[Emily Littleton] Fall has been fickle thus far. Oh, there is more rain, and it falls down from the overcast firmament of the sky, and it streaks the soot and grime on the faces of buildings, and that runs like tear-stains, like trailings left by fingertips, like smudges and smears, and it's black and damp and the earth smells waterlogged. There is rain, and sometimes a cool breeze. There is sometimes also a brisk wind, a sharpness to the morning that tastes of Autumn proper. But then there are days, too, like this one. Where it is warm enough to coax the water from the ground, to make the air heavy with humidity, to lend a languid gravity to it all.
There's no sight of rain, just now, but the sky is broken patches of grey and blue. It's stormy without commitment. The ground is patches of dark-damp where puddles linger, growing ever smaller. When the sun breaks through the clouds it is piercingly bright; when it hides, the air seems cooler.
Emily sits on a park bench with her messenger bag at her side. She has her legs pulled up, so that her feet do not hang down, so that her lap forms a place to lay a book rife with arcane sigils, numbers, equalities and strange equations: advanced Calculus. She is separate from campus, in a place she does not expect to be disturbed. There is nothing outward about her that marks her as Other, save the sense of Unrelenting Reverence that has grown throughout the year.
The park is busy enough, but not crowded. It is a reasonably normal lunch hour.
[Terence Wilson] There's the hum of breath against lips, a tune as unrelenting as that thing about to smack the man while he walks through. He's well dressed, business runway from only months ago. Donna Karan, red on black. It gives a certain appearance the way he wears it like second skin, doesn't even notice most of the others in the park are in light rain gear or running through in sweats.
Then the image shatters as his head cocks upward just a tick higher than he already holds it and waves out down the path. "Oi!" He yells excitedly in the direction he was already walking, some 30 yards up. "Emily!" It's a scots accent, one of low class and common breeding. There's nothing in his smile that says anything beyond-
'oh. hello. good attempt on studying but that's not going to happen.'
He doesn't rush in closing the distance, but his direction turns in such a precise manner that it closes quickly. [Too quickly? Was he that close before?] "What's happenin', then?"
[Molly Quincannon] Molly is not exactly a person given to the great outdoors, but she's been making an effort to be more out and about lately. Cabal remit and all. Plus she's been trying to get more fit lately, so she's trying jogging on top of the other activities. So it's Chucks, track pants and a green T-shirt that reads "Think Globally. Act Within Local Variable Scope", and jogging in Grant Park.
Ever seen anyone try to jog wearing a laptop bag? It's vaguely amusing, so long as you're not the one doing it.
Sweaty, out of breath, bruised of hip where her laptop's been banging against it for the last twenty minutes and generally speaking in need of a break, Molly spots Emily and Terence and bounces to a panting, huffing stop. "Hi ... Emily. Hi ... Terence. How's ... things?"
[Emily Littleton] [Awareness: Mages in parks, man. Mages in parks. I have learned my lesson from the last year...]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 9, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] Some people study with iPod buds buried deep in their ears, blocking out the sounds of the outside world. Some study with music playing from their laptops. Some study in silent spaces. Emily wasn't really ever that overmuch concerned with the aural space around her. She liked to be outside. The summer had left a light bronzing to her pale skin tone, like a toasted marshmallow, a thing that helped disguise the fatigue and weary that had set in sometime around the end of July. It was burning off, now, that ever-present exhaustion. She had too many things to juggle to add not sleeping to that queue.
She was also inherently mistrustful of the fellow park-goers. So there is no aural shield between her and Lord Bedlam's call. Emily's head picks up, and she glances around, blinking a couple times as her eyes shift focus between small-printed type and the broadness of he world around her. One hand rakes through her curls, pulls them over one shoulder. The other slips a thin metal bookmark into the pages of her textbook, which is then folded shut.
The Singer girl is more Aware than she had once been. She can feel them converge from all walks of the park. Terence, to whom she waves and tosses and warm grin. Always warm enough, always this side of the divide between polite and gregarious. And Molly, who jogs up all laptops-go-running. She gets a smile, too. Again, just this side of gregarious. Emily is nothing if not reserved.
"Things are, well. Things are things," she says, with a little undercurrent of wordplay and mirth. It comes easily, the light shrug off of the question. She's been hanging about with Thomas, and the Cockney's flirtatious puns and cadence haven't completely left her system. "Good, all things considered. Yourselves?"
The question is turned about as she slides her book into the center of her lap, covers it with her arms. It's some sort of cumbersome physics text. She doesn't stand to greet them. The out-of-doors has different social structures, perhaps, for the displaced Brit.
[Nico Brady] When the entirety of one's experience within a city has exposed one to the denizens who haven't got access to anything but the worst it has to offer, one learns where and how to purchase certain amenities that aren't exactly legal. It's a sad but true fact that the best way to learn how to procure drugs is from hanging around people who have made a valiant effort to kick whatever habit has landed them in places where people like Nico Brady work: that is, halfway houses for the alcohol and substance addicted, the scum of the earth, the forgotten, the dried-out and wretched. They talk about places they used to score, places they used to shoot up, places they used to get drunk and get into fights as though they are discussing honeymoons, cruises, vacations in Europe. These back alleys and doorways, these stairwells and public places, hold memories of escape and connection that they have to try very, very hard to recapture now that they're out in the real world.
Nico is a very good listener, even when it would be in his best interests to do the exact opposite of listen. He hasn't been in the city since the summer started, but now that autumn is rearing its multicolored skull and preparing to loose a blood-freezing breath on the city below, he's very pleasantly surprised to find out that some things haven't changed.
