matching rain boots. It's endearing, or would be endearing if she had purchased the boots at the same time in some strange attempt to be like Katie Holmes-Cruise and Suri.

No, no. She is not Katie Holmes, and Marcelle is not Suri Cruise. Ashton bot the black, polka-dotted rain boots because they were the only ones that came in her size. She bought the black polka-dotted rain boots for Marcelle because the little girl had started crying when they went to Target and Ashton tried to take them away from her. Twice. Cried both times she put them away. Big, upset, mournful alligator/crocodile/upset-beyond-upset tears that poured out of too-large blue eyes.

She bought them for twelve ninety five, with a Target gift card she got from a co-worker.

At any rate, they're there. Buying tea. In jeans and polkadotted rain boots. Ashton looks tired, Marcelle looks pleased.

Emily looks preeeeeeetty, and has a book. Marcelle wants to go over there. She tries to drag Mommy over there. Look, Mommy! BOOK! With LADY!

[Emily Littleton] ((Awareness?))
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 5, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[S. Ashton Winters] ((Whodatis? Awareness?))
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 8, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] It's a subtle thing, the whisper of winter at the back of her neck. It's a coolness that is not born of air conditioned spaces, and a summer's breeze here did not carry the chill edge to it that Emily feels across her shoulders. She's wearing a sundress, something light and effortless. It reminds her of summers spent far away, when there were no demons and nothing more to worry about than the mundane trifles that worried everyone's margins, frayed everyone's nerves.

One hand reaches up, rubs at the back of her neck where the tips of her curls just brush against her fingertips. They're pinned up today, gathered near the crown of her head and secured loosely with an array of bobby pins. It's a messy, pretty, feminine style -- she's made an effort today to be more than a lanky college girl. To be proper and delightful. To be Other in all the right ways.

There's a delicate pinch to her brow for a moment, while she places the flavor of something snowy against the resonances she knows. The girl looks up from her writing, with the stylus balanced between the fingers of her left hand. She looks over to the pair with matching rainboots, homes in on them immediately as the source of the something that has disturbed her focus --

-- there's a softening to that query when she sees Marcelle, sees the drive and intent in the young girl's features. Emily's fingers come away from the back of her neck, she waggles them at the toddler in a friendly greeting. Then looks up to meet the mother's eyes.

The House, with its white picket fence, with its gore and bodies strewn across the living room, with the pieces of people that were loaded into Ashton's jeep: it's all a blurry memory now. She cannot place Ashton by her resonance alone. Cannot remember her for the woman whose insides were on her outsides when first they met properly. It has been a long Spring and it's starting into an insufferable Summer.

They are both Other, in their own ways, in their own times. There is a smile for Ashton, too. A human enough greeting that does not assume commonality, shared friends, anything more than simple human kindness and civility. They could leave it at that, and Emily would be pleased enough, too.

[S. Ashton Winters] It's too fucking hot for this.

And maybe that's what does it. Maybe that's what brings the woman over, who has her jeans tucked into her rain boots, who radiates I need a nap like she radiates cold, which is to say- Ashton Winters feels like someone turned on the damned air conditioner in the dead of summer. It is the dead of summer. Right now, she is refreshing. Right now, she is a lot of things.

But it's too fucking hot to go into it right now.

She doesn't remember Emily, not immediately. Not the little new girl who was concerned about all the blood, who had seen her gert her guts blown out, who had watched her p[ick her intestines up and go inside.

It was winter, then. She could not be bothered with such trivial things as pain and mortality.

They need some common ground, and Ashton knows it. She tugs on Marcelle's hand, who in turn gives her a confused look. She looks back at Emily. The little thing, with her big blue eyes and her matching rain boots and sippy cup held close, looks at Emily. She waddles over and continues dragging Ashton.

"Marcy, stop, leave her alone."
"Reeeeaaaad iiiiiiiiit."
"I'm sorry," she apologizes to Emily, and offers what one might assume is the most human smile she's given in months, "She likes books."
"I-" big deep breath! Tug mooooooore! "reeeaaaaad iiiiiiit."

Ashton sighs. Ashton looks at Emily, she regards her more openly, more directly, more like she knows some great secret. And she does... sort of. Because they are the same. Because they are Different. She knows Emily from somewhere, if for no other reason than they are Different.

Marcelle gets a Look.
Ashton gets a Look right back.

Ashton's look is bigger, more authoritative. No, it says.

"I sorry," Marcy replies.
"If you want to see her book, ask nicely."

[Emily Littleton] For some people, small children bring anxiety. They don't know how to talk to them, what to do with the small-formed people and their incomplete grasp of language or etiquette. Some people are afraid they'd break a wee one like Marcelle. Some people.

