We're fine.

[Emily Littleton] After a night like that, there's really only one thing to do: gather up your closest friends and drink like a fish. Riley gets a text as they make their way from campus to the Mile. It's an address with a small annotation: Ashley and I will be drinking here, until we're drunk, and probably a bit further than that. Come if you like! Check you conscience at the door.

It's the kind of place that reminds Emily of pubs at home. Dark wood floors, high stools at the polished wood bar, booths with dark-colored seats and ample table sizes. The lights were just bright enough that you could make out your company, but not so bright that you felt any need to check out the people at a table across the way. This is not a bar for mingling, not a place to pick up a date. It's a place to belong, once you got to know the regulars. A place to drink and forget, if you were just another face in the crowd.

With their resonances flaring, Emily and Ashley are escorted to a table out of the way of the other patrons. This isn't a mage-friendly place, run by a consor, but it's run by people who understand that some people like to be left alone. And if not left alone, then some people should sit where they won't run off business. Hungry, reverent, unrelenting, determined -- these traits did not quite work for the place's ambiance. They were left alone, to drink in peace, with enough service to seem efficient but not enough to get irritating.

[Ashley McGowen] There's an embarrassed silence from the Hermetic as she walks with the younger woman down the Mile and toward a bar. It's uncomfortable, what they just experienced in front of each other: Ashley intends not to speak of it again, but given that she stretches her social skills to interact with other people at the best of times, she can't find other topics of conversation. Thus, there is an awkward sort of quiet. She's trying to calm down.

Her resonance is flaring and that air of Hunger about her is burning right now, painful in its intensity. Sleepers are made uncomfortable by it at the best of times. Right now they leave her alone.

She's trying not to think about the twins. She's trying not to think about anything. Ashley's a Mind mage; this is something she can manage. They walk back to that isolated booth and the Hermetic is running her hands back through her hair, leaving it standing on end as though to let heat work its way out of her scalp.

"You okay, Em?" she asks, once she's finally comfortable enough to speak. Yes. They are going to be drinking.

[Emily Littleton] Emily is not a mind mage. She has no preternatural skills or mystical training in how to put aside the things that they've seen, the things that happened around them. She's not even sure how to parse what happened, the subjugation of so many wills and minds to a driven, driving external force. Their walk is quiet, because Ashley doesn't push and Emily isn't sure what to say. How do you even begin to talk about it? What do you say? That was fucked up? So the other can echo the sentiment, and you can both nod and go back to your quiet?

The girl slides into her side of the booth, nestles into the corner it forms with the wall. She kicks one leg up lazily on the seat, at least until someone joins them and she has to take up less space, be a bit more proper. Her head tips back until it rests against the wall, and her eyes slip to half-closed. She exhales, like she's pushing the weight of the world out of her lungs one breath at a time.

You okay, Em? Ashley asks.

"Not really," she answers, without lifting her head again. The soft white light from the overhead fixture paints her skin a little sallow. It accentuates the thinness of her features, the hollows of her cheeks. She's drawn, worn thin before this thing on campus even began, and now worn down by it too.

"You?" she asks of the Hermetic, the syllable almost sounding lazy against the shape of her usual accent. She tips her head and opens her eyes enough to look toward Ashley now. In this light, her eyes are only dark. There's little hint of the blue they are in brighter times.

[Riley Poole] I'm so there it's not even funny

The reply is immediate, as apparently Riley's phone had been turned on again, after she'd gotten far enough away from the college campus. She'd had to turn it on to fix it, after all, to get to the invasive program and wipe it off.

Soon enough the VDept is there, quickly enough that obviously she hadn't been at home or at work. She'd been out somewhere, about. When she enters the bar, she looks like she just got off work, though. She's still wearing her short-sleeved button-down, the buttons all undone to reveal her fitted white A-shirt. The tie she wears (real, not the ridiculous clip-on) is loosened, and she's wearing jeans that are fading so much along the tops of her thighs they're starting to look shredded. Her shoes are not her usual Cons, but a pair of plain black dress shoes with a sensible one inch heel. Her hair is up in a ponytail, and has been for a while if the whisps and curls that have fallen free around her face are any indication.

The usually laid back social butterfly is tense tonight, and it's obvious just like anything she thinks or feels is always obvious. When she steps beyond the threshhold of the bar's entrance, she looks around. She has to step in further to locate the ones she knows have to be in here somewhere. When she sees Emily and Ashley, Riley visibly relaxes. Tension bleeds out of her shoulders and her expression more and more the closer to their table she gets, until she's actually able to smile at them in greeting.