Namely: there is still a guy who works at the hot dog stand in Grant Park who will sell you an eighth for forty dollars. Unless one is deeply ingrained in the drug culture of the city it's impossible to know whether that's even worth the effort getting off the couch and into the car and driving north in lunch-hour traffic. One look at the guy who walks through the park today answers that question. In short: no.
In long: noooooooooooooooooooo.
He hasn't been around since June at the latest. The last person to have seen him alive is a Consor whose connection to the people in this city is involuntary and sporadic, normally done against his will. His number is one of the last ones to have gone to his voicemail before the inbox filled to the brim with unreturned calls. To the probable relief of all involved, he did not go completely mad like the last Orphan to have gone missing in this city. He didn't exactly go missing in the strictest sense of the word. Someone knew where he was.
Someone also hasn't been keeping a very close eye on him. Nico, to the one person in the vicinity who would recognize him, looks absolutely fucking awful. If the first thought that crosses anyone's mind is that this guy looks like he's been locked up in someone's basement for the last week, that would not be at all far off the mark. He's dressed not for work, not as though he's going to be conducting therapy today, but as though the greatest thing in the world would be to stay on the couch in a haze of smoke.
[Awareness for me! Awareness for you! Let's call it... uh... muhfuggin' minus two!]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 6, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)
[Nico Brady] [Yeah, that's right, he's been chained up in a basement for Jacqui knows how long and he STILL kicks ass at Awareness rolls. WATCH YOUR SUBTERFUGE POOL LITTLETON.]
[Terence Wilson] [ME TOO]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 3, 3, 5, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Molly Quincannon] [[Ooh, good thought.]]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 6, 6, 6 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Terence Wilson] There had been Emily. And then two, now three. One cannot seem to live in this city and see it with truly awakened eyes without company it seems. It's simply impossible.
The man with many names sits in next to that silent prayer made flesh [uninvited, interloping] and gives a glance toward the textbook before looking up toward the other, an Ecstatic with a laptop coming to a halt against her side from it's bruising percussion against her body. "Mad, mad Molly. To what do we owe the pleasure?" He's not offering his hand or even a smile, just that quizzical stare, head cocked slightly to the side.
Then there's another, a fourth. They all seem to feel it at once but for all it's gallantry the man who it looks like perhaps that resonance might come from is unfazed, merely continues looking toward that Mad Maudlin without even a blink. "Emily was just discussing her undying love for me. I was letting her down gently and all that."
[Emily Littleton] [Alertness]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Molly Quincannon] Molly gives Emily an amused look at the wordplay. "Things ... are things. Yes. How ... astute of you ... to notice." She drops onto the grass next to Emily's bench -- *thump* -- and then stretches out, getting her breath back. "I am good," she says once she's recumbent. "I am ... trying this 'fitness' thing ... I keep hearing about. I think ... I like my dance sims better."
Terence gets a look. It's amused, but it's also a little eyebrow-raised. There are exactly two people she's told about her alternative online sobriquet (mostly she goes by SisterQ, unless she's doing something ... extreme) and no one in this park fits on that list. Though one of them used to date one. Then again, she is a little mad. We're all mad here. So she lets it go, chuckles a little breathlessly at the comment about Emily's undying love (she so knows better, even if she hasn't seen Owen in a dog's age) and addresses the question. "Fickle fortune or ... my total lack of stamina. Take your pick. And I'm sure ... you were a perfect paragon of gentleness ... for which I salute you."
The new guy (maybe new) gets a quizzical look, and then Molly turns to Emily. Emily's been here longer than Terence and Molly combined; she'd know if this newcomer is an utterly unknown quantity or whether he's just someone who Molly hasn't met yet. She doesn't ask; just watches to see if Mr Distressed-Looking and Flashy-Feeling gets her attention.
[Emily Littleton] This thing has happened before, in this Park. The ping of a familiar but lost resonance, and hte Flashy note that grabs at her attention is less poignant than the forgotten kiss of Winter. Emily's brow furrows, she pushes herself to standing somewhat brusquely.
Emily was just discussing her undying love for me.
This earns a darkly amused grin, a twist of her lips, a pause in the distraction to which she returns with a quickly muttered, "Will you two excuse me..."
Before she's heading for that miasma-wreathed wunderkind, messenger bag strap slung over one shoulder and heavy text carried low in one arm. There's no explanation offered. Nothing more than that excuse me and stepping off.
From another angle, though...
By the time she's reached Nico, Emily's got a decent read on how he's carrying himself. They didn't know each other well, no, but they knew each other well enough. By now she's slipped the strap of her messenger bag over her head. She carries the book against one hip.
"Nico?" There's a note of concern in her voice, a thing Emily doesn't bother to pull back. But if he looks her way, she'll smile. And it will be more than just passingly warm. "Hey, it's good to see you."
There's more to it though. Questions she's polite enough to not open with. Buttons she's not ready to push just yet.
[Nico Brady] The young man with the mop of curls and the exhausted eyes has a resonance that doesn't match up with his physical appearance. He's not dressed with the intent to impress anyone; catching the attention of complete strangers or people who he had known a seemingly long time ago was not on his list of things to accomplish today. Without knowing he was going to run into former comrades, people who he'd fought beside and tried to protect, Nico hadn't put on his game face. His t-shirt is gray and advertising the University of Illinois at Champagne-Urbana. His jeans are faded, not much darker than his t-shirt, ripped in places, hanging off of him. A lanyard dangles from his pocket. Shower shoes take the place of more sensible footwear, the reasoning being if he has to run he isn't going to get very far anyway before he is tackled or shot down or has some other godawful fate befall him.
