You'll make a good Knight, eventually

[Littleton] They met in the great Sanctuary of St. James' sometime the previous week. Since then, one hopes, Lisa has been enjoying Chicago. Reminiscing. Perhaps she's stopped by the Cloud Gate or gone shopping on the Mile. Maybe she's met Marcelle, caught up with Ashton. Maybe, just maybe, she's heard about the White Picket Fence House.

It's the House, and everything that happened there, that kept Emily from calling earlier. It's the House, and James' early morning medical emergency, and Declan's goodbye. Things pile up, and then they get swept away, and before she knows it a week has passed. A month. A year. It's been almost a year since she Awakened and Emily is still an Apprentice. She is still unable to heal the bruises on her arms. No closer to protecting herself, or her friends or loved ones.

She asked Lisa to meet her down by the water. Where the sand-dirt meets the stand-in sea. It is not the same as the Ocean, this Great Lake. However Great, it is still just a lake. Only a land-locked body. It doesn't have the freedom of the sea, the slosh of a world-pool, the whim of a moon-tide. It does not run up against far distant lands. If she throws a bottle in, she cannot imagine it reaching Australia or China or Spain or Africa. (Possibly Canada -- woo, big deal.)

Emily's wearing a cranberry red blouse. It's warm today, but the three-quarter length sleeves cover her bruises. The fabric is dark enough to hide the shadows along her skin. The wounds have healed, but the marks take longer. She still carries herself gently, but not gently enough to be noticed immediately. The color calls out the light gilding of the leaves, the promise of Autumn. She hastens it, pushes the year forward, hopes on Apple-time and crisp mornings. It's coming; it's almost here.

There is a bench, here, overlooking the lake, in the shadow of a broad-limbed tree, on the edge of a concrete path, where people wander by. Some with great purpose. Some idle. Some oblivious. Time passes more slowly. It is a calm place. It is a good place for thinking, and for goodbyes.

[Carraway] It would be difficult to say what Lisa has or has not heard. She gives away very little of what she learns whispered in shadow, very little of what she gleans from the body language of others, their little tells, what they wear and where they've been. She's frighteningly observant, though.

Emily's call was received happily, though, so maybe she hasn't heard just yet about the White Picket Fence House. Maybe she doesn't know that someone died in that assault, and maybe she hasn't seen the administrative dean wandering around like a ghost, like a refugee, like a soldier that saw the guts of his platoon splattered red across the landscape.

Lisa would understand, if she did, and she'll understand when she sees Emily.

It's hot, and summer heat is not Lisa's favorite thing. She doesn't like to sweat, and she doesn't like that grimy feel that dried sweat leaves. It reminds her of the baking pavement in D.C. and the way the city would go crazy in the summer. Still, she meets Emily out at the lake.

The Knight still doesn't look much like a knight. She's wearing a pair of reflective sunglasses today, and they obscure the pale gray of her eyes. They obscure most of her features, make her into something nameless with dark hair and a bun and a light green polo shirt. She sits down next to Emily on the bench, sprawls long limbed with an elbow folded over the back. She's gangly: a little like a baby giraffe, doesn't seem to quite know where to put her legs.

She offers Emily a bottle of soda when she arrives, glass, one of the fruit flavored ones (it's dark green. She has an orange one, and she'll trade if asked.) "Hey," she says. "How've you been?"

[Littleton] The Knight gives away little, and it's something the younger mage can appreciate, can admire. They are both, inherently, people who keep quiet as a default. In some small ways, it is a comfort to be around someone who is not driven to disclosure. Who does not expect that same immediate divulging of secrets from her.

Lisa offers her a soda, and Emily accepts with a quiet Cheers. She offers back a packet of dried fruits -- apricots, mostly, but some strawberries and bits of mango and pineapple too -- to share. This exchange is hard-wired into the Orphan by now. It's a shade of hospitality, a sharing of gifts and bridging of boundaries. Food is almost universally viewed as a positive thing, a necessity, an acceptable offering. One of the first things she learns about a new culture is their culinary habits, their foods of celebration, of sorrow, of observation. There's no mystical meaning to the dried fruits, save that Emily does not like candy. She doesn't even like soda, truth be told, but she's too polite to refuse, and it's too warm to turn away a cold drink today.

