Early morning

[Emily] Early morning. The sun breaks through the clouds, pushes long, luminescent fingers through the soft weave of sheer drapes. It colors the sky in ruddy tones that fade to pastels and give way to the blue-white light of summer. It's quiet, on Emily's street, on a Sunday morning. It's almost restful here, if one can discount the events of the previous night and the oddity of a half-lived in flat. She'd been here for months, now, and it had not gotten much more lived in.

The door to Emily's room is closed, to afford Ashley some privacy and to muffle the sounds the Orphan made as she moved through the living space. She'd taken her boots off, dropped down to her normal height once more, and let the pins out of her curls. Other than that, Emily was still wearing the cheongsam-styled blouse (that fit closely to her curves [was made for her]) and the straight legged slacks. Her jacket still hung off the back of one of the dining room chairs.

Maybe it was the whistle of the kettle, cut off quickly but still shrill and bright-sounding in the early morning, or the smell of strong coffee brewing that wakes Ashley. The younger girl doesn't have much of an appetite this morning, but good coffee and tea are rituals that are hard to go without.

It has nothing to do with addiction, and everything to do with habit.

Emily lowers herself into one of the dining room chairs. The french press stands on a trivet near the middle of the table, surrounded by a pair of mugs and a small carton of cream. She rests her elbows on the table, leans forward, uses her long fingers to massage at the tension in her temples, at the back of her jaw, along the back of her neck.

She hasn't slept much. It's been a long, long night.

[Ashley] Ashley has been awake for a while before she smells coffee. Ashley has been lying on the futon, wearing a strange set of clothing, but at least she had a chance to shower last night and wash all the blood away. There's a fresh scar now, and once in a while she reaches up to smooth her thumb over the shiny dime-sized patch, mapping its edges.

Her Will is drained. She's too tired, aches too much, to sleep restfully, so she hasn't. Neither does she want to get up, look through the house, or go home. So she just lies there.

When she hears Emily up and about in the other room, she turns her head to glance over her shoulder at the closed door, squinting as the dawn kisses her face, washes out the blue in her swollen eyes. She rolls back over and gives Emily some time.

The Chorister-to-be has been sitting at the table for a little while before the Hermetic emerges. There's a dark swirl on the side of her head where her hair was matted down by the pillow, and she's had to roll Emily's pants up a few times around her ankles. She's much smaller overall (delicate?) and though Emily is thin and athletic, the clothes are still a little baggy.

Ashley runs her fingers back through her hair as she enters the kitchen, stopping when she sees Emily sitting there in her chair. "Hi, Em." Her throat sounds dry.

[Emily] The Singer is not with them. He'd left, or disappeared into some unseen place. It's just the two women, now, in the quiet of the flat. Emily is so tired that she feels every movement down to her bones; it's like swimming in molasses, warm and heavy; heart-hearted. She's careful with those movements, then. Careful not to disturb the quiet of the morning, not to move too quickly against the heaviness of it all (struggle).

With no energy left for restlessness, she turns the coffee cups upright. One for her and one for Ashley, who is just coming through the door, who is offered a threadbare and struggling smile -- Hey, there. Morning. Not good, not Good Morning, but Oh! Morning; it must be morning; it -is- morning, yes? -- as Emily presses down the grounds in the french press. She lifts the pitcher a little, as if asking whether Ashley would like to partake.

Of course she would. It's a rich, indulgent smell, coffee brewed correctly is. With patience, with careful attention, chemistry and ritual wrest flavours and oils from roasted beans. It's invigorating on the best of mornings; it helps them hold steady on the worst.

Looking at the pair of them, this morning is close to the worst for them both. The Orphan pours for them both, offers one mug out to Ashley as a peace offering or perhaps some form of modern-day chiminage. It's not a balm to assuage their consciences or a salve to soothe their heartaches. It's modern magic, shared space. Hopefully, it is enough.