Emily is not one of those people. She doesn't attempt to close herself off from the child's progress toward her, or to interfere with her Mother's Look and direction. If Emily reacts at all, it's with a growing smile. One that is neither to wry nor too removed tonight. Tonight there is a child, with her stompy rain boots, with her sippy cup and a quest for knowledge (or perhaps just story time).

It makes her smile. Really smile. That one that touches her eyes and brightens them to warmness. The one that pushes aside the grief and torment, the weight of everything resting on her narrow shoulders just now. Emily waves again to Marcelle, and turns that smile back to Ashton.

"It's no bother," she says, with the words all muddled up in her mixed accent. It's strongest note is British, but that's not pure and clear tonight. There are hints of other places tied up and torn to pieces in it. "I don't mind."

She shifts, now, in her chair. Brings her feet nearer to its legs. She clears a place and offers: "You're welcome to join me if you like."

They are both different, but tonight is about tea and respite and finding some peace in all the otherness. Right now, it is not about their shared Otherness. Right now it's just about catching a fucking break. Two people could do that in a place like this, even with a toddler chiming in. It's practically human and not at all magical.

[S. Ashton Winters] Small children, especially ones that have sprung from the loins of women like AShton Winters, can be daunting creatures. People don't quite know what to do about single moms. They're strange creatures, who are either stripped entirely of femininity or boiled down into some form people understand. It's worse for Ashton. She's Ashton.

Emily doesn't mind if Marcelle explores.
"Good," Ashton says, "because she's stubborn and has determined that she wants it. I think my child is about to Manifest Destiny all over your things."

She does let Marcelle go, who waddles over (yes, waddles) and starts to head to the spot she wants to be in. Ashton and the toddler join Emily to drink tea (in a nice-little-cup and a sippy cup). They are finding a common ground. They are catching a fucking break for once.

Tonight is about tea. And toddlers. And a book.
Tonight is normality.

"I'm Ashton, this is Marcy."
"Mar-sell Pumwinners."
"Yes, Marcelle Plum Winters," she says to Marcelle.
"Pumwinners."

[Emily Littleton] There's a little laugh that wells up in the Orphan -- for that's what she is, however Reverent she feels to those around her just now -- when Ashton says Marcelle's about to go Manifest Destiny on her things. She almost, but doesn't, make a quip about Continentals... but Ashton's accent wouldn't lend toward that going well. Emily is, upon occasion, socially aware. Tonight's a good night. Tonight's a surprisingly good night, given everything that has come before and everything about to arrive on her doorstep.

Given Ashley's rather insistent offer.

"Please to meet you, Marcelle Plum Winters and Ashton," she says, with that touch of formality firming up her words. It's almost ritualistic, the underpinnings, as if it's soul-deep ingrained in her very being. "My name's Emily."

And Marcelle is offered assistance in climbing into the chair beside Emily, to inspect and Manifest Destiny all over her things. The girl, who manifests echoes of perfectionism all over her spaces (everything is perfectly aligned with everything else [toddlers don't respect lines or grids or matrices]) doesn't seem perturbed at all by the coming American Imperialism.

"I'm stubborn sometimes, too," she tells Ashton and Marcelle, offering the book without pictures to the young reader with a patient smile. "There aren't any drawings in that one, Marcelle, but if you'd like to make some of your own, you can use my notebook..."

She turns to a blank page, leaves it and the ballpoint pen sitting on the table beside the young girl. Emily uses one hand to steady her teacup against whatever rockings may come when the young girl assaults the table, steadies herself, exerts dominion over her place here.

"She's beautiful," she says, to Ashton, when Marcelle is otherwise occupied.

[S. Ashton Winters] Marcelle seems content to take the book, and look at it. She opens it to the middle, and looks very intently like she's reading. She isn't reading, but she knows what reading looks like. She turns about seven pages and looks at another page. She finds the number at the bottom, and traces it with her tiny little hand. She points at it. She turns the page again, and starts looking for every instance of an "M". She knows what M looks like. She likes M. Her name starts with M. M, M, M. All over the page, pointed at time and time again like she might actually be reading.

She's a smart little girl.

"She blows my mind," Ashton replies, "loves books and dirt. Books and dirt and puddles, can't get enough of them."

A pause.

"Thank you," she says, "she'll be two in December. Best birthday present I ever got."

Two and thirty-two. They share a lot of things, these two.

"You have any?"