"Hey, guys. I hope you already ordered a pitcher." Then she looks from one mage to the other and adds, "Jesus, you look like you've had about as good a day as I've had."

[Ashley McGowen] Before this happened on campus, Ashley was in high spirits, and chances are high that even this won't be able to dampen them for long. For once, the Hermetic is finding herself in the position of being the one wanting to cheer up the others, to keep their spirits high, to let them know that things really aren't that bad. She just conquered something that has killed lesser Willworkers. Many of them. She's conquered something that's caused a lot of Euthanatos, with better training and more support, to put the muzzle of a gun through their mouths and pull the trigger.

Ashley looks a lot healthier than she has since either Emily or Riley have known her. The Hermetic is dressed, at the moment, in a pair of black slacks and a white buttondown shirt, rolled up to the elbows and a little damp with sweat. She doesn't look half-starved, like someone with a need she can't fill. Her eyes are bright, a starry blue that reflects even the dim light of this place. The change is stark, and it's quite noticeable.

"I'm okay," Ashley tells Emily. "I think I'm just going to...take a cold shower and pretend that didn't happen." Her tone isn't light, but it isn't particularly heavy, either. It's with the grim, wry sort of humor Ashley sometimes displays. She does indeed order a pitcher when the waiter comes by.

Riley arrives, and she doesn't look well. Ashley isn't surprised at this; she remembers the conditions in which she and the younger woman parted earlier this week. She still glances up at Riley and gives her a quick nod. "Hey, Riley. We have something coming. Have a seat." There's a beat, then, "You doing okay?"

[Emily Littleton] There's some languid thought, akin to Oh, right. That's Riley, that inspires Emily to move her leg off of the bench seat and make room for the Vdept. It's not a particularly driven thought, though, because instead of righting herself to sit like a normal person, Emily just bends her leg at the knee and continues using the wall as a vertical support. There's ample space, now, but they can't squish in together all BFF-like and hug.

Well they could, if Riley was in a particularly boisterously huggy mood. Emily was not. She didn't really want to be touched after what had just happened.

"Hey, Riley," she says, dismissing with the formality of fully-formed hellos all together. Hearing the tone in the other girl's voice inspires Emily to actually sit up a bit, and give her a friend a more attentive look over.

"It's been a hell of a night," she says, thread it in just after Ashley's question. As if commiserating might somehow make it easier for them to all talk. Or, more rightly, for anyone but Emily to talk. She'd been hard to get ahold of and somewhat tight lipped for a few weeks now. That didn't keep the concern out of her features; she was having trouble keeping anything back tonight. It was probably going to be a problem.

[Riley Poole] Ashley asks her question, Emily interjects with her own comment, and Riley laughs. It's not her normal low infectious chuckle. It's not even the laughter of the amused. She lets out an incredulous, "Hah," brows lifted, her energy almost manic as she leans her forearms onto the table top. One hand comes up to smooth her hair back from her face (the loose hairs almost immediately slide back down around her face) before returning to the table.

"Am I doing okay," she says more than asks again, grinning and studying an overhead light. This is definitely not a Riley that either of them have seen before. It was bound to happen, really, that something would happen in the Awakened world to make the usually easygoing woman flip her shit. And in the grand scheme of things, compared to the others she's met, what she's been through hasn't even been all that bad. She hasn't watched cabalmates die, hasn't had to pull the trigger on a friend turned psychopath, hasn't even had to harm any lives, really.

Yet.

Still, she lowers her gaze to Ashley before she looks to Emily. "Well, I had an interesting surprise in the bathroom at work today. This message was written on the wall. I mean I watched as it was being written and I was in there by myself. And then on my way home something got into my phone and tried to make me go to the college."

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley wasn't smiling to begin with. If she had been, she wouldn't be now, after Riley tells them about the note in the bathroom and about the message trying to make her go to the college. Where she and Emily just were. As it happens, Ashley has also gotten a message: it was dropped down her shirt. It's not the kind of thing she would share with either of these apprentices.

As it is, she just looks over at Riley, and a muscle in her cheek twitches. It has to happen: when she's on top of the world, there isn't really a chance to be allowed to savor that. She'll just have to do what she can, where she can.