"Thanks for meeting me," she says, and there's a warm-enough smile for Lisa when she sits. When they turn to pleasantries and hellos. Emily is good at keeping things back, so it's not shaded with other meanings. There's a gentle gingerness to how she moves, but it could be mistaken for quietness, or for tiredness, if Lisa had not met her before.

"Things have been busy," she says, which still doesn't touch upon recent events in any particular way. "Did you have a nice weekend?" A polite, seemingly un-leading question.

[Carraway] Lisa doesn't much like candy either, or most things that have sugar - soda, though, she does like. She likes soda like this in particular, because it reminds her of Erg Cola, and it reminds her of being young, of sitting out at a stakeout on a hot afternoon like this, hours and hours of watching and waiting. It wasn't a job for the impatient, and it wasn't a job for dreamers whose attention would drift elsewhere.

There's also this: Lisa is a woman who is good at reading between the lines. For all of her discretion, she's gotten very good at piercing the discretion of others. That's a lot of what a spy does, what any good investigator does. Emily's movements aren't immediately remarked upon, but behind those mirrorshades, her eyes are sharp, and they catch that it isn't weariness.

She takes the fruit and pops a bit of the dried mango into her mouth, chewing quietly, cracks open the soda. Emily, too, is getting a friendly smile in return. One of Lisa's friendly smiles, the easy practiced kind, because there's something going on here and she just hasn't pieced it together yet.

"I did," she says, and her legs sprawl, and she folds an arm across her lap. There's a casual sort of boyishness in her stance and her movements and how she carries herself, not intentional. "Went back and saw my old neighborhood and the school I used to teach at. Tried to hunt down some familiar faces, but they've gone."

She's not bothered. People move, people are transient because they have work to do. Professionals get used to that. "How busy have things been?"

[Littleton] Professionals get used to the transience; people get used to it too, given time, given exposure. Emily is not a professional, she's not a spy, but she's got the world-wandering down to an art and she's unsurprised when people even -- even if it always pricks more than she'd expected to see them go. She's fresh off another goodbye, the night before, not far from here, but that's not what's coloring her presence ever so gently.

Instead of answering, immediately, she pushes the sleeves of her blouse back up past her elbows. There, on the newly bared skin, are the bloom and shadow of partly-healed bruises. This does not appear to be an answer, this casual movement; it is nothing more than a reaction to the warmth. She cracks her soda open, too. Sips from it. Swallows.

Her eyes are on the water, now, rather than the mirrorshades Lisa wears. She knows the Knight can see her, knows that watching that one-way glass will only drive Emily to distraction. So she watches the shift and sway of the water and shapes her words carefully.

"There was an assault on the house. We lost someone." These words are spoken plainly. They're shaped with a clarity and detachment beyond Emily's years. There's a pinch to the corners of her eyes, a little tightness to her mouth, and her shoulders are squared but not taut. She looks less like a child at recitation, now. Less like she is reporting a loss to a superior (though that may actually be the case here).

"Later in the weekend, another Singer found himself on the wrong end of a gunfight. Unrelated. But it's a lot of bloodshed for one weekend."

[Carraway] When Emily pulls back her sleeves, Lisa can immediately see those bruises, and conclusions about what caused them are not far behind. For a long time Lisa just didn't understand Paradox. With what she does, the way she does it, she's never really had to worry about it, and that was the case in most of the New World Order. Oh, she heard about explosions, she heard about experiments going wrong in Iteration X and in the Void Engineers.

It wasn't until a backlash hit an Akashic she knew that she learned about Paradox. Ashton explained that to her, explained that it was the result of introducing the Masses to things they weren't ready for. And Lisa's brows furrow, and Emily doesn't have to look past the mirrorshades to see the concern.

And then Emily speaks, and when she says she lost someone, that's when Lisa removes her sunglasses. Snaps the sides closed and slides them away into a pocket in one motion, without looking away from Emily. And she says, "I'm sorry to hear that," to both things.

And she really is. And it bothers her that she was here but couldn't help, wasn't summoned because no one knew. "Someone you were close to?" It's hard to know which incident she's asking about. Maybe she means both of them.