[Emily Littleton] "Me?" she asks, a little surprised a the suggestion, though, why should she be? Emily, at twenty-two, is old enough to have a family of her own. Would be old enough, if her life had been dramatically different. If her aims had bent more to stasis and less to an unrelenting wanderlust. It bothers her, that she has been in the city without reprieve for over two months now. It bothers her that she doesn't know where the next stamp on her passport might come from. It bothers her that she has a six month lease and penalties for breaking it. Emily doesn't do roots well, she doesn't stay, she hasn't been one thing or one person long enough to even consider having a family.

Yet she finds herself saying, "Not now, but maybe someday," with that gentle undertone that implies, perhaps, she'd considered considering it. Might even want it, given the right circumstances and the right timelines. But she, like Ashton, would likely undertake such a journey alone.

Two and thirty-two and twenty-two.

Marcelle, in her exuberance over the letter M, pushes a little harder at the page than necessary. It unbalances the chair just enough to send her leaning her chubby toddler arms against the table. It jolts the liquid in their glasses. Emily, reflexively, without much thought or any awkwardness, reaches out to steady the toddler. To stop her pen from rolling away across the table.

"Careful now, poppet," she says, gently. In this leaning over, the thin silver chain she wears works itself free on the neckline of her dress. Out swings the oval pendant, freed pendulum, home and heartbeat. It comes within the toddler's arm reach, all shiny and silver: resplendent. Once Marcelle is steady, which doesn't take long, the Orphan withdraws, reinstates the polite distance between her and someone else's child.

"Your birthday is December?" she asks, returning to the adult conversation, politeness, sharing of incidental details. "Mine too. The seventh." They share a lot of things, these three. Not the least of them being a profound appreciation of tea.

[S. Ashton Winters] "It's an experience," she says. There is some sort of fondness in that, and one might assume that it is because she loves being a mother. That is not why she says that with such joy (such reverence [such something]). Such strength of passion should not, not , not belong to a death mage.

It is reverence for who she is, was, will be, and has come from. She is the child of Ecstatics- not Cultists. There is something to be said, something to be appreciated, something passionate and restrained about that passion when it comes to regarding that thought- an Experience.

"It is what it is, though. I'm rather enjoying myself, wouldn't trade it for the world" she says. Words don't always come easy, but here she is in the middle of small talk. No one is requiring her to be anything or anyone more than she is now. She is just Ashton, right now.

Marcelle pushes a little too hard, and Ashton looks at her daughter. There is a pendant swinging free, now. The book is forgotten and instead Marcelle reaches forward with her tiny, chubby hand. She reaches for it. There is Wonder in her blue eyes.

And it is something that may break her heart, someday. Ashton's that is. She looks at her daughter and sees, at times, what is. What was. What will be. She knows. There is something that resonates with that little girl, and it is yet to be tainted, yet to age. She is still growth, not yet time for stasis. Something that will be protected, jealously, from destruction.

Marcelle forgets about the book, and instead touches the pendant. "Preeeeeetty," she says. Anything that comes to mind. Such Wonder, such Joy.

Ashton looks a little concerned, but returns to adult conversation.

"Mine is the twenty-seventh. So, not that far off."
Not too far from the solstice. But? Just far enough.

[Emily Littleton] This Wonder, this tiny child in hand, this innocence untainted yet, unabated, lo, Emily knows this. She can echo it back, in soft undertones. She knows Faith, breathes in Grace. She was the child who breathed in Winter and out Wonder. It is there, still, within her. It slumbers but does not entirely abate. There are moments, still, more since she has Awakened, when the Glory overtakes her, when her wonder might be indistinguishable from the unbroken awe in Marcelle's eyes.

This is the magic of the Orphan across from Ashton. She has turned away from Faith, but never lost it. She has set aside Wonder, but reclaimed it. For all that she struggles, she is unwilling to break forever, to bend entirely. There is reverence in her, yet, despite the dark times they find themselves in.

The girl catches fast Emily's locket, and it is a Wonder, truly. Tiny fingers clasp to it, hold it in awe and marvel at its age-worn glamour. There is enough within Marcelle that echoes of Emily to make the tiny heartbeat sing. It calls out: Home, home, home. It seeps between her fingers, belonging. Calm and comforting.

Emily watches Marcelle, sidelong but carefully. It's an untaut awareness of a small person in her space. When the girl catches the pendant, Emily stays close enough to her that it's not a struggle over the bauble. For all that it is, all that it means to her, she seems content (or patient) enough to share it with the youngster.

It is not a tense moment, but maybe it should be. Were Emily more aware of what that locket was, why it felt the way it did (beyond sentimentality), she might worry more about the child's interest. As it is, the moment passes over her like water. Just pleasant and rolling. Unyielding and unbroken. It is simple, and it is good.

