Godspeed, friend, and good night

[Emily] It's a warm night, almost insufferably so. The threat of thunderstorms looms, a promise, a storm as of yet unbroken. It's there in the thrum of electricity in the air, the restlessness of the wind, the directionless tumult. Sodden. Expectant. Anticipatory. There is a storm coming: mark this; know it. There is a storm coming, but it is not here yet.

Emily sits on the sand beside the lake. It is coarse ground, nothing at all like sea-sand. Further down the shore, around a bend and up the way, there's sand that sings beneath one's soles. It's high in quartz and the rubbing, the cajoling, the shifting makes it cry out. This is not that sand; it's not that sort of night. Her toes are buried in the dirt-sand, just up to the knuckle. Her arms are wrapped loosely around her upturned knees. With her hair piled messily atop her head, any passerby could see the shadow of bruises that crept up her back, surfaced from below her halter top. Still angry-dark, but no longer blue. They dapple her arms. She is shadowed, marked. She is darkened, and not only her mood.

The Singer-to-be is quiet, tonight. The water is dark. It swallows up the half-moon light. It gives nothing back, nothing back at all. It takes, takes, takes and gives nothing back. It is relentless, this stand-in sea. She can push against it with everything she is, every qualm she has, and it will remain unmoved and immovable.

The things she cannot give up to God, she can drown in the sea-sway, in the coming rain. She can find hope in the promise of Autumn, in the whisper of turning leaves, in the ruddy gold-brown tinge to the afternoon light. So she is here to pray, as much as she is here to challenge. And she is here to sit, as much as she is here to run.

Emily is here. It's a beginning and an end. She can't draw down the moon and she can't calm the sea, but she can name them both, know them both, and they are the same wherever she may be.

[Declan] Behind Emily, the slight scuff of footsteps could be detected. An approaching figure, and a familiar one by the feel of his fluid resonance. They were both creatures who were drawn to the water during times of introspection (and they both remembered a time in their lives when the ocean was in easy reach - though Declan's ocean was not so picturesque, and did not have such soft sand), but tonight, the drifter hadn't come here on his own. He'd been searching, you see.

They hadn't left things well, last time. The orphan's fractured and unreliable memory didn't tell him much, but he remembered the club and the bright lights and the music, and then he remembered waking up injured in Lincoln Park. Without Emily. Kage had told him that she was alright (as much as could be expected - there'd been an attack on the chantry-house), but he'd needed to see her.

And so here he was, following his own internal compass like a beacon. Like he was being drawn through life by a song only he could hear - which was more accurate than most might guess at. It was the same song that was pulling him inexorably East. Pulling him... home.

He sat down on the shore beside Emily. There was no violin with him today. His eyes trailed along her bruises, and he looked... sad.

"You're hurt."

[Emily] Emily knows what it's like to be pulled. To be lead along through an endless set of cities, comings and goings that never quite felt like home, subways and airports and bus stations and train depots and border crossings and passport stamps and, and, and... It is a lonely life, at times, but never a dull one. It's a sacrifice and an adventure, a blessing and a burden, but most of the time it feels like flying: weightless and untethered, with only the falling to fear.

This being earthbound and stable thing had its detractors. Sticking around long enough to be left behind was, perhaps, the most poignantly uncomfortable of them. And this was another goodbye brewing, just like the storm above, even if Emily doesn't know it yet. It's an ending, but let's not skip ahead too far just yet.

She glances over as he sits beside her. Emily's expression is distant, soft and remote. As if she has been thinking of far away fond-things, reminiscing quietly, not quite sadly. But Declan's sadness touches her eyes, reflects there; it seeps in and bleeds back out.

"They're just for show now," she tells him, but her breath is still held carefully in her chest. He sings: he'll see the shift of it, the way she holds her ribcage still and voices her words from her diaphragm instead. She's untrained, so there's only a few reasons to do this. Pain. Control. Projection.

"The worst is over," she tells him, gently. It sounds a lot like Don't worry, underscored by the gentle flicker of a smile across her lips. She's muted, weighed down, but not tarnished. Dim, but not completely un-shining.

"How are you?" The question turns back to him, seeks but doesn't yet push. She walks the balance better tonight, better here, with a broad body of water to moderate and measure her.

[Declan] [Per+Awareness]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Declan] The worst is over, she said, and although the injuries seemed superficial, he could see that she was in pain. A slight frown gave evidence of his thoughts, eyebrows pressed together in concern. He didn't attempt any interrogation, though. That was never Declan's style. When she asked him how he was, he glanced out across the lake and allowed the muscles in his face to relax.

"I am... coming together," he finally answered, somewhat abstractly. "There are pieces of me, scattered. I think I'm supposed to find them. I think I'm supposed to go home."

When Emily had first met Declan, he didn't think that he had a home. It was lost to him. But really, it had never been lost, just as he himself had never truly been so. (We find the things we need when we're ready to find them.)

"I'm sorry if... if something happened, last time. I don't remember, but I'm glad you're okay."

[Emily] [Last time?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Declan] [Yes, last time]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 5, 8, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Emily] When he looked out across the water, her gaze followed his for a moment. It lingered out there fixed on some unknowable point in the inky, undulating darkness, and then traveled back the same path to scrutinize his features, the abstraction there, it's familiarity. Her smile shifted, canted a little toward reminiscing and regret. Emily nodded: understanding.

"Then you should go home," she said, softly. It's not so much that she wanted him to go, or that she needed him to stay. It was understanding, and acceptance. If he felt pulled, then he felt pulled. And if Declan was anything like Emily, the pulling could drag him to quarters, to distraction, and ultimately to leave.

He asked about the last time they'd seen each other, asked without outright asking, and it was Emily's turn to shift her gaze to elsewhere. She stared at the corner of a cigarette pack that peeked out of the sand. She reached down to run her fingertips along the ground, to leave loose grooves behind. Thin and largely parallel tracks. Markings that were neither answers nor idle.

There's an edge to the quiet, here, and only one like Declan might hear it. It's a little burr to her breathing, a gentle scoring to the shape of her words. She exhales and then flicks her gaze up to meet his again. It is steady (but it is not steady enough to fool him).

"I'm alright. Thank you. I'm ... sorry I ran off like that. I should have stayed to make sure you were okay." There's regret here, for leaving him behind; for being selfish. It says nothing of her pain or worries, these things have been overwritten by new concerns by now.

[Declan] Emily hid her emotions well, at times, but tonight, Declan was just a little more intuitive than she was controlled. He glanced at her again, and heard the difficulty in her breath - saw the tightness in her chest. He understood. But again, he didn't pry her open like a locked box. He let it be.

Well, not entirely. She wasn't the only one who felt regret.

With a gentle sigh, Declan leaned in and stretched an arm around her shoulders. It was a delicate thing - conscious of her bruising. He didn't hug her tightly, but the warmth of his presence filled her space, and he leaned his head against her own. It didn't seem to bother him anymore - touching her. "I'm sorry too," he murmured.

After awhile, he lifted his head away and let his arm slide back to his side.

"I'll miss you the most, I think."

[Emily] There's a moment, then, when his arm's around her still, and Emily reaches up to touch his fingertips at her shoulder with her own, slightly sandy fingerprints. When she exhales, as if some things she's carried could finally be set down, set aside, if only for the space of a few scarce heartbeats, if only for the time it takes her to exhale, inhale, and pick it all back up again. There's a warmth between them, a genuine and unwanting good will. She does not expect him to stay, and he does not push her to yield.

They are two halves of one moment, delicate and fleeting: honest. It might be the closest to honesty she's been since Owen left, since his key started burning a hole at the back of her mind. It's the closest to quiet she's been since Daiyu passed. It's the closest to safe she's felt since the club the other night. And it's free, unfettered and unexpectant; it's true, brilliant. He's leaving, so there's nothing to color it, no worries and no hopes. It is. This moment, more than any other in too many days, stands on its own. It is enough. It does not pretend.

Weightless.

His hand slides away, and Emily's silently surprised to feel the prick of dampness at the corners of her eyes. It does not ache, but there is still an emotional weight to goodbyes.

"I'll think of you, often," she tells him. This is deeper than a promise; only a Truth. It is Reverent, full of grace. It is gentle and unwanting. She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, where a wayward curl of hers frames him in stark contrast. It gives him a wavering edge, a place to cut himself out of frame. A whisper to walk out on.

[Declan] It was goodbye without being goodbye. And Emily left it for him to leave - to drift back out on the same breeze that had blown him into town a few months ago. Soon enough, he would do this. The expectation of it weighed in the air.

But first he looked at her and asked, "Can I kiss you?"

And there was so much that one could read into that request, but if Declan had tried to explain the impulse, he wouldn't have been able to. He was, and always would be, a creature that lived on the tides of emotion that ebbed and flowed through his awareness. There was rarely an expectation behind anything that he did. Perhaps, like the Ecstatics who some had attempted to push him toward, he desired only to live in the moment, and to experience a kind of deeper truth through the exploration of experience. More importantly, this was Emily, and he felt safe with her, and he might never see her again, and right now she looked pretty.

[Emily] For Declan, this was a parting with the expectation of returning. Emily never made that assumption. When she closed the door, it was always for the last time. When she left a city, she never expected to return. It wasn't that she denied herself the option, just that it was better to cut the strings and ties she had there. To not hope after definite outcomes in a sea of constant change. When her day to say goodbyes came, she would not be expecting to stand before the Cloud Gate again in anything more than memory. She'd set aside all claim to this stretch of shoreline. She'd leave the directionless and ceaseless winds behind.

For all she knew, these were their last moments together. Declan would leave tonight unfettered by Emily's expectations, unburdened by her hopes or fears. (Godspeed, friend, and good night.) There was a finality to it, but every good story came to an end at some time. Best let it be one of their own choosings. Best let it be resonant, and careful, and weightless. A blessing to carry, not a burden to bear.

She turned her face toward him now, and there was a faint echo of the laughter and playfulness in her eyes. It was gentled, not pushing, but resonant still. Wry. Unaching.

"I don't know," she said, mouth curling into a shadow of her usual wry grin. Maybe this is what he'll remember of her. One last cheshire cat smile. A smirk. A fish hook. A curl. A tangle. A touch. A kiss.

"Can you?"

An invitation.

[Declan] It may have been intended as playful, but the question was a valid one. Declan (not the fractured pieces of Declan, but Declan himself) had not even so much as attempted to kiss someone in a very long time. The thought of physical intimacy made his chest tighten with both longing and anxiety, most days. (Not unlike the way he'd once felt about violins.)

But he felt safe, here. And there was no expectation. There was only a sweet, sad goodbye, and an invitation.

He did not kiss her lips first. It was the corners of her eyes, where the glitter of moonlight tears hung suspended. He leaned forward and let his lips brush butterfly-soft against delicate skin, first one then the other, and tasted a hint of salt. Then he took in a slow breath, and it was not so much working up the nerve as it was merely steadying himself.

He smiled.

Then his eyelashes lowered, and his lips met her own, and it was a soft kiss, but not devoid of feeling. Neither was it unskilled (this was not something one forgot how to do.) There was meaning behind it, and there was soft and supple sensuality (he had been a sensual person, once). There was no hesitance or childish innocence - no suggestion that this was intended to be a chaste moment (because it wasn't.) And at the end, he pushed forward a little (remembering what it was to feel desire, even if just for a moment), and claimed the breath from her lungs. Then he pulled back (reluctant), and breathed, and his eyes shone like music.

A smile, soft and honest.

The shift of dirt and sand beneath his feet as he stood.

(He'd never wanted to stay somewhere so much in his whole life.)

Turning, he walked away.

Goodbye.

[Emily] She hadn't been expecting this. When Declan asked if he could kiss her, Emily hadn't been expecting that the gentleness of his lips against the corners of her eyes would only hasten the growing damp-bright there. She hadn't expected the pull of his breathing mingling with hers to be so magnetic, to pull the very air from her lungs, to lower her lashes in a flutter of something stronger than kinship.