Fortunately, the pitcher of beer arrives at that moment, along with glasses, and it falls to Ashley to pour it out into each glass. She pours for Emily first, passing it over toward the Orphan, then one for Riley. Last for herself, of course, and then the mug is sat in the middle of the table. "You're lucky you didn't go to the school," she says, at first. It seems to be all she will say, before, "There was...well. This concert, and a lot of people under the influence of the Ars Mentis. Huge orgy. Had to stop it."

Ashley talks about it because it convinces her that she -can- talk about it, and that will let her put the entire experience behind her. It will allow her to forget. She glances toward Riley, after a second, a quick thing out of the corner of her eye. "What was your message?"

[Emily Littleton] ((Manip + Subter: Emily's most used dice pool; +1 diff))
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 7)

[Emily Littleton] Huge orgy. Had to stop it.

If Emily was still keeping that notebook for Wharil, she might just sum up all of today with that quote. In fact, if Owen called right this very moment and asked how her Sunday evening was going, she'd be horribly inclined to quote the Hermetic and just wait to hear what he could come with as an answer. That's because Emily was fantastically thin on impulse control after the scene on campus. She was still, thankfully, rather adept at finding an appropriate game face to wear and selling it.

She shifts, now, on the vinyl booth seat, dropping both feet to the ground and resting her arms on the table. Ashley passes over a pint and Emily offers a Cheers of gratitude. She doesn't meet the Hermetic's eyes, not while there's talk of orgies going around the table, but there's a keen interest evident for what Riley's got to say.

Emily does add, just now, that she'd received her own message the night before. That disclosure may come later, when she's more sure that it's not just a hack or a prank or a malfunction that caused her late night anxiety attack.

"How was it written on the wall if you were in there alone?" she asks, not accusingly but curiously. She may have been forced to believe in Zombies and Possession, Angels and possibly Demons, fallen Mages and magic in general... but Emily was holding out against the idea of spook stories, still. At least one of these things had to be unreal. Spirits, spirits would be an excellent myth to debunk.

[Riley Poole] [mem'ry, all alone in the moonlight: int + alert]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Riley Poole] "Orgy, huh? That sounds," and she stops, squeezes her eyes shut and shakes her head. "No, I'm not even going to go there, that sounds horrible. I'm glad I missed it."

Ashley pours and slides a glass in Riley's direction. She lifts it in salute before downing a good third of it, giving herself some liquid courage before she answers Ashley's question about content. It also gives her time to remember what the message actually was.

Of course, then Emily interjects again, and Riley chokes. The glass gets set down rather heavily, and she coughs. The fit lasts for a while, the alcohol burning in her sinus cavity and in her throat taking some time to dispell. She manages to catch herself before it devolves into a full-blown spasm.

Good job, Poole. Beer is for drinking, not breathing. This week needs to end.

When she's recovered, she looks at Emily. Then she looks at Ashley. And her expression crumples. She frowns, and her brows furrow, and she looks for all the world like someone freaking out at a horror movie. Which, given that it's Riley and a lot of her fears for walking the streets at night are grounded in pop horror cinema, is pretty much what she's doing. She takes a deep breath, bites her lips, and whispers, "I don't know. It was like something out of a horror movie. Just...black ink on the walls. Then it got really hot and muggy, and someone wrote in the steam on the mirror. Uh, let me see."

She closes her eyes again and rubs her temples, her elbows still resting on the table, as if this will help coax the memory forward.

"Set me as a seal on your heart as a seal on your arm, for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave, the coals thereof are coals of fire, which as a most vehement flame."

Once she started, it was easier. Once she found that first line, the rest came forward, glowing in her mind like they'd been burned into her memory. In twenty, thirty, eighty years, Riley will still remember those words.

[Ashley McGowen] Riley coughs, chokes, splutters on the sip of beer she'd been taking. Ashley, who had raised her glass to drink from it, lowers it once more and gives the VDept a look of...well, not quite concern, but something that suggests that she'd rather not see Riley choke. She doesn't pat Riley's back or the like. Just frowns and waits patiently for her to catch her breath.

The message falls heavy on her ears, and then she's left looking at the apprentices: herself the Disciple, the person who is supposed to explain these things to them. Supposed to explain when she herself doesn't have a real explanation for spirits, for what they are and how they affect the world around them. When she doesn't know what's going to happen and she isn't the best at reassurances.

"There's something coming," she tells the two of them, "like the...the angel-spirit mentioned, in the chantry. I got a message too." This, unequivocal, firm, and ultimately not something that invites questioning about the nature of her message. She takes a long swallow of her beer.