[Littleton] There's not much that Emily can do, on her own, that would draw Paradox's ire. The occasionally botched effect, perhaps, but the limits of sensory magics are such that most of it falls under coincidental auspices. She'd well overstepped her boundaries at the house, and paid the price for it. But it had been necessary, and there had been no one else there to do it -- this is how Emily thinks of it. There's no regret, no second-thoughts, not even the passing consideration for whether she would have done things differently had she known what would follow.

Lisa slides her shades off, and Emily sips from her soda again. She looks over at the Knight, then lets that look slide away. Over the other woman's shoulder. Restless, her attention does not stand still just now.

"No. Not particularly," Emily says, with a touch of regret. She would have liked to know Daiyu better. She regrets the loss, like anyone would. It is hard to see someone die; it is harder to see someone you care about suffer in the wake of that passing. "But it's hitting some people rather hard."

She doesn't say who. This is not Emily's story to tell. It's important to note the loss, acknowledge the grief, but also it is important not to shine too bright a light on another's struggle. The girl exhales, brings one hand up to place now-cool fingers against the back of her neck. Lets them trail away.

"It's frustrating to be there and still so unable to help. I need to be able to protect myself, to put myself back together if something happens. I want to be able to help others do the same. I was there, and all I could do was make phone calls, and move bodies, and assist someone else with setting up wards."

Emily is past the point of wishing it all away. This violence, this loss. It won't leave; it's part of the Awakened world. She doesn't understand why some of the older magi say the War is over; this world seems war torn and ravaged to the Apprentice. It may not be an overt struggle against a known enemy, but it is a constant and devastating conflict. And she is not ready. She is not yet ready. There is so much more to do.

[Carraway] It's hard to know what to say in the face of a loss. Lisa has been trained for what to say, the precise words, how to console people if they came to her looking for help. She has taken courses in grief counseling. She knows that a lot of times, people aren't looking to you to say anything at all, they just want someone to listen.

It would be easy to detach herself and say those words, and it often is. But there are times when she doesn't want to, and there are times when she wants the words to be hers instead of what she's been taught to say.

There is one thing about grieving. Physical touch helps, but you don't want to overwhelm the person. So she reaches out and there's a long-fingered hand resting on Emily's shoulder, just there, light. "It sounds like you did do a lot," she tells Emily. "Having someone present who can make the necessary calls and see that what needs to do gets done...you aren't giving yourself enough credit, Emily. It's difficult to be that person."

Lisa would know. She's been that person often enough, the one who looks at the wreckage after war and lets out a slow breath and then goes about cleaning up, because it has to be done.

"As for the dead...it's hard to watch someone grieve. But at least she's missed."

[Littleton] Emily is not grieving. Were she asked, she would reject that hypothesis. She is not grieving because she has not suffered a personal loss. She is a member of a community that he suffered, and she is a feeling and compassionate person within that community, but she is support for those who are suffering. She is a secondary, or perhaps even tertiary casualty. Far enough removed from the trauma to be expected to shoulder some of the rebuilding, much of the responsibility.

She is not yet one of those people who can survey the war-ravage scene and know where to pick up. She is becoming the person who can mentally page through her list of contacts and allies, and make the right phone calls. It is not enough, yet, to sate Emily's restlessness. It is not enough, but she will someday be more.

At Lisa's touch, Emily looks over to her again. Offers a small smile, faint but genuine.

"I would like to be able to do more," she says. The words are resonant, for they line up with an inner drive (Unrelenting) and the push of her Avatar for her to finally realize her recent growth. It's a need, not a want, however loosely she phrases it.

But this push recants, slightly, long enough for her to acknowledge what the Knight has said about her contributions, her abilities. "And thank you."

It is strange how her childhood and her Awakened life fold in on each other at times. Emily thinks on Cedric, and the Knights to which he belonged, and their driving purpose. She thinks on the conversation she had with Lisa just a week before; on the incidents at the House, on Edom. It's not a conscious thing, paging through discrete memories, as much as it is an acknowledgement of a theme. Something that ties her before-life to her now-life. Something that makes her ever more certain that this path she walks leads back to Home.

It is not easy to be that person, who looks out across the decimation and plots a course toward safety or sanity. Emily would like to be practiced at that, confident in it, to bring a surety and grace to those moments -- because they will keep coming, and there will be people more innocent and inexperienced than she in them from now on. She just doesn't know how to get from here to there.

There is a thoughtful expression on the Apprentice's features as she looks away and takes a sip from her soda.