[S. Ashton Winters] Home home home, like warmth that is hidden behind winter days, constant, unabating winter, and calm and comfort. It feels good, good, good, better than good. It feels like something that is soft, and cold. And it is not something that one often associates with home, or feeling welcome, or feeling much of anything. People assume that something that is cold is unwelcoming, univniting, that it is desolate. Marcelle holds onto that necklace, with her eyes wide, and she feels cold. SDhe looks from the necklace to Ashton, back at the necklace.

She tastes applesauce. She smells grass and candles. She feels cold

And in her little hand, she holds something that feels so much like home. Home. And, probably better than either of those two near her, she knows that this necklace is special. And like all small children, she knows this with a conviction she can not voice. They speak, say grown up things, and Marcelle doesn't care about these things. She just cares about the necklace.

She scoots closer into Emily's space. Doesn't let go of the necklace. She, instead, reaches forward to play with Emily's hair, too. Rub it between her fingers and incorporate a different texture into her feeling of home. With unrelenting reverence, Emily is Home. Mommy is Home.

The book is forgotten.

[Emily Littleton] Marcelle scoots closer, and Emily looks to Ashton for a moment before letting her arm rest along the back of the child's chair. Marcelle was free to climb into Emily's lap, if she so wanted, to curl those child-chubby fingers into the loose tendrils of Emily's hair. It was smooth and dark, it tangled readily with her fingertips. She does not quite understand the parallels that Marcelle is drawing, but she understands that children have fewer conceptual boundaries. If Marcelle wants to play with her hair, Emily will quietly (fondly) tolerate it.

There is something restful and calming about being the focus of that much attention, that careful perusal. Marcelle does not care about Emily's past, about what has come to wake her from her nightmares, what has sent her wandering across the city. There is a gentleness in this unexpectant moment for the Orphan, too.

If Ashton seems comfortable with this, then Emily is. If the Winter woman is not alright with Marcelle asserting herself into Emily's space, then the Orphan will encourage the child, gently, to disengage. She has no need to come between a mother and her wishes for her child.

Whatever it was they'd been talking about before this, Emily wasn't quite sure how to get back to it. With her free arm -- the one that isn't cautiously ready to catch or steady Marcelle should she overreach or stumble -- Emily picks up her teacup and sips from it. Sets it back down. Lets long fingers ride around the rim of it, thoughtfully.

"She's quite friendly," she says, and the light wryness to her smile returns. It artfully curls the corner of her mouth; delighted.

"I can't believe it's already June," she says, with the sort of idle conviction of someone swept away by the year's tides and struggling to surface. But this is small talk, effortless and easy. It serves to fill the quiet at the table with something more than long looks and all their implications. "The year's gone by so quickly."

[S. Ashton Winters] [willpower: do NOT make a morbid joke.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 5, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[S. Ashton Winters] It is in moments like these that it becomes quietly clear that AShton was raised by Ecstatics. Let little ones explore. let them observe. Let them Experience and don't taint it with your own impressions.

"She does that," Ashton says, "possibly not quite like that, but... The entire concept of Stranger Danger is entirely lost on toddlers. Which is unfortunate, but the majority of abductions don't occur from strangers, anyway, and I sincerely doubt you are going to stuff my daughter into your purse and sell her on the black market. You wouldn't get much for her anyway."

She can't believe it's already June. Ashton sighed. Half sighed, half groans, remembers all too well how freaking hot it is now. Fucking June. Ugh.

"I know," she says, "my electric bill is through the roof. I can't wait for the year to go on and for this month to just be over."

[Emily Littleton] ((Manip+Subterfuge: Don't look horrified at the thought.))
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] Stuffing Marcelle into her purse and selling her on the black market? Emily would never, why she, perish the thought! Good thing that she has a penultimate poker face for moments like this. The wry American wit was so different from a droll British wryness that she wasn't quite sure what to make of it. And then she realized Ashton had been joking.

She chuckled, and it was a low and resonant thing. "I take moral objection to selling other people's children," she replies, with an acerbic humor of her own, that almost seems to imply selling one's own falls under the prerogative of the parent. Almost. Seems to. Emily clearly believes nothing of the sort.

"June's not my favorite either, truth be told, but we're almost halfway through it." Here, a light lifting her of teacup, as if in salute or toast. "Here's to Autumn being almost close enough to call just around the corner. Or hoping, at least, that it's so."

[S. Ashton Winters] She can not keep a straight face.

Ashton is the woman who put her intestines back inside of her body, and walked out without a scratch to speak of. Ashton is, quite possibly, one of the more disconcerting mages in Chicago. She has an offbeat sense of humor. So, the idea of something as terrifying as her daughter being sold on the black market is, obviously, laughable. Especially by means of being stuffed in Emily's purse.