She had thought herself too numb, by now, to be so moved. It catches her off guard, this sudden prick of intimacy, the revelation rushing in that she will miss him, that she will reach for his memory and not find him near. It's the pain of not knowing the bonds that form until they harden, until they shatter or break. There's a sensuality to them both, an unveiled and honesty intimacy. It doesn't borrow on tomorrows that will not come, and has no foundation in a past together to beg memory of.
Nevertheless, her mouth tastes of his when he pulls away. There is a slowness to how her lashes part, a heaviness (headiness) in her eyes when they find his. His shining like music, hers dark and somewhat stormy. There is a storm brewing, and it surely soon will break.

She whets her lips, presses them together.

He stands. Her gaze follows up him, until she has to tip her chin, until the precarious bundle of curls atop her head shifts, breaks free of the thin tie, tumbles down to frame her features.

He'd never wanted to stay somewhere so much in his whole life.

He turned, walked away.

Into the quiet he left behind, she offered up her Good bye. It's spoken, softly. Likely doesn't reach him. Instead it settles into the heel of one of his sandy footprints. It's muddled up with the coarse-ground dirt there. Seeps into the shoreline. Erodes and fades away.

Soon his silhouette is lost to the moon-cast shadows.

A few moments more and there's not even a imagined blur to where his outline was before. The Singer-girl turns back toward the sea, rests her chin on her knees. Her eyes are bright to overfilling; she blinks and sheds new tears to tumble down her cheeks.

She'll stay until her legs go numb, until the moon sets on the western horizon, until the storm breaks, until the winds change, until the wanderlust overtakes her, too. She'll stay, tonight, right here, because this is not her leaving. And when she, too, must rise to leave, she'll walk back to her flat with her arms wrapped around her middle and her chin tipped down to watch the pavement cracks as they pass by.

We are always on the anvil.

We are always on the anvil; by trials, God is shaping us for higher things.
-Henry Ward Beecher

*** *** ***

28 August 2010, Chicago, IL

She skims her fingertips over the dark bruises on her torso, down her arms, the labyrinthine patterns and familiar old aches.  Emily watches them in the mirror, sees how they bend and flex with each careful breath she takes.  She frowns, and eases her shirt over her head.  Thankfully it has cooled enough that her long sleeves would not raise too many questions, and the brightly colored fabric could cover the blue-black patterns she did not wish to explain.

There is a key in her pocket, burning away a small hole at the back of her mind.  It is warm and heavy, weighty with promises she'd rather not carry.  A small thing, bound with so much expectation.  The more she ignores it, the more it bothers her yet.

Early morning light filters in through the windows, pale and colored, rosy, gentle.  It touches the sheers at the windows, colors the ceilings, pushes its way between the stacked papers cradled in one dining room chair.  It almost reaches in far enough, now, to prod the hard corners of the carrier boxes that have re-emerged from a closet.

Despite a clear admonishment to rest, she'd spent half the night packing.  Books, photographs, odds and ends -- they're safely nestled into nondescript cartons.  Hidden.  As if her presence could fall away from this flat as quickly (or slowly) as it had grown into it.  By the middle of the month, she would be gone and it would be as if she'd never lived here.

The morning is quiet and calm, but Emily is not.  She takes that promise-key with her when she leaves the walkup, carries it hot-and-worrisome in her pocket as she walks.  It brings her to another stack of apartments elsewhere in Lake View, a place where she checks the post box before heading upstairs.  Where the window on one floor, at the end of the hallway, stand open regardless of the weather without.  Where the lift hasn't worked any day she'd come visiting.  To a door where she knocks once, twice, out of habit more than anything else, and waits.

It's the waiting that bothers her.

She waits until she's sure there's no answer, then she counts out another ten, fifteen, twenty seconds before sliding the key into the lock and letting herself inside.  Emily toes her shoes off at the door, pads across to the table on the balls of her feet.  Sorting through the mail, she finds the bills that need paying (they're handled, of course, noted in clear script what was paid, when, to whom), the personal things, and she takes the junk to be binned. Grocery circulars, retail fliers, credit card applications, the like.

This is a promise, too.  Or, maybe, the way that Emily keeps hers, keeps a promise she'd made him.  One thing in lieu of another.  The boxes, you see, she'd packed them again. Moving was just on the horizon -- but he'd left her a key, and with that key a promise that there would a lock into which it would fit.  She kept her side of this bargain by testing it.  By gathering mail.  By wiping the dust from the counters.  By making sure there was nothing rotting in his fridge.  By visiting just often enough to know that she'd notice the day when the rent wasn't paid and all the locks were changed and the Super cast her a strange look in the hallway.

She slipped on her shoes and locked the door behind her.  With the end of the month just a few days away, Emily would know as soon as next weekend whether the rent was paid through September.  Her rent was paid through mid-September, but not beyond.  She's given no one her promise-key to carry warm and weighty with them as they go.

You. Stairs. Sit.

[Emily Littleton] When last they saw each other, Emily was standing in the doorway into the White Picket Fence House, saying something into her phone. James was sitting with Eileen and Alex. Eileen was rolling a blunt. Kage was striding purposefully toward Emily. All of this was overcast by the memory and stench of blood, of life-spent and life-wasted. It was terrible, and harrowing, and thinning. They were all stretched a little thin.

In the time that passed, the Apprentice and the Disciple, both Orphans (one only for now), made their rounds of the house. There's a puddle of resonance in the living room, beside the fallen policemen, that tastes of Emily alone. Its Unrelenting Reverence has thinned by the time he comes back inside, but it's strong. There's another, stronger, blended through with notes of Kage's where the unconscious Nephandi are held in by a Prime and Correspondence ban.

Lastly, down in the node room itself, there is a heavy layer of Catherine's resonance, nuanced and touched by Emily and Kage's. The Disciple has gone up, gone up to talk with the Dean, and the Apprentice has pulled herself (slowly [cautiously]) out of the Node room and back toward the porch.

She has one arm wrapped around her middle as she searches the main floor of the house for whomever may be left. There are dark shadows under her eyes, and their color is paler now. Emily leans against the wall to steady her, listens for voices or footfalls. Her breathing is very careful, but steady. (She hurts.)

[James Blake] He knows his limits. Eileen passed around a blunt and he only took one hit. Alex handed him a beer and he drank half. If the police show up...or if more Nephandi swoop down on them...he doesn't want to be muddled. And it's a long time before he gets off the porch and goes in search of Emily. There's nothing he can do to help with anything involving Correspondence. His talents lie in Mind and Prime. So he stays outside to not distract the Orphans. When he comes inside he sees Emily. She looks worse than she did earlier. James looks her over. Frowns. You OK? he signs.

[Emily Littleton] She's holding up the wall. That's what they say, slumped like this, the people with some semblance of wit. Emily's wit is gone. Her wryness long lost. The corners of her mouth twitch, faintly, into just the ghost of a smile. She shifts enough that she can bring one hand up to knock on the air (yeah), but not without wincing.

Not without drawing his attention to the blue-black bruises on her arms that clearly had not been present before.

But there's nowhere to sit, here, in the living room. All the furniture has been pressed up against the wall. There's bodies on the floor and they're starting to smell. She's holding up the wall, and the wall's just about all that's holding her up now.

"I pushed. Too far. It pushed back." Each word is braced carefully against her breathing (each one hurts). "You okay?"

[James Blake] He looks amused. Reluctantly. But it's there. He starts toward her, signing Fine like he can't believe she's asking him that. Instead of trying to have a conversation with her he reverts to gesturing and pointing. You. Stairs. Sit. That's about what she gets out of it. He puts a hand on her elbow - mindful of the bruises - to steady her so she can get to the stairs without falling.

[Emily Littleton] He started the ridiculous questions. She just continued in vein. Emily can walk, albeit it slowly, and manages to lower herself gingerly onto the stairs that head upward to the bedrooms. She rests her elbows on the stair behind her, to help brace her torso and take the weight off her bruises. Pain flickers across her expression, and she doesn't even attempt to hide it from him.

"Alex? Eileen? Are they okay too?" Emily closes her eyes, presses her lips together thinly for a moment, then looks back at him. Her eyes meet his, look to his hands to see if he's signing an answer she might know.

Her vocabulary is small, but growing.

[James Blake] If he sits next to her on the stairs it'll be a hassle trying to read her lips and make sure she can understand him at the same time. He could write. But she's hurt. So that would be a hassle for -her-. James settles on standing in front of her. Back a few paces. He waits until she opens her eyes again. It's not that she couldn't hear him if he decided to speak. It's that his voice is pretty unintelligible. He's getting hoarse.

Everyone's fine. They left. He pauses. You finished?

[Emily Littleton] It's been such an interminably long day, and the apprentice before him is so very close to breaking. It's there, in the weariness (heaviness) at the corner of her eyes. In the way they all but plead with him for some unspoken thing. For sanctuary, perhaps. Or to roll time back and have it be before, or forward to be so, so long after.

"Just waiting," she tells him. It's getting easier, now that she's sitting down. Sitting still. It doesn't hurt quiet as much. "Has anyone else shown up?" she asks, trying to keep things to yes and no questions as much as she can.

Emily's young. Early twenties at most. Her shirt is bloodstained. Her body bruised. Her will whittled down. If she turns her head that much to one side, then her peripheral vision is filled with dead bodies. And she is the only full member of the Chantry, here, just now, who has not lost someone dear. It's a responsibility. A heavy thing to hold until someone comes to take it away.

"I ..."

"Don't know."

She frowns a little. Huffs what would have been a small chuckle, but winces as it turns into something painful instead.

"What to do."

[James Blake] Has anyone else shown up? That's what she asks. It takes him a few seconds to interpret the movement of her lips though. He frowns. Oh. I don't know. I not see anyone. A second later she's confessing. She doesn't know what to do. James watches her for a second. It's not pity on his face. Not exactly. Just...understanding. He's younger than she is but he's seen things he can't tell other people. Not Sleepers, anyway. James draws a breath. Mouths what his hands say so she has a chance of understanding him.

You don't have to do anything now. You've done more than enough. Just sit.

He says this. And then he takes a few steps forward and sits down on the stairs next to her. She's sitting with her elbows on the step behind her. So he doesn't try to hug her. But he's next to her.

[Emily Littleton] James' hands say something. His lips shape the words. It takes Emily a little time to interpolate the two into something intelligible. Her brain is a little muddled, just now, but it's good to have a puzzle. It gives her something to fight with, to struggle with, to focus on -- and then he's sitting next to her, and that puzzle-struggle is gone.

Emily eases forward a little, pulls her elbows off the stair behind her. This hurts. She remembers this frustration from having broken her ribs: everything is connected to the torso; every move will hurt until she heals.

There's a portion of Emily that wants to argue with him, but it's very small just now. It's been bitchslapped by Paradox. It aches, and it's angry, and the rest of her keeps it very tightly tamped down. So she doesn't argue. The Orphan girl shifts a little, has to mete her breath carefully, and leans her shoulder into his a little.

It's a companionable touch that needs no translation.

I someone to just be here, now. For a moment.

She lets her gaze fall to the floor, now that he's not in front of her to hold it. Together they block the stairway going up and coming down. Upstairs someone's washing up in the bathroom. Otherwise the house is still, deathly so. It's quiet, for them both.

[James Blake] It's easy to misinterpret James. He's very...tactile. He sees nothing wrong with tapping a person on the shoulder to get his attention, or taking people's hands or holding their elbows or hugging them if they need it. Sarah used to tease him. But Sarah's not here right now and neither are any of the girls who would get jealous if they saw him sitting next to someone who wasn't them. She puts her shoulder against his. He rests his leg against her knee. And they sit. He's still and silent for several minutes. Then maybe he feels her breath funny or she winces or something. But he pulls back so she can see him. Taps an invisible space in her line of sight to get her attention if she isn't looking at him. He points upstairs. Frowns. Points to her, then puts his palms together and holds them up to his face. That one's easy. You rest. There's no room for argument. He stands. Makes a Come on gesture. Holds out a hand to help her up.