[Carraway] Lisa hasn't yet sipped from her soda, but she does now. There is one thing she knows: even if grief isn't personal it is still possible to grieve. It is possible to mourn for a loss of innocence, it is possible to see a community wrecked and feel a sense of helplessness for how little you can do. The heart of humanity beats the same, and others' consciousness will touch your own.

There's nothing to be done about that.

"You're welcome," she tells Emily. There's something keen and observant in the older Chorister's eyes while she watches the younger, something that is simultaneously dissecting and understanding, because there's something of a dichotomy in Lisa's nature.

Then she says, "Do you want to learn more? I think it would be an understandable reaction to something like that." It is the reaction she herself had. The war is less over than some think, and for a long time she thought the people she now fights beside were the enemy. She knows where people disappear to. She knows what happens when Traditionalists get too noisy.

Then, "Remember to give yourself some time, too, Emily. This is a lot to adapt to."

[Littleton] Do you want to learn more?

Before Lisa's second question is even voiced, the Apprentice is already nodding. There is no hesitance. No need to think. It is a clear and unequivocal yes.

"I went Seeking in late Spring," she tells the Knight. And this, perhaps, is the first time she makes clear her placement on the march toward Ascension. Emily had Awakened, recently enough, and gone Seeking already. It narrows down the range of possible ability levels neatly. "I've learned a little since then, but not enough."

In her mind, she'd had plenty of time. Time she spent learning Prime, and dabbling in (but not yet acquiring) Mind. She'd not reached beyond sensory spheres yet. She'd been idle long enough (not that others would see her as lax or lazy).

[Carraway] Lisa is not in the least surprised to hear this confirmation: that Emily wants to learn more, she wants to help, she wants to be a strong shoulder and a pillar, it's been underlying all of her words. It just takes someone with the patience and the sort of analytical mind she has to be able to piece it all together.

She likes Emily. It's been clear in their interactions. She feels a sort of kinship with the young woman; they have a lot in common and it hasn't been lost on her.

She says, "You mentioned your mentor being gone?" And then, without waiting for an answer, "I'll be in the city for a while longer. If you want someone to teach you, Emily, I can."

[Littleton] "I would like that." When Emily says this, it has all the fervency of Yes, please and when can we start rolled up in a politer seeming. There's barely a pause, a little moment wherein she draws a quick breath so she can continue. "I'd appreciate it, and your guidance."

The promise of progress, it seems, has lightened her burden somewhat. It's enough to have hope for the future to get the Apprentice to slog on through the madness that is Awakened Chicago. She sits back against the bench a little more fully, exhales. Lets the tension sluice from the corners of her mouth and eyes.

Emily feels a growing kinship with the Knight beside her. Perhaps more precisely, she has respect for who Lisa is, and hopes that she may grow into a similar but different role one day. That there may be a path toward that end is heartening. It is a good beginning, in the wake of all these endings and leavings.

[Carraway] Lisa has never had an apprentice of any kind. Her disciplehood came upon her lying facedown in a pool of her own blood, at a time when the rest of her amalgam was dead. She took that opportunity to pick herself back up, to look at her crumbling ivory tower and let Rufus guide her away. Catherine Russell is missing in action. But if she had stayed, she imagines that eventually she would have been assigned one.

She smiles when she sees that lessening of tension, that happiness with the feeling of progress. She knows it, she's felt it before, and she remembers how good it felt to finally feel like she was getting somewhere after she arrived in Chicago herself two years ago.

"I'm afraid I can't take you on in an official capacity," she says. "I live in Seattle and it wouldn't be fair. But I'll do whatever I can while I'm here." Then she looks at Emily for a moment more. "You want to learn to heal?"

[Littleton] I'm afraid I can't take you on in an official capacity.

Emily nods her understanding to this. It's not the sort of thing one has to have long, elaborate acknowledgements for. Lisa can't, for whatever reason, and Emily accepts this. She accepts it like she did when Declan left, the night before, when someone says a class at the University is full -- it is a statement of fact, not something to argue or worry. A thing to note, and then move forward from.

"Yes," she says, as Life was precisely the sphere she wanted to focus on, again. It was the thing that had driven her most after Awakening, partly because of her liaison with the city's Verbena Disciple, and partly because it seemed so very useful. "Very much so. I studied the fundamental level of that sphere with a Verbena, but he's since left."