She takes the tea cup and lifts it. She smiles, and it's bright. It's glittering lovely winter, "to Autumn. To winter. To spring and Summer alike, all things will come in their time."

She looks a little more genuine, now, "here's to Autumn, soon enough."

[S. Ashton Winters] [Oooh?]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8

[S. Ashton Winters] "Mine," says Marcy.

[Emily Littleton] Ashton could be disconcerting, and Emily is beginning to place her as the woman at the white-picket fence House who had the whole situation in hand. Who had her own insides in hand, and was still giving commands. That that woman could soften to this one, could be hawkishly aware of her child without an overbearing presence, could be cold like Winter in the dead of Summer -- it was amazing, but not impossible. So many of the magi Emily had met in her scant seven months awake were remarkable in one manner or another, they were deviations from the norm, they were the outliers of the curve. Yet Ashton was, tonight, a mother enjoying a relatively quiet night out with her daughter.

Mine.

Or what had been a relatively quite night out, thus far. The girl's voice pulls Emily's attention toward her. The Orphan has to lean back, a bit, to get the whole of that cherubic visage in focus, so near is the child and so tight her grasp on Emily's curls.

"Ah, no, lovely," Emily says, firmly but with warmth. "That's my hair." A smile. And she does not yet reach up to help disentangle Marcy's fingers from her locks. Not just yet. Mostly because it is not clear which of the many things within Marcelle's demesne she's chosen and named hers. Emily assumed, or guessed, for starters than she meant the curls.

And this, this is such a warmer counterpoint to the last time she held a small child close. This girl, so vibrantly alert and alive, not weighed down by grief and loss, is a warm squirming of limbs against her. She is not a heavy weight. The other memory pushes at the corner of her mind, but Emily wills it aside. It surfaces, somewhat, in the dark edges of her eyes, but does not well up and out of her enough to be noticed.

Point and counterpoint. Where that memory aches, this one soothes. All things in their time, as Ashton had said. Maybe she was meant to meet these two. (He works in mysterious ways.)

[S. Ashton Winters] Like some General. Like someone who, at her deathbed, would continue to give commands. She stayed constant, but (finally) not stagnant. A force, a presence, something there that could be anticipated, relied on, remembered for what she was. Ashton was, and is, a presence.

But the presence is different. And Winter is not as harsh, nor as unforgiving as it seems. Severe, but no less so than Summer. She had a child with a man who had been an invincible summer to her perpetual December. And, like summer. Like all things, he faded. Left, went away. And? He was replaced by something different. Instead, was replaced with a child who was all things. Summer, spring, fall, winter. Wonder. Found in all these things.

That, however, wasn't important right now, because Wonder wasn't letting go of the Wonder, though she was easily untangled from Emily's hair, but not the necklace.

She tries to pull the necklace closer to her own chest, "mine."

Ashton's eyes widen for a second, and she looks at Marcelle.

"Marcy, no, it's Miss Emily's."
"No," she says again, "mine."
"You can't keep it, it's Miss Emily's. It's probably special."
"Ree-rah bracelet."

She looks at Marcelle.

"Not quite like that," Ashton had no idea she was lying.

[Emily Littleton] Ashton wasn't lying. The little heartbeat that Marcelle held in her hands wasn't quite like anything else on this Earth. That was the Wonder of it: a unique thing, with a unique resonance, with a unique purpose. Wonder held fast to the Wonder, and Emily did not seem to alarmed just yet.

"May I please have that back?" she asks Marcelle, speaking to her like the rational little person that she is. There's no baby talk here, no intimations that the child does not or cannot understand the concept of personal property. She had entered the age range where everything was hers, she could conceptualize that some things might be someone else's too.

She was precocious, bright. Emily wasn't going to let her off too easily.

"You could draw pictures, here, if you like," she offers, tapping the notebook and pen with one finger as she gently, so delicately, begins to unfurl Marcelle's tiny fingers from her bauble. There's no forcing the child, though. If this redirection tack does not work, surely the Orphan would try another one. There are many routes toward a peaceful resolution, hopefully they could find one that does not include wailing and toddler tyranny.

[S. Ashton Winters] Marcelle looks at Emily, like she is terribly confused. She looks at the necklace, and then she looks back at Emily. But-but... it feels cold. It feels right, and it feels like Home and so does Emily!

"But-" she starts "mine. Mommyhome."

She shakes it a little, as if to add some sort of emphasis there. She's being uncurled fromt he necklace, and Marcelle's eyes widen like Emily was trying to take a candy-covered pony away from her.