"Spirits can affect things across the Gauntlet that way, I think. Riley wouldn't have had to have seen it for it to be there. They can kind of choose to materialize or not, or at least, that's what I've been told. I don't know a lot about it, but," there's a siding glance toward Emily, "do you remember that time when Kaya was in Chuck's apartment, fucking around with the chair when we couldn't see her? That's how it works."

Another swallow, and already her beer is almost half-drained. "...We've dealt with a lot already," she tells the apprentices, tone flat. "And we're fine."

[Emily Littleton] Riley chokes and Emily winces. She glances sidelong at her friend, an apology written all over those usually guarded features, and then looks away again when the Vdept has righted herself. The Orphan is already a third of the way through her beer when Riley reaches the poetry section of her report.

Emily's glass is lowered, very carefully, to the table top. Her lips are pressed into a thin little line, a rather displeased expression harshened by the overhead lamp. There's no twitch of a wry smile, no little hoarse chuckle. No mirth, not even forced.

She pushes the glass away from her a little, as if it were suddenly a poor idea to keep drinking. She rests one elbow on the table and leans her chin into that upraised hand, letting her fingers obscure her expression, tap against her cheek, then fall away into her lap again while the others talked.

"Whatever it is, it got into my computer at work, too. I can't find anything wrong with it -- and believe me, I've tried," meaning she'd done more than just test the mechanical components and secure the network. "Same style of verse. Creepy. Just fucking creepy."

The British girl didn't curse often, but when she did it was with good cause. Emily shook her head a bit, tried to shrug it off. But whatever this was, it lingered. Between the possessions, and now the three of them getting hunted down by a malevolent messenger, it would be a wonder if she slept through a solid night again for weeks.

"I wasn't sure what to think, after what happened to Nathan. I went to St. James for the night, but Owen wasn't there this morning."

She stared at her beer like there was some great quandary here: To drink or not to drink, that is the question. Ultimately, drinking won out and she reclaimed the glass and took another great swallow. Sooner or later, all of this would start feeling fuzzy. Emily could really go for fuzzy right about now, perhaps even with a side of numb with hazy memories.

[Riley Poole] The Geek Squad employee doesn't offer to take a look at Emily's computer. She'd been hoping the answer to the how of the message getting on the wall would be, 'Duh, it was magic!' That, strangely, would have been easier to swallow and cope with. Even after the ghosts and the demons.

Spirits, though, that's a little more difficult to wrap her head around.

She turns to look at Emily when she says she went to St. James first, that she stayed there even though she didn't find Owen. And she supposes it's to be expected. Riley's noticed that in the last few weeks when they're together, things are fine. They're almost normal. But, when they're apart, they don't quite register as viable options to go to when a crises crops up. After all, Riley didn't get a phone call in the night, and Emily didn't get one this afternoon. Instead they sought out their mentors.

Ashley says they're fine in that flat tone, and Riley's attention is back on her. She manages to pull the ghost of her usual charming smile onto her face, and she nods. "Yeah. You're right. And hey, I didn't come here to flip out over this shit. If something's coming we'll just, uh. Well, deal with it, I guess." She doesn't ask about Ashley's message, she doesn't ask for details on Emily's, and she doesn't ask about the orgy. She knows she needs to carry on. But, first, she plans on getting completely shitfaced.

[Ashley McGowen] "You guys only got messages, you didn't actually see anyone?" Ashley asks, with a glance between both of the other women. There's a troubled frown then, as she lifts her glass and drains another good quarter of it. "I saw a guy. Pretty sure he was infernal or possessed. Grabbed me on my bad side, kissed me, dropped the note down my shirt and said he'd see me soon, and he was gone after that. I couldn't quite tell what was up with him."

It's emptied just as Riley is affecting that grin, offering to change the subject, saying that she didn't come here to talk about this stuff. Ashley didn't either, really; what she wanted to do today was forget about that damned note for a little while, get a hold of someone, exult in freedom. Or, at the very least, spend a good evening inside reading, maybe spending some time with her father while he's still in town. But here they are.

Ashley reaches for the pitcher and refills her glass, pouring it with a hand that's rather steady in spite of the subject matter and what they just saw. She's trying to keep her thoughts on track, and it's proving more difficult than she would like.

The best way to detract from that? "You sure you're okay, Emily? You've been kind of...kind of weird lately," and a glance that suggests that it isn't quite the word Ashley would prefer to have used, she would have liked something more accurate, but her thoughts aren't quite where they should be. As usual, she grants little thought to its sensitivity, or lack thereof. "Is it because of what happened in the park?"