This is Chicago. Chicago eats people like them.
Anyway: Nico Brady is not flashy, or at least if he is on a regular basis he just doesn't happen to be right now. There is something about him that makes people want to pay attention to him, but it isn't his demeanor or his looks. There's nothing wrong with his looks, per say, but he looks sick or tired or both. He carries the look of a man who is so exhausted he can barely keep his eyes open, yet his situational awareness has not been completely abandoned in favor of oblivion. When he traipses through the park with a singular purpose in mind, he does not shut himself off from everything else; the world filters into his thoughts, and he can sense those beings whose influence on the Tapestry is just as strong as his is.
Reverence floods him. He never feels that except for when he's in the presence of a certain young woman who is a certain best friend's uncertain apprentice. The Orphan looks around, stopping his forward momentum to get his bearings. Unrelenting reverence isn't the only sensation that tugs at his brain: but it's the one he focuses on. Nico stands up straighter and gives Emily a smile, taking a page from her book and trying his damnedest to seem Okay. He doesn't have to try to seem happy to see her. He has to try to seem like his first reaction to seeing her isn't to crush her in an embrace.
[Subterfuge. -2. Laugh and die.]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] [Aware as Empathy: Stop laughing, Dice Roller.]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 3, 9, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Molly Quincannon] Emily excuses herself, and that ... really answers her question, even as it brings up a whole lot of other ones. Molly shoots Terence a look, then hauls herself back to her feet and follows Emily, a short distance behind - enough to give at least an illusion of privacy but not enough to miss anything. While she watches and waits and tries to take in some of what's going on, she pulls a bottle of Mountain Dew out of her laptop bag and takes a swig of it, eyes full of questions. The main one, of course, being, Eff-eff-ess, did no single person manage to get out of this summer without some kind of physical and psychological trauma?
Chicago eats people like them; indeed it does.
[Emily Littleton] The majority of Chicago's mages do not know Emily to be a characteristically warm woman. She has her moments, true, but she's more likely to yell at someone on a Chinatown street corner than spontaneously embrace a long-lost anything. Her reunion with the resident Verbena was almost painstakingly polite, with the barest whispers of warmth. Nico, perhaps, through his friendship with a certain someone, may have heard tell of Emily's warmer side.
Molly, watching from her vantage point of over yonder, might be taken by surprise.
It takes a moment, but only long enough for her to shift her book to the side enough to loop her free arm around him and hug the Orphan soundly. She's already picked up that he's hurting, so there's no crush, but there's a surety there. Someone in this damned city was happy to see him back, worried about the state he'd turned up in. She holds on for more than a moment, too. It's no passing thing or half-offered affection.
"When did you get back?" she asks, easily, as she let him go. But her hand skims his arm as they part. That little touch lingers like a reassurance. "Do you still have your apartment in Cabrini, or do you need a place to stay?"
It's an offer. It's more than it immediately sounds like. Nico's free to take her up on it, even if he does still have his apartment. Even if he is purchasing illicit substances with the express intent to forget or sublimate.
[Terence Wilson] All he'd have had to do is ask the man with two grams of hash in a silver cigarette case in his inside pocket. But then again, outside of the resonances they don't really know one another do they? However an assumption is confirmed false and now Terence is assured that he's not the only male willworker in all Chicago.
He hadn't yet believed it despite what the blind one might tell him.
"Well then. That's settled." It's quiet almost to the point of being 'to himself'. He stands then all tall and angular and stuffs hands into pockets gently. There's a tip of two fingers in Emily's direction and a short wave to the closer Molly.
And then a few steps later he's gone. Out of sight, away from mind leaving only a trailing rebellion eating it's own tail in his wake.
[Nico Brady] Nico is not a large man, particularly not when measured against some of the other men making up Chicago's Awakened contingency. He isn't short by anyone's standards, but he doesn't have classically masculine facial features or a musculature that lends itself to feats of strength or an impression of Herculean capabilities. His bone structure isn't delicate by any stretch of the imagination, but when he's tired, when he has been under significant strain, he manages to appear smaller; and Emily Littleton is not a short woman, either. When she reaches out an arm, reading some need for contact or assurance in the way he looks at her, the way he can't even bring himself to respond to her greeting with words, Nico grabs onto her heedless of the other Orphan only having one arm free. Without sight for a moment, their personal space colliding, she can still read the strain of his summer in the lack of bulk to his build, the chill in his hands as he hugs her.
He smells like tobacco smoke, like cheap motel shampoo. The sharp fruit tinge of excess ketones in his blood announces itself when he exhales, and the sound of his eyes closing is like a gavel slamming out a verdict. This summer has been violent and without care for the well-being of the will workers inhabiting this city. His heart races like a trapped rabbit's. They part, eventually, and he's vaguely aware of the presence of another behind them, watching, not approaching. Nico toys with the lanyard sticking out of his pocket when they step back from each other, and he tries to smile again.
It's more effort than he's able to exert for very long. If he's miserable, it doesn't cut to his spirit. It's a physical exhaustion, a bodily injury that will fade with time. Whatever happened out of sight, out of state, isn't going to bury him. That's all she can tell from looking at him when they step back. That's more than she could tell when she looked at him a moment ago. A hug won't fix him, but it helps divert his path towards that shady hot dog stand.
When did he get back?
"Last night," he says. The hairs on his arms spring upright as Emily's fingers light down his flesh. "I, ah..." Nico snorts. "You know, I should probably find out what management's policy on three months' skipped rent is. I spent the night in the world's classiest Motel Six."