"Noooooooo-ooooooo-ooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhwaaaaaaah," she draws out.

Ashton looks as though she just ate a piece of cactus. Whole. With spines.

"Marcy, c'mon, let it go," she is now helping extract the child from the necklace. It is a two-woman endeavor.
"Want home!" Marcelle insists.
"Baby we'll go home, but you have to let go first."
"Noooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhhhhhhhwaaaauuuuuuuuugh."

[S. Ashton Winters] [Ashton: dex+athletics: Noooooletgo]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] ((Dex+Ath: Small child + my necklace = yoga?))
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[S. Ashton Winters] [Marcelle: NOooooooOOOOOOOOOoooooo! Resist]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 2 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] Oh the wailing. The wailing itself isn't too bad, except that the proximity of Marcelle's mouth to Emily's ear made the particularly poignant plea take on a piercing quality. The Orphan's eyes pinched shut for a moment, then blinked open with an undaunted clarity of purpose. Those deeply blue eyes found Ashton's, and the two women were suddenly possessed of a singular goal.

Age, experience, and a few other factors played into their favor. Marcelle yielded, not willingly, and Emily tucked the Wonder back below her neckline and out of immediate view. That would not hide its resonance from the child, though, only the argent glint of light off its surface. It was still palpable, if thinning, falling away like whispers do.

"Thank you," Emily says, to the child first and then extending that onward to Ashton. It's a polite thing, a firm thing, when directed at Marcy. It is a gentler, commiseratory thing when lent to Ashton.

"I'm sorry about that," she says, now, somewhat sheepishly. Emily had not thought it would become an issue, or she would have wrested the trinket from Marcelle earlier. The girl is probably still wailing, unless Ashton has something else handy to distract her with. Emily's ears are ringing, just slightly. And she is certain, beyond a doubt, that she's not ready for a toddler of her own any time soon.

[S. Ashton Winters] [WP: Don't cry, +1 diff (but-but-hoooooome!)]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 5, 5 (Failure at target 7)

[S. Ashton Winters] [where does she go?]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 9

[S. Ashton Winters] This is when the trade comes.

The necklace is pried out of Marcelle's hands, and coupled with the fact that she just smacked herself in the head with her own hand, the not-yet-two-year-old whimpers. Her bottom lip quivers andshe looks at Emily with a look that is pure mourning.

She cries.

She looks from one, to the other. To mommy, the cruel awful cold one who took it away, to Emily who said it was hers in the first place.

Mean, awful, terrible people-and-and-and

Dear god, Marcelle wails such a pitiful noise, and instead buries herself in Emily's hair again.

"Aww, Marcy," Ashton reaches for her.
Marcelle is firmly attacked to Emily's neck at this point.

[Emily Littleton] This was an alarming turn of events. Marcelle is crying, and burying her face into Emily's neck. It is too similar to events not here, not now. Except that Marcelle's mother is not possessed, is here, is reaching for a child who continues to wail, whose tears run hot and saline down the side of Emily's throat.

"Hey there, poppet," she says, gently. It's a soothing voice, mellifluous and resonant. "Your mom will take you home, it's okay now." Her hand rubs the girl's back, hoping to soothe her. Emily's eyes find Ashton's again, full of apology and best-intentions.

The wailing turns to whimpering, but she doesn't seem inclined to relenquish Emily's person to her own recognizance. Such are the whims of children, strong and unyielding. The Orphan (for now [Singer soon to be]) knows a thing or two about unyielding wants, drives. She signs a bit, but that softens before it can intimate any sense of rebuke.

"Do you want to take this outside?" Emily asks, all politeness and calm, as the wailing has no doubt disturbed the calm of the tea house for everyone else. "Maybe she'll acquiesce without an audience." Ah, there, the wry smile returns. And Emily was about ready to go, if Ashton was, so it was not great imposition from her perspective. She could gather her things, they could walk out together, and then Marcelle would clearly see the wisdom of going back to her mother's arms once home-going was obviously in the cards.

Right? It could work.

[S. Ashton Winters] [I'M NOT TIRED! (stamina)]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[S. Ashton Winters] "She does not normally do this," she says, "I swear."

Ashton might very well be embarassed atthis point. Quite embarassed, and clueless as to why Marcelle was so attached to that necklace, and Emily for that matter. Emily is strange. Emily is a stranger. But she's still attached none-the-less.

The wailing continues. Disturbs people there, and starts to die down. Falls into quiet little whimpers, and finally, a limp toddler with her hands shoved in Emily's hair. She still rubs strands of it back and forht between her fingers. She keeps touching it, and Marcelle doesn't abate. Ashton makes a little sound, and it's concerned and confused.