"Did you get any sleep?" she asks, and her voice is strangely free of worry. It's commiseratory, rather than concerned. She is not mothering or meddling, just asking. Even now, the Orphan knows better than to help Ashley. They can suffer together, but Emily cannot offer her succor. This is the way of the world, at least as far as a particular, unrelentingly Hungry Hermetic goes.

[Ashley] Ashley doesn't usually like coffee. It's bitter, in a different way than tea is bitter; it lacks the mellowness, the herbal flavor. She's tasting it all day, smells like it all day, she can only drink it with a lot of sugar and milk. She just doesn't like it. That said, it smells very good right now, because she doesn't have a toothbrush, because there's still a metallic tang in the back of her throat. So when Emily offers her a cup, she just nods.

Then she slumps into one of the chairs, head a little bowed, lolling, like she doesn't quite have the strength to hold it up. It's likely that at the moment, she couldn't summon the mental energy to do anything more than sleep or talk (about non-challenging topics) if she tried.

"A little," she tells Emily. Last night her face was blank, she went about a shower and pulling on pajamas and rolling into the futon as though it were automatic, like she couldn't bear to think too hard about what she was doing. Last night, she didn't shed any tears until after she'd lain in the dark for a while, staring at the wall. Last night Emily couldn't see the grief that's mapped all over her face this morning.

Very few people can say they've seen Ashley like this, this vulnerable, this close to breaking (can't break in full, can't shatter, it's already been done). Wharil is one of them. Kage is one of them. They're the only two in Chicago.

[Emily] This is good coffee, the kind that doesn't require anything added but is elevated delightfully by just a splash of cream. The kind that you can drink black, black as midnight, thick and heavy, without feeling the bite. It mellows across the palate. It smells faintly of chocolate, without being mocha. It is rich, resonant, immanent, immersive. It is a tea lovers coffee, if there were ever such a thing; something to make when the weight of it is needed.

This space is not set up to be more than a place for Emily to lay her head. There's no spare toothbrush, no second room with a lavish array of guest clothes, there's no wide-enough-for-two bed to share. It's simple. Spartan. Pared down and functional. Some spaces are so pared down that they are sub-functional, like her living room. And yet she welcomes people into as if it is more than half-formed; as if it is somehow enough and warm and welcoming.

There are fine things to find here: surprisingly comfortable bed; good coffee; strong friendships. They are hidden, in plain sight. (Easiest to miss that way.)

Emily splashes a little cream into her coffee, watches the contrasting threads spin throughout the mug. She does not mix them together with a spoon. It's almost meditative; not quite.

She sips, and for a long moment there's quiet between them. It's not unbearable, or expectant. Emily's good at inexpectant quiet; her friendship with Owen has required her to hone that particular skill further. After awhile, though, she says:

"Thanks for staying, last night." Pause, another sip of coffee. "I'm ... I wouldn't have been okay here, on my own, after all of that."

[Ashley] The living room is stark, bare. It makes Ashley think of her own apartment, its warm tones, dark woods, the smell of books and tea and the comfortable worn-in furniture. So she doesn't look at the living room. The kitchen feels much more lived in, far more comfortable (comforting.)

The Hermetic takes the cup of coffee and blows over the top before taking a sip, careful and slow to make sure she doesn't burn the inside of her mouth. One would think after having a bullet blow through the middle of her ribs last night she'd be inured to little things like that, but she's not.

"Thanks for letting me stay," she says. She doesn't say that she wouldn't have been okay on her own, even though she wouldn't have. It's an admission she can't make, even now, worn through and heartsick, and she figures it's implied enough in the fact that she stayed at all.

Ashley lifts a hand, rubs the corners of her eyes with an index finger and thumb, as though she could ease the swelling out of them. Her sinuses still sound a little clogged, abused. "I need to call my dad."

[Emily] "Anytime."