[Molly Quincannon] Molly doesn't know specifics, but she knows Cabrini-Green and she knows a little bit about skipped rent and the results (not, thankfully, from first-hand experience). Still, she's not going to butt in on this one until introductions are made; this whole situation has pathos and that's not the kind of thing that she'll barge into, near-suicidal overconfidence notwithstanding. Besides, she's learning things just fine from where she is. She can offer help when there's less of a need for one-on-one between old friends.
The hug Emily gave this Nico individual both surprises Molly and doesn't. She's seen Emily with Chuck, after all, and she doesn't know everything about Emily's friends and how she connects with them, however much she wants to. There's just a blink and then a shrug; Huh. You learn something new every day.
[Emily Littleton] It's not so much that Molly's been forgotten, as it is that Nico's precipitous re-emergence in Chicago's mage scene brought with it a slew of questions and worries. She'd had a conversation with someone about leaving to find Nico, once, and it was just before an apartment key was pressed into her hand, before another set of Goodbyes. And that muddies things up, a little bit, but it doesn't no detract from this reunion just now.
And there are no introductions made, just yet. Emily is peripherally aware that Molly is snooping -- that's the word she would use, too, rather than a gentler lingering -- about the margins of what's happening between her and Nico. Emily, for once, doesn't care.
"Motel Six?" Her nose wrinkles in characteristic disapproval. It's not feigned, or exaggerated to make him smile. "Oh, oh no," she says, shaking her head a little. "I've a new flat, with real furniture this time -- you'll be so surprised." Okay, maybe that's a bit of a ploy to make his smile come back, resurface even faintly.
"You can stay with me until you sort the Cabrini thing out."
She doesn't say that it's closer to their mutual friend's flat, should he choose to resurface as well. She doesn't have to say she's worried after him, or she knows how looking like he does feels. Or that she's been there. But her hand finds his arm again, another small touch that lingers long enough to be felt and then backs away before it's overmuch.
"It's no Motel Six," aha, smirk, slight eyeroll, "But I like to think my cooking's better than the vending machine's."
[Nico Brady] "I'd venture to say your cooking isn't secretly trying to send my blood glucose skyrocketing."
It's a weak attempt at a joke, but it's an attempt nonetheless. The smile that accompanies it is lopsided but not half-hearted; he isn't returning the touches that Emily places on his arm, but the brief moments of connection, the proof that they don't exist in a vacuum, are enough to keep him rooted in the present, to keep his thoughts from drifting back to wherever it is he was before his unannounced departure. He reaches up to brush hair off his forehead, which is vaguely sweaty even in the unimpressive heat Chicago boasts in autumn. There's a brief glance over at the woman hovering, a woman he's never seen before. She's given a likewise brief yet inexplicably apologetic smile, and then Nico turns back to Emily.
"Thanks, Emily. Really." A pause, a grappling for the next handhold in the conversation. "My number hasn't changed. Text me your address? I'll, uh... I'll go grab my stuff and check out. It sounds like we've got some catching up to do."
The Orphan, who has kept his hands to himself this entire time, reaches out to grip her slim shoulder in one cadaverously cold hand. It's a brief touch, as though he's very much aware of how his touch has to feel to healthy flesh, and then he starts off down the path again... away from the hot dog stand.
[Molly Quincannon] Molly returns the smile and adds a wave - she, like Emily, knows how looking like he does feels. She certainly doesn't press for introductions. There'll be another time. There always is, with Chicago magi.
Then it's Molly and Emily, with no pathos to keep the frantic Cultist at bay, and of course she has questions, but she doesn't ask them. Instead, she says, "They'll have dumped his stuff in a storage locker for another couple of months while credit control people try to get hold of him. I can probably get that ... um, handled, and track down his belongings, if that helps." Emily knows Molly was listening, and thus far doesn't seem to mind, but that doesn't give Molly free licence to ask a thousand questions. All she can do is underline her desire to help. Then, a bit sheepish, she adds, "A last name might help, though."
[Nico Brady] [Thanks again, ladies!]
[Emily Littleton] [Favorite Dice Pool.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6)
[Emily Littleton] Nico's weak attempt at a joke pulls the furrow in Emily's brow a little deeper for a moment, but then she exhales that tension away when he accepts her offer.
"Yeah. Sure thing, lovely," Emily says, and the pet name comes easily. It's a simple slip. The sort of thing that happens when she's worried, or when she's overly comfortable with a person. Molly and Nico were left to best judge which of those terms applied here. She watched his departure for a moment before the quiet, intent concern slips and she lets her shoulders round a little.
Then Molly's chatting and Emily's turning all polite-smile and trying not to let slip any of the other things on her mind. Emily does well by that, as a general rule. Today she is all but inscrutable. She hefts the book a little, shifts her stance to something conversational and non-confrontational and shrugs a bit.
"You know, Molly," Emily says, with a very patient tone underlying her words. "I'm not sure what he wants in the way of help, just now. How about I'll let you know if we need help tracking down his things, or his credit reports -- after he's had a chance to clean up, chat with his Super, that sort of stuff." Sometimes there was a very simple, mundane solution to a lot of these problems. Sometimes all you had to do was show up in person, ask the right questions and smile politely.
Emily likes to try the path of least resistance before she hacks into anyone databases or fudges records. It's a personal thing. Social hacking is a little less frowned upon. Talking to Nico's Super, too, is easier than the Cultist might think. Considering it's also Chuck's Super, and Riley's dad's Super, and not someone Emily quite wants to piss off just yet.
There's been a little pause here, and no, Emily hasn't offered up Nico's last name.
"How's the running thing working out for you?" she asks, instead. "It's a bit easier without the baggage, you know." A little glance to what has to be a laptop bag hanging over her shoulder.