[Emily Littleton] ((Manip + Subter: I am inscrutib--instrac--inscrutable. Yes. That's it. +1 booze; +1 post orgy))
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 7, 7, 8 (Success x 1 at target 8)

[Riley Poole] [perceptioning your face! or this beer: percept + aware]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 8, 8, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] [Perception + Awareness, +1 for I'm bad at emotions]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 9, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 7)

[Emily Littleton] She's vaguely aware of the Hermetic's attention as its turned her way. The way people are vaguely aware of a fighter jet screaming across the sound barrier overhead, or vaguely aware of a laser pointer flicking over their iris, or of the ominous music cues in any of the horror flicks Riley's been studying. The Orphan's long fingers toy with the glass before her, her fingerprints trace its rim, she can feel the tug of the ridges at the places where the glass is not yet damp.

It's amazing how easily the tenor in a small group can change, when the topic shifts. Ashley asks a more or less innocuous question and Emily's crafting a more or less innocuous answer, but it isn't going to fly. She's already answered not really, and had it be not enough.

She tips the glass up, stares at the brew in the bottom half for a long moment, then finishes it. It's an answer, that action, or the beginning of one.

"No, not really," she says, thinking maybe this time it will stick. "I'm dealing with some stuff," she says, shrugs a little, plays it off as small and insignificant. "Old stuff. And then there's all of this Awakened business on top of it. It gets overwhelming," she says, as if they're talking about finals week or midterms or any other mundane concern.

Not morbidity, crises of Faith, subjugation of wills, any of the other terrifying truths that they know are part of their world now, not just as thought studies or terrors reserved for less civilized places. Emily has always known the world had a dark and sinister side, but she had hoped it was contained by the bounds of human cruelty. That, that had been enough to worry away at her nights, leave her sleepless at times and in observance of some anniversaries. All of this, all of this on top of it was like drowning at times. A girl could drown in nights like these. But she was fighting to surface again.

[Riley Poole] "Man," says Riley, leaving her glass alone on the table to slouch back in the booth. She reaches up behind her and tugs the elastic band from her hair, lets the waves fall down around her shoulders. There's a slight kink in it now, from being up for so long, but it's almost unnoticeable.

She sighs before she continues. "Sometimes I forget just how young you are, Em." The somewhat older woman has of course seen through the younger's attempts at hiding the truth. It puts her in a strange position, makes her feel like she should pat her on the hand like her nonna used to do to her. "I need to ask my dad if I ever acted like that. If I did I owe him about a zillion hugs."

[Ashley McGowen] People do mature over five or six years, and a twenty one year old really is a far cry from a twenty six year old in many ways. Ashley hasn't been privy to many of the things Riley has, as far as Emily's behavior goes, in the past month or so: she has glimpsed a few things, understood that there were things going on beneath the surface, but things have been hard on all of them. She dismissed them.

Ashley, after all, has little trouble with answering a question honestly when asked, even when it's something that pains her. Even when it's about her music, or, up until a few days ago, about the taint that hung heavy over her soul, spun black threads and wove itself into her very Pattern, stained her resonance and gave it teeth. She doesn't remember that other people, especially young people, aren't always this way.

"Old stuff?" she asks, with an inquiring look in the girl's direction. "That sounds like code for 'things I should confront but haven't yet.' To me."

[Emily Littleton] ((Please, please don't botch.))
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 5, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] "What do you want me to say?" she asks them, her voice seeking yet carrying a burr of frustration to it. There's a pinch in her expression and it draws her brows together, distorts what is often a collected countenance. She draws in a deep breath, just to let it out in a loose and uneven chuckle, a rasp of sound against her throat, her teeth.

Her hands press down on the table, then, fingers splayed, just enough to feel the contact of the lacquered wood with her palms. Steady. Just enough to steady her. It's dark here, and it's a warm night, and everything they've encountered feeds back into the demons she's been wrestling with -- but it's always that way in early June, regardless of the surroundings or the symmetry.

A start, then. Her voice is flat and steady, but not terribly emotive; it can't be, these are memories she's either too intimately aware of or purposefully distant from.