It's not an admission that Ashley can make, which is probably why the Orphan made it for them both. Ashley stayed, and that spoke enough; Emily had offered, and assumed it said the same. They didn't need the words, but words helped to bridge the unspeakable awful of the previous night. Ashley may not have laid her head down and cried the night before, but Emily certainly wept at some point. Trembled. Silently came undone, and then picked herself back up again for the coming dawn.

She is stronger than she thinks, much like Jarod had told her just half a year before. She doesn't feel it; doesn't think it; she's only just starting to live it.

"You want some breakfast?" she asks, but doesn't move to leave the table just yet. Outside the window, the day is already heating up. It will be muggy and hot, again. It's summer, almost midsummer. "I can throw something together."

These things, these mundane things, keep them from talking about the night before. They're comfortable, comforting, simple, mundane. Just being in one another's presence is enough vulnerability, right now. She can see that Ashley is hurting, is worn through, is heartsick. Ashley can see that Emily is wearied, is frightened, is threadbare and soul-sick, too. Neither can keep much from the other and Emily doesn't take advantage of that openness; won't capitalize on it.

There's Reverence in that, in the unwillingness to be Unrelenting just now. She doesn't push. It bears noting: She doesn't push.

[Ashley] It can't be a comfortable position in a dining chair, but Ashley draws both of her feet up, hugging her knees to her chest, bare toes hanging over the edge, curling at the end of the seat. She often sits this way; it has a habit of making her look even smaller than she is, self-contained.

"I'm not hungry," she says, "but you can make something for yourself, if you want." Emily doesn't need permission; it's not intended to be permission.

Ashley doesn't know what to say. She doesn't even know what to think: her mother is dead, someone she thought invulnerable, would be there always, albeit distant. Someone she thought could never be touched by what happens here in Chicago (Ashley knows Ars Conjunctionis, should have known better.)

Right now she isn't thinking about the rift that's widened between the two of them over the years. She's thinking about when she was little, snuggled into her mother's side while she watched TV, or the way her mother's eyes glistened the first time she heard her sight read Handel (Ashley had been eleven.) It's those sharp little memories that are jabbing into her stomach right now.

Ashley drops her face into her hands, slides them along her face as though trying to squeeze moisture away. There isn't any yet. "Do you know if they got anything from the girl?" Her voice is a little thick. She notices, closes her mouth again.

[Emily] Ashley isn't hungry; Emily isn't hungry. The prospect of breakfast slips away without being capitalized on. Emily would have cooked if Ashley wanted it, but even the effort of putting something together for herself, for just one person, is overwhelming.

And there it is, the turning point, inflection, where all of this quiet builds up to something and that energy had to go somewhere. With Ashley, it went back to work. Emily ran her fingertips through her hair, got them stuck on the broad curls and then had to shake them free. It made her frown, a little. That faded, too.

"No. I haven't heard from anyone yet," she says. Emily takes another sip of her coffee, sets the mug down on the table with a little rasp. "I haven't started making calls, though, either."

This pause is expectant, though. She's looking for guidance. What to do after an event like this. Who calls who. How do they share and learn and communicate without breakdowns like the last meeting.

"I need to call Riley. Or Chuck. Her name was on the invite list; I'm worried." Emily's expression pinches, unpleasantly. She runs her fingertips along the rim of the coffee cup, ducks her head so she can't look into or meet Ashley's eyes. There's a gravity to her voice that makes it seem unsteady when twined with her exhaustion.

[Ashley] She has to think about work. With everything Ashley has seen, had happen, since she arrived in Chicago, she has to have something to focus on and keep her going. Something to keep her mind off of everything, to keep her from thinking about grief and loss and where she's walked and from thinking about how few victories she's had to balance that. It keeps her from thinking about the dearth of good memories of the past year, how she's had to snatch up the ones she has had and hold them close to her heart. Bittersweet, all of them. It keeps her from self-pity (it's why she doesn't want anyone else's).

"You should call them," Ashley says. "If that's what you want to do."