[Molly Quincannon] Emily wants to go back to being inscrutable, and playing hands-off, and dealing with matters mundanely. Which is fine by Molly; so long as people know that the offer's there, that's the main thing. "Okay. Just so you know the help's there if needed." No, she's not offended, though the patient tone gets a bit of a wry smile - apparently, people seemed to think that she had no concept at all of boundaries, instead of just choosing to ignore them from time to time. She wouldn't with a friend, though ... or even a friend of a friend. Not without permission. Then, with a frown of concern and a look back at the direction in which Nico wandered, she adds, "Glad he's got you to talk to, though. Looks like he could use it. This summer has been kicking everybody's tuckus, looks like."
Then the question about the running - Emily wants to change the subject. Fair enough. Though the mention of being without the baggage gets a scandalised look - mostly teasing - and a hand placed protectively over the laptop bag. "You mean go out without my security blanket! Heaven forfend! What if I needed it for something? What if it got lonely?" Then she grins and adds, "Eh, the running is ... running. I'm sure it's great exercise, and fun in someone's world, but I think I might have to pick a specific destination rather than just randomly jogging around a park. I prefer my exercise with some kind of purpose, I guess."
Then, another outlet for her curiosity. "So what brings you out here? With laptop? And no workout-wear?"
[Emily Littleton] Molly glances after Nico. Emily's gaze doesn't follow. Instead she purses her lips a little, glances down at the pavement and the lightly strewn leaf litter that peppers it.
"Mmm, you know what would be great, though?" She has found that Molly's brand of helpfulness is best when benignly harnessed, and not left to flap freely in the self-determined wind. "Could you mention to Chuck when you see him that Nico's back?" A smile. Emily often nods toward the Cultist's relationship with the Vdept. She expects Molly to see him more often, to be more aware of his whereabouts.
Molly is the girlfriend. Emily's the friend. She knows her place.
"I'm pretty sure you could cover most of your computing-whilst-running needs with a 'Berry," she posits, trying genuinely to be helpful. "Though texting while running is the leading cause of colliding with mailboxes. Friends don't let friends text-and-run."
Deadpan. Breaking to a small smile.
She hefts the book again, in a partial answer to Molly's question. "Studying. There's only so much time left while it's nice out, I figure I should take advantage of it. That, and most of my students from section won't brave the day star to ask questions they could look up in the book." Ah, yes. That's the manipulative Emily we all know. However innocently she's smiling just now. "It will be Winter before we know it," she says, somewhat sadly.
[Molly Quincannon] "Sure! No problem." Yes, Molly knows that Emily and Chuck are friends, and that Emily could just text Chuck with that two-word message, but hers is not to question why. Well, it kind of is, being a part of how she lives and operates, but there are any number of reasons that Emily might ask such a thing and Molly discounts none of those reasons. It gets Molly a new venue for her questions and it means that Emily probably doesn't mind Chuck hearing what state Nico was in, which can't be got across in a text easily anyway. It's all good.
Mention of a 'Berry gets a laugh and a roll of the eyes. "Oh, great Google, you and Chuck, both with the 'Berry thing. I never liked those things. I like my iPhone, and even that doesn't feel like enough most times. Sometimes I need a computer for more than just a quick check of Google maps or something, y'know?" Then she shrugs, smiling. "But I'll take it into consideration. Maybe I'll invest in a backpack," she adds, rubbing her hip where she's bruised it. "As to colliding with mailboxes ... your concern is noted, and I am touched." Teasing grin to the small smile, and even a tiny bow.
The touch of sadness at Winter coming soon isn't matched in Molly; in fact, the look at the leaf-litter on the pavement is almost fond. "Ah, that makes sense. Poor students in your section do not know what they're missing. The day-star's not so bad. Hey, you'd know better than me; what're the winters like here? I mean, most of mine have been spent in the South or the West, and it's been a long while since I dealt with a New York winter. It'd be nice to have some concept of what I'm in for."
[Emily Littleton] "Well it doesn't have to be a 'Berry. I've no allegiance, per se. Any smartphone now has more computing power than the first space launches -- it's hard to feel like I need that much more if I'm out running errands and they've walked on the moon with less." Emily's gently ribbing. There's no teeth to it.
Molly casts a fond look at the leaf litter and it brings something of a less shaded warmth forward in Emily. "Well, they're cold. A good coat helps. And it'll up and dump buckets of snow without warning. Just kind of grey, and cold, and wet-damp for months. And months."
There's no complaint in Emily's voice. She quite likes the seasons. She quite likes the Winter, even, for all its bleary whiteness.
"I wish Autumn lasted a little longer, but what can you do?" A good-natured shrug. "New Years last I visited my parents in Taipei -- that's a pretty sharp contrast to here. Hot and muggy, and right back into snow as soon as I touched down in O'Hare."
[Molly Quincannon] Gently ribbing, and all Molly can do is laugh. "Ah, the simple life. I suppose it's one of those first-world problems, hmm? Still, being without my laptops kind of feels like one of my limbs is missing, so yes, I know, I'm a sad old geek. It's part of what makes me loveable. And slightly crazy. Or maybe it's just a symptom of the crazy."
Then from looking at leaf-litter, she looks up at the sky. "Ah, man, snow. I remember the first time I really saw snow. Y'know, not that 'chicken feathers with pretentions' stuff you see on movies and TV. I bet it's different growing up with it than it is seeing it for the first time at, like, age eighteen. I made snow angels and a snowman and got really funny looks from the passersby and ended up with walking pneumonia. Totally worth it. But thanks for the tips. Kind of grey and wet-damp I can deal with - it's just the cold part I'm not so sure about. Now I just need to find a decent winter coat. I think I have boots covered. Though ... platforms maybe don't mix so well with icy sidewalks?"