Marcelle is now not crying, but is quite entangled.

"... so, do you babysit?"

[Emily Littleton] Emily is quite adept at juggling a warm bundle of child in one arm, and stowing her things back into her messenger bag with the other. Strange, that might seem to Ashton, because she could swear Emily had been writing, left-handedly, when they arrived at her table. Marcelle is now controlling her dominant arm and Emily seems to be just fine working with the other. Especially for a woman with no children of her own.

The notebook, pen, and book find their way into Em's messenger bag, and then she's ready to go if Ashton chooses. She can walk with them to their car, or even back toward their place until Marcelle either capitulates or falls to sleeping. Emily is, tonight, a very patient woman. She usually is more patient with children than adults.

"I haven't, in a few years," Emily says, but it's more that she hasn't had the opportunity than doesn't have the interest. "But I'd be happy to give you my number. I wouldn't mind watching her."

It would be difficult to give Ashton references, though. Emily had volunteered in several primary school classrooms, at various Embassies in various countries. She'd worked with the soup kitchen in Cabrini, she'd done enough humanitarian things to clear Ashton of her stranger-danger worries, but she couldn't point to a Chicago mom or dad and say I sit for that family. Not yet, at least.

Oh, Marcelle. Emily did not know it yet, but it was likely that the girl would be another thing that forced Emily to put down some semblence of roots. To pretend she might stay awhile. To learn to call this strange windy city Home. Emily didn't know it, wasn't even thinking of it, but small children had a way of wrapping their fingers around heartstrings and holding tight.

There's a tip of her head, suggestive of a shall we? and a gentle lofting of one eyebrow to go with it. For all the wailing, this encounter has been strangely restorative for the Orphan. It was a purely normal thing (look Ma, no zombies [demons] nephandi); with some abnormal consequences.

Emily smoothed one hand over Marcelle's hair, comfortingly. With any luck, the toddler would tire herself out and be soon for sleeping.

[S. Ashton Winters] Ashton Winters never babysat as a younger child.

She never spent time around other families. She never had to deal with children who were significantly younger than her that were not, in her young mind,somehow related to her. She didn't spend time waiting for other families. She was, however, adept at caring for others. Always had been. Always wound be.

And we say Winter is not nurturing.

But here she is, probably the last person who one would expect to have children, with a two year old. She's no Atticus Finch. She'll never be Father of the Year, or Mother of the Year for that matter, but she seems to care enough. More htan enough. She does not know this yet, but Emily is something closeto roots, something to anchor her back into the community. One can live in a place for years and those seeds never take shape. The soil washes away, leaves a barren patch where life used to be.

She doesn't know it yet, but Emily planted something there.

She nods a little, and starts to extract the two of them from their current seats. She helps where she can, adept at the one-armed carry, though Emily doesn't seem to need any help. Ashton is impressed enough, it seems.

"Sounds great," she says, "she seems to have become attached to you, and you've already established that you wouldn't sell her on the black market, so you've pretty well passed all screening tests I need for a care provider."

Marcelle, at this point, has passed out on Emily's shoulder. The crying has subsided, and moved into just drooling.

[Emily Littleton] So they may find some sort of gravity in one another, something to pull them back toward their common community, and for tonight, at the very least, this is centered around the small child drooling on Emily's bare shoulder. The Orphan hefts her messenger bag's strap to the opposite shoulder and they extract themselves from the tea house.

It never ceased to amaze her how quickly small children went from rage to exhaustion. And maybe, had Emily been capable of giving herself over to the same heedless expanse of emotion, she too would be able to sleep this soundly in the presence of strangers.

Strangers. Ashton had said the word at least once, intimated it more so. It struck some piece of Emily as funny. Most of the people who had wandered in and out of her life were strangers, remained at arm's length, never really made it past acquaintances or that veneer of friendship that tided them over until she had to move away once more. She had friends, a handful of them, scattered across the globe. She had nascent friendships here, named but not yet fully shaped. She was fighting it, the connectedness; it warred with her wanderlust, with the untethered freedom of having no hometown.

A person could want something with the very fibre of their being, and still turn away from it when it was offered up to them. Still fear it. There's no fearing the small child at her side, but maybe she should have been wary of the implications this held.

It's not a cool night. Overcast, yes, threatening to storm, you bet you, but not cold. Not chill. Even Ashton cannot bring down the temperature around them to a bearable chill. Midwestern summers were insufferable like that.

"Anytime," she says to Ashton, as the're manuevering their way out of the doors. "I'm not taking classes during intersession, and I can move my labwork around your schedule if needs be. Summer's a lot more flexible for me."