[Emily Littleton] [WP: I am way too tired/burn out/hurting to be this stubborn.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] Emily has a track record with her mentors, or people who have commonly been understood by the community as her mentors. That track record is, perhaps, disturbing. It's not echoed or foreshadowed here in the way she reacts to having him fill in beside her, to support her just now. There's Solidarity, there's Fellowship and Sanctuary, and none of that necessarily leads down to paths of deeper attachments.

She's not thinking about any of that, for the moments that they're sitting together on the Chantry stairs. She's not thinking about anything, but breathing through her mouth so she doesn't smell the rising stench of death on the warm afternoon air. Then James pulls away, and Emily looks over even before he taps on her line-of-sight.

He tells her to rest. Her brows start to knit, and there's resistance there. But it's fleeting. Reflexive, then gone.

"Wake me when the others get here?" she asks. Her eyebrows go up to accent the question. Emily gingerly starts to push herself up to standing. Reaches for his hand for some support.

If she can trust James to play sentinel, then she will rest. She won't fight him directing her up the stairs to rooms she's never stayed in. If he'll wake her up, or at least promise to, then she might actually sleep.

[James Blake] It's late afternoon. The sun won't be down for a few more hours. He's not dragging or wishing he could just lie down and forget what he's seen today. He's better off than anyone else who was here today. So when Emily asks him to wake her, he smiles. Signs OK. And he keeps a hand on her elbow as they walk up the stairs. Keeps a hand on her elbow until she's sitting on the edge of the bed and not in danger of toppling over. Down the hall Ashley is still sitting with Daiyu's body. James doesn't offer to stay with Emily. Doesn't try to speak to tell her where he'll be. He gets out his notepad. Writes If you need me - pound on the floor. Leaves the note on the nightstand...and like with Ashley he shuts the door behind him. Sits down on the floor outside the door. He'll be able to see if someone comes inside. And he does what he said he'd do. James wakes her when the others get here.

Abattoir

[Ashley McGowen] It's clean inside. Pure. Safe.

Her wards are shattered, and they managed to invade the inside: she's able to see this, sense it, without needing to look. But Catherine herself stood her ground inside, and the interior, the stone well, remains sanctified. It fills her with that sense of devotion she extended toward it months ago, suspended in the water, hearing music for the first time in ten years. With something akin to what she'd wanted to extend to the woman lying in a pool of her own blood outside.

There's nothing more holy than sacrifice. This is something her Avatar knows, and it's something Ashley has been forced to learn. It doesn't make for an easy life, or an easy Enlightenment.

Ashley takes stock of the interior, of the basement. And then she finally just can't stand up anymore, and she kneels inside at the base of the well, presses her forehead against the stone.

That's when the tears come.

[Emily Littleton] There are things to be done. Emily knows this. She knows this, as she stands on the front lawn of the Chantry house, holding a borrowed firearm in broad daylight, staring down at the broken body of another Traditionalist. It takes minutes after Ashley and Alex enter the house for her to start moving again. To reach up and scrub one hand over her features, glance this way and that way down the street, and numbly pull her phone out of her pocket.

The first call goes to Kage.

The phone rings, but Emily doesn't pay enough attention to it to keep track of how many times, or for how long. When Kage picks up, assuming Kage picks up, the Apprentice's voice is rough and barely accented at all. It's all pulled back, worn and unsteady.

"I need help at the house, Kage. It happened again, and Daiyu died. Ashley's here, and Alex, but it's just the three of us."

[Alexander Turnquist] He follows into the chantry after Ashley, his gun held ready in both hands. He scans each corner, clearing each room before moving on. It's not until he gets to the basement that he pauses. He doesn't have access to the chantry, not like other members. But there is nothing stopping him, he knows this. Its all been torn down, still he hesitates. But the crying reaches his ears and he pushes himself forward.

When he comes across Ashley and the charred nephandi, he holsters his weapon and moves across the room towards her. This place.. This place is strange.. he has not been somewhere like this before. He coughs once, its incredibly awkward. To see the dean crying like this.

"Dea-- Ashley.." And he lowers himself to place a hand against her shoulder. "Ashley, the men outside.. some are still alive." He lets that sink in for a moment before he adds more suggestively. "Answers Ashley. Answers that will let us keep the balance." -- a nice way of saying get revenge. A euthie way.

[dnah thgir der] The Orphan Disciple'd answered almost automatically. And as usual -- simply "Kage spea," and that's all. Because Emily was numb, and Emily was speaking, and Emily's news was bad.

A beat. And, just like that, the day is darker. And there's not a cloud in the sky, and the sunlight is a lucent thing -- the last blue sky, true blue sky, of summer. Or one of them. "All right. I'm on my way. Shouldn't take me too long. Is the house secure for now, and what about the neighbors?"
to Emily Littleton

[Emily Littleton] Kage asks very good questions, and they help ground the young apprentice back to the reality around her. (What about the neighbors?)

"Ah, right. They're going to be a bit of a problem, probably," she says, scanning the cadre of dead or otherwise incapacitated forms on the front lawn. Noting the CPD badges. Checking that van for anything resembling SWAT markings just now. All the little details that had gone unnoticed in the melee.

"There's... um... people?" Yes, they're still people. "On the lawn." Dead people. "It's... Kage, it's not good. I can't move them on my own. It's not like last time. There's not a lot of people here. Ashley and Alex went in, and they didn't come back out, but there've been no more gun shots or anything. I think it's ... quieting."

Very helpful. Emily chewed on her lower lip and forcibly pushed down the panic of not knowing what to do, and not having anyone like Ashton here just now to cleave to.

"What can I do while I wait? Who should I call?"

In the meantime she moves between bodies, trying to take away whatever police markings or badges might draw even more undue attention from neighbors or passers by. Not that it would matter, with six bodies on the lawn -- that's a spectacle in and of itself.

[Ashley McGowen] Alex finds his way down the stairs. Ashley doesn't notice him. He isn't supposed to be here in front of the node. Ashley doesn't notice that either.

He touches her shoulder, and he speaks, and the Hermetic's breath catches. Clogs, and she lifts her shoulder to wipe her face, trying to even out those intakes of air, to stop gasping like some beached leviathan, turning to a raisin in the sun. Her chest aches.

Alex extends revenge the Euthanatos way, but Ashley isn't done. Her jaw clenches, and she presses her head against the stone. "Fuck them," she says. Her jaw tightens further, if it were possible, molars grinding, and one small fist balls up and flies into the edge of the well. Once, and then again.

"FUCK YOU!" It's hard to know who that roar is directed at, at first. "So much for this...this fucking city. FUCK YOU." Each word is punctuated by another strike against the well. A flurry, until she's exhausted, until she's emptied, until her knuckles are shredded and bloody.

It takes a while.

And then she's exhausted, and still gasping, and her hand hurts, and she's conscious of that bullet that found its way through her shield, the one that's still buried in the flesh of her side.

She thrusts a hand up toward Alex. "Help me up."

[dnah thgir der] [Entropy 1/Corr 1 - drive, baby, drive. -1 man, I've driven in LA: this thing is totally practiced. I'm getting there fast.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 6, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 3)
to Emily Littleton

[dnah thgir der] [Drive + Dex, baby. -2 diff! +WP 'cos no crashings >.>]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 5, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 4) [WP]
to Emily Littleton

[Alexander Turnquist] He doesn't stop her beating herself up, its not his place. He just watches helplessly as she smashes her hands to bloody pulps against stone. She screams out and at first he thinks she is saying it to him. Telling him to get lost, to fuck off. But its not him she speaks to, he's not entirely sure what she yells at but its not him.

When she asks for help, its offered without hesitation. His hand reaching down and gripping tightly on hers, he pulls her to her feet easily.

"How bad is it?" He asks, eyes looking towards the bloody wound at her side. He doesn't ask if it hurts or if she feels ok. Just will it hinder her from doing what she has to do.

[dnah thgir der] "All right. First: remember when we were on the threshold; I asked you to Look further, and see if you could feel our people? Do that now. Scan the house for anybody inside. If there's a car, hide the license plate -- obscure it somehow. Don't look like you're a woman who has bodies in her front lawn. Look like you're Martha Stewarting Halloween or snobbily pretentious: like, enh, you've seen better reality television shows. If you can cover anything up with a blanket or a tarp, do that. And call the bloodyfingered - uh, call Ashton, or Wharil. If there's someone still active in the House and it's not 'ley or Alex, I want you to let me know immediately. And - I'll be there in less than five. Traffic's good."

Kage stays on the line, though -- just in case. Emily's the one who's going to have to disconnect.
to Emily Littleton

[Ashley McGowen] Alex doesn't know the node is conscious. Not yet. Perhaps one day, after he's found his way into the cabal, he'll learn. He might even be able to speak to it himself.

He tugs Ashley to her feet and she can't help the gasp of pain that accompanies. She's a stoic woman, but that's generally when it comes to emotional hardship, not physical injuries. Right now, she's small and bloody and her body is a mess, throbbing, asking for sleep.

"Not that bad," she says to Alex. Then she walks up the stairs and back outside.

The bright afternoon is a shock to her eyes, swollen as they already are and used to the darkness inside the basement. She ducks her head away from it, at first. And then she sees Daiyu, still lying there on the lawn, and tears flood her eyes again. She wipes them away.

A glance tells her Emily is making calls. Emily's capable. Emily's Emily, and she's never been more grateful for the apprentice than she is at this moment. She walks as quickly as she can past the body of the Akashic so that she can Work on the policemen, dig through their minds and see whether she can repair them, whether they've been so thoroughly soaked in taint that there's nothing that can be done. And in the end, she finds that there isn't. So she looks up at Alex. "There's nothing of them left," she tells him.

The Nephandi, well. They're going to stay good and unconscious, until she has herself together enough to interrogate them. She will be interrogating them.

Once it's taken care of, Ashley sinks to the ground on the grass next to Daiyu and covers her face with a hand. Hopefully Emily's called some help.

[Emily Littleton] While Kage drives, drives like the wind, drives like madness, driven mad -- Haste, she makes it -- Emily works her way down the very short list of people who she should call. There's a Singer, who thinks he might want to Mentor her. She thumbs a few buttons on her phone, sends him a note. Blessedly there's no need to call him, to let that shaken and worried voice escape her lungs once more. The phone is talented. It can do this while she listens to Kage. Message, connect -- the phone is more talented than Emily.

It's just a message, and then she's stepping inside the house to dump the badges on the floor beside the door. To find a linen closet where she might find a sheet, or blanket, or bath-towel to lay over Daiyu. The rest can hang; sod them.

Later, though, she'll remember that they were people, too. And extend some respect. Not just now.

Now she is what Kage told her to be. Martha Fucking Stewart. And nothing is wrong.

[Subterfuge: I am Martha Fucking Stewart and Nothing Is Amiss here, +1 for dead bodies on the lawn and it not yet being halloween]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Ashley McGowen] [Oh, yeah. I should probably Mind people away. Mind 2, -1 for focus, -1 for practiced rote, +1 for, uh, really bad shit just happened.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 5, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 4) [WP]

[Kage Jakes] Kage wasn't joking.

It takes her less than five minutes. And when she drives around the corner, in her monstrous, larger-than-thou black pick-up, the rubber doesn't burn (burning, burning [Paris is burning, and so is Troy]), and the brakes do not squeal. This is because she's tapped into the road, the ebb and flow of its fortune -- because she is, howsoever briefly, pretty much a god of her machine. The truck stops short, but: doesn't make a single sound in protest. Well, hardly.

If there's a car, any car, any strange car Kage doesn't know, near the House -- well, she parks just behind that. And then the 5"3 Disciple is opening the driver's door, and jumping out onto the sidewalk. Her knees absorb the force. She looks as if she's just come from a very, very casual lunch out. She's wearing a blouse, scoop-necked, and jeans.