Then, again so curious, "What are your parents doing in Taipei? And besides visiting parents, what did you do in Taipei? I know squat about Taipei but it sounds exotic."
[Emily Littleton] On Taipei -- it seems she wishes to answer in reverse this go around -- Emily says, with a very bored expression. "Oh, my father's with the foreign service. He'd been in Taiwan for a bit and they asked me to come for some holiday thing at the Embassy."
"It's nice enough. Muggy. Very crowded. Extremely so, and people drive like madmen. Even the bicyclists!" There's a little pause, and then a quirk of her mouth turned the next sentence toward something wickedly wry. "I did see a friend of mine there, so to speak. He's a little... larger than life... in parts of East Asia."
If Molly only knew that Emily meant Jarod, on a billboard, she might quirk her mouth in similar amusement. Or, perhaps, it would only add to the curiosity the Cultist no doubt would have about Catman whenever they met.
"The Good Will stores start to have a bunch of cast off coats just about now. Most of them are only a little worn. You can pick up something for cheap, but it'll be warm enough to last you the Winter," Emily suggests. She's familiar with most of the second-hand stores in her area of Chicago, and even more of the ones near campus.
"After a week of so, you won't notice it, though. Just keep dry. Wet makes it all worse. If you can stay dry, you'll have no problem keeping warm."
[Molly Quincannon] Molly had remembered that Emily's father was with the foreign service, so the first sentence gets a nod; the slightly widened eyes of 'ah, that answers that' comes at the comment about holiday things at an Embassy. "Cool. Holidays at Embassies ... are they as ... formal-stuffy as those Ferrero Rocher ads on TV suggest? And wow; I thought New York had the monopoly on lunatic drivers. Though I hear there's a list of cities ranked by worst drivers. Man, what a world we live in where that's a benchmark. Also, you do know that things like 'so to speak' and 'significant-pause-larger-than-life-significant-pause' raise some very interesting possibilities for what you're not saying." More gentle ribbing, of course; obviously Molly doesn't think that Emily's done anything untoward, but it's a way of acknowledging the curiosity without actually outright asking the questions. "Either you know some very larger-than-life people - which I guess goes without saying - or you're just being cagey to torment me. Or both. I know that teasing me is fun."
Mention of the second-hand stores gets a softer sort of smile, though. "Thanks for the advice; I'll have to look into that." She's not generally a thrift store shopper, but she's not about to say that to Emily when she's offering help. "I don't mind a bit of cold, though. It's ... brisk. Invigorating. An excuse to snuggle up under the covers with a cup of coffee and a good book."
Through some odd cross-connection of firing neurons, Molly finds another topic. "Oh! I got a hold of Isabel, by the way. I've been ... tutoring, sort of. She's doing really well, actually. Really quick on the uptake when it's laid out right. And ... she's probably going to supply you with a sparkly orange-and-black invitation to a party at my place in the near future. She's as gung-ho as I am about some things, and when she heard I was thinking about a Halloween party, she ran rampant on the planning."
[Emily Littleton] "Ah, well, cliches and stereotypes come from somewhere, right?" is all the answer Emily will give to what Embassy holidays are like. She doesn't particularly want those two pieces of her life to collide in a meaningful fashion. The fewer Awakened she sees in those settings, the better.
"Let's say a mutual acquaintance of ours has quite the career overseas. I'm sure a little snooping of print adverts could turn up something interesting." Oh, yes, she's feeding Molly just enough info for her to guess at it, without truly causing trouble for her friend (ahem). Though he did tell her, once, that part of the fun of knowing him was bragging to her friends -- a sport Emily had never engaged in.
There's a broader smile, leaning towards gratitude over warmth, when Isabel's name comes up, though it faulters faintly at the mention of sparkly anything.
"I'm glad, truly. For awhile I don't think much of anything was getting through to her, though I suppose, that's as much the medium as the message, yes?" It could be a compliment, if Molly looked at that just right. "Ah, I'm not really much the party type, but I can drop by for a bit if it's important to you both."
There's an anymore hiding after the assertion that she's not a party type. Isabel would likely counter that immediately with some story Emily'd rather not get out for public consumption. This is a thing she thinks of a moment too late, and then lets go. What's done is done, and what little tidbits are loosed to Molly's voracious appetite for more and more information are lost threads. A thing loosed to ride whatever winds come. She's no control over it now, Emily knows this.
[Molly Quincannon] The mention of 'mutual acquaintance' and 'quite the career overseas' gets Molly's eyes lighting up. Mental note: people Emily and I both know, South-East Asia, print checking. She has her guesses, if it's print media, but confirmation is always a good thing. "A little browsing of that kind of thing is always interesting," is all she says, though it's quite clear that yes, that's going to be followed up on, and there's a kind of gratitude in the look; it's always nice to have a benign sort of project to look into.
Isabel ... Molly nods, understanding. If she's taking the comment as a compliment, that's mostly eclipsed by a sort of seriousness. "She was scared. Overwhelmed. She ran into some stuff and from what I got from her, that kind of not-so-benign stuff was all she saw. So I intersperse the very necessary warnings with a bit of the wonder, and she seems to be taking it really well. It helps that now she can speed-read if she wants to, as well as keep anyone from getting ... invasive." She taps her temple with her finger to illustrate what she means. Then she grins. "We're also working on the ways her talents can be useful at poker. Knowing she can do that stuff eases the pain of Hoban-Washburn-definition-of-'interesting' getting flung at her head by the double handful."