Because if it weren't, she'd fail her classes and get fired from work. Emily didn't do June well, knew her boundaries there (hahahaha [no really]) and kept her early summers as committment free as possible. She doesn't say I may be unavailable if a Demon has possessed anyone recently, because Ashton, feeling like December in the weeks before Midsummer, would already understand that.

[S. Ashton Winters] Rage is exhausting. Their bodies are small. There is only so much small things can take before they are completely and utterly spent. It takes so little before they are wiped out, wiped away into nothing, before, finally, they are so tired that even sleeping takes too much effort.

To Ashton, the world is full of strangers. People she knows of, but does not know. The community is full of them. Few are colleagues. Some are friends. Fewer still are confidantes. There is a hierarchy that she does not let much of anyone into, that she does not allow. This? She doesn't know what this is. She doesn't care, either. Marcelle likes Emily. that's good enough for a lot og things.

True, Marcelle also likes throwing bell peppers and watching people fall down, but that's not a problem. She likes Michael Willis. She likes Ashley McGowen. Marcelle is a good judge of character. That's good enough.

It's warm outside, and Ashton starts to head to the civic. It gets good gas mileage. Looks better than the Jeep. Makes people think she has a lover at home, before they realize that Ashton just has two cars. Fuckin' doctors.

"My schedule is insane, so I'm giong to give you fair warning. Feel free to tell me no. Or do your homework at my place, it's pretty relaxing, and she sleeps through the night, barring any big storms, in which case dear god, good luck getting her to sleep through it, though if something comes up I have a feeling we have similar commitments so... yeah."

The closest she gets at a nudge towards you and I aren't different.

[Emily Littleton] Ashton's form of babysitting sounded a bit more intense than what Emily had originally imagined she was getting herself into. This is a thing to think about, while she's disentangling the sleeping girl from her shoulder and handing her back to Ashton. Emily is all caution without anxiety in handling the child; odd for a girl with no true siblings of her own, maybe, or one so far-flung from what little family she did have.

Once Ashton has Marcelle, Emily digs out that notebook and pen again. She notes down her name and number on a slip of paper and carefully tears it out -- that's almost a perfect right angle, it's almost exactly rectangular -- to hand to the Euthanatos. If Ashton is paying attention, she'll probably note that Emily writes this down with her right hand.

It could go by unnoticed, easily, were she more focused on, say, the limp two year with an endearing smear of spittle down her chin and cheek.

They're not that different, but neither of them feel like delving into that just now. Emily has her reasons and it's not hard to imagine that Ashton has hers.

"Well, just give me a call and I'll help when I can." Now she can loop her messenger bag's strap over her head so that it's slung shoulder-to-hip and balances out the weight across her torso. Emily and Ashton are of a height, neither dwarfs the other. "It was nice to meet you," she says, leaving off the addendum: without anyone dying. That just wouldn't be friendly to say.

[S. Ashton Winters] Putting a child in a carseat seems to be-

No, it is odl to her. She's good at it. Very good at it. The transfer is flawless. Drooling toddler being untangled from Emily's hair as though this is some kind of car wreck of a situation. She reaches, takes the younger one out of her makeshift sleeping situation and buckles her in. Five point harness.

Ashton has a damn good carseat.

"I'll make sure to keep in touch," she says. she takes the note and commits it to memory, "my cell phone is still California area code. Don't panic if you get a call from San Francisco."

She smiles.

"Nice to meet you, Emily, stay safe, okay? Don't study too hard."

[Emily Littleton] The girl's fingers find the strap of her messenger bag, wrap around it. Long fingers finding purchase, finding something to hold to. It's a familiar habit, something Ashton will come to recognize as an Emily pose. That is, if they spend any length of time around one another. There, circling her neck, is the glint of silver chain that started all of this fuss. And Ashton, unless she can feel the threads of resonance from it, is none-the-wiser as to why that bauble would spark such interest from Marcelle.

Ashton cautions her to stay safe, and Emily answers reflexively that she will. She's been particularly incautious of late, but all of that was coming to an end now that early June had passed by. Now that her half birthday had come and gone.

"Will do. You two have a nice evening," she says, and uncurls her fingers enough to offer a little wave. Then it's time to part ways, and Emily will turn to head home the four or five blocks she has to walk. Alone. In the dark. This late at night.

Stay safe, Ashton had said. Emily would probably need some rather pointed instruction in precisely how to accomplish that. But that education was neither here nor now. And a few blocks wasn't that far at all, on a still and quiet night like this.

[S. Ashton Winters] "Emily?"

There is silence there. And, finally?

"What you are doing right now is the exact opposite of staying safe. Get your happy ass in the car, you are not walking anywhere alone in the dark."