Emily left that expectant little pause there, as though asking whether she should make calls, initiate, inform. What she should do. Ashley tries to find an answer for her, searches her mind for what should be done in this situation, where there's a demon with its attention on her chantry, wanting her Sleepers, wanting to impose its Will over hers. She tries to find advice, words of wisdom because the apprentice is looking to her.

"God," she says, after a beat. "I don't...I don't know what to do."

[Emily] "I want to know they're okay, but I'm not sure I want to talk to them, if that makes any sense at all," Emily says, screwing up her expression and staring into her coffee mug as if she could scry in the pale-brown liquid. It had become too homogeneous, now, for any of that, and Emily wasn't given to such superstitions anyway.

She exhales, heavily, and shifts her position in the chair to something more of a slouch. Ashley bundles up small and tight and Emily attempts laziness. She fails at it; there's too much tension, too much weariness, too much pride (grace) to her for that sort of lethargy. Even now, exhausted.

"I kinda want to go out to the woods. Sit in the clearing and have Kage tell me all about something fantastic; or gossip -- gossip's good for forgetting. Nothing ever much comes of it," she says. She says she wants to be idle, unfettered; weightless after all of this. That she wants to be away, and unencumbered. She says it with a shrug, with another sip of coffee.

"Or hanging out with strangers, watching World Cup. That's good; maybe if everyone around is oblivious I can forget for a moment that I--"

Oh, no, that thought is not continued. Emily looks out the window, casts a sidelong glance at the trees outside. She's checking for tremors, for signs of a coming storm. She's looking for something mundane and simple, something to ground herself. She's running her mouth, but not finding her way home. It's all noise; just noise; lost sound; little bits of secrets and sidebars that wouldn't mean anything to anyone who knew her only as well as the Chicagoans thought they did.

"But really? I want to call my godbrother. Because when he says it'll all be alright, I actually believe him." A pause, another sigh, this one heavier than before. She sounds young, even to herself. Weak and fragile. Emily doesn't care, just now. Wouldn't care if Ashley chastised her. There's a heavy weight on the girl's shoulders than a chin-up-and-deal-with-it chat wouldn't cure. (We all cope in our own ways. [Where's the reverence in that?])

[Ashley] "I've never been able to do that," Ashley says, of calling godbrothers, of believing someone who will tell you that everything will be all right. Emily didn't know the woman now dead, hasn't met Ashley's father, but if she had it would be easy to believe that Ashley is the kind of person who has done a lot of self-soothing. But she doesn't chastise Emily. Not now.

Emily can articulate what she wants, all of those mundane things, something to ground herself. Ashley is quite expressive when she wants to be, has a way with words. But she doesn't know what to say, she just wants.

"I want to think that eventually all of this is going to balance out and things will be okay again," she says. She isn't looking at Emily's eyes, not even looking at Emily's face. She turns her head, chin pressed against the side of her shoulder, gaze wandering off into the kitchen. "I keep telling myself it's going to make me stronger, but...fuck, I'm tired. And what's the point?"

Ashley sighs, reaches up and rubs at a knot in the back of her neck, right where it meets her shoulder. "I miss being an apprentice. Someone always had a solution, and someone could fix my fuckups, and I didn't have thirty people asking me what they should do. People are coming to me and -I- don't even know."

[Emily] Ashley misses being an apprentice; longs for a time when someone could come along and fix all her fuckups. Emily is quiet, and looks out the window. They don't look to each other, just now, and that's probably for the better. There's a flicker-play of emotion on the younger girl's features, but even this worn and strung out she fails to give voice to any of them.

"Maybe you're not supposed to," she says, when the reflexive flare of frustration has passed and she's thinking a bit more clearly again. "Father Ward doesn't know; you don't know; Israel probably doesn't know -- it's terrifying, yes, but it's unreasonable for anyone to expect you to know all of the time, what to do about everything that comes up."