"Hey," she calls, and then says: "I've got some equipment in the back." First: Kage takes stock. Of where everybody is. Where everybody is lying. Who everybody is. Then -- well: we'll see, what then.

[Alexander Turnquist] Alex follows Ashley back outside, wordlessly. He doesn't even speak when she tells him there's nothing left of the cops. He knows what she asks, he nods his head and pulls out his gun. It's a bit large for this, some of them still squirm on the ground and its not exactly something he enjoys doing. But their minds are gone, they are just husks, they have long since died. It's like killing a zombie.

He cocks back the magnum, shoots once, twice, three times. It makes an awful mess, but you have to be sure. What's left of their heads leaks goo and brain matter onto the grass.

He holsters the gun and looks up just in time to see Kage saying Hello.

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley isn't really conscious of the passage of time. She hears the gunshots as Alex finishes the shells off. Even now there's some part of her, deep inside, that clenches in revulsion. She doesn't want to bring death to anything.

Yet this entire lawn is steeped in it. She was able to focus long enough, just a little longer, to mask the place in time for help.

After that, there's just nothing. She curls and buries her head in her arms and tries not to imagine what's beneath the sheet. Kage's appearance barely even registers, let alone gets a hello.

[James Blake] He'd been planning on walking from his place to the Chantry. It's close enough. But then a red haired woman in a pickup truck found him. So he hitches a ride. It's rather convenient. They don't talk on the way. Kage drives like a maniac and James checks his gun. When they get there death is on the lawn. The Chorister sees Alex after he sees the bodies. He pauses at the edge of the property...then starts across the lawn. His eyes are drawn to the one body with a sheet over it. He recognises the body underneath...but he doesn't linger on it. This isn't the time to let himself feel anything.

The deaf man puts his hand on the Euthanatos' shoulder to get his attention. "You hur'? Wha' the fu' happen'?"

[Emily Littleton] Kage arrives in her beast of a truck, steps out with her rowan hair and this is not how they are meant to meet. Not here, steeped in blood-death, in mind-death, in malady. There is no path through the thorns here that kisses another, and no gently blown leaf litter (just life litter) to obscure the well worn paths. It is chaos, and terrible at that. There are places in the lawn where the ground has soaked up the blood, swallowed it up, pulled it down -- like the grounds are just as Hungry as the Hermetic (a terrifying thought, at best)

Ashley sits with Daiyu; Alex wraps up loose ends of the tapestry and Emily still clutches her phone in one hand like a talisman. As if to say see here, I called them, I called them and it is enough, I called them and they came so, so it will all be better now. But there is no better, and there is no smile. She watches Kage take stock of the situation, watches James approach Alex. Then Emily exhales, and heads for the other Orphan.

"Hey."

And then moves on to help with the the equipment in the truck, shoving her phone in her pocket as she goes.

[Kage Jakes] Kage and Alex haven't yet had the pleasure. They haven't even been at the same Meeting, and so from there to have a common jumping-off point: you. You're the one who says this. You. You're the one who watches, just so. The red-haired woman has to take a brief, steadying breath when Alexander Turnquist, Euthanatos, puts a bullet in a head (onetwothree[fourfive pigeons] justlikethat). And then another.

And then another. James walks across the grass. Kage doesn't, quite yet. Doesn't walk over to Ashley and give her a hug, or make any friendly gesture like that. "Are the other two dead?" She is asking Emily, and she is asking Alex. The equipment she was talking about: well, it's a pick-up truck. She has a lot of shopping bags. A lot, a lot, a lot of shopping bags (she was shopping, just before she got the call). And she has a camera, and she has a tarp. The tarp she uses to cover the bed of the pick-up when it rains.

Kage pulls out that tarp, billows of it, and says: "All right. Put this down on the living room floor. That's where we'll drag 'em. Ask James, and - Alex, was it?" This is for Emily, because she's not lifting her voice so that it carries. Kage, she goes off to investigate the van, and barring an act of Doom, she disappears inside.

[Kage Jakes] [And, uh. Just to cover all bases. Bad guy car. I am an investigate-y master, right? So if there's annnnnything to find, I'm totally gonna find it, right? Intel + Invest. +WP. Because, uhm. Dead bodies. And investigate-y masters don't leave behind signs of their presence!]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 5, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) [WP]
to Emily Littleton

[Emily Littleton] [I have witnessed the badassery of your investigation skills, oh masterful one. Alas, I know nothing of the bad guy car of doom. Ask your friendly, medicated ST.]
to Kage Jakes

[Alexander Turnquist] Alex holsters the weapon and turns to meet James before his hand touches against his shoulder. He smiles. It's good to see the Chorister, though what he's doing here is any ones guess.

"I'm fine, I'm fine." He waves a hand at the concern, casting it aside. "Fallen attacked the Chantry, we sorted them though. We lost one in the fight however.. Daiyu.. Did you know her?" His eyes narrow with his own concern now as he watches the Singers face. He hates being the bearer of bad news.

When Kage wanders up and he gives her a nod, he's never seen her before. His eyes rake her body, not in a sexual way, just getting a good picture of her to store in his memory.

"Hey, I'm Alex. The other two.. they're the Fallen. They've hopefully got a few things still rattling around in their heads so Ashley will want to get in there I'm sure. The others... well... just empty shells."

He pauses and he adds. "Theres three more in the basement, burnt totally fried. Not sure by what, ask Ashley."

But the woman is all action, bustling about with tarpaulins and god knows what else. She's like a character straight out of...-- "Yo Bones." He calls out to her and gives his shoulders a little shrug. "Whats all this for?"

[Emily Littleton] This is a perfunctory thing. A working thing. No time for how do you do and why it's nice to see you, no, Kage has a tarp and she's telling Emily it goes in the living room. Are the other two dead?

"No. I don't think so." A wary glance cast that way. They aren't dead, but they also aren't moving. Emily takes the tarp and follows Kage with her eyes only when the Disciple goes to investigate the van. Then she makes her way over to James and Alex, positions herself so they both can see her, holds up the tarp. Looks to the bodies.

Then heads inside the Chantry.

If they don't follow her, then the Apprentice will start shoving furniture out of the way on her own to make room for the tarp. For the bodies. God above how she hated this house and all of its dead bodies. She can't look at Ashley, just now, on her way to the porch. Or Daiyu. Emily keeps her focus whittled down so tightly that she doesn't notice if either man follows her in until their footsteps fall on the hardwood floors.

[James Blake] He doesn't bother trying to act like this doesn't bother him. Alex says they lost Daiyu. James already suspected as much. But that doesn't make it easier to read on his friend's lips. He gives an unhappy smile and drops his eyes for a second. This isn't hitting him nearly as hard as it hit Ashley. Still. He looks back up and says, "Yeah." And then he takes a breath. Stands up straight. If he had a rifle he would shoulder it.

Emily comes out. Holds up the tarp. OK he signs. And then he looks over at Ashley. When he speaks this time his voice cracks. It's only mid afternoon. But he'd spent all morning talking. "I go in in a minu'. Wai' for me...I hel' you."

He and Ashley aren't exactly friends. They've spoken twice...maybe 3 times if you count the first encounter with the Weathermen. But only really spoken twice. Her apprentice is his friend. He asked for her advice on his would-be apprentice. So...they're not close. But he walks up to her anyway. Rests his hand on her shoulder for a few seconds. If she jerks away he takes a hint. But he doesn't speak either way. And after a few seconds he steps back and walks toward the house to help Emily.

[eileen] A few blocks from here there is a huge brick house. Two stories plus a basement and an attic. It was abandoned ages ago. Used to be a funeral home. The sign outside has been peeling. It isn't too far from this house, this white-picket-fenced house. But it has the sort of character one might find inspiring. Stories about it abound. It always seems windy. The backyard garden is overgrown, and its flowers and trees seem to blossom and grow well past when others die come autumn and winter. There's a plum tree in the middle. There's a little playhouse in the back that someone built by hand. Less well-known: an enormous spiral carved into the wood floor of the attic.

Not that Eileen had the guts to go inside. She's no (sub)urban explorer. She did creep through the gate to take photographs of the wild garden, the roses, the white stones nestled into the weeds at the base of the various trees. It isn't that the house is haunted by anything but rumors, but people tend to leave it alone in a way the suburbs don't usually tolerate. Fucking funeral home.

Her camera is in a camera bag over her shoulder. It's warm enough that she's just in knee-length denim shorts that hug her leg, the ends folded up and ironed neatly to lie flat. Low-top camel-colored Cons. A green t-shirt. Her hair is up in a ponytail, hanging thick and chocolate-caramel down her back. Her footsteps fall slap-tidy on the pavement as she walks right past the white picket fence

and the bodies

and the magi

singing to herself, since there's nobody around, and singing rather badly: "-- special boots that beat the path to my house and it's careful, and it's careful when I'm therrre..."

[Ashley McGowen] Things are going on around her, people are walking around with tarps, taking the dead officers, Kage is here, James is here. Things are getting taken care of.

Distantly, Ashley is angry at herself for not being able to help with the cleanup, because it's something she should be able to do right now. It's important. People have doubtlessly heard the gunshots, and while the illusion she put up is going to fool Sleepers, it wouldn't fool Technocrats. It wouldn't fool anyone who investigated too much, poked too far past that barrier.

But she can't. Not in the face of all the other emotions that are swirling in her stomach and the thoughts that keep going through her mind. She isn't empty, yet, shock hasn't settled in. Maybe it won't. Maybe she won't go blissfully numb.

She'd like to say her goodbyes to the body, but this place is too public, and she isn't quite uninhibited enough. It will have to wait until Daiyu's taken elsewhere: she will be, for the last rites.

Eileen wanders by. Ashley doesn't see it. James rests his hand on her shoulder and she doesn't jerk away. She doesn't really respond, either.

[Emily Littleton] James will find her inside the house. Where their footprints from coming and going are now brown-red traces on the wood floors. Emily remembers when these floors were carpeted. She remembers when that carpeting was drenched and painted with gore. Standing just here, in the dead of winter, with the smell of death surrounding her.

That's probably why her hands shake, somewhat as she pushes the coffee table to one side. Moves everything up against the wall with focus and direction. There's a cluttered pile of police badges and IDs beside the doorway. She'd taken them off the fallen men sometime between calling Kage and the big black truck's arrival. Alex's other gun is there, too. Emily had not continued carrying it around, for better or worse.

Her hands are already stained, smeared in places and clean in others. Her hair is trapped in a spiral at the nape of her neck that threatens to yield, to unwind itself. Her resonance is up, and though the Correspondence rote has faded, he can still taste the Unrelenting Reverence around her. It's a lower note, there, under the cupperic tinge of all this blood.

James walks in, and she looks up. Pauses in whatever she's doing. There's the tarp, folded and violently blue in the middle of the entryway. Her eyes find his, for a moment. They're empty. She's alert, and she's looking over at him, but there's no push, no challenge, no mirth or lightness. There's a numbness (I've done this before) and a worry (It will never get easy), and then the Apprentice goes back to work.

Wordlessly.

[Kage Jakes] Kage isn't so caught up in what she's doing that she doesn't reply to Alexander when he replies to her. This is an organic process, the 'clean-up'; this is an organic process, what occurs to one to do when one is Kage Jakes and one is called into the wake left behind by bloody deeds at the White Fence House. There's room for conversation -- or, at least, room for information. Yo, Bones, he says, and Kage, who is rather solemn-eyed just now, grim-gazed, crooks her mouth. The ghost've a smile. "Alex," she says, accepting the nickname, and not choosing to replace it with her actual name yet (maybe she is a little distracted [she hates blood and murder]). "If you could start getting 'em inside, that would be useful." And he wants to know what it's all for: "Don't want to get blood on the carpet. When we bring her in, we won't be putting them in the same room." She raises her eyebrows, to see if he has any questions.