"Seven years ago, today -- maybe yesterday, if you factor in time zones -- I was found on the banks of the river in Prague, after going missing for over three days. I don't remember, of course, because I'd been so badly beaten that I didn't wake up until the eighth, or ninth; it's hazy. I do remember the broken ribs; they're a bitch." Something tugged at the corner of her mouth, twisted it upward for a flicker of a wry smile.

"I don't really know how to confront that, to be honest. I've tried talking, but it doesn't go well. Jarod left. Chuck dug this up and put it on a thumb drive. Riley worries. Nico's the only one I've told who didn't make me feel overly anxious, but there's still time for that. And now, I think, I'm going to have another beer... if that's okay with you two."

Because really, right now, nothing sounded better than changing the topic and going back to getting shitfaced.

[Ashley McGowen] Emily tells them about waking up on the shore of a river in Prague, that she'd been badly beaten and doesn't remember anything else. Ashley just...raises her eyebrows, as though she can't understand why it would cause Emily so much pain, if she can't remember it. Fortunately those aren't thoughts she utters.

Ashley doesn't remember what it was like to fly over the handlebars of a bike and curl up on the ground with a piece of her skull bashed in; brain injury is merciful enough to spare her those few minutes, in its way. What she does remember with clarity is waking up afterward. She also marks the day, keeps track of it: so it's not that she doesn't understand. The look she's giving Emily isn't that of someone who is uncomprehending.

Emily reaches for another drink and Ashley just gives her a nod, taking a moment to pick up her own glass and take a sip. Processing. Then she says, "Have you -tried- to confront it? Because you clearly aren't okay with the fact that you can't remember what happened."

[Riley Poole] [short fuse (i know right?)]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Riley Poole] Ashley isn't the only one who marks a day of grave injury on a calendar, marks and remembers it. Matt and Riley Poole have a day of memorial. It's a day that Riley doesn't much remember, either. She was just a child when a truck slammed into the side of her mother's car, throwing the child across the seat and into the opposite door. She doesn't remember that, or the next few days in the hospital, either. All she remembers about the day her mother died was getting into the car, assuring her mother that yes, her seat belt was fastened, complete with a roll of her dark eyes, when it wasn't. Funny, how that saved her life that day. Shattered most of the bones in the right side of her body, sure, but Riley is still alive.

Emily lays out a list of people she's told and their reaction. Someone left. Chuck gathered the information on a drive. Riley worries. Ranked right up there with leaving Emily or finding the information and making it available to her. Riley has to bite off some bitter comment, has to fight down and shove back a sudden wave of irrational anger. It's knee-jerk. If she were ten years younger, she wouldn't hold it back. She'd just let it fly and shred her friendship with the younger woman to pieces without any hope of salvage.

Instead her mouth thins into a firm line, her eyes harden, and color starts to rise in her face and quickly fades. Riley takes a deep breath, lets it out slowly. By then, Ashley is asking Emily if she's ever tried to confront it. And Riley just takes a long drink of her beer, finishing it off before pouring herself another.

[Emily Littleton] Emily's not watching either of them; doesn't want to take on the weight of their worrying or concern. It's heavy, whatever gets reflected back to her in these moments. It adds to the weight of what she's already carrying, pushes her down deeper. She doesn't tell them, because she doesn't want to hear I wish I'd been there or I won't let it happen again. Because it's all bullshit; it's what they say to make themselves feel better.

She knows. She's said it before. Before all of this, she used to hold out false hopes and gentled placations. Now it's just a grim smile, whatever actual support she can provide, and the watchfulness of someone who has been to that dark place and was forced back out into the light once more.

She drinks over half of her beer before she answers. Before she looks up from whatever knot or whorl in the wood has captured her attention so completely.

"I remember," she says. "I remember enough of it." Not all of it. There's pieces missing, and not just the pieces where she was unconscious from pain or deprived of one sense or another. "I remember enough to be scared, or even to be angry sometimes, and that was enough until this year."

Until Awakening. She'd told Ashley once that her Awakening had been particularly gentle. That it hadn't been traumatic at all. Perhaps the Orphan girl had spoken too soon on that front.

"I can't seem to get it out of my head since I Woke Up."

[Ashley McGowen] I wish I'd been there or I won't let it happen again are not words that Emily has to fear coming out of Ashley's mouth, ever. Ashley is a Hermetic of House Tytalus: a group of people unequivocal in their belief that conflict shapes a person toward Ascension. That it and its consequences are something unavoidable, something one shoulders and accepts and, perhaps, should even be grateful for, in a way. Ashley herself views suffering as something almost divine; this is where the humanism of her House shines through. Everyone tells themselves what they have to in order to cope.