The mention of not-a-party-person gets understanding but minor consternation. "Hey, I'm not going to force the issue. Parties are for fun and if you don't find parties fun, why go? Just Isabel was hoping for something that the whole community could get into; she asked if we had, like, a Quidditch team or something we all did together. So when the party thing got mentioned, she just decided to make it a community thing. Or at least an 'everyone in my virtual Rolodex' thing. I guess she also figured I'd want a big deal of--" She stops. Bites her lower lip. Actually blushes. Then says, "--Well, Halloween's not just kids knocking on my door demanding candy for me." Then, a thought occurs and she cringes. "Ooooh I'm goign to have to deactivate the charge on my front door that day..."
[Emily Littleton] "Yeah. It's all sort of a mixed bag at first. I got a nice leading edge of wonder before the oh shit, oh shit we're all going to die set in. Unfortunately that's not really lifted, much, since last Winter." She transfers her text book to the other arm, now. Molly can see it's a graduate level text in Physics.
(Which is not Psychics, however often Emily's player typos it such.)
"Deactivate the..." She puzzles over that a little, and then just nods. "Oookay. I usually volunteer on holidays; takes the sting out of being away from almost everyone I know well." Which must sound odd to Molly, given how well connected the other Emissary seems to be in this city. "But maybe I can make some jack-o-lantern cookies and people can frost them with silly faces, or something."
"If it goes over well, you could have a gingerbread building party for Christmas. Just, you know, submit the crazy Henri blueprints a couple weeks in advance so I can engineer wall thicknesses and stuff."
It seemed to Emily like the sort of thing the Etherite might enjoy. Or smash in a tantrum. Or both.
[Molly Quincannon] "Oh yeah. Been there." Molly was, of course, an apprentice once. "Anyway, all that to say that Isabel's doing well enough for now, and there's no end of places to refer her when she's a little more secure with what she's already got. And maybe if she's less scared of it - and us - she'll learn more and have more of us around her next time we have Cloudy With a Chance of Doom." Rueful sort of smile. Yes, she knows how often that particular weather pattern comes up.
Then, the door. "You can ask, you know. Home security. I ... kind of reinforced my front door with sheet steel and am pumping a low-level charge through it. But probably not a great idea for when there's a bunch of kids out who might not be able to reach the doorbell. So! Anyway. Volunteering sounds awesome, though hopefully you make time for the ... other people you know ... reasonably well." Slight, trying-to-be-understanding smile. "And jack-o-lantern cookies sound awesome. Thanks! I might take you up on that!"
Gingerbread houses get a smile. Mention of Henri gets another wince. "Yeah, Henri doesn't ... blueprint, exactly. Last design specs I saw from her were Sharpie-on-pizza-box. And ... because I admit that I'm not sure how she'd take this question, I should probably ask from someone who's known her longer than I have: besides Wharil and Ashley, is there anyone else that I might invite to a party that would get her making that ... face? And that noise? And hopping up and down like an angry Mexican jumping bean?"
[Emily Littleton] "Oh. Yeah. There's me."
Emily's smile shifts a bit and the she shrugs. "There was a problem a while back with a spill near campus, possible Crat involvement. Henri kept a bit of it as a pet; Wharil didn't like it; I got sent to talk to her about it." Emily shook her head a little. "It went predictably well. I like Henri, and all, but sometimes it terrifies me to think what she might be up to, you know?"
[Molly Quincannon] "...Good to know. And yeah, I heard about the ... pet. Solomon threw that one in her face at the house because of some ... debate over what she wanted to do for house security." Short form, of course, for there is more to this than I am saying in the middle of a public park but do ask later, from one source or another. "And yeah, sometimes she worries me a bit too. Not so much with what she's up to, exactly. More how she thinks. Her ... sometimes very selective view of reality. But I trust that Atlas is keeping an eye on her, and that's what the crew's for, at least in part. I figure ... maybe some real-world exposure will do her some good. I think she spends way too much time in her lab and her headspace. But I could be overreacting."
[Emily Littleton] "I'm glad she's got you all to fall in with," Emily says, shifting the weight of the book again in her arms. It's heavy, and she isn't that strong. But it's not so heavy that she needs to set it down. "I gather she's not had much of that since Dylan passed."
It's such a gentle way to say it, this euphemism. It's not at all what Emily knows to have happened. There's a flicker of it, the visceral memory of Summer and Snowfall, the man Winter couldn't touch. She pushes it aside, but there's a little shudder to her shoulders that isn't heralded by a brush of cooler wind.
"I have a feeling she'll keep your hands full for a bit, but she's loyal to the end. Not too bad of a trade, if you can manage it."
[Molly Quincannon] "I think everyone's a little scared of her," is Molly's comment. "Which ... can't blame them. Sometimes it's like handling nitroglycerine. But you could say that of almost all of us, one way or another. Anyway, she's brilliant, in all senses of the word, and I'm up to the challenge of handfuls of Henri." She thinks about that, wrinkled her nose and then says, "That ... came out entirely wrong."
Then she sighs. "Yeah, I heard about Dylan. Wharil filled me in. It ... for what it's worth, I'm sorry for your loss. Specifically and community-wide. From the sound of it, he was a good man."
[Emily Littleton] "Ah, thank you."
There's a moment, here. A pause. A gravid thing. It's weighty. It's hollow. You can hear the wind rush through it. Nothing more the lost sound. They're talking about Dylan, whom Emily never knew. She only knew the Marauder he became.