Emily snorts, it's a small but clearly indignant sound. "You're a person, not the Enclycopedia Mystica," a made up reference book that sounded Latin enough. She feels defensive, protective even over the Tytalan. Emily had realized until just now that Ashley was worming her way into the small cluster of people that Emily would actually cop to caring about. It was a very short list, despite the broad number of acquaintances the girl held in this city and others.

"For what it's worth, I don't always expect you to have an answer when I ask. I ask, because you're the steady, constant point in the last year. You push me, when I don't want to be pushed, and if the opinion of any other Awakened in this city matters to me; matters to me right now, when I've done something as brazen and irresponsible as end another person's life -- it's yours. And if I can do something that's at least not cross-purpose to what you're trying to do, while I learn to magically find my way out of a paper bag, then that's better than casting about like a lost man."

It all sounds so weary. Emily is tired. Emily is threadbare. Emily cannot keep the things in that she should not say; cannot hold back the things that she would not say. She rests her elbow on the table, leans her head into her hand and stares out the window, away from Ashley.

"Maybe the point is that some of us, someday, might grow up to answer more questions than we ask. And you'll be able to catch a fucking break."

[Ashley] If the opinion of anyone matters to Emily, it's Ashley's. The Hermetic glances over at the younger woman, blinks, as though she hadn't quite realized that she might be of personal importance to people in the city beyond organizing for them, beyond being the sap there telling them what to do and making sure they have a safe chantry to go to. It looks that way because she hadn't.

This isn't one of those moments, though. No hugs, not even an understanding smile. Ashley just takes that in, takes whatever small comfort she can in it, and listens to the rest of what Emily has to say. For the first time she's noticing that the apprentice, too, is tired, hearing that she killed someone.

Ashley missed that. She heard bullets being fired, of course, but her mind was solely on her Willworking, the agony in her guts, seeing the water slowly rise up to her mother's chin, her lower lip, her nose...She saw the look in her eyes a few times, that it was panicked. Uncomprehending, all white of the eye.

"Thanks," she says, quietly. "I just...feel like I'm not ready sometimes. But I guess no one ever is."

[Emily] Ashley sees the younger girl in profile, because Emily will not turn to look at her just now. The girl's features are serious, gravely set and contemplative. It's not just the sleeplessness that draws them down. Her fingers clasp and release the coffee cup, toy with its rim. They are not idle; she is anything but idle.

"We give up a lot," Emily says, seriously and calmly. Level, now, that the rush of words have gone out of her. "Without knowing it, without agreeing to it. I hope there's a reason; I hope there's a damned good reason for all of this."

There has to be. Emily believes from the core of her being that there must be; that His will must drive this in some unseen way. She says I hope but she means I have to believe. It may be uncomfortable for Ashley, to hear these words that trend so near to Faithful ones, but Emily is saying the same thing she is.

Sometimes I am not ready. Sometimes I do not want to go forth to face this brave new world. Sometimes I think, my shoulders are not as broad You must think they are.

[Ashley] Ashley has to believe things too. In some ways she isn't that different from a Chorister: she has to believe that suffering has meaning, that conflict hones a Will and strengthens it, drives it closer to Enlightenment. Her differences with the Choristers lie in their motivations, not their methods. Believing something is the same as Willing it so.

"I don't think so," she says. "Things happen. You can choose to give them meaning, or not." Emily is seeking comfort in God, in the idea that there's some overarching plan; Ashley does not believe any such thing. Not even after she saw Catherine.

Ashley rubs her face again. The talking is keeping her grief at bay, helping it subside at least a little. It's keeping her mind off the realization that wavers at the edge of consciousness: her mother is dead.

"I...I think maybe I should go soon. And later I can...we can figure out what to do. About the demon." Solomon was right, when he spoke at the meeting. It makes the words rankle.