There is a lot of leaving in Emily's past. It's not a thing she dwells on, just now.

"I've also worked, briefly, with Israel Cohen." She pauses to see if the name rings any bells. Emily know Israel had been in the city before, at some point, and is recently returned. "To fashion healing droughts. It's something I'd like to learn, but requires more Prime than I know just now."

There is a path there, from a to b to c. Where a is learning to heal, and b is learning to manipulate quintessence, and c is being able to fashion a commodity that benefits her allies, directly. There are more letters, goals, strung out before her like beads. Way-points. But these are the immediate ones that she can quantify, that are within her scope and reach.

[Carraway] Emily talks about learning Life, and learning Prime; she categorizes these things as Spheres. This is not something Lisa has ever done, and it has always seemed vaguely ridiculous to her, the way deviants classify all of these forms of learning, place them in overly simplistic categories. Then again, she supposes, it is no more ridiculous than one claiming to study psychology, or biology: those are broad studies, and they can encompass many things.

Still. They aren't terms she often uses. But she is more accustomed to science, and sometimes she still has difficulty thinking about what she can do as magic.

There's a smirk there that plays about her mouth and eyes as Emily explains to her that her first mentor was a Verbena. "Verbena, huh?" she repeats. "This is going to be interesting, then." It is not a Tradition she could have ever seen herself inducted into.

Israel's name doesn't seem to ring any bells with Lisa. She's a hard woman to notice, and she doesn't really announce her comings and goings. She spoke with the dean for access to the house, but beyond that, beyond Ashton, there's been no one. She'll be a silent presence at the gathering that will take place tomorrow, to send off a soldier she doesn't know, but chances are good that other people won't even notice she's there.

"Prime I could also teach you," she says, "but let's focus on Life first." Categories: they do at least make things easier. "Why don't you tell me how you understand it now."

[Littleton] If the Technocrats had found Emily before the Traditionalists, Emily would have happily made her Magical/Scientific studies there. It's a mindset that comes easily to the Engineer in her. She knows nothing about the Conventions, and where she might have landed, but that they exist. No one has told her more about Enlightened Science, but she's picked up a couple words from Lisa's vocabulary.

She'll use them later, probably to some other Traditionalist's horrible dismay.

Lisa asks her how she conceptualizes Life, and Emily is quiet for awhile. She mulls it over, how to explain it, how she might not seem irrationally simplistic. In the end, she settles on this:

"I've had a few biology classes, so I suppose my understand builds on that. Pretty much all of what I can do, so far, seems to be a reflection of things in the mundane world. When I study something, with that gift or art or sphere, I can see the processes and systems inherent to the plant or animal. The organic machinery and mechanisms that make things grow, evolve, function, senesce. Large systems, like circulation or breathing, and smaller ones, too.

"Jarod used to say that Life wanted this or that. But I see it as a series of systems, or pathways, or functions to observe, study and influence. A body already knows how to heal, it has all the tools it needs. I see healing as encouraging or up-regulating existing systems, leaning on them so they work faster or more efficiently."

[Carraway] Emily says that she sees it as a series of systems, and that makes Lisa smile. It's partially amusement, partially wonder: this young woman, having come to those sorts of teachings on her own, without them being impressed upon her by the Technocracy. Perhaps Lisa shouldn't be so surprised; she, after all, Enlightened into a Technocratic paradigm herself.

"I was a psychology student when I Enlightened," she tells Emily, "and my doctorate is in social psychology. I'm not sure I'd say I see systems, precisely, but my studies factor into my understanding of all of this very heavily." She's mentioned something like this to Emily before. It will be driven home now.

She says, "In taking it to the next level, it isn't just a matter of how you see things, or understanding. You begin to realize - you're a human being, you're life, and your mind ultimately has control over your body's biological processes. Think of studies done in biofeedback. That's your consciousness exerting control over your body, and the point is to tap into that, to push it a little farther, because you are an Enlightened being. The point is to let your purpose drive you and give you the strength to push your body past its limits."

[Littleton] Lisa talks about purpose, biofeedback, and mind over matter. Ashley calls it a Will, and Wharil implied that these things are possible through the intercession of one's Atman. Emily, herself, knows that she can push her awarenesses beyond their original boundaries through directed focus and intent. She views these things as gifts, innate talents, capacities within all people waiting to be recognized, understood and unlocked.