"It's a lot harder for people like Henri," she says, her voice serious but unencumbered by personal grief. "Who knew him before? I never met Dylan, but I met the mad man on the Mile once. I saw what it did to everyone else to lose him. I was newer than Isabel is now. He's where all this Cabal-centric stuff comes from, you know? I am my brother's keeper and the like."
[Molly Quincannon] While she's a great talker, Molly is also a good listener, when the situation calls for it. It certainly calls for it now, so she acknowledges the seriousness with silence and nods when Emily speaks of having met the Marauder rather than the man. The bit about him being where the Cabal-centric stuff comes from gets another nod, this one thoughtful. "Yeah, Ashley mentioned. Not that I entirely disagree; I just..." She sighs and shakes her head this time. "I haven't been here that long. I don't know what everyone's gone through. Maybe I'm not the best judge. I just think that maybe some things need a bit of spit and polish. Not outright dissolution, 'cos the rules in place now are there for good reason. Just ... some way to get more of the new ones to understand that it's not some control-freak case of 'l'etat, c'est moi' or anything. I don't think a lot of people get the ... the heart of this kind of thing."
Then she gives a rueful smile and says, "But I guess that's more for a more formal sort of talk, with more people. Man, I'm going to be so popular at these meetings, aren't I?"
[Emily Littleton] And that? That brings an honest little laugh out of Emily. It's not kept back and cosseted. No. It's just genuine and faintly rueful.
"Oh, Molly, no one is popular at those meetings. Everyone's trying to do what they think is best, to represent their own groups, to not compromise their scruples. It isn't easy and it's surely no popularity contest. I doubt the Emissaries make any friends, doing what they must. And it's thankless, on all sides, and there will always be something you wish had gone another way."
She shakes her head and sighs a little.
"There will always be room for improvement, and argument over what that improvement should be. If we're lucky, we'll all walk away from the table a little disgruntled but not disillusioned and maybe next we'll be better prepared for it with the Cloudy with a Chance of Doom, as you called it, comes knocking."
"I'm just trying to survive them, myself. Chuck's faintly disestablishment whenever the House comes up. Owen's not much for long meetings and nice-making, nevermind the not being here part. For the foreseeable future, you and I can suffer together through this oh-so-fun meetings."
[Molly Quincannon] "...Owen's not here?" That seems to be news. "I thought he was just ... y'know ... being Owen. I mean, I've only met him once but that was enough to know he's not much on ... big groups of people. Or ... y'know, people in general beyond a few specific special someones." Yes, that's a compliment. There's even a smile when it's delivered, small and slightly concerned as it is. It's a you holding up okay? smile.
Then she sighs. "Yeah, well, Nat won't go near the house except for sentry duty because the first and last time she went, she ran into Basil and Basil was ... y'know, Basil. There may have been a faint racial slur from him and an apology for a lack of a cure for asshole from her. Atlas will talk at great and verbose length about the problems he sees with the current status quo if you get him on that topic, and Henri ... well, her and Ashley. I figure I'll talk to them, turn up with a whole list of unreasonable demands on how things ought to change and some choice invective from Henri that I might not bother to repeat, and then actually take more of the disgruntlement from my own crew that I couldn't make things go their way. I have a ... willful crew. But..." She shrugs. "If I have even a chance to help things come to some middle ground, and to help prepare for the next Cloudy with a Chance of Doom, then I guess I can put up with some disgruntlement and invective. It's what we do, right? Sad as it is."
[Emily Littleton] Magi are willful people. Cabals are groups of willful people, with their own agendas and ties that bind. Chantries are groups of groups of willful people with their own agendas and ties that bind, with their own agendas and ties that bind. They could make a children's sing-song out of all the ways that each nested grouping causes exponential complications, or Molly and Emily could just agree that it's a fool's errand, but one with apparent worth worth chasing.
So she nods a little.
And then Emily frowns faintly at the query about Owen. "Ah, yes, well, that." Perhaps not so faintly. "He left a couple months ago. A little more, maybe. Early August?" Emily pauses for a moment, then adds: "He went to find what happened to Nico."
A glance in the direction into which the Orphan had disappeared, exited the park, and presumably gone to pack up his things.
She doesn't say anything more about it, but there's a niggling something about Nico's return that's eating at Emily. Maybe it's a thing Molly could guess at now. Maybe the recent months' trauma might be cast in a different light. Or maybe nothing, as Emily shrugs it off again.
"It was in the middle of all those leavings, but before the big raid." They could be talking video games, here, but sadly they are not. Emily rather misses that segment of her life when Raid night meant slipping into her chair and signing on to an alternate persona, and collaboratively kicking ass and taking names.
"I should probably, you know, check on Nico." It seemed a good segue, as he'd been brought back up in conversation. She looks again in the direction he'd taken, wondering at the nearest Motel Six's location.
[Molly Quincannon] Emily glances the way Nico went, and so does Molly, and yeah, Molly has a few niggles and ideas of her own about Nico's appearance and trauma. So she just nods. "Yeah, go. Feed the poor guy, or something. That hot dog vendor he was aiming towards is good for a few things? But hot dogs are not one of them." Yes, she's making a joke of it, but there's an understanding and seriousness behind it. "I know he doesn't know me or anything, but send my regards. Meanwhile, I have a message to pass along to a certain Chuck, and a jog to finish. We'll have to meet up less impromptu sometime. For tea or something. Keep in touch, yeah?"
She doesn't wait for a reply; when Emily does the 'I should maybe be elsewhere' thing, Emily tends to mean it and Molly knows it. So, with a last smile Emily's way, she readjusts her laptop bag so that it'll bang against the other hip this time (the bruises may as well be evenly placed) and resumes her jog.
No comments:
Post a Comment