[Emily] These are trying times. And this morning? It's not about Faith, the pure stuff of belief, as much as it is about Fellowship, about Witnessing for one another. Being able to stand up and say I was there; I remember later, when all of this has become that much further away. Emily is not well enough grounded to offer the fellowship and friendship she would have wanted to, so this cup of coffee and these seeking, aching words would have to do.

Later, she will be able to say I was there and I remember. She will hold tight the secrets of another mage's sorrow. And in time, perhaps over the space of many years, she might grow into a colleague who could offer more than shelter and basic conversation.

"Oh..." Emily says, as if she's suddenly remembering something. She sits more upright in her chair, leans over to fish something out of the pocket of her jacket. It is the Tarot card that the yellow-eyed man gave her at the dinner table that night.

"I picked this up. I don't even know why. But I thought I'd go look into it at the library, or online, and see what I can dig up. Or maybe someone can follow it, like you said was possible with that life scan --"

She's not hopeful, Emily. The card is laid on the table, between them, like some augury or souvenir. One corner is a little bent, but it has survived the night in Emily's pocket otherwise unscathed.

"I was going to ask Owen about it... if you'd rather, I still can. Maybe we can work on this, and later we can all catch up."

[Ashley] She looks toward the card Emily offers, the surprise registering on her features as she reaches out to take it from the girl. "I can use this as a sympathetic link," she confirms, "and I should be able to find him that way. It would help if we had his True Name, but..."

Well. She isn't quite at that level of mastery yet. "Good catch, Em." Then she tucks the card away into her pocket, with a brief but approving glance in the apprentice's direction. "You can have it back once I've used it, if you want it."

Ashley pushed herself out of Jhor taint, Willed her way through it and overcame it. Given her Avatar, her Hunger, it was perhaps the most difficult thing she will ever have to do. But she's done it. This is grief, but it's natural, it's a healing process, and eventually it will pass. She knows that, even as much as things hurt right now.

There's a wan smile in the apprentice's direction as she drains the rest of her coffee, and pushes herself to her feet. "Things are going to be okay, eventually." There are things a person has to believe, and then there are Truths.

[Emily] There's a faintly pleased smile that tugs at the corners of the younger girl's mouth when Ashley says Good catch, when the Hermetic's interest piques a little more strongly than it had so far this morning. In time, Ashley would find her way through her grief; in the meantime, Emily had offered something concrete to work on.

"Yeah, I think I'd like to have it," she says, but isn't exactly sure why. "When you're done with it, though, no rush." There's an edge of defiance in her, calling up the dynamic flavour of her resonance, wrapping it around her to steel her resolve. If Emily keeps that card, it shows in some way that she is unafraid of it. And if she is unafraid, then she can be that much more prepared for whatever will come.

It's been a long seven months for the Orphan girl. (You can never go home again.)

She stands when Ashley does, idly smooths the wrinkles in her slacks with one hand. The two of them fill most of the empty space in Emily's dining room.

Things are going to be okay, eventually, says one.
"I know," says the other, with a surety and Faith she's borrowing for a future self.

"I'll drive you home, if you want," she offers, before she rolls her shoulders against the tension in them, tries to elicit some sense of release.

[Ashley] "Yes, please," she says, with a rueful glance down at the too-long pajama bottoms, wrinkled and piled around her bare feet. Her suit was ruined: the jacket placed over her mother's face, the red shirt (hundred dollar shirt, damn it) ripped up the front, shredded apart by a passing bullet and then the one that slugged into her ribs. Pants and shoes soaked in blood. Ruined.

"...Poor Zane has been by himself all night." Her thoughts are for the dog; having something to take care of helps give her some sense of control, some sense of autonomy. It's likely that she'll go home, pet him, tend to his needs, take him for a walk before calling her father if she can manage to go out in public.

Ashley gathers up the bloody clothes in a garbage bag so that Emily is spared their disposal. When the younger woman is ready, she gathers it under an arm and then steps out, barefoot, into the early dawn.

It's already beginning to rain.