And then Eileen, she's singing badly as she wanders by. Kage winces. Not because of the tune, no. But because there's anybody out at all. And if Alex doesn't have any questions, she's inside the van, all vanished. Probably. Checking things out -- it takes time.

[ =) Percept + Awareness. You aren't a scary Nephandi, are you, hipster-girl?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 4, 4, 7, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Alexander Turnquist] "Getting em inside right.. right.. Different rooms.." He frowns, thinks on it a moment and then realisation dawns. "Oooh. I get you. Right, as you say Bones." And he turns on his heel, but that's when he notices. Short, curly brown hair. Quirky little grin. Oh how strange it is to see that in the midst of all this hell. She's singing even, its bizarre. He stops and looks around him, as if checking to see if anyone else has noticed this. Then he calls out.

"Eileen." a pause. "Eileen, what are you doing?" And he actually steps towards the girl in case she doesn't stop on her current trajectory.

"It's dangerous out, you can't be walking around like this around here. You better stay with me. James and Emily are inside, do you know Emily?" He's talking rather fast and there's a bit of blood spattered onto his cheek and chin that he is thankfully unaware of.

[eileen] [*waves wand, makes that 'miss cotton, miss cotton, what are you doing'*]

[eileen] [*also helps nomey look at the DP/gallery at eileen's 'short' hair*]

[Alexander Turnquist] [*flaps hands at kai and waves some scissors* ILL MAKE IT HAPPEN]

[eileen] One minute she's walking along, minding her own business, and the next thing she knows someone is calling her name. Someone with blood on his face. Eileen doesn't stop walking right away. First her head turns and her singing trails off as she looks over to see who is calling out her last name, since he just doesn't have anything else to call her by.

Her eyes widen at the sight of his face. She doesn't look anywhere but at Alex just yet. "I'm... walking to the bus stop," she says. There's a pause. "You have, um... cranberry sauce. On your cheek."

She brushes her hand at her own face, mirroring where it is on his.

[Alexander Turnquist] His eyes narrow, she's talking nonsense. Cranberry sauce? What is she on about-- His eyes go wide and his face goes pale. He has blood on his face doesn't he. Probably brain juice or something equally horrible. His hand scratches at the spot indicated by miss cotton, his fingernails come away dark red from the dried substance. He sighs.

"Yeah you don't want to do that... do you even know what's been going on here?" He turns and looks at the bodies all laying in the grass outside the chantry. He needs to tend to those.

"Look, have you ever seen a dead person before Cotton?"

[Emily Littleton] When James doesn't answer, when he isn't looking her way or lingering long enough to notice the apprentice, and no one seems ready to start the lumbering work of moving bodies into the house, Emily finds her way to the kitchen. She drags the footprint-steps further in. Makes more of a mess to clean later. She washes her hands and put the kettle on.

It takes time. Time while Alex is talking to Eileen, and James is doing whatever it is that he does, and Kage is investigating the hell out of the Nephandi Van. Emily waits there, in the kitchen, like this was a normal afternoon Chantry visit. She's making tea. Not because any one will drink it, and not because it's the right thing to do, but because it's something small.

Something human.

When she comes out of the Chantry again, and she is still vaguely channeling that Nothing's Amiss Here vibe, she heads not towards the bodies littering the yard but toward the one (only) draped and hidden from view. Toward the Dean, who is also the Hermetic, who is also a friend.

Emily pulls up a patch of grass beside Ashley. She hands the tea to the other woman, without putting words into the mess. If nothing else, the faint scent of jasmine will help cover the stomach-turning scents. It will give her something to hold. Or to throw. Or to even drink.

If Ashley doesn't take it, Emily sets the mug on the ground between them. And she waits on James or Alex to help her move people. She can't move them alone.

[eileen] It will be awhile before she decides she wants to look somewhere other than a face she's met. Once. A face she knows hides an Awakened brain-soul-construct-person-self. A face she guessed right about, because someone was helpful enough to confirm that he is, in fact, a wheel turner. She is determined that it's cranberry sauce. She will stay determined that it's cranberry sauce until the last possible second.

"I don't want to catch my bus?" she says, a little confused. "But I do, it's --"

have you ever

never have i ever not seen a dead body

She stops, and her eyebrows tug together. "Yes," she says, and leaves it there. She doesn't ask why.

[Ashley McGowen] Emily sits down in the grass next to her, and there is no response from the Hermetic. Ashley isn't even crying anymore: just verging on catatonic. The others are moving the body inside, and Daiyu is going to be moved into a separate room.

It's likely that she'll spend the night here. It's likely that she'll spend it next to the body. Morbid, perhaps, but people have their own ways of grieving, and Ashley isn't particularly interested in what other people would think of it. Or what other people would think of her relationship with Daiyu, or what they think of her sitting here while there is work to be done. She just doesn't care.

Emily, though, isn't here to do more than simply offer her a cup of tea. Something to hold and something to warm her hands and give her some small bit of comfort. Just that: the gesture a friend does for another friend.

Except, unfortunately, of all the teas Emily could have chosen she chose jasmine tea.

Ashley takes the cup and the moment the scent hits her, her hand trembles, and most of the hot liquid spills over her lap. She doesn't yell at the apprentice: she can't have known. But the cup is hastily dumped out and set aside and Ashley covers her hands with her eyes again and goes silent.

[Ashley McGowen] [...er. She covers her eyes with her hand.]

[Alexander Turnquist] He ignores the statement about her bus, cotton ramblings. Though the clever confusion of it isn't lost on the Euthanatos. She answers the important question and she doesn't wander off into potential danger. That's the main thing, mission accomplished Alex.

"James is inside, he'd want to see you. You should head on in."

And then he turns on his heel and steps towards the bodies. He takes off his leather jacket, his holster with his huge magnum in it seems suddenly all the more real once it is revealed. One holster at his chest still remains empty, he'll need to get that weapon back of Emily. The straps are undone and the weapon comes down to be piled with the leather jacket followed by his t-shirt. This is going to be messy.

He picks up his bundle of belongings and places them closer to the chantry entrance before heading back and rather unceremoniously hoisting one of the dead cops up onto his shoulder. He carries the corpse like a sack of potatoes inside, blood oozing from the wounds of the man. Alex grimaces but says nothing and deposits the dead body on the tarpaulin before heading back for another.

[Emily Littleton] This... this is not good. Ashley dumps the tea all over her lap. Then she dumps the remaining tea on the ground. Emily can't quite fathom why, isn't going to ask, probably doesn't want to know, but now there's another puddle on the lawn. And an upturned mug. And an Adept, with her head in her hands. The Singer to be wilts a little more, rounds her shoulders and purses her lips. She picks up the mug.

Emily wraps her fingers around the still warm stoneware. She smooths her thumbs over the curl of the handle. She exhales, quietly and with a bone-deep weariness, as she pushes herself back up to standing.

It would have been better if Ashley had yelled. It is eerie to see the Tytalan beyond fighting, mournful and weathered. In the middle of a broad-daylight afternoon. In the middle of such a mess. It bothers her, enough to set her moving again.

Back into the house, back into the kitchen, the cup goes back into the sink. She washes her hands again. It doesn't matter, they won't stay clean. Not today. Not until all of this is done. And then Emily will head back out, and hopefully she will not have to tell the menfolk, in actual words what she needs them to help with.

Doing? That's one thing. It's managable. Naming what it is they have to do? Completely another. Utterly beyond her.

[Kage Jakes] [All right. Just ... a btw, WP! You can do it! -2]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)
to Ashley McGowen, Emily Littleton

[Kage Jakes] When the red-haired Disparate (shard [Awake]) is done with (in)the van, she leaves it. There is Ashley, in the same place, her hands over her eyes, a cup -- overturned, bright -- in the grass. There are the two unconscious fallen-down Fallen Down in the grass, and the two -- three? -- policemen whose minds were gone long before Alex executed 'em. And there's a girl who doesn't feel tainted, gooey, full of gross (but they're good at Masking [that's what the Cultist said, just half an hour ago: maybe a little more]), but instead feels like a character from a Francesca Lia Block novel.

And Alex is talking to her about dead bodies, has she ever seen them, and then Alex is hauling one of the cops -- just in time to escape a disbelieving look, throwing him over his shoulder, and walking into the house. There's gunk. From a head-wound. Especially one so fresh. And that's horrifying, really. Horror, as per usual. Kage actually hates the White Fence House sometimes. If by sometimes, we mean a lot of the times. Whatever's inside, Catherine, devotion, shining well-deep of star-spangled Beauty, well -- fine. Whatever. Worth it?

Emily comes out again, and Kage says, "Help me with this one." It's not that she's ignoring Eileen; she isn't. Miss Cotton. She certainly isn't. She's just not inviting her in, and she isn't telling her to run, either -- undecided, or perhaps just overloaded. Then she takes a deep, deep breath, and [closes her eyes, tightly] crouches down to hook one of the dead cops's under the armpits and haul up with all her strength. Hopefully, Emily will get the legs, and they'll carry him inside, and Kage will not throw-up, and she will not think very much about what it feels like, the body in her arms, the man who was empty before he died, what he might've done, what he did.

[Alexander Turnquist] He spots Emily on her way back outside and he's about to say something when Kage spots her first, they offer to bring in one of the bodies. They don't look very happy about it, at least kage doesn't.

"Why don't you two collect the shells, we need to get them. 3 from Emily's .45, 9 from my 44, 2 from a shotgun and 3 from another .45." He pauses, the information stored in his brain during combat is something he hasn't really thought about before, its deeply engraved within his subconscious. It's a reflex, he just does it.

Without another word he picks up the cop that Kage is attempting to haul and again slings him over his shoulder. How disgusting. Brains fall out all over the grass as he walks away with it.

[Ashley McGowen] People are carrying bodies in, and after a while, it occurs to Ashley that other things have all been done, she should help at least with Daiyu, and it will let her get off the lawn that much faster.

It will let her get inside where it's quiet and it's dark and where nobody is going to bother her, where she won't smell the lingering traces of jasmine. Where she can say her goodbyes privately.

So, after a moment, she pushes herself to her feet. Her breath hitches again as she's suddenly reminded that there's a bullet still lodged in her side, and she probably needs to see a doctor. She isn't going to see a doctor. She's going to throw down painkillers and hope it dulls it a little. She may call Ashton. But she isn't going to the doctor.

She makes sure the sheet is secure, and then she hooks her arms underneath the dead Akashic's and begins to pull her into the house. She can't lift her, but Daiyu isn't heavy, and Ashley is certainly able to drag her in without stopping, even wounded as she is.

[eileen] "Insi--"

It's the beginning of a question that doesn't ever gain full voice. Alex is turning on his heel and walking away, which takes away that nice point of cranberry-sauce-flecked focus. There he is, letting the whole world see his gun because the whole world is currently oblivious to his gun. And there's dead bodies, in various states of yecch. Alex is dragging and carrying them to a tarp.

Emily is over by Ashley and Ashley's...

The pain from her is almost palpable. It's in the air as much as her resonance. Eileen is still on the sane side of the fence, looking into the lawn. Her lips are parted and her eyes aren't blinking and Emily's inside the house and there's a redhead and Emily's outside the house and Eileen's staring at what she didn't see before.

She swallows, closing her mouth, puts her hand on the gate, and walks in. Her camera stays in its bag and her bag stays over her shoulder. Her eyes are on Ashley for a little longer, though Ashley doesn't know it, and rather than going to the woman she promised not to touch anymore, she starts to edge away. But not to the house. And not towards the bodies. Not... well. She sort of sways, not sure which direction to go until Alex speaks up.

"I can do that," she says, perhaps not loud enough. Then again, louder: "I can do that."

Ashley gets up to carry the only body with a covering. Eileen turns her eyes away from the sight of it, from the taste and aura of Ashley's sorrow. She starts searching for shells in the grass.