"You probably won't," she tells Emily, "until you've faced it down, and I can't stress to you enough the importance of doing that. It's a pretty poor Willworker who can't master herself." She might have left it at that: it's easier for her to deal with people, thinking in terms of magic. Thinking in terms of Will. It's what she knows.

But after she takes another sip from her glass, her nose wrinkles when she sets it down, and she adds, "Look, I...okay. What I'm trying to get across is that you're not the only person here who bad things have happened to. If you can't get it out of your head, that seems to me to be a good sign that you need to stop...refusing to think about it, or whatever you're doing. I don't mean to go all motivational speaker on you, but you're not going to get over it unless you face it."

[Riley Poole] She won't hear those words from Riley, either. Though she may not believe that conflict shapes a person toward Ascension, she's a firm believer that the way things happen shape a person into who they are now. If she were to go back and change something, it would alter the entire course of her development. If she could be there when Emily was taken off the street, if she could go back and change that, Emily might be somewhere else right now. She'd be a completely different person, and there's no guarantee that Riley would meet, let alone like whoever that person turned out to be.

As for not letting it happen again, Riley's not the sort to make promises she's not absolutely certain she can keep. And if Emily keeps pushing against her, keeps holding her away, well. There's a good chance the VDept will stop wasting her time and move on with her life.

Eventually. Riley's a very stubborn woman, and she doesn't give up easily, either.

"Besides, look at your choices. You can continue to fight it and keep up this weird distant asshole vibe until all your friends leave you, or you can face it, deal with it, and get on with your life." The way she says it, it sounds so simple. Like a life-changing trauma can just be faced, yelled at, and moved past. Riley knows better. "Neither's gonna be easy, but at least with one you've got people around you right now who'd be willing to help you through it."

[Emily Littleton] ((Man, I need more WP dice... stupid orgy.))
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] Riley is not the only person at the table who can be pushed to a fantastic and impressive breaking point. Emily's jaw clenches, her frame goes rigid for a moment and something heated and dangerous flits across her eyes. It's clamped down on, tightly, before she can say much of anything in response. Instead of snapping at the Vdept, using her words or her limbs to push the woman away even more violently than distance and failure-to-communicate could, Emily exhales heavily and waits out the rise of her temper.

It doesn't take long. It never takes too long. The Orphan drinks again. Finishes the second pint. She hasn't had enough sleep to drink like this; hasn't got enough body mass; doesn't have a tight enough grasp on what is now and what was then. It's a shitty anniversary, and she's been an asshole, and the Tytalan is telling her to grow a pair.

The glass comes down to meet the table with a thunk. It's not slammed, but she's not as gentle with it as usual. Emily is usually quite careful. Careful of what she says; how she says it; what she lets slip past; who she opens up to. Fuck careful, tonight, the little voice in her head is saying. It's the one that's been talking all week. The one that started getting louder when they buried that baby girl at St. James'.

"... Are you saying I should go to counseling, or something?" The words are so calm and evenly-tempered that it's almost hard to believe she'd been a hair's breadth from yelling at one of her closest friends and cabalmates. "Nico could probably recommend someone."

It's not a yes, or even an I'll try. But she hasn't yelled at anyone, hasn't climbed over the booth back to get away from them. It's a start. Or it's an ending.

[Ashley McGowen] "If you think it would help you," Ashley says, raising her eyebrows toward Emily in a manner that suggests she herself has never been to counseling. To Ashley, such things are a crutch: one Wills through these problems on their own without relying on the strength of others. It's entirely possible that she's simply never thought it through as a valid option.

"I could pull the memories forward for you, so that you would -know- what happened, but you'd still be confronting them instead of letting them stay buried. I guess however you choose to face it is up to you, I'm just saying -do- it," Ashley says, frowning for a few seconds at the youngest of them. Her glass, too, is sitting there on the table, fingertips still resting against the outside as though she's reluctant to part with it but doesn't really want to drink more from it right now either.

"I mean, dealing with it won't be easy, but the choice is a pretty simple one. Keep going as you have, which won't make you any happier or more able than you are now, or assert your Will over it." To her, it really is that simple: Ashley usually approaches the world in such terms.

Fight, or don't.