She is a driven and impatient student. Emily likes to apply what she learns, as she learns it, and to find faults with her reasoning or methodology and remedy them as quickly as possible. She is diligent, and it should surprise no one that she sets the bottle down beside her on the bench and lets her fingertips find the pulse point at her wrist.

Until now, she has not had to think about things like witnesses, and the vulgarity of magic. She has not really considered the consensus's opinion on her sixth-sense works. But reaching for her own pattern, as she does now, and trying to smooth away the bruises (not heal them, even, just hasten the fading of the marks she wears) is not coincidental.

[Carraway] Emily is ready to try this right away. Lisa's smile broadens when she sees how readily Emily undertakes this. It's a nice smile, something friendly and kind when it's actually genuine and not practiced: she has dimples and could model toothpaste, it highlights the freckles that spackle her cheeks and nose.

She isn't as impatient as Emily, and would have approached such a thing with more caution, but it hardly troubles her to let Emily do this by trial and error. That's how some people learn, after all, hands on and not by observation, the way Lisa does.

"This isn't just about patterns, remember," Lisa says. "We Enlighten to exemplify humanity, and it's that inner ideal that you're trying to bring forth. You're shaping your body into something more perfect and closer to that human ideal."

[Littleton] At school (work), Emily lives in the lab. She's constantly flitting between her work space and her desk. She sometimes brings her laptop over to the clean bench (No!) just so she doesn't have to slip off the tall stool and walk a dozen paces to the row of small cubes. She posts schematics on her wall, makes notes in careful print, reprints them whenever she needs a clean slate. She's like this with searching, too. Finding things online or in books. She's constantly writing, changing her approach, re-evaluating. She marries an analytical mind to the restlessness she carries, wears them both to the edge of exhaustion at times.

It's a wonder she's stayed in one place this long. One city. One rank. One flat. Even when she is quiet, Emily has trouble keeping still. And even when she is still, she is constantly thinking. An Akashic had once told her not to think; she could have sooner stopped breathing.

The girl rolls a small thoughtful sound across the back of her throat, and focuses inwardly on that ideal: physically hale, mentally whole, spiritually aware. Humanity as a vessel, through which something greater can flow; in which something greater can gestate; from which something greater can be born. She is broken, in some way, on each of these planes, but Emily is not beyond fixing. She is not beyond bettering.

It is not enough to know how, she'd told Lisa the previous week at the Thai restaurant. Emily needs to know why, and the why is that Reverence she carries. Her body needs to be whole, to reach for this ideal, to be bettered, so that she can offer Fellowship (be part of the collective consciousness), so that she can serve in the observance of Faith.

Pro fide, pro utiliate hominum.

(For the faith and in the service of humanity.)

[Carraway] [Life 1: Watchin' you. -1 for practiced rote.]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 5, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 3)

[Carraway] This part of her paradigm, the Belief, is not something that has been a part of Lisa for long. A year and a half, at most: a little less time than the time she has spent as a disciple. A little less time than the time that she has spent as a deviant. Before that, it was just psychology, it was just analyzation.

There's a wholeness and a joy to what she practices now that was never there before, now that she's found that belief, now that she's filled that hole. Now that she's found her place in the world. There's something immensely gratifying to her about being able to guide someone else to that feeling and purpose the way she was once guided.

That man is dead now. He died by Lisa's own hand, overcome by a darkness that was going to catch up with him eventually. Overcome by a birthright he was never going to be able to fight for long. So there's a little sadness, too, because it makes her remember Richard (brother).

Still, she watches Emily, and she tunes herself in to the consciousness around her and Emily's place in it, with the tells from Emily's body, the cracks and where it fits together too. And grins while she watches the apprentice figure it out, because ultimately, this is a world of joy and wonder and casting light into the darkness.

Emily isn't doing anything yet; she can't, just yet. Not experienced enough. But Lisa says, "Once you understand, it's just a matter of pushing. You aren't going to get it the first time. It's just...you take what you know, and then you push it a little farther. Find something that sparks that understanding for you."