[James Blake] It's hard to work and converse at the same time. Not for hearing people. But when your voice is in your hands and your ears are in your eyes...it does make things hard. James isn't one to dwell on it. It's not like he knows what it's like to hear and then suddenly not. This is just how it is. And sometimes things don't go as smoothly as they would if he were hearing. But it's okay. He manages.

Emily slips out of the house while he's arranging furniture...putting down tarps so that when they drag the bodies in there won't be as large a mess. When he finishes he goes into the kitchen to wash his hands. And then he realises he doesn't know where his would-be apprentice went. "Emily?" he calls. Only it doesn't quite sound like that. And no one hears him. He wipes his hands off on his jeans - no time to look for a hand towel - and goes back out onto the porch. In time to see Ashley drop a cup of tea on her lap. He stands there for a few seconds. And then he notices Miss Cotton.

The Chorister jumps off the porch instead of taking the steps. Walks across the lawn to where Alex and Eileen are. He gives Eileen a smile. But it's just a stand-in for a wave. This isn't a social function. Alex picks up a dead cop without any need for assistance. James isn't quite so strong. He's tall but he's built for moving fast...not for lifting heavy things. Or dead bodies. Ashley starts to drag Daiyu's body inside. The Chorister winces. Hurries over to her. "Le' me hel'," he says, and picks up the tiny Vajrapani's legs.

[Emily Littleton] Emily was about to take up the feet of the cop, to ferry him haltingly with Kage toward the blue tarp where he might await his final resting place, when Alex interceded. It was better, this way. The last time there had bits of bodies, lax and slippery, foul smelling and crimson. Those bits went into Ashton's jeep. There'd been more of them then, more to bear the burden, more to share in the slave-trade that was ferrying the dead across the frozen yard.

Emily had kicked the snow over bloody places. It had been colder then.

It's easy to get the two times mixed up in her brain. Alex takes the body off of Kage's hands, gives them a task, and Eileen steps in to fill it. She isn't sure what to do, so Emily, too, stoops to wrap her slick hands under the arms of another fallen body. She tugs as she stands up.

It doesn't move.

She tugs again.

Something blurbles unappealingly, and something oozes. The apprentice lets go, turns a pale shade of green, and takes a step backwards.

[Kage Jakes] [All right. We're doing a pre-emptive strength roll, to see how horrid this is going to be.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 4 (Failure at target 6) [WP]

[Kage Jakes] [Nope, again!]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 10 (Success x 2 at target 7) [WP]

[Ashley McGowen] Let me help, says James, and then he picks up Daiyu's legs.

Ashley looks up at him, and the blue of her eyes is stark right now because they're so glossy, because the whites have reddened. They're utterly vibrant, in their grief.

She adjusts her arms beneath Daiyu's, firms her grasp a bit so that she can be more easily lifted and carried inside rather than dragged. It doesn't need to be said that she appreciates it, that she feels this is more respectful.

"Thank you," she says quietly. And with James, she moves backwards up the stairs and carries the body inside so that it can be set in one of the bedrooms. She can't think of where else to put it: the chantry is not a funeral home, though it might as well be by now. She sets Daiyu down on the bed, still with the sheet.

And just looks down at the shape beneath the shroud for a few seconds before asking, "Can you leave me alone for a while?"

[Kage Jakes] Kage is glad to let Alex take the dead cop. Kage is also glad to move on to one of the Nephandi that Daiyu'd been beside. And Ashley. They're going up, and into the house now -- they've disappeared. Eileen, wide-eyed, is combing through the grass; Emily looks as if she's going to be sick. "Leave off, Em," Kage says, gentle - "Help, uhm. Miss Cotton, huh?"

And she utterly fails, at first, to move the dead weight of the fallen man; almost strains something, almost pulls something out of something it shouldn't be pulled out've -- but she tries again, and hauls nephandi one into the house. Hauls him further, not into the room with the tarp. Into another room, a room that can be warded [by Ashley, or herself; she'll do it if she has to], so that if he comes back to wakefulness, he won't be getting out.

They're all on it now: the Mages. Soon enough, the bodies are all inside. There's still remnants of gore in the grass. Gore makes the grass grow green and bright at the White Fence House, so that's good.

[James Blake] He takes Ashley's lead when they carry Daiyu inside. This is better than dragging her. It's just a shell...but it's a shell that belonged to someone they both respected. Someone who deserves better than to be hauled around like nothing. So they carry her. And James doesn't try to put her on a tarp or on the floor. They go all the way to the bedroom. He takes a few steps back. Watching Ashley the entire time. He can't see if she speaks. Her grief is like thunder. He can't hear it or see it. But he can feel it. He doesn't touch her again.

"Ta' your ti'," he says. As quiet as he can since he can't hear himself. "We han'le everythi'." And then he steps out of the room...and shuts the door behind him.

[Ashley McGowen] James tells her to take her time, reassures her that they can handle everything, and the Initiate doesn't know just how much that lifts off her shoulders. Or maybe he does, and maybe that's precisely why he said it. And then he closes the door, and the room is dark except for white light filters through the curtain.

Ashley stands for a few seconds in that beam of light, glances toward the window. She doesn't open it.

All she does is walk over to the bed and drop, adjusts so that she isn't lying on the wound. It's still bleeding, beginning to throb now that the adrenaline has fully died away. She removes the sheet and curls up against the body, which will be cleaned later. But not right now.

And she's going to remain there for a long time.

[Emily Littleton] Emily doesn't know Miss Cotton, but she does know Eileen. Eileen has impressive bottle-cap skills. Eileen knows Colin (who is also Henry), and she knows James. This is good, because Emily is not in the right mindset to look after someone new to the cursed and often bloody ways of the White Picket Fence House. Surely, as an Emissary, she should be worrying about things like whether Eileen has clearance.

When the Dean is mourning a cabalmate (friend), in an upstairs room, fresh after a Nephandic attack, points of order seem... inconsequential. So she offers Eileen a small, thin-lipped smile. It isn't warm, because warm was incongruous with where they were and what they were doing. She joins the young woman in combing through the grass for casings, like they were on on some macabre Easter Egg hunt (though Emily very much doubted anyone would rise from the dead in three days).

It was not Good Friday.

When their paths crossed, she offered a quiet "Thanks for your help." It's the first she's said in awhile. It sounds a little rough, as if her speech were unpracticed just now.

[Alexander Turnquist] After the last cop is thrown inside in the living room, Alex moves to the kitchen and opens the fridge. He procures himself a couple of bottles of beer and heads back outside, sitting down on the porch. He lets out a long sigh. He looks horrific, dead cop blood splattered on his bare torso from the carrying. He cracks open the bottle and downs about half of it in the first swig. Mother of christ and its only the afternoon.

He watches the ladies searching for shells, though he's not really paying much attention. His eyes are glazed over. He's had enough, he just wants to go home have a shower and give Riley a hug.

[eileen] She's hardly the smallest person here, might not even be the youngest, but Eileen makes herself seem quite little indeed as she hunts and gathers shells. She counts them. She was paying enough attention to what Alex said that she knows to count. When she gets so many gathered that she can't carry more, she goes and dumps a double handful on the tarp. Goes back to find more. They're mostly in the same general area.

Her head comes up the one time Kage says her name, the way people look up when they hear their name. She doesn't add in her first name. Not right now. She just does what she can to help, like there's nothing strange at all like finding a bunch of magi with dead people and firearms shells to deal with.

Have you ever seen a dead body before?

She has to ask Alex once how many, which caliber. As if she can tell them apart. Maybe it's just nine of one, four of the other or something. Eventually it's done and her hands smell and they're shaking but she's keeping very quiet, which isn't usual for those who have spent more than a few minutes around her. Or even just a few minutes. She counts the shells once she and Emily are done. Not even a thin smile. Just... maintaining.

Her chest moves under her shirt when she breathes. Emily speaks, and her eyes snap to the other woman's, because that keeps her from looking at anything else. "Oh." Beat. "Yeah. You're welcome. So you're... uh." She lifts a hand, wiggling it in the air. Whatever that means.

[James Blake] There's blood on his hands. He looks at them as he walks down the stairs. It's as Emily noted...there's no way to get them clean and keep them there in this house. He plods downstairs, and stops at the bottom to see where everyone is. How many bodies are inside. He can't hear sirens. Can't hear voices. So he seeks out the others. And he does what he can to get the rest of the bodies inside. Afterward he comes out onto the porch. Pulls out his cigarettes. Sits down next to Alex. He doesn't speak. There's no point. He just offers the Euthanatos a cigarette.

[Alexander Turnquist] Alex looks at the smoke, strangely he takes it. What the fuck, its been a long day. He puts it in his mouth and hands over one of the beers to the Chorister and waits for a light.

[Emily Littleton] It's done. Eileen is looking up at her as if her eyes were the one stable point in all this mess, and Emily is trying, for the other girl's sake, to be stable. To be a thing to hold on to. It's not really in her, just now, but she understands. She remembers what it was like to have someone turn her bodily away from all of this, because she couldn't turn her eyes away on her own.

"Yeah," Emily says. She's {finger waggles}, whatever that means. "I'm going to go wash up," she says. But she doesn't look away from Eileen's eyes just yet. "Coming?"

She'll lead her straight through the house to the kitchen, which is spared (usually) from the chaos of whatever besieges the house. Today it is clean, aside from bloody footsteps, and there's a broad sink to wash their hands in. There's tea on the counter, a little over-steeped but sweet-green smelling. It's a counter point. Someplace a bit safer for the other mage to be. Emily washes up. She dries her hands on a towel. She watches Eileen (if she's come into the house), and waits.

If she's alone, then the Singer-to-be will join James and Alex on the porch. If not, she'll let Eileen lead.

[eileen] Inside the house is where they took the small body covered by the blanket. Inside the house is where Ashley hasn't come out of. Ashley whose mourning is like a migraine, pressing against her skull, or maybe that's the Adept's magic, or maybe it's just a migraine.

She looks at Emily because it means not looking at the brains. It means not looking at the blood and it means not looking at whatever bits of body are left on the lawn. It was the way she looked at Alex earlier, because it was something to focus on. Not quite meditative. Far from panicked. She's unsettled, and she's... most obviously... avoidant.

Which is why she looks at the door into the house, and she shakes her head. "I'm good," she says quietly, and though she walks up to the porch. She sits between James and Alex, whether that means sitting on the ground or cramped onto a bench or in a separate chair, and then she opens her camera bag.

To take out a little plastic film canister.

And to open said film canister, remove some papers and a little baggie of green stuff, and start rolling.

Trouble at the White Picket Fence House

[Red Right Hand] ST rules!

1. As you all already know, this will be a particularly high risk scene. So if you are uncomfortable with the idea of potential character death or have any problems with my approach, feel free to cut out. It won't hurt my feelings.

2. That said, feel free to ask me questions in both IM and chat.

3. Try to keep posts to 10 minutes or less and inits to 2 or less, please. So things move along quickly.

4. Well, have fun. And apology in advance if your character dies.

[Emily Littleton] [Emily: Awareness as they approach Chantry.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Alexander Turnquist] [again]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5 (Success x 1 at target 4)

[Alexander Turnquist] [extending]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3 (Success x 1 at target 5) [WP]

[Alexander Turnquist] [dumdeedooo]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Alexander Turnquist] [done]

[Emily Littleton] [Corr 1: Absolute placement. Base dif 4; practiced -1. dif 3.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 3)
to Red Right Hand

[Red Right Hand] It's an oddly happy day in Chicago, all things considered. The sky is clear, no clouds in sight, and the sun shines down on the streets of the city where criminal gangs and drug dealers roam free in the less pleasant (slowly, all) neighborhoods of the city. To most everyone, it's just that. Another day of living.

Short of the unnerving knowledge of what happens in the city in the dark, of the people who currently run free, it's mostly the same for the Awakened of the city as well. No reason for it not to be. Until as the afternoon slowly wears on, and it happens. They've known it was coming for a while now, maybe even made preparations for it. Action plans, decided the escape routes and entry points. Everything with the expectation that it'll happen some day, and a hopefulness that it doesn't.