[Riley Poole] Ashley could pull the memories forward. Riley leans forward so that her chin rests in her hand, her fingers idly tapping an erratic rhythm on her mouth. She's acutely aware of the fact that Emily is essentially being tag-teamed by the older women at the table. And she's also aware of how that must make the girl feel. Push too hard and Emily might start to feel attack, probably already is feeling that way. And the last thing they need -- and more importantly the last thing Emily herself needs -- is for the Orphan to bolt into the night.

That doesn't change the fact that Riley's own patience, seemingly vast as the sky above, is beginning to fray. That she's getting closer to wanting to take Emily by the shoulders and give her a good hard shake. She doesn't add to Ashley's advice, though, to the way she points out Emily's choices again. All she does is lift her brows and nod her agreement. In her mind, the choice really is that simple. It's the execution that will be difficult.

[Emily Littleton] It's so clear and simple, from the outside looking in. Take the offered help; come back to the Church; ask for forgiveness; let the past go. (Come home, Emily) It's always been so simple, such an easy thing to talk about once the bones mended and the nightmares faded. Once she was standing beside her parents in the receiving line at parties again, smiling and telling people how pleased she was to see their country.

It'd been easy, right? Tamp it down, box it up, hide it away, don't look back. She'd managed, more or less, for six and a half years without having this conversation too often. Without pushing Gregory away. But she hadn't been settled down in one place for very long; she'd never developed the type of relationships that led to these moments.

Emily pressed the heel of one hand against the middle of her forehead, as if that pressure would help her think straight. (I forget sometimes how young you are.).

"Sure," she says, grimly. Follows it up with, "Okay. Let's try that then." It's at odds with how she's handled things for this long, and some part of her is rebelling angrily at her acquiescence, but she's too tipsy to let that part have any control. And by tomorrow she'll have already committed to a course of action. It'll be too late to turn back; maybe that will be her saving grace.

[Ashley McGowen] Emily presses a hand to her forehead, pushes her dark curls up away from her face for a few seconds and acquiesces. The girl's tone is grim and it might be that she's only giving permission because of the alcohol, but Ashley doubts that. She's seen Emily handle difficult things before: she has the beginnings of respect for the girl. What she can have for an apprentice.

So the intensity of her gaze gentles, which is not the same as -being- gentle: it just isn't that hard, unforgiving stare. It's less, it's more. Ashley lifts her glass and drains it. She doesn't grasp her hand around it like a crab's pincer; this is all handled with the fingertips, with a certain kind of delicacy. Or removal.

"Not tonight," she says to the Orphan once she's set the glass back down. "You're probably not in the best frame of mind to deal with it. But soon. We'll talk in a few days."

[Riley Poole] Emily acquiesces, Ashley tells her not tonight. Riley takes in another deep breath and lets it out slowly, trying to get her muscles to relax beyond their means. It's not working, though. Words still echo in her head, stupid petty hurts still bounce around and repeat themselves. She knows that no amount of breathing exercises or relaxation techniques will make them fade, only time, and only if she's lucky. That's frustrating, but like so many things, Riley's learned to deal with it.

And she'll learn to deal with this, and with things like demons nearly tearing her arm off, or zombies bruising her ribs. Eventually.

"Yeah, I don't know about you guys, but tonight is for drinking myself into oblivion." She lifts her glass. "To a hard reset, and a Monday morning reboot."

[Emily Littleton] Emily has handled difficult things before. She's strong enough to handle this too, whatever she believes of herself. Maybe it will be that Ashley's concerned enough to notice, to call her out on it and point out how it compromises her efficacy as a mage. Maybe it will that Riley called her and asshole and had been hurt by all of this. Something about this exchange will likely be what gives Emily the motivation to dig through whatever crap comes up, sort it out, and find a better person to be.

Because never on her darkest days would she want anyone else to be hurt by what happened to her. Hurt, worried, imperiled, compromised. Never. And if that's what her inability to handle this is doing? Well then, it's time to put that shit behind her and move the hell on.

Emily looks up to make brief eye contact with the Hermetic. To pass on an I understand and to seal an agreement of sort. There's resolve, under the fear and self-recrimination in Emily's eyes. It's something Ashley can name, know and count on being solid and steady whenever this goes down.

Riley says tonight is for drinking, and Emily raises her (now empty) glass with an echoing: "Here, here." Tonight is for drinking, and not thinking too hard about the promises she's just made. Tomorrow is for sorting the rest of it out, and second guessing. Maybe, if they were all particularly blessed and lucky, the demons and infernals and possessions and dead babies would hold off until Tuesday, so they could be done with their hangovers before it all started up once more.