[Littleton] One of the first things Emily learned about Life, as a gift, or a sphere, or an Art, is how it lays bare the stories of a body. This is not something she said to Lisa, in her explanation of how, but it's a thing that underlies the Reverence -- which is the stronger note to her resonance when she works this sphere. There are stories writ in and on the bones of her, and they are not kind, not gentle. There are bruises, now, but beneath those are the echo of breaks; scars that will not heal just right again, injustices done. There's blemishes from childhood illnesses most of her peers would never have encountered. These things are occulted by flesh and skin, they're draped over with clothing, they're easily missed, until one looked directly into the heart of things.

A body had its own record keeping. Its own ways of measuring time. As surely as the Knight is watching her Work, she is also privy to these secrets. Life was the first gift that taught Emily about the intimacy of magic. Fitting, perhaps, given her relationship with her first teacher. Life was the first sphere that hit home how much they are indebted to each other, for one another's silences and discretion. That there is a responsibility to knowing, to seeing, to doing what they can do; it is a very human and humane one, too.

The apprentice knows this sphere well; it is among her most practiced. She pushes and prods and reaches and extends and Wills, noting what does and does not seem to have any effect. It is not as easy as opening her eyes to a new thing, wrapping her mind around an ideal or a symbol or a way to perceive the previously imperceptible. There will be an epiphany, maybe not today on this park bench, but soon. Doubtless, she will find the place to push, the right leverage, the right angle, and the world will begin to move for her.

[Carraway] Everyone has their scars, and it is no surprise to Lisa to see that Emily has hers. Places where her body was broken, where she was sick, and the Awakened get more of them than most. That's their lot in life: they have a responsibility to humanity, and they have a duty, and that doesn't make for an easy life. They take joy where they can: in music, in discovery, in intimacy with one another and that connection it brings about.

Ultimately, that's what magic is about for Lisa, that connection. That realization that humanity is in all things, humanity touches everything, consciousness touches everything. That here, this nudging, it benefits everyone because she's helping one more human being realize her potential.

Unlock her innate talents.

"You're getting it," she says, pleased. "If it helps to think of a pulse...I'm a musician. I think of things like that as a pulse. Things that connect people to one another. You can find something that makes you feel the most connected to yourself, if that makes sense, the thing that connects you to life, and then you focus on it."

[Littleton] Lisa mentions a pulse, and Emily, focused Emily, diligent Emily, thoughtful Emily recalls the things that tie people together, in her life. Experience. Emotion. Intimacy. Need. Drive. The similarities between people bind them together. The things they share. She thinks about the things she shares with the world around her, this pulse, the scattered atoms, the energy -- not just the wellspring of faith and constitution, but the very electrical potentials and constancy of the Universe -- they all touch the same air, break down into the same elements (we are all made of star stuff), rely on the same sun, trace back to the same Big Bang.

And she thinks about the Winter evening in an arboreteum, where the air was thicky-heavy with humidity and warmth. She thinks about the person sitting beside her, then, who was not here now. His voice in her ear (I can feel your pulse from across the room. I can tell if you're hurt or healthy or sick. I know if you're scared or angry or aroused. What can you do?).

All the things that bind them together, the memories she has wrapped around this gift, the way she learned it, the feeling of her pulse point throbbing beneath her fingerprints.

Perhaps it is not what Lisa meant for her to focus on, but these are the things that come to mind when she talks about Life - and art - and how life are connected.

She thinks, too, on the times she's been connected to others through fear, or sacrifice, or action. They are no less emotive, no less connected. She does not like the way that connection makes her feel, but it is palpable and real. It is immanent if unpleasant.

But some of those memories (hurts) are too new, still too sharp. They pull away her focus, just slightly, as she can feel it begin this work begin to unravel before it is truly begun. She does not know, yet, if she has made any changes, affected anything at all. But she has tried, and that's closer to progress than she'd gotten on her own.

[Carraway] Lisa did not have anything specific in mind when she suggested a focus to Emily. It was just that: a suggestion, meant to nudge the apprentice and give her an idea she could run with. Which, apparently, she has.

That's the thing about Lisa. She doesn't think that there's one way, one right way, because all of those things Emily is bringing to mind: those are very human things. Those are human connections, human ideas, and that's what's important. And not every human being follows the same path (except that they all do, they all follow One in the end.)