All of their best laid plans, Wards, Bans, arcane defenses, are to no avail though. It happens instantly, there's no slow and careful nature to it like an Unweaving, no subtly to it as though it's been gradually coming over weeks. Ashley can feel it, Israel can feel it, Solomon can feel it, everyone who's protected the Chantry before and in recent days feels it. Their Effects, the magic they've Weaved into the place are suddenly disappearing. They're being, with no better words for it, being annihilated.

A creeping sensation there to the magic that does it, a taint in the air if they scry and for those nearby. It's a horrible thing that goes against the very roots of Reality and the Consensus, that makes them gag momentarily at the overpowering and vile sensation. Qlippothic magic to those who recognize it. Not that it makes it any better, the knowing.

Meanwhile, those who keep a vigil on the place in the aftermath will see it. Two vans are speeding down the street where that particular house is. They aren't taking it slow, aren't slowly edging in, they're on a mission and know there's no time to waste.

One of them skids to a halt in front of the house, the side door slid open nearly instantly as a trio of men break into a run up the porch and trying to undo any locks on the door. Attempting to make their way in. The driver too gets out but doesn't rush, simply takes a few steps and gets on the porch.

The other, it stops a house down from it. Out of it coming four more men, long black coats each and arms out of sight, hidden under the coats. Around their neck hang badges, Chicago PD. This time too, they don't rush inside. Don't seem to bother. Instead, they take positions around the street, a silently watch over the area.

[Emily Littleton] It's a moderately less awful-hot day, and campus is teeming with renewed student life. Emily has weathered her orientation and come up fatigued and frustrated with co-eds (it's possible she's just not over the club mishap from earlier in the week), so she calls Alex and invites him along with her to the House. He's considering joining the cabal, after all, which means she can rope him into things like checking the message board and protecting her from Basil's temper.

They're a couple blocks away when the van goes skidding around the corner, makes a bee line for the white picket fence house. Emily's shoulder tense and her eyes narrow. This is not the first time trouble has found her here, or brought her here. She had just begun thinking of it as something other than the house of bloodshed, gore, and ill portents.

When they get to the corner, Emily stops. She waits there, looking up at the street sign as if they were lost, and reaching out with her Awareness. There's a slick, sickening feeling. She can place it immediately.

"Nephandi."

They'd been talking about Bar-be-que and how awesome Riley is (of course Riley is awesome), and she goes and drops that bombshell. Emily takes a couple steps back, putting the shrubbery on the corner between her and the line of sight of the CPD on the lawn.

"I hope you're carrying."

Her resonance flares, calls up the unrelenting grace (reverence) as she pushes to define herself clearly in space, to pin point the things and people around her with alarming certainty. She hasn't worked much magic around the other Apprentice, but her resonance is stronger than his.

At the same time she pulls out her phone, punches out a quick message to the Administrative (I hate that title) Dean.

Trouble at the House. Alex and I are near. Need help, now.

[Alexander Turnquist] Alex pauses when Emily says that word. He knows that word, he's looked that word in the eyes and blown its brains out all over a basement wall. He knows how close he came to dying that night and knows that more than a bit of 'chance' was involved. And it wasn't the controlled entropic kind either.

He ducks low and pulls emily back away from that shrubbery to hide them both behind the wooden fence of a nearby house. She asks if he's packing but he's already drawing weapons. He looks her over, she doesn't look like the kind to have a shotgun in her girl-purse. Unfortunate. Still, theres the .45 and the .44 magnum. He doesn't need both.

"You ever fire a weapon before?" He asks Emily while he pulls the .45 from its holster at his waist. He pops the clip out, checks it before reloading it and cocking the weapon. He hands it to her along with a spare clip. He carries two types of ammo these days, though he has to carry less of each. Before he would carry four .45 clips along his lower back, now he has strange cylinders etched into the straps of his chest holster, hidden beneath his jacket. Quick reloaders for his recently acquired revolver.

The magnum is then removed, its obscenely large. He checks the chambers and then peaks around the edge of the fence.

"Who'd you text? Can you text Riley please, tell her not to come near the chantry."

[Dancing Dragon] It was a rare afternoon off from practice and work, and Daiyu had called to invite Ashley to lunch with her. They'd eaten at a little sandwich shop on the Mile before hopping onto Daiyu's bike and driving to the chantry. Now that she was allowed access to the library there, the Akashic was curious to see what it had to offer.

They were a couple of blocks away when Ashley felt it. The bans she'd placed on the chantry came crashing down like a pane of broken glass. Daiyu swung off to the side of the road as the pair of them prepared for for what could only be an imminent conflict. Ashley worked her effects, and the Akashic did likewise. It was a frustrating delay, but necessary.

Their approach to the chantry-house would be careful, aided by the overhead vision of Daiyu's falcon. They skirted the view of the men parked outside the house, hiding behind the wall of a nearby building. Before making her attack, however, there was one last effect to cast (and this one would not be terribly subtle.) Daiyu focused her attention, amplifying the strength of her own movement, until it seemed as if she practically shimmered with every slight twitch. Looking at Ashley, then, she whispered, "I'm going."

And then she did, running first for the policemen waiting outside.

[Ashley McGowen] Ashley's in a pretty good mood, all told. Her good moods, in the past, have often been a portent: it means something horrible is about to happen.

She notices it immediately when something begins to chew away at her bans, erode them. That feeling of wrongness that accompanies, that turns her stomach and brings the taste of metal to the surface of her tongue, isn't something that it takes her very long to place. Daiyu can feel the Hermetic's muscles tense against her back.

Her throat works, and after she's found her voice, she leans over and roars into Daiyu's ear over the engine. "Nephandi are at the chantry! Bringing my wards down."

The motorcycle can't move fast enough. Ashley's being whipped into a fury the longer it takes, the longer she has to imagine tainted beings there in the chantry leaving their black fingerprints all over everything, her house, her node. Hers. Emily's text gets an acknowledgment, an on my way. Somehow she's able to focus enough to find her necklace and Will up barriers, Will her body to blur in the minds of enemies, Willing protection.

Angry as she is, the Akashic still gets a squeeze as they round the corner, which, given Ashley's position behind her on the motorcycle, is easy to accomplish. "Be careful."

Then they're at the house, and she's leaping off, sprinting after Daiyu toward the policemen.

[Dancing Dragon] [Dex+Stealth]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] You ever fire a weapon before?

Emily gives him a very flat look and holds a hand out to receive the firearm. It's a fair question, and a year ago would have gotten a very different look and answer. Today, it's a flat look, a patient and suffering look.

"Yes." There's a beat, and her mouth purses a bit. "Don't ask the follow up," she tells him. It's not a request. There's a hardness to her expression that suggests he doesn't want to know if Riley's friend and cabalmate has killed. (Which probably means she has.)

"Ashley." Emily looks down at her phone. "She's on her way."

With regards to calling Riley, she says: "I'm not going to tell her not to come. That will draw her in. Tell her you and I are catching a movie near campus. Then you'll know where she is, and she'll be pissed that she can't find us. But she won't be here."

Riley didn't know enough correspondence to locate them. Not just yet. Emily would take the heat for the lie later.

Meanwhile, the cavalry's approaching from another vector.

[Red Right Hand] [Cop +1: Alertness]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 6, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Alexander Turnquist] [stealth]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 5, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] As she sprints forward, there's a Word that comes from her mouth.

It doesn't sound like the sort of sound a human throat should be able to make. It is: Chaos, it is Terror, it is Awe, it is Bow, it is all of these and it is spoken in the tongue of angels.

It is almost deafening.

The sound rushes toward the enemies in front of them like a pair of widening jaws to close around their Wills and crush them, and, at the very least, it should shake them deeply. At worst it may cause them to scatter.

[Forces 2 to amplify, Mind 3. -1 for focus: Enochian, -2 for applicable resonance Entropic: Hungry.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 4, 5 (Success x 1 at target 3) [WP]

[Dancing Dragon] [+7]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Emily Littleton] [+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Ashley McGowen] [+5]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Alexander Turnquist] [+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Red Right Hand] Neph +1: +5
Neph +2: +5
Cop +1 - 3: +4
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 7, 10, 10

[Red Right Hand] Cop +2: 14
Cop +3: 14
Daiyu: 12
Neph +2: 10
Alex: 11
Cop +1: 11
Neph +1: 9
Ashley: 8
Emily: 7

[Red Right Hand] Fixed list:
Cop +2: 14
Cop +3: 14
Daiyu: 12
Alex: 11
Cop +1: 11
Neph +2: 10
Neph +1: 9
Ashley: 8
Emily: 7

[Emily Littleton] [Declare: Hang back this round. Take stock of positions!]

[Ashley McGowen] [Chaining the Nephandi together with Corr 3 so what magic hits one hits the other. Will require 4 successes total.]

[Red Right Hand] Neph +1: [Destroying the light around the street; will require 3 suxx]
Neph +2: [Aiding +1's rote]
Cop +1: Shooting Alex with a handgun

[Alexander Turnquist] [1a
1b
1c - all bangs on cop +1]

[Dancing Dragon] [Per+Aware]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Dancing Dragon] [Declare:

1: Kick Cop 2
2: Punch Cop 3
3: Punch Cop 2
4: Kick Cop 3 (pulling damage at Incap if it gets that far - for all attacks)]

[Dancing Dragon] [Redeclare!

1: Kick Cop 2
2: Punch Cop 2
3: Close distance to Cop 3
4: Kick Cop 3]

[Red Right Hand] Cop +2: Shooting Ashley with handgun
Cop +3: Shooting Daiyu with shotgun

[Red Right Hand] Cop +2: Firing away!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Red Right Hand] [...Damage?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 3, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] [Forces soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Red Right Hand] Cop +1: This is what you get for charging!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Red Right Hand] [Oh wow, near miss]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 4, 4, 6, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 6 at target 6)

[Red Right Hand] (That was +3)*

[Dancing Dragon] [Dex+Do - kicking cop 2 (-1 diff cause Do does that)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 4, 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Dancing Dragon] [Str+1]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Dancing Dragon] [Punching Cop 2 - Dex+Do]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 8 (Success x 1 at target 5)

[Dancing Dragon] [Str]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Dancing Dragon] [Action 3, closing distance to Cop 3 - Dex+Do to Kick]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 5, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Dancing Dragon] [Str+1+1]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 6, 9, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Alexander Turnquist] [1a -3 (split)]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 7, 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 2

[Alexander Turnquist] [dmg +3]
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 5, 5, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Alexander Turnquist] [1b -4 split)]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 7, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Alexander Turnquist] [1c -5 split WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 5, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]

[Alexander Turnquist] [dmg +1]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 7, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Red Right Hand] [Destroying light, Q. Forces 2, hellishly vulgar; diff 8 (-1 focus, -1 rote); 3 suxx necessary]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Red Right Hand] (That was Neph 2)

This is +1: [Same effect]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] [Corr 3, Chain. -1 for focus, -1 for practiced rote. Spending WP.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 8, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 5 at target 4) [WP]

[Emily Littleton] [Redeclare: Shoot Nephandi 1. Black out (dif 8) canceled by active Corr rote (back to dif 6). +1 for changing action (dif7). +WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 7)

[Emily Littleton] [Damage: base 5 + 2suxx (pretend I clicked the WP box on that roll, like I'd meant to!)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 3, 3, 4, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Emily Littleton] [Emily: Shoot Neph 1 again. Hopefully do damage this time. +WP because botches hit friendlies.]

[Red Right Hand] Cop +2 (2L): 14
Cop +3 (3L): 14
Daiyu (6L): 12
Alex: 11
Cop +1: Incap
Neph +2: 10
Neph +1: 9
Ashley: 8
Emily: 7

[Ashley McGowen] [Nomming Nephandis' brains. Mind 2 to do psychic damage, adding Prime to do Lethal. Will share damage due to chain.]

[Red Right Hand] Inner Nephandi ('cause I forgot): Scurrying to Node [6 suxx needed, total]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 4, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Dancing Dragon] [Declare:

1: Kick Cop 3
2: Punch Cop 3
3: Close distance to Cop 2
4: Kick Cop 2
(Once again, will pull damage at incap)]

[Red Right Hand] Neph +1: [Destroying the heat around Emily, suxx needed: 1 for effect, 1 for target, extra for damage]
Neph +2: Helping again

[Alexander Turnquist] [1a Light of Darkness (forces 1)]

[Red Right Hand] Cop +3: Shoot Daiyu again
Cop +2: Shoot Ashley again

[Red Right Hand] Cop +2: Oof, my eyes!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 7, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 8)

[Red Right Hand] [...Holy hell]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] [Forces soak]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 2, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Red Right Hand] Cop +3: Please don't hit?
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 5, 6, 10 (Failure at target 8)

[Dancing Dragon] [Dex+Do - Kicking Cop 3 - +2diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 2, 2, 4, 4, 5, 7 (Failure at target 8)

[Dancing Dragon] [Punching Cop 3 - Dex+Do +2diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 4, 7, 7, 9, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 7) Re-rolls: 1

[Dancing Dragon] [Str+3]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 4, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Dancing Dragon] [Closing to Cop 2 - Dex+Do +2diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 4, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8) Re-rolls: 1

[Dancing Dragon] [Str+1+1]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 3, 6, 6, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Red Right Hand] Neph +2: [Q. Forces 2, super vulgar, diff 8 (-1 rote, -1 focus); suxx needed: 1 for effect, 1 for target (Emily), extra for damage)]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 4 (Failure at target 6)

[Red Right Hand] Neph +1: Same
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 3 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Red Right Hand] ['dox!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 4, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Red Right Hand] [Soak!]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 6 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] [Changing action to nom cop 3's brain instead. Mind 2, bashing. Diff 5, +1 for changing action, -1 for practiced rote, -1 for focus. Adding WP, I'm pissed.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 3 at target 4) [WP]

[Emily Littleton] [Shoot Nephi 1: dif 8 for darkness, canceled by active rote (back to dif 6) +WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 5, 7 (Failure at target 6) [WP]

[Red Right Hand] Scurrying! 2 of 6 down
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 6, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Red Right Hand] Cop +2 (2L): 14
Cop +3: Incap
Daiyu (6L): 12
Alex: 11
Cop +1: Incap
Neph +2: 10
Neph +1 (1B): 9
Ashley (3L): 8
Emily: 7

[Emily Littleton] [Declare: ... shoot neph 1. And maybe connect. Third time's a charm! +WP. (Blame the failures on the darkness)]

[Red Right Hand] Guys down stairs: [initial preparations on the Node, Q. Prime 2 and other nastiness, vulgar, diff 6 (-1 focus)]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 4, 8 (Success x 2 at target 5) [WP]

[Red Right Hand] Second guy downstairs
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 9 (Failure at target 5)

[Red Right Hand] Third guy
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 3, 10 (Success x 2 at target 5) [WP]

[Red Right Hand] (Cop +2: 3L*)

[Red Right Hand] [Catherine: FUCK YOU! Quint lash]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 3, 3, 9 (Failure at target 6)

[Red Right Hand] [Reroll, 'cause wtf]
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 1, 3, 6, 6, 7, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 5 at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] [Late declare: mind nomming the two nephandi.]

[Red Right Hand] Neph 1 and 2, same thing last turn, switching to biggest danger (Ashley)

[Alexander Turnquist] [1a
1b
1c - all bangs on neph 1 changing to neph 2 if neph 1 goes down]

[Dancing Dragon] [Declare:

1: Punch Cop 2
2: Punch Cop 2
3: Punch Cop 2
4: Please tell me he's incap by now - close distance to chantry]

[Red Right Hand] Cop +2: SHE'S PUNCHING ME! Shoot Daiyu

[Red Right Hand] Cop: Bam, bam -1 penalties, point-blank rules
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 9 (Failure at target 4)

[Dancing Dragon] [Dex+Do +2diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 7) Re-rolls: 1

[Dancing Dragon] [Str+3]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 5, 6, 6, 7, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Alexander Turnquist] [1a -3 (split)]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 5, 5, 6, 10, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) Re-rolls: 2

[Alexander Turnquist] [dmg +1]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Alexander Turnquist] [1b -4]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Alexander Turnquist] [dmg+1]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 1, 5, 5, 5, 7, 10 (Failure at target 6)

[Alexander Turnquist] [1c -5 HAIL KAHSEENO](WP)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 4, 5 (Success x 1 at target 6) [WP]

[Alexander Turnquist] [dmg]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 4, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Dancing Dragon] [Changing 2nd action to closing distance with neph 1

Changing 3rd action to punching neph 1 +1 diff +2diff from effect]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 5, 7, 7, 7, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8) Re-rolls: 1

[Dancing Dragon] [Str+1]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 5, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Red Right Hand] Neph 2: [Destroy heat around Daiyu, Q. Forces 2, diff 8 (-1 rote, -1 focus); suxx needed 2 for effect/targeting, extra for dam]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]

[Dancing Dragon] [Changing 4th action to punching neph 1 again +3diff]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 7)

[Red Right Hand] Neph 1: Keeping on
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]

[Dancing Dragon] [Ack, that was diff 8 - 1 success]

[Dancing Dragon] [Str]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 5, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Dancing Dragon] [...seriously, my brain must have melted. That was a punch, not a kick. re-rolling correct dice]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 1, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Ashley McGowen] [Mind 2, chained effect, bashing. Diff 5, -1 for focus, -1 for practiced rote. Adding WP.]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 7 (Success x 4 at target 3) [WP]

[Ashley McGowen] Seconds. That's all it is.

Sprays of blood and flaring resonance and encompassing hunger, punches, the sounds of gunshots. Usually, Ashley revels in this, in a way: that primal part of her takes over. She does now, even with Emily in danger, even with the way the shotgun pellets shred Daiyu to pieces almost before things have begun at all.

Seconds.

And in seconds the Akashic hits the ground, and the Nephandi who stole the heat from the air around her, sucked it out of her body, are lying prone too. Ashley stops, and she looks, and she hopes. She intends to go into the chantry to make sure that Catherine is all right. She swore a vow. But first, first.

When she starts over toward Daiyu, she already knows. And when she drops to her knees next to Daiyu, she already knows.

[Dancing Dragon] Any Vajrapani knows this - there is always death, waiting. It isn't a distant fear, but an ever-present reality. Li Daiyu had seen nearly every one of her friends and loved-ones fall in battle. One of them she had killed herself (and she had never forgiven herself for that.) Because of this, every day was a blessing. Every moment of peace treasured. And when the end of this life inevitably came for her, she was not surprised. And she was not afraid.

The shotgun blast had nearly killed her in an instant. It left a great gaping hole in her chest, and blood dripped and pooled, splattering those near her as she fought. And fight she did - despite her injuries. She never lost focus, and never hesitated. (She never had. She never would.) That the rest of her companions would live was all that she ever asked for.

But there was only so much harm that one body could withstand, and eventually, an effect cast from one of the nephandi robbed her of the last bit of strength she had remaining. No longer a blur of movement, she suddenly stopped... and fell. Cold. The world was distant. Blood seeped from her chest. Her eyes fluttered. The world was black. A breath - ragged.

And then, Ashley. She couldn't see her, but she could feel. And she reached up and touched the Adept's cheek, very softly. "I'm sorry," she whispered. And then, even more quietly... "Ni you wo de xin. I will remember you, always."

And then the last breath disappeared from her lungs, and her hand fell.

But it was not the end. Only another beginning.

[Ashley McGowen] They just had lunch together, and they were supposed to go and look at the library. Ashley'd thought about telling her about Catherine, suggesting that she go down to speak with the node. That's the way this afternoon was supposed to go.

She has an answer that she wants to give, but there isn't time. Daiyu's hand falls. Ashley bows her head.

She doesn't collapse in sobs there on the ground. She doesn't fall over the body. She doesn't walk off and sit on the curb and stare emptily at the sky. Maybe she wants to do all of those things.

Ashley is an Adept of the Order of Hermes, and conflict hones a Will to perfection. She stands up. And, clear-eyed (for now) she steps around the body and walks up to the doors of the chantry. She swore she'd protect the node.

[Emily Littleton] There are moments that Emily will replay, over and over again, for a lifetime. Moments like this. Moments like the flicker of balefire as it closed on her skin. Moments like the scream of a boy child who was pressed beneath the heavy body of his assailant (his mother). These are the things that shape and press and force her Awakened life into the role she will play, later, when she is done being just an understudy on this stage.

This is the first Traditionalist she has seen fall in battle. For a moment, Emily doesn't believe she's gone. She waits for Daiyu to pick herself back up, put her insides back together like Ashton did. Gasp for air once more after the slip-slide of honey smooths over her lips. But there is no flicker-rebirth of life, and there is no charm to save her, and there is nothing the Apprentice can do. Nothing but lower the (useless) firearm she carries to her side -- still ready (ever ready) -- and approach with wariness and respect.

She glances to Alex as she moves, but keeps her attention on Ashley. If she were smarter about all of this, perhaps Emily would think to watch the door. Or look down the street for another van, another wave to the assault. Just now she is numb, and the numbness stills her tongue and deadens her thoughts. It is stock-silent in her head, behind the thin thrum of tightly-controlled panic, and the slackness in Daiyu's frame and features is at once horrifying and abstractly fascinating.

Ashley steps toward the Chantry, but Emily stays with Daiyu. She will not leave her alone; and she will not load this body into someone's jeep like a thing. Like a vessel broken and profane once more.

She looks to see if Alex is following the Dean in.

[Alexander Turnquist] The gun in Alex's hand doesn't go limp, it doesn't fall weakly to the ground in shock. His strength and focus doesn't abandon him with the fall of Daiyu, or Li as she allowed him to call her. He's quick to reload, flicking shells out onto the ground from his revolver and sliding new ones in. He'll worry about collecting them up afterwards. He keeps the gun trained on the head of the nearest Nephandus while he makes his way closer to Daiyu and Ashley.

He steps over the writing and bloodied forms of cops, strewn around like play things. Finally he's there, just in time to watch the life go out of the Akashic. They had their differences the two of them, but it is perhaps he who understands most here. He doesn't weep for her, the wheel has turned as it does for everyone, this life was no more important than any life before it and the multitude of lives that will come after it.

Alex waits a moment with Daiyu when Ashley steps away. He looks down upon her lifeless corpse. Perhaps they would have argued about him calling her this, perhaps she would have disagreed that they are brothers in philosophy and religion. But their beliefs entwine so much and when it comes to this, when it comes to death. They are one and the same. He says as much to her, though he knows she is gone already.

"Go with peace Chela" And he follows after Emily and Ashley.

[Red Right Hand] The house is quiet as Ashley steps inside. It's dark and empty. The lights aren't on, and besides herself, there is no one present inside it. Not, at least, on the ground floor. It gives that strange sense of a normal home. Just a lifeless home in the suburbs. The kind of thing that makes you double-guess and wonder what are you really protecting, especially on a day like this when the risks become ever so clear.

But at the same time, she feels it. That energy, the vibrant sensation. Devotion. The kind of sensation that strikes true in dark days like this. It doesn't feel dim, doesn't feel weak, doesn't feel tainted. In fact, the very opposite. It's stronger than most of them have probably ever felt it. It soaks through the house today as though a sign of something.

If and when she slowly ventures down to the Node, the sensation becomes almost overpowering. The aftertaste and Resonance of Quintessence mark everything in the surrounding. As though extreme amounts had been unleashed. And the Nephandi lay, not victories and not in the process of a ritual. But dead. Barely recognizable human corpses, ashes almost.

Almost unrecognizable, and covered again in that sensation of Devotion. As though they'd been lashed out at, blasted with the pure Essence of it. Catherine had stood her ground.