She's just watching Emily through those keen gray eyes, ghost eyes with their pale stare. She can tell that Emily's getting it, that she's almost there, almost. That soon she's going to have a revelation, even if it isn't here on this park bench. Until it fades, until Emily begins to lose it.

She says, "It's okay," because she can tell that it's fading away, and she doesn't want the apprentice to take it too hard. "You're ready for this, Emily, and I think you already know how this should work in the back of your mind. Bringing it forward is just a process." Smirk, there. It wrinkles her nose a little.

"Any connection and any tie to what's higher is good. You'll get it."

[Littleton] Once it starts to unravel, and she's clearly not going to be able to save it, Emily lets the effect go. She lets it fade and fall away. It rises from her like soot from a snuffed candle; the threads of Reverence thin and fade; the Grace lifts. There is no press. No challenge.

It takes a moment for her head to clear, and Emily rolls her shoulders gently, lets the muscles resettle a bit. Her hand finds that half-full bottle, gathers it up with long fingers. She sips from it. Swallows. Lets the furrow of focus fall out of her brow. She's smiling, too, when she looks back to Lisa. There's a warmth and a brightness to her eyes, renew purpose, direction. She wears that challenge well; rises to it; will conquer it soon enough.

That smile broadens into a genuine grin when Lisa smirks. "I've just got to sort out the particulars, but you gave me a good head start," she tells the Knight. Emily doesn't shy away from the process of discovery. It's more likely that she wouldn't sleep until she sorted it out.

"Thanks," she says, but the word is inadequate. There's more she wants to express, but the words elude her.

[Carraway] Emily reaches for her bottle of soda and Lisa reaches for her own, as though suddenly reminded that it's there. She takes a long pull from the bottle, wanting to drink more of the sugary orange stuff before it heats up, before that condensation there on the glass stops cooling it and it becomes as heavy and sticky as the air outside.

"I'm glad I could help," she says. She can see that renewed purpose in the apprentice's eyes, and she knows she cast a light. It's another person striving upward, another crusader to fight back the darkness. She lets her Sight fade when this finishes, and all of those little secrets she saw from Emily are safe; she doesn't often speak on these things. Someone with her history knows the value of secrets, and someone who has had their privacy so repeatedly invaded for the sake of Progress understands its value.

"You'll make a good Knight, eventually," she tells Emily. And it's odd to hear her speak in those archaic terms and she doesn't often do it; she had those romantic dreams, once, but never thought they would become reality. But a person can only deny their true nature so much.

The word is inadequate, but Lisa doesn't mind much. She gets it. She's good at reading between the lines, after all.

[Littleton] Emily glances sidelong at Lisa for a moment. As if she's not completely certain of what she just heard. It's a little tell, a thing the Knight would easily pick up on. Especially as it's followed by a broadening grin, a happiness that is unmistakable.

Emily would make a good Knight, eventually.
This means that Emily would be a Knight, eventually.
Which means that she would find a place within the Chrous to belong, eventually.
She would find her way Home.

It sits well with the Apprentice, this idea. After their conversations, it's not a choice she needs to make so much as an understanding she's reached within herself. Emily would like to be a Knight someday, and Lisa is implying that there may (will) be a path toward that someday.

She takes another sip of her soda. It's nearing the end, now. It's a little flatter, and a little less sweet-sharp on her tongue.

"I'd like that," she says, and then finishes her soda. She twists the cap back on. Emily seems better than when they met; uplifted, whole.

[Carraway] She can see Emily's surprise, and she can see how pleased Emily is. It's funny, how a story repeats itself, different in some ways but so similar at its core: a Knight speaks with a lost girl, someone wanting something but not knowing what, just wanting something higher, and there's something higher to be had. There's connection and joy and the crusade, something to hold onto in spite of the loss and horror that's been so recently visited on the city.

She says, "Keep working on those connections. The more you connect yourself to humanity " - and Lisa means the One, but she paints it in her terms because she is not a Chorister that speaks of the One - "the easier this will get for you. Find what's human in others and draw it out."

And then she, too, finishes her soda and twists the cap back on, and she rises off of the bench and reaches a hand down to help Emily up, mindful of her bruises. And her hand will clasp around Emily's wrist, the way soldiers shake hands, the way crusaders meet each other between battles.

And, more than that, it says Welcome Home.